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,