Sir Persides de Bloise

Sir Persides de Bloise is a knight who returns home after two years away and is reunited with his father, Sir Pellounes. His encounter with Sir Tristram at the Castle of Maidens tournament brings an earlier defeat back into view: Persides remembers Tristram as the knight who once overthrew him and took the lady he had won. Their conversation exposes the history behind his enduring resentment, even as the tournament’s shifting fortunes place Persides himself in danger.

Identity and Return

Sir Persides comes home after an absence of two years, and his father, Sir Pellounes, gives thanks for his safe return. The reunion takes place as Sir Tristram and Sir Persides arrive at their lodging, where they greet one another after unarming. Persides is not merely a name among the knights expected at the Castle of Maidens: his return matters personally to his father, who has not seen him throughout those two years.

Sir Pellounes tells Sir Tristram about the tournament and about his son’s return. Tristram, who is from Cornwall, says that he knows Persides well and considers him a good knight. Their welcome therefore precedes the disclosure of an old grievance; at first, Persides and Tristram meet as familiar knights sharing the same lodging, not as men openly renewing a quarrel.

The Old Defeat and Tristram’s Concealed Identity

When Persides learns that Tristram is from Cornwall, he recounts a former encounter before King Mark. Persides had jousted there and overthrown ten knights, but Sir Tristram de Liones then defeated him and took his lady. Persides says he has not forgotten what happened and will remember it when he finds his opportunity. The episode gives his hostility a concrete cause: it comes from defeat and the loss of the lady, rather than from a general dislike of Tristram’s reputation.

Tristram tests what Persides thinks of his former opponent without revealing that he is that man. He asks whether Persides believes Sir Tristram could withstand his malice. Persides acknowledges that Tristram is a noble knight and better than himself, but says that he still will not give him his goodwill. The exchange separates admiration for prowess from personal reconciliation: Persides can recognize Tristram’s superiority and remain resentful all the same.

The disguise also shapes the tournament’s opening encounters. A knight bearing a black shield is identified to Tristram as Sir Palamides, still unchristened. Shortly afterward, Palamides challenges Persides, who rides with a green shield bearing a golden lion. Persides prepares to meet him, but Palamides unhorses him. When Tristram then moves to avenge the fall, Palamides catches him unprepared and knocks him down as well. Tristram is angry and ashamed, but Palamides declines to joust with him again at that moment, saying that he knows him better than he thinks and directing him instead to the following day’s tournament. Persides’s defeat thus helps bring Tristram into the action, while Palamides’s response suggests that the black-shielded knight sees more than Tristram has disclosed.

The Tournament and Reversal of Fortune

Persides and Tristram choose to go to the tournament as armed knights rather than watch it casually. In the contest between the supporters of the King of Northgalis and King Carados, they join the fighting together and initially drive back the Northgalis side. The collective battle then turns against Persides: Sir Bleoberis de Ganis and Sir Gaheris enter the fray, Persides is struck down, and more than forty mounted men pass over him. The account emphasizes both his exposure within a crowded melee and the force of the reversal from the earlier success he shared with Tristram.

Tristram intervenes after seeing Persides brought down. He rides against Gaheris and unhorses him; Bleoberis responds angrily, but Tristram also knocks him down. The action makes Tristram’s conduct on the field more complicated than his hidden identity and their past conflict might suggest: although Persides bears a grievance against him, Tristram acts to help him when the immediate danger arises. Their shared participation in the tournament does not settle the old dispute, but it places them side by side amid the changing fortunes of the contest.

Persides’s story therefore moves between personal rivalry and the public tests of tournament combat. He has previously been the defeated knight who remembers a lost lady and a humiliating reversal; at the Castle of Maidens, he is first unhorsed by Palamides and later endangered in the crowded battle. His father’s relief at his return stands against these recurrent risks, while his respect for Tristram’s ability remains in tension with his refusal to forgive him. The evidence leaves that resentment unresolved: it establishes Persides as a capable, experienced knight whose reputation and loyalties are repeatedly tested in the company of men whose identities and histories are not always immediately apparent.