Amfortas is held up as typical of the sufferings of humanity under the curse of carnal sin. Tannhäuser is more eloquent than a thousand of him. We see Tannhäuser in the grip of the temptress; of the sin of Amfortas we hear talk, talk, talk; while the sufferer himself is carried about upon a litter,--a charnel-house sight,--making his unending moan to the patient stars. The hero of the story, young Parsifal, comes before us looking like young Siegfried and wearing a musical tag of similar style. In the last act he is bearded and armored, again like Siegfried, and his theme is exfoliated in an umbrageous harmony of trumpets and trombones. But what a tenuous echo he is, after all! Siegfried blazes with all the glory of manhood: he has hot blood in his veins; and he carves his way through fire and the wrath of a god to the mountain of his heart's desire. Parsifal loves no woman. He cannot, for he is the embodiment of ascetic, or at least monastic, denial. The one emotion which he submits for our hearts is pity, a most excellent emotion and admitted to be akin to love. A highly respected sister-in-law of love it may be; but love is love, and spins the big round world down the grooves of time. As an ethical basis of this drama, we are asked to accept a philosophy of pity, founded on the ethics of Arthur Schopenhauer and amplified by the adoption of certain of the teachings of Buddha. Instead of those beautiful doctrines of redemption through the love and self-sacrifice of woman, so eloquently preached in some of Wagner's other dramas, we are besought to look upon woman as a temptress, and renunciation of love as the highway to heaven. As the exemplar of the claim of pity, we are presented with the picture of the wounded Amfortas, who is a lay figure of incomprehensible personality. He is shown in the first act, and the pity doctrine is further preached in the pother made over the killing of the swan (such a big, fat, able-bodied swan!). As the master of evil we behold Klingsor, who comes before us in the first scene of the second act with more paraphernalia of slate-green walls, blue smoke, and exclamatory incantations than Faust ever had in his salad days at the Paris Grand Opera. Kundry, the only woman in the play, is an ill-made muddle of inhumanity, who never commands a single instant of sympathy. She strives by service to atone for her sins, which are committed under the spell of Klingsor. She has neither love nor passion. Gurnemanz, the aged knight, is a wearisome talker. He tells the story of his life or any one else's life to whomsoever will listen. The audience cannot escape.