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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.
Gurnemanz recognizes him, and in reply to his question what makes the world so beautiful, the aged knight makes answer: "The sad repentant tears of sinners Have here with holy rain Besprinkled field and plain, And made them glow with beauty. All earthly creatures in delight At the Redeemer's trace so bright, Uplift their prayers of duty.
A sturdy, brave, gay-hearted strain has ushered him in, and for just a moment he stands quite like a brother of Siegfried's, fearless, unconscious of himself, as ignorant of the world as he is unspotted by it, but engagingly wide-awake, serene in watching its mysterious actions. "Are you the one who killed the swan?" Gurnemanz asks him sternly.
"Who is the Grail?" asks Parsifal, as they walk. "That may not be put into words," replies Gurnemanz, "but, if you are of the chosen, you cannot fail to learn. And, see now! I believe I know who you are.
Gurnemanz protects Parsifal from their violence, and seeing that the youth, who has lived all his life in the woods, is as innocent as a child, leads him up to the castle of the Grail, in the hope that he may turn out to be the sinless fool of the prophecy. In the vast hall of the Grail the knights assemble, and fulfil the mystic rites of the love-feast.
In Parsifal Gurnemanz explains all the circumstances to the Knappen.
Parsifal entering with Gurnemanz stops still beside the threshold, spell-bound in presence of all the lofty beauty: "Now watch with attention," his guide instructs him, before leaving him where he stands, "and let us see, if you are a simple soul and pure, what light shall be vouchsafed you."
"That is right," he nods his approval, "that is in accordance with the gracious spirit of the Grail. We banish evil when we return good for it." Kundry turns sadly away: "I never do good! ... All I desire is rest!... Rest!" And while Gurnemanz is still occupied with restoring Parsifal, she slowly walks, as if powerfully drawn and intensely resisting, toward a tangled copse.
It is a sheer burlesque of the Lord's Supper. When the last chords of the mysterious choir in the dome have died away, Gurnemanz asks Parsifal what he comprehends of it all. "Nothing," Parsifal replies, and is immediately turned out of doors.
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.
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