Arthurian Romances (89 page)

The squire replied that he had access to a large, swift, strong, and good horse that he could take as if it were his own.

‘I'm glad to hear that,' said Gawain.

Then the squire led Gawain straight to the stables and brought forth several strong and rested hunters, one of which was equipped to ride and travel, for he had just had it reshod and it lacked neither saddle nor bridle.

‘Upon my word, squire,' said my lord Gawain, ‘you have everything you need. Go now, and may the King of Kings watch over your going and your coming and keep you on the right path.'

So he sent off the squire and accompanied him as far as the river, where he ordered the boatman to ferry him across. The boatman took him across without any effort on his part, for he had plenty of oarsmen. After crossing the river the squire found the right path that led to Orcanie, for anyone who knows how to ask directions can travel anywhere in the world.

My lord Gawain returned to his great hall, where he sojourned amidst much joy and revelry, for everyone there loved him. The queen had hot baths prepared in five hundred tubs, and had all the squires get in them to bathe themselves and soak. Robes had been sewn for them, which were brought to them when they stepped from the baths: the cloth was woven with golden threads and the linings were ermine. The squires stood vigil all night long in the church until after matins, without ever kneeling down. In the morning my lord Gawain with his own hands placed the right spur on each of them, belted on their swords, and dubbed each squire a knight. Afterwards he had a company of five hundred new knights.

Meanwhile, the squire rode until he came to the city of Orcanie, where the king was holding a court as befitted the day. The crippled and mangy beggars who saw him approaching said: ‘This squire has an urgent mission: I think he's coming from far away with wondrous news for the court. Whatever he may say, he'll find the king deaf and dumb, for he's quite unhappy and sad. And who will be there to offer counsel after he's heard what the messenger has to say?'

‘Go on,' they said, ‘what business is it of ours to talk of advising the king? You ought to be worried, dismayed, and saddened that we've lost the knight who presented us all with clothing in God's name, and from whom we received everything in charity and alms.'

Thus throughout the city the poor people lamented the loss of my lord Gawain, whom they all loved dearly. The squire passed through the crowds and rode on until he found the king seated in his palace, with a hundred counts palatine, a hundred dukes, and a hundred kings seated around him. Arthur was sad and downcast to see all his many barons and no sign of his nephew; he fainted in his great distress. The first to reach him was certainly not slow, since they all rushed to help. My lady Lore, who was seated on a balcony, heard the lamentations throughout the hall. She came down from
the balcony, overcome with emotion, and went straight to the queen. When the queen saw her she asked her what was the matter…

HERE ENDS THE OLD PERCEVAL
²⁹

A
S INDICATED
in the introduction and notes, Chrétien's
The Story of the Grail
breaks off in mid-sentence, perhaps due to the death of the poet. Sensing the incompleteness, at least four different authors subsequently attempted to account for the actions of the characters still upon the scene. Of the fifteen manuscripts containing Chrétien's poem, eleven contain one or more of the four
Continuations
, and in most there is no break indicated and the handwriting of the
Continuations
is identical to that of Chrétien's poem.
¹
The most common pattern, found in six manuscripts, is to have Chrétien's
The Story of the Grail
followed by the
First Continuation
(also known as the
Pseudo-Wauchier
or
Gawain Continuation
), the
Second Continuation
(also called the
Wauchier de Denain Continuation
or
Perceval Continuation
) and the
Manessier Continuation
. In two other manuscripts the
Gerbert de Montreuil Continuation
is intercalated between the
Second Continuation
and
Manessier
.

The
First Continuation
, composed in the late twelfth century, exists in three distinct versions, ranging from about 9,500 lines to 19,600. All three, however, tell essentially the same story, centring the action around Gawain, whose adventures in search of the Grail Castle were being recounted when Chrétien's poem was interrupted. The messenger sent by Gawain summons King Arthur to the Rock of Champguin to observe Gawain's battle with Guiromelant. Amid great joy Gawain is reunited with his uncle and Arthur with his mother, Igerne. The duel lasts all day, with Gawain increasing in strength after noon; it ends only towards evening when Gawain's sister Clarissant urges him to spare her love, Guiromelant, to be her husband. Gawain agrees only on condition that Guiromelant withdraw his charge of treason; otherwise the battle must resume the next morning. But when Gawain arrives to resume battle, he learns that Arthur has wed Clarissant to Guiromelant without obliging him to retract the charge; furious, Gawain
leaves court and rides until he reaches the Grail Castle, where he observes a Grail Procession that differs in important details from that described by Chrétien. Most significantly, he sees a bier covered by a silk cloth; there is a body in the bier and a broken sword upon the cloth; the one who can perfectly mend the sword would know all the secrets of the Grail Castle. But Gawain falls asleep and the next morning finds himself alone in a hedged field. He rides off to Escavalon to fulfill his promise to return to do battle with Guinganbresil, who had accused Gawain of treason for killing his lord, if he could not bring back the bleeding lance
(The Story of the Grail
,
p. 457
). Just before combat is to begin, however, King Arthur arrives and makes peace by marrying his granddaughter to Guinganbresil. Peace now reigns throughout Arthur's lands and all barons swear allegiance to him except Brun de Branlant. Arthur lays siege to Brun's castle, in the course of which Gawain seduces a maiden in a tent and kills her father.

At this point are interpolated the adventures of Sir Carados, which is essentially an independent romance bearing no direct relationship to the grail quest. It includes a beheading game similar to that in the English romance
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
, an enchanted serpent that attaches itself to Carados's arm, and a chastity test with a magic drinking-horn.

Another loose end from Chrétien's story is tied up when Arthur and his knights set off to rescue Girflet, son of Do, from the Proud Castle, where he has now been three years in prison
(The Story of the Grail
,
p. 439
). After passing through large stretches of wasteland, Arthur and his men arrive in front of the Proud Castle, from which Girflet is rescued after a series of single combats involving Lucan the Butler, Bran de Lis, Kay, Yvain, and finally Gawain.

Gawain is mysteriously returned to the Grail Castle and learns that the bleeding lance was the one with which Longinus pierced Christ's side at the Crucifixion. He again fails to mend the sword and falls asleep before he can hear the other secrets of the castle. The following morning he awakens beside the sea and finds that the land is once again green and fertile.

The final episode of the
First Continuation
involves Gawain's brother Guerrehet (Gareth) in an adventure with a swan-drawn boat, in which is found a corpse with the broken end of a lance sticking in his chest. Only Guerrehet is able to remove the lance, whose iron tip he uses to avenge himself on a dwarf knight who had previously defeated him. After slaying the dwarf knight, he kills his master and thereby unwittingly avenges the knight found in the swan boat, whose body is then carried away by the swan boat.

With the 13,000 lines of the
Second Continuation
, composed in the last decade of the twelfth century by Wauchier de Denain,
²
attention shifts back to Perceval's adventures. First he defeats the Lord of the Horn and sends him to King Arthur, who immediately vows to seek Perceval. Next he plays chess on a magical chess-board and falls in love with a maiden who will return his love only if he brings her the head of a white stag; she lends him her dog for the hunt, but the head and dog are stolen from him. The quest to recover them leads to a long series of adventures in which Perceval defeats Abriorin, who is sent to Arthur; slays a giant; defeats a white knight, who again is dispatched to Arthur; and fights Gawain's son, the ‘Fair Unknown', to a draw.

He next returns to the castle of Biaurepaire, where he finds his lady Blancheflor, for whom he had defeated Anguingeron and Clamadeu
(The Story of the Grail
, pp. 408ff.); they renew their love for three days, but then Perceval has to continue the quest. Having defeated the Handsome Wicked Knight and sent him to Arthur, he returns to his mother's castle ten years after having first left it; there he sees his sister for the first time and learns how his mother had died at his departure. With his sister, Perceval returns to the hermit uncle he had met in Chrétien's part
(The Story of the Grail
,
pp. 459–61
), who gives him a lesson on repentance. After spending a night in the Castle of Maidens, which vanishes afterwards, he defeats a knight named Garsulas and finally recovers the stag's head and dog.

As he rides seeking the maiden who had given him the dog, he encounters another maiden, who gives him her magic ring and white mule to lead him to the Grail Castle. But he turns aside at the bidding of Briol of the Burnt Forest, who tells him he must first distinguish himself at a tournament at the Proud Castle that Arthur, too, will attend; at the tournament Perceval fights in disguise and defeats all of Arthur's greatest knights, culminating with Gawain. Diverted by the tournament from reaching the Grail Castle, Perceval must return the ring and mule. The poem continues with Gawain's adventures for several thousand lines, including an encounter with his son Giglain, the ‘Fair Unknown'; then it returns to Perceval, who ascends Mount Dolorous to tie his steed to a magical pillar there, set up by Merlin, as proof that he is the finest knight in the world. Perceval finally reaches the Grail Castle and joins the two pieces of the broken sword, leaving just a tiny nick; the
Second Continuation
then breaks off before the Fisher King can explain the meaning of the Grail symbols.

Most manuscripts continue immediately with Manessier's
Third Continuation
, about 10,000 lines composed between 1214 and 1227 for Countess Johanna of Flanders, which begins with the Fisher King's explanation of the Grail mysteries: the lance is that of Longinus; the grail was used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Christ's blood; the trencher covered the grail so the holy blood would not be exposed; the sword had been broken when the traitor Partinial of the Red Tower slew the Fisher King's brother, and in his grief the Fisher King had crippled himself with the broken pieces. Perceval sets out to avenge the Fisher King and soon joins up with Sagremor, whom he helps to defeat ten knights. The story continues with Sagremor's adventures, and then Gawain's, before returning to Perceval, who in a chapel battles the Devil himself, in the form of a detached hand and black arm, and finally defeats him by making the sign of the Cross. He similarly overcomes a second demon, which had taken the form of a horse, and a third, in the form of his sweetheart Blancheflor. Perceval conquers several knights and sends them to Arthur, including one who was besieging Blancheflor in Biaurepaire. After a series of adventures involving Sagremor, Bors, Lionel and Calogrenant, the story returns to Perceval, who in the company of the Coward Knight triumphs over Arthur's knights at yet another tournament. Perceval finally reaches the Red Tower and slays Partinial, then hastens to inform the Fisher King, who is immediately healed and discovers he is Perceval's maternal uncle. Perceval returns in triumph to Arthur's court, but is soon summoned to reign after the Fisher King's death. He restores the land in seven years, then retires to a hermitage, where he lives another ten years, sustained only by the grail. When he dies, the Holy Grail and lance and trencher accompany his soul to heaven and will never again be seen on earth.

In two late thirteenth-century manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, an independent conclusion composed by Gerbert de Montreuil between 1226 and 1230 is inserted after the
Second Continuation
, although the Manessier conclusion is also retained. Gerbert did not know Manessier's work and probably wrote a conclusion to the Grail story that was independent of his; however, in the manuscripts the ending has been altered slightly to lead into Manessier's continuation.

Having failed because of his sins to discover the mysteries of the Grail Castle, Perceval awakens the next morning in a meadow. He looks around and sees the wasteland restored. After having his sword repaired by Trabuchet
(The Story of the Grail
,
pp. 426
), Perceval restores Sagremor
and Agravain to sanity, which they had lost upon Mount Dolorous. Perceval then rejoins Arthur's court at Carlion and sits successfully in the fairy seat reserved for the Grail Knight, and which had been the death of six others who had tried. He returns with his sister to the hermit's abode and later leaves her at the Castle of Maidens to continue his quest, which takes him to a tournament hosted by King Mark of Cornwall where he defeats Sir Tristan and all of Arthur's best knights as well. He next defeats the enemies of his former mentor, Gornemant of Gohort
(The Story of the Grail;
p. 400
); and returns to Biaurepaire to wed Blancheflor. But on their wedding night they vow themselves to virginity to win Paradise. There is indeed much concern with chastity and virginity throughout this
Continuation
, and considerably more moralizing and didacticism than in the others.