depict death, but is in fact a conflation of many older figures. He
combines the Totentanz, the dancing skeletal figures within art, and the
Frau Welt, a woman who is half beautiful woman and half decaying flesh.
Greek mythology has two harbingers of death: Thanatos who led the
deceased to Hades and Charon who ferried them across the river Lethe.
These variations of ugliness designed to represent the unavoidability of
death.
Functional ugliness consists of rare examples of how ugliness can
be beneficial. Within Wolfram von Eschenbach's epic Parzival, the ugly
sorceress Cundrie is initially despised for her countenance, but
ultimately proves herself useful. Her censure of Parzival's unknightly
behavior leads him to mend his ways and her knowledge of herbology
saves Anfortas' life.1 The very same punitive ugliness Medusa suffered
becomes functional when she is killed. Her head when mounted on
1 As many critics have noted, convention dictated that when Cundrie removes her veil in the final scene—
after performing numerous acts which redeem her in the audience's eyes and begging for Parzival's
forgiveness—that she be tranfromed from a hag into a beauty. Wolfram played with convention and denies
her this transformation: "With her hand she undid her headdress and threw down veil and fastenings in
front of her in the ring. Cundrie la sorciere was then recognized at once, and the Grail coat of arms that she
wore was gazed at curiously enough. She still had the same appearance that so many men and women had
seen appear by the Plimizoel. You have heard her countenance described: her eyes were still the same,
yellow as topazes, her teeth were long, her mouth shone blue as a violet. Except to solicit compliments,
there was no need of her wearing a costly hat on Plimizoel meadow; the sun did not hurt her any; it could
not have gotten through her hair with its dangerous radiance to tan her complexion" (Eschenbach 1980).
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