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Tristan with the 'Tristan' of Thomas
Gottfried's version of this legendary romance--in which Tristan and Isolde chance to drink a magic potion that causes them to fall in love--portrays Tristan in the round as an attractive and sophisticated pre-Renaissance man. While Gottfried adheres faithfully to the events as set down by Thomas, his chosen source, he is correct over questions of Chrisianity and religion, but no more.In fact his persona as narrator is oddly elusive and engaging. A virtuoso stylist, adept in irony and wit, he is subtle and almost unmedieval in putting across his own impressions of a love that transcends the bounds advocated by Church or society.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1210
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2506 people want to read
About the author
Gottfried von Strassburg
133 books14 followersGottfried von Strassburg (died c. 1210) is the author of the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, an adaptation of the 12th-century Tristan and Iseult legend. Gottfried's work is regarded, alongside the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, as one of the great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages. He is probably also the composer of a small number of surviving lyrics. His work became a source of inspiration for Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde (1865).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
July 10, 2022
sometimes you really do just have to retreat to a cave with your lover and survive off nothing but sex and good vibes for a while
#justice for brangane
#justice for brangane
May 18, 2023
Gottfried Von Strassburg brought the Tristan legend to Germany in the early 1200s. The source he used for adaptation, what he called “the authentic version”, was Thomas of Britain’s “Tristran”, written sometime in the mid-1100s. It is thought that Thomas’s Tristran and Beroul’s Romance of Tristan, from France, are two of the oldest remaining written Tristan poems, although neither is fully intact. They both apparently deviate from the common source that gave birth to all forms of this legend, but that common source has been lost a long time. It’s not clear if that source was ever written down, or was entirely oral tradition.
Beroul’s version of the story is missing its whole first half and some short parts throughout. Thomas’s is missing a lot, too. Gottfried’s however, is almost complete. He finished only about 5/6ths of the tale, but all of it remains. The portion Gottfried did not finish was filled in, in this book, with the remnants of Thomas’s version, so that we have the complete story with only minor interpolations. Judging only by these three, each of them of high quality and unique character, I think Gottfried’s is the best.
It is the most psychological and complete version of the story I’ve read so far. An epic that begins before Tristan’s birth, telling the wild tale of his conception, his remarkable childhood and prodigious achievements and abilities. Beyond the raw adventure and perilous drama, there are insightful reflections on the moods and sorrows in the characters’ hearts. Gottfried was an amazing writer, like his fellow Germans. Poetic, artful, attentive, precise, creative to an extreme, and he had an eye and ear for the best way to present an idea.
He composes vibrant and living scenes, fully explored and given substance. Regularly he turns a passage or an occurrence into something more than its surface, a deeper and more intricate thing that branches out into supplemental explorations. As an example, he uses erotic double entendres which are apparently lost in translation, while discussing the Cave of Love to which Tristan and Isolde retreat. Many pages of what would be, from a lesser author, a tiring bit of exposition, is here a stupendous painting filled with magic and history and mystical significance. All his excursions are like this. He shares poetic investigations of the inner suffering of a character, even a minor one. He can change gears in an instant, giving heroic grandeur to the exploits of a daring, adventurous knight, or show the hatred and extremes of emotion felt toward some monstrous evil.
Gottfried discusses the coupling of love with deception and sorrow. Often his scenes of grand war and battle and violence transition into a scene of lamentation toward forbidden desire. His way of describing the performance of music and its transcendent, enslaving qualities, or his manner of anthropomorphizing human emotions and curiosities as living, mischievous, strange beings who play games and perform odd acts and ceremonies on their host has more nuance and style to it than medieval poems are often given credit for. His range of knowledge seems enormous, such that he is able to pull fabulous ideas from all corners of the earth to give the story substance.
In the tale there is a significance to names. Tristan means “sorrow”, and his life begins in it, and after a few years of adventure, his life is ruled by it, then ultimately ends in it. Foitenant means “he who keeps faith”, and this is the name of Tristan’s foster father, who raises him after his parents have died. He exercises unfaltering loyalty and honor toward his charge. As Gottfried explains, “Limits had been set for Tristan in the twin spheres of success and misfortune.” Tristan’s childhood and heroism and intelligence and cunning and musicianship make him a prodigy. This is great reading even without the rest of the story. His defeat of Isolde’s uncle Morholt for demanding tribute to Ireland makes him a hero to Cornwall. His two trips to Ireland in disguise, first as a minstrel, then as a merchant, reveal his ingenuity, his sophistication, and the use of his gifts. He kills a dragon and, when preparing to duel the Steward who has falsely claimed credit, Isolde learns he is the killer of her uncle. Despite her affection toward him, she shifts quickly to loathing.
Gottfried reflects on the underlying philosophical nature of the story’s events as they unfold. Free will is strained and questioned after Tristan and Isolde drink a potion intended for King Mark and Isolde, his wife-to-be. Throughout there are many welcome meditations on the will and human capacity for pain, and individual nature and our ability to control ourselves.
Isolde, who we know is quick to rage, seems also to sink to new depths of depravity. She becomes psychopathic in her desperation to keep her secret affair with Tristan unknown. She orders Brangene, her maid, killed, though the latter is the one who keeps her out of trouble and sacrifices the most for Isolde.
Gottfried treats humanely and realistically Mark’s grief and constant back and forth between believing and disbelieving the rumors he hears, and the evidence he sees, of their affair. The intensity of the emotional turmoil felt by all three is a recurring subject, but always changing shape with new developments. Mark’s two most beloved relations, nephew and wife, are the subjects of his most painful suspicions. With the aide of spies and his vassals he arranges clever traps to reveal the truth, and Tristan and Isolde and Brangene are clever enough to sidestep them. One can’t help but feel sympathy for Mark, then share his sadness as he realizes the truth.
Our author finds metaphors in the most unexpected places, drawing a reader’s attention to some fringe element of human nature or human frailty or human endowment and finds inventive parallels in the natural world, or in the social sphere, or within an artistically rendered metaphysical excursion. His telling of this tale, the things he chooses to focus on and look at from curious angles, gives the story a compelling new life, reading almost like a novel from a later age.
Some interesting contrasts between the tale as told by Gottfried and Beroul are apparent, though most do little to change the course of the story. They are significant since they might point to different sources and different traditions, a forking of the path of myth. How the lovers come upon the potion is changed. In Beroul, Brangene hands it to them mistakenly, in Thomas/Gottfried, they find it themselves, mistaking it for wine. The blood Tristan leaves behind in Isolde’s bed, lending suspicion to Mark, occurs differently in each. Sneaking in through a window in Beroul’s version, Tristan cuts his thumb and bleeds in the bed unknowingly. In Gottfried, his bandages from being bled earlier in the day open up in the bed.
There is a contrast to how Isolde’s Ordeal plays out. For one, there is no King Arthur in this version. In fact, Arthur makes no appearance in Gottfried’s story, and ostensibly neither in Thomas’s. Arthur is only mentioned as a renowned king, and the glory of his court is treated in a comparison to Tristan’s humble surroundings when he is living alone in the wild. Later, when he and Isolde are banished to roam the woods and are caught sleeping with a sword between them, in Beroul it is in the woods and in Gottfried a cave in which they are discovered by Mark. Though this seems insignificant, the winding paths that lead to these diverging details is interesting but not something I’ll get into now.
There are dozens more little differences, some big ones, but many of the main threads of the story are common and similar. Each variation seems to suggest either evolution along a new branch of the myth from a common source, or an intentional retelling with creative liberties by poets versed in the tradition. Since so many of the manuscripts of the legend are damaged or incomplete, it seems there is still great mystery about how this story has taken shape. Its impact on stories over the next 800 years is much easier to understand.
Gottfried’s version is an excellent addition to, or adaptation of, the Tristan legend. His skill is enviable, even though apparently many at the time found Hartmann von Aue to be the superior poet. I’m reading none of these works in the original German, and all are translated into prose. With all this in the way it’s hard to say which of the multiple medieval German authors of epics and Arthurian romances was best, but Gottfried seems to be under-appreciated in our time.
Beroul’s version of the story is missing its whole first half and some short parts throughout. Thomas’s is missing a lot, too. Gottfried’s however, is almost complete. He finished only about 5/6ths of the tale, but all of it remains. The portion Gottfried did not finish was filled in, in this book, with the remnants of Thomas’s version, so that we have the complete story with only minor interpolations. Judging only by these three, each of them of high quality and unique character, I think Gottfried’s is the best.
It is the most psychological and complete version of the story I’ve read so far. An epic that begins before Tristan’s birth, telling the wild tale of his conception, his remarkable childhood and prodigious achievements and abilities. Beyond the raw adventure and perilous drama, there are insightful reflections on the moods and sorrows in the characters’ hearts. Gottfried was an amazing writer, like his fellow Germans. Poetic, artful, attentive, precise, creative to an extreme, and he had an eye and ear for the best way to present an idea.
He composes vibrant and living scenes, fully explored and given substance. Regularly he turns a passage or an occurrence into something more than its surface, a deeper and more intricate thing that branches out into supplemental explorations. As an example, he uses erotic double entendres which are apparently lost in translation, while discussing the Cave of Love to which Tristan and Isolde retreat. Many pages of what would be, from a lesser author, a tiring bit of exposition, is here a stupendous painting filled with magic and history and mystical significance. All his excursions are like this. He shares poetic investigations of the inner suffering of a character, even a minor one. He can change gears in an instant, giving heroic grandeur to the exploits of a daring, adventurous knight, or show the hatred and extremes of emotion felt toward some monstrous evil.
Gottfried discusses the coupling of love with deception and sorrow. Often his scenes of grand war and battle and violence transition into a scene of lamentation toward forbidden desire. His way of describing the performance of music and its transcendent, enslaving qualities, or his manner of anthropomorphizing human emotions and curiosities as living, mischievous, strange beings who play games and perform odd acts and ceremonies on their host has more nuance and style to it than medieval poems are often given credit for. His range of knowledge seems enormous, such that he is able to pull fabulous ideas from all corners of the earth to give the story substance.
In the tale there is a significance to names. Tristan means “sorrow”, and his life begins in it, and after a few years of adventure, his life is ruled by it, then ultimately ends in it. Foitenant means “he who keeps faith”, and this is the name of Tristan’s foster father, who raises him after his parents have died. He exercises unfaltering loyalty and honor toward his charge. As Gottfried explains, “Limits had been set for Tristan in the twin spheres of success and misfortune.” Tristan’s childhood and heroism and intelligence and cunning and musicianship make him a prodigy. This is great reading even without the rest of the story. His defeat of Isolde’s uncle Morholt for demanding tribute to Ireland makes him a hero to Cornwall. His two trips to Ireland in disguise, first as a minstrel, then as a merchant, reveal his ingenuity, his sophistication, and the use of his gifts. He kills a dragon and, when preparing to duel the Steward who has falsely claimed credit, Isolde learns he is the killer of her uncle. Despite her affection toward him, she shifts quickly to loathing.
Gottfried reflects on the underlying philosophical nature of the story’s events as they unfold. Free will is strained and questioned after Tristan and Isolde drink a potion intended for King Mark and Isolde, his wife-to-be. Throughout there are many welcome meditations on the will and human capacity for pain, and individual nature and our ability to control ourselves.
Isolde, who we know is quick to rage, seems also to sink to new depths of depravity. She becomes psychopathic in her desperation to keep her secret affair with Tristan unknown. She orders Brangene, her maid, killed, though the latter is the one who keeps her out of trouble and sacrifices the most for Isolde.
Gottfried treats humanely and realistically Mark’s grief and constant back and forth between believing and disbelieving the rumors he hears, and the evidence he sees, of their affair. The intensity of the emotional turmoil felt by all three is a recurring subject, but always changing shape with new developments. Mark’s two most beloved relations, nephew and wife, are the subjects of his most painful suspicions. With the aide of spies and his vassals he arranges clever traps to reveal the truth, and Tristan and Isolde and Brangene are clever enough to sidestep them. One can’t help but feel sympathy for Mark, then share his sadness as he realizes the truth.
Our author finds metaphors in the most unexpected places, drawing a reader’s attention to some fringe element of human nature or human frailty or human endowment and finds inventive parallels in the natural world, or in the social sphere, or within an artistically rendered metaphysical excursion. His telling of this tale, the things he chooses to focus on and look at from curious angles, gives the story a compelling new life, reading almost like a novel from a later age.
Some interesting contrasts between the tale as told by Gottfried and Beroul are apparent, though most do little to change the course of the story. They are significant since they might point to different sources and different traditions, a forking of the path of myth. How the lovers come upon the potion is changed. In Beroul, Brangene hands it to them mistakenly, in Thomas/Gottfried, they find it themselves, mistaking it for wine. The blood Tristan leaves behind in Isolde’s bed, lending suspicion to Mark, occurs differently in each. Sneaking in through a window in Beroul’s version, Tristan cuts his thumb and bleeds in the bed unknowingly. In Gottfried, his bandages from being bled earlier in the day open up in the bed.
There is a contrast to how Isolde’s Ordeal plays out. For one, there is no King Arthur in this version. In fact, Arthur makes no appearance in Gottfried’s story, and ostensibly neither in Thomas’s. Arthur is only mentioned as a renowned king, and the glory of his court is treated in a comparison to Tristan’s humble surroundings when he is living alone in the wild. Later, when he and Isolde are banished to roam the woods and are caught sleeping with a sword between them, in Beroul it is in the woods and in Gottfried a cave in which they are discovered by Mark. Though this seems insignificant, the winding paths that lead to these diverging details is interesting but not something I’ll get into now.
There are dozens more little differences, some big ones, but many of the main threads of the story are common and similar. Each variation seems to suggest either evolution along a new branch of the myth from a common source, or an intentional retelling with creative liberties by poets versed in the tradition. Since so many of the manuscripts of the legend are damaged or incomplete, it seems there is still great mystery about how this story has taken shape. Its impact on stories over the next 800 years is much easier to understand.
Gottfried’s version is an excellent addition to, or adaptation of, the Tristan legend. His skill is enviable, even though apparently many at the time found Hartmann von Aue to be the superior poet. I’m reading none of these works in the original German, and all are translated into prose. With all this in the way it’s hard to say which of the multiple medieval German authors of epics and Arthurian romances was best, but Gottfried seems to be under-appreciated in our time.
May 11, 2010
I really liked this. I thought the translation was very good: it's engaging and interesting and doesn't get too dry, as some translations are prone to doing. Of course, it seems like a lot of that is down to the original text, which I do wish I could experience. But the translation is well done, I think. The descriptions are gorgeous, in places, and the imagery is lovely.
I really enjoyed learning about Tristan's history, too, with his foster father and how he grows up. He's a bit of a "Gary Stu", as fandom would put it: he's a bit too perfect. A bit of a Lancelot all round, really (I don't really like most portrayals of Lancelot).
The problem with enjoying this is how shameless Tristan and Isolde are. They trick Mark and make him feel guilty for ever suspecting them, and then respond to his love for them by cuckolding him again. They don't seem to make any real effort to hold back. And Tristan mistreats the other Isolde (of the White Hands), and Isolde the Fair's treatment of Brangane is ridiculous. Of course, these problems that are there for a modern reader might not be, for the original audience -- I'm aware of that, and it doesn't actually affect my rating of it because I enjoyed reading it so much. Still, it's hard to sympathise with the characters when they do things like that.
There are some great passages, though -- really affecting, and you can really feel for the characters. I had more sympathies for Mark than I'd expected.
It really isn't Arthurian at all, incidentally. There are a couple of references to King Arthur, but Tristan isn't a knight of the Round Table here. I'm still 'shelving' it as Arthurian, though, because of how strongly linked the Tristan and Iseult story has become with the Arthurian stories.
I really enjoyed learning about Tristan's history, too, with his foster father and how he grows up. He's a bit of a "Gary Stu", as fandom would put it: he's a bit too perfect. A bit of a Lancelot all round, really (I don't really like most portrayals of Lancelot).
The problem with enjoying this is how shameless Tristan and Isolde are. They trick Mark and make him feel guilty for ever suspecting them, and then respond to his love for them by cuckolding him again. They don't seem to make any real effort to hold back. And Tristan mistreats the other Isolde (of the White Hands), and Isolde the Fair's treatment of Brangane is ridiculous. Of course, these problems that are there for a modern reader might not be, for the original audience -- I'm aware of that, and it doesn't actually affect my rating of it because I enjoyed reading it so much. Still, it's hard to sympathise with the characters when they do things like that.
There are some great passages, though -- really affecting, and you can really feel for the characters. I had more sympathies for Mark than I'd expected.
It really isn't Arthurian at all, incidentally. There are a couple of references to King Arthur, but Tristan isn't a knight of the Round Table here. I'm still 'shelving' it as Arthurian, though, because of how strongly linked the Tristan and Iseult story has become with the Arthurian stories.
April 25, 2022
Gottfried’s moral purpose, as he states it in the prologue, is to present to courtiers an ideal of love. The core of this ideal, which derives from the romantic cult of woman in medieval courtly society, is that love (minne) ennobles through the suffering with which it is inseparably linked. This ideal Gottfried enshrines in a story in which actions are motivated and justified not by a standard ethic but by the conventions of courtly love. Thus, the love potion, instead of being the direct cause of the tragedy as in primitive versions of the Tristan story, is sophisticatedly treated as a mere outward symbol of the nature of the lovers’ passion—tragic because adulterous but justified by the “courts of love” because of its spontaneity, its exclusiveness, and its completeness.
Although unfinished, Gottfried’s is the finest of the medieval versions of the Tristan legend and one of the most perfect creations of the medieval courtly spirit, distinguished alike by the refinement and elevated tone of its content and by the elaborate skill of its poetic technique. It was the inspiration for Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde (1859).
Although unfinished, Gottfried’s is the finest of the medieval versions of the Tristan legend and one of the most perfect creations of the medieval courtly spirit, distinguished alike by the refinement and elevated tone of its content and by the elaborate skill of its poetic technique. It was the inspiration for Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde (1859).
February 2, 2021
If all the medieval scholars in the world were asked to name the definitive version of the Tristan story, it's a sure bet a majority would point to the work of Gottfried Von Strassburg. Though Gottfried certainly did not create the Tristan saga itself, working as he was from an earlier poem by Thomas of Britain (and Thomas wasn't the first storyteller to take up Tristan's tale either), Gottfried's personal touches and a surgeon's eye for the pscyhological underpinnings of the cursed love affair between the knight Tristan and his Queen Isolde allowed him to make the existing story his own.
Grand in conception and rich in detail, Gottfried's TRISTAN has for eight centuries delighted general readers and scholars alike and has been wildly influential, inspiring countless other writers and artists to produce their own take on an immortal legend. Ironically, Gottfried's opus isn't even complete--it breaks off shortly after Tristan meets Isolde of the White Hands. Providentially, Thomas's TRISTRAN picks up where Gottfried, for whatever reason, leaves off, so that an essentially complete story is in fact available, albeit by two writers of rather different styles. Also, it should be noted that neither Gottfried nor Thomas put Tristan at King Arthur's Round Table, as many other authors frequently do.
Penguin Classics are of uniformly high quality, and this book is no exception. The translation is by renowned medieval scholar A.T. Hatto, with an excellent introduction, helpful notes, and a number of supplemental pieces including glossaries of geographical and character names from the text for enhanced readability.
Is Gottfried's TRISTAN truly the best? Of course that is always going to be debatable. To be fair, Joseph Bedier's version is more concise and in some ways more readable, while Thomas Malory's BOOK OF SIR TRISTRAM puts Tristan in his more familiar setting as a pre-eminent knight of the Round Table. Regardless, Gottfried's romance is a justly immortal masterpiece of rare quality. Given the story's literary triumphs of style and substance alike, combined with a legacy of ongoing influence upon other writers worldwide, anything less than a five-star rating is impossible.
Grand in conception and rich in detail, Gottfried's TRISTAN has for eight centuries delighted general readers and scholars alike and has been wildly influential, inspiring countless other writers and artists to produce their own take on an immortal legend. Ironically, Gottfried's opus isn't even complete--it breaks off shortly after Tristan meets Isolde of the White Hands. Providentially, Thomas's TRISTRAN picks up where Gottfried, for whatever reason, leaves off, so that an essentially complete story is in fact available, albeit by two writers of rather different styles. Also, it should be noted that neither Gottfried nor Thomas put Tristan at King Arthur's Round Table, as many other authors frequently do.
Penguin Classics are of uniformly high quality, and this book is no exception. The translation is by renowned medieval scholar A.T. Hatto, with an excellent introduction, helpful notes, and a number of supplemental pieces including glossaries of geographical and character names from the text for enhanced readability.
Is Gottfried's TRISTAN truly the best? Of course that is always going to be debatable. To be fair, Joseph Bedier's version is more concise and in some ways more readable, while Thomas Malory's BOOK OF SIR TRISTRAM puts Tristan in his more familiar setting as a pre-eminent knight of the Round Table. Regardless, Gottfried's romance is a justly immortal masterpiece of rare quality. Given the story's literary triumphs of style and substance alike, combined with a legacy of ongoing influence upon other writers worldwide, anything less than a five-star rating is impossible.
July 8, 2011
Great Passages:
"Into her thoughts she had received him, he had come into her heart, and in the kingdom of her heart wore crown and sceptre with despotic sway."
"For now he laid hold of a new life, a new life was given him; so that he changed his whole cast of mind and became quite a different man, since all that he did was chequered with strangeness and blindness."
"In any event, she would have perished and died of her sorrow, had not hope refreshed her and expectancy buoyed her up, set as she was on seeing him, however that might be: and once having seen him she would gladly suffer whatever might be in store for her."
"But I must and will not afflict your ears with matters which are too distressing, since too much talk of grief offends them and there is nothing so good that it does not pall from being said too often."
"In the blossoming years, when the ecstasy of his springtime was about to unfold and he was just entering with joy into his prime, his best life was over: just when he was beginning of burgeon with delight the frost of care (which ravages many young people) descended on him and withered and blossoms of his gladness."
"How I dread this great wilderness! Wherever I bend my eyes I see the end of the world, wherever I turn I see nothing but desert, wasteland, wilderness, wild cliffs, and sea as wild. How the terror of it afflicts me! But more than this I fear that, whichever way I turn, wolves and other beasts will devour me."
"Having returned with his stick, he cut out the liver entire, and then severed the net and the numbles. He removed the pizzle from its limb. Seating himself of the grass, he took all three pieces, bound them firmly with his net to the 'fourchie', and then tied it round about with green bast."
"Tristan was ready to oblige as before. He took the pluck (I mean that on which the heart is strung) and cleaned it of all its appendages. He cut off half of the heart towards its pointed end and, taking it in his hands, cut it crosswise into four and threw this down on the hide. He then returned to his plush. He removed the milt and lungs, and the pluck was bare of its contents. When this had been placed on the hide, he quickly cut both pluck-string and gorge, about, at the curve of the breast. Then swiftly he removed the head and horns from the neck, and told them to place these with the breast."
"Now each of you cut your own withies and truss your portions separately."
"I like this craft so well that if I ever hunt again, I shall never hack deer into four, bit it hart or hind."
"We shall not allow anyone to wear it whose words are not well-laved, and his diction smooth and even; so that if someone approaches at the trot, well-poised and with an upright seat, hi will not stumble there."
"All are agreed that anger besets a young man more relentlessly than a mature one."
"With a downward sweep he struck through skull and brain, ending only at the tongue, then at once plunged the sword into his heart. Thus the truth of the provers was evident which says that debts lie, yet do not rot."
"And so Morold went on hacking at his till he mastered him with blows, and Tristan, hard put to it to meet them, thrust out his shield too far and held his guard too high, so that finally Morold struck him such an ugly blow through the thigh, plunging almost to the very life of him, that his flesh and bone were laid bare through hauberk and jambs, and the blood spurted out and fell in a cloud on that island."
"King Gurmun the Gay was far from gay and deeply vexed and had every reason to be so; for in this one man he had lost his heart, his courage, his hope, and his vigour, and a fighting strength equal to that of many knights."
"And indeed these two - anchorless ships and stray thoughts - provide a good comparison. They are both so seldom on a straight course, lie so often in unsure havens, pitching and tossing and heaving to and fro. Just so, in the very same way, do aimless desire and random love-longing drift like an anchorless ship."
"Knowing the language, I shall stand outside myself."
"He now spurred back to his adversary, dismounted, and, resuming his battle just where he had stopped, fell to stabbing and hacking at his foe with his sword here, there, and everywhere till he had cut him to shreds in sundry places."
"Such paltry hardships will never buy me!"
"'Dear ladies,' said the man in the bath, 'it is true that I have made you suffer, though under great duress."
"One should turn one's coat according to the wind."
"And so they stood, and so he lay."
"Rapacious feathered glances flew thick as falling snow, ranging from side to side in search of prey."
"There was much of such talk, and believe me, the Steward made a very sour face over it."
"No one spoke a word or a syllable."
"'Your wrangling is superfluous."
"They blushed and blanched, blanched and blushed is swift succession as Love painted their cheeks for them."
"All that I know distresses me, all that I see afflicts me. the sky and sea oppress me, my life has become a burden to me!"
"He then recalled that l'ameir meant "love", l'ameir 'bitter', la meir the sea: it seemed to have a host of meanings."
"Surely, fair Isolde, the sharp smack of sea is the cause of your distress? The tang of the sea is too strong for you? It is this you find so bitter?"
"She is still alive, Isolde, you strange person."
"For (to take one's words from their own lips) the ladies have no greater harm or guile or duplicity in them of any description than that they can weep for no reason at all, as often as they please. Isolde wept copiously."
"The next day a little before noon Melot sneaked out on his way again, his bosom well stuffed with dissembled regrets and vile deceit, and went to Tristan."
"His command was duly performed - a rich and noble purple, most rare and wonderful and suitable broad, was spread on the table before him with a tiny dog upon it."
"And now the giant and his booty were approaching."
"And indeed, Urgan had calculated that, once he had joined his hand to his arm in good time before it was quite dead, by a means that he was versed in, he would have emerged well from this peril with his hand, though minus an eye. But this was not to be."
"They would not have given a button for a better life, save only in retrospect of their honor."
"Women do many things, just because they are forbidden, from which they would refrain were it not forbidden."
"In this way he was cheated of both: he desired yet did not desire Isolde and Isolde."
"Abstinence breeds hatred."
"I do not complain of his love, but I am very unhappy that you have made me your dupe so that you can gratify your malice."
"Have you ever heard this saying "Empty room makes wanton woman"? or "Opportunity makes a thief"? or "Wanton woman, empty house"?"
"Yet it may still happen so: for if I am to drown here, and you, as I think, must also drown, a fish could swallow us, and so, my love, by good fortune we should share one sepulture, since it might be caught by someone who would recognize our bodies and do them the high honour befitting our love."
"Into her thoughts she had received him, he had come into her heart, and in the kingdom of her heart wore crown and sceptre with despotic sway."
"For now he laid hold of a new life, a new life was given him; so that he changed his whole cast of mind and became quite a different man, since all that he did was chequered with strangeness and blindness."
"In any event, she would have perished and died of her sorrow, had not hope refreshed her and expectancy buoyed her up, set as she was on seeing him, however that might be: and once having seen him she would gladly suffer whatever might be in store for her."
"But I must and will not afflict your ears with matters which are too distressing, since too much talk of grief offends them and there is nothing so good that it does not pall from being said too often."
"In the blossoming years, when the ecstasy of his springtime was about to unfold and he was just entering with joy into his prime, his best life was over: just when he was beginning of burgeon with delight the frost of care (which ravages many young people) descended on him and withered and blossoms of his gladness."
"How I dread this great wilderness! Wherever I bend my eyes I see the end of the world, wherever I turn I see nothing but desert, wasteland, wilderness, wild cliffs, and sea as wild. How the terror of it afflicts me! But more than this I fear that, whichever way I turn, wolves and other beasts will devour me."
"Having returned with his stick, he cut out the liver entire, and then severed the net and the numbles. He removed the pizzle from its limb. Seating himself of the grass, he took all three pieces, bound them firmly with his net to the 'fourchie', and then tied it round about with green bast."
"Tristan was ready to oblige as before. He took the pluck (I mean that on which the heart is strung) and cleaned it of all its appendages. He cut off half of the heart towards its pointed end and, taking it in his hands, cut it crosswise into four and threw this down on the hide. He then returned to his plush. He removed the milt and lungs, and the pluck was bare of its contents. When this had been placed on the hide, he quickly cut both pluck-string and gorge, about, at the curve of the breast. Then swiftly he removed the head and horns from the neck, and told them to place these with the breast."
"Now each of you cut your own withies and truss your portions separately."
"I like this craft so well that if I ever hunt again, I shall never hack deer into four, bit it hart or hind."
"We shall not allow anyone to wear it whose words are not well-laved, and his diction smooth and even; so that if someone approaches at the trot, well-poised and with an upright seat, hi will not stumble there."
"All are agreed that anger besets a young man more relentlessly than a mature one."
"With a downward sweep he struck through skull and brain, ending only at the tongue, then at once plunged the sword into his heart. Thus the truth of the provers was evident which says that debts lie, yet do not rot."
"And so Morold went on hacking at his till he mastered him with blows, and Tristan, hard put to it to meet them, thrust out his shield too far and held his guard too high, so that finally Morold struck him such an ugly blow through the thigh, plunging almost to the very life of him, that his flesh and bone were laid bare through hauberk and jambs, and the blood spurted out and fell in a cloud on that island."
"King Gurmun the Gay was far from gay and deeply vexed and had every reason to be so; for in this one man he had lost his heart, his courage, his hope, and his vigour, and a fighting strength equal to that of many knights."
"And indeed these two - anchorless ships and stray thoughts - provide a good comparison. They are both so seldom on a straight course, lie so often in unsure havens, pitching and tossing and heaving to and fro. Just so, in the very same way, do aimless desire and random love-longing drift like an anchorless ship."
"Knowing the language, I shall stand outside myself."
"He now spurred back to his adversary, dismounted, and, resuming his battle just where he had stopped, fell to stabbing and hacking at his foe with his sword here, there, and everywhere till he had cut him to shreds in sundry places."
"Such paltry hardships will never buy me!"
"'Dear ladies,' said the man in the bath, 'it is true that I have made you suffer, though under great duress."
"One should turn one's coat according to the wind."
"And so they stood, and so he lay."
"Rapacious feathered glances flew thick as falling snow, ranging from side to side in search of prey."
"There was much of such talk, and believe me, the Steward made a very sour face over it."
"No one spoke a word or a syllable."
"'Your wrangling is superfluous."
"They blushed and blanched, blanched and blushed is swift succession as Love painted their cheeks for them."
"All that I know distresses me, all that I see afflicts me. the sky and sea oppress me, my life has become a burden to me!"
"He then recalled that l'ameir meant "love", l'ameir 'bitter', la meir the sea: it seemed to have a host of meanings."
"Surely, fair Isolde, the sharp smack of sea is the cause of your distress? The tang of the sea is too strong for you? It is this you find so bitter?"
"She is still alive, Isolde, you strange person."
"For (to take one's words from their own lips) the ladies have no greater harm or guile or duplicity in them of any description than that they can weep for no reason at all, as often as they please. Isolde wept copiously."
"The next day a little before noon Melot sneaked out on his way again, his bosom well stuffed with dissembled regrets and vile deceit, and went to Tristan."
"His command was duly performed - a rich and noble purple, most rare and wonderful and suitable broad, was spread on the table before him with a tiny dog upon it."
"And now the giant and his booty were approaching."
"And indeed, Urgan had calculated that, once he had joined his hand to his arm in good time before it was quite dead, by a means that he was versed in, he would have emerged well from this peril with his hand, though minus an eye. But this was not to be."
"They would not have given a button for a better life, save only in retrospect of their honor."
"Women do many things, just because they are forbidden, from which they would refrain were it not forbidden."
"In this way he was cheated of both: he desired yet did not desire Isolde and Isolde."
"Abstinence breeds hatred."
"I do not complain of his love, but I am very unhappy that you have made me your dupe so that you can gratify your malice."
"Have you ever heard this saying "Empty room makes wanton woman"? or "Opportunity makes a thief"? or "Wanton woman, empty house"?"
"Yet it may still happen so: for if I am to drown here, and you, as I think, must also drown, a fish could swallow us, and so, my love, by good fortune we should share one sepulture, since it might be caught by someone who would recognize our bodies and do them the high honour befitting our love."
October 19, 2022
Imagine, if you will, a long house on the edge of a forest in medieval Germany. It is a winter’s evening, and a satisfying repast of venison has been eaten and much mead drunk. Several families are gathered about the central fire pit, languorously reclining. Candles dot the outer walls, casting dark shadows but allowing all to see. A bard (or minstrel, or storyteller) is called upon to continue the story of Tristan which he has been recounting on previous nights. He proceeds to do so, tracing his steps around the central fire and making sure that each dramatic element of the tale resonates with his audience. Eye contact between speaker and listener is frequently established, and both dramatic pauses and changes in volume are used to highlight the changing turns of the story. The rhymed couplets of the poem serve to enhance the listener’s passions. This oral basis of the story is an inescapable feeling I got while reading the high eloquence and exaggerated rhetoric with which it has been rendered in this careful prose translation of the original German.
And what a story it is! One of the easiest reads I’ve ever had from medieval works, it is the almost inexorable pace of the changing narrative that keeps both the present-day reader and the earlier listener in ever-rapt attention. A young man must revenge his father’s death and reclaim captured lands. An overly onerous form of tribute must be opposed, but only through the process of a one-on-one fight to the death with a very strong warrior. A perilous wound must be cured but this can only be done with the assistance of the sister of the man, now dead, who inflicted it. Positive relations between the contending kingdoms of Ireland and England/Cornwall must be established to overcome existing enmities but this can be done only through the marriage of a ruler who has sworn never to do so. A dragon must be slain. A braggart and upstart must be put in his place. A love-philtre is prepared so as to positively influence a desired relationship. A fatal error is made, and the wrong people drink the potion. An illicit love affair must be kept secret. Plots and counter-plots to both discover and hide the truth about this relationship occur again and again so that one’s expectations can never be sure as to the eventual outcome. A magical dog with a musical bell capable of eliminating any sorrow of a listener, a giant who is slain, a lover’s cave representing the pinnacle of ‘living on love’, continual suspicions, furtive hidings, unproven denunciations and halfhearted defences inevitably lead to an exile and an agonizing separation. The story continues with the separated lovers challenged with romantic offers from new sources, and an eventual desperate attempt to bring a life-saving treatment for a fatal wound which is thwarted due to the intense jealousy of another woman. The story closes with the lovers in one last, final embrace.
While such frantic action certainly carried the story forward, the poet quite often stands back and discourses in a reflective mode on love. Unlike any other feeling, it makes one both intensely exalted and overwhelmingly dismayed. This ecstasy/agony duality is forever present, even when in the latter section (written by Thomas, Gottfried’s source: both poet’s works have survived in incomplete version) a minute comparison is made as to whether Mark, Tristan, Isolde or Isolde of the White Hands is suffering more from their situation. The emotional reflection of the physical actions and changing situations is of paramount importance.
Precipitate action, insightful psychological analysis and above all else, very good writing make this one of the most readable and thoroughly enjoyable of all works of medieval literature.
Highly recommended.
And what a story it is! One of the easiest reads I’ve ever had from medieval works, it is the almost inexorable pace of the changing narrative that keeps both the present-day reader and the earlier listener in ever-rapt attention. A young man must revenge his father’s death and reclaim captured lands. An overly onerous form of tribute must be opposed, but only through the process of a one-on-one fight to the death with a very strong warrior. A perilous wound must be cured but this can only be done with the assistance of the sister of the man, now dead, who inflicted it. Positive relations between the contending kingdoms of Ireland and England/Cornwall must be established to overcome existing enmities but this can be done only through the marriage of a ruler who has sworn never to do so. A dragon must be slain. A braggart and upstart must be put in his place. A love-philtre is prepared so as to positively influence a desired relationship. A fatal error is made, and the wrong people drink the potion. An illicit love affair must be kept secret. Plots and counter-plots to both discover and hide the truth about this relationship occur again and again so that one’s expectations can never be sure as to the eventual outcome. A magical dog with a musical bell capable of eliminating any sorrow of a listener, a giant who is slain, a lover’s cave representing the pinnacle of ‘living on love’, continual suspicions, furtive hidings, unproven denunciations and halfhearted defences inevitably lead to an exile and an agonizing separation. The story continues with the separated lovers challenged with romantic offers from new sources, and an eventual desperate attempt to bring a life-saving treatment for a fatal wound which is thwarted due to the intense jealousy of another woman. The story closes with the lovers in one last, final embrace.
While such frantic action certainly carried the story forward, the poet quite often stands back and discourses in a reflective mode on love. Unlike any other feeling, it makes one both intensely exalted and overwhelmingly dismayed. This ecstasy/agony duality is forever present, even when in the latter section (written by Thomas, Gottfried’s source: both poet’s works have survived in incomplete version) a minute comparison is made as to whether Mark, Tristan, Isolde or Isolde of the White Hands is suffering more from their situation. The emotional reflection of the physical actions and changing situations is of paramount importance.
Precipitate action, insightful psychological analysis and above all else, very good writing make this one of the most readable and thoroughly enjoyable of all works of medieval literature.
Highly recommended.
April 7, 2010
Very good translation.
The book is made from 2 manuscript sources translated and merged: the Von Strassburg (circa 1210 and based on the Thomas manuscript) and the Thomas (circa 1160), by a quirk of fate the surviving fragments of T’s picking up where the Von S stops, both very different in tone. Flows very well on the whole with a slight jarring as the text changes authors.
The tale predates even the Thomas manuscript but no one seems sure of the first date for it, there are many parallels between the Tris/Izzy/Mark triangle and the Lance/Gwen/Arthur one, both end badly for most involved. The roots for the names are certainly old: Tristan from the Pictish name Drustan, and Isolde probably from the Germanic for Ice-battle (a “kenning” for summer? spring? dawn? She is certainly referred to as “dawn” often in the Von S).
Was the inspiration a Dark Ages marriage alliance between Dublin Vikings and a Pictish king that goes wrong? Mind you Pictish names turn up in other areas in the Arthurian tales, and Mark isn’t local in origin.
But what about the book?
As I said, very good translation. Lacking in notes though, I had to look up a few things (musical instruments, material, heraldic terms etc). Has appendices, but I found them somewhat lacking. The Von S text has some very sly humour and asides to the reader, but even though I found T’s text slightly repetitive it is peppered with insight into the turbulent emotions of the lovers.
The book is made from 2 manuscript sources translated and merged: the Von Strassburg (circa 1210 and based on the Thomas manuscript) and the Thomas (circa 1160), by a quirk of fate the surviving fragments of T’s picking up where the Von S stops, both very different in tone. Flows very well on the whole with a slight jarring as the text changes authors.
The tale predates even the Thomas manuscript but no one seems sure of the first date for it, there are many parallels between the Tris/Izzy/Mark triangle and the Lance/Gwen/Arthur one, both end badly for most involved. The roots for the names are certainly old: Tristan from the Pictish name Drustan, and Isolde probably from the Germanic for Ice-battle (a “kenning” for summer? spring? dawn? She is certainly referred to as “dawn” often in the Von S).
Was the inspiration a Dark Ages marriage alliance between Dublin Vikings and a Pictish king that goes wrong? Mind you Pictish names turn up in other areas in the Arthurian tales, and Mark isn’t local in origin.
But what about the book?
As I said, very good translation. Lacking in notes though, I had to look up a few things (musical instruments, material, heraldic terms etc). Has appendices, but I found them somewhat lacking. The Von S text has some very sly humour and asides to the reader, but even though I found T’s text slightly repetitive it is peppered with insight into the turbulent emotions of the lovers.
January 20, 2024
la leyenda de tristán e isolda no es una que conozco al pie de la letra, se deberá a que sus dos grandes ejes literarios no están completos actualmente a diferencia de la muerte de arturo por thomas mallory. gottfried von strassburg, como todos los clérigos medievales, crea su propia versión de los hechos tomando de inspiración un solo autor, en este caso es thomas de britain.
me gusta esta versión, es considerada la más canon, ya que no hay nada más de tristán completo que está medieval. está incompleta puesto que no sigue el final de thomas. sin embargo, la prosa es exquisita, poética, muy medieval. el autor es laico, por lo que lleva a la narrativa a un trasfondo bíblico, dando alegorías y paralelos con figuras de renombre en la biblia (isolda como eva o hija de eva, tristan como rey david y morholt, el tío de isolda, como goliat) y comparara el amor con la devoción a dios de los católicos y cristianos. su impronta y su interpretación me dejo con la boca abierta. es la primera vez que leo algo medieval alemán, pero no sé si voy a sorprenderme si sigo con parzival de wolfram von eschenbach.
4/5. cualquier amante del mito artúrico debería leerlo.
me gusta esta versión, es considerada la más canon, ya que no hay nada más de tristán completo que está medieval. está incompleta puesto que no sigue el final de thomas. sin embargo, la prosa es exquisita, poética, muy medieval. el autor es laico, por lo que lleva a la narrativa a un trasfondo bíblico, dando alegorías y paralelos con figuras de renombre en la biblia (isolda como eva o hija de eva, tristan como rey david y morholt, el tío de isolda, como goliat) y comparara el amor con la devoción a dios de los católicos y cristianos. su impronta y su interpretación me dejo con la boca abierta. es la primera vez que leo algo medieval alemán, pero no sé si voy a sorprenderme si sigo con parzival de wolfram von eschenbach.
4/5. cualquier amante del mito artúrico debería leerlo.
November 24, 2021
Another brilliant piece of Arthurian Literature. Tristan has been a favorite character of mine for a long time, and again his character here is great. This is a love story, but that definitely doesn’t mean it doesn’t have action and heart and a great story, and all the other stuff people love to see in their books. It’s very easy to read and really fun. Though the transition towards the end to a different author is a bit jarring at first. I definitely loved it.
October 30, 2025
My girl Brangane deserves better
September 6, 2021
If I were to five-star this, how would I rate Wagner's Tristan?
June 23, 2018
Out of all the Knights of the Round Table, Tristan's always seemed to be the one that fit in the least, mainly because he's so wrapped up in his own adventures that he doesn't join in with the other knights on theirs. Turns out that's because he's not really one of Arthur's knights. His legend originally stood on its own and only later got mixed into the Arthurian cycle.
Tristan's legend is a lot more interesting than the traditional Arthurian tales. At least I think so. That may be because I'm sick of King Arthur. There's been so much crap written about him over the years that it's refreshing to read a knightly romance without Arthur in it. (Or mostly without him. He does show up a couple of times in passing as a historical figure.) In this story the only king is Mark who, like Arthur, is also betrayed by everyone he loves, but he's not so much of a dope about it. Mark figures things out and takes steps to keep Tristan and Isolde from making a fool of him. It all ends tragically but that's also how it began so it's no real change.
The story begins with Mark's sister who falls in love with a knight at a tournament. She sleeps with the knight, gets pregnant, and runs off to France with him. They get married just before the knight gets involved in a fatal duel. When she learns of her husband's death, the princess falls on the floor in fits (like you do), gives birth, and dies. The knight's steward adopts the baby and, since he was born an orphan, names him Tristan after triste, the medieval French word for sadness.
As a young man Tristan is kidnapped by pirates and carried over the Channel to Cornwall where he wins his way into King Mark's court by field-stripping a deer. (Really.) Eventually the truth of Tristan's ancestry comes out and Mark, rejoicing that he's found his dear sister's child, names him his heir. Tristan later kills an Irish knight who's been kidnapping Cornish youth which wins him the eternal enmity of the the knight's sister and niece, Isolde Sr. and Isolde Jr. They swear vengeance on the man who killed their beloved kinsman...right after they nurse a cute bard named Tantris back to health.
It takes the Isoldes entirely too long to figure out that Tantris is Tristan backwards. By the time they do, Isolde Jr. has been betrothed to King Mark. Her mother gives her maid a love potion for the royal couple to drink on their wedding night. Instead Tristan and Isolde mistake it for wine and drink it on the ship. Star-crossed romance ensues. The rest of the story involves the Queen and her knight being passionately in love with each other and sneaking off for sexy times until they get caught one time too many and are separated. Eventually they all end up dead because happy endings hadn't been invented yet.
This particular edition contains two versions of the same story. The first part is the story as told by German poet Gottfried von Strassburg based off of an older version written by Thomas of Britain. Both versions are incomplete; Gottfried's because he died before he finished it and Thomas's because time is not kind to medieval manuscripts. Fortunately there's enough left of Thomas's version to finish up the tale that Gottfried began. Let us all thank the literary gods for giving us a complete version of the legend of Tristan and Isolde. It's not often that they are so merciful.
Cross-posted from The Eclectic Reviewer
Tristan's legend is a lot more interesting than the traditional Arthurian tales. At least I think so. That may be because I'm sick of King Arthur. There's been so much crap written about him over the years that it's refreshing to read a knightly romance without Arthur in it. (Or mostly without him. He does show up a couple of times in passing as a historical figure.) In this story the only king is Mark who, like Arthur, is also betrayed by everyone he loves, but he's not so much of a dope about it. Mark figures things out and takes steps to keep Tristan and Isolde from making a fool of him. It all ends tragically but that's also how it began so it's no real change.
The story begins with Mark's sister who falls in love with a knight at a tournament. She sleeps with the knight, gets pregnant, and runs off to France with him. They get married just before the knight gets involved in a fatal duel. When she learns of her husband's death, the princess falls on the floor in fits (like you do), gives birth, and dies. The knight's steward adopts the baby and, since he was born an orphan, names him Tristan after triste, the medieval French word for sadness.
As a young man Tristan is kidnapped by pirates and carried over the Channel to Cornwall where he wins his way into King Mark's court by field-stripping a deer. (Really.) Eventually the truth of Tristan's ancestry comes out and Mark, rejoicing that he's found his dear sister's child, names him his heir. Tristan later kills an Irish knight who's been kidnapping Cornish youth which wins him the eternal enmity of the the knight's sister and niece, Isolde Sr. and Isolde Jr. They swear vengeance on the man who killed their beloved kinsman...right after they nurse a cute bard named Tantris back to health.
It takes the Isoldes entirely too long to figure out that Tantris is Tristan backwards. By the time they do, Isolde Jr. has been betrothed to King Mark. Her mother gives her maid a love potion for the royal couple to drink on their wedding night. Instead Tristan and Isolde mistake it for wine and drink it on the ship. Star-crossed romance ensues. The rest of the story involves the Queen and her knight being passionately in love with each other and sneaking off for sexy times until they get caught one time too many and are separated. Eventually they all end up dead because happy endings hadn't been invented yet.
This particular edition contains two versions of the same story. The first part is the story as told by German poet Gottfried von Strassburg based off of an older version written by Thomas of Britain. Both versions are incomplete; Gottfried's because he died before he finished it and Thomas's because time is not kind to medieval manuscripts. Fortunately there's enough left of Thomas's version to finish up the tale that Gottfried began. Let us all thank the literary gods for giving us a complete version of the legend of Tristan and Isolde. It's not often that they are so merciful.
Cross-posted from The Eclectic Reviewer
December 31, 2024
I love this book so much. I met it first forty-one years ago, when studying German literature and learning Middle High German (MHD) – the language in which it was written – and then studied it more in Germany a few years later when I did a whole unit on MHD. At that stage I could read MHD almost as well as modern German (though never could write or speak it). I returned to New Zealand to finish my German Honours degree, determined that I would next do a PhD in MHD, and devote my life to works such as this. It didn’t happen. My NZ lecturers said I had to do my Honours thesis on modern literature, and I had to switch to Klaus Mann. Just before the final exams (nothing written on Klaus Mann), I dropped out. I hadn’t read Tristan and Isolde since.
This was my first reading of it in English, and it gave me an opportunity to focus on the story rather than just the language. It is a wonderful saga, not so much of heroes, but of nobles. It is supposed to be a tremendous courtly-love love story – but is it really love, when one is forced into the relationship by a love potion, that allows no wavering or consideration of the consequences. As is normal in the genre, there is so much hyperbole – Tristan is the most handsome, most brave, best musician … that has ever lived, Isolde is the most beautiful, accomplished, intelligent … woman. Actually, both outdo everyone in their duplicity and use their friends (Brangane, King Mark, Isolde-the-Fair …) and foes alike with abandon and casual cruelty. But, how they manage to start, then maintain their adulterous love affair is worthy of anyone’s readingtime.
The translation is very good, and gives the full sense of the story. It is not always word-for-word, but does portray Gottfried’s style well.
But, only the original text provides the sublime poetry that I loved so much, the word-play, the sounds …
I do realise that few of you will be able to read the MHD, but don’t let that put you off reading the translation.
To give you a slight impression of the joy of the MHD, I have included some quotes below, with translations. Try and sound out the MHD phrases, look at the shapes and lettering of the words – maybe grasp what I am raving about.
Very, very highly recommended.
Some other quotes in English that give you an idea of Gottfried’s wonderful expression:
This was my first reading of it in English, and it gave me an opportunity to focus on the story rather than just the language. It is a wonderful saga, not so much of heroes, but of nobles. It is supposed to be a tremendous courtly-love love story – but is it really love, when one is forced into the relationship by a love potion, that allows no wavering or consideration of the consequences. As is normal in the genre, there is so much hyperbole – Tristan is the most handsome, most brave, best musician … that has ever lived, Isolde is the most beautiful, accomplished, intelligent … woman. Actually, both outdo everyone in their duplicity and use their friends (Brangane, King Mark, Isolde-the-Fair …) and foes alike with abandon and casual cruelty. But, how they manage to start, then maintain their adulterous love affair is worthy of anyone’s readingtime.
The translation is very good, and gives the full sense of the story. It is not always word-for-word, but does portray Gottfried’s style well.
But, only the original text provides the sublime poetry that I loved so much, the word-play, the sounds …
I do realise that few of you will be able to read the MHD, but don’t let that put you off reading the translation.
To give you a slight impression of the joy of the MHD, I have included some quotes below, with translations. Try and sound out the MHD phrases, look at the shapes and lettering of the words – maybe grasp what I am raving about.
„Tiur unde wert ist mir der man, der guot und übel betrahten kan, der mich und iegelichen man nach sinem werde erkennen kan.“
“That man is dear and precious to me who can judge of good and bad and know me and all men at our true worth.”
„Der werlde und diseme lebene enkumt min rede niht ebene: ir leben uni minez zweient sich. ein ander werlt die meine ich, diu samet in eime herzen treit ir süeze sur, ir liebez leit, ir liebez leben, ir leiden tot, ir lieben tot, ir leidez leben: dem lebene si min leben ergeben, der werlt wil ich gewerldet wesen, mit ir verderben oder genesen.“
“I have another world in mind which together in one heart bears its bitter-sweet, its dear sorrow, its heart’s joy, its love’s pain, its dear life, its sorrowful death, its dear death, its sorrowful life. To this life let my life be given, of this world let me be part, to be damned or saved with it.”
„Isôt was sin liep und sin leit, jâ Isôt, sin beworrenheit, diu tete im wol, diu tete im wê. Sô ime Isôt sin herze ie mê indem namen Isôte brach, sô er Isôte ie gerner sach.“
Isolde was his life and his sorrow, yes, Isolde his bewilderment, which did him well, and did him harm. … (my partial translation, couldn’t find it in the book)
Very, very highly recommended.
Some other quotes in English that give you an idea of Gottfried’s wonderful expression:
“He that never had sorrow of love never had joy of it either! In love, joy and sorrow ever went hand in hand!
This is bread to all noble hearts. With this their death lives on. We read their life, we read their death, and to us it is sweet as bread. Their life, their death are our bread. Thus lives their life, thus lives their death. Thus they live still and yet are dead, and their death is the bread of the living. And whoever now desires to be told of their life, their death, their joy, their sorrow, let him lend me his heart and ears – he shall find all that he desires!”
‘Then my advice is that nobody should show him any untowardness till we have discovered his intentions,’ said Brangane. ‘They may well be good and tend to the honour of you both. One should turn one’s coat according to the wind.
the prudent Queen, was brewing in a vial a love-drink so subtly devised and prepared, and endowed with such powers, that with whomever any man drank it he had to love her above all things, whether he wished it or no, and she love him alone. They would share one death and one life, one sorrow and one joy.
“And now it happened, as it was meant to happen and as an equitable fate would have it, that Isolde, the young Princess, was the first to set eyes on her life and her death, her joy, her sorrow.”
Now when the maid and the man, Isolde and Tristan, had drunk the draught, in an instant that arch-disturber of tranquillity was there, Love, waylayer of all hearts, and she had stolen in! Before they were aware of it she had planted her victorious standard in their two hearts and bowed them beneath her yoke. They who were two and divided now became one and united. No longer were they at variance: Isolde’s hatred was gone. Love, the reconciler, had purged their hearts of enmity, and so joined them in affection that each was to the other as limpid as a mirror. They shared a single heart. Her anguish was his pain: his pain her anguish. The two were one both in joy and in sorrow, yet they hid their feelings from each other. This was from doubt and shame. She was ashamed, as he was. She went in doubt of him, as he of her. However blindly the craving in their hearts was centred on one desire, their anxiety was how to begin. This masked their desire from each other.”
“He was harassed by the doubt and suspicion which he had and could not fail to have. He deeply suspected his darling Isolde; he had doubts about Tristan, in whom he could find no sign either of deceit or of treachery. His friend Tristan, his joy Isolde – these two were his chief affliction. They pressed sorely on him, heart and soul. He suspected both her and him, and had doubts about them both.”
“May God be my witness when I say it – may I never be rid of my sins by any other test than the measure of my affection for you! For I declare before God that I never conceived a liking for any man but him who had my maidenhead, and that all others are barred from my heart, now and for ever.” (a misdirection if ever there was one!)
“For (to take one’s words from their own lips) the ladies have no greater harm or guile or duplicity in them of any description than that they can weep for no reason at all, as often as they please. Isolde wept copiously.”
“He saved his life for the sake of the woman, and his life was poisoned with that woman alone. No other living thing was death to his life and soul but his best life, Isolde.”
May 16, 2017
This is a good example of why modern editors are so important. Whilst there are some sections of interest he spends pages rambling about his favourite poets, the characters wardrobes or moaning about women's infidelity. Better off with the Beroul version.
August 23, 2022
SCREAMING. CRYING. AND READY TO THROW FISTS AGAINST ONE OF THREE CHARACTERS CALLED ISOLDE. *Such* an amazing and thrilling and complex piece of literature.
The Cave of Sex really just makes the entire book. Ship Tristan and Isolde- oh wait… that’s unfortunate phrasing 😳
The Cave of Sex really just makes the entire book. Ship Tristan and Isolde- oh wait… that’s unfortunate phrasing 😳
April 22, 2023
As preparation for a still much anticipated performance of Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, I decided to re-read Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan in the prose translation by A. T Hatto. I first read it about fifty years ago when I was a student and this time, after reading a chapter or two, I realized that I had not taken in much on that first exposure.
Gottfried von Strassburg’s poem was written in the early thirteenth century, around 1210. The story had been around for a while, and indeed, there are several earlier written versions, not least that of Thomas, which is also included in the Penguin Classics edition that has sat on my shelves for decades.
Tristan is a medieval romance. It’s meant to verge on the mythical, despite constantly referring to events as if they were historical. These days we call it fiction, as opposed to fantasy, that seems always to live in a different place. So our hero inhabits places that are mythical as well as historical, he slays a dragon as well as knights, and succumbs to magic potions, as well as swords and spears. It’s all in a day’s work, it seems, for a medieval knight, a status that could possibly only be achieved by someone born with advantages in life. It’s a birthright that gives access to power, but it also opens the opportunity for education ad learning, a place it is clear that ordinary folk cannot go.
But physical, musical and linguistic attributes, count for nothing if you are a bastard. And that is specifically what Tristan is. His parents were not married when he was born, and his mother died in childbirth, so not even a semblance of legality could be done to accompany all that knightly finery. The lad was well educated, however, and soon became renowned as a linguist, a harpist, a jousting champion and knight in his own right. No doubt he could cook, as well.
But he did fight. He fought foes of his friend Mark, king of the English, based in Cornwall, and one of his foes, Morold, was directly connected to the Irish royal family. Now the queen and princess of that family are both called Isolde, the mother Isolde the Wise. Her daughter. Isolde, just to keep things clear, is reputedly the most beautiful woman with maidenhead intact that anyone had ever seen. She fugues large.
Tristan also fell foul of many of his friends, was banished here and there, and fled. Wounded and near death, he knows he must seek the universally praised herbal healing powers of the queen Isolde the Wise across the waters, but he knows the reception will prove difficult.
Disguised as a minstrel named Tantris (he seemed not so strong on imagination), he traversed the sea and made contact with Isolde in her family’s kingdom. Isolde realises that the beloved Morold had been killed by a Tristan and lo and behold the penny drops and Tantris is recognized as an anagram. Various arrangements and challenges ensue, and, yes, he overcomes everything and succeeds, though not without injury and dragon’s tongue.
Back in England, Mark, who has become like a brother to Tristan, has learned of Isolde’s beauty and makes distant advances. The offer is accepted on her behalf and Tristan accompanies her on board ship to make his acquaintance with the project to marry the English king. A modern reader will find the way the medieval mind dismissed femininity as an inferior, but essential, form of humanity interesting, to say the least!
On board ship, Brangaene, Isolde’s lady-in-waiting, equais servant, mistakes a bottle of love potions and assumes it to contain wine. Tristan and Isolde share the drink, and the rest is, well, not history, but romance.
With Isolde’s maidenhead thus breached, there is a need to trick Mark on his wedding night, who will surely need evidence that his purchase, on unpacking, arrived intact. Isolde and Tristan persuade, nay demand that the servant girl, Brangaene, should step up to fill the role lying down. Now disguises must have been quite good in those days because Mark initially suspected nothing.
Suspicions, grow, however, as Tristan and Isolde conjure up special ways of the liaising, but, whatever the detail of the meeting, the mechanics are probably repeated. Mark becomes sceptical, Tristan runs away and meets another Isolde, Isolde of the White Hand in Brittany, and marries her unhappily. Gottfried von Strassburg gives up at this point and Thomas is at hand to offer a slightly different version that leads to the death of both lovers. I await Richard Wagner’s version.
Gottfried von Strassburg’s poem was written in the early thirteenth century, around 1210. The story had been around for a while, and indeed, there are several earlier written versions, not least that of Thomas, which is also included in the Penguin Classics edition that has sat on my shelves for decades.
Tristan is a medieval romance. It’s meant to verge on the mythical, despite constantly referring to events as if they were historical. These days we call it fiction, as opposed to fantasy, that seems always to live in a different place. So our hero inhabits places that are mythical as well as historical, he slays a dragon as well as knights, and succumbs to magic potions, as well as swords and spears. It’s all in a day’s work, it seems, for a medieval knight, a status that could possibly only be achieved by someone born with advantages in life. It’s a birthright that gives access to power, but it also opens the opportunity for education ad learning, a place it is clear that ordinary folk cannot go.
But physical, musical and linguistic attributes, count for nothing if you are a bastard. And that is specifically what Tristan is. His parents were not married when he was born, and his mother died in childbirth, so not even a semblance of legality could be done to accompany all that knightly finery. The lad was well educated, however, and soon became renowned as a linguist, a harpist, a jousting champion and knight in his own right. No doubt he could cook, as well.
But he did fight. He fought foes of his friend Mark, king of the English, based in Cornwall, and one of his foes, Morold, was directly connected to the Irish royal family. Now the queen and princess of that family are both called Isolde, the mother Isolde the Wise. Her daughter. Isolde, just to keep things clear, is reputedly the most beautiful woman with maidenhead intact that anyone had ever seen. She fugues large.
Tristan also fell foul of many of his friends, was banished here and there, and fled. Wounded and near death, he knows he must seek the universally praised herbal healing powers of the queen Isolde the Wise across the waters, but he knows the reception will prove difficult.
Disguised as a minstrel named Tantris (he seemed not so strong on imagination), he traversed the sea and made contact with Isolde in her family’s kingdom. Isolde realises that the beloved Morold had been killed by a Tristan and lo and behold the penny drops and Tantris is recognized as an anagram. Various arrangements and challenges ensue, and, yes, he overcomes everything and succeeds, though not without injury and dragon’s tongue.
Back in England, Mark, who has become like a brother to Tristan, has learned of Isolde’s beauty and makes distant advances. The offer is accepted on her behalf and Tristan accompanies her on board ship to make his acquaintance with the project to marry the English king. A modern reader will find the way the medieval mind dismissed femininity as an inferior, but essential, form of humanity interesting, to say the least!
On board ship, Brangaene, Isolde’s lady-in-waiting, equais servant, mistakes a bottle of love potions and assumes it to contain wine. Tristan and Isolde share the drink, and the rest is, well, not history, but romance.
With Isolde’s maidenhead thus breached, there is a need to trick Mark on his wedding night, who will surely need evidence that his purchase, on unpacking, arrived intact. Isolde and Tristan persuade, nay demand that the servant girl, Brangaene, should step up to fill the role lying down. Now disguises must have been quite good in those days because Mark initially suspected nothing.
Suspicions, grow, however, as Tristan and Isolde conjure up special ways of the liaising, but, whatever the detail of the meeting, the mechanics are probably repeated. Mark becomes sceptical, Tristan runs away and meets another Isolde, Isolde of the White Hand in Brittany, and marries her unhappily. Gottfried von Strassburg gives up at this point and Thomas is at hand to offer a slightly different version that leads to the death of both lovers. I await Richard Wagner’s version.
March 7, 2024
How can you not love this novel, if you’re a fan of romance? This is the blue print of so so many romance stories and now that I finally got to read the OG of it all, I‘ll never read romance the same as before.
I read "Parzival" before I read Tristan and believe that this was a good choice. Von Straßburg writes so much more with heart and soul than his opponents at that time. (I especially enjoyed the little digs he threw at Wolfgang Von Eschenbach, that horrible guy, lol)
And let’s not overlook the fact, that Tristan was a decent guy for that time. He was kind, loyal and besides crazy good looking (😂) smart and well-read.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that Von Straßburg created Isolde with similar character traits. She wasn’t just the most beautiful, she was also intelligent, witty and strong (remember how she picked up Tristan’s sword? Yep, these things were HEAVY but our girl did it with ease) I think he created THE pair, two people who genuinely felt equal to each other. Didn’t hurt that they were also destined to be together and that Isolde hated Tristan’s guts at first (enemies to lovers, yippi)
Read it, it’s that good!
I read "Parzival" before I read Tristan and believe that this was a good choice. Von Straßburg writes so much more with heart and soul than his opponents at that time. (I especially enjoyed the little digs he threw at Wolfgang Von Eschenbach, that horrible guy, lol)
And let’s not overlook the fact, that Tristan was a decent guy for that time. He was kind, loyal and besides crazy good looking (😂) smart and well-read.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that Von Straßburg created Isolde with similar character traits. She wasn’t just the most beautiful, she was also intelligent, witty and strong (remember how she picked up Tristan’s sword? Yep, these things were HEAVY but our girl did it with ease) I think he created THE pair, two people who genuinely felt equal to each other. Didn’t hurt that they were also destined to be together and that Isolde hated Tristan’s guts at first (enemies to lovers, yippi)
Read it, it’s that good!
November 21, 2021
One of the peculiarities about Arthurian legends is that they have two famous love triangles in which a king is cuckolded by his queen, who is having an affair with a leading and trusted knight. In both cases, the knight is portrayed as a sympathetic character, thereby making the infidelity seem more acceptable.
One of those triangles involves Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. It is the other one that these two stories recount – that of Mark, Tristan and Isolde. Indeed Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table barely feature in the Tristan (or Tristran) versions by Gottfried von Strassburg and Thomas.
Tristan or Tristran. The two writers cannot agree on how to spell the knight’s name, von Strassburg spelling it without the ‘r’ and Thomas spelling it with the ‘r’. For good measure there are a confusingly large number of characters with the same names. Thomas adds a second Tristran, known as Dwarf Tristran (who isn’t even a dwarf, and Thomas makes no attempt to explain his name).
There are three Isoldes, or Ysolts, as Thomas would have it. The mother of the leading Isolde, the daughter who is our heroine, and another Isolde who Tristan marries because she shares the same name, and he misses the one he loves. With such a small number of central characters, it would help to have fewer Tristans and Isoldes, but there it is.
Not much is known about either writer outside of their work and everything we know about them is essentially speculative from what they say in their respective Tristans. Both works are also incomplete for different reasons. Von Strassburg’s work cuts off, suggesting he did not finish. Thomas’s work begins in the middle and runs to the end, suggesting that some of it is lost. This is sad, but by a felicitous coincidence, Thomas’s work begins where von Strassburg’s work leaves off.
It takes a while for Isolde to appear. Early chapters concern Tristan’s birth, his parents, and the two families, one who raise him and the other who is his real family. A war with Ireland causes Tristan to suffer a poisoned injury, and he is obliged to seek help from the very family whose son he killed, Isolde’s brother. This means that Tristan arrives at their court stinking from a wound, which curiously does not deter Isolde later.
Problems arise because Isolde detests Tristan for obvious reasons but agrees to marry his uncle, King Mark. However a love potion goes astray, and the two fall in love with each other before Isolde even arrives at Mark’s palace, and they begin an affair.
Why a love potion? Does this not undermine the idea that this is a great romance if the two fall in love without any obvious attraction to begin with? However the love potion is a convenient device for solving two obvious problems with the story.
Firstly, how are we to believe that Isolde would fall in love with the man who killed her brother, albeit in fair combat? Secondly why should we sympathise with two lovers who are carrying on behind the back of the man who is Isolde’s husband and Tristan’s uncle? If the reason for their behaviour is to be explained by a love potion, then we can see them as innocent victims doomed to enter into a love affair that can never end well.
Indeed both writers firmly take the side of Tristan and Isolde. Mark is seen as a weak and insecure figure, deluding himself half the time and being unreasonably jealous the other half. We might say ‘reasonably’ but the story does not present him as such.
A similar weighting of our sympathies is achieved through supporting characters. Courtiers who seek to entrap the lovers are seen as devious, rather than loyal subjects of their king. These include a dwarf, a real one this time. As with most medieval dwarfs, his height is in no way relevant to the story, making one wonder why he cannot be regular-sized.
By contrast Brangane is the loyal servant who does everything to protect Isolde, and this is seen sympathetically, even when this involves sacrificing her maidenhead by pretending to be Isolde on her wedding night.
Later Brangane briefly turns against Isolde, and is seen to be spiteful, until a misunderstanding is cleared up. Mostly Brangane is surprisingly forbearing, even when Isolde tries to have her murdered, an action that seems curious in our heroine.
Von Strassburg is the better writer, a man with a gift for irony and playfulness, debunking preposterous versions of the legend while offering equally far-fetched versions of his own. Thomas’s work is more fragmented, but he pays more attention to psychology.
Read together the two accounts do provide us with a complete version of the story, which adds some satisfaction. As with many medieval romances of this kind, the story is not always interesting, since the story can only include so many fights and jousts.
Still the writers mostly eschew such repetitive scenes, and stick to the intrigues involved in Tristan and Isolde’s attempts to prevent discovery. This can in itself be reductive, since we are spending less time on a grand passion, and more on a series of schemes to keep an adulterous affair quiet.
Nonetheless the two works are mostly enjoyable to read, and will give a clear account of the love story of Tristan and Isolde for anyone who wishes to learn more about them.
One of those triangles involves Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. It is the other one that these two stories recount – that of Mark, Tristan and Isolde. Indeed Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table barely feature in the Tristan (or Tristran) versions by Gottfried von Strassburg and Thomas.
Tristan or Tristran. The two writers cannot agree on how to spell the knight’s name, von Strassburg spelling it without the ‘r’ and Thomas spelling it with the ‘r’. For good measure there are a confusingly large number of characters with the same names. Thomas adds a second Tristran, known as Dwarf Tristran (who isn’t even a dwarf, and Thomas makes no attempt to explain his name).
There are three Isoldes, or Ysolts, as Thomas would have it. The mother of the leading Isolde, the daughter who is our heroine, and another Isolde who Tristan marries because she shares the same name, and he misses the one he loves. With such a small number of central characters, it would help to have fewer Tristans and Isoldes, but there it is.
Not much is known about either writer outside of their work and everything we know about them is essentially speculative from what they say in their respective Tristans. Both works are also incomplete for different reasons. Von Strassburg’s work cuts off, suggesting he did not finish. Thomas’s work begins in the middle and runs to the end, suggesting that some of it is lost. This is sad, but by a felicitous coincidence, Thomas’s work begins where von Strassburg’s work leaves off.
It takes a while for Isolde to appear. Early chapters concern Tristan’s birth, his parents, and the two families, one who raise him and the other who is his real family. A war with Ireland causes Tristan to suffer a poisoned injury, and he is obliged to seek help from the very family whose son he killed, Isolde’s brother. This means that Tristan arrives at their court stinking from a wound, which curiously does not deter Isolde later.
Problems arise because Isolde detests Tristan for obvious reasons but agrees to marry his uncle, King Mark. However a love potion goes astray, and the two fall in love with each other before Isolde even arrives at Mark’s palace, and they begin an affair.
Why a love potion? Does this not undermine the idea that this is a great romance if the two fall in love without any obvious attraction to begin with? However the love potion is a convenient device for solving two obvious problems with the story.
Firstly, how are we to believe that Isolde would fall in love with the man who killed her brother, albeit in fair combat? Secondly why should we sympathise with two lovers who are carrying on behind the back of the man who is Isolde’s husband and Tristan’s uncle? If the reason for their behaviour is to be explained by a love potion, then we can see them as innocent victims doomed to enter into a love affair that can never end well.
Indeed both writers firmly take the side of Tristan and Isolde. Mark is seen as a weak and insecure figure, deluding himself half the time and being unreasonably jealous the other half. We might say ‘reasonably’ but the story does not present him as such.
A similar weighting of our sympathies is achieved through supporting characters. Courtiers who seek to entrap the lovers are seen as devious, rather than loyal subjects of their king. These include a dwarf, a real one this time. As with most medieval dwarfs, his height is in no way relevant to the story, making one wonder why he cannot be regular-sized.
By contrast Brangane is the loyal servant who does everything to protect Isolde, and this is seen sympathetically, even when this involves sacrificing her maidenhead by pretending to be Isolde on her wedding night.
Later Brangane briefly turns against Isolde, and is seen to be spiteful, until a misunderstanding is cleared up. Mostly Brangane is surprisingly forbearing, even when Isolde tries to have her murdered, an action that seems curious in our heroine.
Von Strassburg is the better writer, a man with a gift for irony and playfulness, debunking preposterous versions of the legend while offering equally far-fetched versions of his own. Thomas’s work is more fragmented, but he pays more attention to psychology.
Read together the two accounts do provide us with a complete version of the story, which adds some satisfaction. As with many medieval romances of this kind, the story is not always interesting, since the story can only include so many fights and jousts.
Still the writers mostly eschew such repetitive scenes, and stick to the intrigues involved in Tristan and Isolde’s attempts to prevent discovery. This can in itself be reductive, since we are spending less time on a grand passion, and more on a series of schemes to keep an adulterous affair quiet.
Nonetheless the two works are mostly enjoyable to read, and will give a clear account of the love story of Tristan and Isolde for anyone who wishes to learn more about them.
November 14, 2020
had to read this for my medieval history class and it very much felt like a longer drawn out romeo and juliet so i liked it
October 30, 2025
First half wasnt bad. Second half was repetitive and boring. Very disappointed in that.
April 18, 2018
Sehr abruptes Ende 😂😂😂
September 24, 2008
Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan (with Thomas’ ending as Gottfried never finished it) is the first “romance” I’ve read for my Arthurian Romance class that I actually enjoyed.
Gottfried’s story is longer than Chrétien de Troyes’ and more focused than Gregory of Monmouth’s, so that he is able to really construct interesting characters and an emotionally intriguing plot. Though generally Gottfried’s characters are the problematic but idealized knights and damsels (both attractive, desired, courtly), his characters differ slightly, as both are extremely well-learned. I particularly enjoyed reading about Tristan’s childhood, where his cunning and varied talents helped him lift himself from the position of a homeless orphan to the king’s heir.
Also enjoyable were the approaches Gottfried took when presenting women. He contrasted a very chauvinistic view of women (though the concept of chauvinism is anachronistic, I’m sure) with a more egalitarian view, as, in one kingdom, women were mere commodities and toys, and in another, the intelligence and skill of a women often led her husband, the king, to recommend that she take charge of a situation in his place.
The story’s plot revolves around the ingestion of a love potion (quite literally, as one literary critic argues that the physical structure of the story is constructed deliberately with the event at its center). Love potions, when dealt with critically, are potentially very interesting, introducing questions about the nature and power of love and the role of discretion in falling in love.
I regret that Gottfried did not finish his story, as, once Thomas’ text comes in, the story becomes much less interesting and more drawn out. Thomas concentrates more on the characters’ emotional turmoil, and, while that usually interests me, in this case, it was just tedious and annoying.
Overall, I would recommend Tristan, especially if you’re looking for something in the genre of authentic Arthurian Romance. Tristanwould also be a good candidate for analyzing in a paper.
Gottfried’s story is longer than Chrétien de Troyes’ and more focused than Gregory of Monmouth’s, so that he is able to really construct interesting characters and an emotionally intriguing plot. Though generally Gottfried’s characters are the problematic but idealized knights and damsels (both attractive, desired, courtly), his characters differ slightly, as both are extremely well-learned. I particularly enjoyed reading about Tristan’s childhood, where his cunning and varied talents helped him lift himself from the position of a homeless orphan to the king’s heir.
Also enjoyable were the approaches Gottfried took when presenting women. He contrasted a very chauvinistic view of women (though the concept of chauvinism is anachronistic, I’m sure) with a more egalitarian view, as, in one kingdom, women were mere commodities and toys, and in another, the intelligence and skill of a women often led her husband, the king, to recommend that she take charge of a situation in his place.
The story’s plot revolves around the ingestion of a love potion (quite literally, as one literary critic argues that the physical structure of the story is constructed deliberately with the event at its center). Love potions, when dealt with critically, are potentially very interesting, introducing questions about the nature and power of love and the role of discretion in falling in love.
I regret that Gottfried did not finish his story, as, once Thomas’ text comes in, the story becomes much less interesting and more drawn out. Thomas concentrates more on the characters’ emotional turmoil, and, while that usually interests me, in this case, it was just tedious and annoying.
Overall, I would recommend Tristan, especially if you’re looking for something in the genre of authentic Arthurian Romance. Tristanwould also be a good candidate for analyzing in a paper.
April 7, 2013
تریستان و ایزولت، افسانه ای رمانتیک و تراژیک از قرن دوازدهم میلادی ست که ابتدا در ادبیات شاعرانه ی فرانسه و با الهام از ریشه ی سلتی (اقوام سلت از ریشه ی هند و اروپایی که در قرون وسطا بیشتر به ایرلندی ها اطلاق می شد) ظاهر شد. بعدن روایت های مختلفی از آن حکایت شده، که مشهورترین آن از "عالیجناب توماس مالروی" است. ماجرای اصلی رابطه ی عاشقانه ی یک شوالیه ی دربار (تریستان) و ملکه ی انگلستان (ایزولد) است که خیانتی ست به ضلع سوم این رابطه، یعنی شاه. این افسانه بر بسیاری از افسانه های مشابه در قرون وسطا، نظیر قصه ی "لنسه لوت" از شوالیه های دربار انگلیس و "گوئینه ور" است. در لنسه لوت و گوئینه ور نیز، آرتور پادشاه انگلیس، ضلع سوم این رابطه ی عاشقانه است. رابطه به دلیل سرسپردگی شوالیه (عیار) به شاه، و وفاداری ملکه (عفت درباری) مدتی در پنهان ادامه می یابد. پس از افشاء، شاه (در تمام افسانه های مشابه) از این ��ه دو تن از نزدیک ترین عزیزانش که سخت به آنها علاقه و اطمینان داشته، به حس و رابطه و موقعیت او خیانت کرده اند، سخت به حیرت می افتد و طبق سنت رایج، فرمان قتل آنها را می دهد. عشقی عمیق شعله می کشد، و عاشقان را می سوزاند. بنا به روایت "توماس مالروی"، تریستان در حالی می میرد که می پندارد ایزولد به او خیانت کرده، و ایزولد، بر روی جسد تریستان از حال می رود و جان می سپارد.
June 1, 2009
Beautiful. It has been far too long since I have read a love story like this. Not in any way for the faint of hearted, who might quail at the sight of page-long paragraphs where the author muses upon all that comes with love, the good and the bad, Tristan is for a reader who wants to sit and exist with a tale, allowing it to flow all around them and encourage their imagination.
What a great and beautiful story!
What a great and beautiful story!
July 29, 2011
Finished my pre-opera study - definitely a great story, and I expect to get hate mail for saying something bad about a classic - but I felt the translation was difficult reading - the translation didn't stick to the poetic form and as a result felt repetitive at times in it's strict translation.
October 14, 2009
This is the best version of the Tristan story, and Hatto's translation is masterful--it reads like a novel.
August 24, 2018
Good on the whole, but it would have been better as a verse translation.
March 29, 2020
Book 32 tristian by Gottfried and Thomas
No new title
New authors last name t
Up to date on titles a b c d e f g h j k l m o p r s t u w y
Up to date on authors last names a b c e g h m t w
Rating 3/5
Summary: this is a book on the famous Legend of Tristan the heroic Arthurian hero. Tristan is the Knight who can accomplish almost anything. He ends up accidentally Falling in Love with the princess who is about to marry his uncle by drinking love potion. The story shows the many heartaches Tristan and Isolde have to go through in order to be together. They do not get their happy ending.
What I thought of it: I really want to like this book. I love the movie Tristan Isolde with James Franco in it. I was hoping the book would be more like that but it's not the case. We don't even get introduced till Tristan to Tristan until like three or four chapters into the book get the backstory of his father and mother and how he was basically born the bastard and how his own mother died giving birth to him. And then he bounces from place to place and he has no idea who to trust so he lies to bunch of people. And the only reason he falls in love with isolde the first place is because of the potion. She was about to kill him before then there was no hint that they ever even like each other romantically. And then the fact that no one could find proof that they were having an affair even though they won't bring that discreet. Plus don't even get me started what the other isolde. I don't have anything against her mother or Tristan's wife it's the fact that they share the same name as her. And the shrine that he builds 4 isolde after he marries his wife creepy. And isolde has no right to blame brannigan for choices she made. Yes she may have missed that she gave them the potion but they were the ones who willingly drank it. And even if they did stop because of brannigans advice I doubt they would listen. And the ending is like a tame version of romeo and juliet they both die but not from poison (ok yes some posion) or a dagger. It just ugh that's all I have to say
No new title
New authors last name t
Up to date on titles a b c d e f g h j k l m o p r s t u w y
Up to date on authors last names a b c e g h m t w
Rating 3/5
Summary: this is a book on the famous Legend of Tristan the heroic Arthurian hero. Tristan is the Knight who can accomplish almost anything. He ends up accidentally Falling in Love with the princess who is about to marry his uncle by drinking love potion. The story shows the many heartaches Tristan and Isolde have to go through in order to be together. They do not get their happy ending.
What I thought of it: I really want to like this book. I love the movie Tristan Isolde with James Franco in it. I was hoping the book would be more like that but it's not the case. We don't even get introduced till Tristan to Tristan until like three or four chapters into the book get the backstory of his father and mother and how he was basically born the bastard and how his own mother died giving birth to him. And then he bounces from place to place and he has no idea who to trust so he lies to bunch of people. And the only reason he falls in love with isolde the first place is because of the potion. She was about to kill him before then there was no hint that they ever even like each other romantically. And then the fact that no one could find proof that they were having an affair even though they won't bring that discreet. Plus don't even get me started what the other isolde. I don't have anything against her mother or Tristan's wife it's the fact that they share the same name as her. And the shrine that he builds 4 isolde after he marries his wife creepy. And isolde has no right to blame brannigan for choices she made. Yes she may have missed that she gave them the potion but they were the ones who willingly drank it. And even if they did stop because of brannigans advice I doubt they would listen. And the ending is like a tame version of romeo and juliet they both die but not from poison (ok yes some posion) or a dagger. It just ugh that's all I have to say
December 30, 2023
I guarantee this book will dash any preconceptions you may have of early 13th century literature.
Structured as a courtly romance but fleshed out with all the humanity of a novel, Gottfried seems to strike a very unusual note; Tristan and Isolde are actual humans in an actual drama that ALSO happens to have dragons, dwarfs and giants.
The first half of this book has Tristan establish himself as a knight of great distinction and then venture out into Ireland where he uses his many accomplishments to win the hand of Isolde for his uncle Mark.
This he does, but as fortune would have it, both Tristan and Isolde accidentally drink of a love-potion, a scene which serves the narrative by removing any moral agency from their following dalliance.
Thus the second half of the book involves scenes of social ingenuity in which the two lovers attempt to meet behind the back of Isolde's suspecting husband. These scenes are played for various effect, sometimes adventure, sometimes comedy, and sometimes lovelorn sorrow.
But as long as the reader is generous enough to suspend belief on a few occasions, then it's possible to feel deeply involved in this lover's tale.
Structured as a courtly romance but fleshed out with all the humanity of a novel, Gottfried seems to strike a very unusual note; Tristan and Isolde are actual humans in an actual drama that ALSO happens to have dragons, dwarfs and giants.
The first half of this book has Tristan establish himself as a knight of great distinction and then venture out into Ireland where he uses his many accomplishments to win the hand of Isolde for his uncle Mark.
This he does, but as fortune would have it, both Tristan and Isolde accidentally drink of a love-potion, a scene which serves the narrative by removing any moral agency from their following dalliance.
Thus the second half of the book involves scenes of social ingenuity in which the two lovers attempt to meet behind the back of Isolde's suspecting husband. These scenes are played for various effect, sometimes adventure, sometimes comedy, and sometimes lovelorn sorrow.
But as long as the reader is generous enough to suspend belief on a few occasions, then it's possible to feel deeply involved in this lover's tale.
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