John Keat`s La Belle Dame
In "La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad," John
Keats, the author, relates
feelings of heartache to the reader by using
metaphors of somberness and sorrow.
The poem is set around a knight’s
story of how his heart had been broken when
he was left by a woman whom he
had recently fell in love with. The woman, an
apparent succubus, comes to the
knight in what seems to be some variation of a
dream, and makes love to him.
A succubus is known as a demon female evil spirit
that comes to Earth and has
sexual intercourse with men while they sleep. The
knight tells of how they
met, their brief courtship and intervening period, and
ultimately the end of
their erotic episode. Keats uses metaphors to elude to
acts of sexuality
throughout the entire ballad. At the beginning Keats writes of
how a passerby
stops to ask a knight why he is walking around so sad and dismal.
He
tells the knight that he looks pale and flushed as if he had been
sweating.
The passing stranger wants to know what could be troubling the
knight, and what
could have him wandering around the edge of the lake in the
dead of winter
looking so pale and distraught. The knight begins his tale by
describing to his
listener that he once met a beautiful lady in the meadow.
He speaks of how she
had long flowing hair, a tall, thin body, and strange
eyes, which seemed to have
a wild, wild look about them. He exclaims that she
must have been the child of a
fairy. When they met he made gifts for her,
which he crafted from vines and
flowers. They included a garland for her
head, bracelets for her wrists, and a
belt for her to wear around her waist,
near her "fragrant zone." Keats uses
the term "fragrant zone" to symbolize
this woman’s sensuality. He refers
to this area as being a region which gives
forth a seemingly sweet aroma. After
the reception of these gifts, the knight
and the evil temptress began to kiss
and to caress each other. Then the
sultry spirit passionately moaned as the he
set her atop of his "pacing
steed," and they began making love. Their sexual
episode stretched over the
length of the entire day. They would frequently
change positions as she
repeated her "fairy’s song" of orgasmic pleasure.
When the erotic session
came to an end, the succubus showed her deceptiveness as
she replenished the
knight with wild fruits and sweet roots of relish, as if she
too were
experiencing the irrepressible feelings of affection. She took him to
her
"elfin grot," and fraudulently wept to him of her sorrows. He gave his
best
endeavor to comfort her. As they lied upon the hillside, the knight fell
off
into a seemingly nefarious trance as the lady began to sing to him
a
beautiful song which set his mind at ease so he would drift off to sleep.
The
knight tells of the thoughts he had while he lie dreaming on that cold
hillside.
He said he saw kings, princes, and warriors alike. All were
wandering aimlessly,
looking distraught and pale. They would cry out, "La
bele dame sans merci hath
thee in thrall!" Which in translation means, the
lovely lady without pity has
enslaved thee. What they meant by that was that
they too had once been lead
astray by the female demon spirit, known as the
succubus. When the knight awoke
he found himself lying on the cold hillside
alone. His lady of the meadow was
now gone, and with her she took the poor
knight’s soul. She left him with
nothing other than a feeling of complete
emptiness that has haunted him to this
day. That could be why the poor knight
walks "alone, palely loitering, though
the sedge is wither’d from the lake,
and no birds sing." Suc-cu-bus ..noun
1. A female demon that was said to
descend upon and have sexual intercourse with
a man while he is
sleeping.