Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/192

 various elements of invention in this huge work will enable me to speak with brevity of Tristan and Parsifal, which were created after the same formula. These two dramas, also, offer us a blend of the abstract with fiction, the union of a system and a fable.

The action of Tristan is wrapped in a poetry whose charm is at once heady and lugubrious. The frame within which it is developed, the circumstances of each scene add to the tragedy of guilty passion a sort of magical effect in which may be recognised the old Celtic imagination that invented this story of love and death. The vessel at sea, the fond tender avowal made over the symbolic abyss of the waters at the very mouth of the harbour where the royal bridegroom, already betrayed, awaits his bride, the meeting by night in the park, where far away are heard the muffled sounds of hunting calls, the torch waved from the top of the tower as a danger signal, Tristan on his bed of pain spending his days looking out to sea for the white sail that will tell him of Yseult's return,—it would be idle to deny the poignancy and strength of the hold on our feelings exercised by all these images, animated as they are by powerful and pulsing music. It is wiser to point out their dangers, and ask whether the extreme attractions of this poetic atmosphere do not serve as a deceptive wrapping for contents that are by no means proportionately valuable.

Let us consider by themselves the themes of the action. There is one of these that is of low quality, one might almost call it brutal; by repercussion it lowers the quality of all the others. This is the philtre, the love potion poured out for Tristan and Yseult by Brangaine. True, it is not this potion which gives birth to their passion. The natural