III

Again the Domain of the Grail, where, on the outskirts of the forest,

beside a spring, the old-grown Gurnemanz has built himself a hermit's

cell. It is long after and much is changed. There is sadness in

the air, but it is of an unfretful gentle sort, almost sweet; the

sadness of a solitude visited by high thoughts, memories of calamity

softened in retrospect, present crosses made supportable by faith

and the light cast on the path already of an approaching event

which is to mark a new epoch in the life of the Order. A sadness

in the air and a something holy. It is Spring-time and it is

Good-Friday; the trees are in blossom and the meadow at the forest's

edge is spotted with new flowers. We are never, through the first

part of the act, left unconscious for long of the sweetness of

surrounding nature and the hour; it comes like whiffs of perfume,

every now and then, reminding us that the earth has renewed herself

and the day is holy, until at last these stray intimations have

led to a clear and rounded statement in the Good-Friday Charm.

Forth from his cell comes Gurnemanz, to be recognized as a knight

of the Grail only by the straight under-tunic of the Order. He has

heard a groan, not to be mistaken for the cry of a hurt animal.

As it is repeated, it strikes his ear as a sound known to him of

old. Anxiously searching among the matted thorn-trees, he discovers

Kundry, as once before, rigid and to all appearance dead. He chafes

and calls and brings her back to consciousness. She is the Kundry

of the first act, but so changed,--pale with the strained pallor

of one lately exorcised; the wildness and roughness all gone out

of her face, and in its place a strange rapt fixity; in her bearing

an unknown humility. In silence she recovers remembrance of the

facts of her existence; mechanically orders her hair and garments,

and without a word leaves Gurnemanz to set about the work of a

servant. As she is moving towards the hut, he asks: "Have you no

word for me? Is this my thanks for having waked you once more out

of the sleep of death?" And she brings forth brokenly the last

words she is heard to utter: "To serve!... To serve!..." the only

need now of her being. "How different her bearing is," Gurnemanz

muses, "from what it used to be! Is it the influence of the holy

day?" She brings from the cell a water-jar, and, gazing off into the

distance while it fills, sees among the trees some one approaching,

to which, by a sign, she calls Gurnemanz's attention. He marvels

at the figure in sable armour; but we, saddened and slowed as it

is, have recognized the Parsifal-motif heralding it. The sable

knight is faring slowly on his way, with closed helmet, bowed head

and lowered spear, unconscious of his observers, until, when he

drops on a grassy knoll to rest, Gurnemanz greets and addresses

him: "Have you lost your way? Shall I guide you?" Receiving no

answer to this or the questions which follow, save by signs of

the head, he with the bluffness we remember offers a reprimand:

"If your vow binds you not to speak to me, my vow obliges me to

tell you what is befitting. You are upon a consecrated spot, it

is improper here to go in armour, with closed helmet, with shield

and spear. And of all days upon this one! Do you not know what

holy day it is?" The knight gently shakes his head. "Among what

heathen have you lived, not to be aware that this is the most holy

Good-Friday? Lay down, forthwith, your arms! Do not offend the

Lord, who on this day, unarmed in very truth, offered His sacred

blood in atonement for the sins of the world!" The knight upon this,

still without a word, drives the haft of his spear into the ground,

lays down his arms and sinks upon his knees in prayer before the

Spear. The removal of his helmet has revealed the face of Parsifal,

but another Parsifal, even as Kundry is another. The stage-directions

have no word concerning it, but it must be in accordance with the

custom of Bayreuth that the latter Parsifal presents a resemblance

to the traditional representations of the Saviour; the idea being,

we must think, to indicate, stamped on the exterior man, this soul's

aspiration towards likeness with the Divine Pattern; or, perhaps,

visibly to state that here, too, is a gentle and selfless lover

of men, all of whose forces bent on a mission of deliverance.

Gurnemanz, watching him attentively, recognises the slayer, long

ago, of the swan, the stupid boy whom he had turned out of the

temple. Then he recognises, too, the Spear.

Parsifal, rising from his prayer, gazes quietly around him and

recognises Gurnemanz. To the question of the latter, how and whence

he comes, he replies: "I am come by ways of wandering and pain.

Can I believe myself at last delivered from them, since I hear

once more the rustle of this forest, and behold you, worthy elder?

Or am I still baffled in my search for the right road? Everything

looks changed...." "What road is it you seek?" Gurnemanz inquires.

"The road to him whose profound wail I heard of yore in wondering

stupidity, and the instrument of whose healing I now dare believe

myself elected to be...." All this long time he has vainly sought

the road back to the Grail, whether hindered by Kundry's curse,

or cut off by some stain left upon his nature from his brief hour

in the deadly garden, which must be cleansed by such prolonged

ordeal. He relates the desperate battle in all his wanderings to

keep safe the Sacred Spear,--which, behold, he is now bringing

home! Gurnemanz's joy bursts forth unbounded. Then he, too, makes

his friend even over the past. Since the day of his presence among

them, the trouble then revealed to him has increased to the last

point of distress. Amfortas, revolting against the torments of

his soul, and desiring naught but death, refuses to perform the

office of the Grail, by which his life would be prolonged. The

knights, deprived of their heavenly nourishment, deprived of a

leader, have lost their old strength and courage. They seek their

sustenance of herbs and roots, like the animals, in the forest. No

longer are they called to holy warfare in distant lands. Titurel,

unrenewed by the vision of the Grail, is dead.... At the relation

of these mournful events, grief assails Parsifal, who holds himself

responsible for all this wretchedness, by reason of his long-delayed

return, which he must regard as a consequence of sins and folly of

his own,--grief beyond what the human frame is fitted to endure,

and he is again swooning, as at the evil news in the first act.

Kundry hurries with water from the cell, but Gurnemanz stops her;

he has in thought larger purifications for the pilgrim in whom

his prophetic mind discerns one ordained to fulfill this very day

a sacred office. "So let him be made clean of all stain, let the

dust be washed from him of his long wandering." They ease him upon

the moss beside the consecrated spring, remove his greaves and

coat of mail. As he revives a little, he asks faintly: "Shall I

be taken to-day to Amfortas?" Gurnemanz assures him that he shall,

for on this day the burial of Titurel takes place, which Gurnemanz

must attend, and Amfortas has pledged himself, in honour of his

father, to uncover once more the Grail. Kundry during this, on

her knees, has been bathing the pilgrim's feet. He watches her,

at her devoted lowly task, in wonder: "You have washed my feet,"

he speaks; "let now the friend pour water on my head!" Gurnemanz

obeys, besprinkling him with a baptismal intention. Kundry takes

from her bosom a golden phial, and, having poured ointment on his

feet, dries them, in the custom of the day when she was Herodias,

with her long hair; by this repetition of a famous act intending

perhaps to signify that she is a sinner and that he has raised

her from sin. "You have anointed my feet," speaks Parsifal again;

"let now the brother-at-arms of Titurel anoint my head, for on this

day he shall hail me as king." Whereupon Gurnemanz anoints him

as king. Kundry has been gazing with a devout hushed face. There

is no sign that he recognises her, but, as if his soul recognised

some quality of her soul, as if some need in her called to him,

he dips water from the sacred well and sprinkles her head: "My

first ministration shall be this: I baptize thee! Have faith in the

Redeemer!" And Kundry, the curse being lifted which had dried up

in her the fountain of tears, bows to the earth abundantly weeping.

At this point it is that the vague waftures of sweetness which have

been fitfully soliciting us all through these scenes, concentrate

themselves and make their call irresistible. Parsifal becomes aware

of it. With his sense of the absolution 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...." "Alas!" wails Parsifal, "that day of

supreme agony! Ought not on this day everything which blooms and

breathes to be steeped in mourning and tears?" "You see," replies

Gurnemanz, "that it is not so. They are the sinners' tears of

repentance which today bathe meadow and plain with a holy dew; that

is why they look so fresh and fair. To-day all created things rejoice

upon the earth once trodden by the Saviour's feet, and wish to

offer Him their prayers. Beyond them it is to see Him upon the

Cross, wherefore they turn their eyes to redeemed man. Man feels

himself delivered from the burden and terror of sin, through God's

sacrifice of love made clean and whole. The grasses and flowers

become aware of this, they mark that on this day the foot of man

spares to trample them, that, even as God with a heavenly patience

bears with man and once suffered for his sake, man in pious tribute

treads softly to avoid crushing them. All creation gives thanks

for this, all the short-lived things that bloom; for to-day all

Nature, absolved from sin, regains her day of Innocence." The

exquisiteness of this passage, the Good-Friday Spell (_Charfreitag's

Zauber_), can hardly be conveyed; if one says the music is worthy

of the theme, one has but given a hint of the overearthly quality

of its sweetness.

Kundry has slowly raised her head and fixed upon Parsifal her prayerful

wet eyes. Either from his recent contemplation of the flowery lea,

or some occult association of her personality with the past, the

flowers of Klingsor's garden come into his mind. "I saw them wither

who had smiled on me. May they not also be hungering for redemption

now?... Your tears, too, are turned to blessed dew.... You weep,

and see, the meadow blooms in joy!" He stoops and kisses her gently

upon the forehead.

Bells are heard summoning the knights to the Castle. Gurnemanz

brings from the cell the mantle of a knight of the Grail, and places

it upon Parsifal's shoulders. Parsifal grasps the Spear, and the

three vanish from sight among the trees. Again, but from the opposite

direction, we approach the Castle; the sound of bells increases

as we pass through the granite portal and the vaulted corridors.

We are once more in the domed hall. All is as we left it, save

for the tables, which, become useless, are no longer there. Again

the doors open at the back and from each issues forth a company of

knights, the one bearing the bier of Titurel, the other carrying

the litter of Amfortas and the shrine of the Grail, while they chant,

in question and response, a song of reproachful tenor. "Whom do you

bring, with tokens of mourning, in the dark casket?" "The funereal

casket holds the hero into whose charge the very God entrusted

Himself. Titurel we bring." "Who slew him, whom God Himself held in

His care?" "The killing burden of age slew him, when he no longer

might behold the Grail." "Who prevented him from beholding the

glory of the Grail?" "He whom you carry, the sinful Keeper." The

latter they now urge to fulfill his promise of exposing the Grail,

and, deeply moved by the sight of his father's face and the outburst

of lamentation which follows the folding back of the pall from

it, he appears on the point of satisfying them; but, as in their

eagerness they hem him around with injunctions almost threatening,

he is seized with a revulsion once more against the task imposed on

him. He springs from his high seat and stands among them begging

that rather they will kill him. "Already I feel the night of death

closing around me, and must I be forced back into life? You demented!

Who shall compel me to live? Death alone it is in your power to

give!" He tears open his garment and offers his breast. "Forward,

heroes! Slay the sinner with his affliction! The Grail perchance

will glow for you then of Itself!"

But the knights shrink away. 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. He proceeds to perform the rite which had

been the duty of Amfortas. A glory rains upon the altar. At the

glowing of the Grail, Titurel, returning for a moment to life,

lifts himself on his bier with a gesture of benediction. As Parsifal

moves the Chalice softly above the kneeling assembly, a white dove

descends from on high and floats above his head. Kundry, with her

eyes turned toward all these luminous things, sinks softly upon

the altar-steps, the life-giving Grail having given her life too,

in the form of desired death. With the interwoven Grail and Faith

and Spear music letting down as if a curtain of silver and azure

and gold, the poem closes.

One has heard it objected, as at least strange, that when the search

after knowledge is so unquestionably meritorious, and study, as we

count it, one of the conditions of progress, and learning a lamp

to our feet, an ideal should be made of total ignorance, such as

Parsifal's. But surely the point is a different one. The point is

not Parsifal's ignorance--except, perhaps, in so far as it made

for innocence--but the qualities which he possessed, and which one

may possess, in spite of ignorance. It is a comparison of values

which is established. Through the object-lesson of Parsifal, Wagner

is saying, after his fashion and inversely, what Saint Paul says:

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels,... though I

have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all

knowledge,... and have not charity, I am nothing;... it availeth

me nothing." The supremacy of charity, love of others, is the point

illustrated.

One tributary to the mighty stream of our interest in the opera

of Parsifal has its spring in the date of its appearance. It comes

as the poet's last word. What a procession of heroes has passed

before us--beautiful, brave, romantic,--how fit, every one, to

capture the imagination! Towering a little above the rest, Siegfried,

the _Uebermensch_, the Overman. But finally, with the effect of a

conclusion reached, a judgement, the hero whose heroism differs in

quality from that of the others, the lowly of heart, whose dominant

trait is _Mitleid_, compassion, sympathy with the woes of others,

who pities swans and women and the sinful and the suffering, and

gives his strength to helping them, and sanctifies himself for

their sake.