Tristan and Isolda. Рихард Вагнер

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      If wife he'd make thee

      unto King Mark

      why wert thou in this wise complaining?

      Is he not worth thy gaining?

      Of royal race

      and mild of mood,

      who passes King Mark

      in might and power?

      If a noble knight

      like Tristan serves him,

      who would not but feel elated,

      so fairly to be mated.

      ISOLDA (gazing vacantly before her).

      Glorious knight!

      And I must near him

      loveless ever languish!

      How can I support such anguish?

      BRANGÆNA.

      What's this, my lady?

      loveless thou?

      Where lives there a man

      would not love thee?

      Who could see Isolda

      And not sink

      at once into bondage blest?

      And if e'en it could be

      any were cold,

      did any magic

      draw him from thee,

      I'd bring the false one

      back to bondage,

      And bind him in links of love.—

      Mindest thou not

      thy mother's arts?

      Think you that she

      who'd mastered those

      would have sent me o'er the sea,

      without assistance for thee?

      ISOLDA (darkly).

      My mother's rede

      I mind aright,

      and highly her magic

      arts I hold:—

      Vengeance they wreak for wrongs,

      rest give to wounded spirits.—

      Yon casket hither bear.

      BRANGÆNA.

      It holds a balm for thee.—

      Thy mother placed inside it

      her subtle magic potions.

      There's salve for sickness

      or for wounds,

      and antidotes

      for deadly drugs.—

      The helpfullest draught

      I hold in here.

      ISOLDA.

      Not so, I know a better.

      I make a mark

      to know it again—

      This draught 'tis I would drain.

      BRANGÆNA (recoiling in horror).

      The draught of death!

      VOICES OF THE CREW (without).

      "Ho! heave ho! hey!

      Reduce the sail!

      The mainsail in!

      Ho! heave ho! hey!"

      ISOLDA.

      Our journey has been swift.

      Woe is me! Near to the land!

      KURVENAL.

      Up, up, ye ladies!

      Look alert!

      Straight bestir you!

      Loiter not,—here is the land!—

      To dame Isolda

      says the servant

      of Tristan,

      our hero true:—

      Behold our flag is flying!

      it waveth landwards aloft:

      in Mark's ancestral castle

      may our approach be seen.

      So, dame Isolda,

      he prays to hasten,

      for land straight to prepare her,

      that thither he may bear her.

      ISOLDA (who has at first cowered and shuddered on hearing the message, now speaks calmly and with dignity).

      My greeting take

      unto your lord

      and tell him what I say now:

      Should he assist to land me

      and to King Mark would he hand me,

      unmeet and unseemly

      were his act,

      the while my pardon

      was not won

      for trespass black and base:

      So bid him seek my grace.

      Now mark me well,

      This message take:—

      Nought will I yet prepare me,

      that he to land may bear me;

      I will not by him be landed,

      nor unto King Mark be handed

      ere granting forgiveness

      and forgetfulness,

      which 'tis seemly

      he should seek:—

      for all his trespass base

      I tender him my grace.

      KURVENAL.

      Be assured,

      I'll bear your words:

      we'll see what he will say!