The conflict of love and honor: the medieval Tristan legend in France, Germany and Italy 9783111343228, 9783110991710

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DE PROPRIETATIBUS LITTERARUM edenda curat C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD

Indiana University Series Practica, 78

THE CONFLICT OF LOVE AND HONOR The Medieval Tristan Legend in France, Germany and Italy by J O A N M. F E R R A N T E Columbia University

1973 MOUTON THE HAGUE · PARIS

© Copyright 1973 in The Netherlands Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER. 73-85773

Printed in The Netherlands

for my parents DIE BEIDE EIN TRIUWE UNDE EIN LIP GOT UNDE DER WERLDE WAREN

PREFACE

The legend of Tristan and Isolt, posing the basic human conflict between an overpowering passion and the demands of morality and honor, offered a rich fund of material for medieval writers. They told the story in various forms for various reasons. Some condemned the love, others exalted it. For one, Tristan is a great hero, destroyed by a passion he cannot control; for another he is an artist inspired by a love that is mostly pain; for another, a knight caught between his love and loyalty to an unworthy king. In this study, I have concentrated on five medieval versions of the Tristan story - the poems of Beroul, Eilhart, Thomas, and Gottfried, and the prose Tavola Ritonda - because they are the most complete of the works that center on Tristan and because they relate many of the same incidents. This enabled me to make a close comparison of the major episodes, to see how each writer manipulated the material that was available to all, how by varying small details, sometimes shifting the order of events, he was able to create a work that was quite different from the other versions but still told the same story. I do not discuss the shorter poems which relate only one incident — the Berne Folie, the Oxford Folie, the Chievrefueil — nor those prose works in which Tristan is one of many heroes whose stories are told within the framework of the Arthurian world and the Grail quest. It is because the Tristan story forms only one part of Malory's Morte d'Arthur that I have not included Malory in this study, despite the importance of the legend for him. The fact that he places the story of Tristan at the center of his narrative is an indication of its significance. Malory is certainly more interested in the fate of Lancelot and yet he interrupts Lancelot's story to tell Tristan's, at length. Indeed it can be said that for Malory the lust and lack of control Tristan exhibits in his love is at the core of the decay in the Arthurian world. When I began this study, there was little literary criticism available on the Tavola Ritonda or on the poems of Eilhart and Beroul. In the last few years, this situation has, happily, begun to change, although Gottfried and Thomas still receive most of the critical attention. Some comparative

8 PREFACE studies had been done of the two French poems and the two German poems, mainly emphasizing the sophistication of Thomas and Gottfried at the expense of Beroul and Eilhart; there had also been stylistic comparisons of Thomas and Gottfried, but no study of all four works, nor of a prose version in relation to the poems. I have not attempted to prove the superiority of one version over another, but simply to see what each writer wished to say with the story and how he went about it. The results will, it is hoped, contribute something to the understanding of the individual works, as well as to a sense of medieval narrative techniques. From the conception of the project to the late revisions, I was helped immeasurably by the advice and encouragement of Professor W.TH. Jackson. His critical study of Gottfried's poem, The Anatomy of Love, came out too recently to be properly represented in my text, but the influence of his approach can be felt throughout. I am also grateful to the Fels Foundation for a generous grant which permitted me to do the research and to write the first draft. Columbia University June, 1972

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

7

Introduction

11

1. Comparison of Episodes

25

2. Comparison of Structure

59

3. Conclusions

114

Appendix A: Names

122

Appendix Β: Episodes

123

Appendix C: Addenta to the Comparison of Episodes

124

Bibliography

148

Index

155

INTRODUCTION THE TRISTAN STORY AND ARTHURIAN ROMANCE

No love story had a more powerful hold on medieval poets than the tale of Tristan and Isolt. Its origins lay in Celtic folk legends of fairies and giants, love-potions, and magic cures, but for the High Middle Ages, it became the classic tale of tragic love and adultery, of conflicting duties and desires. Romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries told and retold the story, adapting basic elements of the plot to very different attitudes towards love and duty. The enormous appeal of the Tristan story in the Middle Ages and after lies, probably, in the realistic view it takes of love between man and woman and the consequences of that love for society. The view it presents of love, as a force strong enough to take control of the lover's mind and senses and prevent him from discharging his social obligations, is in direct opposition to the courtly ideal of ennobling love as an inspiration to good action within society, which is the norm in Arthurian romance. Though the story of Tristan and Isolt was not originally part of the Arthurian cycle, the problems it presents — adulterous love, the conflict of loyalties — eventually came to dominate the attention of author and reader alike, and to distract from what had been the main theme of Arthurian romance, the development of the individual towards his proper place in society. In its first literary appearances, the Arthurian court is an ideal setting, non-historical, outside the normal laws of time and space, in which a moral problem can be posed and resolved without the complications of external evils or of chance. The hero's adventures are all related to his problem; they are steps in his movement towards the ideal state of knighthood, social service and fulfilled love. The enemies he meets and overcomes belong to situations which correspond to or contrast with his own, and by defeating them he betters himself. The scope of this pattern is limited. It can only deal with a problem which can be resolved, an excess of some kind that can be counteracted so that the knight achieves a perfectly balanced state. A problem which has no easy solution, a conflict between equally valid responsibilities or feelings, strains the conventions of Arthurian romance. The Tristan story

12

INTRODUCTION

offers such a problem: a conflict between Tristan's loyalty to his uncle and liege, which involves social responsibility, and his love for Isolt. The conflict arises because Tristan's love for bolt is not just an ennobling inspiration, it is also a physical passion that demands fulfilment and destroys prudence. Love, which should guide the knight in the right direction, instead gets in his way. This presents a crucial paradox: without honor in the world a man cannot be a perfect lover, but without love a man is not a complete knight. Why does this paradox exist? Because love between man and woman cannot be a purely spiritual phenomenon; there is always the danger of the physical impulse asserting itself and taking control. Then love, for all its ennobling powers, becomes an anti-social force. The only way out of the dilemma is death, so instead of a moral comedy, we have a romantic tragedy. The element of psychological realism inherent in the Tristan story is an unsettling one for the Arthurian world which does not allow for such a problem, and is therefore not a satisfactory literary vehicle. Chretien himself came to see the limitations of Arthurian conventions and eventually rejected them in favor of the Grail world, a sphere which seems to ignore secular values and problems altogether. But this offers no better a solution than the Tristan story; it too is a denial of life on earth, or at least of the possibility of achieving an ideal in this life which is the goal of Arthurian romances. Both the Grail story and the Tristan story (and its echo in the Lancelot-Guinevere love), are absorbed into the Arthurian cycle in the prose romances where the two tendencies they embody combine to destroy the Arthurian world, literally, as they have already destroyed its literary function as a center of ideal values. The story of Tristan and Isolt originated in Celtic sagas and folklore just as the Arthurian stories did, and like them, it was reshaped and retold in the twelfth century, when the romance genre dominated vernacular literatures. The life-span of Arthurian romance as a serious poetic genre dealing with individual moral problems was not long. After the time of Chretien and Hartmann, the material retained its popularity but the treatment changed. The prose romances are more heavy-handed in their moralizing and, at the same time, reckless in the addition and reduplication of incident; they are at once more didactic and less subtle. And, most important, they are all-encompassing; they bring all the available material into one loosely unified tale. When they set the Tristan story in the Arthurian world, they can no longer avoid the implications of a love that is blatantly physical and adulterous, or keep the effects of such a love distinct, and they must allow it to destroy that world. Arthurian romance, in the form we know it, originated in the late

INTRODUCTION

13

twelfth century as a result, perhaps indirect, of Geoffrey's Historia, which introduced Arthur and Arthurian legend to the learned world. 1 Romance began to develop and historiography to decline, perhaps, as Hanning thinks, because the interest of twelfth-century historians was essentially anti-political. They emphasized human causation, psychological motivation, the conflict between personal desires and national destinies, rather than the unfolding of providence through history towards the salvation of mankind. These interests led fo a genre which treated the individual's personal problem without any concern for the over-all plan, a genre which removed restrictions of time and space, as well as of historic necessity, in order to present a moral problem and resolve it within one individual without the complications of accident or chance, without the action of external forces. Along with the psychological and ahistorical nature of romance, there is another aspect relatively new in medieval literature - the idea of love as a motivation to good action. Again there may be explanations for the occurence of this idea, first in Provengal literature and spreading thence through western Europe, in the social fact of women as patronesses of the arts, custodians of the fief, and so forth. 2 Certainly the Christian doctrine of charity would create an atmosphere receptive to such a concept. Whatever the source, it is a factor in romance. Instead of the destructive nature of woman's love that is emphasized in classical and early Christian writing, we begin to have a force for good, an inspiration to action and virtue without which no hero of romance can function properly. The transition from one kind of love to the other can be seen in the classical romances, of which the Enee offers a good example in the contrast between Dido's destructive love, which holds the hero back from his destiny, and Lavinia's, which contributes to its fulfilment. In Arthurian romance, we are concerned with love only for its effect on the hero. The lady, by withdrawing her love, awakens the knight to his 1 There is little doubt that the material was already known, orally, through Breton minstrels, but something gave it the prestige or the relevance to be taken up by poets like Chretien and given a serious turn, and that something was most likely Geoffrey's work. It may be, as Jackson says (The Literature of the Middle Ages [New York, 1960 J 83), that Geoffrey wished to give the English a figure from their past who could rival the increasingly popular figure of Charlemagne in twelfth century song, or, as Hanning suggests, that Geoffrey had to retreat into the remote past to reconstruct an earlier phase of the rise-and-fall cycle of British history as he conceived it, a phase which other historians had not treated (The Vision of History in Early Britain [New York 1966], chap. V). Perhaps both motives lie behind Geoffrey's interest in Arthur. Jackson, 94 ff. This is not the place to go into the vexed question of the origins of courtly love. For a survey of the theories, see K. Axhausen, Die Theorien über den Ursprung der provenzalischen Lyrik (Marburg, 1937).

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INTRODUCTION

inadequacy or imbalance, and when he has corrected that, she signals his achievement by restoring her favor. It is tantalizing to see in this situation an extension of the love described in the most analytical of the Provensal and German lyrics, in which the woman is the mirror or reflection, the ideal of the man; she awakens his self-awareness and leads him to strive to attain that ideal in himself.3 In the canzon, such attainment is impossible and to consummate the love means to risk loss of the ideal, a shattering of the mirror; in the romance, which is not a 'realistic' genre, the hero can finally attain his ideal. He falls in love or wins the lady towards the beginning of the story ; their union in some way awakens him to consciousness of a defect, or leads to some dissatisfaction with himself, and the union is disturbed while he works out his problem and restores his balance. Then he can return or be reconciled with her, because he has achieved in himself the ideal she represents. This pattern works only so long as the ideal she represents is satisfactory. Once the poet loses his faith in that — and he must, eventually, since it is essentially a limited ideal - or finds himself with an ideal which conflicts with the society in which the hero moves, the romance is no longer capable of easy resolution. Chretien alternates, in his romances, between a serious attempt to reconcile the ideals of courtly love with social responsibility and marriage, as in Erec and Enid, and a satiric presentation of the unrealistic conventions of love-service, as in Cliges. He evades the problem in Yvain, and in Lancelot he seems undecided between the serious and the satiric approach. Certainly he ridicules Lancelot's devotion, but at the same time he makes of him a nobler figure, more humble and self-sacrificing than his other heroes. Chretien was apparently not able to resolve his own feelings about this story so he left the romance to someone else to finish. Finally he turned to a knight with no previous Arthurian connections, who had been brought up in the wilderness, and led him into and then beyond the Arthurian world to a more spiritual world. He seems to have replaced the love-ideal with the Grail quest, which allows for a similar psychological restoration, but presents no secular conflict. The fact that the Grail quest demands some sort of rejection of the Arthurian world points the way to the gradual disintegration of Arthurian romance as a viable form for the treatment of ethical problems. It was the Tristan story, reflected in the Lancelot-Guinevere love, that showed up the basic defect of Arthurian literary and ethical conventions. In it we have a love closer to the lyric type: the woman is the man's creation and his ideal; she is educated, molded by him, and therefore his 3 For a detailed analysis of the lyric concept, see F. Goldin's The Mirror of Narcissus in the Courtly Love Lyric (Ithaca, 1967), on which my ideas about the function of the lady in romance are based.

INTRODUCTION

15

possession spiritually, but she is at the same time not available to him within society. To serve and possess her, to attain his own ideal, he must turn his back on other obligations and commitments. He is, in other words, trapped between two responsibilities, two desires, two ideals, both valid; he cannot solve his dilemma because to serve one he must deny the other. The problem is further complicated by the fact that without the perfection of love he cannot be an ideal knight, and without being a responsible knight, he cannot be the ideal lover. The problem is insoluble, the two demands are incompatible, and thus the conventions of Arthurian romance cannot work. Once one suspects that a man may have more than one ideal, or that his ideals are in conflict, one has to give up the possibility of the happy ending in life. One either chooses death, as in Tristan, or rejects the world, as in the Grail stories, which is a kind of death in its denial of life on earth. 4 And it is inevitable that the two should come together, in the prose romances, and bring about the total destruction of the secular ideal, the Arthurian world. The conflict of ideals seems to be coupled with a sense of the evil inherent in the real world. It is only in the Tristan story, or those modeled on it, that one is faced with evil figures, external enemies: 5 the jealous barons in Beroul, Thomas, and Gottfried; the envious cousin, jealous ladies, and treacherous king in the prose versions. In Chretien, it is only in the Lancelot story that the hero confronts a figure of pure evil, Meleagant. Arthurian romance cannot cope with the problem of conflicting ideals or loyalties, or with the consequences of the passion that underlies romantic love. For Arthurian conventions to operate properly, one must believe that worldly honor can be achieved without damage to one's soul; that honor in the world and morality are not only compatible but inseparable. This is a difficult belief to maintain in the face of reality. Life offers situations in which a man is forced to choose between two loyalties, and that often means he has to betray one in order to preserve the other. There is no comic or simple solution to this problem. The Grail solution denies the lower for the higher, but that is not satisfactory for mankind; Wolfram, in his Parzival, attempts to reconcile the various worlds a knight might be expected to serve. He makes the Grail a life of service to God, but has the Grail king marry and have children to carry on his work, and send his men out to work in the world. Wolfram succeeds in producing a happy ending for his hero without letting him sacrifice the world, but to do so he has to create a Utopian world which, unlike the Arthurian world of Chretien, has no real application to life. It is too perfect, too neatly contrived; and its solution is to make man's goal in life a missionary one, a good solution perhaps, but not universally applicable and therefore no solution to the problem Chretien was dealing with. Normally the hero's opponents in romance, whether knights or giants and dragons, represent obstacles in the hero which he must overcome in order to achieve his proper state. They are not external evil. 4

16

INTRODUCTION

what it does is leave the lesser sphere to degenerate and thus increases the chasm between secular and spiritual life, while the exponents of the higher grow further and further removed from the world - first Perceval, then Galahad, who leaves the world altogether by dying soon after he completes the quest. The Tristan story, which incarnates the problem in its most forceful form, does not offer a solution; it presents the problem as a tragic one, incapable of solution. Insoluble perhaps for the same reason Walter von der Vogelweide suggests in "Ich saz uf eime steine": ere, varndeguot, and Gotes hulde cannot exist together in one heart because untriuwe and gewalt, the evils of the world, get in the way of peace and justice. In the Tristan stories, fate and the treachery of others create the impossible situation for the lovers. The presence of evil in the world around them distinguishes their story from Arthurian romance, as does the ambivalent attitude towards love. Love is not just an inspiration to action but also a sensual force, symbolized by the potion, which, if not controlled, can destroy the lover and those around him. This, too, is a more realistic concept; that romantic love can be an ideal or inspiration, but that it cannot, or can rarely, be limited to that, and once it gives way to passion, it can be a force for evil. The complex view of love, and the acknowledged presence of evil make it impossible to treat the Tristian material within Arthurian conventions. The story had existed apart from them, at first, but the superficial similarities of content, a knight's moral struggle and his love, caused it to be drawn in and, eventually, to destroy the host. In the earliest versions we have of Tristan, the poems of Beroul, Eilhart, Thomas, and Gottfried, Cornwall is not a part of the Arthurian world, but has some contact with it. Arthur appears to give his sanction or the measure by which the love or lovers are judged. He is present at Isolt's ordeal, in Beroul, to give the highest earthly witness to her innocence, which God manifests through the trial. Eilhart, who deplores the effect of the love on his hero, uses Arthur's court only as a refuge for Tristan after he has left Isolt and is attempting to live as a proper hero, actively engaged in adventure. Gawain, Arthur's nephew and all a hero and nephew should be, is Tristan's companion; the two fight together until Mark's court arrives and Tristan cannot refrain from visiting Isolt. He is caught in a trap of scythes laid around Isolt's bed, and is wounded. To protect him from discovery, all of Arthur's knights wound themselves in a trumped-up battle. Thus, instead of the Arthurian world giving its sanction to the love aid acknowledging it as an ideal, the world is momentarily endangered by it. This is Eilhart's point: an allconsuming passion is destructive of a knight's honor and social function, no matter how innocent the object of it.

INTRODUCTION

17

Thomas and Gottfried are interested in a different aspect of the love, not its asocial nature or its power as an inspiration to action, but its ability to raise the hero intellectually and spiritually above other men. Thomas makes him an artist who suffers for love but turns his suffering into art. Gottfried makes him a martyr of love but one who reaches mystic ecstasy through it and willingly accepts the pain for the joy. Neither poet brings Arthur directly into the poem, but both refer to him. Thomas has Tristan fight a giant, Orgillos, whose uncle was conquered by Arthur. By implication, Arthur replaces Mark as Tristan's proper uncle, and Tristan is the heir to Arthur's glory. Like him, Tristan fights evil, monsters of exploitation and violence, Morolt, the dragon, and Urgan. Gottfried refers to Arthur only in the Minnegrotte, where he says that the lovers are so sufficient unto themselves that even Arthur never held a feast which gave greater pleasure (11.16859-65); that is, their love surpasses in joy the celebrations of the finest court on earth. It is significant that Tristan and Isolt achieve this perfect joy in the Minnegrotte which has no physical existence, and they voluntarily relinquish it for the sake of their ere. The love cannot continue in a perfect state without honor, and the adulterous nature of the affair taints their honor. Mark's flowers shield Isolt from the light of honor which shines through the windows of the cave. In the prose romances, all the Arthurian stories and those only indirectly Arthurian, come together in an unwieldy whole. The Grail material is linked with the Tristan story and the two combine to destroy Arthur's court. Tristan and Isolt remain in the realm of Cornwall, a world of evil and treachery, jealousy, weakness and revenge, but their story follows the patterns of Arthurian romance. Tristan goes through the normal routines of fighting in tourneys, going mad for love and so forth. The Arthurian court is still the center of courtly ideals: beautiful ladies and noble knights, justice and love inspiring fine deeds. The two lands are separate but now they exist in the same world and it is no longer possible to keep the realities of Cornwall from affecting the ideals of Logres. The love of Tristan and Isolt is originally good — it even has the conventional sanction of an enforced marriage before Isolt meets Mark — but it cannot withstand the treachery of Mark and his people and, because it is forced to exist in their world, it gives in to excess. That prevents the lovers from attaining perfection on earth. It is a significant change in the prose romances, that many innocent people, caught in the midst of the love intrigues and revenges, are killed. The effects of the passion extend far beyond the individuals involved. The passion which Tristan's love represents eventually destroys him, his land, and Arthur's. Because of his love, Tristan cannot reach the Grail, and he is murdered by Mark. When his friend, Lancelot, hears of his death, he gives

18

INTRODUCTION

himself up entirely to his love. Treachery begins to work its way through Arthur's court, already depleted and demoralized by the unsiiccessful Grail quest, and it collapses finally and for good. The Tavola Ritonda offers the clearest exposition of Tristan's effect on the Arthurian world, but the other prose versions show at least an indirect influence, in the kind of love that begins as an inspiration to good but then gives in to the domination of the senses and prevents the knights from succeeding in their quest. Tristan's actions are to a great extent justified, in the prose material, by Mark's cowardice and t r e a c h e r y . . L a n c e l o t has no such excuse, since Arthur is beyond reproach, morally. But Lancelot is overwhelmed by the same passion, and love begins to work to the detriment of his other loyalties and duties instead of in their service until the ideal world, like the real one, is destroyed. There were certainly other forces which contributed to the destruction of Arthurian romance as a viable genre: the fact, perhaps, that its interest is essentially psychological and moral, and those subjects are more easily treated in allegory; that as audiences became less aristocratic, the material had to sacrifice its subtlety; that as material prosperity increased, the idea that an ethical ideal could be achieved on earth or in secular terms became less tenable as a philosophic or religious position. No matter how many factors contributed to the end of the genre, it is clear that the problems inherent in the Tristan material - the undeniable power of passion in any love and the anti-social consequences of that passion — had an effect on the more idealistic Arthurian concepts of the ennobling power of love as a force for good in the world, and eventually destroyed their literary life within that genre. The earliest literary versions of the story in France and Germany are the poems of Beroul, Thomas, Eilhart, and Gottfried. Though all of them preserve the major elements of the story, the effect of each is quite different. A detailed comparison of these four works and of a fifth, the Tavola Ritonda, which represents the later prose tradition, should lead not only to a better understanding of the works themselves, but also to some sense of medieval narrative techniques. The Tristan material offers us the best example of the medieval ability to use a well-known story for a variety of purposes. Beroul's poem is a story of courtly intrigues and vengeance. His hero is a courtier and lover who is neither heroic as a knight nor tragic as a lover. Eilhart's work is more a heroic epic manque than a romance. His hero is not a lover but a fighter, destroyed by the love which a merciless fate thrusts upon him. Thomas and Gottfried write in a somewhat different tradition in which crudeness and violence are suppressed as much as possible and action gives way to psychological and philosophic analysis.

INTRODUCTION

19

Thomas' hero is less a courtier or tighter than an artist, one who suffers continual pain for love, but turns his suffering into art.6 Gottfried's Tristan is also an artist, but for him love is not just sorrow and pain; it becomes an almost religious experience, and the story is a kind of Eucharist offered to all noble lovers.7 In the later French prose works, and particularly in the Tavola Ritonda, an Italian work in the French tradition, Tristan is a Christian knight with duties to God and to other men as well as to his lady. The love is good, an inspiration to the knight, but excessive devotion to it, to the detriment of other duties, destroys both the lovers and their world. The Tristan material has already given rise to much scholarly activity. Most of it, however, has been devoted to the study of sources, Celtic or classic, and what comparison has been made between extant poems has been done mainly to show influence, precedence, or superiority.8 The only serious attempts to see a particular point of view beyond primitive or courtly attitudes have been made in reference to Gottfried. The present study is an attempt to determine the point of view, the writer's purpose, of each of the main versions by a detailed comparison and analysis of the different treatments. The approach is purely aesthetic. I assume only that each of the works under consideration is, in its extant form, a literary unit, that it is the work of one man who manipulated whatever material from the tradition he chose to use as it suited his purpose in telling the story. I disregard the problems of source and influence, interpolation and omission, and study simply what is in the text we have, and what its function in that text is. Heretofore, scholarship on the interpretation of the various Tristan poems has mainly been limited to the study of a single version. French scholars have contrasted Beroul with Thomas only to say that the one is common, the other courtly, but a close study of the two shows that the distinction is not valid.9 It might be more just to call Beroul courtly, since 6

See W. Möhr, "Tristan and Isolt als Künstlerroman", Euphorion, LII (1959), 153-74. 7 See Gottfried's prologue, 1.233. 8 F. Piquet, in L'originaliti de Gottfried von Strassburg (Lille, 1905) and "Le Probleme Eilhart Gottfried", Rev.Germ.XX, (1929), 119-32, 242-54, and i. Gombert, in Eilhart von Oberge und Gottfried (Amsterdam, 1927), discuss influence and precedence in relation to Gottfried and the later Eilhart redactions. A. Dijksterhuis, in Thomas und Gottfried, ihre konstruktiven Sprachformen (München, 1935), and Η. Stolte, in Eühart und Gottfried (Halle, 1941) offer stylistic analyses leading to qualitative judgments. 9 This is pointed out by P. Jonin in his article "La vengeance chez l'Iseut de Beroul et de Thomas", Neophilologus, XXXIII (1949), 209. J. Frappier ("Structure et sens du Tristan: version commune, version courtoise", CCM, VI (1963), 255-80, 441-54), prefers to retain the older distinction, but he interprets courtoisie in Thomas as fine amor.

20

INTRODUCTION

he is that in a superficial sense and nothing more, while Thomas is intellectual. 10 Study of Gottfried's poem has produced mainly religious and philosophic interpretations drawn from the poem alone, without consideration of its relation to the whole tradition. There has been much discussion but little agreement about the true nature of the work. Does Gottfried conceive of human love as a conflict between flesh and spirit, or as a path to the summum bonum — does he oppose minne to Christian love? 1 1 By comparing Gottfried's treatment of important scenes with other versions, I hope to show that Gottfried sets up a religion of love which borrows its imagery and its basic structure from Christianity and which exists apart from, but not conflicting with Christianity. Relatively little work has been done on the meaning of Eilhart's poem or the works in the French prose tradition. In some cases I have had to choose one of several editions or redactions of a work and here I have relied on scholarly tradition. 1 2 In the case of Beroul, there is a problem of authorship. The poem exists in one manuscript, 2171 of the Fonds frangaisde la Bibliotheque nationale at Paris, apparently of the second half of the thirteenth century. The numerous discrepancies of detail in the text have led some critics to postulate two auhors. 1 3 The editor of our text, Ernest Muret, accepts the dual authorship, but feels that the tone 10

M. Dominica Legge, in Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background (Oxford, 1963), 52, says that Beroul is courtly in external matters, while Thomas, who is not interested in material things, seems more clerkly than courtly. 1 G. Weber, Gottfrieds von Strassburg Tristan und die Krise des hochmittelalterlichen Weltbildes um 1200, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1953), considers it a conflict of flesh and spirit H.B. Willson, "Vicissitudes in Gottfried's Tristan", MLR, LII (1957), 212, and H. Eggers, "Gottfried von Strassburg in neuer Sicht", Euphorien, XLVIII (1954), 480, think that sensual love is essential to Gottfried's concept but that it is not necessarily in conflict with spiritual love. Indeed, Willson draws an analogy between human and divine love. A. Schöne, "Zu Gottfrieds Tristan Prolog", DVj, XXIX (1955), 461, goes so far as to say that the love between man and woman leads to the summum bonum, but J. Schwietering, "Gottfrieds Tristan", GR, XXIX (1954), 17, and H. de Boor, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, 3rd ed. (München, 1957), II, 127-45, think Gottfried's minne is set up in opposition to Christian love. 12 The editions used for the study are: Beroul, Le roman de Tristan, ed. Ernest Muret (Paris, 1957); Eilhart von Oberge, ed. Franz Lichtenstein (= Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach und Kulturgeschichte der Germanischen Völker, XIX) (Strassburg, 1877); Brother Robert, Tristrams Saga ok Isondar, ed. and with German translation by Eugen Kolbing, in Die nordische und die englische Version der Distan-sage (Heilbronn, 1878); Thomas, Les fragments du roman de Tristan, ed. Bertina H. Wind (Leiden, 1950); Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan und Isold, ed. Friedrich Ranke, 4th ed. (Berlin, 1959); La Tavola Ritonda, ed. Filippo-Luigi Polidori (Bologna, 1864). 13 Golther explains the discrepancies by suggesting that the manuscript is the written version of what was essentially oral literature, and he therefore sees no reason to speak of two poets [Tristan und Isolde in der Dichtung des Mittelalters und der neuen Zeit (Leipzig, 1907), 104) . Muret agrees that the poem was not meant primarily to be read. Ewert says no theory of dual authorship can account for all the

INTRODUCTION

21

of both parts is so similar that the seoond poet must have been a disciple of the first, continuing as he had begun. 1 4 It is impossible to resolve the problem, so we shall look at the poem as a whole, assuming that even if it is the work of two men, the second incorporated the work of the first into his own and regarded it as one. The two parts are not clearly distrinct in tone as Gottfried's poem is from those of his continuators. !S In the present study we shall use Beroul mainly to point up traits in the other works, particularly in Eilhart who uses many of the same incidents. Eilhart exists in nine fragments from two twelfth-century manuscripts and in various later reworkings: one from the thirteenth century (X) in three fifteenth-century manuscripts, a fifteenth-century prose version, and a thirteenth-fourteenth century Czech translation. Lichtenstein's edition is based on two of the fifteenth-century manuscripts, the Heidelberg and Dresden. 16 Since X is a complete poem of the thirteenth century and based closely on the earlier work, we shall use that as the Eilhart text. There are eight fragments of Thomas' poem in five thirteenth-century manuscripts, which cover the last part of the poem from Tristran's marriage to the death of the lovers, with a few gaps. The rest of the work

contradictions and inconsistencies in Beroul's narrative and at the same time explain the psychological and epic unity and consistency of the whole ("On the Text of Beroul", in Studies in French Language and Medieval Literature presented to Mildred K. Pope (1939), 89-90). Whitteridge also supports single authorship by challenging the necessity to date the second part of the poem in reference to a disease prevalent on the crusade in 1191 ("On the Dating of Beroul", Med. Aev., XXVIII (1959), 167-71). He dates the whole work 1165-70, when other scholars think the first part was composed. In a recent article, M. Dominica Legge ("Place Names and the Date of Beroul", Med. Aev. XXXVIII (1969), 171-4) supports the early dating of the poem. Muret, vii. 15 Wind, in her edition of Thomas, and Raynaud de Lage, in "Faut-il attribuer ä Beroul tout le Tristan"! ", Moyen Ages, LXIV (1958), 249-70, do make distinctions between the two parts but they remain inconclusive. Varvaro dismisses the problems of authorship with the sensible observation that songs do not collect themselves, that whatever the sources may have been, someone combined them and there is no reason not to consider that redactor as the author of the poem we have (II "Roman de Tristran" diBeroul [Torino: Bottegad'Erasmo, 1963]). 16 There has been some question, raised notably by Knieschek ("Der cechische Tristram und Eilhart von Oberge", Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, No. 101 (1882), 319 ff.) whether the Czech version is not closer to the original than the German redaction, but Gierach, in a detailed study of Eilhart's language [Zur Sprache von Eüharts Tristrant, Lautlehre, Formenlehre, und Wortschatz nach den Reimen, Anhang zur literarischen Stellung Eilharts [f=Prager deut. Stud,. Heft 4) (Prag, 1908)], disputes this view, saying that the Czech follows Eilhart closely at first, but becomes freer as it continues. However, where it is possible to confront X with the extant fragments, it is hard to see an important deviation. Miss Schoepperle (Tristan and Isolde, a Study of the Sources of the Romance, II [New York, 1913 J, 517), feels that X preserves traits of Eilhart which the Czech version has lost.

22

INTRODUCTION

must be reconstructed from the Scandinavian prose translation of Brother Robert, done in 1225, of which there is one manuscript. The translation follows the original fairly closely, as we can see from a comparison of the fragments; although it often paraphrases or simply omits long speeches, particularly the psychological studies and complicated word play, it rarely makes any changes and those usually of little importance. It is certainly more Complete than the English poem, Sir Tristrem, which is not only much abbreviated but differs in atmosphere from Thomas' poem. 1 7 Since Brother Robert does not distort Thomas' ideas, it seems safe to use his work as our Thomas text for the parts of the poem which are missing in French. (Whenever possible, references will be given to the manuscript and line of the Thomas fragment, otherwise to the chapter of Brother Robert's translation.) There is no problem with Gottfried's text. It exists in one manuscript, Heidelberg, which breaks off just before Tristan's marriage. The poem was continued by two writers, Ulrich von Türheim, c. 1230, and Heinrich von Freiberg, c. 1290, who based their continuations on Eilhart. Their work will not be considered here. The French prose tradition is far more complicated. It draws on Arthurian and Grail legends as well as on the poetic tradition of Tristan, and includes wildly diverse elements often only loosely connected to the main story. The chivalric adventures are given more attention than details of the love story. There are forty-eight French manuscripts from the thirteenth century on and nine early printings, but none that can be taken as complete in itself, though Löseth has attempted to give a composite version of the story, based on what he considers the best manuscripts. 18 I have passed over the French versions and chosen instead the Italian Tavola Ritonda, which is based directly on the French prose tradition, but is clearly the work of one man who attempts to pull the various material into a consistent whole and, as we shall see, succeeds to a surprising degree. The manuscripts are of the fourteenth century (Medici-Laurenziano) and fifteenth century (Codice senese), and the work was apparently written in the early fourteenth century. 19 There are several other Italian versions of 17

See Piquet, ll-35,and J. Bedier,Leroman de Thomas (Paris, 1905), chap.vii. E. Löseth, Le roman en prose de Tristan, le roman de Palamede et la compilation de Rusticien de Pise, analyse critique d'apres les MSS de Paris (Paris: Bibl. de l'ecole des Hautes Etudes, 1890). 19 There is some question about the date. E.G. Gardiner, in "The Holy Grail in Italian Literature", MLR, XX (1925), 443-53, dates the extant text in the early fourteenth century, as does Felice Arese, Prose di romanzi, U romanzo cortese in Italia nei secoli XIII e XIV (Torino, 1950), 24. The editor, Polidori, dates it in the thirteenth century, but the reminiscences of Dante in the text suggest that the work as we have it must be from the fourteenth. 18

INTRODUCTION

23

the Tristan legend, some prose (the Tristano Riccardiano, the Codice Ponciatichiano), and episodic poems, but none so complete as the Tavola Ritonda. This study of the five versions of the Tristan story will be carried out in two parts. First, a comparison of the central episodes, noting which details each author uses or omits, in what order they occur, and what function they seem to have in his work. This involves a certain amount of retelling the story, but since neither Eilhart nor the Tavola is available in English, and only fragments of Thomas, it seems necessary. To avoid overbalancing this section, however, the discussion will be limited to significant episodes and details; other points that may be of interest will be found in an appendix along with a list of all the episodes in their proper order in each version. The second part of the study will deal with the differences as part of a structural whole, by comparing the over-all structure of each version, the treatment of characters, the major themes, and the differences in style. Finally, the results of the various comparisons will be brought together in the hope of establishing a coherent interpretation for each work. Since the names of characters vary among the texts, they will vary in this study as well. I shall adopt whatever name is used in a specific text when speaking of that work; when speaking of the material in general, I shall use the accepted English forms. A list of the characters and the variations in their names will also be found at the end of the work. I shall refer to Thomas throughout, although, until the episode of Tristan's marriage, the text used will be the Scandinavian translation.

1.

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

The major incidents of the Tristan story (Morolt, the wound cure, the bride quest, the potion, the scenes of discovery, and the exile), were too well established to be tampered with to any great extent, and yet within the confines of the known story, an amazing amount of variety in attitude and significance was produced. These are the episodes we will concentrate on here. A discussion of the others will be found in Appendix III. We are given an indication of the different directions the story will take in the prologue to each version. Eilhart will tell of a great hero undone by passion; the Tavola Ritonda, of a love affair which destroys a whole society; Thomas will describe a tragic love;1 and Gottfried, an ideal love from which all noble lovers may draw nourishment. Eilhart is concerned only with Tristrant's story: how he was born and died, the wonders he accomplished, his cleverness and worldly achievements. The love is important only inasmuch as it causes his death. Gottfried is interested in the love itself. The story of Tristan and Isolt provides him with the ideal means by which he can illustrate his view of love. The joy-in-sorrow and sorrow-in-joy of love can best be seen in their story ; by their death-in-life and life-in-death, living lovers can be sustained (11.60-3 and 233-236). The story is directed at a select audience, those who are capable of understanding the refinements of emotion Gottfried describes, who may be strengthened in their own love by it, as the Christian is strengthened by the bread and the life-in-death of Christ. The Tavola promises a more limited view of love, but a wider range of subject matter, the story of Tristano within the context of the Round Table and the Grail quest. Before we come to Tristan's story, we are told about the meeting of his parents. This pre-story is used to set the hero in a certain world or emotional heritage before he is born; his life will be determined by the tendencies he inherits or the given characteristics of this world. Thomas 1 We have no way of knowing what Thomas said in his prologue; it is possible, probable even, that he mentioned many of the themes he developed within the poem, but this is only conjecture. Brother Robert simply says he will tell the story of Tristran and queen Ysolt and their boundless love.

26

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

and Gottfried describe the parents' love, in its conflicts and suffering, as a prefiguration of Tristan's. Eilhart and the Tavola are concerned only to establish Tristan's relation to Mark and the feudal or chivalric world. Tristan comes into the world with a legacy of sorrow. His birth is invariably connected with his mother's death and sometimes with his father's too. He is conceived, in all versions but the Tavola, before his parents leave Cornwall. Cornwall is really his home; his fate lies there and he will be drawn back to it early in his life. Tristan's education, like his birth, prepares him for his fate. Eilhart gives him a hero's training, Thomas and Gottfried, an intellectual's, while the Tavola ignores formal education in favor of varied social relations. Tristan's arrival in Cornwall marks his transition from childhood to adulthood and the beginning of his relationship with Mark. Whether he goes there intentionally, or is carried there by chance, depends on the author's emphasis. Eilhart has Tristrant go to his uncle's land in order to prove himself as a knight; in the Tavola, he goes to escape the attentions of a lady. But Thomas and Gottfried let fate, in the guise of a kidnapping, carry him there, using the episode to show the instinctive feeling that grows between Mark and Tristan before their kinship is uncovered. [For a fuller discussion of these episodes, see Appendix C]

MOROLT

Tristan's first major feat of arms, the fight with Morolt, occurs at Marke's court. It is the first instance in which Tristan acts entirely in his own person, as Tristan, so the baring of his identity is an important prologue to the episode. In Thomas and Gottfried, it is a double revelation, to Marke and to Tristan himself, and the assumption of his proper identity necessitates the revenge of his father and the recovery of his land, before he can take on Morolt for his uncle. In Eilhart and the Tavola, where Tristan knows who he is and who his father is, the revenge motif enters the story at a later point, if one can properly speak of revenge at all.2 The episode in Thomas is characterized by formality in the reception of Tristran's foster-father, who reveals the boy's identity to his uncle, and in the resultant knighting of Tristran, in contrast with the violence of Tristran's confrontation with his father's enemy, Morgan. This contrast between violence and courtesy occurs often in Thomas, particularly when 2 In Eilhart, Tristran's father dies towards the end of the poem, and Tristrant must go home to settle the civil war which has broken out as a result (11.8139 ff.). In the Tavola, Tristano's ship is blown to Leonis on his way home after Isotta has cured him, and he takes the opportunity to fight his father's enemies.

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

27 the subject matter shifts from love to politics as in the courtship of Kanelangres and Blanscheflur; it emphasizes the distance between ideals and reality. Gottfried gives more attention to human relations and less to formal details. What he describes is treated allegorically: the clothes for the knighting ceremony are described in terms of the virtues which sew them; the ceremony itself is replaced by the celebrated literary excursus. This long digression, coming in the midst of an important ceremony and quite overshadowing it, makes clear Gottfried's preference of the artist over the fighter, of the knight as a sensitive being and thinker, as Jackson points out. 3 The ceremony of knighting is not described by Thomas beyond Marke's hitting Tristran with his sword and telling him always to return blow for blow, never to accept payment or any other substitute. Gottfried emphasizes the social obligations of knighthood, Tristan's duties as a Christian knight, to protect the poor, to honor ladies and, particularly, to be humble and true, not to return a blow for a blow. In the Tavola, Tristano is knighted in order to fight Amoroldo. The emphasis is on the responsibilities of knighthood, and there are religious overtones as well. Tristano spends the night in church, praying for grace to bear his knighthood with justice, loyalty, and braveiy. Then he is bathed by Marco in the great square, a kind of temporal baptism, a ritual purification before he can be received into the company of knights. Though the devotion to God and the connection of Christian virtues with chivalry is also found in Gottfried, the emphasis is slightly different: Gottfried speaks mainly of loyalty and generosity, the Tavola of justice, because the Tavola is more concerned with Tristano's relation to his world, Gottfried with his inner development. Gottfried lays particular stress on the father-son relation in this passage and again in connection with the Morolt combat. He presents it as a problem of loyalty which Tristan has to face even before he meets Isolt. To prove Tristan's identity to Marke, Rual shows him a ring which Marke had given his sister, Tristan's mother. This occurs in Thomas, too, but 3 "Tristan the Artist in Gottfried's Poem",PMLA, LXXVII (1962), 365. Gottfried is more concerned with the literature of knighthood than with the practice of it, and most of all with the lyric and music of knightly love. It is possible, as Ranke suggests (Allegorie der Minnegrotte in Gottfrieds Tristan (Berlin, 1925), 36-7), that Gottfried is not satisfied with Minnesang love, which stops short of fulfilment, though he acknowledges the sentimental power of the songs for lovers. His own lovers, when they sing in the Minnegrotte, pass over modern lyrics and sing lays of ancient lovers. Gottfried makes a specific connection between classical literature and love by assigning the goddess of love to the same mountain as the muses and Apollo (11.4807-10). Love, for Gottfried, is both tragic, as in classical literature, and ennobling, as in the Minnesang, but it also has a significance beyond either.

28

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

Gottfried adds a detail: the ring had come to Marke from his father when he died, so the sight of it awakens filial sorrow in him as well as in Tristan. This changes the emphasis from simple affection for a sister to a strong family tie. When Tristan hears the story of his birth, he weeps both for the loss of the man he believed to be his father and for the sorrow of the man he learns was his father; and Rual consoles him with the thought that he still has two fathers, Marke and himself. Finding himself now with several fathers, Tristan attempts to preserve his loyalty to each, which leads only to suffering for himself and for them. In all versions, Tristan's encounter with Morolt, Isolt's uncle, provides the first link with the love story and marks Tristan's emergence as a hero, but the episode has a very different significance for each author. Eilhart treats it as the glorious proving ground of a young hero, Thomas mainly as a political combat between the representatives of two peoples; Gottfried turns it into a symbolic battle between good and evil, and the Tavola describes it as the clash of justice and force. Eilhart's Morolt fights for his own glory and advantage, and Tristrant opposes him for roughly the same reasons. In this passage and henceforth, Tristrant is referred to as "der küne degin", "der helt güte", "der edele here", emphasizing his new status as a hero. As the battle progresses, Tristrant becomes more and more the powerful warrior and Morolt the victim. When Morolt is thrown from his horse, he fights like a "wild boar", a phrase which underlines the turn the battle is taking, as Tristrant becomes the hunter and Mörolt the prey. Tristrant's emergence as a hero is undoubtedly the main feature of the episode, but Marke's affection for him is also strongly emphasized. Marke discovers that "sin vrunt, her Tristrant" is his nephew at the same time that he learns Tristrant is the champion who has offered to fight Mörolt. There is a tense exchange between them as Marke tries to dissuade Tristrant from the battle, and Tristrant refuses. Marke's affection gives way before Tristrant's obstinacy, but the positions will be reversed in a later scene when Marke refuses to allow Tristrant to return to court after the exile. There Tristrant's remorse fails to overcome Marke's obstinacy. Thomas treats the battle more as a political problem than a proving ground of personal valor. Tristran bases his challenge to Morolt on the assertion that the Irish claim is founded on force and that force is not justice, but he agrees to meet the Irish demand on its own terms, with force. The contrast between justice and force is carried out in the physical descriptions of the two men: Morolt is huge and fierce, with a loud voice; Tristran is brave and handsome. The outcome of the battle is a defeat for pure physical supremacy, which depends wholly on itself instead of placing its confidence in God as the weaker Tristran does.

COMPARISON OF EPISODES 29 Gottfried shifts the area of conflict from politics to ethics and, as usual, makes more of the personal relations involved. Though he gives the Irish claim the sanction of Rome, he makes the battle one of good against evil, of God's warrior against pride and the devil. But Tristan is not only God's champion, he is Marke's geselle, and as in Eilhart, Marke's suffering for him is acute, as no woman ever suffered for a man (11.6522-5). There are overtones of an affection that is not altogether paternal throughout this scene, as there had been when Tristan first came to Cornwall. Tristan's dual role as Marke's friend and God's warrior is reflected in the mixture of religious and love imagery used to describe his armor. 4 The sword does not wander but goes straight to its goal (11.6583-6): Tristan's righteousness as God's agent; the helmet is crystal: perhaps the helmet of salvation but with a dart on top, "der minnen wisaginne" (11.6588-95); the shield is so polished it is like a mirror, suggesting perfection, but with the figure of a boar, passion, 5 in black sable (11.6611-16). Light is a dominant feature of the description, suggesting perfection and divinity. The horse, also a symbol of passion, is perfect in every way, covered with a white cloth 6 "lieht und luter alse der tac" (1.6678). Thus Tristan appears as the perfect knight, fashioned and equipped by God and love.

In the battle, God and justice support him against arrogant force. Morolt's significance is revealed in the course of the battle. Whereas both Eilhart and Thomas say a good deal about Morolt before the fight, Gottfried does not. Here, the more he fights with Tristan, who represents God and right, the worse he becomes, while in other versions his role was to be as fearsome as possible beforehand. He meets Tristan's charge "als den der tiuvel vüeret" (1.6852). He is called "der veige valandes man" (1.6906), as he almost deprives Tristan of his power and sense. Against this devilish man, with the strength of four, Tristan has God, right, and his own willing spirit, giving him a comparable force of four. 7 The battle is so A

The various pieces of armor which Gottfried mentions occur often in the bible with allegorical meaning. Gottfried connects the helmet with love, but the emphasis on God in the episode makes it plausible that biblical connotations were in his mind too. The most recurrent n^eanings are the sword as God's vengeance, power or judgment; the helmet of salvation; the shield as God, His truth, faith, and salvation. 5 J. Loth, in "Le bouclier de Tristan", Rev. celt. XXXII (1911), 296-8, points out that the boar is a common Celtic emblem but throughout Gottfried and Thomas, it is the symbol of Tristan the lover, as in Maijodo's dream. The Word of God, Rev. 19, rides on a white horse and his armies on white horses clothed in fine linen, white and clean. When Tristan sits on this horse, he seems to be one with the animal (11.6709-11). 7 There may be an analogy with Pseudo-Jerome's Commentary on Matthew 9:13 (Migne, P.L., 30, 551 D); four were responsible for the destruction of the world, a man, a woman, a tree, and a serpent, and four restored it, Christ, Mary, the cross, and Joseph. This would be particularly interesting in light of Gottfried's references to the fall durulg the scene in the orchard (U. 17948-9, 18162-3). B.L. Spahr ("Tristan versus

30

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

fierce that "got selbe möhtez gerne sehen" (1.6865); it ends with Tristan cutting off Morolt's head and hand and attributing the victory to God, through whom "disiu hohvart diust gelegen" (1.7080). It would be hard not to see in this a battle between good and evil, God and the devil, humility and pride, particularly since Morolt's appearance and Tristan's final words over his victim recall the battle between Superbia and Mens Humilis in the Psychomachia (for more detailed discussion of connections with the Psychomachia, see below, p. 91 ff.). The father-son relation which wfe noted in the previous scene is important here too, and may also have theological connotations. 8 It is the fathers of the intended victims (not the mothers, as in Thomas) whom Tristan sees weeping, and he scorns them for failing in their paternal duty. Fathers are one with their children, he says, and should be ready to die for them. It is interesting, in light of this remark, that Tristan, the 'son', fights for Marke. One wonders if we are meant to equate the anxious Marke, who suffers for Tristan's danger, but does not take on the fight himself, with the weeping fathers Tristan berates. If so, it is the first sign of a weakness in Marke which we will see later, in his acceptance of the bride-quest despite his promise never to marry, and in his inability to distinguish between Isolt and Brangene; each instance is a subtle indication of his share in the responsibility for the final tragedy. In the Tavola Ritonda, as in Gottfried, Tristano fights for justice over force. In his challenge to Amoroldo, Tristano says that Cornwall refuses to observe the ancient laws of the emperors who ruled by force; instead they Morolt: Allegory Against Reality? ", in Helen Adolf Festschrift, eds. Buehne, Hodge, Pinto [New York,1968], 72-85) discusses the importance of the number four as a "structural Leitmotiv" in the allegorical battle between justice and injustice, God and tile devil. The emphasis on this relationship may be inspired by the God-the-father, God-theson relation, two persons in one being. U. Stökle, in Die theologischen Ausdrücke und Wendungen in Tristan Gottfrieds von Strassburg (Ulm, 1915), 18-19, suggests an influence of the Adoptionismus heresy on this passage. The heresy arose from the problem of Christ's nature, whether God or man. In the most extreme form it held Christ to be a man whom God took in the place of a son. Abelard was involved in a twelfth century renewal of the question. Abelard attempted to see a natural feeling for trinity in the Hebrew and Gentile God of power, wisdom, and love. The divine being, for him, is known to man through individual consciousness and conviction. Man himself is not guilty by heredity but is prone to evil. The clue to sin lies in personal intention not in the guilty nature of man. This last point can certainly be made for Gottfried in contrast to Thomas. The individual perception of God is like the lovers' perception of Minne in the grotto and certainly the three qualities of the natural trinity are the three qualities of Tristan. It is tempting to suppose that just as Gottfried was influenced by the Abelard-Heloise love story, he may have here been influenced by Abelard's theology. We might note that Parzival expounds the same father-son idea in a scene with Fairefis, so the problem may simply be one of which men were conscious at the time.

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

31

follow the laws of God, who rules by reason and justice. This opposition of an old to a new mores, of force to courtesy and love, occurred earlier in the Tavola, in the battle between Arturo and Meliadus. There superior strength bowed to courtesy and love; here force is overcome by justice, but this must be accomplished through battle, not mediation, an indication of a degeneration which occurs slowly through the Tavola. Force, as it is represented by Amoroldo, is manifestly evil, cowardly, and treacherous. Amoroldo sends Tristano a sword which he hopes will prove too heavy for him and hinder him in battle; later, when he recalls a prophecy that Tristano will destroy him, he tries to bribe him to call off the battle; and finally, when Tristano has defeated him but spared his life, Amoroldo shoots him from his boat with a poison arrow.9 The wounding is another instance of the error of treating the evil with courtesy, a mistake Tristano has made with his step-mother and will make again with Marco. The arrows, apparently kept in the boat as a last resort, also have a symbolic force as the instrument of love, since the wound they cause will bring Tristano and Isotta together.

THE WOUND CURE

The battle leaves Tristan with an apparently incurable poison wound. The infection that spreads through his body and isolates him from his fellows prefigures the love potion which will take control of his body in a later passage and cut him off entirely from society. Since Tristan and Isolt meet for the first time in this episode, in all versions but Eilhart, and establish obligations to each other, we might well say that in place of the physical infection which Isolt cures, she leaves an emotional one which will cause his death. This adds irony to the situation: Tristan sails away fatally poisoned and returns cured, a kind of death and rebirth, but he now carries the germs of his real death. Eilhart uses the death-rebirth theme without the overtones of love. Tristrant asks to be put to sea alone in a small ship, apparently to die rather than infect his friends (11.1098-9). He has himself placed in the boat with nothing but his harp and his sword, a sea burial. He seems to regard himself as a kind of sacrifice: he has fought for the land, taking on their battle as his own, but his victory did not release him and he now bears his

A

This is peculiar to the Italian version. In the French, Tristan is wounded by a poison lance during the fight.

32

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

responsibility in the form of this pollution which he must die to lose. Tristrant still operates through this episode as a hero in a male world. Though Isalde cures him, at her father's request, by sending plasters to him, she does not visit the wounded stranger. Tristrant repays the king's kindness by procuring food and saving his land from famine. In a way, this episode complements the previous one: an example of prowess, the defeat of Mörolt, followed by one of wisdom and cleverness. In Thomas there is a stronger emphasis on death and sorrow as well as the suggestion of a new relation with Ysolt. Tristran's pain is such that he wishes to die and asks to be placed in a ship and abandoned to God's will (chap. XXX). This death-wish occurs often in Thomas, quite unlike the heroic resignation in Eilhart or the active desire to be cured which Gottfried's hero shows. Ysolt and her mother, on the other hand, begin to take control of the action. It is the young Ysolt who hears of Tristran's beauty and talent and asks her parents to have him brought to the palace so she may see him. She is clever and wishes to be taught to harp and to read and write; the inference is that she has not yet been educated, which gives Tristran the opportunity to form her. Tristran's love is in many ways his artistic creation. He will achieve the highest moments of love not with Ysolt but with her statue, formed by him to represent her as he wishes her to be, unchanging and completely his. For Gottfried, the episode of her cure is of major importance, for it is here that the love begins to develop. Characteristically, he does not have Tristan driven to Ireland by wind or chance, but has him go there directly to be cured by Morolt's sister, consciously risking the dangers involved. Tristan first came to Cornwall by chance, in search of something, perhaps his own identity and purpose; by the time he comes to Ireland, he has assumed his position in the world and is ready for a new kind of relationship. The people he meets in each case reflect his condition. In Cornwall, they were traders, pilgrims, and hunters, men who travel in quest of something; in Ireland, they are burghers, a doctor and a priest, set in society and dealing with people rather than objects or abstractions. Tristan is brought to the queen's attention by her chaplain, a man well versed in music and languages and dedicated to courtliness. Just as the pilgrims directed Tristan towards Tintajol and Marke, it is a man of God who leads him to Isolt. Tristan's experience in Ireland will prepare him for a higher spiritual and intellectual experience than he has yet known. This is underlined by the higher level of the people he meets and the skill which introduces him, his harp playing. His music cannot be "rehte spil" because it is "ane herze und ane muot" (1.7536); there is something missing in Tristan, just as when he returned from the island combat "ane ros und ane sper" (1.7233), he was

33 not a whole knight. Love must supply what the knight and artist lack. 10 The first time the young Isolt hears Tristan play, she is described as love's seal, by which Tristan's heart will some day be locked. This suggests that the love between them begins here, even if it is not conscious until they drink the potion. Certainly the addition of moraliteit to Isolt's education lends weight to this view. Moraliteit, like music, is a refinement of spirit which pleases man and God and which is the life and nourishment, the nurse of the edelen herzen; without it there can be neither good nor honor. Gottfried does not make a direct connection with love, but he uses the metaphor of the nurse, who served as an intermediary in the love of Tristan's parents, and perhaps moraliteit serves the same function for noble lovers. Like music, it refines their spirits so they can love. Tristan's education of Isolt, preparing her for the special kind of love Gottfried expounds, suggests the story of Abelard and Heloise, the tutor who formed his pupil's spirit so that love was inevitable. The analogy undoubtedly occurred to Gottfried's readers 11 and the fate of the historic lovers adds to the feeling of impending tragedy in the poem. COMPARISON OF EPISODES

In the Tavola, there is no question about the function of the episode; it is to establish the love of Tristano and Isotta before there is any possibility of conflict of loyalties with Marco. But before they meet, the wound reveals a weakness in Tristano which will make him vulnerable to the destructive aspect of love. He cannot stand the pain of his wound and can barely be restrained from suicide. His suffering is altogether physical and the desire for death so explicit as to be translated into attempted action. The Tavola Ritonda deals with a struggle between love and force in which love wins, but destroys itself because of a lack of control and direction. Tristano is the highest representative of love and courtliness and refinement, and he consistently defeats force as he defeated Amoroldo, but he cannot in the end control his physical desire for Isotta. After Isotta cures him, Tristano does not educate her, but he does fight in her service, an action more in keeping with the Arthurian atmosphere of the Tavola. The tourney in which he defeats his rival for her love, has allegorical overtones; though its theme is love, the imagery is curiously religious. On the feast of the Annunciation, Tristano encounters his future rival in love, Palamides lo pagano, clothed in black. Palamides falls in love 10

Nonetheless it is significant that everyone Tristan encounters is impressed by his music. The messengers who And him in the boat are almost transfixed by the sound which seems heavenly to them (11.7645-6); the burghers are moved with compassion for his suffering and take steps to have him cared for (11.7677-8); the chaplain is moved and impressed with a real sense of his talent and a feeling of awe at the "wundir" (1.7728 ff.); though the queen promises to cure him before she hears him play, she too is completely won over by the music (11.7828-32). 1 Jackson, The Literature of the Middle Ages, 147.

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with Isotta, which in turn awakens Tristano's feelings for her. This is not an unusual way for love to arise, but the religious imagery suggests something more. The tourney occurs on Easter; Palamides, a pagan, fights in black arms; Tristano, in white, the color of faith, is called a "cavaliere celestiale", sent by God. Perhaps Tristano here represents Christ and Palamides the devil, fighting for the human soul, Isotta. Her beauty attracted the devil, alarming Christ who came to defend her. If the Annunciation suggested the birth of Tristano the lover, the feast of the Resurrection may be his first appearance in that role. Most probably we are to think of Tristano as both lover and Christian knight, roles which ideally enhance each other. Brandina plays a small but significant part in this episode, appearing earlier than she does in other versions. She perceives that Tristano and Palamides have fallen in love with Isotta and makes Isotta aware of their love; then she arms Tristano to fight his pagan rival, as if she were Isotta's moral consciousness, awakening her to the good and evil battling to possess her, and giving her support to the good.

THE BRIDE QUEST

The bride quest leads to the central conflict and paradox. Tristan alone can win Isolt, and therefore he alone has a right to her love, but he does not win her for himself. From this point on, he will be caught between loyalty to Marke and love for Isolt, because of the marriage for which he alone is responsible. Tristan is now caught in a trap from which there is no real escape. He cannot avoid the quest without sacrificing his honor, and he cannot succeed in the quest without involving himself in a situation that will destroy his honor completely. The quest has three parts: the barons' demand that Marke marry, Tristan's feat of arms to win the bride, and his proposal of marriage in Marke's name. Each step is dangerous to Tristan in some way, but his success is to be the most dangerous of all. After Tristan's return to Cornwall, as an unconquered and apparently invulnerable hero, his popularity is touched with envy which finds expression in the proposal of the bride quest. That much is true of all versions, but the envy varies from jealousy of rank to fear of power or rivalry in love. In Eilhart, the king's relatives are jealous of Tristrant's claims to the throne and suspect him of pressing his own advantage. Marke's attempts to outwit them by what he considers an impossible stipulation — that he will marry only the woman whose golden hair two swallows have dropped in his hall — are thwarted by Tristrant, who insists on undertaking the quest, choosing rather to vindicate his honor and Marke's, as in the Mörolt

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35

episode, than to indulge Marke's affection for him. The whole episode is introduced simply as though it were to be another wundir, since Tristrant is totally unaware of any connection between himself and the woman in question, but Eilhart does not approve of this feat: ez was eine gröze kintheit daz he so michel erbeit bestunt umme den wint (11.1473-5). Although Tristrant acts as a hero on this quest, he is about to assume a new role, that of lover, which will conflict with his life as hero henceforth. He assumes the name of Tantris, as though in anticipation of this reversal, emphasizing the point that love turns his values upside-down. The story he tells the Irish (11.1546-85) is also a reversal of the truth. He says he has come to bring something (food for the famine), although he has really come to take something away (the princess). He promises food from England, but he has already sent food from England; he says he and his men intended to come without knowing of the ban, but they actually avoided coming because of it. There is some similarity between Tristrant's bride quest and his father's in that both come ostensibly to serve, but each ends by carrying off a bride. In Thomas, the feeling against Tristran at Marke's court is more widespread and less tangible. All those who neglected him when he was sick fear the vengeance he will take when he comes to power, particularly since his success in Ireland makes them suspect magical powers (chap. XXXII). Each detail of the quest, in Thomas, grows out of a preceding event: it is Tristran's successful stay in Ireland that gives the barons the excuse to call him a magician and to propose him as the perfect envoy, and it is his education of Ysolt that makes her the perfect bride for Marke. In Gottfried, Tristan is more active in his own destiny. He threatens to leave Cornwall if Marke does not permit him to go on the quest. Knowing that this quest will complicate their lives, Marke disclaims all responsibility for what happens: "swaz so nu hier uz geschiht / da bin ich gar unschuldic an" (11.8438-39). But Marke must share some of the responsibility with Tristan. Though Tristan may be wrong to insist on going, out of a combination of pride and fear, Marke is also at fault in going back on the promise he made never to marry, when he declared Tristan his heir. Beyond all this, there is a suggestion that Tristan must go back for Isolt, that he is drawn back. We are told how his life has been affected by her: der wol gemuote Tristan der greif do wider an sin leben, im was ein ander leben gegeben; er was ein niuborner man (11.83 ΚΉ3).

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The use of the word gemuote, Isolt's effect on Tristan, following hard on the description of her effect on her father's court, "si haeten alle muot da van" (1.8309), and the reference to Tristan's new life, implies that Isolt now exerts a power over him. In the Tavola Ritonda, Marco's jealousy alone prompts him to send Tristano on the quest. When Tristano returns from the wound cure, he has an affair with a lovely Jewess whom his uncle has been unsuccessfully courting (chap. XXV). A series of misunderstandings and incognito combats leads Marco to fear Tristano's vengeance; petty and cowardly himself, he attributes envy and vindictiveness to everyone else. He, not his barons, suspects Tristano of wanting his crown and, worse, he knows he could take it if he tried. So he sends Tristano for Isotta, hoping he will be killed in the attempt. As usual, Marco appears to disadvantage in this episode, and his treachery in taking advantage of Tristano's good will almost justifies Tristano's future betrayal of him. Tristan accomplishes the first part of the quest through a feat of arms. For Eilhart, the battle is simply another heroic action to which fate directs the hero. Though he tries to avoid Ireland, which should mean certain death for him, a storm drives him there. He hears of the dragon by chance and goes to fight it without knowing that the princess he will win is the bride he seeks for Marke. The battle is straightforward and sure from the outset. Thomas gives a special significance to the dragon-fight — it foreshadows the destructive elements of the passion which will result from this quest. He emphasizes particularly the location of Tristran's blows: the throat, the heart, and the belly, which together suggest bestiality and the coarser appetites. The dragon spouts poison as well as fire and when Tristran places the dragon's tongue inside his hose, an erotic reference, he grows hot and weak, and turns black and swollen. Love had had that effect on his mother, who compared it to a poison that spread through her body (chap. VI); she died as a result of it, as her son will. The importance of the battle for Gottfried lies in its allegorical overtones and in the satire which follows. Like all of Tristan's opponents, the dragon is connected with the devil: he spouts smoke, flames, and wind like the devil's child (11.8971-72), emits horrible sounds and inhabits the valley of Anferginan, whose name suggests Hell. Like Morolt, this opponent of Tristan recalls one in the Psychomachia, Lust, who appears girt with firebrands, spouting pitch, sulfur, and smoke. 12 Tristan will suffer because of lust, as he is poisoned by the tongue, but he will conquer it and his love for Isolt will ultimately be of a different kind. The dragon-killing is immediately followed by a mock battle, carried on 12

For a fuller discussion of the analogy, see below p. 91 ff.

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37

by the Irish steward. This character appears in Eilhart and Thomas, where he similarly attempts to take advantage of the situation, but there he is merely a foil for the noble hero, to show up Tristan's courage and honor. Gottfried expands the scene and fully develops the comic possibilities in a kind of parody of love-service, as if to remind us that Tristan is not the sort of hero who wins a bride merely by killing a dragon. There is no dragon at all in the Tavola Ritonda. Tristano wins Isotta in a tourney, fought in defense of Isotta's father who has been falsely accused of killing a knight. The change from a battle to save a land from an evil force (the dragon) to one for personal justice is consistent with the Tavola's preoccupation with ethical questions. Tristano's victory, which is announced to Arturo's court by letter, wins him a place in the book of the Round Table. 13 Defeating the dragon or the other knight is only half the quest. Tristan must still make his proposal in Marke's name and turn his enemies into friends. The matter is complicated in all versions but the Tavola by the fact that the Irish do not know who Tristan is when he kills the dragon. In each case, it is the steward's ill-received claims which lead to a search for Tristan, the cure of his wound, and eventually to recognition and reconciliation. In Eilhart, Isalde discovers that Tristrant is the man who killed her uncle, but she does not attack him, because revenge is a man's concern. In fact, she defends him, sacrificing the desire for revenge to avoid the dishonor of marrying the steward. In both Eilhart and Thomas, she supports Tristan because he can save her from the steward, but in Thomas it is her personal aversion to the steward, an emotional reaction, which makes her act, not the abstract considerations of honor and justice. Ysolt's feelings guide the action throughout the episode in Thomas. Just as she had had her parents send for Tristran on his first trip to Ireland, so she persuades her mother to look for him now (chap. XXXVII), and when she finds the sword that identifies him, she rushes in to kill him. The violence of her reaction is characteristic of the women in Thomas. She is only prevented from striking the defenceless hero by a more violent feeling, her hatred of the steward which overrides her anger at Tristran. Gottfried softens Isolt's anger considerably and shifts the whole emphasis from revenge and hatred to a conflict of affections and duties. He also gives the initiative to the queen or to Brangaene, leaving Isolt only to make the crucial discovery of Tristan's body and of his identity, first as Tantris the minstrel, and then as Tristan the enemy of Ireland. The queen initiates the search and Brangaene points out the advantage of sparing 13 This is again peculiar to the Italian. In the French, Tristan is elected to the Round Table much later, just before the Grail quest begins, after his series of adventures in the Arthurian world.

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Tristan. Gottfried makes much of this trio — the dawn, the sun, and the moon 1 4 — particularly in the long scene which follows the identification of Tristan. There, Gottfried shows three levels of motivation in the three women: the sensitive, emotional of Isolt, proceeding from her femininity; the ethical of her mother, for honor; and the practical of Brangaene for worldly advantage. Unlike other versions, where the betrothal is passed over quickly, Gottfried turns it into the climax, of the episode. The order of procession and the clothes of Tristan and Isolt are described in detail. Though Gottfried does not explain it allegorically, as he does the knighting ceremony and the Minnegrotte, it is difficult to avoid some inferences. We are given the longest description of Isolt in the poem (11.10888 ff.), as she is led into the assembly by her mother, the sun by the dawn. She wears mainly white, black, grey, purple, normally ecclesiastic colors; her jewels are drawn from Revelations 21.15 She herself is formed as love's bird: "als

14 The dawn and sun for mother and child are probably drawn from theological literature, as Stökle shows, p. 42, where they represent Mary and Christ. Jackson, in ' T h e Role of Brangaene in Gottfried's Tristan", GR, XXVIII (1953), 291, suggests that Brangaene is like the moon because she is cold and calculating, and Isolt, impetuous, passionate, is like the sun. Certainly the sun can represent passion in Gottfried, as in the forest (11.17583 ff.), and in the orchard (11.18126-134), but it can also be joy-giving, (11.11006 and 255). The moon, in religious terms, may be the church which takes its light from the divinity Christ, in other words the worldly organ of the Godhead, just as Brangaene is the worldly agent of Isolt. The jewels she wears are the emerald, jacinth, sapphire, and chalcedony. The emerald is green and symbolizes faith and the faithful: "non habent duplex cor, nec duplicem voluntatem nec duobus serviunt dominis sed semper unam bonam intentionem ad Dominum" (Migne, PL, 177: 115-18). This singleness of devotion to her love will be Isolt's most characteristic quality. The jacinth changes color with the sky. It represents those who can suit themselves to their surroundings, be wise with the learned and simple with the unlettered. Isolt will show this in her ability to be clever in her intrigues with the courtly world and yet open and honest with Tristan. The sapphire is the color of the peaceful sky and represents those who, placed on earth, gaze on high as if they were not attached to the earth. When pierced by the sun's rays, it emits sparks and is the hop; of those who are renewed by the true sun, and inspired to seek heaven. In this sense, Isolt is a sun leading Tristan to the heights of a love which is not of this earth, and both inspire other lovers. The chalcedony is also connected with the sun and attracts the rays, like Christ, whose words and deeds attract sinners. Thus Isolt attracts those not capable of her love, Marke, Gandin, and the steward. (These explanations are based on Hugo of St. Victor and the Glossa Ordinaria, PL, vol. 114; they have been checked against French lapidaries from Les lapidairesfranfaisdumoyen age, ed. Leopold Pannier [Paris, 1882], The French texts also give the benefits such stones offer the wearer, and these too are apt: the emerald can be a deterrent to lasciviousness in women; the jacinth guards against evil suspicions and sorrow; the sapphire guards against envy and enchantment, if the wearer is chaste, and prevents him from being deceived by his love or by strangers; the chalcedony enables one to surmount all troubles and put one's enemies to shame.)

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

39 16

si diu Minne draete / ir selber zeinem vederspil" (11.10896-7), just as Tristan seemed formed by Minne when he first appeared before Marke. Tristan, dressed in purple and gold, and four other jewels from Revelations,1 7 is led in by Brangaene, the full moon. Since the stones appear to be drawn from Revelations at the moment when the Holy Jerusalem descends to earth, it is possible that the whole passage can be seen in a religious light. Tristan, the Christian, who has defeated Pride (Morolt) and Lust (the dragon), is led by the church (the full moon, Brangaene), to a mystical union with his saviour (Isolt, the sun). In the next episode, we will have the union of the two through the potion, and the consummation of their love. I do not mean to imply by this interpretation that Gottfried is writing a Christian allegory about man's soul, but rather that he is using recognizable images from religious literature in order to give a religious kind of sanction to his subject. In the Tavola, the scene at the Irish court is relatively simple. It is important only as another indication of the unfitness of Isotta's marriage to Marco. There is no question of discovering Tristano's identity, since the Irish know who he is, but there is great hesitation about the proposed marriage. Languis has a dream which prophesies trouble for his daughter, and he attempts to persuade Tristano to marry her himself. When Tristano refuses, Languis agrees to the betrothal to Marco, but in the hopes that Isotta will not be long held to the contract. 16 A.T. Hatto, "Der Minnen Vederspil Isot", Euph., LI (1957), 302, uses this passage to prove that Isolt and Tristan were not in love before the potion because Isolt is described as a bird, free on her branch; it is only after the potion that she is caught in lime. However, if we assume that the potion awakes the consciousness of love, we might as easily say that she is free before she drinks it and is caught in lime - in the power of love - only after she has drunk, i.e., when she is aware of and succumbs to her passion. Tristan's stones are the topaz, the sardonyx, the chrysolyte, and the ruby. The topaz may be gold or the color of the sky. It signifies those who are purged of the lower desires of this world, who comprehend the brightness of heavenly life, and aie beloved of God (Migne, 177). It also has cooling properties and is recommended for those who sin in the flesh, to keep the body chaste (Lapidaires francais). The sardonyx may be dark, white, red. It stands for those who suffer pains in their bodies for the love of Christ, are pure at heart but contemptuous of themselves as though they were sinners. Tristan suffers pains for his love; he is pure in his heart but filled with guilt for his betrayal of Marke. The sardonyx is also reputed to keep the bearer chaste. The chrysolite shines like gold and emits sparks. It stands for those who understand Holy Scripture and shoot off sparks of good works and deeds to illumine others, as Tristan is an example to other lovers. It may also keep the wearer safe from fear and from the devil. Finally, the ruby, which may be either the sardius or the amethyst, both red and both representing the blood of the martyrs, which they shed for the love of Christ, praying for those who make them suffer. It also guards against sorrow. We might add that Isolt's stones emphasize her power to attract and her faithfulness to love, while Tristan's stress his suffering and the strength of his feelings. Stökle, 79, suggests that Gottfried leaves out the stones which sound alike; actually he leaves out those whose virtues and colors duplicate the ones he has selected.

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THE POTION

Tristan has now won Isolt by prowess and cleverness, but he has yet to become her lover. This step occurs through a potion which, whether it be symbolic or real, turns the love into a physical passion. Eilhart and Beroul (who refers to it in a later episode), make the potion the source of the love: it takes the lovers unawares and forces them to give in to their desires. This absolves them of the initial guilt in an affair which both poets consider sinful. The Tavola, more sympathetic to the affair, but not to the excesses to which the hero and heroine succumb, also uses the potion as a real force and therefore a moral excuse; the enslavement to physical desires begins only after it is drunk. Thomas and Gottfried take pains to suggest some feeling, or at least an unmistakable tendency towards love between Tristan and Isolt before they drink the potion. For these poets, the potion represents the moment at which the lovers become conscious of their love; the physical consummation is a natural development from that awareness. The effect of the potion in Eilhart, like the distress and thirst that lead to the drinking of it, is mainly physical. The lovers cannot live apart for four years and they must love each other "mit allen iren sinnen" as long as they live. Having no idea the drink is bad for him, Tristrant drinks it without difficulty, actually with pleasure: "her trang in sundir sw6re / do düchte im der win gut" (11.2350-1). But the full effect is seen through Isalde. Her monologue is the central passage in the episode, two hundred out of four hundred sixty-five lines (11.2398-2598). Since Tristrant has no comparable speech, we are left with the impression that it is Isalde in whom the passion works most strongly. She prays to Minne as a goddess, and the vocabulary is curiously religious — repetition of genade, the lament "ich armez sundig wip" — Isalde seems to have turned from worship of Christ to worship of Love. 18 Eilhart remarks that the lovers do not eat or drink, though no bread or wine could help them, perhaps an oblique reference to the Eucharist; that is, they have turned their backs on Christianity for the worship of Love. 18 H. Eggers, "Der Liebesmonolog in Eilharts Tristan", Euph, XLV (1950), 275-304, analyzes the structure of the monologue. He divides it into six parts and sees a pattern throughout of a central thought introduced and followed by flügel. The whole monologue also fits this pattern, beginning with an emotional flügel, in which Isalde's feelings are awakened and she becomes conscious of her love; the central part, addressed to Minne, and the last, the other flügel, the rational acceptance of her state. The quintessence of Isalde's feeling is 1.2418: "he ist ein vil kfiner degin". This is also, of course, the quintessence of Eilhart's presentation of Tristrant

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41

The potion in Eilhart is a force beyond the control of the characters which leads them into a relationship that the poet condemns. For Thomas, on the other hand, all of Tristran's suffering comes from within, as we have seen, from the seeds of sorrow in him before birth, the heritage of his parents. The potion brings the love to its consummation but, essentially, it symbolizes the power of love, the destruction, and sorrow. There is no time-limitation in its effect. Once it takes hold, it controls Tristran's life. It is worth noting that although the dose is shared equally by Tristran and Ysolt, and means a life of sorrow, pain and distress for both, with carnal desires and yearnings, Thomas is far more concerned with the effect on the man. Woman is by nature and instinct given to passion. The episode in Thomas is dominated by sorrow and pain, beginning with Ysolt's departure from her parents and her peoole. For Gottfried, instead, joy is as much a part of love as pain. The lovers give of themselves freely without false shame or deceit. Their loyalty to each other never fails and that is what later makes them worthy of inhabiting the temple which Gottfried creates for ideal love. That they both love equally is central to Gottfried's concept. He has refined both lovers intellectually and spiritually so that they are capable of hohe minne - the potion unites them physically as they are already united in spirit, bringing the love, as Schwietering puts it, into the sphere of the senses.19 Minne, a personification of the abstract power of love, acts as the intermediary in the consummation of the love. Brangaene, who serves that function in other versions, can do no more here than withdraw. Her responsibility is greater in this version because the queen entrusted her daughter's honor as well as the potion to Brangaene, but she cannot discharge the responsibility, as Jackson points out, since she is incapable of understanding the nature of the love.20 Her intentions are good within the limits of her understanding but her action has only negative value. It either comes too late (as with the potion and later in the orchard), or is taken to repair damage already done (in the substitution for Isolt). When she discovers that the potion has been drunk by mistake, she throws the rest of it into the sea, but it has already had its effect. When she sees that there is nothing left but to bring the lovers together, she does so by withdrawing and leaving them alone. Only when the lovers return to the world can Brangaene really begin to act, 19 J. Schwietering, "Gottfried's Tristan"·, but H. Furstner, "Der Beginn der Liebe bei Tristan und Isolt in Gottfrieds Epos", Neoph., XLI (1957), 25-38, does not agree that the love existed before the potion. He says it comes from without, sudden and unexpected like all love. (Cf. W.J. Schröder, "Der Liebestrank im Gottfrieds Tristan und Isolt", Euphorion, VI (1967), 22-35). But the arguments offered in support of this position only prove that the love was not conscious before the drink; they cannot disprove that a latent feeling exists which the potion simply brings out. 20 Jackson, "The Role of Brangaene", 291.

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because the court and its intrigues is her sphere. While the lovers are on the ship — isolated, as always in Gottfried, at the moment of crisis - only Minne, the force of love, can guide them. In the Tavola Ritonda, the potion is an exterior force which turns "liale amore" to carnal pleasure, absolving Tristano and Isotta from moral responsibility for their acts, but it is not just an aphrodisiac. It has the power to strain nature for good, to make all manner of man and beast one, Christians, Saracens, lions, and serpents (chap. XXXIV). The physical effect, the drive to carnal satisfaction, is felt only by the two who have drunk it, but its power to strengthen and ennoble affects all who come into contact with it. Governale and Brandina absorb the fumes and the dog laps up what falls on the deck, and all three remain faithful to the lovers until their death. Even the wood of the ship is preserved. 21 A significant event is introduced in the Tavola before the ship reaches Cornwall (chaps. XXXV-IX), which gives Tristano and Isotta a moral and legal sanction for their love that they have in no other version. At the Isola di Malvagia Usanza, they are forced to engage in a contest in which Isotta is judged to be the most beautiful lady and Tristano proves himself to be the most valiant knight, by defeating the lord of the castle. To complete the victory, and liberate the prisoners on the island, they are obliged to marry. There is much in this victory that is important: the triumph of Christianity over paganism, of justice and love over the old order of force without reason, but for our purposes, the most important aspect is the marriage, the fitting union of the most valiant knight and the most beautiful lady. The implication, again, is that Marco is not the proper husband for Isotta. It is characteristic of the Tavola to make this point, which is after all implicit in Gottfried, in concrete terms within a social context.

SUBSTITUTIONS: BRANGAENE AND THE FOREIGN KNIGHT

The problem of Isolt's first night with Marke is solved in all versions by the substitution of Brangaene. This is the first step on the road of intrigue which must lead to disgrace. Although some versions make an effort to mitigate the lovers' guilt, the episode cannot help but discredit them. The deception and guile they are forced to practice create an atmosphere of suspicion which leads to further treachery — Isolt even suspects the loyal Brangaene and attempts to have her murdered. The fact that Mark is unworthy of Isolt (in Gottfried because he cannot distinguish between her 21

All of this seems to be a variation introduced by the Italian author.

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43

and Brangaene, in the Tavola because he is a villain, and in both Thomas and Gottfried because he gives her up to another knight), though it may increase our sympathy for the lovers, cannot erase their treachery. They will have to expiate it through public discovery and dishonor. Eilhart makes no attempt to modify the sordidness of the bridal substitution — indeed, he adds to it because he wishes to show how the passion has debased his hero. It is only in this version that while Brangene lies with Marke, Tristrant makes love to Isalde, a double betrayal, dez was die meiste trugene die Tristrant I getete (11.2838-39). But the treachery is due to the "unselige trang", not to Tristrant's lack of faith. The evil powers of the potion make Tristrant act in a way unworthy of the hero Eilhart has shown him to be, and disturb his relations with Marke and Kurneval, which are of much greater importance than his love for Isalde. In Thomas, Ysolt, not the potion, is the evil force and her treachery is not explained away by the drink. Suspicious, she spends the night listening to Marke and Brengven in bed, to be sure that Brengven does not betray her (chap. XLVI); lustful, she enjoys Marke's embraces as well as Tristran's. Brengven, too, displays feminine treachery when she gives what is left of the potion to Marke, to bind his affections to a woman who will never love him, but will take advantage of his love for her. Gottfried emphasizes the distress the episode causes all the characters who are wittingly involved, Tristan, Isolt, and Brangaene. The lovers share the suffering and the responsibility as they share the love. They are not condemned for the deception because love teaches them to use guile and they use it to protect their love; they never deceive one other. Gottfried mitigates their responsibility by pointing out that Marke is unable to distinguish between the two women. He cannot tell brass from gold, and presumably does not deserve the gold.2 2 In Marke and Brangaene, we have the union of the two characters most closely involved with the lovers, but not quite capable of understanding the love. Marke, as we see later in the Minnegrotte, does not rise above lust and suspicion, and Brangaene operates always on the level of courtly love and intrigue. It is interesting that monetary imagery is used in connection with both: the reference to brass and gold suggests that Isolt is little more than a possession to Marke; and Brangaene's substitution is always spoken of as a kind of payment, a debt (11.12609, 12633), which we take to mean for her carelessness with the potion, but it is characteristic of her to regard things in practical terms; 22

The use of gold for the true, brass for the false, is from theological writing. See Stökle, 43.

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one makes a mistake and pays for it, as though it were possible to set it right that way. 2 3 This episode sets the tone of deception which plagues the love henceforth in all versions. Filled with guilt and fear because of the substitution, Isolt turns on Brangaene. Eilhart condemns the attempted murder before he narrates it: gewan die vrauwe den gedang daz sie mit des tödes done Brangenen wolde Ionen daz sie ir sö wol gedfnet habete (11.2864-7). It is interesting that Eilhart also refers to the substitution in terms of payment. The violence of Isalde's emotions and her lack of faith in Brangene suggest an imperfect concept of honor, presumably because she is a woman, impassioned and irrational. Tristrant laid the plans for the substitution, and carried them out, but that was necessary to save himself and the queen. Isalde's plan has no purpose, and is, fortunately unsuccessful. Tristrant's anger when he hears of it, which only Eilhart mentions, emphasizes the futility of the act, which is a turning point in the affair; it makes the other intrigues and disgrace inevitable because it serves no real purpose. Isalde is beginning to drag Tristrant down from a life of honor and glory to one of deceit and shame. In Thomas, the murder follows naturally from Ysolt's suspicions during the substitution. It seems to be more a carefully calculated act than a sudden impulse, as in Eilhart, and every detail points up the evil in Ysolt's character. The symbolism in Brengven's story of the shirts emphasizes Ysolt's lust: she wore her shirt day and night because she was hot, and soiled it with her perspiration. When Ysolt hears the story, she turns on the men she had hired with violence and vulgarity; they are as calculating as she, in their response, so she is further debased by her association with them. In Gottfried, Isolt acts in a misguided attempt to insure peace for herself and Tristan by removing what she believes to be the only source of discovery. This provides another of Gottfried's paradoxes: when the perfect loyalty of the only witness is established, then the love is discovered by totally different means. The attempted murder may occur, as Jackson suggests, because relations between the two worlds — the realm of pure love and that of courtly intrigue — are strained. 24 Isolt attempts to rid herself of the kind of life Brangaene represents, intrigue and 23

In a later episode, Brangaene says she would gladly sell all the days of her life to buy happiness for the lovers (U. 14455-60). Jackson, ' T h e Role of Brangaene", 294-5.

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deception, but she has a second thought when Brangaene proves herself faithful and that way of life again seems feasible. Gottfried does not excuse Isolt's action in this episode and yet he does not directly condemn her for it, except in so far as she shows that she cares more for her reputation than for God (11.12711-12), and acts momentarily on the basis of a courtly ethic, forgetting the higher nature of her love. But she acts to preserve her reputation, which is also important to Gottfried. This presents another paradox: once Tristan and Isolt are under the power of love, they must follow it through all the deceptions and intrigues it demands, while at the same time the deceptions degrade them and their love. The Tavola Ritonda softens the effect of Isotta's action somewhat by giving her a more definite motivation than she has in other versions, but at the same time it extends the effects of the deed beyond the circle of characters connected with the love. Isotta knows that Brandina and Marco often converse about Irish customs, and she is afraid that Brandina will someday tell him everything. Her fear stems, of course, from a guilty conscience, "chi e incolpato pensa d'esser mirato" (chap. XLI), but the violence of the act is deemphasized. If Brandina is meant to be connected with Isotta's conscience (see above, p. 34), that is what Isotta casts from her when she surrenders to carnal love. But when she changes her mind, events have passed beyond her control. The assassins cannot find Brandina where they left her because she has been carried off by Palamides, the pagan, as if, by denying her conscience, Isotta had surrendered it to evil. When Palamides demands Isotta in exchange for Brandina, Tristano is not there to defend her. A wounded knight takes up her cause but when he too fails to rescue her, she turns to an unarmed knight for refuge and Palamides kills him. In this version Isotta's attempted murder of Brandina leads directly to her abduction and indirectly to the death of an innocent knight. We are made to see how the love affair has repercussions outside the lives of the principals and how, though the love itself is good, its excess is a social as well as moral evil. Whereas in the Tavola, the episode shows the effect of the lovers' actions on the people around them, in Thomas and Gottfried, the point is to diminish Marke's legal, and therefore to some extent, his moral claim to Isolt, and to strengthen Tristan's in contrast. 25 An Irish knight comes to Cornwall and wins Isolt from Marke with his harp. Tristan must win her 25 H. Stolte, in "Drachenkampf und Liebestrank", DVLG, XVIII (1940), 261, maintains that Marke's broken promise and Tristan's victory over the draeon establish a legal justification for Tristan's possession of Isolt, the potion as a "dämonischmystik", perhaps spiritual justification, and the Gandin episode as the "allgemein menschliche".

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back, using music and guile as his weapons rather than arms. The implication is that only Tristan is worthy of her, or capable of winning her, in every way, by prowess, cleverness, and talent. After this episode, the love affair becomes a series of intrigues, deceptions and narrow escapes in which all the principals, Tristan, Isolt, and Marke, suffer a debasement in character. Isolt opens the way to suspicion and treachery by having Brangaene substitute for her on her wedding night and then by attempting to murder her before she can reveal the secret. And, in Thomas and Gottfried, Marke gives Tristan the opportunity to make love to Isolt, had he never done so before, by giving her away and sending Tristan to win her back.

DISCOVERY

The deceptions and betrayals of the previous episode make eventual discovery of the affair inevitable, but though they create the atmosphere of intrigue, they do not directly cause the discovery. It occurs through a series of incidents, at the instigation of minor characters who are envious of Tristan. They spread rumors to rouse Marke's suspicions; they form plots to trap the lovers, but in the main they are not able to establish real proof. If the author is sympathetic to the love, as Thomas and Gottfried are, he leaves the society around the lovers in doubt about their guilt, and eventually vindicates them through the ordeal. If he condemns the love, as Beroul and Eilhart do, he allows circumstantial evidence to weigh against them, and they are condemned to public execution. In the Tavola, though the author is sympathetic to the love, Marco is base enough to believe the rumors and demand satisfaction, but the author vindicates the lovers by introducing a second series of discoveries which culminates in an ordeal that proves their innocence to the world. The first incident of discovery arouses Marke's suspicions. The second, in all versions but Eilhart, is a test of Isolt's innocence. The last two are attempts to catch both lovers and establish their guilt publicly. The first suspicions are aroused differently in the several versions, but the decisive incidents are similar. In Eilhart, rumors about the lovers are spread by seven lords, motivated by envy of Tristrant, not as a lover but as a knight and as nephew of the king; that is, for his position in a male world. The lords accuse Tristrant of an affair with the queen before they know of it. It is simply a lucky guess, an obvious means of slander. In Thomas, the enemies are not named and their motives are not clear. The trouble follows naturally from the situation. In Gottfried, suspicions are aroused by a jealous lover, and they flourish because Marke too is jealous and given to

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doubt. In the Tavola Ritonda, a jealous woman and an envious nephew of the king work together to betray the lovers, combining the single motives which lead to their undoing in Eilhart and Gottfried: envy of Tristan's prowess and jealousy in love. Marke's reaction to the rumors and accusations differs in each version, depending primarily on the nature of his feeling for Isolt. In Eilhart, he stoutly denies the accusations made against Tristrant, and then comes upon him in the royal chamber kissing the queen. Marke is more distressed by his misplaced trust of his nephew than troubled by jealousy of his wife. Once his faith in Tristrant is shaken, proof of the affair is an academic matter. No separate incident is devoted to establishing Isalde's innocence to Marke, as in the other versions. Marke does not care. The final incidents are simply to make the lovers' guilt public, so they can be punished. In Thomas and Gottfried, Marke is the last to discover the truth and his suspicions and doubts are the main theme of the incidents. For it is not simply his affection for Tristan that is involved, as in Eilhart; he is torn by love for both the lovers, and his wounded pride and honor are complicated by jealousy. In both versions, the discovery is made slowly, first by minor characters, then, and only imperfectly, by Marke. A friend of Tristan's has a dream of a boar — the animal Tristan bears on his shield in Gottfried — raging through the king's palace and attacking the king (in Thomas) or the royal bed (in Gottfried). The dream is a symbolic introduction to the discovery, but Thomas does not connect it with the incidents that follow. He simply uses it to set the tone of animal lust. Gottfried builds the incidents in a tighter pattern. He complicates the matter by having Tristan's friend, Maqodo, be a romantic admirer of the queen, so that when he discovers the affair his problem is, like Marke's, a conflict of loyalties compounded by jealousy. His love and tenderness for Isolt tum to pain and hatred when he overhears the lovers, and he reports the affair to the king as a rumor, warning him to be on his guard. He seems to represent a part of Marke that believes in their guilt and wants to be avenged, though Marke himself wavers between faith and doubt. In the battle of wits which Maqodo instigates to prove Isolt's guilt, Brangaene advises the queen; and Marke, alternately convinced and dissuaded, ends believing in her innocence. It is significant that on the two nights when Brangaene and Isolt win, so to speak, Gottfried mentions love-play at the beginning of the scene. It is lust which momentarily overcomes Marke's doubts, not faith or love. In the Tavola, where the good are always threatened by evil characters, all the discoveries in the first series occur through the machinations of Tristano's enemies, an envious cousin, Adriette, and a jealous woman, Girida. Most of the turning points in Tristano's life have occurred because

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of the love of some woman: he came to Cornwall to get away from Bellices; he was sent on the bride quest after he had gotten involved with Aigua and aroused Marco's jealousy; now, spurning Girida's love, he rouses her fury, and his affair with Isotta is discovered (chap. XLIII). Adriette tries to catch the lovers by placing scythes around the queen's bed, but though Tristano is cut on them, Isotta sends him away and wounds herself so the stains in the bed are hers, and Adriette is held responsible by the king for her distress. The second incident in the Tavola, as in Thomas and Gottfried, is a test of Isotta's chastity; here it is a magic horn which only a virtuous woman may drink from. Isotta, of course, fails but so do all but thirteen of the six-hundred eighty-six other women in Cornwall who try it. By putting the test in the context of the whole society, the author ridicules the proof, so that, though true, it is rejected. Adriette and Girida, however, continue to nurse Marco's suspicions. Tristano's actions become more and more degrading as it is more difficult for him to see Isotta. In the first incident he had simply withdrawn and left Isotta to save the situation; the next time, he enters her room like a thief, sneaking in through the balcony, and to escape capture, he strikes the king; finally, he visits her disguised as an old woman and is taken, unarmed, by the king's men. In the two works which are concerned with Tristan's honor as a knight, Eilhart and the Tavola, the disguises and the various deceptions he uses to visit Isotta are more degrading than in the other versions because the love in itself endangers his stature as a knight. The final incidents of discovery, the meeting under the tree, and the flour-between-the-beds plot, occur in all versions, though at a different point in the Tavola.26 The meeting beneath the tree restores the king's confidence in the lovers, albeit temporarily; there is even a suggestion of God's protection. In Eilhart and Gottfried, the twig that carries Tristan's message to the queen is carved with religious symbols (a five-pointed cross in Eilhart; in Gottfried, the lovers' initials, which happen also to stand for the cross (T) and Jesus (I), carved on an olive twig, a tree with religious rather than erotic connotations). In Gottfried, the meeting takes place under an olive and both Maike and the dwarf have difficulty climbing into the tree of God to spy on the lovers. Beroul, too (the fragment begins with this incident), points to God's protection, in the words of Brengain and Governal: 26

The incident occurs in the Tavola, after Tristano's marriage (chaps. LXII-IV). It takes place under a pine, a tree of sorrow and death. The lovers seem more anxious to recapture the former happiness of their love than to satisfy physical desire. G. Barini, in "Tristano in Italia", Nuova Antologia, CXCIII (1904), 670, suggests that the detail of twigs in the stream is omitted because a stream through the queen's rooms implies too primitive a palace. It may also be that the lovers no longer adopt the same sort of intrigue at this point in the story.

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Granz miracles vos a fait Dex il est verais peres et tex qu'l n'a cure de faire mal a ceus qui sont buen et loial (11.377-80). Since none of the attempts to catch the lovers has yielded definite evidence, their enemies plot one final and carefully laid trap. They convince Marke to send Tristan away, knowing he will visit Isolt once before he goes, and they scatter flour beside her bed to mark his prints. The plot works in Eilhart because Tristrant is reckless. Though he sees the white flour which the dwarf has scattered, he thinks he can outwit the plan, by leaping across the bed, but a wound opens and his enemies seize him. The episode ends with the lovers' guilt established and with Tristrant's relationship with Marke permanently destroyed. But it has taken seven men and a dwarf, an evil figure called "Satanas" with supernatural powers, to achieve Tristrant's disgrace, abetted by his own recklessness - "die grözen unmäze / lerte in des trankes craft" (11.3918-9) — and by the misplaced kindness of Tinas, who had restored the dwarf to Marke's favor. Beroul, curiously, makes less of evil forces working against the lovers than Eilhart, implying that much of the responsibility is theirs. The barons are given good reason to suspect them, above and beyond the dwarfs plots; it is only in Beroul that, when Tristran leaps, blood falls on the flour. The image of red on the white flour emphasizes the sinful and sexual nature of the situation, the red of passion staining the white of purity. "Desliez ert par son pechie" (1.720), says Beroul, condemming Tristran, as Eilhart does, for going to Iseut at this point, but without excusing him by the potion. The incident, as it occurs in Thomas, Gottfried, and the Tavola, differs from Eilhart and Beroul in one significant detail. Marke has himself and the lovers bled. This may be, as Eis suggests,2 7 because bloodletting was used in the twelfth century to quell the passionate appetites. If Thomas and Gottfried had this in mind, the incident would point up all the more the power of the love which is not affected even by this. After the dwarf has scattered the flour, the king leaves, supposedly to go to matins. This use of a religious service as a false excuse is found only in the versions where circumstantial evidence is not taken as final proof, but where a formal oath before God and the princes of the land is deemed necessary. And in each case the lovers abuse the oath by swearing to a truth which gives a false impression. There seems to be a casual abuse of God on both sides, by the king and the lovers. But there is a difference: the lovers are 27

G. Eis, "Der Aderlass in Gottfrieds Tristan", Medizinische Monatsschrift, II

(1948), 162-4.

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exonerated by the nature of their love which lifts them out of the common sphere and beyond customs like the oath. In Thomas, it is Marke's suspicion and doubt, once they have been aroused by his counselor, that lead to the incidents of discovery. He is not pushed by his lords or the dwarf. And his doubt dominates the entire episode. Details, like the failure of the lovers to speak under the tree, and the blood-letting which makes the bleeding of both a possible coincidence, favor the atmosphere of uncertainty. In Gottfried, it is not Marke, but the jealous lover, Maijodo, who forces the issue and brings in the dwarf, Melot. Tristan's two enemies who work with the king have names which, like his, begin with "M". They seem to be aspects of Marke — Maijodo, the jealous lover; Melot, the plotter — and they are evil. The dwarf is connected with the devil, like all Tristan's enemies, "daz vertane getwerc, des valandes antwerc" (11.14511-2); Maijodo and Melot are both described as snakes in the guise of doves (11.15088-9). Marke is vulnerable to the evil they represent because of his doubt and suspicion; doubt is as bad for him as it is, in a religious sense, for a Christian. The Tavola is the only version in which the dwarf is not even mentioned; Marco is capable of treachery without help. His character is such that the author needs not shift distasteful tasks to others. In the first series of incidents, Girida and Adrfette were his accomplices in order to establish the idea that Tristano and Isotta are destroyed by evil around them, jealousy, and envy, but in the later scenes there is no need for any but the jealous husband. Marco not only plans the blood-letting himself, but scatters the flour between the beds and carries the torch which reveals the scene. It is interesting that, as in Gottfried and Thomas, there is no false errand to lure Tristano into a last word with Isotta, simply his irresistible physical yearning. We must take this to be a fault in him, since the versions in which he has no such excuse are the ones which do not stress the physical power of the potion. It is a lack of moderation in Tristano which undoes him.

ESCAPE, ORDEAL, AND EXILE

After the discovery of the affair, which has taken roughly the same course in each work, the versions differ on Marke's treatment of the lovers. The author's feeling about the guilt or innocence of the characters is reflected in the public judgment of their society. In Beroul, Eilhart, and the Tavola Ritonda (the first time), Marke demands immediate punishment by public execution. Though the lovers escape, and there is public sympathy for them,'there is no doubt about their guilt. In Thomas and Gottfried, in the

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Tavola after the second discovery, and in Beroul after the exile, when Tristran and Iseut have expiated their sin, Marke is advised by his princes or bishops to establish the guilt legally through an ordeal. This gives the lovers an opportunity to exonerate themselves publicly, and their society absolves them as the author does. In both Beroul and Eilhart, the lovers are to be burnt, but Tristrant escapes by a miraculous leap from a chapel window and, in his frustration and rage, Marke gives Isalde to a group of lepers. In a way, when Tristrant rescues her from the lepers, he establishes a claim to her as he did in Thomas and Gottfried when he won her back from the minstrel-knight. The difference, however, is significant. In the one, Tristan takes her from a refined and gifted knight, in the other from hideous, crude lepers (though Eilhart makes his chief leper a count). Since leprosy was considered a divine punishment for adultery or false oaths, as Jonin points out, 2 8 we must take this episode as a reference to the sinful nature of the love in these two versions of the story. Beroul's treatment differs from Eilhart's mainly in that Beroul concentrates on the plight of Iseut, the popular reaction to the execution, and the insistence on vengeance by all the characters. Eilhart, of course, pays scant attention to Isalde; he is concerned with the personal relations between the men, and with honor rather than vengeance. Tristrant's leap occurs not through the direct intervention of God, as in Beroul, but with the indirect help of Tristrant's friends and his own courage. The absence of God is an indication of Eilhart's antipathy for the love; he alone, of the poets, has no desire to show God's sympathy to the lovers in any way. For the same reason, his is the only version in which there is no formal justification by ordeal. For Eilhart, the love is an evil which prevents his hero from discharging his proper responsibilities towards his uncle, his friends, and the world. In the Tavola, the incident shows Marco and Tristano both at a disadvantage. Marco gives Isotta to the lepers before Tristano has escaped, in cold blood as it were, not in rage over Tristano's disappearance. Tristano effects his escape by killing three of his guards. There has been a general breakdown in his Christian virtues since the potion. He struck Marco and Adriette to escape from the previous incident, and now he is forced to kill 28

P. Jonin, Les persormages feminins dans les romans frangais de Tristran au 12ime

(Aix-en-Provence, 1958), 363-4; see also J.G. Cougoul, La Ιέρκ dans I'ancienne France (Bordeaux, 1943), who says that leprosy was often confused with venereal disease in the Middle Ages and the latter was even considered a transformation of leprosy. On the recorded debauches of the lepers, see Jonin, 113. Saul Brody, in "The Disease of the Soul: A Study in the Moral Associations of Leprosy in Medieval Literature", Ph. D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1968, shows the connection of leprosy with adultery.

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to escape execution. Thus, as the incidents are more degrading, Tristano's action is more violent and more destructive. In Thomas and Gottfried, an ordeal occurs instead of the execution because the circumstantial evidence of the lovers' guilt is not accepted as sufficient proof against them. In Thomas, it is Ysolt, of course, who suggests the ordeal and plans it in every detail. She tells Tristran where to meet her, how to appear, and what to do (chap. LVIII). Tristran has almost nothing to do with the plot; he does what he has been asked to without a word or sign of his own. Ysolt is confident enough to joke about the situation and, after the successful outcome of the trial, to taunt the king about his suspicions (chap. LX). Thus, through her own cleverness and God's complicity, she has managed to deceive the king and all the land and to turn the whole affair to her advantage. The king is now on the defensive, ashamed of his suspicions and of the ordeal. Gottfried's heroine has much less control over the situation. She plans the false oath, but she leaves the details to the council and to Marke. More conscious of the ambiguity of her position than Thomas' heroine, she fears the ordeal and places herself in God's hands. God's presence and protection is stressed by Gottfried because the love sets the lovers apart from their world and closer to God. The council is set after Pentecost, perhaps because Pentecost celebrates the descent of the Holy Ghost with tongues of flame, and we may expect the voice of God to issue from the council better than at any other time. This is important because Gottfried condemns hypocrisy in religious matters, and yet he allows Isolt to be vindicated by a twisted oath. He points out how quickly the prelates get through their rites, a merely perfunctory performance (11.15637-41), and how Isolt's plan presumes far on "gotes höfscheit". The false oath is the most.obvious example of the abuse of God. It shows, Gottfried says, how pliahle Christ is, offering himself to men to be used as they wish, presumably as they need him. It is likely that Gottfried is directing his sarcasm at people who use Christ for purely selfish reasons, rather than at Isolt, Whose pretended innocence puts an end to Marke's doubts and saves Tristan and herself, and whose guilt is not absolute. Those who can understand her love for Tristan, the edelen herze, know that she is innocent in the deepest sense, although to the rest of the world she appears guilty. The oath is necessary to satisfy those who are only capable of perceiving the superficial. They must be dealt with by their own methods. It is quite probable, as Willson suggests,29 that Gottfried's 19 H.B. Willson, 203-7. The passage has, of course, given rise to a good deal of argument The feeling among most scholars now, except Weber, is that Gottfried's remarks are not blasphemous in intent It is not God they are criticizing but something else. Stökle suggests that Gottfried is attacking this foim of judgment in

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comments should be seen in the light of St. Bernard's commentaries on the inconstancy of Christ the bridegroom, in his relations with his bride, the soul: Christ's rectitude is his lack of rigidity, his virtue is his allembracing love; he accomodates himself to the lovers since, in terms of their mystical relationship which is analogous to his, Isolt is innocent. When the ordeal occurs in Beroul and the Tavola it is long after the first discovery of the lovfr, and the king is no longer sure of their guilt. In the Tavola, the ordeal is essentially religious; it is set on a holy island, in the presence of monks and friars; Tristano appears twice, once as a pilgrim and once as a madman carrying a cross. Like Gottfried, the author of the Tavola means to show that the love is in essence pure, that on holy ground the lovers are safe, although they are forced to use worldly intrigues against worldly people. The atmosphere in Beroul is more secular. The ordeal occurs in the presence of Arthur and his court, who take the place of God's representatives. Tristran and Iseut have expiated their sin in the forest exile; they are now technically innocent, though they have been guilty. Tristran's appearance as a leper is an allusion to his sinful love. He says that love caused his disease: "por lie ai je ces boces lees" (1.3763), an explanation with a double meaning: Tristran wears the disguise because of Iseut, and he has committed adultery because of her. The public vindication of the the Morolt combat when he has Tristan insist continually on the possibility of defeat. Stökle cites similar instances of attack in the thirteenth century, 283. A.T. Hatto, in the Introduction to his translation of Gottfried's Tristan (Baltimore, 1960), 19-20, points out that the Lateran Council forbade the clergy to consecrate ordeals in 1215, hence Gottfried was probably expressing the enlightened opinion of the day, soon to be formalized by church decree. R.N. Combridge, Das Recht im Tristan Gottfrieds von Strassburg, Ph.D. diss. (Münster, 1959), 114-20, says there is no God behind the oath, only a courtly figure. He suggests that "geliippeter" (1.15748) implies a poison in the sense of magic which Isolt uses to insure her oath as a fighter does the point of his weapon. Thus, for him, Gottfried's commentary is a criticism of the courtly belief that expects divine support for everything. Miss Bindschedler, "Gottfried von Strassburg und die höfische Ethik", Beiträge, LXXVI (1954), 31, almost in direct contrast to these two views, considers the oath a symbol showing that God's right is closer to the laws of courtoisie than to mere legality and that as long as Tristan and Isolt act in harmony with the laws of courtly ethics, God supports them. This would be a more satisfactory explanation if she had said Gottfried's kind of love rather than courtoisie. God is unquestionably on the side of the lovers, but they do not observe the laws of courtly ethics strictly. Wehrli, "Der Tristan Gottfrieds von Strassburg", Trivium, IV (1946), 90, says that Isolt does not even intend to deceive the Bishop of Thamise, to whom Gottfried is sympathetic, but Marke who demanded the ordeal. Isolt is a "devout deceiver in the name of love" with faith in God's goodness. P. Tax, Wort, Sinnbild, Zahl im Tristan Roman (Berlin, 1961), 105-9, points out a sharp distinction between Isolt's relation to God and her relation to Marke and the courtly world. God, he says, by keeping her guilt a secret, protects her from the attempt of the court to ruin her. What Gottfried is attacking here is the tendency to form God in a courtly image.

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ordeal, which is brought about by the hatred of the three barons, not by Marke's doubts, enables the lovers to avenge themselves on their enemies. All the knights who come to the trial must pass through the mud, and they are all soiled in varying degrees because they have listened to the slanders. But the three who caused most trouble are thoroughly submerged. The two kings, meanwhile, look on and take it all in, but do nothing about it, just as they have so far done nothing to stop the activities of the slanderers. Although the ordeal exonerates'the lovers publicly, it does not entirely justify them to the reader who cannot help but feel some distaste at the oath, following as it does on the sordidness of the bridal substitution and the scenes of discovery. The authors who are sympathetic to the love must therefore have it take a new direction. Thomas, Gottfried, and the Tavola add an episode at this point which does not occur at all in the other versions — the magic dog. The dog seems to symbolize a spiritual movement in the love which now begins to assert itself over the physical, aided by the power of art to distract from or sublimate sorrow. Like the arts, the dog offers a distraction to various senses, sight, hearing, and touch. It is distinguished by variety of coloring, the softness of its pelt and the sound of a bell hanging at its neck, which has the power to dispel the hearer's cares. However, once the sound stops, in Gottfried's version, the sorrow is felt more intensely. When Isolt discovers the effect of the bell, she removes it, refusing to be happy while Tristan suffers. Thus the dog, meant to relieve pain, increases it for Tristan and Isolt, but by the sacrifices they make for each other (he in sending her the dog, she in removing the bell), the lovers have moved towards a spiritual perfection which will reach its climax in the Minnegrotte. In the Tavola, Tristano does not fight to win the dog for Isotta. He undertakes the combat for the same reason he fought Amoroldo, for justice, and he receives the dog from the duke he defended. The fact that no connection is made between the fight and the dog until the battle is over detracts from Tristano's devotion to Isotta, so emphasized in the other versions, but it points up Tristano's eargerness to act in the name of justice, without reward, which is more consistent with the knightly ideals of the Tavola, and the sense of duty to society. Tristano seems to be freeing himself from the asocial enslavement to passion, and beginning to resume his proper responsibilities to his world. The higher kind of love which the magic dog heralds is achieved by the lovers in the forest-exile, in Thomas, Gottfried, and, to a lesser extent, in the Tavola. There the lovers enjoy their love, cut off from the world which has always interfered with it, and without hardship or pain. In Gottfried,

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55

the passage is allegorical: Tristan and Isolt inhabit a temple of love, whose parts are the qualities of perfect love. In Thomas, the lovers lead an idyllic life, in which God provides for them. In the Tavola,. the existence is pleasant but worldly; servants furnish the accoutrements of an elegant life. The exile in Beroul and Eilhart is a very different matter. It is an outlaw existence, forced on the lovers by their escape from the execution. The exile itself is a kind of punishment: life in the forest is beset by hunger, discomfort, and fear. The sinful nature of their love is made clear by the exhortations of a hermit who helps them return to court when the effect of the potion ends. The fact that the potion wears off while they are suffering in the forest, at the nadir of their lives, reflects the poet's moral condemnation of the love. In all versions, the life of the lovers in the forest suggests the story of Adam and Eve, but at different points. In Gottfried and Thomas, where they are alone, in perfect harmony with each other and with nature, and have no cares for their existence, their life is like the earthly paradise before the fall. In Beroul and Eilhart, the hard life and ragged clothes suggest life after the fall; they must work for their food against a hostile nature with no benefits of civilization, beset by fear and suspicion. This is perhaps the most obvious illustration of the difference in attitude towards the love in the four poems. (For detailed comparison of exiles, see Appendix C.) The love enters a new stage when Tristan and Isolt are permanently separated. There is no possibility for immediate physical satisfaction, and Tristan, who is free to move, attempts to make up for the lack in various ways: first with adventure, living altogether without love and Riving himself over to the chivalry he has neglected for Isolt; then with a new love and new duties, by marrying Isolt-as-blanschemains; and finally (in Thomas) with art, by recreating his love in statues. The nature of Tristan's adventures before he meets his wife varies from one version to another, depending on the author's interest in Tristan as a knight. There are similarities between Eilhart and the Tavola on the one hand, and Thomas and Gottfried on the other. The latter refer only briefly to adventures in the service of the Roman Empire. The former connect the adventures with Arthurian knights, and describe them in some detail. The Tavola, concerned with Tristano as a lover, knight, and Christian in the context of his world, uses the Arthurian world to mirror Tristano's situation, to emphasize what is unique in him, while Eilhart, who is concerned with Tristrant's honor as a knight alone, makes the Arthurian court the ideal to which Tristrant should properly belong but where he cannot remain. Thomas and Gottfried connect Tristan with an historical rather than an ideal monarch, the Roman Emperor. They establish his

56

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

proper position as a knight in the service of the established government and law of their world; a law which he has to some extent flaunted by his affair with Isolt, because in the real world, ideal love finds itself in conflict with the limitations of men. Thomas and Gottfried are interested in restoring Tristan to his responsibilities as a knight, not in setting him against other knights. Both of them are concerned with the effect of the love on Tristan and on his personal relations and life, not with the effect of love on his world, as in the Tavola, or on his knightly status in that world, as in Eilhart (See Appendix C). Marriage with the second Isolt occurs during the course of Tristan's adventures, but it is motivated quite differently in the four versions. In all but the Tavola, it is the result of a conventional series of romance events: a young knight aids an older noblemen and in return is given his daughter and half his land. Thomas and Gottfried contrast the conventional aspects of this situation with the more complicated nature of the main love story; their hero persuades himself to accept it by confusing the two Isolts, but he makes a mistake in doing this, for which he will suffer. The Tavola, which has used the conventional situation as the accepted one for the main characters, cannot make the same contrast; instead the marriage is almost forced on Tristano and he accepts it in the hope that it will set everything right. Eilhart, who deplores Tristrant's love for the queen, treats the other Isalde, and Tristrant's marriage to her, much more sympathetically. For him, it is the right thing for the hero to do, and to some extent it expiates the former wrong, but unfortunately it comes too late to change his fate. It is only in Thomas and Gottfried, where the nature of the emotion is important, that Tristan consciously tries to substitute one Isolt for the other. When he fails in Thomas, as he probably would have in Gottfried, he creates a different substitute for himself, a statue of the first Ysolt. Thomas' treatment of the Hall of Statues is in many ways similar to Grottfried's Minnegrotte. But Gottfried made it an allegorical setting for the sharing of an ideal love. Thomas uses it as the artistic sublimation of a love that can only be enjoyed by one of the lovers. It is significant that the high point of love in Gottfried should have been reached in the Minnegrotte where the setting is allegorical, but the lovers and nature are real, while in Thomas it is reached in the Hall, where the beloved is an object and what is real is the art. It is possible for Thomas to conceive of this because he does not allow the woman the same capacity for spiritual feeling which the man has. For him the woman is an object, driven by passion and lust, which can inspire love, but only the man really knows love, while Gottfried makes both capable of refined feelings and of sharing an ideal love. When the unusual state of Tristan's marriage is revealed, the offended

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

57

brother-in-law insists on seeing his sister's rival. The resultant returns to Cornwall represent Tristan's inability to free himself from the tyranny of his love, symbolized by the degrading disguises he is forced to assume and the worldly shame he must suffer. In both Eilhart and Thomas, Tristan's return is necessitated by an unheroic need — to prove a boast he has made about the queen, in order to save his own life. In both, he is accused of cowardice and driven away by the queen or her lady. Though he is not guilty of the action he is accused of, there is a poetic justice in the accusation, since the whole return has a cowardly tone. The result is that he must come back once again to reconcile himself with the queen, suggesting that sensual love is a never-ending cycle of misunderstanding and reconciliation. In the Tavola, where Tristano returns to save Isotta's life, the situation is reversed. Isotta is wrongly accused of betraying him, and Tristano goes mad. In each case, the one whose safety is at stake is wrongly accused and the other suffers from the misunderstanding. Heretofore the lovers have been estranged and have brought suffering on others: here for the first time they themselves are at odds. Tristan's marriage has proved no solution for him; he cannot stay away from Isolt, but his returns to her only point up the futility of any attempt to enjoy their love. Death is the only release, and it is brought about in each version by a poison wound, a symbol of the love. The final wound, which Isolt does not arrive in time to cure, unites the two in death as the poison wound which she did cure first brought them together. The fatal wounding of Tristan is the result of a love-triangle in each version, but the circumstances and the people involved in it are different. In Eilhart, Kehenis' love-affair, an adulterous one like Tristrant's, leads to death at the hands of a jealous husband; in Thomas, it is a reversal of Tristran's situation, a second Tristran whose lady has been stolen from him, and whom Tristran aids against the seducer; in the Tavola, Tristano's own affair brings about his death at the hands of a jealous husband, Marco, and consequently the collapse of the whole Arthurian world. In the Tavola, the adventures are woven into the framework of the love in this last episode, almost the reverse of the death in Eilhart, where the love scenes are set into Kehenis' affair and the death has no direct connection with Tristrant's love. In the Tavola, although Tristano's worldly scope has been widened far beyond that in any other version by his participation not only in normal Arthurian adventures, but in the Grail quest, his death is the direct result of his love. And yet, it is not the love itself which is wrong, but Tristano's excessive indulgence of his physical desires; his failure to restrain them orevents his carrying out his responsibilities not only to society and in his personal relations, but even towards God. Thus reduced to the position of a woman who can do nothing but

58

COMPARISON OF EPISODES

devote herself to love, he is finally, after showing glorious promise as a knight, killed ignominiously by a jealous husband. Tristano's death, like so many of his actions, has far-reaching effects. The popes had relied on him, and once he is dead, evil people begin to thrive (chap. CXXXIII). Arturo had hoped, through Tristano and Lancilotto, to restore the Round Table after the losses of the quest, but when Tristano dies, Arturo loses his vigor and his whole world falls apart. The knights of the Round Table degenerate; adventures cease. Lancilotto thinks only of love, and the others of pleasure. Arturo is defeated by Mordrette; Ginevra dies of sorrow for causing the death of the king, and Lancilotto becomes a priest in the desert. (One could read this ending as an allegory of the effect of courtly-love-turned-physical on the conventions of Arthurian romance, but that is most likely much more than the author intended). The Round Table is destroyed through the immoderate love of Tristano and Isotta and of Lancilotto and Ginevra, the jealousy of Marco and Arturo, and the envy and intrigue of lesser knights. The disastrous effects of the love are broader in the Tavola than in any other version, but so is the responsibility for them. The lovers remain the perfect example of a knight and lady because what is sinful in their love is caused by the potion, while the love, as it exists between them, is pure and good. But it is at home only in the ideal world, Longres; in the real and evil world, Cornwall, it conflicts with the pettiness and treachery of men who eventually destroy it, and with it, the whole ideal world.

2.

COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

We have seen how each author manipulates the details of a given incident to produce an effect consonant with his particular approach. Now it remains to discuss the stylistic principles which have been suggested by the comparison. Then we shall be in a position to draw some conclusions about the intent of each writer and the meaning of his version. A patte'rn of narrative emerges clearly for Eilhart, Thomas, and the Tavola Ritonda. Gottfried's poem, as far as it goes, seems to follow the same pattern as Thomas, but it is impossible to be sure without knowing how it was to end. Of Beroul, too, not enough remains on which to form a sound judgment, but something of a pattern can be drawn from the incidents we have. First we shall consider whether the work falls into two or three parts. The latter is the normal pattern for romance: in the first part, the hero achieves success, usually in arms and love; then a problem is posed, often, particularly in Chretien, it is a conflict between responsibility to the two aspects of life, duty and personal attachment; finally, in the third part, the conflict is resolved and the hero once again is successful in both spheres. Thus, there is a rise-fall-rise pattern. In heroic epic, on the other hand, the structure is bipartite. Love or personal attachment is not normally recognized as a rival to duty; the hero rises through victory in arms and falls through treachery or an inimical fate. The simple epic pattern may be expanded by a part describing the revenge taken for the hero, as in the Chanson de Roland or the Nibelungenlied, but the basic pattern of rise and fall never varies.1 The epic is necessarily tragic in that it relates the death of a great man while the romance is comic; everything is set to rights at the end. The Tristan story does not fit either category. It is certainly tragic insofar as 1 Some critics consider Chretien's romances two-part, one part a parallel to the other, as in Cliges, where the father's story parallels his son's (Bezzola, Kellerman, and Fieiz-Monnier discuss this). But for the other romances, even of Chretien, it is difficult to see a two-part pattern, which does not ascribe sufficient importance to the period of the hero's problem and disgrace, a period that is central, figuratively and structurally, to most romances.

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the hero is destroyed, and yet there is unquestionably a conflict between love and duty such as one associates with the romance. But in this story, the conflict is insoluble, hence the tragedy. We shall see that Eilhart uses the rise and fall structure of epic, because he is concerned with Tristrant as a hero and he considers the love a problem which should not arise, rather than a conflict to be resolved. The other versions, Thomas, Gottfried, the Tavola, are sympathetic to the love and they are mainly concerned with the possibility or impossibility of reconciling the love with the world of the lovers. The structure of their works is tripartite. We shall now look at each of the works separately, investigating first the structure or pattern of incidents, noting which have been omitted and which transposed, and the structural techniques of repetition and parallelism in plot or character. Eilhart and the Tavola use parallel figures: Walwän to show what Tristrant might be as a perfect knight and liegeman, and Kehenis to show instead what he is as a lover; Lancilotto to show up Tristano's superior qualities and more destructive faults in a similar situation. Thomas and Gottfried, who hold their hero unique because of his love, have no parallel figures, but they introduce minor characters to contrast with the major ones (Isolt-as-blanschemains and Tristran "le naim"), or to represent different aspects of them (as Maijodo and Melot embody traits in Marke), and both poets use the technique of prefiguration, through the story of Tristan's parents. Thomas alone has very few minor characters, because he is most interested in the effect of love on his hero, what it does to him and what he does with it. The other writers are all concerned, to a greater or lesser degree, with the hero's relations to his society and the effect of his love on his world. Gottfried expands the parts of minor characters mainly to keep his major figures free from worldly intrigue. The stylistic devices of allegory and metaphor will be discussed briefly, as well as the use and frequency of dialogue and monologue, and the amount of description in comparison to narrative or the author's comment. I attempt to maintain a distinction between narrative — the direct chronicling of events — and description, which may be either details of dress, of setting, or the feelings of a character.

BEROUL

We shall begin with Beroul since what we have of his poem is a good deal shorter than the other versions. The extant fragment covers only about a third of the story Eilhart and Thomas tell, but we cannot be certain that Beroul ever told the whole story. In fact, considering his shift of emphasis

61

COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

to vengeance on the evil barons, it is more likely that he did not. Although we do not know where it began nor how it ended, nor even how much more there was to it, there is a certain pattern to the part we have. It begins with the episodes of discovery (the meeting beneath the tree and the flour-between-the-beds plot), the moment when the lovers' fortunes begin to decline. Their position worsens progressively through the attempted execution, Tristran's leap from the chapel, and Iseut's escape from the beggars, and reaches its nadir in the forest-exile. Then the potion wears off, the lovers commend themselves to the hermit, and their fortunes begin to rise. When they return to civilization, they are vindicated by God in the ordeal and, in turn, they take vengeance on their enemies. The fragment ends with Iseut guiding Tristran's arrow towards the last felon. The scheme of the fragment seems to be this: discovery of love.

vengeance

\escape execution

\

ordeal

^ forest-exile end of potion It is worth noting that this is the only version in which both the ordeal and the attempted execution occur (with the exception of the Tavola which normally doubles incidents). This is significant, particularly since the scenes occur in such a way as to balance each other. The few scenes we have are set in contrasting pairs: the discovery, in which the lovers are betrayed by their enemies, is balanced by the vengeance they take on those enemies in the last part. In the second part, they escape punishment with God's help but they are considered guilty, as indeed they are; in the corresponding fourth part, they are proven innocent with God's help because they are no longer under the effect of the potion. Only the third part stands alone, because it is the turning point of the action, when the lovers expiate their sin and free themselves from it. It is clear that vengeance is far more important as a motif in this work than in the other versions. All the characters are driven by a desire for revenge; even in Tristran and Iseut, it is as strong a force as their love.2 2 Jonin, in "La vengeance chez l'Iseut de Beroul et de Thomas", Neoph, XXXIII (1949), 207, points out that hatred of the felons moves Iseut as much as love for Tristran.

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COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

The characters are neither great heroes nor great lovers. Iseut dominates the action, not by force of character, as in Thomas, but by default, through the weakness of the men. Marc and Tristran are led by Iseut and even the minor characters, Artur, Dinas, Ogrin, though not led by her, are more concerned with her welfare than with Tristran's, in direct contrast to Eilhart's treatment of the story. It is 'courtly' behaviour without depth of feeling. Even the problem of love is dealt with on a superficial level. The poet's main interest lies in the details 'of intrigue and of vengeance. The enemies of the lovers are far more important in this version than in any other; they are named: Godoine, Denoalen, and Guenelon (perhaps suggesting a complimentary comparison of Tristran to Roland). They all hate Tristran for his prowess and fear his vengeance. Stronger than the barons in Eilhart, probably because the king is weaker, they force much of the action. It is they who oppose Tristran's return to court and insist that Iseut submit to an ordeal. But they are made to pay for their wickedness: they are blackmailed by a spy of their own, lured into the mud, and killed one by one by Tristran and Governal. Beroul does not make as sharp a contrast between Tristran's enemies and his hero as Eilhart does. All are part of the court intrigue, in which the lovers also indulge. The intrigues are presented not as degrading but as clever and the lovers operate on the same level as their enemies. The love for which they deceive is not treated as sinful in itself, only the intercourse between the lovers, which is blamed on the potion and which they promise to give up when the potion wears off. Iseut says: Ge ne di pas, a vostre entente, que de Tristran jor me repente, que je ne l'aim de bone amor et com amis, sanz desanor: de la comune de mon cors et je du suen somes tuit fors (11.2325-30). The lovers show a greater awareness of sin and confidence in God's support than in Eilhart but there is no deep religious feeling. Beroul concentrates on the courtly rather than the spiritual aspect of the love. Beroul shows the same sort of interest in detail that he does in intrigue, but only for the superficial effect. There is no deeper significance. He describes settings and clothes with care, but he uses no allegory or simile. On the whole, he is more interested in exterior detail than in abstract concepts. There is little monologue (about 172 lines) and only about 233 lines of description, most of which is devoted to exterior detail, rather than to emotions or feelings; he offers little commentary of his own (about 76 lines), and that consists mainly of invective against the slander-

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ers. The bulk of the poem is divided fairly equally between narrative, some of which might be termed descriptive, and dialogue. The dialogue usually consists of a succession of speeches, rarely of short exchanges. The result is a somewhat formal, slow-moving plot in which the appearance of a character, the impression created by a careful choice of words, is more important than his deeper feelings.

EILHART

Eilhart's view of Tristrant as a great hero, hounded by a relentless fate, leads him to see the story in an epic pattern of rise and fall. But, because fate turns Tristrant into a lover, the two-part pattern is complicated and what emerees is a four-part or doubled two-part structure, with the fall and partial restoration of the lover enclosed within the rise and fall of the heroic knight. The four parts may be subdivided into episodes thus: 3 A

Β

C

D

1 Tristrant's Youth (to 1.350)

Potion (to 1.2724)

Forest-Exile (to 1.4994)

Second Return (to 1.7864)

2

Mörolt Combat (to 1.1050)

Brangene (to 1.3080)

Adventures (to 1.5582)

Kehenis' Affair Third Return (to 1.8548)

3

Wound-Cure (to 1.1296)

Discovery (to 1.3942)

Karahes, Marriage (to 1.6254)

Revenge Fourth Return (to 1.9032)

4

Bride-Quest (to 1.2258)

Escape (to 1.4330)

First Return (to 1.7080)

Death (to 1.9445)

It is apparent from this list that Eilhart does not include the episodes in which God sanctions the love (the ordeal), or when the love begins to take a spiritual turn (the magic dog), or the intellectual refinement of the lovers is revealed (Tristan's education of Isolt, his winning her from the Irish knight with music). It is significant that the only time Tristrant rescues Isalde in Eilhart, it is from lepers. These omissions follow naturally from Eilhart's lack of sympathy for the love, which he treats as an instrument of the fate that will destroy Tristrant. The early encounters with Isalde (the wound-cure and bridequest), are left entirely to chance or fate. The one major episode which is a matter of chance in Thomas and Gottfried, the kidnapping, does not occur This scheme is based on the thirteenth century redaction (X) from the two fifteenth century manuscripts used by Lichtenstein.

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COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

at all in Eilhart, who sends his hero to Cornwall intentionally, to win honor at his uncle's court, because that is a purpose the poet approves. In other words, Eilhart attributes the actions he approves to his hero's conscious intent, but leaves the ones connected with the love to a fate beyond Tristrant's control, while Thomas and Gottfried cultivate their hero's natural inclination for love and increase his conscious striving towards it. We can also see from the pattern of episodes the attention Eilhart gives to adventures, particularly in parts C and D. In part A, Tristrant is shown as a young knight; in Β he is a lover; in C a successful knight and frustrated lover; and in D both a knight and lover. Since the two are incompatible roles, this part must end in failure and death. Parts A and D deal primarily with Tristrant's development as a knight, while Β and C tell the love story. Isalde has little importance in A and D; she appears in A as the unseen doctor (3) and the unknown bride (4), and in D as the lover to whom Tristrant returns before each adventure, but it is the adventures in D — the Gariöle-Kehenis affair, the revenge of Rivalin, and the defense of Kehenis' land — that carry the story forward. The returns to Isalde are a kind of organ-point to show that Tristrant will never be free of the love and ultimately will die because of it. The end of part A shows Tristrant at the peak of his knightly career; at the end of Β he is in total disgrace as a knight; by the end of C, he has restored his knightly honor and is in disgrace as a lover; in D his honor as a knight wavers — it is never altogether free from stain — and his faith as a lover is restored but condemned by analogy with the Kehenis affair. To restore his stature as a lover, Tristrant must always sacrifice his honor as a knight. There are two inter-woven patterns within the four parts, one of Tristrant's honor as a knight, the other as a lover, which may be shown thus: 4 A

B

C

Bride-Quest

(knight) 4

D

Exile

(lover)

Wagner, 175, points out that the first part of the poem (A and Β in our scheme) is episodic or historical; that is, events follow one after another in order. The second part (C and D) is inter-laced.

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65

It is possible to see the influence of the romance fonn here, in the success, failure, and restoration of Tristrant both as knight and lover, but Eilhart treats the two aspects of his hero as separate and irreconcilable. The two patterns can never coincide and the inter-woven structure results. That the two are incompatible is obvious in the fact that the high point of one is the low of the other and they finally are reconciled only in Tristrant's death. Even that reconciliation is not a synthesis; it is simply the end of the conflict. One is left with the final impression that Tristrant's love has destroyed him as a knight, thus the over-all feeling in the poem is of rise and fall.5 There are smaller patterns within the large structure. Parts Β and C are the love story proper. In the relations between Tristrant and Isalde, A 3 and 4 serve as a kind of prologue, D 1 and 2 as an epilogue to the love story. There is a parallel structure which can be seen throughout the two parts that treat the love: in the first section, the physical compulsion begins with the potion (Β 1) and ends when the potion wears off (C 1), and a new phase of the love begins in which the lovers can live apart. In Β 2, Brangene takes Isalde's place in Marke's bed so that her loss of virginity will not be discovered; in C 2, Arthur's knights take Tristrant's place, in the sense that they wound themselves so that his guilt will not be discovered. In Β 3, the love is discovered by Marke; in C 3, it is discovered by Kehenis. In each case, the marriage of an innocent person (Marke and Tristrant's wife) is disrupted by the affair. In Β 4, the lovers escape Marke's revenge and Tristrant rescues Isalde from lepers; in C 4, Tristrant escapes Kehenis' revenge and is rejected by Isalde when disguised as a leper. At the same time, one can see the two parts as reversals of each other. Whether the simultaneous parallelism and inversion is a comment on the distortions of passion, is hard to say. C does seem to balance and negate, step by step, each incident in B, as the love exerts less power over Tristrant. In Β 1, the love begins with the drinking of a potion from the same vessel; in C 4, Isalde rejects Tristrant, leaving him a beggar with an empty cup. In Β 2, Brangene substitutes for Isalde with Marke; in C 3, Isalde of Karahes is a substitute for Isalde the queen with Tristrant. In Β 3, 5

Stolte, in Etthart und Gottfried, notes Eilhart's preference for the two-part figure, doubling of characters and motifs - two Isaldes, while Gottfried has three - and generally analyzes individual episodes in four parts. His division of the whole poem is into two parts which subdivide in twos, so that he finds the same structural pattern that I do, but his points of division are not the same. For him, Part II begins with the Brangene episode, III with the marriage to Isalde of Karahes, and IV with the reconciliation of Tristrant and Isalde. This pattern, though reasonable, does not allow for the parallels and juxtapositions of themes which my scheme points out; hence I think it is less valid.

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COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

Marke sets a trap for the lovers in which Tristrant's wound opens; in C 2, Marke sets a trap in which Tristrant is wounded. In Β 4, the lovers escape from Marke's sentence and a horrible punishment; in C 1, they escape into a harsh life and return with Marke's pardon. It is significant that, although C is inversely parallel to B: Β

C

it also turns each situation around. In Β 4, Marke rejected and condemned the lovers; in C 1, he pardons them, though not completely. In Β 3, the love was dicovered through the trap; in C 2, the trap is not successful. In Β 2, Marke took Brangene; in C 3, Tristrant lives chastely with his wife. In Β 1, Isalde falls in love with Tristrant and the potion constrains them to physical proximity, while in C 4, Isalde rejects Tristrant and he swears to stay away from her for a year. The love does have less power over Tristrant, and he is able to live a life apart from Isalde, but he will never be altogether free of love.6 At the moment that Tristrant begins to live away from Isalde, and to act once more primarily as a knight, Eilhart introduces two figures who parallel the opposite extremes of Tristrant's character: Walwän, the ideal knight, nephew and liegeman, and Kehenis, the illicit lover and irresponsible knight, as if Tristrant were hopelessly split between these two tendencies in himself. When Tristrant is with Walwän, his honor grows; with Kehenis, it declines. Like Tristrant, Kehenis is involved with two women, one pure (GymSle, who corresponds to Tristrant's wife), the other passionate (Garfole, a married woman, like Isalde the queen). His affair with the latter destroys both him and Tristrant. As we have pointed out, the Karahes episode may be a reversal of 6

In his comparative study of the style of Eilhait and Gottfried, Stolte makes several distinctions in technique which seem valid and which coincide with what we have said here about Eilhart. He points out that the tendency to two-part form in Eilhart and three-part in Gottfried, gives the impression of falling rhythm in the former, rising in the latter. Eilhart prefers parataxis, consistent with his interest in action, Gottfried hypotaxis, more suitable for reflection. Eilhart intensifies by doubling, parallelism, Gottfried by turning around and varying, symmetry. In other words, Eilhart repeats details of episodes like the first return with a few variations which stand out by contrast in the second, while Gottfried uses similar events in inverse order. Stolte concludes that Eilhart seeks motion through static, while Gottfried seeks rest through the dynamic, working towards a central, fixed concept by continuous movement.

COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

67

Tristrant's former life: a land in which nephews work together in support of their uncle, not against him like Tristrant and Antret; where Tristrant's love is chaste and sanctioned by marriage. It is only after Tristrant has consummated his marriage out of bitterness towards the queen, that Kehenis' affair begins and Karahes becomes the scene of a frivolous counterpart to Tristrant's affair. The use of Walwän and Kehenis to point up opposing aspects of Tristrant coincides with the pattern of episodes in the second half of the poem. Tristrant acts alternately as knight and lover, returning to Isalde periodically after exploits in which he restores a kingdom or settles a war. Both techniques - the alternation of incidents and the paralleling of characters - point up the irreconcilability of Tristrant's two lives. When Tristrant acts as a knight, he usually does so in the service of someone else. In Part A, he strives for his own and Marke's honor; in D he is concerned not only with Kehenis' honor and his own, but with the success of his and Kehenis' love affairs. In A, he saves Marke from Mörolt and wins him a bride; he saves Kehenis from Riole, in D, and wins him a mistress. The service to Kehenis is clearly a step down from the hero's deeds for Marke; he is never to attain the same glory. In the section of Tristrant's disgrace as a knight, B, he serves no one but himself, and thinks of nothing but love. In C, as he works himself away from love, he attaches himself to Arthur's court, but he never actually serves the king. We can infer that for Eilhart not only prowess, but prowess in the service of a worthy lord is a prerequisite of a knight. All of Tristrant's major feats of arms are connected with the fate of a whole people: the Mörolt episode, the dragon, the defense of Karahes, the restoration of peace to his own land and for a second time to Karahes. Only the last encounter with Nampetenis has a more limited and far less worthy cause, and it provides the fatal wound. There is a certain pattern in Tristrant's encounters through the poem: in the first two, fighting an unnatural enemy (Mörolt and the dragon), Tristrant destroys his opponent and saves the country, but is wounded. His next two encounters (the lepers and Delekors) are the last and most courtly, respectively, of his career. In the first, the only encounter he has during the height of the love affair, he defeats the lepers to save Isalde. We might note that the two battles he fights to win Isalde are against monstrous or deformed beings, the dragon and the lepers. After the affair, Tristrant fights only knights. The combat with Delekors occurs after Tristrant has left Cornwall and begun to live for chivalry ; he may be conquering his love, in a sense, in this battle since the name (kors, 'body') suggests physical subjection. From this point on, Tristrant fights in the service of others against worthy knights, with faults not unlike his own. His last encounters are all with enemies of

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Karahes; he is successful when the battle is on political grounds, but unsuccessful when it is in the cause of love, against a wronged husband, who may represent Marke. We can trace the same kind of development in Tristrant's disguises that we have seen in his battles. The more closely they are connected with the love in its passionate, destructive nature, the more degrading they are. The disguises in themselves trace the story of Tristrant's life: he goes to Ireland first as a merchant and minstrel, disguises which suggest a worldly cleverness and at the same time a drifting and perhaps reckless kind of existence. When he returns on the bride-quest, he is a merchant only. When he visits Isalde after his mariage, he comes as a leper, adopting the appearance of a sinful lover, a man deformed by love; after Isalde's rejection of him, and her penance, and his own year's abstention, he returns as a pilgrim, emphasizing the repentant state of both lovers. This mood does not continue, and the next time he comes it is as a wandering player, returning to the uncertain state of his first disguise, a man with no responsibilities, perhaps no position. Finally, he appears as the fool which love has made him. As Wagner points out, from this disguise there is nowhere to go but death. 7 Before we drop the subject of structure, we might note a few parallel incidents, less striking than the ones we have mentioned, but nonetheless emphasizing the over-all pattern we have indicated. In A 1, Tristrant's parents consummate their love; in Β 1, Tristrant and Isalde consummate their love; in D 1, Tristrant consummates his marriage. In A 1, Tristrant is born at sea; in Β 1, the potion is drunk at sea. In A 2, Tristrant and Kurneval are travellers in Cornwall; in D 2, they come to Cornwall as wandering players. In Β 2, Isalde attempts to have Brangene murdered; in D 2, Brangene dies; again in Β 2, Isalde hires two boys to kill Brangene and in D 2, she hires two to save Tristrant. In A 3, the wounded Tristrant goes to Ireland for the first time and in cured by Isalde though he does not see her; in D 3, convalescing from a wound, he goes to her for the last time. In A 3, he saves Ireland from famine; in C 3, he saves Karahes from famine. In A 4, he seeks Isalde for Marke to save his own honor; in C 4, he seeks Isalde with Kehenis to save his own life. Within this pattern, Eilhart concentrates on similar situations. To connect scenes outside the pattern, he relies on symbols, objects or phrases which recur in both scenes. Tristrant waits for Isalde on his first and second return in the same bush where he had waited when he escaped the execution and saved her from the lepers. These returns, like the earlier escape, are to save first Tristrant and then Isalde, but beyond that 7

Wagner, 174.

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connection, we must see them in the shadow of the escape which emphasizes the sinful nature of the love as a crime to be punished by death and physical deformity. On the third return, the lovers meet under the linden where Marke had first spied on them; in both cases, they are almost caught but are saved by their wits and clever lies. This is also the tree at which Tristrant had tied his horse when he brought the hermit's letter to Marke after the lovers were seen lying innocently together in the forest; another instance of circumstances interpreted, though wrongly, in their favor. When Kehenis is deceived by Gymele's magic pillow, Eilhart uses the same phrase to describe the scene, "alsus wart Kehenis betrogin" (1.6762), he had used when Marke was deceived by Brangene on his wedding night: "sus so wart daz ane gevän / daz der koning wart betrogin" (11.2850-1). The contrast of the earlier scene in which the deception concealed Isalde's lost virginity with the second in which Gymele saves hers, emphasizes the worst aspects of Tristrant's and Isalde's love. Eilhart's condemnation of love as the destructive force in Tristrant's life, which can never be reconciled with Tristrant's duty as a knight, the insoluble conflict between love and knightly honor, find their expression best in the four-part form which he adopts, in the contrast and parallels between the sections of the love story and the story of the knight. We have seen by analysis of the poem's pattern that Eilhart conceives the story in the heroic tradition. His treatment of character follows this conception. Tristrant is a "helt", a "kune degin" (a word Gottfried never uses for his hero), a hero in the Germanic style. He is strong and clever (he invents fishing and hunting), but reckless (his trip to Isalde is "kintheit", his leap to her bed "tumheit") and proud, obstinate in his desire for glory, and his faults help to destroy him. Isalde, too, though less important than in the other versions, is an epic rather than a romance heroine. She acts in reference to Tristrant, to cure him or save him. She is not active in the love - if anything, she struggles against it when she drinks the potion - but she must submit to its force as he does. She accepts the love and the hardships of her life, particularly in the forest, as she will accept death, with heroic dignity. Even her faults are in the epic tradition: her fierce anger at Tristrant for his supposed cowardice (11.6866 ff.), and particularly her laughter when she sees him beaten (1.7045), are more suitable to Kriemhild than to the other Isolts. Marke, too, though on the whole sympathetic, is violent in his emotions. When his love for Tristrant turns to hatred, his cruelty is as intense as his love had been: he gives Isalde to the lepers, threatens to blind the keeper of Tristrant's dog, sets a wolf-trap for Tristrant. He alone among the various figures of Marke is not torn by love for Isalde. He is gentle and kind to her when she returns from the forest, but he has none of the

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strong feeling for her that he had for Tristrant. Such devotion is fitting only among men - Marke, Kurneval, Tinas, Walwän, all show it to Tristrant. Only the potion enables Tristrant to feel it for Isalde. The friendships between Tristrant and his companions are also in the epic tradition. One can draw parallels between the relationship of Tristrant and Kurneval or Tristrant and Walwän, and those of Achilles and Patrocles, and Roland and Oliver. It is significant that there is no comparable attachment between Tristan and a companion in Thomas or Gottfried. In Thomas, the hero's love is all for Ysolt; in Gottfried, it is for Isolt and Marke, who is not a companion but the king and his uncle. The qualities which are emphasized in the minor characters are those which figures of epic must possess: loyalty, bravery. The few women who appear have a particular function to carry out: Isalde's mother to make the potion; Brangene to leave it unguarded and then to sleep with Marke; the second Isalde to lie to Tristrant before his death; Gymfile and Garföle to be contrasting extremes of Isalde, the one as chaste lover, the other as sinful. But we cannot say that any of these women, or even Isalde herself, is responsible for what happens to the men, as they are in Thomas. They do not have that importance even as a negative power. What happens results from the weaknesses of the men and the power of fate. Fate too is treated in this poem as in an epic. It is totally impartial, essentially pagan. The potion is not its only instrument; all of nature helps to make it effective. The sea causes the death of Tristrant's mother and his own wondrous birth, and it is the wild sea and the wind which carry Tristrant to Ireland to be cured. Birds carry the hair to Tintajöl to start the bride-quest, and the wind — once again — carries Tristrant's ship to Ireland, leaving him on the same beach where he had landed the previous time. The lack of wind and the heat at sea cause the lovers to call for wine and to drink the potion. It is also wind which blows Kehenis' hat into Nampetenis' moat, like a parody of the wind of fate. It is worth noting that once the love has been consummated, nature no longer controls events. Henceforth it simply offers the setting while the potion and the dwarf (evil in men) work as the instruments of fate. Eilhart gives relatively little detail of setting, but he often uses the same setting for similar episodes, as we have already seen, so that the scenes will be connected and contrasted, if necessary, in the audience's mind. Nature seems to protect the lovers, as in the scenes under the linden, the thwarted discovery, and Tristrant's third return, while in the king's bed they are always discovered. The stream through the orchard, which carries the lovers' twigs, is also the site of the attempted murder of Brangene. Perhaps it is the instrument of intrigue, as the sea is the instrument of fate. On two of Tristrant's returns to Cornwall to visit Isalde, Eilhart repeats the same

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hunt procession. Each time a hunt is introduced, it is connected with a love-quest of some sort: first when Walwän arranges a hunt so that Tristrant can see Isalde; then when Isalde has Marke organize one so that Tristrant can show her to Kehenis, and again so that he can meet her; and finally when Tristrant and Kehenis spontaneously chase the deer after their visit to Gariöle, just before they themselves become the objects of a hunt. One is tempted to say the hunt represents the pursuit of sexual love, as perhaps the wind and sea represent passion, since they cause the incidents which lead to the love; and the orchard the pleasure garden, because it is there that the lovers meet to enjoy their love. Clothes and other worldly objects are not described in detail either. When it is pertinent, Eilhart mentions the material involved, either to give the impression of wealth or of poverty, as in the emphasis on gold and silver in Tristrant's armor, the fur and jewels of his men in Ireland, the gold of Isalde's ladies in the procession, and the jewels, silk, and ermine of her dog's litter; at the other extreme, Tristrant's "vil armer linwäte" (1.4905) which the hermit gives him, and Isalde's hair shirt. Otherwise Eilhart only mentions clothes when they change the nature of the person wearing them: the pilgrim grey that Tristrant and Kurneval assume on a trip to Cornwall, the red caps and yellow cloaks of their next trip, and Tristrant's hood-cloak when he goes as a fool. In the same way, colors are mentioned rarely so that they take on special significance: the new clothes which Isalde orders for Tristrant are red (for passion), like the caps and the hose he wears under his pilgrim robe; the sails the host carries when he fetches Isalde are white and black. Numbers, however, are stipulated. The most important number for the love is four, the number of temporal things: 8 the potion lasts four years, the love is consummated on the fourth day ; it is discovered publicly on four occasions; Tristrant brings Isalde back to Marke within four days of their agreement; he returns to visit her four times after his marriage. The number three is connected with Mörolt and Kehenis, and chivalric service, but on Tristrant's last visit to Isalde, he stays three weeks, as though the knight had finally surrendered to the lover. Seven is the number of betrayal: Marke pretends to be away seven nights and then to send Tristrant away for seven nights; seven of Marke's lords slander and persecute Tristrant, and both Pleherin and Nampetenis pursue him with seven men. Seven can be connected with evil (the seven deadly sins), but here it is more likely to be the combination of three and four, the knightly 8 See E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, Excursus XV, and V.F. Hopper, Medieval Number Symbolism (New York, 1938). Hopper calls four the number of the mundane sphere; three and four are the spiritual-temporal duality, the numbers of the universe and of man, the creature, when combined.

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and love aspects of Tristrant's character, which are always in conflict and eventually combine to destroy him. These numbers and the settings we have mentioned run like themes through the poem, connecting episodes and adding significance to them. But they are not many. On the whole, Eilhart holds the poem together by the over-all pattern and the parallelism of incident. There are only a few themes of importance which run through the work. Fate, as we have seen, exerts an influence over the action. Religion, as we would expect in a heroic poem, has little place in the story; the lovers do not feel remorse or repentance, only guilt towards those to whom they owe protection or allegiance. Loyalty and honor are the major heroic qualities, along with courage. Honor, ere, is a problem for all the major characters, though it is not the same thing for all of them, and in one form or another it is the most important theme of the poem. Ere may mean either worldly reputation, the outward show, or personal honor, acting according to one's conscience and position. For Tristrant, ere at first means knightly honor, to win glory by great deeds, and that is what he seeks when he sets out on his travels. It is to be won by killing the dragon and to be preserved by fighting at the risk of death, and in the face of personal attachments. Tristrant is also aware of ere as honor apart from feats of arms. When he goes on the bride-quest, it is to preserve Marke's ere. It is honor which Tinas tells Marke he will lose if he persists in his anger against Tristrant; Marke himself is intent on preserving only his reputation before the world, by then; his concern with worldly honor makes him vulnerable to shame. The envious barons emphasize the shame Tristrant brings on Marke and that is what Marke wishes to avenge on Isalde by subjecting her to a shameful life. The lepers also emphasize the shame the queen will suffer if she is given to them. It is shame Marke cannot forgive Tristrant although he takes Isalde back, and that is what worries him when Tristrant appears with Arthur's court. It is noteworthy that Kehenis, who is deceived like Marke so that a woman can preserve her honor, is also more troubled by shame than anything else when he discovers the nature of his sister's marriage. To some extent one can say that the lovers are destroyed by the delicate nature of worldly honor as it affects those around them. The lovers themselves are rarely concerned with shame, although Isalde worries about her reputation when she begs Minne to have mercy on her after she has drunk the potion, and when she asks Brangene to substitute for her with Marke. To preserve her "werbliche ere" she deceives the king by hiding the loss of her virginity, while Gymele, to maintain her honor, deceives Kehenis and preserves her virginity. Perhaps Gymele's use of the word is closer to that previously mentioned of inner honor, which Isalde does not uphold.

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There is an extension of the sense of worldly reputation in the use of ire to mean essentially the outward show befitting one's position, as in Marke's leading Isalde to Tintajöl "mit grözin ere" (1.2806), contrasting with "die grözin unire" (1.4310) of the lepers leading her away. The word can also mean material reward, in connection with merchants, with repaying Brangene, or Tristrant's captors. Obviously the word takes its meaning from the context, having a material sense for those who are incapable of higher aspirations, (t has a more abstract but still worldly connotation for Marke and on the whole for Isalde, while for Tristrant, though at first it is worldly glory, it comes to mean a standard of honor, which he cannot uphold. Isalde occasionally rises to this kind of ere but she is mainly concerned with the public view. Ideally one should be able to maintain one's private standards and one's reputation in the world, and it is the love, of course, which makes this impossible for Tristrant. Eilhart is as sparse in his use of stylistic devices as in his attention to detail. Allegory is limited to Brangene's story of the two shirts, and it is not subtle. The parallel is not made in so many words but the details they were small and Isalde tore hers while Brangene kept hers whole and new — leave no question as to the meaning. Personification occurs only in Isalde's monologue in which her heart and spirit speak as separate entities, and Minne is invoked. Eilhart uses this technique only in relation to love or sex, to which he is unsympathetic. He does not use metaphor or simile much either, and when he does it is often derogatory. He describes Mörolt as fighting "freislfchin... als ein wilde swin" (11.890-1), and Tristrant bleeding like a pig (1.5349) when he is cut on the scythes; the mass of dead knights lie like cattle (1.5946) after the great battle at Karahes. In each case, there is no doubt of Eilhart's criticism of the people involved. It would seem that he uses the comparison with animals to denigrate man. Only once is the comparison gentle, and then it is not direct: Piloise would like to be swift as a roe to deliver his message, but must go as a man (11.7396-9), and of course this message is concerned with the love. Simile, like allegory, is used almost exclusively for love. Isalde uses several in her monologue. She says that Tristrant is "lüter vor andir volg / alse daz golt ist vor daz blf" (11.2434-5) and that love has become "als ein ezzich sür" (1.2463); she herself is becoming "als ein is kalt" (1.2498). When she finds Tristrant lying poisoned in the field, she sees "den helm glizen sö ein glas" (11.1822-3). Kehenis. the lover, sees himself in Gymele as in a mirror (1.6467) and yet Gymele is not so light as the queen, but more like the sun under black clouds, while Isalde appears like a second sun to light the day (11.6460-3). We might say that Eilhart uses these devices on the whole either

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condescendingly or simply derogatorily and only in connection with subjects he does not approve of, never in connection with the important matters of honor, valor, chivalry. Once only does he compare Tristrant as a fighter with anything, and then it is to the great heroes of German epic, Dietrich and Hildebrand (11.5973-7). Eilhart's method, as one might gather from his avoidance of these techniques, is direct. The poem is in short lines of from five to eight syllables, occasionally some of ten syllables (this is true both of the complete latej poem and the earlier fragments), with rhymed couplets. All of this contributes to the speed and directness of the poem. Of the 9400 odd lines, more than a third (about 3812) is straight narrative, more than a third (3700) dialogue, and the rest is divided among descriptive passages (about 1316), comments of Eilhart (about 290) and monologue or unuttered thought of the characters (290). Of the latter, 200 lines are taken up by Isalde's monologue on love and the other ninety divided among various characters, usually in speeches of three or four lines each. It is clear from this distribution that Eilhart allows the events and characters to speak for themselves, with little comment from him, or from his characters' feelings. Most of the dialogue is in exchanges between two characters, rapid and short remarks, often a line or a half-line each. Emotions, when they are introduced within this framework, are understated or compressed, sometimes with great force, as in the dialogue between Tristrant and his uncle when he brings the queen back to court (11.4916-77). Dialogue is used as much as possible to carry the action ahead and to disclose whatever the reader needs to know of the character's thoughts. All the minor characters speak: Marke's courtiers, the navigator of the ship, the steward's relatives, the girl who brings the potion, the knights who are to kill Brangene, Tristrant's captors, the leper, the priest Michel, Pleherin, the smith, Houpt and Plot, and so on. People who may not even appear in other versions, or who at best are only mentioned, are given lines in this poem. The effect is to give the action the immediacy of a dramatic recitation. There is little reflection offered or aroused; action is all important. And emotion hinders action (as Tristrant's love impedes his heroic deeds).

THOMAS

Since the problem which Thomas and Gottfried pose differs from Eilhart's, the structure of their poems is also different. Thomas is less concerned with Tristran's success or failure as a knight than with the developirient of the tragic love which he is destined to suffer and the

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metamorphosis of that love into art. The story falls into three parts: Tristran's youth, when he develops as a knight and his spirit begins to be refined by his education; the love through its first high point in the forest exile; and finally, the refinement of the love through the separation of the lovers and their death. The structure is basically romance, with a conflict between love and the world, but unlike the usual romance, this conflict is soluble only temporarily in art and finally in death. Each of the three parts may be divided into seven separate sections of unequal length, but corresponding more or less to the length of the sections in the other parts. I do not wish to make too much of the length of sections, since here I am relying for the most part on Brother Robert's translation, not directly on Thomas, and much has been omitted. Seven, the number of "perfect completeness" 9 , is the key number in Tristran's education — Thomas specifies that he is taught the seven arts and the seven branches of music - and therefore it seems fitting as the number of his development in each part. The pattern of the story is as follows: Β 1

Parents (to XVI)

Bride-quest (to XLV)

Adventures, Marriage (to LXXII)

2

Education (to XVII)

Potion (to XLVI)

Lovers' Yearning (to LXXIV)

3

Kidnapping (to XXI)

Substitutions (to L)

Hall of Statues (to LXXXI)

4

Cornwall, Recognition (to XXIV)

Discovery (to LIV)

Bold Water (to LXXXVI)

5

Revenge (to XXV)

Ordeal (to LX)

Return (to XCIII)

6

Morolt (to XXIX)

Magic Dog (to LXIII)

Tristran le naim (to XCV)

7

Wound Cure (to XXXI)

Exile (to LXVI)

Death (to CI)

The only major incident which Thomas does not have in common with Eilhart is the planned execution and escape, for which Thomas substitutes the ordeal. While Eilhart emphasizes the sinful, destructive nature of the love, Thomas shows that God sanctions it. Thomas' additions to the common incidents (besides the kidnapping and the Irish knight which we discussed in connection with Eilhart) are the magic dog and the Hall of Statues. Both these episodes are concerned with an aspect of love which is not to be found in Eilhart, the spiritualization of the love and sublimation through art: in one case, through the pleasure of color and music, in the 9 St. Augustine, as quoted by Hopper, 79. Seven, composed of the first even and odd numbers (spiritual and temporal, 3 and 4), means 'perfect completeness'.

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other, through an imitation of the beloved object, a recreation of the love situation. In each case, there is sadness in the separation and renunciation of physical love. The dominant mood of the poem is melancholy, often touched with a longing for death. Thomas is always more concerned with the spirit of his hero than with his actions. Scenes of physical action alternate with episodes of psychological change, which prepare Tristran for the next action. We can see this in the scheme outlined above. The first section of each part is a series of adventures with the conscious or unconscious purpose of winning a bride: in A, Kanelangres wins Blanscheflur; in B, Tristran wins Ysolt for Marke; and in C, he wins Ysolt as blanches mains for himself. The second section deals with the forming of a new mental state: in A, Tristran's education, which prepares him for love; in B, the potion which awakens the love; and in C, the yearning of Tristran for Ysolt which leads to the creation of the statues. In the third section, there is a violent change or substitution of some kind: in A, Tristran is kidnapped from his native land and left in his uncle's land; in B, Brengven is substituted for Ysolt and Ysolt is carried off by Gandin; in C, the statues take the place of the real people. The fourth section, the mid-point, is the discovery or recognition of an important fact which changes the pattern of events: in A, Marke learns that Tristran is his nephew; in B, he learns of the love affair; in C, Caerdin learns of the true state of his sister's marriage and of Tristran's real love. The discoveries of the fourth section lead, in the fifth, to revenge or justification: in A, Tristran returns home to avenge his father; in B, God vindicates the lovers; and in C, Tristran returns to Cornwall to avenge himself and Ysolt on the traitors. The sixth section deals with a fight against an evil force of some kind which leaves Tristran with a significant token: in A, he fights Morolt for Marke and Cornwall, and receives the wound which leads him to Ysolt; in B, he fights Urgan for Ysolt and Polen, and receives the dog which symbolizes the sublimation of the love in art; in C, he fights Orgillius for the other Tristran, and receives the wound of which he will die. The last section is a journey to an unknown destination, a kind of death: in A, Tristran leaves Cornwall wishing to die, sails at random, and returns a new man; in B, he leaves with Ysolt for an unearthly existence in the cave; and in C, he and Ysolt die. The seven sections develop from each other: a quest (1), a new mental orientation (2), a physical change (3), a new fact hence again a different mental orientation (4), an act made necessary by the new knowledge (5), a physical act which arises simply out of a noble impulse in Tristran (6) and the end of a phase (7). The odd sections, 1, 3, 5, 7, can be said to be concrete actions of one kind or another, while the even sections, 2, 4, 6, although they may include physical action, are primarily concerned with

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mental changes. There are certain close relations between A and C which they do not share with B, and certain significant differences in parallel sections in B. In A 1 and C 1, Tristran's parents marry and Tristran marries, while in B, it is Tristran's uncle for whom Tristran wins a bride. In A 5 and C 5, Tristran returns home, in one case to Brittany, in the other to Cornwall, and takes revenge by killing his enemies; in B, God in a sense avenges the lovers without violence. In A 6 and C 6, Tristran receives a poison wound; in Β 6, he receives a magic dog which dispels sorrow and pain. In A 7, he journeys to Ysolt to be cured; in C 7, she journeys to cure him, while in B, they journey together. The last three sections particularly show the toning down of violence in B, as compared with the other sections because that is the love section, and there Tristran is almost exclusively lover. In A, Tristran is only a knight, and in C, he is also a knight, but his knightly actions, particularly in 5 and 6, are connected with or influenced by the love. Within the parts, there are other patterns. In B, there are two, one is the odd episodes: in Β 1, Tristran wins Ysolt for Marke; in Β 3, he wins her from Gandin; in Β 5, God sanctions the love; and in Β 7, God sustains them in it. The other pattern works inward from the first and last episodes to the middle: Β 1 and 7 deal with the lovers' journey to and from Cornwall; Β 2 and 6, with the magic elements of the potion (the impulse to physical love) and the dog (spiritual love); Β 3 and 5, with Tristran's winning of Ysolt after Marke has given her up and with God supporting them. In Β 4, the love is discovered, which forces events to change their course. The pattern for Β may be shown thus, symmetrical rather than parallel: 10 1

7 There is a similar pattern in C: in C 1 and 7, the lovers part and are finally separated or united in death; in C 2 and 6, Tristran longs for Ysolt and the second Tristran longs for his love; in 3 and 5, Tristran seeks comfort in the figure of Ysolt; and in 4, an event occurs which forces a change, in this case from the substitute to the real Ysolt. 10 This is a distiction which Stolte draws between Eilhart and Gottfried, but it is equally valid for Thomas, (96-8).

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In the last part of the poem, C, the love reaches a spiritual peak in renunciation, but the impossibility of maintaining this state in life is made clear in the final meeting of the lovers. Here we learn finally what the whole poem has implied, that death is the only solution. As if to reinforce his main point, that love in any situation is necessarily sad, Thomas introduces figures in this part to parallel and contrast with the lovers: Ysolt as blanches mains, Tristran le naim and Caerdin. This Ysolt is like the queen in that she desires Tristran and is not backward in showing her feeling. Agressive lust is common to the major female figures in Thomas. She differs only in that she is married to a man who cannot love her while the queen is married to a man she cannot love. Tristran le naim, like the hero, is loved by the woman he loves, but is separated from her by exterior forces. But again, there is a significant difference in responsibility. Tristran 'Tamerus", the hero, has taken another man's wife, while "le naim's" love is taken from him. Caerdin, as in Eilhart, is a lesser parallel to Tristran, a lover but one who must have physical satisfaction; he cannot be content with the figure of Brengven as Tristran is with that of Ysolt. Thomas does not offer an ideal knight to parallel Tristran, as Eilhart does in Walwän, because he is not primarily interested in Tristran's chivalric duties. The only other figure who may be called a Tristran-figure in the main body of the poem is the Irish knight who wins Ysolt from Marke with his music and loses her to Tristran's music. Like Caerdin, who is a shadow of Tristran the lover, the Irish knight reflects one aspect of Tristran, the artist. All three Tristran-figures, Tristan le naim, Caerdin and the Irish knight, are shown only as lovers, not as knights. The true parallels, Tristran le naim and Ysolt as blanches mains, like Tristran's parents whose love prefigures and in a way determines their son's, show in different ways the sorrow inherent in love and the futility of hoping for a happy love in life. Since Tristran's knightly success is not so important in Thomas as the development of his love, the pattern of the poem differs from Eilhart's. The love rises through the first encounters (when Tristran is first cured and tutors Ysolt, and when he kills the dragon and is again cured) to an intellectual and spiritual communion, before the potion brings it into the sensual sphere; then it begins to decline through the intrigues and deceptions, until the parting when it again becomes spiritual:

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stages of love:

Spiritual

turning points:

potion

Physical

Spiritual death

If anything, Tristran's career as a knight follows the same pattern, reaching its high and low points slightly ahead of the lover, not in contrasting phases as in Eilhart. The knight's career reaches the first peak on the bride-quest; up to here, Tristran has avenged his father, defeated Morolt, and slain the dragon. Thenceforth it declines through the intrigues when Tristran does no fighting, to the discovery of the affair and rises again after the lovers are separated, when Tristran serves the Roman emperor and Havelin.

knight

lover

Tristran's combats follow a pattern similar to the larger pattern of the poem. He meets seven opponents in single combat; then, at the end, with Tristran le naim, he meets seven at once. One is tempted to say that he has fought every form of evil (every mortal sin? ) through the poem, and at the end he repeats all the combats symbolically in one, with the knight who represents what is good in him. In the last encounter, we have his life struggle against evil telescoped. It has often left its mark in poison wounds and eventually it overcomes him, but Tristran also takes his toll by mutilating, as well as defeating, most of his opponents. In the physical battles (all but the Irish knight) Tristran's victory frees an entire country from tribute or devastation, except in the first and last which are personal grievances; in those, he avenges his father and what might be called his other self. The last fight is in the service of love, an unhappy love like his own. In a way, all the encounters but the Spanish giant and Morgan are connected with love: Morolt, in that the wound leads

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Tristran to Isolt; the dragon which wins her for Marke; the Irish knight from whom Tristran wins her back; Urgan whom he fights in order to get the dog for her; and Moldagog whom he defeats in order to build the Hall to her. Thomas has the love pervade almost every act of Tristran's life. Love does not interfere with chivalry, as in Eilhart. Thomas combines, rather than contrasts the two. Thomas' hero begins by fighting men and ends fighting giants, whereas Eilhart's Tristrant fights a monstrous Mörolt and the dragon early in the poem, then lepers, but does not encounter other knights until he has left Isalde. In Thomas, Tristran's first three battles are for increasingly larger and less personal goals: first against Morgan for his own inheritance, then against Morolt for Cornwall, and finally the dragon for Ireland and to win a bride for his uncle. These are all battles for society. After the dragon, the love affair begins and the one contest which Tristran enters consciously to win Ysolt, against the Irish knight, he fights with music. When he leaves Marke's court, he meets a new kind of opponent, a series of giants, all related. These last combats, strange and similar, create the impression that Tristran's life is becoming less and less real, as he is moving out of the social context of the knight and into the more personal one of the artist and lover. Tristran's disguises, like the battles he fights, are in keeping with Thomas' view of him as artist and tragic lover. They improve progressively until the first return: when he first comes to Ireland to be cured, he tells the queen he is a student on his way to Spain to study astronomy; this suggests the incompleteness of his loveless spirit as well as his intellectual interests. On the bride-quest he is a merchant; when he wins Ysolt from the Irish knight, it is as a minstrel; and when he appears at the ordeal, he is dressed as a pilgrim. Only after the misunderstanding does he appear in a disguise unworthy of him, as a leper, the lover deformed by love. This is when the love is at its lowest point. He returns to Ysolt one last time, as a penitent, the final disguise he assumes. We might note, though it is not a disguise, that whenever Tristran wishes to be alone with Ysolt, and when he does not wish to sleep with his wife, he pretends to be ill, a pretence which characterizes his state and may be related to the death-wish we have noted. The dominant characteristics of Thomas' hero are his predisposition to tragedy and suffering which he inherits from his parents and the desire for death which comes to the fore several times in the story: when he is suffering from Morolt's wound, when Ysolt rejects him, and finally when he thinks she has failed him, on his death-bed. He also has a curious tendency, perhaps to evade his destiny, perhaps because he is more than anything the artist, to wish for the impossible and to feign the untrue, not

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only in his longing for death, but in his wish, as he brings Ysolt home to Marke that he might sail on with her forever, a desire none of the other Tristrans express. When he is finally forced to live apart from her, he has the elaborate set of figures made so that he can relive his experiences as though with real people. He crystallizes one moment in art and attempts to preserve it thus, unchanging, forever. It is his destiny which works itself out through his life, rather than any defect of character that leads to his death, but he is not without certain failings. His unbridled desire leads to the last meeting in the orchard and his departure from Cornwall. Desire, jealousy, and curiosity induce him to marry Ysolt as blanches mains. The same defects are even stronger in Ysolt. It is interesting that the heroine in each version seems to be modelled on the hero. Here Ysolt is clever, passionate, and suspicious. Thomas draws her in the classical and didactic Christian tradition, as the protagonist in the love and essentially a destructive force, although he is at the same time sympathetic to the love. Ysolt turns situations and people's feelings to her advantage, indulges her desires at the sacrifice of others, and yet she is lovely and accomplished, fiercely loyal and devoted to Tristran. It is in her nature to be passionate and possessive just as it is in his to suffer for love. Marke is almost a minor figure in this version. Thomas is concerned with the development of the love within his hero and with its effect on the lovers. There are fewer minor characters than in any other version. Tristran has no companions (Kurneval is notably absent), though Thomas does add a foster-father, Roald, since he has Kanelangres die before Tristran is born. The only other addition is Cariado, the type of the losengier, as Jonin points out, 1 1 who creates, with the aid of Brengven's vanity, the only misunderstanding the lovers have. The women are more important in Thomas than in Eilhart. In fact, for the love theme, they are more important than the men, but there are only four of them. Ysolt as blanches mains, as we have said, is a parallel figure to Ysolt the queen, and she too is passionate, suspicious, and vindictive. She shares with the other women cleverness, a tendency to intrigue, and aggressiveness in love and she too illustrates Thomas' view that women are destructive because they always desire something beyond their reach. All the women are involved with a disastrous love in some way: Ysolt as blanches mains' love for her husband leads to his death; Brengven's love for Caerdin leads to the misunderstanding of the lovers; Blanscheflur's love for Kanelangres causes her own death. Only Ysolt's mother is not herself involved in an unhappy love, but she brings the lovers together, both by 11

Jonin, Les penonnages feminins, 283.

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curing Tristran and with her potion. One might say that she contributes the physical forces of life and love, while Blanscheflur gives the emotional. Thomas' view of the perversity of woman's nature is one of the themes of the poem. Curiously, though he himself makes the reference to Dido at the beginning (chap. IV), he puts the next attacks on woman in the mouth of unattractive characters: the steward (chap. XLI), a known coward and liar, and Brengven at the moment that she shows her worst side, of vanity and vindictiveness, in a violent change from love to hate (Douce, 1. 1 ff.). She herself presents an example of what Thomas criticizes. The final attack is delivered by the author in his own person. It is elicited by the jealousy of Ysolt as blanches mains but is directed at women in general: Ire de femme est a duter mult s'en deit chaschuns garder car la u plus am6 avra, iluc plus tost se vengera. cum de leger vent lur amur, de leger vent lur haür e plus dure 1'enimiste quant vent, que ne fait l'amiste (Douce, 11.1323-30). Just as it is woman's nature to turn quickly from love to hatred, so, for Thomas, it is in the nature of love to create sorrow and pain. Throughout the poem, love is described as a disease and it is the pain in love which is emphasized. Tristran himself is naturally susceptible to love because of the sorrow which hangs over his life from its inception: he is conceived by a wounded man in pain, and a weeping woman. He is destined to bring distress to all who know him and to live his life in sorrow: "conceived in care and born in pain, brought into the world with sorrow and grief, his whole life was suffering; he was sad in waking and sad in sleeping, and sad he died" (chap. XVI). The drink he shares with Ysolt adds to his legacy of sorrow; it brings him a "life of grief and trouble and long affliction, carnal desires and constant yearning" (chap. XLVI). When the lovers part in the orchard, they accept the impossibility of any future joy: Tristran

tel duel ai por la departie ja n'avrai hait jor de ma vie

Ysolt

ja n'avrai mais, amis, deport quant j'ai perdu vostre confort (Cambridge, 11.29-30,45-6).

Tristran attempts to soothe his pain by changing the object of his desire, but it is not in his power to avoid sorrow and he only compounds his suffering:

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a sa dolur, a sa gravance volt Tristrans dune quere venjance a sun mal quert tel vengement dunt il doblera sun turment (Sneyd, 11.213-16). When he goes to the Hall of Statues to worship his love, he concentrates on the sorrows: e les deliz des granz amors e lor travaus et lor dolurs e lor paignes et lor ahans recorde a l'himage Tristrans (Turin, 11.1-4). Tristran and Ysolt are not the only ones who suffer the pain of love; it is the lot of any lover. Marke and Ysolt as blanches mains know it as well: entre ces quatre ot estrange amor: tut en ourent painne e dolur e un e autre en tristur vit; en nul d'aus nen i a deduit (Turin, 11.71-4). The other Tristran makes the connection of suffering and love even stronger, suggesting that there is no sorrow equal to the sorrow of love: "que unc ne sot que fud amur / ne put saver que est dolur" (Douce, 11.991-2). The pain which love causes is not just a spiritual pain, though that certainly is its main force; it is also physical. Thomas suggests that the physical pain is like the effect of a poison which invades the body and can only be cured with special skill. Both the effect and the cure are the result of magic powers. When Tristran's mother first feels love, it cuts and burns, heats and chills her; it is a sickness, a pain, an evil that destroys her like poison. She suspects Kanelangres of having magic and evil powers to have so overwhelmed her, as though for her, too, the love were the result of magic. She hopes only for a clever doctor to give her a drink that will restore her (chap. VI). The drink suggests the magic potion which Tristran and Ysolt will eventually take, but which instead of healing, will poison them. Tristran's wound recalls his mother's suffering in that "neither herb nor drink can heal it" (chap. XXIX) but only the skill of Ysolt's mother, whose medical powers are connected with magic, as we learn when she brews the potion. Tristran himself is thought to have magic powers when he returns, cured, from Ireland (chap. XXXII). His second poisoning, from the dragon, also leaves him powerless and he can be cured only with the compassion of other men. Again it is Ysolt and her mother who offer it. Then the queen brews the "secret drink" with various flowers and herbs, and with "magic arts" which will ensure life-long love (chap. XLVI). Thus,

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having twice saved Tristran from poison, she inadvertently poisons him for good. One is tempted to interpret the excuse Tristran gives his wife for abstaining from intercourse with her, an old and painful infirmity on his right side, as a reference to his love, an old wound which still torments him. Tristran's last wound is received in the service of another unhappy love, and once again only Ysolt can cure him. She is to come as a doctor, which she will be both literally for the real wound and figuratively for the pains of love. His last message to her, putting his life in her hands, plays on the word saluz as greeting and health: dites li saluz de ma part, que nule en moi senz li n'a part, de euer tanz saluz li emvei que nule ne remaint od mei. mis cuers de salu la salue, senz li ne m'ert sante rendue. emvei Ii tute ma salu. cumfort ne m'ert ja mais rendu, salu de vie ne sante se par li ne sunt aporte. s'ele ma salu ne m'aporte e par buche ne me conforte, ma sante od li dune remaine, e jo murrai od ma grant peine (Douce, 11.1195-1208). This speech and the circumstances of the last wound make quite clear the connection between love and poisoning of the system like a disease. Tristran's mother had felt the effects of this poison and had succeeded in arousing them in Kanelangres, and the consummation of their love came when Kanelangres was wounded and she visited him as a doctor. Tristran, susceptible by nature to the poison of love, is made dependent on Ysolt and her mother by the poison. Thus the women are responsible for the suffering and at the same time for the cure. Since the love grows out of inherent tendencies in the lovers, Thomas makes little of exterior forces in the poem, or even of exterior details. Fate has far less importance than in Eilhart and anything that might be considered an instrument of fate is shown to be from God, but even God, though mentioned more than in Eilhart, has much less to do with the plot than in Gottfried. The setting, too, is rarely described. Thomas does not connect scenes as Eilhart does, by having them occur in the same location or with the same objects, except on rare occasions and, like the parallel figures (Tristran le naim and Ysolt as blanches mains), only at the end of the poem. When Caerdin goes for Ysolt he carries with him objects which recall stages in the love, the bowl (Tristran's appearance as a leper), wine

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(the potion), and birds (the kidnapping). When Ysolt leaves with Caerdin to go to Tristran for the last time, she leaves by a secret door, just as she had done when she first set out to find him in Ireland. Numbers have some significance, but few of them are used. The number forty, which in the bible is the number of trial or preparation (Noah and the flood, Moses in the wilderness, Christ in the desert, Lent), 12 is connected with important moments in the development of the love: Ysolt's mother takes forty days to cure Tristran the first time; Marke gives Tristran forty days to find Ysolt; and Tristran gives Caerdin the same space of time to bring Ysolt to cure him. The number three occurs at crises in Tristran's life: his escape from death and first meeting with Ysolt, the beginning of his love relation with her, and their death. Three also marks important steps in Tristran's life: he is born on the third night of his mother's agony; he suffers three poison wounds, and he is involved with three Ysolts. The other number connected with his development is, as we have noted, seven, the number of intellected division (the planets, the days of the week as well as the liberal arts and the virtues and vices): Tristran is educated in the seven arts and the seven branches of music; the storm which takes him to Cornwall during the kidnapping lasts seven days; and he is killed by seven brothers. It follows from Thomas' interest in the psychology of his characters that he makes little of the actions of minor characters or of exterior details but at the same time he uses more of the poetic devices, allegory, symbolism and simile, than Eilhart. There are three passages in which the symbol is explicit: the story of the two shirts, where the heat of the sun (passion) makes Ysolt wear her silk shirt and soil it; Maijodo's prophetic dream of the boar, just before the love is discovered; and Cariado's exchange with Ysolt after Tristran's marriage. The last two are based on animal imagery which Thomas, like Eilhart, uses for censure. In the dream, there is a raging boar that climbs on the king's bed, molests him, and leaves blood and foam over the clothes, while the courtiers stand about unable to help (chap. LI); this is not altogether a flattering picture of the anxious lover and implies that Thomas sees the love as an attack on the king. Cariado is the butt of much criticism through animal imagery: Ysolt calls him a "huan" and he compares her in turn to a "fresaie" (Sneyd, 11.819, 827), when he carries bad news of Tristran to her. Later he tells Brengven that Caerdin ran like a hare before dogs and Brengven answers that it is more likely a dog would run before a hare, or a lion before a goat (chap. LXXXIX); thus she defends Caerdin and turns Cariado's insult back on

12

Hopper, 71.

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himself, as Ysolt did, by the inference of coward in the hare, and lecher in both hare and goat. The other symbols in Thomas refer to the love: the ring which Ysolt gives Tristran to be the letter and seal of their love (chap. LXVII); a symbol of constancy, as in married love, it is in fact the object which reminds Tristran of his promise and keeps him faithful to the queen despite his marriage. The bowl which Tristran carries when he comes to Ysolt as a leper, was a gift, from her in the first year of their love; it suggests the potion which like the ring is a symbol of the force which binds them. Thomas uses similes only to describe minor characters — Tristran's parents, the Irish steward, Cariado — rarely in reference to the lovers. What we learn of them is mainly from their own thoughts in soliloquies, of which there are many in Thomas. We can only judge this, of course, from the little that remains of his poem, since it is a feature which Brother Robert ordinarily omits or paraphrases briefly. Over 500 lines of the 3139 extant are monologues, about 900 dialogue, mainly long speeches which, like the monologue, express the character's thoughts, though in more formal form. Thomas does not use short exchanges which might contribute to the action as in Eilhart. Of the rest, another 900 lines are narrative, about 465 descriptive, and close to 350 are Thomas' comment or analysis. This makes a significant contrast with the figures for Eilhart and Beroul and points up the poet's interest in abstract thought and generalizations which can be drawn from the story. Jonin points out that Thomas has a tendency to pass from the particular to the type to a generalization. 13 This is, of course, a normal didactic technique. His comments deal with human nature, curiosity, woman's nature, jealousy, and the various kinds of suffering in love. Thomas' interest in ideas rather than in action is also evident in his choice of words. The line is eight-syllable and the verse is the regular couplet, but the rhyming words are often direct contrasts: amur — dolur; haur — amur; delit — despit. Words which seem close in meaning are contrasted to make fine distinctions: e volt sun buen, sun desir het car s'il n'en oüst si grant desir a son voleir poiist asentir mais a sun grant desir asent (Sneyd, 11.610-13). He uses repetition of words through long passages, and repetition of thought: 13

Joirin, Les personnages, 450.

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del astenir vient la haür issi cum l'amur vient del faire si vient la haür del retraire si cum l'amur del ovre vient e la haür ki s'en astient (Sneyd, 11.520-4), as though the character were persuading himself more than the reader. Dijksterhuis, in his very careful and valuable comparative analysis of the styles of Thomas and Gottfried, despite the political twist at the end, points out several interesting peculiarities of Thomas' language. He notes his preference for contrasts, but says that where Gottfried creates a higher unity out of contrast, as with "liep" "leit", Thomas describes an irreconcilable opposition.14 Dijksterhuis carries this distinction through most of the book, showing that Thomas uses alliteration and similar sounding words for contrast, Gottfried for harmony. Thomas carefully limits and isolates his material, preferring nouns to adjectives or verbs which Gottfried uses profusely. In fact, Gottfried forms verbs and adjectives from nouns, while Thomas makes nouns of everything. In the same way, Gottfried creates symmetry by repetition with variations, new ideas which carry the thought forward; Thomas includes a new idea within the repetition of the old, closing it off. Thomas is interested only in the inner man and isolates him from the outer world, from other men and nature, while Gottfried is concerned with the whole man and conceives of the whole world as a unit which contains him.

GOTTFRIED

Gottfried follows Thomas' story-line closely, but, without the end of his poem, we cannot definitely assert the same structure for him. However there does seem to be a break in the story after the wound-cure, when Tristan returns as a "niuborner man" (1.8313) and we look forward to a new life; again after the forest-exile Gottfried says the lovers will never again be "vrilich und offenbaere" (1.17711). The finality of these statements, which point out that what is to follow will be essentially different from what has gone before, suggests that Gottfried too conceives the story in three parts: first, the preparation of Tristan for the love, ending with the first meeting of the lovers and Tristan's preparation of Isolt; the second part, the incidents and intrigues of the affair, up to the perfect realization of love in the Minnegrotte, in which it is made clear that such a 14 The rest of this paragraph is a summary of Dijksterhuis' main points. Note that his conclusions on Gottfried, arrived at by comparison with Thomas, are similar to Stolte's, the result of comparison with Eilhart

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love cannot exist within their world; and the third part, the separation, when the lovers attempt to live apart, but fail and die.1 s There is also something to be said for Schwietering's division: he begins the second part with the potion when the love becomes physical and the third with the parting when the love becomes spiritual.16 There is support for this within the poem in Gottfried's two lone digressions, one on loyalty in love, which occurs after the potion is drunk (11.12183), the other on surveillance, which comes before the parting of the lovers (11.17858 ff.). Perhaps we can reconcile the two structural patterns by pointing out that Tristan's life begins a second phase after he meets Isolt and a third after the Minnegrotte, while the love begins one with the potion and another with the separation. The episodes between these divisions, the bride-quest and the discovery in the orchard, can be taken as linking the others. There are striking similarities in small details which link the potion and the orchard scenes. In each case the fatal action - drinking the potion and Marke's appearance — result from the combined innocence of a servant and the carelessness of 3rangaene. The two events signal the beginning and the end of Brangaene's importance; between them, except for the idyll in the Minnegrotte, Brangaene and the worldly intrigue she stands for guide the course of the love. After the orchard, the love will again be as it was before the potion, pure and spiritual. Critical opinion, in general, agrees on the divisions. Stolte, too, feels a break after the potion and another after the parting,17 though for some reason he divides the poem into two parts and then subdivides the first into two again, while stressing Gottfried's tendency to three-part structure. Meissburger divides what exists of the poem into three parts and goes on to posit two more to follow.18 He bases his division on an analogy with the saint's life: the first part is the worldly life before the calling (for Tristan, until the love); the second, the holy life during the calling (the love itself); the third, the fall from God to free will (Tristan seduced by the other Isolt); and the two to follow would be the sinful earthly existence and death as the return to God and the entrance to eternal life. The divisions which Gottfried himself makes, the four-line rhymes, usually in the form of adages on Gottfried's favourite themes — love, grief, loyalty, and changing fortune — call attention to changes in Tristan's status. They occur mainly in groups of three: first, at 11.1751, 1791, and 15

H. de Boor, 130, also begins the second part with the bride-quest and the third w t h the exile. 16 J. Schwietering, "Gottfrieds Tristan", 9. 17 Stolte, Etthart und Gottfried, 139. 18 Meissburger, 133.

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1865, when Tristan becomes an orphan and is adopted; the next group, 11.5069, 5099, and 5177, when Marke learns who he is and makes him his heir, and Tristan learns of his real father and the need for revenge; the next set includes one which is built not on two repeated rhymes, but on one word repeated four times: e. This passage, 11.11871 ff., introduces the avowal and consummation of the love, when Tristan becomes a lover, and it stands alone. Then at 11.12183, 12431, and 12503, Gottfried discusses love, the lovers persuade Brangaene to take Isolt's place, and they learn of the potion which they have drunk. Tristan becomes an intriguer in the name of love and accepts the death which the love brings. From this point in the story, we move towards the death of the lovers since they cannot both pursue the physical side of love and live in their world. This would seem to be the mid-point of the story which, if it follows the three-part pattern we have assumed from Thomas, with Part I ending at about 1.8225, and Part II at 1.17658, would probably end Part III at about 25,000. Gottfried makes no major additions or omissions of incidents; all that he uses can be found in Thomas. But he often changes the emphasis, particularly in Tristan's knighting, the betrothal of Isolt and Marke, and in the Minnegrotte. Because he is less interested in Tristan as a knight than as an artist and lover, he adds the whole literary excursus in place of the knighting scene, of which he describes only Tristan's clothes, and those in allegorical terms. And in the betrothal, he concentrates more on the clothes than on the people or the action. He uses the symbolic value of the clothes to suggest the spiritual union of Tristan and Isolt, which all but obliterates momentarily, the betrothal of Isolt to Marke which is actually taking place. Gottfried also makes far more of the Minnegrotte than Thomas had and presumably, since there are similarities between the two descriptions, he would have done less with the Hall of Statues, if not omitted it altogether, as Tax suggests.19 Like Thomas' hall, the grotto can be reached only with difficulty; it was used by pagans for sensual love, but is transformed by Tristan to a temple of mystical love, that is, through the refinement of Tristan and Isolt, the kind of love which has been heretofore sensual and pagan, becomes spiritual. The important difference between the Minnegrotte and the Hall of Statues is the presence of Isolt in the former. There the love is a complete union of two perfectly-suited spirits, while in Thomas it is the sublimation of physical desire in the worship of an object created by the lover in the image he chooses. Gottfried makes it quite clear that Isolt and Tristan are similar spirits, and therefore capable of mutual affection on a high level. We have Iα

Tax, 167-8. It is possible, of course, that Gottfried did not finish the poem because he had said all he had to say about the love.

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mentioned how alike their educations are: Tristan brought up by Floraete and Curvenal, Isolt by her mother and the chaplain; both instructed in letters and music; and the effect of their music on others - Tristan playing at Marke's court and Isolt at her father's - is the same, an almost magic power to distract men's thoughts: Als er die harpfen do genam sinen handen si vil wol gezam; weich unde linde, deine, lane und rehte alsam ein harm blanc; do begund er suoze doenen und harpfen so ze prise in britunischer wise, daz maneger da stuont unde saz, der sin selbes namen vergaz: da begunden herze und oren tumben unde toren und uz ir rehte wanken; (11.3547-3595) ir liren unde ir harpfenspil sluoc si ze beiden wenden mit harmblanken henden ze lobelichem prise. wan von ir wart manc herze vol mit senelicher trahte. von ir wart maneger slahte gedanke und ahte vür braht. diu junge süeze künigin also zoch si gedanken in uz maneges herzen arken als der agestein die barken mit der Syrenen sänge tuot

^ 8064-8111)

Isolt is perhaps the only figure in Gottfried's poem who can be said to parallel Tristan and this in itself is an important distinction from the other versions. Only here are the lovers so clearly outside their world and beyond comparison with it. Tristan's father, as we have seen, in his love and to some extent in his life, prefigures his son but what is most striking in him is the recklessness which leads to his death in the feud with Morgan. Tax suggests that Tristan suffers from this sin of his father's as well as from Riwalin's sin in love, that is, in his illegitimate birth. 20 He points out 20

Tax, 36.

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that Tristan is guilty in killing Morgan, just as his father apparently had picked an unjustified quarrel with him, and Tristan is unchivalrous in his treatment of Morolt whom he strikes when he has lost his helmet and sword and is virtually unarmed. Tax further notes that Urgan is aware of Tristan's guilty action in that encounter, and therefore must be blinded and finally destroyed by Tristan: "damit hat Tristan den einzigen Zeugen seiner Taten, der sie bis auf den Grund durchschaut hatte, einfach aus der Welt geschafft." 21 This brings up the problem of the combats in Gottfried. Is Tristan perhaps fighting his own or others' sins in the various encounters? If his opponents represent evil, then any action taken to destroy them is justified. We have already mentioned that several of the combats recall scenes in the Psychomachia. The combat with Morolt, who trusts completely to his own strength, against Tristan who relies on God and right, is similar to the battle of Superbia and Mens Humilis. Superbia appears galloping about high on a horse, scornful, boastful, threatening, contrasting her own old tradition to the untried and unknown nature of her opponent. She is destroyed and her head cut off; she is compared to Goliath and the example is drawn: "frangit Deus omno superbum" (1.285). Morolt also gallops about on his horse, cutting an impressive figure before the battle. He is scornful of Tristan's youth and inexperience and denies the justice of Tristan's cause, but he is finally defeated. Tristan, who humbly leaves the whole outcome of the fight in God's hands: unser sige und unser saelekeit diun stat an keiner ritterschaft wan an der einen gotes craft (11.6764-6), cuts off Morolt's head and praises God for destroying this pride: "disiu hohvart diust gelegen" (1.7080). The comparison with David and Goliath is not explicit in Gottfried, but the whole situation suegests it: the young boy who comes to court, soothes the king with his harp and then defeats the fiercest enemy of the king's people in an apparently totally unequal battle, but with God's support. Gottfried, emphasizing the evil nature of Morolt, calls him a "veige valandes man" (1.6906) and describes his charge "als den der tiuvel vüeret" (1.6852). If this parallel is valid, then the battle is a victory over pride. Tristan's next encounter is with the dragon and here again we have a parallel with Prudentius' poem. Lust appears in the Psychomachia girt with firebrands, spouting pitch, sulfur, and smoke. Chastity thrusts a sword through her throat and then goes to the Jordan to wash the sword which is 21

Tax, 113.

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stained with gore from the enemy's throat (11.40-108). Gottfried's dragon spouts smoke, flames, and wind like the devil's child (11.8971-2), and Tristan wounds him in the throat. After the battle, Tristan retires to a pool to recover, and is poisoned by contact with the dragon's tongue. The hero is left with a poison wound from the encounters with both Morolt and the dragon, suggesting that he does not altogether overcome pride or lust. But the battle with Urgan "li vilus" seems to leave him unscathed, perhaps because Urgan respresents the wrath not of the hero but of his uncle. It is Marke who succumbs to wrath after Tristan's return; the word zom occurs four times in twenty-two lines (16510-32), along with nit, haz, leit, and tobeheit. Moved to greater fury by the glances of the lovers than he has been by their deeds, and unable to recognize or accept the new state of their love, as he has been unable to attain their level in it, he will exile them. The course of Tristan's battle with Urgan bears comparison with the defeat of Ira Tumens by Patientia in the Psychomachia. There Ira throws her shaft at Patientia, but the shaft bounces off and Ira tires her right hand throwing. She strikes with her sword, but the sword shatters, and she eventually kills herself out of fury and frustration (11.109-54). Urgan also begins the encounter with Tristan by throwing a pole at him, the normal start of a fight at long range, but the pole misses and Tristan cuts off the giant's right hand so that he must fight with the left. Urgan is so eager in his attacks against Tristan that he continues to miss him; he is finally blinded and strikes about furiously, while Tristan hides, waiting patiently until Urgan steps near the edge of the bridge to throw him over. Urgan is also called "des valandes barn" (1.15961), "der veige rise" (1.15972), and thus is connected with the devil like all of Tristan's enemies. Gottfried makes Tristan God's champion, battling the separate vices, as well as man's champion, saving nations from oppression. The dwarf, who lays traps and plots with Tristan's former friend, Maijodo, is the devil's tool. One is tempted to carry the allegorical interpretation a step further and connect Tristan's personal enemies with vices, too: the dwarf with fraud, and Maqodo with envy, since Maqodo becomes Tristan's enemy through jealousy of Isolt. Tristan cannot meet these enemies head on, and therefore he cannot destroy them. The contest with Gandin is of a different nature. It is consistent with the importance that music has for Gottfried, in the refinement of the spirit, that Isolt should be won from Marke by music and won back by Tristan with superior music. He won her once by fighting as Marke apparently could not, and here his claim to her is reinforced by a contest of skill which Marke could not even enter. Gandin may represent the poet who serves his lady with music, though a lower form of music than

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93

Tristan's, while the Irish steward represents the knight who serves her, albeit ineffectually, with arms. Tristan does, and transcends, both. The Irish steward is too comic a figure to be regarded as an opponent of Tristan. His fear and subsequent attack on the dead dragon and his inability to handle him, even when dead, are comic. He is a figure of ridicule to his countrymen as well. Perhaps his total inadequacy and vain boasting are meant to show up Tristan's unassuming prowess; in that sense he would be a necessary complement to the dragon who cannot speak and voice his own boasts as Morolt and Urgan do. If this is so, the dragon may represent the steward's lust, all the more ludicrous by the contrast between the fire and venom of the one and the ineffectual bluster of the other. It is possible, too, that Gottfried uses the steward to ridicule the whole idea of love-service by arms, since as we have seen, he does not show Tristan's actions in this sphere as romantically chivalrous, but rather as crudely practical, contrasting with his music and his love. The allegorical aspect of the fights offers an explanation for Tristan's behavior in them — in fighting evil any action is justified - and for the attention Gottfried gives them, despite his lack of interest in fighting. Evil is the right opponent for a man to meet and overcome. Gottfried's hero, like Thomas' is more an intellectual than a fighter. It is learning and music which refine his spirit so that he can live and love on a higher plane than the other Tristans. Music particularly is the basis of his relationship with Marke and with Isolt. Tristan is an artist, capable of moving others with his speech and music and, perhaps, of fashioning his own life with his imagination - the lies he tells are often closer to truth than the reality he knows, and the disguises he assumes not only reveal truths, they often determine events far beyond Tristan's immediate intentions. But, ironically, the new reality that results, like every attempt Tristan makes to guide his own fate consciously, only serves to further the destiny of tragic love that he was born with. The refinement of spirit and sensitivity which enable him to enjoy the highest love, also make his suffering more intense, just as the joy that Petitcrieu's bell brings makes the sorrow sharper when it is removed. Tristan's life is one of irreconcilable contrasts and conflicts between loyalty and love, joy and sorrow, happiness and suffering. Isolt too is a figure of contrasts. She is not only similar in nature to Tristan but, in the final molding of her spirit, the moraliteit which makes her capable of sharing the love of the Minnegrotte, she is formed by him. She is love's seal from the beginning, soft wax to be fashioned by Tristan in harmony with himself. That she alone is attuned to him is evident in the fact that it is she who recognizes the dragon-killer as Tantris and who discovers that Tantris is Tristan. Although she is capable of action, she is

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not aggressive in the way the heroines of other versions are; she hesitates to give the kiss of reconciliation as she had hesitated to accept Tristan's identity and to admit her love for him. Until the potion takes effect, the young Isolt is a passive figure; her mother is responsible for the action. Afterwards it is the girl who speaks first of lameir, and who learns to deceive for the sake of her love (11.12431-4); in the orchard, impelled by lust, it is she who lures Tristan to his destruction, but she is never moved by lust to enjoy Marke's embraces as Thomas' heroine is. The only suggestion of disapproval of Isolt! in Gottfried is voiced by Curvenal when he thinks Tristan has been killed by the dragon. He blames Isolt for something which has not yet occured, but the question he asks anticipates the rest of the story: was din schoene und edelkeit ze solhem schaden uf geleit einer der saeligesten art, diu ie mit sper versigelt wart, der du ze wol geviele? (11.9653-7). Like Eilhart's Kurneval, he sees the love as a deterrent to Tristan's glory as a hero. Like Brangaene, he can conceive of the love only in worldly terms, though his is the world of male glory, hers of courtly love, while the world of the lovers is above both. We may assume that it is the potion which brings out the destructive element in Isolt's nature, though it had been there potentially when Gottfried first compared her to the siren who draws men's thoughts with her song and beauty. In fact, the figures with whom Isolt is compared are progressively more destructive: the sirens led ship-loads astray, Helen two nations, and Eve all mankind. But, like Tristan, Isolt is capable of overcoming her lust and passing to a higher phase of spiritual communion; she is capable of the sacrifice of Petitcrieu's bell. The ambiguities in her nature, symbolized by the figures Gottfried uses in reference to her — the sun, both life-giving and consuming, and birds, both innocent and predatoiy - is part of the paradox of life for Gottfried, that there is danger in any good. Both Tristan and Isolt feel a strong affection for Marke which troubles their love, but it is his feeling for both of them and' his incapacity to understand their love that makes the situation untenable. From the first, Marke is attracted to Tristan in a way that seems more than paternal. His affection is based on instinct, on Tristan's beauty and accomplishments, music and languages, the same ones which will later form the basis of Tristan's relation with Isolt, but Marke can only appreciate them; Isolt shares them. Marke is always on the outside, as we see when he looks at the lovers through the window of the Minnegrotte, but is unable to enter.

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95

His love for Isolt is based on lust; she is his "vroude" while Tristan is his "vriunt" and thus, because she appeals to a lower part of him, she brings out faults which were not evident before. He becomes the tool of Melot and Maijodo; he is torn by doubt and suspicion. As de Boor points out, within the courtly sphere, Marke is faultless, but in the sphere of hohe minne, he lacks the capacity to understand and this is a fault. 2 2 In this sense, he is like the good heathen of the saint's life, a perfect man in worldly terms, but without grace. Brangaene too, though perfectly devoted to the lovers, is incapable of understanding their love and therefore fails in her responsibility to them. She is only practical, capable of intrigues on a worldly, courtly level. She is always present when the lovers get in trouble, but she is specifically absent from the Minnegrotte. She sees the love only from a courtly point of view and can offer only courtly, worldly help. It is impossible to tell what Gottfried would have done with her later in the poem, but in view of his more sympathetic treatment of women, it is unlikely that she would have developed quite as she does in Thomas. Tax considers a misunderstanding between her and Isolt unlikely, since Gottfried specifically says (11.12942-6) that after the murder attempt there was never any trouble between them. 23 Yet, in as much as she represents courtly love, a break must occur, as the love becomes more spiritual. It is necessary, as Jackson says, because, though she works for the lovers' benefit on the narrative level, she is actually working against them on the symbolic level 24 It is possible that the scene in the orchard would be her last appearance, since there she recognizes her own failure and instead of attempting to rectify it by a clever plan as she has done before, she simply bows her head (1.18188).

Isolt as blanschemains, like Brangaene and Marke, is attached to Tristan, but cannot share his kind of love. She is lovely and accomplished enough to suggest the possibility of substitution to Tristan, but she can only attract him physically; she offers no communion of spirit. In the same way that Brangaene represents the worldly aspect of love, this Isolt represents the sensual. We might note that for Gottfried, love must be mutual and for the hohe minne he describes, the woman must be as refined in spirit as the man. Hence the attention he gives women in the poem, the accomplishments of Blanscheflur and the queen of Ireland, the addition of Floraete and Karsie. Gottfried also introduces many men into the story, minor characters who 22

Η de Boor, "Die Grundauffassung von Gottfrieds Tristran", DVLG, XVIII (1940), 299-300. 23 Tax, 168. 24 Jackson, "The Role of Brangaene", 296.

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serve usually to give some favorable reaction to Tristan, to praise his skills. Compared to the other versions, many of them are priests or holy men. The more important figures are described mainly in terms of one quality or fault: Riwalin's recklessness, Rual's loyalty. Without attempting to make an allegory of the poem, one is forced to note Gottfried's tendency to emphasize a particular trait in a character to the point where the figure seems almost to represent that trait. Gottfried is more interested in abstractions of this sort than any of the other poets we have dealt with. His poem begins with a complicated discussion of various themes which are central to the poem: love, sorrow, joy, honor. There is a short prelude to the prologue in which Gottfried discusses the need to recognize and acknowledge good, the importance of praise and honor, of fitting recognition by one's world, and the difficulty of following the path of virtue. He implies that he is offering a good which only a few can understand, but by making this story known he will help them along the difficult path of true love.2 s Love itself is a paradox, a "süeze sur" and "liebez leit", a "liebez leben" and "leiden Tot". The whole poem illustrates the paradox: the sensitivity and refinement of the lovers' spirits enable them to experience the heights of joy in love, but makes them vulnerable at the same time to intense suffering. The conflict which the love causes between the lovers' loyalty to each other and to others eventually becomes a conflict between love and honor, one that is impossible to resolve, since, as we learn in the Minnegrotte, honor is a necessary attribute of love. The conflict cannot be resolved in life for they must either live together and forego honor or live apart in anxiety and yearning, thus the potion means for them a living death. Schwietering sees a direct connection between this use of death and St. Bernard's: "bona mors quae vitam non aufert sed transfert in melius". 26 Much has been said of the religious overtones of the poem, the religion of love Gottfried propounds. It is not a religion which opposes Christianity; it is based essentially on Christian virtues, loyalty and constancy, and God is often behind the action. The love seems to cause a neglect of Christianity, as though it replaced the common religion in the lover's soul without a conscious change: when Blanscheflur first visits Riwalin, her happiness is such that "si enhaeten niht ir leben / umb kein ander himelriche gegeben" (11.1371-2); when Isolt plans Brangaene's murder, she 25

For a study of Gottfried's concept of the "edelez herze", see K. Speckenbach, Studien zum Begriff 'edelez herze' im Tristan Gottfrieds von Strassburg (Munich, 1965). J. Schwietering, Der Tristan Gottfrieds von Strassburg und die Bernhardische Mystik, (Berlin, 1943), 13.

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97

shows that "man laster unde spot / mere vürhtet danne got" (11.12711-12). And yet God is always invoked by the lovers and is always with them. Gottfried takes care to say that Tristan is baptized a Christian so that whatever happens, he will always be a Christian: "swiez ime dar nach ergienge / daz ez doch cristen waere" (11.1972-3). He entrusts himself to God in the Morolt combat and is victorious; he asks God's mercy when he sees Marke's shadow in the tree and is successful. When he and Isolt sail trom Ireland, they sing "in gotes namen varen wir" (1.11534) and it is on this voyage that they consummate their love. They leave the Minnegrotte "durch got und durch ir ere" (1.17698). Despite the conflict, they acknowledge their duty towards God and attempt to fulfil it. Gottfried's religion of love is not offered as a substitute for Christianity; it is superimposed on Christianity. Gottfried's main interest is in abstract themes. He does not make much of physical detail. The settings are similar to those in Thomas, except for the Minnegrotte which Gottfried treats allegorically. Objects are described only if they represent abstract concepts. Clothes represent what is inside them; they do not confer rank or quality as they seem to in Thomas. Gottfried uses only certain numbers, the most important of which is the mystically significant three: the three ladies who rescue Tristan (the dawn, the sun, and the moon); the three windows and lindens at the grottos; the three Isolts — the mother who prefigures and prepares her daughter and makes the potion, the true love, and the false love who is only a reflection of the other; the three enemies of the lovers — Marke who loves but does not understand them, Maijodo who first loves, then hates them, and Melot who can only hate and plot against them, perhaps all aspects of Marke. Fate is unimportant in the poem since it is the careful preparation of the lovers' spirits rather than the potion or an innate tendency to tragedy which makes them capable of love. Everything about the love, except the idea of falling in love, is planned by Tristan; none of the trips to Ireland is the result of chance. As one would expect from his interest in symbolic meaning, Gottfried nses more poetic devices, particularly allegory and simile than any of the other poets. He uses both the story of the two shifts and Marjodo's dream. We have discussed the allegorizing of Tristan's clothes at the investiture, of his battle with Morolt, and the allegorical possibilities of the other combats. The most impressive allegorical passage in the poem is the Minnegrotte in which every part of the cave is described and then explained in terms of a virtue which is necessary to the highest form of love. The similarity to the allegorization of a church as well as to Solomon's temple of love and the earthly paradise has been pointed out. This allegorizing contributes to the impression that Gottfried is offering a

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mystic cult of love. Love itself, Minne, often appears in the poem, personified in various forms, as "diu ware viuraerinne", "diu arzatinne", "diu strickaerinne", "diu war wirtinne", and "diu suenaerinne", all figures derived from the lyric tradition. As might be expected from his wider use of allegory and personification, Gottfried also adopts the simile more extensively than the other poets. He draws on nature, the elements, minerals, plants, birds, animals, and on articles and aspects of civilized life. Most of the comparisons, as Stökle shows in his study of theological expressions in the poem, are drawn from theological, mainly biblical literature. Love is often compared to a sport like the hunt in which the lovers may be the hunters or the prey. When they first drink the potion and begin to make love, they are called "delr minnen wildenaere" (1.11930), laying traps for each other. When Tristan visits Isolt in the orchard and Maijodo discovers them, Tristan is said to be following his hunting-path (1.13487), not knowing that illfortune has laid traps for him. Here he becomes the hunted instead of the hunter; he is described as "der sieche weidenaere" (1.14376), a play on the fact that he excuses himself from Marke's hunt, and then becomes the prey of the traps laid by his enemies. As the prey, Tristan is caught in love's trap, and Isolt is caught in lime like a bird (11.11792 ff.), as Riwalin had been: Riwalin's loving spirit was like a bird caught in lime, the more he struggled against it, the more firmly he was caught (11.843-53). Isolt is also described as a bird of prey, love's "vederspil"; she lets her eyes roam like "der valke uf dem aste" (1.10997). This comparison, like the magnet and the siren which draw men's thoughts, or the references to Helen and Eve, suggests that it is in Isolt's nature to arouse love more actively than Gottfried actually says. Gottfried does not use the monologue as much as Thomas seems to. Only a little over 600 of the more than 19,000 lines are monologues of any kind, though they are important when they do occur: Isolt's trouble with the names Tantris and Tristan, and Tristan's various conflicts over the two Isolts. Gottfried makes many and often long comments of his own, and in this he differs from the other romancers. He discusses love and related matters or analyzes the characters, but he rarely tosses invective or praise directly at them as Eilhart and Beroul do. Often he makes a remark of general application, in four-line rhymes, which sounds proverbial. More than a quarter of the poem, about 5500 lines, is in direct discourse with many short exchanges between characters. Tristan speaks over 1500 lines and Isolt over 700, which is proportionately much more, since she appears 7000 lines later than he does and in fewer scenes. Here again, we have a rather subtle instance of Isolt's forcefulness, never so overt as in Thomas, but always present. The bulk of the poem is narrative and description.

COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

99 Like Thomas and Beroul, Gottfried uses an eight-syllable line with rhymed couplet, but of course the rhythm is not so steady as either of the French poems. Like Thomas, too, he uses repetition: 27 ein man, ein wip, ein wip, ein man Tristan Isolt, Isolt Tristan (11.129-30). His contrasts and paradoxes are of thought rather than sound. But he does play with word-sounds: "vint" and "vriunt"; "über", "üebete", and "betriibete"; "triure", "Tristan", and "triste"; Isolt is described as "trurende" (1.14909), Tristan as "der truraere" (1.14913), and Marke as "trurige" (1.14916), during the scenes of discovery, which emphasizes the sorrow and distress the discovery causes all of them because of their mutual love. Gottfried also plays with the various meanings of "lameir" and he uses French words for terms of chivalry, jousting, and music, which is undoubtedly to be connected with his insistence on the literary proficiency of his main characters. Like the excursus which takes the place of the ceremony of investiture, this emphasizes the importance of culture in the spirit of the lovers. But the foreign words also contribute to the strange, super-natural aura around the lovers, which makes Tristan's enemies call him a sorcerer. Schwietering suggests that Gottfried uses word and sound play for the same reason the lovers use music — to ignore the earthly reality of the pains of yearning and the desire for fulfilment in favor of the realm of music and aesthetics.2 8 He connects the word-play with Latin rhetorical figures which, as one must assume from Sawicki's study, 29 had a strong influence on Gottfried. Although the poem is unquestionably a serious work, there is a good deal of humor in it: the steward's unfortunate battle with the dead dragon; Riwalin waiting impatiently for his love to recover from her swoon so she can sit up and embrace him; the whole passage on Floraete when Tristan returns to his land and Gottfried forgets her and then makes up for his neglect with extravagant praise; the Irish gathering the remains of their champion, Morolt, all three pieces, careful lest they lose one. In these passages, Gottfried seems to be smiling at the expense of characters (and readers? ) who take themselves a little seriously, but this in no way detracts from the serious intent of the main themes. 27 See W.T.H. Jackson, 'The Stylistic Use ot Word-Pairs and Word-Repetitions in Gottfried's Tristan", Euph, LIX (1965), 229-51. 28 Schwietering, Deutsche Dichtung, 193. 29 S. Sawicki, Gottfried von Strassburg und die Poetik des Mittelalters, Germ. Stud. (Berlin, 1932). There is no question about Latin influence on Gottfried's use of the acrostic in the prologue and running through the poem. See F. Maurer^ Leid (Bern, 1951), 213; Carl von Kraus, "Das Akrostichon in Gottfrieds Tristan", ZfdA, L (1908), 220-22, and J.H. Schölte, "Symmetrie in Gottfrieds Tristan", Festgabe βr Gustav Ehrismann (Berlin, 1925), 66-79.

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TAVOLA RITONDA

The author of the Tavola Ritonda is concerned with the love within the context of its world; it fails to subsist in that world not because it is properly of another realm, as in Gottfried, but because the lovers themselves fail to control it and allow it to turn from a force for good in society to a tool of destruction. Thus, although the Tavola falls into an over-all three-part pattern, like the poems of Thomas and Gottfried, the division has no relation to the other versions because of the broader scope of subject matter and the placing of the affair within the story of the Arthurian world. Tristano's story is told within the Arthurian frame of Lancilotto's life. Lancilotto, whose story begins before Tristano's birth and ends after his death, represents the unhappy love situation in the ideal Arthurian world, parallel to Tristano's in the real world of Cornwall. The evil in Tristano's world, abetted by Tristano's own lack of moderation, eventually destroys him and once he is dead, evil begins to rise in the Arthurian woild and destroys it as well. Tristano's story begins with a short prologue which connects his father with Arturo and tells Lancilotto's story up to Tristano's birth. The story proper is told in three parts. The first takes Tristano through his first meeting with Lancilotto and ends as the love affairs of both are discovered and each has to reconcile his friend with the jealous husband. It is significant that Tristano's love is dicovered first, although Lancilotto's has gone on much longer; the final and total disaster will also begin with Tristano's death. Part II begins with Tristano's marriage to the other Isolda and continues through his next two armed encounters with Lancilotto; this part ends with a misunderstanding between the two knights, caused partly by Ginevra's vanity. Part III tells of Tristano's death and the vengeance Lancilotto and the others take for him. Then there is an epilogue which completes Lancilotto's story and describes the degeneration and destruction of the Round Table. Within this large pattern, each part falls into two sections, one dealing mainly with Tristano's activities as a knight, the other with him as a lover.

COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE Prologue:

I (IX-L)

II (LI-CIV)

III (CV-CXXXVII)

A Tristano as knight

Tristano as lover

Tristano as knight

Marriage of Parents Youth, Travels Amoroldo Wound-Cure, Tourney, Recognition, Revenge Bride-Quest (Lady of Aigua), Tristano in Round Table

Marriage with Isolda, Adventures Return to Isotta, Discovery Ordeal Magic Dog, Exile, Return Madness, Recovery, Parting

Visit to Dama del Lago Grail adventures Fight with Lancilotto (as Palamides) Tristano leaves quest Grail visions of Prezzivalle, Bordo, Galasso

Β Tristano as lover

Tristano as knight

Tristano as lover

Potion, Malvagia Usanza Brandina Discovery: scythes, magic horn

Adventures Visit to Isotta, Tristano imprisoned Gioiosa Guardia, Tourney Fight with Lancilotto (as Β reus) Lancilotto attacks Tristano Tristano challenges Lancilotto Reconciliation

Marco steals Isotta, Brandina dies Fight with Lancilotto (as Β reus)

Escape, Tower, Rape of Isotta Fight with Lancilotto, Reconciliation Tristano reconciles Lancilotto with Arturo Epilogue:

101

Uterpendragone, tourney Meliadus, Lancilotto Battle Dolorosa Guardia (I-VIII)

Visit to Isotta, Tristano wounded Death, Burial Revenge, Death of Marco

Degeneration of Round Table Battle Death of Arturo, Ginevra, Lancilotto Arms (CXXXVIII-CXLV)

It is obvious from this list of episodes that those which the Tavola has in common with the other versions o f the story occur mainly in the first part. Tristano's adventures in the Arthurian world and the Grail quest, which take up the rest o f the book, are additions o f the prose tradition. Of the common episodes, the only one the Tavola omits is the kidnapping because, as in Eilhart, Tristano comes to Cornwall as part of his travels, though here, ironically, it is to avoid the dangers o f a woman's love, only to run into a far more dangerous affair. The Tavola includes all the other incidents, though it changes the order and emphasis o f many. We have noted that Tristano is recognized by the Irish when his wound is cured, earlier than in the other versions, so that the whole love situation can be clear before the bride-quest. The planned execution and escape o f the

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lovers is included as well as the ordeal, because the love is both sinful in its excess and its effects on society, and good in its strength and devotion. The forest exiles are underplayed, and the abduction of the queen is made to depend on Brandina's rescue, because the author is more concerned with the love's effect on others than on the lovers. The doubling of incidents — two discoveries, two forest-exiles — is part of the author's technique of interweaving incidents and story lines and of illustrating a point by showing two contrasting versions, just as he alternates between Tristano, the lover, and the knight. In the same way, characters are doubled or shown in parallel circumstances: the characters and love-triangle of Lancilotto, Ginevra, and Arturo parallel and contrast with the relation of Tristano, Isotta, and Marco; the anti-love knight, Dinadano, who avoids women and ridicules knights in love, has a double in Breus, his cousin, who abuses women and attacks knights in love: "ogni cavaliere innamorato e mio nimico" (chap. CXXIV). The women can be paired either in terms of devotion: the self-destructive Bellices, whose love for Tristano is not requited and the long-suffering Isolda, who marries him but never wins his love; or of self indulgence: the passionate lady of Aigua, whose affair with Tristano arouses Marco's jealousy and results in the bride-quest, and the vindictive Girida, whose rejection by Tristano causes her to betray his affair with the queen to Marco. In the course of Tristano's life, he receives five horses, accepts or rejects the love of five women, and has five encounters with Lancilotto. Five is the symbolic number of the world and the flesh, 3 0 and therefore of each sphere of Tristano's life in the world, as knight and lover. The women, like the battles, are connected. The encounter with Bellices sends Tristano to Cornwall where he fights Amoroldo, incurring the wound which sends him to Isotta. His affair with the lady of Aigua is the direct cause of Marco's sending him on the bride-quest, where he consummates his love with Isotta. Loyalty to her makes him reject Girida's advances, which leads to the discovery of the affair, and while he is living in exile with Isotta after the discovery, he contracts the wound which sends him to Isolda dalle bianche mani to be cured. The inter-dependence of these incidents illustrates the author's theme that one's actions have far-reaching effects beyond one's control. The distinction we have drawn between Tristano acting as a knight and as a lover is not clear-cut; there are love encounters in the knight passages and feats of arms in the love passages. Tristano fights for his honor among Arthurian knights in Part II A, where he otherwise acts as a lover, and fights for love in various forms in II B. The two aspects naturally are never 30

Curtius, Excursus XV; Hopper, 86, discusses it as symbol of the flesh.

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COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

reconciled and one is always opposing and overcoming the other. Tristano begins well as a knight, in I A, with a few love encounters which do not distract him long from chivalry and then, after the potion, he turns completely to love (I Β and II A), though Isotta marries in I Β and Tristano in II A. Finally, after Tristano's madness — the physical manifestation of the chaos that immoderate love has created in him, which occurs approximately in the middle of the book (chaps. LXX-LXXII) — he turns again to chivalry. He is involved first in adventures which are connected with some aspect of love, often in the service of Arturo (II B), and then takes on the Grail quest in the service of God (III A). Tristano cannot, however, maintain his devotion or continence and returns once more to love and death (III B). There is a certain relation between the three chivalric and the three love passages which may best be seen in these charts:

(Tristano as knight) IA

IIB

III A

Marriage of Tristano's parents Feats of Arms: Amoroldo, Irish tourney, Revenge Bride-Quest for Isotta

Dinadano condemns love

Idyll with Dama del Lago Feats of Arms: Grail quest

Tourney, defense of Languis, Tristano written into Round· Table

Tourney, fight for Round Table

Feats of Arms: Five Arthurian encounters

Visit to Isotta

Tristano leaves quest to go to Isotta Grail visions of other knights

In the first section, Tristano fights for justice and honor, his own and his family's; in the second, he fights for wronged lovers or against evil love; in the third, he fights for God. At the end of the first section, he is accepted into the Round Table; at the end of the second, he fights for Arturo, but at the end of the third, he fails to be accepted into the Grail company. In each case, Tristano interrupts his chivalric work to go to Isotta but returns to it the first two times; the third time, he does not return and the task is completed by someone else. This repetition of events occurs in the love sections too, again with an important variation at the end of the third passage:

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(Tristano as lover) IB

IIA

III Β

Marriage of Tristano and Isotta Discovery of lovers Escape, Exile Lancilotto reconciles Tristano w. Marco Tristano reconciles Lancilotto w. Arturo

Marriage of Tristano and Isolda Discovery of lovers Ordeal, Exile Tristano Mad, recovers

Marco steals Isotta from Tristano Discovery of lovers Wound, Death Lancilotto, Arturo avenge Tristano Marco dies

In each case, the section begins with the unjustified taking of a bride: Tristano has no right to marry Isotta because she is betrothed to Marco; he has no right to marry the other Isolda because he is committed to the queen; and Marco has no right to steal Isotta when she is a guest in Arturo's land. Tristano and Isotta are discovered together in each passage, first by Marco through an elaborate series of incidents, aided by the treachery of Girida and Adriette; the second time, by Marco alone, in two separate incidents; and the last time, by Adriette, purely by chance. Each time the lovers escape, live together for a short while, return to court and eventually part, except the last time when they do not escape, but die. Tristano's failures in the third section to repeat the successes of the first two, both as a knight and as a lover, are connected by his lack of moderation and his inability to restrain his physical desire, which leads to Iiis failure in the Grail quest and to his death at Marco's hands. The prologue and the epilogue to the main story are also related by similar incidents in reverse order: Prologue

Epilogue

1. 2. 3. 4.

4. 3. 2. 1.

Uterpendragone, tourney Lancilotto, Meliadus Battle Dolorosa Guardia

Arms of Knights Deaths of Lancilotto, Ginevra Battle Degeneration of the Round Table

The prologue begins with a general description of an Old Table tourney and the epilogue ends with the arms of the famous knights of the Old Table and their sons of the New Table. Then the prologue tells the story of Lancilotto up to his meeting with Ginevra and the first battle in which Lancilotto and Tristano's father meet, and Tristano's connection with the Arthurian world begins; this is balanced in the epilogue by the last battle, in which the Arthurian world collapses, and by the description of the final events in the lives of Lancilotto and Ginevra. The Dolorosa Guardia incident, the last in the prologue, is similar to the degeneration of the Round Table which leads to the last battle. The Dolorosa Guardia was a pagan stronghold which Lancilotto captured in the n^me of Christianity.

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COMPARISON OF STRUCTURE

He renamed it the Gioiosa Guardia and it becomes a s y m b o l o f adulterous love, for it is here that Lancilotto flees w i t h Ginevra, and that Tristano comes to live with Isotta. This kind o f degeneration through immoderate love is what destroys first Tristano and then the whole Arthurian w o r l d . Lancilotto returns to the Gioiosa Guardia with Ginevra, in the epilogue, as the result o f jealousy and treachery at court, and this incident sets o f f the final struggle. There is a pattern through the whole work of Tristano's career as knighi suffering as his love progresses, just as in Eilhart, b u t here there is no conflict between Tristano's knighthood and his honor as a lover; the latter is never questioned. That is, in the Tavola, the t w o are not incompatible; it is only excess in one that causes trouble. But Tristano's honor as a knight rises and falls, and ends neither up nor d o w n . He is the finest knight in the world w h e n he dies, but his failure in the Grail quest, because of his love, prevents him from reaching the peak of his glory. Between his high and low points, he meets Lancilotto on w h a t w e might call a neutral area, neither disgrace nor full glory, which is apparently Lancilotto's sphere:

Λ

Tristano in Round Table

Early

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Adventures / Prologue Lancilotto