With wine, and baskets of the finest bread.
Slowly the King was carried to a couch
Within the midst, high-raised and canopied,
And just before him, of a pure white stone,
Traced with faint figures of the passion-flower,
Stood the communion table where was placed
The sacred shrine, still covered, of the Grail.

And when the hymns were ended, and the knights
Had taken their set places at the board,
Then there was silence. And from far away,
As if from some deep cavern of a tomb,
Behind the couch where King Amfortas lay
The muffled voice of agèd Titurel
Spake with long silences between the words:
"My son Amfortas, art thou at thy post?...
Wilt thou unveil the Grail and bid me live?...
Or must I die, denied the saving vision?"

And King Amfortas cried in desperate pain:
"O woe is me to bear the burning wound
That shames me in the office of the Grail!
O father, do thou take the sacred trust
And let thy holy hands reveal the Grail
Once more, and live! And let me quickly die!"

But answered him the agèd Titurel:
"Nay, nay, too feeble I to serve again.
I live entombed with but a breath of life,
Saved by the remnant of the grace of God.