TRISTAN AND ISOLDE

I

The Ouverture to Tristan and Isolde is singularly calculated to

create the mood in which the Opera needs to be heard. It discourses

of nothing but love. It is long, it knocks and presses upon chords

lying abysmally below thought, until these vibrate in response,--and

the curtain goes up before an almost helplessly sympathetic listener.

Chief among the emotions expressed in this harmonious setting-forth

of the argument,--rich in sighs, glances, caresses,--is certain

tragic yearning, which seems of the very essence of love, the love

in question; tragic, because it is a thirst which from the nature of

things admits of no satisfaction upon the earth we know, since its

demand is no less than fusion of one soul and flesh into another,

so that each is completely possessed and neither knows any more which

of the two he is; the condition we hear the lovers sigh for later on

their bank of flowers in the warm summer night: "I," says the man,

"shall be Isolde, you will be Tristan."--"I shall be Tristan," the

woman says, "and you Isolde." Nay, there shall be no more Tristan,

no more Isolde, but nameless, indivisible, possessed of a single

consciousness, they shall float in an eternal night of love to

ever-new recognitions, ever-new ardours....

The story belongs to the period of King Arthur and his Round Table.

At that time Cornwall, we learn, was subject to Ireland, to the

extent at least of owing tribute. But the subject country, with

increase of power, had become impatient of the tax, and, when the

Irish hero Morold was sent to collect it, a knight of the Cornish

court, Tristan, fought and slew him, and in lieu of the exacted

tribute sent back his head to Ireland.

Tristan had not come forth unhurt from the combat in which Morold

had fallen. With the peculiar daring which earned him the fame of

"hero without equal, wonder of all nations," he took the wound

of which he was dying to the country of the enemy, to the very

castle of the Irish King whose daughter Isolde's affianced he had

slain. For Isolde was renowned for her skill in the art of medicine.

The Queen, her mother, possessed even rarer secrets of magic. In a

small skiff, almost unattended, Tristan, obscuring his glory under

the name of Tantris, came to Isolde to be healed. The high-born

physician gave him faithful care. No one suspected him, until Isolde,

remarking a trifling notch in his sword, made the discovery that

a steel splinter which she had removed from the severed head of

Morold fitted it. This man, then, completely in her power, was

Tristan, the enemy of her land, the slayer of her betrothed. The

duty of a princess of the time was clear. She caught up the sword

and approached his bed with the intention of avenging Morold's

death. But the wounded man unclosed his eyes, and glancing past

the sword, past the hand which brandished it, looked into her eyes.

And, inexplicably, she could not proceed; pity moved her, she let

the sword sink. She kept the secret of his identity. She applied

herself more than ever diligently to heal him, "that he might betake

himself home, and burden her no more with the look of his eyes."

He went at last with professions of eternal gratitude. The least

he could have done, in accordance with these, so it seemed to her,

was to preserve silence as she had preserved it, to let the incident

have no more result than as if oblivion had engulfed it. Instead of

which, behold before long Tristan arriving in his own resplendent

person, with an embassy of Cornish nobles, to arrange peace between

the two countries and obtain the hand of the Irish king's daughter

for the Cornish sovereign, Mark, his uncle.

Now the Irish, being, as we gather, at a disadvantage in any match

of force with the insolent tributaries who had cast off their yoke,

could not well refuse,--could not afford to give offence by refusing.

The alliance was in truth a splendid one,--were it not for that old

unavenged affront! Even as matters stood, the proposal admitted of

being looked upon in the light of reparation,--if one did not see

in it, as did one of the principal personages involved, a second

insult more intolerable than the first.

The Cornish suit was successful. The feud was publicly declared

at an end, and peace sworn to. The heiress of the Irish crown set

sail for Cornwall under the escort of Tristan.

The curtain rising shows the rich pavilion on ship-deck where Isolde

hides her face from the light against the cushions of a day-bed.

Her attendant, Brangaene, stands gazing over the ship-side. The

voice of a young sailor is heard from the rigging out of sight.

Now, though the Cornish diplomats have comported themselves during

their mission with delicacy, the crew accompanying them take less

trouble to conceal the glee they feel over the humiliation of their

former lords, signified in this present carrying off of Ireland's

proudest jewel. Isolde, spite of all courteous forms, is regarded

by them as, in a sense, a prize of war. Some hint of this appears

in the song of the young seaman, who permits himself references

to the "wild and lovely Irish maid," and asks whether they be her

sighs which swell his sail. The words penetrate through Isolde's

absorption; she starts up in sudden fury, crying: "Who dares to

mock me?" and looks wildly around, as if she had been so engrossed

in other scenes that she did not, on returning to the light of day,

know for a moment where she was. Then she recognises Brangaene, and

remembers, and inquires where they are. "Streaks of blue are rising up

out of the West," Brangaene describes what she is watching, "softly

and swiftly sails the ship; on a calm sea before evening we surely

shall reach the land."--"What land?" Isolde asks unexpectedly. "The

verdant coast of Cornwall."--"Nevermore!" bursts from the princess,

"Not to-day! Not to-morrow!"

Brangaene hurries to her, alarmed and wondering at the hurricane

of passion she now lets loose,--calling upon the arts of magic to

restore to her the lost power of commanding sea and storm, calling

upon the winds and waves to wreck this insolent ship and drown

everyone upon it! Brangaene stands aghast. What she had but dimly

apprehended, then, was true. She clings to her mistress, endeavouring

to calm her. "What, dear heart, have you so long been concealing from

me? Not one tear did you shed at parting from father and mother.

Hardly a word of farewell did you speak to those remaining behind.

Coldly and dumbly you left the land of home; pale and silent you

have been on the voyage, taking no food, taking no sleep, deeply

troubled, rigid and wretched,--how am I to endure to see you thus,

to be nothing to you, to stand before you as a stranger? Oh, tell

me what troubles you! Tell me, make known to me what is torturing

you! If she is to think herself in any measure dear to you, confide

now in Brangaene!" The unhappy Isolde, suffocating, gasps for air:

"Air!... Air!... My heart is smothering!... Open! Open wide!" Brangaene

hurriedly draws apart the tapestries which form the wall of the

apartment at the back. The deck of the ship is seen from mainmast

to stern; sailors busy with ropes, groups of knights and their

esquires lounging. Tristan stands apart from the rest, with folded

arms, staring abstractedly over the water. His servant Kurwenal

lies idly outstretched at his feet. Isolde's eyes at once find

the half-averted figure; her absorption in it becomes equal to

his in the unknown object of the thoughts engrossing him. She does

not hear this time the sailor at the topmast singing over again

the song she had before resented; "O Irish maid, where tarriest

thou? Is it the force of thy sighs which fills my sails?" Slow,

involuntary, words drop from her lips, her inmost thoughts speaking

to herself, while her eyes brood gloomily upon the unconscious

head. "Mine elected,--lost to me! Lofty and beautiful,--brave and

craven! Death-devoted head! Death-devoted heart!" Starting awake

at the ring of her own words, she laughs unpleasantly and, turning

to Brangaene: "What do you think of the lackey yonder?" Brangaene's

glance follows Isolde's. She does not understand. "Whom do you

mean?"--"The hero over there who averts his glance from mine, who

in shame and embarassment gazes away from me. Tell me, how does

he impress you?"--"Are you inquiring, my dear lady," Brangaene

asks in wonder, "of Tristan, the marvel of all nations, the man

of exalted renown, the hero without equal, honour's treasure and

vaunt?" Isolde catches up her tone, to continue in scornful mimicry:

"Who terrified at his own achievement flies to refuge wherever he

can, having won for his master a corpse to bride?... Is my saying

dark to you? Go then and ask himself, the presumably free man,

whether he dare to venture near me? All forms of reverence and

considerate service he forgets toward his sovereign mistress, the

shrinking hero, that of all things her glance may not light on

him.... Oh, he no doubt knows why!" Suddenly overmastered by an

impulse of her too-long controlled rancour: "Go to the haughty

one," she orders Brangaene, "bear to him this message from his

lady: Let him come into my presence forthwith, prepared to do my

command."--"Am I to bid him come and offer his duty?" Brangaene

timidly interprets. "Nay," Isolde storms, "let the self-sufficient

one be warned to fear the mistress! That do I bid him, I, Isolde!"

Fixedly she watches the attendant moving along the deck, past the

sailors at their work, toward the solitary figure of the knight.

She watches the two fixedly while their interview lasts.

Kurwenal, catching sight of the woman approaching, tugs at his

master's mantle: "Attention, Tristan! Message from Isolde!" Tristan's

start suggests how complete his abstraction, and what the effect

of that name unexpectedly pronounced. _As Brangaene comes before

him_, the stage-directions say, _he rapidly composes himself_.

Deferently he inquires of his lady's wishes. Bragaene tells him,

barely, that her lady wishes to see him. Then begins the series of

his evasions, courteous as possible, but determined as courteous.

"If she be weary of the long voyage, that is nigh ended. Before

sunset we shall touch land. Whatsoever orders my lady have for

me shall be faithfully carried out." Brangaene repeats the order:

"Let Sir Tristan then go to her, such is our lady's will."--"Yonder

where the green meadows are still coloured blue to the eye, my

king awaits my lady. That I may escort her to him, soon will I

approach the Bright One. To none would I yield the privilege."

The maid repeats, still patiently: "Tristan, my lord, listen and

attend: My lady requests your service,--that you should betake

yourself to the place where she awaits you."--"At what place soever

I be found, faithfully do I serve her, to the greater honour of

women. If I should forsake the helm at this moment, how could I

safely guide the keel to King Mark's land?" Brangaene's temper

flashes a faint reflection of Isolde's fire. "Tristan, my lord,

are you mocking me? If the stupid handmaid cannot make her meaning

clear to you, hear my mistress's own words. This she bade me say:

Be warned, a self-sufficient one, to fear the mistress! That is

her behest,--Isolde's!" Without giving Tristan time to hesitate,

Kurwenal jumps up: "May I frame an answer?"--"What would your answer

be?" Tristan asks, for the moment at a loss. And Kurwenal, very

loud, that his words may not fail to reach Isolde's ears: "This

say to Madam Isolde: That he who made over to the maid of Ireland

the crown of Cornwall and the inheritance of England cannot be the

chattel of that same maid, presented by himself to his uncle. A

lord of the world,--Tristan, the hero! I cry it aloud and do you

report my words, though they should bring upon me the wrath of a

thousand Madam Isoldes!" Tristan has vainly tried to silence him.

As Brangaene indignantly hastens away, the irrepressible servant

sings after her at the top of his voice a mocking fragment of ballad,

popular no doubt in Cornwall: "Lord Morold came over the sea to

Cornwall to collect tribute. An island floats in a lonely sea,

there he now lies buried. His head, however, hangs in Ireland, the

tribute paid by England. Hurrah for our lord Tristan! What a one

is he to pay tribute!" Tristan drives the fellow off, orders him

below. But the whole crew have taken up the last lines of the song

and shout them with a will. Brangaene drags together the curtains,

shutting from sight the cruel rabble. Isolde, who has with difficulty

controlled herself, seems on the point of an outburst, but she

quells it, and in the restored silence asks with forced composure:

"But now, about Tristan?--I wish to be told exactly." Brangaene,

at first unwilling, reports the interview. When she has finished,

Isolde, whose anger has made room for a sorrowful intense dejection,

reveals to her what explains the humour, to her so far inexplicable,

of her mistress. Her deeply wounded feelings bleeding afresh at

their exposure, Isolde makes the relation almost tearfully. "You

have been a witness to my humiliation, hear now what brought it

about. They sing to me derisive songs. I could reply if I would!

Of a boat I could tell which, small and mean, drew to the coast

of Ireland. In it a sick and suffering man, in woful plight, at

the point of death...." She tells the story of her recognition in

this Tantris of Tristan; of her resolve to take immediate vengeance

upon him; of the look which disarmed her, her dismissal of him,

healed, that he "might go home and burden her no more with the

look of his eyes!"--"Oh, wonder!" breathes Brangaene. "Where were

my eyes? The guest whom I once helped to nurse...?"--"You heard

his praise a moment ago! 'Hurrah for our lord Tristan!' He was

that unhappy man. He swore a thousand oaths of eternal gratitude

to me, and truth. Now hear how a hero keeps his word. He whom I

dismissed unknown as Tantris, as Tristan comes boldly back. On

a proud tall ship he draws to land, and desires the heiress of

Ireland in marriage for the worn King of Cornwall, for Mark, his

uncle. In Morold's lifetime who had ventured to offer us such an

affront? To sue for the crown of Ireland for the King of the

tribute-owing Cornish!... Oh, woe is me! It was I, I, who in secret

prepared for myself this shame! Instead of smiting with the avenging

sword, weak, I let it drop. Now I am the servant of my own vassal!"

Brangaene, when all is told, does not apparently recognise in the

situation cause for so much bitterness. "When peace, reconciliation,

and friendship were sworn on all sides," she says wonderingly, "we

all rejoiced to see the day. How could I suppose it was a source

of affliction to you?" The point then appears of that bitterness,

which would hardly in reality have been a point but for a sentiment

not among those which Isolde confesses to her confidante. That

what she kept silent the other should reveal! That what he could

only know and live to report through the weakness of her woman's

heart, he should publicly make use of, to his own glory and his

relative's advantage! She paints his attitude, as she imagines him,

victory-flushed, hale and whole now, pointing at her and saying

in loud, clear tones: "There were a treasure for you, my lord and

uncle! What do you think of her as a wife? The pretty Irish-woman

I will bring to you here. By roads and by-paths well known to me,

give the sign, I fly to Ireland: Isolde is yours! I delight in

the adventure!" The picture goads her to very madness, and, with

a cry for its mingling of ferocity with anguish like the roar of a

baited and wounded lioness, she breaks into maledictions upon his

head, calling down vengeance upon him, death upon him, nay,--at the

climax of her rage and insupportable pain,--death upon them both!

With impetuous tenderness Brangaene showers words of endearment on

the exhausted friend, hushes her with caresses, heaps, as it were,

smothering flowers upon her angry coals. She forces her gently

to a seat, comforting her with word and touch. Then she holds up

all in a different light, endeavours to make her see the thing

reasonably, as it must appear to others. "What delusion is this?

What idle raving? How can you stultify yourself till you neither

can see nor hear? Whatever debt of gratitude Sir Tristan owes you,

tell me, could he better repay it than with the most magnificent of

crowns? Thus does he at the same time faithfully serve his noble

uncle and bestow upon you the world's most enviable prize. He has

renounced, generous and true-hearted, his own inheritance, and

placed it at your feet, that he may call you Queen. And if through

him you are to wed Mark, how should you find fault with the choice?

Can you fail to prize and honour the man? Of great lineage and

gentle nature, where is his equal in power and splendour? Who would

not wish to share his good fortune, as consort to tarry beside

him, whom the greatest of heroes so devotedly serves?" Isolde,

but half heeding, has fallen again to her miserable brooding.

Brangaene's last words find their way to her brain and produce an

image there which she stares at with gloomy and tragic eyes. As

before, unconscious in her perturbation that she is doing it, she

voices her inmost thoughts audibly, like a somnambulist: "Unloved by

him, to behold the unrivalled man ever near, how could I endure the

torment?" Brangaene catches the words, and innocently supposes them

applied to King Mark. She presses fondly against this unaccountably

humble-minded mistress: "What are you dreaming, perverse one? Unloved?

Where does the man live who would not love you? Who could see Isolde

and not blissfully dissolve in love for her? But, if so were that

he who has been chosen for you should be of a nature to that degree

cold, if so were that some evil magic drew him away from you, I

should know how very soon to bind the unkind one to you, the power

of love should work its spell upon him...." She draws so near to

Isolde that she can speak without fear of being overheard. "Do you

forget your mother's magic? Do you imagine that she, who ponders

all things so sagely, has sent me void of counsel along with you to

a strange land?"--"At the right moment I am reminded of my mother's

counsel," Isolde murmurs thoughtfully before her; "Her art I prize

and welcome its aid. Vengeance it affords for the betrayal, peace in

the need of the heart. Bring the casket here to me."--"It contains

what shall secure your happiness!" Brangaene joyfully hurries to

fetch the small golden coffer, lifts the lid, fingers the phials.

"In this very order were they placed by your mother, the mighty

magic potions. For hurts and wounds here is balm; here, for poison,

is counterpoison...." She takes out and holds up before Isolde

with a significant smile a small flask. "The sweetest draught of

all I hold here!" Isolde pushes aside her hand and stretches her

own to the casket. "You are mistaken. I know better which one that

is. I marked it with a deep incision. Here is the draught which

shall serve my turn!" Brangaene stares at the phial which Isolde has

taken from among the rest. "The death-potion!" she gasps, recoiling.

A sing-song shout interrupts them, the voices of the sailors hauling

at ropes, taking in sail,--a reminder to Isolde that the land, the

terrible land, is near. Kurwenal hurries in: "Up, up, you ladies!

Briskly and cheerily! Quickly prepare to land! Ready at once, nimble

and spry! And to Madam Isolde I was to say from Tristan, my master:

the pennant of joy waves merrily from the mast, making her approach

known in Mark's royal castle. Wherefore he begs Madam Isolde to

haste and make ready, that he may escort her ashore." Isolde, for

a minute convulsed with a shuddering horror at her realization of

the decisive moment so near, reconquers her composure, and replies

with contrasting dignity and calm to Kurwenal's familiar and rude

pressing of the high-born ladies to haste. "To Sir Tristan bear my

greetings and report to him what I say. If he look to have me walk

at his side and stand before King Mark, as custom and seemliness

demand, let him know that this shall in no wise happen if he have

not before sought pardon of me for an uncondoned offence. Let him

therefore cast himself upon my clemency!" As Kurwenal by a gesture

signifies his stiff-necked resistance to her command, she repeats

it, more regally peremptory than before: "Take careful heed of what

I say and carefully report it. I refuse to make ready to accompany

him to land, I refuse to walk beside him and stand before King

Mark, unless he have before, as is fit and becoming, sued for

forgiveness and forgetfulness of an unexpiated fault. Let him hope

these from my grace!"--"Be quite sure that I shall tell him!" the

bluff serving-man replies, turning to go: "Now wait and see how

he takes it!"

Isolde flings her arms around Brangaene: "Farewell, Brangaene!

Commend me to the world! Commend me to my father and mother!"--"What

is it?" the handmaid asks, not understanding, yet half frightened;

"What are you meditating? Are you planning flight? Whither must I

follow you?"--"Nay, did you not hear? I shall remain where I am.

I intend to await Tristan. Follow faithfully my command. At once

prepare the peace-draught,--you know the one I showed you."--"What

draught do you mean?" Brangaene asks, not daring to understand.

Isolde takes it out of the coffer once more and holds it up for

Brangaene to see well, the little deadly phial. "This draught!

Pour it into the golden goblet; it will contain the whole without

brimming over.--Mind you are true to me!" she adds, forcing it into

the maid's hand. "But this drink..." falters the appalled girl,

"for whom?"--"For him who betrayed me!"--"Tristan?"--"Shall drink to

our peace-making!" Brangaene falls at Isolde's feet, entreating her

to spare her. "Do you spare me, disloyal girl!" Isolde passionately

chides. What was the purpose, she asks, of that provision made by

her mother for their assistance in a strange land? For hurts and

wounds she had given balm; for poison, antidote; for deepest woe,

for utmost affliction, she had given the death-draught: thanks be

rendered to her now--by death! Brangaene still resisting, Isolde

imperiously presses her command. Their struggle is cut short by

Kurwenal announcing Tristan. Brangaene staggers to the back. Isolde

visibly summons up all her courage, all her strength, and with

queenly self-possession bids Tristan approach.

The music introducing the following scene has the effect of lifting

the story on to a plane of larger things. The proportions of the

personages, in the light of the magnifying music, are seen to be

heroic, their natures vast, their passions, in their very

tremendousness, august.

Tristan stops at the entrance and waits deferentially. Constraint

makes him into a man of chill iron. There is a long moment of

heavy-laden silence. He is first to speak: "Make known to me, lady,

your wish!" She comes to the point at once. "Do you not know my wish,

when the dread of fulfilling it has kept you afar from my glance?"

He evades her, as he had before evaded Brangaene. "Reverence laid

its compulsion upon me!"--"Small reverence have you shown me. With

overt scorn you have refused obedience to my command."--"Obedience

alone restrained me."--"Paltry cause should I have to thank your

master, if his service required of you discourtesy to his own

consort."--"Custom demands," he quietly meets this, "where I have

lived, that the escort of the bride, while bringing her home, should

keep afar from her presence."--"For what reason?"--Stiffly as he

stands, his answer resembles a shrug. "Ask of custom!"--"Since

you cherish so great a regard for custom, my lord Tristan," Isolde

mocks, "let me remind you of what likewise is a custom: to make

peace with the enemy, if he is to report you as his friend." "And

what enemy?" he questions, unmoved. "Inquire of your terror!...

Blood-guiltiness stands between us!"--"That was made good!"--"Not

between us!"--"In the open field, before the assembled people, a

solemn oath was sworn to let vengeance rest."--"Not there was it,

not in the open field, that I kept Tantris concealed, that Tristan

lay at my mercy. In the open field he stood magnificent, hale and

brave; the thing however which he swore, I fore bore to swear. I

had learned to keep silence. When he lay languishing in the hushed

chamber, and I stood silent before him with the sword, though my

mouth no made sound, though my hand refrained, yet the thing which I

had sworn with hand and mouth I silently renewed my oath to perform.

I now intend to keep it."--"What did you swear, lady?" Tristan asks

simply, without effect of defiance. "Vengeance for Morold!" she hurls

at him. He seems to wonder. A sort of numbness has been creeping over

him; an atmosphere of dream has closed around him; her neighbourhood,

her voice, no matter what words she is saying, even these angry and

cruel ones, have an effect of lulling, of making the real world seem

unreal. "Are you concerned for that?" he asks, with the sincerity of

that state of having lost grasp on things as it is agreed to pretend

they are. "Dare you to mock me?" she rages, "He was affianced to me,

the gallant Irish hero. I had consecrated his arms, for me he went

into battle. When he fell, my honour fell with him. In the heaviness

of my heart I swore an oath that if no man would take vengeance

for his murder, I, a woman, would find the hardihood for it. Why,

when sick and feeble you lay in my power, I did not strike, explain

to yourself by easy interpretation: I cared for your wound, that

a man in sound health should be struck down by the vengeful hand

of him who won Isolde. Judge for yourself now what your doom shall

be. Since the men are all your adherents, who is to smite Tristan?"

More than ever it seems like the atmosphere of a dream closing

down upon him, a dream in which they move, projecting incredible

things. But he has perfectly seized her meaning, and even in a

dream a man acts in character. Pale and self-contained, he hands

her his unsheathed sword, and his voice shows a first tinge of

emotion as he speaks the name of Morold, whom, it would almost

seem, she had loved. "If Marold was so dear to you, again take up

the sword, and drive it surely and steadfastly, that it may not

drop from your grasp!"

If she seemed somewhat like a lioness before, striding and chafing

in her regal rage, she is again, it must be confessed, a little like

one now, but presenting a different aspect of the great feline,

a sort of cruelty, a need to torment before sacrificing. "What

would King Mark say if I were to slay his best servant, the most

faithful of his retainers, who won for him crown and land? Does it

seem to you such a paltry matter, that for which he stands indebted

to you, bringing home to him the Irish bride, that he would not

chide, should I slay the envoy who so faithfully delivers into

his hands the hostage of the peace-compact?... Put up your sword!

When upon a time I brandished it, my heart hot with desire for

vengeance, at your gazing upon me with an eye that took my measure,

to see if I would answer as a wife for King Mark"--(There, there

is point of insufferable bitterness!)--"I let the sword sink. Let

us drink now to our reconciliation!"

By a sign she orders Brangaene to bring the draught. The poor creature

shrinks away shuddering. Isolde, by a gesture more peremptory still,

repeats her command, and Brangaene is seen tremulously busying herself

with the golden casket and the golden cup. Again the sing-song

chorus is heard, of the sailors hauling in the topsail. The sound

falls with a shock upon Tristan's ear. "Where are we?" he cries,

in bewilderment. "Close to our destination!" Isolde replies

significantly. They are so close indeed to the end of their voyage

that anything there is to say must be said now, and she invites, with

a first suspicion of softness, some expression from him of regret,

some explanation before they die, some attempt at justification

of his so unkind-seeming return to the woman who had nursed and

saved him. "Tristan, shall I obtain amends? What have you to say

to me?" But he is guarded now as earlier; the compulsion of honour

is no less strong upon him than before. "The lady of silence," he

replies darkly, "teaches me to be silent. I apprehend, mayhap,

what she concealed.... I conceal what she does not apprehend!"--"I

shall apprehend the reason of your silence," she exclaims angrily,

"if you mean to elude me. Do you refuse to drink to our peace-making?"

Brangaene has brought the cup. Tristan gazes rigidly into Isolde's

eyes as she approaches him bearing it. "The voyage nears its end.

In brief space we shall stand," her lip curls with irony, "before

King Mark! As you lead me to him, should you not deem it an apt

speech to make: My lord and uncle, look at her well! A meeker woman

you could never hope to win. I slew her affianced, I sent home to

her his head; the wound made by his weapon she graciously healed.

My life lay in her power; the gentle maid made me a gift of it, and

gave her consent to the dishonour and degradation of her country

that she might become your wife. In kind acknowledgment of my good

gifts to her, she mixed me a sweet peace-draught; of her grace she

tendered this to me, to make all offences forgotten!" No, Tristan

can hardly entertain a doubt of the cup's contents which the princess

holds toward him with her ambiguous smile. But her right, aside

from any other consideration, is recognised as indubitable to the

life which she saved. We have from his own lips later what his

emotions were in this moment so pregnant with fate. What we see

is that he stands like a man in a dream. A voice is heard outside

shouting orders to the sailors: "Up with the cable! Free the anchor!"

He starts awake--he rises as if with a spring to the height of

the moment. "Anchor loose!" he cries wildly. "Helm to the stream!

Sails and mast to the wind!" Ay, let go all regards and restraints

of life, since life itself is about to be tossed over. There is zest

in doing it, and then rid at once forever of the puzzling world of

duty and prudence and heart-starvation! He snatches the goblet from

Isolde's hand: "Well do I know Ireland's queen and the magic power

of her arts. I made use of the balm which she proffered, I take the

cup from her now, that I to-day may completely recover. And do you

mark the pledge with which, grateful, I drink to our peace!" It is

an answer, this enigmatic pledge, to her wistful question: "What

have you to say to me?" He cannot pass into silence, and leave her

forever with her unmingled contempt for him. By broken intimations

he flashes light upon the thing which his lips are interdicted from

revealing. Charged with emotion, the words chime slowly: "Tristan's

honour,--highest truth!... Tristan's misery,--cruellest spite!...

Lure of the heart!... Dream-intuitions!... Sole comforter of an

eternal woe, merciful draught of forgetfulness, unwaveringly I

drink!" He sets the cup to his lips and is drinking as he said,

when with the cry: "Defrauded here too! Mine, one half!" Isolde

wrests the goblet from him: "Traitor, I drink to you!" and drains

it, unwavering as he.

The empty cup drops from her hand. They stand in suspense, gazing

at each other, as defiantly they await death. The searching potion

in a moment begins to take effect; each sees in the eyes of the other

a new thing dawning, strange and beautiful; a trembling seizes upon

their limbs. They press their hands convulsively to their hearts,

the seat of an incomprehensible trouble, then to their foreheads,

within which the brain seems to have become subject to over-wild

delusions. Their eyes meet again, and are averted in a confused

terror; but, invincibly allured, again seek the other--and both

gaze with increasing, at last unconquerable, yearning. With tremulous

lips she speaks his name,--a complete confession in the one word

so spoken. Passionately he calls hers,--confession for confession.

She sinks overpowered on his breast. He clasps her ardently to

him. Brangaene wrings her hands at sight of them locked in their

long, mute embrace. Her work this, the work of her disobedient

hands which, too weak for the stern task assigned them, poured out

the love-potion in place of the death-draught. "Woe, woe," she

wails, "eternal, irredeemable woe, instead of brief death! Behold

the pernicious work of a foolish fondness blossoming heavenward

in lamentation!"

The two move apart for a moment in order better to gaze at each

other. "What was I dreaming," he falters, "of Tristan's honour?"

"What was I dreaming," she wonderingly asks, "of indignities to

Isolde?"--"You, lost to me?" Could man have imagined so wild a

thing! "You repulsing me?" Probable, it seems, as he stretches

to her those yearning arms! It has all been a malignant trick,

then, of evil sorcery! Restored at length from that delusion, they

yield themselves exultantly to the tide of passion that has caught

them away and shall carry them whither it will, scornful of the

whole world, lost in each other, conscious of a sweetness in the

surrender surpassing all that life had given them to suspect.

The peculiar action of the potion is detected from the above. It

seems less to create passion than to remove all that obscured and

controlled it, dissolve the barriers which up to the moment of

drinking stood so effectively between the two. Tristan's will crumbles

under it, the will which had kept him loyal to Mark, which had made

him, to the point of offence, shun the radius of her dangerous

magnetism. Isolde's pride melts under it, which had enabled her

to keep up with herself and him a fiction of hate for the man who

had wronged her. All that keeps love within bounds being burned

away, it towers in a sublime conflagration. Their sense of the

change is that they have awakened from a dream; but the effect

of the potion has been in truth rather more to plunge them into

a state of dream, in which while one emotion is in the ascendant

the others sleep,--reason sleeps, will sleeps, all other interests

and considerations sleep, leaving love free to reach proportions

and an intensity unknown during wakefulness.

They have not heard or heeded the cries of the crew: "Hail, hail,

King Mark!" The curtains of the pavilion are suddenly drawn wide

apart. The ship's company crowds the deck; all are gazing toward

the land. Tristan and Isolde take account of nothing, their senses

fast sealed to all but the contemplation of each other. Brangaene

and other women place on Isolde's unconscious shoulders the royal

mantle, and deck her, unaware of it, with jewels. Kurwenal comes

running to his master: "Hail, Tristan, fortunate hero! King Mark,

with rich rout of courtiers, approaches in a barge. Ha! He looks

well pleased, coming to meet the bride!" Tristan asks, dazed: "Who

approaches?"--"The King!"--"What king?"--Kurwenal points overboard.

Tristan stares landward, not comprehending. The men shout and wave

their caps. "Hail, King Mark!"--"What is it?" Isolde inquires,

reached in her trance by the clamour; "Brangaene, what cry is

that?"--"Isolde, mistress," the distraught Brangaene implores,

"self-control for this one day!"--"Where am I?" the bewildered

lady asks helplessly. "Am I alive?..." What, the question asks

itself, what is this still familiar surrounding scene, when they

ought, by true working of the drug, to be dead? If any thought had

accompanied the overmastering impulse which she had blindly followed,

it had been that before death all disguises drop, that in dying one

is sincere. But since death had not followed the drinking of the

draught--"Ha! What draught was that?" she asks in consternation.

Brangaene gives the desperate truth. "The love-draught!" Isolde's

eyes widen with horror, and turning from Brangaene fix themselves

upon Tristan. The situation flashes before her for one shocked

moment in its true colours; and as before her calling his name

had revealed all love, it reveals now her sense of an unspeakable

awfulness in what has happened to them. As he calls her name, too,

it expresses, with his boundless tenderness, pity and a tragic

recognition of the black ingredient in the cup which had lifted

them to such heights of intoxication. "Must I live?" speaks the

last glimmer of the old Isolde, provided normally with a moral

nature; and overwhelmed by the greatness of the catastrophe she

sinks fainting upon his breast. A last glimmer of the old Tristan

groans aloud: "O rapture beset with snares! Bliss on betrayal built!"

Trumpets are heard. The eager expectancy of all indicates that the

King's barge is close at hand. The curtain falls.