When, by means of a treaty, Sir Tristram brought again La Belle Isond unto King Mark from Joyous Guard, the false traitor, King Mark, slew the noble knight as he sat harping before his lady, La Belle Isond, with a sharp-ground glaive, which he thrust into him from behind his back.--Pt. iii. 147 (1470).
Tennyson gives the tale thus: He says that Sir Tristram, dallying with his aunt, hung a ruby carcanet round her throat; and, as he kissed her neck:
Out of the dark, just as the lips had touched,
Behind him rose a shadow and a shriek--
“Marks way!” said Mark, and clove him thro’ the brain.
Tennyson, Idylls (“The Last Tournament”).
Another tale is this: Sir Tristram was severely wounded in Brittany, and sent a dying request to his aunt to come and see him. If she consented, a white flag was to be hoisted on the mast-head of her ship; if not, a black one. His wife told him the ship was in sight, displaying a black flag, at which words the strong man bowed his head and died. When his aunt came ashore and heard of his death, she flung herself on the body, and died also. The two were buried in one grave, and Mark planted over it a rose and a vine, which became so interwoven it was not possible to separate them.
⁂ Sir Launcelot, Sir Tristram and Sir Lamorake were the three bravest and best of the 150 knights of the Round Table, but were all equally guilty in their amours: Sir Launcelot with the queen; Sir Tristram with his aunt, King Mark’s wife; and Sir Lamorake with his aunt, King Lot’s wife.
Tristram’s Horse, Passetreûl, or Passe Brewell. It is called both, but one seems to be a clerical error.
(Passe Brewell is in Sir T. Malory’s History of Prince Arthur, ii. 68).