* * *
Such is the story of Wagner's "Parsifal." It is the purpose of this book to help the musical layman who loves lyric drama to enjoyment. Criticism might do this, but a purpose of simple exposition has already been proclaimed, and shall be adhered to lest some reader think that he is being led too far afield. In this case the exposition shall take the form of a marshalling of the elements of the story in two aspects—religious and legendary. Careful readers of English literature will have had no difficulty in recognizing in it a story of the quest of the Holy Grail. Tennyson will have taught them that the hero is that
Sir Percivale
Whom Arthur and his knighthood called the Pure;
that the talismanic vessel is
the cup itself from which our Lord Drank at the last sad supper with His own;
that the lance which struck and healed the grievous wound in the side of the king is the spear with which the side of the Christ was pierced on Calvary. It is also obvious that the king, whose name is Amfortas, that is, "the powerless one," is a symbol of humanity suffering from the wounds of slavery to desire; that the heroic act of Parsifal, as Wagner calls him, which brings release to the king and his knights, is renunciation of desire, prompted by pity, compassion, fellow-suffering; and that this gentle emotion it was that had inspired knowledge simultaneously of a great need and a means of deliverance. The ethical idea of the drama, as I set forth in a book entitled "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama" many years ago, is that it is the enlightenment which comes through pity which brings salvation. The allusion is to the redemption of mankind by the sufferings and compassionate death of Christ; and that stupendous tragedy is the prefiguration of the mimic drama which Wagner has constructed. The spectacle to which he invites us, and with which he hoped to impress us and move us to an acceptance of the lesson underlying his play, is the adoration of the Holy Grail, cast in the form of a mimicry of the Last Supper, bedizened with some of the glittering pageantry of mediaeval knighthood and romance.
In the minds of many persons it is a profanation to make a stage spectacle out of religious things; and it has been urged that "Parsifal" is not only religious but specifically Christian; not only Christian but filled with parodies of elements which are partly liturgical, partly Biblical. In narrating the incidents of the play I have purposely avoided all allusions to the things which have been matters of controversy. It is possible to look upon "Parsifal" as a sort of glorified fairy tale, and to this end I purpose to subject its elements to inquiry, and shall therefore go a bit more into detail. Throughout the play Parsifal is referred to as a redeemer, and in the third act scenes in which he plays as the central figure are borrowed from the life of Christ. Kundry, the sorceress, who attempts his destruction at one time and is in the service of the knights of the Grail at another, anoints his feet and dries them with her hair, as the Magdalen did the feet of Christ in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Parsifal baptizes Kundry and admonishes her to believe in the Redeemer:—
Die Taufe nimm
Und glaub' an den Erlöser!
Kundry weeps. Unto the woman who was a sinner and wept at His feet Christ said: "Thy sins are forgiven. . . . Thy faith hath saved thee. Go in peace." At the elevation of the grail by Parsifal after the healing of Amfortas a dove descends from the dome and hovers over the new king's head. What saith the Scripture? "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water; and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him." (St. Matthew iii. 16.) It would be idle to argue that these things are not Biblical, though the reported allusions to Parsifal as a redeemer do not of necessity belong in the category. We shall see presently that the drama is permeated with Buddhism, and there were a multitude of redeemers and saviours in India besides the Buddha.
Let us look at the liturgical elements. The Holy Grail is a chalice. It is brought into the temple in solemn procession in a veiled shrine and deposited on a table. Thus, also, the chalice, within its pall, is brought in at the sacrament of the mass and placed on the altar before the celebrant. In the drama boys' voices sing in the invisible heights:—