The immediate continuators of Chrestien lift the legend to no higher level. I incline to think that Gautier, with less skill of narrative and far greater prolixity, yet trod closely in Chrestien"s footsteps. In the love episodes he is as full of charm as the more celebrated poet. The second meeting of Perceval and Blanchefleur is told with that graceful laughing _navete_ of which French literature of the period has the secret. But of a plan, an animating conception even such slight traces as Chrestien had introduced into the story are lacking. Here, as in Chrestien, the mysterious talismans themselves in no way help forward the story. Chrestien certainly had the Christian signification of them in his mind, but makes no use of it. The Vessel of the Last Supper, the Spear that pierced Christ"s side might be any magic spear or vessel as far as he is concerned. The original Pagan essence is retained; the name alone is changed.
Thus far had the legend grown when it came into the hands of the author of the Queste. The subject matter had been partly shaped and trimmed by a master of narrative, the connection with Christian tradition had been somewhat accentuated. It was open to the author of the Queste to take the story as it stood, and to read into its incidents a deep symbolical meaning based upon the Christian character of the holy talismans. He preferred to act otherwise. He broke entirely with the traditional framework, dispossessed the original hero, and left not an incident of his model untouched. But his method of proceeding may be likened to a shuffle rather than to a transformation. The incidents reappear in other connection, but do not reveal the author"s plan any more than is the case in the Conte du Graal. The Christian character of the talismans is dwelt upon with almost wearisome iteration, the sacramental act supplies the matter of many and of the finest scenes, and yet the essence of the talismans is unchanged. The Holy Grail, the Cup of the Last Supper, the Sacramental Chalice is still when it appears the magic food-producing vessel of the old Pagan sagas. What is the author"s idea? Undoubtedly to show that the attainment of the highest spiritual good is not a thing of this world; only by renouncing every human desire, only by pa.s.sing into a land intermediary between this earth and heaven, is the Quest achieved. In the story of the prosecution of that Quest some attempt may be traced at portraying the cardinal virtues and deadly sins by means of the adventures of the questers, and of the innumerable exhortations addressed to them.
But no skill is shown in the conduct of this plan, which is carried out chiefly by the introduction of numerous allegorical scenes which are made a peg for lengthy dogmatic and moral expositions. In this respect the author compares unfavourably with Robert de Borron, who shapes his story in full accord with his conception of the Grail itself, a conception deriving directly from the symbolic Christian nature he attributed to it, and who makes even such unpromising incidents as that of the Magic Fisher subserve his guiding idea.[149]
If the author"s way of carrying out his conception cannot be praised, how does it stand with the conception itself? The fact that the Quest is wholly disa.s.sociated from this earth at once indicates the standpoint of the romance. The first effect of the Quest"s proclamation is to break up the Table Round, that type of the n.o.blest human society of the day, and its final achievement brings cheer or strengthening to no living man. The successful questers alone in their unhuman realm have any joy of the Grail. The spirit in which they prosecute their quest is best exemplified by Sir Bors. When he comes to the magic tower and is tempted of the maidens, who threaten to cast themselves down and be dashed to pieces unless he yield them his love, he is sorry for them, but unmoved, thinking it better "they lose their souls than he his." So little had the Christian writer apprehended the signification of Christ"s most profound saying. The character of the princ.i.p.al hero is in consonancy with this aim, wholly remote from the life of man on earth. A shadowy perfection at the outset, he remains a shadowy perfection throughout, a bloodless and unreal creature, as fit when he first appears upon the scene as when he quits it, to accomplish a quest, purposeless, inasmuch as it only removes him from a world in which he has neither part nor share. Such human interest as there is in the story is supplied by Lancelot, who takes over many of the adventures of Perceval or Gawain in the Conte du Graal. In him we note contrition for past sin, strivings after a higher life with which we can sympathise. In fine, such moral teaching as the Queste affords is given us rather by sinful Lancelot than by sinless Galahad.
But the aversion to this world takes a stronger form in the Queste, and one which is the vital conception of the work, in the insistence upon the need for physical chast.i.ty. To rightly understand the author"s position we must glance at the state of manners revealed by the romances, and in especial at the s.e.x-relations as they were conceived of by the most refined and civilised men and women of the day. The French romances are, as a rule, too entirely narrative to enable a clear realisation of what these were. Wolfram, with his keener and more sympathetic eye for individual character--Wolfram, who loves to a.n.a.lyse the sentiments and to depict the outward manifestations of feeling of his personages--is our best guide here. The manners and customs of the day can be found in the French romances; the feelings which underlie them must be sought for in the German poet.
The marked feature of the s.e.x-relations in the days of chivalry was the inst.i.tution of _minnedienst_ (love-service). The knight bound himself to serve a particular lady, matron or maid. To approve himself brave, hardy, daring, patient, and discreet was his part of the bargain, and when fulfilled the lady must fulfil hers and pay her servant. The relation must not for one moment be looked upon as platonic; the last favours were in every case exacted, or rather were freely granted, as the lady, whether maid or wedded wife, thought it no wrong thus to reward her knight. It would have been "bad form" to deny payment when the service had been rendered, and the offender guilty of such conduct would have been scouted by her fellow-women as well as by all men. Nothing is more instructive in this connection than the delightfully told episode of Gawain and Orgueilleuse. The latter is unwedded, a great and n.o.ble lady, but she has already had several favoured lovers, as indeed she frankly tells Gawain.
He proffers his service, which she hardly accepts, but heaps upon him all manner of indignity and insult, which he bears with the patient and resourceful courtesy, his characteristic in mediaeval romance. Whilst the time of probation lasts, no harsh word, no impatient gesture, escapes him.
But when he has accomplished the feat of the Ford Perillous he feels that he has done enough, and taking his lady-love to task he lectures her, as a grave middle-aged man might some headstrong girl, upon the duties of a well-bred woman and upon the wrong she has done knighthood in his person.
To point the moral he winds up, at mid-day in the open forest, with a proposition which the repentant scornful one can only parry by the nave remark, "Seldom she had found it warm in the embrace of a mail-clad arm."
Not only was it the lady"s duty to yield after a proper delay, but at times she might even make the first advances and be none the worse thought of. Blanchefleur comes to Perceval"s bed with scarce an apology.[150]
Orgueilleuse, overcome with admiration at the Red Knight"s prowess, offers him her love. True, she has doubts as to the propriety of her conduct, but when she submits them to Gawain, the favoured lover for the time being, he unhesitatingly approves her--Perceval"s fame was such that had he accepted her proffered love she could have suffered naught in honour.
Customs such as these, and a state of feelings such as they imply, are so remote from us, that it is difficult to realise them, particularly in view of the many false statements respecting the nature of chivalrous love which have obtained currency. But we must bear in mind that the age was pre-eminently one of individual prowess. The warlike virtues were all in all. That a man should be brave, hardy, and skilful in the use of his weapons was the essential in a time when the single hero was almost of as much account as in the days of Achilles, Siegfried, or Cuchullain. That _minnedienst_ tended to this end, as did other inst.i.tutions of the day which we find equally blamable, is its historical excuse. Even then many felt its evils and perceived its anti-social character. Some, too, there were who saw how deeply it degraded the ideal of love.
A protest against this morality was indeed desirable. Such a one the Queste does supply. But it is not enough to protest in a matter so profoundly affecting mankind as the moral ideas which govern the s.e.x-relations. Not only must the protest be made in a right spirit, and on the right lines, but a truer and loftier ideal must be set up in place of the one attacked. In how far the Queste fulfils these conditions we shall see. Meanwhile, as a sample of the feelings with which many Englishmen have regarded it, and as an attempt to explain its historical and ethical _raison d"etre_, I cannot do better than quote Mr. Furnivall"s enthusiastic words: "What is the lesson of it all? Is the example of Galahad and his unwavering pursuit of the highest spiritual object set before him, nothing to us? Is that of Perceval, pure and tempted, on the point of yielding, yet saved by the sight of the symbol of his Faith, to be of no avail to us? Is the tale of Bohors, who has once sinned, but by a faithful life ... at last tasting spiritual food, and returning to devote his days to G.o.d and Good--is this no lesson to us?... On another point, too, this whole Arthur story may teach us. Monkish, to some extent, the exaltation of bodily chast.i.ty above almost every other earthly virtue is; but the feeling is a true one; it is founded on a deep reverence for woman, which is the most refining and one of the n.o.blest sentiments of man"s nature, one which no man can break through without suffering harm to his spiritual life."
It would be hard to find a more striking instance of how the "editorial idol" may override perception and judgment. He who draws such lofty and n.o.ble teachings from the Queste del Saint Graal, must first bring them himself. He must read modern religion, modern morality into the mediaeval allegory, and on one point he must entirely falsify the mediaeval conception. Whether this is desirable is a question we can have no hesitation in deciding negatively. It is better to find out what the author really meant than to interpret his symbolism in our own fashion.
The author of the Queste places the object and conditions of his mystic quest wholly outside the sphere of human action or interest; in a similar spirit he insists, as an indispensable requirement in the successful quester, upon a qualification necessarily denied to the vast majority of mankind. His work is a glorification of physical chast.i.ty. "Blessed are the pure--in body--for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven," is the text upon which he preaches. In such a case everything depends upon the spirit of the preacher, and good intent is not enough to win praise. His conception, says Mr. Furnivall, is founded upon a deep reverence for woman. This is, indeed, such a precious thing that had the mediaeval ascetic really felt it we could have forgiven the stupidity which ignores all that const.i.tutes the special dignity and pathos of womanhood. But he felt nothing of the kind. Woman is for him the means whereby sin came into the world, the arch stumbling-block, the tool the devil finds readiest to his hands when he would overcome man. Only in favour of the Virgin Mother, and of those who like her are vowed to mystical maidenhood, does the author pardon woman at all. One single instance will suffice to characterize the mediaeval standpoint. When the Quest of the Holy Grail was first proclaimed in Arthur"s Court there was great commotion, and the ladies would fain have joined therein, "car cascune dame ou damoiselle (qui) fust espousee ou amie, dist a son chiualer qu"ele yroit od lui en la queste." But a hermit comes forward to forbid this; "No dame or damsel is to accompany her knight lest he fall into deadly sin." Wife or leman, it was all one for the author of the Queste; woman could not but be an occasion for deadly sin, and the sin, though in the one case less in degree (and even this is uncertain), was the same in kind. Fully one-half of the romance is one long exemplification of the essential vileness of the s.e.x-relation, worked out with the minute and ingenious nastiness of a Jesuit moral theologian. The author was of his time; it was natural he should think and write as he did, and it would be uncritical to blame him for his degrading view of womanhood or for his narrow and sickly view of life. But when we are bidden to seek example of him, it is well to state the facts as they are.[151]
If his transformation of the story has been rudely effected without regard to its inherent possibilities, if the spirit of his ideal proves to be miserably ascetic and narrow, what then remains to the Queste, and how may we account for its popularity in its own day, and for the abiding influence which its version of the legend has exercised over posterity.
Its literary qualities are at times great; certain scenes, especially such as set forth the sacramental nature of the Grail, are touched with a mystical fervour which haunts the imagination. It has given some of the most picturesque features to this most picturesque of legends. But I see in the idea of the mystic quest proclaimed to and shared in by the whole Table Round the real secret of the writer"s success. This has struck the imagination of so many generations and given the Queste an undeserved fame. In truth the conception of Arthur"s court, laying aside ordinary cares and joys, given wholly up to one overmastering spiritual aim, is a n.o.ble one. It is, I think, only in a slight degree the outcome of definite thought and intent but was dictated to the writer by the form into which he had recast the story. Galahad had supplanted Perceval, but the latter could not be suppressed entirely. The achievement of the quest involved the pa.s.sing away out of this world of the chief heroes, hence a third less perfect one is joined to them to bring back tidings to earth of the marvels he had witnessed. Lancelot, to whom are a.s.signed so many of Perceval"s adventures, cannot be denied a share in the quest; it is the same with Gawain, whose character in the older romance fits him, moreover, excellently for the _role_ of "dreadful example." By this time the Arthurian legend was fully grown, and the mention of these Knights called up the names of others with whom they were invariably connected by the romance writers. Well nigh every hero of importance was thus drawn into the magic circle, and the mystic Quest a.s.sumed, almost inevitably, the shape it did.
This conception, to which, if I am right, the author of the Queste was led half unconsciously, seems to us the most admirable thing in his work. It was, however, his ideal of virginity which struck the idea of his contemporaries, and which left its mark upon after versions. An age with such a gross ideal of love may have needed an equally gross ideal of purity. Physical chast.i.ty plays henceforth the leading part in the moral development of the cycle. With Robert de Borron it is the sin of the flesh which brings down upon the Grail host the wrath of Heaven, and necessitates the display of the Grail"s wondrous power. Here may be noted the struggle of the new conception with the older form of the story.
Alain, the virgin knight, would rather be flayed than marry, and yet he does marry in obedience to the original model. Robert is consistent in all that relates to the symbolism of the Grail, but in other respects, as we have already seen, he is easily thrown off his guard. In the Didot-Perceval, written as a sequel to Robert"s poem, the same struggle between old and new continues, and the reconciling spirit goes to work in nave and unskilful style. The incidents of the Conte du Graal are kept, although they accord but ill with the hero"s ascetic spirit. In the portion of the Conte du Graal itself which goes under Manessier"s name, along with adventures taken direct from Chrestien"s model, and far less Christianised than in the earlier poet"s work, many occur which are simply transferred from the Queste. No attempt is made at reconciling these jarring elements, and the effect of the contrast is at times almost comic. In two of the later romances of the cycle the fusion has been more complete, and the result is, in consequence, more interesting. The prose Perceval le Gallois keeps the original hero of the Quest as far as name and kinship are concerned, but it gives him the aggressive virginity and the proselytising zeal of Galahad. Gerbert"s finish to the Conte du Graal is, perhaps, the strangest outcome of the double set of influences to which the later writers were exposed. Without doubt his model differed from the version used by Gautier and Manessier. It is more Celtic in tone, and is curiously akin to the hypothetical lost source of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The hero"s absence from his lady-love is insisted upon, and the need of returning to her before he can find peace. The genuineness of this feature admits of little doubt. Many folk-tales tell of the severance of lover and beloved, and of their toilful wanderings until they meet again; such a tale easily lends itself to the idea that separation is caused by guilt, and that, whilst severed, one or other lover must suffer misfortune. Often, as in the case of Diarmaid and the Daughter of King Under the Waves (_supra_, p. 194), definite mention is made of the guilt, as a rule an infringed taboo. Such an incident could scarcely fail to a.s.sume the ethical shape Gerbert has given it. Thus he had only to listen to his model, to take his incidents as he found them, and he had the matter for a moral conception wholly in harmony with them. The chast.i.ty ideal has been too strong for him. His lovers do come together, but only to exemplify the virtue of continence in the repulsive story of their bridal night. After Gerbert the cycle lengthens, but does not develop. The Queste retains its supremacy, and through Malory its dominant conception entered deeply into the consciousness of the English race.
How far the author of the Queste must be credited with the new ideal he brought into the legend is worth enquiry. Like so much else therein, it may have its roots in the folk and hero tales which underlie the romances.
The Castle of Talismans visited by Perceval is the Land of Shades. In popular tradition the incident takes the form of entry into the hollow hill-side where the fairy king holds his court and h.o.a.rds untold riches.
Poverty and simplicity are the frequent qualifications of the successful quester; oftener still some mystic birthright, the being a Sunday"s child for instance, or a seventh son; or again freedom from sin is required, and, perhaps, most frequently maidenhood.[152] The stress which so many peoples lay upon virginity in the holy prophetic maidens, who can transport themselves into the otherworld and bring thence the commands of the G.o.d, may be noted in the same connection. No Celtic tale I have examined with a view to throwing light upon the Grail romances insists upon this idea, but some version, now lost, may possibly have done so.
Celtic tradition gave the romance writers of the Middle Ages material and form for the picture of human love; it may also have given them a hint of the opposing ideal of chast.i.ty.[153]
All this time it should be noted that no real progress is made in the symbolical machinery of the legend. The Holy Grail becomes superlatively sacrosanct, but it retains its pristine pagan essence, even in the only version, the Grand St. Graal, which knew of Borron and of his mystical conception.
Such, then, had been the growth of the legend in one direction. The original incidents were either transformed, mutilated, or, where they kept their first shape, underwent no ethical deepening or widening. The talismans themselves had been transferred from Celtic to Christian mythology, but their fate was still bound up with the otherworld. He who would seek them must turn his back upon this earth from which the Palace Spiritual and the City of Sarras were even more remote than Avalon or Tir-na n-Og. Was no other course open? Could not framework and incidents of the Celtic tales be retained, and yet, raised to a loftier, wider level, become a fit vehicle for philosophic thought and moral exhortation?
One side of popular tradition figured the hero as wresting the talismans from the otherworld powers for the benefit of his fellow men. Could not this form of the myth be made to yield a human, practical conception of the Quest and Winning of the Holy Grail?
We are luckily not reduced to conjecture in this matter. A work largely fulfilling these hypothetical requirements exists in the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach. On the whole it is the most interesting individual work of modern European literature prior to the Divina Commedia, and its author has a better claim than any other mediaeval poet to be called a man of genius. He must, of course, be measured by the standard of his time. It would be useless to expect from him that h.o.m.ogeneity of narrative, that artistic proportion of style first met with 150 years later in Italy, and which from Italy pa.s.sed into all European literatures. Compared with the unknown poets who gave their present shape to the Nibelungenlied or to the Chanson de Roland he is an individual writer, but he is far from deserving this epithet even in the sense that Chaucer deserves it. His subject dominates him. Even when his philosophic mind is conceiving it under a new aspect he anxiously holds to the traditional form. Hence great inconsistencies in his treatment of the theme, hence, too, the frequent difficulty in interpreting his meaning, the frequent doubt as to how far the interpretation is correct. Here, as in the discussion respecting the _origines_ of the Grail legend, resort must often be had to conjecture, and any solution of the fascinating problems involved is necessarily and largely subjective.
Wolfram"s relation to his predecessors must be taken into account in estimating the value of the Parzival. The earlier portion of his work differs entirely, as we have seen, from any existing French romance; so does the finish in so far as it agrees with the opening. The greater part of the story is closely parallel to Chrestien; there are points of contact, peculiar to these two writers, with Gerbert. Little invention, properly so called, of incident can be traced in the Parzival. The part common to it and Chrestien is incomparably fuller and more interesting in the German poet, but the main outlines are the same. Wolfram has, however, been at some pains to let us know what was his conception of the legend.
That much is allowed to remain at variance therewith is a clear proof of his timidity of invention.
Doubt, he says, is the most potent corrupter of the soul. Whoso gives himself over to unfaith and unsteadfastness treadeth in truth the downward path. G.o.d Himself is very faithfulness. Strife against Him, doubt of Him, is the highest sin. But humility and repentance may expiate it, and he who thus repents may be chosen by G.o.d for the Grail Kingship, the summit of earthly holiness. Peace of soul and all earthly power are the chosen one"s; alone, unlawful desire and the company of sinners are denied him by the Grail.
How is this leading conception worked out? The framework and the march of incidents are the same as in the Conte du Graal. One capital change at once, however, lifts the story to a higher level. The Fisher King suffers from a wound received in the cause of unlawful love, in disobedience to those heavenly commands which govern the Grail community. The healing question can be put only by one worthy to take up the high office Amfortas has dishonoured, in virtue of having pa.s.sed through the strife of doubt, and become reconciled to G.o.d by repentance and humble trust. If Parzival neglected to put the question on his first arrival at the Grail Castle, it was that in the conceit of youth he fancied all wisdom was his. Childish insistence upon his mother"s counsels had brought down reproof upon him; he had learnt the world"s wisdom from Gurnemanz, he had shown himself in defence of Conduiramur a valiant knight, worthy of power and woman"s love.
When brought into contact with the torturing sorrow of Amfortas, he is too full of himself, of his teacher"s wisdom, to rightly use the opportunity.
The profound significance of the question which at once releases the sinner, and announces the one way in which the sin may be cancelled, namely, by the coming of a worthier successor, is due, if we may credit Birch-Hirschfeld, to an accident. Wolfram only knew Chrestien. The latter never explains the real nature of the Grail, and the German poet"s knowledge of French was too slight to put him on the right track. The question, "Whom serve they with the Grail?" which he found in Chrestien, was necessarily meaningless to him, and he replaced it by his, "Uncle, what is it tortures thee?" The change _may_ be the result of accident as is so much else in this marvellous legend, but it required a man of genius to turn the accident to such account. It is the insistence upon charity as the herald and token of spiritual perfection that makes the grandeur of Wolfram"s poem, and raises it so immeasureably above the Queste.
The same human spirit is visible in the delineation of the Grail Kingship as the type of the highest good. Wolfram"s theology is distinctively antinomian--no man may win the Grail in his own strength; it choseth whom it will--and has been claimed on the one hand[154] as a reflex of orthodox Catholic belief, on the other as a herald of the Lutheran doctrine of grace.[155] Theological experts may be left to fight out this question among themselves. Apart from this, Wolfram has a practical sense of the value of human effort. With him the Quest is not to be achieved by utter isolation from this earth and its struggles. The chief function of the Grail Kingdom is to supply an abiding type of a divinely ordered Society; it also trains up leaders for those communities which lack them. It is a civilising power as well as a Palace Spiritual.
In the relation of man to Heaven, Wolfram, whilst fully accepting the doctrines of his age, appeals to the modern spirit with far greater power and directness than the Queste. In the other great question of the legend, the relation of man to woman, he is likewise nearer to us, although it must be confessed that he builds better than he knows. To the love ideal of his day, based wholly upon pa.s.sion and vanity and severed from all family feeling, he opposes the wedded love of Parzival and Conduiramur.
The hero"s recollection of the mother of his children is the one saving influence throughout the years of doubt and discouragement which follow Kundrie"s reproaches. Whilst still staggering under this blow, so cruelly undeserved as it seems to him, he can wish his friend and comrade, Gawain, a woman chaste and good, whom he may love and who shall be his guardian angel. The thought of Conduiramur holds him aloof from the offered love of Orgeluse. In his last and bitterest fight, with his unknown brother, when it had nigh gone with him to his death, he recalls her and renews the combat with fresh strength. She it is for whom he wins the highest earthly crown, of which her pure, womanly heart makes her worthy. Reunion with her and with his children is Parzival"s first taste of the joy that is henceforth to be his.
Pa.s.sages may easily be multiplied that tally ill with the ideas of the poem as here briefly set forth. But the existence of these ideas is patent to the unprejudiced reader. Despite its many shortcomings, the poem which contains them is the n.o.blest and most human outcome of that mingled strain of Celtic fancy and Christian symbolism whose history we have traced.[156]
In Wolfram, equally with the majority of the French romance writers, there is little consistency in the formal use of the mystic talismans. Be the reason what it may, Wolfram certainly never thought of a.s.sociating the Grail with the Last Supper. But its religious character is, at times, as marked with him as with Robert de Borron or the author of the Queste. It is the actual vehicle of the Deity"s commands; it restrains from sin; it suffers no unchaste servant; it may be seen of no heathen; the simple beholding of it preserves men from death. This last characteristic would be thought in modern times a sufficient tribute to the original nature of the old pagan cauldron of increase and rejuvenescence. But Wolfram was of his time, and followed his models faithfully. Along with the lofty spiritual attributes of his Grail, he pictures in drastic fashion its food-dispensing powers. The mystic stone, fallen from Heaven itself, renewed each Good Friday by direct action of the Spirit, becomes all at once a mere victual producing machine. We can see how little Wolfram liked this feature of his model, and how he felt the contrast between it and his own more spiritual conception. But here, as elsewhere in the poem, he allowed much to stand against which his better judgment protested. His own share in the development of the legend must be gauged by what is distinctively his, not by what he has in common with others. Judged thus, he must be said to have developed the Christian symbolic side of the legend as much as the human philosophic side. If in Robert de Borron the Grail touches its highest symbolic level through its identification with the body of the dead and risen Lord, we can trace in Wolfram the germ of that approximation of the Grail-Quester to the earthly career of the Saviour which Wagner was to develop more than 600 years later.[157]
What influence Wolfram"s poem, with its practical, human enthusiasm, its true and n.o.ble s.e.xual morality, might have had on English literature is an interesting speculation. It would have appealed, one would think, to our race with its utilitarian ethical instinct, with its lofty ideal of wedded love. The true man, Parzival, should, in the fitness of things, be the English hero of the Quest, rather than the visionary ascetic Galahad.
Mediaeval England was dominated by France and knew nothing of Germany, and when in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we can trace German influence on English thought and writ, taste had changed, and the Parzival was well-nigh forgotten in its own land. It remained so almost until our own days. The Quest after Perfection still haunted the German mind, but it was conceived of on altogether different lines from those of the twelfth century poet. The nation of scholars pictured the quester as a student, not as a knight. When it took shape in the dreary period of Protestant scholasticism the quest is wholly cursed. Faust"s pursuit of knowledge is unlawful, a rebellion against G.o.d, which dooms him irrevocably. Not until Goethe"s day is the full significance of the legend perceived, is the theme widened to embrace the totality of human striving. Thus the last glimpse we have of Faust is of one devoted to the service of man; the last words of the poem are a recognition of the divine element in the love of man and woman.[158]
In Germany, as in England, the old legend has appealed afresh to poets and thinkers, and then, as was natural, they turned to Germany"s greatest mediaeval poet. Wagner"s Parsifal would, in any case, be interesting as an expression of one of the strongest dramatic geniuses of the century.
Considered purely as a work of literature, apart from the music, it has rare beauty and profound significance. The essentially dramatic bent of Wagner"s mind, the stage destination of the poem, must be borne in mind when considering it. Wolfram"s conception--youthful folly and inexperience chastised by reproof, followed by doubt and strife, cancelled by the faithful steadfastness of the full-grown man--is obviously unsuited for dramatic purposes. At no one point of Wolfram"s poem do we find that clash of motives and of characters which the stage requires. In building up _his_ conception Wagner has utilised every hint of his predecessor with wonderful ingenuity. Klinschor, the magician, becomes with him the active opponent of the Grail King, Amfortas, from whom he has wrested the holy spear by the aid of Kundry"s unholy beauty. Kundry is Wagner"s great contribution to the legend. She is the Herodias whom Christ for her laughter doomed to wander till He come again. Subject to the powers of evil, she must tempt and lure to their destruction the Grail warriors. And yet she would find release and salvation could a man resist her love spell.[159] She knows this. The scene between the unwilling temptress, whose success would but doom her afresh, and the virgin Parsifal thus becomes tragic in the extreme. How does this affect Amfortas and the Grail? In this way. Parsifal is the "pure fool," knowing nought of sin or suffering. It had been foretold of him he should become "wise by fellow-suffering," and so it proves. The overmastering rush of desire unseals his eyes, clears his mind. Heart-wounded by the shaft of pa.s.sion, he feels Amfortas" torture thrill through him. The pain of the physical wound is his, but far more, the agony of the sinner who has been unworthy his high trust, and who, soiled by carnal sin, must yet daily come in contact with the Grail, symbol of the highest purity and holiness. The strength which comes of the new-born knowledge enables him to resist sensual longing, and thereby to release both Kundry and Amfortas.
In the latest version of the Perceval Quest, as in the Galahad Quest, the ideal of chast.i.ty is thus paramount. This result is due to Wagner"s dramatic treatment of the theme. The conception that knowledge of sin and fellowship in suffering are requisite to enable man to resist temptation, and that thus alone does he acquire the needful strength to a.s.sist his fellows, however true and profound, can obviously only be worked out on the stage through the medium of one form of sin and suffering. The long psychological process of Wolfram"s poem, the slow growth of the unthinking youth into the steadfast, faithful man, is replaced by a mystic, transcendental conversion. From out a world of human endeavour, human motive, we have stepped into one wholly ascetic and symbolical. The love of man for woman only appears in the guise of forbidden desire; the aims and needs of this world are not even thought of. Every incident has been remoulded in accord with Christian tradition. Wagner fully accepts the sacramental nature of the Grail, and the Grail feast is with him a faithful reproduction of the Last Supper. Holiness and purity are the essence of the Grail, which is cleared from every taint of its pagan origin. And whilst Wagner, following the French models, identifies the Grail with the most sacred object of Christian worship, he also, developing hints of Wolfram"s, reshapes the career of his Grail-seeker in accord with that of Christ. Parsifal, the releaser of sin-stricken Kundry, of sin-stricken Amfortas--Parsifal, the restorer of peace and holiness to the Grail Kingdom--becomes a symbol of the Saviour.
In the reasoned, artistic growth of the legend, the plastic, living element is that supplied by Christian tradition. From the moment that the Celtic lord of the underworld is identified with the evangelist of Britain we see the older complex of tales acquire consistency, life, and meaning.
Even where the direct influence of the intruding element is slightest, as in the Conte du Graal, we can still perceive that it is responsible for the germs of after development. Sometimes violently and unintelligently, sometimes with a keen feeling for the possibilities of the original romance, sometimes with the boldest introduction of new matter, sometimes with slavish adherence to pre-Christian conceptions, the transformation of the Celtic tales goes on. The cauldron of increase and renovation, the glaive of light, the magic fish, the visit to the otherworld, all are gradually metamorphosed until at last the talisman of the Irish G.o.ds becomes the symbol of the risen Lord, its seeker a type of Christ in His divinest attributes.
The ethical teaching of the legend becomes also purely Christian as the Middle Ages conceived Christianity. Renunciation of the world and of the flesh is its key-note. Once only in Wolfram do we find an ideal human in its essence, though dogmatic in form; the path thus opened is not trodden further, and the legend remains as a whole, on the moral side, a monument of Christian asceticism.
We have seen reason to surmise that the folk-tales which underlie the romances themselves gave the hint for the most characteristic manifestation of this ascetic ideal. It is worth enquiry if these tales have developed themselves independently from the Christianised legend, and if such development shows any trace of ethical conceptions comparable with those of the legend. Can we gather from the tales as fashioned by the folk teaching similar to that of the preachers, philosophers, and artists by whom the legend has been shaped? Few enquiries can be more interesting than one which traces such a conception as the Quest after the highest good as pictured by the rudest and most primitive members of the race.
Many of the tales which formed a part of the (hypothetical) Welsh original of the earliest Grail romances have been shown to come under the Aryan Expulsion and Return Formula (_supra_, Ch. VI). Among most races this formula has connected itself with the national heroes, and has given rise to hero-tales in which the historical element outweighs the ethical.
Sometimes, as in the tale of Perseus, the incidents are so related as to bring out an ethical _motif_; Perseus is certainly thought of as avenging his mother"s undeserved wrongs. I cannot trace anything of the kind among the Celts. All the incidents of the formula in Celtic tradition which I know of are purely historical in character. This element of the old Saga-ma.s.s thus yields nothing for the present enquiry. Others are more fruitful. Perceval is akin not only to Fionn, but also to the Great Fool.
The Lay of the Great Fool was found to tally closely with adventures in the Mabinogi and in the Conte du Graal (_supra_, Ch. VI). It also sets forth a moral conception that admits of profitable comparison with that of the Grail romances.
Ultimately, the Lay is, I have little doubt, one of the many forms in which a mortal"s visit to the otherworld was related. Wandering into the Glen of Glamour, the hero and his love encounter a magician; the hero drinks of the proffered cup, despite his love"s remonstrances, and forthwith loses his two legs. This is obviously a form of the widely-spread myth which forbids the visitant to the otherworld to partake of aught there under penalty of never returning to earth. But this mythical _motif_ has taken an ethical shape in popular fancy. According to Kennedy"s version, it is the hero"s excess in draining the cup to the dregs which calls for punishment. This change is of the same nature as that noted with regard to a similar incident in the Grail romances. There, the old mythic taboo of sleeping or speaking in the otherworld called at last for an explanation, and found one in Wolfram"s philosophic conception. The parallel does not end here. Perceval may retrieve his fault, and so may the Great Fool; Wolfram makes his hero win salvation by steadfast faith, the folk-tale makes its hero in the face of every form of temptation a pattern of steadfast loyalty to the absent friend and to the pledged word. It may, or may not, be considered to the advantage of the folk-tale that, unlike the mediaeval romance, it deals neither in mysticism nor in asceticism. The sin and atonement of the Great Fool are such as the popular mind can grasp; he is an example of human weakness and human strength. The woman he loves is no temptress, no representative of the evil principle--on the contrary, she is ever by his side to counsel and to cheer him.
When it is remembered that the two off-shoots, romantic-legendary and popular, from the one traditional stem have grown up in perfect independence of each other, the kinship of moral idea is startling. The folk-lorist has often cause to wonder at the spontaneous flower-like character of the object of his study; folk-tradition seems to obey fixed laws of growth and to be no product of man"s free thought and speech. The few partisans of the theory that folk-tradition is only a later and weakened echo of the higher culture of the race are invited to study the present case. A Celtic tale, after supplying an important element to the Christianised Grail legend, has gone on its way entirely unaffected by the new shape which that legend a.s.sumed, and yet it has worked out a moral conception of fundamental likeness to one set forth in the legend. It would be difficult to find a more perfect instance of the spontaneous, evolutional character of tradition contended for by what, in default of a better name, must be called the anthropological school of folk-lorists.
We must quit Celtic ground to find another example of an element in the originals of the Grail romances, embodying a popular ethical idea. This instance is such an interesting one that I cannot pa.s.s it by in silence.
As was shown in Chapter VII, one of the many forms of the hero"s visit to the otherworld has for object the release of maidens held captive by an evil power. A formal connection was established between this section of the romance and the folk-tale of the Sleeping Beauty. As a whole, too, this tale admits of comparison with the legend. Its origin is mythic without a doubt. Whether it be regarded as a day or as a year myth, as the rescue of the dawn from night, or of the incarnate spring from the bonds of winter, it equally pictures a victory of the lord of light and heat and life over the powers of darkness, cold, and death. With admirable fidelity folk-tradition has preserved the myth, so that its true nature can be recognised without fail. It would be wrong, though, to conclude that retention of the mythic framework implied any recognition of its mythic character on the part of those who told or listened to the story. Some investigators, indeed, hold it idle to consider it otherwise than as a tale told merely for amus.e.m.e.nt. But a story, to live, must appeal to moral as well as to aesthetic emotions. In the folk-mind this story sets forth, dimly though it may be, that search for the highest human felicity which is likewise a theme of the Grail romances. What better picture of this quest could be found than the old mythic symbol of the awakening of life and increase beneath the kiss of the sun-G.o.d. The hero of the folk-tale makes his way through the briars and tangle of the forest that he may restore to the deserted castle life and plenty; so much has the tale retained of the original mythic signification. As regards the quester himself, the maiden he thus woos is his reward and the n.o.blest prize earth has to offer him. Where the romance writers made power, or riches, or learning, or personal salvation the goal of man"s effort, the folk-tale bids him seek happiness in the common human affections.
Such, all too briefly sketched, has been the fate and story of these tales, first shaped in a period of culture wellnigh pre-historic, gifted by reason of their Celtic setting with a charm that commended them to the romantic spirit of the middle ages, and made them fit vehicles for the embodiment of mediaeval ideas. Quickened by Christian symbolism they came to express and typify the n.o.blest and the most mystic longings of man. The legend, as the poets and thinkers of the twelfth century fashioned it, has still a lesson and a meaning for us. It may be likened to one of the divine maidens of Irish tradition. She lives across the western sea. Ever and again heroes, filled with mysterious yearning for the truth and beauty of the infinite and undying, make sail to join her if they may. They pa.s.s away and others succeed them, but she remains ever young and fair. So long as the thirst of man for the ideal endures, her spell will not be weakened, her charm will not be lessened. But each generation works out this Quest in its own spirit. This much may be predicted with some confidence: henceforth, whosoever would do full justice to the legend must take pattern by Wolfram von Eschenbach rather than by any of his rivals; he must deal with human needs and human longings; his ideal must be the widening of human good and human joy. Above all, he must give reverent yet full expression to all the aspirations, all the energies of man and of woman.
FINIS.
APPENDIX A.
THE RELATIONSHIP OF WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH AND CHRESTIEN.