652
SELMA FRAIBERG
But
The
Holy
Sinner
is not simply a retelling of old stories
for an old man's entertainment. Mann understood better than
most men the incest comedy at the center of the myth and the psy–
chological truth in which dread is shown as the other face of long–
ing was for
him
just the kind of deep and complicated joke he
liked to tell. And when he retold the legend of Gregorius he inter–
polated a modern version in which the medieval players speak con–
temporary thoughts in archaic language; while they move through
the pageantry of the ancient incest myth and cover themselves
through not-knowing, they reveal the unconscious motive in seek–
ing each other and in the last scene make an extraordinary con–
fession of guilt in the twentieth-century manner.
Grigorss is the child of an incestuous union between a royal
brother and sister, the twins Sibylla and Wiligis. He is born
in
secrecy after the death of his father and cast adrift soon after birth.
The infant is discovered by a fisherman who brings him home to
rear him. An ivory tablet in the infant's cask recounts the story of
his sinful origins and is preserved for the child by the monks of a
monastery in the fishing village. Grigorss, at seventeen, learns his
story and goes forth as a knight to uncover his origins. His sailing
vessel is guided by fate to the shores of his own country at a time
when Sibylla's domain is overrun by the armies of one of her
re–
jected suitors. Grigorss overcomes the suitor in battle, delivers the
city from its oppressors and marries Sibylla who had fallen
in
love
with the beautiful knight the moment she saw him.
Sibylla is pregnant with their second child when she finds the
ivory tablet concealed by her husband, and the identities of mother
and son are revealed. Grigorss goes off to do penance on a rock for
seventeen years. At the end of this period two pious Christians
in
Rome receive the revelation which leads them to seek the next
Pope on the rock. Grigorss comes to Rome ansj becomes a great and
beloved Pope. In the last pages of the book Sibylla comes to Rome
to seek an audience with the great Pope and
to
give her confession.
Mother and son recognize each other and, in Mann's version of
this legend, make a remarkable confession of guilt to each other,
the confe.ssion of unconscious motive and unconscious knowledge
of their true identities from the time they had first set eyes on each
other.
