Am I
To sit within a cage and watch him kiss
Her? Listen to him call his wife "Iseult?"
Was this his sweet design, or does Iseult
The Snowy Handed crave my golden hair
To make a pillow for voluptuous hours?
How strange that Tristram should so long for me
That he sends forth his messengers! And will
He lay us both within the self-same bed?
Caress and kiss us both at once throughout
The night's long, heavy hours? In other days
More modest was thy Lord in his desires.
(Passionately.)
Now kill me, kill me, beast! I've lived enough.
Str. Leper.
Iseult, dost thou not know me yet?
Iseult.
How should
I know thee, beast, or in what roadside ditch
Lord Tristram found thee as he fled away
This morning through the Morois from a man
Who called upon him in my name?
Str. Leper.
Oh, judge
Him not too quickly. Queen Iseult! He stood
And waited for the man, who in thy name
Had called!
Iseult (in fierce anger).
He stood, say'st thou? Why then
He has not wed Iseult, white handed Queen?
I dreamed it all, and sobbed but in my dreams,
Perhaps? 'Twas then dream-tears I wept at this
Report?
Str. Leper.
Be merciful to Tristram, Queen!
[Iseult descends a few more steps; looks
at him searchingly, and speaks, in a way,
questioningly.]
Iseult.
Wast thou his servant while he still was true,
And caught'st the plague while on his wedding trip?
Then weep for him, thou poor diseasèd beast!
I know thee not. And if thy master stood
Here too,—Lord Tristram, whom I once did love
And who returned my love in youthful years—
If he now stood before me here, I should
Not recognize his face behind the mask
Of cowardice which he has worn of late.
His faithlessness sticks to him like black slime!
Go tell him that!—I hate him in this mask!
He was so loving and so true when first
I knew and loved him! God shall punish him!