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Updated: September 7, 2025
Sometimes, as in his "Tristram and Iseult," he is permitted little touches of a startling and penetrating beauty; such as, returning to one's memory and lips, in very dusty and arid places, bring all the tears of half-forgotten romance back again to us and restore to us the despair that is dearer than hope!
Queen Iseult, do you mind you of that hot and open day on the high seas? We thirsted and we drank together from the same cup, and since that day have I been drunk with an awful wine. When the Queen heard these words which she alone could understand, she rose and would have gone. But the King held her by her ermine cloak, and she sat down again.
It was like an electric spark; in a few years European taste was changed. Nearly all the types of womankind known to the Middle Ages, Guinevere, Iseult, Enid, are derived from Arthur's court. In the Carlovingian poems woman is a nonentity without character or individuality; in them love is either brutal, as in the romance of "Ferebras," or scarcely indicated, as in the "Song of Roland."
So the day was fixed, and the Duke came with his friends and Tristan with his, and before all, at the gate of the minster, Tristan wed Iseult of the White Hands, according to the Churchs law. But that same night, as Tristans valets undressed him, it happened that in drawing his arm from the sleeve they drew off and let fall from his finger the ring of green jasper, the ring of Iseult the Fair.
And his love for that other Iseult, so tender, and true, and loving, burnt like fire in his veins and consumed him.
But if I conquer and you take back Iseult, no baron of yours will serve you as will I; and if you will not have me, I will offer myself to the King of Galloway, or to him of the Lowlands, and you will hear of me never again. Take counsel, King, for if you will make no terms I will take back Iseult to Ireland, and she shall be Queen in her own land.
From that time his longing to return to Tintagel and his love for La Belle Iseult grew daily more and more unconquerable, until at last he could no longer bear it, and one day set sail from Brittany, leaving his poor little lonely wife behind to mourn his absence, and yearn for his return; for as yet she had not found out that there was no love at all in his heart for her.
Dolorous and alone, he mourned and sighed in restlessness: he was near death from desire. At last the wind freshened and the white sail showed. Then it was that Iseult of the White Hands took her vengeance. She came to where Tristan lay, and she said: Friend, Kaherdin is here. I have seen his ship upon the sea. She comes up hardly yet I know her; may he bring that which shall heal thee, friend.
Now at the news of the peace, men, women, and children, great and small, ran out of the town in a crowd to meet Iseult, and while they mourned Tristans exile they rejoiced at the Queens return.
According to a Cornish tradition, the beautiful Iseult, unable to endure the loss of her betrothed the brave Tristran died of a broken heart, and was buried in the same church, but, by order of the king, the two graves were placed at a distance from each other.
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