h
his mantle outspread. He, too, is overwhelmed with shame,
and silently bows his head when his uncle bitterly reproves him
for betraying him, and robbing him of the bride he had already
learned to love. Even the sentence of banishment pronounced upon
him seems none too severe, and Tristan, almost broken-hearted
at the sight of his uncle's grief, sadly turns to ask Ysolde
whether she will share his lot. Shame and discovery have in no
wise diminished her affection for him, and when she promises to
follow him even to the end of the earth he cannot restrain his
joy, and notwithstanding the king's presence he passionately
clasps her in his arms:

'Wherever Tristan's home may be,
That will Ysolde share with thee:
That she may follow
And to thee hold,
The way now shown to Ysold'!'

Melot, enraged at this sight, rushes upon Tristan with drawn
sword, and wounds him so sorely that he falls back unconscious
in Kurvenal's arms, while Ysolde, clinging to him, faints away
as the curtain falls on the second act.

The third act is played in Tristan's ancestral home in Brittany,
whither he has been conveyed by Kurvenal, who vainly tries to
nurse his wounded master back to health and strength. The sick
man is lying under a great linden tree, in death-like lethargy,
while Kurvenal anxiously watches for the vessel which he trusts
will bring Ysolde from Cornwall. She alone can cure his master's
grievous wound, and her presence only can woo him back from
the grave into which he seems rapidly sinking.

From time to time Kurvenal interrupts his sad watch beside the
pallid sleeper to call to a shepherd piping on the hillside, and
to inquire of him whether he descries any signs of the coming
sail. Slowly and feebly Tristan at last opens his eyes, gazes
dreamily at his attendant and surroundings, and wonderingly
inquires how he came thither. Kurvenal gently tells him that
he bore him away from Cornwall while wounded and unconscious,
and brought him home to recover his health amid the peaceful
scenes of his happy youth; but Tristan sadly declares that life
has lost all its charms since he has parted from Ysolde. In a
sudden return of delirium the wounded hero then fancies he is
again in the forest, watching for the light to go out, until
Kurvenal tells him that Ysolde will soon be here, as he has
sent a ship to Cornwall to bring her safely over the seas.

These tidings fill Tristan's heart with such rapture that
he