Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc - meaning Summary
Martyrdom Meets Intimate Surrender
Cohen retells Joan of Arc as a figure torn between public duty and private desire. She longs for ordinary life but is drawn into an erotic, destructive intimacy with fire, which both consummates and consumes her. The poem reframes martyrdom as a paradoxical union—love and annihilation intertwined—while the narrator watches with conflicted awe, questioning whether such radiant cruelty can be the price of love or meaning.
Read Complete AnalysesNow the flames they followed Joan of Arc As she came riding through the dark No moon to keep her armour bright No man to get her through this very smoky night She said, "I'm tired of the war I want the kind of work I had before A wedding dress or something white To wear upon my swollen appetite" Well, I'm glad to hear you talk this way You know I've watched you riding every day And something in me yearns to win Such a cold and lonesome heroine "And who are you?" she sternly spoke To the one beneath the smoke "Why, I'm fire", he replied "And I love your solitude, I love your pride" "Then fire, make your body cold I'm going to give you mine to hold" Saying this she climbed inside To be his one, to be his only bride And deep into his fiery heart He took the dust of Joan of Arc And high above the wedding guests He hung the ashes of her wedding dress It was deep into his fiery heart He took the dust of Joan of Arc And then she clearly understood If he was fire, oh then she must be wood I saw her wince, I saw her cry I saw the glory in her eye Myself, I long for love and light But must it come so cruel, and oh so bright?
I understand Joan to be a representative of any and every human being in their universal yearning for real freedom. The desired 'something white', in contrast to the 'wedding dress', could easily be a nun's habit. But in her sincerity, simplicity, bravery and piety she gets much, much more. Joan wants, she needs to belong, hence the courtship is so short. But she also immediately recognises, perhaps with just her feminine instinct at first, that this is real!, that she should leave everything now and get that 'precious pearl' (the pearl about which St. Matthew writes). The fire is the fervent, deeply longing and all-consuming love of God, the love with which He is on fire towards every human being, live, dead, and not yet born. Joan turns to dust, as much as we all do (...you are dust, and into dust you will turn...). But the marriage consummation is a profoundly positive, happy outcome: she is now fully united with her Heavenly Lover (hence 'It was deep into His fiery heart...'), but all the dross, all the stench of the 'old Adam' are (finally) gone! St. Joan of Arc, pray for us. Martin Machat (excuse my poor English, please; it is my third, or fourth language)