The Holy Grayle.
"'Here on the rushes will I sleep,
And perchance there may come a vision true,
Ere day create the world anew.'
Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim,
Slumber fell like a cloud on him,
And into his soul the vision flew."
Lowell.
Sir Launcelot Du Lac—without his peer of earthly, sinful man—had taken the Quest of the Holy Grayle. One deadly sin gnawed at the heart of the flower of chivalry; but a mighty sorrow struggled with and subdued his remorse, and a holy hermit assoiled him of his sin. With purified and strengthened heart, he won his way to a sight of that wondrous vessel, the object of so many knightly vows. It stood on a table of silver veiled with red samite. A throng of angels stood about it. One held a wax light and another the holy cross. A light like that of a thousand torches filled the house. Sir Launcelot heard a voice cry, "Approach not!" but for very wonder and thankfulness he forgot the command. He pressed toward the Holy Grayle with outstretched hands, and cried, "O most fair and sweet Lord! which art here within this holy vessel, for thy pity, show me something of that I seek." A breath, as from a fiery furnace, smote him sorely in the face. He fell to the ground, and lay for the space of four and twenty days seemingly dead to the eyes of all the people. But in that swoon marvels that no tongue can tell and no heart conceive passed before his face. …
The history of the wondrous vessel was in a measure made known to him. His purified eyes saw in the dim past a long line of patriarchs and prophets, who had been entrusted with this sacred charge almost from the beginning of time. The San Greal was revealed to his ardent gaze:
First: in the hands of white-robed men, who met Noah as he went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives, with him into the ark, bearing with him the bones of Adam—great Progenitor. Its origin and history were revealed to Noah, and that it was destined to be used in the most mysterious of rites.
Next: Abraham was standing before an altar on a hillock in the valley of Jehoshaphat. His flocks were grazing around or drinking from the brook Cedron: his camels and beasts of burden and armed servants in the distance. The patriarch, flushed with victory, stood as if in awe and expectation. Majestic, white-winged Melchizedek came from Salem. His tall, slender frame was full of tempered majesty. He wore a garment of dazzling whiteness, confined by a girdle on which were embroidered characters of mystic import. His long hair was fair and glossy as silk; his beard white, short, and pointed. His face shone with divine splendor. A holy calm seemed diffused in the air around him. He bore in his hands the holy vessel handed down from Noah. He placed it upon the altar, behind which rose three clouds of smoke; the one in the midst rose higher than the other two. On the altar lay the bones of Adam—long after buried beneath the great altar of Calvary—and both prayed God to fulfil the promise he had made to Adam of one day sending the great Deliverer who would bruise the serpent's head. The priest of the most high God then took bread and wine— emblems of the great Eucharistic Sacrifice—raised them toward heaven, and blessed them, and gave thereof to Abraham and his servants, but tasted not thereof himself. They who ate of this bread and drank of this wine seemed strengthened and devoutly inspired thereby. And Melchizedek blessed Abraham, and said: "Blessed be Abram by the most high God, who created heaven and earth." And he renewed to him the promise that in him should all the families of the earth be blessed.
The San Greal seemed, in the vision, left with Abraham as a pledge of that promise, and afterward, was carried down into Egypt by the children of Israel. Moses took it with him when he fled to the land of Midian, and was using it for some mysterious oblation on Mount Horeb, when the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the burning bush.
Sir Launcelot saw the vessel long after in the temple of Jerusalem among other precious objects of antiquity; its use and origin nearly forgotten. Only a few remembered its strange history, and felt, rather than knew, that it yet awaited its most glorious use. Its holy guardians had always watched over its safety with jealous care, until the abomination of desolation entered the holy place. But a divine Eye seemed to watch over it. At the institution of the Mass, it was in the possession of a holy woman, since known as Veronica—her who took off her veil to wipe the dust and sweat and blood from the divine face of suffering Jesus, which was left thereon so miraculously imprinted. Veronica brought the vessel to the disciples of Jesus to be used at the Last Supper.
The Holy Grayle revealed to the astonished eyes of Sir Launcelot was composed of two parts, the cup and the foot. The cup alone had been handed down from the time of the holy patriarchs. Its very form was wonderful and significant, and its composition mysterious. Jesus alone knew what it was. It was dark, compact, and perhaps of vegetable origin. It was covered and lined with gold, and on it were two handles.
The foot of the chalice, added at a later period, was of virgin gold, wrought with the skill of a cunning workman. It was ornamented with a serpent and a bunch of grapes, and gleamed with precious stones.
The whole chalice rested on a silver tablet, surrounded by six smaller ones. These six cups had belonged to different patriarchs, who drank therefrom a strange liquor on certain solemn occasions. They were used by the holy apostles at the Last Supper, each cup serving for two persons. (These cups Sir Launcelot saw belonging afterward to different Christian churches, where they were held in great reverence.) The Holy Grayle stood before our blessed Lord. … Let not sinful hand depict the vision of that unbloody sacrifice, so clearly revealed to the adoring eyes of Sir Launcelot, and so affectingly told in Holy Writ. …
The San Greal, fashioned with mysterious care for the most mysterious of oblations, and handed down from remote antiquity by righteous men, to whom it was the pledge of a solemn covenant, was henceforth to be the object of the veneration of the Christian world. Only the pure in heart could guard it. Angels with loving reverence folded their wings around what contained most precious Blood. Its presence conferred a benediction on the land in which it was preserved.
Sir Launcelot saw afterward the hand that came from heaven right to the holy grayle and bare it away. But a comforting voice told him that it should reappear on the earth, though for him the quest was ended.
At the end of four and twenty days, Sir Launcelot awoke. The vision had passed away, but the place was filled with the sweetest odors, as if of Paradise. Wondering thereat, he cried: "I thank God of his infinite mercy for that I have seen, for it comforteth me." And he rose up and went to Camelot, where he found King Arthur and many of the Knights of the Round Table, to whom he related all that had befallen him.