{"id":306,"date":"2019-01-24T11:10:35","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T11:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/?p=306"},"modified":"2024-02-11T09:43:41","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T09:43:41","slug":"c-s-lewis-the-planets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/?p=306","title":{"rendered":"C. S. Lewis: The Planets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few posts back I briefly reviewed The Discarded Image <\/em>by C.S. Lewis. As a world-class scholar of medieval literature he was not only informed about the medieval worldview, he was intensely moved<\/em> by it. This is a feeling I share. As a lifelong student of Kabbalah and the Hermetic traditions I encounter the traditions viscerally: here is a world of prodigious depth and beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Western Esoteric Tradition the planets are not self-gravitating clumps of atoms spewed out by supernova explosions. They are spheres of being, aspects of universal mind refracted into the macrocosm and reflected into the human soul.

Here Lewis provides a thoroughly traditional insight into the nature of the planets in the form of some rather fine poetry:
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lady Luna, in light canoe,  
By friths and shallows of fretted cloudland  
Cruises monthly; with chrism of dews  
And drench of dream, a drizzling glamour,  
Enchants us \u2013 the cheat! changing sometime  
A mind to madness, melancholy pale,  
Bleached with gazing on her blank count\u2019nance  
Orb\u2019d and ageless. In earth\u2019s bosom  
The shower of her rays, sharp-feathered light  
Reaching downward, ripens silver,  
Forming and fashioning female brightness,  
Metal maidenlike. 
Her moist circle  Is nearest earth.  

Next beyond her  Mercury marches \u2013 madcap rover,  
Patron of pilf\u2019rers. Pert quicksilver  
His gaze begets, goblin mineral,  
Merry multitude of meeting selves,  
Same but sundered. From the soul\u2019s darkness,  
With wreathed wand, words he marshals,  
Guides and gathers them \u2013 gay bellwether  
Of flocking fancies. His flint has struck  
The spark of speech from spirit\u2019s tinder,  
Lord of language! He leads forever  
The spangle and splendour, sport that mingles  
Sound with senses, in subtle pattern,  
Words in wedlock, and wedding also  
Of thing with thought.  

In the third region  Venus voyages\u2026but my voice falters;  
Rude rime-making wrongs her beauty,  
Whose breasts and brow, and her breath\u2019s sweetness  
Bewitch the worlds. Wide-spread the reign  
Of her secret sceptre, in the sea\u2019s caverns,  
In grass growing, and grain bursting,  
Flower unfolding, and flesh longing,  
And shower falling sharp in April.  
The metal copper in the mine reddens  
With muffled brightness, like muted gold,  
By her fingers form\u2019d.  

Far beyond her  The heaven\u2019s highway hums and trembles,  
Drums and dindles, to the driv\u2019n thunder  
Of Sol\u2019s chariot, whose sword of light  
Hurts and humbles; beheld only  
Of eagle\u2019s eye. When his arrow glances  
Through mortal mind, mists are parted  
And mild as morning the mellow wisdom  
Breathes o\u2019er the breast, broadening eastward  
Clear and cloudless. In a clos\u2019d garden  
(Unbound her burden) his beams foster  
Soul in secret, where the soil puts forth  
Paradisal palm, and pure fountains  
Turn and re-temper, touching coolly  
The uncomely common to cordial gold;  
Whose ore also, in earth\u2019s matrix,  
Is print and pressure of his proud signet  
On the wax of the world. He is the worshipp\u2019d male,  
The earth\u2019s husband, all-beholding,  
Arch-chemic eye.  

But other country  
Dark with discord dins beyond him,  
With noise of nakers, neighing of horses,  
Hammering of harness. A haughty god  
Mars mercenary, makes there his camp  
And flies his flag; flaunts laughingly  
The graceless beauty, grey-eyed and keen,  
Blond insolence \u2013 of his blithe visage  
Which is hard and happy. He hews the act,  
The indifferent deed with dint of his mallet  
And his chisel of choice; achievement comes not  
Unhelped by him \u2013 hired gladiator  
Of evil and good. All\u2019s one to Mars,  
The wrong righted, rescued meekness,  
Or trouble in trenches, with trees splintered  
And birds banished, banks fill\u2019d with gold  
And the liar made lord. Like handiwork  
He offers to all \u2013 earns his wages  
And whistles the while. White-feathered dread  
Mars has mastered. His metal\u2019s iron  
That was hammered through hands into holy cross,  
Cruel carpentry. He is cold and strong,  
Necessity\u2019s song.  

Soft breathes the air  
Mild, and meadowy, as we mount further  
Where rippled radiance rolls about us  
Moved with music \u2013 measureless the waves\u2019 
Joy and jubilee. It is Jove\u2019s orbit,  
Filled and festal, faster turning  
With arc ampler. From the Isles of Tin  
Tyrian traders, in trouble steering  
Came with his cargoes; the Cornish treasure  
That his ray ripens. Of wrath ended  
And woes mended, of winter passed  
And guilt forgiven, and good fortune  
Jove is master; and of jocund revel,  
Laughter of ladies. The lion-hearted,  
The myriad-minded, men like the gods,  
Helps and heroes, helms of nations  J
ust and gentle, are Jove\u2019s children,  
Work his wonders. On his white forehead  
Calm and kingly, no care darkens  
Nor wrath wrinkles: but righteous power  
And leisure and largess their loose splendours  
Have wrapped around him \u2013 a rich mantle  
Of ease and empire.  

Up far beyond  
Goes Saturn silent in the seventh region,  
The skirts of the sky. Scant grows the light,  
Sickly, uncertain (the Sun\u2019s finger  
Daunted with darkness). Distance hurts us,  
And the vault severe of vast silence;  
Where fancy fails us, and fair language,  
And love leaves us, and light fails us  
And Mars fails us, and the mirth of Jove  
Is as tin tinkling. In tattered garment,  
Weak with winters, he walks forever  
A weary way, wide round the heav\u2019n,  
Stoop\u2019d and stumbling, with staff groping,  
The lord of lead. He is the last planet  
Old and ugly. His eye fathers  
Pale pestilence, pain of envy,  
Remorse and murder. Melancholy drink  
(For bane or blessing) of bitter wisdom  
He pours out for his people, a perilous draught  
That the lip loves not. We leave all things  
To reach the rim of the round welkin,  
Heaven\u2019s heritage, high and lonely. <\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few posts back I briefly reviewed The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis. As a world-class scholar of medieval literature he was not only informed about the medieval worldview, he was intensely moved by it. This is a feeling I share. As a lifelong student of Kabbalah and the Hermetic traditions I encounter the traditions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-with-sidebar","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=306"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":949,"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306\/revisions\/949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-brilliance.org\/wordpress_V\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}