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 to her cold death. 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 title 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.'"
Ray Trygstad <trygstad@trygstad.org>