"Hold, Sir!" saith Lancelot to the knight, "this shall you not do! You shall not do such shame to so fair a damsel as that you shall fail to keep covenant with her. For not a knight is there in the kingdom of Logres nor in that of Wales but ought to be right well pleased to have so fair a damsel to wife, and I pray and require that you do to the damsel that whereof you held her in covenant. This will be a right worshipful deed, and I pray and beseech that you do it, and thereof shall I be much beholden unto you." "Sir," saith the knight, "I have no will thereunto, nor for no man will I do it, for ill would it beseem me." "By my head, then," saith Lancelot, "the basest knight are you that ever have I seen, nor ought dame nor damsel ever hereafter put trust in you, sith that you are minded to put such disgrace upon this lady." "Sir," saith the knight, "a worthier lover have I than this, and one that I more value; wherefore as touching this damsel will I do nought more than I have said." "And whither, then, mean you to take her?" saith Lancelot. "I mean to take her to a hold of mine own that is in this forest, and to give her in charge to a dwarf of mine that looketh after my house, and I will marry her to some knight or some other man." "Now never God help me," saith Lancelot, "but this is foul churlishness you tell me, and, so you do not her will, it shall betide you ill of me myself, and, had you been armed as I am, you should have felt my first onset already." "Ha," saith the damsel to Lancelot, "Be not so ready to do him any hurt, for nought love I so well as I love his body, whatsoever he do unto me. But for God's sake pray him that he do me the honour he hath promised me." "Willingly," saith Lancelot. "Sir Knight, will you do this whereof you had the damsel in covenant?" "Sir," saith the knight, "I have told you plainly that I will not." "By my head," saith Lancelot, "you shall do it, or otherwise sentence of death hath passed upon you, and this not so much for the sake of the damsel only, but for the churlishness that hath taken possession of you, that it be not a reproach to other knights. For promise that knight maketh to dame or damsel behoveth him to keep. And you, as you tell me, are knight, and no knight ought to do churlishly to his knowledge, and this churlishness is so far greater than another, that for no prayer that the damsel may make will I suffer that it shall be done, but that if you do not that whereof you held her in covenant, I shall slay you, for that I will not have this churlishness made a reproach unto other knights." He draweth his sword and would have come toward him, when the knight cometh over against him and saith to him: "Slay me not. Tell me rather what you would have me do?" "I would," saith he, "that you take the damsel to wife without denial." "Sir," saith he, "it pleaseth me better to take her than to die. Sir, I will do your will."