s.
We are once more in the domed hall. All is as we left it, save
for the tables, which, become useless, are no longer there. Again
the doors open at the back and from each issues forth a company of
knights, the one bearing the bier of Titurel, the other carrying
the litter of Amfortas and the shrine of the Grail, while they chant,
in question and response, a song of reproachful tenor. "Whom do you
bring, with tokens of mourning, in the dark casket?" "The funereal
casket holds the hero into whose charge the very God entrusted
Himself. Titurel we bring." "Who slew him, whom God Himself held in
His care?" "The killing burden of age slew him, when he no longer
might behold the Grail." "Who prevented him from beholding the
glory of the Grail?" "He whom you carry, the sinful Keeper." The
latter they now urge to fulfill his promise of exposing the Grail,
and, deeply moved by the sight of his father's face and the outburst
of lamentation which follows the folding back of the pall from
it, he appears on the point of satisfying them; but, as in their
eagerness they hem him around with injunctions almost threatening,
he is seized with a revulsion once more against the task imposed on
him. He springs from his high seat and stands among them begging
that rather they will kill him. "Already I feel the night of death
closing around me, and must I be forced back into life? You demented!
Who shall compel me to live? Death alone it is in your power to
give!" He tears open his garment and offers his breast. "Forward,
heroes! Slay the sinner with his affliction! The Grail perchance
will glow for you then of Itself!"

But the knights shrink away. Then it is that Parsifal, who with
Gurnemanz and Kundry has entered unnoticed, advances and with the
point of the Sacred Spear touches Amfortas's wound. "One weapon
alone avails. The wound can be closed only by the Spear which made
it. Be whole, pardoned and absolved, for I now hold the office in
your stead!" Amfortas's countenance of holy ecstasy proclaims the
instant virtue of the remedy. As Parsifal holds up to the enraptured
gaze of the knights the Spear which he has brought back to them,
the Parsifal-motif is heard again, for the last time, triumphant,
broad, and glorious. He proceeds to perform the rite which had
been the duty of Amfortas. A glory rains upon the altar. At the
glowing of the Grail, Titurel, returning for a moment to life,
lifts himself on his bier with a gesture of benedict