“Oh no! good sir, how say you that? If I am your sister’s child, oh tell me all.”
“Your mother died when you left her. My other sister was Sigune’s mother; our brother is Anfortas, who long has been the Grail’s sad lord. We early lost our father, Frimutel; from him Anfortas, his first-born, inherited the Grail crown, when still a child. As he grew a man, all too eagerly he followed the service set by love of woman, chose him a mistress and broke many a spear for her. He disobeyed the Grail, which forbids its lords love’s service, save as it prescribes. One day, for his lady’s favour, he ran a joust with a heathen knight. He slew him, but the heathen spear struck him, and broke, leaving a poisoned wound. In anguish he returned. No medicine or charm can heal that wound, and yet he cannot die; that is the Grail’s power. I renounced knighthood, flesh, and wine, in prayer that God would heal him. We knelt before the Grail, and on it read that when a knight should come, and, unadmonished, ask what ailed him, he should be sound again. That knight should then be the Grail’s king, in place of Anfortas. Since then a knight did come—I spoke of him to you. He might as well have stayed away for all the honour that he won or aid he brought us. He did not ask: My lord, what brought you to this pass? Stupidity forbade him.”
The two made moan together. It was noon. The host said: “Let us take food now, and tend your horse.” They went out; Parzival broke up some branches for his horse, while the host gathered a repast of herbs. Then they returned to the cell. “Dear nephew,” said the hermit, “do not despise this food. At least, you will not find another host who would more gladly give you better.”
“Sir, may God’s favour pass me by, if ever a host’s care was sweeter to me.”
When they had eaten, they saw to the horse again, whose hungry plight grieved the old man because of the saddle with Anfortas’s crest. Then Parzival spoke:
“Lord and uncle mine, if I dare speak for shame, I should tell you all my unhappiness. My troth takes refuge in you. My misdeeds are so sore, that if you cast me off I shall go all my days unloosed from my remorse. Take pity with good counsel on a fool. He who rode to Munsalvaesch, and saw that pain, and asked no question, that was I, misfortune’s child. Thus have I, sir, misdone.”
“Nephew! Alas! We both may well lament—where were your five senses? Yet I will not refuse thee counsel. You must not grieve overmuch, but, in lament and laying grief aside, follow right measure. Would that I might refresh and hearten you, so that you would push on, and not despair of God. You might still cure your sorrow. God will not forsake you. I counsel thee from Him.”
His host then told Parzival more about Anfortas’s pains, and about the Grail people, then the story of his own life before he renounced knighthood, and also about Ither. “Ither was your kin. If your hand forgot this kinship, God will not. You must do penance for this deadly sin, and also for your mother’s death. Repent of your misdeeds and think of death, so that your labour here below may bring peace to your soul above.”
These two deadly sins of Parzival were done unwittingly, and unwitting was his neglect to ask the question. His guilt was thoughtlessness and stupid ignorance. It is impossible not to think of Oedipus, and compare the Christian mediaeval treatment of unwitting crimes with the classical Greek consideration of the same dark subject. Oedipus sinned as unwittingly as Parzival, and as impulsively. His ruin was complete. Afterwards—in the Oedipus Coloneus—his character gathers greatness through submission to the necessary consequences of his acts; here was his spiritual expiation. On the other hand, mercy, repentance, hope, the uplifting of the unwitting sinner, forgiveness and consolation, soften and glorify the Christian mediaeval story.
Parzival stayed some days at the hermitage. At parting the hermit spoke words of comfort to him: “Leave me your sins. I will be your surety with God for your repentance. Perform what I have bidden you, and do not waver.”