Nekyia's Threshold

subject:
The Lady of Shallot
post date:
2007-04-10 17:04:49
views: 30 comments: 0 ratings: 0

The Lady of Shalott is a magical being who lives alone on an island upstream from King Arthur's Camelot. Her business is to look at the world outside her castle window in a mirror, and to weave what she sees into a tapestry. She is forbidden by the magic to look at the outside world directly. The farmers who live near her island hear her singing and know who she is, but never see her. The Lady sees ordinary people, loving couples, and knights in pairs reflected in her mirror. One day, she sees the reflection of Sir Lancelot riding alone. Although she knows that it is forbidden, she looks out the window at him. The mirror shatters, the tapestry flies off on the wind, and the Lady feels the power of her curse.An autumn storm suddenly arises. The lady leaves her castle, finds a boat, writes her name on it, gets into the boat, sets it adrift, and sings her death song as she drifts down the river to Camelot. The locals find the boat and the body, realize who she is, and are saddened. Lancelot prays that God will have mercy on her soul.(More on the poem)The Lady of Shallot, a poem by Lord Tennyson:The Lady of Shallot, named Elaine, and also called the Fair Maid of Astolat, was a beautiful woman who lived alone in a tower on an island in the river that flows down to Camelot. She is held in her room by a curse which does not allow her to go out or even look out the window. Instead she can only see the world through a mirror, which in some versions of the story is a magic mirror but in most is just a large mirror that allows her to see what is happening in the outside world. She weaves tapestries, pictures made with thread, and uses the things she sees in her mirror--scenes of Camelot--as the subject of her tapestries. "There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay. She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down to Camelot. She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott." She gets upset sometimes that she cannot be a part of life outside her window. "But in her web she still delights To weave the mirror's magic sights, For often thro' the silent nights A funeral, with plumes and lights And music, went to Camelot: Or when the moon was overhead, Came two young lovers lately wed: 'I am half sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott." When the handsome knight Sir Lancelot passes by her window, she is overwhelmed by him, and forgetting the curse, she looks out the window to see him directly! When she does, the mirror breaks, and the threads of her tapestry break as well... "She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro' the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side; 'The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott." She goes down to the riverside and finds a boat, and on the prow (front) of the boat she writes "The Lady of Shallot". She unties the boat and lies down in it, and as she floats down the river toward Camelot, she sings a song. As the curse works it's evil magic, her blood freezes and she dies. The boat lands on the shore of Camelot where where the people of Camelot come out to see what this is, and they see that she has written her name on the front of the boat. In the crowd is Sir Lancelot, who does not know what has happened: "Who is this? and what is here? And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they cross'd themselves for fear, All the knights at Camelot: But Lancelot mused a little space;He said, 'She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.'" ********************************William Waterhouse had a beautiful model that he was in love with, and used in his paintings. He painted "The Lady of Shallot", and it hangs upon my wall, draped with the knotted cord that my husband and I tied during our marriage ceremony. We did literally "Tie the Knot" - and the love and laughter and luck has never run out of our marriage. We work hard at it. The knot works, but our dedication to the strength of the knot is what works best.Marriages that utilize ties that bind are fun. Silken cords. Neckties. Yea... And LOTS of imagination.