He witnesses the King’s paroxysm, and then advances to him. With the point of the lance he heals the wound. Kundry dies on the altar steps, and Parsifal, now King of Montsalvat, mounts the step and lifts on high in silent invocation the crystal vase. Mystic voices in the cupola sing “Wondrous work of mercy. Salvation to the Saviour.” Thus the mystic melodrama ends. In the first draft of his poem Wagner ended the play with these words:— Great is the charm of desire, Greater is the power of renunciation. In all the complicated web of this drama Pity and Renunciation are the two principal motives. Wagner drew his themes from all sources,—sagas, legends, poems, and histories. He incorporated episodes from the Saviour’s life, and boldly utilized the theme of the Last Supper. The blood of Christ which Joseph of Arimathea is said to have received in a chalice becomes the comforting and eucharistic Grail. Then side by side with all these conflicting stories he places the semi-Saracenic Klingsor, the very embodiment of a magician of the Dark Ages, and Kundry, the type of the woman of all times, the wandering Jewess, the Magdalen. Parsifal is a mediæval Jesus; the knights of the Holy Grail, Apostles transposed to a later epoch. As it suited him Wagner violently tossed about and made sport of the poetic ideas of Chrétien de Troies and Wolfram von Eschenbach. He Wagnerized everything he touched. The result is Parsifal. If the poem is charged to the full with Semitic, Buddhistic, Patristic, Christian, and Schopenhauerian philosophies, the play affords the great master fresco painter superb opportunities for scenic display. The son of Geyer, himself a scene painter, dramatist, poet, and composer, did not fail to take advantage of the chance to indulge his taste for luxuriant, glowing colors, for sensational contrasts, lofty spaces, and all the moving magnificence of panoramic display. There are many tableaux in this drama, genuinely a static drama. In Act I we see Gurnemanz surrounded by the tender squires, while Kundry cowers in the foreground. “Doch Vater sag, und lehr’ uns fein; du kanntest Klingsor, wie mag das sein?” The tableau of the killed swan, with Parsifal admonished by Gurnemanz, is another noteworthy grouping. Nothing is so impressive, however, as the spectacle of the sick King being raised, as he elevates the Grail. Klingsor’s tower is as sinister as an etching by Salvator Rosa. The flower garden, first with the damsels and then desolate, gives two striking pictures. Parsifal stands spear in hand. “Du weisst: we einzig du mich wiedersiehst!” The praying knight in Act III; Parsifal in white baptismal robe, recalling Ary Scheffer’s portrait of Christ, and last of all the noble harmonies of the last scene, the descending dove and the mystic chant:— Höchsten Heiles Wunder, Erlösung dem Erlöser. TO A KINGLY FRIEND O König! holder Schirmherr meines Lebens! Du höchster güte wonnereichster Hort!