-
Articles/Ads
Article ON THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY OR SAN GRAAL; ← Page 17 of 26 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Legend Of The Holy Or San Graal;
Arthur , the Sangreal suddenly enters the hall , but there was no man might see it , nor who bare it . " And the knights are instantly supplied with a feast of the choicest dishes . A dish , hoAvever , is still the prominent featm * e of the belief , and its poAver of furnishing every desire , particularly of eatables , is admitted throughout . In the German romance of "Parzival" it is also found very fully Avorked out , as in the folloAving translated passage .
" The scene is laid at one end of a palace : from the steel door come two ladies , and a duchess with her waiting-woman ; two carry a species of tressel-board . Then eight ladies in green coats . Then appears the youthful bearer of the pageant , supporting the Graal . Before the Graal four long glass vases , in which incense and balsams burn . The queen and her virgins oiler the incense and the Graal before the king . Hundred varlets take with deference from before the Graal , bread in white napkins . Everything that a stretched-out hand desired was found in it :
warm dishes , cold dishes , new or accustomed dainties , tame and wild fowl , was all the handiwork of the Graal . Erom small golden cruets each took the suitable seasoning—salt , pepper , agraz (?)—both the abstemious and the greedy were satisfied . Morraz (?) , wine , sinopel ( f)—any potable each offered his cup for was immediately to be had . Such was the work of the Graal . The honourable company were feasted from it . The queen and the other virgins then carry the Graal out of the room through the door of steel . "
From this extract it AVIII be seen , that the quality of the pure celestial dish has changed into the larder of a dining-hall , which seems to have been a reverting to perhaps its original repute . One of the titles given the Graal Avas Solomon ' s Table , and even a higher antiquity than Solomon's has by some been found for it , in a relation which we meet first in Herodotus , Avhere he
mentions ( book iii . cap . xviii . ) the Table of the Sun , rpair ^ a TOV i ]\ iov , amongst the Ethiopians . This is described as a meadow stretching before their city full of the boiled flesh of all sorts of quadrupeds , Avhich is spread there by night by the individuals that hold the civic charges ; all the daytime whoever chooses may come and eat . The inhabitantsit is said ,
, affirm that the earth itself produces all these good things . From the identit y of Bel and the sun , Ave might almost be induced to believe that the imposture Avhich Daniel so cunningl y detected might have a spontaneous production , superadded to the supposed consumption of the viands offered to the idol ; both passages Avould but tend to confirm the belief of the earliest
origin of this phase of the fable in a heated Oriental brain . It is also a link connecting the Sangreal Avith eastern legends , that the fabled Phoenix is stated to choose it for its centenary funeral-pile , Avhen it is then called exillis , most probably only a corruption of silex . The imagination of Mahomet Avas not less
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Legend Of The Holy Or San Graal;
Arthur , the Sangreal suddenly enters the hall , but there was no man might see it , nor who bare it . " And the knights are instantly supplied with a feast of the choicest dishes . A dish , hoAvever , is still the prominent featm * e of the belief , and its poAver of furnishing every desire , particularly of eatables , is admitted throughout . In the German romance of "Parzival" it is also found very fully Avorked out , as in the folloAving translated passage .
" The scene is laid at one end of a palace : from the steel door come two ladies , and a duchess with her waiting-woman ; two carry a species of tressel-board . Then eight ladies in green coats . Then appears the youthful bearer of the pageant , supporting the Graal . Before the Graal four long glass vases , in which incense and balsams burn . The queen and her virgins oiler the incense and the Graal before the king . Hundred varlets take with deference from before the Graal , bread in white napkins . Everything that a stretched-out hand desired was found in it :
warm dishes , cold dishes , new or accustomed dainties , tame and wild fowl , was all the handiwork of the Graal . Erom small golden cruets each took the suitable seasoning—salt , pepper , agraz (?)—both the abstemious and the greedy were satisfied . Morraz (?) , wine , sinopel ( f)—any potable each offered his cup for was immediately to be had . Such was the work of the Graal . The honourable company were feasted from it . The queen and the other virgins then carry the Graal out of the room through the door of steel . "
From this extract it AVIII be seen , that the quality of the pure celestial dish has changed into the larder of a dining-hall , which seems to have been a reverting to perhaps its original repute . One of the titles given the Graal Avas Solomon ' s Table , and even a higher antiquity than Solomon's has by some been found for it , in a relation which we meet first in Herodotus , Avhere he
mentions ( book iii . cap . xviii . ) the Table of the Sun , rpair ^ a TOV i ]\ iov , amongst the Ethiopians . This is described as a meadow stretching before their city full of the boiled flesh of all sorts of quadrupeds , Avhich is spread there by night by the individuals that hold the civic charges ; all the daytime whoever chooses may come and eat . The inhabitantsit is said ,
, affirm that the earth itself produces all these good things . From the identit y of Bel and the sun , Ave might almost be induced to believe that the imposture Avhich Daniel so cunningl y detected might have a spontaneous production , superadded to the supposed consumption of the viands offered to the idol ; both passages Avould but tend to confirm the belief of the earliest
origin of this phase of the fable in a heated Oriental brain . It is also a link connecting the Sangreal Avith eastern legends , that the fabled Phoenix is stated to choose it for its centenary funeral-pile , Avhen it is then called exillis , most probably only a corruption of silex . The imagination of Mahomet Avas not less