I cannot keep this life of mine any longer." He said three times:
"Iseult, my friend." And in saying it the fourth time, he died.

Then throughout the house, the knights and the comrades of Tristan
wept out loud, and they took him from his bed and laid him on a rich
cloth, and they covered his body with a shroud. But at sea the wind
had risen; it struck the sail fair and full and drove the ship to
shore, and Iseult the Fair set foot upon the land. She heard loud
mourning in the streets, and the tolling of bells in the minsters and
the chapel towers; she asked the people the meaning of the knell and
of their tears. An old man said to her:

"Lady, we suffer a great grief. Tristan, that was so loyal and so
right, is dead. He was open to the poor; he ministered to the
suffering. It is the chief evil that has ever fallen on this land."

But Iseult, hearing them, could not answer them a word. She went up to
the palace, following the way, and her cloak was random and wild. The
Bretons marvelled as she went; nor had they ever seen woman of such a
beauty, and they said:

"Who is she, or whence does she come?"

Near Tristan, Iseult of the White Hands crouched, maddened at the evil
she had done, and calling and lamenting over the dead man. The other
Iseult came in and said to her:

"Lady, rise and let me come by him; I have more right to mourn him
than have you--believe me. I loved him more."

And when she had turned to the east and prayed God, she moved the body
a little and lay down by the dead man, beside her friend. She kissed
his mouth and his face, and clasped him closely; and so gave up her
soul, and died beside him of grief for her lover.

When King Mark heard of the death of these lovers, he crossed the sea
and came into Brittany; and he had two coffins hewn, for Tristan and
Iseult, one of chalcedony for Iseult, and one of beryl for Tristan.
And he took their beloved bodies away with him upon his ship to
Tintagel, and by a chantry to the left and right of the apse he had
their tombs built round. But in one night there sprang from the tomb
of Tristan a green and leafy briar, strong in its branches and in the
scent of its flowers. It climbed the chantry and fell to root again by
Iseult's tomb. Thrice did the peasants cut it down, but thrice it grew
again as flowered and as strong. They told the marvel to King Mark,
and he forbade them to cut the briar any more.

The good singers of old time, Beroul and Thomas of B