ar-wound made by the Roman soldier. The cup and the
spear were committed to Titurel, who became a holy knight and head of a
sacred brotherhood of knights. They dwelt in the Visigoth Mountains of
Southern Spain, where, amid impenetrable forests, rose the legendary
palace of Montsalvat. Here they guarded the sacred relics, issuing forth
at times from their palatial fortress, like Lohengrin, to fight for
innocence and right, and always returning to renew their youth and
strength by the celestial contemplation of the Sangrail, and by
occasional participation in the holy feast.

Time and history count for very little in these narratives. It was
allowed, however, that Titurel the Chief had grown extremely aged, but
it was not allowed that he could die in the presence of the Sangrail. He
seemed to have been laid in a kind of trance, resting in an open tomb
beneath the altar of the Grail; and whenever the cup was uncovered his
voice might be heard joining in the celebration. Meanwhile, Amfortas,
his son, reigned in his stead.

Montsalvat, with its pure, contemplative, but active brotherhood, and
its mystic cup, thus stands out as the poetic symbol of all that is
highest and best in medieval Christianity.

The note of the wicked world--Magic for Devotion--Sensuality for
Worship--breaks in upon our vision, as the scene changes from the Halls
of Montsalvat to Klingsor's palace. Klingsor, an impure knight, who has
been refused admittance to the order of the "Sangrail," enters into a
compact with the powers of evil--by magic acquires arts of diabolical
fascination--fills his palace and gardens with enchantments, and wages
bitter war against the holy knights, with a view of corrupting them, and
ultimately, it may be, of acquiring for himself the "Sangrail," in which
all power is believed to reside. Many knights have already succumbed to
the "insidious arts" of Klingsor; but the tragical turning-point of the
_Parsifal_ is that Amfortas, himself the son of Titurel, the official
guardian of the Grail, in making war upon the magician, took with him
the sacred spear, and _lost_ it to Klingsor.

It came about in this way. A woman of unearthly loveliness won him in
the enchanted bowers adjoining the evil knight's palace, and Klingsor,
seizing the holy spear, thrust it into Amfortas's side, inflicting what
seemed an incurable wound. The brave knight, Gurnemanz, dragged his
master fainting from the garden, his companions of the Sangrail co