Tristan and Iseult: Love is Murder

The Other Great Romance

I picked up a small paperback at the library’s book sale a few days back. It was a translation of a 12th century romance that, while known, tends to take a back seat to Le Morte de Arthur and Robin Hood, even though it was incredibly influential in its day. This is ‘The Romance of Tristan and Iseult.’

So, keeping in mind that this is a translation and thus can only get us so far, let us parse this puppy.

Not Fans of the Three-Act Structure

Ok, let me qualify that. The translation I read was cobbled together from several fragments, the earliest from the 1100's: Eilhart von Oberg (remind me to name a character Eilhart) Gottfried von Strassburg, and a Anglo-Saxon poet by the name of Thomas all provided the original manuscripts. Joseph Bedier amalgamated these fragments into a French translation in 1900, and then it was translated into English in 1945.

Like its contemporary, “Le Morte De Arthur,” it would have been told in an episodic format anyway. These are short stories from a central story the minesinger or troubadour sang at the feast celebrating someone’s wedding or when you are spinning with the girls. Putting all these stories together makes for a loosely plotted tale that its publication history can only do so much to streamline.

Bedier does make it consistent. The dogs Holdane and Pitcru are foreshadowed and recur across chapters, as do the rings that the lovers exchange to make sure that messengers are honest. There is a throughline and basic plot.

There is just a lot of meandering. ‘Saves the Cat Writes a Novel’ would not approve.

Basic Plot

With this in mind, let’s summarize the plot.

King Mark of Cornwall gives his sister Blanchefleur to King Rivalen of Lyonesse, and the couple conceive a kid. Rivalen, however, dies, and Blanchefleur, upon hearing of her man’s death, decides to die the moment her son is born. She names the kid Tristan because she was sad and that is what his name means.

Tristan is Gary Stu with a hat, whose guardians dote on him. He gets kidnapped and then deposited in Cornwall, where he becomes best buds with King Mark by the tried-and-true method of telling the knights of Cornwall a better way of dressing a stag they have just killed.

A giant named Morholt from Ireland shows up to demand tribute. Tristan fights him on an island and beats the giant so hard he leaves a chunk of his sword in Morholt’s skull. Morholt gets sent back to Ireland where Iseult the Fair and her mom mourn him and swear to hate his killer because he was kin.

Jokes on them, however, because back in Cornwall four knights are jealous of Tristan because Mark plans to leave Cornwall to him. They are just evil, ok? Anyway, they tell Mark to get a bride, Mark tries to wiggle out of this by pulling a golden hair out the air (it makes sense in context), and Tristan announces that he can get the bride the hair belongs to because he recognizes Iseult’s hair because she nursed him when she didn’t know who he was and he was recovering from killing the giant.

So, he goes and slays a dragon in Ireland to win Iseult the Fair for Mark. The dragon blood makes him sick, however, and another knight tries to steal the credit in a bid to marry Iseult.

Iseult the Fair is no dummy, and she suspects the other knight immediately. She takes her maid Brangien to the scene of the crime, deduces what happened and finds Tristan. She and her mom nurse him back to health, but then Iseult figures out Tristan killed Morholt and is mad. Tristan convinces her to not kill him and help him talk the Irish king into handing her over, failing to mention that she would be married to Mark once she is across the seas.

Mom’s galaxy-brain cure for this is a love potion that Brangien is supposed to have Mark and Iseult drink on their wedding night. I don’t know why Iseult’s mom thought a love potion would be a good idea. Promising to die at the same time as your husband seems like a bad plan, and that is supposed to be part of the potion’s spell.

Regardless, Brangien is distracted at some point on the trip to Cornwall at the same time that Tristan tries to cheer up Iseult about marrying Mark. They share the love potion drink and that is the point of no return.

There is a whole bunch of shenanigans after this involving Tristan and Iseult breaking up and getting back together. Mark marries Iseult but Brangien somehow takes her place on her wedding night (that didn’t make sense even in context,) they wind up hiding the forest for a bit together when the four jealous knights catch them out, making Mark try to burn them at the stake or give Iseult to a bunch of lepers to gang rape (people with leprosy were treated really poorly then, and the writer accuses them of being more lustful because of the disease.) Ultimately, Tristan gets it into his head to marry this other Iseult, Iseult of the White Hands (no one has last names.)

Right on his wedding night, he realizes, no, actually he really loves the first Iseult, and refuses to consummate the marriage.

But his new brother-in-law is his new buddy ol’ pal who he drags into more shenanigans along with a seneschal named Dinas. The four jealous knights who tried to get in the lovers’ way are murdered horribly one by one, and then Tristan is fatally poisoned while serving another king.

He gets sick, and, for about the millionth time, he has to see Iseult the Fair one more time. He has his brother-in-law fetch her, telling him to use a white sail if he managed to get her on board and a black one if he fails. The second Iseult, the one with the white hands, hears this and tells Tristan that her brother is flying black sails.

So, Tristan opts out of life. The first Iseult shows up in time to see the second one beating herself up for her deceit, shoos her off, lays down beside Tristan, and decides to die. Says his name three times and that’s it, apparently.

Personal Points of Interest

I wanted to read more like this because fiction tells you what the writer, or in this case, writers, are thinking about, accepting as normal, and think needs to be made explicit.

There is a trial by ordeal, which Iseult insists on and cheats on. That got my attention, as a mere 100 years after these stories are circulated, that type of trial would be phased out.

But more to the point, it emphasizes something the writers felt certain about: Iseult ain’t dumb, and she’s certainly no fainting rose unable to participate in the story.

Which is probably why there is a whole thoroughly unnecessary story of her turning on Brangien and ordering serfs to murder her, and when the serfs don’t do that but tie her to a tree instead and report Brangien’s last words, Iseult screams at them like it’s their fault for following her directions and demands that they return her.

No one has ever liked an agentless idiot weight on the story, but we do have to explain how women are crazy no matter what the context.

The other thing that the trial emphasizes is that Mark is supposed to be the good guy who occasionally slips out of love. This means that he never acts without advice from his vassals and that his greatest moments are when he is just towards people. When he flips out and tries to have the lovers burnt at the stake, people yell at him for being unfair. He ultimately gets Tristan and Iseult out of the woods and Iseult back in his castle when he shows them mercy and is fair to them.

Literary Points of Interest

Close readers will note the theme of love conquers all and forgives all that it has in common with the early Arthurian cycle and the tales of Lancelot. It shares other important traits: the king is never actually the bad guy, the lovers involved are just the best, and you are supposed to consider this emotion of love as all-consuming and, indeed, murderous. I don’t know what it says about the philosophy of the era that an emotion could be given so much power in their imaginations, but there it is.

Conclusion:

My copy is short, despite the level of shenaniganery, and it is handy for imbibing the mental atmosphere, as nearly as we can, of the era. It is also entertaining, often for its shenaniganery. Well worth a second read, if only to sniff out where the authors are trying to make a point.