d, faithfully do I serve her, to the greater honour of
women. If I should forsake the helm at this moment, how could I
safely guide the keel to King Mark's land?" Brangaene's temper
flashes a faint reflection of Isolde's fire. "Tristan, my lord,
are you mocking me? If the stupid handmaid cannot make her meaning
clear to you, hear my mistress's own words. This she bade me say:
Be warned, a self-sufficient one, to fear the mistress! That is
her behest,--Isolde's!" Without giving Tristan time to hesitate,
Kurwenal jumps up: "May I frame an answer?"--"What would your answer
be?" Tristan asks, for the moment at a loss. And Kurwenal, very
loud, that his words may not fail to reach Isolde's ears: "This
say to Madam Isolde: That he who made over to the maid of Ireland
the crown of Cornwall and the inheritance of England cannot be the
chattel of that same maid, presented by himself to his uncle. A
lord of the world,--Tristan, the hero! I cry it aloud and do you
report my words, though they should bring upon me the wrath of a
thousand Madam Isoldes!" Tristan has vainly tried to silence him.
As Brangaene indignantly hastens away, the irrepressible servant
sings after her at the top of his voice a mocking fragment of ballad,
popular no doubt in Cornwall: "Lord Morold came over the sea to
Cornwall to collect tribute. An island floats in a lonely sea,
there he now lies buried. His head, however, hangs in Ireland, the
tribute paid by England. Hurrah for our lord Tristan! What a one
is he to pay tribute!" Tristan drives the fellow off, orders him
below. But the whole crew have taken up the last lines of the song
and shout them with a will. Brangaene drags together the curtains,
shutting from sight the cruel rabble. Isolde, who has with difficulty
controlled herself, seems on the point of an outburst, but she
quells it, and in the restored silence asks with forced composure:
"But now, about Tristan?--I wish to be told exactly." Brangaene,
at first unwilling, reports the interview. When she has finished,
Isolde, whose anger has made room for a sorrowful intense dejection,
reveals to her what explains the humour, to her so far inexplicable,
of her mistress. Her deeply wounded feelings bleeding afresh at
their exposure, Isolde makes the relation almost tearfully. "You
have been a witness to my humiliation, hear now what brought it
about. They sing to me derisive songs. I could reply if I would!
Of a boat I could tell which, small and mean,