long black hair
The allusion is once again to Wagner's Parsifal. The woman with the long black hair is Kundry, whose sudden appearance in the opera is accompanied by a musical phrase in the strings section. In the final act, she uses her hair to dry the feet of Parsifal as a symbol of humility, just as a woman does to Jesus in the Gospels.
In the opera, Kundry has come under the spell of the evil Klingsor who, having been rejected by the Grail Knights, now seeks to destroy them. He does so by commanding Kundry and her band of Flowermaidens to seduce them and tempt them away from their duties to the Grail. Kundry herself seduced Amfortas, allowing Klingsor to steal the Holy Spear: the wound Klingsor inflicted on him with this spear can only be healed by the purest of knights.
Parsifal is that knight: his quest takes him to Klingsor's castle, where he resists Kundry's charms, retrieves the Spear and destroys the castle with its sacred power. Years later, he at last finds his way back to the Grail castle, where he heals Amfortas, releases Kundry from her curse, and reveals the Grail.
The wounded Amfortas is clearly rooted in the mythology of the Fisher King; the appearance of the Kundry image suggests we are at the crucial point of our metaphorical journey through the wasteland, where we will either proceed twoards a resolution of the quest; or we will fail the test of the Chapel Perilous, and be stuck there among the dry bones and the baby-faced bats.
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This section contains a number of references to previous images in the poem. Most surprisingly, however, Eliot's reference to a "fallen woman", and specific reference to her hair and the music that accompanies her, sends us back to The Fire Sermon and the lovely woman who after unsatisfying sex:
...smoothes her hair with automatic hand
and puts a record on the gramophone
In the opera, Kundry has come under the spell of the evil Klingsor who, having been rejected by the Grail Knights, now seeks to destroy them. He does so by commanding Kundry and her band of Flowermaidens to seduce them and tempt them away from their duties to the Grail. Kundry herself seduced Amfortas, allowing Klingsor to steal the Holy Spear: the wound Klingsor inflicted on him with this spear can only be healed by the purest of knights.Parsifal is that knight: his quest takes him to Klingsor's castle, where he resists Kundry's charms, retrieves the Spear and destroys the castle with its sacred power. Years later, he at last finds his way back to the Grail castle, where he heals Amfortas, releases Kundry from her curse, and reveals the Grail.
The wounded Amfortas is clearly rooted in the mythology of the Fisher King; the appearance of the Kundry image suggests we are at the crucial point of our metaphorical journey through the wasteland, where we will either proceed twoards a resolution of the quest; or we will fail the test of the Chapel Perilous, and be stuck there among the dry bones and the baby-faced bats.
********************************************************
This section contains a number of references to previous images in the poem. Most surprisingly, however, Eliot's reference to a "fallen woman", and specific reference to her hair and the music that accompanies her, sends us back to The Fire Sermon and the lovely woman who after unsatisfying sex:
...smoothes her hair with automatic hand
and puts a record on the gramophone
The bored typist is ironically presented as a modern-day Kundry, and her uncaring boyfriend as the least likely of Grail knights. Once again, the twentieth century is portrayed as a pale and pathetic imitation of the legendary past (cf. Madame Sosostris/ The Sibyl; Mr Eugenides/ Phlebas etc).
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