ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

 
TRISTAN & ISOLDE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
by Matthew Zapruder

An Introduction
The famous love story of Tristan and Isolde is perhaps the best known episode of the 12th century poem "Roman de Tristan." This work was the subject of some 80 illuminated manuscripts, the finest of which, it is generally felt, was prepared in 1410.

In this volume, we have published miniatures of this masterpiece which describe the touching story of Tristan and his beloved Isolde. The reproductions of these exceedingly beautiful miniatures are accompanied with a faithful account of the lovers' adventures. The freshness and exquisite coloring of the miniatures will doubtless move the reader quite as much as the ardor of young love displayed in the narrative of this famous legend.

I



The lovers stand under a giant fulcrum.
She whispers something, then won't tell Tristan.
The sky grows blacker and cuts off her head.
Later, they meet at the beginning of courtly love.

By the hearth he sang o blind benevolent winds.
With her hair she heard him promise
to return her frozen beneath a white headdress.
Nights pass deep in the shade of her cloak.

Outside the trees leafy with courtiers
advise King Mark towards the antidote.
With some rain and a harp they place Tristan
in a boat stolen from a misshapen tale.

A dwarf conducts the winds.
King Mark mounts the blue lion on his shield,
and makes noises most barking and frightful.
He then comes to himself

and both run into the house like madmen.
Mortified his white cloak swells.
Happiness lurks in the faces of the horses
as the trees grow weary of hospitality.



II



Isolde of the Transparent Hands
with missives blown
wandered the forest in her hair.

"Dear Tristan you have brought me only
and sadness frozen beneath a white headdress."
Nights passed deep in the shade of her cloak.

He had promised to take and return her diaphanous.
By the hearth of the castle he sang o benevolent winds.
The winds of Curvenal swelled his white cloak.

Outside leafy with courtiers the trees
eager to enhance their warlike reputations
placed the young harpist in a boat

with some wind and rain
and advised him to sail towards the antidote.
A dwarf with a beard from a misshapen tale

conducted the winds.
King Mark mounted his blue lion.
The green knight kept smashing the skulls of the horses.

Tristan was thought to be carrying a black shield, so he did.
She whispered something, then wouldn't tell Tristan.
The sky grew blacker and cut off her head.

Later, they met at the beginning of courtly love.
The vast gloomy horses were unimpressed.



III



One day King Mark rode with Tristan into the barking forest.

Pursued by thirty knights who mistook them for Lancelot, he hesitated, but Tristan
rebuked him so severely in the name of a long emblazoned shabrack he promptly bit the dust.

Tristan was able to cross the pond, cradling his bloody body.

Though his visor slammed shut while unhorsing.

In the misty Breton forests, rarely did a day go by without an encounter in which
someone's dented body got mailed back in a mangled coat.

Unimpressed in the background bloom the vast horses.



IV



On the eve of the second day, Isolde grew tired of dark endlessness and jousting and
welcomed Lancelot and King Mark into her pavilion.

On the point of chopping it off altogether, King Mark was reminded that it was wrong to
attack the head of a clown.

Just as his mother was awakening, the Queen's son happened to cut off her head.

Just then the Saxons landed, and were coming on towards the castle, brandishing their
burning boats.

Seeing they were unarmed, and facing the losses of many helmets, the Saxons
declared themselves vanquished and promptly began organizing a holy order.

News reached Lancelot, who abducted the lovers back to Happy Guard.

At the fountain quenching his thirst, Tristan noticed a beast with which he had already
done battle, known as the Barking Beast.



V



The quest for the Grail sometimes gives men of spirit
an almost warlike countenance.

Asleep on his shield in the spoiled forest, Tristan feels
a dizziness overtake him, in which he sees
as if through an overwrought grillwork glimpses
of a vast chapel with pink and blue candles
steadily burning before a ciborium.

Near the chapel lies a sick man, joining tattered hands
into which Tristan promptly disappears.



VI



Holding his sword in his bed, Tristan calls for Isolde to come touch his wounds.

She has fallen into a sleep which tends her garden of magical herbs.

Tristan broods in the grass, while Isolde sits close by him, cleaning her hoof with a monocle.