Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/264

238 footsteps. In the love episodes he is as full of charm as the more celebrated poet. The second meeting of Perceval and Blanchefleur is told with that graceful laughing naïveté of which French literature of the period has the secret. But of a plan, an animating conception even such slight traces as Chrestien had introduced into the story are lacking. Here, as in Chrestien, the mysterious talismans themselves in no way help forward the story. Chrestien certainly had the Christian signification of them in his mind, but makes no use of it. The Vessel of the Last Supper, the Spear that pierced Christ's side might be any magic spear or vessel as far as he is concerned. The original Pagan essence is retained; the name alone is changed.

Thus far had the legend grown when it came into the hands of the author of the Queste. The subject matter had been partly shaped and trimmed by a master of narrative, the connection with Christian tradition had been somewhat accentuated. It was open to the author of the Queste to take the story as it stood, and to read into its incidents a deep symbolical meaning based upon the Christian character of the holy talismans. He preferred to act otherwise. He broke entirely with the traditional framework, dispossessed the original hero, and left not an incident of his model untouched. But his method of proceeding may be likened to a shuffle rather than to a transformation. The incidents reappear in other connection, but do not reveal the author's plan any more than is the case in the Conte du Graal. The Christian character of the talismans is dwelt upon with almost wearisome iteration, the sacramental act supplies the matter of many and of the finest scenes, and yet the essence of the talismans is unchanged. The Holy Grail, the Cup of the Last Supper, the Sacramental Chalice is still when it appears the magic food-producing vessel of the old Pagan sagas. What is the author's idea? Undoubtedly to show that the attainment of the highest spiritual good is not a thing of this world; only by renouncing every human desire, only by passing into a land intermediary between this earth and heaven, is the Quest achieved. In the story of the prosecution of that Quest some attempt may be traced at portraying the cardinal virtues and deadly sins by means of the adventures of the questers,