orcery! Restored at length from that delusion, they
yield themselves exultantly to the tide of passion that has caught
them away and shall carry them whither it will, scornful of the
whole world, lost in each other, conscious of a sweetness in the
surrender surpassing all that life had given them to suspect.

The peculiar action of the potion is detected from the above. It
seems less to create passion than to remove all that obscured and
controlled it, dissolve the barriers which up to the moment of
drinking stood so effectively between the two. Tristan's will crumbles
under it, the will which had kept him loyal to Mark, which had made
him, to the point of offence, shun the radius of her dangerous
magnetism. Isolde's pride melts under it, which had enabled her
to keep up with herself and him a fiction of hate for the man who
had wronged her. All that keeps love within bounds being burned
away, it towers in a sublime conflagration. Their sense of the
change is that they have awakened from a dream; but the effect
of the potion has been in truth rather more to plunge them into
a state of dream, in which while one emotion is in the ascendant
the others sleep,--reason sleeps, will sleeps, all other interests
and considerations sleep, leaving love free to reach proportions
and an intensity unknown during wakefulness.

They have not heard or heeded the cries of the crew: "Hail, hail,
King Mark!" The curtains of the pavilion are suddenly drawn wide
apart. The ship's company crowds the deck; all are gazing toward
the land. Tristan and Isolde take account of nothing, their senses
fast sealed to all but the contemplation of each other. Brangaene
and other women place on Isolde's unconscious shoulders the royal
mantle, and deck her, unaware of it, with jewels. Kurwenal comes
running to his master: "Hail, Tristan, fortunate hero! King Mark,
with rich rout of courtiers, approaches in a barge. Ha! He looks
well pleased, coming to meet the bride!" Tristan asks, dazed: "Who
approaches?"--"The King!"--"What king?"--Kurwenal points overboard.
Tristan stares landward, not comprehending. The men shout and wave
their caps. "Hail, King Mark!"--"What is it?" Isolde inquires,
reached in her trance by the clamour; "Brangaene, what cry is
that?"--"Isolde, mistress," the distraught Brangaene implores,
"self-control for this one day!"--"Where am I?" the bewildered
lady asks helplessly. "Am I alive?..." What, the question asks
itself, what is thi