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Updated: May 13, 2025
Then he thought that Iseult had forgotten. Now it happened one day that, riding with Gorvenal alone, he came into the land of Brittany. They rode through a wasted plain of ruined walls and empty hamlets and burnt fields everywhere, and the earth deserted of men; and Tristan thought: I am weary, and my deeds profit me nothing; my lady is far off and I shall never see her again.
Friend, said he, if I could make my peace with the King; if he would allow me to sustain in arms that neither by act nor word have I loved you with a wrongful love, any knight from the Marshes of Ely right away to Dureaume that would gainsay me, would find me armed in the ring. Then if the King would keep you and drive me out I would cross to the Lowlands or to Brittany with Gorvenal alone.
He stayed in Tintagel town and lodged with Gorvenal in a burgess house, and languished oh! more wounded than when in that past day the shaft of the Morholt had tainted his body. In the close towers Iseult the Fair drooped also, but more wretched still. For it was hers all day long to feign laughter and all night long to conquer fever and despair.
And Tristan said: He has taken my sword; he was alone, but he will return, and will burn us before the people. Let us fly. So by great marches with Gorvenal alone they fled towards Wales.
They wakened Gorvenal; Iseult mounted the steed, and Tristan led it by the bridle, and all night long they went for the last time through the woods of their love, and they did not speak a word. By morning they came to the Hermitage, where Ogrin read at the threshold, and seeing them, called them tenderly: Friends, he cried, see how Love drives you still to further wretchedness.
Painfully he climbed the cliff and saw, beyond, a lonely rolling heath and a forest stretching out and endless. And he wept, remembering Gorvenal, his father, and the land of Lyonesse. Then the distant cry of a hunt, with horse and hound, came suddenly and lifted his heart, and a tall stag broke cover at the forest edge.
Now these lovers would have died, but Brangien succoured them. At peril of her life she found the house where Tristan lay. There Gorvenal opened to her very gladly, knowing what salvation she could bring. So she found Tristan, and to save the lovers she taught him a device, nor was ever known a more subtle ruse of love.
When Tristan had come back to Orris hut, and had loosened his heavy pilgrims cape, he saw clearly in his heart that it was time to keep his oath to King Mark and to fly the land. Three days yet he tarried, because he could not drag himself away from that earth, but on the fourth day he thanked the woodman, and said to Gorvenal: Master, the hour is come.
Lord, said Gorvenal, take no counsel of anger. See here this thicket with a ditch dug round about it. Let us hide therein where the track passes near, and comers by it will tell us news; and, boy, if they burn Iseult, I swear by God, the Son of Mary, never to sleep under a roof again until she be avenged.
There are singers who sing that Tristan killed Ivan, but it is a lie. Too much a knight was he to kill such things. Gorvenal indeed, snatching up an oak sapling, crashed it on Ivans head till his blood ran down to his misshapen feet. Then Tristan took the Queen. Henceforth near him she felt no further evil.
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