“Pompous Pride”
The Bible plays into the story quite a deal. Even though this is the first Arthurian story to feature a grail, however, it is a not a “holy grail.” That said, metaphors derived from scripture abound throughout the poem:
"Hide your good deeds from your left hand"?
The left hand, according to this
Tradition, is pompous pride,
Hypocritical and false.
Knights at First Sight
Perceval is very young and not too worldly in this story. He has a long way to go before he becomes the famous Sir Perceval. As a result, the first time he actually sees knights with his own eyes, he mistakes them with an evil metaphor:
"By my soul, my mother was right,
Saying that in all the world
There was nothing so fearsome as devils!
Multiple Metaphors
It is not uncommon in the verse to find multiple uses of metaphors within a single framing image. The language of the poetry is not particularly “poetic” in the sense that people who hate poetry view things, but extensive use of metaphor and simile helps to construct vivid portraits of the action:
He hadn't gone as far
As a pebble could be thrown, when he looked
Back and saw that his mother,
On the other side of the bridge,
Had fallen to the ground, unconscious,
And lay as if stone dead,
Opening Lines
The very opening lines of the story create a framing device in which the author refers to himself in the third person as the creator of the verse. And those opening lines which situate Chretien as the creator of the story present this framing device within a metaphorical reference describing his approach to storytelling:
If you sow lightly, you reap
Lightly. And a good crop
Requires the kind ofsoil
Where seeds sprout a hundred
Fold, for even good seed
Dies in dried-up ground.
The Hideous Girl on a Mule
Hideous is not really adequate to describe this character. Metaphor is used extensively as a declaration of the extent to which she is physically unappealing. Some might declare that so extensive is the use of metaphor that it could not possibly be accurate. But, of course, that is the point:
Her eyes were two deep caves,
Smaller than the eyes on a rat,
And her nose was a monkey's, or a eat's,
With a donkey's ears-or a cow's.
Her teeth were as yellow as an egg,
But darker, more like rust,
And she wore a beard, like a goat.
