University of Virginia Library

ACT III

Scene

A bare room; at the back a terrace, with a wall breast-high, stretches against the sea. A broad step runs along under the wall; below it a couch has been made of wolf-skins, over which is laid an emerald silk coverlid, broidered over with gold wheels. A great golden harp stands behind the couch. There is a deeply-recessed door to the left.
Tristan is clinging to the top of the wall by his hands, clamped on the outer edge. His arms are supported to the elbow on the breadth of the wall. The old Duke Hoël stands with his back to the sea, close to Tristan, who wears a tunic of cloth of gold. His face, when seen, is fever-struck, under the mass of his russet hair. The hour is toward evening.
Hoël.
Rest, rest!

Tristan.
No sail!
Clouds move across my sight. . . .

Hoël.
I should be able to discern a speck,
The mast's first climbing, for my eyes have strength
To see the stars at noontide. Let me watch,
And, for God's love, lie down.

Tristan
(speaking fast).
The sea, stretched out before me as a shield,
An unscathed shield! What arrow pierces it?
What dances round the rock?
What glistening pennon and what sudden toss
Of fairy-roses? I have seen her face . . .
I cannot leave such joy out there at sea.
Hold me up firm . . .
She is travelling, as God
Travels the heavens; she is speeding on;
The passion of her speeding stops my heart.
But though she travel fast there is such weakness
And such despair in me I can but call,
And call to her. It is my great lament
To call upon the name that cannot hear,
To call while I have any voice—and after
God make me but a moan across the wind,
A spirit at her ears! Yseult, Yseult,
Yseult!—A sail, a promise! O the sea,
The sea-wind and the sea! . . .
You know at last:
Thus was it with me, thus—the King of Cornwall
Kept her a priceless harp he could not play,
That every time I touched it was my own,
The instrument that useless
The King kept by him, mine, mine in its music,
Each spark, the very form and hope of it.
I would have sold my God to buy that harp . . .
Thus, thus it was . . .
Yseult!
[He bows his head on his strained arms and weeps. After a while, he lifts his head.
I have told you, father, all.
You are wise and old,
You are pitiful with the long days and quiet,
As old woods in their midst . . . I have told you all.
[Hoël does not speak.
Can you tell her?

Hoël.
Let be, my son, let be! Why should we tell her?
Let be!

Tristan.
My fine high Queen, she will not come to me,
Wrapt in disguise; she will be wrapt in gold,
A gold crown on her head, and, in her hands
Drawn up, the deep veil of her golden hair
She will gather in her hands. I see the vision!
And of herself she will give no account;
But simply, swiftly striding through the hall,
Pass as a sentinel the word Yseult.
I fear her—
She has many wrongs.
Must not your daughter know?

Hoël.
In breaking news,
God breaks it best . . .
She has marvellous black hair,
My little daughter . . .
Could you so mistake,
Sir Tristan?—She has marvellous black hair.

[Tristan groans.
Tristan.
I fear I am a poet. Oh, the burthen
Of seeing all creation as one God!
Have you not kissed a child for just one note
In a dead voice, and do you heed the child?
She must be told!

Hoël.
Nay, nay! If it should kill her!

[Tristan, still gripping the wall with one arm, looses with the left arm and turns round to face Duke Hoël.
Tristan.
. . . She must be told, that she may stand aside
As at a pageant . . . Even to be born
In the age when such a vision may be seen!
For she will come in all her majesty,
And as I have not seen her, for her eyes
Burnt low beneath her crown when I did homage,
And her cheek sank to hollow of the grave.
Remember!
I have bidden her across the waves. Have mercy!
Consider her . . . We must clothe her in great titles.

Hoël.
My son, well may we say she is a Queen,
The Queen Yseult, who of her charity . . .

Tristan.
O sweet, but she is beautiful; her beauty
Shines forth of her . . . She comes
As to a cry.

Hoël.
She comes to bring you health;
Fair son, this I will say:—
Your wife would have you healed, for tenderly
She loves you, Tristan.

Tristan.
She must stand aside,
As at a pageant, she must hold her peace.
I know not what will be . . . She must be told.
Go, father, as you love me—go!
[Wearily he clings again to the wall and gazes seaward. Duke Hoël leaves the room doubtfully, then returns and stands in mute expostulation by Tristan's side.
What, would you watch with me?

Hoël.
For you are ill . . .
I would most gladly watch with you, my son.
You are weak; you cannot watch.

Tristan.
She has come down from her throne, she has touched the sand,
I think she walks the sea. Such condescension
Is infinite, a miracle of love.

Hoël
(aside).
My little daughter—
And if I told her, what would that avail?

Tristan.
You shall not tell her. Watch along with me,
Watch for the Queen Yseult, and I will sing
The burthen of her coming. Let her rule!
She is strong enough to face all circumstance:
But we must take her coming as the visit
Of something holy.
Think not of your daughter,
And the few tears that she will shed. This Queen
Has left Tintagel, and the fairy palace
Is adamant behind her: this wide sea
She never can re-cross; she wraps herself
In the sea to come to me; it is her shroud,
And she can never take it off. . . .

Hoël.
My son,
What would you have me do? If you should die—
And there is often death in your wild movements.

Tristan.
What should you do? In pictures
Have you not seen, when a bright Power comes in,
How in a corner somewhere, with veiled eyes,
There is a little group . . . I shall not die:
Nothing can be at all until she come.

Hoël.
The sea is dead becalmed.

Tristan.
I do not know . . .
We must make ready for her, long before,
As a mother for her child. It is the hope
That feeds the patience!
There must be vast carpets
Laid on the rugged steps: her feet will bleed
On the sharp rock; for you forget
She has no garment on her but the sea,
This Queen with fading fairyland behind,
Who stoops to touch our coast.
[He unclasps from the wall and turns with his back to the sea.
I brushed the dew
Away when she has met me in the meadows,
The mossy meadows of the wood, with feet
Laid bare for silence . . .
She has met me, father,
Once in a wood, the moonlight keeping guard—
That night the dial shone as at the noon,
Keeping its point meridian.
(In a soft voice.)
Watch with me!
Sir Hoël, you are changing, you have felt
How music can grow small and wrap itself
Into a beating odour . . . Kaherdin
Is gone as on a quest:
If he come back, if you can watch with me,
The music that you listen to, and wonder
How still the lilies are and how the stars
Are weeping over us—you have not known,
You have not seen before—all this will open,
And as the benison descends on us,
There will be passing to and fro of ships
From coast to coast; through little golden channels
They dart and glide, and there is no more sea;
But ever launching, ever setting forth,
Ever to touch the land, and all the shores
Haunted by little steps of primroses . . .
[Dreamily he turns again to the sea, fixing his eyes on it and shading them.
I thought I saw a ship.

Hoël.
No ship!
Let me support you . . . Do not fail. No matter
The sea is calm; there is quiver through the sea,
As it would burst its heart.

Tristan.
No ship in harbour?
Do not the sea-birds flap up from the surf?
I see them; there is scurry by the wharves!

Hoël.
No, no! We yet must wait, but there is quiver
Now in the sea as it must burst its heart.
Loose from the wall and let me lay you down;
Your nails are bleeding.

Tristan.
Hold me, keep your place.

Yseult of Brittany enters behind them
Hoël.
Hush!

Tristan.
Who is that?

Hoël.
Your wife.

Yseult of Brittany.
What are you watching for? Father, draw in
Our Tristan; it is cold.

Tristan.
Tell her!

[His hands relax and he slips down on his knees by the wall; then falls back swooning into Duke Hoël's arms.
Yseult.
What is it?
These hands are very cold . . . Oh, he is dying,
And the wide eyes are drooping, growing dark.
The long, slow breaths—a tide
To bury him away, more deep, more slow
Than breathing! Tristan, Tristan!
He suffers! God, awake these eyes, in mercy,
And bid the brow spring naked that so sunken
Stretches in shadow . . .
Father,
You stood together, you were looking forth;
I came upon you as I were not one,
The nearest to you both.
I am Tristan's wife,
And he has swooned: I am your child, your daughter.
Withhold not this thing from me.

Hoël
(roughly).
There, make place,
Give way! give way!

[He lifts Tristan and carries him to the couch; then, when he has laid him down, raised his head, and given him a cordial, he rises.
Yseult
(opposing him at the foot of the couch).
Instruct me what to do.

Hoël
(laughing).
Drag down vast carpets, cover all the stairs,
Make ready—my command to you—make ready,
As if it were a god.

Yseult
(astonished, gazing at the form before her).
You mean a funeral?

Hoël
(drawing her to him).
Make ready, child.
[He sets her on his knee.
Come here. There must be changes;
And, as you put it, in a funeral
We know the change and we prepare for it
Our pomps and our solemnities.
Child, there are other changes—
As if a ship comes freighted full of gold,
And bursts its treasure at a beggar's feet;
Changes that cost one's wits . . .
[His eyes streaming with tears.
Put back this hair;
It is better braided up; yes, tuck it up . . .
And sweep the rooms and haul down the great carpets . . .
Make ready so.

Yseult.
I will not stir.

Hoël.
He has been singing to me, child...Make ready!
Do not disturb your husband. Presently
When he awakes say I have told you all:
Say you are ready and the carpets laid . . .
It is his pleasure.

Yseult.
Nay,
He told you all, my father, and his pleasure
Is that you give me burthen of the tale
From your own lips.

Hoël.
Child, child!
It was not so he told it . . . It sang forth
From the spices of the sea.
[Tristan cries in his sleep.
He is calling, child;
Listen, he mutters . . . he may tell you all.

Yseult.
He is calling me—Yseult! He is calling me.
Loose, let me go!

Hoël.
If you will say my words—
You must prepare,
You will be ready; I have told you all.

[She kneels by Tristan, and Duke Hoël goes out.
Yseult.
Tristan! But in his sleep he called to me.
Tristan! I answer back . . .
How strange it is
That they should be so hard on me; my father
So hard . . . I have my secret to myself:
For if they could suspect they would be angry;
They would not follow Tristan. Something strange
There is grown up among them: Kaherdin
Kissed me and did not say he would return,
Or where he sailed. I weep,
I must weep for him sorer, bitterer,
Than if I mourned him dead.
[Thrumming with her fingers on the coverlid.
Tristan has travelled
Once—twice: I know not
The country he has journeyed to. He comes
Dishevelled and most wonderful, his eyes
Fresh-jewelled with fresh stones. I do not ask
What perils he has met,
Nor why he cut away his shining hair,
Nor how it is he comes back as one blasted,
Who cannot eat among us any more,
Nor laugh among us, nor take rest . . .
I do not ask
That he should play the harp, I feel he cannot;
And yet he must—for now
There is between us nothing but a name,
Unless we have our marriage in his music;
For I can lay my head
Against his harp, I can caress his harp,
And he caresses back.
[Leaning against the golden harp.
For just this song
In the bosom of the harp I understand,
As if it were the cooing of a child.
[Wringing her hands.
I shall not bear a child,
Nor yet, nor ever, for before the year
Of his vow is ended Tristan will be dead.
What is it so forbidden in our nuptials?
I ask myself—I do not ask my father,
I do not ask my brother;
For if I heard the answer from my father,
Or from my brother . . .
It is best to hear
Nothing, but in the way his harp can tell;
To be the little, dark Yseult he loves.

Tristan
(opening his eyes).
Yseult!

Yseult.
You have waked soon, my dear—but I am ready,
And all is at your pleasure.
You have called me . . .
Shall I not dress your wound? You call so softly . . .
And yet such pain . . .
[As Tristan rises and moans.
Tristan, he told me all . . .
Now let my dress your wound . . . Not that? Then say
What you would have me do? I am all patience.
[Tristan stretches his hand out wearily toward the harp.
Your harp! Ah, then indeed you will make ready,
Will you not, Tristan? I shall learn the burthen
Of a new song! I give you all your pleasure!
[He plays a sad air.
But these are ancient notes—and nothing new
To startle me! Love's music!

[She stoops to kiss Tristan, who is touching his harp again and again, his face turned from her.
Tristan
(suddenly turning his face).
Little, dark
Yseult, you curse me—but I loved your love,
Answering your name . . . Yseult.

Re-enter Duke Hoël
Hoël.
There! She will have you healed by blackest arts—
Ho, ho! by blackest arts; and she will suffer
That a great Queen shall sit beside your couch—
As well she knows wise women may be found
Tutored by nature; and there is no cause
For jealousy, her father
Being well-content.
(To Yseult.)
Your brother in his ship
Is bearing home this Wizard-Queen to Carhaix,
For once she healed our Tristan of his hurt,
A venomed hurt. Your hands,
These fair, white hands cannot draw forth the sting
Of fatal poison . . . Girl, you have a husband
Of tender nurture, one who grieves for you,
Who grieves to put you from your nurse's place,
Who loves you and besought of me, your father....

Yseult
(to Tristan).
A nurse for you, a wizard-herbalist,
A Queen!
Tristan, I kiss you pardon. And you feared
To grieve me. . . .

Tristan
(smiling.)
All the way of love is grief.
. . . Her chamber
Be in the Tower that looks forth to the west.
Can you not make it ready?

Yseult.
I shall meet her;
Beloved, I am the hostess to your Queen;
And she shall dress your wound. Then I shall come
To watch again, to soothe you at your pillow,
While our wise, royal guest shall pass to banquet,
My brother humbly waiting on her.

Tristan.
Father,
You have deceived me. She must understand—

Hoel.
She will, when you are healed from death. Go, child,
You shall make ready; as you are my child,
Shall be a hostess and not bring me shame.
Prepare the lodging as your husband bids
For the great stranger lady—

Tristan
(standing by his harp and flashing with light).
For Yseult,
My life, my death—the sole song of my harp,
Yseult of Ireland, my one heritage—
There is one Tristan, there is one Yseult.
[Yseult of Brittany rises from the couch, where she has been sitting, and clutches her black plaits in either hand.
She is fair-haired, Yseult of the White Hands;
She loves me, never has she broken faith.
There is one Tristan, there is one Yseult.

[Yseult of Brittany goes up to Tristan's harp, gathers some of the wires in her hand and wrenches them from their pegs. Tristan breaks into mournful laughter.
Hoël.
Come, child, away!

[She faces Tristan's laughther a moment; her eyes blank, the wires of the harp in her fingers. Then, with a cry, she goes out, followed by Duke Hoël.
Tristan.
Now she has stabbed Yseult,
There is no more Tintagel—
And the great fairy-castle blown to earth!
The rock, the height, the sunset—it is gone:
Nor is there anything to happen more.
My harp is dead, and all blown down. The harp—
[His hand passing over it falls through a hollow.
The power to call her through the world
And all its quarters gone. My harp—a chasm!
[In white shining a golden sail streams across the far sea, high above.
A wide-wrenched throat—no voice,
Nor any power to call . . . The harp!
She never loved it; she has laughed at me
For a harper; but she did not laugh at me
For a fool; she loved me with the bells . . .
But it is still now, and I must be dying—
For what remains, what can remain . . . The fool!
Love's fool!—She loved me with the bells, that music
Chimed well . . . Soft, it is coming . . .
[He listens.
As a magic suit of armour to my wars,
As a vision of a shield—a sound of bells
Borne to me!
A slow boom of sound
Thickens the air . . . A passing-bell!
And I will count the years.
[The bell strikes thirty and then stops.
A passing-bell!
God's patience with my soul!
[Slowly a new sound intrudes as of a muffled sob: it grows. Tristan rises vehemently.
I cannot listen,
I cannot bear to hear. I know our ears
Are given, I know my ears
Are given for the voices of my hands
Upon the harp: all other sounds
Whelm me as tides advancing to o'erwhelm.
They are all come to drown me, all these sounds,
They are nothing but pursuit—they are dogging me.
This is a master-fiend—
It clutches, bumps . . . Ho! it is in the roof,
It is overhead . . . Why are you here?—This sound?

[His wife comes close to him.
Yseult of Brittany
(with flaming eyes).
A great bell, and it sounds out far to sea.

Tristan.
You are hating me.

Yseult.
It is a Christian bell.

Tristan.
You are hating me.

Yseult
(with a passionate gesture).
Give up your soul to God.
I love you, Tristan!
Tristan, I love you, I would save your soul.
I love you—not a fiend dare brave us now,
Not if you listen, while I pray. I love you . . .
Then drink the holy drops . . . these from the chapel!
I sprinkle, scatter the dews over him—
There! While I pray. . . .

[Tristan has sunk back on the couch. Yseult of Brittany kneels by the bed, snatches his hand and kisses her prayers on it. Gradually a long trill of laughter crosses the dirge. Tristan starts up.
Tristan.
I hear a laugh . . . I cannot see! Laugh on,
Laugh close—I cannot hear! . . .
But I can hear a voice . . . It is her voice.
She is laughing at the bells—she hears the bells . . .
Remain—behold!

[He clutches Yseult's hands and keeps them locked in his.
A Voice.
Bells, bells! The fool's bells, are they jangling still?
My fool, my fool!
And do you ring, so solemn
Because a fool is dead? Give place!
[He looses Yseult's hands and pushes her from him.
My fool, my fool!
Where shall I find him?

[A mystic company enters, as if blown along on flame: in front Queen Yseult and Brangaena.
Queen Yseult
(imperiously to the other Yseult).
Stop the bells!
Let there be peace. I come to fetch him—go!
Stop the bells—and return!
Give me a cup . . .
[Yseult of Brittany rises and goes out.
We are athirst!
How lank this hair, how dim
These soiled, wet eyes! Not blind? . . . Brangaena, give us
The very cup—from the bottom of the sea,
Washed up to me in the hollows of the calm!
We are not mocked . . .
Now, see! Then feel it, Tristan—
Stuck round with barnacles! . . . Love, is it harsh
To these dear fingers? They must wreathe it round.
[Tristan's nostrils expand.
Now smell!—It is the very cup. Brangaena
Came with it in her hands—she has atoned;
She is our cupbearer—ha, ha! for ever!
Not you—be gone!
[She breathes on Yseult of the White Hands, who enters, trembling, with a cup . . . Yseult creeps away. Then Queen Yseult turns to Duke Hoël, who has advanced with wine.
Yes, any wine on earth
You may pour into it—that is no matter—
I have sucked brine from it, and all its odours
And all its herbs translated. See, Beloved,
Not yet . . . You must not drink it—by-and-by
There will be no more patience and no room
For memory . . . Look at the cup! . . . A perfume
Breaks from its sides as ambergris; smell, smell!
We are not mocked . . . How free we are to talk
To one another!

Tristan
(shuddering).
Did you drag it up?
Will you not sign the Cross. I am afraid.

Yseult.
Fool, fool to the last! Brangaena fished it up,
And with a mortal hook.
[She laughs low, caressing him.
Fool, I am with you,
And on your errand! Do you know our bourne
When we have drunk this potion?

Tristan.
O my Death,
But you are gripping me in tighter bonds
Than any I have known.

Yseult.
How dear to find you
So mortal and so timid! Must I snatch you?
Will you not drink?

Tristan
(stammering).
God's love. . . .

[Again Yseult laughs.
Yseult.
I am come to fetch you,
Tristan, to me—it is your Hell or Heaven.

[She drinks. His hand fastens on the cup, and he drinks too, then falls back. The mystic company has faded. Tristan lies dead. A solemn chanting is heard: Kaherdin and his sailors enter with the dead body of Queen Yseult. She is laid beside Tristan. There is a sound of magic music in the profound silence of the room round the dead lovers.