THE LEGEND OF PARSIFAL
Some few years ago, when I was writing my play of Tristram and Iseult, a lady of my acquaintance, who was familiar with the music-drama by Wagner on the same theme, asked me by what means I had contrived to secure Madame Wagner’s consent to the use of the story for the English stage. Such ignorance of one of the most beautiful of the legends included in the Arthurian cycle, enshrined for English readers by Sir Thomas Malory’s immortal prose romance of Le Morte d’Arthur, is of course phenomenal and extreme, but it was matched by my experience a few days after the production of the play, when an enterprising newscutting agency, misled by some reference in the programme to the great chronicler, forwarded to the theatre a bundle of criticisms addressed to Sir Thomas Malory, Knight, oblivious of the fact that he had passed beyond the reach of censure in the closing years of the fifteenth century.
It is possible, however, that even among some of those to whom the source of the Tristram story is familiar, there may be here and there isolated worshippers of the great German composer who are hardly aware that the legend of Parsifal found its source in the same great body of Arthurian romance. Indeed, I have met with not a few to whom the identification of Parsifal with the British hero, Sir Perceval, comes somewhat as a surprise, and who are scarcely conscious that the whole legend of the “Holy Grail,” which forms the subject of Wagner’s opera, had its source in Britain, and was afterwards incorporated in romances that first saw the light in France. The writer who originally gave to the story its poetic form, and in whose work the purely human features of the narrative are already linked with the history of Christianity, was Crestien de Troyes, who began to write about 1150, and died before the end of the twelfth century. His poems embrace a number of the Arthurian stories, but it so happens that amongst them the “Conte del Graal” was left unfinished, and was afterwards completed by several writers, chief among whom, Wauchier, confessed that he had drawn his inspiration from the work of a Welshman, Bleheris, in whose version the “Grail” hero is not Sir Perceval but Sir Gawain.
But even before Crestien’s death the beauty of certain of these Arthurian legends had captured the imagination of Europe, and in the opening years of the thirteenth century we have the “Parzival” of Wolfram von Eschenbach, of Bavaria, who admits his knowledge of Crestien, but confesses a preference for a still older French version by Guyot, the Provençal. To Wolfram’s poem Wagner is directly indebted for that portion of the story which forms the basis of the opera. The Bavarian knight died about the year 1220, and his work forms a complete and beautiful poem, concluding with a recital of the fortunes of Lohengrin, the son of Parsifal, who, in his turn, became ruler of the Grail Kingdom. Here, as with Crestien, the link with Christianity is firmly established, and in a still later form of the story embodied by Malory the Christianising influence is further developed, and the Grail, now definitely identified with the Holy Cup, is assumed to have been brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea, who himself had filled it with the blood that flowed from the side of the Redeemer.
In all these later forms of the legend, however, certain features and incidents survive which clearly prove that the story owned an earlier, and a Pagan source. Even in Wolfram the Grail is not a cup, but a stone endowed with plenty-giving qualities, and the symbols, which in all later versions are bodily taken over for the service of the Church, we find on examination to possess a pre-Christian character and origin.
A subject upon which such a mass of criticism and scholarship has accumulated cannot here be discussed in full, but the learned work of the late Alfred Nutt, and the acute researches into the heart of the mystery made by Miss Jessie Weston, one of the most patient and diligent students of a difficult problem, establish almost beyond dispute that the Grail, in its earlier manifestations, bore no relation to the history of the Christian faith. The magic symbols that stood ready to the hand of those who gave to the legend its final religious shape had indisputably an earlier and a different significance. The dripping lance, that now becomes the weapon that pierced the Body of the Redeemer; the Cup containing the blood that flowed from His Side, had figured first as life-giving symbols before they had taken on the holier character with which they are endowed by the chroniclers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
This was well established by Mr. Alfred Nutt, who referred their origin to the earlier forms of Celtic folklore; and in Miss Jessie Weston’s latest contribution to the literature of the subject, published in June of the present year, a powerful plea is put forward for the interpretation of the story in the light of the earlier forms of nature-worship, linked by far-reaching tradition with the ritual of the Adonis cult, and associated with the quest for the principle of Life itself. It is unquestionably true that this theory explains as no other can many of the features of the Grail story which have no relation to Christianity. The Fisher King, the Guardian of the precious Grail, is a title which cannot be understood unless we take account of primitive tradition, in which the fish is widely employed as a symbol of life, and the fate and character of the maimed king who guards the Grail, as well as the mystic instruments which accompany its revelation, are equally referable to Pagan ritual belonging to earlier forms of nature-worship.
This is not the place to follow in detail the many intricate and puzzling problems which beset the history of the Grail. It is, indeed, a fascinating theme, and has already attracted the learning and research of many scholars in England, Germany, and France, and is perhaps destined, in the absence of some of the earlier texts from which the legend was drawn, never to receive a final and wholly satisfying solution. Here, however, we are concerned only with those features of the story at a date when it had already received the stamp of Christian sentiment, and more especially with that particular form of it embodied by the composer, Richard Wagner, in his world-famous opera.
Apart from the hero himself, the characters engaged in the drama are not numerous. There is the aged Titurel; the wounded Amfortas whose sufferings, imposed as the penalty of unlawful love, must endure till the coming of the deliverer, Parsifal; Klingsor, the malign ruler of the enchanted castle, served by the spell-bound Kundry, an enchantress, only to be released from her thraldom by the knight who successfully resists her witch-like fascinations; and Gurnemanz, through whose aid and guidance the hero is finally enabled to accomplish his task. All appear in Wolfram’s romance, under the names retained by Wagner; and the types recur also in other versions of the legend, sometimes under different names, and with endless variations in the adventures befalling them. Parsifal is our own Sir Perceval, a knight of Arthur’s Court, the Peredur of the Mabinogion, not, however, the earliest or the latest hero of the Grail quest. Before him in historic position is Sir Gawain, who, as already noted, plays the rôle of deliverer in the poem of Bleheris; while in the later romances his place is taken by the chaste Sir Galahad, the son of Sir Lancelot, who—by reason of his sin with Guinevere—was denied the reward of achieving the quest in his own person. In like manner the Grail King, Amfortas, takes on other titles, according to the particular source of the legend, while the part played by Kundry as the Grail messenger is only a variant of the rôle assigned to the “Loathly Damsel,” with the added qualities of the sorceress, who serves the sinister purpose of Klingsor in the enchanted castle.
But a comparison of all these legends leaves undisturbed the fact that in its original shape the story and its environment are British, and, further, that it first took literary form in the work of a Welsh poet. Issuing thence, as we now know, this and other of the Arthurian romances spread like a flame over the Western world, finding their principal exponents in Germany and France, but extending even to Sicily, where there is still a tradition that in the mirage that floats between the island and the mainland can be seen the sleeping form of King Arthur embedded in the heart of Etna, and awaiting the sound of the horn that shall summon him back to his kingdom. It is not a little strange that these legends, doomed to the long sleep of King Arthur himself, should have awakened to new vitality in the work of our own modern poets, and should equally have attracted the genius of the great German composer.
To those who are interested in the dramatic side of Wagner’s genius, the study of Wolfram’s beautiful poem, to which he is directly indebted, will not be without fruitful results. As a general comment, it may be said that the dramatist misses something of the spirit of romance, something also of the atmosphere of chivalry to be found in the master whom he has followed. On the other hand, it will be clearly seen that he had handled this material with the vision of a dramatist, supported by an imagination which seizes, instinctively and surely, upon personages and incidents that enforce the ethical message he seeks to deliver. Perhaps the most beautiful part of Wolfram’s poem, of necessity excluded from the closer action of drama, concerns Parsifal’s earlier years, before he had won the right to carry arms as one of the knights of King Arthur’s Court. Gahmuret, his father, in search of adventure, had first taken service under Baruc, and had won the love of the heathen queen, Belakane, who bore him a son, Feirefiz, the father of Prester John. But before the birth of the child, Gahmuret, returning to Europe, had sought and won the love of Queen Herzeleide, the mother of the Grail hero. Gahmuret was manifestly very conscious of his restless temperament, and duly warned his newly-won bride that what had happened before might recur.
Then he looked on Queen Herzeleide, and he spake to her courteously:
“If in joy we would live, O Lady, then my warder thou shalt not be,
When loosed from the bonds of sorrow, for knighthood my heart is fain;
If thou holdest me back from Tourney I may practise such wiles again
As of old, when I fled from the lady whom I won with mine own right hand,
When from strife she would fain have kept me, I fled from her folk and land.”
Then she spake: “Set what bonds thou willest, by thy word I will still abide.”
“Many spears would I break asunder and each month would to Tourney ride,
Thou shalt murmur not, O Lady, when such knightly joust I’ld run!”
This she sware, so the tale was told me, and the maid and her lands he won.
And yet, despite her brave front, Herzeleide was destined to endure much sorrow at the hands of her restless lord. Before Parsifal was born, he had already set out on fresh adventure, leaving his lonely lady sick with longing for his return.
As for half a year he was absent, she looked for his coming sure,
For but in the thought of that meeting might the life of the Queen endure.
Then brake the sword of her gladness thro’ the midst of the hilt in twain,
Ah, me, and alas! for her mourning, that goodness should bear such pain
And faith ever waken sorrow! Yea, so doth it run alway
With the life of men, and to-morrow must they mourn who rejoice to-day!
Here follow the bitter tidings of Gahmuret’s death. Then, when the child of sorrow came to be born, Herzeleide retreated from the Court, and took refuge in a wild woodland, where Parsifal grew to manhood, in ignorance of the world and its ways; in ignorance also of his high lineage, for the Queen held that she had suffered enough through knighthood and its adventures, and sought only to rescue her child from the dangers of his father’s fate. I am drawing again upon Miss Jessie Weston’s charming translation of Wolfram’s poem for this delightful picture of Parsifal’s boyhood:
No knightly weapon she gave him save such as in childish play
He wrought himself from the bushes that grew on his lonely way.
A bow and arrows he made him, and with these in thoughtless glee,
He shot at the birds as they carolled o’erhead in the leafy tree.
But when the feathered songster of the woods at his feet lay dead,
In wonder and dumb amazement he bowed down his golden head,
And in childish wrath and sorrow tore the locks of his sunny hair
(For I wot well of all earth’s children was never a child so fair
As this boy, who, afar in the desert, from the haunts of mankind did dwell,
Who bathed in the mountain streamlet, and roamed o’er the rock-strewn fell!)
Then he thought him well how the music which his hand had for ever stilled,
Had thrilled his soul with its sweetness; and his heart was with sorrow filled,
And the ready tears of childhood flowed forth from their fountains free,
And he ran to his mother weeping, and bowed him beside her knee.
It may be that this passage partly inspired Wagner in his treatment of the incident of the stricken swan; but in the heart of Herzeleide, Parsifal’s love of the birds only begot a fierce jealousy, and she sent forth her servants to snare and slay the woodland choristers, so that she might have no rival in her boy’s love. But the boy’s reproaches touched the mother’s heart:
... “Now sweet, my mother, why trouble the birds so sore,
Forsooth they can ne’er have harmed thee, ah! leave them in peace once more!”
And his mother kissed him gently, “Perchance I have wrought a wrong,
Of a truth the dear God who made them, He gave unto them their song,
And I would not that one of His creatures should sorrow because of me.”
The turning-point in Parsifal’s career came a little later on, when on his wondering eyes fell the vision of certain of King Arthur’s knights who passed through the forest:
It chanced through a woodland thicket one morn as he took his way,
And brake from o’erhanging bushes full many a leafy spray,
That a pathway steep and winding rose sharply his track anear,
And the distant beat of horse-hoofs fell strange on his wondering ear.
Then the boy grasped his javelin firmly, and thought what the sound might be;
“Perchance ’tis the Devil cometh; well, I care not if it be he!
Methinks I can still withstand him, be he never so fierce and grim,
Of a truth my lady mother she is o’er much afraid of him!”
As he stood there for combat ready, behold! in the morning light
Three knights rode into the clearing in glittering armour bright.
From head to foot were they armèd, each one on his gallant steed,
And the lad, as he saw their glory, thought each one a god indeed!
No longer he stood defiant, but knelt low upon his knee,
And cried, “God who helpest all men, I pray Thee have thought for me!”
From that hour the boy’s heart, like that of his father, was fired by the spirit of adventure. How he followed after them in their wanderings, and how, after much happening, he arrived at King Arthur’s Court, were too long to tell. When she saw that his mind was made up his mother put no obstacle in his path, but robed him in the garb of a fool, thinking, in the cunning of her mother heart, and “the cruelty of a mother’s love,” as the poet phrases it, that when the world mocked him he would return to the forest again.
It is at this point in the mental development of our hero that he makes his entrance into Wagner’s opera. As already noted, full and skilful use is made by the modern author of the dramatic material which the legend discloses. In the associated characters of Kundry and Klingsor he has given logical and coherent form to much that lies scattered and disjointed in Wolfram’s poem; and he has built up the character of Parsifal, adding to the simpler conception of the older writer an element of conscious philosophy that makes a strong appeal to the countrymen of Goethe. 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. It is the ignorance of innocence and egotism that on the first occasion keeps his lips dumb, when the sympathy he was afterwards to acquire might have prompted the simple question that would have set the sufferer free, while it was the richer experience that came as his after inheritance which enabled him finally to achieve the liberation of the wounded Amfortas. Of that first visit of Parsifal to the Castle, Wolfram writes:
Yet one, uncalled, rode thither, and evil did then befall,
For foolish he was, and witless, and sin-laden from thence did fare,
Since he asked not his host of his sorrow and the woe that he saw him bear.
No man would I blame, yet this man I ween for his sins must pay
Since he asked not the longed-for question which all sorrow had put away.
And in these lines we may find the germ of Wagner’s more conscious and more didactic conception, wherein we miss something of the simplicity, something also of the rich humanity of the twelfth-century poet. This sense of loss in the modern presentment of the theme, loss in the spirit of romance, and in the impression of free and unfettered humanity, is perhaps an individual impression; and I may conclude with a tribute to Wagner’s genius by the late Alfred Nutt, which certainly does ample justice to the composer’s contribution to the story, as he accepted it from the hands of the Bavarian knight.
“Kundry,” he writes, “is Wagner’s great contribution to the legend. She is the Herodias whom Christ, for her laughter, doomed to wander till He come again. Subject to the powers of evil, she must tempt and lure to their destruction the Grail warriors. And yet she would find release and salvation could a man resist her witch-like spell. She knows this. 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 pain of the physical wound is his, but far more the agony of the sinner who has been unworthy of his high trust, and who, soiled by carnal sin, must yet daily come in contact with the Grail, symbol of the highest purity and holiness. The strength which comes of the new-born knowledge enables him to resist sensual longing, and thereby to release both Kundry and Amfortas.”