My lords, if you would hear a high tale of love and of death, here is
that of Tristan and Queen Iseult; how to their full joy, but to their
sorrow also, they loved each other, and how at last they died of that
love together upon one day; she by him and he by her.
Long ago, when Mark was King over Cornwall, Rivalen, King of Lyonesse,
heard that Mark’s enemies waged war on him; so he crossed the sea to
bring him aid; and so faithfully did he serve him with counsel and
sword that Mark gave him his sister Blanchefleur, whom King Rivalen
loved most marvellously.
He wedded her in Tintagel Minster, but hardly was she wed when the
news came to him that his old enemy Duke Morgan had fallen on Lyonesse
and was wasting town and field. Then Rivalen manned his ships in
haste, and took Blanchefleur with him to his far land; but she was
with child. He landed below his castle of Kanoël and gave the Queen in
ward to his Marshal Rohalt, and after that set off to wage his war.
Blanchefleur waited for him continually, but he did not come home,
till she learnt upon a day that Duke Morgan had killed him in foul
ambush. She did not weep: she made no cry or lamentation, but her
limbs failed her and grew weak, and her soul was filled with a strong
desire to be rid of the flesh, and though Rohalt tried to soothe her
she would not hear. Three days she awaited re-union with her lord, and
on the fourth she brought forth a son; and taking him in her arms she
said:
“Little son, I have longed a while to see you, and now I see you the
fairest thing ever a woman bore. In sadness came I hither, in sadness
did I bring forth, and in sadness has your first feast day gone. And
as by sadness you came into the world, your name shall be called
Tristan; that is the child of sadness.”
After she had said these words she kissed him, and immediately when
she had kissed him she died.
Rohalt, the keeper of faith, took the child, but already Duke Morgan’s
men besieged the Castle of Kanoël all round about. There is a wise
saying: “Fool-hardy was never hardy,” and he was compelled to yield to
Duke Morgan at his mercy: but for fear that Morgan might slay
Rivalen’s heir the Marshal hid him among his own sons.
When seven years were passed and the time had come to take the child
from the women, Rohalt put Tristan under a good master, the Squire
Gorvenal, and Gorvenal taught him in a few years the arts that go with
barony. He taught him the use of lance and sword and ’scutcheon and
bow, and how to cast stone quoits and to leap wide dykes also: and he
taught him to hate every lie and felony and to keep his given word;
and he taught him the various kinds of song and harp-playing, and the
hunter’s craft; and when the child rode among the young squires you
would have said that he and his horse and his armour were all one
thing. To see him so noble and so proud, broad in the shoulders,
loyal, strong and right, all men glorified Rohalt in such a son. But
Rohalt remembering Rivalen and Blanchefleur (of whose youth and grace
all this was a resurrection) loved him indeed as a son, but in his
heart revered him as his lord.
Now all his joy was snatched from him on a day when certain merchants
of Norway, having lured Tristan to their ship, bore him off as a rich
prize, though Tristan fought hard, as a young wolf struggles, caught
in a gin. But it is a truth well proved, and every sailor knows it,
that the sea will hardly bear a felon ship, and gives no aid to
rapine. The sea rose and cast a dark storm round the ship and drove it
eight days and eight nights at random, till the mariners caught
through the mist a coast of awful cliffs and sea-ward rocks whereon
the sea would have ground their hull to pieces: then they did penance,
knowing that the anger of the sea came of the lad, whom they had
stolen in an evil hour, and they vowed his deliverance and got ready a
boat to put him, if it might be, ashore: then the wind, and sea fell
and the sky shone, and as the Norway ship grew small in the offing, a
quiet tide cast Tristan and the boat upon a beach of sand.
Painfully he climbed the cliff and saw, beyond, a lonely rolling heath
and a forest stretching out and endless. And he wept, remembering
Gorvenal, his father, and the land of Lyonesse. Then the distant cry
of a hunt, with horse and hound, came suddenly and lifted his heart,
and a tall stag broke cover at the forest edge. The pack and the hunt
streamed after it with a tumult of cries and winding horns, but just
as the hounds were racing clustered at the haunch, the quarry turned
to bay at a stones throw from Tristan; a huntsman gave him the thrust,
while all around the hunt had gathered and was winding the kill. But
Tristan, seeing by the gesture of the huntsman that he made to cut the
neck of the stag, cried out:
“My lord, what would you do? Is it fitting to cut up so noble a beast
like any farm-yard hog? Is that the custom of this country?”
And the huntsman answered:
“Fair friend, what startles you? Why yes, first I take off the head of
a stag, and then I cut it into four quarters and we carry it on our
saddle bows to King Mark, our lord: So do we, and so since the days of
the first huntsmen have done the Cornish men. If, however, you know of
some nobler custom, teach it us: take this knife and we will learn it
willingly.”
Then Tristan kneeled and skinned the stag before he cut it up, and
quartered it all in order leaving the crow-bone all whole, as is meet,
and putting aside at the end the head, the haunch, the tongue and the
great heart’s vein; and the huntsmen and the kennel hinds stood over
him with delight, and the Master Huntsman said:
“Friend, these are good ways. In what land learnt you them? Tell us
your country and your name.”
“Good lord, my name is Tristan, and I learnt these ways in my country
of Lyonesse.”
“Tristan,” said the Master Huntsman, “God reward the father that
brought you up so nobly; doubtless he is a baron, rich and strong.”
Now Tristan knew both speech and silence, and he answered:
“No, lord; my father is a burgess. I left his home unbeknownst upon a
ship that trafficked to a far place, for I wished to learn how men
lived in foreign lands. But if you will accept me of the hunt I will
follow you gladly and teach you other crafts of venery.”
“Fair Tristan, I marvel there should be a land where a burgess’s son
can know what a knight’s son knows not elsewhere, but come with us
since you will it; and welcome: we will bring you to King Mark, our
lord.”
Tristan completed his task; to the dogs he gave the heart, the head,
offal and ears; and he taught the hunt how the skinning and the
ordering should be done. Then he thrust the pieces upon pikes and gave
them to this huntsman and to that to carry, to one the snout to
another the haunch to another the flank to another the chine; and he
taught them how to ride by twos in rank, according to the dignity of
the pieces each might bear.
So they took the road and spoke together, till they came on a great
castle and round it fields and orchards, and living waters and fish
ponds and plough lands, and many ships were in its haven, for that
castle stood above the sea. It was well fenced against all assault or
engines of war, and its keep, which the giants had built long ago, was
compact of great stones, like a chess board of vert and azure.
And when Tristan asked its name:
“Good liege,” they said, “we call it Tintagel.”
And Tristan cried:
“Tintagel! Blessed be thou of God, and blessed be they that dwell
within thee.”
(Therein, my lords, therein had Rivalen taken Blanchefleur to wife,
though their son knew it not.)
When they came before the keep the horns brought the barons to the
gates and King Mark himself. And when the Master Huntsman had told him
all the story, and King Mark had marvelled at the good order of the
cavalcade, and the cutting of the stag, and the high art of venery in
all, yet most he wondered at the stranger boy, and still gazed at him,
troubled and wondering whence came his tenderness, and his heart would
answer him nothing; but, my lords, it was blood that spoke, and the
love he had long since borne his sister Blanchefleur.
That evening, when the boards were cleared, a singer out of Wales, a
master, came forward among the barons in Hall and sang a harper’s
song, and as this harper touched the strings of his harp, Tristan who
sat at the King’s feet, spoke thus to him:
“Oh master, that is the first of songs! The Bretons of old wove it
once to chant the loves of Graëlent. And the melody is rare and rare
are the words: master, your voice is subtle: harp us that well.”
But when the Welshman had sung, he answered:
“Boy, what do you know of the craft of music? If the burgesses of
Lyonesse teach their sons harp—play also, and rotes and viols too,
rise, and take this harp and show your skill.”
Then Tristan took the harp and sang so well that the barons softened
as they heard, and King Mark marvelled at the harper from Lyonesse
whither so long ago Rivalen had taken Blanchefleur away.
When the song ended, the King was silent a long space, but he said at
last:
“Son, blessed be the master that taught thee, and blessed be thou of
God: for God loves good singers. Their voices and the voice of the
harp enter the souls of men and wake dear memories and cause them to
forget many a mourning and many a sin. For our joy did you come to
this roof, stay near us a long time, friend.”
And Tristan answered:
“Very willingly will I serve you, sire, as your harper, your huntsman
and your liege.”
So did he, and for three years a mutual love grew up in their hearts.
By day Tristan followed King Mark at pleas and in saddle; by night he
slept in the royal room with the councillors and the peers, and if the
King was sad he would harp to him to soothe his care. The barons also
cherished him, and (as you shall learn) Dinas of Lidan, the seneschal,
beyond all others. And more tenderly than the barons and than Dinas
the King loved him. But Tristan could not forget, or Rohalt his
father, or his master Gorvenal, or the land of Lyonesse.
My lords, a teller that would please, should not stretch his tale too
long, and truly this tale is so various and so high that it needs no
straining. Then let me shortly tell how Rohalt himself, after long
wandering by sea and land, came into Cornwall, and found Tristan, and
showing the King the carbuncle that once was Blanchefleur’s, said:
“King Mark, here is your nephew Tristan, son of your sister
Blanchefleur and of King Rivalen. Duke Morgan holds his land most
wrongfully; it is time such land came back to its lord.”
And Tristan (in a word) when his uncle had armed him knight, crossed
the sea, and was hailed of his father’s vassals, and killed Rivalen’s
slayer and was re-seized of his land.
Then remembering how King Mark could no longer live in joy without
him, he summoned his council and his barons and said this:
“Lords of the Lyonesse, I have retaken this place and I have avenged
King Rivalen by the help of God and of you. But two men Rohalt and
King Mark of Cornwall nourished me, an orphan, and a wandering boy. So
should I call them also fathers. Now a free man has two things
thoroughly his own, his body and his land. To Rohalt then, here, I
will release my land. Do you hold it, father, and your son shall hold
it after you. But my body I give up to King Mark. I will leave this
country, dear though it be, and in Cornwall I will serve King Mark as
my lord. Such is my judgment, but you, my lords of Lyonesse, are my
lieges, and owe me counsel; if then, some one of you will counsel me
another thing let him rise and speak.”
But all the barons praised him, though they wept; and taking with him
Gorvenal only, Tristan set sail for King Mark’s land.