King Mark Disguised As Himself*

I should like to preface these remarks by saying that such knowledge as I have of psycho-analysis is acquired, not as yours is, from living material, but from lifeless books. This is why when I have laid before you certain facts that have struck me in the Tristan legend, I shall leave it to you, much better qualified than I can be, to draw most of the conclusions. I am, therefore, looking forward to a lively discussion at the end of this little paper.

I should like to recall to you the story of the Tristan legend, not because you are not familiar with it, but because in the telling I shall be able to stress the features which appear important to my theme. It is a very old legend which begins to be codified at about 1100, and the telling of it, in different shapes and forms, goes on to the present day.

Trisan “he of the sad birth,” was born to a mother who on giving him birth chose death for herself. You will discern in all the different legends how this love-death motif, this struggle between Eros and Thanatos, goes on in the minds of the dramatis personae and in that of the artist who shapes the tragedy. Tristan's mother was forbidden by her hard brother, King Mark of Cornwall, to become her lover's wife, for that would have meant marrying a man below her status. Only when her lover distinguished himself in battle did King Mark relent. By then it was too late, her lover dead and she dying. So she called her son Tristan, the sad one. Surely a bad omen; it is no wonder that he lived up to his name.

Tristan was brought up by a faithful retainer whom he called father. Whether some half-known feeling told him that the man unfamiliar with courtly manners was not his