Parzival (9 page)

 

There was no joy at Wild Mountain. It was the time of year when Anfortas knew the severest pain. He longed for death; indeed, he would have died, except that his people brought into his chamber the Grail, whose dreadful power kept the wretched king alive.

“If you had any love for me,” Anfortas groaned, “you would not bring it near me. You would leave me free to die. What good am I to you? I can no longer rule, for I myself am nothing more than slave to this most grievous pain. Pray, let me die.”

Still they would not remove the Grail. “If you do not let me die,” the king cried out, “I will stand before the throne on the Day of Judgement and curse you all before Almighty God.”

His people were sorely tempted to release him, but they clung to that faint hope, once dashed, that a deliverer would come. So even as he cried and railed against them, they daily brought in the Grail and forced the king to live against his will.

They were not pitiless. They nursed him as tenderly as they could, anointing him with precious oils and rubbing his body with powders ground from the horns of exotic beasts. They brought in spices and burned incense from distant lands, seeking to cleanse the noxious airs that rose from the king’s gangrenous wound.

But the king could only curse their ministrations, and all, all was sorrow in that dread place.

And then one morning, as the guards of Wild Mountain rode out to patrol the forests of the Land of Wildness, they spied the Lady Cundrie accompanied by two knights. A shout rang out and sounded and resounded through the forest.

Feirefiz was alarmed as an armed troop of men on black horses appeared to block their way and he urged his brother to the attack, but Cundrie caught his reins. “They are the Knight Templars of Wild Mountain,” she said, “come to escort us.”

When Parzival and Feirefiz reached the courtyard of the castle, they were offered baths and fresh garments, but Parzival would not wait. He took off only his helmet. “Lead me to the king,” he said.

At the great door, he hesitated, for there, propped against his pillows, lay Anfortas, shivering beneath his furs. Burning incense could not hide the stench that permeated the air. The king looked across the hall to where Parzival stood, but he did not seem to recognize his nephew. His face was so drawn and contorted with pain that it looked to Parzival as one carved onto a crucifix. Poor, wretched man. Why did no one come to his aid?

Tears sprang to Parzival’s eyes and he cried out, running as fast as his heavy armor would allow. He fell on his knees beside the king. “Dear Uncle,” he said, through his sobs, “what is wrong with you?”

“God be praised,” the king said. “You have come at last.”

 

The Grail Knight had come. He had in his compassion asked the question, and King Anfortas was healed. But as the writing foretold, Anfortas was no longer king. Gladly, he gave his crown to Parzival and became one of the Templars whose life was devoted to the Grail. Feirefiz, too, rose to great honor. He married Anfortas’s sister Repanse de Schoye, the very maiden who had been deemed worthy to bear the Grail in her own hands.

But before these things happened, the two of them went forth, Parzival and Feirefiz together, to meet Queen Condwiramurs and her twin sons. The reunion between Parzival and his lady was, for all its tears, so joyful that it cannot be told here with any justice. Just say that the brave and compassionate pair grew wiser and more loving with every passing year and that their praise was sung in many distant lands.

This is not the end. There are many stories left to tell—of Feirefiz, the Noble Infidel; of kindly Gawain; of his fellow knights and their beloved king. Young Lohengrin himself went forth one day from Wild Mountain, bearing the secret of the Grail. But that, too, is another story, to be told another day.

About This Legend

 

 

 

 

SOMETIME
in the latter part of the twelfth century, there was born to a Bavarian family of the lesser nobility a son who was destined to become one of the greatest German medieval poets. Wolfram von Eschenbach became a knight, serving a number of feudal lords, and then, during the early part of the thirteenth century (probably between 1200 and 1210), this knight who claimed that he was illiterate wrote a 25,000-line epic poem that has endured for nearly eight hundred years.

Where Wolfram got the idea for
Parzival
is a matter that scholars argue. Wolfram says that he did not get it from the French poet Chrétien de Troyes, who wrote a poem around 1180 titled
Perceval,
which was quite famous at the time. Scholars disagree, pointing to similarities between the two epics. Wolfram says he heard the story from someone called Kyot, but since there is no evidence that such a person ever existed, Kyot may well be a product of Wolfram’s very fertile imagination. His claim of illiteracy probably meant that he did not know Latin or Greek and was, therefore, not a scholar. It is evident that he used as the basis of his poem stories about the Holy Grail in wide circulation at the time, but Wolfram clothed the well-known legend with both humor and a profound seriousness that no other medieval writer quite matched.

Wolfram’s Parzival is in some senses the Percival of the more familiar English tales of the Round Table. He is the boy raised in the wilderness, ignorant of chivalry and the great King Arthur. But in Wolfram’s tale, he is much more than that. He is the innocent fool who through trial, loss of faith, suffering, repentance, and at last, redemption, becomes the Grail Knight he was destined to be.

In this retelling, I have simplified Wolfram’s long poem, leaving out the chapters that tell of his father Gahmuret’s adventures and those of his friend, Sir Gawain. I have also left out Wolfram’s explanation of why he wrote the poem and his commentary on life. Some of this is fun to read and shows the poet’s delightful sense of humor. If you want to read the whole poem as Wolfram wrote it, there is an English translation by A. T. Hatto. It is Professor Hatto’s translation (
Parzival
by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Penguin Classics, 1980) on which this retelling is based.

Why, you may wonder, is it necessary to have yet another story of the Holy Grail? Because Wolfram, I believe, tells the story as no one else has told it. Professor Hatto points to Wolfram’s unique vision in his introduction: “At one point in his poem Wolfram humourously wonders how it is possible for so impecunious a knight as himself to describe such wealth and luxury as he unfolds. We, in our turn, wonder ... how it was possible for a knight of such humble station and education to enshrine in his poetry an understanding of the Christian message deeper and truer than that of all the popes and most of the saints of his day.”

Katherine Paterson’s
books have received wide acclaim and have been published in twenty-two languages. Among her many literary honors are two Newbery Medals, for
Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved,
and two National Book Awards, for
The Great Gilly Hopkins
and
The Master Puppeteer.

Mrs. Paterson has long been interested in the legend of Parzival and used it as the basis of her novel
Park’s Quest.
She lives in Barre, Vermont, with her husband. The Patersons have four grown children and four grandchil-dren.

More information about Katherine Paterson is available at her website,
www.terabithia. com.