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Simile
Explanation and Analysis—Hard, Bitter, Bare:
In Volume 2, Book 13, Chapter 19, Launcelot wakes up from a dream-vision that he saw the Sangreal but could not move towards it. He hears a voice that uses three similes to describe him:
Right so heard he a voice that said, ‘Sir Launcelot, more harder than is the stone, and more bitter than is the wood, and more naked and barer than is the leaf of the fig tree; therefore go thou from hence, and withdraw thee from this holy place.’
The voice tells him first that he is "harder than stone," then that he is "more bitter than [...] wood," and finally that he is "more naked and barer" than a fig leaf. All of these comparisons lead up to the voice banishing Launcelot from "this holy place." Launcelot has trouble interpreting the voice and the dream-vision, but it seems that because he is more stone-like than stone, more wood-like than wood, and more leaf-like than a fig leaf, he is unfit to stay in the sacred place where the Sangreal just appeared in his very own dream-vision.
Launcelot goes to a hermit who explains to him what all these similes mean. The voice compared him to a stone because his sinful ways are so cemented that they haven't been worn down by any "goodness that God hath sent thee." It compared him to bitter wood because his sin is rotting him from the inside out like death rots a tree trunk. The voice compares him to a fig leaf because of a story in which Christ curses a fig tree to bear only leaves, never fruit. Like this tree, Launcelot is devoid of "fruit" (which, according to the hermit, means "good thought" and "good will"). This harsh judgment explains why Launcelot could not touch the Sangreal in his dreams: he is not good or faithful enough. Whereas Launcelot was once the greatest knight of the Round Table, he is now looking downright unworthy in comparison to his much more faithful son, Galahad.
Still, all hope is not lost. Seeing the dream-vision, hearing the voice make these comparisons, and listening to the hermit interpret them gives Launcelot an opportunity for self-reflection and redemption. He declares that he is going to "follow knighthood and do feats of arms" from here on out to try to absolve himself of his sins. Ironically, hearing himself described as hard, bitter, and bare seems to make Launcelot a little less hardened in his ways. He is able to undo the comparisons by healing himself from the inside out so that he might one day bear the kind of "fruit" the hermit describes. This is something a rotten tree could never do for itself.
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