Happy Valentine’s day and Library Lover’s Day
The Romance of Tristram of Lyones & la Beale Isoude.
Drawn out of the Latin into romance by Robert de Borron and Luces de Gast ... set forth in the English tongue ... by Evelyn Paul.
Held by the State Library of NSW in the Rare Books Collection. Location number: RB/DS841.19/T838/3
Tristan, or Tristram in Old English, was a contemporary of King Arthur and a Knight of the Round Table. He was the nephew and champion of King Mark of Cornwall and the son of Meliodas, King of Lyoness.
Tristam and Isoude are the characters of a famous medieval love-romance, based on a Celtic legend.
The legend of Tristan and Isoulde, with its emphasis on a love that cannot be denied even when it leads to tragedy, has continued to appeal to artists since medieval times. It inspired three English poets of the 1800s: Matthew Arnold (Tristram and Iseult), Algernon Swinburne (Tristram of Lyonesse), and Alfred, Lord Tennyson (part of the Arthurian poem Idylls of the King). American poet E. A. Robinson based his Tristram on the legend.
One of the most influential works to draw on the story was the opera Tristan und Isolde, by German composer Richard Wagner. There is also a movie called Tristan + Isolde made in 2006 and filmed in Ireland.