"All death can destroy is that which divides us." Ultimately
Tristan pronounces the final decision, and Isolde repeats it word by
word, follows it step by step like a sleep-walker, so as to make it
quite her own. "Thus should we die no more to part, in endless joy, one
soul, one heart, never waking, never haunted by pale fear, in love
undaunted, each to each united aye, dream of love's eternity." The
grand, artistic symbol for this state of consciousness touches
metaphysic. Wagner introduces night as the visible emblem of an
existence in a world--inconceivable by our senses--beyond the grave, in
contrast to the earthly day, to "the day's deceptive glamour."
(Nietzsche later on adopted this symbol "midnight" as the emblem of
everything lofty.) The lovers who in their day-consciousness believed
that they hated each other, now that they are walking towards eternal
night divine that which is beyond the reach of their separated selves,
beyond all illusion and duality. The duality is outwardly expressed by
their different names, separated and united "by the little word _and_.
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