In Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, the wounded Grail king is Amfortas.
Amfortas is the ruler of the Grail community in Wagner’s 1882 opera. He is injured by the sacred spear while resisting the magician Klingsor, and the wound causes him continual pain. Amfortas is also responsible for performing the ceremony in which the Grail is unveiled, an act that repeatedly aggravates his suffering.
The character comes from the medieval Arthurian and German Grail traditions, especially Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, where the wounded Grail king is called Anfortas. Wagner adapted the name and role for his own version of the story, spelling it Amfortas.
Amfortas is sometimes confused with Titurel, the previous Grail king and his father, or with Parsifal, the knight who eventually heals him. Klingsor is his enemy, not a Grail king.