Tristan and Iseult, also known as Tristan and Isolde and other names, is a medieval legend told in numerous variations since the 12th century. Of disputed source, usually assumed to be primarily Celtic, the tale is a tragedy about the illicit love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Iseult in the days of King Arthur. During Tristan's mission to escort Iseult from Ireland to marry his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, Tristan and Iseult ingest a love potion, instigating a forbidden love affair between them. Depending on the version, Tristan may marry another woman, Iseult of the White Hands, but never stops loving the Irish princess. The tale typically ends in their deaths from love and sorrow.
The legend has had a strong and lasting impact on Western culture. Its different versions exist in many European texts in various languages from the Middle Ages. The earliest instances take two primary forms: the so-called courtly and common branches, respectively associated with the 12th-century poems of Thomas of Britain and Béroul, the latter believed to reflect a now-lost original tale. A subsequent version emerged in the 13th century in the wake of the greatly expanded Prose Tristan, merging Tristan's romance more thoroughly with the Arthurian legend. Finally, after the revived interest in the medieval era in the 19th century under the influence of Romantic nationalism, the story has continued to be popular in the modern era, notably through Wagner's operatic adaptation.
Narratives
The story and character of Tristan varies considerably between different tellings. His name also varies, as does that of Iseult, although Tristan is the most common modern spelling.
The two earliest known, and highly distinct from one another, traditions of the romance of Tristan and Iseult come from the French verse romances written by Béroul and Thomas of Britain (considered origins of the so-called "common branch" and the "courtly branch", respectively), two 12th-century poets who each wrote , based on uncertain origins. A later major tradition is that of cyclical prose works beginning , markedly different from those by both Thomas and Béroul.
Early poetry
After defeating the Irish knight Morholt in a duel, the young prince Tristan travels to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult (often known as Isolde, Isolt, or Yseult) to marry his uncle King Mark of Cornwall (originally written as Marc or Marc'h). Along the way, Tristan and Iseult ingest a love potion, which causes them to fall madly in love. The potion's effects last a lifetime in the legend's so-called courtly branch. However, in the common branch version (Béroul's), the potion's results end after three years.
In some versions, including Béroul's, Tristan and Iseult ingest the potion accidentally after it was given to her by her mother to use on her wedding night. In others, the potion's maker gives it to Iseult to share with Mark, but she gives it to Tristan instead. Although Iseult marries Mark, the spell forces her and Tristan to seek each other as lovers. The King's advisors repeatedly try to charge the pair with adultery, but the lovers use trickery to preserve their façade of innocence.
In Béroul's poem, the love potion eventually wears off, but the two lovers continue their adulterous relationship for some time, until returning to the kingdom of Cornwall, where King Mark is alerted to the affair by the machinations of three of his barons (one of them called Ganelon, in a possible nod to the famous traitor) and then seeks to entrap his nephew and wife. Mark acquires what seems to be proof of their guilt and resolves to punish Tristan by hanging and Iseult by burning at the stake. However, Mark changes his mind about Iseult and lodges her in a leper colony. Tristan escapes on his way to the gallows, making a miraculous leap from a chapel to rescue Iseult. The lovers flee into the forest of Morois (or Morrois) and take shelter there for several years until Mark later discovers them and takes pity on their exile and suffering. They make peace with Mark after Tristan agrees to return Iseult to Mark and leave the country. According to Danielle Quéruel of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (abridged from a French article),
In some tales, including the Folie Tristan d'Oxford, Tristan, forced to live far from Iseult, seeks to see her again. Tristan returns in disguise for the queen, but their dog, Husdent, betrays his identity. Here again, it is a matter of recounting a few moments of happiness that the lovers can savour thanks to cunning and lies.
The poem by Thomas of Britain, surviving only in a collection of fragments, provides a continuation and outcome of the story. Tristan travels to Brittany, where he marries Iseult of the White Hands, daughter of King Hoel of Brittany, for her name and beauty. However, he keeps thinking of the one he loves, Iseult the Blonde, and has a room built containing statues evoking her love. In other fragments, Tristan goes to England together with his friend Kahedin (brother of Iseult of the White Hands) to see Iseult the Blonde again, Tristan returns to Brittany, and finally Tristan and Iseult the Blonde die together. Quéruel comments:
Association with Arthur and death
The earliest surviving Tristan poems already include references to King Arthur and his court. Mentions of Tristan and Iseult are also found in some early Arthurian texts. Writers expanded the connection between the story and the Arthurian legend over time.
Shortly after the completion of the Vulgate Cycle (the Lancelot-Grail cycle) in the first half of the 13th century, two authors created the vast Prose Tristan, which establishes Tristan as one of the most outstanding Knights of the Round Table in a cycle rivalling the Vulgate, telling many of his new adventures of chivalric kind. Here, he is portrayed as a knight-errant, a former enemy turned close friend of Lancelot, and an abortive participant in the Quest for the Holy Grail.
The Prose Tristan, with (eventually, in the later versions) its distinctive take on the Grail Quest, evolved into the familiar medieval tale of Tristan and Iseult that became a part of the Post-Vulgate Cycle. Two centuries later, it became the primary source for the seminal Arthurian compilation Le Morte d'Arthur.
In the popular extended version of the Prose Tristan, and the works derived from it, Tristan is attacked by King Mark while he plays the harp for Iseult. Mark strikes Tristan with a poisoned or cursed lance, mortally wounding him, and the lovers die together. The poetic treatments of the Tristan legend, however, offer a very different account of the hero's death, and the short version of the Prose Tristan and some later works also use the traditional account of Tristan's death as found in the poetic versions.
In Thomas' poem, Tristan is wounded by a poisoned lance while attempting to rescue a young woman from six knights. Tristan sends his friend Kahedin to find Iseult of Ireland, the only person who can heal him. Tristan tells Kahedin to sail back with white sails if he is bringing Iseult and black sails if he is not (perhaps an echo of the Greek myth of Theseus). Iseult agrees to return to Tristan with Kahedin, but Tristan's jealous wife, Iseult of the White Hands, lies to Tristan about the color of the sails. Tristan dies of grief, thinking Iseult has betrayed him, and Iseult dies over his corpse.
Post-death
Some French (such as the ones chosen in the English translation by Hilaire Belloc in 1903) and other (such as the early German Tristrant) sources state that a bramble briar grows out of Tristan's grave, growing so thickly that it forms a bower and roots itself into Iseult's grave. King Mark tries to have the branches cut three separate times, and each time the branches grow back and intertwine. Later French and German versions embellish the story with either briar or grape vine above Tristan's grave intertwining with a rose tree from Iseult's grave. In Marie de France's Chevrefoil, the intertwined hazel and honeysuckle is an "amorous metaphor" in a lay that recounts one of their clandestine meetings.
Later versions state that the lovers had children, including a son and a daughter named after themselves. Their children may have adventures of their own, as in the epilogue of the Saga af Tristram ok Isodd. In the 14th-century French romance Ysaÿe le Triste (Ysaÿe the Sad), the eponymous hero is the son of Tristan and Iseult. He becomes involved with the fairy king Oberon and marries a girl named Martha, who bears him a son named Mark. The 16th-century Spanish Tristan el Joven, also known as I Due Tristani, features Tristan's son known as Tristan the Younger.N. J. Lacy (et al.). "Carta enviada por Hiseo la Brunda Tristan", "Respuesta de Tristan" from The New Arthurian Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991.
Origins and analogues There are several theories about the tale's origins, although historians disagree over which is the most accurate.
British There are references to March ap Meichion (Mark son of Meichion) and Trystan ap Tallwch (Tristan son of Tallwch) in the Welsh Triads, some gnomic poetry, the Mabinogion stories, and the 11th-century hagiography of Illtud. A character called Drystan appears as one of King Arthur's advisers at the end of The Dream of Rhonabwy, a 13th-century tale in the Middle Welsh prose collection known as the Mabinogion; Iseult is also a member of Arthur's court in Culhwch and Olwen, another Mabinogion tale.Jeffrey Gantz (translator), Culhwch and Olwen, from The Mabinogion, Penguin, 1976. According to Alan Lupack, a fragmentary poem that speaks of Drystan and March in the Black Book of Carmarthen may be the only Welsh Tristan written material that predates the works of French poetry.
The mid-6th century "Drustanus Stone" in southeast Cornwall close to Castle Dore has an inscription referring to Drustan, son of Cunomorus (Mark). However, not all historians agree that the Drustan referred to is the archetype of Tristan. The inscription is heavily eroded, but the earliest records of the stone, dating to the 16th century, all agree on some variation of Cirvivs / Cirusius as the name inscribed. It was first read as a variation of Drustanus in the late 19th century, corresponding to the 19th-century revival of medieval romance. A 2014 study using 3D scanning supported the reading of the backward-facing "D".
Irish Scholars have given much attention to possible Irish antecedents to the Tristan legend. An ill-fated love triangle is featured in several Irish works, most notably in Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne (The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne). In this literary work, the ageing Fionn mac Cumhaill is to marry the young princess, Gráinne. At the betrothal ceremony, she falls in love with Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, one of Fionn's most trusted warriors. Gráinne gives a sleeping potion to all present but Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, and she convinces him to elope with her. Fianna pursues the fugitive lovers across Ireland.
Another Irish analogue is Scéla Cano meic Gartnáin, preserved in the 14th-century Yellow Book of Lecan. In this tale, Cano is an exiled Scottish king who accepts the hospitality of King Marcan of Ui Maile. Marcan's young wife, Credd, drugs all present and convinces Cano to be her lover. They try to keep a tryst while at Marcan's court, but they are frustrated by courtiers. In the end, Credd kills herself, and Cano dies of grief.