Oh, woe, Isold! Woe, Tristan, too!
This draught is death to both of you.'"
This Brangäne afterward explains to these two sudden lovers what has happened to them, and reiterates that the draught will be their death. Tristan declares that he will die happy possessing Isolde's love. But it is unnecessary to pursue the original legend further. Enough has been given to show that the Brangäne of Gottfried is not the Brangäne of Wagner.
Again we meet with one of those effective modifications of the old stories which Wagner made in his dramas. The splendid figure of the Queen mother's confidante bewailing her momentary unwatchfulness and her loss of honor, ready for the sake of that betrayal of confidence to give up her now wretched life, is a vastly different creature from the Brangäne of Wagner, who administers the potion as the shortest way out of an impending trouble.
Again, remember that this deed is one of pure unthinking devotion to the mistress. The fatal drink is the visible embodiment of fate. Appearing as it does in inanimate form, it needs an agent to convey it to the four lips of the lovers. That agent is found in the foolish, doting maid. Is it not a purely Wagnerian touch?
Even Swinburne, poet of far higher fancy than Wagner, did not think of such a plan. He improves on the old legend by making Isolde herself administer the potion in error:—
"Iseult sought and would not wake Brangwain,
Who slept as one half dead with fear and pain,
Being tender natured; so with hushed light feet
Went Iseult round her, with soft looks and sweet