Great was their surprise and joy when he had unhelmed, to find that they had their host for guest. Tristram took him in his arms, and so did Isolde, while Palamides kneeled before him and thanked him for his life. When Lancelot saw this he took him by the hand and made him rise.
"Good sirs," he said, "could I, or any knight of worship in this land, hesitate to rescue from an ignoble death such a knight as Palamides? Had there been fifty instead of twelve, I fear I should have braved them all."
Much joy was there in Joyous Gard at the visit of the lord of the castle, but Lancelot stayed there but four days. Palamides, however, remained for two months and more, his love and grief growing deeper, till he faded away to a shadow of himself.
One day, at the end of this time, he wandered far into the neighboring forest, and here by chance saw the reflection of his face in a clear pool. The wasted visage disturbed and affrighted him.
"What does this mean?" he asked himself. "Am I, who was called one of the handsomest knights in the world, wasted to such a frightful figure? I must leave this life, for it is idle to grieve myself to death for that which I can never possess."
Then he threw himself beside the well, and from the fulness of his heart began to make a song about La Belle Isolde and himself, a rhyme made up of music, love, and grief.
As chance would have it, Tristram had ridden into the forest that day in chase of the hart. And as he rode up and down under the green leaves the summer air brought to his ears the sound of a voice singing loud and clear. He rode softly towards the sound, for he deemed that some knight-errant lay there solacing himself with song.
When he came nigh he tied his horse to a tree and advanced on foot. Then he became aware that the singer was his guest Palamides, and that his song was about La Belle Isolde, a doleful and piteous, yet marvellously well-made song, which the singer sang loudly and in a clear voice. Tristram stood listening till he had heard it from beginning to end. But at the last his anger grew so high that he needed to restrain himself from slaying the singer where he lay.
Remembering that Palamides was unarmed, he resisted this impulse, and advanced slowly towards him.