The poem belongs to what is generally called the primitive or common version (as
opposed to the courtly version) of the Tristan legend. That is, it is presumed that this text
derives from an earlier, noncourtly stage of the legend, whereas that of Thomas
d’Angleterre integrates the work thoroughly into the current of courtly love.
Béroul’s extensive fragment begins with the famous encounter of Tristan with Iseut
under the tree in which her husband, Marc, is hiding to trap them; they see his reflection
in the water and speak in such a way as to allay his suspicions. The poem continues with
the episode in which the dwarf spreads flour on Iseut’s floor in order to detect Tristan’s
footprints (should he visit her at night); the scene in which Tristan, having been taken
prisoner, asks permission to enter a chapel and pray, whereupon he leaps to freedom from
a window; Marc’s delivering Iseut to a colony of lepers (for their pleasure and her
punishment) and Tristan’s rescue of her; the lovers’ miserable life in the forest (including
Marc’s discovery of them, as they sleep with a bare sword between them, and his
erroneous conclusion that they are guiltless); their eventual repentance, caused by the
waning of the love potion (which, in this tradition, had been made to be effective for
three years); and the long episode in which Iseut, tested in the presence of Arthur and his
knights, succeeds in exonerating herself by swearing an equivocal oath. At the end,
Tristan ambushes and kills one of the lovers’ enemies and brings his hair to show Iseut;
when he arrives, they discover another of their enemies spying on them, Tristan
immediately kills him, and the text breaks off in mid-sentence.
As in the Tristan tradition in general, Béroul’s narrative presents a cyclical form:
whether physically separated, threatened by Marc or their enemies, or resolved to reform,
the young lovers repeatedly fall back into their sinful ways; Marc becomes suspicious,
initially refuses to believe he is being betrayed, and is finally convinced; after a period of
separation or abstinence on their part, the cycle repeats itself. Most often, the lovers have
in fact no great desire to reform, and when they do they are motivated by less than noble
impulses. Yet despite their sin and despite the fact that they both betray Marc (Iseut is his
wife, while Tristan is both his vassal and his nephew), the sympathies of the author and
of the reader remain with the couple, both because their enemies are presented as
despicable and jealous characters and because Béroul frequently insists that God favors
the lovers and will punish those who oppose them.
The Tristan is a highly ironic and ambiguous text. Appearances are always deceiving:
when the lovers appear most innocent, they are consistently the most guilty. When Marc
thinks them innocent, he is being deceived or else, as in the episode where they sleep
with a naked sword between them, he is misinterpreting the evidence. Tristan is a
trickster who clearly takes pleasure in deception, as, for example, when, disguised as a
leper, he explains to Marc that he was infected by his unnamed lady, who resembled Iseut
and whose husband was a leper.
Despite the potential tragedy of the lovers’ passion, Béroul’s poem is characterized by
humor and, in many passages, by a tone far more reminiscent of the fabliau than of the
courtly romance. His style is lively and engaging, bearing many of the marks (such as
frequent addresses to Seigneurs) of both public presentation and authorial personality.
Despite numerous textual problems, the poem as we have it holds considerable charm and
appeal.
Although Béroul’s composition is incompletely preserved, the Tristrant of Eilhart von
Oberge, written before 1190, presents the common version of the Tristan story in the
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