‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ – a ballad by John Keats, that’s title translates to the lady without mercy, creates a sense of betrayal from the start.
The poem begins from the first-person perspective of the main character, asking himself a question, “O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms”, now pointing to the conclusion that this character is a knight, asking for an ailment. He states how he is “alone and palely loitering”, foreshadowing that something has happened to him. The next stanza repeats the first line, and begins asking himself again, why are you not happy? The world around you is doing just fine. He then answers his question by creating a metaphor describing his personal state, comparing himself to the lake in front of him as being anguished and feverish. Using a simile to describe the fading redness from his cheeks, as a fast-withering rose. He is clearly an emotionally distressed character and shows his emotions by comparing himself with the world around him. The next stanza begins with a shift in the poem, as now he meets the character that the title refers to, “I met a lady in the meads”, describing her as beautiful with wild eyes. He became emotionally invested in her and makes a garland with bracelets. She acknowledges these sentiments as he interprets this as love from her. He sat on his horse, thinking nothing else but her, whilst admiring her making him realize that there is something about her that attracts him. She offers him gifts of roots and honey and tells him that she loves him. She takes him to where she resided and he states, “I shut her wild, wild eyes. With kisses four”, the repetition shows how infatuated with the love he has become. She lulls him to sleep, which during he dreams about the cold hillside he was once on. In the dream, he sees pale warriors, kings, and princes, which all told to him that the lady without mercy has found him too. He stares in his dream at their faces, all starved and gaped wide with horror. He awoke from this dream and found himself back on the cold hillside, without the lady that he began to think he fell in love with. The ballad ends with the stanza recalling that of the first, he is alone, witnessing the withering sedge without any singing of the birds. This end links the emotions he showed from the start to why he now experiences them, now that we know that he fell in love and his love left him. The attitude he was conveying looking back on it was how heartbroken he felt about his lost love.
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The theme that the author wanted to get across is that of betrayal, not everyone can be trusted, and you should not just jump headfirst into things especially love. Now revisiting the title, a second time you see how it encapsulates the story as it blatantly states that this woman was heartless, and you can take away that there are many more heartless people out there, so have caution with your decisions and never trust to quickly as betrayal can always happen. This is a story that is meant to be relatable to people and inform them about the two-faced individuals of this world. This poem serves as a reminder to all who have loved and lost, and a message to those who haven’t yet, they should consider their decisions rather than gullibly accepting that they are in love.
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