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Astrological and Other Images of Divinity in the Fantasies of CS Lewis

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Astrological and Other Images of Divinity in the Fantasies of CS Lewis Volume 7 Number 4 Article 3 12-15-1981 The Host of Heaven: Astrological and Other Images of Divinity in the Fantasies of C.S. Lewis (Part 2) Nancy-Lou Patterson Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Patterson, Nancy-Lou (1981) "The Host of Heaven: Astrological and Other Images of Divinity in the Fantasies of C.S. Lewis (Part 2)," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 7 : No. 4 , Article 3. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol7/iss4/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Study of the astrological symbolism present in Lewis’s fantasies. Part 2 covers the Chronicles of Narnia and Till We Have Faces. Additional Keywords Astrology in C.S. Lewis; Divinity in C.S. Lewis; Lewis, C.S. Chronicles of Narnia—Astrological symbolism; Lewis, C.S. Chronicles of Narnia—Symbolism of divinity; Lewis, C.S. Space Trilogy—Astrological symbolism; Lewis, C.S. Space Trilogy—Symbolism of divinity; Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces—Astrological symbolism; Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces—Symbolism of divinity; Nancy-Lou Patterson; Edith Crowe This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol7/iss4/3 THE HOST OF HEAVEN ASTROLOGICAL AND OTHER IMAGES OF DIVINITY IN THE FANTASIES OF C.S. LEWIS PART II NANCY-LOU PATTERSON II. The Mountains of Aslan for the sad realm of Narnia. Tarva the Lord of Victory salutes Alambil the Lady of Peace.”7 The world of the interplanetary trilogy The tutor has called this lesson "astronomy;" is, granting the elements of science fiction in tw entieth-century B ritain and North America, and of the m atter of B ritain conflated within it is called "astrology." it, our world. As such it is not by any means a "secondary creation." Narnia too is some­ Not surprisingly, in a land where animals thing of a contingent universe, but in a dif­ can talk and even the trees are ambulatory and ferent sense. In That Hideous Strength. Dr.- inhabited by lissome intelligences, the stars Dimble tells Camilla that "something we may themselves are alive. We meet the first of them call B ritain is always haunted by something in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: he is the we may call Logres."1 There is for every magician Coriakin. Lucy (the seeress of Narnia) people, Ransom adds, "its own haunter."2 The "saw coming towards them an old man, barefoot, archetypes are always present, just "the other dressed in a red robe. His white hair was side of the invisible w all."3 Something of crowned with a chaplet of oak leaves, his beard that dependency exists for Narnia as well: she fell to his girdle, and he supported himself with is created in the presence of human onlookers; a curiously carved staff."8 This being, we learn humans also witness her end. Her corrupter is later, is a star who "might have shone for thou­ a witch from the dead world of Charn but she sands of years more in the southern winter sky," has been brought to Narnia by human agency. but was condemned for some "fault a star can And it is for the sake of a human traitor commit," to inhabit a small island and rule that Aslan intervenes, is killed, and is res­ over the foolish Duffers. He does so by what urrected. What is more, Narnia, like B ritain, he calls ruefully, "this rough magic"9 --a term is but a "shadow or a copy of the real Narnia," from The Tempest, whose magical ruler Prospero as Digory explains to Peter in The Last Bat­ is thus invoked. Lewis remarks of Coriakin, tle . There is an achetypal Narnia just as "the Magician him self drank only wine and ate there is an archetypal Britain. "It’s all in only bread"10 --as did Princess Irene's father Plato, all in Plato," Digory exclaims. And in in George M acdonald's The Princess and Curdle, the very last chapter of the Narnian Chron­ another invocation by Lewis of a w hite-haired icles, "Farewell to Shadow-Lands," we learn patriarch. Aslan himself says, "Many stars that all lands, physical or fictional, pri­ w ill grow, old and come to take their rest in mary or secondary, are part of A slan's country. islan d s."11 Mr. Tumnus explains: But the stars in Narnia, or at least their That country and this country, all the progeny, are not always old. Toward the end of real countries—are only spurs jutting his journey in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. out from the great mountains of A slan.4 Prince Caspian meets his future bride, the daughter of the star Ramandu: Most of what I propose to discuss in this section of my paper is thus dependent upon the Now they could see that it was a tall girl, elements of Narnian life which reveal these dressedin a single long garment of clear affinities. I w ill begin, however, with cer­ blue which left her arms bare. She was tain differences. Lewis has taken care to pro- bare-headed and her yellow hair hung down v id e Narnia with its own astrology. In Prince her back. And when they looked at her Caspian. Dr. Cornelius, Prince Caspian's new they thought they had never before known tutor, tells him: "To-night I am going to give what beauty meant.12 you a lesson in astronomy. At dead of night two noble planets, Tarva and Alambil, w ill She carried "a tall candle set in a silver can- pass within one degree of each other. Such a dle-stick," the flame of which burned "straight conjunction has not occurred for two hundred and still." Presently we meet Ramandu himself: years."5 The boy and his teacher observe this splendid sight from a tower, watching as the . there came a figure as tall and planets "hung rather low in the southern sky, straight as the g irl's but not so slender. almost as bright as two little moons and very It carried no light but light seemed to close together."6 Dr. Cornelius explains this come from it. As it came nearer, Lucy saw event to Caspian: "The great lords of the upper that it was like an old man. His silver sky know the steps of their dance . Their beard_came down to his bare feet in front meeting is fortunate and means some great good and his silver hair hung down to his heels 13 Narnian stars, upon Tellurian models. Some are even frankly visitors from our world, but in line with my treatm ent of these images as parts of a continuum, I w ill speak of the less earthly first. There is in Narnia an Anti-Aslan, the god Tash. In the shadow of the trees on the far side of the clearing something was moving . it was grey and you could see things through it. But the deathly smell [""Is there a dead bird somewhere about?"] was not the smell of smoke . It was roughly the shape of a man but it had the head of a bird; some bird of prey with a cruel, curved beak. It had four arms . and its fing­ ers—all twenty of them--were curved like its beak and had long, pointed, bird-like claws instead of nails. It floated on the grass instead of walking, and the grass seemed to w ither beneath it.17 ' Aslan, the divine Lion, is opposed by another form of animal being; as the lion is in origin a Mesopotamian image, so Tash seems modelled upon the metamorphic en tities of Mesopotamia, often depicted as attendant genii of the Tree of Life in their art. One of the most moving moments in the Narnian Chronicles occurs in The Last B attle when Emeth, the pious young Calormere (his name is the Hebrew word for "truth") meets Aslan; Emeth tells the story him self, describing how all his life he has served Tash, but upon seeing the Lion, he knows immediately to whom his true service is due. Aslan, he reports, said to him, behind and his robe appeared to be made "Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I from the fleece of silver sheep. He looked account as service to me.” Emeth continues: so mild and grave that once more all the travellers rose to their feet and stood in But I said also (for truth constrained me), s i l e n c e . 1 3 Yet I have been seeking Tash a ll my days.
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