That, and glass slippers

[flemmings]

My happy-making thing of the day, courtesy the FFL. The Fisher King, right? Crops up everywhere. Grail Legend and all its progeny, Lewis' That Hideous Strength, Eliot's Wasteland:

While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck
And on the king my father's death before him.

The wounded king, keeper of the holy grail, whose obscure hurt, punishment for some obscure transgression, cannot be healed, and who spends his time fishing in the river outside his castle. I always loved that last detail-- strange, resonant, inexplicable. A king who fishes.

Well, as one who knows better than I says, "Did any of your sources mention that the fishing is a pun (or misunderstanding of the French)? Le Roi Pecheur is the SINNER King, but with a different set of diacritical marks, it's FISHER King." Pécheur, pêcheur, what's the diff?

Comments

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I'm reading already, of course, but it's work. Operated eye is now long-sighted and still a bit blurry. Fine with large-print book, but I've finished that.