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SCMP Reporter

Have you ever read a Chinese story about a fox spirit? A beautiful young woman turns out to be a fox! But while she is a woman she plays mischief with men, maybe even causing their deaths?          John Keat's poem, La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a poem about a beautiful woman who causes the deaths of all men who go with her. The poem is the subject of this week's Poetry on Air, which can be heard on RTHK Radio 4 at 10.05 am today and is repeated at 6.30 pm tomorrow.

         What language is the title of the poem in? The answer is French and it means, 'The beautiful woman without mercy'. The poem was written in 1818 but it is set in the European medieval period of the 12th to 14th centuries.

  Romantic poets like Keats liked to idealise this medieval period, a time of knights in armour and beautiful girls in trouble who they rescued and fell in love with.

  The poem opens with one such soldier by the side of a lake. But he is pale and ill.

  Ah, what can ail thee, wretched knight,   Alone and paley loitering;   The sedge is withered from the lake,   And no birds sing.

  I see a lily on thy brow,   With anguish moist and fever dew;   And on thy cheek a fading rose   Fast withering too.

  Notice how Keats uses old forms of English to give the impression of a distant time by using 'thy' instead of 'your'. Readers of Shakespeare will be familiar with this. So the soldier's face is wet with a fever. But why is he ill? Has he got flu?   The poem continues with the story of how the soldier got ill. Surprisingly it seems he became ill after meeting a beautiful young girl.

  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.

  But she is no ordinary pretty girl wandering about the countryside.

  The soldier says she is like a 'faery's child' and a faery is a magical creature. And in fact, his description is close to the truth because it turns out that she does have supernatural powers.

 I set her on my pacing steed,   And nothing else saw all day long;   For sideways would she lean and sing   A faery's song.

  They go off into the countryside and he picks flowers and puts them in her hair.She tells the soldier she loves him. It is very romantic.

  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.

  She found me roots of relish sweet,   And honey wild, and manna dew;   And sure in language strange she said,   I love thee true.

  Then this beautiful girl takes him to her home, a cave and in the cave they both fall asleep.

  I took her to my elfin grot,   And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,   And there I shut her wild sad eyes   So kissed to sleep.

  But the soldier has a terrifying dream of other soldiers and princes and kings, men who had all met and fallen in love with the same pretty girl but who were now all dead. They warn the soldier that the girl will make him die in the same way she made them die.

  I saw pale kings, and princes too,   Pale warriors, death pale were they all;   Who cried - 'La Belle Sans Merci   Hath thee in thrall!'   The poem then returns to where it began, the sick soldier at the side of the lake. The soldier woke up from the dream and found himself lying by the lake. But who was young woman who seduced him and what is he dying of - love?   I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam   With horrid warning gaped wide,   And I awoke and found me here   On the cold hillside.

This is an edited version of the programme 



Love kills bold knight