ich prevented the mediaeval epics
ever turning into an Iliad or an Odyssey; this that it is essentially
idle and all about nothing. The feudal relations strongly marked in the
German Nibelungenlied have melted away like the distinctions of race:
every knight is independent, not a vassal nor a captain, a Volker or
Hagen, or Roland or Renaud followed by his men; but an isolated
individual, without even a squire, wandering about alone through this
hazy land of nowhere. Knight-errantry, in the time of the great Guelph
and Ghibelline struggles, every bit as ideal as that of Spenser or
Cervantes; and with the difference that Sir Calidore and Sir Artegal
have an appointed task, some Blatant Beast or other nuisance to
overcome; and that Don Quixote has the general rescuing of all the
oppressed Princesse Micomiconas, and the destruction of all windmills,
and the capturing of all helmets of Mambrino, and the establishing all
over the world of the worship of Dulcinea. But these knights of Wolfram
von Eschenbach have no more this mission than they have the
politico-military missions, missions of a Ruedger or a Roland. They are
all riding about at random, without any particular pagans, necromancers,
or dragons to pursue. The very service of the Holy Grail, which is the
main interest of the poem, consists in nothing apparently except living
virtuously at the Castle of Montselvaesche, and virtuously eating and
drinking the victuals provided miraculously. To be admitted to this
service, no initiation, no mission, nothing preliminary seems required.
Parzifal himself merely wanders about vaguely, without doing any
specified thing. The fact is that in this poem all has become purely
ideal; ideal to the point of utter vacuity: there is no connection with
any human business. Of all the heroes and heroines we hear that they are
perfectly chaste, truthful, upright; and they are never put into any
situation to test these qualities: they are never placed in the way of
temptation, never made to fight with evil, or to decide between it and
good. The very religion of the Holy Grail consists in doing nothing: not
a word about relieving the poor or oppressed, of tending the sick, of
delivering the Holy Sepulchre, of defending that great injured One,
Christ. To be Grail Knight or even Grail King means to be exactly the
same as before. Where in this vague dreamland of passive purity and
heroism, of untempted chastity and untried honour, where are the ea