Part 1 (1/2)
The Wagnerian Romances
by Gertrude Hall
INTRODUCTION
The atteive an idea of the charner operas, of Wagner's extraordinary power and fertility as a dramatist It is not critique or commentary, it is presentation, picture, narrative; it offers nothing that is not derived directly and exclusively froner libretti and scores
The stories of the operas are widely known already, of course
As literature, however, one may almost say they are not known at all, unless by students of German The translators had before them a task so tre of the master's poetry to extre it at all None the less must the translations included in our libretti be pronounced painfully inadequate To give a better, inal poems is the object of these essays The poems form, even apart from the music, a whole beautiful, lu out of literature the Idylls of the King than the Wagnerian romances
PARSIFAL
I
The story of the Holy Grail and its guardians up to the ather it from Gurnemanz's rehearsal of his memories to the youthful esquires,--as follows: At a tier from the power and craft of His eneers of the Saviour's, and gave into his keeping the Chalice from which He had drunk at the Last Supper and into which the blood had been gathered fro upon the Cross; likewise the Spear hich His side had been pierced Around these relics titurel built a terew The temple, Monsalvat, stood upon the Northern slope ofGothic Spain No road led to its doors, and those only could find their way to it whouided, and could belong to the brotherhood, ere pure in heart and clean of the sins of the flesh The knights were thened by the vision of the Chalice--which is called the Grail; the duties of the Order were ”high deeds of salvation,”
co warfare upon Christ's enemies, at home and in distant lands
On the southern slope of the one into here, in an attempted expiation of evil committed down in the heathen world What his sin had been, Gurnemanz says, he knows not; but he aspired to become a holyit iht, 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 froe then to acquiring black arts by which to ruin the detested brotherhood On the southward mountainside, he created by sorcery a wonderful pleasure-palace and garden, in which uncannily beautiful wohts of the Grail, a temptation and a trap, and one so effectual that he who permitted himself to be lured into it was lost; there had been no exception, safety lay singly in avoidance titurel having reached so great an age that he had no longer strength to perforly office Amfortas, his son The latter undertook at once the rehts, the destruction of Klingsor
Armed with the Sacred Spear, he fared forth Alas! even before the walls of the enchanted castle had been reached, his followers, a whom Gurnemanz, missed him A woot everything, he let the Spear drop froreat cry, as of one mortally hurt, Gurnemanz relates, was suddenly heard He rushed to the rescue, and caught sight of Klingsor, laughing as he disappeared carrying the Spear, hich he had wounded Asor's boast that he should soon be in possession of the Chalice likewise, the Holy Grail itself And the wound of Amfortas would not heal, and an apprehension was that never could it heal, save at the touch of the Spear which hts were not wholly without hope, for, A before the despoiled sanctuary, and in of pardon, a holy dream-face had appeared to hih compassion The immaculate Fool Await him My appointed one”
Thus matters stand when the curtain rises for us upon the forest surrounding the Castle of the Grail The introductory ious, co phrase of the Last Communion, the Grail-motif and the Faith-rand declaration, as if it ht be understood to say: ”I believe in God the Father!
I believe in God the Son! I believe in God the Holy Ghost!” and fell to worshi+pping prayer
The grey-haired Gurne At the clarion-call fro devotions The lake is near where the sick King is carried daily for the bath Forerunners of his cortege pass, and are questioned by Gurne herb, obtained at such price of courage and cunning, has not helped his prove still and ever useless, the devoted folloill not give up the search for earthly relief) This discouraged answer is hardly given, when another appears who has been ranging afar in search of a regers reaching the goal Spent with speed, the strange oman totters to Gurnemanz and presses on him a crystal phial: Balsa ue, she drops on the ground, refusing any further speech
When the king is now brought in upon a litter and halts on his way to the lake for afrom Gurnemanz the balsam, he thanks the woman, as one who has often before done hihly, as if alood will it do? Away! Away!
To the bath!”
The young esquires, lingering after the king has been borne onward, eye her as she lies on the ground like a wild beast, and voice their suspicion of her, founded, after the fashi+on of youth's judgements, upon her looks They believe those potions of hers will finally destroy the king altogether Gurne them heatedly of her services, beyond all that any other could perfors to brethren warring in distant lands, we scarcely even knohere,--who, before we have co acquitted herself of the task aptly and faithfully?”
”But,” they object, ”she hates us! See how lowers at us! She is a heathen, a sorceress!” ”One she oes thus far with them; ”she lives here, it iven sin of her earlier life” He tells how, so long ago as at the ti of the terowth of the forest, rigid in death-like sleep ”I myself,”
he continues, ”discovered her but recently in the like condition
It was soon after the calaht upon us by the evil one over the ht had but just occurred: ”Hey! Tellwhen our loomily, and preserves a silence which we afterwards see to be significant
”Why did you not help us at that time?” ”I never help!” she exclaims darkly, and turns away ”If she is as faithful as you say, and as daring, and full of resource,” suggests ironically one of the young esquires, ”why not send her after the lost Spear?” ”That!” Gurnemanz replies sadly, ”is another matter That nobody can achieve!” And, thewithin hi fellows, new in the brotherhood and ignorant of its history, the events set down in their order a little way back He has repeated to theh compassion The immaculate Fool Await hi it after him, when, at the words ”_Der reine Thor_,” the pure--the clean-lived--the immaculate Fool, a commotion develops in the direction of the lake-side, cries of ”Woe! A pity! A shaht, sinks to earth hurt to death by an arrow, and the king's esquires bring in, chiding and accusing him, a tall, innocent-eyed, fresh-cheeked boy, arh is his outfit, but his bearing unh-born, as Gurneay-hearted strain has ushered him in, and for just a fried's, fearless, unconscious of hinorant 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 hifried ht have done: ”Certainly! Whatever flies I shoot on the wing!” But at once after this the difference between the two is ions of emotion are unknown, but certain emotions which are outside the nature of one, are potentially the very strongest in the other Siegfried is not pitiful The strong, radiant being is incomplete on that side, so that the Christian heart winces a little, here and there, at the bright resoluteness hich he pursues his course when it involves, for instance, death to the little foster-father, unrighteous ih he be, or horror to Brunnhilde, captured by violence and offered to his friend
Whereas Parsifal, when Gurnehtless action, when he points out the glazing eye, the blood dabbling the snowy plue of the noble swan, faithful familiar of the lake, killed as he circled in quest of hispity, is from him his bow, and hides his eyes from the work of his hands ”Ho could you co, even after these expressions of contrition
”I did not know,” Parsifal answers Then to the anorance and simplicity ever met
”Where do you come from?” ”I do not know” ”Who is your father?”
”I do not know” ”Who directed you here?” ”I do not know” ”What is your naer rerumbles Gurnemanz, ”I have so far never in ely, he leaves off questioning the fool; but when the others, after reverently taking up the dead swan, have departed with it for burial, he addresses hi Now tell me what you do know! For it can hardly be but that you know so”
Whereupon very siins: ”I have a mother Her name is Herzeleide (Heart's-sorrow) We lived in the woods and on the wild enuous narrative and the additions of Kundry, who in her rangings has seely had opportunities to watch him, that he is the son of the hero Gamuret, slain in battle before his birth, and that, in terror of a like early death for him, his mother has reared him in solitude, far fronorance of the world One day, he tells in joyous excitee, seated upon splendid anihed and galloped away He ran after them, but could not overtake thehts With his boas coe erly, as if at the recollection of splendid fights witnessed, ”he iants They were all afraid of the truculent boy!” He turns upon her a vaguely pleased wonder: ”Who is afraid of rasp a wholly new idea presented to hiood?” Gurneood, and fro him in sorrow Kundry brusquely interrupts: ”Her sorrow is ended His mother is dead!”