and the delicate lyrics of Walther von der Vogelweide.

Wagner's procedure in dealing with such a story as this is that of
Siegfried with the sword. Instead of trying to patch and adapt he
melts the whole down to create something entirely new out of the
material. Wagner's story is not the same as that of "Thomas" and
Gottfried, if for no other reason than that he has only one Isolde.
Whatever dramatic interest the older story may possess lies in there
being _two_ Isoldes, and in Tristan's desertion of one for the
other, of an unlawful mistress for a lawful wife. It seems from
certain remarks of Wagner[26] that he at first intended to preserve
this feature of the original, but discarded it as the emotional unity
of his subject-matter grew upon him.

[Footnote 26: Especially his remark on the kinship of the Tristan and
Siegfried myths (_Ges. Schr._, vi. 379), for the kinship lies in
the feature I have mentioned, the desertion of one love for another.]

The essential feature of Wagner's drama is that the love of the hero
and heroine remains unsatisfied. Their motives are consequently quite
different from what they are in Gottfried, and all the complex
intrigue which is the chief interest of the older story falls away of
necessity. On the other hand he has retained from Gottfried much more
than the names of the persons, many subordinate motives, not vital to
the story, and likely to be unnoticed by many, but which his skilled
eye detected as effective for scenic representation. Such are Isolde's
hatred and violent denunciations of Tristan before they drink the
philtre (Gottfr. 14539, 11570),[27] Brangaene's distress and remorse at
the effect of her trick (11700, 12060); the play upon his name,
"Tantris" for "Tristan." Kufferath quotes--unfortunately without