Tristan & Isolde


Remind me never to procrastinate. It interferes with my train of thoughts.




"We both know this cannot be, we've known it from the start. That doesn't mean it isn't true, it is. I want to know that you're alive somewhere thinking of me from time to time. I want to know that there's more to this life and I can't know that if they kill you. Please! Go!"


The timeless, medieval romance of the tragic love-triangle: King Mark, his most valiant warrier Tristan, and his wife Isolde, Tristan's love.

Though the movie did not stay faithful to the more intriguing myth, the changes would probably appeal to the mass, shallower audience.

Tristan of Cornwall was under the service of the man who saved his life as a child, King Marke. By a twist of fate, he was thought dead and sent on a boat which landed in Irish waters, and was saved by the Princess Isolde. (Cornwall was warring with Ireland.)

Isolde healed him, but told him not her name nor her status, for fear that he might flee before he was well. They began a passionate but ultimately doomed love affair.

Tristan: What's your name?
Isolde: Oh, I think it's better if we don't bother with names.
Tristan: How can I thank you if I don't have your name?
Isolde: You just did.
Tristan: Tristan of Aragon.
Isolde: Well Tristan of Aragon, I'd guess about you too, but I think I've already seen everything.

Shortly after Tristan returned to Cornwall, the Irish King announced a tournament that would win both his daughter, Isolde's hand and some lands.

Promising King Marke to win him a wife, Tristan gave his all and won Isolde's hand. Imagine his astonishment when she lifted her veil eagerly with an ecstatic "I'm yours" and her dismay when her father told her, "No. Tristan has won you on behalf of Lord Marke."

Isolde: But I'm your's. You touched me and I knew.
Tristan: It doesn't matter.

In Isolde's eyes, I identified her barely held back tears and choking voice with a torment and misery not unlike my own, when this conversation took place.

Tristan made his stand, he would be loyal to his King, and she should too, accept her fate for this marriage will end a hundred years of bloodshed.

His loyalty however, wavered to bitterness whenever he saw King Marke and Isolde behaving intimately together.

Tristan: I live in torture, thinking of these moments. With every look he gives you, I get sicker and sicker. There is a burning in me, I feel on fire, and there's guilt I can't comidify. Does it make you happy to know that?
Isolde: The Roman Bridge, I can get to it without being seen, and I'd go there any time to be with you.

That was the start of many stolen moments of passion together, it gave both of them a purpose in life, but at the same time, they were steamrolled by guilt towards King Marke, who loved both Isolde and Tristan dearly.

One could not, however, feel very much pity for Marke, especially at the love-making scene he shared with Isolde who was blinded with tears of sorrow, at the touch of a man she did not love, and Tristan's, face twisted with woe, lost in lamentations at his own helplessness.

She was bound by her fate. Unlike us. Modern women now have the right to choose.


WATCH THE MOVIE LA! NO MORE SPOILERS FROM ME.


Remember Isolde, who did not have a choice.

Remember Tristan and Isolde, the love who saved a kingdom.


Isolde: Love is as strong as death. Why be capable of feelings if we're not to have them? Why long for things if they're not meant to be ours?
Tristan: There are other things to live for; duty, honor.
Isolde: They are not life Tristan. They are shells of life. Love is made by God. Ignore it and you suffer as you cannot imagine.
Tristan: Then I will no longer live without it.