SOURCE: Wiesmann-Wiedemann, Friederike. “From Victim to Villain: King Mark.” In The Expansion and Transformations of Courtly Literature, edited by Nathaniel B. Smith and Joseph T. Snow, pp. 49-68. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.

[In the following essay, Wiesmann-Wiedemann compares versions of the Tristan story by Eilhart, Thomas, and Gottfried with the prose French narrative source, arguing that Eilhart's work privileges the feudal order, while the other writers take elements of psychology, love, and action (respectively) as their main components.]

In her study of the Tristan story, Joan Ferrante compares corresponding episodes in different versions of the legend, but she treats characters only insofar as they figure within these episodes.¹ This article follows one character, Mark, in order to show how the ethos of different versions and the effect that each work as a whole has on its readers influenced the portrayal of the cuckolded king. Four texts lend themselves to a comparison because they are meant to tell the whole story, even if we lack the complete versions. These are Eilhart, with his feudal point of view; Thomas, with his interest in unhappy love; Gottfried, with his elevation of love to a religious level; and the French Prose Tristan, with its simplistic ideology.² I concentrate on three points of special importance for assessing Mark's role: his relationship to the lovers, his relationship to King Arthur (who in all versions sides with worldly love), and his relationship to God. In the conclusion, I show to what extent the change in Mark's character is a function of the development in the narrative genre.

In Eilhart's rendition of the legend, at first a strong friendship binds Mark to Tristan, who serves him so well that the king decides not to marry and to leave his kingdom to his nephew. Tristan destroys this tie when he deceives Mark. The first deception takes place on the wedding night, when Tristan invents the supposed Irish custom of the dark bridal chamber in order to substitute Brangaene for Isolt. Eilhart underlines Tristan's duplicity by commenting that “Tristrant spoke shrewdly to his dear lord” (vv. 2808-9, p. 80) and that “this was the greatest deceit of which Tristrant was ever guilty” (vv. 2838-39, p. 80), for at the same time he lies with Isolt. Tristan is, however, completely excused, for he is a victim of the potion.

From this point on, Mark is shown in a new light. He loses his love and his generosity. It is true that he does not believe the first reports concerning the unlawful love affair, but when he finds the lovers embracing he exclaims: “That is evil love. How can I keep my honor [wereltlîchen êre] … ? Since no one should have either joy or sorrow with another's wife, I wouldn't believe it when they told me so often” (vv. 3261-63, 3266-69, p. 85). He is jealous not of Isolt's love but of his honor, of the order of his court and his country.

At the scene of the tryst under the tree, he vacillates. He believes what he sees because he wants to; therefore he appears as a weak character. He restores all Tristan's former privileges, only to let himself be talked into setting another trap; and when he catches his prey his wrath knows no end. His eyes are opened; those he had protected were faithless rebels, disregarding him and everything he stood for as a king. At this moment he sees vengeance as the only solution. Once again his motive is not jealousy but honor. Tristan is to be broken on the wheel and Isolt is to be burned at the stake. Once Tristan has disappeared, thanks to his lucky jump from the chapel, Mark wants to vent his wrath on his wife (vv. 4246-47, p. 96), and he is only too glad to turn her over to the lepers. Here he shows the same lack of moderation that Tristan and Isolt have shown, but unlike the lovers the king is held fully responsible for his actions. Eilhart, through the voice of the people, blames him: “Many people in the country spoke ill of him” (vv. 4298-99, p. 97).

If Mark reacts as a man at this point, his next action is in the role of king and overlord. Finding Tristan and Isolt sleeping in the forest, he places his sword next to his nephew and his glove on his wife. Eilhart does not explain the action, but the tokens Mark leaves are significant. As Jean Marx points out with reference to Béroul's version, the sword and glove represent Tristan's and Isolt's vassalage.³ Eilhart's poem does not seem to admit any other interpretation, for when Mark lays the glove on Isolt he does not do so to protect her from the sun as in most other versions. His action means not that he forgives her but that he insists on his own rights.

When Mark agrees to resume his married life with Isolt, he tells his counselors that there had been no physical love between Tristan and Isolt, only an exaggerated sentiment of kindness. He feels so threatened by this supposedly innocent love, however, that he refuses to let Tristan live at the court. Does he really believe what he says? Or is his motive purely diplomatic? Why else would he set the wolf trap in a later episode? A king whose wife has been unfaithful loses his dignity; so he does better to pretend that nothing has happened than to repudiate his wife and become the subject of bawdy stories. Mark's lie is motivated not by a personal reason but by raison d'état. More than at any other moment in the story, Mark serves the community by removing the only obstacle to its well-being. In opposition to his earlier exaggerated wrath, moderation now characterizes his action. As Eilhart excuses Tristan's and Isolt's deceptions because of the love drink, so Mark's lie may also be excused, for it results from the same desire to keep appearances and it too is caused, in the last analysis, by the potion.

The king's prime concern from this point forth will be to try to prevent Tristan from seeing Isolt. The first time Tristan comes back to Cornwall, in the company of the Arthurian knights, Mark sets the wolf trap. His personality is clearly opposed to that of Arthur: Mark is a king who makes the rules; Arthur is a pawn of his knights. Gawain prolongs the hunt so that Arthur is forced to ask Mark for hospitality; Kay has the idea that all the knights should cut themselves in order to protect Tristan from detection; all that is left for Arthur to do is to look at his limping knights and to explain pitifully to Mark that “they do this all the time” (v. 5440, p. 109).

Again and again Mark pursues Tristan, who keeps coming back to Cornwall, but never is Mark forced to admit his shame publicly. Joan Ferrante explains the lack of the ordeal scene in Eilhart's text by saying: “The absence of God is an indication of Eilhart's antipathy for the love; he alone, of the poets, has no desire to show God's sympathy to the lovers in any way.”⁴ On the contrary, God is on Mark's side. Ogrin, the representative of God on earth, sends Tristan and Isolt back to Mark, and the king says that if he let Tristan come back to the court, “God would have to despise me” (v. 4932).⁵ It is Mark who represents everything that is good and proper. He does not doubt; he does not need the help of an ordeal; he knows and he directs—until the final blow when Isolt leaves her husband and her country, her treasure and her royal robes, all she ever had, and, most of all, her royal honor (vv. 9327-29, 9339, pp. 153-54). But this is also the time when Mark learns about the potion, when he realizes that he has lost not against base faithless feelings but against fate: “It was very foolish of them not to tell me that they had drunk of the fatal [unsêligen] potion and, against their will, were forced to love each other so. Oh, noble queen and dear nephew, Tristrant! I would give you my whole kingdom, people and land, forever for your own if this could bring you back to life” (vv. 9486-97, p. 155). In this final scene Mark is the generous being we had met at the beginning of the poem; more than that, he is a man who knows life, who fights relentlessly for what is right, but who is also aware of human limitations and the power of fate.

Much more than Tristan and Isolt, it is Mark who embodies the human condition, who blindly combats fate, who believes he can order life only to recognize in the end that his struggle had always been hopeless. He surpasses the human condition, however, by humbly acknowledging his limitations and by honoring those who, on a human level, wronged him. That Tristan and Isolt do not reach these heights, that they gave in to fate even though they knew that their behavior was immoral, that they are therefore guilty in spite of their innocence, is symbolized by the intertwining plants on their graves, for as Eilhart tells us “this was due to the power of the potion” (v. 9521, p. 155). Mark, who undergoes a sentimental and political education, becomes a tragic and heroic figure. He is the true victim of the potion, while Tristan and Isolt are but its instruments. Mark, then, is the true hero of Eilhart's poem.

In no other version of the story is the position of the king so exalted. It would appear that Eilhart wrote his poem for an audience less interested in the power of love than in the preservation of the feudal order. By the same token, Eilhart, it seems, did not feel compelled to justify this ethos. There is no discussion of the characters' motives; they act as they must. Thus the poem affects our intellect less than our emotions.

Thomas composed his story for a different audience, “that it may please lovers, and that, here and there, they may find some things to take to heart. May they derive great comfort from it, in the face of fickleness and injury, in the face of hardship and grief, in the face of all the wiles of Love” (fragment Sneyd², vv. 833-39, p. 353). The poet is concerned not so much with the feudal ethos as with the ideology of love. Mark is less a king than a lover and, like all the lovers depicted by Thomas, Mark is unhappy.

We understand the power of this love when we learn that Mark empties the vial containing the fatal potion,⁶ and later when the poet tells us how Tristan, the two Isolts, and Mark suffer for love: “I do not know what to say here as to which of the four was in greater torment … ; let lovers pass their judgement as to who was best placed in love, or who, lacking it, had most sorrow” (fragment of Turin¹, vv. 144-45, 149-51, p. 317).

That his love for Isolt and not his social position motivates Mark's actions becomes clear in the forest scene, where he lays his glove on Isolt's cheek in order to protect her from the sun but does not exchange swords, even though he recognizes the weapon lying between Tristan and Isolt as the one he had once given to his nephew.⁷ He depends completely on Isolt and so gives up his liberty. He is a weak, even a ridiculous character. In the orchard scene he catches Tristan and Isolt in flagrante delicto, but afraid of assuming his responsibility, it seems, he runs out to find witnesses, giving Tristan enough time to flee. When Brangaene comes to see him in an attempt to spite Isolt, she tells him: “You are dishonored when you consent to all her [Isolt's] wishes and suffer her lover about her. … I am well aware why you are dissembling: because you have not the courage to let her see what you know” (fragment Douce, vv. 392-94, 399-402, p. 330).⁸ Mark loses his honor, not the worldly honor Eilhart's king claimed but the honor of a lover.

The true hero of Thomas's story is Tristan. This explains perhaps why we do not learn how Mark reacts to the death of Tristan and Isolt. The last scene is the touching one of the dying Isolt clinging to the body of the only man she has ever loved. No plants intertwine on their graves, for their love was not a fate thrust upon them but a passion they willingly share.

Presumably because Tristan is the heroic figure in this romance, Thomas does not compare Mark directly to Arthur. The poet suggests that Mark plays Arthur's role, for in this version Mark is king of all England, but it is Tristan who is shaped in the image of Arthur. It is Tristan who fights the enormous nephew of Orgillos, the giant whom Arthur himself had slain. Tristan no longer needs Arthur's help, as he does in Eilhart's poem, but equals him, assuming his heritage in his roles of ideal protector and lover.

God is on the lovers' side, and so Thomas suppresses the figure of Ogrin. In the ordeal scene Isolt safely carries the red-hot iron, “and God in his gentle mercy granted her sweet vindication and reconciliation and concord with the king, her lord and husband, with abundant love, honor, and esteem.”⁹ Thus, God protects Tristan and Isolt and justifies the laws of their worldly love.

Friedrich Naumann explains courtly culture in these words: “Man bejaht die Welt, die man eigentlich nicht bejahen sollte. Man bejaht die Welt mit einer Schambewegung. Diese gezähmte, zögernde, verhüllte Weltbejahung des Mittelalters nennen wir höfische Kultur.”¹⁰ Thomas's lovers belong to the courtly world. Mark's legal rights are of no value when compared to those of reciprocal love. And so he appears as a weak, pathetic figure, a nonentity who suffers and causes others to suffer. He is merely an obstacle to the fulfillment of Tristan's and Isolt's love, a catalyst causing their death.

Thomas's work clearly belongs within the ranks of courtly literature. It exalts love, presents love's psychology, and is directed to lovers. These two key words, love and psychology, make clear that Thomas addresses himself as much to the emotion as to the intellect of his audience.

Gottfried von Strassburg does not write for all lovers; he writes only for the edelen herzen (noble hearts, v. 47, p. 42), those who strive to reach the very essence of love which Gottfried describes in the well-known formula “I have another world in mind which together in one heart bears its bitter-sweet, its dear sorrow, its heart's joy, its love's pain, its dear life, its sorrowful death, its dear death, its sorrowful life” (vv. 58-63, p. 42).

Tristan and Isolt find their way to the world of the edelen herzen when they drink the love potion. In opposition to courtly lovers who look for personal satisfaction only—in this version the concept of courtliness thus carries with it a negative connotation—Tristan and Isolt serve Love. It is here that a religious element enters the romance. One might say that the love potion is for Tristan and Isolt what grace is for the Christian saint.¹¹ Eilhart's unsêlig trang (cursed drink, v. 9489¹²) has become a blessed drink. Mark does not take part in this world of the noble hearts, and therefore he cannot partake of the love potion.¹³

Immediately after Tristan and Isolt have acknowledged their love and accepted it as constituting their true being by surrendering to one another, the poet inserts a “discourse on Love” (vv. 12187-361, pp. 202-4), where he interprets Tristan's and Isolt's reciprocal feeling, opposing it to the love of the world, the pursuit of happiness. He lets us understand that for Tristan and Isolt physical love is the expression of their deep feeling, religiously speaking, a sacrament.¹⁴ For Mark, the courtly lover, physical love is not a means but an end. He does not recognize the truth Isolt embodies. Lying with Brangaene and Isolt, “he found gold and brass in either” (vv. 12674-75, p. 208). He therefore is not willing to fight for his wife. When Gandin insists on taking Isolt with him, Mark looks for someone to defend her. Because of Gandin's strength, nobody volunteers, “nor was Mark willing to fight for Isolde in person” (vv. 13253-54, p. 216).¹⁵ What Mark looks for in love is possession not devotion.

Thus he cannot decide whether he should believe Isolt innocent or guilty. He submits to the counsel of his courtiers and tries to force his wife into betraying herself. But he is convinced of the love between Tristan and Isolt not through any of the tricks his counselors devise, but through his own observation: he sees their love in Isolt's eyes—not Tristan's—another indication of the courtly, possessive character of his love. “It was death to his reason that his darling Isolde should love any man but himself” (vv. 16521-24, p. 258). His love turns to jealousy and anger, and he bans Tristan and Isolt. How courtly his love is, in the positive sense of the word, becomes clear when we hear him say that he loves them too much to want to take vengeance: “Take each other by the hand and leave my court and country. If I am to be wronged by you I wish neither to see nor hear it” (vv. 16607-10, p. 259), and so he grants Tristan and Isolt the happiest time of their lives. His generosity, however, cannot be compared to that of the king at the end of Eilhart's poem, for he is blind to the truth and is moved by self-pity. This is why Gottfried's Mark appears less tragic than pathetic.

In the love-cave scene Tristan and Isolt reach union with the summum bonum. It is a realm closed off, where Mark can find no entrance. Through the window he sees Isolt—he scarcely looks at Tristan—and her beauty makes his passion return with the same intensity as before. As in Thomas's version of the story, he wants to protect her from the sun, but he does not use his glove, the sign of her dependence on him within courtly society: if she returns to him it will be because she wants to not because she has to. Blocking out the sun, Mark takes honor away from the lovers, for Gottfried had told us earlier that the sun represented “that blessed radiance, Honour, dearest of all luminaries” (vv. 17071-72, p. 265), the honor of divine love, not that of courtly society. On the contrary, Mark restores worldly honor to the lovers when he calls them back. Gottfried underlines the precariousness of Mark's relationship with Isolt by saying: “Mark was happy once more. For his happiness he again had in his wife Isolde all that his heart desired—not in honour, but materially” (vv. 17727-31, pp. 274-75), and he shows his contempt for such a love in his long digression on jealous husbands.

It is in fact Mark's jealous suspicion that makes him surprise Tristan and Isolt and causes his agony. The final judgment of Mark is pronounced, ironically, by his counselors: “You hate your honour and your wife, but most of all yourself” (vv. 18389-90, p. 282). Since Mark's situation springs from his concern for himself, it is diametrically opposed to that of Tristan.

But what might have become of this hatred after Tristan's and Isolt's death? Learning that they had died for one another, would Mark not have recognized that he would not have been capable of giving up his life for his wife's sake? Would he not have realized that Tristan and Isolt were drawn together by a feeling much stronger than his love had ever been? Would he not have acknowledged the truth known to the edelen herzen? Such an ending seems possible when we consider Mark's words at the banishment scene: “Since I can read it in the pair of you that, in defiance of my will, you love and have loved each other more than me, then be with one another as you please” (vv. 16596-601, p. 259). De Boor's interpretation takes the same direction. He compares Mark to the pagan king of the saint legend who causes the martyr's death only to recognize his own mistake and to convert to the true religion.¹⁶

Such an ending would be comparable to that of Eilhart's poem insofar as Mark understands that he has fought against a power superior to his own, but it would be different from that of Eilhart, because it would not be tragic. All through the story Mark is clearly at fault for not recognizing what he sees. He is not a victim of fate but of his self-centered outlook on life. At best he is a pathetic figure, at worst a villain intent on destroying the truth.

Arthur is mentioned only once in this text. Gottfried sets the Minnegrotte apart from the Round Table: “Their company of two was so ample a crowd for this pair that good King Arthur never held a feast in any of his palaces that gave keener pleasure or delight” (vv. 16863-67, p. 263). Tristan is not Arthur's heir, but surpasses his splendor. Mark, on the other hand, does not reach Arthur's glory. Arthur outdoes him then, but on a material level, not on a spiritual one.

The role of God has troubled many scholars.¹⁷ In the ordeal scene Gottfried says: “Thus it was made manifest and confirmed to all the world that Christ in His great virtue is pliant as a windblown sleeve” (vv. 15737-40, p. 248). But what does this passage mean if not that Gottfried mocks the attitudes of the church? After all, it is the ecclesiastical establishment that devises the ordeal; and not God but courtly society is deceived by the wording of the oath. Gottfried never lets us know where God stands, perhaps because in his work love takes God's place.¹⁸

Like Thomas's poem, Gottfried's Tristan affects the reader's emotions and demands that he reflect on its content. It requires, however, a more sophisticated audience capable of grasping new concepts and recognizing subtleties of which Thomas never dreamed. In other words, Gottfried's poem is written for an elite courtly public.

The French prose romance, on the other hand, aims at entertaining the bourgeoisie as well as the nobility. The prologue states that the Tristan legend “would be a thing that poor and rich alike would very much enjoy, as long as they were willing to hear and listen to the beautiful adventures that are so very pleasing” (p. 1). Speaking of the various episodes Eugène Vinaver states: “Leur intérêt n'est plus dans les idées qu'ils illustrent; il réside dans les intrigues et les événements qu'ils racontent.”¹⁹ Psychological intricacies are not in the foreground of the story, but this does not mean that there is no moral judgment; it is just an extremely simple one. Basically, the court of Arthur is good, and Mark, Andret, and most of the Cornish are bad (Tristan and Dinas are laudable exceptions). Dinadan, a brave Arthurian knight whom we respect for his independent and logical thought, says about Arthur's court: “The good who come there leave better, but whoever comes there bad and evil … and of wicked birth and wicked nature, cannot in any way change his being, just as copper cannot become gold or lead silver” (p. 113).²⁰ But “King Mark … would have appeared a worthy man and a valiant and wise prince, if he did not have a villainous face” (pp. 123-24).

The reader knows immediately what to think of Mark, whose first noteworthy deed in the romance is to kill his brother for no other reason than a well-deserved rebuke. The king uses Tristan when he needs a strong knight, as in the Morolt episode (interestingly enough, Morolt is a knight of the Round Table), but tries to destroy him at all other times. This is the only version where the animosity between uncle and nephew is established before Isolt is mentioned. Thus, Mark sends Tristan to Ireland not so much to fetch Isolt as in the hope that the Irish will kill the young knight. The king is as subject to his love for Isolt as in the versions by Thomas and Gottfried, but because of his unworthiness he does not earn our sympathy. Nor will the reader take his side when, obviously afraid of meeting his nephew face to face, he abducts Isolt twice from the protection of Tristan, who happens to be absent.

Mark's vilest deed is to ban Tristan from Cornwall, for this injustice toward his nephew contributes to the demise of Arthur's reign, a catastrophe for which Tristan acts as a catalyst since he undermines the Arthurian moral system by bringing out the worst in Arthur's knights. Gawain's first dishonorable deed is to threaten a damsel with death unless she tells him who her companion is, and that companion is Tristan.²¹ Lancelot rewards Tristan's service with his friendship, but he is debased by it. For Lancelot, who had treated the affair with Guenevere with the utmost secrecy (cf. p. 79), now is linked to Tristan, who openly rebels against Mark, his king, and carries on a flagrant affair with Isolt, his queen. Under such circumstances, how can the knights of the Round Table hope to defend a moral system that is based on trust? How can they reach the Grail when their foremost representative is Lancelot?

But Mark influences the fate of Arthur's court directly as well. Twice he comes to Logres. The first time, he wants to kill Tristan. He splits the head of one of his own knights who does not agree with his plan and then successfully defends himself in single combat, taking advantage of his position as king (which exempts him from the obligation of swearing an oath on his innocence). He thereby all but destroys the moral system Arthur had constructed.

Mark returns, now intent on killing King Arthur, whose best knights are on the Grail quest. He succeeds in wounding Arthur dangerously, but he is defeated by Galahad, a representative not of Arthur's worldly kingdom but of God's spiritual reign. The Arthurian system has lost its balance. Arthur's knights, among them Tristan, the emissary of Mark, fail to attain the values Galahad serves and cannot even defend their king. There is nothing to fill this void. Mark has given the death blow to the Arthurian dream. It is no coincidence that Arthur at the same time learns of the disastrous outcome of the Grail quest and Tristan's death.

Tristan is not granted a heroic death but is killed by a poisoned lance that Mark, the vilest of all persons, treacherously thrusts at him. It is true that Mark later repents of this murder, but this repentance only underscores the despicability of his action.²²

Without Mark's actions, Tristan could have been an exemplary knight, better even than Lancelot. As it is, Mark's lack of honor debases Tristan and contributes to the destruction of Arthur's kingdom. He is a villain who ruins all.

In conclusion, Eilhart's poem glorifies feudal law and order. The story line is simple. Outside of the potion no motive is explained in detail. The text addresses itself to our emotions. Mark is a servant of God; morally he surpasses Arthur. He is good, a victim of fate and a hero in facing reality.

Thomas concerns himself with the suffering of unhappy lovers. The plot does not oppose right and wrong but instead presents the effects of love on unhappy lovers in different situations. The poem tells not only what happened but why. It addresses itself to our emotions as well as to our understanding. Mark does not understand God's will; he equals Arthur, but only in his feudal position. He is an unhappy lover who would like to do what is right, but who is too weak to accomplish anything. He loses himself, a victim of his longing for a love that cannot be.

Gottfried introduces a new concept by opposing generous to selfish love. He lets us know not only what happened and why but also what it means. The text speaks to our emotions, our understanding, and our judgment. Mark opposes love, which in this poem takes the place of God; he is inferior to Arthur, even on a material level. He is a selfish lover, a victim of his egoism. If indeed Gottfried meant to end the romance as we have suggested, the king would recognize his flaw, and thus go through the same learning process as the reader.

The author of the Prose Tristan is less concerned with ethos or psychology than with interlacing the various story lines. The characters are defined just enough to make their conduct believable. The text addresses itself primarily to our sense of plausibility. Mark opposes God's spiritual reign as well as Arthur's worldly kingdom. He is a villain.

The uncourtly versions of Eilhart and the Prose Tristan present a relatively simple form of ethos, of reader manipulation, and of character portrayal. It is the courtly versions of Thomas and Gottfried that really define the ethos, address the whole psychological being of their reader, and that present complex characters who are neither good nor bad but fundamentally human. Might the confluence of these three qualities be one of the properties of courtly narrative literature?

Notes

1. Joan Ferrante, The Conflict of Love and Honor: The Medieval Tristan Legend in France, Germany and Italy, De Proprietatibus Litterarum, Series Practica, no. 78 (The Hague: Mouton, 1973).

2. Franz Lichtenstein, ed., Eilhart von Oberge, Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker, no. 19 (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1877); Thomas, Les Fragments du Roman de Tristan, ed. Bartina H. Wind, Textes Littéraires Français, no. 92 (Geneva: Droz, 1960); Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, ed. Reinhold Bechstein, 5th ed. (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1930); E. Löseth, ed., Le Roman de Tristan, Le Roman de Palamède et La Compilation de Rusticien de Pise: Analyse critique d'après les manuscrits de Paris (Paris, 1891; rpt. New York: Burt Franklin, 1970).

   For Eilhart's text, I quote Eilhart von Oberge's Tristrant, trans. J. W. Thomas (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978). For the texts of Thomas and Gottfried, I quote Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan with the Tristan of Thomas, trans. A. T. Hatto (Baltimore: Penguin, 1960). All other translations are mine. Each quotation is followed by a verse reference to the original text or a page reference for the Prose Tristan and, for Eilhart, Thomas, and Gottfried, a page reference to the respective translation.

3. Jean Marx, “Observations sur un épisode de la légende de Tristan,” in Recueil de travaux offert à M. Clovis Brunel (Paris: Société de l'Ecole des Chartes, 1955), pp. 265-73. See as well Eugène Vinaver's answer to Marx in A La Recherche d'une poétique médiévale (Paris: Nizet, 1970), pp. 92-94.

4. Ferrante, p. 51.

5. This is my understanding of “sô muste mich got hônen.” J. W. Thomas translates the verse as “may God scorn me” (p. 103).

6. Because Thomas's version of this scene is not extant, I am basing my observations on Brother Robert's translation of his text. The passage alluded to can be found in The Saga of Tristan and Isönd, trans. Paul Schach (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973), p. 72.

7. Ibid., p. 103.

8. I have altered Hatto's translation of “Huntage avenir vus en deit / Quant tuz ses bons li cunsentez” (vv. 392-93), which he renders as “dishonour is bound to overtake you if you consent to all her wishes.” In her edition, Bartina H. Wind translates “Que fere li osissez senblant” (v. 402) as “de lui montrer ce que vous pensez d'elle” (to show her what you think of her; p. 102n).

9. Schach translation, p. 94.

10. Friedrich Naumann, “Hohe Minne,” Zeitschrift für Deutschkunde 39 (1925): 81-91, at p. 81. (One assents to the world, to which one should actually not assent. One assents to the world with some embarrassment. This medieval assent to the world, restrained, hesitant, covert, is what we call courtly culture.)

11. This interpretation differs fundamentally from that of W. T. H. Jackson, “Gottfried von Straussburg,” in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative History, ed. Roger Sherman Loomis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), pp. 145-56, who believes that the potion “hands them [Tristan and Isolt] over to the tyranny of the senses, and this tyranny is so powerful that it brushes from its path all considerations of honour and loyalty. … So strong is it, indeed, that the ultimate sin is committed in its name, when the oath before God is reduced to a mockery by a crude piece of deception” (p. 153).

12. J. W. Thomas translates the adjective as “fatal” (p. 155).

13. Gottfried underlines this difference from Thomas: “No, none of that philtre remained. Brangane had thrown it into the sea” (vv. 12659-60, p. 208).

14. Again, this interpretation differs from that of W. T. H. Jackson: “The love of Tristan and Isolt is a mystic love in human terms. Its purer aspects were subjected through drinking the potion to the devil of sensual passion. Only by death can their love be freed from this snare and the ‘love-death’ means that the lovers can be reunited in mystic love, freed from all grossness and carnal attraction” (p. 154).

15. It is Tristan who brings her back. Joan Ferrante claims that “the point is to diminish Mark's legal, and therefore to some extent, his moral claims to Isolt, and so strengthen Tristan's in contrast” (p. 45). However, since Mark and Tristan operate on two different levels, Isolt belongs to Tristan and there is no need for him to strengthen his position. Tristan's saving Isolt is an effect of the truth they both represent, not an attempt to establish that truth. On the other hand, Mark's action does not mean that because of his cowardice he no longer has a legal right to his wife. By the same reasoning he would have lost his claim to his kingdom by not doing battle with the Morolt.

16. Helmut de Boor, “Die Grundauffassung von Gottfrieds Tristan,” Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift 18 (1940): 262-306; rpt. in Gottfried von Strassburg, ed. Alois Wolf, Wege der Forschung, no. 320 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973), pp. 25-73, at p. 68.

17. For a bibliography, see Ferrante, pp. 52-53n.

18. Cf. de Boor, pp. 68-73, where he analyzes the reasons for the “organic mistake” in Gottfried's poem.

19. Eugène Vinaver, Etudes sur le Tristan en Prose (Paris: Champion, 1925), p. 13. (Their interest no longer lies in the ideas they exemplify but in the intrigues and events they recount.)

20. For an assessment of Dinadan's character and role in the Prose Tristan, see Vinaver, Etudes, pp. 91-98.

21. Only once before is there an allusion to Gawain's worthless character. Significantly, it is Tristan who makes the remark (p. 28).

22. Emmanuèle Baumgartner, Le “Tristan en Prose”: Essai d'interprétation d'un roman médiéval, Publications Romanes et Françaises, no. 133 (Geneva: Droz, 1975), comments: “Sincèrement épris d'Iseut, par moments accessible à la pitié et au repentir, Marc reste, en dépit de tout l'odieux de sa conduite, un être humain et non un traître de mêlodrame” (p. 230). (Sincerely in love with Isolt, at times capable of pity and repentance, Mark remains, in spite of his detestable conduct, a human being and not a traitor of melodrama.)