- After a life of noble knighthood, Sir Percivale has retired to an abbey, where he lives a monastic lifestyle.
- A monk named Ambrosius loves him in a bromantical kind of way. One day, he asks Percivale what made him ditch the Round Table.
- Percivale says that it was the vision of the Holy Grail. Oh. That.
- He proceeds to tell Ambrosius the story of how most of Arthur’s knights went in search of the Grail. And if you're wondering what that is, all you really need to know is that it's the cup that Jesus drank from at the last supper, and it's kind of important. Okay, really important.
- So what's that have to do with our man Percy? Well, apparently it was his own sister, who just so happened to be a devout nun, who had the first vision of the grail in Arthur's time.
- After her vision, she told Percivale to fast and pray for it, because her vision meant he could totally go find the grail if he wanted to. He does so, and instructs the rest of Arthur’s knights to do so.
- A knight named Galahad is part of the fellowship. Percivale’s sister makes a sword-belt from her own hair for him and, tying it around him, tells him that he, too, will see the Grail. Yay.
- Before his departure, Merlin placed a chair at Arthur’s table that he called the “Siege Perilous.” Sounds scary, right? Well, that's because no man could sit in it without losing himself.
- Galahad cries that if he loses himself, he'll just find himself again, and he puts his butt right in that chair.
- At that moment, a beam of light enters Arthur’s hall, and down comes the Holy Grail, shrouded in a cloud. Say what? Before you can blink, the grail disappears again.
- After this vision, Percivale swears a vow to spend a year and a day in search of the Grail, prompting all of Arthur’s knights who are there to do the same. They had come so close, might as well go all the way, right?
- When Arthur returns to his hall and learns what has happened, he's pretty bummed he missed the party. He asks if any of the knights actually saw the Grail, and learns that no one did except Galahad. Hmm.
- Arthur tells the knights that such a quest is for a man like Galahad, but not for the rest of them. Then he whines about all the noble deeds of knighthood that will go undone while they're off chasing the grail.
- When all the knights head out of Camelot the next day, all the women sob and Guinevere shrieks that this madness is a punishment for their sins. Um, thanks for your two cents, Gwen?
- Our man Percy spends most of the year wandering in “a land of sand and thorns,” in which everything he sees eventually crumbles into dust. He begins to fear that the Grail will meet the same fate once he finally sees it, and begins to despair.
- Finally, Percivale comes to a chapel in a valley. There, a hermit tells him that his phantoms are a result of his lack of humility: he has not lost himself to find himself, like Goody Goody Galahad.
- Speak of the devil: Galahad moseys on into the chapel and tells our Percy that he has seen the Grail. In fact, he's never failed to see it since the vision in court. But it always appears ahead of him, just out of reach. Yeah, we've had that dream, too, buddy.
- He asks Percivale to travel with him to the spiritual city where he will be crowned king.
- So Percivale and Galahad climb a steep mountain and, on the other side, find a horrible black swamp crossed by bridges. Though Galahad makes it across, the bridges crumble after him, leaving Percivale stranded on the other side.
- He watches as Galahad boards a ship and enters the spiritual city, the Grail hovering above his head shrouded in white samite all the while.
- Finally, Percivale sees a shooting star enter the city and knows it's the Grail. He makes his way back to the hermit’s chapel, mounts his horse, and returns to Camelot.
- Ambrosius asks whether Percivale saw anyone other than phantoms on his quest and he admits that he spent some time with a childhood sweetheart, and became her lover.
- But the hope of the Grail eventually proved too strong to hold him there—despite the fact that she was totally rich and totally hot—and Percivale returned to the quest.
- Ambrosius asks whether Percivale saw any other knights during the quest. So Percy dishes about Sir Bors, and how Sir Bors finally saw the Grail while he was imprisoned by some Pagans.
- When Percivale returns to Camelot, he finds it in disrepair. He tells Arthur his story.
- Meanwhile, Gawain talks about how he quickly got bored with the quest and spent the year in a tent, dallying with beautiful maidens instead. To each his own, Shmoop always says.
- When Arthur asks Lancelot how he fared on this little jaunt, Lancelot responds with his story:
- Apparently, Lancelot is worried that he's filled with shameful sin, and that it's basically negating any nobility he has left.
- So he thought the Grail Quest would help get rid of the sin once and for all, even though a holy man told him that there's no way he could get his hands on the grail without ridding himself of sin first.
- He hops on a rudderless boat that carries him to the enchanted Castle Carbonek. There, he climbs one thousand stairs and arrives at a door, behind which is the Grail. Supposedly.
- When he enters the room, Lancelot is blinded, and he faints. He sees the Grail only encased in a shroud, and knows that he has failed in his quest. Bummer, dude.
- Gawain declares his resolve to never again listen to foolish holy maidens, and Arthur calls him out for failing to desire what's truly worthwhile—the kind of success that Percivale, Bors, and Galahad have achieved on the quest.
- Arthur tells Lancelot that it is impossible for one sin to completely corrupt a man’s nobility, unless that man is an animal.
- He asks his knights if their quest was not misguided, since the greatest of them do not even believe the ones who saw the grail, and the one who saw it most fully is now absent from their fellowship forever. Plus, noble deeds have gone undone.
- But Arthur responds in the negative to Percivale’s earlier suggestion that if he had seen the vision in the hall, he, too, would have undertaken the Grail Quest. His kingly duties keep him in Camelot. He's got bigger fish to fry than finding the Holy Grail.
- He tells his knights what he believes in: himself, God, and Jesus.