How Lisa Loved the King — Background and Themes

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In Category - Fantasy Juvenile Worlds

Authors: Eliot, George, 1819-1880 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 8,262

Reading time 36 min

Text sections 1

How Lisa Loved the King — Background and Themes can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 8,262 words, 36 min estimated reading time, and 1 detected text section.

The text analysis averages about 33.7 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #20813

George Eliot's narrative poem set in 13th-century Palermo follows Lisa, a merchant's daughter, whose secret love for King Pedro of Aragon leads to a delicate negotiation between private devotion and public honor, rendered in ornate verse.

Editorial Edition Score 4.4/5

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Title & short description10 pts
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Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
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Edition quality

File: pg20813

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Spain was the favorite home of knightly grace, Where generous men rode steeds of generous race; Both Spanish, yet half Arab; both inspired By mutual spirit, that each motion fired With beauteous response, like minstrelsy Afresh fulfilling fresh expectancy. So, when Palermo made high festival, The joy of matrons and of maidens all Was the mock terror of the tournament, Where safety, with the glimpse of danger blent, Took exaltation as from epic song, Which greatly tells the pains that to great life belong.

And in all eyes King Pedro was the king Of cavaliers; as in a full-gemmed ring The largest ruby, or as that bright star Whose shining shows us where the Hyads are. His the best genet, and he sat it best; His weapon, whether tilting or in rest, Was worthiest watching; and his face, once seen, Gave to the promise of his royal mien Such rich fulfilment as the opened eyes Of a loved sleeper, or the long-watched rise Of vernal day, whose joy o'er stream and meadow flies.

But of the maiden forms that thick enwreathed The broad piazza, and sweet witchery breathed, With innocent faces budding all arow, From balconies and windows high and low, Who was it felt the deep mysterious glow, The impregnation with supernal fire Of young ideal love, transformed desire, Whose passion is but worship of that Best Taught by the many-mingled creed of each young breast?

{Lady walking through garden: p10.jpg}

'Twas gentle Lisa, of no noble line, Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine, Who from his merchant-city hither came To trade in drugs; yet kept an honest fame, And had the virtue not to try and sell Drugs that had none. He loved his riches well, But loved them chiefly for his Lisa's sake, Whom with a father's care he sought to make The bride of some true honorable man,-- Of Perdicone (so the rumor ran), Whose birth was higher than his fortunes were, For still your trader likes a mixture fair Of blood that hurries to some higher strain Than reckoning money's loss and money's gain. And of such mixture good may surely come: Lord's scions so may learn to cast a sum, A trader's grandson bear a well-set head, And have less conscious manners, better bred; Nor, when he tries to be polite, be rude instead.

'Twas Perdicone's friends made overtures To good Bernardo; so one dame assures Her neighbor dame, who notices the youth Fixing his eyes on Lisa; and, in truth, Eyes that could see her on this summer day Might find it hard to turn another way. She had a pensive beauty, yet not sad; Rather like minor cadences that glad The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs: And oft the trumpet or the joust would rouse Pulses that gave her cheek a finer glow, Parting her lips that seemed a mimic bow By chiselling Love for play in coral wrought, Then quickened by him with the passionate thought, The soul that trembled in the lustrous night Of slow long eyes. Her body was so slight, It seemed she could have floated in the sky, And with the angelic choir made symphony; But in her cheek's rich tinge, and in the dark Of darkest hair and eyes, she bore a mark Of kinship to her generous mother-earth, The fervid land that gives the plumy palm-trees birth.

She saw not Perdicone; her young mind Dreamed not that any man had ever pined For such a little simple maid as she: She had but dreamed how heavenly it would be To love some hero noble, beauteous, great, Who would live stories worthy to narrate, Like Roland, or the warriors of Troy, The Cid, or Amadis, or that fair boy Who conquered every thing beneath the sun, And somehow, some time, died at Babylon Fighting the Moors. For heroes all were good And fair as that archangel who withstood The Evil One, the author of all wrong,-- That Evil One who made the French so strong; And now the flower of heroes must he be Who drove those tyrants from dear Sicily, So that her maids might walk to vespers tranquilly.

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George Eliot's How Lisa Loved the King opens with a dense, simile-laden description of 13th-century Europe, where the aftermath of the Sicilian Vespers sets the stage for a tournament in Palermo. The poem's voice is conspicuously ornate, comparing the king's horse to a 'full-gemmed ring' and his face to 'the opened eyes of a loved sleeper.' This lavish style immediately signals that the work is less a straightforward narrative than a sustained meditation on the nature of ideal love and chivalric virtue.

The excerpts reveal a tension between the public spectacle of courtly life—the 'mock terror of the tournament'—and the private, almost religious intensity of Lisa's devotion. Eliot frames her protagonist's love as a form of worship, using language that echoes Dante's spiritual longing, yet grounds it in the specific social constraints of a merchant's daughter in a royal court.

The Architecture of Devotion

The poem's central dynamic is the transformation of romantic desire into a quasi-religious sentiment. Lisa's love is described as 'the deep mysterious glow, / The impregnation with supernal fire / Of young ideal love, transformed desire.' Eliot repeatedly uses the language of worship: Lisa's soul 'worshipped' the king 'as far seraphim / Worship the distant glory.' This is not mere hyperbole; it establishes a framework where Lisa's love becomes an act of devotion that requires no reciprocation. The king, upon learning of her feelings, treats them with the gravity of a sacred trust, confiding in his queen and arranging a visit that honors Lisa without compromising her modesty.

This architecture of devotion is reinforced by the poem's structure. The narrative moves from the public tournament to the private sickroom, then back to a garden celebration, each space carefully calibrated to reflect the social and emotional stakes. The garden scene, with its 'lake of splendor 'mid the aloes gray,' becomes a stage where the court performs its recognition of Lisa's worth, yet the true drama remains internal.

The Economics of Honor

Eliot embeds a subtle critique of class and commerce within the chivalric surface. Lisa is 'of no noble line, / Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine' who trades in drugs. Her father's wealth is earned, not inherited, and the poem notes that he 'had the virtue not to try and sell / Drugs that had none'—a pointed contrast to the moral compromises of trade. The proposed match with Perdicone, a nobleman of higher birth but lower fortune, reflects the 'mixture fair / Of blood that hurries' that traders seek to elevate their status.

This economic subtext complicates the idealization of courtly love. Lisa's love for the king is presented as pure and selfless, yet it is also a form of social aspiration, albeit one she renounces. When she tells the king she was 'too weak to bear the yoke, / The golden yoke, of thoughts too great for me,' she acknowledges the gap between her station and her desires. The king's response—recognizing that he 'had lost much honor, honoring less / That message of her passionate distress'—suggests that true nobility lies in recognizing the value of a sincere heart, regardless of rank.

The Poetics of Restraint

Eliot's verse is characterized by a deliberate tension between excess and control. The opening lines are almost baroque in their accumulation of botanical imagery: 'flowers hand-planted and of flowers air-sown, / Climbing and trailing, budding and full-blown.' Yet this profusion is carefully ordered by the rhyme scheme and the steady iambic pentameter. The poem's formal discipline mirrors the emotional restraint that Lisa must exercise.

This restraint is most evident in the scenes of direct address. When Lisa finally speaks to the king, her words are brief and veiled: 'Signor, I was too weak to bear the yoke...' The king alone 'perceived the covert sense / Of all her words,' suggesting that true communication occurs beneath the surface of polite speech. The poem's resolution—Lisa's contentment with 'the life of grateful sentiment'—is not a surrender but a transformation of desire into a sustainable, interior joy. The final image of Lisa as a 'white dove before the gorgeous brood' of courtiers encapsulates this poetics of restraint: she is both part of the scene and set apart, her purity a silent rebuke to the splendor around her.

Readers approaching How Lisa Loved the King should attend to the interplay between the poem's lavish surface and its quiet, almost austere core. Eliot's use of simile and metaphor is not decorative but functional, creating a world where every gesture carries moral weight. The poem rewards careful reading of its formal choices—the enjambments, the shifts in diction—as much as its plot. Consider how the verse itself enacts the tension between public display and private truth, and how the resolution, in its refusal of dramatic climax, offers a subtle redefinition of what constitutes a happy ending.

The rain tapped our window as I finished Eliot’s ornate verses on Lisa’s quiet dignity, that careful balance between wanting and letting go. Later, rummaging for a bookmark, I found an old paperback of war songs, their plain refrains oddly complementary—not opposing, just another kind of private honor written in public form. With the Colors Songs of the American Service — Reading Notes stayed beside the poem all afternoon.