The Queen And The Soldier

I agree with lostinspace that it's a metaphor -- but not just for a lovestory (though it fits that too). Try this notion:

The conversation is the symbolic, inner monologue of a person faced with some undefined need to change their life (possibly growing into an adult lovelife -- that'd explain why voices are different genders). Their sense says they should -- their heart says it's too risky, they might lose even the partial happiness they have now, and it's better to continue as they have.

The Queen is the heart, passion, impulse, youth, emotion, fear of change. She's powerful, but impetuous and uncertain and makes bad calls because of that. ("The young queen she fixed him with an arrogant eye, she said 'You won't understand, and you may as well not try,' but her face was a child's and he thought she would cry")

The Soldier is sense, growing up, experience, understanding, responsibility. Like good common sense, he's simple, confident, and bluntly honest. ("'How hungry are you, how weak you must feel, as you are living here alone and you are never revealed" -- "I want to live as an honest man, get all I deserve, and give all I can")

The question is faced, sense seems to have won, but at the last minute the person allows their emotion to take hold again. ("And he took her to the window to see. Well the sun it was gold, though the sky it was gray, and she wanted more than she ever could say, but she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away, and would not look at his face again")

The Queen orders the soldier killed, and the battle continues -- aka, the person doesn't make the life-change their good sense is trying to tell them is desperately needed.

Yeah, it's a beautiful song. All the better because it's so hard to decode.

This is a story about power, control, vulnerability, a void, and it is a tragedy. Both sides are worthy of our sympathy.

The soldier went to the queen, exhausted. For however long, he'd been trying for her, and felt used, and wanted to be loved for his contributions. The solider was simply a vaguely familiar face among the legion she'd controlled. Until then, he'd sacrificed everything for her, his time, attention, and risked so very much and wanted to be given back for that, to feel acknowledged, to have those gifts reciprocated. She had maintained a safe distance until now, only being availed when and how she wanted, only to suit her needs.

The queen has encased herself into a fortress, a palace of fine things, which denotes security and power. The soldier wants to know is it that the queen really seeks? Battle after battle has been forged, and it seems a void that can never be filled. What is it the queen is after in life?

The solider is led along her possessions, her fine tapestries (in this case, red silk sheets). The queen never once shows any vulnerability, maintaining the power and control throughout, her refuge is her things and her control of her people, situations, and self serving her interests only - for she is the queen and that's what power is all about. She controls and leads him very step of the way, any only what she allows to take place will have to be on her terms exclusively.

The solider, in seeing her so removed from her heart, sees how immature the queen is, how lacking her entire life is of true intimacy. It's as if the growth of her heart has somehow stagnated amongst the acquisition for her of 'things' and 'safety' instead. He sees she plays with the lives that try to serve her as if they were toys, and why would she use people in such a way?

She didn't have a direct answer, she avoided the question, and was even hostile to be challenged in such way. It shows how incredibly sensitive she really is, amidst the facade of arrogance. In truth, she actually incredibly frail. No one of power should have to be questioned after all, and any testing of this acquires her dismissal. But the soldier glimpsed her weakness therein. A lifetime of this pattern gave her an arsenal of defense mechanisms, and she regained the stronghold of control of her emotions and closed off once again, back to her 'comfort'.

The queen confesses a source of pain - but vaguely, something she grapples with a lot, in a flicker of disclosure. The soldier tried to humble her, to let her experience being vulnerable and therefor experience intimacy. He tries to show her the way to what she wants and deep down most needs.

He sees how lonely she is, how - no matter how many soldiers have come and gone, there is no true fulfillment. He sees how empty and weak a life is, amongst the facade of such power and wealth. He refuses to battle and perpetuate the pattern. He shows her her own emptiness and despair, and gives her the chance to change.

She wanted change, deep down she wanted it more than anything. But it was so foreign, so vulnerable, so scary. All her life she had culminated a sense of control and power the way things were done. It was familiar and safe. Losing control, being wanted instead of needed took away the power that made her feel so safe. To reciprocate, to be transparent, to be blunt when it's not according to her own needs but to others is not a familiar path, and a queen will not yield unless it serves her, of course.

The solider confesses he has simple but pure intentions, to live fully, to live balanced, and to love someone... but to love someone there is no singular line of control or power... and he wonders how she can reconcile that. How can she want love so bad and be so unwilling to be vulnerable and lose control? How can she want intimacy but be so unwilling to be loved and truly known? If she is needed, she still has control. But wanted, wanted for all she is - and not just what makes her feel safe, is terrifying.

Her facade was broken, being seen was painful to her. By being seen so clearly, her power had been taken from her. Ironically, it was the pinnacle chance for love, she was truly vulnerable.... he truly saw her and was reaching out to her. She had what she wanted, and felt so ashamed and scared to be exposed. She can only feel safe when in control.

She offered him the illusion of connection, she'd be there in a moment. And then she sabotaged him. She sabotaged him because it's all she knew, she had to keep control, she had to maintain power, she couldn't be vulnerable or intimate of her own volition, nor could she accept having her weakness seen and having to face that fact through another's eyes. She must keep control at all times, and in even being seen as she was wholly, and tenderly, she lost control. Being wanted fed her pride and ego, but being seen was vulnerable and disempowering to her armor. The soldier is ended, so the vulnerability is too.

And life continued on just as it was.

This can happen in life. It doesn't have to be gender specific. And if you've experienced it, no matter which part you played, I sympathize.

I like to look at it as more of a story than a metaphor.

What we have is a girl, expected to have the wisdom and experience of a woman twice her age. She will never get to experience the joys of being a child..of being a young woman. She will never be able to follow her heart.

She wages wars and whether she wants to or not, they weigh heavily on her soul. She hides her pain and her guilt for having to put these people through this but doesn't see any other way. Were she to stop to ask for help, that would show weakness...so she moves forward without any real idea what direction she is going in. To cope, she puts on a mask of arrogance thus using it to displace what she has done from herself, else it would inwardly destroy her (Hence the part about closing like a fan). She continues to wear her crown to remind her of the weight of her decisions.

Then here you have this soldier who is tired of fighting and never quite sure why. He seems to honestly care about her as a young woman, not a queen. Perhaps he knows how burdened her heart is with all that she does...or maybe he thinks she isn't aware of all of the pain she is causing. Unable to continue fighting these wars...for either the pain they cause or possibly the burden they put on her heart, he confronts her.

The part:

"Tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel As you are living here alone, and you are never revealed But I won't march again on your battlefield"

Reveals a lot about him. How much does she really want all of this fighting? And how helpless she must feel. The cycle of the fighting going on and her powerless to ever do anything about it. He mentions that she is never revealed. They fight for "The Queen" but no one down there knows the girl who sits on "The Queen's" throne is. He then tells her he won't march on her battlefield again but I can't but wonder if it is because he -does- know how much the fighting hurts her...that maybe it would ease her pain a little if he stopped fighting for her..that she would know that there would be one less man out there dying in her name.

"And she wanted more than she ever could say But she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away And would not look at his face again."

I think maybe she really didn't want any of this. I think she wanted to be a young woman who would experience the joy of love, of growing up, of not having the weight of the world on such tiny shoulders. It frightened her because she didn't know how to deal with these feelings. She had no one to turn to before and now there was this man who spoke kindly to her...one of the nameless men from the battlefield. He now had a face. He now had a gentle voice...and she was ashamed. She couldn't bring herself to look at him. He was a real person to her now.

When it says:

And he said, "I want to live as an honest man To get all I deserve and to give all I can And to love a young woman who I don't understand Your highness, your ways are very strange."

I think that he's offering her what she desperately wants more than anything: The privilege of being a young bride. To get married. To be -loved- as a young woman and not a queen. In the next part:

But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break And she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached

She is seriously considering it as he's offering her everything she could ever want. He's offering to take her away from here. To love her...and she's tempted to go. But to do so would leave her people in a war that she had started...it would leave her kingdom without someone looking over it. It would leave her burden to someone else that didn't ask for it. She was ashamed of herself for even thinking about going with him...no matter how much her heart yearns for it. In a moment of weakness, she tells him yes and to wait for her outside. But as she's inside, she hesitates realizing what she was about to do and knows that as long as he was living, there was a good chance she would betray her kingdom to follow her heart.

And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word And while the queen went on strangling in the solitude she preferred The battle continued on

The ending is tragic for both characters. The soldier is waiting outside for a woman who is not coming thinking that he is going to bring home his bride. Thinking that he can bring an end to her pain.

The Queen destroys the one person in all the world that would ever care about her as a woman and though she will continue on in her solitude..her loneliness, she would continue to bear the burden of her actions.

I feel sorry for the both of them really. The Soldier does seem like he was a wonderful man though. It pains me to see him killed just for trying to love someone.

So far, I think that Lady_Paladin is right on the money. I have a similar interpretation, but I think mine is a bit more literal, a few different metaphors in some parts.

Anyway, let's start at the beginning.

"The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door He said, "I am not fighting for you any more" The queen knew she'd seen his face someplace before And slowly she let him inside"

I think this is mostly exactly what it is. I think he's a soldier who can't handle the fighting anymore, who wants to know the reason he is out there killing and risking his life for someone he doesn't know. I don't know if they've met, or there is some history because of the fact that she has seen him before, but I love Lady_Paladin's interpretation that she doesn't see him as a real person. He's just another face that may or may not be familiar, but she doesn't allow herself to become emotionally attached to someone. She sees emotion as a weakness. I think she is a woman who never got to be a girl, she was raised to be stoic and wise and emotionless and to be strong and learn to do what was right for her country. She knows nothing else but power, and so she clings to it. She is not necessarily happy, but she needs this power. It is a part of her.

"He said, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill And I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill But I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will Only first I am asking you why.""

I guess I got a little ahead of myself in the last bit. But he just desperately wants to know why. He's always wanted to know who is behind this, he has watched her palace all the time wondering why. I also think he is starting to fall in love with this woman who is surprisingly young, beautiful, vulnerable. Because underneath all of her strength and ice, she is so incredibly lonely. And I think he already sort of knows what will happen to him in the end. He is deserting the army, and he says "You can do what you will", so I think he already knows what he is risking. But he just can't bear to not know the truth.

"Down in the long narrow hall he was led Into her rooms with her tapestries red And she never once took the crown from her head She asked him there to sit down."

I think the queen, although she thinks she is strong and emotionless, also feels something for this man. She senses that he wants to help her, and I think after all these years of bottling herself up inside her castle, separating herself from emotion, she just needs some little spark of a real life. She decides to trust this young, brave man. However, she "never once took the crown from her head." I think the crown is her sense of strength, her emotionlessness, and all these things she thinks are power. Although she desperately needs some speck of human contact and affction, she is proud. She will not let down her icy barriers. She asks him to sit down while she stands so she will still have some power over him, because she is desperate to keep any sense of strength. She is afraid of losing power to this man who she has so suddenly decided to trust. She is an incredibly conflicted individual.

"He said, "I see you now, and you are so very young But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won And I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun And now will you tell me why?""

He Is being very gentle with her. He sees her youth and her fragility, but he presses on in his curiosity of why this woman would send out so many to die for her. He is an incredibly curious, brave, foolish man, and although he has started to love her he must know the truth.

"The young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye She said, "You won't understand, and you may as well not try" But her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry But she closed herself up like a fan"

Another example of this power she must have over others and her rejection of weak emotions. She looks at him arrogantly, trying to find her sense of superiority and strength. She tells him he won't understand, but I think this is because she doesn't understand either. She honestly doesn't know why so many people have to die. She was just raised as a queen and knows she must, she must do her duty and protect her country. And it makes her feel horrible, she nearly cries. But she retreats back into her shell and conjures up her emotionless strength once more.

"And she said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread It cuts me inside, and often I've bled" He laid his hand then on top of her head And he bowed her down to the ground."

Suzanne Vega once said that she thought of relationships as threads, and when you want to make something go away or forget about it you swallow it down. She has given up her desire for realtionships with others, she has buried it deep down inside, yet sometimes it burns her. It makes her bleed, because secretly she wants love and friendship and to be human. The man senses her weakness, he sincerely wants to help her. He bows her down to the ground, trying to help her be vulnerable, trying to break through her shell and make her feel okay when she is powerless. He puts her in this position where she is completely vulnerable, physically and emotionally.

""Tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel As you are living here alone, and you are never revealed But I won't march again on your battlefield" And he took her to the window to see."

He is trying so desperately to help her. He is trying to bring her emotions to the surface, remind her of her hunger for human contact, asking her how weak she feels when she is all alone. She is never seen by all the men who die for her. She is isolated completely. He is almost trying to cause her pain just to make her get past her need for strength. He insists that he will not fight for her anymore. Both to show her the pain she is causing as well as because I don't think he could fight knowing that this mere girl is the queen he is fighting for. He takes her to the window to see what is happening because of her. He wants to reinforce this emergence of emotion.

"And the sun, it was gold, though the sky, it was gray And she wanted more than she ever could say But she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away And would not look at his face again."

She is still distancing herself from everything. He takes her to the window to see the battle outside, but she just looks at the sky. She doesn't want to feel the pain of seeing death, she wants to remain apart from it all. So she just stares at the gray, miserable sky that is her life. The sun is that little bit of golden hope that remains. And she wants to cling to that hope, she wants to give in and love and bring all the soldiers off the battlefield, but this frightens her. She would be giving up her strength along with everything that she ever was. She would give up her power that she needs, and she can't look at that temting sun anymore. SHe turns away. And the man's face is tempting as well. He's real now, he's a man that she could love and giver herself up to. His words are so beautiful, and she sees this future of love and happiness. But she can't do that. It scares her.

"And he said, "I want to live as an honest man To get all I deserve and to give all I can And to love a young woman who I don't understand Your highness, your ways are very strange.""

He says the things that are more emotionally ridden than anything he has said thus far. He says how he is such a good, simple man. He just wants to be happy and honest. He wants the world to be fair. He wants to love her, this woman who is such a mystery to him. He is everything that is good in the world, and he is the scariest and most foreign thing the queen has ever seen.

"But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break And she stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached She took him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait She would only be a moment inside."

Her crown falls. All of her strength has crumbled in the face of this man who is everything that she wants, everything that frightens her, and everything that she will not allow herself to have. Her emotions finally break throguh and she thinks she wll just fall apart as all the power and strength she ever had and clung to are stripped away. This man loves her and she wants nothng more than to love him back. But she is ashamed of this. She still doesn't want to be be weak. She was raised to scorn weakness and she cannot handle being so vulnerable. She takes him to the doorstep and separates herself from her, promising she will be inside only a moment while he waits for her. But while he is inside she must compose herself she must find her strength again, because she feels herself breaking. She can't do it. Not while he is so temptingly standing right outside her door.

"Out in the distance her order was heard And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word And while the queen went on strangling in the solitude she preferred The battle continued on"

The saddest and most shocking part of the song. She simply cannot handle this weakness that has destroyed any image of herself and purpose she has ever had. So she has him killed. This is easier than coping with her loss of power. And so she returns to her solitude, choking in the pain of killing the only man she ever loved. She may not be happy, but she prefers it. She prefers her strength, familiar and comforting. She knows she has to be a queen and she must get rid of anything standing in her way. I think the battle can be two things: just the war that has been going on, the one the soldier fought in. It's just showing that things have not changed. No matter how good and brave one man is, it cannot change the wills of the stubborn. So people still die, the queen is still lonely, nothing has changed. The battle can also be the queen's internal battle. Her struggle betweenn right and wrong, happiness and strength. The story is not a happy one, I feel awful for the good man who died just because he wanted to love and help others, the queen who is unable to feel emotion without feeling horrible and broken. It's not a happy tale. But it's beautiful, in a twisted way.

Anyway, just my interpretation. I actually have several others, and they are all possible. That's why I like this song so much.

this song is so beautiful.. but i'm confused about the end.. does she order him killed? or is it by chance that he dies in the one moment that he is trying to save his own life?

Great song. I know this is from a female's perspective but I can relate to it myself. This song is about fear of commitment. There are a lot of metaphors in there which are fairly obvious. She falls in love with the guy but she is so scared of being hurt she decides to not to call him or see him anymore. The soldier did not die. but to her its easier to think of him as dead. That would take away the temptation of getting back in touch with man because she clearly loves him. I think its really nice how she uses the queen and the soldier metaphor and how love (sometimes) is such a battle.

Gypsy_eyes: To the extent that it's that particular metaphor, I see it as being about having a very hard choice to make and choosing correctly at the cost of immediate personal indulgence.

Imagine that the ongoing battle is being fought for the good of her country on a macroscopic scale that really wouldn't be immediately obvious to a soldier. Would it really be feasible for a queen to dismiss a soldier and desert her post to be by his side? She may not have chosen to be born as royalty but does that mean she can just toss aside such a huge responsibility?

Looking at Asymmetry's quote from the author herself, tho, it seems I have it all backwards and the queen's persisting in an unjust war out of issues of national pride or something (and, realistically, that is the more likely scenario, isn't it?) but for whatever reason, that's how I see it with respect to the choice metaphor.

~

The first time I heard this song was in high school AP Literature when we were covering Victorian poetry and the theme of repression as expressed therein, so the message of this poem is strongest to me as it was presented in class. My teacher gave us the text of the lyrics as a poem without revealing its author or originating time period and then explained everything and played the song after we read and analyzed it. In the context of the unit, he interpreted it as a treatise on repression in the vein of "The Lady of Shallot" and similar poems we had read that semester. I have more to say on the details of that, but "it's about repression!!!" covers it pretty well so I won't belabor the point with a line-by-line rundown on all the symbolism or anything.

i didnt read all of the other things poateds but most of them were just wrong

i can see how this could be a love song but sorry i dont believe it is

the song is on two levels one in which it is as she says, a soldier confronting a queen about war and the second in which the soldier (the queens, posibly suzanne vega's, conscience) confronts her via "knocking on the door" killing of fighting is sending suggestions or advice to the queen to guide her morally. the soldiers gave up and said i am not fighting for you any more. going into her room with her tapestries red doesnt mean they went anywhere at all it means they ventured further into the colour of her mind and of her sub conscious. he says i see now you are so very young that means she is young, inexperienced and nieve all of which the soldiers was unaware of but the doesnt the amount of battles she has lost to the amount she has won (i've seen more battles lost than i have battles won)

he took her to the window to see she new how it frightened her and she turned away and would not look at his face again

and this might just be the most trajic part of the song

Out in the distance her order was heard And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word And while the queen went on strangling in the solitude she preferred The battle continued on

it shows how she shun him and and fell back into old habbits but you know the thought of him, what he said and how she knew he was right will burn in the back of her mind for life.

strange that there isn't anybody who gives comment on this fabulous song... it's an extraordinairy story, really tragic and it touched me deeply...

such a beautiful song. I first heard it when I was five years old, and ever since then it has struck a chord with me.