The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
and struck the sail, and turned the ship all round about, and the
sailors bore away and sore against their will they ran before the
wind. The wind raged and big seas ran, and the air grew thick with
darkness, and the ocean itself turned dark, and the rain drove in
gusts. The yard snapped, and the sheet; they struck their sail, and
ran with wind and water. In an evil hour they had forgotten to haul
their pinnace aboard; it leapt in their wake, and a great sea broke it
away.
Then Iseult cried out: “God does not will that I should live to see
him, my love, once—even one time more. God wills my drowning in this
sea. O, Tristan, had I spoken to you but once again, it is little I
should have cared for a death come afterwards. But now, my love, I
cannot come to you; for God so wills it, and that is the core of my
grief.”
And thus the Queen complained so long as the storm endured; but after
five days it died down. Kaherdin hoisted the sail, the white sail,
right up to the very masthead with great joy; the white sail, that
Tristan might know its colour from afar: and already Kaherdin saw
Britanny far off like a cloud. Hardly were these things seen and done
when a calm came, and the sea lay even and untroubled. The sail
bellied no longer, and the sailors held the ship now up, now down, the
tide, beating backwards and forwards in vain. They saw the shore afar
off, but the storm had carried their boat away and they could not
land. On the third night Iseult dreamt this dream: that she held in
her lap a boar’s head which befouled her skirts with blood; then she
knew that she would never see her lover again alive.
Tristan was now too weak to keep his watch from the cliff of the
Penmarks, and for many long days, within walls, far from the shore, he
had mourned for Iseult because she did not come. Dolorous and alone,
he mourned and sighed in restlessness: he was near death from desire.
At last the wind freshened and the white sail showed. Then it was that
Iseult of the White Hands took her vengeance.
She came to where Tristan lay, and she said:
“Friend, Kaherdin is here. I have seen his ship upon the sea. She
comes up hardly—yet I know her; may he bring that which shall heal
thee, friend.”
And Tristan trembled and said:
“Beautiful friend, you are sure that the ship is his indeed? Then tell
me what is the manner of the sail?”
“I saw it plain and well. They have shaken it out and hoisted it very
high, for they have little wind. For its colour, why, it is black.”
And Tristan turned him to the wall, and said:
“I cannot keep this life of mine any longer.” He said three times:
“Iseult, my friend.” And in saying it the fourth time, he died.
Then throughout the house, the knights and the comrades of Tristan
wept out loud, and they took him from his bed and laid him on a rich
cloth, and they covered his body with a shroud. But at sea the wind
had risen; it struck the sail fair and full and drove the ship to
shore, and Iseult the Fair set foot upon the land. She heard loud
mourning in the streets, and the tolling of bells in the minsters and
the chapel towers; she asked the people the meaning of the knell and
of their tears. An old man said to her:
“Lady, we suffer a great grief. Tristan, that was so loyal and so
right, is dead. He was open to the poor; he ministered to the
suffering. It is the chief evil that has ever fallen on this land.”
But Iseult, hearing them, could not answer them a word. She went up to
the palace, following the way, and her cloak was random and wild. The
Bretons marvelled as she went; nor had they ever seen woman of such a
beauty, and they said:
“Who is she, or whence does she come?”
Near Tristan, Iseult of the White Hands crouched, maddened at the evil
she had done, and calling and lamenting over the dead man. The other
Iseult came in and said to her:
“Lady, rise and let me come by him; I have more right to mourn him
than have you—believe me. I loved him more.”
And when she had turned to the east and prayed God, she moved the body
a little and lay down by the dead man, beside her friend. She kissed
his mouth and his face, and clasped him closely; and so gave up her
soul, and died beside him of grief for her lover.
When King Mark heard of the death of these lovers, he crossed the sea
and came into Brittany; and he had two coffins hewn, for Tristan and
Iseult, one of chalcedony for Iseult, and one of beryl for Tristan.
And he took their beloved bodies away with him upon his ship to
Tintagel, and by a chantry to the left and right of the apse he had
their tombs built round. But in one night there sprang from the tomb
of Tristan a green and leafy briar, strong in its branches and in the
scent of its flowers. It climbed the chantry and fell to root again by
Iseult’s tomb. Thrice did the peasants cut it down, but thrice it grew
again as flowered and as strong. They told the marvel to King Mark,
and he forbade them to cut the briar any more.
The good singers of old time, Beroul and Thomas of Built, Gilbert and
Gottfried told this tale for lovers and none other, and, by my pen,
they beg you for your prayers. They greet those who are cast down, and
those in heart, those troubled and those filled with desire. May all
herein find strength against inconstancy and despite and loss and pain
and all the bitterness of loving.
THE END
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