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Le Haut Livre Du Graal : Perlesvaus
Le Haut Livre du Graal (ou Perlesvaus, Perceval) est un roman étrange et tourmenté, où la cruauté se mêle à l’élan de la foi. Des combats d’une indicible violence, avec lance enflammée et écu à la tête de dragon crachant du feu. Des châtiments atroces : un seigneur est noyé dans le sang. Des demoiselles qui transportent des têtes coupées, aménagent une fenêtre à guillotine destinée aux hommes qui les ont dédaignées, règnent sur une cour de chevaliers mutilés. Le tout dans une atmosphère fantastique : un écuyer meurt d’une blessure reçue en rêve.
Mais dans cet univers sanglant, Dieu est partout. L’enjeu ultime est l’évangélisation de la Bretagne. Les ermites dévoilent le sens des aventures et l’arrière-plan théologique recèle celui de l’œuvre entière.
Le roman suit jusqu’au bout le destin de Perceval, après son premier échec chez le Roi Pêcheur, en y ajoutant les quêtes de Gauvain, Lancelot et même d’Arthur. L’histoire ne finit pas avec la reconquête du Graal. Le royaume de Logres se débat dans les guerres et les meurtres, tandis que le héros poursuit sa mission de conversion et navigue vers d’autres cieux.
Mais dans cet univers sanglant, Dieu est partout. L’enjeu ultime est l’évangélisation de la Bretagne. Les ermites dévoilent le sens des aventures et l’arrière-plan théologique recèle celui de l’œuvre entière.
Le roman suit jusqu’au bout le destin de Perceval, après son premier échec chez le Roi Pêcheur, en y ajoutant les quêtes de Gauvain, Lancelot et même d’Arthur. L’histoire ne finit pas avec la reconquête du Graal. Le royaume de Logres se débat dans les guerres et les meurtres, tandis que le héros poursuit sa mission de conversion et navigue vers d’autres cieux.
1056 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1200
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316 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 17, 2023
Perlesvaus, or The High Book of the Grail, is extraordinary. It borrows from Arthurian tales that came before, a little from Chrétien, a little from Robert de Boron, but the bulk of it is wholly original and distinct. Like many other pieces of Arthurian myth, this one, whose author in Old French is not known, was attributed to another man: in this case Josephus, a mythical author whose work is supposedly being translated here. Josephus is likely a made up person, who was used to lend the book more credibility and authority.
There is a lot here that is new and unlike anything else seen in Arthurian lore up to this point, the early 13th century. Instead of focusing more or less on a single hero, its pages are devoted to Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, and eventually Perlesvaus (Percival). Sometimes alone on their own adventures, sometimes together, sometimes two or three partnering up, sometimes asides with minor characters on their own quests. Perlesvaus is in fact a distant and unseen hero for much of the narrative. We hear of him and his deeds, but never see him directly until much later. Because of this he is shrouded in a sense of folkloric mystery. Most of this epic deals in mystery and symbolism of the esoteric and mystical sort, even more pronounced than it was in the original Percival tale.
The book first follows Arthur, then Gawain, then Lancelot on their separate but briefly overlapping adventures. These are, as far as I can tell, almost entirely new, unique adventures never seen before in Arthurian literature. They travel with a purpose in mind, through vast woods and epic forests and wastelands and meet many hermits, rest at chapels and castles and encounter bloodthirsty knights and tempting maidens, dragons and giants and mysterious scenes and perils. We are given little back story at first. We understand that Perlesvaus has already been to the grail castle and neglected to ask the questions required of him, thus sending the kingdoms into chaos. As a result, his relatives in their distant castles, and others, are besieged by lords from around the realm, primarily the King of Castle Mortal, brother of the Fisher King, hence, Perlesvaus’s uncle. This king wants the grail and bleeding lance.
First is Arthur’s quest from Cardueil, where he resides in his kingdom, to the chapel of St. Augustine to reclaim his honor after declining into “baseness” and no adventure. All his hundreds of knights but 25 have left his court. Much like Erec, he must find fame again. The events leading up to and at the chapel resemble something out of Holy Mountain, but 700 years earlier. Surreal and mysterious and mystical. I’m already overusing these words because they best describe so much of this incredible story. I will try my best to avoid repeating myself, but it’s hard.
A squire’s strange dream results in his death after he awakens, having stolen a candlestick in the dream from a tomb, which he has in his possession upon awakening, and giving to Arthur. Arthur, at the chapel, watches a woman and her boy undergo a ritual with the hermit, and the boy seems to transform into Jesus briefly before turning back into the boy, and this scene is filled with such holiness Arthur is unable to enter the chapel until they leave. These kinds of marvels occur throughout the story, and their significance is always made clear sometime later by a bright hermit or maiden or the unfolding of events.
I won’t do justice to all the marvels and strangeness and fantastical weirdness that is this mighty book. I have to share a few samples, though, because I want to attempt to convey its glories. It is better in this case to show than to tell. I’m merely giving stripped down husks of the real deal here.
Three maidens come to Arthur’s court, bearing the heads of a king and a queen and a cart full of over 150 other heads, the heads of knights, some sealed in gold, others in silver, others in lead. These maidens give the quest of the grail to Gawain, explaining what has come about from Perlesvaus not asking the questions. They escort him part of the way through the woods, before finally separating and remarking on his failure to ask about one of the maidens, the one traveling on foot with her arm in a sling. They hope he will be less negligent at the castle of the Fisher king. Another of the maidens is bald, which she says is a result of Perlesvaus not asking the questions at the Fisher King’s castle. her hair will not regrow until the good knight conquers the grail. We see certain themes materializing here, which will be important later.
They come past a castle of the Black Hermit, and knights ride out to them and take all the heads back into the castle. The maidens say those inside the castle crying out are awaiting the Good Knight to come and free them all. This knight is Perlesvaus.
Gawain seeks the castle of the Fisher King to set right the terrors that have befallen the land due to Perlesvaus not asking the questions. He later goes to Kamaalot, the castle of the Widowed Lady, mother of Perlesvaus. This land once belonged to Alain le Gros, beset by Lord of the Fens for vengeance against Perlesvaus for killing the Red Knight. We later learn this is not the same Kamaalot (or Camelot) that we hear of in the usual legends of King Arthur, this is a remote one at the Western edge of Wales, by an isle, not Arthur’s in the kingdom of Logres.
Throughout the story our main heroes encounter many hermits in the woods, each of whom serves as a sort of localized lore-teller, who informs the adventurer of what is going on in the area, tells some recent important events, provides useful items or advice, or gives an impression of the significance of the enveloping quest the hero is about to embark on.
Gawain meets many an interesting character on his dreamlike quest: Marin the Jealous, who murders his wife out of misplaced jealous rage for a lie told by a dwarf. Gawain is fortunately able to trample the dwarf to death under his horse after the failed joust in which Marin kills his wife.
He meets the Coward knight who rides backwards and fears any combat when he is first encountered. By the end of the story he has undergone a radical arch thanks to Perlesvaus, to become the Bold Knight, performing heroic battle against Alistor, a king who kidnaps Perlesvaus’s sister, intending to marry her and, as his tradition demands, decapitate her after one year of marriage.
Gawain meets the Motley Knight who seeks justice for Marin the Jealous. Gawain defeats him easily, then meets another knight mortally wounded by Marin, for taking his wife to be buried. He comes to the Proud castle of the Haughty Maiden, who has a murderous obsession with Gawain, Lancelot, and Perlesvaus: a richly adorned chapel with four tombs — one for her, and one for each of these knights. She does not know who she is talking to, and explains her desire to cut the heads off each of these knights, who she claims to be in love with, and to place them in their tombs, and herself in hers.
These are but a few of the folks met by Gawain, and Lancelot and Perlesvaus meet easily as many or more. Gawain encounters many small adventures and jousts and peculiar people who give him shreds of information, or remark on the Good Knight Perlesvaus and his mistake. Eventually Gawain finds the castle that leads to the land of the Fisher King. But he can’t pass through until he brings the guarding monks the sword that was used to behead Saint John, and so his quest takes him into other distant lands, to the lands of King Gurgaran.
This sword is of such legendary fame that many who Gawain crosses paths with wish to see it if he can acquire it. He’s given a stronger and healthier horse by a townsman who asks that he can see it, and the King of the Watch allows Gawain to pass through his lands without being kept captive for a year, as is custom, once he learns what he seeks.
Once there, he finds King Gurgaran’s son has been kidnapped by a giant. The sword is mesmerizing, and bleeds at noon each day, the time at which it decapitated St. John. Gawain defeats the giant but not before the boy is strangled. He recovers the giant’s head and the boy’s body. The king boils his son in a giant brass vessel and feeds him to his people. He then gives Gawain the sword, is baptized and says that all who do not believe in God are to be decapitated by Gawain. Here begins the crusading motif we will see come into maturity with Perlesvaus later.
Our hero returns to those who wished to see the sword, and it is stolen by each but he manages to recover it each time and goes back to the caste leading to the land of the fisher king. It is called the castle of enquiry and here Gawain is able to rest and reflect on all the oddities he has encountered. Here he learns the meaning of the heads carried by the maidens at Arthur’s court: the king and queen are Adam and Eve, heads in gold signify the New Law of Christianity, heads in silver the Jews, heads in lead the false law of the Saracens. The castle of the Black Hermit signifies hell where all good people went after death thanks to Eve, and the black hermit signifies Lucifer, and the Good Knight god, who will set them free. Hears mysteries of the maidens and their cart and the symbolism explained. He learns too the significance of the wife murdered by Marin the Jealous, and the coward knight riding backwards in his armor, and other mysteries he has encountered on his travels.
Lancelot’s first adventure is at the Castle of Beards, where knights take by force the beards of passersby. Lancelot defeats them. He comes across a ruined town and meets a knight who asks Lancelot to decapitated him, or let him decapitated Lancelot. Lancelot is confused and is then asked to swear he will return to this city in one year to offer his own head in the same circumstances. He decapitates the man who says he has readied himself for death and is free of his sins.
We follow Lancelot for a while, then Perlesvaus finally arises from his wounded slumber and seeks adventure, battling Lancelot right away. And then the young son of the Red Knight seeks Perlesvaus for his vengeance. This is Clamadoz of the Shadows. Many knights converge for battle as a result of various disputes and righting wrongs. Clamadoz kills a lion belonging to a knight guarding the passage to the Lady of the Pavilions.
At one point Perlesvaus defeats the Lord of the Fens and his knights, who are besieging his mother the Widowed Lady in her only remaining castle, after having taken all the Vales of Kamaalot from her. He has a vat brought to the center of the town and the knights decapitated over it and bled into it. Their bodies and heads are cast aside and the lord of the Fens is hung by the feet over the vat of blood and dipped into it to drown in the blood of his knights. I know what you’re thinking — Perlesvaus’s mother is still alive? That’s right. In this telling, she doesn’t die of a broken heart at her son’s departure into the world of knighthood. Instead, she lives in misery, besieged by relatives and mad warlords.
The story takes all four main heroes throughout many lands, deep forests, wastelands, grim castles, dangerous mountainous passes, peaceful meadows. Their quests are more spellbinding than I can relate. This single book embodies just about everything that Arthurian myths have come to be associated with. Perlesvaus achieves grand fame by defeating the Knight of the Dragon, who is laying waste to Arthur’s lands and knights. He becomes the Knight of the Circle of Gold.
There is an allusion to the red and white dragons from the legends of Vortigern’s tower, in the form of red and white lions guarding the Grail Castle now that the Fisher King has died and his lands have been taken over by the King of Castle Mortal. Their symbolism may be different, more in line with the religious crusading themes the book picks up about halfway through. Perlesvaus is able to read the thoughts of the white lion, who comes to his aid and telepathically guides him through the right actions to conquer the knights guarding the nine bridges to the castle, advising him when to sit upon the mule he was given by one of his hermit uncles in order to gain the favor of God’s power. The lion convinces him not to spare the final knights, for he senses their treachery, and Perlesvaus allows the lion to tear them to pieces and throw them into the rivers below, where the rest of their slain companions have fallen.
All sorts of major and minor adventures and bizarre happenings occur in this book. Some are rich in symbolism, not imagined symbolism or invented symbolism by later generations of literary critics, but symbolism the author intends and explains, and imbues with power and obscurity and mystique.
There are so many wonderfully weird and mystifying scenes and elements in this story that it is pointless to try to do more than a handful of them justice in summary. By a stroke of genius, the author is able to connect these strange threads together over long stretches of time so that they impact the story in a coherent way, affecting outcomes and arising from earlier events or encounters.
It’s a complex tapestry of lore and symbolism and dreamlike surrealism. What’s more, every single quest, no matter its place in the story or its brevity sets off a ripple of consequences that are only realized later in the story. The clever way these adventures play off one another and become intertwined and involved to reveal surprising outcomes is consistently satisfying and impressive. What may seem like tiny and inconsequential little events end up just as important as the big and epic events. Nothing here stands alone or is a one-off — everything is connected and part of a seemingly infinite epic.
Frequently we meet knights and maidens who are seeking revenge against one of the heroes for a deed they did earlier in the tale, sometimes either directly or indirectly resulting in the death of another. No thread or mystery goes unresolved or forgotten, and the way they are often resolved is unexpected but gratifying — like the Bold Knight, formerly the Cowardly Knight, being involved in the resolution to a problem that never involved him. Other times tragedy overwhelms, and the grim violence of the age reigns supreme.
In one example, a wounded knight meets Perlesvaus shortly after a battle, and his horse is wounded. Perlesvaus tells him to go see a hermit and take one of the horses Perlesvaus has just given him. The knight does so and while riding the new horse, is mistaken for the one who has killed the horse’s owner, a cruel knight Perlesvaus had earlier decapitated. The man who sees this rushes at the wounded knight and pierces him through the chest, killing him instantly and leaving him and horse behind. Perlesvaus is unaware of this tragedy. The plotting and action is orchestrated brilliantly. It doesn’t end here — the consequences of this event pick up later.
The main heroes’ origins are briefly touched upon. At one point they come to Tintagel where Arthur was conceived, and they learn together of Uther Pendragon’s deception of its lord by the powers of Merlin, leading to Arthur’s conception. Arthur is ashamed that his knights hear this story. Arthur and Gawain later come upon the ruins of a castle where Gawain was born, and hear the story, which Gawain is also ashamed of. Lancelot’s love for Guinevere is here just as it is in his original tale, and this love drives him on with unflinching courage.
Despite many of the events of this book being so different from what we’ve seen in the other tales up to this point, the lore and history all seem to be about the same. Perlesvaus’s history is more inspired by Robert de Boron’s version than Chrétien’s, with Perlesvaus’s family being descended from Joseph, but even this is not strictly followed.
Perlesvaus transforms into a crusader, converting heathens to the New Law, and slaying all those who do not adopt. It is an interesting arch to witness, as this hero of the land becomes a murderous bringer of the new faith. There are a handful of other spectacular transformations I have no space or time to get into. The book is peerless and unique and enslaving. Next to Chrétien’s collection of Arthurian tales, Perlesvaus may be the singularly most Arthurian of the Arthurian books ever written, at least that I have read so far. It is a complete and comprehensive epic that fully encompasses almost all that had been conceived in this lore. If its dating is accurate, it also marks the first appearance of many themes and quests in the myths.
There is a lot here that is new and unlike anything else seen in Arthurian lore up to this point, the early 13th century. Instead of focusing more or less on a single hero, its pages are devoted to Arthur, Lancelot, Gawain, and eventually Perlesvaus (Percival). Sometimes alone on their own adventures, sometimes together, sometimes two or three partnering up, sometimes asides with minor characters on their own quests. Perlesvaus is in fact a distant and unseen hero for much of the narrative. We hear of him and his deeds, but never see him directly until much later. Because of this he is shrouded in a sense of folkloric mystery. Most of this epic deals in mystery and symbolism of the esoteric and mystical sort, even more pronounced than it was in the original Percival tale.
The book first follows Arthur, then Gawain, then Lancelot on their separate but briefly overlapping adventures. These are, as far as I can tell, almost entirely new, unique adventures never seen before in Arthurian literature. They travel with a purpose in mind, through vast woods and epic forests and wastelands and meet many hermits, rest at chapels and castles and encounter bloodthirsty knights and tempting maidens, dragons and giants and mysterious scenes and perils. We are given little back story at first. We understand that Perlesvaus has already been to the grail castle and neglected to ask the questions required of him, thus sending the kingdoms into chaos. As a result, his relatives in their distant castles, and others, are besieged by lords from around the realm, primarily the King of Castle Mortal, brother of the Fisher King, hence, Perlesvaus’s uncle. This king wants the grail and bleeding lance.
First is Arthur’s quest from Cardueil, where he resides in his kingdom, to the chapel of St. Augustine to reclaim his honor after declining into “baseness” and no adventure. All his hundreds of knights but 25 have left his court. Much like Erec, he must find fame again. The events leading up to and at the chapel resemble something out of Holy Mountain, but 700 years earlier. Surreal and mysterious and mystical. I’m already overusing these words because they best describe so much of this incredible story. I will try my best to avoid repeating myself, but it’s hard.
A squire’s strange dream results in his death after he awakens, having stolen a candlestick in the dream from a tomb, which he has in his possession upon awakening, and giving to Arthur. Arthur, at the chapel, watches a woman and her boy undergo a ritual with the hermit, and the boy seems to transform into Jesus briefly before turning back into the boy, and this scene is filled with such holiness Arthur is unable to enter the chapel until they leave. These kinds of marvels occur throughout the story, and their significance is always made clear sometime later by a bright hermit or maiden or the unfolding of events.
I won’t do justice to all the marvels and strangeness and fantastical weirdness that is this mighty book. I have to share a few samples, though, because I want to attempt to convey its glories. It is better in this case to show than to tell. I’m merely giving stripped down husks of the real deal here.
Three maidens come to Arthur’s court, bearing the heads of a king and a queen and a cart full of over 150 other heads, the heads of knights, some sealed in gold, others in silver, others in lead. These maidens give the quest of the grail to Gawain, explaining what has come about from Perlesvaus not asking the questions. They escort him part of the way through the woods, before finally separating and remarking on his failure to ask about one of the maidens, the one traveling on foot with her arm in a sling. They hope he will be less negligent at the castle of the Fisher king. Another of the maidens is bald, which she says is a result of Perlesvaus not asking the questions at the Fisher King’s castle. her hair will not regrow until the good knight conquers the grail. We see certain themes materializing here, which will be important later.
They come past a castle of the Black Hermit, and knights ride out to them and take all the heads back into the castle. The maidens say those inside the castle crying out are awaiting the Good Knight to come and free them all. This knight is Perlesvaus.
Gawain seeks the castle of the Fisher King to set right the terrors that have befallen the land due to Perlesvaus not asking the questions. He later goes to Kamaalot, the castle of the Widowed Lady, mother of Perlesvaus. This land once belonged to Alain le Gros, beset by Lord of the Fens for vengeance against Perlesvaus for killing the Red Knight. We later learn this is not the same Kamaalot (or Camelot) that we hear of in the usual legends of King Arthur, this is a remote one at the Western edge of Wales, by an isle, not Arthur’s in the kingdom of Logres.
Throughout the story our main heroes encounter many hermits in the woods, each of whom serves as a sort of localized lore-teller, who informs the adventurer of what is going on in the area, tells some recent important events, provides useful items or advice, or gives an impression of the significance of the enveloping quest the hero is about to embark on.
Gawain meets many an interesting character on his dreamlike quest: Marin the Jealous, who murders his wife out of misplaced jealous rage for a lie told by a dwarf. Gawain is fortunately able to trample the dwarf to death under his horse after the failed joust in which Marin kills his wife.
He meets the Coward knight who rides backwards and fears any combat when he is first encountered. By the end of the story he has undergone a radical arch thanks to Perlesvaus, to become the Bold Knight, performing heroic battle against Alistor, a king who kidnaps Perlesvaus’s sister, intending to marry her and, as his tradition demands, decapitate her after one year of marriage.
Gawain meets the Motley Knight who seeks justice for Marin the Jealous. Gawain defeats him easily, then meets another knight mortally wounded by Marin, for taking his wife to be buried. He comes to the Proud castle of the Haughty Maiden, who has a murderous obsession with Gawain, Lancelot, and Perlesvaus: a richly adorned chapel with four tombs — one for her, and one for each of these knights. She does not know who she is talking to, and explains her desire to cut the heads off each of these knights, who she claims to be in love with, and to place them in their tombs, and herself in hers.
These are but a few of the folks met by Gawain, and Lancelot and Perlesvaus meet easily as many or more. Gawain encounters many small adventures and jousts and peculiar people who give him shreds of information, or remark on the Good Knight Perlesvaus and his mistake. Eventually Gawain finds the castle that leads to the land of the Fisher King. But he can’t pass through until he brings the guarding monks the sword that was used to behead Saint John, and so his quest takes him into other distant lands, to the lands of King Gurgaran.
This sword is of such legendary fame that many who Gawain crosses paths with wish to see it if he can acquire it. He’s given a stronger and healthier horse by a townsman who asks that he can see it, and the King of the Watch allows Gawain to pass through his lands without being kept captive for a year, as is custom, once he learns what he seeks.
Once there, he finds King Gurgaran’s son has been kidnapped by a giant. The sword is mesmerizing, and bleeds at noon each day, the time at which it decapitated St. John. Gawain defeats the giant but not before the boy is strangled. He recovers the giant’s head and the boy’s body. The king boils his son in a giant brass vessel and feeds him to his people. He then gives Gawain the sword, is baptized and says that all who do not believe in God are to be decapitated by Gawain. Here begins the crusading motif we will see come into maturity with Perlesvaus later.
Our hero returns to those who wished to see the sword, and it is stolen by each but he manages to recover it each time and goes back to the caste leading to the land of the fisher king. It is called the castle of enquiry and here Gawain is able to rest and reflect on all the oddities he has encountered. Here he learns the meaning of the heads carried by the maidens at Arthur’s court: the king and queen are Adam and Eve, heads in gold signify the New Law of Christianity, heads in silver the Jews, heads in lead the false law of the Saracens. The castle of the Black Hermit signifies hell where all good people went after death thanks to Eve, and the black hermit signifies Lucifer, and the Good Knight god, who will set them free. Hears mysteries of the maidens and their cart and the symbolism explained. He learns too the significance of the wife murdered by Marin the Jealous, and the coward knight riding backwards in his armor, and other mysteries he has encountered on his travels.
Lancelot’s first adventure is at the Castle of Beards, where knights take by force the beards of passersby. Lancelot defeats them. He comes across a ruined town and meets a knight who asks Lancelot to decapitated him, or let him decapitated Lancelot. Lancelot is confused and is then asked to swear he will return to this city in one year to offer his own head in the same circumstances. He decapitates the man who says he has readied himself for death and is free of his sins.
We follow Lancelot for a while, then Perlesvaus finally arises from his wounded slumber and seeks adventure, battling Lancelot right away. And then the young son of the Red Knight seeks Perlesvaus for his vengeance. This is Clamadoz of the Shadows. Many knights converge for battle as a result of various disputes and righting wrongs. Clamadoz kills a lion belonging to a knight guarding the passage to the Lady of the Pavilions.
At one point Perlesvaus defeats the Lord of the Fens and his knights, who are besieging his mother the Widowed Lady in her only remaining castle, after having taken all the Vales of Kamaalot from her. He has a vat brought to the center of the town and the knights decapitated over it and bled into it. Their bodies and heads are cast aside and the lord of the Fens is hung by the feet over the vat of blood and dipped into it to drown in the blood of his knights. I know what you’re thinking — Perlesvaus’s mother is still alive? That’s right. In this telling, she doesn’t die of a broken heart at her son’s departure into the world of knighthood. Instead, she lives in misery, besieged by relatives and mad warlords.
The story takes all four main heroes throughout many lands, deep forests, wastelands, grim castles, dangerous mountainous passes, peaceful meadows. Their quests are more spellbinding than I can relate. This single book embodies just about everything that Arthurian myths have come to be associated with. Perlesvaus achieves grand fame by defeating the Knight of the Dragon, who is laying waste to Arthur’s lands and knights. He becomes the Knight of the Circle of Gold.
There is an allusion to the red and white dragons from the legends of Vortigern’s tower, in the form of red and white lions guarding the Grail Castle now that the Fisher King has died and his lands have been taken over by the King of Castle Mortal. Their symbolism may be different, more in line with the religious crusading themes the book picks up about halfway through. Perlesvaus is able to read the thoughts of the white lion, who comes to his aid and telepathically guides him through the right actions to conquer the knights guarding the nine bridges to the castle, advising him when to sit upon the mule he was given by one of his hermit uncles in order to gain the favor of God’s power. The lion convinces him not to spare the final knights, for he senses their treachery, and Perlesvaus allows the lion to tear them to pieces and throw them into the rivers below, where the rest of their slain companions have fallen.
All sorts of major and minor adventures and bizarre happenings occur in this book. Some are rich in symbolism, not imagined symbolism or invented symbolism by later generations of literary critics, but symbolism the author intends and explains, and imbues with power and obscurity and mystique.
There are so many wonderfully weird and mystifying scenes and elements in this story that it is pointless to try to do more than a handful of them justice in summary. By a stroke of genius, the author is able to connect these strange threads together over long stretches of time so that they impact the story in a coherent way, affecting outcomes and arising from earlier events or encounters.
It’s a complex tapestry of lore and symbolism and dreamlike surrealism. What’s more, every single quest, no matter its place in the story or its brevity sets off a ripple of consequences that are only realized later in the story. The clever way these adventures play off one another and become intertwined and involved to reveal surprising outcomes is consistently satisfying and impressive. What may seem like tiny and inconsequential little events end up just as important as the big and epic events. Nothing here stands alone or is a one-off — everything is connected and part of a seemingly infinite epic.
Frequently we meet knights and maidens who are seeking revenge against one of the heroes for a deed they did earlier in the tale, sometimes either directly or indirectly resulting in the death of another. No thread or mystery goes unresolved or forgotten, and the way they are often resolved is unexpected but gratifying — like the Bold Knight, formerly the Cowardly Knight, being involved in the resolution to a problem that never involved him. Other times tragedy overwhelms, and the grim violence of the age reigns supreme.
In one example, a wounded knight meets Perlesvaus shortly after a battle, and his horse is wounded. Perlesvaus tells him to go see a hermit and take one of the horses Perlesvaus has just given him. The knight does so and while riding the new horse, is mistaken for the one who has killed the horse’s owner, a cruel knight Perlesvaus had earlier decapitated. The man who sees this rushes at the wounded knight and pierces him through the chest, killing him instantly and leaving him and horse behind. Perlesvaus is unaware of this tragedy. The plotting and action is orchestrated brilliantly. It doesn’t end here — the consequences of this event pick up later.
The main heroes’ origins are briefly touched upon. At one point they come to Tintagel where Arthur was conceived, and they learn together of Uther Pendragon’s deception of its lord by the powers of Merlin, leading to Arthur’s conception. Arthur is ashamed that his knights hear this story. Arthur and Gawain later come upon the ruins of a castle where Gawain was born, and hear the story, which Gawain is also ashamed of. Lancelot’s love for Guinevere is here just as it is in his original tale, and this love drives him on with unflinching courage.
Despite many of the events of this book being so different from what we’ve seen in the other tales up to this point, the lore and history all seem to be about the same. Perlesvaus’s history is more inspired by Robert de Boron’s version than Chrétien’s, with Perlesvaus’s family being descended from Joseph, but even this is not strictly followed.
Perlesvaus transforms into a crusader, converting heathens to the New Law, and slaying all those who do not adopt. It is an interesting arch to witness, as this hero of the land becomes a murderous bringer of the new faith. There are a handful of other spectacular transformations I have no space or time to get into. The book is peerless and unique and enslaving. Next to Chrétien’s collection of Arthurian tales, Perlesvaus may be the singularly most Arthurian of the Arthurian books ever written, at least that I have read so far. It is a complete and comprehensive epic that fully encompasses almost all that had been conceived in this lore. If its dating is accurate, it also marks the first appearance of many themes and quests in the myths.
December 4, 2021
The impression I get from this, and from the Song of Roland for that matter, is that it’s not so much high culture/literature as a very old comic-book with no pictures. It would be very easy for someone with a modicum of talent to divide the thing up into episodes and frames – it’s halfway there anyway with the branches and divisions – and churn out a graphic novel.
That makes it, in spite of its age and linguistic peculiarities, a relatively easy (and astonishing fun) thing to read, not least because it is, from a twenty-first century point of view, barking mad. Navigationally challenged knights play bad-guy whack-a-mole in a context of damsels, hermits and escalating blood feuds, whilst riding through what must be the most densely-populated forest in history; you can’t go ten feet in any direction without tripping over a chapel, a castle or a hermitage, generally housing someone’s friend or distressed relative (everyone is related to somebody else), or at the very least a king. There are a huge number of severed heads about the place, often toted by damsels for no obvious reason.
Oh yes, it’s fun.
It also, as all good serials must, slightly outstays its welcome.
As for the language, I should warn you that the Victorian translator tried to preserve the character of the original, so wroteth him in ye olde speke with disconcerting switches between past and present tense. It’s absolutely fine, but you may need a few moments to get your eye in.
Definitely something you can read for fun whilst looking erudite.
That makes it, in spite of its age and linguistic peculiarities, a relatively easy (and astonishing fun) thing to read, not least because it is, from a twenty-first century point of view, barking mad. Navigationally challenged knights play bad-guy whack-a-mole in a context of damsels, hermits and escalating blood feuds, whilst riding through what must be the most densely-populated forest in history; you can’t go ten feet in any direction without tripping over a chapel, a castle or a hermitage, generally housing someone’s friend or distressed relative (everyone is related to somebody else), or at the very least a king. There are a huge number of severed heads about the place, often toted by damsels for no obvious reason.
Oh yes, it’s fun.
It also, as all good serials must, slightly outstays its welcome.
As for the language, I should warn you that the Victorian translator tried to preserve the character of the original, so wroteth him in ye olde speke with disconcerting switches between past and present tense. It’s absolutely fine, but you may need a few moments to get your eye in.
Definitely something you can read for fun whilst looking erudite.
January 13, 2011
Maybe it deserves higher, since it's a bit more together iin its telling than most medieval tales. One of the very first of the grail/Arthurian legends, it comes down as an English translation of a 13th century French work that claims in turn to come from the Latin. The story line interweaves exploits of Percival, Lancelot and Gawain as they move endlessly through a landscape of forests and castles, righting wrongs done to exceedingly fair damsels (think Nicole Kidman seated under every third tree).
As they progress, they continually trip over their relatives--indeed everyone seems to be everyone else's cousin or uncle. The forests also seem to be infested with menial dwarfs who pop up without explanation and are usually unpleasant. Hermits and chapels also lurk along every trail. Each individual exploit is interesting in itself, but taken together they are groaningly repetitious. The good guys nearly always run their spears through the enemy, knocking both rider and horse "into a heap." The damsels are always pissed at somebody, often the good guy.
Odd takes that we might not think of today: The knights were so done up inside their armor that they could be recognized only by the emblem on their shield. Thus, for a time everyone's looking for Percival but they all pass him by because he's using someone else's shield. Then there's the one knight who removes his armor and stops to be cleansed because he is "besmutted with rust." An interesting occupational annoyance.
Arthur starts out in a rundown condition, the round table largely deserted and he being labeled "the worst king in the world." He picks up later but except for a handful of episodes seems neither very bright nor very successful.
Nice to see that even the best of heroes tends to get scared and try to weasel out the back way--except when asked by a damsel to do something dangerous and ludicrous, in which case he is bound to follow her request.
As they progress, they continually trip over their relatives--indeed everyone seems to be everyone else's cousin or uncle. The forests also seem to be infested with menial dwarfs who pop up without explanation and are usually unpleasant. Hermits and chapels also lurk along every trail. Each individual exploit is interesting in itself, but taken together they are groaningly repetitious. The good guys nearly always run their spears through the enemy, knocking both rider and horse "into a heap." The damsels are always pissed at somebody, often the good guy.
Odd takes that we might not think of today: The knights were so done up inside their armor that they could be recognized only by the emblem on their shield. Thus, for a time everyone's looking for Percival but they all pass him by because he's using someone else's shield. Then there's the one knight who removes his armor and stops to be cleansed because he is "besmutted with rust." An interesting occupational annoyance.
Arthur starts out in a rundown condition, the round table largely deserted and he being labeled "the worst king in the world." He picks up later but except for a handful of episodes seems neither very bright nor very successful.
Nice to see that even the best of heroes tends to get scared and try to weasel out the back way--except when asked by a damsel to do something dangerous and ludicrous, in which case he is bound to follow her request.
April 9, 2021
J'ai bien aimé le côté fou de ce livre où couper des têtes et massacrer les ennemis en passant par des scénarios dignes de film d'horreur devient une habitude, voire une obsession. En revanche, le roman est très long et assez répétitif. Une fois la surprise passée, l'intérêt finit par s'émousser et il y a peu de scènes merveilleuses pour contrebalancer la répétition à l'identique des scènes de combat.
April 22, 2018
Une bonne édition bilingue du Perlesvaus, une de mes oeuvres arthuriennes préférées de par sa violence baroque et sa religiosité fanatique, ainsi que sa gestion de la tension narrative, son découpage en branches qui fournit une alternative aux cycles du graal concurrents.
October 1, 2023
What we have here is the earliest book where it isn’t just A grail, which wouldn’t be very interesting as everyone already has one, you see? But the actual Holy Grail. There are also other elements which will be picked up and reused in later romances – assuming that an early date for this book is correct.
It’s essentially episodic, but rather than each episode simply exemplifying the theme as you’d expect, it quickly becomes apparent that the characters from each episode are recurring and also appear in the narratives of the other several main characters. I’d hesitate to call these plots, but it’s more sophisticated than I’ve come to expect from this sort of thing.
It’s rather funny at times and the translator also has a sense of humour. Given all the possibilities of rendering something into English he at several points choose exact quotations from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
There’s a wonderful dream-like quality to the story. This is hardly a genre known for its realism, but this is unreality raised to a high art. At the start Arthur’s squire has a dream the events of which obtrude into reality. I think the entire book takes place inside this dream world. It’s beautifully done.
Those four stars are for the first two thirds of the book. I didn’t want to undersell it, but it does have a couple of faults.
The first of these is structural. Perceval achieves the Grail two thirds of the way through (spoilers oh too late). I rather got the impression that the author had written the book he wanted to write and had then come back by popular demand and the muse was no longer with him. First there’s a narrative dealing with the court politics of Camelot. This isn’t actually bad but the tone is very different. It would be less noticeable if its episodes had been interwoven into the earlier part of the book. What’s interesting though is seeing Arthur as an actual character (as much as you get characters in romances) rather than just being a static figurehead.
The second problem is the religious bigotry. You might say that you can hardly have a Grail story without a bit of anti-Semitism, but Wolfram von Eschenbach managed without it, and he’s a German. This bigotry first appears when Perceval achieves the Grail, which appears to turn him into a mass murderer and the body count rises swiftly thereafter. There is an earlier translation and one bloodthirsty passage in particular reminded me of the scene in Python where Lancelot quite unreasonably kills all the wedding guests. I wonder if it was exactly this book that they are satirizing there. There’s a failure of vision here on the part of the author, made all the more glaring when compared to the beautiful passage earlier when Gawain sights the Grail but screws it up.
Overall, still worth a read though.
It’s essentially episodic, but rather than each episode simply exemplifying the theme as you’d expect, it quickly becomes apparent that the characters from each episode are recurring and also appear in the narratives of the other several main characters. I’d hesitate to call these plots, but it’s more sophisticated than I’ve come to expect from this sort of thing.
It’s rather funny at times and the translator also has a sense of humour. Given all the possibilities of rendering something into English he at several points choose exact quotations from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
There’s a wonderful dream-like quality to the story. This is hardly a genre known for its realism, but this is unreality raised to a high art. At the start Arthur’s squire has a dream the events of which obtrude into reality. I think the entire book takes place inside this dream world. It’s beautifully done.
Those four stars are for the first two thirds of the book. I didn’t want to undersell it, but it does have a couple of faults.
The first of these is structural. Perceval achieves the Grail two thirds of the way through (spoilers oh too late). I rather got the impression that the author had written the book he wanted to write and had then come back by popular demand and the muse was no longer with him. First there’s a narrative dealing with the court politics of Camelot. This isn’t actually bad but the tone is very different. It would be less noticeable if its episodes had been interwoven into the earlier part of the book. What’s interesting though is seeing Arthur as an actual character (as much as you get characters in romances) rather than just being a static figurehead.
The second problem is the religious bigotry. You might say that you can hardly have a Grail story without a bit of anti-Semitism, but Wolfram von Eschenbach managed without it, and he’s a German. This bigotry first appears when Perceval achieves the Grail, which appears to turn him into a mass murderer and the body count rises swiftly thereafter. There is an earlier translation and one bloodthirsty passage in particular reminded me of the scene in Python where Lancelot quite unreasonably kills all the wedding guests. I wonder if it was exactly this book that they are satirizing there. There’s a failure of vision here on the part of the author, made all the more glaring when compared to the beautiful passage earlier when Gawain sights the Grail but screws it up.
Overall, still worth a read though.
December 27, 2021
One of the first if not the first of the King Arthur narratives. This is long and repetitious with the same plot roughly repeated over and over. The early modern English is difficult for those who are not used to reading it. This is more of a book for Scholars or researchers and that is what brought me to this book. I know that some ancient legends are recorded in here which makes them very early historically. This includes the pursuit of the Holy Grail, the legend that Joseph of Arimathea had gathered Christ blood at the cross I carried it with him to England oh, and that he established a monastery there after the death of Jesus.
March 30, 2023
Written in the original language, so with words like sayeth, sendeth etc, but still able to be understood.
September 12, 2024
"Esta alta y provechosa historia da testimonio de que el hijo de la Dama Viuda aún estaba con el rey Pelles en la ermita y por el infortunio del mal que sufrió desde que salió de la casa del Rey Pescador, se confesó a su tío, le dijo de qué linaje procedía y que se llamaba Perlesvaus. Pero el buen ermitaño, el buen rey, le dio el nombre de Par-lui-fet, pues se había hecho a sí mismo. Un día, el Rey Ermitaño salió a trabajar al bosque y el buen caballero Perlesvaus se sintió más alegre y con más fuerzas que de costumbre. Oyó cantar a los pájaros en el bosque y el corazón se le comenzó a encender de caballería y se acordó de las aventuras que solía encontrar en los bosques, de las doncellas y de los caballeros que solía ver, y nunca antes se había sentido tan deseoso de armas como lo estuvo entonces, pues había estado retirado de todo aquello mucho tiempo. Sintió el vigor en su corazón, la fuerza en sus miembros y la voluntad en su pensamiento. En esto, se arma, ensilla a su caballo y monta. Y ruega a Dios que le permita la aventura de encontrar a un buen caballero. Sale de la ermita de su tío y penetra en el bosque que era grande y oscuro".
December 12, 2022
The best telling of the world of Arthur I’ve yet read. By no means is it perfect: payoffs of stories often come too soon. But it does have a good large scale structure, interweaving the various knights as they crisscross the land. And a nice balance between the main demigod super-knight characters and the more human minor characters they interact with.
Anything about the grail quest is high level allegory, but there’s also a lot of simple adventure. Once or twice the action pauses to explain what this or that character symbolises, and once or twice someone asks what X means and is told it’s a mystery, it can’t be revealed to you yet, as if the symbols he’s conjuring up have got the better of even the author.
So I think we’re being told that it’s up to us, the readers, to emulate either Christian knights or Christian hermits, to fight, endure and suffer as Christ did, in one way or another, and live within the symbols, a part of the symbolic order. The whole Arthurian world, forests, castles, tournaments, is one great symbol with no exit or secular counterpart. Worship and understanding are practices.
Maybe there are echoes of Celtic cult practice intruding from time to time, but I don’t think they’re significant. This is an unusual and very distant world to us , but it’s Christian to its bones.
Who is the elusive head-chopping Percival and what is the Grail..? the good Christian merges with the Christ.
Anything about the grail quest is high level allegory, but there’s also a lot of simple adventure. Once or twice the action pauses to explain what this or that character symbolises, and once or twice someone asks what X means and is told it’s a mystery, it can’t be revealed to you yet, as if the symbols he’s conjuring up have got the better of even the author.
So I think we’re being told that it’s up to us, the readers, to emulate either Christian knights or Christian hermits, to fight, endure and suffer as Christ did, in one way or another, and live within the symbols, a part of the symbolic order. The whole Arthurian world, forests, castles, tournaments, is one great symbol with no exit or secular counterpart. Worship and understanding are practices.
Maybe there are echoes of Celtic cult practice intruding from time to time, but I don’t think they’re significant. This is an unusual and very distant world to us , but it’s Christian to its bones.
Who is the elusive head-chopping Percival and what is the Grail..? the good Christian merges with the Christ.
December 29, 2014
If you want to experience Arthurian literature as it was originally conceived in the 13th century and not how it evolved in the later medieval period (and beyond), then this is the book for you.
In terms of tone and plot, this is not like any Grail lore that is considered "mainstream": there is no Merlin; there is no Excalibur or Lady in the Lake; the point of the Round Table and knighthood is to uphold Arthur's rule and the New Law (i.e. the Christian faith); there is a forbidden romance between Lancelot and Guinevere but it does not resolve as the story is commonly presented; some stories present spiritual warfare in the literary sense, providing the tales with a rich Christian spirituality and supernatural fantasy -- to the point they feel like dreamscapes.
These stories were intended to be read by (medieval) Christendom with the idea to inspire folks of any station (and, especially the Christian knight) towards sincere and reverent piousness, within the context of faith and its fruit of good works.
I loved this collection more than Malory's popular collection (and I still like him too!), and it receives my highest commendation for readers looking for the oldest example of "Christian fiction".
In terms of tone and plot, this is not like any Grail lore that is considered "mainstream": there is no Merlin; there is no Excalibur or Lady in the Lake; the point of the Round Table and knighthood is to uphold Arthur's rule and the New Law (i.e. the Christian faith); there is a forbidden romance between Lancelot and Guinevere but it does not resolve as the story is commonly presented; some stories present spiritual warfare in the literary sense, providing the tales with a rich Christian spirituality and supernatural fantasy -- to the point they feel like dreamscapes.
These stories were intended to be read by (medieval) Christendom with the idea to inspire folks of any station (and, especially the Christian knight) towards sincere and reverent piousness, within the context of faith and its fruit of good works.
I loved this collection more than Malory's popular collection (and I still like him too!), and it receives my highest commendation for readers looking for the oldest example of "Christian fiction".
April 19, 2012
Este lo leí en la escuela hace una eternidad y me ha quedado claro que no tiene nada que ver en realidad con la leyenda Arturica. Es un texto que bien podría caber en la categoría de Fan Fiction pues desarrolla (si bien pobremente) algunas tangentes de las aventuras de los caballeros mas entrañables de la leyenda. De cualquier manera, es intrascendente en el ciclo y no encaja con el estilo ni el espíritu de la historia. No tengo la menor idea de porque Siruela lo ha publicado.
February 7, 2011
La única razón por la cual leí este libro fue porque necesitaba información sobre Percival y el Grial.
Es un gran libro, pero para grandes fanáticos. No es malo, simplemente no es para mí.
Es un gran libro, pero para grandes fanáticos. No es malo, simplemente no es para mí.
June 10, 2017
Extremely good translation, but really long. The stories are short and interconnected, well done Grail Romance stories. Worth reading.
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