"Hey, Kurwenal!" "Kurwenal, 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!" "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!" "Kurwenal, is it you?" "Where was I?" "Where am 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 honour" "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?" "I know otherwise 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." "I 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, lsolde!" "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!" "I 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, lsolde, 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 Kurwenal 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." "I 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 loyalty!" "Sublime, beautiful loyalty!" "My Kurwenal, 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 fearful longing that sears me;" "this languishing flame that consumes me;" "were I to give you its name, could you know it, you would not tarry here, you would hurry away to keep watch - with all your senses longing to get away to keep careful watch for their billowing sails" "before the wind where, a flame with the urgings of love, to find me," "Isolde is sailing towards me." "It approaches!" "It approaches, speedy and brave!" "It waves, it waves, the flag on the mast." "The ship!" "The ship!" "There it goes past the reef!" "Can't you see it?" "Kurwenal, can't you see it?" "Still no ship in sight!" "Must I understand you thus," "you ancient, solemn tune" "with your plaintive tones?" "Through the evening air it came, fearfully," "as once it brought news to the child of his father's death." "Through the grey light of morning, ever more fearful," "as the son became aware of his mother's lot." "As he begat me and died, so, dying, she bore me." "That ancient tune of anxious yearning sounded its lament sounded its lament to them too," "asking me then, and asking me now, for what fate was I then born?" "For what fate?" "The ancient tune tells me once more:" "to yearn... and to die!" "No!" "Ah, no!" "That is not it!" "Yearning!" "Yearning!" "While dying to yearn, but not to die of yearning!" "Never dying, yearning, calling out for the peace of death" "to the far-away physician." "Dying I lay in the boat, silent the wound's poison near my heart:" "in plaintive yearning the tune sounded forth;" "The wind blew the sail towards Ireland's child" "The wound which she closed, with the sword she opened up again;" "but then, the sword, she lowered it;" "the poison draught she gave me to drink;" "as I hoped fully to be healed by it, then was the most searing magic unleashed:" "that I might never die but inherit eternal torment!" "The draught!" "The draught!" "The fearful draught!" "From my heart to my brain it forced its furious way!" "No healing, no sweet death can ever release me from yearning's distress;" "never, ah never shall I find peace:" "Night casts me out into Day, ever to feed my sorrows in the sight of the sun." "Oh, this sun's searing rays," "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 draught's 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, lsolde," "Isolde!" "How fair you are!" "Kurwenal, how could you not see her?" "Up to the watch tower, you purblind wight, that which 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!" "I 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 day light to me comes Isolde, lsolde to me!" "Can you see her there?" "Now the ship has disappeared behind the rocks." "Behind the reef?" "Is 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!" "Kurwenal, 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, lsolde with one jump leaps from deck to shore." "Come down from the watch tower, idle gawper!" "Down!" "Down to the shore!" "Help her!" "Help my lady!" "I 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!" "Ha!" "Hark!" "He wakes!" "Beloved!" "Kurwenal, 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!" "Brangane calling?" "What do you seek here?" "Do not shut me out, Kurwenal!" "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!" "Kurwenal!" "Madman!" " Listen, you are mistaken!" " Faithless maid!" "Forward!" "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?" "All 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, lsolde, 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?" "I 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!"