Do you hear them still?
To me the sound has already died away in the distance.
They are still near:
they ring out clearly there.
Anxious fear deceives your ear.
You are deluded by the rustle of leaves
that the wind laughingly shakes.
The wildness of your desire deludes you into hearing only what you choose to.
l can hear the winding of the horns.
No winding of horns sounds so sweet;
the gentle splashing of the fountain
ripples so joyfully yonder.
How could l hear it if the horns were blowing?
ln the silence of the night only the fountain laughs to me.
Would you keep afar from me
the one who waits for me in the silent night
by thinking the horns still sound near at hand?
The one who waits for you... Oh, hear my warning!
Spies wait for him by night.
Because you blind yourself, think you that the world's eyes grow dim for you?
On board ship, when Tristan's trembling hand
delivered to King Marke the pale bride, scarcely in possession of herself,
as all looked in wonder on her shrinking
and the kindly king, gently solicitous,
loudly deplored the hardship of the long journey that you had suffered,
one there was, l marked him well,
who fixed his eyes only on Tristan.
With malicious craft he sought by stealthy looks
to find in his mien something to serve his purpose.
Often l see him, spitefully watching:
he is laying secret snares for you; beware of Melot!
Mean you Sir Melot?
Oh, how deceived you are! ls he not Tristan's truest friend?
When my dear one must shun me, then with Melot alone does he stay.
What makes me mistrustful endears him to you!
Melot's path is from Tristan to Marke: there he sows evil seed.
Those who today so suddenly and hastily planned this hunt by night
are intent on a nobler quarry than you, in your fancies, imagine.
Friend Melot devised this stratagem
from sympathy to help his friend.
Now will you reproach his fidelity?
He looks after me better than you do:
he opens ways that you close to me.
Oh, end my agony of waiting!
The signal, Brangäne!
Give the signal!
Quench the torch's last glow.
Give night the sign that she may descend on us.
Already she sheds her silence over grove and house,
filling the heart with blissful tremors.
Oh, put out the light now,
extinguish its deterring glare!
Let my loved one come!
Oh, leave the warning flame, let it show you your danger!
Alas, alas! Woe is me
for that hapless draught!
That l disloyal should only once have worked against my lady's will!
Had l obeyed, deaf and blind, your deed then would have been death.
But must l bear the guilt for ever
for your shame and grievous pain?
Your deed? Oh, foolish maid!
Know you not the goddess of love
and the power of her magic?
She who rules over the proudest spirit
and governs the world's unfolding?
Life and death are thrall to her,
which she weaves from joy and sorrow,
changing envy into love.
l presumptuously took death's work into my hands:
the goddess of love snatched it from my grasp.
She took me, death-consecrated, as pledge
and seized the work in her hand.
However she turns it,
however she ends it,
whatever she reserves for me, wherever she leads me,
l have become her very own:
now let me show my obedience!
lf the baleful draught of love
has quenched your light of reason,
if you will not see that of which l warn you,
only hear now, hear my supplication!
The shining light of danger,
for today, but for today, do not extinguish the torch!
She who fans the glow within my bosom,
who sets my heart on fire,
who laughs like daylight in my soul,
the goddess of love desires night to come
that she may brightly shine there
where she has banished your light.
Now to the watch tower: keep good watch!
Laughing, l fear not to quench the torch,
even were it the flame of my existence!
lsolde!
Tristan!
Beloved!
- Are you mine? - Do l hold you again?
- Dare l embrace you? - Can l believe it?
- At last! At last! - Here on my breast!
- ls it really you l feel? - Do l really see you?
- These your eyes? - These your lips?
- This your hand? - This your heart?
ls it l? ls it you?
- You in my arms? - ls it no illusion?
ls it no dream?
O rapture of my soul,
sweetest, highest, boldest, loveliest, blissful joy!
- Unparalleled! - Supreme treasure!
- Supreme joy! - For ever!
- Unimagined, unknown! - Overflowing, sublime!
- Overwhelming joy! - Entrancing bliss!
Highest heaven's oblivion of the world!
Mine!
- Tristan mine! - lsolde mine!
Mine and thine!
One for ever and ever!
- Tristan mine, lsolde ever thine! - For ever! lsolde mine!
- Tristan! - lsolde!
For ever and ever one!
How long apart! How far apart so long!
How far when near! How near when afar!
O foe to friendship, spiteful distance!
Dragging length of sluggish hours!
O distance and nearness,
harshly divided!
Blessed nearness, tedious distance!
You in the darkness, l in the light!
The light, the light! Oh, that light,
how long before it was put out!
The sun had sunk, the day was done,
but it would not suppress its envy:
its signal of alarm shone out,
planted by my beloved's door so that l should not go to her.
But your beloved's hand put out the light;
l feared not to do so though my maid hindered me:
in the power and protection of the love goddess l defied the day!
The day! The day! Hate and detestation
of the envious day, the cruellest foe!
Would that, as you quenched the torch, l could extinguish
the glare of importunate daylight to avenge all love's sorrows!
ls there one grief or one pain that it does not awaken with its light?
Even in the spreading splendour of night
my beloved sheltered it at her house, reaching out to me like a threat.
lf your beloved harboured it at her house,
once it was defiantly harboured, clear and bright, by my lover in his own heart:
Tristan, who betrayed me!
Was it not the day in him that lied
when he went to lreland to woo,
to win me for Marke
and doom his true love to death?
The day! The day which shone around you,
in which you shone like the sun, in highest honour's gleaming light,
seized lsolde from me!
What so enchanted my eye weighed my heart down to earth:
how could lsolde be mine in the shining light of day?
Was she who chose you not yours?
What lies did spiteful day tell you
that you betrayed the beloved who was destined for you?
What shone around you in splendour,
the lustre of honour, the power of fame,
madness held me captive to set my heart on these.
That which brightly shone down on my head with the glitter of dazzling light,
the noonday sun of worldly fame,
with its rays of empty rapture,
forced its way through head and brain
to the inmost shrine of my heart.
That which awoke there, darkly locked away in chaste night,
that which, unknown and unimagined, l dimly perceived there,
a vision that my eyes had not dared to gaze on,
lay gleaming before me, lit up by the light of day.
What seemed so glorious and splendid l plainly proclaimed before the host;
l loudly praised before all the people the loveliest royal bride on earth.
The envy that day awoke in me,
the passion that my fortune dismayed,
the jealousy that began to taint my honour and fame,
these l defied and loyally vowed
to preserve my fame and honour and journey back to lreland.
O vain slave of day!
Beguiled by that which beguiled you,
how l, loving, had to suffer through you
whom, deep in my heart, where love warmly enfolded you, l fiercely hated,
entangled in the glittering toils
of day's false glare.
Ah, in my inmost heart how deeply the wound smarted!
How wicked seemed to me the one whom l secretly sheltered there,
when in the glow of day the one and only truly cherished
vanished from love's sight and stood before me now as a foe!
From the light of day,
from that which showed you betraying me l longed to flee,
to draw you with me into the night,
where my heart promised me an end of deception,
where the presaged dream of delusion would vanish,
there to drink eternal love to you,
you, united to me, l longed to dedicate to death.
ln your hand sweet death, as l realised what you were offering me,
when my foreboding, exalted and certain, showed what atonement held in store,
then there gently spread within my breast the noble sway of night:
for me day was at an end.
But ah, the false draught deceived you,
so that once again night forsook you,
giving back to day one who sought only death!
Oh, hail to the draught!
Hail to its liquor!
Hail to the mighty power of its magic!
Through the gates of death, whence it flowed to me,
wide open it revealed to me
the wondrous realm of night in which l otherwise had awakened only in dreams.
From the vision in my heart's sheltering shrine
it repulsed day's deceiving light,
so that my eye, piercing the darkness, served to see it truly.
But rejected day took its revenge,
it took counsel with your misdeeds:
what night's dim light revealed to you
you were forced to surrender to the royal might of the star of day,
there to dwell alone,
shining in barren splendour.
How could l bear it?
How can l bear it now?
Oh, we were now dedicated to night!
Spiteful day, filled with envy,
could separate us with its deceit
but no longer cheat us with its lies!
lts idle pomp, its boastful glare
are derided by him whose sight night has blessed.
The fleeting lightning of its flickering fire
blinds us no more.
Before him who has lovingly looked at death's night
and has known its deep secrets,
the lies of daylight, honour and fame,
power and profit, glittering so bright,
are scattered like barren dust in the sun.
Amid day's empty fancies
one single longing remains, the longing for holy night,
where everlasting, solely true, love's delight laughs to him!
Oh, sink down upon us, night of love,
make me forget l live:
take me into your bosom,
free me from the world!
Extinguished now is the last glimmer
of what we thought, of what we dreamed.
All remembrance,
all recollection,
holy twilight's glorious presentiment
obliterates the horror of delusion, setting us free from the world.
The sun lies hidden in our breast,
stars of bliss shine smiling.
Gently enfolded in your spell,
sweetly melting before your eyes,
heart to heart, lip to lip,
bound together in one breath,
my eyes grow dim, blinded with ecstasy,
the world and its vanities fade away,
the world which lying day illuminates for us,
then, confronting cheating illusion,
l myself am the world:
supreme bliss of being,
life of holiest loving,
never more to awaken,
delusion-free, sweetly known desire.
Alone l watch in the night:
you, to whom love's dream laughs,
heed the cry of one
who foresees ill for the sleepers
and anxiously bids them awake.
Take care!
Soon the night will pass.
Hark,
beloved!
Let me die!
Grudging watcher!
Never to wake!
But must not day arouse Tristan?
Let day give way to death!
Day and death, would they not
with equal force attack our love?
Our love? Tristan's love?
Yours and mine, lsolde's love?
What blow by death could ever make it yield?
Were mighty death to stand before me,
however he menaced life and limb,
which willingly l would lose for love's sake,
how could his blows affect love itself?
Were l now to die for love, for which l would so gladly die,
how could love die with me,
the ever-living perish with me?
So, if his love could never die,
how could Tristan die in his love?
But this our love,
is it not called Tristan and lsolde?
This sweet little word
''and'',
binding as it does love's union,
would death not destroy it were Tristan to die?
What could death destroy but what impedes us,
that hinders Tristan from loving lsolde for ever,
and for ever living but for her?
Yet this little word ''and'':
how might it be destroyed other than with lsolde's own life,
if death were to be given Tristan?
Thus might we die, undivided,
one for ever without end,
never waking, never fearing,
embraced namelessly in love,
given entirely to each other,
living only in our love!
Thus we might die, undivided,
one for ever without end,
never waking,
never fearing,
embraced namelessly in love,
given entirely to each other,
- living only in our love! - Take care!
Take care!
Night is already giving way to day.
Must l listen?
Let me die!
Must l awake?
Never awaken!
Must day yet rouse Tristan?
Let day give way to death!
Shall we then defy day's threats?
To escape its guile for ever!
So that its dawning light will never daunt us?
May night last for us for ever!
O endless night, sweet night!
Glorious, exalted, night of love!
- Those whom you embrace... - on whom you smile...
...how could they ever awaken from you without dismay?
Now banish fear, sweet death,
ardently desired death in love!
ln your arms, devoted to you,
ever sacred glow, freed from the misery of waking!
How to grasp, how to relinquish
this bliss far from the sun,
far from the day's lamentations at parting!
- Without delusions... - ...tender yearning.
- Without fears... - ...sweet longing.
Without grieving, sublime drifting.
Without languishing, enfolded in sweet darkness.
Without separating, without parting,
dearly alone, ever at one,
in unbounded space, most blessed of dreams!
- You lsolde, - You Tristan,
- l Tristan, - l lsolde,
- no more lsolde! - no more Tristan!
- No names, no parting! - Ever!
- Newly perceived, newly kindled! - Unendingly!
Unendingly, ever, one consciousness;
supreme joy of love
glowing in our breast!
Save yourself, Tristan!
For the last time, dreary day!
Now tell me, my lord,
whether l accused him with just cause,
whether l have redeemed my head that l staked in pledge?
l have shown him to you in the very act:
l have faithfully preserved your name and honour from shame.
See him there,
the truest of all true men;
look on him,
the staunchest of friends:
his freest deed of devotion
has struck my heart with most hostile betrayal!
lf Tristan has betrayed me,
could l hope
that what his treachery has damaged
might be honourably restored by Melot's words?
Phantoms of day, morning dreams,
deceiving and vain, away, begone!
This to me?
To me, Tristan, this?
Where now is loyalty if Tristan has betrayed me?
Where are honour and true breeding
if Tristan, the defender of all honour,
has lost them?
Where is virtue,
which Tristan chose as device for his shield,
if it has flown from my friend
and Tristan has betrayed me?
To what end the unstinted service,
the fame of honour, the mighty greatness
that you won for Marke
if fame and honour, might and greatness
and the unstinted service must be paid with Marke's shame?
Did you deem my thanks too scant
in bequeathing to you for your very own
the fame and kingdom that you had gained for me?
When his wife died childless
Marke loved you so that he never would remarry.
When all at court and in the country pressed him with pleas and warnings
to select a queen for the country and a consort for himself;
when you yourself besought your uncle
graciously to grant the court's wish and the people's will,
with craft and kindness, resisting court and country,
resisting you yourself, he refused
until, Tristan, you threatened
to quit for ever his court and land if you yourself were not sent off
to win the king a bride.
Then he let it be so.
Who could behold, who could know
this wondrous wife
that your valour won for me?
Who could proudly call her his
without deeming himself blessed?
One whom my longing never emboldened me to approach,
whom my desire renounced, awestruck,
who, so splendid, fair and exalted,
could not but delight my soul,
despite foes and dangers, a queenly bride
you brought me hither.
Now that, through such a possession, you, wretched man, had made my heart
more sensitive to pain than before, why have you now wounded me so sorely,
where most tender, soft and open l could be struck,
with never a hope that l could ever be healed?
There, with your weapon's torturing poison
that scorches and destroys my senses and brain,
that denies me faith in my friend,
that fills my trusting heart with suspicion,
so that now stealthily, in the darkness of night,
l must lurk and creep up on my friend
and achieve the fall of my honour?
Why must l suffer this hell
that no heaven can restore?
Why this dishonour
for which no misery can atone?
Who will make known to the world
the inscrutable, deep, secret cause?
O king,
that l cannot tell you,
and what you ask
you can never hope to know.
Where Tristan now is going
will you, lsolde, follow him?
To a land, Tristan means, where the sunlight never shines;
it is the dark land of night from which my mother sent me forth
when he whom in death she conceived
in death she let go into the light:
there where she bore me, which was the refuge for her love,
the wondrous realm of night from which l first awoke,
that Tristan offers you,
where now he goes on ahead;
let lsolde now tell him
if she will follow, loyal and gracious.
When her friend once courted her for a foreign land,
lsolde, loyal and gracious, had to follow the ungracious one.
Now you lead the way to your own land to show me your heritage:
how could l flee from the land that spans the whole world?
lsolde will dwell where Tristan's house and home is:
now show lsolde the way that
loyal and gracious...
...she must follow!
Ha! Traitor! Vengeance, O king!
Will you endure this dishonour?
Who pits his life against mine?
This was my friend, he loved me well and truly;
more than any man he cared for my fame and honour.
He incited my heart to presumption
and led the forces urging me
to increased fame and honour
by giving you in marriage to the king!
Your glance, lsolde,
blinded him, too:
for passion my friend betrayed me
to the king whom l betrayed!