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Updated: June 24, 2025
They ease him upon the moss beside the consecrated spring, remove his greaves and coat of mail. As he revives a little, he asks faintly: "Shall I be taken to-day to Amfortas?" Gurnemanz assures him that he shall, for on this day the burial of Titurel takes place, which Gurnemanz must attend, and Amfortas has pledged himself, in honour of his father, to uncover once more the Grail.
Again the doors open at the back and from each issues forth a company of knights, the one bearing the bier of Titurel, the other carrying the litter of Amfortas and the shrine of the Grail, while they chant, in question and response, a song of reproachful tenor. "Whom do you bring, with tokens of mourning, in the dark casket?"
Before they leave, Parsifal's first act as the redeemer is to baptize Kundry with water from the spring. The sound of tolling bells in the distance announces the funeral of Titurel, and the scene changes to the hall where the knights are carrying the litter upon which Amfortas lies, awaiting the funeral procession approaching to the strains of a solemn march.
"You have anointed my feet," speaks Parsifal again; "let now the brother-at-arms of Titurel anoint my head, for on this day he shall hail me as king." Whereupon Gurnemanz anoints him as king. Kundry has been gazing with a devout hushed face.
The subject of 'Parsifal' is drawn from the legends of the Holy Grail, which had already furnished Wagner with the tale of 'Lohengrin. Titurel, the earthly keeper of the Holy Grail, has built the castle of Monsalvat, and there established a community of stainless knights to guard the sacred chalice, who in their office are miraculously sustained by its life-giving power.
Finding it impossible to subdue sin in himself by the spirit, he sought, as it were, a mechanical substitute for virtue, by which, however, he failed to attain his object, for his sacrifice called forth from Titurel only contempt, and he was rejected from the Order. He turned all the strength of his rage then to acquiring black arts by which to ruin the detested brotherhood.
Merlin thus is opposed to his father as well as to Titurel and his dull and narrow "guild" who keep the true spirit of humanity captive. He is both anti-Satan and anti-Christ. He next comes into conflict with the third fundamental force, Klingsor.
From "Der jungere Titurel," another mediaeval poem, came the suggestion that the mysterious knight's prowess was due to sorcery and might be set at naught if his bodily integrity were destroyed even in the slightest degree.
"The funereal casket holds the hero into whose charge the very God entrusted Himself. Titurel we bring." "Who slew him, whom God Himself held in His care?" "The killing burden of age slew him, when he no longer might behold the Grail." "Who prevented him from beholding the glory of the Grail?" "He whom you carry, the sinful Keeper."
The shield-bearers bring in Amfortas upon his litter, when suddenly from a vaulted niche is heard the voice of Titurel, Amfortas's aged father, and the founder of Monsalvat, now too feeble to perform the holy offices, bidding the Grail to be uncovered. Amfortas, mourning that he, the unholiest of them, should be called, opens a golden shrine and takes out the crystal vessel.
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