Parzival

by Wolfram von Eschenbach

  ‘There is a bird called Pelican. When it has young it loves them to excess. Instinctive love impels it to pick through its own breast and let the blood flow into its chicks’ mouths. This done, it dies. We obtained some blood of this bird to see if its love would be efficacious, and anointed the wound to the best of our ability: but it helped us not at all.

  ‘There is a beast called Monicirus,† which esteems virginal purity so highly that it falls asleep in maidens’ laps. We acquired this animal’s heart to assuage the King’s pain. We took the carbuncle-stone on this beast’s brow where it grows at the base of its horn. We stroked the wound with it at the front, then completely immersed the stone in it: but the wound kept its gangrened look. This mortified the King and us.

  ‘We then took a herb called trachonte* – it is said to grow from any dragon that is slain and to partake of the nature of air – in order to discover whether the revolution of the Dragon† would avail against the planets’ return and the change of the moon, which caused the pain of the wound: but the sublime virtue of this herb did not serve our purpose.

  ‘We fell on our knees before the Gral, where suddenly we saw it written that a knight would come to us and were he heard to ask a Question there, our sorrows would be at an end; but that if any child, maiden or man were to forewarn him of the Question it would fail in its effect, and the injury would be as it was and give rise to deeper pain. “Have you understood?” asked the Writing. “If you alert him it could prove harmful. If he omits the Question on the first evening, its power will pass away. But if he asks his Question in season he shall have the Kingdom, and by God’s will the sorrow shall cease. Thereby Anfortas will be healed, but he shall be King no more.”

  ‘In this way we read on the Gral that Anfortas’s agony would end when the Question came to him. We anointed his wound with whatever might soothe it – the good salve nard, whatever is decocted with theriac, and the smoke of lign-aloes: yet he was always in pain. I then withdrew to this place. Scant happiness is all my passing years afford me. Since then a knight rode that way, and it would have been better had he not done so – the knight I told you of before. All that he achieved there was shame, for he saw all the marks of suffering yet failed to ask his host “Sire, what ails you?”. Since youthful inexperience saw to it that he asked no Question, he let slip a golden opportunity.’

  The two continued their tales of woe till shortly before noon.

  ‘Let us see to our nourishment,’ said Parzival’s host. ‘Your mount is quite unprovided for. Nor can I feed us unless God assigns us the wherewithal. Smoke never rises from my kitchen I You will have to put up with it today and for as long as you stay with me. If only the snow would let us, I would teach you the herbary. God grant that it soon thaws 1 Meanwhile, let us gather some yew-tips. I imagine your horse often fed better at Munsalvæsche. Neither you nor your beast ever came to a host who would fend for you more willingly, if food and fodder were available!’

  They went out to forage, with Parzival attending to the fodder, while his host grubbed up roots for them. With this they had to content themselves. The host did not forget his Rule, for of all the roots he dug up he ate not one before nones, but hung them with care on the bushes and went looking for more. (Many was the day when he failed to find the place where his food was hanging, and fasted to the glory of God.)

  These two companions did not omit to go to the brook to wash their roots and herbs. No laugh echoed from their lips. Each washed his hands. Parzival set a bundle of yew-twigs before his horse. They then returned to their fire and lay down on their palliasse. There was no question of other courses being fetched for them – the kitchen was bare, there was neither stew nor roast! Moved by the loyal affection which he felt towards his host, Parzival shrewdly judged that he had eaten with greater contentment here than when Gurnemanz was tutoring him, or when so many dazzlingly beautiful ladies had passed before him at Munsalvæsche where he was feasted by the Gral.

  ‘Nephew,’ said his wise and honest host, ‘do not scorn this food. You would not easily find a host who wished you a good meal more heartily than I.’

  ‘Sir,’ replied Parzival, ‘may the Grace of God avoid me if any other entertainment I received tasted better!’

  Had they forgotten to wash their hands after any of the fare served up here, it would not have harmed their eyes, as they say fishy hands do. I assure you for my part you could have gone hawking with me, were I a hunting-bird, I would have soared from the fist with ravening keenness, fed on such tiny morsels – you would soon have seen me in flight! But why do I mock these good people? I am misbehaving again! Now you have heard what had made them poor in happiness from having been so rich, often going cold, seldom warm. – They suffered deepest sorrow for pure love’s sake, naught else. And they had their reward for their affliction from the hand of God, who had taken the one into His Grace and was now taking the other.

  Parzival and the good man got up and went to where the horse was stabled.

  ‘I am very sorry you have to endure such hunger,’ said the host to the animal in a sad tone of voice, ‘because of the saddle on your back bearing Anfortas’s escutcheon.’

  While they attended to the horse they found cause for new lamentations.

  ‘My dear lord and uncle,’ said Parzival to his host, ‘if shame would let me reveal it I would tell you of a sad misfortune that befell me. I beg you of your courtesy to pardon my misdeed – after all, my loyal heart has sought refuge with you. I have erred so greatly that if you assent to my being punished for it, farewell to consoling hope: I shall never be freed from sorrow. You should deplore my youthful folly whilst giving me loyal aid. The man who rode to Munsalvæsche and saw all the marks of suffering and who nevertheless asked no Question was I, unhappy wretch I Such is my error, my lord.’

  ‘What are you saying now, nephew?’ exclaimed his host. ‘Seeing that you have denied yourself success in so masterly a fashion, we two must let happiness slide and together fasten on grief! The five senses that God gave you shut off their aid from you – how they betrayed your compassion then, when faced with Anfortas’s wound! Yet I will not deny you my advice. You must not grieve to excess, but grieve and cease grieving in measure! Human nature has a wild, perverse strain. Sometimes youth affects wisdom, and if on the other hand age pursues folly and clouds a life once clear, you could say whiteness has been sullied and the young green has wilted that could have rooted and borne noble fruit. Could I restore the lusty green and so nerve your heart that you would win honour and not despair of God, then your achievement would be so glorious as to rate as full amends!* God Himself will not abandon you, I counsel you in His name.

  ‘Now tell me, did you see the Lance at Castle Munsalvæsche? We knew from the wound and the summer snow that the planet Saturn had returned to its mark. Never before had the frost caused your dear uncle such pain as then. They had to place the Lance in the wound – one pain relieved the other -and so it was reddened with blood. The advent of certain planets which stand so high one above the other and which return at different speeds, gives the denizens here great sorrow; and the change of the moon, too, is bad for the wound. At these times which I have named, the King can find no peace. The intense frost torments him, his flesh grows colder than snow. Since the venom on the spear-head is known to be hot, it is laid on the wound at those times. It draws the frost from his body and round the Lance, as icy glass which none could remove by any means till the wise Trebuchet fashioned two knives of silver that cut it without more ado – a charm engraved on the King’s sword told him the trick of it. Many people will tell you that asbestos wood does not burn: but when fragments of this glass flew on to it, a fiery flame leapt up! – What miracles this poison can perform, seeing that asbestos itself took fire from it!

  ‘The King is unable either to ride or walk or even to lie down or stand – he reclines - he does not sit – his awareness fraught with pain that mounts at the moon’s change. There is a lake called Brumbane on to which
he is taken so that the stench from his gaping wound shall be quelled by the fragrant breezes. He calls it his sporting day. However much he may catch, racked by such agony, back at home he will need more! From this a rumour went the rounds that he was a fisherman. He had to endure this story,* though, sad, unhappy man, he had no salmon or lamprey for sale.’

  ‘I came upon the King at anchor on the rippling lake,’ Parzival was quick to reply. ‘I imagine it was to catch fish or for some other pastime. I had journeyed many miles that day after leaving Belrepeire at mid-morning, so that by evening I was anxious as to where I should find shelter. My uncle then provided it for me.’

  ‘You rode along a dangerous path through alert look-outs,’ said his host. ‘Each is so well manned that no ruse of war would help anyone against their sorties. Till now any who rode against them took a perilous turning, for they stake their lives against others’ and give no quarter. Such penance are they given for their sins.’

  ‘Yet I rode up to the King on that occasion without being engaged,’ said Parzival. ‘That evening I saw his Palace filled with grief – how could they find such contentment in it? For no sooner did a squire run in at the door than the Palace rang with lamentation. He bore a shaft towards all four walls, helved with a point all red with blood, at the sight of which the Company were overwhelmed with grief.’

  ‘Nephew,’ said his host, ‘never before or since has the King been in such pain as when the planet Saturn thus announced its advent, for it is its nature to bring great frost. Laying the Lance on the wound as had been done before failed to help us, so this time it was thrust into the wound. Saturn mounts so high that the wound sensed it before the other frost that followed: for the snow, however easily, fell only on the second night in Summer’s unabated splendour. While the King’s frost was being warded off in this way his people were in the depths of misery.

  ‘They were subject to grief, such is its pay,’ said the austere Trevrizent. ‘The Lance which had cut them to the very heart took their happiness away! The sincere outpouring of their grief renewed the doctrine of the Baptism!’

  ‘I saw five-and-twenty maidens of excellent bearing standing there before the King,’ Parzival told his host.

  ‘God ordained concerning the Gral that it should be kept by virgins ministering before it. The Gral chooses lofty servitors, thus knights are appointed to guard it endowed with all the virtues that go with chastity. The advent of the high planets brings grief to the denizens, young and old. God has maintained his wrath against them overlong. – When shall they be able to welcome happiness?

  ‘Nephew, I will tell you something you can well believe. Fortune often faces those of Munsalvæsche with win-and-lose. They receive handsome children of high degree: but if a land should lose its lord, and its people see the hand of God in it and ask for a new lord from the Gral Company, their prayer is granted. Moreover, they must treat him reverentially, since from that moment on he is under the protection of God’s blessing. God sends the men out in secret but bestows maidens openly. You must rest assured that King Castis sued for Herzeloyde’s hand, and that your mother was given to him to wife with due ceremony, but that he was not destined to enjoy her, since death laid him in his grave before. Yet with all due form he had already made over to your mother Waleis and Norgals with their cities of Kanvoleis and Kingrivals. That King was not to live longer: on his way back to his country he laid him down and died. Herzeloyde thus became queen over two lands, in which Gahmuret won her. As I say, maidens are given away from the Gral openly, men in secret, in order to have progeny (as God can well instruct them), in the hope that these children will return to serve the Gral and swell the ranks of its Company. Those knights who are resolved on serving the Gral must forego woman’s love. Only the King may have a spouse in wedlock, and those others whom God has sent to be lords in lordless lands. By serving a lady for her love I transgressed this commandment. My fresh and comely youthfulness and the quality of a noble lady prompted me to ride out in her service, in the course of which I fought many fierce battles. Strange and wild adventures were so much to my liking that I seldom tourneyed. Her love brought delight into my heart, and I often took the field for her sake. The great passion she inspired in me drove me to seek deeds of arms in wild and distant regions. I bought her love by fighting Christian and heathen alike. The reward she had to give I thought was sumptuous! Such was my life in the three continents of Europe, Asia and deep into Africa for the sake of that noble lady. When I wished to engage in fine jousting I rode past Gauriun. I have also broken many lances at the foot of Famurgan’s mountain and ridden many fine jousts at Agre-montin, below its mountain, where if you issue your challenge on one side fiery men sally forth, whereas on the other the Jousters you see are not on fire. And when I had ridden past the Rohas* in search of adventure a company of noble Slovenes rode out in counter-challenge. I had sailed from Seville all round the sea towards Celje, passing out from Aquilea through Friuli. Alas, that I ever saw your father, whom I was fated to meet in Seville! When I marched in, the noble Angevin had found quarters ahead of me. The journey he made to Baghdad will never cease to distress me, for he was slain in a joust there. This is what you were telling me about him earlier: in my heart I shall always lament it.

  ‘My brother is rich in possessions. He often sent me out in secret magnificently caparisoned, and when I left Munsalvæsche I took his seal with me and brought it to Carcobra where the Plimizoel forms a lake, and so to the sea of Barbigoel. On the strength of Anfortas’s seal the Burgrave there made me a lavish provision of squires, and trappings for jousting in wild parts and other chivalric expeditions. I had to arrive there unaccompanied, and on my return I left my whole retinue with him before setting out for Munsalvæsche.

  ‘Now listen to me, dear nephew. When your worthy father saw me for the first time in Seville he at once claimed me as the brother of his wife Herzeloyde, though he had never seen my face before! And indeed, there was no gainsaying that none was more handsome than I, then a beardless youth. When Gahmuret came to my quarters I swore many oaths, informal ones, denying what he had said. But he pressed me so hard that I confided my secret to him, to his great delight.

  ‘Gahmuret gave me some treasures of his, and my return gift pleased him. My reliquary, which you saw the time before and which is greener than clover, I had cut from a precious stone the excellent fellow gave me. He left his maternal kinsman* with me as squire, Ither, King of Cucumerlant, whose honest heart saw to it that no trace of falsity was in him. Unable to delay our journeys any longer we were forced to part company. Gahmuret went to join the Baruc, and I made my way to the foot of the Rohas. Arriving there from Celje I tourneyed on three successive Mondays. I thought I had fought well there. I then rode at my best pace into the broad Gandine,† after which your grandfather Gandin is named. Ither was well known there. The place lies where the Grajena flows into the Drau, a river that bears gold.‡ There Ither found love, since there he met your aunt on your father’s side, the lady of that land. It was Gandin of Anjou* who had made her Queen. Her name was Lammire, her land Styria. Those who wish to follow the calling of the shield must traverse many lands.

  ‘Now I am moved to grief for my red squire, for whose sake Lammire honoured me highly. You are of the same stock as Ither, yet ignoring the ties of blood you raised your hand against him. But God has not forgotten them, He can trace them again. If you mean to lead a life of trust towards Him you must atone to Him for this. I tell you in sorrow: you have two great sins. You slew Ither; and you must lament your mother’s death. Because of the great love she bore you she did not survive your going away and leaving her. Now do as I advise: do penance for your misdeeds and have a care for your ending, so that your toil here on earth earns you peace for your soul above.’

  And now his host went on gently questioning him. ‘Nephew, I still have not heard from where this horse came to you.’

  ‘I won this horse in battle, sir, when I rode away from Sigune after talking w
ith her at her cell. I thrust a knight headlong from the saddle and led his horse away. The man was from Munsalvæsche.’

  ‘Did the man survive to whom it belongs by right?’ asked his host.

  ‘Sir, I watched him make off and found his mount beside me.’

  ‘If you are for robbing the people of the Gral in this fashion, yet believe you will win their friendship, your mind is riven with contradictions.’

  ‘I took it in fair fight, sir. Let whoever accounts that a sin in me first consider the circumstances. I had already lost my own. Who was the maiden that carried the Gral?’ Parzival continued. ‘She lent me her cloak.’

  ‘She is your aunt on your mother’s side, nephew,’ replied his host, ‘and if the cloak was hers she did not lend it you to boast of. She was fondly hoping you would be lord there, the Gral’s and hers, not to mention mine. Your uncle gave you a sword, too, with which sin came to you, since with a ready tongue in your head you unfortunately asked no Question. Let that sin rest with the others – it is time we went to bed.’ No mattresses or bolsters were fetched for them: they went and lay down on the straw that had been scraped together, you remember, a couch well below the mark for men of such high birth.

  In this style Parzival stayed there for a fortnight. His host cared for him as I shall tell you: herbs and roots of necessity were their best fare. Parzival endured this hardship for the sake of the glad tidings, for his host took away his sins and nevertheless counselled him as a knight.