Iseult (/ɪˈsuːlt,ɪˈzuːlt/iss-OOLT, iz-), alternativelyIsolde (/ɪˈzoʊld(ə),ɪˈsoʊld(ə)/iz-OHLD(-ə), iss-) and other spellings, is the name of several characters in the legend ofTristan and Iseult. The most prominent isIseult the Blonde, or Iseult ofIreland, the wife ofMark of Cornwall and the lover ofTristan. Her mother, the queen of Ireland, is also named Iseult. The third isIseult of the White Hands, or Iseult ofBrittany, the daughter ofHoel and the sister ofKahedin.
Her name is variably given as most commonly either Iseult or Isolde, but also may appear asYseult,Ysolt,Isolt,Isode,Isoude,Iseut,Isaut (Old French),Iosóid (Irish),Esyllt (Welsh),Ysella (Cornish),Isolda (Portuguese, Spanish), andIsotta (Italian), among other forms. The oldest source,Béroul's 12th-century romance, spells her name asYseut orIseut. The etymology is uncertain, with most sources linking it to theOld High German wordsīs ("ice") andhiltja ("battle").[1][2] Other writers derive it from aBrythonic *Adsiltia, "she who is gazed upon."[3][4]
An Irish princess Iseult, in a later tradition known as Iseult the Blonde, is the daughter of KingAnguish of Ireland and Queen Iseult the Elder. She is a main character in theTristan poems ofBéroul,Thomas of Britain, andGottfried von Strassburg and in the operaTristan und Isolde byRichard Wagner.
Iseult is first seen as a young princess who healsTristan from wounds he received fighting her uncle,Morholt. When his identity is revealed, Tristan flees back to his own land. Later, Tristan returns to Ireland to gain Iseult's hand in marriage for his uncle,King Mark ofCornwall. She is betrothed to an evil steward who claims to have killed a dragon and displays its head, but when Tristan proves he killed the dragon by showing that he already took its tongue, Iseult's parents agree to let him take her to Mark. On the journey back to Cornwall, Iseult and Tristan accidentally drink alove potion prepared for her and Mark by Iseult and guarded byBrangaine, Iseult'slady-in-waiting. The two fall hopelessly in love, and begin an affair that ends when Mark banishes Tristan from Cornwall.
In the verse tradition, the lovers do not meet again until Tristan is on his death bed (see below), but in the laterProseTristan and works based upon it, Tristan returns fromBrittany and they resume their affair. Mark is much less sympathetic in these versions, and the lovers eventually flee from his wrath.Lancelot gives them refuge in his estateJoyous Garde, and they engage in many further adventures.
In the prose versions, the lovers' end comes when Mark finds them as Tristan plays the harp for Iseult beneath a tree. The cruel king stabs his nephew in the back, and Tristan, at Iseult's request, fatally crushes his beloved in a tight embrace as his final act. One of her rumored burial sites isChapelizod in Dublin, Ireland.
After King Mark learns of the secret love affair between Tristan and Iseult, he banishes Tristan to Brittany, never to return to Cornwall. There, Tristan is placed in the care ofHoel of Brittany after receiving a wound. He meets and marries Hoel's daughter, IseultBlanchmains (Iseult of the White Hands), because she shares the name of his former lover. They never consummate the marriage because of Tristan's love for Iseult of Ireland.
During one adventure in Brittany, Tristan suffers a poisoned wound that only Iseult of Ireland, the world's most skilled physician, can cure. He sends a ship for her, asking that its crew fly white sails on the return if Iseult is aboard, and black if she is not. Iseult agrees to go, and the ship races home, white sails high. However, Tristan is too weak to look out his window to see the signal, so he asks his wife to check for him. In a moment of jealousy, Iseult of the White Hands tells him the sails are black, and Tristan expires immediately of despair. When the Irish Iseult arrives to find her lover dead, grief overcomes her, and she passes away at his side.
This death sequence does not appear in the ProseTristan. In fact, while Iseult of the White Hands figures into some of the new episodes, she is never mentioned again after Tristan returns to Cornwall, although her brotherKahedin remains a prominent character. The plot element of the fatal misunderstanding of the white and black sails is similar to—and might have been derived from—the story of Aegeus and Theseus in Greek mythology.
