THE CHRONICLES OF THE HOLY QUEST
By ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE

                                   I

                         THE PROLEGOMENA THEREOF

AS there is no one towards whom I should wish to exercise more
frankness than the readers to whom I appeal, it will be a counsel of
courtesy to inform them, at this stage of the research, that
scholarship has once at least commented on the amount of mystic
nonsense which has been written upon the subject of the Graal. Who are
the mystic people and what is the quality of their nonsense does not
appear in the pleadings; and as, entirely outside mysticism, there has
been assuredly an abundance of unwise speculation, I incline to think
that the one has been confused with the other by certain learned
people who were unfamiliar with the limits of the term to which they
have had recourse so lightly. After precisely the same manner,
scholarship still speaks of the ascetic element of the Graal
literature, almost as if it were a term implying reproach; and again
it is not justified by reasonable exactitude in the use of words. Both
impeachments, the indirect equally with the overt, stand for what they
are worth, which is less than the solar mythology applied to the
interpretation of the literature. My object in mentioning these grave
trifles is that no one at a later stage may say that he has been
deceived.
    Now, seeing that all subjects bring us back to the one subject,
that in spite, for example, of any scandalous histories, every
official congregation returns us to the one official Church; so, at
whatever point we may begin, all the great quests take us ultimately
to the Galahad quest; it would seem, therefore, that this is the crown
of all, and we can affirm the position as follows: There are three
that give testimony on earth concerning the Mystery of the Holy Graal-
Perceval, Bors and Galahad- and the greatest of these is Galahad. This
notwithstanding, as there are persons who, by a certain mental
deviation, turn aside from the highways of Christendom and look for
better paths out of the beaten track in the issues of obscure
heresies, so it has happened that scholarship, without repudiating the
great heroes of research, has discovered some vague preference for the
adventurous and courtly Sir Gawain. They have even been led to regard
him as the typical and popular hero of the Graal quest. If the
evidence can be held as sufficient- and in some directions it is
strong- I suppose that I should waste my time by saying that it does
not really signify, any more than the preference of Jewry for Barabbas
in the place of Christ could accredit that liberated robber with any
reasonable titles. In order to strengthen their case, scholarship has
proposed certain speculative versions, now more lost than regrettable,
which present Gawain more completely as the Quest hero than any
document which is extant. Assuming that they ever existed, these
versions were like the poem of Chretien, according to the poem of
Wolfram- that is to say, they told the wrong story. The intention of
Chretien can scarcely be gathered from his unfinished narrative, but
of those who follow him, more than one certainly regarded Gawain as a
personage who was destined to have a distinct part in the mystery of
the whole experiment. Even the German cycle, as represented by the
romance of Heinrich, has shown him to be a hero of the achievement.
There are also, as we shall see, certain respects in which the legend
of Perceval is not, symbolically or otherwise, at a demonstrably
higher level than is that of Gawain. It will be, I assume, unnecessary
to inform my readers that the disqualification of Gawain must be
referred to his indiscriminate life of passion and occasionally of
gross indulgence. At the same time, he was exactly the kind of
character who would be disposed to suggest and to begin all manner of
quests, high and low. That he was a popular Graal hero may mean that
some of his historians did not exactly see why his methods and mode of
life should create a barrier. For the purposes, moreover, of the
greater mysteries, it is sometimes possible that the merely continent
man, who is of moderate life in all things, may require a more express
preparation than will sometimes one who is rather of the opposite
tendencies. I think also that the old romancers had in their minds a
distinction between the continuity of the sin in Lancelot and the more
sporadic misdemeanours of Gawain, as also between the essential
gravity of the particular offences in each case. There is the fullest
evidence of this in respect of Guinevere, when considered side by side
with some other heroines of the cycle. We are, in fact, dealing with a
period when the natural passions were condoned rather easily, but when
the Church had stepped in to consecrate the rite of marriage in an
especial manner. It was no stigma for a hero of chivalry to be born
out of lawful wedlock, but the infidelity of a wife placed her almost
outside the pale of social forgiveness. The ideal of virginity
remained, all this notwithstanding; in which respect, the makers of
romance knew well enough where the counsels of perfection lay, but
they rendered implicitly to nature the things which belong to nature.
It is comparatively late in the cycle that the ascetic purity of the
hero became an indefectible title to success in the quest of the Holy
Graal, about which time Gawain and Lancelot were relegated to their
proper places- ridicule and confusion in the one case, and complete,
though not irreverent, disqualification in the other.
    Before proceeding to a brief outline of the quests in their order,
as I conceive it here, it may seem pertinent to say a few words
concerning the order itself which I have adopted for these studies,
because at first sight it is calculated to incur those strictures on
the part of scholarship which, on the whole, I rather think that I
should prefer to disarm. I must in any case justify myself, and
towards this, in the first place, it should be indicated that the
arrangement depends entirely from the proper sequence of the texts,
and secondly, by an exercise of implicit faith, from the findings of
scholarship itself. There are certain texts which arise out of one
another, and it is a matter of logic to group them in their proper
classes. There is, however, some ground of criticism because of a
certain apparent sacrifice of chronology. It might be difficult to
show that the Greater Holy Graal is precedent in time to the later
Merlin, which my arrangement causes to follow therefrom. Outside this,
I do not know that there is any apparent offence, but there is one of
the implied kind, because scholarship has concluded that there are
lost early forms of certain texts, as, for example, of the Galahad
Quest, which in all probability antedated the Greater Holy Graal. We
seem to possess the latter approximately in the form of its first
draft. But it is really out of this fact that the order properly
arises. The Greater Holy Graal was intended to create a complete
sequence and harmony between those parts of the cycle with which it
was more especially concerned, and the Galahad Quest, as we have it,
may represent the form of that document which it intended to
harmonize. The alternative is that there was another version of this
Quest which arose out of the later Merlin, or that such a version was
intended. I believe in fine that my order is true and right, but exact
chronological arrangement, in so tinkered a cycle of literature as
that of the Holy Graal, is perhaps scarcely possible, nor is it my
concern exactly.
    I come now more directly to the matter in hand. There are two
cycles of the Quest which alone signify anything. Of one- which is
that of Perceval- there are several phases; but this is the lesser
Quest. Of the other there is one phase only, led up to by many
romances, but represented in fine by a single transcendent text. This
text is the quintessence and transmutation of everything, allocating
all seekers- Perceval, Bors, Lancelot, Gawain- to their proper
spheres, over whom shines Galahad as the exalted horn of a great
pentagram of chivalry. Of the Perceval Quest there are two great
versions; one of them, as I have already noted, is an alternative
conclusion to the cycle of the greater chronicles; and one- which is
the German Parsifal- all antecedents notwithstanding, is something set
apart by itself in a peculiar house of mystery. It is the story of the
natural man taken gradually to the heights. There is also a third
quest, that of the Didot Perceval, which, amidst many insufficiencies,
is important for several reasons after its own manner, that is to say,
because of its genealogy. The fourth is the Conte del Graal, and this
is of no importance symbolically, but it is a great and powerful
talisman of archaic poetry. The truth is that for all the high things
there are many substitutes, after the manner of colourable pretences,
and many transcripts, as out of the languages of the angels into that
of man, after the same way that the great external Churches have
expressed the mysteries of doctrine in words of one syllable for
children who are learning to read. But it sometimes happens also that
as from any corner of the veil the prepared eyes can look through and
perceive something of the immeasurable region which lies beyond the
common faculties of sense, so there are mysteries of books which are
in no way sufficient in themselves, but they contain the elements and
portents of all those great things of which it is given the heart to
conceive. Of these are the Graal books in the forms which present the
legend at its highest.

                                  II

                   THE QUESTS OF PERCEVAL LE GALLOIS

    At this point the reader will do well to remember that the
chronicles which I have connected with the name of Robert de Borron
are those which put forward a mystic formula of consecration,
committed from Keeper to Keeper; and that those which, under all
reserve, I have connected tentatively with the name of Walter Map, put
forward a certain claim in respect of superapostolical succession.
From the first there follows the Didot Perceval, making three texts in
all, corresponding, in this series, to the earthly witnesses of the
Holy Graal- Joseph, Brons, Perceval- that is, the metrical romance of
Joseph, the early prose Merlin, corresponding to the keepership of
Brons, and the Didot Perceval, in which Brons is still the Keeper but
in that state of inanition which prepares the way for his successor.
From the second there follows the great Prose Perceval, called
otherwise the High History of the Holy Graal, as an alternative to the
Galahad Quest.
    The outlines of the general story, taking the Didot MS. as an
example, are sufficienfly simple to state them within comparatively a
small space. It is only necessary to premise that Main, sometimes
represented as Perceval's father, is dead at the opening of the story.
Brons is the existing guardian of the Graal, holding from Joseph of
Arimatheaa, and he cannot depart from this life till he has
communicated to his successor those secret words pronounced at the
sacrament of the Graal which were learned by himself from Joseph.
Perceval, to outward seeming, has no title whatever to a participation
in the mystery, except that of his geniture. He is brave, savage and
imperious; he is also chivalrous, but he is without the spiritual
chivalry which we find in the great Quest. Further, the exigencies of
the story make him, in certain respects, little short of a fool.
Brons, who, under circumstances which I have not the space to specify,
is called also the Rich Fisherman, is said to be in great infirmity,
an old man and full of maladies, nor will his health be restored until
the office of the Quest has been fulfilled in all perfection. It
follows that he is not suffering, as in other cases, from any curse or
enchantment, but simply from old age. Perceval, after certain episodes
which explain why he was reared in seclusion, a widow's son, under the
care of his mother, in obedience to a Divine Voice, repairs to the
Court of King Arthur, where he is armed as knight. He is proclaimed
the best knight of the world, after vanquishing Lancelot and other
peers of the Round Table at a joust. He becomes to some extent exalted
and desires to occupy the Siege Perilous, that is to say, a chair left
vacant at the Round Table for the predestined third custodian of the
Holy Graal. A tremendous confusion ensues, and it is thought that
Perceval will share the fate of otherswho had made the same dangerous
experiment. He survives, however, the ordeal, and the voice of an
invisible speaker bears witness that the Sacred Vessel is at the
castle of the Rich Fisher, whose healing can only be performed when
the best knight of the world visits him and asks the secrets of the
service of the Graal. By the instructions which will follow a period
will be put to the enchantments of Britain. Perceval undertakes this
quest. After many adventures, one of which is referable to the
terrestrial paradise, he reaches the castle of his grandfather, the
Rich Fisher, or Brons. He beholds the Graal and its marvels, but, in
spite of what the voice told him in the presence of the knightly
company, he asks nothing concernmg it, for the odd reason that his
instructor in chivalry taught him to avoid unbecorning curiosity. It
is round this futile episode that the Perceval quests may be said in
each case to turn. He awakes on the morning which follows to find the
castle deserted. As soon as he leaves it, the whole building
disappears, and he wanders for seven years in search of it. Through
distress at being unable to find the Fisher King, he loses all memory
of God, until he meets with a band of pilgrims on Good Friday. He is
asked by these why he goes armed for purposes of destruction on a day
so sacred as this. His better nature then returns, and after a meeting
with Merlin, who reproaches him for neglecting the Quest, he does in
fine reach the Graal castle for a second time. He sees the Holy Vessel
and the procession thereof, asks the required question, at which the
King is cured, and all changes. He is led before the Graal and its
mysteries are explained to him. A voice tells Brons to communicate the
secret words. Perceval remains with his grandfather, practising
wisdom, and there is an end to the enchantments of Britain. The hermit
Blaise, who was the scribe of Merlin and produced under the latter's
direction the long chronicle of the Graal, becomes his assistant in
the custody of the Sacred Vessel, and Merlin also abides with him.
Merlin finally goes away, and neither he nor the Graal are heard of
subsequently.
    This is the story in its outline, but the variations of the
several texts are almost innumerable. Some contain no reference to the
episode of the Siege Perilous; some narrate the death of the hero and
some leave him alive. For the one instance in which he is made the
companion of Blaise and Merlin, all others are silent concerning these
personages, and it is obvious from the general literature that the
authorized version is that which, like Malory's book, puts Merlin into
permanent seclusion, through high offices of enchantment, long before
the quests begin. The Conte del Graal intercalates great episodes
connecting Gawain with the Graal between the visits of Perceval to the
castle. Its alternative ending by Gerbert preserves the hero's
virginity even on his marriage night; Wolfram insures his chastity by
introducing his marriage at an early stage; the High History is like
Heaven, knowing neither marriage nor giving in marriage, while it
never supposes that the Quest could be achieved in full by one who was
not a virgin. The rest of the romances show little conscience on the
subject, the deportment of the hero being simply a question of
opportunity.
    One feature of the prose Percevals and of the poetical romance
also is the termination of the enchantments of Britain; its
correspondence in the Galahad Quest is the sealing up of the
adventurous times. One of the questions is in both cycles: Who is the
Keeper of the Graal? It is one also which is always answered with
variations. In the Didot Perceval it is Brons, as we know already; and
in the Conte del Graal he is only termed the Rich Fisher, from which
it does not really follow that here also he is Brons. This is,
however, specified in the pseudo-Gautier intercalation, which is found
in a single MS. at Berne. In the alternative version of Gerbert he
appears to be the King Mordrains, who was never an instituted Keeper.
In Wolfram the name give is Amfortas, of the dynasty of Titurel, and
in the Quest of Galahad he is, subject to certain confusions on the
part of editors, the maimed King Pelles, whose genealogy is provided
in the Greater Holy Graal.
    There is, however, a much more important distinction between the
two cycles, but to this I have already made some reference, both here
and in a previous paper. The essential and predominant characteristic
of the Perceval literature is the asking and answering of a question
which bears on its surface every aspect of triviality, but is yet the
pivot on which the whole circle of these romances may be said to
revolve. On the other hand, the question is absent from the Galahad
story, and in place of it we have a stately pageant of chivalry moving
through the world of Logres, to find the high mystery of secrecy which
is destined only to dismember the Arthurian empire and to pass in
fine, leaving no trace behind it, except the sporadic vision of a
rejected knight which is mentioned but not described and occurs under
circumstances that justify grave doubts as to its existence in the
original texts.
    Now, the entire literature of the Graal may be searched in vain
for any serious explanation as to the actuating motive, in or out of
folklore, concerning the Graal question. On the part of the folklore
authorities there have been naturally attempts to refer it to
something antecedent within the scope of their subject, but the
analogies have been no analogies, and as much nonsense has been talked
as we have yet heard of in the connexion which scholars have vaguely
termed mysticism. The symbolical and sacramental value of the Graal
Quest, outside all issues in folklore, is from my standpoint
paramount, as it is this indeed without any reference to the opinions
which are founded in folklore or to the speculations thereout arising;
and the fact remins that the palmary importance of the mystic question
lapses with the pre-eminence of the Perceva1 Quest. Initiation, like
folklore, knows many offices of silence but few of asking; and after
many researches I conclude- or at least tentatively- that in this
respect the Graal romances stand practically alone. It is therefore
useful to know that it is not the highest term of the literature.

                                 III

                     THE QUEST OF THE HIGH PRINCE

    Having past through many initiations, I can say with the sincerity
which comes of full knowledge that the Graal legend, ritually and
ceremonially presented, is the greatest of all which lies beyond the
known borders of the instituted mysteries. But it is exalted in a
place of understanding of which no one can speak in public, not only
because of certain seals placed upon the sanctuary, but more
especially, in the last resource, because there are no listeners. I
know, however, and can say that the Cup appears; I know that it is the
Graal cup; and the wonders of its manifestation in romance are not so
far removed from the high things which it symbolizes, whence it
follows that the same story is told everywhere. It is in this way that
on these subjects we may make up our minds to say new things, but we
say only those which are old, because it would seem that there are no
others. If Guiot de Provence ever said that the Graal legend was first
written in the starry heavens, he said that which is the shadow of the
truth, or more properly its bright reflection.
    Let us now set before our minds the image of the Graal castle,
having a local habitation and a name on the mountain-side of Corbenic.
The inhabitant in chief of this sanctuary is the Keeper of the
Hallows, holding by lineal descent from the first times of the
mystery. This is the maimed King Pelles, whose hurt has to be healed
by Galahad. The maiden who carries the Sacred Vessel in the pageant of
the ceremonial rite is his daughter, the pure maiden Helayne. To the
castle on a certain occasion there comes the Knight Lancelot, who is
the son of King Ban of Benoic, while his mother Helen is issued from
the race of Joseph of Arimathaea, and through him is of the line of
King David. It is known by the Keeper Pelles that to bring to its
final term the mystery of the Holy Graal, his daughter must bear a
child to Lancelot, and this is accomplished under circumstailces of
enchantment which seem to have eliminated from the maiden all sense of
earthly passion. It cannot be said that this was the state of
Lancelot, who believed that his partner in the mystery of union was
the consort of Arthur the King, and to this extent the sacramental
imagery offers the signs of failure. In the case of Helayne the
symbolism only fails of perfection at a single point, which is that
of a second meeting with Lancelot under almost similar circumstances.
I must not specify them here, except in so far as to say that there
was a certain incursion of common motive into that which belongs
otherwise to the sacramental side of things, so far as she was
concerned. I can imagine nothing in the whole course of literature to
compare with the renunciation of this maiden, on whom the whole light
of the Graal had fallen for seasons and years; and who was called upon
by the exigencies of the quest to make that sacrifice which is
indicated by the great romance. It is at this point that the book of
the knight Lancelot sets finally aside all sense of triviality and is
assumed into the Kingdom of the Mysteries.
    So, therefore, Galahad is begotten in the fullness of time, and
over all connected therewith falls suddenly the veil of concealment.
We do not know certainly where he was born or by whom nurtured, but if
we are guided by the sequel, as it follows in the great Quest, if was
probably away from the Graal castle and with mystic nurses. When we
first meet him, he is among the pageants and holy places of the
mysteries of official religion. Subsequently he is led towards his
term by one who seems a steward of other mysteries, and when the Quest
begins he passes at once into the world of metaphrase and symbol,
having firstly been consecrated as a knight by his own father, who
does not apparently know him, who acts under the direction of the
stewards, while Galahad dissembles any knowledge that he might be
assumed to possess. He has come, so far as we can say, out of the
hidden places of the King. In the quests which he undertakes, although
there is nominally one castle in which the Graal has its normal abode,
it is yet a moving wonder, and a studied comparison might show that it
is more closely connected with the Eucharistic mystery than it is
according to the other romances, the great prose Perceval excepted.
Still, an efficacious mass is being said everywhere in the world. The
Graal is more especially the secret of high sanctity. Galahad himself
is the mystery of spiritual chivalry exemplified in human form; his
history is one of initiation, and his term is to see God. As
contrasted with the rest of the literature, we enter in his legend
upon new ground, and are on the eminence of Mont Salvatch rather than
among the normal offices of chivalry. It is more especially this
legend which is regarded by scholarship as the last outcome of the
ascetic element introduced into the the Graal cycle; but it is not
understood that throughout the period of the middle ages the mystic
life manifested only wider an ascetic aspect, or with an environment
of that kind. The Galahad romance is not ascetic after the ordinary
way, as the term is commonly accepted; it has an interior quality
which places it above that degree, and this quality is the sense of
the mystic life. Now, the gate of the mystic life is assuredly the
ascetic gate, in the same manner that the normal life of religion has
morality as the door thereof. Those who have talked of asceticism
meant in reality to speak of the supernatural life, of which the
Galahad romance is a kind of archetypal picture. Though Wolfram, on
the authority of Guiot, may have told what he called the true story,
that story was never recited till the creation of the Galahad legend.
The atmosphere of the romance gives up Galahad as the natural air
gives up the vision from beyond. It is the story of the arch-natural
man who comes to those who will receive him. He issues from the place
of the mystery, as Lancelot came from fairyland, or at least a world
of enchantment. The atmosphere is that of great mysteries, the odour
that of the sanctuary withdrawn behind the Hallows of the outward
Holy Places. Galahad's entire life is bound up so completely with the
quest to which he is dedicated that apart therefrom he can scarcely be
said to live. The desire of a certain house not made with hands has so
eaten him up that he has never entered the precincts of the halls of
passion. He is indeed faithful and true, but earthly attraction is
foreign to him, even in its exaltation. Even his meetings with his
father are shadowy and not of this world- a characteristic which seems
the more prominent when he is the better fulfilling what would be
understood by his filial duty. It is not that he is explicitly outside
the sphere of sense and its temptations, but that his actuating
motives are of the transmuted kind. In proportion, his quest is of the
unrealized order; it is the working of a mystery within the place of a
mystery; and it is in comparison therewith that we may understand the
deep foreboding which fell upon the heart of Arthur when the flower of
his wonderful court went forth to seek the Graal. In this respect the
old legend illustrates the fact that many are called but few are
chosen; and even in the latter class it is only the rarest flower of
the mystic chivalry which can be thought of as chosen among thousands.
So are the peers of the Round Table a great company, but Galahad is
one. So also, of the high kings and princes, there are some who come
again, and of such is the royal Arthur; but there are some who return
no more, and of these is Galahad.
    We have, however, to account as we can for the great disaster of
the whole experiment. The earthly knighthood undertakes, in despite of
the high earthly king, a quest to which it is in a sense perhaps
called but for which it is in no sense chosen. The result is that the
chivalry of the world is broken and the kingdom is destroyed, while
the object of all research is taken away. In a certain sense it is the
mystery of the Graal itself which gives forth Galahad as its own
manifestation, in the order of the visible body; and sends him on
designed offices of healing, with a warrant to close a specific cycle
of times. When the Graal romances say that the Sacred Vessel was seen
no more, or was carried up to heaven, they do not mean that it was
taken away, in the sense that it had become unattainable, but that it
was- some of them say also- in concealment. It is certain that the
great things are always in concealment, and are perhaps the more
hidden in proportion to their more apparently open manifestation. In
this respect, the distinction between the natural and supernatural
Graal, which is made by the prose Lancelot, has a side of highest
value. Let us reserve for the moment the consideration of the hallows
as mere relics, and in so far as the Cup is concerned, let us
remember the two forms of sustenance which it offered- in
correspondence closely enough with the ideas of Nature and Grace. It
should be understood, however, that between the mysteries themselves
there is a certain superincession, and so also there is in the
romances what the light heart of criticism regards as <I>un peu
confus,</I> namely, some disposition to talk of the one office in the
terms of the other. At the same time, some romances give prominence to
the greater and others to the lesser office.

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Scanned from the periodical "The Occult Review", Vol. V, No. 5; May,
1907. Formatted and corrected by hand.