igurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending" (Campbell 116).
With respect to Sir Gawain, the wife of his host tempts his with her sexuality again and again, and from the beginning he is bewildered by her---not "yet capable of comprehending" her "promise":
Lo! it was the lady, loveliest to behold. . . .
And laid his head low again in likeness of sleep. . . . The fair knight lay feigning for a long while,
Conning in his conscience what his case might
Mean or amount to---a marvel he thought it (Borroff 25).
Here we have a valiant knight, a monster-slayer, the hero of his community, who is reduced to a pretense of sleep when a woman sits on his bad.
At the same time, we read in Campbell that the woman, as temptress, goddess, challenger, mother, or
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