n 780 A.D., in Ireland, a warrior prince by the name of Drust was born. His mother died during the ordeal, and so he became known as Tristan, from tristesse, meaning sorrow. How much of the rest of this story is true and how much belongs to the skill of the great Welsh troubadours no one really knows.
Tristan's father was a great knight, but Tristan never knew him. He died in a fight before Tristan was born. After the death of his mother, Tristan was taken to live with relatives in another land. He demonstrated an exceptional skill as a hunter at a very early age, but otherwise lived unremarkably until pirates kidnapped him at the age of 10. He managed to escape, but was swept away by the sea and washed up on the shore of a strange land. He made his way to a forest, where he survived by his incredible skill as a hunter.



Soon, rumors of a wild boy living in the woods began to spread. Tristan was captured and brought to the court of King Mark. A year later, a distant relative of King Mark's came to visit in search of the boy he had raised since birth. Shortly, Tristan was reunited with his guardian, but he decided to stay at the court of his uncle, King Mark, in hopes of becoming a knight.

Seven years later - having proved himself as the worthiest of the knights of King Mark - Tristan would face his greatest challenge. An enormous knight named Morold would be visiting soon. Every seven years, Morold would appear at the court of King Mark demanding a tribute of young men and girls. The tribute was always paid, since no champion dared to face Morold alone, and to tackle him any other way would be ignoble.
In Tristan, King Mark had finally found a hero unafraid, even zealous, to meet Morold.

The moment Morold felt the arm of Tristan, he knew he had met a man like no other he had known, but Morold fought on confidently. Before long, Tristan received a slight wound.

"I expected more from you," said Morold.

"You expect this trickling of blood to stop me," said Tristan.
"You'll feel the pain of your wound soon enough. This sword is not what it seems. Dipped in a poison of my own making. No one can cure you but my sister, Isolde, and you'll find no comfort there. Though we are different, my sister and I are two sides of the same coin, each the other's sworn protector."

"Well then," said Tristan, lunging, "I am not the only one who will die today."

"The faster your blood races, the more the poison flows."

"Then I will move quicker still."

Tristan cracked the skull of Morold with his sword, then collapsed next to the fallen giant. Exhausted and already ill, Tristan was not yet ready to die. He knew of a Queen Isolde whose land was not far. Reasoning her to be the sister of Morold, he traveled to her castle disguised as a minstrel.

How Tristan survived the journey is impossible to say, but his magnificent body had grown haggard and weak by the time he arrived at the castle of Queen Isolde. Still, he managed to pull himself to his feet before the Queen and beg for an opportunity to speak. In a polite manner, he explained that he had been bitten by a snake and was dying. But he had heard of the sweet healing touch of the beautiful queen.
The Princess and the Queen were impressed by Tristan's fine manners, so noble for a minstrel on the verge of death. The Princess was assigned the task of nursing the boy back to health.

As Tristan's vigor returned, a palpable attraction to the Princess could be observed, which was a source of some concern for the Queen. A Princess, thought the Queen, should find better ways to occupy her time than consorting with minstrels.
Meanwhile, Tristan decided to send word back to King Mark informing his uncle of his improving condition. The very ideal of chivalry, Tristan was an accomplished musician and poet. Inspired by the unsurpassed beauty of Isolde, he constructed tender verses in her honor.
Moved by the gorgeous poetry, King Mark remembered his people's need for a queen. He sent word to Queen Isolde, who was thrilled by the prospect of her daughter's marriage to a powerful King. If the girl must waste her time toying with minstrels, let her do it as a well-married queen. But the Queen decided to keep her plans a secret, to surprise her daughter with the good news when the deal was set.
Then the body of Morold was brought back to the castle of Isolde. Upon seeing it, the Queen and the Princess vowed revenge upon "whomsoever did this heinous deed." Avenging the death of Morold was the solemn duty of his relatives, a pact made by a priest at the birth of the Queen and her brother.

Preparing the body for burial, Princess Isolde noticed a small chunk of metal lodged in his skull. She removed it, hoping someday to use the evidence to discover his killer.

One afternoon, the Princess found Tristan's sword and noticed a piece of metal missing from it. Matching up the fragment taken from her uncle's skull, she realized, to her horror, that the killer was the fair minstrel she had grown so fond of - obviously no ordinary minstrel.
She had no choice. She must kill Tristan. But she could not bare the thought. She had grown so fond of the boy. She resolved to follow the only honorable course she could see; she would kill Tristan, then kill herself. She might be dead, but she would be well remembered.
She chose poisoned wine as the method. She informed only her loyal servant, Brangane, of the plot. But Brangane, whose duty would have been to commit suicide along with her mistress, considered love preferable to death and switched the poison crystals for the crystals of a love potion.

The Princess poured the crystal laden wine.

"Why so melancholy, Princess?" Tristan asked, his own spirits soaring.
"To fate," she said, lifting her cup. They drank, unleashing an unrelenting passion, a love without care of consequences, without regard for any obstacle. Surely such emotions do not belong to crystals alone, but sparked by magic or fate, a seething insatiable love began to move inexorably towards its end, sweeping Tristan and Isolde along with it.

As the unsuspecting Tristan sipped his wine, the messengers of King Mark were speeding towards him with news of the King's impending nuptials - and Tristan's next assignment: to escort the King's new bride to her new home.

By elaborate scheme, Tristan and Isolde managed to avoid the wedding night horror of her in the bed of King Mark.

Rumors of a possible affair between the beautiful two had begun to trickle back to the ears of Mark. King Mark was said to possess "the ears of an ass," perhaps suggesting "he heard all" or at least, didn't miss much. Suspicious, he decided to put Isolde to the test, a trial by fire. His young bride would swear her fidelity to him then place her hands on a red-hot iron. Her truthful words would protect her from the searing metal.
Attending the ordeal, Tristan disguised himself as a tattered pilgrim. Approaching the King, Isolde stumbled into the arms of the dusty palmer. When questioned, Isolde claimed no man had lain hands on her "save this poor pilgrim here." She survived the ordeal unscathed.

Faithful Brangane took Isolde's place in King Mark's wedding bed. Brangane covered her face, claiming her purity and the traditions of her land required such modesty.

Resorting to all sorts of similar trickery, Tristan and Isolde yielded to their passions, but King Mark and his ears grew more and more alert. Once he found the two of them lying in a forest with a naked sword between them. Once he stabbed Tristan in the back with a knife while the boy composed a song for his fair queen. Tristan survived the wound, but Mark could stand no more of the rumors and banished him.
Recognizing his guilt, Tristan accepted his fate and set out to accomplish many great deeds in the name of King Mark and the fair queen Isolde. The fame of Tristan spread far and wide and he joined King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, but he could find no solace. In Brittany, he met a beautiful maiden with extraordinarily white hands whose name by coincidence was also Isolde (an extremely popular name for the time, apparently.) Tristan married Isolde of the White Hands but never consummated the marriage. Instead he set off to fight a dragon.
The battle, like any mortal combat, was grim, glorious and brutal in its finality. Tristan prevailed, but was badly wounded.
As he lay dying in the seaside castle he shared with Isolde of the White Hands, he sent word to his beloved Isolde, knowing that only she could cure him. He instructed his messenger to hoist white sails above the ship upon its return if Isolde was on board, black sails if she was not. Thus he would know if his one true love would come back to him.
As the ship sailed in, Tristan lay too weak to raise his head. He asked Isolde of the White Hands if the sails were white or black. The big white sails billowed majestically against the crisp blue sky, but his jealous wife replied, "black." Tristan died of a broken heart.
Upon finding his body, the spirit of his beloved Isolde departed this earth.

Eurydice - wife of Orpheus, the greatest musician in all of Athens -died from the bite of a snake. Orpheus found solace in his lyre, wringing from the instrument a melody so beautiful the whole world stilled to listen. Even the guardians at the gates of the underworld were lulled into a trance by the sweet music.
Orpheus walked passed the guardians, descending the spiral staircase into the bowels of the earth, his eyes stinging from the sulfurous smoke. Ghosts came thronging to the sound of his lyre, and the furies themselves were mesmerized. A vulture paused above the giant body of Tityus, no longer pecking at his liver. Sisyphus stopped to sit upon the rock he was condemned to push. Orpheus found Hades and his wife, Persephone, by the river Styxx. Hades was not amused.

"We don't get many visitors," said the Lord of the Dead. His wife, Persephone - goddess of spring who spent half the year with her husband in Hell - was enchanted by the beautiful music. It reminded her of herself. She begged Hades to give the musician a chance to speak.
Orpheus said nothing, for his eyes had found Eurydice.

Persophone gathered his meaning and begged her husband to allow the two mortals to return to the surface. Hades had but one weakness. He was easily bored.

"One condition, Orpheus," he said. "Don't look back."

Orpheus and Eurydice ascended the great spiral staircase, their spirits lifting with each step. The light of living earth loomed in front of them. Eurydice squeezed Orpheus' hand. He looked back.

Her eyes registered the moment immediately, though it took a few moments for her body to be vaporized. Her sweet voice disappeared last. Orpheus stood alone on the surface of the world.

His lyre was less solace now, though the music was no less beautiful. He wanted only to be left alone in a barren rocky place, but his music lifted flowers from the craggy rocks. Trees bloomed. The hearts of the wild beasts were tamed. Fierce tigers lay down with cattle, wolves with sheep, eagles with trembling doves.

There were others enchanted by the sensuous music as well. Women of every variety flocked to Orpheus. He wanted nothing to do with any of them. He wanted only to treasure the memory of his lost Eurydice. Finally Orpheus was set upon by a pack of wild women who tore him limb from limb, tossing his head into a nearby stream.

His head bobbed out to sea, his cold tongue in his still gapping mouth calling out: "Eurydice! My poor Eurydice."

When Cleopatra heard that the strapping red-haired general was waiting for her in her foray, she greeted the news with a smile. She had first met Mark Antony many years before in Egypt, when she was only a child. She had liked him from the start. Now he was one of her only friends in Rome. The two shared one compelling bond: Both were fiercely loyal to her lover, the great Julius Ceasar.

The moment she laid eyes on Antony, her smile faded. His face gave her the grim news before his words. Julius Caesar was dead, murdered by his own council. Cleopatra and her son, Caesarion, were in terrible danger. There was no time to lose. They must get out of Rome immediately.

Cleopatra had married Caesar in Egypt. Though the union was not recognized in Rome, Caesarion was Caesar's only son. A child of three, he would be a threat to those who wanted to rule in Caesar's place as long as he lived. Worse, the Roman populace universally despised his mother. Cleopatra was blamed for Caesar's excessive ambition, his desire to convert Rome from a republic to a monarchy with himself as king and Caesarion as his heir. Some claimed she had bewitched Caesar with African magic.

In truth, Cleopatra was not really African. She was Macedonian (Greek), descended from the man Caesar admired most, Alexander the Great. Though blonde and fair - she wore a dark wig in public as part of her ceremonial headdress - Cleopatra was hardly a classical beauty. But she possessed more than pedigree and wealth. To present herself before Caesar for the first time, she rolled herself up in Persian rug. She managed more than a clever introduction, averting an assassin's knife in process. She was bright, clever, resourceful and - most of all - original. There was little doubt that Caesar truly loved her.

Caesar was a temperate man, a serious thinker and philosopher, a man who walked upon the world stage - and knew it. He was a man who courted history.

He had but one weakness. An epileptic since birth, his seizures grew worse under stress, striking often at the most inopportune times. Caesar was terribly embarrassed by his infirmary, but in Cleopatra he discovered a partner who could nurse him through his illness, shield him from the public eye and even make decisions in his stead. In a sense, his weakness drew them closer, forming an indelible bond of trust.

Antony's response to Cleopatra's danger was probably based as much upon his loyalty to Caesar as anything else. There is no evidence that any relationship beyond friendship existed between Antony and Cleopatra before the assassination of Caesar. Still, Antony was taking a considerable risk. As Caesar's favorite general he would be part of the Triumvirate chosen to rule in Caesar's stead. His alliance with the unpopular Cleopatra would galvanize a score of bitter enemies against him in Rome.

However, in the moments following Caesar's bloody murder, all Antony could think of was getting Cleopatra and young Caesarion out of Rome. Legend has it that Antony disguised himself as a pregnant beggar woman, strapping little Caesarion to his belly. The muscular Antony would have made a rather imposing beggar woman, but the ruse apparently worked. In rags, Antony, Cleopatra and Caesarion were smuggled aboard a mercantile ship, eventually making their way safely back to Egypt.

In the majestic Egyptian capital, Alexandria, the romance of Antony and Cleopatra blossomed. They were married on the Nile, though Antony had not divorced his Roman wife. Of course, Cleopatra needed him for Caesarion, for herself, for the plans she had made with Caesar. He would betray her once, but he would come back. In the end, he would risk everything for her.

Her love for him was as fiery as his red curly hair, and as difficult to control. He drank too much. He enjoyed the company of his soldier friends. The royal couple was known to engage in fierce shouting matches. But they produced three beautiful children: the heavenly twins Cleopatra Selene (the Moon) and Alexander Helios (the Sun) and the baby Ptolemy Philadelphus.

Antony was an intelligent man and a competent general, but he was no Caesar, a fact that weighed upon him - and his wife. In truth, both Antony and Cleopatra lived in Caesar's shadow. It would cost them their kingdoms.

In their crucial showdown with Octavian, Antony's brother-in-law and their enemy in Rome, they were at odds about what to do. Cleopatra wanted Antony to lead the attack by sea, giving the glory to Egypt, which possessed an impressive navy. But Antony, primarily a field commander, still owned the loyalty of his old Roman legions. He wanted to be on the ground, leading the charge with his familiar troops.

And he wanted Caesarion to stay at home in Alexandria. Octavian would kill Caesarion at the first opportunity. But Cleopatra's dreams of glory had ignited a fierce passion within her. She wanted Caesarion by her side, and Antony too. She felt a confidence she had not known since Caesar's death.

Of course, Caesar would never have agreed to such a ridiculous plot. Nor would Cleopatra have pressed him so diligently.

The battle began well enough for Egypt, with the ship of Cleopatra and Caesarion leading one flank and Antony's ship leading the other. But the smaller Roman boats soon outmaneuvered the large Egyptian ships. As the battle began to turn, Cleopatra feared for Caesarion. He was 17 now. She had wanted him to experience the glory of his first great victory. Now, she just wanted to get him out of there. She turned her ship to flee, wishing only to protect her son. Inexplicably, Antony followed. From the shore, Antony's loyal troops watched their leader sail away from the raging battle on the tail of the Queen of the Nile. Disheartened, they surrendered to their former compatriots.

Loyalty to Antony could be forgiven, Octavian reassured them, now that they had seen the error of their ways. Soon the united Roman legions were ready to march against Alexandria.

Word was sent to Cleopatra. Egypt stood no chance against the combined Roman forces. Turn Antony over, Octavian wrote. Spare everyone a costly battle. Remain as Queen of Egypt. All that needed to be done was to turn Antony over.

Octavian, soon to be the Emperor Augustus, was not nearly so charmed by Cleopatra as Caesar and Antony had been. But he felt he knew her pretty well. Ambitious, but practical, he knew nothing had come easily to Cleopatra. Her own sister had tried to kill her. She had needed a keen survival instinct to get this far. Surely, she would accept his offer.

By this time, Antony was a ruin of a man. Within days he would fall upon his own sword. But Octavian had underestimated Cleopatra. She would never betray her husband, no matter how hopeless the cause. She smuggled Caesarion out of the country, erroneously believing him to be in safe hands (Ceasarion was murdered by his own tutor). When Antony killed himself, Cleopatra resolved not to be taken back to Rome in chains to be humiliated in front of the venomous crowd. With the help of her clever daughter, Selene, a poisonous cobra was secretly slipped past the guard. Cleopatra put the snake to her throat and died in her bed like a Queen.

Cleopatra's son, Helios, was killed by Octavian. Selene and little Ptolemy were brought to Rome in chains to march in Octavian's triumphal procession.

Sitting in the audience was Juba, a former African prince who himself had been brought to Rome in chains as a child of six. Like most prisoners, Juba was to be sent to the dungeons after the procession, where he would die of starvation or be eaten by rats. But the terrified child had refused to cry and conducted himself with such intelligence and poise that he captured the eye of Octavian, who spared his life. Now age 23, he had become a favorite of the Roman court and a personal friend of the great poet Ovid.

Juba watched the garish display - the armies, the horses, the magnificent wild beasts, the doomed prisoners, the little orphans in chains, dusty tear stained faces, legs giving out. They couldn't take it much longer, he knew.

A trumpet blared, frightening the horse of Tiberius, Octavian's 13-year-old nephew. The horse backed into Ptolemy. Selene screamed, throwing her arms around her brother. Juba sprang from his seat, racing onto the Via Sacra and snatching the small boy into his arms. Then he turned to the sobbing Selene. "I know you're scared," he said, "but remember who you are."

Perhaps moved by the scene, or the courage Selene would exhibit from that point on, Octavian spared the lives of Cleopatra's children, raising them in his own house with his own nephews and nieces.

Selene would eventually marry Juba and the two of them would go on to rule a new nation in Africa and built a city of dreams. Their life would be the stuff of legends. But, that's another story.