A legend which lives to be retold often is like a mirror which reflects not only the original picture, but also the social and moral surroundings of different relators. So this ancient tale has been varied by the poets who have told it; and of these variants the most significant are those made by Wagner. If the ethical scheme of the poet-composer is to be observed, the chief of these must be kept in mind. In the poems of Gottfried, Arnold, and Swinburne the love potion is drunk accidentally and the passion which leads to the destruction of the lovers is a thing for which they are in nowise responsible. Wagner puts antecedent and conscious guilt at the door of both of his heroic characters; they love each other before the dreadful drinking and do not pay the deference to the passion which in the highest conception it demands. Tristan is carried away by love of power and glory before man and Isolde is at heart a murderer and suicide. The potion is less the creator of an uncontrollable passion than it is an agency which makes the lovers forget honor, duty, and respect for the laws of society. Tennyson omits all mention of the potion and permits us to imagine Tristram and Iseult as a couple of ordinary sinners. Swinburne and Arnold follow the old story touching the hero's life in Brittany with the second Iseult (she of the White Hand); but while Swinburne preserves her a "maiden wife," Arnold gives her a family of children. Wagner ennobles his hero by omitting the second Isolde, thus bringing the story into greater sympathy with modern ideas of love and exalting the passion of the lovers.