’By pity ’lightened
    The guileless Fool—­
    Wait for him
    My chosen tool.’

Strengthened by this reminder of ultimate relief, and by the voice of the knights and of Titurel again calling for the uncovering of the Grail, Amfortas takes the crystal cup from its shrine, bends over it in devout prayer, while the angel voices above chant a sort of communion service, and the hall is gradually darkened.  Suddenly a beam of blinding light shoots down through the dome and falls upon the cup, which ’glows with an increased purple lustre,’ while Amfortas holds it above his head, and gently waves it to and fro, so that its mystic light can be seen by all the knights and squires, who have sunk to their knees.

Titurel hails the sight with a pious ejaculation, and when Amfortas has replaced the vessel in the shrine the beam of light disappears, daylight again fills the hall, and knights and squires begin to partake of the bread and wine before them, a feast to which Gurnemanz invites the amazed Parsifal by a mute gesture.  The youth is too astonished to accept; he remains spellbound, while the invisible choir resume their chant, which is taken up first by the youths’ voices, and then by the knights, and ends only as the meal draws to a close, and Amfortas is borne out, preceded by the Holy Grail and followed by the long train of knights and squires.

Gurnemanz and Parsifal alone remain.  The Fool, though guileless, has not been enlightened by pity to inquire the cause of Amfortas’s wound.  He has thus missed his opportunity to cure him, and Gurnemanz, indignant at his boundless stupidity, opens a side door, and thrusts him out into the forest, uttering a contemptuous dismissal.

   ’Thou art then nothing but a Fool! 
    Come away, on thy road be gone
    And put my rede to use: 
    Leave all our swans for the future alone
    And seek thyself, gander, a goose.’

The second act represents the inner keep of Klingsor’s castle, the magician himself being seated on the battlement.  He is gazing intently into the magic mirror, wherein all the world may be seen, and comments with malicious glee upon Parsifal’s ejection from the temple of the Holy Grail and his approach to his enchanted ground.

Laying aside his magic mirror, Klingsor then begins one of his uncanny spells, and in the midst of a bluish vapor calls up Kundry from the enchanted sleep into which his art has bound her.  He tells her that, although she has succeeded in escaping his power for a short time, and has gone over to the enemy whom she has done all in her power to serve, he now requires her to exercise all her fascinations to beguile Parsifal away from the path of virtue, as she once lured Amfortas, the king and guardian of the Holy Grail.