The song’s mournful narrative, in which a lover grieves for the death of the eponymous Lady D’Arbanville, is a metaphor for the end of the relationship between Cat and the American model-actress Patti D’Arbanville. Such is the sumptuous imagery of Cat lyric that it conjures thoughts of Sir John Everett Millais’ Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece ‘Ophelia’ (1851) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s glorious ‘The Lady of Shalott’ (1832). Love is presented as an immortal rose that can survive the corporeal death of the relationship. Although the flame between lovers may have died out on this mortal plane, the dream of reawakening it in the next realm lives on.
The song’s mournful narrative, in which a lover grieves for the death of the eponymous Lady D’Arbanville, is a metaphor for the end of the relationship between Cat and the American model-actress Patti D’Arbanville. Such is the sumptuous imagery of Cat lyric that it conjures thoughts of Sir John Everett Millais’ Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece ‘Ophelia’ (1851) and Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s glorious ‘The Lady of Shalott’ (1832). Love is presented as an immortal rose that can survive the corporeal death of the relationship. Although the flame between lovers may have died out on this mortal plane, the dream of reawakening it in the next realm lives on.