Poet’s Corner: Coleridge–Christabel 29

15 July 2026

(7 August 2015) We greet all our readers and welcome them back to another installment from Coleridge’s long, unfinished poem, “Christabel.” After seeing what Christabel sees–Geraldine as a snake, meaning that she is a villain–Christabel tries to convey to her father something of her fears:

And when the trance was o’er, the maid
Paused awhile, and inly prayed:
Then falling at the Baron’s feet,
‘By my mother’s soul do I entreat
That thou this woman send away!’
She said: and more she could not say:
For what she knew she could not tell,
O’er-mastered by the mighty spell.

All our heroine can tell her father is to send Geraldine away, for the power of the spell Geraldine has cast upon her. The poet breaks in at this point, with a plea on Christabel’s behalf, a plea to the Baron to forbear thinking ill of her for breaching one of the most sacred laws, that of hospitality:

Why is thy cheek so wan and wild,
Sir Leoline? Thy only child
Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride,
So fair, so innocent, so mild;
The same, for whom thy lady died!
O by the pangs of her dear mother
Think thou no evil of thy child!
For her, and thee, and for no other,
She prayed the moment ere she died:
Prayed that the babe for whom she died,
Might prove her dear lord’s joy and pride!
That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled,
Sir Leoline!
And wouldst thou wrong thy only child,
Her child and thine?

The poet continues by reminding the Baron of the cost of this, his only, child, and we are reminded again that Christabel’s mother died in childbirth, died with a prayer on her lips for her child, that she grow up to make the Baron proud. Coleridge, by giving this tale a medieval setting, places it in a time period when the laws of hospitality are the highest laws; this law, although never written but practiced by all these early cultures, is that one is required to do all within his or her power to feed, clothe, and aid in any way, all persons who were invited in as guests, and they were to invite anyone in who came to their door asking for help. An expression of the gravity of this law is found in Dante’s “Inferno,” where the second worst crime, punished in Hell’s lowest circle, was treachery to one’s host or one’s guest, a treachery that involved murder. Thus, the poet begs Sir Leoline’s indulgence on behalf of his daughter, who appears to be breaching this fundamental law by asking that Geraldine–her guest–be sent away at once. We also note that this tells us clearly how Christabel feared Geraldine and her spells, if she was willing to break this universal law. More next time from Coleridge! Good reading!