home), he spends three days at Hautdesert Castle as a guest to the accommo- dating and merry host, Lord Bertilak. The lord’s wife is an extremely intelligent, stunningly gorgeous temptress who entertains Gawain in his bed chamber while Bertilak is off hunting animals in the wilderness. The poet makes it explicitly clear in the text that Gawain is very attracted to Lady Bertilak and thinks of her as an exceptionally beautiful woman. Gawain must remain a loyal and courteous knight as “Her lovely face and throat displayed uncovered, / Her breast was exposed, and her shoulders bare” (“Sir Gawain” lines 1740-1742). Despite increasing seductive pressure, Gawain’s strength in the code of courte - sy and his clever conversation skills allow him to thread the line between honor and dishonor; he states to the lady, “Indeed, let it be as you wish; / I will kiss at your bidding, as befits a knight, / And do more, rather than displease you, so urge it no further” (1302-1304). Gawain steadily becomes swept up in Lady Bertilak’s praise of his stellar knightly reputation, and he responds by “honoring” his knightly duty of “courtesy” and exchanges kisses with the lady. Although the lady and Gawain never consummate, the heightening moral situation of their interactions creates a sense of equivocality for the modern reader, as the knightly virtue of “courtesy” seems to invite and encourage moral dilemmas. Nevertheless, Alan Markman contends that the strongest part of Gawain’s character is his loyalty: “He is loyal to his lord, Arthur, and he is loyal to his host, Bertilak. He is a man who can be counted on to keep his word” (577). Although the poet’s inclusion of Bertilak’s hunting scenes is representative of man’s triumph over nature, the “by the book” rendering of the deer and
references to deer anatomy al - ternately fashions a visual for the reader of the exposed “inner deer.” William Woods likens Gawain to a hunted animal—“Gawain’s own sit - uation is a close parallel. The lady’s social and personal charms make him a willing captive; her questions, flatteries, propositions are ways of probing his intention, his integrity, and thus his identity” (219). When Bertilak returns to the castle to give Gawain a generous yield of venison, Gawain honors their “exchange of
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