AHJ, Vol. 5 No. 3, Summer 1976

for his wife. Further, Tristram was commanded to go to
Ireland to ask for her hand and to bring her back.
On his way to Ireland, Tristram had the opportunity
of defending the honor of King Angwyshaunce in combat.
As a token of his gratitude, King Angwyshaunce
offered Tristram anything he desired. To the king's
surprise Tristram asked for the hand of Iseult, not for
himself, but for his uncle, King Mark. King Angwyshaunce
cried out, "Alas, Sir Tristram! I had hoped that
it would be for yourself that you would ask her hand."
Tristram replied, "Sire, in honoring my pledge to my
uncle, I betray my own vows to Iseult, but still I have to
ask for her hand for him."
Whereupon King Angwyshaunce said, "Sir Tristram,
you shall have her; and whether you keep her for yourself
or yield her to King Mark, must be a matter of
your own choice."
Setting sail for Cornwall with their servants, Tristram
and Iseult, during the voyage, found a golden flask,
and believing it some rare wine, drank what was indeed
a love potion intended for the wedding night of Iseult
and King Mark. The magic potion induced a fatal passion
in the two young people for each other, and although
Iseult must marry King Mark, the two, caught
in the bonds of the love potion, would in their future
lives never cease to love one another.
Delivering lseult to her betrothed, King Mark, Tristram,
suffering greatly, parted from her and looking
back with longing at Tintagil, the castle of King Mark,
turned away and again went forth as required by his
knighthood. He was to return many times to lseult and,
according to the custom of Arthur's court, to defend her
honor in knightly combat, but he could never remain
with her.
There was a time when Sir Tristram mistakenly
assumed that lseult had given her love to another and,
distraught and uncaring, had fled to the forest. Abandoning
his horse and his armour, he had walked, unconscious
of anything but the pain in his heart, through
the wilderness with thorns and branches tearing at his
hair and clothes, until, exhausted, he fell on the ground
where he was found by crude peasants. A young noblewoman
had pitied him in his plight and had followed
him to try and comfort him. She brought him food and
wine but he refused to eat or drink. Then bringing her
harp, she played to him; whereupon, in sweet recognition,
he came to her, took the harp and played upon it
comforting himself with its sound. For many months he
lived in this manner. He became lean, and his clothes
became rags.
At Tintagil, lseult, hearing a rumour that Tristram
was dead, became wild with grief, and taking a sword
ran with it into her garden. Driving the sword up to the
hilt through the slender trunk of a plum tree at breast
height, she prepared to fling herself on it while she tearfully
prayed, "Sweet J esu, have mercy on my soul, for
how can I bear to outlive Tristram?"
King Mark, however, came to her quickly and prevented
her from destroying herself. She was taken tenderly
back into the castle; but thereafter, lseult refused
26
to leave her room and lay grief stricken and on the point
of death.
A little later the king received work of a madman in
the forest and he commanded his knights to bring the
creature to the castle. The knights, finding a demented,
staring man wandering in the woods, seized him and
brought him back to Tintagil. He was washed and fed,
but was unknown to any of them. However, when lseult
saw him, she said, "How strange! He seems familiar yet
I do not recognize him."
The man, seeing Iseult, turned aside his head and
wept. At that moment, lseult's brachet hound suddenly
bounded forward and leaping up at the stranger began
to joyfully lick his hands and face. Now, as the brachet
had never allowed any other person than lseult or Tristram
to go near it, one of the servants, remembering,
exclaimed, "My lady! It is Sir Tristram."
lseult fainted and for a long time lay as though dead.
Then she recovered and said, "My own dear lord, Sir
Tristram! I thank God that you are still alive. But my
love, I fear for you; this brachet will betray you, and as
soon as King Mark discovers who you are, he will exile
you forever, if he does not kill you, for he is jealous
of our love. Therefore, I beg you, do not oppose him,
but go to King Arthur's court, where you are highly
regarded, and whenever it is possible for me to see you,
I shall do so; my life as a queen is lonely but rather than
see you destroyed, I ask you to go.
Tristram, knowing she spoke the truth, replied, "My
lady, I go then. Your love has saved me from great
danger."
The painting by Sir Edward Burne Jones entitled
"The Madness of Sir Tristram", shows Tristram in the
forest dressed in rags, his hair cut like that of a fool,
barefooted, seated on the ground playing on a harp. The
legend at the top of the painting says: "So would Sir
Tristram come unto that harp and listen to the sound
thereof and sometimes would harp himself. Thus he remained
there a quarter of a year." A young woman
stands to one side listening, probably the one who followed
him into the forest and who brought him her
harp. A herdsman is shown asleep and a man in hunting
cloak and hat stands watching with his dog at his side.
Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), as a young
man at Exeter College, Oxford University, England,
first read MORTE D'ARTHUR with his good friend
William Morris. Reading this book was to influence
Burne-Jones greatly in his future work. Meeting the
great romantic painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose
work he admired tremendously, and the encouragement
of Rossetti decided Burne-Jones to change his field of
study from that of preparing for the church to that of
being a painter and designer. The delicacy of style and
choice of subject matter in the work of Burne-Jones
attracted many admirers and his thorough grounding
in the classics provided him with endless_ inspiration.
His work made him popular and successful and he was
made a baronet by the queen in 1894. His philosophy
of painting is best expressed in his own words: "I mean
by a picture a beautiful, romantic dream of something
AMERICAN HARP JOURNAL