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Tristan   /trˈɪstˌæn/   Listen
Tristan

noun
1.
(Middle Ages) the nephew of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with his uncle's bride (Iseult) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other.  Synonym: Tristram.



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"Tristan" Quotes from Famous Books



... temper—Jesus-Maria—the master! But his heart is of gold. His wife—" she hesitated, "She was a singer, and she ran away and left him. They say she ran away with the famous tenor, Brondi, who used to sing Tristan. Since then the master ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs

... then lets him drop down into the moat which is no better than a sewer; this grotesque and tragically resented end of Ulrich's first love service speaks volumes on the point. The stones in Nostradamus' "Lives of the Troubadours," the incidents in Gottfried's "Tristan und Isolde," nay, the adventures even in our expunged English "Morte d'Arthur," relating to the birth of Sir Galahad, are as explicit as anything in Brantome or the Queen of Navarre; the most delicate love songs of Provence and Germany are cobwebs spun round ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... The First Act of Tristan and Isolde is three-quarters over. Mr. Alfred Easterfelt is seated alone in the corner. He ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch

... cycle as it is to be found in the text of the Mabinogion, one might be tempted to believe that the European imagination, enthralled by these brilliant fables, added to them some poetical themes unknown to the Welsh. Two of the most celebrated heroes of the continental Breton romances, Lancelot and Tristan, do not figure in the Mabinogion; on the other hand, the characteristics of the Holy Grail are presented in a totally different way from that which we find in the French and German poets. A more attentive study ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... league of public good," and that he had presented to the queen a very marvellous stag in confectionery on the day of her entrance to Paris in 14... Moreover, he possessed the good friendship of Messire Tristan l'Hermite, provost of the marshals of the king's household. Hence a very sweet and pleasant existence was that of Messire Robert. In the first place, very good wages, to which were attached, and from which ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... of Select Poetry, published in 1653, by de Sercy, under the title of Poesies choisies de M. M. Corneille Benserade, de Scudery, Boisrobert, Sarrazin, Desmarets, Baraud, Saint-Laurent, Colletet. Lamesnardiere, Montreuil, Viguier, Chevreau, Malleville, Tristan, Testu, Maucroy, de Prade, Girard et de L'Age. A great number of such miscellanies appeared in France, and in ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... Hebrides and the north of Ireland. Thence, by way of the Azores, the Canaries and the Cape de Verde Islands, with some active vents, we pass to the ruined volcanoes of St. Paul, Fernando de Noronha, Ascension, St. Helena, Trinidad and Tristan da Cunha. From this great Atlantic band two branches proceed to the eastward, one through Central Europe, where all the vents are now extinct, and the other through the Mediterranean to Asia Minor, the ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various

... sitting in the company of the young couple. Andreas Doederlein, being in an unusually happy mood, went to the piano, and began playing the shepherd's motif from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde." ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... quality. His letters always began, "Dearest Heloise," or "Melisande," or "Baucis," or "Isolde"; and, rather than acknowledge her ignorance of these classic allusions, she looked them up and sent her answers to "Dear Abelard," or "Pelleas," or "Philemon," or "Tristan," as the case demanded. She indited her missives with a dainty gold pen engraved with an orchid, which Harold had requested her never to profane ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... not believe that this island was ever connected with the continent, but arose from the ocean as the result of a terrific upheaval in the chain of volcanic activity which runs across the Atlantic from the Cameroon Mountains in a SSW. direction to Anno Bom island, and possibly even to the Tristan da Cunha group midway between ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... cunning psychologist of sensual passion. His great work—all that we have from him except some lyric poems—is the love-intoxicated romance of Tristan and Isold, which he began early in the 13th century and did not live to complete. For this his principal source was the French trouvre, Thomas of Brittany, who composed his Tristan in England about 1180. Of this French poem only a few fragments are extant. The original ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas

... discovered that six years' abstinence had not enraptured him any more deeply with the rushing fiddles in the "Tannhaeuser" Overture nor with the spinning music in the "Flying Dutchman." Then came suddenly the prelude to the third act of "Tristan." That caught him; the peace and tranquillity that he needed lapped him round; he was fully satisfied and could have listened ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... lindens, which was to last until night. The Council had had a magnificent tent erected for him, Duke Maurice, and the court, and in order to ornament the interior suitably had allowed the use of the beautiful tapestries in the town hall. These represented familiar incidents from famous love tales: Tristan and Isolde seeing the face of King Mark in the mirror of the spring, Frau Venus as, surrounded by her court, she receives Tannhauser in the Horselberg, and similar scenes. Other art textiles showed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Tristan and his lady-love stolen forth hand in hand and come full early, through the morning dew, to the flowery meadow and the lovely vale. Dove and nightingale saluted them sweetly, greeting their friends Tristan and Iseult. The wild ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... wonders of Kublai Khan. It was by a just instinct that, when all was written, Rusticiano prefixed to the tale that same address to the lords and gentlemen of the world, bidding them to take heed and listen, which he had been wont to set at the beginning of his tales of Tristan and Lancelot and King Arthur: 'Ye Lords, Emperors and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights and Burgesses and all ye men who desire to know the divers races of men and the diversities of the different regions of the world, take ye this book and cause it to be read, and here ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... installed her in it very comfortably and covered her up, and to her own surprise she felt that she was very sleepy; so that just as she was wondering why, she dozed off and began to dream that she was Isolde, on board of Tristan's ship, and that she was singing the part, though she had never sung ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... the place called Chichilticalli, in an attempt to verify the friar's tale, and had reported that the natives were good for nothing except to make into Christians. The main army, which was in command of Don Tristan de Arellano, in accordance with the orders received from Coronado, now advanced toward Cibola. Maldonado, who had been to the coast, went with it. Diaz retained eighty men, part of whom were to defend the settlement of San Hieronimo, and twenty-five were to ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... high birth; and although this might be not only excusable but meritorious, where the monarch's fiat promoted obscure talent, or called forth modest worth, it was very different when the King made his favourite associates of such men as the chief of his police, Tristan l'Hermite.. ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... an Italian of Lombardy, and the gravity of the other who was a Spaniard. When the Lombard was running away to hide himself, James Mendez called him to turn back; let me alone you devil, said Sebastian, for I am going to secure my person. The Spaniard was Captain James Tristan, whom the admiral had sent in the boat, who never went out of it with his men though the affray was close beside the river; and being blamed for not assisting the Christians, he excused himself by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... forest with the thunderstorm, glitters and surges with the river, spans mountains with the rainbow bridge. It is full of the gestures of giants and heroes and gods, of the large proud movements of which men have ever dreamed in days of affluent power. Even "Tristan und Isolde," the high song of love, and "Parsifal," the mystery, spread richness and splendor about them, are set in an atmosphere of heavy gorgeous stuffs, amid objects of gold and silver, and thick clouding incense, while the protagonists, the lovers and saviors, seem to ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... "Beagle", after touching at St Paul's rock and Tristan d'Acunha (for a sufficient time only to collect specimens), reached the shores of South America, that Darwin's real work began; and he was able, while the marine surveys were in progress, to make many extensive journeys on land. His letters at this time show that geology had become his chief ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... Louis. Our driver, who is somewhat of an historian, and like a loyal Tournageau is proud of the associations of his town, good and bad alike, was delighted to show us this old home of Olivier who was, he informed us, the executioner of his master's enemies of high degree, while Tristan l'Hermite attended to those of less distinction, having, as Louis warned Quentin, "For him whose tongue wagged too freely an amulet for the throat which never failed to work a certain cure." The house of ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton

... Fiesco, Diego Tristan, Francisco de Porras were the captains of the caravels Juan Sanchez and Pedro Ledesma the chief pilots. Bartholomew Fiesco of the Consolacion was a Genoese and wholly devoted to the greater Genoese. We had for notary Diego Mendez. There were ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... from three great States, fell ardently in love with Elene from the mere breath of the rumor of her charms. The first was Prince Tristan, the second Prince Martin, the third Prince Lorenzo; and both Prince Tristan and Prince ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl

... understanding each other marvellously; they discarded and resumed with equal facility, the one his conscience, the other his religion; they loved the same Virgin, one by conviction, the other by policy; in short, if we may believe the jealous tales of Olivier de Daim and Tristan, the king went to the house of the Fleming for those diversions with which King Louis XI. diverted himself. History has taken care to transmit to our knowledge the licentious tastes of a monarch who was not averse to debauchery. The old Fleming found, no doubt, both pleasure and profit in ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... a description of the Island of Tristan d'Acunha, states that the animals found on this solitary spot were so tame, that it was necessary to clear a path through the birds which were reposing on the rocks, by kicking them aside. One species of seal ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... were cast pell-mell into the ditch which surrounded the camp, and the air was tainted thereby. On the 3d of August Louis was attacked by the epidemic fever, and obliged to keep his bed in his tent. He asked news of his son John Tristan, Count of Nevers, who had fallen ill before him, and whose recent death, aboard the vessel to which he had been removed in hopes that the sea air might be beneficial, had been carefully concealed ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... yellow, one realized that he was very handsome. He had what one might call a resolute nose and chin, and a pleasant, rather humorous, mouth. And he had blue eyes that were, at that moment, wandering with interest over the lot of us. Somebody shouted his name to me above the Tristan and Isolde music, and I held ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Baden-Powell, M.P., which, as they refer to several different periods of time, are as appropriate here as in any other part of the book. The Rev. E.H. Dodgson, referred to in these reminiscences, is a younger brother of Lewis Carroll's; he spent several years of his life upon the remote island of Tristan d'Acunha, where there were only about seventy or eighty inhabitants besides himself. About once a year a ship used to call, when the island-folk would exchange their cattle for cloth, corn, tea, &c., which they could not produce themselves. The island is volcanic ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... of Tours; for the town contains several goodly specimens of the domestic architecture of the past. The dwelling to which the average Anglo-Saxon will most promptly direct his steps, and the only one I have space to mention, is the so-called Maison de Tristan l'Hermite—a gentleman whom the readers of "Quentin Durward" will not have forgotten—the hangman-in-ordinary to that great and prompt chastener Louis XI. Unfortunately the house of Tristan is not the house of Tristan at all; this illusion has been cruelly dispelled. ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... our beds, or travel without making our wills; that no Amy Robsarts are thrown down trap-doors by Richard Varneys with impunity; that no Red Reiver of Westburn-Flat sets fire to peaceful cottages; that no Claverhouse signs cold-blooded death-warrants in sport; that we have no Tristan the Hermit, or Petit- Andre, crawling near us, like spiders, and making our flesh creep, and our hearts sicken within us at every moment of our lives—ye who have produced this change in the face of nature and society, return to earth once more, and ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... of Time and urged him on With piquant spur, past chapel and past cross: How Charles, King of Navarre, in long duress By mandate of King John within the walls Of Crevacoeur and then of strong Alleres, In faithful ward of Sir Tristan du Bois, Was now escaped, had supped with Guy Kyrec, Had now a pardon of the Regent Duke By half compulsion of a Paris mob, Had turned the people's love upon himself By smooth harangues, and now was bold to claim ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... the power of love, their muse was modest and chaste, a "rose of Sharon," a "lily of the valleys." Immanuel's was of coarser fibre; his witty sallies remind one of Italian rather than Hebrew models. A recent critic of Hebrew poetry speaks of his Makamat as a pendant to "Tristan and Isolde,"—in both sensuality triumphs over spirituality. He is at his best in his sonnets, and of these the finest are in poetic prose. Female beauty is an unfailing source of inspiration to him, but of trust ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... a British Overseas Territory consisting of Saint Helena and Ascension Islands, and the island group of Tristan da Cunha. Saint Helena: Uninhabited when first discovered by the Portuguese in 1502, Saint Helena was garrisoned by the British during the 17th century. It acquired fame as the place of Napoleon BONAPARTE's exile, from 1815 until his ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... (the introduction of "Vorabend") was ready, and "Die Walkuere" (Part I.) in 1856. But "tired," as he said, "of heaping one silent score upon another," he left "Siegfried" unfinished, and turned to the story of "Tristan." The poem was completed in 1857, and the music two years later. At last, in 1861, he received permission to return to Germany, and in Vienna he had the first opportunity of hearing his own "Lohengrin." For three years ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... ships that made up the Admiral's fleet on his fourth and last voyage were all small caravels, the largest only of seventy tons and the smallest only of fifty. Columbus chose for his flagship the Capitana, seventy tons, appointing Diego Tristan to be his captain. The next best ship was the Santiago de Palos under the command of Francisco Porras; Porras and his brother Diego having been more or less foisted on to Columbus by Morales, the Royal Treasurer, who wished to find berths for these two brothers-in-law of his. We shall hear more ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... passionate intensity, and with a noble stage presence, proved to be Wagner's ideal Bruennhilde and introduced the role at Bayreuth in 1876. She was also the creator of Kundry at the same place in 1882. She aroused unbounded enthusiasm as Elizabeth in "Tannhaeuser," and as Isolde in "Tristan and Isolde." She is not forgotten by those who heard her in various cities of ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore

... until at last a hatchet sank up to the socket in the knight's chest. Almost at the same moment a second Breton, a young Squire named Geoffrey Mellon, was slain by a thrust from Black Simon which found the weak spot beneath the armpit. Three other Bretons, Evan Cheruel, Caro de Bodegat, and Tristan de Pestivien, the first two knights and the latter a squire, became separated from their comrades, and were beaten to the ground with English all around them, so that they had to choose between instant death and surrender. They handed their swords to Bambro' and stood ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... use it at the repetition, but throughout both dynamic and agogic accents are unsparingly used, and the study seems to resound with the sullen booming of a park of artillery. The working-out section, with its anticipations of "Tristan and Isolde," is phrased by all the editors as it is never played. Here the technical figure takes precedence over the law of the phrase, and so most virtuosi place the accent on the fifth finger, regardless of the pattern. This is as it should be. In Klindworth there is a misprint at the beginning ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... Celtic, and those of persons and places famous in the traditions of Wales and Brittany. Of this the romances of Ywaine and Gawaine, Sir Perceval de Galles, Eric and Enide, Mort d'Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Sir Tristan, the Graal, &c., may be cited as examples. In some cases a tendency to triads, and other matters of internal evidence, ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... at all—not in the grand manner. The going just as vital as the coming. Very essence of it that it shouldn't last. That's why Shakespeare kills his Romeo and his Juliet at the end of the play—and Wagner his Tristan and his Isolde. Nothing else to do with 'em. People of that kind go through just the same set of high jinks six or eight months later with some one else; and in poetry that wouldn't do. Romantic lovers love ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... the intention of the admiral to touch at Hispaniola, on his way to Spain, and send thence supplies and reinforcements. The wind continuing adverse, he sent a boat on shore on the 6th of April, under the command of Diego Tristan, captain of one of the caravels, to procure wood and water, and make some communications to the Adelantado. The expedition of this boat proved fatal to its crew, but was providential ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... Boron (c. 1215) took the subject of his Merlin (published by G. Paris and J. Ulrich, 1886, 2 vols., Societe des Anciens Textes) from Geoffrey of Monmouth. Finally, the most celebrated love-legend of the middle ages, and one of the most beautiful inventions of world-literature, the story of Tristan and Iseult, tempted two authors, Beroul and Thomas, the first of whom is probably, and the second certainly, Anglo-Norman (see ARTHURIAN LEGEND; GRAIL, THE HOLY; TRISTAN). One Folie Tristan was composed in England in the last years of the 12th ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... we had the right to capture any Spanish vessels we might fall in with, to keep a look-out for them. However, the ocean is very broad, and though we chased several vessels, they all proved to be Portuguese. After sighting the little rocky and then uninhabited island of Tristan da Cunha, we made the Cape of Good Hope, and, entering Table Bay, ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... hands, and understood: a thin layer of ashes had been spread for the space of a few yards across the passage. Without knowing it Babi had happed on the old device employed in the days of the old Breton songs by Frocin the dwarf to catch Tristan on his way to Yseult: so true it is that a limited number of types, good and bad, serve for all ages. A remarkable piece of evidence in favor of the wise economy of the universe!—Anna did not hesitate; ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... Wagner consule, of the eclipse of Italian opera, the programme of a Lind concert will perhaps win a glance of curiosity even from the lovers of "Tristan und Isolde," who follow with reverence in the parquette the mighty score of the trilogy upon the stage. Here, for instance, is the programme of a charitable concert of Jenny Lind's in Boston on Thursday evening, the both of October, 1850, just a month after ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis

... church of Carhaix, which they fortified, and the towns of Paimpol, Lannion, and Landerneau, which they pillaged, Penmarch and Pontcroix, whence they carried off an immense booty and 300 vessels, with which they scoured the seas; and lastly, Douarnenez and the Island of Tristan (in 1595), whence fruitless attempts were made to dislodge them. For three years Fontenelle made this island his head-quarters, issuing from his stronghold to devastate the country. He murdered ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... action between the United States sloop-of-war Hornet, of eighteen guns, Captain Biddle, and the British sloop-of-war Penguin, of nineteen guns, Captain Dickenson. The Hornet, to windward, is raking the Penguin. The British vessel has lost her main-top-gallant-mast In the distance the peak of Tristan d'Acunha. Exergue: OFF TRISTAN D'ACUNHA MARCH XXIII MDCCCXV. On the platform, ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... Military Commissions, that are ordered to preserve no records? Were the Lettres de Cachet of Louis XV, any greater outrage on the personal liberty of French subjects, than Hindman's arrests and committal to the Penitentiary of suspected persons? Was Tristan l'Hermite any more the minister of tyranny, than his Provost Marshals? or Caligula, Caesar Borgia or Colonel Kirke any more cruel and remorseless than he, that you have sustained all his acts, and made all his atrocities ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... mourners following the bier; the composition here has a definite objective base drawn from external fact, and the "idea" is not exclusively musical, but admits an infusion of pictorial and literary elements. In listening to the love duet of the second act of "Tristan," although the lovers are before us in actual presence on the stage, I find myself involuntarily closing my eyes, for the music is so personal and so spiritualized, it is in and of itself so intensely the realization of the ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes

... once, in a momentary lull, he leant towards Maurice, and, without even looking up, asked the latter if he could recall the opening bars of the prelude to TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. If so, there was a certain point he would like ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... 'dry'; and as it was left to a modern poet to tell, in a series of lyrics succeeding one another without interval, a dramatic story such as that of Maud, so was it a modern composer who carried to completion, in 'Tristan und Isolde', the dramatic expression of passion at the highest point of lyrical utterance. It is no more unnatural for the raptures of Wagner's lovers, or the swan-song of ecstasy, to be sung, than for the young man whose character Tennyson assumes, ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... which are lost, or upon current continental lore going back to a Celtic source. This very difficult problem is as yet unsolved in the case of Chretien, as it is in the case of the Anglo-Norman Beroul, who wrote of Tristan about 1150. The material evidently was at hand and Chretien appropriated it, without much understanding of its primitive spirit, but appreciating it as a setting for the ideal society dreamed of but not realised in his own day. ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... hardly anything was found sticking to the lead when heaved. We had seen no other signs of land beyond gulf-weed floating about in small quantities just as in the Sargasso Sea, and some land-birds flying high overhead. The many-coloured birds which we met near the islands of Tristan de Aconcha, left us two days before, just as they did when we got near Cabo de bone Esperanca, so that they would seem to dislike the land. Instead of them, we saw a black bird with a white tail, having white streaks here and there under its wings; a bird, it seems, of rare occurrence. ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... tried to play the role of Hausvater—of loving husband and comforter. He had some cold edibles brought in from the hotel, made tea, and himself boiled half a dozen eggs. [What a picture! The composer of 'Tristan' boiling eggs!] Afterwards he put on one of his familiar velvet dressing-gowns and a fitting barretta, and proceeded to read aloud the book of ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb

... a correct physiological method, made him equally at home and equally at ease in roles making the most opposite demands upon his powers. He sang equally well in Gounod and Wagner; and in Wagner, whether he was singing the young Siegfried, Siegfried of "Goetterdaemmerung," or Tristan. ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller

... passage of civilization, and thrust their corpses there. For the eye of the thinker, all historic murderers are to be found there, in that hideous penumbra, on their knees, with a scrap of their winding-sheet for an apron, dismally sponging out their work. Louis XI. is there with Tristan, Francois I. with Duprat, Charles IX. is there with his mother, Richelieu is there with Louis XIII., Louvois is there, Letellier is there, Hebert and Maillard are there, scratching the stones, and trying to make the traces of their actions disappear. Beneath these vaults one hears the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... story—the connection of the frailty of Guinevere with the Quest for the Grail—complete developments of the fates of minor heroes, elaborate closings of minor incidents, became futile. Endless stories could be keyed or geared on to different parts of the main legend: there might be a Tristan-saga, a Palomides-saga, a Gawain-saga, episodes of Balin or of Beaumains, incidents of the fate of the damsel of Astolat or the resipiscence of Geraint. But the central interest was too artistically complete to allow any of these to occupy very ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... it will be seen that Dante's masterpiece is largely based on literature of Irish origin; but there are other superlative exhibitions of human genius of which the same is true. One of these is the story of Tristan and Isolde. Tristan is the paragon of all knightly accomplishments, the most versatile figure in the entire literature of chivalry; while Isolde is an Irish princess. By a trick of fate these two drink a love potion ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... chance of escaping (especially without revolvers) seems small, even though two rescuers come up, one of whom has a knack of shooting these creatures[362] and the other of throttling them. It is on these rescuers that the central interest of the story turns. Olivier de Karnak and Tristan le Roux are, though they do not at the time know it, brothers by the same mother, the guiltless Countess of Karnak having been drugged, violated, and made a mother by Gilles de Retz's father. They are also rivals for the love of their cousin Alix, and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... ones, each has its peculiar costume and ensigns. When the two choruses stand opposite to each other, the march ceases, and the two leaders speak.) [The first chorus consists of Cajetan, Berengar, Manfred, Tristan, and eight followers of Don Manuel. The second of Bohemund, Roger, Hippolyte, and nine others of the party ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... accomplishment exceedingly necessary for a 'Medicine Man,' but not at first sight especially needful for the equipment of a knight.[15] This persistent attribution of healing skill is not, so far as my acquaintance with medieval Romance goes, paralleled in the case of any other knight; even Tristan, who is probably the most accomplished of heroes of romance, the most thoroughly trained in all branches of knightly education, is not credited with any such knowledge. No other knight, save Gawain, has the reputation of a Healer, yet Gawain, the ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... that, then tripped elvishly into Moszkowsky's Waltz, and from that she dropped to a song of Tchaikowsky, almost heartbreaking in its childish beauty, and then to the austere music of the second act of "Tristan." Mazurka, polonaise, and nocturne wailed in the stuffy chamber; her little hands lit up the enchanted gloom of ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... rock of Tristan d'Acunha in the Southern Atlantic Ocean, I have never seen an inhabited spot which seemed so utterly desolate, so entirely separated from the world, whose people appeared to me to have such a slender hold on ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... continued his journey under the escort of the Seigneur de Blaumont, Marshal of Burgundy, at the head of thirty horse. Their pace was rapid to elude the pursuit of Tristan l'Hermite. The prince needed no spurs to make him flee. Even if his father did not intend to have him drowned in a sack his immediate liberty was certainly in jeopardy. "In truth this thing was a marvellous business. The Prince of Orange and ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... him the latest instructions, went off on a wild-goose chase to the Highlands of Scotland, where he spent the best part of an unhappy week watching the waves tumbling in Lough Laxford, and looking as anxiously as Tristan for the expected ship. ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... Akemit, again in an ecstasy, '"' he's playing that heavenly stuff from the second act of 'Tristan and Isolde'—the one triumphant, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... soon saw the difficulty of preventing him from addressing me with the familiar form of 'thou,' as the attempt to do so would have necessitated explanations that would have been a useless addition to all my worries just then; for it was the time when my Tristan was being produced. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... standard of singing. Most influential among these contributing causes, in the general opinion, is the dramatic style of singing demanded in Wagner's later operas. Yet several writers point out that the roles of Tristan, Brunnhilde, etc., are vastly more effective when well sung than when merely shouted or declaimed. A change in the public taste is also spoken of. Audiences are said to be indifferent to the older operas, written to suit the style of florid singing. But ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... thrown into the fire," said Doctor Coctier, "let it burn; the children have grown up, and can look after themselves. Executioners also have their uses, as Tristan L'Ermite and his master Louis XI know. Peace be ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... holidays, he chose going afoot, the most laborious and least satisfying available. Brought to bay by his human need for a woman, he directed his fancy toward George Eliot, probably the most unappetizing woman of his race and time. Drawn irresistibly to music, he avoided the Fifth Symphony and "Tristan und Isolde," and joined a crowd of old maids singing part songs around a cottage piano. John Tyndall saw clearly the effect of all this and protested against it, saying, "He'd be a much nicer fellow if he had a good swear now and then"—i. e., if he let go now and then, if he yielded ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken

... to Venice, where he lived in an old casa on the Grand Canal, opposite the Browning palazzo, and near the house where Wagner wrote "Tristan und Isolde." One day his man, Guido, took a day off, and brought to Venice an Italian sweetheart, who had lived a few miles from the old dream-city and had never visited it. The day these two spent gondoliering through the waterways, where romance hides in every ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... This opera of "Tristan and Isolde" last night broke the hearts of all witnesses who were of the faith, and I know of some, and have heard of many, who could not sleep after it, but cried the night away. I feel strongly out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the one sane person in the community of the mad; ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... and I want to play upon the pipe organ. I find my music. The stool is a kettle of water with a board over it. A stream of water comes from the organ. There is a horse near which kicks or bites me. Again:—I play on the piano to a friend who is a German scholar the opening theme of the Tristan and Isolde Prelude. My friend tells me the pronunciation of the title of the opera and it sounds to me like Froebel. That the name of the world-famous music drama, the apotheosis of passion, should be transformed to that of the notable child educator is nonsense or ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... is a boy of twelve—unripe fruit for such a tree, Uncle, and a fearsome danger to the peace of France. Tristan does well to keep the roads safe from such swaggerers. Twelve years of life, twelve years of a pinched stomach, and—the justice of the King to end it all! And what of the woman who gathered nettles for the ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... the work, 'Das Rheingold' and 'Die Walkuere,' had already been given at Munich, in 1869 and 1870 respectively. It will be most convenient in this place to treat 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' as a complete work, although 'Tristan und Isolde' and 'Die Meistersinger' were written and performed before ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... princes, and sometimes for flattery, to vaunt beyond all reason the feats of certain knights, in order to give courage to young men to do the like and become brave; such are the said Romance of Melluzine, those of Little Arthur of Brittany, Lancelot du Lac, Tristan the Adventurous, Ogier the Dane, and others in ancient verse, which I have seen in notable libraries: the which have since been put into prose, in tolerably good language, according to the time at which they were written, in which are things impossible to believe, but at the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... it, as your young friend believed they had made the Isle of Paques, when they passed in sight of Tristan d'Acunha." ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... lord Duke Ivo come to see him die—yet stay! The dungeons be apt to sap a man's strength and spirit, and to a weak man death cometh over soon and easy. Let him lie soft, feed full and sleep sound—let him have air and light, so shall he wax fat and lusty against my lord Duke's coming. See to it, Tristan!" ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... of the fate of their former consort, awaited only the coming of a gale sufficient to drive away the blockading squadron. On the 22d of January it came up to blow; and the three craft, under storm canvas, scudded over the bar, and made for the rendezvous at Tristan d'Acunha. On the way thither they separated, the "Hornet" cruising alone. On the 23d she sighted a strange sail on the horizon, and, clapping on all sail, bore down upon her. At the same time the stranger sighted the "Hornet," and made for her, evidently with hostile ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... which she is only a lady-in-waiting: and she is hardly more humanly fascinating than her brother, the youthful king at the Virgin's right hand, who has nothing of the Prodigal Son, but who certainly has much of Lohengrin, or even—almost—Tristan. ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... Commander Lewis Warrington, and the brig "Tom Bowline," which were waiting their opportunity in the lower bay of New York when the "President" sailed, got to sea five days after her, January 20. When two days out, the "Hornet" separated in chase. The vessels had a rendezvous at the lonely island of Tristan d'Acunha, in the South Atlantic, some fifteen hundred miles west of the Cape of Good Hope. The "Hornet" arrived first, and was about to anchor, at 10.30 in the morning of March 23, when a sail ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... magallanes y otros muchos hoh bres de faycion q qdo el armada muy desaparejada de gente y estuviero en condicion de se entregar ala gente dela trra levantose vn piloto portugues q yva con magallaes y tomo el leme en la mano y partio camjno de maluco alqual llego y hallo vn hombre de don tristan de meneses q dios aya, vujeronle ala mano y supieron todo lo q qujsieron del fizieron sus contratos bien largamete y a voluntad delos dela trra despendieron desus bonetes bermejos y panos q lebavan por los quales les fiziero carga destas dos naos, las quales partiero de maluco cargadas ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... advice and have naught to do with Tristan by word or deed. And no doubt the fellow deserved ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond



Words linked to "Tristan" :   legend, character, fictional character, fictitious character, fable, Middle Ages, Dark Ages



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