But while the shield-bearers repeat the words of the oracle with profound emotion, cries resound in the forest.
"Misfortune! misfortune! who is the criminal?"
"What is it?" ask Gurnemanz and the shield-bearers.
"Yonder!... a swan!... a wild swan!... he is wounded!"
"Who wounded it?"
Two knights, arriving unexpectedly, reply,—
"The king greeted the bird's whirling flight over the lake as a happy omen, when an arrow was let fly."
New shield-bearers bring Parsifal forward and say: "Look! here is he who sent the arrow."
"Is it thou who hast killed the swan?" demands Gurnemanz.
"Truly," cries Parsifal, "I shoot upon the wing whatever flies."