Oliver Huckel

“ And Klingsor spake with a great voice of scorn:
"Thou wouldst amend the mischief thou hast done?...
They are not worth it! They are fools and weak.
I buy them all for price of one sweet sin.
The strongest was the weakest in thine arms.
And so I ruined him, and won the Spear,
And left him with the ever-burning wound.
But now to-day another must be met,—
Most dangerous because so godlike pure,
For he is shielded by a guileless heart."
And Kundry cried: "Him will I never tempt!
Thou canst not force me to the hateful deed."
But Klingsor answered: "Yea, thou shalt, thou must. ”

“ Do I not treat thee with a better grace,
And use thee for the mightiest of deeds?
Since thou didst lure for me the brave Amfortas—
Chaste guardian (they thought him) of the Grail—
Thou hast deserted my high name and service.
What better hast thou found than me and mine?"
Then Kundry cried in hoarse and broken speech:
"O dismal night and shame and wickedness!
Would I could sleep the deepest sleep of death!"
And Klingsor asked: "What has there come to thee?
Has some one else awaked thee from thy sleep?"
And trembling Kundry answered: "Even so. ”

“ Often came the pure tones that told of the guileless One, or the strong chords of mighty faith, or the ebb and swell of mystic bells, or the glory of the sacred Spear. Now came the regal blasts for Parsifal, and often and through it all, the splendid music of the Grail itself. The music was like a fragrant atmosphere to the drama, softening and refining what was harsh, giving a needed stress here and there, and investing the whole story with a subtle and uplifting charm. ”

“ Whatever more it may mean, we see clearly that the guileless knight is Purity, Kundry is the Wickedness of the world expressed in its most enticing form, and King Amfortas suffering with his open wound is Humanity. One cannot read the drama without a thrill, without a clutching at the heart, at its marvellous meaning, its uplifting and ennobling lessons. ”

“ Then Parsifal drew near, and slowly spake:
"Only one weapon serves to kill that pain.
The one that struck can staunch thy wound again!"
And with the sacred Spear he touched the King.
And lo! a miracle of healing power!—
The wound was staunched and a deep thrill of love
Changed agony to rapture all divine.
And Parsifal spake on: "Thou art forgiven.
Body and soul are cleansed by God's free grace
Thy life for evermore shall happy be
Within the service of the Holy Grail. ”

“ Here at Bayreuth the mystic drama is given before its thousands of devout pilgrims and music-lovers who gather to the little town as to a sacred spot from all parts of the world,—from Russia, Italy, France, England, and America,—and who enter into the spirit of this noble drama and feast of music as if it were a religious festival in a temple of divine mysteries.
The sources of Wagner's story deserve a few words. The legend of the Holy Grail took many forms during the Middle Ages. ”

“ And all his knights with their proud King Amfortas,
Through thy dark wiles I ruined utterly.
And in my hand I hold their sacred Spear
And soon shall have their shining Holy Grail.
Remember now to use thy wiles again
As thou didst love Amfortas to his shame."
But Kundry cried: "O misery and shame!
That e'en their King should be so weak with me,
And all men weak. O hateful, hateful curse
That ruins them and me in sin together!
O for the sleep of death to end all this!"
And Klingsor then: "Perhaps thy wish is near,
For he who can defy thee, sets thee free. ”

“ The genius of Wagner as a musician has so far overshadowed all else, that his genius as a poet and as an exquisite reteller of the old legends has not been fully appreciated.
Galahad, as Tennyson portrays him, will always hold the first place with English readers as the ideal knight of the Holy Grail. The matchless diction of Tennyson has given the less perfect form of the legend a supreme charm and beauty. ”

“ The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men." Or this, further, it may represent, in striking and inspiring way,—that the pure in heart shall win the victories in life; that the guileless are the valiant sons of God; that the heart that resists evil passion and is touched by pity for the world's woe is the heart that reincarnates the passionate purity of the Christ and can reveal again the healing power, the Holy Grail of God. ”

“ It may also suggest that all great religions in their essence have much which is akin. But no one who reads carefully Wagner's own letters during the time that he was brooding over his Parsifal can doubt that he was trying in this drama to express in broadest and deepest way the essentials of Christian truth. Christianity has no need to go to Buddhism to find such a fundamental conception as that of an infinite compassion as a revelation of God.
The legend of the Grail, as Wagner uses it, has in it the usual accompaniments of mediaeval tradition,—something of paganism and magic. ”

“ But Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parsifal, as spiritualized and humanized in Wagner's lyric drama, will be seen to be in fuller accord with the whole cycle and development of the Grail legends, and at the same time gives the nobler story. It is a consummate parable of the contending passions and the heavenly aspiration, the ineffable pity and the mystic glory, of the human heart. It portrays an intensely human and heroic life, imaginatively identified with that of the very Christ. ”

“ And waved it in the air before the knights,
Who knelt around him, praising God on high.
And there had Kundry come with new-found faith
And crept within the splendor of the Grail
And, with its light upon her, died,—redeemed!
And still did Parsifal hold up the Grail,
Seeming a vision of the very Christ,
His crimson mantle changed to lustrous whiteness.
His lips seemed speaking loving benediction;
And marvellous the red glow of the Grail;
And beautiful the white dove soaring there.
While from the heights the softest voices sang:
"Highest wonder! ”

“ The drama of Parsifal teaches its own great lessons of life. Yet one or two suggestions of interpretation may not be amiss, for it is confessedly one of the most mystical of modern dramas. It may perchance be considered as representing the strife between paganism and Christianity in the early centuries of the Church,—the powers of magic and the hot passions of the human heart contending against the advancing power of Christian truth and the victorious might of Purity as portrayed in the guileless hero. ”

“ Methinks a curse may still be on her life,—
She is so wild and strange, so sad her very eyes.
But now, whate'er the past, she is with us,
And serves us to atone for earlier guilt.
Perchance her work may shrive her of her sins. ”

“ Can staunch the gaping wound and save the King."
And eagerly the herald asked: "What cure is this,
And who the healer that can save the King?"
But Gurnemanz quick answered: "See the bath
Is needing thee, for here doth come the King!"
But as he spake, e'er yet the King appeared,
Another herald, looking far away,
Beheld a woman coming, riding wild,
And quick exclaimed: "See there, a flying witch!
Ha! how the devil's mare is racing fast
With madly flying mane! Nearer she comes!...
'Tis Kundry, wretched Kundry, mad old Kundry—
Perhaps she brings us urgent news? Who knows? ”

“ The criticism has sometimes been made that the basic religious idea of Parsifal is Buddhistic rather than Christian; that it is taken directly from the philosophy of Schopenhauer, who was perhaps as nearly a Buddhist as was possible for an Occidental mind to be; that the dominating idea in Parsifal is compassion as the essence of sanctity, and that Wagner has merely clothed this fundamental Buddhistic idea with the externals of Christian form and symbolism. ”

“ Here it was to be cherished and guarded by a holy band of Knights of the Grail. The same legend appears in the chronicles of Sir Thomas Malory, but instead of Gaul, early Britain is the place to which the Grail is brought. Tennyson's "The Holy Grail" in his Idylls of the King largely follows Sir Thomas Malory's chronicles. The American artist Edwin A. Abbey in his masterly paintings of the Grail legend as portrayed on the walls of the Boston Public Library, also follows Malory. Wagner, however, uses the version of Wolfram von Eschenbach, modifying it and spiritualizing it to suit his purposes. ”

“ But these pagan elements are only contrasts to the purity and splendor of the simple Christian truth portrayed. The drama suggests the early miracle and mystery plays of the Christian Church; but more nearly, perhaps, it reminds one of those great religious dramas, scenic and musical, which were given at night at Eleusis, near Athens, in the temple of the Mysteries, before the initiated ones among the Greeks in the days of Pericles and Plato. ”

“ In consequence of His atoning death, everything which lives and breathes may know itself redeemed.... Only love rooted in sympathy and expressed in action to the point of a complete destruction of self-will, is Christian love." (Wagner's Letters, 1880, pages 270, 365, 339.) ”

“ The German artist Franz Stassen, from whom our illustrations are taken, has entered with perfect appreciation into Wagner's version of the noble legend. The following rendering of the Parsifal is not a close translation of the text, but rather a transfusion of the spirit. It is possibly as nearly a translation as Fitzgerald's rendition of Omar Khayyam, or Macpherson's version of the poems of Ossian. It is what may be called a free rendering, aiming to give the spirit rather than the language of the original. ”

“ The mere translations of the words of Parsifal, as given in the English texts of H. and F. Corder and M.H. Glyn, do not adequately represent the full value of the drama. Those versions were under the necessity of a strictly literal translation, which was further hampered in order to make the English words fit the music, and the result was far from satisfactory. The literal translation also unfortunately over-emphasizes certain parts and phrases in the drama which are somewhat harsh, but which at Bayreuth become much modified and refined, and are, therefore, so represented in this version. ”