[c]: Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to obtain the king's request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him for a husband

When the curtain goes up it is dark in the garden, and Isolda is there with her maid Brangaena.

The king, her husband, has just gone off huntingyou will hear the horns dying in the distanceand Isolda is expecting her lover, Tristan.