" And in the same way Isolde: "From golden day I
sought to flee, in darkest night draw thee with me, where my heart
divined the end of deceit, where illusion's haunting dream should fade,
to drink eternal love to thee, joined everlastingly, to death I doom'd
thee."
The second act leads them further and further into the coils of their
love; they are more and more convinced that death alone is left to them,
step by step they discover the secret of the mystical union--and yet
they are still completely imprisoned within the limits of their
personalities and cannot quite understand the miracle: "How to grasp it,
how to grasp it, this great gladness, far from daylight, far from
sadness, far from parting?" For it is the profoundest secret of the
world which here must be guessed by love--the final unity of two souls
and through it unity with all life. Clearer and clearer and more and
more compelling looms the thought of a common death, until it is grasped
and comprehended; the lovers realise that to be completely one they must
surrender their lives, and that by losing life they can lose nothing
essential.
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