La Belle Dame Sans Mercy

 La Belle Dame Sans Mercy 

‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ is a ballad from the Romantic period. It was part of a literary movement that had arisen to counter the theories of the Age of Enlightenment – to bring back imagination, beauty, and art to a culture that had become science-based, theoretical, and realist. Romantic writers saw the violence of the French Revolution as proof of the failure of science and reason, and the suffocation of the human spirit.

Most of John Keats’ prolific works were written in 1819, shortly after he met the love of his life, Fanny Brawne, and contracted a mortal disease. Keats’ poems focus on a return to beauty: Greek myth, fairies, idealism, nature, and individualism are all prominent themes in not just his work, but of Romantic literature as a whole.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

With the opening stanza of ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci,’ the speaker sets up the scene and the subject of this poem. The speaker comes upon a knight. He knows that this man is a knight upon seeing him, but he quickly reveals that this knight is not behaving as one might expect a knight to behave. The character does not seem brave and valiant. Rather, he is alone and “loitering”. He seems to be wandering about aimlessly.

The speaker wonders why, and he asks. He also remarks about the time of year and claims that “the sedge has withered from the lake/ And no birds sing”. Here, he is indicating that spring is over, and there is no lively singing or springtime beauty in the atmosphere. He wonders why the knight would be wandering about, pale and lonely, during this time of the year. It is probably growing cold, as the birds have flown south already. The speaker finds it concerning that this knight is sickly and alone, without shelter, at this time of the year.

It is important to note here that during the summer of 1818, Keats’ younger brother Tom succumbed to tuberculosis. In the very same year, Keats began exhibiting symptoms of the disease, and thus impending death was heavy on his mind. It gets reflected in the very first stanza of the poem.

Stanza Two

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

       So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

       And the harvest’s done.

With this stanza, the reader can grasp the full picture of what the Knight looks like. The speaker describes him as “alone”, “pale”, “haggard”, and “woe-begone”. The setting is also described. It seems that the harvest is done. Therefore, the reader can imagine the bare, dry ground and the silence of nature after the birds have already flown south. Overall, this description gives ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ a very gloomy tone. The subject is down-trodden, and nature itself seems stripped of all joy. The birds have ceased their singing and the squirrels have stored up enough food to go into hiding. Thus, the lonely knight is left utterly alone.

Stanza Three

I see a lily on thy brow,

       With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

       Fast withered too.

In this stanza, the speaker informs the knight that he looks very ill. He tells him that his face is as pale as a lily and that his face looks moist with sweat as if he had a fever. All of his colors are fading quickly from his cheeks. It appears the speaker is very concerned about the knight’s health. He speaks to the knight to make sure he is aware of how ill he is. In the following stanza, the knight answers him.

Stanza Four

I met a lady in the meads,

       Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

       And her eyes were wild.

The speaker is now the knight as he gives answers to the concerns of the first speaker. He tells him of a lady that he met and describes her long hair and her light step. Her eyes were “wild”. It is clear from this stanza, that the knight fell in love at the first sight of this lady he describes. He describes her as not quite human. The knight doesn’t refer to her as fully fairy, but he does call her a “faery’s child” which gives the reader the impression that she is at least half fairy.

Stanza Five

I made a garland for her head,

  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

 And made sweet moan

In this stanza, the knight describes his relationship with this lady. It appears that he won her heart. He made her a garland of flowers for her head. Then he made her bracelets from flowers. He also adorned her private parts with flowers. This is implied when he says that he put flowers on her “fragrant zone”. Then the knight implies that he made love to this woman. He says that “she looked at [him] as she did love” and that she made a sweet moan. This implies that the two were intimate with one another.

Stanza Six

I set her on my pacing steed,

       And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

   A faery’s song.

The sixth stanza can be read as an extension of the previous stanza, where the lady riding the knight’s stallion is an extended metaphor for their continued sexual relations. On the other hand, it could be read literally. In this case, the knight would have placed her on his horse and watched her ride “all day long” while she sang. In either case, the knight is so entirely absorbed with this woman that he sees and hears nothing else. He is devoted to her the entire day long.

Stanza Seven

She found me roots of relish sweet,

       And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

       ‘I love thee true’.

This stanza continues to describe the fairy woman’s supernatural qualities. She feeds him sweet roots, wild honey, and manna. The “roots of relish sweet” refer to her human qualities, but the manna and the wild honey are symbolic of her supernatural qualities. In the Jewish religion, it is told that God fed the Israelite’s bread from heaven called manna. This same God promised the Israelites a land flowing with milk and honey. Thus, the fact that the fairy-woman was able to feed him bread from heaven, wild honey, and roots suggests that the fairy is part human, part supernatural. The reference to “language strange” is yet another evidence of the lady’s unnatural lineage.

Stanza Eight

She took me to her Elfin grot,

       And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

       With kisses four.

The knight continues to describe the fairy woman’s qualities. He describes her cave, or “grot” as something elf-like in nature. Then, he gives her human characteristics once again when he says that “she wept and sighed full sore”. He does not explain why she cried, but he does imply that he wiped her tears away with his kisses. This occurs between the knight and the fairy-woman allows the reader to understand the depth of their relationship. Earlier in ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, they connected physically. Here, they connect emotionally as the knight is there to wipe away her tears.

Scholars are divided on the precise motives of the lady while classes of scholars believe that the lady’s weeping in the “Elfin grot” does bring up the ideas of undivided love. Several scholars believe otherwise. However, it seems that it is the latter. The lady understands that they cannot be together, and chooses to leave him to sleep.

Stanza Nine

And there she lullèd me asleep,

       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

    On the cold hill side.

With this stanza, readers can begin to feel a little uncertain about this fairy-woman. They should question why she is lulling this Knight to sleep. In the previous stanza, she cried, and there, no reason was offered for her tears. Now, she lulls him to sleep.

The knight has a dream. It is a nightmare. For in his recollection of this dream, he cries out “Ah! Woe betide!” which suggests that this dream was woeful. Then he says that this was “the latest dream I ever dreamt” which suggests that it was the last dream that he would ever dream. He does not explain how he knows that this was the last dream he would ever have, but he seems so confident of it that the reader does not question it.

Suddenly, this poem has taken a turn for the worse. Something awful has happened, and the reader can begin to understand that the fairy-woman is at fault, but there are no specifics given just yet.

Stanza Ten

I saw pale kings and princes too

  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all

They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci

       Thee hath in thrall!’

At this point, the knight begins to describe the “pale kings and princes” that he saw in his dream. In this case, “pale” is a symbol of death. Since ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ has already introduced biblical symbols of the supernatural, it is not too far-fetched to conclude that the pale warriors and princes and kings are all after the likeness of the pale horse in the book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament. The pale horse and rider of the Bible symbolize death and bring destruction.

This poem continues to become more and more nightmarish as it continues. All of the pale kings, princes, and warriors cry out “La Belle Dame sans Merci”. This, of course, is the title of the poem. It is in French, and it translates to read “The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy”.

Suddenly, amid his dream, the Knight becomes aware of what is happening to him. He has been seduced by a woman who would show him no mercy. Not only that, but he is one of many who have come to ruin at the hands of this fairy-woman.

Stanza Eleven

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

       With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

       On the cold hill’s side.

The knight comes to the full realization of what has happened to him. Every man that the fairy has ever seduced has died. He describes these dead men that were in his dream. They have “starved lips” and they looked at him “with horrid warning” but it was too late. The knight had already been seduced, and as a consequence of his moment of pleasure, he now faces death. When he awoke from his dream, he found himself “on the cold hill’s side” with no fairy-woman in proximity. From the original description of the knight, the readers can conclude that he is, in fact, dying.

And this is why I sojourn here,

       Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

       And no birds sing.

In the final stanza, the knight finally answers the original question of the first speaker. He claims that because of being seduced by the fairy-woman, he now sojourns “alone and palely loitering” in his near-death state. Keats ends ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ with the line with which the first stanza ends. He repeats the first speaker’s observation that “the sedge is withered from the lake/ And no birds sing”.

The readers are left to grieve the loss of the knight. He dies alone with no one to comfort him in his last moments. Not even the birds are there to sing a song to offer comfort in his death. He is utterly alone in his last moments, and all because he was seduced by that beautiful fairy-woman without mercy.

Although the language used is simple, Keats manages to create two parallel universes. The real world, where the knight is found alone, and palely loitering, is dark and dismal and wintery. The other world, where the Lady lives, seems exotic and beautiful, with such glorious foods as honey wild and manna-dew. The nightmarish imagery that exists between the worlds can be taken to be part and parcel of the lady’s world, as it is she who whisks young men away, willing or unwilling, to their doom.