Tristan (Latin/Brythonic: Drustanus; ), also known as Tristram, Tristyn or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed Tristan's uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink a love potion during the journey and fall in love, beginning an adulterous relationship that eventually leads to Tristan's banishment and death. The character's first recorded appearance is in retellings of British mythology from the 12th century by Thomas of Britain and Gottfried von Strassburg, and later in the Prose Tristan. He is featured in Arthurian legends, including the seminal text Le Morte d'Arthur, as a skilled knight and a friend of Lancelot.
The historical roots of Tristan are unclear; his association with Cornwall may originate from the Tristan Stone, a 6th-century granite pillar in Cornwall inscribed with the name Drustanus (a variant of Tristan). He has been depicted in numerous historical and modern works of literature, music, and cinema. Richard Wagner's influential 19th-century opera Tristan und Isolde portrays Tristan as a doomed romantic figure.
Tristan
In the story of Tristan and Iseult, Tristan is the nephew of King Mark of Cornwall, sent to fetch Iseult back from Ireland to wed the king. However, he and Iseult accidentally consume a love potion while en route and fall helplessly in love. The pair then undergo numerous trials that test their secret affair, before the tragic end.
Tristan made his first recorded appearance in the 12th century in British mythology circulating in the north of France and the Kingdom of Brittany, which had close ancestral and cultural links with Wales, Cornwall and Devon by way of the ancient British kingdom of Dumnonia, as made clear in the story itself, and the closely related Cornish and Breton languages, both of which are P-Celtic like Welsh. Although the oldest stories concerning Tristan are lost, some of the derivatives still exist.
Most early versions fall into one of two branches: the "courtly" branch represented in the retellings in Thomas of Britain's Tristan and his German successor Gottfried von Strassburg, and in the Folie Tristan d'Oxford; and the "common" branch, including the works of medieval French literature.
Arthurian romancer Chrétien de Troyes mentioned in his poem Cligès that he composed his own account of the story; however, there are no surviving copies or records of any such text. In the 13th century, during the great period of prose romances, Tristan en prose or Prose Tristan became one of the most popular romances of its time. This long, sprawling, and often lyrical work (the modern edition takes up thirteen volumes) follows Tristan from the traditional legend into the realm of King Arthur where Tristan participates in the Quest for the Holy Grail. Its great success spawned many Italian (such as the Tavola Ritonda) and other rewrites. Among these was the French Post-Vulgate Cycle that combined it with a shortened version of the Vulgate Cycle, elements of which itself had been earlier used in the Prose Tristan.
Name
The ancient Brittonic name Tristan appears to mean "clanking swords of iron". The more recent Romance languages version, including French, has been paretymologically associated with "sadness" (compare Latin tristis "sad", Old French triste "sad"). In Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan, when his mother, Blanschfleur, learns that her husband has been killed in battle, she dies in childbirth. The orphaned babe is named "Tristan" because of the sorrowful circumstances of his birth.
The quasi-historical, semi-legendary Pictish Chronicle (probably late 10th century) presents several ancient Pictish kings by the name of Drest or Drust. The Picts are believed to have lived in present-day Scotland far to the northwest of Cornwall. The form Drustanus is merely Drust or hypocoristic Drustan rendered into Latin. The name may have originated with an ancient legend regarding a Pictish king who slew a giant in the distant past, which had spread throughout the Isles, it may come from a 6th-century Pictish saint Drostan who bore another form of the name, or it may have migrated northwards from the southwest due to the fame of the legends of Arthur. There was a Tristan who bore witness to a legal document at the Swabian Abbey of Saint Gall in 807.