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Quests
NMB, Florida November 17, 2001 A.H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published Now and
Then. Opinions Pro or Con Are Welcome.
QUESTS
The end of the story of King Arthur is the engagement of the noblest sort
of behavior of the nominally Christian Knights of the Round Table. This is
an additional activity beyond the sexual interplay between Heroes and Ladies
who are not wed with one another. It differs quantitatively from the
contests between individuals to see who is the greatest jouster or swordsman
(in the several meanings of the words). The stories written more than half
a century ago were tied together by the invention of the quest for THE Holy
Grail. The image of this poor cup has become incrusted with jewels over the
ages and thus has a material value - a value beyond price.
The crown of thorns, the robe and the cup from which Jesus drank are all
mentioned by the recorders of the last moments of Jesus of Nazareth. There
are lesser martyrs (of the faith fashioned by Saul, later Paul) whose bones
litter church reliquaries across the world as objects of veneration. For
some reason fixation on the cup from which Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary,
drank, held a fascination for folk of the medieval world. Thus the quest or
search for this artifact became the reason d'être for Christian Knights to
go on crusades against other medieval Knights who just happened to hold the
Holy Land and were Saracens, that time's followers of Islam.
If you substitute the ownership of the land that is holy to three faiths
for the imagined existence of the "Grail" there is a reality to the contests
of warriors over possession of the birthplace of Jews and Christians. We
know that Moslem origins were not tied to that place. From Biblical accounts
the fathering of Ishmael, one of the sons of Abraham, is important. Abraham
is reportedly buried in what is now the land of Israel. The second name for
Jacob is Israel - the third of the names invoked in Jewish prayers "Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob" and they are associated with the Land of Israel.
Why inhabitants of the island world of the English; an amalgam of Angels,
Welsh, Celts and the mixture of Saxons, Jutes and Normans, sought this
mythical object is really beside the point. We humans like to go on quests.
The latest one, a scavenger hunt, was just held here in South Florida. And
so, we go on. Carol's Evaluation:10 out of 10.
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