"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 bosom, where you lay hiding!" "Hear my will, ye timorous winds!" "Come forth to the strife and din of tempest, to the furious clamor of raging storms!" "Force this dreaming sea from its sleep, waken from its depths its resentful greed!" "Show it the booty 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 3S 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 CornwalPs 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 lsoldes 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 CornwalPs 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 splendor 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, Brangéne!" "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 honor 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 honor fell with him;" "in my heart's anguish I took an oath that if no man would avenge his murder" "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 bosom," "when your gaze weighed me up to see ifl 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 honor, 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 honor?" "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!" "I have won you, I am aware of you alone!" "Supreme joy of love!" "Quick, the mantle, the royal robe!" "Up, fatal pair!" "Hear where we are!" "Hail!" "Hail!" "King Marke, hail!" "Hail to the king!" "Hail, Tristan, fortunate hero!" "King Marke, hail!" "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?" "King Marke, hail!" "What is it, Brangéne?" "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." "L 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." "L 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 bosom, 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." "L 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?" "ls it you?" "You in my arms?" " Is it no illusion?" " ls 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!" " OvenNhelming joy!" " Entrancing bliss!" "Highest heaven's oblivion of the world!" "Mine!" " Tristan mine!" " Isolde mine!" "Mine and thine!" "For 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 splendor 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 splendor, the luster of honor, 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 honor and fame, these I defied and loyally vowed to preserve my fame and honor 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 realized 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 othenNise 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 splendor." "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, honor 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 bosom," "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, lsolde'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!" "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 atone, 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?" "L have shown him to you in the very act:" "I have faithfully preserved your name and honor 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 honor and true breeding if Tristan, the defender of all honor, 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 honor, the mighty greatness that you won for Marke if fame and honor, 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 valor 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 honor?" "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 honor." "He incited my heart to presumption and led the forces urging me to increased fame and honor 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!" "Defend yourself, Melot!" "Hey, KunNenal!" "KunNenal, say!" "Hear me, friend!" "Has he not woken yet?" "Were he to wake," "it would be only to leave us for ever," "unless the healing lady, she who alone can help us, first appears." "Have you seen nothing yet?" "No ship yet upon the sea?" "You would hear another tune then, as merry as ever I can play." "Now tell me truly, old friend, what ails our master?" "Cease your questions" "for you can never understand." "Keep watch zealously and if you see a ship play out blithe and clear!" "Deserted and empty is the sea!" "That old tune, why does it wake me?" "Where am I?" "Ha, that voice!" "His voice!" "Tristan, my lord!" "My hero!" "Tristan!" "Who is calling me?" "At last, at last!" "Life, O life!" "Sweet life given once more to my Tristan!" "KunNenal, is it you?" "Where am I?" "Where was I?" "Where are you?" "Safe and free, in peace." "At Kareol, my lord:" "know you not your ancestors' castle?" "My ancestors?" "Just look around you!" "What was it I heard?" "You heard once more the shepherd's tune:" "down the hillsides he tends your flocks." "My flocks?" "Master, that is what I said!" "Yours is the house, the court and castle!" "The people, true to their dear lord, have tended as best they could his house and court that my hero once bequeathed to his serfs and vassals for their own as heritage when he left all behind to go to a foreign land." "To what land?" "Why, to Cornwall:" "bold and blithe, whatever there is of glory, fame and honor" "Tristan, my hero, nobly wrests!" "Am I in Cornwall?" "Not so: in Kareol!" "How did I come here?" "Well now!" "How did you come?" "You did not ride on a horse: a small ship brought you here." "But to the ship I bore you on my shoulders." "They are broad:" "they bore you thence to the shore." "Now you are at home in your country," "in your own, your native land, amid the pleasures of your own pastures, in the light of the old sun, in which you will safely recover from death and wounds." "Think you so?" "L know othenNise but cannot tell you how." "Where I awoke" "I did not stay;" "where I stayed" "I cannot tell you." "The sun I did not see nor saw I land or people:" "but of what I saw" "I cannot tell you." "L was where I had been for all time" "and where for all time I shall go, in the vast realm of universal night." "But one knowledge there is ours:" "divine, eternal, total oblivion!" "How did that presentiment fade from me?" "Yearning exhortation, do I call you," "that drove me back to the light of day?" "What alone was left in me, an ardent, burning love, drives me from the fearful bliss of death to seek the light that, falsely bright and golden, still shines on you, Isolde!" "Isolde still in the realm of the sun!" "In the radiance of day is Isolde still!" "What longing!" "What anxiety!" "What yearning to see her!" "L have already heard the crash of death's door closing behind me:" "now it again stands wide open, burst open by the sun's rays." "With clear eyes, wide open, I must break forth from night to seek her and see her, to find her in whom alone" "Tristan is granted to pass away and to be no more." "Alas, day's wild passion rises, pale and fearful, for me;" "its star, garish and false, wakes my brain to deception and delusion!" "Accursed day, with your glare!" "Must you ever reawaken my torment?" "Does this light for ever burn which even by night kept me from her?" "Ah, Isolde, sweet, fair one!" "When at last, when, ah, when will you quench the flame, that it may announce to me my happiness?" "When will the light die out?" "When will it be dark in the house?" "Once, from loyalty to you, I defied her for whom now, with you, I must long." "Trust my word:" "you shall see her here, today." "That comfort I can give you, if only she still is living." "The light is still not quenched," "it is not yet dark in the house:" "Isolde lives and watches;" "she has called me out of the night." "If she then is living, let hope smile upon you!" "Though KunNenal may seem simple to you, today you shall not chide him." "You lay as if dead since the day when the accursed Melot dealt you a wound." "How to heal that grievous wound?" "It seemed to me, ignorant as I am, that she who once healed the wound you had from Morold could easily heal the hurt inflicted by Melot's sword." "L soon found the best physician;" "to Cornwall I sent word:" "a trusty man is bringing Isolde here across the sea." "Isolde coming!" "Isolde drawing near!" "O Ioyalty!" "Sublime, beautiful loyalty!" "My KunNenal, beloved friend, unfailingly true, how can Tristan thank you?" "My shield, my protection in battle and combat, ever ready in my weal or woe;" "those I hated you hated, too;" "those I loved you, too, loved." "When I truly served good King Marke, you were truer to him than gold!" "When I had to betray my noble lord, how in sympathy you betrayed him, too!" "Never your own man, mine alone, you suffer with me when I suffer;" "yet what I suffer you cannot suffer!" "This terrible yearning that sears me, this ravaging fire that consumes me, ifl could name it, if you could know it, you would not linger here:" "you would hasten to the watch tower, straining forth with every sense, seeking and gazing there where her sails are swelling, where Isolde steers here before the wind, inflamed with love's passion, to find me." "It draws near!" "It comes with brave haste!" "The flag at the mast waves, it waves!" "The ship!" "The ship!" "It glides by the reef!" "Do you not see it?" "KunNenal, do you not see it?" "No ship is in sight yet!" "Am I thus to understand" "that old, sad tune" "with its plaintive sound?" "On the evening breeze it sent its lament" "when once to a child it announced his father's death;" "through morning's grey, more fearful yet," "when the son learnt of his mother's fate." "He begot me and died;" "she, dying, gave me birth." "To them, too, must have wailed the old tune's mournful plaint" "that once asked me, and asks me now:" "to what fate was I destined when I was born?" "To what fate?" "The old tune tells me again:" "to yearn" "and die!" "No!" "Ah, no!" "It is not so!" "To yearn!" "To yearn!" "Dying, still to yearn, not of yearning to die!" "What never dies now calls, yearning," "to the distant physician for the peace of death." "When, dying, I lay silent in my boat, the wound's poison near my heart," "that strain rang out in yearning lament;" "the wind swelled the sails towards the maid of Ireland." "The wound that she healed and closed she tore apart again with the sword;" "but then she let the sword drop;" "she gave me the poison draught to drink;" "but when I hoped to be quite cured the direst spell was cast:" "that I should never die but should be left in eternal torment!" "The potion!" "The potion!" "The terrible draught!" "How madly it surged from heart to brain!" "No healing, no sweet death, can ever free me from the pain of yearning:" "nowhere, ah, nowhere can I find rest." "Night casts me back to day so that the sun can for ever feast its sight upon my suffering." "Oh, this sun's scorching beams, how their fiery torment burns into my brain!" "Against the devouring heat of this glow, ah, there is no cooling shelter of shade!" "Against the fearful torture of my agonies what balm could bring me relief?" "The terrible draught which brought this anguish on me" "I, I myself, did brew!" "From father's grief and mother's woe, from love's tears through the ages," "from laughing and weeping, rapture and grief did I distil the draughfs poison!" "Accursed be that fearful draught that I brewed, that flowed into me," "that I quaffed with endless delight," "and accursed be he who brewed it!" "My master!" "Tristan!" "Dreadful enchantment!" "O love's deceit!" "O power of love!" "The world's sweetest illusion, what have you wrought?" "Here he lies now," "the blissful man who has loved as no man ever loved." "Now see what thanks it has won him," "what thanks love ever wins!" "Are you dead now, or still living?" "Has the curse carried you away?" "Oh, joy!" "No!" "He stirs, he lives!" "How gently his lips move!" "The ship?" "Do you not see it yet?" "The ship?" "It will certainly come today:" "it cannot be delayed much longer." "And on it Isolde, how she signals" "as she sweetly drinks atonement to me!" "Do you see her?" "Can you not see her yet," "how happily, sublimely and tenderly she travels over the sea's expanse?" "On lucent waves of beauteous flowers" "she lightly draws to land." "To me she smiles solace and sweet repose" "and brings me final balm." "Ah, Isolde," "Isolde!" "How fair you are!" "KunNenal, how could you not see her?" "Up to the watch tower, you purblind wight, that what I can see so plain and clear should not escape you!" "Do you not hear me?" "Quickly, to the lookout!" "Make haste to the watch tower!" "Are you at your post?" "The ship?" "The ship?" "Isolde's ship?" "You must see it!" "You must!" "The ship?" "Have you not seen it yet?" "Oh, rapture!" "Joy!" "Ha, the ship!" "L see it coming from the north." "Did I not know it?" "Did I not say that she still lives and brings me life?" "How could Isolde be out of this world that for me holds Isolde alone?" "Hey there!" "How bravely she steers!" "How strongly the sail billows out!" " How she courses, how she flies!" " The flag?" "The flag?" "The flag of joy, gay and bright at the mast!" "Aha!" "The flag of joy!" "In bright daylight to me comes Isolde," "Isolde to me!" "Can you see her there?" "Now the ship has disappeared behind the rocks." "Behind the reef?" "ls there danger?" "There the breakers rage, ships run aground!" " Who is at the helm?" " The trustiest of seamen." "Would he betray me?" "Could he be Melot's creature?" "Trust him as you trust me!" "You a traitor, too!" "Wretch!" "Can you see the ship again?" "Not yet." "Lost!" "She is past, safely past!" "Ha ha!" "KunNenal, truest friend!" "All I have and hold I give to you this day." "They are coming in at full speed." "Can you see her at last?" "Can you see Isolde?" "There she is!" "She is waving!" "Most blessed woman!" "The ship is in port." "Ha, Isolde with one jump Ieaps from deck to shore." "Come down from the watch tower, idle gaper!" "Down!" "Down to the shore!" "Help her!" "Help my lady!" "L shall carry her up here:" "trust to my arms!" "But you, Tristan, stay quietly there on your bed!" "Oh, this sun!" "Ha, this day!" "Ha, the bliss of this sunniest day!" "Turbulent blood, jubilant spirit!" "Joy without measure, blissful madness!" "How can I endure them, confined to this bed?" "Then up and away to where hearts are beating!" "Tristan the hero, exulting in his strength, has snatched himself from death's grasp." "Once with a bleeding wound I fought against Morold:" "today with a bleeding wound I will capture Isolde!" "Ha, my blood!" "Flow joyfully!" "She who will close my wound for ever comes to me like a hero to save me." "Let the world pass away as I hasten to her in joy!" "Tristan!" "Beloved!" "What, do I hear the light?" "The torch, ha!" "The torch is put out!" "To her!" "To her!" "Tristan!" "Isolde!" "It is I, it is I, dearest friend!" "Wake, once more hear my cry!" "Isolde is calling:" "Isolde has come" "faithfully to die with Tristan." "Have you no word for me?" "For one hour, but one hour, stay awake for me!" "Such anxious days she stayed awake, longing, that she might yet be awake with you for one hour." "Is Isolde cheated, is Tristan cheating her of this single, eternally brief, last earthly happiness?" "Where is your wound?" "Let me heal it that, blissful and blessed, we may share the night;" "of your wound do not die, not of your wound:" "let the light of life be quenched of us both united!" "His eyes are dimmed!" "His heart still!" "Not the fleeting stirring of breath!" "Must she who boldly came across the sea in joy to wed you now stand before you, mourning?" "Too late!" "Stubborn man!" "Do you punish me thus harshly, quite without pity for my griefs guilt?" "Are you deaf to my plaints?" "But once, ah, but once more!" "Tristan!" "Alas!" "Hark!" "He wakes!" "Beloved!" "KunNenal, hark!" "A second ship!" "Death and damnation!" "All give a hand!" "Marke and Melot have I recognized." "Weapons and stones!" "Help me!" "To the gate!" "Marke is behind me with men and followers." "Resistance is useless!" "We are outnumbered." "Stand and help!" "As long as I live none shall intrude upon us here!" "Isolde!" "My lady!" "Brangäne calling?" "What do you seek here?" "Do not shut me out, KunNenal!" "Where is Isolde?" "Are you, too, a traitress?" "A curse upon you!" "Get back, you fool!" "Do not stand there!" "Aha!" "I bless the day on which we meet!" "Die, infamous wretch!" "Woe is me!" "Tristan!" "KunNenal!" "Madman!" "Listen, you are mistaken!" "Faithless maid!" "FonNard!" "Follow me!" "Drive them back!" "Hold, madman!" "Are you out of your mind?" "Death rages here!" "O king, there is naught else to win here:" "if that is what you seek, come on!" "Stand back, madman!" "Isolde!" "My lady," "I bring happiness!" "Ah, what do I see?" "Are you alive?" "Isolde!" "O fraud and deception!" "Tristan, where are you?" "There he lies, here, where I lie." "Tristan!" "Tristan!" "Isolde!" "Alas!" "Tristan!" "Dearest master, do not chide me" "that your faithful follower comes with you!" "Are all dead then?" "A" dead'.!" "Tristan, my hero!" "Dearest of friends," "even today, too, must you betray your friend, today, when he comes to give you proof of his supreme faith?" "Awake, awake!" "Awake to my mourning," "you faithless, most faithful friend!" "She wakes!" "She lives!" "Isolde, hear me, hear of my atonement!" "The secret of the potion I revealed to the king:" "with solicitous haste he put to sea to reach you, to release you and to bestow you on his friend." "Why, Isolde, why this to me?" "When what I had not grasped before was made clear to me, how happy I was to find my friend free from guilt!" "With billowing sails I sped after you" "to wed you to the man you loved." "But why must he who brings peace be met with a fury of malevolence?" "L have but enriched death's harvest;" "delusion has increased grief." "Do you not hear us?" "Isolde!" "Dearest!" "Do you not perceive your faithful servant?" "How gently and quietly he smiles," "how fondly he opens his eyes!" "Do you see, friends?" "Do you not see?" "How he shines ever brighter," "soaring on high, stars sparkling around him?" "Do you not see how his heart proudly swells and, brave and full, pulses in his breast?" "How softly and gently from his lips" "sweet breath flutters;" "see, friends!" "Do you not see and feel it?" "Do I alone hear this melody which, so wondrous and tender" "in its blissful lament, all revealing," "gently pardoning, sounding from him, pierces me through, rises above, blessedly echoing and ringing round me?" "Resounding yet more clearly, wafting about me," "are they waves of refreshing breezes?" "Are they clouds of heavenly fragrance?" "As they swell and roar around me shall I breathe them, shall I listen to them?" "Shall I sip them, plunge beneath them, to expire in sweet perfume?" "In the surging swell, in the ringing sound, in the vast wave of the world's breath," "to drown, to sink" "unconscious - supreme bliss!"