Parsifal

“ Parsifal vanquishes the knights who guard the castle, and enters the enchanted garden, a wilderness of tropical flowers, vast in size and garish in colour. There he is saluted by troops of lovely maidens, who play around him until dismissed by a voice sounding from a network of flowers hard by. Parsifal turns and sees Kundry, now a woman of exquisite loveliness, advancing towards him. She tells him of his dead mother, and drawing him towards her, presses upon his lips the first kiss of love. The touch of defilement wakens him to a sense of human frailty. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Parsifal alone remained on solid ground.
He looked about him, but could see only a trackless forest with close spreading trees that shut out the blue sky and the light of the sun. He did not know which way to turn, or where stood the Temple of the Grail. But the sacred Spear was still in his hand, and its presence seemed to bring comfort. He knelt and prayed for guidance, and as if in answer, the words of the old knight came into his memory,
"You may have to wander all over the world and endure many hardships." ”

“ Then it is that Parsifal, who with Gurnemanz and Kundry has entered unnoticed, advances and with the point of the Sacred Spear touches Amfortas's wound. "One weapon alone avails. The wound can be closed only by the Spear which made it. Be whole, pardoned and absolved, for I now hold the office in your stead!" Amfortas's countenance of holy ecstasy proclaims the instant virtue of the remedy. As Parsifal holds up to the enraptured gaze of the knights the Spear which he has brought back to them, the Parsifal-motif is heard again, for the last time, triumphant, broad, and glorious. ”

“ Parsifal has invaded Klingsor's realm; the evil knights have fled before his prowess, wounded and in disorder. Kundry is commissioned to meet the guileless youth in the enchanted garden, and, all other allurements failing, to subdue him by her irresistible fascinations and hand him over to Klingsor.
In a moment the scenery lifts, and a garden of marvelous beauty and extent lies before us. ”

“ He shall see the Grail, and in the Holy Palace, what time the mystic light streams forth and the assembled knights bow themselves in prayer, the voice which comforted Amfortas shall speak to his deliverer and bid him arise and heal the king.
Gurnemanz and Parsifal have ceased to speak. They stand in the glowing light of the summer-land. The tide of music rolls on continuously, but sounds more strange and dreamy. ”

“ The scene between the unwilling temptress, whose success would but doom her afresh, and the virgin Parsifal thus becomes tragic in the extreme. How does this affect Amfortas and the Grail? In this way. Parsifal is a ‘pure fool,’ knowing naught of sin or suffering. It has been foretold of him he should become ‘wise by fellow-suffering,’ and so it proves. The overmastering rush of desire unseals his eyes, clears his mind. Heart-wounded by the shaft of passion, he feels Amfortas’s torture thrill through him. ”

“ The entre-acts are very long, giving us a chance to shake out our frocks and wake up and amuse ourselves. Some people go up a little hill, or into some pine woods; but that's rather dull, for you don't meet half so many others—most everyone stays in front of the theatre. But I must tell you about "Parsifal." In the first place it is awfully long. And Parsifal himself is entirely too fat! I am sure such a very good young person as Parsifal shouldn't have a stomach! ”

“ This was Stein's own impression, and he wrote to Nietzsche:
"How I long for you to come this summer to Bayreuth and hear Parsifal. When I think of that work I imagine a poem of pure beauty, a spiritual adventure that [Pg 284] is purely human, the development of a youth who becomes a man. I can find in Parsifal no pseudo-Christianity of any sort and fewer tendencies than in any other of Wagner's works. If I write to you—in a spirit at once audacious and timid—it is not because I am a Wagnerian, but because I wish for Parsifal such a hearer as you, and for such a hearer as you I wish Parsifal." ”

“ The first act of "Parsifal" is unsurpassable, the second is an anti-climax, and the third, excepting the repentance of Kundry, which is pathetic, and strikes one as true, a more saddening anti-climax. There is one last thing to say before passing to the music, and this is that "Parsifal" is commonly treated with respect as a Christian drama—a superior "Sign of the Cross." I happen, oddly enough, to know the four Gospels exceedingly well; and I find nothing of "Parsifal" in them. It is much nearer to Buddhism in spirit, in colour: it is a kind of Germanised metaphysical Buddhism. ”

“ Parsifal becomes aware of it. With his sense of the absolution Page 31 from sin for both of them, in baptism, invaded by deep peace, he gazes around him in soft enchantment: "How more than usual lovely the meadows appear to me to-day! True, I have known wonder-flowers, clasping me with eager tendrils so high as my head; but never had I seen blades, blossoms, flowers, so mild and tender, nor ever did, to my sense, all nature give forth a fragrance so innocently sweet, or speak to me with such amiable confidence!" "That," explains Gurnemanz, "is Good-Friday's Charm...." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is interesting to note that these excerpts from Parsifal represent the only ones authorized by Wagner for concert performance.
Good Friday Spell from “Parsifal”
The Good Friday Spell is placed at the end of the first scene in Act III of the opera. Gurnemanz is now an old hermit who lives in a humble abode at the edge of a forest. He comes out of the hut when he hears a groaning sound in the distance. Presently Parsifal arrives. He is a knight clad in black armor, carrying the sacred spear and a buckler. He is weary. ”

“ Not, be it said, that the outline left by Wolfram was indefinite or uncertain. Already in the legend Parsifal’s personality is clearly marked. “A brave man,” says Wolfram, “yet slowly wise is he whom I hail my hero,” and the steady growth of wisdom based on sympathy and suffering is clearly traced in Parsifal’s successive visits to the Grail Castle. ”

“ The wound may be cured only by being touched with the point of the Spear held by a Guileless Fool, a youth who can withstand all temptation. This youth, of course, is Parsifal, a forest lad who enters into the picture through having killed a swan sacred to the Grail. Parsifal is made to go through the rituals prescribed by the libretto ”

“ There were minor differences, but it was Parsifal and its drift toward Rome, that shocked the former disciple. What he wrote of Wagner and Wagnerism may be interpreted according to one's own views, but the Parsifal criticism is sound. That parody of the Roman Catholic ceremonial and ideas, and the glorification of its psychopathic hero, with the consequent degradation of the idea of womanhood, Nietzsche saw and denounced. "I despise everyone who does not regard Parsifal as an outrage on morals," he cried. To-day his denunciations are recognised by wise folk as wisdom. ”

“ Parsifal has brought to these things a consciousness not blurred and overscored by worldly knowledge and desires, a native capacity for love of others uninterfered with by the developed consideration of self. His fresh instinct has gathered the meaning of what he sees, novel to him as it is; "wise through compassion," he has gotten the measure and character perfectly of Amfortas's sufferings, foreign as they are to his experience ”

“ Lohengrin, it will be remembered, tells Elsa that he is Parsifal's son and one of the knights of the Holy Grail. The name is written Percival in "Lohengrin," as well as in Tennyson's "Idyls of the King." Now, however, Wagner returns to the quainter and more "Teutonic" form of spelling. "Parsifal" deals with an earlier period in the history of the Grail knighthood than "Lohengrin." But there is a resemblance between the Grail music in "Parsifal" and the "Lohengrin" music—a resemblance not in melody, nor even in outline, but merely in the purity and spirituality that breathes through both. ”

“ Parsifal tells Gurnemanz of his weary wanderings over the earth in search of Montsalvat. Sorely beset by foes, yet he dare not use the sacred spear. It has been kept intact from worldly stain or strife. Then follows the soothing Good Friday magic music episode, when all nature puts on its sweetest attire to give thanks to the Saviour who suffered. ”

“ Parsifal, however, has not forgotten the old man whom he has sought so long in vain, and is, so overcome by emotion that he cannot speak. He obeys Gurnemanz's injunctions to remove his arms, as none dare enter the holy precincts of the Holy Grail in martial array, and, planting the spear he recovered from Klingsor into the ground, he bends the knee before it, and returns silent thanks that his quest is ended, and he may at last be vouchsafed to quiet the pain which Amfortas still endures. ”

“ But Kundry turns sadly away. "I never do good," she murmurs, "I seek only repose. Alas! repose for her who is wretched. Ah! horror seizes me, resistance is vain, the time is come, sleep, sleep I must." And with a stifled cry, she sinks down behind a bush. Gurnemanz, however, hoping that this may be the redeemer promised to the king, conducts Parsifal toward the temple; he will be present at the ceremony, and should Parsifal be the chosen one, his mission will be revealed to him by the Grail.
The scene changes; the forest disappears, while the old man and Parsifal appear to be advancing ”

“ Amfortas unveils the Grail, and the ceremony of the Lord's Supper is performed. Gurnemanz invites Parsifal to partake of it, but he stands dumbfounded and silent. The Grail is borne away again, and when the knights have disappeared, Gurnemanz pushes the still stupefied Parsifal out of the hall, saying:
The rising of the curtain on the second act reveals to us the chamber of Klingsor in a tower of his castle.-464- He is there awaiting the arrival of Parsifal, who he knows has been cast out of Monsalvat and is approaching his domain. ”

“ The youth’s only answer is to clutch at his heart and shake his head. Gurnemanz, who by this time is convinced that Parsifal is truly a fool, sends him away angrily and then follows the Knights out the door. From somewhere above an unseen singer delivers the motive of the Pure Fool. The theme of the Grail is sung by still other voices. ”

“ No one has a right under the pretence of art to stretch his fellow-creatures thus on the rack! Parsifal is altogether too fat. Wagner should have cut his Parsifal out of Donatello," exclaims Countess Lenzdorff, as she leaves the theatre at the close of the first act. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the feminine Ahasrer, present in all ages and spheres, in our time revealing its tangible form in the ruling spirit of Judaism. As her sinful nature at last is overcome by Parsifal’s purity, and she humbly approaches him to receive the baptism that is awarded to [Pg 178] every one who believes and acts in the spirit of pure humanity, he proclaims, when he has withstood her temptation and thereby has regained from Klingsor the holy lance of the Grail, the impending catastrophe by tracing with the lance the sign of the cross and saying ”

“ Apart from a host of letters, and the 'Lebenserinnerungen,' an autobiography covering fully two-thirds of his life, there are no MS. literary remains of importance. Reports of his having read or recited scenes from the poem to a Buddhistic drama 'Die Sieger,' or 'Die Büsser,' intended to follow Parsifal, rest upon vague hearsay. ”

“ I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart’s Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes. ”

“ Sir, not far from here dwells a holy man, who will give you counsel; you may repent and be absolved from your sins."
Parzival courteously took his leave. He had regarded his failure to ask that question as a luckless error, had felt that God was unjust to him, and had also doubted His power to aid. Now came wavering thoughts: "What if God might help my pain? If He ever favoured a knight, or if sword and shield might win His favour if to-day is His day of help, let Him help me if He can. If God's craft can show the way to man and horse, I'll honour Him. ”