The Unicorn and the Loathly Lady

Giles C. Watson has added a photo to the pool:

The Unicorn and the Loathly Lady

The Unicorn and the Loathly Lady

Honour is harder for the fair
To maintain - though to me
It always seemed strange
To set such store by a thin
Membrane - and yet it draws
Me like a lodestone:
Virginity bids me lean
My head upon her lap
And think of nothing.

This one is loathsome
In her aspect: I am
The only fair thing
To have lain between
Those legs, and I scorn
Her taste in millinery.

No doubt such lack
Of panache is why
Shes still intact: and so
My cloven tracks
Lead here, and then
Leave off. His spear
Brings out blood
And water: a brutal
Knight and his ugly
Virgin daughter.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2011. This fifteenth century misericord from the parish church in Stratford-upon-Avon shows a scene commonly described in the mediaeval bestiaries: a unicorn, which is too fleet of foot to be trapped or killed by more honest means, is attracted to the lap of a virgin, where it sits mesmerised until it is killed by a knight, who transfixes it with a spear. The bestiaries go on to compare the killing of the unicorn with the death of Christ. Given that this carving is just across the choir from Shakespeares grave, it seemed appropriate to allude to Hamlets words to Ophelia in the play scene.
For another poem on the later development of the lore of the unicorn, see:
www.flickr.com/photos/29320962@N07/5528255287/


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