“Tristan und Isolde” by Richard Wagner libretto (English)

Contents: Characters; Act One; Act Two; Act Three

ACT TWO

PRELUDE

SCENE ONE

Isolde. Brangaene.

(A garden with tall trees in front of Isolde's apartments with steps leading up to it at one side. A clear, pleasant summer's night. At the open door is placed a burning torch. Sounds of hunting. Brangaene, on the steps to the apartments, looks out after the hunting party as their sounds fade away into the distance. Isolde comes out of the apartments in wild agitation and comes up to her)

ISOLDE
Can you still hear them?
Thay are out of my hearing already.

BRANGAENE
(listening)
They are still near;
I can hear them clearly.

ISOLDE
(listening)
Anxious fears
confuse your ear.
You are misled by the grove's
whisperings,
laughingly rustling in the wind.

BRANGAENE
You are misled by your
impetuous desires
into hearing what you imagine.

(She listens)

I can hear the horns calling.

ISOLDE
(listening again)
The calling of horns
does not sound so sweet,
it is the stream's gently
murmuring waves
flowing along so gaily.
How could I hear that
if horns were still calling?
In the still of the night it
is just stream that laughs with me.
He who is waiting for me
in the silence of the night,
as if horns still sounded nearby,
do you want to keep him for me?

BRANGAENE
He who is waiting for you -
oh, listen to my warning -
spies lie in wait for him at night!
Because you are so blinded
do you imagine that the sight
of the world has been dimmed for you too?
When, on board ship,
from Tristan's trembling hand
the pallid bride,
scarcely conscious,
was received by King Mark,
when everybody bemusedly watched
her wavering there,
the kingly King,
with gentle concern,
loudly bewailed the trials
of the voyage which you had undergone.

But there was one,
as I clearly perceived,
who looked only into Tristan's eyes.
With a threatening gaze
full of malevolent guile
he sought to find in his expression
whatever would serve his purpose.
Spitefully listening
I have often found him.
Of him who secretly sets snares for you both,
of Melot, be warned!

ISOLDE
Do you mean Lord Melot?
Oh, how mistaken you are!
Is he not Tristan's
dearest friend?
If my beloved cannot be with me,
then he is only in Melot's company.

BRANGAENE
What makes me suspect him
makes him dear to you!
From Tristan to Mark
is Melot's path:
there he sows malignant seeds.
Those who decided today
on this night hunt,
so promptly and quickly planned,
have a nobler quarry
than you imagine
as the target of their huntsmen's cunning.

ISOLDE
For his friend's sake,
out of sympathy,
Melot his friend
managed this ruse.
Do you now scold this faithful friend?
Better than you
does he care for me;
to him he opens up
what you bar to me.
Oh, spare me the distress of further delay!
The signal, Brangaene!
Oh, give the signal!
Extinguish the light's
last glimmer!
That it may fall completely,
give Night its signal!
Already its silence has flowed

through the groves and the house,
already it fills the heart
with ecstatic terror!
Oh, extinguish the light now,
extinguish its dread rays!
Let my beloved come!

BRANGAENE
Oh, leave the warning flame,
let it show you the danger!
Ah, alas!
How wretched I am!
The hapless potion!
That, unfaithful
just once, I
betrayed my mistress's will!
Had I obeyed, deaf and blind,
your work
would have been death!
But your disgrace,
your ignominious distress
are my work,
and I, the guilty one, must know it!

ISOLDE
Your work!
Oh, foolish maid!
Do you not know the Love Spirit,
not know her magic's power?
The Queen
of boldest courage,
Regent of the
world's course?
Love and Death
are subject to her,
she weaves them out of bliss and sorrow,
transmuting envy into love.
Death's work,
upon which I audaciously embarked,
the Love Spirit
wrested it from my power.
She took the girl destined for death
under her sway and
took her work
into her own hands.
However she performed it,
however she completes it,
wherever she may choose for me,
wherever she may lead me,
I became subject to her.
Now let me display my obedience!

BRANGAENE
And if Love's
spiteful draught
must extinguish the light of reason,
if you cannot see
when I warn you,
then now, this once,
hear my plea!
The gleaming signal of danger,
oh, not now, do not
extinguish the torch now!

ISOLDE
She kindled the glow
in my breast,
she makes
my heart burn,
like Day, she laughs
in my soul.
The will of the Love Spirit is -
let it be night,
that brightly she may shine forth,

(She hurries to the torch)

where she shuns your light!

(She takes the torch from the doorway)

To the tower with you!
Keep careful watch!
This light,
were it the light of my life,
laughing,
I do not hesitate to extinguish it.

(She throws the torch to the ground
where it gradually dies out)

(Brangaene turns away in dismay to climb an outside stairway to the tower, where she gradually disappears from sight)

(Isolde listens and looks, timidly at first, along an avenue of trees. Moved by a growing desire she approaches the trees and looks more carefully. She waves with a kerchief, a little at first, then, with passionate impatience, more and more quickly)

(A gesture of sudden delight proclaims that she has noticed her beloved in the distance. She stands on tip-toe, and, in order to see further, hurries back to the steps, from the top of which she waves to the approaching figure)

SCENE TWO

Tristan and Isolde

TRISTAN
(rushes in)
Isolde! Beloved!

ISOLDE
(leaping towards him)
Tristan! Beloved!

(In a passionate embrace they move downstage)

ISOLDE
Are you mine?

TRISTAN
With me once more?

ISOLDE
Dare I hold you?

TRISTAN
Can I belive it?

ISOLDE
At last! At last!

TRISTAN
On my breast!

ISOLDE
Is it really you I feel?

TRISTAN
Is it you I see?

ISOLDE
These your eyes?

TRISTAN
This your mouth?

ISOLDE
Here your hand?

TRISTAN
Here your heart?

ISOLDE
Is it I? Is it you?
You, clasped in my arms?

TRISTAN
Is it I? Is it you?
No illusion?

TOGETHER
Not a dream?
O heart's rapture,
o sweet, most sublime,
boldest, loveliest,
most blessed joy!

TRISTAN
Without equal!

ISOLDE
Overflowing!

TRISTAN
Replete with bliss!

ISOLDE
Eternal!

TRISTAN
Eternal!

ISOLDE
Never dreamt of!
Never yet known!

TRISTAN
Boundlessly
exalted and sublime!

ISOLDE
Joyous exulting!

TRISTAN
Blisful delight!

ISOLDE
Heaven-high soaring
beyond the world!
My Tristan mine!
Mine and yours!
Ever, ever one!

TRISTAN
Heaven-high soaring
beyond the world!
My Isolde mine!
Mine and yours!
Ever, ever one!

ISOLDE
For how long away!
Away for so long!

TRISTAN
How far yet so near!
So near yet how far!

ISOLDE
O enemy of friends,
evil distance!
Drawn-out time's
lingering expanse!

TRISTAN
O distance and nearness,
sternly parted!
Sweet nearness!
Desolate distance!

ISOLDE
You in darkness,
I in light!

TRISTAN
The light! The light!
Oh, this light,
how long before it was extinguished!
The sun set,
Day ran its course
but it would not stifle
its spite:
lighting its dread signal
it places it
at the loved one's door
so that I might not go to her.

ISOLDE
But the loved one's hand
extinguished the light;
what the maid would not risk
I did not fear:
under the power and protection of the Love-Spirit
I bade defiance to Day!

TRISTAN
Day! For Day,
for spiteful Day,
the most bitter foe,
hatred and grievance!
Just as you extinguished the light,
would that I could
extinguish the light of insolent Day
to avenge the pangs of love!
Is there any distress,
is there any anguish
which it does not revive
with its beams?
Even in Night's

darkling glory
my beloved harbours it in her house,
letting its threatening beams fall towards me.

ISOLDE
Is your beloved keeps it
in her own house,
so did my love once
defiantly foster it
in his heart,
bright and devious:
Tristan, he that betrayed me!
Was it not Day
that made him false
when he came to Ireland
as a suitor
to court me for King Mark,
to dedicate loyalty to Death?

TRISTAN
Day! Day!
Which shimmered round about you,
to there where she
seemed like the sun
in highest honour's
radiant glow,
Isolde withdrew from me!
That which so
delighted my eye
made my heart sink
to the depths of the earth:
in the bright light of Day
how could Isolde be mine?

ISOLDE
Was she not yours,
she that chose you?
What lies did evil Day
tell you
that you betrayed your dearest,
she that was destined to be yours?

TRISTAN
In the grip of madness I could not but
yeld my heart
to that which shimmered round about you
in majestic splendour,
the glitter of honour and
the power of renown.
Day's bright orb
of worldly honour,

shining upon me
with the brightest
radiant glow,
penetrated
my head
with its beams
of vain bliss
and reached
the deepest recesses
of my heart.
What lay there
darkly concealed in chaste night,
what I dimly perceived,
not knowing, not imagining;
a form, which my eyes
could not believe they saw,
caught in the light of Day,
lay there gleaming before me.
Before the whole throng
I praised in clear tones
what seemed to me
so glorious and sublime;
before all the people
I extolled aloud
the loveliest
royal bride on earth.
I bade defiance to
the envy which
Day awakened in me,
to the zeal which
threatened my happiness,
to the jealousy which began to make
honour and fame a burden to me,
and firmly resolved
to uphold honour and glory,
to go to Ireland.

ISOLDE
O vain thrall of Day!
Deceived by that which
deceived you,
how I, loving you,
suffered on your account;
caught in Day's
false glitter,
in the snare
of its cunning,
in the depths of my heart,
where burning love
encompassed him,
I hated him bitterly.

Ah, what piercing pain
in the recesses of my heart!
How hard he whom I secretly harboured there
must have thought me
when, in the light of Day
my faithfully cherished one
vanished to loving eyes
and stood before me only as a foe!
From the light of Day
which made you appear to me
a traitor
I wished to flee
into Night,
to take you with me,
where my heart would bid me
end all deception,
where the vain premonition
of treachery might be dispelled,
there to pledge to you
eternal love,
to consecrate you to Death
in company with myself.

TRISTAN
When I recognised
sweet death
offered to me
at your hand;
when a bold and
clear presentiment
showed me what
expiation demanded;
there dawned gently
in my heart
the lofty power of Night;
my Day was then accomplished.

ISOLDE
Alas, you were confused
by the deceiving potion
so that once again
Night eluded you:
as you faced only death,
it restored you to Day!

TRISTAN
Hail to the potion!
Hail to the draught!
Hail to its magic's
sublime power!
Through Death's portals

wide and open
it flowed towards me
opening up
the wondrous realm of Night
where I had only been in dreams.
From the image in my heart's
sheltering cell
it repelled day's
deceiving beams,
so that in darkness my eyes
might serve to see it clearly.

ISOLDE
Yet banished Day
avenged itself;
with yours sins
it took counsel;
what darkling Night
showed you
you had to surrender
to the regal power
of the Day-star,
to live alone,
gleaming there
in solitary splendour.
How could I bear it?
How can I endure it now?

TRISTAN
Oh, now we were
dedicated to Night!
Spiteful Day
with ready envy
could part us with its tricks
but no longer mislead us with guile.
Its vain glory,
its flaunting display
are mocked by those to whom Night
has granted sight.
The fleeting flashes
of its flickering light
no longer dazzle us.
Before him who has seen with love death's night,
before him to whom she confided
her dark secret,
are scattered
the lies, the renown
and honour of Day,
power and advantage
shining and glorious,
as the paltry dust

caught in the sunbeam!
Amid the vain fancy of Day
he still harbours one desire -
the yearning
for sacred Night
where, all-eternal,
true alone,
love's bliss smiles on him!

TOGETHER
Descend,
O Night of love,
grant oblivion
that I may live;
take me up
into your bosom,
release me from
the world!

TRISTAN
Extinguished now
the last glimmers;

ISOLDE
what we thought,
what we imagined;

TRISTAN
all thought

ISOLDE
all remembering,

TOGETHER
the glorious presentiment
of sacred twilight
extinguishes imagined terrors,
world-redeeming.

ISOLDE
The sun concealed
itself in our bosom,
the stars of bliss
gleam, laughing,

TRISTAN
softly entwined
in your magic,
sweetly dissolved
before your eyes;

ISOLDE
heart on your heart,
mouth on mouth;

TRISTAN
the single bond
of a single breath;

TOGETHER
my glance is deflected,
dazzled with bliss,
the world palses
with its blinding radiance:

ISOLDE
lit by Day's
guileful deception,

TRISTAN
standing firm against
deceitful delusion,

TOGETHER
then am I
myself the world;
floating in sublime bliss,
life of love most sacred,
the sweetly conscious
undeluded wish
never again to waken.

THE VOICE OF BRANGAENE
(from the tower)
You upon whom
love's dream smiles,
take heed of
the voice of one
keeping solitary
watch at night,
foreseeing evil
for the sleepers,
anxiously urging
you to waken.
Beware!
Beware!
Night soon melts away.

ISOLDE
(softly)
Listen, beloved!

TRISTAN
(softly)
Let me die!

ISOLDE
(gradually raising her head a little)
Jealous watch!

TRISTAN
(still reclining)
Never waken!

ISOLDE
Must Day then
waken Tristan?

TRISTAN
(raising his head a little)
Let Day
give way before death!

ISOLDE
Should Day
and Death
both reach
our love?

TRISTAN
(raising himself up more)
Our love?
Tristan's love?

Yours and mine,
Isolde's love?
What strokes of death
could ever make it yeld?
If mighty Death
stood before me
threatening
the very life in my body
which I would so gladly leave
for love,
how could it
reach love itself?

Were I to give my life to that
for which I would so gladly die,
how could love
die with me,
the ever-living
end with me?
And if his love were never to die
how could Tristan die
of his love?

ISOLDE
But our love,
is it not Tristan
and Isolde?
This sweet little word: and,
would death not destroy
the bonds of love
which it entwines
if Tristan were to die?

TRISTAN
What could die
but that which troubles us,
preventing Tristan
from ever loving Isolde,
forever loving only her?

ISOLDE
Yet this little word: and,
were it destroyed,
how else but together
with Isolde's own life
would death be given to Tristan?

(Tristan with a meaningful gesture, gently draws Isolde to him)

TRISTAN
Thus might we die,
that together,
ever one,
without end,
never waking,
never fearing,
namelessly
enveloped in love,
given up to each other,
to live only for love!

ISOLDE
(as if in reflective rapture,
looking up at him)
Thus would we die,
that together -

TRISTAN
ever one,
without end -

ISOLDE
never waking -

TRISTAN
never fearing -

TOGETHER
namelessly
enveloped in love,
given up to ourselves
to live only for love!

THE VOICE OF BRANGAENE
(as before)
Beware!
Beware!
Night soon gives way to Day.

TRISTAN
(smiling down at Isolde)
Shall I listen?

ISOLDE
(dreamily looking up at Tristan)
Let me die!

TRISTAN
Must I waken?

ISOLDE
Never waken!

TRISTAN
Shall Day
still waken Tristan?

ISOLDE
Let Day
give way to Death!

TRISTAN
Have we Day's menaces
thus defied?

ISOLDE
(in growing rapture)
Ever to flee its guile.

TRISTAN
Did its dawning
never affright us?

ISOLDE
(raising herself up
with a grand gesture)

May our Night endure for ever!

TOGETHER
O eternal Night,
sweet Night!
Gloriously sublime
Night of love!
Those whom you have embraced,
upon whom you have smiled,
how could they ever waken
without fear?
Now banish dread,
sweet death,
yearned for, longed for
death-in-love!
In your arms,
consecrated to you,
sacred elemental quickening force,
free from the peril of waking!
How to grasp it,
how to leave it,
this bliss
far from the sun's,
far from Day's
parting sorrows!
Free from delusion
gentle yearning,
free from fearing
sweet longing.
Free from sighing
sublime expiring.
Free from languishing
enclosed in sweet darkness.
No evasion
no parting,
just we alone,
ever home,
in unmeasured realms
of ecstatic dreams.

TRISTAN
Tristan you,
I Isolde,
no longer Tristan.

ISOLDE
You Isolde,
Tristan I,
no longer Isolde!

TOGETHER
Un-named,
free from parting,

new perception,
new enkindling;
ever endless
self-knowing;
warmly glowing heart,
love's utmost joy!

(They remain in a rapturous embrace)

SCENE THREE

The previous characters. Kurwenal, Brangaene, Mark, Melot and Courtiers.

(Brangaene emits a shrill cry. Kurwenal rushes in with unsheathed sword)

KURWENAL
Save yourself, Tristan!

(Horrified, he casts a glance offstage. Mark, Melot and courtiers in hunting dress come rapidly from the avenue of trees and stop in horror at the sight of the lovers. Brangaene climbs down from the tower and runs to Isolde. Isolde, involuntarily seized by a sense of shame, leans back, her face turned aside, on the flowery bank. Tristan, also in spite of himself, raises his cloak on his arm so that it conceals Isolde from the sight of those just arrived. He remains in this position for a long period, unmoving, his cold gaze fixed on the men who, in various attitudes, fasten their eyes on him. Dawn)

TRISTAN
(after a long silence)
Barren Day
for the last time!

MELOT
(to Mark)
Now tell me, my lord,
was I right to accuse him?
To give you my pledge
with my head as the bond?
I have shown him to you
in the very act;
your name and honour
I have loyally
preserved from disgrace.

MARK
(in a state of profound shock,
in a trembling voice)
Have you indeed?
Is that what you think?
Look at him there,
the most faithful of the loyal.
Cast your eyes upon him,
the dearest of friends.
His loyalty's
freest deed
pierced my heart
with its hostile treachery!
If Tristan betrayed me,
am I to hope
that what his treachery
has cost me
should by Melot's counsel
honestly be restored to me?

TRISTAN
(convulsively)
Spirits of Day!
Fantastic dream!
Deceitful and desolate!
Fade away! Give way!

MARK
(deeply affected)
This to me?
This, Tristan, to me?
Whither has loyalty fled
now that Tristan has betrayed me?
What price now honour

and honesty,
now that the champion of all honour,
Tristan, has lost it?
As Tristan appointed himself
its emblem,
where has virtue
flown to,
fleeing from my friend, from
Tristan, who has betrayed me?

(Tristan slowly lowers
his gaze; while Mark continues
there can be read in his
expression growing sadness)

Why did you serve me
for so long?
Why the reputation of honour,
the power and greatness
which you won for King Mark?
Did the honour and renown,
greatness and power,
the services
beyond number,
have to be repaid by Mark's dishonour?
Did you value so lightly
his gratitude
which gave you as your very own inheritance
that which you had won for him,
his renown and his Kingdom?
When, childless,
his wife died,
he loved you so much
that never again
did Mark intend to wed.
When all the people
from court and country
thronged to him,
begging and imploring him
to give the country a queen
and to take for himself a wife;
when you yourself
swore to your uncle
that you would carry out
the wishes of the court
and the will of the country, then,
against the wishes of court and country,
in opposition even to you,
with circumspection and kindness
he declined
until you, Tristan, threatened

to exile yourself for ever
from court and country
if you yourself
were not dispatched
to win a bride for the King.
And so he let it be.
This glorious woman
that your courage won for me,
who could behold her,
who could know her,
who could proudly
call her his own
and not think himself blessed?
She, whom I could never
dare approach,
she for whom I
foreswore my desires
in bashful reverence,
so splendid,
so lovely, so sublime,
who could not but
refresh my soul,
despite enemies and dangers
this royal bride
you presented to me.
Now, since by such
a possession you rendered
my heart more open to pain than before,
there, where I was rendered
soft, sensitive and exposed
was I stricken
without hope
that I might ever be healed.
Why so sorely,
wretched man,
did you wound me there now?
There, with the weapon
of tormenting poison,
searing and maiming
my senses and my mind
so that my fidelity
to my friend is stifled,
my open heart
filled with suspicion,
so that now, secretly
and in the dead of night
I creep up on you, my friend, eavesdropping,
and see my honour ended?
No heaven will redeem it for me -
why this hell for me?
No misery will atone for it -

why this disgrace?
The uncharted depths
of its mysterious causes,
who will make them known to the world?

TRISTAN
(raising his eyes to King Mark in sympathy)
O King,
I cannot tell you that;
what you would ask
you can never know.

(He turns to Isolde
who looks up at him longingly)

Wherever Tristan now goes
will you, Isolde, follow him?
To that land of which Tristan spoke,
where the sun's light does not shine;
it is the dark
land of Night
out of which my mother
sent me
when he, whom she bore
on her deathbed,
left her in death
to reach the light.
From that which, when she bore me,
was her fortress of love,
the wondrous realm of Night,
I then awoke.
That is what Tristan offers you,
thither he will precede you.
Whether she will follow him
in grace and faith,
let Isolde now tell him.

ISOLDE
When for a foreign land
her beloved once won her,
that ungracious man
Isolde had to follow
faithfully and graciously.
Now you are returning to your own estates
to show me your inheritance;
how could I flee that land
that spans the whole world?
Wherever Tristan's home may be,
there let Isolde go,
there let her follow him
in grace and faith,

so now show Isolde the way!

(Tristan bends over her and kisses her gently on the forehead. - Enter Melot in a rage)

MELOT
(drawing his sword)
Traitor! Ha!
To vengeance, King!
Will you suffer this shame?

(Tristan draws his sword and turns swiftly)

TRISTAN
Who dares his life against mine?

(He fixes his gaze on Melot)

This was my friend,
exalted and dear was his devotion to me;
for my honour and reputation
none was more concerned than he.
To impetuousness
he drove my heart;
he led the crowd
that urged me
to add to my honour and renown
and to give you to the King as bride!
The sight of you, Isolde,
blinded him too.
Out of jealousy I was betrayed
by my friend
to the King, whom I had betrayed.

(He strides up to Melot)

Defend yourself, Melot!

(As Melot raises his sword towards him, Tristan lowers his and falls wounded into Kurwenal's arms. Isolde falls upon his breast. Mark holds Melot back. - Curtain)

Contents: Characters; Act One; Act Two; Act Three