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This
article
analyzes Galahad's
of the chivalric
synecdoches
narrative moves
wife
and
(MRW)
R. WRIGHT
swords
function,
from an Arthurian
Perceval's
sister construct
in La
which
to a celestial
the signs of
Solomons
allegiance;
this transformation.
a durable
arming ritual defines
allegiance of mutual obligation
donor
between
the
the
and
The
recipient of the arms, both in historical
as Jean Fiori has defined it (290-330) and in literature.Of the various
practice
involved in the ritual, only the sword incorporates both the idea of
means to enforce it; it thus acts as a
synecdoche of
allegiance and the physical
the early thirteenth-century French
the chivalric function itself.Throughout
objects
Arthurian Vulgate Cycle, for example, the circulation of swords through giving,
receiving, and rejection traces the conflict between Arthurian knighthood
and the chevalerie celestienne.Without developing the full logic of these gladial
distributions from Lestoire delgraalthrough La mort le roiArtu (the subject of
on the
a
in La
arming of Galahad
longer work in progress), Iwill focus here
to
demonstrate that the representation of swords
queste del saintgraal I hope
events into
that collapse
organizes
temporal
relationships
typological
differences, thereby removing the constraints of history from both the hero
and the sword.
however, the arming ritual most often does not actually transform a male
character into a knight. Rather, the investment of the hero with arms renders
visible an ontology, that is, an essence of being, that always already exists:
Arthurs kingship exists even before the barons recognize it;Galahad knows
ARTHURIANA
5.4(1995)
ARTHURIANA
46
Each
a celestial
court and is
allegiance
given by Lancelot; the second establishes
and appears mysteriously in a floating stone near Arthurs court; and the third
final spiritual perfection. This last sword, originally King
signals Galahads
to
Davids,
undergoes two transformations before completing its journey
s side. These
Percevais
first arming
Galahads
abbess summons Lancelot
occurs at the
abbey where he has been raised. The
to conduct the initiatory rite (2), which he does
these Arthurian
mes fors escu (12) ['Sir, now is better than before. Now I lack
nothing except
a shield']. Arthur
easily recognizes thatGod alone will complete the arming
of Galahad:
'Escu vos envoiera Diex d'aucune part, ausint come il a fet espee'
(12) ['God will send you a shield from somewhere, just as he did the sword'].
And indeed, Galahad meets his shield soon after leavingArthur's court. Having
hung it about his neck, he immediately separates himself from his Arthurian
endowed with his divinely inspired arms,
companion, Yvains (31). Once
ARMING
OF GALAHAD
47
be effaced from the arms before the completion of the quest.3 This second
sword, a sign of singularity and perfection, will be superseded by the third, a
to
sign of the process of redemption that leads
perfection. The third sword
before it joins Galahad. The changes in the swords appearance and location
the stages of a semiotic process inwhich the artifact becomes a sign of
Christian spiritual perfection, of a theory of history as a redeemable text.The
intervention of female craft in this process demonstrates
the power of
mark
typological
interpretation
and
the redemptive
capacity
of transcendent
authority.
The first transformation of the sword strips away itsOld Testament history
in order to begin the construction of a sign of eternal truth. Like Galahad,
the
Both the hero and his sword represent rather than resemble
King David].
their past because their significance lies outside of time. Thus Christ (as a
figure of eternal truth), rather thanDavid and Lancelot (Galahad's genealogical
its semiotic relation to redemptive truth, that is, theOld Law with the
New (Leupin 72; Quinn 206). To apply the formula of Laurence de Looze, its
terrestrial signifieds are disinherited in favor of celestial ones (129). Physically,
then, the rebuilding of rhe sword disguises, or re-guises, history as a sign of
with
eternity.
completion of the quest at the same time that it seals the judgment of
condemnation
against Arthurian chivalry: unlike Lancelot, who fails to
ARTHURIANA
48
apprehend the past (Maddox
his most distant ancestors.
communicates
39-42), Galahad
successfully with
Solomons wife does not simply advise him to present the sword to his
distant heir as an antique artifact, she directs him to dismantle the ancestral
weapon:
Ou temple que vos avez fet en l'onor vostre Seignor est l'espee le roiDavid
vostre pere, la plus trenchantet la plus merveilleuse qui onques fustbailliee de
main
de
aions
chevalier.
Si
la prenez
tornee
tote nue
l'alemele
et en ostez
le pont
a une
(223)
part.
et l'enheudeure,
si que
nos
it
that ever was handled by a knight. Take
father, the sharpest and the most marvelous
and remove the pommel and the hilt, so that we have the blade all bare returned to an
state.]
original
removal of the pommel and hilt strips the sword to its bare essence?the
blade?and
effaces the personal imprint of David. Furthermore, the phrase
a
une
Cornee
part potrays the blade in an original state of meaninglessness,
tote nue' and empty of
signification. In salvation terms, then, the stripping
of the sword dissociates it from the processes of history initiated by the Fall,
and suggests a state untouched by the consequences of sin.
The
Solomons
l'autre,
ainz
quit
chascuns
qui
le verra
que
ce
chose.
Et
est ou
suen. Et
quant
vos
i avroiz
ce fet,
i
je metrai
les renges
teles come
[And you, who know the virtues of stones and the strength of herbs and the manner
of all things earthly, make a pommel of precious stones so subtly joined that after you
there will be no earthly look that can recognize one from the other, rather everyone
will see it as one single thing. And then make a hilt so marvelous
that there be none in
the world
so virtuous
or so marvelous.
And
These
instructions demonstrate
then make
when
a scabbard
you have
done
as marvelous
in
just
this, I will put on a
truth, limits that will be signed by the artifact that the instructions aim to
create. First, her
as well as Solomon's are
knowledge
grounded in the terrien:
within these limits theymay be superlative, but theywill never comprehend
the celestien. Second, her knowledge is restricted to the world of romance,
ARMING
OF GALAHAD
49
the terrien, themerveilleus, and themoi all give way to the celeste.The completed
sword will embody this process of redemption, which necessarily includes a
stage elided inGalahad's own journey.
stage of limited knowledge?a
Solomon accepts these instructions, except where they require the creation
of illusion:
Et il fist tout ce quele li dist, forsdou pont, ou il ne mist qu'une sole pierre,
mes elle ertde totes les colors que len po?st deviser .... (223)
she toldhim, exceptwith thepommel,where he placed only a
[Andhe did everything
itwas
that one
could
name
. . . .]
SO
ARTHURIANA
the sword into a sign of the redemptive process remains incomplete at this
Solomons wife's refusal to fabricate or engineer
appropriate baldric
thus communicates truthfully the limits of her knowledge. The rich sword
and the crude baldric together represent a moment of partial understanding,
which cannot be completed in the historical moment of theOld Testament.
moment.
Solomon's wife
Perceval's sister has recounted the entire history of the ship and its
contents, and the veracity of her tale has been guaranteed inwriting, Perceval
declares to his companions that theymust leave immediately in quest of the
to take on his
virgin who can replace the poor baldric and enable Galahad
sword (226). Perceval, like Solomon, fails to understand the correct action to
be taken concerning the baldric. And as Solomon's wife corrected Solomon,
so Perceval's sister corrects the
knights. Overhearing their resolve to leave, she
tells them that the appropriate baldric will be in
place before they leave. She
then produces
'unes renges ouvr?es d'or et
richement' (227) [a baldric worked in gold and
narrator remarks on her great skill in
attaching
eie l'eust fet toz les jorz de sa vie' (227) [aswell
of her life].This is of course the first and
only
ARMING
OF
GALAHAD
51
this feat of engineering. But she has no need to learn it, for her absolute
devotion inspires her movements. Her unique work is thus
perfect from
inception, just like the hero itwill adorn.
In addition to
completing the physical transformarion of the sword,
Perceval's sister provides the swords proper name, TEspee as esrranges
renges'
(227) ['the Sword of the Exrra-ordinary9 Baldric']. The reference of the name
remains ambiguous, for the phrase designates only the object's powerful alterity
nature of its
or
qualifying the
departure from the normal
expected.
can
to
either
thus
refer
Solomon's
wife's
Estranges renges
surprisingly poor bladric
or to Perceval's sister's
inconceivably rich one. The ambiguity of the reference
without
thematizes the object's distance from the familiar while effacing thememory
of its association with David and Solomon. In place of this genealogy, the
name presents an
interpretation of Galahad
beyond history, beyond the
ordinary. Thus he becomes fully visible as the superlative hero of the spiritual
quest when he becomes the Knight of the Extra-ordinary Baldric.
Having re-designed the sword through her craft, and re-signed it through
her onomasric inrervention, Perceval's sister uses it to mark Galahad's
total
celestial allegiance:
Certes, sire,or ne me chaut ilmes quant jemuire; car jeme tiegn orendroit a
la plus beneuree pucele dou monde, qui ai fet le plus preudome dou si?cle
chevalier.
Car
bien
sachiez
vos
que
ne
Testiez
pas
a droit
sir, now
I don't
quant
vos
n estiez
to this land.]
redeemed
on behalf of God
ARTHURIANA
5*
The formula expresses succinctly the function ofChrist s own death: Percevais
as Christ
sisters saintly blood redeems the body of the sick woman
just
redeemedall believerswith his death (Quinn 204; Ribard 44). The blood
celestial that governs the text as a whole. The joint effort of Solomon's wife
and Perceval's sister to redeem the sword from theOld Testament past for the
of literal reading, she remains grounded in a past that lacks any other mode of
access to divine vision
understanding. Perceval's sister, by contrast, has direct
between men
and God.
Perceval's
sin and engin both signify a distance from divine truth, a distance that has
been erased for Perceval's sisterbyMary. The sister thus becomes the redeemed
to Galahad. Like
counterpart of the wife, as the sword passes from David
Perceval's
as a moment of
arming scene
ontological transformation. Other typological
are of course
relationships
possible, and the analogical mode of the Queste
(Burns 354-61). For Susan Aronstein, for
encourages their multiplication
ARMING
OF
GALAHAD
53
even
of multiple,
(221-23). The possibility
conflicting,
relationships
demonstrates the flexible authority of typology in the Queste, where Biblical
and Arthurian modes of understanding repeatedly merge in the service of a
transcendent signified that effaces the historical significances thatwould
limit
typological analogies.
is translated to heaven along with the grail, the sword is
When Galahad
not said to accompany them. Instead, it remains on earth as a
sign of the
The
swords
transformations
do not
redemptive process (Baumgartner 122).
a
reflect those ofGalahad (ifhe has any), but those of fallen figurewho achieves
or inanimate,
perfection. In fact, the sword may be the only figure, animate
that does undergo an ontological transformation in the text s static universe
the perfected characters, who are only admirable, the
sword understood semiotically is imirable. It presents and represents the
possibility of change as it parallels the process of redemption from a fallen
of eternal truths.Unlike
state (history) to a sanctified one (eternity). The women who effect this
transformation mark the end points of the process, as engin becomes devocion.
The transformation of the sword engages chivalry itself,not only bacause
of the synecdochic relationship between the hero and the sword but because
the engin thatmotivates the first reformation also transforms the practice of
force.
microcosmic
UNIVERSITY
OF
MIAMI
ARTHURIANA
R. Wright
isAssistant Professor of
(mwright@umiamivm.ir.miami.edu)
at the University
in the
of
Literatures
and
Department
Foreign Languages
of Miami
Coral Gables,
Florida. She is currently at work on a cultural history of
in insular and continental narratives.
the sword Excalibur
Michelle
French
NOTES
2
3
This and all subsequent translations are my own. For a complete English
translationof theQueste, see The Questfor theHoly Grail ed. Pauline Matarasso
especially 31-66 and 207-51.
Alexandre Leupin suggests a similar interpretation(74m5).
EstherQuinn interpretsthesecond sword as a sign of theOld Law rather than
of divine intervention (207-08), while Albert Pauphilet interpretsboth the
second and third swords as symbols of a chevalerie spirituelle' (140). The
I
interpretation
Christ,
see
however,
the
emphasizes
swords'
chivalric
92-94;
Baumgartner
Locke
passim-,
Matarasso
38-95;
Pauphilet
and
140
here,
present
(89).
Earlier,
renges seems
to have
referred
Douglas Kelly considers only these latter two aspects of engin in discussing
Solomon (120), as does Grace Armstrong in reading Solomon's wife herself.
The term'smoral ambiguity,however, infuses itseveryuse (Hanning 83-85).
I
prefer
to the common
extra-ordinary
rendering
of estranges
as strange
because
it communicates the element of surprise that results from the sight of the
utterly unexpected without the pejorative connotation of strange. In addition,
the phonetic resonance with sword communicates part of the rhythmof the
Old French phrase.
WORKS
CITED
Susan.
'Rewriting
Perceval's
Sister:
Eucharistie
Visions
and Typological
Baumgartner,
Emmanu?le.
V arbre
et le
pain:
del
saint
graal.
Paris:
ARMING
OF GALAHAD
55
Mircea.
Initiations,
mystiques:
essai sur
quelques
Kelly, Douglas. 'L'invention dans les romans en prose.' The Craft ofFiction: Essays in
Medieval Poetics. Ed. Leigh Arrathoon. Rochester,MI: Solaris P, 1984. 119-42.
Legge, M. Dominica. 'Les rengesde s'espethe.' Romania 77 (1956): 88-93.
sur la vulgatearthurienne enprose.
Leupin, Alexandre. Le graal et la litt?rature:?tude
Lausanne:
L'Age
d'Homme,
1982.
prose.
1918.
Champion,
Geneva:
Droz,
1979.
Heffernan.
Champion,
1921.
New
York:
Peter
Lang,
1987.
19-40.
Pauphilet, Albert. ?tudes sur laQueste del saint graal attribu?e ? GautierMap.
Paris:
The Quest for theHoly Grail. Trans. Pauline Matarasso. New York: Penguin, 1969.
La questedel saintgraal. Ed. Albert Pauphilet. Paris: Champion, 1984.
21 (1965):
Quinn, Esther. 'TheQuest of Seth, Solomon's Ship, and theGrail.' Traditio
185-222.
Ed.
Jean Bessi?re.
Paris:
PU
de France,
1982.
33-48.