lameness (was: Re: (no subject) )

Jane Delawney · 14 Jan 2011, 23:33 · from 2011-January.txt.gz

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From: jane_delawney at sky.com (Jane Delawney)
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2011 23:33:48 +0000
Subject: (urth) lameness (was: Re:  (no subject) )
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W41ADA5418C765FB3D9B887CFF30 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W41ADA5418C765FB3D9B887CFF30 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D30DD5C.90004 at sky.com>

On 14/01/11 03:23, Lee Berman wrote:
>
> The mythic connection between lame and castrated is something I've never encountered before. Thank
> you David!!!
>    
I've mentioned this on list once before but this seems pertinent again - 
Robert Graves invokes both interpretations of the 'wounded in the thigh' 
trope for the Messiah, in his novel 'King Jesus'. Here, Jesus is, and 
knows he is, the rightful King of the Jews. As such, he undergoes a 
trial by combat on the eve of his coronation/wedding day; during this 
trial, one of his hips is knocked out of joint, producing a permanent 
lameness which is regarded as a prerequisite for his destined role 
(there are references also to Jacob's combat with the angel, during 
which the Patriarch was 'wounded in the thigh' - Jesus is apparently 
supposed to recapitulate the role of his ancient ancestor in his ritual 
combat).

Graves was an early 20th century advocate of the persistence of mythic 
tropes (post James Frazer, but largely pre Gustav Jung); he wrote 'The 
White Goddess' amongst other volumes as tribute to the ultimate Muse, 
(according to him) the (female) source of all (male-authored) poetry.

(Goodness me, was R.G. uncomfortable with the fact of the existence of 
Sappho, one of the world's greatest ever poets, who just happens to have 
been female ... ! )

He presents a Jesus who has been born to be the dying-and-rising Corn 
King, husband of the White Goddess, but who rejects his role, and even 
after his ritual combat and consequent lameness refuses to fulfill that 
role by consummating his predestined marriage to the Goddess's 
incarnation on earth, Mary Magdalene.

By refusing to do his 'duty', Jesus in Graves's work subverts his role 
from that of sacrificial King of the Harvest, into Saviour of the World. 
No, I'm not entirely sure even now just exactly how that is supposed to 
work either :) However there may be a link here with the Sun Cycle since 
in BoTNS although Sev makes love to many women, he has no physical heir; 
and it's not entirely clear that his marriage to Valeria was ever 
consummated at all (I well remember on reading UoTNS for the first time 
that I thought I knew exactly why Sev keeps referring to 'poor Valeria', 
namely that I assumed he had always been impotent with her as he never 
had been with other women; and then I remember my dismay on re-reading 
the work from the beginning to find that there was absolutely no support 
for this assumption in the text! Still not sure where that came from.).

The lameness theme is stressed too much to be merely accidental, 
however. Silk is lame as well - and although he marries, and obviously 
loves his wife so much that he overlooks her shortcomings (she's a 
prostitute, she's violent - I think it's Horn, after his melding with 
the dying Silk, who refers to her as 'beautiful, savage Hyacinth' or 
something like); and he still feels soiled after making love to her, 
even though they are married. And of course, they never have children 
either, even though years have passed after the end of Long Sun before 
Horn is returned to the Whorl in Silk's body.

I've no idea what (if anything) all of this means in terms of GW's 
thinking, but at the least it does appear to be relevant in terms of the 
Sun Cycle's multitudinous lamed messiah / Fisher King references.

jd

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