ISOLDE AND TRISTAN

In Tristan und Isolde, the music itself mirrors a yearning that cannot find solace within the confines of flesh, a longing that cannot be satisfied within the constraints of mortal love. “O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe,” they implore, calling down the night as sanctuary and sacrament, and in the final transfiguration, “In des Welt-Atems wehendem All,” they yield themselves to the vast eternity of the cosmos. The Liebestod unfolds as love’s consummation through annihilation.

They lift the cup and the world alters its course, not by whim but by the immutable heartbeat of destiny dancing through their veins like quicksilver, dissolving the boundaries of crown and oath, eroding the rigid architecture of law until only longing remains. The potion works as mercurial catalyst, sacred and profane entwined so completely that no mortal decree can separate them, and their love is swept into an inexorable tide that pulls them beyond honor, beyond fealty, beyond the sunlit world.

Here the Lovers are fate-struck, their devotion defying and shattering the visible order while revealing a deeper one beneath it, for in their undoing lies transformation, and in their surrender the eternal marriage of longing and oblivion.

Then, being with the Queen for the last time, he held her in his arms and said:

“Friend, I must fly, for they are wondering. I must fly, and perhaps shall never see you more. My death is near, and far from you my death will come of desire.”

“Oh friend,” she said, “fold your arms round me close and strain me so that our hearts may break and our souls go free at last. Take me to that happy place of which you told me long ago. The fields whence none return, but where great singers sing their songs for ever. Take me now.”

“I will take you to the Happy Palace of the living, Queen! The time is near. We have drunk all joy and sorrow. The time is near. When it is finished, if I call you, will you come, my friend?”

“Friend,” said she, “call me and you know that I shall come.”

“Friend,” said he, “God send you His reward.”

As he went out the spies would have held him; but he laughed aloud, and flourished his club, and cried:

“Peace, gentlemen, I go and will not stay. My lady sends me to prepare that shining house I vowed her, of crystal, and of rose shot through with morning.”

And as they cursed and drave him, the fool went leaping on his way. – The Romance of Tristan & Iseult Drawn from the best French Sources and Retold by J. Bédier Rendered into English by Hilaire Belloc

Dark wine spilled on oak, pine boughs and love philtres, rose petals and sea-salt, storm-wind over cold stone battlements, myrrh smoke braided with heart-pulses of red musk awash in tears, tinkling fairy bells and the bitter sweetness of forbidden fruit steeped in a silver chalice.