5.1 About the poem
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| poet | Leigh Hunt, English |
| published | 1836, The New Monthly Magazine |
| setting | the court of King Francis (Francis I of France), at a lion fight |
| the knight | Count de Lorge |
| the lady | de Lorge's beloved — "a beauteous lively dame" |
| the King's remark | "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there." |
| the lady's plan | drop her glove into the lions' pit to prove his love and win glory |
| de Lorge's action | leaps in, retrieves the glove, throws it in her face |
| the King's verdict | "rightly done!"; "No love … but vanity, sets love a task like that." |
| form | 24 lines in rhyming couplets |
5.2 Sequence of events
- King Francis and his court watch the lions fight.
- Count de Lorge sits with his beloved.
- The lions fight savagely; bloody foam flies over the bars.
- The King says they are better "here than there".
- The lady overhears and decides to drop her glove to prove de Lorge's love.
- She drops it and smiles at him.
- He bows, leaps among the lions, retrieves the glove and returns.
- He throws the glove in her face.
- The King approves and condemns her vanity.
5.3 Images of the lion fight
| Visual images | Sound images |
|---|---|
| horrid laughing jaws | roared |
| they glared | stifled roar |
| blows like beams | thunderous smother |
| rolled on one another | (whisking foam — sound and sight) |
| bloody foam whisking through the air |
(2027 specimen Q6(ii).)