Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/624

602 my happiness on Munsalvaesch. Ah! helpless Anfortas! You had small help from me."

Knights and ladies were grieved to see the hero depart in such sorrow, and many a knight's service was offered him. The lady Cunneware took his hand; Lord Gawain kissed him and said: "I know thy way is full of strife; God grant to thee good fortune, and to me the chance to serve thee."

"Ah! what is God?" answered Parzival. "Were He strong He would not have put such shame on me and you. I was His subject from the hour I learned to ask His favour. Now I renounce His service. If He hates me, I will bear it. Friend, in thine hour of strife let the love of a woman pure and true strengthen thy hand. I know not when I shall see thee again; may my good wishes towards thee be fulfilled."

The hero's arms are brought; his horse is saddled; his grievous toil begins.

Why should long sorrow come to Parzival for not asking a question, when his omission was caused neither by brutality nor ill will? when, on the contrary, he would gladly have served his host? The relation between his conduct and his fortune seems lame. Yet in life as well as in literature, ignorance and error bring punishment. Moreover, to mediaeval romance not only is there a background of sorcery and magic, but active elements of magic survive in the tales. And nothing is more fraught with magic import and result than question and answer. Wolfram did not treat as magical the effect upon his hero's lot of his failure to ask the question; but he retained the palpably magic import of the act as affecting the sick Anfortas. It was hard that the omission should have brought Parzival to sorrow and despair; yet the fault was part of himself, and the man so ignorant and unwise was sure to incur calamity, and also gain sorrow's lessons if he was capable of learning. So the sequence becomes ethical: from error, calamity; from calamity, grief; and from grief, wisdom. With Wolfram, Parzival's fault was Parzival; failure to ask the question was a symbol of his lack of wisdom. The poet was of his time; and mediaeval thought tended to symbolism, and to move,