64 pages • 2 hours read
Chrétien De TroyesPerceval, the Story of the Grail
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1181A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Lines 6519-9234Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Lines 6519-7370 Summary
Gawain proceeds on his journey but encounters reproaches and betrayals at every step, despite his good intentions. He first comes across a woman mourning a fallen knight—not dead, but grievously wounded. The knight warns him against going farther, saying that no one returns safely from beyond the boundaries of the next territory, which are guarded by a fierce knight. This does not deter Gawain, but he promises to return to tend to the wounded knight if he is able to do so.
Riding on, he encounters a beautiful young woman in a field, but she immediately accosts him upon his approach, taunting him and warning him against treating her with the presumption that knights so often take with maidens:
I’m no maid, silly and naïve
like those whom knights take pleasure bearing
upon their horses’ necks when faring
in search of deeds of chivalry!
You won’t go riding off with me! (6706-10).
Gawain is nonetheless bound by the chivalric rule that requires him to comply with a maiden’s requests, and she asks that he retrieve her palfrey, a riding-horse that was left staked some distance away. As he goes to untether the palfrey, Gawain is warned against doing so, both by a series of onlookers and a large knight, all of whom tell him that the young woman is an evil maiden and that terrible things will befall him if he brings her the horse. Gawain does so anyway, for which the young woman reviles and taunts him, swearing to ride alongside him and ensure that he is shamed wherever he goes.
He returns to the wounded knight and tends to the man’s wounds, successfully bringing him back to health. At this point, however, the wounded knight recognizes Gawain, whom he counts as an enemy. The knight, named Greoreas, was subjected to punishment by Gawain because the former had transgressed King Arthur’s laws regarding the protection of women within his realm. As soon as he is up, Greoreas steals Gawain’s horse and rides away, along with the woman who had been with him. Gawain is left with just a squire’s old nag, but he presses on, with the taunting rebukes of the so-called “evil maiden” on the palfrey following him.
They come across a mysterious castle lying beyond a wide river, and just as they are set to cross it, Greoreas’s nephew rides back on Gawain’s horse to challenge the knight to a duel. Gawain wins and gets his horse back, but when he turns to look for the maiden at the water’s edge, she has disappeared.
Lines 7371-8371 Summary
Gawain finds a ferryman on the banks of the river, who explains that the maiden has vanished away like part of the enchantment of the place, as she had many times before when leading unwary knights to their doom. Gawain crosses with the ferryman and lodges in his house, learning more about the castle and the opportunities and dangers it holds. Many knights have failed to return from it, because no knight with any vice can safely set foot within. Nonetheless, those in the castle await a wholly virtuous knight who could break the enchantment.
The castle is ruled by a set of matriarchs under a high queen, who have in their care many widows, unmarried young women, and untrained young men:
They wait for what will not occur:
for the arrival of a knight
who will protect them by his might
restore the ladies’ revenues
and after he has done so, choose
good husbands for the maids, and then
make knights out of the younger men
But no, the sea will turn to ice
before a knight without a vice
appears and stays alive in there (7584-93).
Gawain resolves (against the ferryman’s advice) to go to the castle, and inside the palace’s doors they find an opulent bed. Again the ferryman urges him not to go forward:
[I]t is the Wondrous Bed
on which no man may lay his head
nor sleep, nor take repose, nor sit
and rise alive and whole from it (7805-08).
Gawain insists on sitting on the bed. When he does so, the bed itself screams out, hundreds of arrows fly at Gawain, and then a lion attacks him, but he successfully survives all the assaults. Having thus disarmed the enchantment and proven himself to be the virtuous knight for whom they have waited, the castle’s inhabitants come out to welcome him.
The lavish greeting he receives soon sours, however, when he discovers that he is expected to remain in his new role without ever leaving. He insists that he must at least have a sense of freedom, or else he cannot remain. The high queen of the castle comes to speak to him and soften his mood, and she inquires after the health of King Arthur and the other members of the Arthurian family (Chrétien later indicates her to be Ygerne, the long-lost mother of King Arthur, thus also making her Gawain’s grandmother).
Later, while looking over the countryside from the castle windows, they see again the treacherous maiden who led Gawain there, now leading another knight toward the wide river. Gawain begs to go out and confront them, and the queen agrees, provided that Gawain pledges to return to the castle afterward.
Lines 8372-9234 Summary
The final section of the unfinished narrative relates Gawain’s adventures across the river and his return to the castle. Gawain proceeds across the river and confronts the approaching maiden and the knight, only to discover that the knight is in league with her—the very knight that the wounded man had warned him against just before his crossing into that country. This knight sees it as his duty to maintain his reputation for repelling all who cross the boundaries, so he proposes a duel with Gawain, which Gawain wins.
The maiden then tries to entice Gawain away from the castle and lead him into peril, which she does by daring him to undertake dangerous feats, including crossing a deadly ravine called the Perilous Ford. Gawain is able to make the crossing, though with some difficulty, and on the other side meets a new character, who introduces himself as the Guiromelant. This man, also a knight, offers answers that illuminate some of the mysteries that Gawain has experienced. He explains that the so-called “evil maiden” is acting out of hatred and revenge, reacting against the way he himself had wronged her many years ago, when he sought to win her love and killed her sweetheart in the process.
Gawain tells the Guiromelant about the enchanted castle at which he spent the previous night. The Guiromelant explains that the queen of the castle is the mother of King Arthur and King Lot (the latter being Gawain’s father), and that Lot’s wife is the daughter-queen of the castle, there along with her own daughter. Though Gawain has not even yet revealed his identity to the Guiromelant, he is staggered to learn that among the women he met at the castle were his own grandmother, mother, and sister. As the Guiromelant recounts these details, however, it quickly becomes apparent that he bears a grudge against the household, and particularly against its oldest remaining male head, Sir Gawain: “With my two hands I’d tear and wrest / his beating heart out of his chest; / I feel such hatred and disdain” (8769-71).
The root of this hatred goes back to old combats in which King Lot killed the Guiromelant’s father, and Gawain is one of the man’s cousins. When asked his name, Gawain acknowledges his identity, to the astonishment and fury of his interlocutor. The Guiromelant proposes that they have a duel, and they settle on a plan to invite King Arthur and his entire court to the area, there to witness the event. This decided, Gawain returns across the Perilous Ford and is met by a display of repentance from the maiden, who affirms the Guiromelant’s story and confesses that her behavior was driven by the pain of her past and her own inner self-torture. Thus reconciled with her, Gawain returns again to the castle and its queens, awaiting the arrival of King Arthur’s court in response to the messenger he sends.
Lines 6519-9234 Analysis
The parallel structure of Gawain’s adventures to Perceval’s earlier stories continues in this section, reinforcing The Significance of Questing for both knights. Gawain encounters an enchanted castle, just as Perceval did earlier. After each hero’s experience at the enchanted castle, he meets a new character who can explain some of the mystery to him—in Gawain’s case, the Guiromelant, and in Perceval’s, his cousin. The episode with Perceval’s cousin also has another parallel with Gawain’s adventures, in that both heroes encounter a young woman who is mourning a fallen knight: first Perceval’s cousin, and then Gawain’s encounter with Greoreas and his companion.
Further, it is instructive to note that when the mysteries of both enchanted castles are unveiled, each one is revealed to have hidden family connections to the hero in question. The Fisher King turns out to be related to Perceval’s family—his mother, the hermit, and the Fisher King’s father all being siblings—and the residents of Gawain’s enchanted castle turn out to be his own grandmother, mother, and sister. The interwoven parallel structures of Perceval’s and Gawain’s adventures might suggest that Chrétien’s poem was nearly at its end, since the three central castle-adventures from Perceval’s quests had been repeated in the three castle-adventures of Gawain, and all that remained to complete the pattern would be a reunion at King Arthur’s court. On the other hand, as the later literary continuations show, there were also some minor narrative threads in the story still remaining unconnected. In any case, this parallel structure underscores yet again the use of castles as a symbol, providing a unique literary structure and representing each new episodic adventure (See: Symbols & Motifs).
Chrétien’s thematic emphasis on Chivalry and the Meaning of Knighthood continues to play a major role in this section. It can be seen, for example, in Gawain’s successful mastery of the challenges that face him upon entering the enchanted castle. His survival against the arrows and the lion reveal that he is the viceless knight for whom the castle has been waiting, thus portraying him as a paragon of chivalric virtue. The focus on chivalric ideals can also be seen in Gawain’s insistence on doing everything the so-called “evil maiden” tells him to do, even though she freely admits her goal is to see him brought to shame and ruin. The chivalric rule—stating that Gawain must fulfill the requests of a lady—makes him feel like he has no other choice, even though it leads to him being taken advantage of, over and over again.
This sequence of events also brings Chrétien’s motif of comic folly back into play (See: Symbols & Motifs). Whereas earlier comic episodes focused on Perceval’s ignorance and impulsivity, here it is not the hero’s character that provides entertaining results, but rather the absurdity that results from the juxtaposition of the maiden’s taunting cruelty and Gawain’s unswerving chivalry, which keeps him bound to her despite her behavior.
The theme of Knowledge as the Key to Healing and Growth also makes an appearance in this final section. The sudden, repentant transformation of the “evil maiden” after Gawain’s meeting with the Guiromelant stretches credulity, but it fits the pattern of Chrétien’s consistent portrayal of the transformative effects that accompany the revelation of knowledge. Much as Perceval’s character changes dramatically in repentance upon receiving knowledge of the Christian gospel, the meaning of the grail, and his hidden family connections, so the maiden also experiences a similar change as soon as her painful backstory is brought to light. The knowledge of her suffering, as soon as it is given to Gawain, emerges as the key to her character’s healing.
Another example comes from Gawain’s interactions with Greoreas. When Greoreas takes revenge on Gawain by stealing his horse, Gawain’s response is not to try to engage him in an immediate duel, but rather to bring forward relevant knowledge about the situation—namely, that Greoreas’s previous punishment had been justified. In that instance, however, Greoreas does not respond to the knowledge Gawain offers, so any potential healing for their dispute remains unrealized.
Finally, the poem’s last scenes set up another situation in which knowledge might prove to be the key to healing. The revelation of Arthur’s hidden family—his long-lost mother, Queen Ygerne—might prove to bring healing to the king and his realm, but Chrétien’s text breaks off before that narrative arc can be brought to its completion.
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