Li Contes del Graal

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Perceval's departure, Montpellier manuscript

Li Contes del Graal ou Le roman de Perceval (Old French; today also: Perceval ou le conte du Graal; English: Perceval, the Story of the Grail) by Chrétien de Troyes is the last French verse narrative of the Arthurian epic. It was written around 1190 and remained unfinished. It was soon expanded by other poets to include three sequels, which describe Gawain's quest for the Grail, Perceval's trials and wanderings, and finally, after the death of the Fisher King, his ordination and coronation as the new Grail King.

The story of Perceval ("pierce the valley") is Chrétien's fifth and last Arthurian novel. In it, he attempts to combine chivalry with Christian leading principles. It is dedicated to Chrétien's patron, the crusader Count Philip of Alsace.

The story is based on the Welsh romance of Peredur fab Efrawg ("Peredur, the son of Efrawg"). Chrétien's fragment depicts an exceedingly clumsy Perceval, but blessed with all the knightly powers, a Welsh squire who, guided by a simple mind and motive, achieves fame and glory by God's providence alone and becomes the strongest and most heroic of the knights of the Round Table. Perceval, however, makes a momentous mistake, for which he is threatened with an unhappy life: as a guest of the wounded Fisher King, he neglects, out of false consideration, to ask him about the reason for his suffering or about a bleeding lance and the Holy Grail, since he did not know that he could have healed and redeemed the Fisher King with this question. Wolfram von Eschenbach took up the story about 20 years later in his Parzival, although he did not refer to Chrétien de Troyes as a source, but to an otherwise unknown Kyot.

Content

Rudolf Steiner describes the essential content in brief words thus:

„We know that Parzival was born of his mother's Herzeleide ("heartache") after his father had gone away, and that his mother gave birth to him in a very peculiar way under great pain and dreamlike apparitions. We know that she then wanted to protect him from knightly practice and knightly virtue, that she had her possessions administered and withdrew into solitude, that she wanted to bring up the child in such a way that he remained aloof from that which, however, lived in him; for the child was not to be exposed to the dangers to which the father had been exposed. But we also know that the child began early to look up to all that is glorious in nature, and that it basically learned nothing from its mother's upbringing except that a God rules, - that the child then developed the tendency to serve this God. But it knew nothing of this God, and when it once met knights, it took these knights for God and fell on its knees before them. When the child then told his mother that he had seen knights and wanted to become a knight himself, his mother dressed him in fools' clothes and let him go out. We know that the boy goes out, has many adventures, and we know that the mother later dies of a broken heart over the disappearance of her son, who did not even give her a farewell, turning back, and went out to experience knightly adventures. We know that he comes to the castle of the Grail on many wanderings, on which he has learned many things about chivalry and knightly virtue and has distinguished himself. I have mentioned on another occasion how we find the best literary representation of Parzival's approach to the Grail Castle in Chrestien de Troyes, in Christian of Troyes; how we are shown there that, after he had passed long wanderings, Parzival comes to a lonely region where he first finds two people: the one rowing a boat, the other fishing from the boat; how, by asking the people, he is directed to the Fisher King; how he then meets the Fisher King in the Grail Castle. Then how the Fisher King, an elderly man who has become weak and must therefore stay on his bed of rest, hands him the sword, which was a gift from his niece, in conversation. Then, as first a squire appears in the hall, carrying a spear which is bleeding - the blood runs down to the squire's hand - a virgin appears with the Holy Grail, which is like a kind of bowl. But such radiance shines from what is in the Grail that all the lights of the hall are over-lit by the light of the Holy Grail, just as the stars are over-lit by the sun and the moon. And then we learn how in this Holy Grail is that on which the old father of the Fisher King, who is in a special room, feeds himself, who needs nothing of what is so abundantly served at the meal at which the Fisher King and also Parzival take part. They feed on earthly food. But every time a new course is served - as we would say today - the Holy Grail passes by again into the chamber of the father of the Fisher King, who is old and who only gets nourishment from what is in the Grail. Parzival, who has been told by Gurnemanz on the way there that he should not ask too many questions, does not ask why the lance bleeds, does not ask what the bowl of the Grail means - of course he did not know the name. He was then bedded down for the night - as it says in Christian of Troyes - in the same room where all this had taken place. He had resolved to ask the next morning, but there he found the whole castle empty, no one there. He called for someone. No one was there. He dressed himself. Only his horse was ready downstairs. He thought that the company had gone out hunting, and he wanted to ride after them to ask about the miracle of the Grail. But as he rode over the drawbridge, it sped up so fast that the horse had to jump to save itself from falling into the moat of the castle. And he found nothing of all the company he had found the day before in the castle. Then Christian of Troyes tells how Parzival rides on and in a lonely forest area finds the image of the woman with the man in her lap whom she is weeping for. It is she who first means to him how he should have asked, how he has deprived himself of experiencing the effect of his asking about the great mysteries that have come to him. We know, after Christian of Troyes, that he went through many more wanderings and that on a Good Friday he came to a hermit called Trevericent; we know that he was told by him how he was cursed because he had failed to bring about what could have been a redemption for the Fisher King: to ask about the miracles of the castle. He then receives many a lesson [...]

Then we hear how Parzival stays with the hermit for a short time and how he then seeks the way to the Holy Grail again. There it is that he finds the Grail, shortly or immediately before the death of old Amfortas, the Fisher King. Then it is that the knighthood of the Holy Grail, the holy knighthood, comes to meet him with the words: Your name shines in the Grail! You are the future ruler, the king of the Grail, for your name has shone forth from the holy bowl! - Parzival becomes king of the Grail.“ (Lit.:GA 149, p. 84ff)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

Weblinks

 Wikisource: Perceval ou le conte du Graal – Sources and full texts (français)

(Original text in Old French)

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