that if he has been successful he shall hoist a blue-and-white sail
for a signal as the ship approaches; if unsuccessful, a black one. She
comes, and the blue-and-white sail is seen; but Isot of the White
hand, out of jealousy, informs Tristan that the sail is a black one.
Uttering the name Isot he expires. She enters too late, and dies with
her arms around him. "And it is related that Isot of the White Hand,
Tristan's wife, caused them to be buried on opposite sides of the
church, that they might not be together in death. But it came to pass
that an oak grew from the grave of each, and they grew so high that
their branches twined together above the roof."

Such is the story from which we are asked to believe that Wagner drew
the materials for his Tristan drama. The earlier part of Gottfried's
story is not unskilfully told; all that relates to Riwalin and the
birth of Tristan is worthy to stand beside the best products of German
mediaeval poetry. But from the time when Isot and her intriguing
mother enter on the scene the story is as dull as it is immoral. What
sane-minded person can possibly take an interest in a succession of
childish tricks played by two lovesick boobies upon a half-witted old
man? The plot is trivial in the extreme, and the characters are
contemptible; most contemptible of all are the hero and the heroine.
The spectacle of a knight on his knees before two women, imploring
them to have mercy upon him, and, in return for his life, promising to
find a rich husband for one of them would be hard to match. Add to
this the constant obtrusion of the poet's own personality, with his
moral reflections and trite philosophy, one can only wonder how the
much admired epic can ever have been listened to with patience. Deep
indeed must culture have sunk at the courts of Germany when princes
and nobles could take pleasure in such fustian while they possessed
the stories of the great epics, the Nibelungenlied, the Gudrunlied,