Iseult Quotes

He wiped his face on his shoulder, then offered Iseult his hand.

She clasped it tight, her fingers lacing between his. Together they ran. ~ Susan Dennard

It was then - at that moment - that it hit Aeduan square in the chest. Iseult was here. Not hunting after the Truthwitch but here, standing tall in a land of smoking embers. Before he could speak, before he could ask her how she knew of the Red Sails, an inhuman shriek filled the air. Louder than the receding rain, louder than the cannons' roar.

It was the mountain bat, returned and plunging right for them.

Aeduan barely yanked Iseult sideways before its talons crashed into the stones. ~ Susan Dennard

She might come in to bride-bed: and he laughed,
As one that wist not well of wise love's craft,
And bade all bridal things be as she would.
Yet of his gentleness he gat not good;
For clothed and covered with the nuptial dark
Soft like a bride came Brangwain to King Mark,
And to the queen came Tristram; and the night
Fled, and ere danger of detective light
From the king sleeping Brangwain slid away,
And where had lain her handmaid Iseult lay.
And the king waking saw beside his head
That face yet passion-coloured, amorous red
From lips not his, and all that strange hair shed
Across the tissued pillows, fold on fold,
Innumerable, incomparable, all gold,
To fire men's eyes with wonder, and with love
Men's hearts; so shone its flowering crown above
The brows enwound with that imperial wreath,
And framed with fragrant radiance round the face beneath.
And the king marvelled, seeing with sudden start
Her very glory, and said out of his heart;
"What have I done of good for God to bless
That all this he should give me, tress on tress,
All this great wealth and wondrous? Was it this
That in mine arms I had all night to kiss,
And mix with me this beauty? this that seems
More fair than heaven doth in some tired saint's dreams,
Being part of that same heaven? yea, more, for he,
Though loved of God so, yet but seems to see,
But to me sinful such g ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

The very purpose of a knight is to fight on behalf of a lady. ~ Thomas Malory

Where's your hair?" she shouted. "And what happened to your arm?"
"Cut my hair and got shot with an arrow!"
"Gods below, Iseult! A few hours away and your whole life tumbles through the hell-gates!"
"I might say the same to you," Iseult shouted back - though it was getting hard to scream and ride. "Four opponents on your tail and a ruined dress! ~ Susan Dennard

Someone owed Aeduan a life-debt. It was …
A first.
A first that he didn't know how to swallow. The Threadwitch Iseult was alive because he had made it so. She could breathe her current breaths and could taste the river's water because he had saved her life.
Though she had also, in a way, saved his. First, she had not killed him while he lay unconscious in the bear trap. And second, she had been the one to hook them to that stone before the Falls.
But Aeduan decided not to mention any of this, for if the Threadwitch believed she owed him three lives, then that gave him an advantage. That, he could use. He didn't know how, he didn't know when, only that he absolutely would. ~ Susan Dennard

Mhe varujta. Trust me as if my soul were yours. ~ Susan Dennard

In this sense, we can render the false meaning of catharsis which occurs in pornography with a different meaning than the catharsis we associate with Aristotle's definition of tragedy. For in the tragedy, we weep, grieve and feel pity. We are brought to feeling, we experience both meaning and sensation at the same time, tremble in our bodies and our souls. Thus we weep over the death of Iphigenia, of Tristan and Iseult, of Madame Bovary. In experiencing these feelings, we have tapped a part of ourselves which had perhaps been quiet for some time. Which indeed, in this stillness, we were not certain was even there. Or had even forgotten. And thus, when we weep at this tragic playing out before our eyes of a drama which touches our hearts, a part of ourselves we had left in shadow comes back to us and is named and is lived. But pornographic catharsis moves from altogether different needs. For, we know, one does not weep over the death of Justine. One does not feel at all. Rather, one experiences only sensation and mastery. If there is a vulnerable part of oneself that would weep, this vulnerability is projected onto the body of a woman who is punished, and is destroyed there. And so we cease, in this projection, to recognize this vulnerability as a part of ourselves. Rather than reclaim a feeling, or own a part of ourselves once more, we disown ourselves. What pornography calls "catharsis" leads to denial and not to knowledge. ~ Susan Griffin

He was younger than Iseult had imagined. No older than twenty, if she had to guess. Yet he felt old, with his voice so gruff. His language so formal.
It was in the way he carried himself too, as if he'd walked for a thousand years and planned to walk a thousand more. ~ Susan Dennard

I'll be fine, Safi. You forget that I taught you the art of evisceration.'
Safi scoffed, but her Threads flared with with amused pink. 'Is that so, dear Threadsister? Have you already forgotten that it was me they called The Great Eviscerator back in Veñaza City?' Safi flung a dramatic hand high as she twirled toward Ryber.
Now Iseult didn't have to fake a grin. 'Is that what you thought they said?' she called. 'It was actually The Great Vociferator, Safi, because that mouth of yours is so big. ~ Susan Dennard

Civic virtue is not best justified in terms of fair play in a cooperative enterprise for mutual advantage, because citizenship is not a strictly reciprocal relationship in which people receive benefits in proportion to their contributions, but a joint relationship that realises the common good of freedom and self-government. ~ Iseult Honohan

When King Mark heard of the death of these two lovers, he crossed the sea and came into Brittany; and he had two coffins hewn, for Tristan and Iseult, one of chalcedony for Iseult, and one of beryl for Tristan. And he took their beloved bodies away with him upon his ship to Tintagel, and by a chantry to the left and right of the apse he had their tombs built round. But in one night there sprang from the tomb of Tristan a green leafy briar, strong in branches and in the scent of its flowers. It climbed the chantry and fell to root again by Iseult's tomb. Thrice did the peasants cut it down, but thrice it grew again as flowered and as strong. They told the marvel to King Mark, and he forbade them to cut the briar any more. ~ Joseph Bedier

Then the earth boomed beneath her. It crunched and rocked, lifting her like a mother carries a child. All the way out of the water. All the way back to shore. Then the stones dropped Iseult into Aeduan's arms. ~ Susan Dennard

Her eyelids fluttered open. Aeduan was still observing the fireflies. "Did you make a wish?" she asked, and to her surprise, he nodded. A curt bounce of his head. "What did you wish for?"

He flexed his hands. Then shrugged. "If it comes true, then maybe one day I will tell you. ~ Susan Dennard

Tis the gradual furnace of the world,
In whose hot air poor spirits are upcurl'd
Until they crumple, or else grow like steel-
Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring-
Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel,
But takes away the power- this can avail,
By drying up our joy in everything,
To make our former pleasures all seem stale.

- Tristram and Iseult ~ Matthew Arnold

Tristan held up his arms to the Princess as she came out over the side, and carried her up through the shallows so that when he set her down on the white wave pattered sand, not even the soles of her feet were wet. Now this was the first time that ever they had touched each other, save for the times when the Princess had tended Tristan's wounds, and that was a different kind of touching; and as he set her down, their hands came together, as though they did not want it to be so quickly over. And standing hand in hand, they looked at each other, and for the first time Tristan saw that the Princess's eyes were deeply blue, the colour of wild wood-columbines; and she saw that his were as grey as the restless water out beyond the headland. And they were so close that each saw their own reflection standing in the other one's eyes; and in that moment it was as though something of Iseult entered into Tristan and something of Tristan into Iseult, that could never be called back again for as long as they lived. ~ Rosemary Sutcliff

Stasis, Iseult det Midenzi told herself for the thousandth time since dawn. Stasis in your fingers and in your toes. ~ Susan Dennard

I hate this. Both the storm and the plan. Why does it have to be 'we'? Why not just me?"
"Because 'just me' isn't who we are," Iseult hollered back. "I'll always follow you, Safi, and you'll always follow me. Threadsisters to the end. ~ Susan Dennard

It was incredible to watch. Inhuman, really, this gift to heal one's body. The power of the Void. The power of a demon.
Yet when Iseult glanced at the Bloodwitch's sleeping, dirt-streaked face, she didn't see a demon lying limp before her. ~ Susan Dennard

And her heart sprang in Iseult, and she drew
With all her spirit and life the sunrise through
And through her lips the keen triumphant air
Sea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were,
And through her eyes the whole rejoicing east
Sun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feast
Spread for the morning; and the imperious mirth
Of wind and light that moved upon the earth,
Making the spring, and all the fruitful might
And strong regeneration of delight
That swells the seedling leaf and sapling man,
Since the first life in the first world began
To burn and burgeon through void limbs and veins,
And the first love with sharp sweet procreant pains
To pierce and bring forth roses; yea, she felt
Through her own soul the sovereign morning melt,
And all the sacred passion of the sun;
And as the young clouds flamed and were undone
About him coming, touched and burnt away
In rosy ruin and yellow spoil of day,
The sweet veil of her body and corporal sense
Felt the dawn also cleave it, and incense
With light from inward and with effluent heat
The kindling soul through fleshly hands and feet.
And as the august great blossom of the dawn
Burst, and the full sun scarce from sea withdrawn
Seemed on the fiery water a flower afloat,
So as a fire the mighty morning smote
Throughout her, and incensed with the influent hour
Her whole soul's one great mystical red flo ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Iseult hated herself for that truth, but there it was. She wanted to go after Safi; she wanted Aeduan to lead the way; she wished this child would simply disappear.
Monster, she told herself. You're a monster. ~ Susan Dennard

She already fought so hard to separate herself from her emotions - if she got rid of her thoughts too, what would be left? ~ Susan Dennard

And I was so tempted that night in Cippanhamm's royal church. There is such joy in chaos. Stow all the world's evils behind a door and tell men that they must never, ever, open the door, and it will be opened because there is pure joy in destruction. At one moment, when Ragnar was bellowing with laughter and slapping my shoulder so hard that it hurt, I felt the words form on my tongue. That is Alfred, I would have said, pointing at him, and all my world would have changed and there would have been no more England. Yet, at the last moment, when the first word was on my tongue, I choked it back. Brida was watching me, her shrewd eyes calm, and I caught her gaze and I thought of Iseult. In a year or two, I thought, Iseult would look like Brida. They ~ Bernard Cornwell

In that moment, Iseult knew what she had to do. Logic didn't matter, nor Threadwitch practicality, nor even the opposing halves of her heart.
What mattered was doing the right thing.
So Iseult made her choice, and she ran. ~ Susan Dennard

The air, the sky, the water - it was so much like their encounter two nights ago.
Yet also nothing like it at all. Iseult and the Bloodwitch had been enemies then, bound only by coins. Tonight, they were allies bound by … Well, Iseult didn't know precisely. ~ Susan Dennard

Dead grass is awakened by fire,
dead earth is awakened by rain.
One life will give way to another,
the cycle will begin again. ~ Susan Dennard

Those who love the most
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guenevere,
Dierdre, Iseult, Heloise
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak, if at all,
Of fragile, inconsequent things.
And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in lonely pride,
Never spoke of this thing
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face. ~ Sara Teasdale

The past gathered out of the darkness where it stayed, and the dead raised themselves to live before him; and the past and the dead flowed into the present among the alive, so that he had for an intense instant a vision of denseness into which he was compacted and from which he could not escape, and had no wish to escape. Tristan, Iseult the fair, walked before him; Paolo and Francesca whirled in the glowing dark; Helen and bright Paris, their faces bitter with consequence, rose from the gloom. And he was with them in a way that he could never be with his fellows who went from class to class. ~ John Edward Williams

Fireflies."

"What?" Iseult splashed upright. Chill bumps raced down her arms.

"There." Aeduan waved across the pond. "Fireflies. They're good luck in Marstok, I've heard. And children make wishes on them." There was something light to Aeduan's voice, as if he …

"Are you making a joke?" Iseult pushed to her feet. Water droplets splattered across the stone.

"No."

Iseult didn't believe him. ~ Susan Dennard

A figure in white coalesced behind the Firewitch. She walked stiffly, her hands extended and her eyes rolled back in her head. The salamander cloak's fire-flap covered half her face. Ash coated her brow.

Aeduan didn't know how the Threadwitch was here. He didn't know why either. He only knew he couldn't look away.

The Threadwitch walked, each step evenly spaced, to the Firewitch. He was a monster fully cleaved now, yet when he wriggled and snarled at Iseult, she showed no fear. No reaction at all.

Instead, she lowered the fire-flap on the salamander cloak, then with her mouth stretched wide … she snapped her teeth at the air.

The Firewitch collapsed. Dead. ~ Susan Dennard

And thither, ere sweet night had slain sweet day,
Iseult and Tristram took their wandering way,
And rested, and refreshed their hearts with cheer
In hunters' fashion of the woods; and here
More sweet it seemed, while this might be, to dwell
And take of all world's weariness farewell
Than reign of all world's lordship queen and king.
Nor here would time for three moon's changes bring
Sorrow nor thought of sorrow; but sweet earth
Fostered them like her babes of eldest birth,
Reared warm in pathless woods and cherished well.
And the sun sprang above the sea and fell,
And the stars rose and sank upon the sea;
And outlaw-like, in forest wise and free,
The rising and the setting of their lights
Found those twain dwelling all those days and nights.
And under change of sun and star and moon
Flourished and fell the chaplets woven of June,
And fair through fervours of the deepening sky
Panted and passed the hours that lit July,
And each day blessed them out of heaven above,
And each night crowned them with the crown of love.
Nor till the might of August overhead
Weighed on the world was yet one roseleaf shed
Of all their joy's warm coronal, nor aught
Touched them in passing ever with a thought
That ever this might end on any day
Or any night not love them where they lay;
But like a babbling tale of barren breath
Seemed all report and rumour he ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

And they fell. Together. ~ Susan Dennard

Never had Iseult asked for anything. Not since learning as a little girl that rusted locks on a door were the best she could ever hope for.
Then she'd met Safi, and secretly, silently, so deep no one would ever find it, Iseult had started to hope that her life might turn into something. Little dreams weren't so bad. Iseult could brush against them from time to time, and no one would ever be the wiser. ~ Susan Dennard