Lady Diamond

The title of the ballad is “Lady Diamond”. The title creates in the reader’s mind the idea of an aristocratic setting. The reader’s expectations are to read about a lady and her story, and probably a tragic love story. The name of the lady (Diamond) reminds of the special crystal, so the story is going to talk about a special precious lady.

The ballad is made up of 13 quatrains that follow the rhyme scheme ABCB. Only the fifth and the tenth quatrains show a slightly different rhyme scheme (ABAB). They introduce the most important turning points of the story: the king’s decision to talk to her daughter and discover what happened and the death of Lady Diamond.
The ballad is composed of both narrative and dialogical sequences.

The first quatrain recalls the opening of a fairy tale (there was a king and a noble king... ). It creates and exotic feeling and had the function of introducing the main characters: the king (who is quoted three times in the first two lines) and his daughter. Right from the start, the reader understands the king’s deep love and possessiveness towards her daughter. Indeed, she is his only daughter dear, and her name itself represents her rarity and preciousness.

The second quatrain introduces the last main character of the story: the kitchen boy and Lady Diamond’s true love. The reader’s attention is focused on the word love, that is the beginning and the trigger of the whole story. The last line of the quatrain contains a time reference (Till the grass overgrew the corn). It refers to the first period of Autumn. References to the nature and the cycle of the seasons, united to the use of a very simple, matter of fact, popular language, made the ballad easier to understand for the illiterate listeners. The word “Till” underlines that Lady Diamond and the kitchen boy had been seeing each other for a quite long time.

The third quatrain starts with a time reference: twenty weeks later, that means about 5 months. The whole quatrain is dedicated to Lady Diamond’s appearance: her dress became short on the front and she was not able to fasten her corset, so she began to cry. This is a very concrete and matter of fact way to describe the period of pregnancy.

The fourth quatrain introduces the core of the story. It begins  with a time reference: the scene is set during a winter night. The king feels there is something wrong with his daughter and is very anxious.: he is described as a wandering ghost. He finally decides to go and talk to his daughter and enters her room.

The fifth quatrain reports the actions and the words of the king. He holds his daughter’s pale hand and asks her for explanations. This is the beginning of the dialogical part of the ballad (v. 19). The king addresses his daughter using popular language and a Scottish dialect (the reader can conjecture the story is set in Scotland).

The sixth quatrain reports the answer of the daughter. She admits to be pregnant by the kitchen boy and asks her father not to reproach her and to let her take the child.

The seventh quatrain presents the king’s reaction: a dialogue with his men, his soldiers. He suddenly orders to 33 of them to go and kill the kitchen boy secretly. The number 33 (split into thirty and three) recalls the perfection.

The eighth and ninth quatrains describe the kitchen boy’s murder. After the previous two and a half dialogue quatrains, the silence reigns on the scene (There wasn’t any sound to be heard, Not another word was said). The men killed the kitchen boy fast and easily. They cut his heart out of his breast, put it in a golden bowl and gave it to his beloved lady. The language is, as always, very concrete.

The tenth quatrain is occupied by the monologue of Lady Diamond. She is desperate and cries over his love’s heart. The quatrain shows a large use of repetition (come to me and my) and alliteration of the sound “m”. The result is a strong emotional and rhythmic quatrain that sticks in the reader’s mind for its power and simplicity.

The eleventh quatrain describes Lady Diamond’s acts: she cried over the heart until she washed away all the blood with her tears and then she died of despair.

The last two quatrains describe the king’s reaction to the death of the daughter. He blames his men not to have stopped him from killing the kitchen boy. Then he cries for having lost his only joy (his daughter, Diamond) for the love of a kitchen boy.