Parzival: A Knightly Epic (vol. 2 of 2)

by von Eschenbach Wolfram

BOOK XI

TRADITIONAL EVENTS

Gawain, against the advice of the Boatman, visits Château Merveil, seats himself on the magic couch, and is assailed, first by unseen adversaries, then by a lion which he kills and ends the enchantments of the Castle.

Chrêtien gives the incidents in the same order, but with some difference in details,

(There is a Castle of Wonders in 'Peredur,' but the adventures connected with it are quite different.)

The entire episode of the Magic Castle and Gawain's adventures therein is stamped with a weird, fantastic character, unlike the rest of the poem, and gives the effect of a Mährchen introduced into the midst of a knightly epic. More than one critic has pointed out the similarity between the tasks to be achieved by Gawain, before he becomes lord of the castle, and those which, in old folk-tales, fall to the lot of those who dare a venture to the shadowy under-world. Some of the features in the story, which will be noted as they occur, seem to distinctly indicate that such was the original nature of this episode, related with so much spirit by the German poet.

Page [34], line 107—'He who at Nantes slew Prince Ither.' Cf. Books VII. p. 218 and VIII. p. 242, and notes on these passages, where Wolfram's introduction of the chief hero of the poem, unmentioned in Chrêtien's version, is commented upon. Some critics have drawn a contrast between the Château Merveil, with its magic lord, and the Grail Castle, with its wounded king, which are won respectively by the two heroes of the poem, and have seen in the castle of Klingsor the embodiment of the fleshly principle, opposed to the spiritual realm of the Grail. But Wolfram seems to have intended a parallel rather than a contrast. Klingsor, on the whole, is by no means a malicious character, and of the deadly antagonism between him and the Grail knights, which is the very essence of Wagner's Parzival, there is here no trace. If there is a contrast between spirit and sense in Wolfram's poem, it is rather to be found between the court and knighthood of Monsalväsch and that of King Arthur, and the latter monarch certainly embodies the world-principle far more than Klingsor does. Parzival's failure to ask the question here is quite in keeping with his general character and devotion to a single aim, but the introduction of the incident was doubtless intended to heighten the parallel between Monsalväsch and Château Merveil.

Page [35], line 125—'Now arm thee for deadly warfare!' In Chrêtien's account the Boatman plays the same kindly part of adviser, and, further, accompanies Gawain to the palace and to the hall of the Lit-Merveil, but, as before noted, the part played by the daughter is omitted.

Page [36], line 162—'A merchant with merchandise costly.' In Chrêtien this character is an 'Eskiékier,' rather a money-changer than a merchant. The story of the oath, and how it came to be in the courtyard of the castle, is rally related in Book XII. p. 65.

Page [36], line 169—'The Baruch of Bagdad.' Cf. Book I. p. 9, and note on 'Rankulat.' The allusion to the Emperor of Greece shows that this was written after the taking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204.

Page [37], line 185—'Plippalinòt.' The Boatman is unnamed in Chrêtien. The critics give no interpretation of the name.

Page [37], line 201—'The Lechfeld.' The Lechfeld is a wide plain near Augsburg between the rivers Werch and Lech, where the Hungarians were defeated in 955 by the Emperor Otho. Naturally, the courtyard of a castle could not be so large, and it seems probable that Wolfram was commenting humorously on the exaggerated description given in his source. Chrêtien gives much the same account of the castle and its gorgeous decorations.

Page [38], line 220—'The Lit-Merveil.' Chrêtien gives a more detailed description of the magic couch: it is of gold, with cords of silver, and bells hanging from the interlaced cords. It is apparently the peal of these bells, as the knight seats himself upon the couch, that gives warning of the intruder, and is the signal for the enchantments to begin. In Chrêtien's account the attack by the five hundred unseen foes (Gawain has already been informed by the Boatman that five hundred knights guard the castle) follows immediately on the hero taking his seat on the couch, and the onslaught of the lion immediately on the cross-bows, so that the ordeal, as represented by Wolfram, is considerably more severe and prolonged than in the French version.

Page [40], line 299—'A mighty lion.' The encounter with the lion is the same in Chrêtien; there, too, the lion's paw is smitten off by Gawain, and remains hanging to the shield. The remark in line 312 is quite in keeping with Wolfram's dry, quaint humour; such 'asides' are lacking throughout in the French poem.

Page [41], line 331—'Mount Ribbelé.' An allusion to Eilhart's Tristan, where Gymele, Isolde's maid, gives to Kahenis, who should keep watch with her, a magic pillow on which he slumbers throughout the night, and is mocked in consequence.

Page [42], line 340—'Arnivé.' This is Arthur's mother, whose elopement with Klingsor has been mentioned, cf. Book II. p. 39. (Whether Arnivé went with Klingsor of her own free will, or whether she was constrained by magic art, does not clearly appear; from Book II. we should conclude the former, but the passage in Book XIII. pp. 89 and 90, reads as if she were not a free agent.) She has been named as one of the dwellers in Château Merveil, (Book VI. p. 189); how it was that Arthur, who had apparently spent some years in the search for his mother (cf. Book II. p. 39), failed to recognise her name when mentioned before him, is not explained. But the whole episode, as noted above, is so wild and fantastic, and so full of difficulties, that it seems most probable that it was not originally connected with the Arthurian legend, and has been only imperfectly fitted into the framework. In Chrêtien, too, the queen is Arthur's mother, but she is much less prominent in the story, indeed from this point onwards the two versions diverge considerably. In Chrêtien, Gawain is by no means seriously wounded; the Boatman, who seems to have awaited the issue of the adventure outside the castle, returns promptly and tells him that the enchantments are at an end, and Gawain is greeted by a train of pages, gaily dressed and playing flutes; and maidens, one of whom bears royal robes. Chrêtien then introduces a very curious and archaic feature, to which Wolfram has no parallel; Gawain expresses his desire to leave the castle and hunt in the surrounding forest, but the Boatman tells him this is impossible; it is judged and decreed that whoever achieves the venture of the Château Merveil shall never leave the castle, 'Que jamais de cette maison n'istroit u fust tors u raison. Jamais n'istrés nul jor,' at which Gawain is extremely angry. Nevertheless, he does leave the castle and no harm comes of it. The only explanation of this curious feature seems to be that this episode, as noted above, found its origin in the story of some hero's visit to the under-world, when his return to the world of the living depends on his fulfilment of certain conditions, e.g., that he should eat nothing during his stay in the land of shadows; Gawain certainly partakes of a meal in the Magic Castle, which meal in Wolfram precedes, though in Chrêtien it follows, his attempt to leave Château Merveil. Heinzel understands Chrêtien's account of the arrival of the two elder queens in Terre de Merveil as meaning that they really were dead, and supernaturally revived; (Chrêtien certainly does say of the elder queen, 'Qui fus mis en tière,' but as he goes on to state that she brought all her riches with her into the country where she came, accompanied by her daughter, it is rather difficult to understand what he really does mean.) Mr. Nutt remarks, 'I think there can be no doubt that Klingsor's castle is a form of the other world, and that its inhabitants cease to live if they return to this world. There is a distinct parallelism in the original form of the legend between Parzival's winning the Grail Castle and Gawain's winning the Magic Castle. On this theory neither, of course, should come back to Arthur's court; the necessity of bringing them both into contact with Arthur again has obscured the significance of the story.'

Page [43], line 370—'Ilinot the Breton.' Arthur's son, alluded to in Book VII. p. 217, and note (which also explains the allusion to 'the mystic beasts' which seem to have been the badge of the royal Breton house). Ilinot's history is told at some length in Book XII. p. 50.

Page [44], line 422—'Dictam, the herb of healing.' San Marte says that this herb is mentioned by Cicero, Virgil, and Pliny, as possessing the power of drawing arrow-shafts from a wound. Wolfram, also, attributed this virtue to it, as he distinctly states in Willehalm, where he gives an account of his hero's wounds being dressed by his wife.

The allusion to Kondrie should be noted; it is another instance of the skill with which Wolfram connects all the threads of his story, and never loses sight of his main point.