my harp to sea and fell upon your shore? Your mother
healed me with strange drugs. Have you no memory, Queen?"

But Iseult answered:

"Out, fool, out! Your folly and you have passed the bounds!"

But the fool, still playing, pushed the barons out, crying:

"Out! madmen, out! Leave me to counsel with Iseult, since I come here
for the love of her!"

And as the King laughed, Iseult blushed and said:

"King, drive me forth this fool!"

But the fool still laughed and cried:

"Queen, do you mind you of the dragon I slew in your land? I hid its
tongue in my hose, and, burnt of its venom, I fell by the roadside.
Ah! what a knight was I then, and it was you that succoured me."

Iseult replied:

"Silence! You wrong all knighthood by your words, for you are a fool
from birth. Cursed be the seamen that brought you hither; rather
should they have cast you into the sea!"

"Queen Iseult," he still said on, "do you mind you of your haste when
you would have slain me with my own sword? And of the Hair of Gold?
And of how I stood up to the seneschal?"

"Silence!" she said, "you drunkard. You were drunk last night, and so
you dreamt these dreams."

"Drunk, and still so am I," said he, "but of such a draught that never
can the influence fade. Queen Iseult, do you mind you of that hot and
open day on the high seas? We thirsted and we drank together from the
same cup, and since that day have I been drunk with an awful wine."

When the Queen heard these words which she alone could understand, she
rose and would have gone.

But the King held her by her ermine cloak, and she sat down again.

And as the King had his fill of the fool he called for his falcons and
went to hunt; and Iseult said to him:

"Sire, I am weak and sad; let me be go rest in my room; I am tired of
these follies."

And she went to her room in thought and sat upon her bed and mourned,
calling herself a slave and saying:

"Why was I born? Brangien, dear sister, life is so hard to me that
death were better! There is a fool without, shaven criss-cross, and
come in an evil hour, and he is warlock, for he knows in every part
myself and my whole life; he knows what you and I and Tristan only
know."

Then Brangien said: "It may be Tristan."

But--"No," said the Queen, "for he was the first of knights, but this
fool is foul and made awry. Curse me his hour and the ship that
brought him hither."

"My lady!" said Brangien, "soothe you. You curse over much t