Sin or Misfortune

"[N]ever does the magic of [the love-drink], all-powerful though it is, remove the cause of Tristan's misfortune–his sense of allegiance to" his uncle and overlord, King Mark (Vinaver 47).

Vinaver provides the following discussion, apparently recounting the discussion between Tristan and the hermit Ogrins:

'We love each other,' he says to the hermit who tries to make him repent, 'because of the potion we drank: ce fut pechiez;[fn] and pechiez can mean either sin or misfortune, or possibly both.  (47-48)

This is more or less where I was planning to end the post -- I was just going to share Vinaver's comment on the word "pechiez."  But then I looked at the footnote for context.  Strangely, Vinaver does not provide a closing quotation mark to show where his translation of Tristan's words ends.  And then, without explanation, he drops a footnote to Iseult's words in Béroul's version of Le Roman de Tristan, ll. 1413-16:

Il ne m'aime pas, ne je lui,
Fors par un herbé dont je bui
Et il en but: ce fu pechiez.

(I checked because the unexplained pronoun "il" made me wonder if it was Iseult speaking.)

So it turns out that, at least in this section, Tristan does not seem to use the word "pechiez."  Rather, the Ogrins/Tristan dialogue includes these lines (ll. 1379-92):

'Par foi! Tristran, qui se repent
Par foi et par confession,
Deu du pechié li fait pardon.' 

    Tristran li dit: 'Sire, par foi,
Que ele m'aime en bone foi,
Vos n'entendez pas la raison:
Q'el m'aime, c'est par la poison.
Ge ne me pus de lié partir,
N'ele de moi, n'en quier mentir.' 

Ogrins li dist: 'Et quel confort
Puet on doner a home mort?
Assez est mort qui longuement
Gist en pechié, s'il ne repent;
Doner ne puet nus penitence
A pecheor senz repentance.'

So in this passage, Ogrins (not Tristan) uses "pechié" (ll. 1380, 1390) and "pecheor" (l. 1392).  But I can't help thinking that the hermit's use of these words (unlike, perhaps, Iseult's) is likely to carry only the connotation of sin, rather than misfortune, given that he is urging repentance.

And now I'm suddenly thinking of Claudius in Hamlet II.3:

But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?

Béroul. The Romance of Tristan. Edited by Stewart Gregory, Rodopi, 1992. 
Vinaver, Eugène. The Rise of Romance. Oxford University Press, 1971.