Madame Duclaux's strangling rose

Madame Duclaux

Lest it seem that male writers and artists have monopolised the Rudel legend (though we've already covered work by Sarah White and the late Kaija Saariaho), I bring you Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux (1857-1944), author of 'Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli', a ballad in 38 verses first published in 1888.

Born Agnes Mary Frances Robinson to a family who subsequently became a fixture in Pre-Raphaelite circles, she had quite the life, if her wikipedia entry is anything to go by. 'Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli', also published in The Collected Poems Lyrical and Narrative of A. Mary F. Robinson (Madame Duclaux) in 1910, is an odd little thing, verging on a horror story.

It begins thus:

There was in all the world of France 
No singer half so sweet : 
The first note of his viol brought 
A crowd into the street.

And as he sat in Avignon* 
With princes at their wine, 
In all that lusty company 
Was none so fresh and fine. 

His kirtle's of the Arras-blue 
His cap of pearls and green, 
His golden curls fall tumbling round 
The bonniest face I've seen.

(* over 600 km from Blaye, but we'll let that pass)

So far, so hey-nonny-no. To cut a 38-verse story short, he sees a faded portrait of the Lady of Tripoli, stabs its besotted owner, and takes ship for "A pale, enchanted Eastern place, / White under radiant skies" – a place "Of nodding palms" and "strangling rose / Sweet in the cypress boughs!". Strangling rose?

When the unnamed Lady appears, all is wafty and indistinct, until her hair is revealed, "Ravelled in many a snowy ring / About her shoulders bare." 

White-haired, then. And then - this:

She's opened wide her bridal arms,
She's bent her wintry face;—
What ails, what ails Geoffrey Rudel?
He has fallen from his place.

A verse or so later, the final lines:

He's opened wide his dazzled eyes,
Dead in a face of stone.
Into the windy dark of Death
His spirit drifts alone.

Shall we unpack that? Maybe not. Let's just note a few things: languid atmosphere, asphyxiating flora, and a woman with white hair, bridal arms, wintry face... then Rudel is turned – metaphorically or otherwise – to stone. Has "La Belle Dame sans Merci" been hiding in plain sight in the Rudel legend all along? With a bit of the Medusa thrown in?

The poem's uncanny qualities didn't go unnoticed at the time. A contemporary reviewer in the Spectator (2 July 1888) deemed it "worthy of a very high place among the songs of romance" and declared: "Miss R has an almost unique power of painting what is eerie without overdoing it."

Or Duclaux might be having a bit of impish fun with a hoary old story, even before Rostand larded it with further layers of schmaltz. She begins her introduction to the 1910 collection with the words: “I have always thought that one should write poetry only as one dies”. Is she poking fun at herself as a 'Lady Poetess'? I'd like to think so.