My most beautiful, supreme and only consolation,
The words of Marke which you are kind enough to apply to my work require completion:
“Who (with pride - ??) may call it his?!”
Oh, my King! It is yours, it is your work! I no longer have a part in it. It was born in pain such as no mother ever suffered for her child. It no longer belongs to me. But does it belong to the world? To each of us belongs only what he himself can appropriate. I no longer care to think of it. Like the man of religion - I need a symbol in which to comprehend everything. And you are my symbol, - my sacred Parzival!
My supreme and ultimate happiness! My King! My - friend! My consummation! My victorious Siegfried - victor - bringer of peace! - Who can tell you anything about me that I myself cannot tell you? We - lack a friend! But - if this friendly soul existed, - how could I approach you? - Should I complain when my beloved lord has every right to demand only joy and a noble reward? - I cannot, nor will I - : yet I am afraid that much may be left undone. I am afraid my beloved may not receive the reward which he has so gloriously earned, and for which alone I still care to live, in order that I might bestow it upon him.
Yet - one thing has been achieved! This wayward Tristan has been completed. You know that all who have written poems about Tristan have left them incomplete - from Gottfried von Strassburg onwards. It almost seemed as though my own work, too, were to be dogged by the same misfortune: for - it was not complete until it actually came alive for us, as a drama, and spoke directly to our hearts and senses. - This has been achieved. The age-old love-poem, it now lives and speaks aloud to the common folk who bear touching witness to their having been stirred by it. What we - my noble beloved - have achieved with this completion is something which you shall one day judge for yourself! I say so quite boldly: Our Tristan, as it will today resound and shudder once more, can be compared to naught of its kind. And this was - your doing! Thus has my gracious King begun! - That must mean something, something grave and profound! - All hail to him! - He will find the right people: - what do I myself matter, I the individual! -
The most abundant blessings of all noble hearts to my beloved, to him who has been chosen by God! What is success, what is failure? To be, to be what is right - that is everything! -
Listen! The old yearning melodies are beginning!
Truly yours for all eternity -
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 325