BRANGAENA (throwing herself upon ISOLDA with impetuous tenderness).  Isolda! lady! loved one! fairest! sweet perfection! mistress rarest!  Hear me! come now, sit thee here.—­

(Gradually draws ISOLDA to the couch.)

What a whim!
what causeless railing! 
How came you so wrong-minded
and by mere fancy blinded? 
Sir Tristan gives thee
Cornwall’s kingdom;
then, were he erst thy debtor,
how could he reward thee better? 
His noble uncle
serves he so: 
think too what a gift
on thee he’d bestow! 
With honor unequalled
all he’s heir to
at thy feet he seeks to shower,
to make thee a queenly dower.

(ISOLDA turns away.)

If wife he’d make thee unto King Mark why wert thou in this wise complaining?  Is he not worth thy gaining?  Of royal race and mild of mood, who passes King Mark in might and power?  If a noble knight like Tristan serves him, who would not but feel elated, so fairly to be mated.

ISOLDA (gazing vacantly before her). 
Glorious knight! 
And I must near him
loveless ever languish! 
How can I support such anguish?

BRANGAENA. 
What’s this, my lady?
loveless thou?

(Approaching coaxingly and kissing ISOLDA.)

Where lives there a man
would not love thee? 
Who could see Isolda
And not sink
at once into bondage blest? 
And if e’en it could be
any were cold,
did any magic
draw him from thee,
I’d bring the false one
back to bondage,
And bind him in links of love.—­

(Secretly and confidentially, close to ISOLDA.)

Mindest thou not thy mother’s arts?  Think you that she who’d mastered those would have sent me o’er the sea, without assistance for thee?

ISOLDA (darkly). 
My mother’s rede
I mind aright,
and highly her magic
arts I hold:—­
Vengeance they wreak for wrongs,
rest give to wounded spirits.—­
Yon casket hither bear.

BRANGAENA. 
It holds a balm for thee.—­

(She brings forward a small golden coffer, opens it, and points to its contents.)

Thy mother placed inside it her subtle magic potions.  There’s salve for sickness or for wounds, and antidotes for deadly drugs.—­

(She takes a bottle.)

The helpfullest draught
I hold in here.

ISOLDA. 
Not so, I know a better. 
I make a mark
to know it again—­
This draught ’tis I would drain.

(Seizes flask and shows it.)

BRANGAENA (recoiling in horror). 
The draught of death!

(ISOLDA has risen from the sofa and now hears with increasing dread the cries of the sailors.)

VOICES OF THE CREW (without). 
“Ho! heave ho! hey! 
Reduce the sail! 
The mainsail in! 
Ho! heave ho! hey!”