Motif 06: Prophecy

	Prophecy

This has also been called the Promise or Fool motive. We first hear a hint of the Prophecy motif in the first scene of the music-drama, when Gurnemanz despairs of herbs and potions (Toren wir, auf Lind'rung da zu hoffen ...). Part of it then accompanies Amfortas' partial statement of the prophecy (durch Mitleid wissend) and the entire motif as shown above appears when the prophecy is recalled by Gurnemanz just before the entry of the wild youth. It is sung offstage during the first Grail scene, and repeated by the Voice from Above at the very end of the first act. It also appears in diminution (B) in the prelude to act III and the following scene.

It might not be a coincidence that the three notes marked in (A) are the same three notes to which Parsifal speaks his own name for the first time, in the second act. It was pointed out by Lorenz that one of the inner voices, which descends in semitones, is a variant of the Suffering motif (#4).

Roger North, in his analysis of Tristan und Isolde, has compared four melodies that contain rocking fifths and tritones:

• Young Sailor's Song (Tristan act I)
• Shepherd's Tune (Tristan act III)
• Prophecy (Parsifal act I)
• "Wo find ich dich, du heil'ger Gral"

The last of these is a fragment that Wagner wrote down in the spring or summer of 1858 (it was found with a letter (Golther 54a) written to Mathilde Wesendonk about that time) while he was considering the possibility of introducing the questing Parzival into the third act of Tristan und Isolde. It was intended that a melody associated with the wandering Parzival should sound in the ears of the mortally wounded Tristan, as it were the mysteriously faint receding answer to his life-destroying question about the "Why?" of existence. Out of this melody, it may be said, grew the stage-dedicatory festival-drama. [Hans von Wolzogen, 1886]

Parzival: "Wo find' ich dich, du heil'ger Gral, dich sucht voll Sehnsucht mein Herze"; [Text below:]"Du liebes irrendes Kind! Sieh, das wollte ich eben aufschreiben, als ich deine schönen, edlen Verse fand!"

The similarities between the last two of the listed melodies are actually superficial. Although the 1858 theme (above) does contain a falling perfect fifth, it lies between the end of the first phrase and the beginning of the second. Therefore it cannot be related to the falling fifths of the Prophecy motif, which lie within the phrases.