JOHN KEATS (1795-1821) LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

POETS’
CORNER
Keats is remembered as a « typical Romantic » : he wrote about nature, love and melancholy, and died
young. Being the son of a stables manager (maître d’écurie), he was mocked by conservative forces when he published his first poems in 1817.
An orphan at the age of 14, Keats had to earn a living and became a surgeon’s apprentice. His difficult circumstances made him cry out against social injustice. But above all, he believed in the power of imagination and
was the apostle of beauty : « A thing of beauty is a joy for ever » , he wrote in Endymion. He saw in it the only
source of truth and happiness, developing an almost pagan (païen) love for a sensuous, magical and mysterious
vision of beauty.
I
O what can ail thee Knight-at-arms
Alone and palely loitering ?
The sedge has withered from the lake
And no birds sing !
II
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.
III
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too –
a lily : un lis thy : ton the brow : le front
moist : moite dew : la rosée (ici, la transpiration)
fading : flétri
fast withereth : complètement fané
IV
« 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 –
a mead [littéraire] = a meadow : une prairie
a faery = a fairy : une fée
V
I made a Garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone ;
She look’d at me as she did love
And made sweet moan –
VI
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 –
what can ail thee : qu’as-tu ? [littéraire]
a knight-at-arms : un chevalier armé
palely loitering : qui rôde tristement
the sedge : la laîche (sorte de plante aquatique)
to wither : faner, se flétrir
woe-begone : désolé, abattu [littéraire]
the squirrel : l’écureuil the granary : le grenier
the harvest : la moisson
a zone : ici, une ceinture
a moan : un gémissement
my pacing steed : mon coursier qui allait au pas
sidelong she would bend : elle se penchait de côté
VII She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true –
roots : des racines relish : saveur
manna : de la manne
VIII She took me to her elfin grot
And there she wept and sigh’d full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
elfin : féerique
she sighed full sore : elle poussa un profond soupir
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IX
And there she lulled me asleeep
And there I dream’d – Ah ! woe betide !
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
X
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 !’
to lull asleeep : endormir
woe betide ! malheur ! [exclamation]
warriors : des guerriers
thee hath in thrall : a fait de toi un esclave
XI I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And awoke and found me here
On the cold hill’s side.
starved : affamé the gloam : le crépuscule [littéraire]
with horrid warning gaped wide : [leurs lèvres] béantes
proféraient de terribles avertissements
XII And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering ;
Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake
And no birds sing ».
to sojourn : séjourner, demeurer [littéraire]
John Keats’s poem is one of the most popular in
British poetry. Yet, it is full of enigmas : Who is this
knight ? Who is the lady ? Did Keats write his poem as a
simple story, or as a story with a moral ? And ultimately,
what does the poem mean ?
The poem narrates the encounter between an unnamed, wandering (errant) knight and a mysterious
woman. After they make love in the lady’s ‘elfin grot’, the
knight falls asleep and has a vision of kings, princes and
warriors who warn him that the lady has taken him under
her charm.
The knight wanders in a kind of wasteland (stanzas I
and II). It might be autumn or winter ; nature shows contrasting views of life : there are no birds, but the harvest is
completed. The knight seems to be full of misery and suffering (‘with anguish moist and fever dew’, stanza III).
If the knight is a human being, the lady he meets is
clearly a non-mortal creature : she is ‘a faery’s child’
(stanza IV), sings ‘a faery’s song’ (stanza VI), lives in an
‘elfin grot’ (stanza VIII) and speaks a ‘language strange’
(stanza VII). All these elements suggest enchantment.
The lady seduces the knight with her beauty (stanza
IV) and also with sensuality : she offers him ‘roots of relish sweet, / And honey wild and manna dew’ (stanza VII).
But she may also have a destructive power : in the knight’s
dream, the men the lady met before are ‘death-pale’ (stanza X) and have ‘starved lips’ (stanza XI). Besides, the
lady has wild eyes (stanzas IV and VIII), and she is without pity : it is the meaning of ‘La belle Dame sans Merci’.
How can we interpret the character of the lady ? – She may represent the attractive powers of imagination.
Thus (ainsi), the knight would refuse the world of reality to succumb to the charm of an ideal world.
But this positive vision is coupled with an evil side. This corresponds to a tradition of ‘femmes fatales’, who
both have the power to love and bring destruction.
Through the magical and deep mystery it expresses, Keats’s poem appeals to our imagination, which is basically the function of poetry : we can interpret it in various ways, without being able to impose an explanation. In a
letter, Keats emphasized the importance of beauty : « the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or
rather obliterates all consideration ». Some Pre-Raphaelite painters represented ‘La belle Dame sans Merci’, and
strange feminine figures also appear in the works of symbolist poets and in Gustave Moreau’s enigmatic paintings.
Marc VAUTION
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