My friend he [Melot] was ... it was he who urged
me on to wed thee to the King. Thy glance, Isolde,
has dazzled him too; out of jealousy he betrayed me
to the King, whom I betrayed.
From these enigmatical words Wagner leaves us to conjecture what we can. They fight; at the first pass Tristan lets the sword drop from his hand and falls wounded to the earth.
[CHAPTER XIII]
OBSERVATIONS ON THE TEXT AND MUSIC CONTINUED
ACT III.--Wagner has described the slow introduction to Beethoven's C sharp minor quartet as the saddest music ever written. If there is anything sadder, it is the instrumental introduction to the third act of Tristan und Isolde. Tristan, after being wounded by Melot, has been carried off by Kurwenal to his own home, Kareol in Brittany, where he is discovered lying asleep on his couch in the castle garden, Kurwenal by his side. Nothing could exceed the desolation of the scene, nor the utter woe expressed in the music which begins with a new transformation of the love-motive (1a). Isolde alone can cure the sick man, and word has been sent to her to come from Cornwall. Her ship is just expected, and the shepherd who is on the watch outside plays a sad strain so long as the ship is not seen, to be changed to a joyful one when she appears in sight. The plaintive strain is played on the English horn, an instrument which in the hands of a skilful player is capable of very great expression, and, unlike most of the wood, has a considerable range of soft and loud, a quality of which Wagner has made very happy use.
The melody itself seems to have caused some heartburning to many excellent critics. Even Heinrich Porges describes it as a sequence of tones apparently without rule,[[43]] and has not a word to say about its enthralling melodic beauty. Really what difficulty there is, is only for the eye, and only in one note, the constantly recurring G flat, which is easily accounted for. In a later part of the scene (p. 200), it will be found fully harmonized.
[43.] "Eine scheinbar regellose Tonfolge."
SCENE I.--In the first scene of the third act, Kurwenal attains an importance far beyond what he had in the first and second acts. He, too, is changed; he is no longer the rough, unmannerly servant, the events which have passed and the responsibility now resting upon his shoulders, have brought out the finer qualities of his nature. There is noticeable in his melody all through the act an air of freedom and lofty devotion quite different from his former self. He is, as it were, transfigured, and there is a refinement in his tenderness which may surprise those who have never observed what delicacy and sensitiveness are often hidden beneath a rough exterior among the lower classes.
After a short conversation between Kurwenal and the shepherd, who looks over the wall to ask how the patient is progressing, Tristan awakes, asking with feeble voice where he is. Kurwenal relates how he has brought him to his own home in Kareol, where he is soon to recover from wounds and death. It is some time before Tristan fully understands, and as memory begins to awaken, he tells of where he has been, speaking as one inspired:
I was there where I have ever been, whither for
ever I go, in the wide realm of the world-night, where
there is but one knowledge--divine utter oblivion,