The Romance of Tristan and Iseult
Translated by Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Bédier retells the medieval Tristan legend from French sources in this 1913 English edition of H. Belloc’s translation. Its three parts follow Tristan and Iseult through the love potion, concealment, separation and their deaths.
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The opening
PART THE FIRST THE CHILDHOOD OF TRISTAN
THE CHILDHOOD OF TRISTAN
My lords, if you would hear a high tale of love and of death, here is that of Tristan and Queen Iseult; how to their full joy, but to their sorrow also, they loved each other, and how at last they died of that love together upon one day; she by him and he by her.
Long ago, when Mark was King over Cornwall, Rivalen, King of Lyonesse, heard that Mark’s enemies waged war on him; so he crossed the sea to bring him aid; and so faithfully did he serve him with counsel and sword that Mark gave him his sister Blanchefleur, whom King Rivalen loved most marvellously.
He wedded her in Tintagel Minster, but hardly was she wed when the news came to him that his old enemy Duke Morgan had fallen on Lyonesse and was wasting town and field. Then Rivalen manned his ships in haste, and took Blanchefleur with him to his far land; but she was with child. He landed below his castle of Kanoël and gave the Queen in ward to his Marshal Rohalt, and after that set off to wage his war.
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About this edition
- The words
- Hilaire Belloc's English translation, copied word for word.
- Copied from
Text of the 1913 George Allen & Company printed edition.
- Left out
- The source library's header, footer and license, in 2 places
- Closing line THE END is book furniture
- Printer's colophon
- Kept as written
Its adultery, violence and deaths are kept as the author wrote them.