so
received his holy blood. Titurel, Amfortas' father has built the
castle to shield it, and appointed holy men for its service. While
Gurnemanz speaks with the Knights about their poor master's sufferings,
in rushes Kundry, a sorceress in Klingsor's service, condemned to laugh
eternally as a punishment for having derided Christ, while he was
suffering on the cross. She it was who with her beauty seduced
Amfortas, and deprived him of his holy strength, so that Klingsor was
enabled to wring from the King his holy spear Longinus, with which he
afterwards wounded him. Kundry is in the garb of a servant of the
Grail; she brings balm for the King, who is carried on to the stage in
a litter, but it avails him not: "a guileless fool" with a child's pure
heart; who will bring back the holy spear and touch him with it, can
alone heal his wound.

Suddenly a dying swan sinks to the ground, and Parsifal, a young
knight, appears. Gurnemanz reproaches him severely for having shot the
bird, but he appears to be quite ignorant of the fact that it was
wrong, and, when questioned, proves to know nothing about his own
origin. He only knows his mother's name "Herzeleid", (heart's
affliction), and Kundry, who recognizes him, relates, that his father
Gamuret perished in battle, and that {260} his mother reared him, a
guileless fool, in the desert. When Kundry mentions that his mother is
dead, and has sent her last blessing to her son, Parsifal is almost
stunned by this, his first grief. Gurnemanz conducts him to the
castle, where the Knights of the Grail are assembled in a lofty hall.
Amfortas is laid on a raised couch, and from behind, Titurel's voice is
heard, imploring his son to efface his guilt in godly works. Amfortas,
writhing with pain, is comforted by the prophesy:

"By pity lightened, the guileless fool"--
"Wait for him,--my chosen tool."

The Grail is uncovered, the blessing given, and the repast of love
begins. Amfortas' hope revives, but towards the end his wound bursts
out afresh. Parsifal, on hearing Amfortas' cry of agony clutches at
his heart, without however understanding his own feelings.

The second act reveals Klingsor's magic castle.

Kundry, not as a demon now, but as a woman of imperious beauty, is
awakened by Klingsor to seduce Parsifal. She yearns for pardon, for
sleep and death, but she struggles in vain against the fiendish
Klingsor.

The tower gradually sinks; a beautiful garden rises, i