Is. (interrupting and repeating the phrase in mockery).
Who shrinking from the battle takes refuge where he
can, because he has gained a corpse as bride for his master!
She commands Brangäne to go to Tristan and deliver a message; she is to remind him that he has not yet attended upon her as his duty requires.
Br. Shall I request him to wait upon you?
Is. [Tell him that] I, Isolde, command [my] presumptuous
[servant] fear for his mistress.
While Brangäne is making her way through the sailors to where Tristan is standing at the helm, an interlude made of the sailors' song phrase is played on four horns and two bassoons over a pedal bass, the strings coming in in strongly marked rhythm on the last beat of each bar, marking the hauling of the ropes to clear the anchor. Tristan is in a reverie, scarcely conscious of what is going on around him; the love-motive once in the oboe shows how his thoughts are occupied. He starts at the word Isolde, but collects himself, and tries to conceal his evident distress under a manner of supercilious indifference. Brangäne becomes more urgent; he pleads his inability to come now because he cannot leave the helm. Then Brangäne delivers Isolde's message in the same peremptory words in which she has received it.
Kurwenal suddenly starts up and, with or without permission, sends his answer to Isolde. Tristan, he says, is no servant of hers, for he is giving her the crown of Cornwall and the heritage of England. "Let her mark that, though it anger a thousand Mistress Isoldes." Brangäne hurriedly withdraws to the pavilion; he sings an insulting song after her in derision of Morold and his expedition for tribute:
"His head now hangs in Ireland,
As tribute sent from England!"
As she closes the curtains the sailors are heard outside singing the refrain of his song, which is a masterpiece of popular music. One can imagine it to be the national song of the Cornish-men after the expedition. With regard to its very remarkable instrumentation, I cannot do better than quote the remarks of that admirable musician, Heinrich Porges: "The augmented chord at the words auf ödem Meere, the humorous middle part of the horns, the unison of the trombones which, with the sharp entry of the violas, effect the modulation from B flat to D major, impart the most living colour to each moment."
SCENE III.--(The interior of the pavilion, the curtains closed.) Isolde has heard the interview, and makes Brangäne repeat everything as it happened. Inexpressibly pathetic is the turn which she gives to the words of the song as she repeats the phrase of Brangäne:
Is. (bitterly). "How should he safely steer the ship
to King Marke's land...." (with sudden emphasis,
quickly) to hand him the tribute which he brings from
Ireland!