Here is the translation of the Roman de Tristan et Iseult of 1900 by Joseph Bedier. Here is the ninth part: The Forest of Morois.
The Morois Forest
Deep in the wild forest, at great ahan, like hunted animals, they wander, and rarely dare to return in the evening to the lodge of the day before. They only eat the flesh of wild animals and miss the taste of salt and bread. Their emaciated faces turn pale, their clothes fall in rags, torn by brambles. They love each other, they don't suffer.
Un jour, comme ils parcouraient ces grands bois qui n’avaient jamais été abattus, ils arrivèrent par aventure à l’ermitage de Frère Ogrin.
In the sun, under a light maple wood, near his chapel, the old man, leaning on his crutch, was walking slowly.
"Sir Tristan," he cried, "know what a great oath the men of Cornwall. The king has caused a ban to be shouted by all the parishes: Whoever seizes you will receive one hundred marcs of gold for his wages, and all the barons have sworn to deliver you up dead or alive. Repent, Tristan! God forgives the sinner who comes to repentance.
- Repent, Sire Ogrin? What crime? You who judge us, do you know what drink we drank on the sea? Yes, the good liquor intoxicates us, and I would rather beg all my life by the roads and live on herbs and roots with Iseut than, without it, to be king of a beautiful kingdom.
— Sire Tristan, Dieu vous soit en aide, car vous avez perdu ce monde-ci et l’autre. Le traître à son seigneur, on doit le faire écarteler par deux chevaux, le brûler sur un bûcher, et là où sa cendre tombe, il ne croît plus d’herbe et le labour reste inutile ; les arbres, la verdure y dépérissent. Tristan, rendez la reine à celui qu’elle a épousé selon la loi de Rome !
- She is no longer his: he gave her to his lepers; it was on the lepers that I conquered it. Now she is mine; I cannot separate myself from her, nor she from me. "
Ogrin had sat down; at her feet, Iseult was weeping, her head on the knees of a man who suffers for God. The hermit repeated to him the holy words of the Book : but, all weeping, she shook her head and refused to believe it.
“Alas! said Ogrin, what comfort can we give to the dead? Repent, Tristan, for he who lives in sin without repentance is dead.
- No, I live and do not repent. We return to the forest, which protects and guards us. Come, Iseut, friend! "
Iseut rose to his feet; they took each other's hands. They entered the tall grass and the heather; the trees closed their branches over them; they disappeared behind the foliage.
Listen, lords, a great adventure. Tristan had fed a dog, a brachet, beautiful, lively, light on the run: neither count nor king has his equal when it comes to bow hunting. He was called Husdent. He had had to be locked up in the keep, hampered by a block hanging from his neck; since the day he had ceased to see his master, he refused all food, scratched the earth with his foot, wept with his eyes, howled. Many felt sorry for him.
“Husdent,” they said, “no animal has known how to love so well as you; yes, Solomon said wisely: "My true friend is my greyhound."
Et le roi Marc, se rappelant les jours passés, songeait en son cœur : « Ce chien montre grand sens à pleurer ainsi son seigneur : car y a-t-il personne par toute la Cornouailles qui vaille Tristan ? »
Three barons came to the king:
“Sire, release Husdent; we will know if he mourns such a thing out of regret for his master; if not, you will see him, barely detached, his mouth open, his tongue blowing in the wind, chasing, to bite them, people and animals. "
We untie him. He leaps out the door and runs to the room where he used to find Tristan. He growls, moans, seeks, finally discovers the trace of his lord. He walks step by step the road that Tristan had taken to the stake. Everyone follows him. He barks loudly and climbs towards the cliff. Here he is in the chapel, and leaping upon the altar; Suddenly he throws himself through the glass roof, falls at the foot of the rock, takes again the trail on the shore, stops for a moment in the flowery wood where Tristan had been lying in wait, then sets out again towards the forest. No one sees him without pitying him.
« Beau roi, dirent alors les chevaliers, cessons de le suivre ; il nous pourrait mener en tel lieu d’où le retour serait malaisé. »
They left him and came back. In the woods, the dog gave his voice and the forest echoed. From afar, Tristan, the queen and Gorvenal heard him: “It's Husdent! They are frightened: doubtless the king is pursuing them; thus he makes them revive like wild beasts by bloodhounds!… They sink under a thicket. At the edge, Tristan stands, his bow drawn. But when Husdent saw and recognized his lord, he leaped up to him, wagged his head and tail, bowed his spine, rolled in a circle. Who ever saw such joy? Then he ran to Iseut la Blonde, to Gorvenal, and also celebrated the horse. Tristan took great pity on him:
« Hélas ! par quel malheur nous a-t-il retrouvés ! Que peut faire de ce chien, qui ne sait se tenir coi, un homme harcelé ? Par les plaines et par les bois, par toute sa terre, le roi nous traque : Husdent nous trahira par ses aboiements. Ah ! c’est par amour et par noblesse de nature qu’il est venu chercher la mort. Il faut nous garder, pourtant. Que faire ? Conseillez-moi. »
Iseut flattered Husdent with his hand and said:
“Sire, spare him! I heard of a forester Welsh who had accustomed his dog to following, without barking, the blood trail of injured stags. Friend Tristan, what joy if we succeeded, by putting our effort into it, in training Husdent in this way! »
He thought about it for a moment, as the dog licked Iseut's hands. Tristan took pity and said:
" I want to try ; it is too hard for me to kill him. "
Bientôt Tristan se met en chasse, déloge un daim, le blesse d’une flèche. Le brachet veut s’élancer sur la voie du daim, et crie si haut que le bois en résonne. Tristan le fait taire en le frappant ; Husdent lève la tête vers son maître, s’étonne, n’ose plus crier, abandonne la trace ; Tristan le met sous lui, puis bat sa botte de sa baguette de châtaignier, comme font les veneurs pour exciter les chiens ; à ce signal, Husdent veut crier encore, et Tristan le corrige. En l’enseignant ainsi, au bout d’un mois à peine, il l’eut dressé à chasser à la muette : quand sa flèche avait blessé un chevreuil ou un daim, Husdent, sans jamais donner de la voix, suivait la trace sur la neige, la glace ou l’herbe ; s’il atteignait la bête sous bois, il savait marquer la place en y portant des branchages ; s’il la prenait sur la lande, il amassait des herbes sur le corps abattu et revenait, sans un aboi, chercher son maître.
Summer is going, winter has come. The lovers lived hidden in the hollow of a rock: and on the ground hardened by the cold, the icicles bristled their bed of dead leaves. By the power of their love, neither of them felt their misery.
Mais quand revint le temps clair, ils dressèrent sous les grands arbres leur hutte de branches reverdies. Tristan savait d’enfance l’art de contrefaire le chant des oiseaux des bois ; à son gré, il imitait le loriot, la mésange, le rossignol et toute la gent ailée ; et parfois, sur les branches de la hutte, venus à son appel, des oiseaux nombreux, le cou gonflé, chantaient leurs lais dans la lumière.
The lovers no longer fled through the forest, ceaselessly wandering; for none of the barons dared to pursue them, knowing that Tristan had hanged them from the branches of the trees. One day, however, one of the four traitors, Guenelon, may God curse! carried away by the ardor of the hunt, dared to venture around the Morois. That morning, on the edge of the forest, in the hollow of a ravine, Gorvenal, having removed the saddle from his steed, let him graze the new grass; over there, in the lodge of foliage, on the flower-strewn strewn, Tristan held the queen tightly embraced, and they both slept.
Tout à coup, Gorvenal entendit le bruit d’une meute : à grande allure les chiens lançaient un cerf, qui se jeta au ravin. Au loin, sur la lande, apparut un veneur ; Gorvenal le reconnut : c’était Guenelon, l’homme que son seigneur haïssait entre tous. Seul, sans écuyer, les éperons aux flancs saignants de son destrier et lui cinglant l’encolure, il accourait. Embusqué derrière un arbre, Gorvenal le guette : il vient vite, il sera plus lent à s’en retourner.
He passes. Gorvenal leaps from the ambush, seizes the brake, and, seeing again at that moment all the evil that the man had done, cuts him down, dismounts everything, and goes away, carrying his severed head.
Over there, in the leafy lodge, on the flowered strewn, Tristan and the queen slept tightly embraced. Gorvenal came silently there, dead man's head in his hand.
When the hunters found the headless trunk under the tree, distraught, as if Tristan was already chasing them, they fled, fearing death. Since then, no one came to hunt in this wood much.
Pour réjouir au réveil le cœur de son seigneur, Gorvenal attacha, par les cheveux, la tête à la fourche de la hutte : la ramée épaisse l’enguirlandait.
Tristan awoke and saw, half hidden behind the leaves, the head looking at him. He recognizes Guenelon; he stands up on his feet, frightened. But his master shouts at him:
"Don't worry, he's dead. I killed him with that sword. Son, he was your enemy! "
And Tristan rejoices; the one he hated, Guenelon, is slain.
Henceforth, no one dared to enter the wild forest: fear guards the entrance and the lovers are masters there. It was then that Tristan fashioned the Qui-ne-Faut bow, which always reached the goal, man or beast, at the intended location.
Seigneurs, c’était un jour d’été, au temps où l’on moissonne, un peu après la Pentecôte, et les oiseaux à la rosée chantaient l’aube prochaine. Tristan sortit de la hutte, ceignit son épée, apprêta l’arc Qui-ne-faut et, seul, s’en fut chasser par le bois. Avant que descende le soir, une grande peine lui adviendra. Non, jamais amants ne s’aimèrent tant et ne l’expièrent si durement.
When Tristan returned from hunting, overwhelmed by the heavy heat, he took the queen in his arms.
"Friend, where have you been?
- After a deer that got bored of me. See, sweat is flowing from my limbs, I would like to lie down and sleep. "
Sous la loge de verts rameaux, jonchée d’herbes fraîches, Iseut s’étendit la première. Tristan se coucha près d’elle et déposa son épée nue entre leurs corps. Pour leur bonheur, ils avaient gardé leurs vêtements. La reine avait au doigt l’anneau d’or aux belles émeraudes que Marc lui avait donné au jour des épousailles ; ses doigts étaient devenus si grêles que la bague y tenait à peine. Ils dormaient ainsi, l’un des bras de Tristan passé sous le cou de son amie, l’autre jeté sur son beau corps, étroitement embrassés ; mais leurs lèvres ne se touchaient point. Pas un souffle de brise, pas une feuille qui tremble. À travers le toit de feuillage, un rayon de soleil descendait sur le visage d’Iseut qui brillait comme un glaçon.
Now a forester found a place in the wood where the grass was trodden; the day before, the lovers had laid down there; but he did not recognize the imprint of their bodies, followed the trail and reached their lodge. He saw them sleeping, recognized them and fled, fearing the terrible awakening of Tristan. He fled as far as Tintagel, two leagues away, ascended the steps of the hall, and found the king holding his plaids in the midst of his assembled vassals.
"Friend, what are you looking for here, out of breath as I see you?" He looks like a sleuth of bloodhounds who has been chasing dogs for a long time. Do you also want to ask us the reason for some wrong? Who chased you out of my forest? "
The forester took him aside and whispered to him:
“I saw the queen and Tristan. They were sleeping, I got scared.
- Where?
- In a Morois hut. They sleep in each other's arms. Come early, if you want to take your revenge.
- Go and wait for me at the entrance to the woods, at the foot of the Red Cross. Tell no man what you have seen; I will give you gold and silver, as long as you want to take. "
The forester goes there and sits under the Red Cross. Cursed be the spy! But he will die shamefully, as this story will tell you later.
The king saddled his horse, girded his sword, and, without any company, escaped from the city. While riding, alone, he remembered the night he had seized his nephew: what tenderness had then shown for Tristan Iseut the Beauty, with the clear face! If he surprises them, he will punish these great sins; he will take revenge on those who hated him ...
At the Red Cross he found the forester:
“Go ahead; lead me fast and straight. "
The black shadow of the tall trees envelops them. The king follows the spy. He relies on his sword, which once struck fine blows. Ah! if Tristan wakes up, one of the two, God knows which! will remain dead in the square. Finally the forester said quietly:
“King, we are approaching. "
He held her stirrup and tied the horse's reins to the branches of a green apple tree. They approached again, and suddenly, in a sunny clearing, saw the flowered hut.
The king unlaces his cloak with its fine gold ties, rejects it, and his beautiful body appears. He pulls his sword out of the sheath, and tells his heart again that he wants to die if he doesn't kill them. The forester followed him; he signals her to return.
He enters, alone, under the hut, sword drawn, and brandishes it ... Ah! what mourning if he strikes this blow! But he noticed that their mouths did not touch and that a drawn sword separated their bodies:
« Dieu ! se dit-il, que vois-je ici ? Faut-il les tuer ? Depuis si longtemps qu’ils vivent en ce bois, s’ils s’aimaient de fol amour, auraient-ils placé cette épée entre eux ? Et chacun ne sait-il pas qu’une lame nue, qui sépare deux corps, est garante et gardienne de chasteté ? S’ils s’aimaient de fol amour, reposeraient-ils si purement ? Non, je ne les tuerai pas ; ce serait grand péché de les frapper ; et si j’éveillais ce dormeur et que l’un de nous deux fût tué, on en parlerait longtemps, et pour notre honte. Mais je ferai qu’à leur réveil ils sachent que je les ai trouvés endormis, que je n’ai pas voulu leur mort, et que Dieu les a pris en pitié. »
Le soleil, traversant la hutte, brûlait la face blanche d’Iseut. Le roi prit ses gants parés d’hermine : « C’est elle, songeait-il, qui, naguère, me les apporta d’Irlande !… » Il les plaça dans la feuillée pour fermer le trou par où le rayon descendait ; puis il retira doucement la bague aux pierres d’émeraude qu’il avait donnée à la reine ; naguère il avait fallu forcer un peu pour la lui passer au doigt ; maintenant ses doigts étaient si grêles que la bague vint sans effort : à la place, le roi mit l’anneau dont Iseut, jadis, lui avait fait présent. Puis il enleva l’épée qui séparait les amants, celle-là même — il la reconnut — qui s’était ébréchée dans le crâne du Morholt, posa la sienne à la place, sortit de la loge, sauta en selle, et dit au forestier :
"Run away now, and save your body, if you can!" "
Now Iseut had a vision in her sleep: she was in a rich tent, in the middle of a large wood. Two lions rushed at her and fought for her… She uttered a cry and woke up: the gloves adorned with white ermine fell on her breast. At the cry, Tristan rose to his feet, wanted to pick up his sword and recognized, in his golden guard, that of the king. And the queen saw Mark's ring on her finger. She exclaimed:
“Sire, woe to us! The king surprised us!
— Oui, dit Tristan, il a emporté mon épée ; il était seul, il a pris peur, il est allé chercher du renfort ; il reviendra, nous fera brûler devant tout le peuple. Fuyons !… »
And, in broad daylight, accompanied by Gorvenal, they fled to the land of Wales, to the confines of the Morois forest. What tortures of love will have caused them!
