‘Lamia’
‘Lamia’,a narrative poem by Keats , written 1819 , published 1820 .
The story was taken from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy , there quoted from Philostratus. Lamia, a sorceress, is transformed by Hermes from a serpent into a beautiful woman. She loves the serious young Corinthian Lycius, and he, spellbound by her beauty and believing her human, falls in love with her. They retire to her secret and sumptuous palace in Corinth. Here, not content with his happiness and against Lamia's wishes, Lycius orders a magnificent bridal feast and summons his friends. Among them, though uninvited, comes his old guide and mentor, the sage Apollonius, who pierces Lamia's disguise and calls her by her name. Her beauty withers, with a frightful scream she vanishes, and Lycius dies in a frenzy of grief. Keats wrote to his brother George that he believed the poem had ‘a sort of fire in it’ and that it would please a sensation-loving...
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