Book 6, Canto 2 Summary

Calidore watches a comely youth stab a knight to death as a typical damsel in distress looks on, though not as distressed as she might have been, and demands how the youth could dare to so cross the laws of chivalry and attack a knight (not being a knight himself). The youth, one amazingly virtuous and handsome Tristram, explains that he stumbled onto the deceased knight thumping the damsel in question along beside his horse, and this was so contrary to the laws of knighthood and chivalry (mistreating a lady so) that he was forced to act. The deceased knight's actions are further impugned by his former lady, who explains how he had tried to steal himself a better, fairer maiden and failed, and then blamed her for his own inadequacies. Calidore is so impressed by Tristram's story that he makes...