ry by the French writers Robert
de Borron and Chrestien de Troyes, and in the early thirteenth century
by Wolfram von Eschenbach in the strong German speech of Thuringia. The
substance of these legends was that the precious cup, used for the wine
at the Last Supper, and also used to receive the Saviour's blood at the
Cross, was forever after cherished as the Holy Grail. It was carried
from the Holy Land by Joseph of Arimathea and taken first to Gaul and
later to Spain to a special sanctuary among the mountains, which was
named Monsalvat. Here it was to be cherished and guarded by a holy band
of Knights of the Grail. The same legend appears in the chronicles of
Sir Thomas Malory, but instead of Gaul, early Britain is the place to
which the Grail is brought. Tennyson's "The Holy Grail" in his Idylls of
the King largely follows Sir Thomas Malory's chronicles. The American
artist Edwin A. Abbey in his masterly paintings of the Grail legend as
portrayed on the walls of the Boston Public Library, also follows
Malory. Wagner, however, uses the version of Wolfram von Eschenbach,
modifying it and spiritualizing it to suit his purposes. The German
artist Franz Stassen, from whom our illustrations are taken, has entered
with perfect appreciation into Wagner's version of the noble legend.
The following rendering of the Parsifal is not a close translation of
the text, but rather a transfusion of the spirit. It is possibly as
nearly a translation as Fitzgerald's rendition of Omar Khayyam, or
Macpherson's version of the poems of Ossian. It is what may be called a
free rendering, aiming to give the spirit rather than the language of
the original.

The mere translations of the words of Parsifal, as given in the English
texts of H. and F. Corder and M.H. Glyn, do not adequately represent the
full value of the drama. Those versions were under the necessity of a
strictly literal translation, which was further hampered in order to
make the English words fit the music, and the result was far from
satisfactory. The literal translation also unfortunately over-emphasizes
certain parts and phrases in the drama which are somewhat harsh, but
which at Bayreuth become much modified and refined, and are, therefore,
so represented in this version.

The present telling of the story will be found to use all that Wagner
has given in the words, but with the addition here and thereof
interpretative phrases, suggested by the drama itself at Bayreuth. Its