Tristan

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I love the incantatory rhythm of this verse at the end of the Prologue of Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan (from c. 1200):

This is bread to all noble hearts.
With this their death lives on.
We read their life, we read their death,
and to us it is sweet as bread. 

Their life, their death are our bread.
Thus lives their life, thus lives their death,
Thus they live still and yet are dead,
and their death is the bread of the living. 

And whoever now desires to be told of their life,
their death, their joy, their sorrow,
let him lend me his heart and ears—
he shall find all that he desires!
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