Did Perceval see the Grail or didn't he?
The character of Perceval is believed to
be based on Peredur,
a character who has his own tale in the
Mabinogion. Peredur begins as a country waif, brought
up by his mother and innocent of the ways of the world. He
has many adventures, high and low. One of his two uncles
tells him never to ask about the significance of what he
sees. At the court of the other uncle, he sees a procession
containing a bleeding lance and a head on a
platter. The hero has further adventures, followed
by a trip to Arthur's court, where an unidentified woman
asks him why he didn't ask the significance of the lance or
the head on a platter. In response to his claim of
ignorance, she tells him that his simple question would have
healed the man and the land. The seeds of Chretien
de Troyes's Perceval are
sown. See also The story of Perceval's seeing the Holy
Grail has its beginning in the Welsh tale of
Peredur.
We first see Perceval in the legend in the writings of
Chretien
de Troyes. Perceval's father is dead, and his mother
raises him in ignorance of knights and the ways of the
world. He determines to have some adventures and gets what
turns out to be bad advice: Don't be rude by asking the
importance of something you don't understand. His travels take him to the Grail Castle,
where he sees a bleeding lance and a silver graal, or
serving dish. Perceval fails to ask the important question
of the wounded man: "What ails thee?" He does not see the
Grail, and the land and the man suffer anew. Now, Chretien says graal, not
grail. A graal is a serving dish or platter; it is
not a cup. Chretien did not intend this to be the cup from
which Jesus and his disciples drank at the Last Supper and
with which Joseph
of Arimathea caught Jesus's blood
at the crucifixion. Yet, Robert
de Boron integrated these ideas
and changed graal to grail. Later writers would keep the
graal spelling and keep also the cup concept. Since Robert, the Holy
Grail has been a cup and Perceval
is one of three knights who sees it, the other two being
Galahad,
who dies of ecstasy soon after, and Bors,
who returns to Camelot
with the news of the realization of the Grail
Quest. So, did Perceval see the Grail? Yes and
no. See also
Was
Arthur a king or just a battle commander? Was
Guinevere really an adulteress? Was
Morgan Le Fay really a witch? Was
Morgause to blame for all of Arthur's
troubles?
Explorations in Arthurian History and Legends
Main
Page
Other
