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Holy Grail: Difference between revisions
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[[File:1912.5.1 1a.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|alt=Knight in a boat, looking up to see three angels, one holding the Holy Grail|The Knight of the Holy Grail, Frederick J. Waugh (c. 1912)]] | [[File:1912.5.1 1a.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|alt=Knight in a boat, looking up to see three angels, one holding the Holy Grail|''The Knight of the Holy Grail'', Frederick J. Waugh (c. 1912)]] | ||
According to [[King Arthur|Arthurian legend]], the '''Holy Grail''', the cup from which [[Jesus]] drank at the Last Supper, was brought by [[Joseph of Arimathea]] to [[Glastonbury]], which was then an island in southwest England. The focal point was thus set for the [[dispensation]] of [[Camelot]], a [[mystery school]] founded on the concept of the quest for the Holy Grail as a path of discipline and [[initiation]]. | According to [[King Arthur|Arthurian legend]], the '''Holy Grail''', the cup from which [[Jesus]] drank at the Last Supper, was brought by [[Joseph of Arimathea]] to [[Glastonbury]], which was then an island in southwest England. The focal point was thus set for the [[dispensation]] of [[Camelot]], a [[mystery school]] founded on the concept of the quest for the Holy Grail as a path of discipline and [[initiation]]. | ||
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Whether fact or fantasy, the Holy Grail has been a persistent thread in our psyche, an archetypal image finally ensconced as a modern-day metaphor. It is worth our while to trace the concept of the fabled cup back to its earliest origins. | Whether fact or fantasy, the Holy Grail has been a persistent thread in our psyche, an archetypal image finally ensconced as a modern-day metaphor. It is worth our while to trace the concept of the fabled cup back to its earliest origins. | ||
[[File:Rossetti Percival.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|''How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival were Fed with the Sanc Grael; But Sir Percival’s Sister Died by the Way'', watercolour by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1864)]] | |||
== Arthurian legend == | == Arthurian legend == | ||
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According to legend, each year at the feast of Pentecost the knights of the Round Table returned to Camelot and rendered to the king and queen the reports of their deeds during the year. One [[Pentecost]] as the knights were gathered at the Round Table they saw a vision of the Holy Grail “so filled with glorious light that none might behold it.” Sir Gawain and many of the others made the vow never to return again to the court until they had seen the Holy Grail more openly. | According to legend, each year at the feast of Pentecost the knights of the Round Table returned to Camelot and rendered to the king and queen the reports of their deeds during the year. One [[Pentecost]] as the knights were gathered at the Round Table they saw a vision of the Holy Grail “so filled with glorious light that none might behold it.” Sir Gawain and many of the others made the vow never to return again to the court until they had seen the Holy Grail more openly. | ||
Alfred Lord Tennyson in ''Idylls of the King'' records that upon hearing their vow King Arthur cried | Alfred Lord Tennyson in ''Idylls of the King'' records that upon hearing their vow King Arthur cried: | ||
<blockquote>Woe is me, my knights!... Go, since your vows are sacred, being made. Yet—for ye know the cries of all my realm pass thro’ this hall—how often, O my knights, your places being vacant at my side, this chance of noble deeds will come and go unchallenged, while ye follow wandering fires lost in the quagmire! Many of you, yea most, return no more.</blockquote> | |||
[[File:Arthur Hughes - Sir Galahad.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|''Sir Galahad, the Quest for the Holy Grail'', Arthur Hughes (1870)]] | |||
Of the 150 knights of the Round Table who went forth to quest the Grail, only four saw it—Galahad, Percival, Bors, and [[Lancelot]]. | Of the 150 knights of the Round Table who went forth to quest the Grail, only four saw it—Galahad, Percival, Bors, and [[Lancelot]]. | ||