The story
- French · borrowed frombelle dame sans merci
- English todaybelle dame sans merci
From French belle dame sans merci (literally “beautiful woman without mercy”). La Belle Dame sans Merci is the title of a ballad produced by the English poet John Keats in 1819; this was derived from the title of a 15th-century poem by Alain Chartier, La Belle Dame sans Mercy.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.