of fury; and now the drama is indeed on foot.  Brangaena has a long, lovely, soothing passage to sing, and in her over-anxiety to serve her mistress she accidentally suggests to Isolda the very means of revenging herself on Tristan, and terminating at the same time her own misery.  “You remember your mother’s art,” says Brangaena:  “do you think she would have sent me over-seas with you without a means of helping you?” Isolda knows it is the love-potion she means.  She has only to drink the contents of a small flask, and old King Mark will become at least tolerable to her.  The flask is in a casket, and another is there, as Isolda knows, full of a deadly poison.  She commands Brangaena to pour out the poison.  Brangaena, terrified, beseeches, implores; but Isolda insists; and in the midst of the dispute the sailors suddenly roar out their “Yo-heave-ho!” The sea had ceased, as it will in moments of preoccupation or intense emotion, to haunt our ears for a time; now it breaks in again, and we feel as if it had really never ceased.  Kurvenal enters, and tells them to get ready to land.  Isolda tells him point-blank that she will not stir until Tristan has come to demand her pardon for a sin he has committed.  Brusquely, Kurvenal says he will convey the message; Brangaena again prays to her mistress to spare her.  “Wilt thou be true?” replies Isolda; and the voice of Kurvenal is heard:  “Sir Tristan!”

[Illustration:  Some bars of music]

A minute of frightful suspense occurs while Isolda is waiting for Tristan; and, as the situation is to be one of the most poignant in the drama, it is only fitting that Wagner should prelude it with one of his most tremendous passages.  Isolda tells Tristan what is his crime, and how she had meant to slay him.  He offers her his sword to carry out her old purpose, and she laughs at him.  “A pretty thing,” she says, “it would be for me to go to King Mark as his bride with his nephew’s blood on my hands.  We must drink together to our friendship, that all may be forgotten.”  Brangaena has been tremblingly preparing the potion, and, not knowing what to do—­not daring to give the poison, not daring to disobey her mistress—­she has poured out the elixir of love.  Isolda hands it to Tristan, who fully understands Isolda’s meaning and half of her intention—­if, indeed, there is another half, for Wagner has given Isolda a true touch of womanly character in leaving it uncertain whether or not she really means to poison herself.  He takes the cup and drinks; she, with a cry of “Betrayed, even here!” snatches it from him and drinks also.