***
Precis som titeln antyder handlar denna prosalyriska berättelse om Tristan, Prinsen av Lyon och hans omöjliga kärlek till Isolde av Irland. Denna medeltida keltiska saga har inspirerat författare, dramatiker och kompositörer ända sedan just medeltiden. Det var ju Gottfried von Strassburgs versroman (från 1210) som var utgångspunkt för Wagner när han komponerade sin opera.
Strassburg var trogen det keltiska "originalet" medan Joseph Bédiers anskrämliga hopkok (han har blandat friskt från olika sagor och berättelser) från 1900 bör kastas i papperskorgen. Bédiers bok är populär på bibliotek (apropå gallring av böcker) trots att/eller kanske för att den har mer blodsutgjutelse än andra utgåvor och mindre av filosofiska spörsmål kring livet och kärleken.
**
Nu tycker jag väl inte att Edwin Arlington Robinson lyckas fullt ut. Det är ett enastående snyggt verk ur språklig synvinkel men det fattas en stor dos av dramaturgin från den keltiska sagan.
Nå väl, så här beskrivs Tristans och Isoldes första samtal utanför slottet innan de blir påkomna efter hennes och Kung Marks bröllopsfest.
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| Tristan et Iseult (ca 1895), Gaston Bussière |
(From Tristram, by Edwin Arlington Robinson. New York : Macmillan, 1928.)
Isolt smiled,
as with a willing pity, and closed her eyes
to keep more tears from coming out of them;
and for a time nothing was to be heard
except the pounding of two hearts in prison,
the torture of a doom-begotten music
above them, and the wash of a cold foam
below them on those cold eternal rocks
where Tristram and Isolt had yesterday
come to be wrecked together. When her eyes
opened again, he saw there, watching him,
an aching light of memory; and his heart
beat harder for remembering the same light
that he had seen before in the same eyes.
"Alone once in the moonlight on that ship,"
she said, still watching him and clinging warm
against him, "I believed that you would speak,
for I could hear your silence like a song
out of the sea. I stood by the ship's rail,
looking away into the night, with only
you and the ocean and the moon and stars
there with me I was not seeing where I looked,
for I had waited too long for your step
behind me to care then if the ship sailed
or sank, so long as one true word of yours
went wheresoever the ship went with me. (...)"
***
De återses på Lancelots slott Joyous Gard dit de båda förs utan att Kung Mark eller Tristans respektive har vetskap om det. Men lyckan blir kortvarig när Kung Mark får kännedom om saken och återför Isolde av Irland till Cornwall. När hon ligger på dödsbädden får Tristan ett sista samtal med henne innan han själv slås ihjäl. Den scenen (deras samtal) är väl värd att diskutera inom filosofins ramar. Vad är god respektive ond handling?; Vilka val styr man över?; Vad står döden för? och Vilket är kärlekens pris?
Jag tänker inte återge något ur slutscenen. Istället blir det ett utdrag från deras flyktiga möte i Lancelots slott.
(From Tristram, by Edwin Arlington Robinson. New York : Macmillan, 1928.)
"You cannot make me go away from you,
Isolt, for I believe, with you to tell me,
all your stars say. But never mind what they say
of shadows coming. They are always coming -
coming and going like all things but one.
Love is the only thing that in its being
is what it seems to be. Glory and gold,
and all the rest, are weak and hollow staves
for even the poor to lean on. We know that -
we that have been so poor while grinning hinds
and shining wenches with all the crowns to laugh at,
have envied us, know that. Yet while you see
so many things written for you in starry fire,
somehow you fear that I may lose my vision
not seeing them. I shall not be losing it -
not even in seeing beyond where you have seen.
Yes, I have seen your stars. You are the stars!
You are the stars when they all sing together.
You live, you speak, and you have not yet vanished.
You are Isolt - or I suppose you are!"
He was not sure of her not vanishing
until he felt her tears, and her warm arms
holding him with a sudden strength of love
that would have choked him had it not been love.
Each with unyielding lips refused the other
language unasked; and their forgotten ears
knew only as a murmur not remembered
a measured sea that always on the sand
unseen below them, where time's only word
was told in foam along a lonely shore,
poured slowly its unceasing sound of doom -
unceasing and unheard, and still unheard,
as with an imperceptible surrender
they moved and found each other's eyes again,
burning away the night between their faces.
(...)
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