"Charming love, delicious power,
Worshipped from my earliest hour,
Thou who life on all dost shower,
Love! my life thou dost devour.
"In death's hour I beg of thee,
Isoude, dearest enemy,
Thou who erst couldst kinder be,
When I'm gone, forget not me.
"On my gravestone passers-by
Oft will read, as low I lie,
'Never wight in love could vie
With Tristram, yet she let him die.'"
Tristram, having finished his lay, wrote it off and gave it to the
damsel, conjuring her to present it to the queen.
Meanwhile Queen Isoude was inconsolable at the absence of
Tristram. She discovered that it was caused by the fatal letter
which she had written to Pheredin. Innocent, but in despair at the
sad effects of her letter, she wrote another to Pheredin, charging
him never to see her again. The unhappy lover obeyed this cruel
decree. He plunged into the forest, and died of grief and love in
a hermit's cell.
Isoude passed her days in lamenting the absence and unknown fate
of Tristram. One day her jealous husband, having entered her
chamber unperceived, overheard her singing the following lay:
"My voice to piteous wail is bent,
My harp to notes of languishment;
Ah, love! delightsome days be meant
For happier wights, with hearts content.
"Ah, Tristram' far away from me,
Art thou from restless anguish free?
Ah! couldst thou so one moment be,
From her who so much loveth thee?"
The king hearing these words burst forth in a rage; but Isoude was
too wretched to fear his violence.
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