sing it, he adds to his curse
upon the dreadful cup, with all the strength of his tortured heart,
his curse upon him who brewed it,--and exhausted with his own delirious
violence drops back in a swoon. Kurwenal, who has vainly striven to
calm his frenzy, now sees him with horror relapsed into deathlike
stillness; he calls him, laments over him and over this fatal love,
the world's loveliest madness, which rewards so ill those who follow
its lure. "Are you then dead?" he weeps, "Do you still live?...
Have you succumbed to the curse?" He listens almost hopelessly
for his breathing, and starts up with a return of joy: "No! He
lives! He rises! How softly his lips stir...."--"The ship!" Tristan
murmurs, "Do you not see it yet?"--"The ship?... Certainly!" the
poor nurse answers, with his determined cheerfulness, "It will
arrive this very day.... It cannot delay much longer!"--"And upon
it"--Tristan describes the vision which is calling back the light
to his eyes--"upon it, Isolde. How she beckons, how graciously
she drinks to our peace! Do you see her?... Do you not see her
yet?... How sweetly, lovely and gentle, she comes wandering over the
plains of the sea. On soft billows of joyous flowers she advances,
luminous, toward the land. She smiles comfort to me and delicious
rest, she brings me utmost relief.... Ah, Isolde, Isolde! How kind,
how fair are you!... What, Kurwenal," he breaks off with that return
to agitation toward which his fever by its law begins from the
moment of returning consciousness to drive his poor brain, till,
reaching a violence his strength cannot support, it plunges him
back exhausted into unconsciousness, "What, Kurwenal, you do not
see her? Away, to the watch-tower, dull-witted churl, that the
sight may not escape you which is so plain to me! Do you not hear
me?... To the tower! Quick, to the tower!... Are you there?... The
ship! The ship! Isolde's ship! You must--must see it! The ship!...
Is it possible," he cries despairingly, "that you do not see it yet?"
He has been starting up from his bed, in his eagerness. Kurwenal
has struggled with him to keep him down. While he hesitates as
before between obedience and fear to leave his patient, the servant
realises that the shepherd's pipe has changed its tune,--has changed
it for a shrill, lively, tripping air. He listens with all his
soul for a second, then with a shout of triumph dashes to the
battlements and sends his eyes sweeping the sea. "Ha! The s