Chapter CLXXX: Act I: Scene I. In a forest. Golo while hunting has lost his way

following a wild boar and come to a place unknown to him. There he sees a woman sitting by a spring. She acts like a figure in a fairy tale and behaves like a person stranger to and isolated from the world. Finally _Golo_ succeeds in inducing _Mélisande_--she at last tells him her name after being urged--to follow him out of the dark woods.

Scene II. A room in the castle. _Genoveva_ is reading to the aged, almost blind _King Arkel_ a letter which _Golo_ has written to his half-brother _Pelléas_. From this letter we learn that _Golo_ has already been married six months to the mysterious _Mélisande_. He has great love for his wife, about whom, however, he knows no more today than he did at first in the woods. So he fears that his grandfather, the _King_, may not forgive him for this union and asks _Pelléas_ to give him a sign in case the _King_ is ready "to honour the stranger as his daughter." Otherwise he will steer the keel of his ship to the most remote land. _King Arkel_ has arrived at that time of life when the wisdom of experience tends to make one forgiving toward everything that happens. So he pardons _Golo_ and commissions his grandson _Pelléas_ to give his brother the sign agreed upon.

Scene III. Before the castle. The old queen _Genoveva_ seeks to calm _Mélisande's_ distress at the gloominess of the world into which she has wandered. _Pelléas_ too is there. He would like to go to see a distant friend who is ill but fate holds him here. Or rather have not chains been wound about the twain of which they yet have no anticipation?