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

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

ACT THREE

SCENE ONE

The Shepherd. Kurwenal. Tristan.

(Castle garden. At one side a tall castle building, at the other a low parapet with a look-out post; upstage the castle gate. The location can be seen as being a rock height; through openings the sea and the distant horizon can be seen. The whole scene conveys an impression of being deserted, ill-tended, here and there in poor repair and overgrown. Downstage, inside the wall, Tristan is lying in the shade of a tall lime-tree, asleep on a couch, laid out as if lifeless.
At his head sits Kurwenal, bent over him in anguish and carefully listening to his breathing. As the curtain goes up there can be heard from outside the gate a shepherd playing a sad, yearning tune on a reed-pipe. At length the shepherd appears over the parapet and looks in with sympathetic interest)

SHEPHERD
(softly)
Kurwenal, hey!
Listen, Kurwenal!
Hear, my friend!

(Kurwenal partly turns
his head towards him)

Is he still not awake?

KURWENAL
(sadly shaking his head)
Were he to waken
it would only be
to depart for ever,
if she, the healer,
does not first appear,
the only one who can succour us.
Have you seen nothing yet?
Still no ship out at sea?

SHEPHERD
A different tune
would you hear then,
as merry as I could make it.
Now, tell me truly,
my old friend,
what ails our lord?

KURWENAL
Do not ask.
You can never know.
Keep a sharp look-out,
and if you see a ship
play merrily and clearly!

(The shepherd turns and gazes out to sea, his hand shielding his eyes)

SHEPHERD
Desolate and void the sea!

(He puts his reed to his lips
and departs, playing)

TRISTAN
(motionless, dully)
That old tune?
Why does it waken me?

(he opens his eyes and
turns his head a little)

Where am I?

KURWENAL
(starts, surprised)
Ha! That voice!
His voice!
Tristan! My lord!
My hero! My tristan!

TRISTAN
(with difficulty)
Who is calling me?

KURWENAL
At last! At last!
Life, oh life,
sweet life,
restored to my Tristan!

TRISTAN
(raising himself up a little from
the couch, in a flat tone)
Kurwenal? You?
Where have I been?
Where am I?

KURWENAL
Where are you?
In peace, safe and free,
in Kareol, my lord!
Do you not recognise the castle
of your fathers?

TRISTAN
Of my fathers?

KURWENAL
Just look about you!

TRISTAN
What did I hear?

KURWENAL
The shepherd's tune
it was that you heard once more;
down on the hillside
he is keeping watch over your flocks.

TRISTAN
My flocks?

KURWENAL
My lord, just as I say!
Yours is the house,
court and castle!
The people, loyal
to their dear lord,
as well as they could manage,
have looked after the house and court
which once my lord,
as their very own heritage,
granted to the people
when he left it all behind
to travel to a foregin land.

TRISTAN
To which land?

KURWENAL
Well now! To Cornwall;
bravely and gaily,
what glory,
fortune and honour
Tristan my hero won for himself there!

TRISTAN
Am I in Cornwall?

KURWENAL
Of course not, in Kareol!

TRISTAN
How did I get here?

KURWENAL
Indeed! How did you get here?
You didn't come on horseback;
a boat brought you here.
But to the ship
here, on my shoulders,

I carried you - they are broad:
they carried you there to the shore.
Now you are home, at home in your own country;
really at home
in your mother country;
amidst your own meadows and delights,
in the light of the old sun
where from death and from your wounds
you will blessedly be healed.

(He embraces Tristan)

TRISTAN
(after a brief silence)
Is that what you think?
I know differently
but I am not able to tell you.
Where I awoke,
there I was not,
but where I was
I cannot tell you.
I did not see the sun,
nor did I see land and people;
but what I did see
I cannot tell you.
I was
where I had been before I was
and where I am destined to go,
in the wide realm
of the Night of the world.
But one certain knowledge
is ours there:
divine, eternal
utter oblivion.
How did I cease to perceive it?
Yearning remembrance
did I call you,
driving me on anew
towards the light of Day.
The one thing that I remembered,
a warm and ardent love
drives me from the terror of Death's bliss
to see the Light,
which, deceiving, bright and golden,
still shines about you, Isolde!

(Kurwenal, in the grip of terror,
hides his face. Tristan
gradually raises himself up)

Isolde still

in the realm of the Sun!
In the shimmer of Day
still, Isolde!
What longing!
What fearing!
To see her,
what desire!
The crash that I heard
behind me
was Death's
door closing:
now once more it stands
wide open,
the sun's beams
have burst it open;
with wide open eyes
I had to emerge from Night
to seek her,
to see her;
to find her,
in her alone
to expire,
to vanish
has it been granted to Tristan.
Alas, there now rise up
within me,
pale and fearful,
Day's wild urgings;
baleful and deceiving
its orb
rouses my mind
to deceit and folly!
Accursed Day
with your light!
Will you for ever
be witness to my anguish?
Will it burn for ever,
this Light,
which even at night
kept me from her?
Ah, Isolde,
sweet beauty!
When at last,
when, oh when
will you extinguish the spark,
that I may know my fortune?
The light - when will it be extinguished?

(He sinks back, exhausted)

When will Night come to the house?

KURWENAL
(deeply shocked, pulling himself
out of his depressed state)

She whom I once defied
out of loyalty to you,
with you to her
I must now long to go.
Belive what I say:
you shall see her
here this very day;
that consolation I can give you -
if she is still alive herself.

TRISTAN
(very faintly)
Still the light is not extinguished,
still Night does not come to the house!
Isolde still lives and keeps watch;
she called me out of the Night.

KURWENAL
If she lives then,
let hope smile upon you!
Even if you think Kurwenal is foolish,
today you will not scold him.
As if dead you lay there
since that day
when Melot, the villain,
dealt you a wound.
That evil wound,
how to heal it?
To me, simple that I am,
it rather seems that
she who once before eased for you
the torment of Morold's wound,
she could easily heal the torment
of Melot's sword.
The best physician [Isolde]
I soon discovered:
to Cornwall I have
sent word;
a faithful man
is bringing Isolde here
across the sea.

TRISTAN
(beside himself)
Isolde is coming!
Isolde approaches!
(He struggles for the words)
Oh faith! Bold,
sweet faith!

(He embraces Kurwenal)

My Kurwenal,
dearest friend!
Unshakeably faithful,
how is Tristan to thank you?
My shield and my guard
in battle and strife,
in merrymaking and sorrow
always by my side.
He that I hated,
you hated too.
Him I worshipped,
you worshipped too.
To the good King Mark,
when I served him well,
you were truer than Gold!
When I had to betray
that noble lord,
how glad you were to betray him too!
ver your own self,
mine alone,
you suffer with me
when I suffer:
only what I suffer
you cannot suffer!
This fearful longing
that sears me;
this languishing flame
that consumes me;
were I to give you its name,
could you know it,
you would not tarry here,
you would hurry away to keep watch -
with all your senses
longing to get away
to keep careful watch
for their billowing sails
before the wind
where, aflame with the urgings of love,
to find me,
Isolde is sailing towards me.
It approaches! It approaches,

speedy and brave!
It waves, it waves,
the flag on the mast.
The ship! The ship!
There it goes past the reef!
Can't you see it?
(vehemently)
Kurwenal, can't you see it?

(As Kurwenal hesitates, so as not to leave Tristan, and the latter looks at him, silent and tense, there sounds out, as before, at first near by and then in the distance the plaintive tune of the shepherd)

KURWENAL
(disheartened)
Still no ship in sight!

TRISTAN
(has been listening with failing enthusiasm,
now with growing melancholy)

Must I understand you thus,
you ancient, solemn tune
with your plaintive tones?
Through the evening air
it came, fearfully,
as once it brought news to the child
of his father's death.
Through the grey light of morning,
ever more fearful,
as the son
became aware of his mother's lot.
As he begat me and died,
so, dying, she bore me.
That ancient tune
of anxious yearning
sounded its lament
to them too,
asking me then,
and asking me now,
for what fate
was I then born?
For what fate?
The ancient tune
tells me once more:
to yearn - and to die!
No! Ah, no!
That is not it!
Yearning! Yearning!
While dying to yearn,
but not to die of yearning!
Never dying,
yearning, calling out

for the peace of death
to the far-away physician.
Dying I lay
in the boat, silent,
the wound's poison
near my heart:
in plaintive yearning
the tune sounded forth;
the wind blew the sail
towards Ireland's child.
The wound which
she closed,
with the sword
she opened up again;
but then, the sword,
she lowered it;
the poison draught
she gave me to drink;
as I hoped fully
to be healed by it,
then was the most searing
magic unleashed:
that I might never die
but inherit eternal torment!
The draught! The draught!
The fearful draught!
From my heart to my brain
it forced its furious way!
No healing,
no sweet death
can ever release me
from yearning's distress;
never, ah never
shall I find peace:
Night casts me out
into Day,
ever to feed my sorrows
in the sight of the sun.
Oh, this sun's
searing rays,
how my head burns
from its scorching torture!
For the burning longing
of this heat
ah, no shade's
dark concealment!
For the burning longing's
terrible torment
what ointment could
bring me ease?
The fearful draught

that brings me anguish,
I, I myself,
I prepared it!
From my father's distress
and mother's anguish,
from tears of love
everlasting,
from laughing and weeping,
happiness and hurts,
I found
the poisonous draught!
What I had prepared
flowed towards me;
devouring it blissfully
I enjoyed it -
be accursed, fearful draught!
Cursed be he that prepared you!
(He falls back unconscious)

KURWENAL
(vainly trying to calm Tristan,
cries out in horror)

My Lord! Tristan!
Dreadful Magic!
Love's deception!
Passion's urgings!
The world's loveliest delusion,
what has happened to you?
Here he lies,
the splendid man,
loved and adored as no other.
See now what thanks
Love has won for him,
the thanks that love always wins!

(with a catch in his voice)

Are you dead?
Are you still alive?
Has the curse borne you away?

(He listens for his breath)

O joy! No!
He is moving, he is alive!
How gently he moves his lips!

TRISTAN
(slowly coming to his senses)
The ship! Can't you see it yet?

KURWENAL
The ship? Of course,
it will be here today!
It can't be far off now.

TRISTAN
And on it Isolde,
how she is waving,
how sweetly she is drinking
reconciliation to me.
Can you see her?
Can't you see her yet,

as she sweetly,
bravely and gently
wanders across
the watery plains?
On soft waves
of blissful flowers
she gently comes
into land.
She smiles at me,
giving comfort and sweet peace,
she brings me
my last refreshment.
Ah, Isolde! Isolde!
How lovely you are!
And Kurwenal, tell me,
do you not see her?
Go and keep watch,
foolish wretch!
What I can see so bright and clear,
do not let it escape you!
Can you not hear me?
Quickly, to the lookout!
Quickly, keep watch!
Are you still there?
The ship? The ship?
Isolde's ship?
You must see it!
Must see it!
The ship! Can't you see it yet?

(While Kurwenal, hesitating, restrains Tristan, the shepherd sounds his pipe. Kurwenal springs up joyfully)

KURWENAL
Oh, happiness! Joy!

(He leaps to the lookout post
and gazes out to sea)

Ah! The ship!
I can see it approaching from the north!

TRISTAN
(with growing excitement)
Didn't I know it?
Didn't I say
that she was still alive,
sustaining life in me?
As the only thing
it holds for me,
how could Isolde
have departed the world?

KURWENAL
(calling from the lookout post, joyfully)
Ahoy! Ahoy!
How bravely it sails!
How the sails are filled!
How it streaks along, how it flies!

TRISTAN
The flag? The flag?

KURWENAL
The festive flag
at the masthead merry and bright!

TRISTAN
(raising himself up on his cot)
Ah! The flag of joy!
In the clear light of Day,
to me, Isolde!
Isolde, to me!
Can you see Isolde herself?

KURWENAL
The ship has disappeared
behind the rocks.

TRISTAN
Behind the reef?
Is it in danger?
There, in the turbulent current,
ships are wrecked.
Who is at the helm?

KURWENAL
The safest of seamen.

TRISTAN
Might he betray us,
could he be one of Melot's men?

KURWENAL
Trust in him as in me!

TRISTAN
You too a traitor!
Wretched man!
Can you see her yet?

KURWENAL
Not yet.

TRISTAN
Lost!

KURWENAL
(joyously)
Ahoy! Ahoy!
Through! Through!
Safely through!

TRISTAN
(joyously)
Kurwenal! Ahoy! Ahoy!
most faithful of friends!
All my goods and possessions
I bequeath this day!

KURWENAL
They are approaching at speed.

TRISTAN
Can you see them at last?
Can you see Isolde?

KURWENAL
There she is! She is waving!

TRISTAN
Oh blessed woman!

KURWENAL
The ship is in harbour!
Isolde - ah,
with a single bound
she is leaping ashore!

TRISTAN
Come down from the lookout post,
idle gazer!
Down! Down!
to the beach!
Help her! Help my lady!

KURWENAL
I'll carry her up here:
trust in my arms!
But you, Tristan,
promise to stay on your couch.
(Kurwenal hurries away)

SCENE TWO

Tristan. Isolde. Kurwenal.

TRISTAN
(in great excitement,
straining on his couch)

Oh this sun!
Ah! This Day!
Ah, this joy's
sunniest day!
Coursing blood,
rejoicing spirit!
Bliss beyond bounds,
joyful delirium!
Confined to my bed,
how can I bear it!
Up then and onwards
to where hearts are beating!
Tristan the hero,
rejoicing in his strength
has snatched himself back
from death.

(He raises himself up)

With bleeding wound
I once battled with Morold,
with bleeding wound
I now pursue Isolde!

(He tears the dressing
from his wound)

Ah, my blood!
Cheerily flow, my blood!

(He leaps from his bed
and staggers forward)

She who my wound
will finally heal,
like a hero approaches,
she approaches, my salvation!
Let the world perish
before my rejoicing haste!

(He staggers to the centre of the stage)

ISOLDE
(from outside)
Tristan! Beloved!

TRISTAN
(in extreme agitation)
What? Is it the light I hear?
The torch, ah!
The torch is extinguished!
To her! To her!

(Isolde enters breathlessly. Tristan, hardly conscious, totters towards her. They meet in the centre of the stage. She takes him in her arms. Tristan sinks slowly to the ground in her arms)

ISOLDE
Tristan! Ha!

TRISTAN
(dying, looks up at her)
Isolde!

(He dies)

ISOLDE
Ah! It is I! It is I!
sweetest beloved!
Up, just once more,
listen to my call!
Isolde is calling:
Isolde has come
faithfully to die with Tristan.
Will you not answer me?
Just for one hour,
just for one hour
stay awake for me!
For so many anxious days
she kept watch, longing
to watch with you
for an hour.
Will Tristan
deny Isolde
this single,
eternally brief,
final worldly joy?
The wound? Where is it?
Let me heal it!
Let us in untroubled bliss
share the Night!
Not from that wound,
do not die from that wound.
Unite us both,
extinguish the light of life!

Dimmed your eyes!
Silent your heart!
Not a breath's
gentle wafting!
Must she now in misery
stand before you,
she who joyously, to marry you,
bravely crossed the sea?
Too late!
Spiteful man!
Will you punish me thus
with this most harsh of sentences?
No consideration
of my sorrow's debt?
May I not utter
my lament to you?
Just once, ah!
just once more!
Tristan! Ah!
Listen! He is waking!
Beloved!

(She collapses unconscious
over the body)

SCENE THREE

The previous characters. The Shepherd. The Steersman. Melot. Brangaene. Mark. Knights and Squires.

(Kurwenal has just come in behind Isolde; speechless and deeply shocked he has witnessed the scene and stared at Tristan, motionless. From below can be heard a dull murmuring and clatter of weapons. The shepherd comes climbing over the wall)

SHEPHERD
(turning quickly and
quietly to Kurwenal)

Kurwenal! Listen!
A second ship.

(Kurwenal starts and looks over the escarpment while the Shepherd, horrified, looks at Tristan and Isolde from a distance)

KURWENAL
(in an outbreak of rage)
Death and damnation!
To your posts!
I have made out
Mark and Melot!
Weapons and stones!
Help me! To the gate!

(He hurries with the shepherd to the gate,
which they try to barricade hastily)

THE HELMSMAN
(rushing in)
Mark is behind me
with armed men and people.
Resistance is useless!
We are overpowered.

KURWENAL
Take up your post and help!
As long as I live
nobody is going to spy on me here!

BRANGAENE'S VOICE
(coming from outside)
Isolde! My mistress!

KURWENAL
Brangaene calling?

(calling down the slope)

What do you want here?

BRANGAENE
Do not bar the gate, Kurwenal!
Where is Isolde?

KURWENAL
You too a traitor?
Woe to you, villanous woman!

MELOT
(outside)
Get back, you fool!
Do not resist!

KURWENAL
(laughing wildly)
Heyahaha! The day
that I strike you down!

(Melot, witharmed men, appears below the gate. Kurwenal attacks him and fells him to the ground)

KURWENAL
Die shameful wretch!

MELOT
Alas, Tristan!

(He dies)

BRANGAENE
(still outside)
Kurwenal, are you mad?
Listen, you are betraying yourself!

KURWENAL
Faithless maid!

(to his men)

Come on! Follow me!
Throw them back!

(They fight)

MARK
(outside)
Stop, you madman!
Have you lost your senses?

KURWENAL
Here death rages!
Nothing else, King,
is to be had here;
if that is what you want, come on!

(He sets about Mark
and his followers)

MARK
(appearing under the gate
with some men)
Get back, madman!

BRANGAENE
(has climbed in over the wall at the side
and hurries forward)

Isolde! Mistress!
Joy and salvation!
What do I see? Ah!
Are you alive? Isolde!

(She tends Isolde. - Mark and his men have driven Kurwenal and his followes back from the gate and force their way in)

MARK
Deceit and madness!
Tristan, where are you?

KURWENAL
(badly wounded, staggers forward
before Mark)

There he lies -
here - where I lie.

(He collapses at Tristan's feet)

MARK
Tristan! Tristan!
Isolde! Alas!

KURWENAL
(grasping Tristan's hand)
Tristan! Faithful friend!
Do not scold me
if your faithful friend comes with you!

(He dies)

MARK
All dead then!
All dead!
My hero, my Tristan!
Most faithful of friends,
must you even today
betray your friend?
Today, when he comes
to avow to you his deepest faith?
Awake! Awake!
Awake! to my wailing!

(Sobbing, he bends
over the bodies)

You faithless, most faithful of friends!

BRANGAENE
(who has brought Isolde
to her senses in her arms)

She wakes! She is alive!
Isolde! Listen to me,
hear my repentance!
The draught's secret
I have revealed to the King;
In anxious haste
he put out to sea
to reach you,
to renounce you,
to lead your beloved to you.

MARK
Why, Isolde,
why have you done this?
When it was clearly revealed to me
what I had not been able to comprehend,
how happy I was that I found
my friend free of guilt.
To wed you to
this glorious man
with full sail
I flew after you.
But misfortune's
impetuous haste,
how can the bringer of peace control it?
I increased the harvest of Death,
madness added yet more distress.

BRANGAENE
Can you not hear us?
Isolde! Dearest!
Can you not hear your faithful Brangaene?

(Isolde, aware of nothing round about her, fixes her gaze with mounting ecstasy upon Tristan's body)

ISOLDE
How softly and gently
he smiles,
how sweetly
his eyes open -
can you see, my friends,
do you not see it?
How he glows
ever brighter,
raising himself high
amidst the stars?
Do you not see it?
How his heart
swells with courage,
gushing full and majestic
in his breast?
How in tender bliss
sweet breath
gently wafts
from his lips -
Friends! Look!
Do you not feel and see it?
Do I alone hear
this melody
so wondrously
and gently
sounding from within him,

in bliss lamenting,
all-expressing,
gently reconciling,
piercing me,
soaring aloft,
its sweet echoes
resounding about me?
Are they gentle
aerial waves
ringing out clearly,
surging around me?
Are they billows
of blissful fragrance?
As they seethe
and roar about me,
shall I breathe,
shall I give ear?
Shall I drink of them,
plunge beneath them?
Breathe my life away
in sweet scents?
In the heaving swell,
in the resounding echoes,
in the universal stream
of the world-breath -
to drown,
to founder -
unconscious -
utmost rapture!

(Isolde sinks gently, as if transfigured, in Brangaene's arms, on to Tristan's body. Those standing around are awed and deeply moved. Mark blesses the bodies. - The curtain falls slowly)

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