The Bull of Bendylaw
The Bull of Bendylaw - meaning Summary
Tidal Violence and Royal Ruin
Plath's poem depicts an elemental sea embodied as a charging black bull that invades a tidy royal garden. The imagery compresses natural violence and mythic menace into a brief tableau where ordered society—queen, king, lords, and gates—cannot withstand the surge. The poem suggests nature's disruptive power, the fragility of human authority and decorum, and a startling collapse of civilized boundaries under an uncontainable force.
Read Complete AnalysesThe black bull bellowed before the sea. The sea, till that day orderly, Hove up against Bendylaw. The queen in the mulberry arbor stared Stiff as a queen on a playing card. The king fingered his beard. A blue sea, four horny bull-feet, A bull-snouted sea that wouldn't stay put, Bucked at the garden gate. Along box-lined walks in the florid sun Toward the rowdy bellow and back again The lords and ladies ran. The great bronze gate began to crack, The sea broke in at every crack, Pellmell, blueblack. The bull surged up, the bull surged down, Not to be stayed by a daisy chain Nor by any learned man. O the king's tidy acre is under the sea, And the royal rose in the bull's belly, And the bull on the king's highway.
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