MALDOROR 2:3 – AND NOW MEN FEAR YOU NO MORE

Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror.

AND NOW MEN FEAR YOU NO MORE

The enigmatic supernatural being Maldoror opens this stanza by reflecting that he hopes the day never dawns when he and Lohengrin unknowingly jostle each other side by side and elbow to elbow in a crowded city, then each continue on their separate paths, as oblivious to their near encounter as strangers who pass in a crowd. 

Yes, as that opening would indicate our vile protagonist now ties himself into esoteric Grail lore as he provides us once again with hints at his real nature. As always these hints contradict the previous hints he has given us about himself. 

First, however, Maldoror addresses God-as- Demiurge in an accusatory manner again, pointing out that as quickly as Maldoror used a hammer to bash in the brains of his most recent victim – a woman this time – the Creator could share with humanity the secret wisdom that he forever withholds from his creations. He further implies that God no longer converses with humanity as he did in the long distant past because now mankind has grown sophisticated enough that they would shout defiance at him and “fling all their shame back in God’s face.” 

What’s more, our narrator credits himself with having been the one who educated humanity, raising them to their present state of defiance. Maldoror claims to have literally attacked God, striking his “hollow carcass” so violently that he forced from the deity his innermost secrets. He shared this forbidden knowledge with mankind – “And now men fear you no more; they deal with you as one power to another.”

Having figuratively “stolen this fire” for humanity Maldoror cries out begging to suffer his Promethean punishment. He longs for death and a return to whatever horrific realm is his Pleroma (though the Toad-Angel implied Maldoror could return there at will). He sneers at the possibility that Lucifer and his fallen angels would be up to the task of punishing him and defiantly dares them to try.  

Mostly he screams operatically about God’s supposed inability to kill him, though that deity never hesitates to strike down weaker beings in often cruel and sadistic ways. At length he reminds us that God started this conflict with him so it’s God’s own fault that he has suffered lashings at the hands of Maldoror. He points out that God’s own actions provide him with plenty of fodder to use against him and claims that the nightmares God sends to plague him will never deter him.  

At last Maldoror returns the narrative to the one figure he feels IS qualified and worthy of inflicting punishment on him – a punishment painful enough to cleanse him of the evil binding him to this world in the way he fancies himself to be “cleansing” his own victims through the violent, often tortuous, deaths he inflicts on them. That figure is the Grail Knight Lohengrin. 

Once again Maldoror’s obsession with meteor imagery takes on a different possible meaning. He refers to knowing Lohengrin centuries ago when that son of Percival (Parzifal) was a youth in the Grail Castle. Not the Grail Castle of traditional thought, but in the Lapis Exillis sense. That is to say in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s original interpretation of the Grail as a huge rock that fell from the sky, a stone castle that served as the secret, Earthly home of those angels who remained neutral in the battle between God and Satan.  

Ancient Astronaut conspiracy kooks often have fun with that imagery but we won’t bother going down that particular path. (Except maybe to the extent that we once again get a hint that Maldoror is a sort of pre-Lovecraftian entity from another world.) The probably fictional Kyot’s source for Grail info in astronomy is fun, too.  

For those readers not familiar with that element of Christian mythology it’s a reference to Lucifer’s original rebellion against God, a war in which a third of the angels sided with God, a third sided with Lucifer and a third remained neutral. In this context those neutral angels were cast down to Earth in what came to be the Grail Castle, that elusive structure forever beyond the reach of most human beings. 

And here we get into the even more arcane lore about these angels and their castle (or spaceship if you’re one of those loons.) In the point of view adhered to in this particular lore it is wrong to call that third of the angels “neutral” in a narrow or even pejorative way. This school of thought holds that it is more precise to consider them to be the third – and transcendent – element of an otherwise limited duality.

For some examples: God’s Angels – Lucifer’s Angels – Transcendent Angels … Abel – Cain – Seth … Good – Evil – Enlightened. Or, in Maldoror’s disordered mind: God – Satan – Maldoror. Is this profound or merely delusional? In so many ways our narrator’s thought process parallels that of serial killers who often dabbled in readings about the Mystery Religions and related topics. Or if you prefer, maybe he’s telling the truth for once and he really WAS one of the angels who remained neutral in the war between God and Lucifer. Maybe he truly is Beyond Good and Evil, and not just in the limited sense.   

 At any rate Maldoror reminisces about watching Lohengrin as he neared adulthood in their Grail Castle home, and wistfully recalls how he often thought of slitting Lohengrin’s throat while he slept. He had even selected a “long and graceful” knife to use for the murder. He wanted Percival’s son to die young so he could not ever turn out like one of the wretched humans that Maldoror loathes.

In the end our protagonist decided against murdering the young man. And in this context it’s hard to view the traditional Knight of the Swan story or even Wagner’s opera Lohengrin the same way ever again. Especially as regards Lohengrin’s enigmatic arrival from and eventual return to the Grail Castle. 

For the remainder of this stanza Maldoror wallows, sensuously and masochistically, in joyous thoughts about the kind of intensely painful punishments he might get the privilege of suffering at the hands of Lohengrin if chance ever brings him and the immortal Grail Knight together again. Maldoror is as intoxicated at the thought of these punishments as he once was at the thought of suffering at the hands of one of his child victims much earlier in my examination of The Songs of Maldoror. His romantic view of pain rivals that of the Cenobites if you want another pop culture reference. 

Up next: Is it the “senses- shattering origin” of Maldoror or is it just an epiphany?

I WILL RESUME THIS LOOK AT THE SONGS OF MALDOROR SOON. CHECK BACK ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK FOR NEW INSTALLMENTS.

FOR PART ONE CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/2015/02/28/maldoror-a-neglected-masterpiece-of-surreal-horror/

FOR OTHER PARTS OF MALDOROR CLICK HERE: https://glitternight.com/category/maldoror/

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