SIR THOMAS Malory's fifteenth-century Morte Darthur begins and ends in warfare. When warfare proper is not the principal subject, the narrative is dominated by tournaments or individual jousts and combats, friendly and unfriendly, in which knights clash together and one of them, to borrow an Homeric phrase, falls upon the earth to have his armour rattle upon him. Unfriendly jousts are obviously a form of combat, but even more amicable encounters and martial games can be considered as an ‘imitation of combat’, utilising and honing the skills used in war. This is as true of medieval historical and literary tournaments, including those in the Morte Darthur, as it is of the funeral games in the Iliad. And as with actual warfare, tournaments and individual jousts in the Morte can lead to bloodshed, as when Balyn and Balan fail to recognise one another until they are both mortally wounded, or when Launcelot, prior to knighting Gareth, agrees to joust with him and then has to warn Gareth to stop fighting so earnestly before one or the other of them is seriously injured. Balyn and Balan are forced to fight, but Launcelot and Gareth fight by mutual consent, at Gareth's request, in a battle that is obviously designed to allow Gareth to prove himself and increase his reputation. The danger in such situations, as Malory observes elsewhere, is that however courteously knights may speak to one another, ‘whan they be in batayle eyther wolde beste be praysed’ (223.12–13).