Achille-Telefo: Parsifal-Amfortas: magia simpatetica --- "clearly a folklore remedy based on the principle of sympathetic magic"

Speranza


_http://www.monsalvat.no/grkmyths.htm_
(http://www.monsalvat.no/grkmyths.htm)

"Parsifal and Greek Myth"

© Derrick Everett
Cosima Wagner wrote in her diary on 29 October 1872:

"In the afternoon R[ichard] told me that he
had been thinking about the bloody lance in
Parzival and had been led by it to the
Greek mysteries."

"Wagner was fascinated by classical Greece."

"In particular, Wagner was interested in two aspects of the ancient Greek
culture."

"Firstly in the social and religious role of the Greek theatre."

"Secondly in the myths that had provided the content of Greek poetry and
drama."

"Myths were, as Wagner expressed it in Oper und Drama, true for all time.
It was the task of the poet to create art from the inexhaustible content of
myth.

"In 1849 Wagner sketched his own drama on the subject of [Achille]" (WWV
81).

"It was probably while reading about this hero of the Trojan War, that
Wagner encountered the story of [Achille] and [Telefo]."

Apollodorus writes in his "Bibliotheca":

"[Telefo], son of [Ercole] and Auge, was a king in Asia Minor."

"After nearly making the same mistake as [Edipo], of marrying his own
mother, [Telefo] married a daughter of King [Priamo].:

"As an ally of the Trojans, his kingdom was attacked by the Greeks (or
Achaeans) and in the fighting, [Telefo] was wounded in the thigh by the spear
of [Achille = that will belong to PARSIFAL]."

"After the Greeks had withdrawn, [Telefo]'s wound would not heal."

"[Achille] healed him by scraping off the rust of his Pelian spear."


Accordingly, on being healed, Telefo showed the course to steer, and the
accuracy of his information was confirmed by Calcha by means of his own
art of divination.

"The cure of a wound by an
application to it of rust from the weapon which
inflicted the hurt is not to be explained, as
Plinio supposed, by any
medicinal property inherent in rust as such, else the rust from any weapon would
serve the purpose.

It is clearly a folklore remedy based on the principle
of sympathetic magic."

---

Everett closes his note with a consideration of [Prometeo].

"On 28 February 1877, Richard gave Cosima to read the second Prose Draft of
Parsifal, which he had just completed. She recorded her reactions in her
diary: This is bliss, this is solace, this is sublimity and devotion! -- The
Redeemer unbound!

"[Pometeo], like Amfortas and [Telefo], had a wound that would not heal."

Cosima Wagner wrote in her dairy on Nov. 29, 1871: "R[ichard] says to me,
"Prometheus' words, 'I took knowledge away from Man' came to my mind and
gave me a profound insight; knowledge, seeing ahead, is in fact a divine
attribute, and man with this divine attribute is a piteous object, he is like
Brahma before the Maya spread before him the veil of ignorance, of deception;
the divine privilege is the saddest thing of all."

"[Prometeo], unbound, appeared on the title page of the first edition of
Friedrich Nietzsche's first book. The ideas presented in that book, The Birth
of Tragedy, were either ideas that originated with Wagner, or which
Nietzsche developed during and after conversations with Wagner."

----

By courtesy of R. H.:

The belief in the use of sympathetic magic for wounds survived a remarkably long time, and was still current in the 17th century when it was studied by that wise fool Sir Kenelm Digby.

There is a brief account at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_of_sympathy
which links to a more thorough discussion in T.J. Pettigrew's book _On superstitions connected with the history and practice of medicine and surgery_, 1844.