If we examine the poem carefully we can see that the
fairy-lady that the knight meets and is so taken by is responsible for deceiving the
poor, unsuspecting knight by clearly leading him on and pretending to have more
affection and love for him than she actually feels. Note what the following stanza
reveals about her behaviour towards the knight:
She loooked at me as she did
love,
And made sweet
moan.
This is one example of
the way in which the lady gave the knight expectations of her love and desire for him.
Note the way that there is almost a sexual connotation in "made sweet moan" which,
through its onomatopoeia, seems to capture the sexual desire and frisson between the
pair. Of course, as the rest of the poem shows, this is just a deception designed to
entrap the knight in the lady's snare, which is evident by the fact that the knight is
still wandering around, suffering from unrequited love, when nature itself is abandoning
the scene.
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