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Westward strays the eye,
eastward flies our ship.
Fresh blows the wind homeward:
my Irish maid, where do you linger?
Is it the breath of your sighs
that fills our sails?
Blow, blow, O wind!
Woe, ah, woe, my child,
my Irish maid, you headstrong, winsome maid!
Who dares to mock me?
Brangäne, speak!
Where are we?
Blue streaks arise in the east.
The ship sails smooth and swift:
on this calm sea, by evening we shall safely reach land.
What land?
- Cornwall's green shore. - Never!
- Neither today nor tomorrow! - What is this I hear, my lady? Eh?
Degenerate race,
unworthy of your forebears!
Mother, what has become of the power
to command sea and storm, which you gave up?
O enfeebled art of sorcery
that now brews only healing draughts!
Awaken again in me, mighty power!
Emerge from my ***, where you lay hiding!
Hear my will, ye timorous winds!
Come forth to the strife and din of tempest,
to the furious clamour of raging storms!
Force this dreaming sea from its sleep,
waken from its depths its resentful greed!
Show it the *** I offer it!
Wreck this arrogant ship
and let the waves devour its shattered fragments!
And all that lives and draws breath on it
I leave to you winds as prize!
Alas! Ah!
Ah, the evil that I dreaded!
Isolde! My lady! Dear heart!
What have you hid from me so long?
Not one tear did you shed for father or mother.
Scarcely one farewell did you bid those left behind.
Parting from your homeland, cold and silent,
pale and mute on the journey;
without food, without sleep;
numb and wretched, haggard and distraught;
how could I bear to see you so,
to be nothing more to you,
to be cut off from you?
Oh, tell me now what troubles you!
Tell me frankly what torments you,
dearest, lovely
lady Isolde!
Confide now in Brangäne
and let her think herself worthy of you.
Air! Air! My heart is suffocating within me!
Open! Open wide there!
Fresh blows the wind homeward:
my Irish maid, where do you linger?
Is it the breath of your sighs
that fills our sails?
Blow, blow, O wind!
Woe, ah, woe, my child!
Destined for me,
lost to me,
splendid and strong,
bold and cowardly!
Head and heart
consecrated to death!
What do you think of that valet?
- Whom do you mean? - That hero there
who hides his gaze from mine
and casts down his eyes in shame and embarrassment.
- Say, how does he seem to you? - Is it of Tristan you ask,
dear lady,
that wonder of all kingdoms,
that highly vaunted man,
that peerless hero,
- the crown and embodiment of fame? - Who, shrinking from an encounter,
seeks refuge where he can,
since as a corpse
he won a bride for his lord!
Do my words seem obscure to you?
Then ask him yourself, that free man,
whether he dare approach me.
The craven hero forgets the homage and reverence due to his lady
so that her eye shall not fall on him,
this peerless hero!
Oh, he well knows why!
Go to this proud man, take him his lady's word:
let him come to me at once, ready at my service.
Shall I ask him to wait upon you?
Let fear of me, Isolde, his queen, command this stubborn man!
Take care, Tristan!
- A message from Isolde. - What is it? Isolde!
From my lady?
Does her faithful maid ceremoniously bring
something for her obedient servant to hear?
Sir Tristan, my lady Isolde
wishes to see you.
If the long journey irks her
it will soon be at an end.
Before the sun sinks we shall reach land.
Whatever my lady commands of me shall faithfully be performed.
Then let Sir Tristan go to her:
that is my lady's will.
Yonder where the green fields are still tinged with blue to the sight
my king waits for my lady;
soon I will come before her to escort her to him;
to no one will I cede this privilege.
Sir Tristan, listen well:
my lady claims as your service
that you should come to the spot there where she awaits you.
Wherever I stand,
faithfully I serve her, the glory of all women:
were I to leave the helm just now
how could I safely steer the ship
to King Marke's country?
Tristan, my lord!
Why do you mock me?
Does this foolish maid not make herself clear?
Hearken to my lady's words!
Thus she bid me say:
Let fear of her, Isolde his queen, command this stubborn man.
May I make answer?
What then would you reply?
Say this to the lady Isolde:
He who bestows Cornwall's crown and England's realm to Ireland's maid
cannot be at the beck and call of her whom he himself brings his uncle as gift.
The hero Tristan
is a lord of all the world!
I cry, say thus, even though a thousand Lady Isoldes resent my words!
"Sir Morold crossed the sea to us to exact tributes from Cornwall:"
"on an island swimming in the sea's expanse, there now is he buried!
"His head now hangs in Ireland as tribute paid by England."
"Hey! This is how our hero Tristan pays tribute!"
His head now hangs in Ireland as tribute paid by England.
Hey! This is how our hero Tristan pays tribute!
Alas, alas!
To endure this!
What now from Tristan? I wish to hear exactly!
Ah, do not ask!
Speak freely without fear!
His words were courteous but evasive.
But when you clearly pressed it?
When I bade him come to you at this spot
he said that wherever he stood
he would faithfully serve you, the glory of all women:
were he to leave the helm just now
how could he safely steer the ship to King Marke's country?
How could he safely steer the ship to King Marke's country?
To pay him the tribute he took from Ireland!
To your own words,
as I relayed them to him, he let his servant Kurwenal answer...
I heard him well;
no word of his escaped me.
You perceive my shame;
now hear how it came about.
As they laugh and sing their songs at me
I well could answer, too:
how a boat, small and frail, came to Ireland's coasts
and in it lay a sick and stricken man, near to death.
Isolde's art was made known to him:
with healing salves and soothing draughts
she faithfully tended
the wound that tormented him.
"Tantris", which with studied guile he called himself,
Isolde soon recognized as Tristan,
for into the sick man's sword, in which there was a notch,
there fitted exactly a splinter which her skilled hand had first found
in the head of the Irish knight, sent home to her in scorn.
A cry arose from my inmost being!
With the gleaming sword I stood before him,
to avenge Sir Morold's death on him, this overweening knight.
From his couch...
...he looked up,
not at the sword,
not at my hand,
but looked into my eyes.
His anguish touched my heart.
The sword...
I let fall!
The wound inflicted by Morold
I healed so that in health
he could travel homeward
and trouble me no more with his gaze!
O wonder! Where were my eyes?
The guest whom once I helped to tend?
You heard him praised just now: "Hey! Our hero Tristan."
This was that woebegone man.
With a thousand oaths he swore eternal thanks and fidelity to me!
Now hear how a hero keeps his oath!
He whom as Tantris I released unexposed
boldly returns as Tristan;
on stately, high-prowed ship
he requests Ireland's heiress as bride
for Cornwall's weary king, for Marke, his uncle.
Had Morold lived, who would have dared
to offer such an affront?
For our vassals, the Cornish princes, to seek Ireland's crown!
Ah, woe is me!
It was I who in secret brought this shame upon myself!
Instead of wielding the avenging sword
I let it fall harmlessly!
Now I must serve
our vassal!
When peace, armistice and friendship were sworn by all
we all rejoiced in that day:
how could I have known that it would bring you grief?
O blind eyes! Faint hearts!
Craven spirit, despairing silence!
How openly Tristan bragged forth what I held concealed!
She who silently gave him his life
by her silence sheltered him from his foemen's revenge:
that which her protection silently provided to help him
he rendered up with her!
Exulting in victory, how heartily,
how loud and clear he spoke of me:
"She would be a prize, my lord and uncle:"
"what think you of her as bride?"
"I will bring you the Irish beauty:"
"since I well know the way to her"
"one sign from you and I will hasten to Ireland"
"and Isolde shall be yours!"
"The venture appeals to me!"
Curse on you, traitor!
Curses on your head!
Revenge! Death!
Death to us both!
O sweetest, dearest, fairest!
Golden lady! Beloved Isolde!
Hear me! Come!
Sit down here!
What madness! What needless fury!
Why do you choose to fly into a frenzy, so that you cannot see or hear clearly.
Whatever Sir Tristan owes you,
say, how could he higher repay you than with the most splendid of crowns?
Thus he faithfully has served his noble uncle:
to you he has given the world's most coveted reward;
noble and true, he has yielded
his own inheritance at your feet
to greet you as queen!
And if he has sought Marke as husband for you
how could you reproach his choice?
Is he not to be thought worthy of you?
Of exalted race and gentle manner,
who in might and splendour could equal the man
whom the noblest of heroes truly serves?
Who would not share his fortune
and be wife to him?
Unloved, to see the noblest man
close beside me!
How could I endure that torture?
What mean these perverse words?
Unloved?
Where lives the man who would not love you?
Who, seeing Isolde,
would not for Isolde gladly die?
But, were he who chose you never so cold
or turned from you by some witchcraft,
I would soon know how to bind him by a spell.
I would conjure up love's might.
Know you not your mother's arts?
Think you that she who wisely considers all
would have sent me with you to a strange land without her counsel?
My mother's counsel I know well
and her arts I prize and welcome:
vengeance for treachery,
peace for the heart in anguish!
Bring that casket here to me!
It holds the balm you need.
Thus did your mother arrange the mighty magic potions:
balsam here for woe and wounds,
antidotes for deadly poisons.
The noblest draught I hold here!
You are mistaken, I know one better:
I engraved a private sign on it.
This is the draught for my purpose!
The draught of death!
Ho! He! Ha! He! Shorten sail on the lower mast!
That means the end of the journey.
Alas! We are nearing land!
Get ready,
ladies!
Lively now! Stir yourselves! Get ready now and quick!
And to Lady Isolde I am to say from my master, the hero Tristan,
that from the mast our joyful flag gaily blows towards the shore;
it makes her approach known in Marke's royal castle.
Therefore he begs Lady Isolde to hasten
to prepare herself for the land, so that he may escort her.
Take Sir Tristan my greeting
and tell him what I say.
If I am to go at his side to stand before King Marke,
according to the code of custom this cannot be
unless I first receive atonement for unexpiated wrong:
so let him seek my pardon.
Mark me well and tell him plainly:
I will not prepare myself
to accompany him on shore;
I will not walk by his side
to stand before King Marke
unless he first, by custom's code,
begs me to forgive and forget
an unatoned wrong:
let him seek my pardon.
Be assured, I will tell him this; but wait and see how he takes it!
Now farewell, Brangäne!
Greet the world for me,
greet my father and mother!
What is it? What have you in mind? Would you flee?
Whither am I to follow you?
Did you not hear?
I will stay here
and wait for Tristan.
Faithfully obey my orders:
quickly prepare the drink of atonement,
- you know, the one I showed you. - Which draught was it?
This one!
Pour it out into the golden goblet;
it will hold it all.
- Do I hear aright? - Do my bidding!
- For whom... is the draught? - Let him who betrayed me...
- Tristan? - ...drink atonement to me!
Horror! Spare your poor servant!
Spare me, faithless maid!
Know you not my mother's arts?
Think you that she who wisely considers all
would have sent me with you to a strange land without her counsel?
Balsam she gave me for woe and wounds,
antidotes for deadly poisons.
For the deepest woe
and greatest grief
she gave me the draught of death.
Let death now give her thanks!
Oh, deepest woe!
Now will you obey me?
Oh, greatest grief!
Are you true to me?
- The draught? - Sir Tristan!
Let Sir Tristan
approach!
Demand, lady, what you will.
Do you not know what my will is,
even though fear of fulfilling it
kept you far from my sight?
Respect kept me away.
Scant honour you paid me:
with open scorn you refused obedience to my command.
Obedience alone held me in check.
Then small are my thanks to your lord
if his service counselled discourtesy towards his chosen bride.
Where I have lived, custom dictates
that he who accompanies the bride home must keep his distance from her.
For fear of what?
Ask custom!
Since you, Sir Tristan, are so mindful of custom
let one other custom be recalled to mind:
to make atonement to a foe if he is to acclaim you as a friend.
Who is my foe?
Ask of your fear!
A blood feud hangs between us.
- That was resolved. - Not between us!
In the open field before all the people an oath of peace was sworn.
It was not sworn when I hid Tantris, and Tristan fell to me.
There he stood lordly, strong and whole;
but what he swore I did not swear:
I had learned to keep silent.
When he lay sick in that quiet room,
mutely I stood before him with the sword:
I held my tongue,
I stayed my hand...
but what I once with hand and tongue had promised
I silently swore to keep.
Now I will discharge my oath.
What did you swear, lady?
Revenge for Morold!
Does that distress you?
Do you dare to mock me?
He was betrothed to me, the noble Irish hero;
I had blessed his weapons;
for me he went forth to fight.
When he fell, my honour fell with him;
in my heart's anguish I took an oath
that if no man would avenge his ***
I, a maid, would dare to do so.
Why did I not strike you
when sick and faint in my power?
You can easily now answer yourself.
I tended the wounded man
so that, restored to health, he should be struck down in vengeance
by one who had won Isolde from him.
You yourself may now utter your fate!
Since all men pay him homage
who is there to strike Tristan down?
If Morold was so dear to you
then take up that sword again
and wield it surely and firmly
so that you do not let it slip from your grasp!
How ill would I serve your master;
what would King Marke say
were I to slay the best of his knights
who won for him a crown and country, the most trusted of his men?
Do you hold so light the thanks he owes you
for bringing him his Irish bride,
that he would not blame me if I slew the wooer
who so faithfully delivers the pledge of peace to his hand?
Put up your sword!
Once I raised it when vengeance raged in my ***,
when your gaze weighed me up to see if I should be
a worthy bride for King Marke.
I let the sword fall then.
Now let us drink atonement!
Ho! He! Ha! He!
Take in the topsail!
Where are we?
Near the goal!
Tristan, do I have your atonement?
What have you to say to me?
The queen of silence bids me be silent:
I grasp what she concealed,
I conceal what she cannot grasp.
Your silence I grasp; you would evade me.
Do you refuse to make atonement to me?
You hear the call?
We have reached our goal.
In a few moments we shall stand before King Marke.
As you conduct me in, would you not think it well
that you could say to him:
"My lord and uncle, look at her!"
"A gentler wife you could not discover."
"Her betrothed I once slew"
"and sent her home his head:"
"the wound his sword inflicted on me"
"she kindly healed."
"My life lay in her power:"
"the gracious maid granted me it"
"and, along with it, gave me her country's disgrace and shame"
"so as to become your bride."
"Such gracious thanks for gifts of worth"
"I earned by a sweet draught of atonement"
"which in clemency she offered me to make amends"
"for all my guilt."
Stand by the ropes! Let go the anchor!
Let go the anchor! Put the helm to the current!
Sails and mast to the wind!
Well do I know Ireland's queen and the magic power of her arts.
The balsam she once gave me I took for my good;
this goblet now I take which today will heal me completely.
Heed well the oath of atonement which I make you, with my thanks!
To Tristan's honour, highest troth!
To Tristan's torment, boldest defiance!
Heart's deception,
dream of presentiment!
Sole balm
for endless grief,
oblivion's kindly draught,
I drink thee without flinching!
Betrayed here, too? Half is mine!
Traitor, I drink to you!
Tristan!
Isolde!
Faithless dear one!
Most blessed maid!
Hail! King Marke, hail!
Alas, alas!
Inescapable, eternal pain instead of speedy death!
Foolish devotion's deceitful work
now blossoms forth in lamentation!
What did I dream of Tristan's honour?
What did I dream of Isolde's shame?
- You lost to me? - You reject me?
- Malicious cunning of a deceitful spell! - Idle threats of foolish anger!
- Isolde! - Tristan!
- Sweetest maid! - Dearest man!
How our hearts beat in exaltation!
How all our senses are enraptured!
Swelling blossoms of yearning passion,
blissful glow of languishing love!
Now joyful longing in our breast!
- Isolde! - Tristan!
Escaped from the world, I have won you!
Supreme joy of love,
I am aware of you alone!
Quick, the mantle, the royal robe!
Up, fatal pair! Hear where we are!
Hail!
King Marke, hail!
Hail to the king!
Hail, Tristan, fortunate hero!
Hail! King Marke!
There in his boat King Marke draws near with a right royal retinue.
How gladly he sets forth to claim his bride!
- Who draws near? - The king.
What king?
Hail! King Marke, hail!
What is it, Brangäne? What is that cry?
Isolde! My lady! Collect yourself!
Where am I? Living? What draught was that?
The draught of love.
- Tristan! - Isolde!
- Must I live? - Help your lady!
O rapture rich in malice!
O bliss inspired by guile!
Cornwall, hail!
Do you hear them still?
To me the sound has already died away in the distance.
They are still near:
they ring out clearly there.
Anxious fear deceives your ear.
You are deluded by the rustle of leaves
that the wind laughingly shakes.
The wildness of your desire deludes you into hearing only what you choose to.
I can hear the winding of the horns.
No winding of horns sounds so sweet;
the gentle splashing of the fountain
ripples so joyfully yonder.
How could I hear it if the horns were blowing?
In the silence of the night only the fountain laughs to me.
Would you keep afar from me
the one who waits for me in the silent night
by thinking the horns still sound near at hand?
The one who waits for you... Oh, hear my warning!
Spies wait for him by night.
Because you blind yourself, think you that the world's eyes grow dim for you?
On board ship, when Tristan's trembling hand
delivered to King Marke the pale bride, scarcely in possession of herself,
as all looked in wonder on her shrinking
and the kindly king, gently solicitous,
loudly deplored the hardship of the long journey that you had suffered,
one there was, I marked him well,
who fixed his eyes only on Tristan.
With malicious craft he sought by stealthy looks
to find in his mien something to serve his purpose.
Often I see him, spitefully watching:
he is laying secret snares for you; beware of Melot!
Mean you Sir Melot?
Oh, how deceived you are! Is he not Tristan's truest friend?
When my dear one must shun me, then with Melot alone does he stay.
What makes me mistrustful endears him to you!
Melot's path is from Tristan to Marke: there he sows evil seed.
Those who today so suddenly and hastily planned this hunt by night
are intent on a nobler quarry than you, in your fancies, imagine.
Friend Melot devised this stratagem
from sympathy to help his friend.
Now will you reproach his fidelity?
He looks after me better than you do:
he opens ways that you close to me.
Oh, end my agony of waiting!
The signal, Brangäne!
Give the signal!
Quench the torch's last glow.
Give night the sign that she may descend on us.
Already she sheds her silence over grove and house,
filling the heart with blissful tremors.
Oh, put out the light now,
extinguish its deterring glare!
Let my loved one come!
Oh, leave the warning flame, let it show you your danger!
Alas, alas! Woe is me
for that hapless draught!
That I disloyal should only once have worked against my lady's will!
Had I obeyed, deaf and blind, your deed then would have been death.
But must I bear the guilt for ever
for your shame and grievous pain?
Your deed? Oh, foolish maid!
Know you not the goddess of love
and the power of her magic?
She who rules over the proudest spirit
and governs the world's unfolding?
Life and death are thrall to her,
which she weaves from joy and sorrow,
changing envy into love.
I presumptuously took death's work into my hands:
the goddess of love snatched it from my grasp.
She took me, death-consecrated, as pledge
and seized the work in her hand.
However she turns it,
however she ends it,
whatever she reserves for me, wherever she leads me,
I have become her very own:
now let me show my obedience!
If the baleful draught of love
has quenched your light of reason,
if you will not see that of which I warn you,
only hear now, hear my supplication!
The shining light of danger,
for today, but for today, do not extinguish the torch!
She who fans the glow within my ***,
who sets my heart on fire,
who laughs like daylight in my soul,
the goddess of love desires night to come
that she may brightly shine there
where she has banished your light.
Now to the watch tower: keep good watch!
Laughing, I fear not to quench the torch,
even were it the flame of my existence!
Isolde!
Tristan!
Beloved!
- Are you mine? - Do I hold you again?
- Dare I embrace you? - Can I believe it?
- At last! At last! - Here on my breast!
- Is it really you I feel? - Do I really see you?
- These your eyes? - These your lips?
- This your hand? - This your heart?
Is it I? Is it you?
- You in my arms? - Is it no illusion?
Is it no dream?
O rapture of my soul,
sweetest, highest, boldest, loveliest, blissful joy!
- Unparalleled! - Supreme treasure!
- Supreme joy! - For ever!
- Unimagined, unknown! - Overflowing, sublime!
- Overwhelming joy! - Entrancing bliss!
Highest heaven's oblivion of the world!
Mine!
- Tristan mine! - Isolde mine!
Mine and thine!
One for ever and ever!
- Tristan mine, Isolde ever thine! - For ever! Isolde mine!
- Tristan! - Isolde!
For ever and ever one!
How long apart! How far apart so long!
How far when near! How near when afar!
O foe to friendship, spiteful distance!
Dragging length of sluggish hours!
O distance and nearness,
harshly divided!
Blessed nearness, tedious distance!
You in the darkness, I in the light!
The light, the light! Oh, that light,
how long before it was put out!
The sun had sunk, the day was done,
but it would not suppress its envy:
its signal of alarm shone out,
planted by my beloved's door so that I should not go to her.
But your beloved's hand put out the light;
I feared not to do so though my maid hindered me:
in the power and protection of the love goddess I defied the day!
The day! The day! Hate and detestation
of the envious day, the cruellest foe!
Would that, as you quenched the torch, I could extinguish
the glare of importunate daylight to avenge all love's sorrows!
Is there one grief or one pain that it does not awaken with its light?
Even in the spreading splendour of night
my beloved sheltered it at her house, reaching out to me like a threat.
If your beloved harboured it at her house,
once it was defiantly harboured, clear and bright, by my lover in his own heart:
Tristan, who betrayed me!
Was it not the day in him that lied
when he went to Ireland to woo,
to win me for Marke
and doom his true love to death?
The day! The day which shone around you,
in which you shone like the sun, in highest honour's gleaming light,
seized Isolde from me!
What so enchanted my eye weighed my heart down to earth:
how could Isolde be mine in the shining light of day?
Was she who chose you not yours?
What lies did spiteful day tell you
that you betrayed the beloved who was destined for you?
What shone around you in splendour,
the lustre of honour, the power of fame,
madness held me captive to set my heart on these.
That which brightly shone down on my head with the glitter of dazzling light,
the noonday sun of worldly fame,
with its rays of empty rapture,
forced its way through head and brain
to the inmost shrine of my heart.
That which awoke there, darkly locked away in chaste night,
that which, unknown and unimagined, I dimly perceived there,
a vision that my eyes had not dared to gaze on,
lay gleaming before me, lit up by the light of day.
What seemed so glorious and splendid I plainly proclaimed before the host;
I loudly praised before all the people the loveliest royal bride on earth.
The envy that day awoke in me,
the passion that my fortune dismayed,
the jealousy that began to taint my honour and fame,
these I defied and loyally vowed
to preserve my fame and honour and journey back to Ireland.
O vain slave of day!
Beguiled by that which beguiled you,
how I, loving, had to suffer through you
whom, deep in my heart, where love warmly enfolded you, I fiercely hated,
entangled in the glittering toils
of day's false glare.
Ah, in my inmost heart how deeply the wound smarted!
How wicked seemed to me the one whom I secretly sheltered there,
when in the glow of day the one and only truly cherished
vanished from love's sight and stood before me now as a foe!
From the light of day,
from that which showed you betraying me I longed to flee,
to draw you with me into the night,
where my heart promised me an end of deception,
where the presaged dream of delusion would vanish,
there to drink eternal love to you,
you, united to me, I longed to dedicate to death.
In your hand sweet death, as I realised what you were offering me,
when my foreboding, exalted and certain, showed what atonement held in store,
then there gently spread within my breast the noble sway of night:
for me day was at an end.
But ah, the false draught deceived you,
so that once again night forsook you,
giving back to day one who sought only death!
Oh, hail to the draught!
Hail to its liquor!
Hail to the mighty power of its magic!
Through the gates of death, whence it flowed to me,
wide open it revealed to me
the wondrous realm of night in which I otherwise had awakened only in dreams.
From the vision in my heart's sheltering shrine
it repulsed day's deceiving light,
so that my eye, piercing the darkness, served to see it truly.
But rejected day took its revenge,
it took counsel with your misdeeds:
what night's dim light revealed to you
you were forced to surrender to the royal might of the star of day,
there to dwell alone,
shining in barren splendour.
How could I bear it?
How can I bear it now?
Oh, we were now dedicated to night!
Spiteful day, filled with envy,
could separate us with its deceit
but no longer cheat us with its lies!
Its idle pomp, its boastful glare
are derided by him whose sight night has blessed.
The fleeting lightning of its flickering fire
blinds us no more.
Before him who has lovingly looked at death's night
and has known its deep secrets,
the lies of daylight, honour and fame,
power and profit, glittering so bright,
are scattered like barren dust in the sun.
Amid day's empty fancies
one single longing remains, the longing for holy night,
where everlasting, solely true, love's delight laughs to him!
Oh, sink down upon us, night of love,
make me forget I live:
take me into your ***,
free me from the world!
Extinguished now is the last glimmer
of what we thought, of what we dreamed.
All remembrance,
all recollection,
holy twilight's glorious presentiment
obliterates the horror of delusion, setting us free from the world.
The sun lies hidden in our breast,
stars of bliss shine smiling.
Gently enfolded in your spell,
sweetly melting before your eyes,
heart to heart, lip to lip,
bound together in one breath,
my eyes grow dim, blinded with ecstasy,
the world and its vanities fade away,
the world which lying day illuminates for us,
then, confronting cheating illusion,
I myself am the world:
supreme bliss of being,
life of holiest loving,
never more to awaken,
delusion-free, sweetly known desire.
Alone I watch in the night:
you, to whom love's dream laughs,
heed the cry of one
who foresees ill for the sleepers
and anxiously bids them awake.
Take care!
Soon the night will pass.
Hark,
beloved!
Let me die!
Grudging watcher!
Never to wake!
But must not day arouse Tristan?
Let day give way to death!
Day and death, would they not
with equal force attack our love?
Our love? Tristan's love?
Yours and mine, Isolde's love?
What blow by death could ever make it yield?
Were mighty death to stand before me,
however he menaced life and limb,
which willingly I would lose for love's sake,
how could his blows affect love itself?
Were I now to die for love, for which I would so gladly die,
how could love die with me,
the ever-living perish with me?
So, if his love could never die,
how could Tristan die in his love?
But this our love,
is it not called Tristan and Isolde?
This sweet little word
"and",
binding as it does love's union,
would death not destroy it were Tristan to die?
What could death destroy but what impedes us,
that hinders Tristan from loving Isolde for ever,
and for ever living but for her?
Yet this little word "and":
how might it be destroyed other than with Isolde's own life,
if death were to be given Tristan?
Thus might we die, undivided,
one for ever without end,
never waking, never fearing,
embraced namelessly in love,
given entirely to each other,
living only in our love!
Thus we might die, undivided,
one for ever without end,
never waking,
never fearing,
embraced namelessly in love,
given entirely to each other,
- living only in our love! - Take care!
Take care!
Night is already giving way to day.
Must I listen?
Let me die!
Must I awake?
Never awaken!
Must day yet rouse Tristan?
Let day give way to death!
Shall we then defy day's threats?
To escape its guile for ever!
So that its dawning light will never daunt us?
May night last for us for ever!
O endless night, sweet night!
Glorious, exalted, night of love!
- Those whom you embrace... - on whom you smile...
...how could they ever awaken from you without dismay?
Now banish fear, sweet death,
ardently desired death in love!
In your arms, devoted to you,
ever sacred glow, freed from the misery of waking!
How to grasp, how to relinquish
this bliss far from the sun,
far from the day's lamentations at parting!
- Without delusions... - ...tender yearning.
- Without fears... - ...sweet longing.
Without grieving, sublime drifting.
Without languishing, enfolded in sweet darkness.
Without separating, without parting,
dearly alone, ever at one,
in unbounded space, most blessed of dreams!
- You Isolde, - You Tristan,
- I Tristan, - I Isolde,
- no more Isolde! - no more Tristan!
- No names, no parting! - Ever!
- Newly perceived, newly kindled! - Unendingly!
Unendingly, ever, one consciousness;
supreme joy of love
glowing in our breast!
Save yourself, Tristan!
For the last time, dreary day!
Now tell me, my lord,
whether I accused him with just cause,
whether I have redeemed my head that I staked in pledge?
I have shown him to you in the very act:
I have faithfully preserved your name and honour from shame.
Have you indeed?
Think you so?
See him there,
the truest of all true men;
look on him,
the staunchest of friends:
his freest deed of devotion
has struck my heart with most hostile betrayal!
If Tristan has betrayed me,
could I hope
that what his treachery has damaged
might be honourably restored by Melot's words?
Phantoms of day, morning dreams,
deceiving and vain, away, begone!
This to me?
To me, Tristan, this?
Where now is loyalty if Tristan has betrayed me?
Where are honour and true breeding
if Tristan, the defender of all honour,
has lost them?
Where is virtue,
which Tristan chose as device for his shield,
if it has flown from my friend
and Tristan has betrayed me?
To what end the unstinted service,
the fame of honour, the mighty greatness
that you won for Marke
if fame and honour, might and greatness
and the unstinted service must be paid with Marke's shame?
Did you deem my thanks too scant
in bequeathing to you for your very own
the fame and kingdom that you had gained for me?
When his wife died childless
Marke loved you so that he never would remarry.
When all at court and in the country pressed him with pleas and warnings
to select a queen for the country and a consort for himself;
when you yourself besought your uncle
graciously to grant the court's wish and the people's will,
with craft and kindness, resisting court and country,
resisting you yourself, he refused
until, Tristan, you threatened
to quit for ever his court and land if you yourself were not sent off
to win the king a bride.
Then he let it be so.
Who could behold, who could know
this wondrous wife
that your valour won for me?
Who could proudly call her his
without deeming himself blessed?
One whom my longing never emboldened me to approach,
whom my desire renounced, awestruck,
who, so splendid, fair and exalted,
could not but delight my soul,
despite foes and dangers, a queenly bride
you brought me hither.
Now that, through such a possession, you, wretched man, had made my heart
more sensitive to pain than before, why have you now wounded me so sorely,
where most tender, soft and open I could be struck,
with never a hope that I could ever be healed?
There, with your weapon's torturing poison
that scorches and destroys my senses and brain,
that denies me faith in my friend,
that fills my trusting heart with suspicion,
so that now stealthily, in the darkness of night,
I must lurk and creep up on my friend
and achieve the fall of my honour?
Why must I suffer this hell
that no heaven can restore?
Why this dishonour
for which no misery can atone?
Who will make known to the world
the inscrutable, deep, secret cause?
O king,
that I cannot tell you,
and what you ask
you can never hope to know.
Where Tristan now is going
will you, Isolde, follow him?
To a land, Tristan means, where the sunlight never shines;
it is the dark land of night from which my mother sent me forth
when he whom in death she conceived
in death she let go into the light:
there where she bore me, which was the refuge for her love,
the wondrous realm of night from which I first awoke,
that Tristan offers you,
where now he goes on ahead;
let Isolde now tell him
if she will follow, loyal and gracious.
When her friend once courted her for a foreign land,
Isolde, loyal and gracious, had to follow the ungracious one.
Now you lead the way to your own land to show me your heritage:
how could I flee from the land that spans the whole world?
Isolde will dwell where Tristan's house and home is:
now show Isolde the way that
loyal and gracious...
...she must follow!
Ha! Traitor! Vengeance, O king!
Will you endure this dishonour?
Who pits his life against mine?
This was my friend, he loved me well and truly;
more than any man he cared for my fame and honour.
He incited my heart to presumption
and led the forces urging me
to increased fame and honour
by giving you in marriage to the king!
Your glance, Isolde,
blinded him, too:
for passion my friend betrayed me
to the king whom I betrayed!
supreme bliss!