The Romance of Tristan Betrayal Quotes

Fearing Brangain's betrayal, Yseut betrays her first. She has no reason to believe her trusted servant (who, by the way, obligingly took Yseut's place on her wedding night) will turn on her but decides to have her killed anyway. Yseut doesn't come out looking too great in this episode. The story may be trying to make a point about how the paranoia surrounding adulterous love causes people to do things they might otherwise regret.

Here, Yseut uses the word "betrayal" in the sense of an exposure or revealing, a meaning it will often have in Tristan. Of course, following the values of the story, the greatest of which is love, doing anything to prevent or thwart love does represent a betrayal in the other sense as well.

By saying that Tristan has "served" him in a strange way, Mark uses the language of feudalism, in which a vassal serves his lord, to indicate that Tristan's shaming of him is also a betrayal of his lord. He contrasts Tristan's betrayal with the loyalty of his barons, showing he trusts their loyalty implicitly by asking for their advice and "service."

By calling the statement of his and Yseut's adulterous affair 'treason," Tristan compares it to a vassal's betrayal of his lord. Although they are carrying on an affair, Tristan may feel that those who wish for its exposure do not have Mark's best interests at heart. Or he could just be trying to cover up his guilt.

Tristan's words here are the only time in the story when he acknowledges that he has wronged his uncle. He recognizes that by betraying his uncle, he has forfeited not only the love of his uncle but also of his own vassals, the "squire in attendance" who he would mentor to knighthood if he were not a fugitive.

Tristan's refusal to trust Mark is sort of reasonable: he has after all, offered that reward for Tristan's head. But Tristan might also be implying that Mark should have refused to believe his barons and shown loyalty to Tristan and his wife instead of them, and that after this betrayal, he lost Tristan's trust.

The narrator leaves us in no doubt about where his sympathies lie, calling the three barons who revealed Tristan and Yseut's affair "traitors" and saying that they acted badly toward the king. On the one hand, we know the narrator is biased: Tristan is the hero, after all. But on the other hand, we also know that the barons acted out of jealousy for Tristan, and not because they had Mark's best interests at heart. In this way, they are traitors to their lord.

Mark accuses his barons of being troublemakers and of having "no care for what pleases" him; he basically tells them that they are disloyal barons. Mark finally seems to be on to his barons' game: that they are not loyal to him, but simply enemies to Tristan. "While you are here I shall never have peace" is perhaps the most perceptive line Mark speaks in the whole story.

Calling Yseut's alleged adultery "disloyalty" highlights the unique position of a queen when it comes to medieval feudal law. Because she is married to the king, the queen's adultery is also treason, disloyalty comparable to that with which a vassal might betray his lord.

When Tristan visits Yseut disguised as a fool, he plays the role of a scorned vassal who has been denied a reward for his "service," in this case, his love for his "lord," who is either Yseut, or love. The figure of love as a feudal lord with lover-vassals at her service was a common one in the poetry of this time period. It emphasizes love's power over the lover, and its ability to both reward and punish him, depending on the circumstances. Here, Tristan implicitly accuses love of betraying her vassal by failing to reward him for his loyal service.