ssed the drawbridge it rose up slowly
behind him, and a voice called out from the tower, "Thou art accursed; for
thou hadst been chosen to do a great work, which thou hast left undone!"
Then looking upward, Parzival saw a horrible face gazing after him with a
fiendish grin, and making a gesture as of malediction.

[Sidenote: Sigune.] At the end of that day's journey, Parzival came to a
lonely cell in the desert, where he found Sigune weeping over a shrine in
which lay Tchionatulander's embalmed remains. She too received him with
curses, and revealed to him that by one sympathetic question only he might
have ended Amfortas's prolonged pain, broken an evil spell, and won for
himself a glorious crown.

Horrified, now that he knew what harm he had done, Parzival rode away,
feeling as if he were indeed accursed. His greatest wish was to return to
the mysterious castle and atone for his remissness by asking the question
which would release the king from further pain. But alas! the castle had
vanished; and our hero was forced to journey from place to place, seeking
diligently, and meeting with many adventures on the way.

At times the longing to give up the quest and return home to his young wife
was almost unendurable. His thoughts were ever with her, and the poem
relates that even a drop of blood fallen on the snow reminded, him most
vividly of the dazzling complexion of Conduiramour, and of her sorrow when
he departed.

"'Conduiramour, thine image is
Here in the snow now dyed with red
And in the blood on snowy bed.
Conduiramour, to them compare
Thy forms of grace and beauty rare.'"
WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH, _Parzival_ (Dippold's tr.).

Although exposed to countless temptations, Parzival remained true to his
wife as he rode from place to place, constantly seeking the Holy Grail. His
oft-reiterated questions concerning it caused him to be considered a madman
or a fool by all he met.

In the course of his journeys, he encountered a lady in chains, led by a
knight who seemed to take pleasure in torturing her. Taught by Gurnemanz to
rescue all ladies in distress, Parzival challenged and defeated this
knight. Then only did he discover that it was Sir Orilus, who had led his
wife about in chains to punish her for accepting a kiss from a strange
youth. Of course Parzival now hastened to give an explanation of the whole
affair, and the defeated knight, at his request, promised to treat his