Klingsor, the Black Magician

Legends state that yonder, in a luxuriant corner of a warm valley, very close to the sacred land of the Muslims, the evil magician Klingsor made his dwelling in terrible solitude…

“Certainly, I knew not,” said the old Titurel, “what sin he there committed; he sought atonement for it; yes, holy he would be!”

He was a mistakenly sincere one filled with good intentions, unable to kill the sinful, raging lust within himself. In his hand he held an assassin’s dagger. Thus, frightfully, he castrated, emasculated, mutilated himself.

The merciful hero Titurel, who knew Klingsor and his tenebrous arts very well, stated that then, the wretched, evil, penitent one outstretched his bloody, supplicating hands to obtain the Grail for which he yearned. Yet, it is obvious that he was scornfully spurned by its Guardian.

To feel himself scorned by the knights of the Holy Grail? And after having mutilated himself with the “sane” purpose of eliminating animal passions? What a horror! Oh, God of mine..!

Consequently, in the rage of his terrible, painful, and shameful deed, impossible to describe with words, the desperate eunuch of darkness searched for a weapon of retaliation. It is unquestionable that he found it.

Titurel, the voice of the past, stated that then this tenebrous one transformed his frustrated, penitent wilderness into a bewitching garden of voluptuous, sexual joys, where lived blossoming, exquisite, devilish, lovely women.

There, stated the elder Titurel, in secrecy, in that mansion of delights, the evil magician waited to lure the Grail’s knights in order to subtly drag them into shameful, lustful joy and hell’s defilement…

“The one who allows himself to be seduced is then his victim,” said the old monarch. “Thus, he achieved making many of our own fall onto a foul path of disaster.”

When reaching this part of our present chapter, it comes into my memory that beautiful poem of Don Ramon del Valle Inclan:

Sinful Rose

The cat that hisses! The door that creaks!
Glup-glup-glup the dripping hose!
At the door shrieks the aborted beast,
when I was born, alone in the house!
In the night of October! They say that the moon
with a strong wind and jumps of the sea:
under its stars, my fortune was rising.
So, strong winds watched me when I arrived, and also the sea.
That night of October! My death was announced!
Night of mine, opened between ground and sun!
The magician revested with the stellar apparel,
naked as a giant, blew the conch.
The beast at the door thrillingly yells,
in its eyes remains the autumn night
and yonder, that night of my life,
had its two ways. And I followed the one of evil!
Thy flesh called upon me, oh sinful rose!
Alone in the house, sleepless ego
that night of October, the sea arose…
The dripping glup-glup-glup!