Dr. Gaster, the passages he has quoted form a part, a statement for which there is absolutely no foundation whatever.[1] This is an addition, probably of Jewish origin, to the account given by the Greek and Latin writers, and, according to M. Paul Meyer (Alexandre le Grand, ii, 49), may be ascribed to the first half of the 12th century. It has been edited in Latin by Zacher in 1859, and in French by M. Paul Meyer (Romania, xi, pp. 228-241), and is in Lamprecht's German version of Aubry (verses 6438 ad finem). The contents are briefly as follows: Alexander having conquered the known world, full of presumption, sets forth to exact tribute from Paradise. He embarks on the Ganges, and after a month's journey comes to a walled city; one of the inhabitants hands the king a jewel in the form of a human eye, and bids him begone. The stone is of this nature which none but an aged Jew can explain; it outweighs any amount of gold, but is itself outweighed by a handful of dust; it is a symbol of human desire which no gold can satisfy, but which at last must be content with a little earth. Alexander humbles himself, repents, and in due course dies an edifying death.
It will be admitted, I think, that it would be difficult to pick out two legends which have less fundamental kinship or less similarity in detail than the story of Alexander's fruitless attempt on Paradise, and the story of Percival's or Gawain's visit to the Grail castle.
The reader has now before him the facts necessary for the appreciation of Dr. Caster's hypothesis; but even if these testified in its favour, I fail to see how any theory of development could be based upon them. We must assume, in fairness to Dr. Gaster, a stage intermediate between the Alexander romances and Chrestien, the oldest of the Grail legend writers. Let us call this stage x, and try and
- ↑ The Iter ad Paradisum is quite different from the visit to paradise described in Alexander's letter to Aristotle (Book iii, ch. 17, of Pseudo-Call.). The chief marvels described in the visit to paradise are the male and female prophetic trees of the sun and moon.
