Strengthened by this reminder of ultimate relief, and by the voice of the knights and of Titurel again calling for the uncovering of the Grail, Amfortas takes the crystal cup from its shrine, bends over it in devout prayer, while the angel voices above chant a sort of communion service, and the hall is gradually darkened. Suddenly a beam of blinding light shoots down through the dome and falls upon the cup, which ‘glows with an increased purple lustre,’ while Amfortas holds it above his head, and gently waves it to and fro, so that its mystic light can be seen by all the knights and squires, who have sunk to their knees.

Titurel hails the sight with a pious ejaculation, and when Amfortas has replaced the vessel in the shrine the beam of light disappears, daylight again fills the hall, and knights and squires begin to partake of the bread and wine before them, a feast to which Gurnemanz invites the amazed Parsifal by a mute gesture. The youth is too astonished to accept; he remains spellbound, while the invisible choir resume their chant, which is taken up first by the youths' voices, and then by the knights, and ends only as the meal draws to a close, and Amfortas is borne out, preceded by the Holy Grail and followed by the long train of knights and squires.

Gurnemanz and Parsifal alone remain. The Fool, though guileless, has not been enlightened by pity to inquire the cause of Amfortas's wound. He has thus missed his opportunity to cure him, and Gurnemanz, indignant at his boundless stupidity, opens a side door, and thrusts him out into the forest, uttering a contemptuous dismissal.

‘Thou art then nothing but a Fool!
Come away, on thy road be gone
And put my rede to use:
Leave all our swans for the future alone
And seek thyself, gander, a goose.’

The second act represents the inner keep of Klingsor's castle, the magician himself being seated on the battlement. He is gazing intently into the magic mirror, wherein all the world may be seen, and comments with malicious glee upon Parsifal's ejection from the temple of the Holy Grail and his approach to his enchanted ground.

Laying aside his magic mirror, Klingsor then begins one of his uncanny spells, and in the midst of a bluish vapor calls up Kundry from the enchanted sleep into which his art has bound her. He tells her that, although she has succeeded in escaping his power for a short time, and has gone over to the enemy whom she has done all in her power to serve, he now requires her to exercise all her fascinations to beguile Parsifal away from the path of virtue, as she once lured Amfortas, the king and guardian of the Holy Grail.

In vain the half awakened Kundry struggles and tries to resist his power, Klingsor has her again in his toils, and once more compels her, much against her wishes, to execute his will. Just as Parsifal, overcoming all resistance, drives away the guards of the castle and springs up on the ramparts, the magician waves his wand. He and his tower sink from view, and a beautiful garden appears, in which lovely damsels flit excitedly about in very scanty attire. After a few moments spent in motionless admiration of the scene before him, Parsifal springs down into the garden, where he is immediately surrounded by the fair nymphs. They pull him this way and that, tease and cajole him, and use all their wiles to attract his attention and win his admiration. Seeing him very indifferent to their unadorned charms, a few of them hastily retire into a bower, where they don gay flower costumes, in which they soon appear before him, winding in and out in the gay mazes of the dance.

Their youthful companions immediately follow their example, and also try to beguile Parsifal by their flower hues, their kisses and caresses, but he stands stolidly by until Kundry, who is now no longer a terrible and haggard witch, but a fair enchantress reclining upon a bed of roses, calls him to her side.

As in a dream, Parsifal obeys her summons, while the flower nymphs flit away to their respective bowers. Wonderingly he now inquires how Kundry knows his name, and again hears her relate how she was present at his birth, watched over his childhood, and witnessed the death of his mother. At this mention the youth is again overcome with grief. To comfort him, Kundry, the enchantress, tenderly embraces him, and lavishes soft words upon him, but all her caresses have no effect, except to awaken in his heart a sudden miraculous comprehension of all he has seen. Love is suddenly born in his heart, but it is not the evil passion which Kundry had striven to bring to life, but the pure, unselfish feeling which enables one human being to understand and sympathise with another. He now knows that Amfortas yielded to passion's spell, and in punishment suffered the spear wound in his side, and realizes that he alone could have given him relief. Moved to sudden indignation by his compassion, he flings Kundry's caressing arms aside, promising, however, to help her win her own redemption, if she will only tell him how to save Amfortas, and will reveal who wielded the spear which dealt the fatal wound. But Kundry, who is acting now entirely under Klingsor's influence, and not by her own volition, seeing she cannot lure him to sin, and that he is about to escape forever, shrieks frantically for help, cursing him vehemently, and declaring that he will have to wander long ere he can again find a way to the realm of the Holy Grail. Her piercing screams bring the flower damsels and Klingsor upon the scene, and the latter, standing upon the rampart, flings the holy spear at Parsifal, expecting to wound him as grievously as Amfortas. But the youth has committed no sin, he is quite pure; so the spear remains poised above his head, until he stretches out his hand, and, seizing it, makes a sign of the cross, adjuring the magic to cease:—

‘This sign I make, and ban thy cursed magic:
As the wound shall be closed
Which thou with this once clovest,—
To wrack and to ruin
Falls thy unreal display!’

At the holy sign, the enchanter's delusions vanish, maidens and gardens disappear, and Kundry sinks motionless upon the arid soil, while Parsifal springs over the broken wall, calling out that they shall meet again.

The third act is played also upon the slopes of the mountain, upon which the temple stands. Many years have elapsed, however, and Gurnemanz, bent with age, slowly comes out of his hut at the sound of a groan in a neighbouring thicket. The sounds are repeated until the good old man, who has assumed the garb of a hermit, searches in the thicket, and, tearing the brambles aside, finds the witch Kundry in one of her lethargic states. He has seen her so before in days gone by, and, dragging her rigid form out from the thicket, he proceeds to restore her to life. Wildly as of old her eyes roll about, but she has no sooner come to her senses than she clamours for some work to do for the Holy Grail, and proceeds to draw water and perform sundry menial tasks. Gurnemanz, watching her closely, comments upon her altered behaviour, and expresses a conviction that she will ultimately be saved, since she has returned to the Grail after many years on the morning of Good Friday.

He is so occupied in examining her that he does not notice the approach of Parsifal, clad in black armour, with closed helmet and lowered spear, and it is only when Kundry calls his attention to the stranger that he welcomes him, but without recognizing him in the least.

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. While he is wrapt in prayer, Gurnemanz, staring at him, suddenly recognizes him as the Guileless Fool who came so long ago, and imparts his knowledge to Kundry, who confirms it. Parsifal, having finished his prayer, and recovered the power of speech, now greets Gurnemanz, and in answer to his question says that he has wandered long, and expresses a fervent hope that he has not come too late to retrieve his former fault:—

‘Through error and through suffering lay my pathway;
May I believe that I have freed me from it,
Now that this forest's murmur
Falls upon my senses,
And worthy voice of age doth welcome?
Or yet—is 't new error?
All's altered here meseemeth.’

Gurnemanz is almost overcome with joy when he hears the young man declare that he has brought back the sacred lance undefiled, although he has suffered much to defend it from countless foes who would fain have wrested it from him. As Parsifal now begins eagerly to question him, he mournfully relates that times have changed indeed. Amfortas still lives, and suffers untold tortures from his unhealed wound, but Titurel, the aged king, no longer quickened by the sight of the Holy Grail, (which has never again been unveiled since his unhappy visit,) has slowly passed away, and has closed his eyes in a last sleep. At these sad tidings Parsifal faints with remorse, and Gurnemanz and Kundry restore him with water from the holy spring, with which they also wash away all the soil of travel. As he comes to life again, inquiring whether he will be allowed to see Amfortas, Gurnemanz tells him that the knights are to assemble once more in the temple, as of old, to celebrate Titurel's obsequies, and that Amfortas has solemnly promised to unveil the Holy Grail, although at the cost of suffering to himself. He wishes to comfort the knights, who have lost all their courage and strength, and are no longer called upon to go forth and battle for the right in the name of the Grail.

To enable Parsifal to appear in the temple, Gurnemanz now baptises him with water from the spring, and Kundry, anointing his feet with a costly perfume, wipes them with her hair. Parsifal rewards her for this humble office by baptising her in his turn. Then Gurnemanz anoints Parsifal's head with the same ointment, for it is decreed he shall be king, and after he and Kundry have helped him to don the usual habit of the servants of the Holy Grail they proceed, as in the first act, to the temple, and once more enter the great hall.

As they appear, the doors open, and two processions enter, chanting a mournful refrain. Ten knights bear the bier containing Titurel's corpse, the others carry the wasted form of the wounded king. The chorus ended, the coffin is opened, and at the sight of the dead Titurel all the assistants cry out in distress. No wail is so bitter, however, as that of Amfortas, who mournfully addresses his dead father, imploring him to intercede for him before the heavenly throne, and to obtain for him the long hoped for and long expected release.

Then he bids the knights uncover the Holy Grail; but ere they can do so he bursts out into a paroxysm of grief, exposing his bleeding and throbbing wound, and declaring he has not the courage to endure the sacred beam of light from the Holy Grail. But, unnoticed by all, Parsifal, Gurnemanz, and Kundry have drawn near. Suddenly the youth extends the sacred spear, and, touching Amfortas with its point, declares that its power alone can stanch the blood and heal the wounded side, and pronounces the absolution of his sin:—

‘Be whole, unsullied and absolved,
For I now govern in thy place.
Oh blessed be thy sorrows,
For Pity's potent might
And Knowledge's purest power
They taught a timid Fool.’

No sooner has the sacred point touched the wound than it is indeed healed, and while Amfortas sinks tottering with emotion into the arms of Gurnemanz, all the knights gaze enraptured at the spear. Then Parsifal announces that he is commanded by Divine decree to become the guardian of the Grail, which he unveils and reverently receives into his hands.

Once more the hall is darkened, once more the beam of refulgent light illumines the gloom, and, as Parsifal slowly waves the vessel to and fro, a snowy dove, the emblem of the Holy Grail, hovers lightly over his head.

Suddenly the beam of light falls across the face of the dead Titurel, who, coming to life again in its radiance, raises his hand in fervent blessing ere he sinks back once more to peaceful rest. Kundry, too, has seen the Holy Grail before her eyes closed in death, and Amfortas, cured and forgiven, joins the knights and invisible choir in praising God for his great mercy, which endures forever.

THE END.