The Romance of Tristan: The Tale of Tristan's Madness (Classics) (7 page)

‘He has always found me faithful,’ said the dwarf, ‘in keeping a secret of his well hidden. I can see that you want to hear it, but I do not wish to break my word to the king. I will lead the three of you to the Gué Aventuros. There is a hawthorn bush there with a ditch by its roots. I can push my head into it and you will hear me speaking outside. What I shall say will be the king’s secret, which I am bound to keep.’

The barons went to the hawthorn with dwarf Frocin leading them. The dwarf was short with a big head. He soon reached the ditch and they pushed him in up to his shoulders.

‘Now listen, lord marquises! I am talking to you, hawthorn bush, not to the barons. Mark has horse’s ears!’

They heard quite clearly what the dwarf said. One day King Mark was talking to his barons after dinner, holding a bow of laburnum wood in his hand. The three to whom the dwarf had told the secret came up and said privately to the king:

‘King, we know your secret.’

The king laughed and said: ‘This affliction, that I have horse’s ears, happened to me because of that magician. I am resolved to make an end of him.’ He drew his sword and cut off the dwarf’s head. Many people were glad of this, for they hated the dwarf Frocin because of what he had done to Tristan and the queen.

‘Sir Tristan, a proclamation has been made on oath throughout Cornwall that whoever gives you up to the king will be sure to receive a hundred silver marks in reward. There is no baron in this land who has not pledged his hand to the king to deliver you to him dead or alive.’ Ogrin went on in a kind voice: ‘Truly, Tristan,
God will pardon the sin of a man who repents in good faith by making confession.’

Tristan said to him: ‘Indeed, sir, you do not know the reason for her love for me. It is because of a love potion that she loves me. I cannot part from her nor she from me. That is the truth.’

Ogrin answered: ‘And what consolation can be given to a man who is dead? For a man who lives in sin for a long time is dead if he does not repent. No one can give absolution to a sinner if he does not repent.’

The hermit Ogrin exhorted them and advised them to repent. He told them of the prophecies of Holy Writ, and often reminded them of their estrangement from the court. He said firmly to Tristan: ‘What are you going to do? Now think!’

‘Sir, I love Yseut so much. Because of her I cannot sleep nor even doze. My decision is soon taken: I would rather be a beggar with her and live on herbs and acorns than possess the kingdom of the rich King Otran. I beg you not to ask me to leave her, for I cannot do so.’

Yseut wept at the hermit’s feet, now blushing and now going pale. She implored his pity:

‘Sir, by Almighty God, he loves me and I love him only because of a draught that I drank and he drank. That was our misfortune. Because of this the king has driven us out.’

The hermit answered her: ‘May God who created the world give you true repentance!’

They stayed that night with the hermit, who put himself to great trouble for their sake. In the morning Tristan and Yseut departed. They remained in the
wood and avoided the open country. They were troubled at being short of bread. Tristan killed many stag, hind and roe-deer in the wood. Where they made their abode they could make a big fire to do their cooking, but they could only spend one night in each place. My lords, hear how the king had issued a proclamation concerning Tristan – there was no parish in Cornwall where the news did not cause dismay – saying that whoever found Tristan should raise the cry.

‘If he were mine, I should let him off the leash. It would be a shame if he were to go mad. There was never a dog like Husdant, always so quick and now so sad for his master. There was never such a loving animal. Solomon spoke truly when he said that his dog was his
friend. Husdant, you are the proof of this. Since your master was captured you would not eat anything. King, let him off the leash!’

The king thought the dog was going mad because of his master and said to himself: ‘This dog is certainly very intelligent. I do not think that in our time there has been a knight as valiant as Tristan in the land of Cornwall.’

The three Cornish barons addressed the king: ‘Sire, set Husdant free. Then we shall know for certain whether he is miserable because of his master. If he is mad, he will no sooner be untied than he will bite someone, beast or man; he will be slavering at the jaws.’

The king called a squire to set Husdant free. All the onlookers climbed on seats or on their saddles for they were afraid of which way he might turn at first. They all said Husdant was mad. But the dog paid them no attention. As soon as he was set free he ran through the rows of people without hesitating. He went out through the door of the hall to the lodging place where he could usually find Tristan. The king and the others who were following saw this. The dog barked and growled and showed his grief. Then he picked up his master’s scent. Tristan did not take a single step after he had been captured and was being led to the fire that the dog did not follow. Everyone urged him on. Husdant went into the room where Tristan was treacherously captured, then left it and ran, jumping and barking, to the chapel. People were still following the dog, but once he was let off the leash he did not stop until he reached the church built high on the cliff. The nimble, swift Husdant
entered by the chapel door, jumped on to the altar, could not see his master, and left by the window. He scrambled down the cliff, scratching his leg, put his nose to the ground and barked. Husdant paused for a moment at the place where Tristan had waited in ambush at the flower-strewn edge of the wood. Then he went on and ran into the forest. No one saw him who did not take pity on him. The knights said to the king:

‘Let us stop following the dog. He might lead us to somewhere it would be difficult to get back from.’

They gave up chasing the dog and turned back. Husdant came upon a cart-track and was glad to find a pathway. The whole wood rang with the sound of his barking. Tristan was deep in the wood with the queen and Governal. They heard the noise and Tristan listened intently.

‘By my faith,’ he said, ‘I can hear Husdant.’

They were startled and alarmed. Tristan leaped up and drew his bow, and they retired into a thicket. It was King Mark they were afraid of, for they said in dismay that he would be coming with the dog. The dog knew the path and it was not long before he reached them. When he saw Tristan he recognized him as his master and shook himself vigorously, wagging his tail. Whoever had seen the dog was all wet with joy could have said that he never saw such joy! He ran up to Yseut the Fair and then to Governal. He greeted them all joyfully, even the horse. Tristan felt very sorry for the dog.

‘God,’ he said, ‘what a pity this dog has followed us. A dog who does not keep quiet in the wood is no good to a man who has been banished. We are in the wood and
the king hates us. He is hunting us, my lady, in the fields and in the forest. If he found us and captured us he would have us burned or hanged. We have no need of a dog. You may be certain of one thing: if Husdant stays with us we shall be afraid and anxious. Better for him to be killed than for us to be captured because of his barking. I regret very much that he will have to die, for he is a fine animal. It was his greatness of heart that led him here. But how can I get out of it? I certainly regret that I have to kill him. Help me, give me your advice. We must protect ourselves.’

Yseut said to him: ‘Have pity on him, my lord! A dog barks when it is hunting, both by its nature and by habit. I heard a story once, soon after Arthur was made king, that a Welsh forester owned a hound which he had trained in a special way. If he wounded a stag with an arrow and it bled, the dog would bound after it whatever track it fled along and however close to its prey the dog was it never barked or made any noise. It would be a good thing if we could train Husdant not to bark when he was out hunting and pursuing his prey.’

Tristan stood listening. He was full of pity. He thought a little, then said: ‘If I could train Husdant by my efforts to be silent instead of barking I should be very glad to have him. And I shall try to do this before the week is out. I should be very sorry to kill him, but I am greatly afraid of the dog’s bark. For I might be somewhere with you and Governal, and if the dog barked he would have us captured. Now I will try to teach him to hunt game without barking.’

Then Tristan went into the wood to hunt. He made
ready and shot a deer, which started to bleed. The dog barked. The wounded deer leaped away, lively Husdant barked loudly and the wood resounded with the noise. Tristan struck the dog hard. Husdant came to a halt beside his master, stopped barking and gave up the chase. He looked up at his master, not knowing what to do. He dared not bark and he stopped following the deer. Tristan bent down to push the dog and cleared a way ahead with a stick. Husdant wanted to bark again. So Tristan began to teach him. Before a month had passed the dog was trained to follow his prey on the moor without barking. He never let a beast get away, on snow, grass or ice, however fast and nimble it was. The dog became a great help to them and did them a great deal of good. If he took a roe-buck or a deer in the wood he hid it well and covered it with branches. If he took his game on the open moor, and it happened that he took many there, he threw grass over it and returned to his master to lead him to where the beast was. Dogs are very useful creatures!

Hear now what happened one day to one of the three villains – may God curse them! – who exposed the lovers. He was a rich man and much esteemed, and he took great interest in dogs. The Cornish people were so afraid of the forest of Morrois that not one dared enter it. They had good cause to be afraid, for if Tristan had captured them he would have hanged them on a tree. They all avoided the forest. One day Governal was with his horse beside a brook which ran down from a little spring. He had taken the saddle off his horse and it was grazing on the fresh grass. Tristan was lying in a bower and the queen, for whom he was suffering such hardship and distress, was held tight in his arms. They had both gone to sleep. From his place of concealment Governal heard the noise of hunting dogs, chasing a stag at great speed. These were the dogs which belonged to one of the three whose plotting had made the king quarrel with the queen. The dogs were in pursuit of the running stag. Governal went along a path to an open space where he could see in the distance the man whom he knew his lord hated more than any
other coming along on his own without a squire. He clapped spurs to his horse to urge it on and smacked its neck with his stick. The horse stumbled over a stone. Governal hid beside a tree, waiting for the man who was coming rapidly towards him and was to go slowly away.

No man can turn aside his fate. The villain was not on his guard against revenge for the harm he had done Tristan. Under the tree Governal saw him coming and awaited him eagerly. He said to himself that he would rather let his ashes be scattered to the winds than not take vengeance. For because of that villain and his actions they were all condemned to death. The dogs went away after the fleeing stag and the squire followed the dogs. Governal sprang out of his ambush, remembering the harm this man had done, cut him to pieces with his sword and carried the head away. When the hunters who were pursuing the stag came up they saw their lord’s headless body under the tree and turned and ran as fast as they could. They thought this had been done by Tristan, about whom the king had issued the proclamation. It was told throughout Cornwall that one of the three who had brought Tristan into conflict with the king had lost his head. Everyone was frightened and dismayed, and after that they left the wood in peace, only going there rarely to hunt. From the moment a man entered the wood, even for hunting, he was afraid of meeting the fierce Tristan, who was feared on the plains and in the wood.

Tristan was lying in the bower. It was warm and the ground was strewn with leaves. He had gone to sleep and did not know that the man who would have had him
killed had lost his life – he was happy when he did know! Governal came to the bower holding the dead man’s head in his hands. He tied it by the hair to a fork in the branches. Tristan awoke, saw the head, started with fear and leaped to his feet. His master cried:

‘Do not move, you are safe! I have killed him with my sword. This man was your enemy.’

Tristan was very glad of this, for now the man he most feared had been killed. Fear of the forest spread throughout the land and no one dared enter it. Now the lovers had the wood to themselves. While they were in the wood Tristan invented a bow which he called ‘Fail Not’. He set it up in the wood in such a way that he found nothing he could not kill. When a stag or deer ran through the wood and touched the branches where the bow was set and stretched, if it knocked the bow high up it was struck high up itself, and if it knocked the bow low down it was as quickly struck low down. When Tristan made the bow he rightfully gave it that name for it never missed anything, high or low, and it was very useful to them for it provided them with many large stags for food. They had to support themselves on game in the wood. They had no more bread and they dared not venture on to the plains. For a long time he hunted like this and it was a wonderful resource, for they had plenty of venison.

My lords, it was a summer’s day at harvest-time, not long after Pentecost. The birds were singing at dawn as the dew was falling. Tristan girded on his sword and went alone out of the bower where they had slept. He looked first at the bow ‘Fail not’, then went into the wood to hunt. Before he came into the wood, had he
known such great suffering? Had anyone ever suffered so much? But neither Tristan nor Yseut felt this for they were able to give each other comfort. Never did two people have as much pleasure as they did while they were in the wood. Nor, as the story says where Beroul saw it written down, did two people ever love each other so much nor pay for it so dearly. The queen rose to greet Tristan on his return. The heat was so great that day that it troubled them. Tristan embraced her and said:

‘I will rest awhile from hunting.’

‘My love, where have you been?’

‘After a stag which has tired me out. I chased it for so long I am aching all over. I am tired, I want to sleep.’

The bower was made of green branches with foliage in places, and the ground was well covered with leaves. First Yseut lay down; then Tristan drew his sword, put it between their bodies and lay down himself. Yseut was wearing her tunic – if she had been naked that day dreadful harm would have come to them – and Tristan kept his trousers on. The queen had on her finger the gold wedding ring set with emeralds that the king had given her. Her finger was woefully thin, the ring all but slipping off. Hear how they were lying: she had put one arm under Tristan’s neck and the other, I think, over him; her arms were clasped tightly around him. Tristan in his turn had his arms around her, for their affection was not feigned. Their mouths were close together, yet there was a space between them and their bodies were not touching. There was no wind and the leaves were still. A ray of sunlight fell on Yseut’s face where it shone like glass. So
the lovers went to sleep, not thinking of any harm that might befall them. They were alone in that part of the country for Governal, I think, had gone on horseback to see a forester some way off in the wood.