CHAPTER XXIV

How Sir Tristram demanded La Beale Isoud for King Mark,
and how Sir Tristram and Isoud drank the love drink.

THEN upon a day King Anguish asked Sir Tristram why he asked not
his boon, for whatsomever he had promised him he should have it
without fail.  Sir, said Sir Tristram, now is it time; this is
all that I will desire, that ye will give me La Beale Isoud, your
daughter, not for myself, but for mine uncle, King Mark, that
shall have her to wife, for so have I promised him.  Alas, said
the king, I had liefer than all the land that I have ye would wed
her yourself.  Sir, an I did then I were shamed for ever in this
world, and false of my promise.  Therefore, said Sir I Tristram,
I pray you hold your promise that ye promised me; for this is my
desire, that ye will give me La Beale Isoud to go with me into
Cornwall for to be wedded to King Mark, mine uncle.  As for that,
said King Anguish, ye shall have her with you to do with her what
it please you; that is for to say if that ye list to wed her
yourself, that is me liefest, and if ye will give her unto King
Mark, your uncle, that is in your choice.  So, to make short
conclusion, La Beale Isoud was made ready to go with Sir
Tristram, and Dame Bragwaine went with her for her chief
gentlewoman, with many other.

Then the queen, Isoud's mother, gave to her and Dame Bragwaine,
her daughter's gentlewoman, and unto Gouvernail, a drink, and
charged them that what day King Mark should wed, that same day
they should give him that drink, so that King Mark should drink
to La Beale Isoud, and then, said the queen, I undertake either
shall love other the days of their life.  So this drink was given
unto Dame Bragwaine, and unto Gouvernail.  And then anon Sir
Tristram took the sea, and La Beale Isoud; and when they were in
their cabin, it happed so that they were thirsty, and they saw a
little flasket of gold stand by <319>them, and it seemed by the
colour and the taste that it was noble wine.  Then Sir Tristram
took the flasket in his hand, and said, Madam Isoud, here is the
best drink that ever ye drank, that Dame Bragwaine, your maiden,
and Gouvernail, my servant, have kept for themselves.  Then they
laughed and made good cheer, and either drank to other freely,
and they thought never drink that ever they drank to other was so
sweet nor so good.  But by that their drink was in their bodies,
they loved either other so well that never their love departed
for weal neither for woe.  And thus it happed the love first
betwixt Sir Tristram and La Beale Isoud, the which love never
departed the days of their life.

So then they sailed till by fortune they came nigh a castle that
hight Pluere, and thereby arrived for to repose them, weening to
them to have had good harbourage.  But anon as Sir Tristram was
within the castle they were taken prisoners; for the custom of
the castle was such; who that rode by that castle and brought any
lady, he must needs fight with the lord, that hight Breunor.  And
if it were so that Breunor won the field, then should the knight
stranger and his lady be put to death, what that ever they were;
and if it were so that the strange knight won the field of Sir
Breunor, then should he die and his lady both.  This custom was
used many winters, for it was called the Castle Pluere, that is
to say the Weeping Castle.