Sir Galahad – The Quest for the Holy Grail by Arthur Hughes

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Book Length: 384 pages

In their onslaught against the Truth, the opponents of Christendom wish to erase not only the values that built up the Social Kingship of Christ, but also the stories that taught those values by means of illustration; if they cannot erase them entirely, they will resort to shamelessly rewriting these revered tales. This should be little wondered at: for if secularists can get away with producing their own “academic” versions of Holy Writ to suit their perverse purposes, where will they stop? A duty then falls upon us Catholics to defend the written products of Christendom, these little “words” that reflect in their themes and symbolism the Word—the Word of God. One set of these products are the glorious legends associated with King Arthur and the Round Table. Though the cultural memory of these stories of faith, chivalry, human weakness, and redemption remains with us, it is lamentably a lingering memory.

Therefore, in order to reignite the fire that lays within this profound and captivating mythos it would be well for one to start with perhaps the last most acceptable rendition of these legends—Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Despite the Protestant affiliation of this talented Victorian poet, he does well to respect the Catholic content of the original lore about the once and future king of England. As Brother Leo commented a little less than a century ago:¹

His King Arthur is called a prig because he makes an austere vindication of the sacredness of the marriage tie and holds in horror things which present-day paganism condones as pleasant vices. Tennyson is in this manner very close to the medieval spirit, which he was striving to interpret. The Middle Ages, like all ages, had their full quota of splendid sinners, but they did not fall into the modern looseness of thought which slurs over the sin because the sinner happens to be beautiful and charming. In the Middle Ages people were imbued with the sound Catholic principle which urged them to hate sin while loving the sinner. That is King Arthur’s attitude to Queen Guinevere, and Tennyson’s portrayal of it is not the least of his artistic triumphs.

(English Literature: A Survey and A Commentary, p. 509)

A Catholic reader can be thus assured that they will find a far more sympathetic interpreter of the Arthurian medieval spirit in Tennyson than in a modern secular “retelling”. Each individual idyll is replete with this profound spiritual value that evades and transcends the materialistic obsessions of our age. Of these idylls, the one which most uplifts the humble and casts down the proud is that which concerns the famous legend of that magnificent Eucharistic symbol, the Holy Grail.

After a holy nun is granted a vision of the Holy Grail, she tells her brother Percivale, a member of the Round Table, that he and the knights ought to:²

…fast and pray/That perchance the vision may be seen/By thee and those, and all the world may be heal’d.

(HG 126-128)

He, faithful to his sister’s ardent request, spreads the word. Inspired by this message of the healing and renewal that will come about by Him who makes all things new, he and many a knight take upon themselves this penitential prayer and fasting “many a week” (HG 131) in preparation for “the wonder that would be” (HG 133). Indeed, one day Camelot’s vaunted hall this wonder appears amid a “beam of light seven times more clear than day” and a “luminous cloud” (HG 187-189) that hides the glory of the Grail, to the rapturous astonishment of all the knights present. This presence enamors them, but it soon dissipates; as these men long for the glory of the Grail, one by one they vow to find it, despite the later warnings of the noble King Arthur. Why would the saintly King warn them against so perfect a quest? Precisely because it is so perfect—Arthur understands man’s fallen nature, and that they will fail the Quest because they lack true purity of heart.

He fears not, however, for Galahad and Percivale because he knows their upright character; he laments instead for the “…men/With strength and will to right the wrong’d, of power/To lay the sudden heads of violence flat” (HG 309-310). For such men are, despite their good deeds, likely to cave to pride or despair when they realize that this Quest is entirely different from the sort of military campaign they are accustomed to. In order to pass the many trials ahead of them, they would need to put their confidence above all in God, which necessitates a certain distrust of self. They did not have the true humility of Galahad, who upon hearing of the wizard Merlin’s “doom” (prophecy) of “the Siege perilous” (a figure of spiritual warfare)³ resounded with the following battle-cry:

If I lose myself, I save myself!

(HG 178)

Thus before a man vows to take on a grave and holy affair, he ought to enter into himself as Galahad had done and echo like him the words of Our Savior: “For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). A rash commitment to a serious thing is prideful, because such a commitment shows an overestimation of our own abilities. We ought to be humble—which is to truly know ourselves and our limitations—and this self-knowledge arrives to us best in prayer and the silence of contemplation, not in an impulsive decision made in the midst of one’s excited peers.

Despite the King’s high opinion of him, Percivale has much to learn; for he grows discouraged as he is assailed on the Quest by phantoms (temptations). So beaten by this assault is he that after he undergoes a threefold “driving gloom” (HG 370) of recalling his “every evil word”(HG 371), “every evil thought” (HG 372), and “every evil deed” (HG 373), he cries to himself, “This Quest is not for thee!” (HG 378). But he does not entirely give into despair—for he continues despite the illusions which deny him the vision of the Grail at every turn. It is quite likely, then, that his perseverance in these trials—though imperfect—earned him the providential aid of stumbling upon a chapel and hermitage where a “holy hermit” resides (HG 443). This hermit, out of true charity for this weary traveler, hears his tale and tells him what he cannot see in a moving discourse that begins:

O son, thou hast not true humility,

The highest virtue, the mother of them all;

For when the Lord of all things made Himself

Naked of glory for mortal change,

‘Take thou my robe,’ she said, ‘for all is thine.’

And all her form shone forth with sudden light

So that the angels were amazed, and she

Follow’d Him down, and was like a flying star

Led on the grey-hair’d wisdom of the east;

But her thou hast not known: for what is this

Thou thoughtest of thy prowess and thy sins?

Thou hast not lost thyself to save thyself

As Galahad.

(HG 445-457)

Only the truly humble are gifted the ability to see the Holy Grail; and in this legend, to see the Grail is to be pure of heart, for as Our Lord said: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). The Grail is not only a symbol of purity in this more abstract sense, but the literal explanation for its mystical powers—this being that it is the very chalice Our Lord used at the Last Supper—points to a connection with the chalice that we see in the sacred ceremonies at every Holy Mass, and therefore also directly acquires meaning as a symbol of the Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is both a symbol and a reality, as St. Paul tells us:

For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.

(1 Corinthians 11:26-27)

For Jesus is really present, though hidden under the appearances of bread and wine—and therefore no unclean lips can eat His bread and drink His chalice. Just as with the Holy Grail, the Eucharist heals but can only benefit those who are pure of heart; like with the Grail, the Eucharist demands sacrifice—we must pray and fast before we receive Our Lord, just as the knights were commanded to do before the Grail showed itself. However, while the Grail only fully unveils itself to those who are perfect, the Eucharist can be received by the imperfect, so long as they are in the state of grace. But this difference may in fact represent the greater merit and numerous more graces that one who is better disposed to receiving this sacrament gains in comparison to the poorly disposed soul. At any rate, it is apparent that the Holy Grail requires—as with the Eucharist—a self-denial built upon confidence in God, which Galahad has achieved. This is illustrated wonderfully in the subsequent passage, in which that purified knight appears, and joins Percivale to assist at the hermit’s Mass:

In silver armour suddenly Galahad shone,

Before us, and against the chapel door

Laid lance, and enter’d, and we knelt in prayer.

And there the hermit slaked my burning thirst,

At the sacring of the mass I saw

The holy elements alone; but he,

“Saw ye more? I, Galahad, saw the Grail,

The Holy Grail, descend upon the shrine:

I saw the fiery face as of a child

That smote itself into the bread, and went…

(HG 458-467)

Because Percivale has not yet become perfect, he is only able to see the “holy elements alone”, while Galahad relates to him that the Holy Grail was not only present at the Mass, but “descend[ed] upon the shrine”. This detail and the “fiery face as of a child/That smote itself into the bread”—evidently a reference to the Child Jesus—are indicative of the Real Presence. Galahad sees not only the appearance of what occurs during the consecration of the “holy elements”, but on account of his purity of heart can see beyond these to see the spiritual reality unfolding before him. His mystical vision symbolizes how the saints, even if they do not see the magnificent things that remain hidden under the external ceremonies of the liturgy with their physical eyes, see them spiritually with an insight built upon a profound love of Christ.

And Galahad admits to Percivale that it is from his vision of the Grail which follows him everywhere he travels “night and day” (HG 471) that provides him the strength necessary to overcome his foes. He says:

And in the strength of this I rode,

Shattering all evil customs everywhere,

And past thro’ Pagan realms, and made them mine,

And clash’d with Pagan hordes, and bore them down,

And broke thro’ all, and in the strength of this

Come victor…

(HG 476-481)

Can we not draw this strength from the indwelling of the Trinity and reception of the Holy Eucharist? All that is needed is to keep the presence of God about us, and to be faithful—as Galahad was—to our own Quest, which in our case is our sanctification. Besides our own passions and temptations from fallen “principalities and powers” (Ephesians 6:12), there are indeed plenty of “Pagan realms” and “Pagan hordes” in our time. Fear not, Christian soul; if we do the Will of God we too will shatter “evil customs”—”If God be for us, who is against us?” (Romans 8:31). Without Jesus we can do nothing! But in this surrender there is peace, and in this peace is our true strength—as Galahad put it, “If I lose myself, I save myself!”

There are indeed many more lessons to be learned from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King—but that, dear reader, I leave for you to discover. In the Quest that we all face—that of our sanctification—this work is sure to illuminate both virtue and vice so that those who read it may be better equipped to choose the good and avoid the evil. Furthermore, the poetry of this work is as elevating as its themes; the retold tales of the Round Table are sure to immerse those who wish to have their minds kindled with the fire of the old, but not forgotten, chivalric spirit of the Catholic Middle Ages.

1. 
   Brother Leo. English Literature: A Survey and A Commentary. Gin and Company. 1928. p. 509.

2. All quotations of Idylls of the King are provided from:
   
   Tennyson, Alfred. Idylls of the King. edited by J. M. Gray. Penguin Books. 1983.

3. HG 166-178. “And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.” (Matthew 11:12).

   See also Tennyson’s note in this Penguin Books edition:

   “The perilous seat which stands for the spiritual imagination.”

   (p. 350)