“Friend, I owe you my land, but I shall be quit with you if you will
take my daughter, Iseult of the White Hands, who comes of kings and of
queens, and of dukes before them in blood.”
And Tristan answered:
“I will take her, Sire.”
So the day was fixed, and the Duke came with his friends and Tristan
with his, and before all, at the gate of the minster, Tristan wed
Iseult of the White Hands, according to the Church’s law.
But that same night, as Tristan’s valets undressed him, it happened
that in drawing his arm from the sleeve they drew off and let fall
from his finger the ring of green jasper, the ring of Iseult the Fair.
It sounded on the stones, and Tristan looked and saw it. Then his
heart awoke and he knew that he had done wrong. For he remembered the
day when Iseult the Fair had given him the ring. It was in that forest
where, for his sake, she had led the hard life with him, and that
night he saw again the hut in the wood of Morois, and he was bitter
with himself that ever he had accused her of treason; for now it was
he that had betrayed, and he was bitter with himself also in pity for
this new wife and her simplicity and beauty. See how these two Iseults
had met him in an evil hour, and to both had he broken faith!
Now Iseult of the White Hands said to him, hearing him sigh:
“Dear lord, have I hurt you in anything? Will you not speak me a
single word?”
But Tristan answered: “Friend, do not be angry with me; for once in
another land I fought a foul dragon and was near to death, and I
thought of the Mother of God, and I made a vow to Her that, should I
ever wed, I would spend the first holy nights of my wedding in prayer
and in silence.”
“Why,” said Iseult, “that was a good vow.”
And Tristan watched through the night.