Tr. The day, the day that glossed thee o'er, that
carried Isolde away from me thither where she resembled
the sun in the gleam and light of highest
glory. What so enchanted my eye depressed my heart
deep down to the ground. How could Isolde be
mine in the bright light of day?
Is. Was she not thine who chose thee? What did
the wicked day lie to thee that thou shouldst betray
thy beloved who was destined for thee?
Tr. That which glossed thee o'er with transcendent
splendour, the radiance of honour, the force of glory,
the dream of hanging my heart upon these held me
in bonds. The day-sun of worldly honours, which,
with the clear refulgence of its shimmer, shone bright
upon my head with the vain delight of its rays, penetrated
through my head into the deepest recess of
my heart. That which there watched darkly sealed
in the chaste night, that which unconscious I received
there as it dawned, an image which my eyes did not
trust themselves to look at, when touched by the
light of day, lay open gleaming before me.
In these mysterious words Tristan indicates the impression which Isolde had made upon him at their first meeting. He regarded her through the spectacles of his political ambition, with its vain delight of personal glory, which had penetrated from his head to his heart. It illumined the image of Isolde slumbering yet unconscious (ohne Wiss' und Wahn) in his breast, and revealed it to the day--namely, as a prize in the political game which he was playing:
That which seemed to me so glorious and so noble,
I glorified before the whole assembly; before all
people I loudly extolled the most lovely royal bride
of the earth. The envy which the day had awakened
against me, the jealousy which became alarmed at
my good fortune, the misfavour which began to
weigh down my honour and my glory, I defied them
all, and faithfully determined, in order to uphold my
honour and my glory, to go to Ireland.
Is. Oh vain slave of the day.
Here (K.A. 119'3 at the words "Getäuscht von ihm....") there begins a new development of the same motive which has occupied us hitherto (No. 3) with the first indications of the syncopated accompaniment which forms so prominent a feature of the following part. Explanations are now finished. The words begin to find wings. For moments it seems as if all consciousness of earthly things were lost and the lovers were dissolved into dreamland:
Wo des Trugs geahnter Wahn zerrinne.
K.A. 122. The modulation into the key of the death-motive, A flat, is effected through the chord of the augmented sixth. The violins keep up a broken triplet accompaniment, trombones entering on the A major chord, oboe lightly breathing the principal motive (No. 3), while the voice follows its independent melody, to us a simile of Wagner's like a boat designed to move exactly upon that sea, and under those conditions. The whole passage is a vision of the death which they are awaiting, but without its bitterness, only as the portal of eternity.
On p. 123 the voice brings the intervals of the chord which throws an atmosphere over the whole of the rest of the scene, and which has already been mentioned as "the soul of the Tristan music." The intervals are enharmonically the same as those of the chord in the first bar of Prelude--F, A flat, C flat, E flat,=F, G sharp, B, D sharp--but the treatment and surroundings are very different.