TRISTREM, or TRISTAN. The hero of a Welsh or Armorican romance origi nally distinct from the Arthurian cycle, but early incorporated with it. Tristram was the son of Roland of Ermonie by Blaneheflenr, sister to King Mark of Cornwall. His father slain, his mother dead of grief (which she expressed in the child's very name), Tristram was reared by a faithful steward. At the age of fifteen he drifted to the Court of his uncle, King whose favor he won by his skill in the chase and in minstrelsy. He slew in mortal combat Moraunt, brother of the Queen of Ireland, who had come to demand tribute from King Mark. After suffering for three years from severe wounds, he sailed to Ire land, where they were healed by Iseult (vari ously spelled), daughter of the Queen. On his return to Cornwall, Tristram told his uncle of the marvelous beauty of the Irish princess, and was sent back to Ireland to ask her hand in marriage for the King. On the voyage from Ireland to Cornwall, Tristram and Iseult drank of a love potion intended for King Mark and ever after loved each other. Iseult married Mark, but con trived, with the aid of her clever maid, to have many secret interviews with Tristram. At length the lovers were discovered, and Tristram fled to Wales, and later to Brittany. where he married another Iseult, the White-handed, daughter to Duke Florentine; but he never forgot Iseult of Ireland. Desperately wounded, he sent a messenger to Cornwall to summon her to heal him once more. He directed the messenger to hoist a white sail on the return voyage if the princess were on hoard; if not, a black sail, The Queen of Cornwall hastened to save her lover. As the vessel neared the shores of Brittany, Iseult of the White Hand saw the white sail; but, fired with jealous hate for her rival, she told her husband that the sail was black. Tristram sank back and died. Iseult of Ireland fell prostrate over the body of Tristram and died of a broken heart. King Mark subsequently learned the story of the love-potion, and buried the lovers in one grave, planting over Iseult. a rose and over Tristram a vine, growing so intertwined that no one could separate them.
This passionate story, having some ba_sis in Celtic myth. got into literature in the twelfth century and spread through Western Europe. It may be traced back to a poem, now existing only in fragments, by an Anglo-Norman trouOre named B6roul (about 1150). A little later than
this (about 1160), the theme was treated by Chrestien de Troyes (q.v.) in a poem now lost. So far as has been determined, the source of the many later Tristrams is a very prolix poem by an Anglo-Norman named Thomas (about 1170). Before the close of the twelfth century Tristram and Iseult were among the favorite themes of the troubadours. From the French the romance passed into the German Tristrant (about 1175) by EiMarti of Oberge and the Tristant and Isolde (between 1200 and 1225) by Gottfried of Strass burg. Gottfried's poem, extending to 19,573 lines, is the most beautiful of all early versions. Left incomplete, it was continued by Ulric of Tiir helm and by Henry of Freiburg. The great popu larity of the romance in Germany is further at tested by numerous chapbooks. To the year 1226 belongs a Scandinavian version, Tristram Saga ok Isondur, and this in turn was put into Ice landic prose. The earliest extant English version is known as Sir Tristrem. The only extant manu script belongs to the middle of the fifteenth cen tury. It was composed in the last part of the thirteenth century, and has been ascribed to Thomas the Rhymer (q.v.). In 1469 was pub lished at Rouen an immense prose Tristram in French, which was translated into German, Spanish, and Italian. It was also used by Sir Thomas Malory (q.v.) for his illorte D'Arthur (1485). In the nineteenth century Tristram and Iseult became a favorite theme in England and Germany. Following Malory, Tennyson wove the story into the Idylls of the King ("The Last Tournament"). Tn his noble Tristram and Iseult, Matthew Arnold awakened pity for Iseult of Brit tany. But Swinburne in his Tristram of Lyon esse best expressed the tremendous passion of the mediaeval tale. The theme was also treated by Karl Immermann (1841), and splendidly by Wagner in his operatic poem Tristan and Isolde (1859). Consult the English Sir Tristrem as edited by G. P. McNeill for the "Scottish Text Society" (Edinburgh, 1886), and by E. Kathing in Die nordisehe a»l die rnglisehe Version der Tristansage (Heilbronn, 1878-82) ; also Goither, Die Sage ton Tristan and Ism]ide (Miinich, 1887). A charming version of the Tristram story is that of J. BiAier, Lc roman de Tristan et Iscut (5th ed., Paris, 1902).