IV THE CONTE DEL GRAAL.
§ A.--PRELIMINARY TO THE WHOLE SUBJECT
The elements of Robert de Borron's poem are those of the apocryphal gospel rather than of the romance, as we now understand that term. I do not wish to be construed too expressly, as I am simply creating a comparison or instituting a tolerable approximation. In the Conte del Graal of Chrétien de Troyes and the group of poets who continued what his zeal had begun, we enter into a different atmosphere from that of the two texts with which we have been concerned previously, and yet it has analogies therewith. As a whole, it is the sharpest possible contradistinction to the hypothetical non-Graal quest; but in its first part, being that which was furnished by Chrétien, it represents more especially the transition from the folk-tale to the true Graal romance, and it offers in itself a certain typical specimen of the developing process. There is therefore little which distinguishes especially and signally this branch from the old tale of Peredur, as we can conceive it in its original form; there is a great deal by which several parts of Manessier's conclusion are distinguished from both, and still more the alternative rendering of Gerbert. Between all of them and the Quest of Galahad it is understood, this notwithstanding, that the deep abyss intervenes. The elements of Chrétien's poem are perhaps the most natural born that it has entered into the heart to conceive. The narrative is beautiful, or perhaps I should say that it is charming, after the manner of Nature; it is like a morning in spring. It has something more than the touch of Nature which takes us at once into its kinship; it seems actually Nature speaking; and so much of the Graal Mystery as can be said to enter within its dimensions is that Mystery expressed in the terms of the outside world, though still
Conte del Graal, the Longer Prose Perceval and in more than one dubious text of the German cycle that he is represented as an intentional Graal quester. It is true that he proposes the experiment in the prose Galahad, but he takes none of the instituted precautions, and he abandons it easily and early. Those who imputed a certain righteousness to Nature allowed him some qualified success within the measure of their capacity, but it came about that the mystic mood intervened and, having found that Nature was of no effect, the Quest was transferred thenceforward into the world of mystery.
