The Reader's Fortunate Fall

Introduction | Cundrie in Text | Cundrie in Context | Judging the Exotic Erotic | Conclusion | Works Consulted | Notes | PDF Version of Document

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29 October, 2005

The Reader’s Fortunate Fall:
Reflections on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Cundrie la sorcière

Is she, or isn’t she?

The character of Cundrie la sorcière in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival seems the archetypal loathly damsel. Wolfram devotes considerable time to Cundrie's character, drawing the audience's attention to specific details concerning her learning, her gift of speech, her splendid wardrobe, her pathetic transport, and ultimately, her loathly appearance. Such descriptive richness is astonishing for a “minor” character that has but three speeches in the poem. Cundrie strikes the audience as comfortable and familiar—as archetypes should. The textual clues Wolfram has written onto the character should lead to a certain formulaic result: the scene is set for Cundrie's transformation into a creature as beautiful as she had been ugly.

Yet, she does not change.

Why not?

I attempt to answer this question by integrating the critical model of woman as text with McCormick, Waller, and Flower’s interpretations of intertextuality. In the book Reading Texts: Reading, Responding, Writing, McCormick, Waller, and Flower maintain that the process of reading is affected by both the reader's and the text's literary ideology (a society’s mindset or values as they relate to literature) (18) as well as its general ideology (society’s norms or dictates as to what is normal, natural, or part of the human condition) (16). The appropriation of these ideologies is termed the repertoire. Both the reader and the text have repertoires, and in the process of reading, the reader's repertoires and the text's repertoires meet and sometimes clash: this is termed the reading interface. In other words, a text will have literary sources, may be part of a genre, and may be influenced by its historical or political milieu, or events affecting the writer’s life. The reader will have read like and unlike texts, may be aware of genres, may be influenced by current and/or personal events, and, as a member of society, knows the natural state of man (as man “naturally” means all those who are human).

            Evolving from assumptions concerning the “natural” role of men comes the concept of woman as Other—other than male, other than active, and other than empowered. Women are typically objects, not subjects. In Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love, R. Howard Bloch states that "misogyny in our culture consists of a series of specific associations between the esthetic and the feminine, which in essence turns women into a text to be read, and thus to be appropriated” (47). Bloch’s assertion that woman is text is born of the theory of woman as sign, pioneered by Claude Lévi-Strauss in Structural Anthropology. Lévi-Strauss argues that women are “a sign communicated by men” (qtd. in Cowie 118). Theoretically, language and women are objects manipulated and exchanged; the woman/sign is equated with the language/sign, both evaluated (i.e., read) to uncover the signified.

It is through a fuller understanding of text and context that Wolfram’s audience may re/view the experience of reading Cundrie la sorcière as a felix culpa or "Happy Fall.” For those unfamiliar with the term, Felix culpa is “used in theology to refer to the sin of Adam. By eating the forbidden fruit, Adam committed a grave sin (fault), but this fault had a happy side effect since it set the stage for the redemption of man” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Catholic FAQ). By crafting Cundrie as an archetype who doesn’t do as she’s supposed to, Wolfram effects a textual seduction and betrayal. It is through his other textual workings that he ultimately leads us to a redemption.

Introduction | Cundrie in Text | Cundrie in Context | Judging the Exotic Erotic | Conclusion | Works Consulted | Notes

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Cundrie and Text

The story of Parzival the Grail Knight is well known to followers of Arthurian legend. Wolfram's epic poem, completed between 1209 and 1215, is but one of many medieval renditions, but it is notable for many reasons: it convincingly depicts children, integrates the sacred and the worldly, celebrates love in marriage (contrary to so-called Courtly Love's adulterous worship from afar), and, as Helen Mustard and Charles Passage note, portrays "the inner development of the hero, the first story showing such a development in Western European literature” (vii-ix ). The poem charts Parzival's transformation from an innocent and ignorant child brimming with questions, to a naive yet well-intentioned warrior who equates courtesy with silence, to a worthy knight both wise and compassionate. Parzival, in his quest for understanding, happens upon and is guided by many figures, some sharply realistic, others startlingly otherworldly. Cundrie la sorcière falls into the latter category.

We, the audience, first meet Cundrie in Book VI. Initial impressions are framed by Wolfram's description of her moral value (312). The poet describes her mount (a pathetic and rather ragged mule), the fineness of her riding gear, then adds (at this point, cryptically), "No lady was she in appearance” (312). Although in retrospect this aside is recognized as foreshadowing, in the initial reading, or perhaps hearing, as this was a text to be heard as well as read, the damsel’s failings appear to be indicative of social status rather than appearance. Rather than focus on this possibility, Wolfram forces his audience to pose a new question by asking "Alas, what did her coming mean?” (312). Again, instead of answering, the poet states that the woman is learned, speaking "Latin, French, and heathen," (i.e., Arabic—consider Wolfram’s, the text’s, and the medieval audience’s general ideology). Also, she knows the art of dialectic, geometry, and astronomy. Finally, Wolfram gives her name: "Cundrie, with surname la sorcière," whose "tongue was far from lame, for it had quite enough to say...” (312).

Still, not a textual clue as to what this Cundrie looks like.

Wolfram teases his audience, stating that "the learned maiden looked quite unlike those whom we call belles gens” (313), then lapses into an inventory of Cundrie's sumptuous—and European—wardrobe (a cape from Ghent, fashioned in the French style, a dress of pfellel silk, a hat from London). He alternates each fine description with asides as to the woeful nature of Cundrie's message. Then, he abruptly springs his surprise:

Over her hat swung a braid of her hair, so long that it touched the mule. It was black and hard, not pretty, and soft as the bristles of a pig. She had a nose like a dog's, and two boar's teeth stuck out from her mouth, each a span in length. Both eyebrows were braided and the braids drawn up to the ribbon that held her hair. —Only for truth's sake has my courtesy so offended as to speak thus of a lady. No other can reproach me for saying the like of her. (313)

The audience does not know how loathsome Cundrie is until nearly two full stanzas since her introduction. It is as if she comes into focus as she approaches the crowd: first seen is her mount, then her clothes, and then at last her features. Why? Courtly love literature is filled with descriptions of women first honored for their appearance and then described with all of the accoutrements of wealth and prestige. In fact, the descriptions of all other women in Parzival follow this pattern. Therefore, Wolfram’s creation of Cundrie is a conscious departure from the norm, one that deliberately misleads.

As shocking as Cundrie’s appearance may seem, her words have even greater impact as she tells Arthur that his “rising fame is sinking” “now that Sir Parzival has joined [his] company, though he...bears...the outward signs of a knight” (315). She later notes,

“You think me an unnatural monster, yet I am more natural and pleasing than you. Sir Parzival, why don't you speak and tell me why, as the sorrowful fisherman sat there, joyless and comfortless, you did not release him from his sighs? He showed you his burden of grief. Oh faithless guest! You should have taken pity on his distress. (316)

“Your silence earned you there the sin supreme...Had you but asked at Munsalvaesche...” (317).

Cundrie subtly compares the ethical health of Arthur's court to the Fisher King’s—Anfortas's—physical condition, referencing both Arthur’s and the Round Table's "limping" renown. Addressing Parzival directly, however, Cundrie disregards all subtlety—or, perhaps, courtesy—and charges him with the sin of indifference that was manifested in silence.

Introduction | Cundrie in Text | Cundrie in Context | Judging the Exotic Erotic | Conclusion | Works Consulted | Notes

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Cundrie in Context

The medieval reader’s repertoire would have included the loathly damsel. With her appearance, the reader would expect the hag to offer counsel to the protagonist and then to make a request of the protagonist (often a kiss or some sign of affection); the protagonist, although physically repulsed, will accede the request freely and respectfully; and in deference to the protagonist’s action and re-action, the damsel will transform herself into a medieval beauty. This metamorphosing hag is considered to be emblematic of Sovereignty. Tribulation and triumph are indicated by appearance: the ugly woman is the struggle, while the stunning woman is the achievement. Therefore, the symbol of success—Self Rule—is this loathly damsel’s becoming beautiful.

The loathly damsel as sign of Personal Sovereignty—individual self-rule—is the theme of Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale," the anonymous "Weddyng of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle,"[1] and Gower's "Tale of Florent" from Confessio Amantis. In these tales, a knight becomes indebted to a hag and promises to marry her as repayment. The knight then learns that the woman has the power to transform herself, but the transition is conditional. In each tale, the knight ponders and finally tells her that it should be her decision (i.e., the woman should have Sovereignty). This breaks the “spell,” and the woman is permanently beautifully transformed.

Contemporary medieval analogues to Cundrie in stories of the grail knight include Chrétien de Troyes's Li Contes del Graal (which Wolfram acknowledges as an earlier telling of the Parzival story and considered by most to be Wolfram’s source) and “Peredur Son of Evrawg” of the so-called Mabinogion. As these three stories are consistent in their main plot points (though “Peredur” does not have the Gawain digressions that appear in the other texts), the development of the hag character in the Welsh and the French versions provides a basis—or repertoire—from which the medieval audience would develop its expectations concerning Cundrie. As Chrétien died before completing Li Contes del Graal, the question of transformation can only be responded to hypothetically, but if the Welsh work can be considered a guide, the audience can comfortably assume that Chrétien’s hag would be revealed as the “typical” loathly damsel: a beautiful or handsome shape-shifter.

Book XV is the penultimate book of Parzival; the events that unfold follow the typical plot turns involving the loathly damsel archetype. As Cundrie is identified with this archetype, the supposition is that with the pending triumph of the hero, the hag will be dramatically and magically transformed. Wolfram delivers such a scene—or at least, foreshadows this transformation. Cundrie dramatically returns. Reintroducing la sorcière, Wolfram repeats the expository advance and retreat he first used to acquaint his audience with this loathly damsel:

A maiden was now seen approaching: her garments were sumptuous and of fine cut; costly and of the French style was her hooded mantle of rich velvet blacker than a civet cat; Arabian gold gleamed thereon, wrought as many small turtledoves, the emblem of the Grail. Much was she gazed at in curiosity. Now, let her hasten hither. Her headdress was tall and shining; with many a thick veil was her countenance covered and not exposed to view. (778)

Cundrie enters the tournament ring, first stopping before Arthur and Guenevere, then coming directly to Parzival. Covered in her veil, Cundrie begs for forgiveness; Parzival, after prodding from Arthur and Feirefiz, eventually does kiss Cundrie to show that he has forgiven her (779). This scene corresponds with that of the hag’s request—in fulfillment, the hag has been given her kiss. The audience rightly expects that Cundrie unveiled will have been delivered from her ugliness. Wolfram encourages this expectation, as he states that la sorcière thanks Parzival, Feirefiz, and Arthur "for assisting her to favor after great guilt” (780). Dramatically, Cundrie undoes her headdress and throws down her veil and fastenings in front of her (781). It is at this moment that the audience expects that the events will follow according to plan: Cundrie’s dramatic flinging off of the veil will be made even more dramatic by her being revealed as a beauty—perhaps, she will be unmasked as Queen Secundille or better yet, one of the Grail bearers. But she will be stunning, won’t she?

With her hand she undid her headdress and threw down veil and fastenings in front of her in the ring. Cundrie la sorcière was then recognized at once, and the Grail coat of arms that she wore was gazed at curiously enough. She still had the same appearance that so many men and women had seen appear by the Plimizoel. You have heard her countenance described: her eyes were still the same, yellow as topazes, her teeth were long, her mouth shone blue as a violet. Except to solicit compliments, there was no need of her wearing a costly hat on Plimizoel meadow; the sun did not hurt her any; it could not have gotten through her hair with its dangerous radiance to tan her complexion. (780)

Wolfram takes pains to note that Cundrie’s elaborate costume—and that is what it was—is not intended to conceal a change. The audience is forced, much like Parzival, to question. Yet Wolfram does not allow his audience to ponder or even phrase that question; instead, he promises a speech that its "hearers found astonishing” (781). Cundrie then both hails and acknowledges the presence of Parzival and his half brother, the black and white mottled Feirefiz. She directs her speech, however, to Parzival. Where Cundrie had earlier condemned Parzival, she now lauds him, proclaiming that he will soon ask the question of Anfortas, and Parzival will soon be the Lord of the Grail. She announces to all that Parzival, Condwiramurs (Parzival's wife), and Loherangrin (one of Parzival's twin sons, of whom neither the hero nor the audience had previous knowledge) have literally (as “the inscription has been read” [781]) been written into Grail history. Then, in one of the most magical scenes of Parzival, Cundrie names the planets in Arabic, Feirefiz's mother tongue, afterwards prophesying: “For you, Care now is an orphan... Your sorrow must now perish...When young, you fostered Sorrow; but Joy, approaching, has robbed her of you” (782).

Cundrie, unlovely as ever, speaks some of the most beautiful words of the text. The dissonance between her words and their meaning parallel that between her appearance and her language. The words used by and in connection with Cundrie are both glaringly apparent and cunningly deceptive: Joy "robbing" Parzival of Sorrow, for example, initially reads as a loss to be rued, although it signifies a gain for which the hero should rejoice. The damsel’s oxymorons reflect the dual nature of Fortune, in which all turns of the Wheel are potential courses (or curses) of fate. Parzival acknowledges that he deserved his earlier reproof and, in essence, thanks Cundrie. He then verifies—literally, makes truth of—both Cundrie's words and her presence, explaining to the audience that she wears the turtledove emblem seen at the Grail castle. In other words, Cundrie, the figure with the answers, has to be given credence by the one called to ask the question. Finally, Cundrie's speech is not only one of praise, but it is also a call to action: it is time for Parzival to fulfill his destiny.

Book XVI is the final book of Parzival; in this, all of the situations are brought together for the quintessential happy ending. In her role as messenger and mediator, Cundrie delivers Parzival to his destiny and continues to guide, protect, and sustain those of the Grail court. Her first intervention is in a scene both comic and terrifyingly plausible. As Cundrie and her group approach Terre de Salvaesche[2], the leader of the Grail troop (Templar knights) proclaims, "Our grief has come to an end. With the Grail's insignia there comes to us here he whom we have ever desired since the rope of sorrow bound us. Halt! Great joy approaches us!" (793). Feirefiz and Parzival respond according to their knightly training and rush to combat; Cundrie holds them back, "reminding" Parzival that these are Grail knights—whose shields and banners he should recognize. Feirefiz responds (wryly, one would think), "In that case let battle be avoided.”[3] Upon delivering Parzival and Feirefiz to the Grail castle, the loathly damsel essentially disappears.  Parzival achieves the Grail simply by asking the question, “Uncle, what is it that troubles you?” (796). Cundrie reappears, again in her role as messenger, for she brings news to Anfortas of Feirefiz, his wife, and the death of Secundille. The poet then highlights the events of Parzival and restates his intent in composing this epic poem, thereby ending his work.

Introduction | Cundrie in Text | Cundrie in Context | Judging the Exotic Erotic | Conclusion | Works Consulted | Notes

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Judging the Exotic Erotic

[S]cholarship dealing with the question of interactions between the two [Arab and Western European] cultures must deal not only with the "truth" of what one culture was but also with the even more telling and influential truth of what it seemed to be to the other. (Maria Rosa Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History 44)

Cundrie is referred to in three more scenes before making her final appearances. In stanzas 438-39, Sigune tells Parzival (and the audience) that her food comes directly from the Grail via Cundrie, who brings enough food every Saturday night to last the whole week. Here Parzival also learns that Cundrie has just departed for points unknown. The loathly damsel is again named in stanza 517, in a scene that is ostensibly intended to introduce and describe Cundrie's brother, Malcreatiure. As this is Malcreatiure's only appearance in the text, the audience may better use this information to understand Cundrie, especially since he is described as exactly like her, but male. Wolfram makes it clear that this dark-skinned brother and sister come from Tribalibot (believed to be the city of Magadha in India [Everett]). The poet then appears to curiously digress:

Our father Adam received from God the art of giving names to all things, both the wild and the tame. He knew the nature of each, and the revolutions of the stars as well, and what forces the seven planets had; and he also knew the virtues of all herbs and what the nature of each one was. When his daughters had acquired the power of years and might bear human offspring, he counseled them against intemperance. Whenever one of his daughters bore a child, he warned her repeatedly and rarely spared the admonition, to avoid eating many herbs which would spoil the human fruit and bring shame on his race: "Other than God appointed when He sat at work over me," as he said, "my beloved daughters, be not blinded as to your salvation." (518)

In this aside intended for the audience of the text and not Gawain, Orgeluse, and Malcreatiure (the audience in the text), Wolfram stresses the God-given art of naming, the knowledge of astronomy, and both the values and the dangers of herbs. It would appear to have little to do with the animalistic description of Cundrie's brother, yet this information does foreshadow Cundrie’s prophetic exposition in Book XV. Wolfram follows this speech with an explanation that the frailty of women brought about the perversion of the human race, intriguingly ending with, "Now Adam grieved at this. But his will never faulted" (519). Wolfram then explains how Queen Secundille had in her land "a great many of these people with distorted faces, and they bore strange, wild marks" (519). “These” people tell the queen about the Grail and about Anfortas. To learn more, the Queen sends her "precious jewels," Cundrie and Malcreatiure, to the Grail King—along with many other wondrous gifts. "Then the sweet Anfortas, generous as he always was, sent this courteous squire [Malcreatiure] to Orgeluse de Logrois. A difference originating in woman's intemperance set him off from the human race" (519). Wolfram later refers to Malcreatiure as "the kinsman of the herb and the stars" (520). The digression, therefore, is another ploy by the poet to frame and to answer the audience's unspoken question: how do "Others" come to be? Secundille, though dark-skinned, can still be considered beautiful according to the Western aesthetic. The brother and sister from India, however, are completely outside of medieval European understanding. The poet uses this total Other-ness to portray a worldview in which appearance is not indicative of an individual's sinfulness or spiritual worth. Although these two look different, it is because of the actions of their fore-mothers and does not hinder their ability to teach about or to touch the Grail. They are still baptized, still Christian, and still to be respected. In fact, the kinswoman of the herb and the stars uses her knowledge of herbs both to nurture (feeding Sigune) and to heal. In Book XI, Arnive, Arthur's mother, tells Gawan that Cundrie frequently visits her, "and whatever may be done with medicines she imparts to me" (579). It is Cundrie's knowledge of herbs and healing that helps Anfortas—in fact, Arnive claims that Cundrie's salve has helped to keep the Fisher King from dying.[4]

Parzival is the product of a paradox: Parzival is written by a Western outsider who visited the East to return and write about Easterners as outsiders in the West. In a similarly paradoxical vein, that which comes from non-Western culture was and is considered more erotic or risqué than any Western counterpart, yet Cundrie is depicted as a hag, and therefore is a non- or even anti-sexual entity. The text forces the audience to reconcile these dissonances by reinforcing the notion of woman as an object of desire. Wolfram intersperses his description of Cundrie with almost sarcastic commentaries as to la sorcière's rejection of the Western feminine ideal. He reminds his audience that "rarely was a joust fought for her love" (314). As so many of the expectations are turned upside down, the normally eroticized East is "desexualized" and therefore de-objectified in the depiction of these two women.

Cundrie’s non-Western sisters are conspicuous by their absence. Though there has been interest in Wolfram’s exotic sources, there has been little scholarship as to his exotic women. Two other "Other" women figure into Parzival: Belacane, comely second wife to Gahmuret (Parzival's father) and mother to Parzival's half-brother Feirefiz; and Queen Secundille, lovely first wife to Feirefiz and the person responsible for sending Cundrie and her brother Malcreatiure to Anfortas (the so-called Fisher King) in order to learn more of the Grail. Unlike Cundrie, neither woman speaks in the text. If Cundrie is the definition of hideousness, the two exotic queens are most definitely her antonyms. The historical counterparts, therefore, of Cundrie are, for all purposes, invisible to modern audiences. A lack of scholarship, however, may not reflect a lack of interest. There are few extant sources that either corroborate or argue against Wolfram’s portrayals. Even relatively recent scholarship such as Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam (edited by John Victor Tolan) and Maria Rosa Menocal’s The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History, though informative surveys of the relevant literature and its political, cultural, and religious influences, make no mention of Islamic, non-Christian, or non-Western women. Much of the extant medieval travel literature recounts pilgrimages, and tends, as Margery Kempe's account illustrates,[5]  to show a greater concern with the "I" of the pilgrim than with the "Others" about.[6] Those works that do familiarize the reader with exotic locales such as the Holy Land are often exaggerated, and some, such as the account of the pilgrimage of Sir John de Mandeville[7], are so suspect as to be dismissed as more fantasy than fact. Again, even from such questionable works a reader may learn of strange beasts, impressive structures, and the appearances and actions of dark-skinned men, but on the subject of women, a reader will find next to nothing. The vague scraps of information one may unearth often concern Muslim women. The fifteenth-century account of the pilgrimage of Friar Felix Fabri and other Italian clergy defines an "Otherness" in Muslim women's dress, describing the women as swathed in white, wearing 'sailor-type breeches,' and donning what the pilgrims consider to be a strange, boxy white frilled headdress, complete with a black veil to cover the face. Ultimately, one of Fabri's companions, Santo Brasco, determines that "they look like devils from hell" (Prescott 184-85).

Save for the black veil (comparable in name only), this description seems quite at odds with Wolfram's depiction of Cundrie. Unsurprisingly, Cundrie defies the classifications and inclusions that would facilitate reconciling her within the text. Should her appearance carry any Old Testament resonance, it is in refutation of the Song of Solomon’s “I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem” (1:5). Cundrie, for all of her exotic ways and rich raiment, is black and homely. Although Wolfram appears to be quite enthralled with the countries and cultures of Islam, his hag is neither by appearance nor nature a Muslim woman. Cundrie, upon her first arrival, is wearing a hat from London, "trimmed with peacock plumes" (313), and, of course, her face is quite visible in all of its hideousness—hardly a modest figure. Furthermore, in describing Cundrie’s brother, Malcreatiure, Wolfram makes clear that the loathly damsel does not come from Araby, but from by the Ganges, the river that, according to the seventh-century writer Isidore of Seville, "flows down from Paradise to the realms of India” (from Etymologiae, qtd. in Kimble 25). Derrick Everett is webmaster of Monsalvat, a site devoted to Richard Wagner’s opera Parsifal, including its sources (of which Wolfram's Parzival figures prominently) and interpretations. In a section entitled “Wagner and Buddhism,” Everett notes that the woman who sends Cundrie and her brother Malcreatiure to learn of the Grail is Queen Secundille, who rules in "the land of Tribalibot beside the river Ganges” (Wolfram 517). Everett argues that "the name Tribalibot has been derived from the Greek Baliboqra, in turn derived from the Sanskrit Pataliputra, which was the capital of Magadha in eastern India."

Cundrie's ethnicity might not be worthy of mention if Parzival were not a text that flaunts an Other-ness that is geographical, religious, and when considering Wolfram's stated heathen source for the text, fundamental. In Book IX, Wolfram states that the Parzival text was found by Kyot, a Provençal magician or singer (depending on whether one translates laschantiure as the French l'enchanteur or le chanteur (Mustard and Passage xxii), in Toledo, Spain. The work was supposedly penned by the "heathen" Flegetanis. In an aside, Wolfram states that "this scholar of nature was descended from Solomon and born of a family which had long been Israelite until baptism became our shield against the fire of Hell. He wrote the adventure of the Grail. On his father's side Flegetanis was a heathen, who worshipped a calf as if it were his god” (453-54). Although most scholars, including Mustard and Passage (whose translation I have used for this study), aver that Wolfram means "Arab" by "heathen," I question whether the reference to Solomon could indicate that the pseudo-original Parzival may have been in Sanskrit. As far as worshipping the calf, this may be a realistic representation of the sacred cow of Hinduism. In either case, both the text and the woman who teaches and explains within the text (the name Cundrie may be a bastardization of the French conter, to tell) are identified as exotic and fundamentally Other. Wolfram effectively removes Cundrie from the semi-familiar though exotic realm of the Holy Land to India,[8] a land and culture even more foreign and veiled in mystery, where the religion of the people is not even based on the Western medieval norm, Judeo/Christian/ Islamic monotheism. Both the geographical and ideological distance between India and Wolfram’s Bavaria may account for the paucity of information about the women from this land where the water “flows down from Paradise” (qtd. in Kimble 25). However, the problem may derive from the invisibility of Indian women within their own culture. A.S. Altekar, who wrote The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization in the late 1930s, examined the status of women throughout Hinduism’s four-thousand year history. Even his impressive and far-reaching research admits to the very real gaps that exist, most notably in the depiction of Hindu women during the (Western) medieval era, noting that classical Sanskrit literature "grows very eloquent in several places in describing in detail the beauty of young ladies and their attractive and numerous ornaments, but it rarely describes the constituents of their dress or the precise manner in which it was worn” (282).

Despite such gaps, the art and literature of the era do provide some details as to certain aspects of women’s appearance. Although in Islamic cultures all women covered their faces, Hindu women took on the veil only after marriage (Altekar 170). As Cundrie is veiled when she delivers her second speech to Parzival, one may question whether her marital status has changed. Yet the hag’s veil is neither indicative of modesty (as this would be indicated by Cundrie’s dress as well) nor is it permanent. Instead, the veil is a prop to be removed for effect—however anti-climactic that effect may be. If we are to believe Wolfram, however, Cundrie’s—and her kin’s—faces are covered, though in quite a different sense. In his presentation of Malcreatiure, Wolfram mentions that in Queen Secundille’s land there were “a great many of these people with distorted faces, and they bore strange, wild marks” (519). The markings referred to are, more likely than not, the ritual henna tattoos (referred to as Mehndi in India) prevalent in both Arab and Indian cultures.  As Altekar writes:

Ornaments were used not only for the eyes but also for the lips and teeth. Sandal paste and saffron powder were used for the face and the breasts. Different types of dyes and ointments were used for decorating hands, feet, fingers and toes. Ornamental linear figures were drawn on cheeks and breasts to heighten their charms. A streak of Sindhūra[9] on the head or a circular mark of Kumkuma[10] on the forehead was made by maidens and women in coverture. (300)

From the textual evidence, therefore, it seems plausible that Wolfram’s physical description of Cundrie is based on some knowledge of the appearances of non-Western and­­— more to the point—Indian women. Cundrie, however, is markedly Other not only in her appearance, but in both her demeanor and her intellect. A link may be made between the loathly damsel's story and that of Karaikkal Ammiayar, a Buddhist saint from Tamil Nadu who lived in the sixth century. Ammiayar is a beautiful young woman who "beseeched the god Shiva to divest her of the burden of her flesh, asking only that she watch him dance into eternity"; she transforms into an emaciated hag known as the Mother of Karaikkal, who praises Shiva with her poetry (Smithsonian). As in Western hagiography, beauty is not as much an asset in the material world as a hindrance to the contemplative life. If this is true, then Cundrie is blessedly free to think and to learn. Though no mention is made of Cundrie writing, Wolfram does relate that she speaks “all languages well, Latin, French, and heathen,” and knows dialectic, geometry, and astronomy (312). Altekar writes about similarly well-educated women, noting that one of the more common professions for Hindu women was that of teaching.[11] Though grammar, literature, and poetry were the more common specialties of these women, some did specialize in the more abstract fields of theology and philosophy (179-80). Therefore, advanced learning was not impossible or even implausible for Hindu women. Cundrie demonstrates the knowledge that Wolfram attributes to her; she addresses Arthur’s court in French (314) yet also names the planets in Feirefiz’s language (Arabic), charting their movement and interpreting the significance (782). In addition, Cundrie is truly the ‘kin of the herbs and the stars,’ healing and sustaining many of those in the Grail circle. She provides Arnive with medicines and salves; she eases Anfortas’s wounds (580). Altekar again provides evidence that such practices were not uncommon for Hindu women. He writes that not only was a medical career chosen by some women, but also provides evidence as to a medical treatise written by a Hindu woman that was held in such high respect that it was translated into Arabic during the eighth century (180).

Both appearances and avocations appear to support Wolfram’s claim that Cundrie is an Indian woman. However, there is one aspect of the hag’s behavior that does not appear to correspond to the cultural expectations concerning Hindu women: traveling alone. Altekar explains that Hindu women's movements were restricted. It is in this one situation that Cundrie would appear to be offered the greater freedom afforded to Muslim—not Hindu—women when traveling. Perhaps Wolfram is taking poetic license in his portrayal and borrows a bit from another, though perceptibly exotic culture; such a choice, however, would be—with all puns intended—quite out of character.

Both the fictitious and factual non-western women who existed­­ during medieval times were often rendered invisible by culture. If one were to attempt to develop a demographic of the medieval world from extant literary sources, one might conclude that the majority of people who lived during the middle ages were virile white male warriors, with the remainder consisting of fair maidens and an odd matron or two. By the same token, should researchers from 2800 CE use cinematic sources to define real life in the early twenty-first century, they might assume that most people were employed by an urban police department, carried weapons as a matter of course, and were well-versed in martial arts. Art may not depict life, but it can and often does depict power. One assumes that the Other woman effectively faded into the background of text and reality simply because She was doubly Other: non-male and non-white. Whatever the realities of existence were for these women in their native lands, once they were imported to western Europe, they were perceived, valued, and judged quite differently. With the exception of the few Saint Mary the Egyptian or Cundrie types, that difference relegated these women to a background where they were but silent ornaments, depictions of either raw sexuality or revolting hideousness.

Introduction | Cundrie in Text | Cundrie in Context | Judging the Exotic Erotic | Conclusion | Works Consulted | Notes

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The End Is but a Beginning

Cundrie may be treated as a text to be read, yet the text is intended to mislead the passive reader. If one opts to be like Parzival, following everything at face value, one can glide past the words and not learn anything. The audience can choose, in a sense, to objectify itself. Yet when Cundrie appears, her words shame Parzival and the passive reading audience as well, dispelling any hopes for a reading complacency or self-imposed object status. The composer’s conscious manipulation of textual expectations expels the audience from a literary Eden of superficial knowledge: a literary seduction and betrayal. After the Fall, however, comes the chance for redemption, and redemption takes on meaning only if it is a product of a transgression. Simply, the only way to appreciate what one has is to know what one has lost. Therefore, by manipulating the archetype and its correlative plot conventions, the composers of the texts engineer a cognitive Fall for the audience, but with the best of intentions. When the audience recognizes that this Fall is intended by the composers, then and only then can the audience move forward to a conscious, active, dynamic reading redemption. The end, therefore, becomes not the finite answer but the kinetic, self-perpetuating question.

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Works Consulted

Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven: Yale UP, 1992.

Altekar, A. S. The Position of Women in Hindu Civilization, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day. 3^rd ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 1962.

Bloch, R. Howard. Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1991.

Campbell, Mary B. “The Scriptural East: Egeria, Arculf, and the Written Pilgrimage.” The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing, 400-1600. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988. 15-46.

“Catholic FAQ: Felix Culpa.” Catholic Encyclopedia Online. <http://www.knight.org/advent/ faq/faq021.htm>. 10 May 1999.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” Canterbury Tales. from The Riverside Chaucer. Ed. L. D. Benson. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987.

Chrétien de Troyes. Li Contes del Graal. Arthurian Romances. Trans. D. D. R. Owen. London: Dent-Everyman, 1993.

Coomaraswamy, Ananda K. "On the Loathly Bride." Speculum 20 (1945), 391-404.

Cowie, Elizabeth. “Woman as Sign.” The Woman in Question: m/f. Ed. Parveen Adams and Elizabeth Cowie. Cambridge, MA: MIT P, 1990. 117-133.

Everett, Derrick. “Wagner, Buddhism, and Parzival.” Monsalvat: The Parsifal Home Page. <http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/india.htm>. 19 April 2003.

Gantz, Jeffrey, trans. The Mabinogion. London: Penguin, 1976.

Gower, John. “The Tale of Florent.” Confessio Amantis. from The English Works of John Gower. Ed. G. C. Macaulay. London: Oxford UP, 1900.

Hahn, Thomas, ed. Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales. Kalamazoo, MI: Western Mich U for TEAMS, 1995.

Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Ed. Lynn Staley. Kalamazoo, MI: Western Mich U for TEAMS, 1996.

Kimble, George H. T. Geography in the Middle Ages. New York: Russell & Russell, 1968.

Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Structural Anthropology. London: Penguin, 1972.

Malory, Thomas. Le Morte D’Arthur. Vol. II. Ed. Janet Cowen. New York: Penguin, 1969.

"The Marriage of Sir Gawain." <http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/marintro.htm>, <http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/marriage.htm>. 30 June 1998. See Hahn.

McCormick, Kathleen, and Gary Waller, with Linda Flower. Reading Texts: Reading, Responding, Writing. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1987.

Menocal, Maria Rose. The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History. Philadelphia: U PA P, 1987.

Mustard, Helen M. and Charles E. Passage, trans. Parzival. By Wolfram von Eschenbach. New York: Vintage-Random, 1961.

Newton, Arthur Percival, ed. Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968.

“Peredur Son of Evrawg.” The Mabinogion. Trans. Jeffrey Gantz. London: Penguin, 1976.

Prescott, H. F. M. Friar Felix at Large; A Fifteenth-Century Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. New Haven: Yale UP, 1950.

Ross, E. Denison. “Prester John and the Empire of Ethiopia.” Newton 174-94.

Smithsonian Institution, The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art. “Devi: The Great Goddess.” <http://www.asia.si.edu/devi/index.htm>. 1 May 2001.

"Tilaka and Bindi." Hindu Kids Universe. <http://www.hindukids.org/tilaka_and_bindi.shtml>.  1 May 2001.

Tolan, John Victor, ed. Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam: A Book of Essays. New York: Garland, 1996.

"The Weddyng of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle." <http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/ teams/ragintro.htm>, <http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/ragnell.htm>. 30 June 1998. See Hahn.

Wolfram von Eschenbach. Parzival. Trans. Helen M. Mustard and Charles E. Passage. New York: Vintage-Random, 1961.

Introduction | Cundrie in Text | Cundrie in Context | Judging the Exotic Erotic | Conclusion | Works Consulted | Notes

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