Isold's suicide attempt

La Beale Isoud’s attempted suicide follows a false report of Sir Tristram’s death and reveals the depth of her attachment to him: she calls him her first and last love and cannot imagine living after him. King Mark intervenes before she can harm herself, then confines her under guard; meanwhile, the supposedly dead Tristram survives in the forest, making the report’s consequences tragic and deeply ironic.

The False Report

Sir Andred, Tristram’s cousin, uses a woman who is his paramour to spread a story that she had been with Tristram before his death. She tells King Mark’s court that Tristram was buried by a well and had asked the king to make Andred ruler of Liones, the country over which Tristram had been lord. The report is fabricated to enable Andred to take Tristram’s lands.

King Mark believes the news and weeps. When it reaches Queen Isoud, her grief is so extreme that she is nearly out of her mind. The report thus does more than announce a death: it acts on the living, moving the king to mourn and bringing Isoud to the brink of self-destruction, while its political purpose remains hidden from the court.

Isoud’s Attempt and Mark’s Intervention

Isoud secretly takes a sword into her garden and sets it firmly into a plum tree, at breast height. As she prepares to run upon it, King Mark sees her kneel and pray to Jesus for mercy. She says that she cannot live after Tristram’s death, naming him as her first and last love.

Mark reaches her in time, takes her in his arms, removes the sword, and carries her away. He has her kept in a strong tower under close watch. Her attempt is therefore stopped, but the intervention does not restore her health: she remains sick for a long time and comes near death.

The Irony of Tristram’s Survival

While Isoud mourns him as dead, Tristram is alive. He has been wandering naked in the forest with a sword in his hand; after reaching a hermitage, he lies down to sleep. The hermit takes away the sword and leaves food beside him, and Tristram remains there for ten days before departing and returning to the herdsmen.

His survival makes Isoud’s near-fatal response the consequence of false information rather than an actual loss. The contrast also links the separated lovers through parallel suffering: she is confined in a tower after the report, while he moves through the forest in a vulnerable, disordered state. The episode ends without their reunion; it leaves Isoud ill and watched, and Tristram again among the herdsmen, while the lie that caused her despair has already enabled Andred’s attempt to claim his lands.