Part 16 (1/2)
He draws her gently to a flowery bank, sinks kneeling before her and lays his head within her arether, with an equal dreaht
”Oh, close around us, night of love! Give forgetfuless of life!
Gather us up in your arms, release us from the world!” Quenched is the last torch, quenched all thought, all ht full of wondrous divinations, the dread illusions of the worldfree the spirit And the sun in the breast having set, softly shi+ne forth the stars of joy And when, heart upon heart, lip against lip, breathing one breath, the lovers'
eyes are blinded with joy, the world with its dazzling deceits fades froht, the world which the Day had flashed before their eyes for their delusion, and they themselves are the world, and the world is life, is love, is joy, is a beautiful wish co
Reaching coetfulness of the world and the Day, each the whole world to the other, they sink back side by side, cheek to cheek, a the flowers
Fro the lovers to have a care, have a care, the night is nearly over! There is a leisurely moment Isolde stirs: ”Hark, beloved!” But Tristan, too deeply steeped in the languor of night and dreah: ”Let me die!” Isolde raises herself a little: ”Oh, envious sentinel!” Tristan re: ”Never to waken!”--”But the Day must rouse Tristan?” she softly exhorts ”Let the Day yield unto death!” She considers this quietly: ”Day and death then with a simultaneous stroke shall overtake our love?” He comes a little more awake to protest that death cannot destroy such love as theirs, that love is stronger than death, is eternally living, that all that could die in death would be the disturbing things which now prevent hi alith her, whereas were they to die,--inseparable,--to all eternity one,--nevermore to awake,--nevering singly to themselves,--they should live wholly for love! She says the words after him, dreamily, charaene's voice is heard again fro them to have a care, have a care, day is at hand, and Tristan bends over her shs, as he had done before: ”Let ently teases ”Never to wake again!”--”Must the Day rouse Tristan?”--”Let the Day yield unto death!”--”We will brave then the threats of the Day?” With increasing earnestness she cries: ”To be rid of his hten us apart?”--”Eternal shall be our night!”
This is really but a lovers' device for clinging together a little longer; one does not feel that they have seriously determined to remain where they are till they shall have been discovered and sacrificed on the altar of a husband's honour They plainly are in the state they have described: quenched is thought, is memory; they are intoxicated with the _Liebes-wonne_ they celebrate, and so while day is whitening overhead, feeling really, as far as they are capable of thought, besottedly secure,--Frau Minne will protect!--they caress, clasped in each other's ar beyond the death they would die for love, where far fros, delivered from fear, delivered from all ill, they shall dream, in exquisite solitude and in unbounded space, a super-adorable dream He shall be Isolde, she Tristan,--but no, there shall be no more Tristan, no more Isolde, but undivided, inexpressible, they shall nitions, new ardours, possessed in everlasting of a single consciousness--Ineffable joy of love!
Their voices soar with these flights of fancy Of a sudden, as if with a crash, the sweet haraene Kurwenal rushes in with draord, crying: ”Save yourself, Tristan!”
Hard upon his heels co-attire They stop in consternation before the lovers, who have seen nothing, heard nothing, and stand quietly lost in each other's eaene seizes her that Isolde becomes aware of the spectators With a natural impulse of womanly shaainst the flowery bank Tristan with one arm holds his ht, and for long idly at the aze in silence In the pale first gliht well think them unreal, creations of a bad drea from his lips: ”The desolate Day--for the last time!” Melot steps forward and points at hihtfully accused him? Whether I am to retain my head which I placed at stake? I have shown him to you in the very act I have faithfully preserved your na is deeply shaken No anger is in his unsteady voice, but utter sorrow So deeper has been reached than his pride in his honour, and that is not his love for Isolde, but his faith in Tristan ”Have you really?” he bitterly takes up Melot's last assurance and his boast of fidelity ”Do you i the loyal! Look upon hienerous act of his devotion he has used to stab my heart with deadliest perfidy If Tristan then has betrayed me, am I to hope that my honour, which his treason has struck at, has been loyally defended by Melot?”
These are strange words for Tristan the knight to hear Applied to himself, such words as perfidy, treason He brushes his ar-drea, with a gentleness ations, goes on to sear the false friend's conscience by holding up before hie of hie of him which Mark had cherished The reproach is intolerable in viehat Mark hireat-hearted, and toward Tristan so full of affection!
”To me--this? This, Tristan, to me? Where now shall one look for truth, since Tristan has deceived htness, since the pattern of all honour, Tristan, has lost theone from Tristan, who had made her into his shi+eld and defence, yet has now betrayed me?”
Tristan's eyes, which had been fixed steadily upon Mark, slowly sink to the ground; a wondering sadness overspreads his countenance, heavier and heavier as the royal nreatness he had won for his King, if they were to be paid with the receiver's dishonour? Was it too s hadlost his wife, and being childless, he had resolved for his sake not to wed again He had been obdurate to the prayers of his people, to Tristan's own entreaties, until Tristan had threatened to leave the kingdo hoe had won for Mark this woman, lovely to a wonder, ho could knoho behold, who proudly call his oithout accounting himself blessed? This one, to whom he, Mark, would never have presuht hoh such a possession his heart had become more vulnerable to pain than before, wherefore wound him in the very spot where it was tenderest?--destroy his faith in his friend, fill his frank heart with distrust, bring hiht and listening covertly? ”Wherefore to me this hell which no heaven can delivercan wash out? The dreadful, deep, undiscoverable, thrice-mysterious reason,--ill reveal it to the world?”
Tristan's eyes, as, thus questioned, he lifts theain to Mark's, express boundless co, I cannot answer; and that which you ask you never can learn!” No, for it is as strange, as full of black mystery, to Tristan as to Mark It is the very impossible which has happened, the never to be accounted for Tristan, the soul of honour, has betrayed his friend, and with all those circuravation which the friend has just counted off Nothing can explain it It is surely like a dream, a curious dream, the worst of the Day's lies But in a drea to do, for aupon his course But before acting he turns to Isolde, where she sits with eyes of undiony In following the call of honour he has no mind to forsake her ”Whither Tristan now departs, will you, Isolde, follow him? The country Tristan means no beam of the sun illumines It is the dim nocturnal land froave to the light a deadborne ht from which of old I woke That is what Tristan offers Thither he goes before If she will follow, kind and true, let now Isolde say!” With touching more-than-readiness Isolde, trustful and unashamed, declares: ”When once before the friend bade her to a strange land, Isolde, kind and true, must follow the unkind one But now you lead to your own doe How should I avoid the realm which lies about the whole world? Where Tristan's house and home, there let Isolde take her abode That she may follow, kind and true, let hiain for a moment so lost in her that it is no else than as if they were alone in all the world, he slowly bends over her and kisses her forehead A cry of indignation breaks froe!
Shall you endure this outrage?” But Tristan has suddenly cast off the inertia of dreams, bared his sword, and turned about ”Who will azes full into Melot's face
”He was h He, more than any, was concerned for ance He headed the band of those who urgedyou to the King Your eye, Isolde, has dazzled hi--whos toward Melot ”Defend yourself, Melot!” Melot quickly thrusts with his sword Tristan who has not parried, who has let the sword drop from his hand, sinks back wounded in Kurwenal's arms Isolde casts herself upon his breast The music makes a brief sorrowful comment--and the curtain falls
III
The introduction to the third act not only presents the eroans and expending itself in pity over the stricken hero; it paints with strange clearness a scene: the sea stretching to the horizon, under leaden sunshi+ne, empty of every sail--the sea which lies in fact before us when the curtain rises, fading off into the sky beyond low battlearden
Tristan lies with closed eyes upon a couch, in the shadow of a tree Kurwenal, sitting at his head, bends a careworn face to listen for his breathing A shepherd's pipe is heard playing a little wavering tune, rieves itself out A shepherd looks over the wall and, after aif _he_ does not yet awake? Kurwenal sadly shakes his head ”Even if he should awake, it would only be to take his leave forever, unless the Physician, the only one who can help us, should first arrive” Has he seen nothing, he inquires, no shi+p on the sea? ”In that case you should hear a different tune,” the shepherd answers, ”as merry a one as I can play! But tell me the truth, old friend, what has happened to our master?”--”Let be that question!” Kurwenal heavily turns froent look-out; go, and when you see a shi+p pipe loud and merrily” The shepherd shades his eyes and looks off over the endless blue waste of the waters ”Barren and eain and plays over, withdrawing, the hauntingly n of returning consciousness, Tristan's lips move His voice comes very faint: ”The ancient tune what does it wake me?” He opens his hollow eyes ”Where am I?” Kurwenal starts up with a shout of joy: ”Ha, that voice! His voice! Tristan, reat effort brings his reat effort speaks: ”Who calls me?”--”At last! At last!” Kurwenal's heart overflows
”Life! Oh, life! Sweet life, given back to my Tristan!” Tristan knows him now ”Kurwenal is it you? Where have I been? Where am I?” Kurwenal on the spot assumes that ultra-joyous tone of persons about a sick-bed when their faces are turned toward the patient whom they are determined to infect with hope ”Where you are? In peace, in safety, in freedonise the castle of your fathers?”--”Of my fathers?” Tristan murmurs stupidly ”Just look about you!”--”What--” the sick lance, ”as the sound I heard?”--”The shepherd's pipe you heard again, after so many days! On the hillside he keeps your flocks”--”My flocks?”--”Master, that is what I said! This is your house, your court and castle Your people, loyal to the beloved lord, saved for you, as well as they could, the patriht, when he forsook all to travel to a distant land”--”To what land?”--”Cornwall, to be sure!” And the anxious grey-bearded nurse, to rouse in the patient so, of pride in past prowess, breaks enthusiastically forth: ”Oh, what good fortune Tristan, brave and bonny, lory, what honors he won in the teeth of his enely ”No, no, I have told you! At Kareol”--”How did I get here?” Kurwenal alhs, and in the pride of the unhoped-for hour cracks a joke ”How you got here? Not on horseback!
A little shi+p brought you, but to the shi+p I carried you on these shoulders of mine They are broad, they bore you to the shore
And now you are safe at hoht land, the native land, where amid familiar pastures and homely joys, under the rays of the old sun, froh fellow presses his cheek to his master's breast, like a wouely pondering the servant's last words, of which the echo has lingered teasingly in his ear ”Do you believe so?” he says at last ”I know a different thing--but the manner of it I cannot tell you! This where I have awakened is not the place where I have been,--but where I have been--I cannot tell you! I did not see the sun, I saw no earthly scene, nor any people, but what I saw--I cannot tell you! I foundI go: in the boundless reale alone belongs to us there,--divine eternal perfection of oblivion! How”--he faintly wails, with a beginning of restlessness--”how have I lost the sense of it? Is it you again, unforgotten longing, driving ht of the day? All that still survives in aze upon the light which, deceivingly bright and golden, shi+nes, Isolde, upon you!” With the es more coitation seizes upon hiion of the sunshi+ne! Still in the light of the day, Isolde! Unendurable longing to see her repossesses him For that it is he has turned back fro the shadows, to seek for her, to behold her, to find her, in whoranted to Tristan to lose himself and cease to be! His old hatred of the day is upon hih, the distress to his fever of being thus drawn frolare of suitation turns to deliriu him, this day upon which he calls a malediction, becomes his old enemy, the Day which used to keep hiht which even at night used to warn hily to Isolde, Sweetest, Loveliest, ”When, oh, finally, when, will you quench the torch, that it o out? When will the house be wrapped in rest?” He falls back exhausted Kurwenal, whose joy of a little while before has dropped at the conteain froood news he has to impart ”The one whoht to longing for her now! Rely upon my word, you shall see her, here, and this very day, if only she be still a of his words has not penetrated Tristan is far away aone out! Not yet is the house wrapped in darkness! Isolde lives and keeps watch She called to erly, seizes the cue, ”let hope comfort you Dullard as you must esteem Kurwenal, this time you shall not chide him Ever since the day when Melot, the infamous, dealt you the wound, you lay like one dead The evil wound, how to heal it? Then I, thick-witted fellow, reflected that the one who closed the wound made by Morold could find easy re upon the best physician! I have sent to Cornwall,--a trusty fellow It cannot be but that he will bring Isolde over the sea here to you!”
He has understood, Tristan has understood, and started up ablaze, so beside hireat incredulous cry: ”Isolde is coles vainly for breath and words Then his overflowing gratitude finds an i to do, and Kurwenal has all in apassionately-devoted service The master in his madness of joy throws his arms around the servant to who and well again ”My Kurwenal, you faithful friend, whose loyalty knows no wavering, how shall Tristan ever thank you? My shi+eld and defence in battle and warfare, in pleasure and pain equally prompt at command,--whom I have hated, you have hated, whom I have cherished, you have cherished; when in all truth I served the good Mark, hoere you true to hily did you deceive him! Not your own, but wholly mine, you suffer with me when I suffer, but what I suffer--that you cannot suffer!” As before the exciteradually turning to deliriuuishi+ng fire which devours me, if I could describe it, if you could comprehend it, not here would you loiter but would haste to the watch-toith every sense astrain longingly would you reach out and spy toward the point where her sail shall appear, where, blown by the wind and urged on by the fire of love, Isolde co to me! There it comes!” he points wildly, ”There it comes, with brave speed! See it wave, see it wave, the pennant at thethe reef! Do you not see it? Kurwenal, do you not see it?” With watchful intensity he scans Kurwenal's face Kurwenal hesitates, between the wish to hu hiain in the same plaintive tune, and Kurwenal has no heart to pretend ”No shi+p as yet on the sea!” he announces heavily Tristan's excitee he seeradually dies; the happy delusion fades; a deeper sadness than ever, of reaction, closes down upon him Theattention are full of associations for him, all sorrowful The sound of the when as a child he was told the ain, plaintive and rey, when he learned his ly reflects, ”when leaving an unborn son he died; when she in dying gave , no doubt pierced its sorroay to them too,--the ancient air, which has asked ain in this hour, to what possible end, what destiny, I was born into the world? To what destiny? The ancient song tellsand to die!
”No! No!” he in a es back upon hi!
Longing! To spendto find death!
This longing which cannot die to the distant physician calls out for the peace of death!” Confused i of this affliction The voyage to Ireland, the wound of which he was dying, her healing of his wound--only to open it again; her offering hi to be cured of ills forever, a fiery char him never to die, but exist eternally in torture! We reht and the balht which opened the region of all enchantment; but in this hour, parted froht which keeps hi for her presence, which will not let him die apart from her, or find a little rest, which makes him a spectacle of torture for the Day to feed its eyes upon, the draught sees he is drinking now of the cup of wonder ”The dreadful draught,”
he ters, the point of cursing it, he has the flashed intuition of a truth; by a poet's spring reaches a conclusion worthy of a philosopher: that he, he himself is responsible for the effect upon hiht,” he cries, ”which devoted me to toruish and my hing and weeping, joys and hurts, I furnished the poisoned ingredients of the cup!” He had, , fed and fostered an inherited emotional nature whichit, he adds to his curse upon the dreadful cup, with all the strength of his tortured heart, his curse upon him who brewed it,--and exhausted with his own delirious violence drops back in a swoon Kurwenal, who has vainly striven to calm his frenzy, now sees him with horror relapsed into deathlike stillness; he calls him, laments over him and over this fatal love, the world's loveliest madness, which rewards so ill those who follow its lure ”Are you then dead?” he weeps, ”Do you still live?
Have you succumbed to the curse?” He listens al, and starts up with a return of joy: ”No! He lives! He rises! How softly his lips stir”--”The shi+p!” Tristan murmurs, ”Do you not see it yet?”--”The shi+p? Certainly!” the poor nurse answers, with his determined cheerfulness, ”It will arrive this very day It cannot delay er!”--”And upon it”--Tristan describes the vision which is calling back the light to his eyes--”upon it, Isolde How she beckons, how graciously she drinks to our peace! Do you see her? Do you not see her yet? Hoeetly, lovely and gentle, she co over the plains of the sea On soft billows of joyous flowers she advances, luminous, toward the land She ss me utmost relief Ah, Isolde, Isolde! How kind, how fair are you! What, Kurwenal,” he breaks off with that return to agitation tohich his fever by its law begins fro consciousness to drive his poor brain, till, reaching a violence his strength cannot support, it plunges him back exhausted into unconsciousness, ”What, Kurwenal, you do not see her? Away, to the watch-tower, dull-witted churl, that the sight may not escape you which is so plain to me! Do you not hear me? To the tower! Quick, to the tower! Are you there? The shi+p! The shi+p! Isolde's shi+p! You must--must see it! The shi+p!