The Romance of Tristan: The Tale of Tristan's Madness (Classics) Read online

  St Evrol, 52.

  St Hilary, 141.

  St John’s Day, 96.

  St Lubin, place name, 145.

  St Martin, 57.

  St Mary, 69.

  St Michael’s Mount, great marketplace in Cornwall, 108.

  St Richier, 125.

  St Samson, 151; church in Lantyan, 113.

  St Stephen the Martyr, 116.

  St Thomas, 72.

  St Tresmor of Cahares, a Breton saint, 116.

  Saxon, 124.

  Scotland, 106.

  Segestes, punished by the Emperor Constantine, 53.

  Solomon, 48.

  Stirling, a residence of King Arthur, 123.

  Tantris, anagram of Tristan, 42, 153, 155.

  Tintagel, a residence of King Mark in Cornwall, passim.

  Tolas, one of King Arthur’s knights, 138.

  Tristan, lord of Lyoness, nephew of King Mark, lover of Yseut, passim.

  Tudela, town in Spain, 124.

  Urien, father of Evain (q.v.) 125.

  Venus, 54

  Yder, lover of Guinevere, 156 (see notes).

  Yseut, daughter of King of Ireland, wife of King Mark, lover of Tristan, passim.

  Yseut of the White Hands, wife of Tristan, 149, 165.

  Yvain, one of Arthur’s knights, 138.

  * J. Bédier, Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas (Paris, 1902, 1905) vol. II, introduction. Bédier’s argument may be briefly summarized as follows: he showed first that all known Tristan stories could be traced back either to the twelfth century poems of Eilhart von Oberg or Thomas d’Angleterre, or to the thirteenth-century French prose romance: the only exceptions were the poem of Beroul and the short tale of Tristan’s madness, both translated here. There were therefore five so-called primary versions of the legend, none of which appeared to be the derivative of any other. At the same time, Bédier showed that these five versions concur in presenting the majority of the central episodes in the same order in the narrative. The striking fact which emerged from his comparison of the five stories was not the multiplicity of different episodes, but their rarity. In good logic, it must follow that the five primary versions are themselves the derivatives of a single poem, although Bédier did not ignore the possibility of any number of intermediaries.

  Bédier’s theory of the Tristan archetype is now generally accepted by scholars.

  † The beginning and end of Beroul’s poem have not been preserved. In order to present a complete story in this book, summaries of missing episodes have been included as well as a translation of the tale of Tristan’s madness, which fills an important gap in the later stages.

  * My own ideas on this topic were for the most part inspired by a brilliant lecture given by E. Vinaver in 1963, entitled ‘Epic to Romance’, since published in The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library.

  † I have stated above that Beroul’s poem is the oldest of the Tristan romances, although I am aware that this is far from universally accepted. My reasons for this should be clear from the rest of the introduction and I do not propose to examine the question of dating as a separate issue.

  * The manuscript is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, MS. B.N. fr. 2171. In preparing this translation I have used the edition by A. Ewert: Beroul’s Romance of Tristan (Oxford, 1938); most of the following remarks on the manuscript are based on Ewert’s introduction. The writing is not elegant, and it is clear that the scribe was careless on many occasions: the use of capitals and large initials is irregular and does not necessarily correspond to a division in the narrative; both single lines and couplets are sometimes omitted, while other lines or parts of lines are written twice; and several of the letters are not easily distinguishable. There appears, however, to be no doubt that it is the work of a single scribe.

  * For the sake of convenience I shall use Beroul as the poet’s name although this is also a matter of doubt.

  * Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, trans. A. T. Hatto (Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth, 1960) p. 248.

  * Mark was at fault in condemning the lovers summarily, without trial. According to legal codes in France in the twelfth century, an adulterer could be summarily punished only if taken in flagrante delicto. Tristan and Yseut were not, of course, so caught, and Mark took their guilt as proved by the circumstantial evidence of the blood in the bed and on the floor. The poet presents this as an important element in justifying the lovers, for it is also mentioned more than once by Tristan himself and by the people of Cornwall.

  * Nonetheless, in the Tristan poem of Thomas d’Angleterre, where the potion’s efficacy is lifelong, the lovers do return to court when Mark invites them to. But this does not happen without a serious loss of dignity on the king’s part.

  * I am glad to acknowledge here my debt to Northrop Frye’s perceptive and stimulating book The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, 1957).

  * The edition I have used in preparing this translation is that of E. Hoepffner: La Folie Tristan de Berne (Paris, 1949). This edition is accompanied by an exhaustive commentary, to which the reader is referred for further information.

  * This summary of the story before the Beroul fragment begins is based on J. Bédier’s reconstruction of the lost Tristan romance (see Introduction, p. 11).

  1. See Notes, pp. 166–7.

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  THE ROMANCE OF TRISTAN

  1. TRISTAN’S BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD

  2. THE TRYST UNDER THE TREE

  3. THE FLOUR ON THE FLOOR

  4. THE CONDEMNATION AND ESCAPE OF THE LOVERS

  5. THE FOREST OF MORROIS

  6. KING MARK’S HORSE’S EARS

  7. THE HERMIT OGRIN. I

  8. TRISTAN’S DOG

  9. GOVERNAL’S VENGEANCE

  10. MARK’S DISCOVERY OF THE LOVERS

  11. THE LOVE POTION

  12. THE HERMIT OGRIN. II

  13. YSEUT’S RETURN TO KING MARK

  14. THE VINDICATION OF YSEUT

  15. YSEUT’S AMBIGUOUS OATH

  16. TRISTAN’S VENGEANCE [The manuscript of Beroul’s poem breaks off here]

  17.TRISTAN IN BRITTANY

  18. TRISTAN’S MADNESS

  19. THE DEATH OF THE LOVERS

  NOTES

  INDEX OF NAMES

  Footnotes

  Introduction

  Page 11

  Page 12

  Page 13

  Page 14

  Page 20

  Page 21

  Page 23

  Page 27

  Page 33

  Chapter 1

  Page 39

  Chapter 2

  Page 57