Thus in
the interpolated visit of Gawain to the Grail castle, found in the
C group of Perceval MSS., the Grail-bearer weeps piteously, as she
does also in Diu Crone.[28]
In the version of the prose Lancelot Gawain, during the night, sees
twelve maidens come to the door of the chamber where the Grail is
kept, kneel down, and weep bitterly, in fact behave precisely as did
the classical mourners for Adonis--"Elles sanglotent eperdument pendant
la nuit."[29]--behaviour for which the text, as it now stands, provides
no shadow of explanation or excuse. The Grail is here the most revered
of Christian relics, the dwellers in the castle of Corbenic have all
that heart can desire, with the additional prestige of being the
guardians of the Grail; if the feature be not a belated survival,
which has lost its meaning, it defies any explanation whatsoever.
In Diu Crone alone, where the Grail-bearer and her maidens are the
sole living beings in an abode of the Dead, is any explanation of the
'Weeping Women' attempted, but an interpolated passage in the Heralds'
College MS. of the Perceval states that when the Quest is achieved,
the hero shall learn the cause of the maiden's grief, and also the
explanation of the Dead Knight upon the bier:
"del graal q'vient apres
E purquei plure tut ades
La pucele qui le sustient
De la biere qu'apres vient
Savera la verite adonques
Ceo que nul ne pot saveir onques
Pur nule rien qui avenist.
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