SOURCE: “The Love Potion in the Primitive Tristan Romance,” in Medieval Studies in the Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis. Reprint. Slatkine Reprints, 1974, pp. 75-86.

[In the following essay, Vinaver reviews the critical debate surrounding the nature of the origin of the extant versions of the Tristan legend. He also examines the treatment of the love potion motif found in the various versions of the legend.]

In his epoch-making introduction to the poem of Thomas, M. Bédier inserted a reconstruction of the original Tristan poem. He gave there the following version of the episode of the love potion:

«Quand le temps du départ fut venu, la reine d’Irlande prépara un breuvage puissant, et le confia secrètement à Brangien qui devait accompagner Iseut en Cornouailles. C’était un filtre d’amour … Telle en était la vertu que ceux qui le boiraient ensemble devaient s’aimer à jamais»¹.

M. Bédier acknowledges that his reconstruction of the last sentence quoted is based on the versions of Thomas, the French Prose Romance and the Oxford Folie all of which describe the influence of the love potion as unlimited, and is contradicted by the poems of Eilhart and Béroul, in which the influence of the love draught is limited to a certain period. The poet suggests that if the lovers did not see each other for half a day during the first four years they would fall ill; if they did not see each other for a week they would die². But after four years the influence of the potion would become slightly leess potent and the lovers might part³. In the extant fragment of the poem of Béroul the scene of the giving of the potion by the Irish Queen is missing, but in the episode of the lovers' return from the forest Béroul says that after a certain period (three years according to Béroul) the love potion abated⁴.

M. Bédier thought that the limitation of the efficacy of the « vin herbé» which occurs in Eilhart and Béroul was due not to the author of the primitive Tristan romance, but to a later imitator whose work was the source of Béroul and Eilhart. In M. Bédier's view the primitive poet to whom we owe the world's greatest love story could not have reduced the motif of the love potion to a mere piece of witcheraft devoid of symbolié value. He could not, indeed, have conceived of the Tristan romance as a «story of a triennial intoxication». In consequence, M. Bédier assumes that Eilhart and Béroul proceed from a common original which is not the primitive romance. «Un poète» he says, «l’auteur de ce roman que devaient imiter Eilhart et Béroul, connaissait la version selon laquelle le philre garde un pouvoir indéfini … Il a voulu affranchir autant que possible ses héros de cette sorcellerie. Il a observé que dans l’estoire les amants passent plusieurs années ensemble se voyant journellement, avant la grande séparation. Alors, non sans ingéniosité, il a inventé la donnée que reproduit Eilhart d’Oberg: par la force du «boire», Tristan et Iseut s’aimeront de tous leurs sens leur vie durant; pendant les quatre premières années, s’ils sont séparés une seule demi-journée, tous deux tomberont en langueur; si la séparation dure une semaine, tous deux mourront; mais au bout de quatre ans s’ils s’aiment toujours, ils peuvent pourtant supporter d’être séparés»⁵.

Writing in 1907, Professor W. Golther suggested that M. Bédier's theory was incorrect and that Eilhart and Béroul deríved directly from the first romance of Tristan, «Da nach meiner Ansicht Eilhart und Berol selbständig je für sich, nicht durch eine gemeinsame Zwischenstufe hindurch auf den alten Roman zurückgehen, so muss jeder von ihnen gemeinsam überlieferte Zug fürs Urgedicht angesprochen werden. So gehört nach meiner Auffassung auch die zwar lebenslängliche, in ihrer unwiderstehlichen Kraft jedoch auf drei Jahre beschränkte Wirkung des Trankes schon zum alten Roman»⁶.

The problem of the love potion motif in the primitive Tristan romance received a new and thorough treatment in the admirable work of the late Miss Gertrude Schoepperle: «Tristan and Isolt. A Study of The Sources of the Romance»⁷ Miss Schoepperle disputed M. Bédier's reconstruction of the episode of the love potion and insisted, as Prof. Golther had done, upon the authenticity of the Béroul-Eilhart version. «It seems unjustifiable», she suggested, «to suppose that Thomas has preserved the version of the estoire in the treatment of the potion when we have evidence that he has altered it in every other important particular in which he differs from the other redactora»⁸.

Miss Schoepperle further contends that Thomas would not have been in sympathy with a conception which condemned the relation of the lovers as criminal and made their repentance the cause of their return. «It was almost inevitable», says Miss Schoepperle, «that he should alter such a version in accordance with his own attitude toward love, an attitude less naive, less ascetic, more impregnated with the courtly ideals of his time. In his version the return from the forest is not due to the abatement of the influence of the potion and the repentance of the lovers. On the contrary the two lovers give up the life together only when forced by Mark».

It is to be regretted that Miss Schoepperle confined herself to the statement of facts without attempting to justify her theory on literary grounds and to answer the criticisms of her predecessor. M. Bédier. In the following few pages an attempt will be made both to develop Miss Schoepperle's critical argument and to suggest some account of the literary aspects of the problem.

It cannot be gainsaid that if Thomas's source contained anything like the Eilhart-Béroul version of the love potion motif he would certainly alter it. He would do so not only because that version contradicted his attitude toward love in general, but because it did not fit in with his particular presentation of love in the story of Tristan. Indeed, Thomas's touch in remodelling the story shows itself, first and foremost, in the diminishing of the supernatural. The drama has to proceed from a source that is not beyond human knowledge. Consequently, the love potion is merely a means by which a spontaneous, a human bond of love is strengthened. It cannot be resorted to as the ultimate justification of the relationship of the lovers, as is the case in Béroul and Eilhart. This is particularly obvious from the fact that in Thomas the love between Tristan and Iseult is prior to the episode of the love potion. Thomas's faithful translator, the Norwegian friar Robert, tells that when «Isond the maid came to Tristran to talk to him she beheld his beautiful face with enamoured eyes»⁹. The occurrence of similar traits in Gottfried (9994-10037) has led a recent investigator, M. Piquet, to conclude: « Il est certain que la donnée ancienne qui fait naître l’amour dans le cœur des deux jeunes gens seulement après le philtre ne paraît pas respectée par Thomas chez qui l’éclosion de ce sentiment a lieu avant la fameuse méprise»¹⁰. But there is hardly any doubt that having altered his original in this point Thomas was bound to omit the reference to the magic virtues of the potion in the scene of the lover's return from the forest.

Two other texts call for attention in consideration of the problem: the French Prose Romance of Tristan and the poem of the Folie Tristan, both of which represent the «unlimited» version of the motif of the love potion.

It is easy enough, however, to show that the version of the Folie does not in the least affect our argument. The Folie of the Douce MS in the Bodleian Library is a derivative of Thomas and has no direct connection with the primitive Tristan poem¹¹. The Folie of Bern alone may be regarded as a derivative of that poem. But in the Bern Folie there is no evidence whatsoever that the author was using a version different from that of Eilhart and Béroul Here is his description of the love philtre (318-322):

Cil boivres fu faiz a envers
De plusors herbes mout divers,
Je muir por li, ele nel sant
N’est pas parti oniemant,
Car je suis Tristanz qui mar fu.

These lines merely indicate that the influence of the love potion did not terminate, but whether it abated partially, as in Eilhart, or remained unchanged throughout, as in Thomas, the Folie does not say.

As regards the French Prose Romance which, too, may seem to support the theory of the «unlimited» version, two possibilities are open: first, it may have been influenced by the version of Thomas and, second, « the author may», as Miss Schoepperle thought, «have omitted independently, with his characteristic freedom, the limitation of the influence of the potion, the repentance of the lovers, and the voluntary return from the forest—traits that were no doubt as shocking to him as they were to Thomas»¹². The second hypothesis may be correct, but in view of its conjectural character we should prefer to choose as a starting point of the argument the first supposition, namely that the Prose Romance is directly dependent on the poem of Thomas. It may, indeed, be gleaned from the works of previous investigators that there are points of isolated agreement between Thomas and the Prose Romance, which cannot be explained by mere coincidence. M. Muret, Professor W. Golther and W. Röttiger have pointed out that the episode of «the harp and the rote» in Thomas (Gottfried, 13101-13453; Sir Tristrem, 1809-1925; Saga, XLIX-LI) corresponds to a passage in the Prose Romance (MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. 756, f° 65 ff.) relating to the story of Iseult's being carried away by Palomides¹³. W. Röttiger and E. Löseth have traced the details about the garden scene in the Prose Romance to Thomas's version of the episode¹⁴. It is not improbable that the explanation of Tristan's name by the adjective triste was borrowed by the prose writer from Thomas¹⁵. Lastly, it would appear that the description of Tristan's hesitation before his marriage with the second Iseult («la bataille des deux Yseltes») which occurs in all the MSS. of the Prose Romance¹⁶ is traceable to Thomas's lengthy discourse on the subject¹⁷.

The French Prose Romance, inasmuch as it represents the old Tristan tradition, would thus appear to be a derivative of both the «archetype» and the poem of Thomas. But if the prose writer had under his eyes two versions of the story, one which confined the strongest efficacy of the love potion to a certain period, and made the potion actually control the whole story, and the other which assigned to the potion the part of a mere symbol, it was only too natural that he should choose the latter. For, just as in Thomas, in the Prose Romance the love potion is entirely relegated to the background. It has pratically no effect upon the events of the story, since Tristan and Iseult love each other before drinking the potion. Besides, their love being represented as a model of chivalrous « amour», it was impossible for the author to make it abate, even if one of his sources had done so.

For these reasons, it would not seem to be correct to base a reconstruction of the love potion motif either on Thomas, or on the French Prose Romance or indeed on the Oxford Folie, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the Eilhart-Béroul version represents in this point the primitive romance.

Apart from the general problem with which we are concerned here, it might be interesting to remember the manner in which the idea of the limited efficacy of the love potion is introduced in Béroul. In a passage relating to the lovers' return from the forest the poet says (2133-8):

Seignors, du vin de qoi il burent
Avez oi, por qoi il furent
En si grant paine lonc tens mis;
Mais ne savez, ce m’est a vis,
A conbien fu determinez
Li loucuendris, li vin herbez.

The last three lines suggest that this is the first announcement of the limited efficacy of the love potion in Béroul, and that Béroul did not mention that virtue of the potion in the scene of the lovers' departure from Cornwall. Nor does Eilhart's description of the potion in the scene of the departure go beyond the statement that during the first four years, if the lovers were separated for half a day, they would fall ill; if for a week, they would die:

vîr jâr sie abir phlegetin
sô grôzir lîbe beide,
daz sie sich nicht gescheidin
mochtin einen halbin tag.
swedir daz ander nicht en sach
alle tage, daz wart siech:
von dem tranke hâten sie sich lîp.
ab sie wêrin eine wochen
von ein ander ungesprochen,
sie musten beide wesin tôt:
der trang was sô getemperôt,
von also grôzir sterke.
daz mogit ir wol gemerkin!

(Eilhart, 2288-2300).

It is not unlikely that (as the concluding line seems to suggest) all this description is anticipated from a later section of the story which corresponds to Eilhart's lines 4730-4739 and forms a direct continuation of the passage just quoted. This is another way of saying that in the primitive Tristan poem there would be no reference to the limited nature of the ïnfluence of the love potion until the episode of the return from the forest. It is there that the author must have explained to his readers for the first time «a combien fu determinez» the magic philtre which the lovers drank.

The theory that the Eilhart-Béroul version of the love potion motif represents the original Tristan romance may be substantiated not only on textual but on literary grounds, for it suggests the only adequate interpretation of the general meaning of the story and of the methods of the author.

There is in the romance of Tristan a remarkable simplicity of the tragic conception. It is the tragedy born by the all-powerful love, that is stronger than honour, stronger than blood and stronger than death, and that comes into clash with the immense, vast world of rights and duties, human and divine. But the whole essence and the greatest beauty of the tragedy in Tristan lies in the fact that it is a conflict in which the lovers never refuse to recognize the rightfulness of the law that causes their misfortune.

If an actual struggle had been possible, if Tristan and Iseult could openly have fought the forces against them, how much simpler the story would have been: there would have been no «vie aspre et dure», no hardships such as those through which they lived in the forest of Morrois. But they cannot flee from the world of suffering, they cannot openly challenge their rivals and they never think of escaping to a happier land. There is in Béroul a passage which for tragic intensity has no parallel in the story. It is when Tristan begins to feel that he must restore Iseult to king Mark and says: «So now I cry to God the Lord who is the King of the world, and beg him to give me strength to yield back Iseult to King Mark»¹⁸.

It is a remarkable feature of the story of Tristan that it is controlled entirely by that fundamental tragic theme, which is so immensurably stronger than the lovers themselves. Like the rudderless boat in which Tristan was set adrift, they never move of their own volition—they obey some supernatural element, which, like the waves, throws them from rock to rock, sends them joys and sorrows and finally releases them from their earthly chains. They are unable not only to control the elemental force which causes their joy and their death, but even to understand it. And it is through the love potion only, through the medium of its magic qualities that the poet could possibly suggest to his heroes a fitting explanation of their story.

In the scene with the hermit Tristan swears: «S’el m’aime, c’est pas la poison»¹⁹, and Iseult replies: «Por Deu omnipotent, il ne m’aime pas, ne je lui, fors par un herbé que je bui, et il en but: ce fut pechiez»²⁰. The lovers constantly think themselves acting under a spell. And in order to enable them to interpret in that way the whole tragedy, it was essential to make them think that even when they leave the forest of Morrois and submit to the king, they are forced to do so by the power of magic. This accounts for the idea of the partial abatement of the love potion, a motif which thus appears to be an indispensable element of the tragedy. For where could Tristan find strength to restore Iseult to the king, if he did not believe that the potion which had made him mad released him now from part of its spell? And when the time came to part, and it began to seem to the lovers that they must leave Morrois, they thought it was the love potion that came to abate.

Thus, in the original story the influence of the love potion is not actually limited: its limitation is merely an illusion of the lovers, an instance of the author's naïve method of making them unconscious of their tragedy. The «vin herbé» is a poison in the eyes of the lovers, but it never ceases to be a symbol of unchangeable love in those of the poet. Indeed, in the concluding lines of the story he restores to the potion its full symbolic value. After the death of the lovers²¹, King Mark brought their bodies back to Cornwall and had their tombs built on the right and left of a chantry. But in one night there sprang from the tomb of Tristan a green and leafy briar, strong in its branches and in the scent of its flowers. It climbed the chantry and took root again by Iseult's tomb. Thrice did king Mark command to cut it down, but thrice it grew again as blooming and as strong. The people told the marvel to the king and he forbade to cut the briar any more. It was the potion, says Eilhart, that did this thing.

Notes

1. Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas. S. A. T. F., T. II, p. 133.

2. Cf. Eilhart von Oberge, ed. Lichtenstein, lignes 2279-2299.

3. Cf. ibid., 4730-4742.

4. Le Roman de Tristan par Béroul et un anonyme, éd. E. Muret, S. A. T. F., pp. 67-68.

5. Op. cit., 238.

6. W. Golther, Tristan und Insolde in den Dichtungen des Mitelalters und der Neuen Zeit, Leipzig, 1907, p. 59.

7. Frankfurt an London, 1913.

8. Op. cit., I, 76.

9. Cf. Tristrams Saga ok Isondar, ed. Kölbing, ch. XLIII. Cf. also ch. XLVI (… En Tristram huggadi hana med miklu blidlaeti).

10. F. Piquet, L’originalité de Gottfried de Strassburg, p. 208.

11. M. Bédier mentions (Les deux poèmes de la Folie Tristan, ed. J. Bédier, S. A. T. F., pp. 2-3) that «l’auteur de la Folie Tristan d’Oxford résume le roman de Thomas avec une grande fidélité … Il le rappelle parfois à s’y méprendre». The arguments recently advanced by E. Hoepffner (Ztschr. f. rom. Phil., XXXIX, 698) do not suffice to make out the case for a direct dependence of the Oxford Folie on the « archetype».

12. Op. cit., I, 82. Miss Schoepperle also advanced the hypothesis that «the Prose Romance preserves a version independent of the estoire». In my view, which I am compelled by want of space to indicate but briefly, all the four points in the Prose Romance for which Miss Schoepperle claimed an independent orígin (Tristan's childhood, his quest of Iseult, their return from the forest, and their death) derive from a version common to all the other authorities but altered in accordance with the methods of the prose writer.

13. Cf. E. Muret, Eilhart d’Oberg et sa source française, Romania, XVI, 310; W. Golther, Die Sage von Tristan und Isolde, München, 1887, p. 58; W. Röttiger, Der heutige Stand der Tristanforschung, Hamburg, 1897, p. 30.

14. Cf. E. Löseth, Le roman en prose de Tristan, le roman de Palamède et la compilation de Rusticien de Pise, 1890, §§ 284-286. W. Röttiger, op. cit., pp. 32-33.

15. Cf. E. Löseth, op. cit., § XX.

16. Ibid., § 58.

17. LI. 447-640.

18. Béroul, 2185-8.

19. Ibid., 1384.

20. Ibid., 1412-15,

21. MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. 103, f° 383a.