the core--the plain, direct story of the passion of a pair
of tragic lovers. Tristan and Isolda love one another with a devouring
love, and circumstances will not allow them to be united; they find a
refuge in death from an existence intolerable without love; and this
is essentially the whole story. In its older form the tale consisted
mainly of what to the modern mind are excrescences--the intrigues,
fights, adventures and what not so dear to the mediaeval mind. Wagner
sheared away this mass of overgrowth; or perhaps it would be truer to
say he hewed his way to the statue within, from out of the old stuff
picked out the elements that made just the drama as it had shaped
itself in his brain. Here is the story. Tristan, nephew of King Mark
of Cornwall, had gone a-warring in Ireland and had there slain Morold,
the betrothed of Isolda; and to Isolda he sends as a present Morold's
head. He is himself wounded, and by chance it is Isolda, "a skilful
leech," who nurses him back to health. She has found in Morold's head
a splinter of a sword-blade, and finds it was broken out of Tristan's
weapon. Full of anger, she raises the sword to slay the sick man: he
opens his eyes, and "the sword dropped from my fingers"--her doom is
upon her: henceforth she loves the slayer of her lover. Though Tristan
loves her he does not ask for her, but with many protestations of
gratitude and friendship sails away to Cornwall. Next occurs one of
those things at which most of us are apt to boggle: Tristan goes home,
it would appear, only to suggest that his aged uncle should marry
Isolda the peerless beauty; Mark consents, and sends Tristan to ask
for her. Tristan afterwards confesses that ambition led him to do
this; but in any case it was very close to a deed of downright
treachery, unless the fact was that Tristan did not suspect Isolda's
love for him, or thought his station too humble. Wagner's language is
ambiguous, and probably he intended his meaning to be the same. Isolda
has no two opinions about his conduct. It had been her duty to kill
him in the first place, and her love, her destiny, Frau Minna--call it
what you will--betrayed her; and now she is betrayed by the man whose
life she saved. Had she spoken one word in her father's castle Tristan
would not have returned to Cornwall: in all likelihood his head would
have been sent as an acknowledgment of Morold's. Her fury knows no
bounds; her grief and sense of ignominious humiliation almost d