the death of Morôlt, has sworn to slay any Cornish knight
who sets foot in Ireland. Tristan undertakes the mission,
though he stipulates that he shall be accompanied by twenty
of the barons, greatly to their disgust. His good fortune,
however, does not forsake him; he lands in Ireland just as a
fierce dragon is devastating the country, and the king has promised
the hand of the princess to the slayer of the monster.
Tristan achieves this feat, but, overcome by the venom exhaled
from the dragon’s tongue, which he has cut out, falls in a swoon.
The seneschal of the court, a coward who has been watching
for such an opportunity, cuts off the dragon’s head, and, presenting
it to the king, claims the reward, much to the dismay
of Iseult and her mother. Suspecting that the seneschal is
not really the slayer of the dragon, mother and daughter go
secretly to the scene of the combat, find Tristan, whom they
recognize as the minstrel, Tantris, and bring him back to the
palace. They tend him in secret, but one day, through the
medium of a splinter from his sword, which had remained fixed
in Morôlt’s skull, and been preserved by the queen, the identity
of Tantris and Tristan is made clear. The princess would slay
him, but is withheld by her mother, who sees they have need
of Tristan’s aid to unmask the seneschal. This is done in the
presence of the court; Tristan is pardoned, formally declares
his errand, and receives the hand of Iseult for his uncle King
Mark.
Tristan and Iseult set sail for Cornwall, Iseult accompanied by her waiting-woman, Brangaene (who, in some versions, is also a kinswoman), to whose care the queen, skilled in magic arts, confides a love-potion. This is intended to be drunk by king and queen on their bridal night and will ensure their undying love for each other. Unhappily, on the voyage, by some mistake (accounted for in different ways), Tristan and Iseult drink the love drink, and are forthwith seized with a fatal passion each for the other. From this moment begins a long-drawn-out series of tricks and subterfuges, undertaken with the view of deceiving Mark, whose suspicions, excited by sundry of his courtiers, from time to time get beyond his control, and are as often laid to rest by some clever ruse on the part of his nephew, or his wife, ably seconded by Brangaene. In the poems, Mark is, as a rule, represented in a favourable light, a gentle, kindly man, deeply attached to both Tristan and Iseult, and only too ready to allow his suspicions to be dispelled by any plausible explanation they may choose to offer. At the same time the fact that the lovers are the helpless victims of the fatal force of a magic spell is insisted upon, in order that their career of falsehood and deception may not deprive them of sympathy.
One episode, in especial, has been most charmingly treated by the poets. Mark, in one of his fits of jealousy, banishes Tristan and Iseult from the court; the two fly to the woods, where they lead an idyllic life, blissfully happy in each other’s company. Mark, hunting in the forest, comes upon them sleeping in a cave, and as Tristan, who knows that the king is in the neighbourhood, has placed his sword between them, is convinced of their innocence. Through a cleft in the rock a ray of light falls upon Iseult’s face, Mark stops up the crevice with his glove (or with grass and flowers), apd goes his way, determined to recall his wife and nephew. He does so, and the same drama of plot and counter-plot is resumed. Eventually Mark surprises the two under circumstances which leave no possible room for doubt as to their mutual relation; Tristan flies for his life and takes refuge with Hoel, duke of Britanny. After some time, hearing nothing of Queen Iseult, and believing himself forgotten, he weds the duke’s daughter, Iseult of the white hand, but weds her only in name, remaining otherwise faithful to Iseult of Ireland. Later on he returns to Cornwall in disguise, and has more than one interview with his mistress. Ultimately, while assisting his brother-in-law in an intrigue with the wife of a neighbouring knight, Tristan is wounded by a poisoned arrow; unable to find healing, and being near to death, he sends a messenger to bring Queen Iseult to his aid; if successful the ship which brings her is to have a white sail, if she refuses to come, a black. Iseult of the white hand overhears this, and when the ship returns, bringing Iseult to her lover’s aid, either through jealousy or by pure inadvertence (both versions are given), she tells Tristan that the sail is black, whereon, despairing of seeing his love again, the hero turns his face to the wall and dies. Iseult of Ireland lands to find the city in mourning for its lord; hastening to the bier, she lays herself down beside Tristan, and with one last embrace expires. (One dramatic version represents her as finding the wife seated by the bier, and ordering her away, “Why sit ye there, ye who have slain him? Arise, and begone!”) The bodies are sent to Cornwall, and Mark, learning the truth, has a fair chapel erected and lays them in tombs, one at each side of the building, when a sapling springs from the heart of Tristan, and reaching its boughs across the chapel, makes its way into the grave of Iseult. However often the tree may be cut down it never fails to grow again. (In some versions it is respectively a vine and a rose which grow from either tomb and interlace midway.)
We need have little wonder that this beautiful love-story was extremely popular throughout the middle ages. Medieval literature abounds in references to Tristan and Iseult, and their adventures were translated into many tongues and are found depicted in carvings and tapestries. Probably the story was first told in the form of short lais, each recounting some special episode, such as the lai known as the chêvrefeuille; how old these may be it is impossible to say. Professor Zimmer, in his examination of the story, sees reason to believe that the main incidents may repose on a genuine historic, tradition, dating back to the 9th or 10th century, the period of Viking rule in Ireland. The name of Iseult’s father, Gormond, is distinctly Scandinavian; she, herself, is always noted for her golden hair, and it is quite a misrendering of the tradition to speak of her as a dark-haired Irish princess. In the German tradition she is die lichte, Iseult of Britanny die schwarze Isôlt; it is this latter who is the Celtic princess. The name Tristan is now generally admitted to be the equivalent of the Pictish Drostan, and on the whole, the story is now very generally allowed to be of insular, probably of British, origin.
Some time in the 12th century the story was wrought into consecutive poems. The latest theory, championed with great skill by M. Bedier, is that there was one poem, and one only, at the root of the various versions preserved to us, and that that poem, composed in England, probably by an Anglo-Norman was a work of such force and genius that it determined for all time the form of the Tristan story. The obvious objection to this view is that a work of such importance, composed at so comparatively late a date, is scarcely likely to have perished so completely as to leave no trace; if there were one poet held as an authority, the name of that poet would surely have been mentioned. Moreover the evidence of the author of the principal Tristan poem preserved to us points in another direction. This poet was an Anglo-Norman named Thomas; and, although little over 3000 lines of his poem have been preserved, we have three translations; a German, by Gottfried von Strassburg; a Scandinavian, by a certain Brother Robert; and an English, by Thomas, sometimes identified with Thomas of Ercildoune, though this is doubtful. With the help of the extant fragments and these translations we can form a very good idea of the character and content of Thomas’s work, a task now rendered far more easy by M. Bédier’s skilful reconstruction (cf. vol. i. of his edition of Thomas). It was certainly a work of great merit and charm. As authority Thomas cites a certain Bréri, who has now been identified with the Bleheris quoted as authority for the Grail and Gawain stories, and the Bledhericus referred to by Giraldus Cambrensis as famosus ille fabulator. This is what Thomas says:—
“Seignurs, cest cunte est mult divers,
E pur ço l’uni par mes vers
E di en tant cum est mester
E le surplus voil relesser.
Ne vol pas trop en uni dire!
Ici diverse la matyre.
