{{For|the 15th-century poem by Alain Chartier|La Belle Dame sans Mercy}}
+{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
[[File:John William Waterhouse - La Belle Dame sans Merci (1893).jpg|thumb|[[John William Waterhouse]] – ''La belle dame sans merci'', 1893]]
[[File:Henry Meynell Rheam - La Belle Dame sans Merci.jpg|thumb|''La Belle Dame sans Merci'' by [[Henry Meynell Rheam]], 1901]]
[[File:Arthur Hugues - La belle dame sans merci.jpg|thumb|[[Arthur Hughes (artist)|Arthur Hughes]] – ''La belle dame sans merci'']]
-[[File:Dicksee Frank, La Belle Dame Sans Mersi.jpg|thumb|[[Frank Dicksee]] – ''La belle dame sans merci'', c. 1901]]
+[[File:Dicksee Frank, La Belle Dame Sans Merci.jpg|thumb|[[Frank Dicksee]] – ''La belle dame sans merci'', c. 1901]]
[[File:La Belle Dame sans Merci - Punch cartoon - Project Gutenberg eText 19105.png|thumb|''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' magazine cartoon, 1920]]
"'''La Belle Dame sans Merci'''" ("The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy") is a [[ballad]] produced by the [[England|English]] poet [[John Keats]] in 1819. The title was derived from the title of a 15th-century poem by [[Alain Chartier]] called ''[[La Belle Dame sans Mercy]]''.<ref name="symons_2004_title" />
Considered an English classic, the poem is an example of Keats' poetic preoccupation with love and death.<ref name="everest_2002_lovedeath" /> The poem is about a [[fairy]] who condemns a knight to an unpleasant fate after she seduces him with her eyes and singing. The fairy inspired several artists to paint images that became early examples of 19th-century ''[[femme fatale]]'' iconography.<ref name="cooper_1986_fatale" /> The poem continues to be referenced in many works of literature, music, art, and film.
==Poem==
-The poem is simple in structure with twelve [[stanza]]s of four lines each in an ABCB [[rhyme scheme]]. Below is both the original and revised version of the poem.:<ref name="keats_1905_selincourt" /><ref name="Oxford_English_Verse" />
+The poem is simple in structure with twelve [[stanza]]s of four lines each in an ABCB [[rhyme scheme]]. Below are both the original and revised version of the poem:<ref name="keats_1905_selincourt" /><ref name="Oxford_English_Verse" />
{|
|-
Fast withereth too.<br />
<br />
I met a lady in the meads,<br />
-Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;<br />
+Full beautiful, a fairy's child;<br />
Her hair was long, her foot was light,<br />
And her eyes were wild.<br />
<br />
I set her on my pacing steed,<br />
And nothing else saw all day long,<br />
For sidelong would she bend, and sing<br />
-A faery’s song.<br />
+A faery's song.<br />
<br />
She found me roots of relish sweet,<br />
And honey wild, and manna-dew,<br />
And sure in language strange she said—<br />
-‘I love thee true’.<br />
+'I love thee true'.<br />
<br />
She took me to her Elfin grot,<br />
And there she wept and sighed full sore,<br />
The latest dream I ever dreamt<br />
On the cold hill side.<br />
<br />
-I saw pale kings and princes too,<br/>
-Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;<br/>
-They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci<br />
-Hath thee in thrall!’<br />
+I saw pale kings and princes too,<br />
+Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;<br />
+They cried—'La Belle Dame sans Merci<br />
+Hath thee in thrall!'<br />
<br />
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,<br />
With horrid warning gapèd wide,<br />
And I awoke and found me here,<br />
-On the cold hill’s side.<br />
+On the cold hill's side.<br />
<br />
And this is why I sojourn here,<br />
Alone and palely loitering,<br />
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,<br />
And no birds sing.
|| ||
-O what can ail thee, wretched wight,<br />
+Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,<br />
Alone and palely loitering?<br />
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,<br />
And no birds sing.<br />
<br />
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,<br />
So haggard and so woe-begone?<br />
-The squirrel’s granary is full,<br />
-And the harvest’s done.<br />
+The squirrel's granary is full,<br />
+And the harvest's done.<br />
<br />
I see a lily on thy brow,<br />
With anguish moist and fever-dew,<br />
Fast withereth too.<br />
<br />
I met a lady in the meads,<br />
-Full beautiful, a faery’s child;<br />
+Full beautiful, a faery's child;<br />
Her hair was long, her foot was light,<br />
And her eyes were wild.<br />
<br />
The latest dream I ever dream'd<br />
On the cold hill side.<br />
<br />
-I saw pale kings, and princes too,<br/>
-Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;<br/>
-Who cry'd—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci<br />
-Hath thee in thrall!’<br />
+I saw pale kings, and princes too,<br />
+Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;<br />
+Who cry'd—'La Belle Dame sans Merci<br />
+Hath thee in thrall!'<br />
<br />
I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam,<br />
With horrid warning gaped wide,<br />
|}
==Inspiration==
-In 2019 literary scholars [[Richard Marggraf Turley]] and Jennifer Squire proposed that the ballad may have been inspired by the tomb effigy of [[Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel]] (d. 1376) in [[Chichester Cathedral]]. At the time of Keats' visit in 1819, the effigy stood mutilated and separated from that of Arundel's second wife, [[Eleanor of Lancaster]] (d. 1372), in the northern outer aisle. The figures were reunited and restored by Edward Richardson in 1843, and later inspired [[Philip Larkin]]'s 1956 poem "[[An Arundel Tomb]]".<ref>{{cite web |title=Old sketches, maps and gothic effigies unlock secrets of John Keats's famous poem 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' |publisher=Aberystwyth University |date=16 May 2019 |url=https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/archive/2019/05/title-223178-en.html?bblinkid=160156052&bbemailid=13965598&bbejrid=1065862831 |accessdate=25 December 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Richard |last=Marggraf Turley |author-link=Richard Marggraf Turley |title=How a stone knight inspired two very different visions of love from John Keats and Philip Larkin |publisher=The Conversation |date=16 July 2019 |url=https://theconversation.com/how-a-stone-knight-inspired-two-very-different-visions-of-love-from-john-keats-and-philip-larkin-120377 |accessdate=25 December 2019 }}</ref>
+In 2019 literary scholars [[Richard Marggraf Turley]] and Jennifer Squire proposed that the ballad may have been inspired by the tomb effigy of [[Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel]] (d. 1376) in [[Chichester Cathedral]]. At the time of Keats' visit in 1819, the effigy stood mutilated and separated from that of Arundel's second wife, [[Eleanor of Lancaster]] (d. 1372), in the northern outer aisle. The figures were reunited and restored by Edward Richardson in 1843, and later inspired [[Philip Larkin]]'s 1956 poem "[[An Arundel Tomb]]".<ref>{{cite web |title=Old sketches, maps and gothic effigies unlock secrets of John Keats's famous poem 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' |publisher=Aberystwyth University |date=16 May 2019 |url=https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/news/archive/2019/05/title-223178-en.html?bblinkid=160156052&bbemailid=13965598&bbejrid=1065862831 |access-date=25 December 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Richard |last=Marggraf Turley |author-link=Richard Marggraf Turley |title=How a stone knight inspired two very different visions of love from John Keats and Philip Larkin |publisher=The Conversation |date=16 July 2019 |url=https://theconversation.com/how-a-stone-knight-inspired-two-very-different-visions-of-love-from-john-keats-and-philip-larkin-120377 |access-date=25 December 2019 }}</ref>
== In other media ==
In 1935, [[Patrick Hadley]] wrote a version of the Stanford score for tenor, [[SATB|four-part chorus]], and orchestra.<ref name="hadley_1935_score" />
+Ukrainian composer [[Valentyn Silvestrov]] wrote a song for baritone and piano after Russian translation of the poem. It belongs to Silvestrov's song cycle ''Quiet Songs (Silent Songs)'' (1974–1975).
+
A setting of the poem, in German translation, appears on the 2009 music album ''Buch der Balladen'' by [[Faun (band)|Faun]].<ref name="faun_2009_balladen" />
A lyrical, mystical musical setting of this poem has been composed by [[Loreena McKennitt]], published in her 2018 CD ''Lost Souls''.<ref name="mckennitt_2018_lost" />
=== Film ===
The 1915 American film ''[[The Poet of the Peaks]]'' was based upon the poem.<ref name="reaves_1915_peaks" />
-The 2009 stop-action animated fantasy film ''[[Coraline]]'' directed by Henry Selick refers to the malevolent Other Mother as "beldam". The film includes a similar theme of entrapment by a seemingly beautiful loving woman.<ref name="selick_2009_coraline" />
+[[Germaine Dulac]]'s 1920 ''La Belle Dame sans Merci'' explores the archetype of the ''femme fatale''.<ref>[https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/proiezione/la-belle-dame-sans-merci/ ''La Belle Dame sans Merci'', Il Cinema Ritrovato]</ref>
+
+[[Natassia Malthe]] stars as "The Lady" in Hidetoshi Oneda 2005 fantasy short of the same title.
+
+[[Ben Whishaw]] recites the poem in the 2009 Keats biopic ''[[Bright Star (film)|Bright Star]]''.
===Books ===
The poem is mentioned in the story entitled "The case of Three Gables" from the 1893 book ''[[The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes]]'' by Sir [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]. In it Holmes compares and matches the character sketch of Isadora Klein with La Belle Dame sans Merci.<ref name="doyle_1893_sherlock" />
The last two lines of the first verse ("The sedge has withered from the lake/And no birds sing") were used as an epigraph for [[Rachel Carson]]'s book ''[[Silent Spring]]'' (1962), about the environmental damage caused by the irresponsible use of pesticides. The second line was repeated later in the book, as the title of a chapter about their specific effects on birds.<ref name="carson_2002_silentspring" />
-The last two lines of the 11th verse are used as the title of a science fiction short story, "And I awoke and found me here on the cold hill's side" (1973) by [[James Tiptree, Jr.]].<ref name="tiptree_1973" />
+The last two lines of the 11th verse are used as the title of a science fiction short story, "And I awoke and found me here on the cold hill's side" (1973) by [[James Tiptree Jr.]]<ref name="tiptree_1973" />
[[Roger Zelazny]]'s ''Amber Chronicles'' refer to the poem in Chapter Five of ''The Courts of Chaos'' (1978) wherein the protagonist journeys to a land that resembles the poem.<ref name="zelazny_1978_chaos" />
The Beldam in Neil Gaiman's 2002 horror-fantasy novel ''[[Coraline]]'' references the mysterious woman who is also known as Belle Dame. Both share many similarities as both lure their protagonists into their lair by showing their love towards them and giving them treats to enjoy. The protagonists in both stories also encounter the ghosts who have previously met both women and warn the protagonist about their true colours and at the end of the story, the protagonist is stuck in their lair, with the exception of Coraline who managed to escape while the unnamed knight in this poem is still stuck in the mysterious fairy's lair.<ref name="gaiman_2002_coraline" />
-[[L. A. Meyer]]'s ''Bloody Jack'' series (2002-2014) features a take on La Belle Dame sans Merci, adapted to reflect the protagonists age. Mary "Jacky" Faber became known as "La belle jeune fille sans merci".<!-- reference needed-->
+[[L. A. Meyer]]'s ''Bloody Jack'' series (2002–2014) features a take on La Belle Dame sans Merci, adapted to reflect the protagonists age. Mary "Jacky" Faber became known as "La belle jeune fille sans merci".<!-- reference needed-->
In ''Hunting Ground'' (2009) by [[Patricia Briggs]], La Belle Dame sans Merci is identified as The Lady of the Lake and is a hidden antagonist.<ref name="briggs_2009_hunting" />
[[Cassandra Clare]]'s 2016 collection of novellas ''[[Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy]]'' includes a novella titled Pale Kings and Princes, named after the line "I saw pale kings and princes too/Pale warriors, death-pale were they all". Three of the poem's stanzas are also excerpted in the story.<ref name="clare_2016_shadowhunter" />
-The last two lines of the first verse ("The sedge has withered from the lake/And no birds sing") are used in the text of the 2019 Nebula award-winning science fiction story "This Is How You Lose The Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (2019)<ref>"This Is How You Lose The Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Saga books, 2019)</ref>
+The last two lines of the first verse ("The sedge has withered from the lake/And no birds sing") are used in the text of the 2019 Nebula award-winning science fiction story ''[[This Is How You Lose the Time War]]'' by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (2019).<ref>"This Is How You Lose The Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Saga books, 2019)</ref>
===Television===
{{Expand section | date = November 2018}}
-''[[Rosemary & Thyme]]'' - Season 1, Episode 1<ref name="rosemary_20030831" />
+''[[Rosemary & Thyme]]'' – Season 1, Episode 1<ref name="rosemary_20030831" />
+
+[[Californication (TV series)|''Californication'']] – Season 1, Episode 5<ref name="californ_20070910" />
+
+''[[Downton Abbey]]'' – Season 6, Episode 5<ref name="abbey_20151018" />
-[[Californication (TV series)|''Californication'']] - Season 1, Episode 5<ref name="californ_20070910" />
+''[[Victoria (UK TV series)|Victoria]]'' – Season 2, Episode 3<ref name="victoria_20170910" />
-''[[Downton Abbey]]'' - Season 6, Episode 5<ref name="abbey_20151018" />
+The theme of a woman seducing men to keep herself immortal is in ''The Twilight Zone'' series episode "[[Queen of the Nile (The Twilight Zone)|Queen of the Nile]]".
-''[[Victoria (UK TV series)|Victoria]]'' - Season 2, Episode 3<ref name="victoria_20170910" />
+It has also been suggested that there is a strong similarity with the plot of Monty Python's [[Seduced Milkmen]] sketch.
===Other===
In a March 2017 interview with ''[[The Quietus]]'' the English songwriter and musician [[John Lydon]] cited the poem as a favourite.<ref name="quietus_20170321_interview-fb" />
-In the popular trading card game, ''Magic the Gathering'', the card 'Merieke Ri Berit' is modeled after this poem.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Merieke Ri Berit|url=https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Merieke_Ri_Berit|access-date=2020-06-12|website=MTG Wiki|language=en}}</ref>
+In the popular trading card game, ''Magic the Gathering'', the card "Merieke Ri Berit" is modeled after this poem.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Merieke Ri Berit|url=https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Merieke_Ri_Berit|access-date=2020-06-12|website=MTG Wiki|language=en}}</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist|refs=
| date = 1915-04-12
| title = The Poet of the Peaks
| medium = motion picture
-| language = English
+| language = en
| time = <!-- Insert relevant hh:mm time in movie referencing poem.-->
| location = USA
| publisher = Mutual Film
| date = 2009
| title = Coraline
| medium = motion picture
-| language = English
+| language = en
| location = USA
| publisher = Focus Features
| oclc = 895036872
| date = 2007-09-10
| season = 1
| number = 5
- | language = English
+ | language = en
| oclc = 941908978
}}</ref>
| date = 2003-08-31
| season = 1
| number = 1
- | language = English
+ | language = en
| oclc = 1040647468
}}</ref>
| date = 2015-10-18
| season = 6
| number = 5
- | language = English
+ | language = en
| oclc = 932137942
}}</ref>
| date = 2017-09-10
| season = 2
| number = 3
- | language = English
+ | language = en
| oclc = 1026276682
}}</ref>
| oclc = 11128824
}}</ref>
-<ref name=" Oxford_English_Verse">{{cite book
+<ref name="Oxford_English_Verse">{{cite book
| title = Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900
| url = https://www.bartleby.com/101/633.html
| last = Keats
| date = 1919
| location = Oxford
| publisher = Clarendon Press
-| pages = https://www.bartleby.com/101/633.html
+| via = [[Bartleby.com]]
| oclc = 1171806391
}}</ref>
}}</ref>
<ref name="punch_1920_drawing">{{Citation
-| author =
-| first =
| date = 1920-12-01
| title = LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI
| publisher = [[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]
| date = 2003
| title = [[Murder in Mesopotamia]] : A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation
| medium = audio compact disc
-| language = English
+| language = en
| time = 01:16:55 <!--See also 00:20:03-->
| location = Bath
| publisher = BBC Audiobooks
== External links ==
{{Wikisource|La Belle Dame sans Merci}}
+* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-keats/poetry|Display Name=An omnibus collection of Keats' poetry|noitalics=true}}
{{John Keats}}
+{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Belle Dame Sans Merci, La}}
[[Category:1819 poems]]
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