How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #10
‘Let visions of the night or of the day
Come as they will; and many a time they come,
Until this earth he walks on seems not earth,
This light that strikes his eyeball is not light,
This air that smites his forehead is not air
But vision—yea, his very hand and foot—
In moments when he feels he cannot die,
And knows himself no vision to himself,
Nor the high God a vision, nor that One
Who rose again: ye have seen what ye have seen.’
(“The Holy Grail,” 905-915)
Arthur caps off his knights’ search for a vision of the Holy Grail with his experience of visions. For Arthur, the whole world sometimes seems like a one. The only things that feel real to him are himself, God, and Jesus. His experience harkens to what the gatekeeper of Camelot said about Arthur being the only real thing in Camelot. Although the meaning of Arthur’s speech is very ambiguous, it seems to contrast a belief in oneself with a belief in elusive shadows like the Holy Grail as a source of motivation.