t. Brangaena's voice is heard from the
watch-tower, warning them of approaching danger; and they heed her
not. Again she sings to them that the danger is imminent--night is
departing; Tristan, resting his head on the bosom of his mistress,
simply says, "Let me die thus." The catastrophe is at hand. The duet
reaches its glorious climax; Brangaena gives a shriek from her tower;
Kurvenal rushes in yelling "Save yourselves," but it is too
late--Mark, Melot and the other huntsmen come in quickly, and--the
game is up. The red dawn slowly breaks; Tristan hides Isolda with his
cloak; Melot turns to Mark and says, "Did I not tell you so?"--his
ruse has succeeded quite well enough. And now follows a scene which
has proved a stumbling-stock to many.

The ordinary dramatist or play-monger would drop the curtain on this
denouement; and undeniably it would be what is called an effective
"curtain." However, effective curtains were not Wagner's business in
planning _Tristan_; he had long since passed through that stage. He
could not after such a curtain--the sort of curtain that ends many an
opera--have carried out the plan of _Tristan_--to show us the lovers
realising their impossible situation in life and deliberately seeking
death as the refuge. Tristan and Isolda care nothing for shame and
disgrace: they care only for their love, and their love relentlessly
drives them into their grave. Mark has a great affection for them
both, and precisely on that account he is their enemy. He begins a
long expostulation: "How is it that the two people dearer to him than
all the world have so betrayed his trust?" It is lengthy, and must
needs be so; each proof he gives them of his love only more clearly
defines his real significance and relation to them. Tristan does not
fear Melot: he dreads Mark's affection. He (Tristan) calls out,
"Daylight phantoms! morning visions, empty and vain--away, begone!"
but Mark continues, putting in a dozen ways the same question, "Why,
why have they done this?" It is not the behaviour of a barbaric king;
but we must remember that Wagner's Mark is not, and is not intended to
be, the legendary Mark any more than Tristan and Isolda are the
legendary Tristan and Isolda: he is the personification of human
affection, a thing to which they, enthralled by elemental love, are
indifferent--detest, indeed, as interfering with their love. When he
ends Tristan knows he has no explanation to offer--none that Mark
could possibl