Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/268

 232 Reviews.

that is great, than in the intensely h^t^an interest of the subject-matter. Thanks to the genius of'^ichard Wagner, we have learnt at last to recognise the l^nd of Tristan and Iseult as one of the world's great stor^, the supreme love- tale of literature. M. Bedier, with true 'French insight, lays his finger on the reason — the legend deals with two enduring facts of life, Love and Sorrow. Tristan and Iseult are not the lovers of that lax social order which found expression in the Courts of Love, but belong to a stage wherein marriage is looked upon as indissoluble, and illicit passion, even though it be decreed by Fate, a shame and a sorrow. Neither of the lovers ever suggests cutting the Gordian knot by flight \ they deceive Mark, steadily and persistently, and though at the moment they rejoice in the success of each deception, their joy is mixed with sorrow: "ils souffrent de leurs triomphes meme." "Ceux- la seuls peuvent fonder tout un poeme sur la loi sociale hostile a I'amour, qui connaissent une loi sociale fortement imperative, rigide et dure." We think M. Bedier is right in his contention that it is this underlying, fate-compelling background which gives to the story of Tristan its enduring force and charm.

Whence came this wonderful tale ? Here lies the special interest for English readers. The poem, the fragments of which M. Bedier has edited, and the main contents of which he has, by the help of the translations, ingeniously essayed to restore, was written in England in Anglo-Norman. Whether Thomas was a Briton (he quotes the Welshman, Breri, or Bleheris, as his source), or of Anglo-French birth, we cannot tell, but he was a writer of great skill and charm, a little over-fond, per- haps, of analysing the feelings of his characters, but undoubtedly a true poet.

Unfortunately we possess only fragments of his work. Of these by far the most important is that preserved in the Douce collection at Oxford. There is a second at Cambridge, and a third in the possession of a private collector at Turin. When M. Francisque Michel published his edition of the poems relative to Tristan (1835-39) he had access to two other frag- ments — one, in the Strasburg Library, perished in the flames of Vannee terrible; the other, the property of the Rev. Walter