Jessie L. Weston on Parsifal
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Introduction
he name of Jessie L. Weston is familiar to scholars of European literature on
account of her studies of medieval literature in relation to Celtic and Germanic
mythology, and in particular for her books and articles about the Grail legend. In
Legends of the Wagner Drama Weston discussed the relation between various
Wagner dramas and those medieval poems and sagas on which, in her view, Wagner had
based his dramas. In her treatment of Parsifal, extracts from which follow
below, Weston compares and contrasts the action of Wagner's drama
with the poem Parzival of the German poet-knight Wolfram von Eschenbach and with the earlier Perceval or
Li Conte del Graal of the French poet Chrêtien de
Troyes, together with other, lesser poems of the same period. Weston is
perceptive in identifying the elements of these sources that were adopted and
adapted by Wagner. She also indicates where Wagner has deviated from the story as
told by Wolfram for purposes of his own that Weston does
not attempt to explain. Weston's interpretation of Parsifal has been (and
continues to be) highly influential for the understanding of Wagner's last drama
throughout the English speaking world. Quotations from Wolfram's poem were taken from Miss Weston's own English
translation.
Parsifal
Extracts from Weston's Legends of the Wagner Drama
he keynote of the drama is struck in the peace of the opening scene; the repose
of the Grail watchers, the solemn call to prayer from the
castle, and the rising sun flashing the lake mists in the background. Wagner has
followed his source [i.e. Wolfram] in placing the
mysterious castle in the midst of a forest, and representing its discovery as a
task in which both human skill and energy are unavailing. Both in the poem and in
the drama the guidance must come from above; and the fact that Wagner apparently
considers the guiding power to be the Grail itself, while
Wolfram believes the guidance to come directly and
immediately from God, is apparently due to the more definitely Christian character
ascribed to the Grail by the dramatist.
he name of the castle, Monsalvat, is
of course derived from the Monsalväsch of the Parzival (a name peculiar to
the legend), where the derivation appears to be 'Mont Sauvage', from the wild and
lonely character of the surrounding district, a feature emphasized in the poem; but
some scholars would explain the terms rather as signifying Mount of Healing (or
Salvation), a rendering to which Wagner, from the form given to the name, seems to
incline.
 to its locality Wolfram is by no means
explicit: he certainly never says it is in Northern Spain, where Wagner places it;
according to his statements it was within thirty-six hours' ride from Nantes.
Writers later than Wolfram, however, do locate the
Grail Castle in Spain, and the idea seems to have
originated with the writer of Der jünger Titurel, a poem which deals very
fully with the Grail and its guardians, and, long
attributed to Wolfram, is now known to be the work of a
certain Albert von Scharffenburg, a very inferior poet.
his location of the Grail Castle in Spain is of course
favoured by those scholars who regard the Grail myth as of
Oriental origin, and the Spanish Moors the medium of communication to Europe; but
as a matter of fact there is practically no evidence to connect the Grail with Spain, saving the statement, which Wolfram refers, and probably correctly, to his French source,
that the legend of the Grail was originally found in an
Arabic manuscript at Toledo. The truth of this statement may be gauged by the fact
that the same manuscript is stated to have contained the story of
Parzival, the Aryan-Celtic origin of which is beyond doubt. It is much
more in accordance with the general indications of the legend to believe that the
poets imagined the castle to be situated in the northwest of France. 
 ut in the process of development which the legend has undergone, the nature of
the castle to which the hero pays at first an abortive, and afterwards a
successful, visit has passed through various transformations. At first it probably
symbolised the abode of the departed, and was as such identical with the castle of
Brynhild which figures in the Thidreksaga [the saga of Dietrich von Bern]
and the Nibelungenlied; and the hero's task was to break the spell of
death or slumber binding the inhabitants. In the performance of this task certain
talismans not infrequently played an important part; gradually these talismans
became Christianised; and now in the Grail legends we have
two castles -- one, that of the Grail, the
other, retaining its pre-Christian character, being known by varying names, the
Castle of Maidens, the Château Merveil, or as here, Klingsor's Castle. Such a bespelled castle is undoubtedly
an original and essential feature of the Perceval
story.
he Parzival gives no account of the building of Monsalväsch, such as
Wagner puts into the mouth of Gurnemanz, but
simply speaks of Titurel as being first king and
ruler of the Grail and its knights; but elsewhere Wolfram is more explicit. Among the works which the poet-knight
has left are poems, or songs, dealing with the loves of Sigune and Schionatulander, four in all, but critics are
doubtful whether more than the first two can be rightly ascribed to Wolfram. In the first of these poems, which are classed together
under the name of Titurel, we find the old king, oppressed with the
infirmities of age, resigning his kingdom to his son Frimutel, and telling him that he received the Grail from the hands of angels, that he was the first mortal to
whose charge it was committed, and that the rules for the order of Grail knights were found on the mystic stone. There is no mention
of the Spear here, nor of the building of Monsalväsch, the
reason probably being that both castle and weapon were older than the Grail myth, and the writer accepted them as he found them.
 t
is doubtful whether the Titurel preceded or followed the
Parzival; probably the latter, and Wolfram's
intention was to fill up lacunae in the history of Sigune, who plays an important part in the
Parzival. Its statements agree with those of the more important work, and
a common source is evidently at the root of both.
he old knight Gurnemanz, who is so prominent
in the drama, is also a characteristic figure in the original Perceval legend, where his office is to instruct the hero
in knightly customs and bearing -- instruction of which he has much need. The Welsh
(Peredur) version represents this character as
identical with the Fisher-King, and as uncle to the hero; but he is, as a rule,
distinct from both, and the relationship of uncle rather pertains to the Hermit,
also an essential character of the legend, whose office it is to direct the hero's
spiritual development, whereas the old knight's teaching is directed rather to his
outward bearing (combined in the case of Gurnemanz of Graharz with a good deal of ethical
teaching).
n
Chrêtien's poem the name of the knight is Gonemans de
Gelbort; Gerbert, one of Chrêtien's continuators, calls
him Gornumant, of which form Gurnemanz is
obviously the German rendering. It will be seen that in the drama Wagner has united
the characters of these two instructors in the person of his rather didactic old
knight: the Gurnemanz of the
First Act answering to Gurnemanz
of Graharz, who appears in the Third Book of the poem and not again, though he is
frequently alluded to as a model of knightly wisdom, skill and courtesy; the
Gurnemanz of the Third Act
answering to the Hermit Trevrezent, who in the
Ninth Book of the poem unfolds to Parzival the
mystery of the Grail, and restores him to faith in God.
 nd here it may be well to remark that Wagner's treatment of the Perceval legend differs in some essential characters from
his treatment of the other legends he has dramatised; he has handled it with far
more freedom and boldness, and, while adhering faithfully to the
spirit of the original, he has recast the incidents with great
gain to the dramatic form, and in more than one detail with a happy insistence on
what was probably an original feature of the legend. The result of this treatment
has been that, though the story of Parzival is
really longer and more full of incident than is that of Siegfried, the salient
points are so happily brought out, and the balance of the whole is so well
preserved, that, though treated in one drama instead of in
two, it in no way suffers from compression. It is
a new rendering of an old myth ...
he Fisher-King, the wounded lord of the Grail, appears
in every version of the Grail myth; in the English Sir
Percyvelle, in which the Grail does not appear, alone
is he missing. Belonging to that part of the Perceval legend which has been most strongly and directly
affected by the development of the Grail myth, the
character of the wounded king has now become so closely associated with the
Christian talisman, that even when the earlier form of the legend has become
obscured, and Perceval himself has ceased to be
par excellence the hero of the quest, the wounded king, the Rich
Fisher (varying names for the same character), still retains his connection with
the object of that quest.
a rule the king is represented [in the romances] as an old man; that
Anfortas, in the Parzival, appears in the
prime of life and manly beauty is due to the youth-bestowing properties of the
Grail; Trevrezent, the
Hermit, who is spoken of throughout as an aged man, is Anfortas' younger brother. In his
representation of the Grail king, Wagner has, on the whole,
followed the indications of his source; one generation has been dropped out, and
Amfortas appears as Titurel's son, and not his grandson, thus heightening the
tragic effect of the king's refusal to unveil the Grail;
and the relationship between himself and Parsifal
no longer exists. The distinctive feature of Wolfram's
version, and that which has given Wagner the hint for the colouring 'motif' of his
drama, lies in the fact that he represents Anfortas as wounded in punishment for an unlawful love; in
other versions the king is wounded in battle, or accidentally, by handling a
mysterious sword destined for the use of another. This change, thoroughly in
harmony with the high spiritual and ethical treatment which raises Wolfram's version of the legend so immeasurably above those of
the French poets, has been utilised by Wagner to the great benefit of the character
of Amfortas, which in the drama possesses a
significance altogether lacking in the legend.
 hy Wagner changed the name of the king from Anfortas to
Amfortas does not appear: the original form is supposed to have
been derived from the French Enfertez = the sick man, with Provençal
ending -as; names derived from Provençal French being a marked feature in Wolfram's poem.
n
his account of the weapon with which the king has been wounded Wagner departs
boldly from his source, and from what was almost certainly the oldest form of the
story. For we are here confronted with what was evidently one of the original
features of the legend; in most of the earlier forms, e.g. in Chrêtien, in Peredur, and in
the [prose] Perceval, we find a bleeding Lance accompanied by another
talisman, which latter is eventually identified with the Grail. The Spear is in Chrêtien the subject of a longer digression and explanation than
is the Grail itself; and while Perceval goes in quest of the Grail, and to ask the question which
will heal the wounded king, Gawain goes in search of
the Spear...
 e
not infrequently meet with the statement, in print, that it was Chrêtien de Troyes who first identified the Spear with the Spear of Longinus, and the
Grail with the vessel of the Last Supper; but both these
statements are incorrect. True, the Spear is so spoken of
in the introduction to Chrêtien's poem, and Spear and Grail are alike Christian symbols
in the minds of Chrêtien's continuators; but the
introduction is no less the work of a hand other than Chrêtien's, than is the continuation (or, to be more correct,
continuations), and he himself gives no account of the origin of either.
he fact seems to be that the Spear was, as Wolfram represents, the weapon with which the king was wounded;
and although Wagner has radically changed the character of the weapon, yet in
representing the Spear, rather than the Grail, as the object of the hero's quest, and the animating motive
the desire of healing the maimed king, he is probably reproducing with fidelity
original features of the story. No one can quarrel with Wagner for having
represented both Spear and Grail
under the more fully developed Christian character in which they are most familiar
to us; the fact that he has done so bears out the contention advanced above, that
in the Parsifal Wagner has been singularly happy in emphasizing the
spiritual significance of the legend without detriment to its original form.
he episode of the swan, with which the hero makes
his entry upon the scene, was doubtless suggested by a beautiful passage in the
poem, where Wolfram depicts the child Parzival as slaying the birds in pure thoughtlessness, and
then overwhelmed with remorse for the harm he has unwittingly done:
But when the feathered songster
of the woods at his feet lay dead,
In wonder and dumb amazement
he bowed down his golden head,
And in childish wrath and sorrow
tore the locks of his sunny hair;
... and his heart was with sorrow filled,
And the ready tears of childhood
flowed forth from their fountains free
As he ran to his mother, weeping,
and bowed him beside her knee.
"What aileth thee, child?" quoth the
mother,
"but now wast thou gay and glad";
But childlike, he gave no answer,
scarce wist he what made him sad!
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he identification of the swan as
the bird of the Grail is a later feature, due to the
connection with the myth of the swan-knight, who, in the latest forms of the story,
became identified with Lohengrin, Parzival's son, and appointed heir to the Grail kingdom. The bird of the Grail is,
more correctly, the dove, the badge of
the Grail knights in the poem as in the drama; but Wolfram alone knows of this feature, and we cannot consider it
part of the original legend...
n
the legend Parzival is not, as in the drama,
driven from the hall with contumely but awakes in the morning to find himself alone
in the castle, all the inhabitants having vanished; and it is as he rides forth
from the castle that an unseen hand raises the drawbridge, and the voice of one
unseen pours mockery upon him for his failure to ask the mystic question:
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Goose that thou art, ride onward,
to the sun's hate hast thou been born!
Thy mouth hadst thou thought to open,
of these wonders hadst asked thine host,
Great fame had been thine. But I tell thee,
now hast thou this fair chance lost!
Left: The Grail Temple, Bayreuth 1882. After the design by Paul von Joukowsky. ©Cologne Theatre Museum.
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- words in which we find the source of Gurnemanz's taunt, cast by Wagner in a more homely and
proverbial form. The whole incident has an unmistakable 'folk-lore' flavour about
it, though perhaps it is more common [in folk-tales] to find that not the folk
alone, but castle or palace itself, has vanished, and the hero awakes to find
himself lying on bare ground.
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