Parzival

Wolfram von Eschenbach

Book III

Parzival encounters a Knight.

One day he [Parzival] went out hunting along a mountain slope. He broke off a branch from a tree for the whistle the leaf would make. Right near him ran a path, and there he heard the sound of horses’ hooves. He began to brandish his javelot and said, “What is this I hear? O, if only the Devil would just come along now in his furious rage! I would stand up to him for sure. My mother says he is a terror, but I think her bravery is a little daunted.” And thus he stood eager for battle, when look! there came three knights galloping along, as fair as anyone could wish and armed from the feet upward. The lad thought for sure that each one was a god, and so he stood there no longer but fell to his knees on the path. Loud cried the lad then, “Help, God! You surely have help to give!”

The rider in front flew into a rage to see the lad lying there in the path: “This stupid Waleis is holding up our swift journey.” –A thing we Bavarians get praise for I have to say about the Waleis people too: they are stupider than Bavarian folks, and yet, like them, of manly stout-heartedness. Anyone born in these two countries grows up a marvel of cleverness.

Just then there came along at a gallop a splendidly adorned knight who was in a great hurry. He was riding in pursuit of those who had got a head start on him, two knights, namely, who had abducted a lady in his land. He considered this a disgrace and grieved at the plight of the maiden, who had ridden on before him in a deplorable state. These three knights here were his own vassals. He was riding a fine Castilian horse, there was very little of his shield that was whole; and his name was Karnahkarnanz, le comte Ulterlec. “Who is blocking our way?” said he, and rode over to the lad, to whom he seemed to have the form of a god, for never had he seen anything so bright. His surcoat swept the dew, his stirrups, adjusted to either foot to just the right length, ran wit little golden bells, and his right arm chimed with bells whenever he raised it in greeting or to strike. It was meant to ring loud at his sword strikes, for this hero was eager for renown. Thus rode the rich prince, wondrously adorned.

Then of him who was a garland of all the flowers of manly beauty Karnahkarnanz asked, “Young Sir, have you seen two knights ride past who could not keep the knightly code? They are perpetrating rape and are lacking in honor. They are abducting a maiden.”

But say what he might, the lad still thought he was God, just as Lady Herzeloyde the Queen had told him when she explained His bright shining. And so he cried out in all seriousness, “Help me now, God of help!” And le fils du roi Gahmuret fell down in an attitude of prayer.

The prince said, “I am not God, though I gladly do His commandment. What you see here are four knights, if you would only look alright.”

The lad asked further, “You speak of knights: what is that? If you do not have God’s kind of power, then tell me: who bestows knighthood?”

“That King Arthur does. Young Sir, if you come to his house, he will give you the name of knight so that you will never need to be ashamed of it. You may well be of knightly race.” –And by the warriors he was scrutinized, and God’s handiwork was manifest in him. –I have this from the adventure, which with truth was told me so. Never had man’s beauty been more nobly realized since Adam’s time, and hence his praise was wide among women.

But then the lad spoke again, and laughter arose at it, “Ay, Knight God, what may you be? You have so many rings tied around your body, up there, and down here.” And therewith the lad’s hand laid hold of iron wherever he could find it on the prince, and he began to inspect the armour. “My mother’s ladies wear their rings on strands and they don’t fit so close together as these.” The lad spoke further to the prince, just as the thoughts came to him, “What is this good for, that fits you so well? I can’t pick it off.”

Then the prince showed him his sword. “You see, anyone seeking battle with me I ward off with blows, and to protect myself against his, I have to put this on, and both for shot and for stab I have to ear armour like this.”

But the lad quickly replied, “If stags wore pelts like that, my javelot would not wound a single one. And a good many fall dead before me.”

The knights were chafing at his delay with the lad who was so simple. “God shield you,” said the prince. “Would that your beauty were mine! God would have conferred upon you the uttermost that could be wished for, if only you had intelligence. May God’s power keep you from harm.”

Krak des Chevaliers