Balladeer’s Blog resumes its examination of the macabre 1868 French language work The Songs of Maldoror.
THE ENVENOMED WEAPON
Our supernatural narrator Maldoror, fresh off canonizing lice as deities in his demented personal pantheon now enshrines three goddesses in his fevered belief system. Those goddesses are Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry.
He praises their perfection and their dispassionate aloofness. He admires the way in which there is no deceiving them nor escaping them, since they set the very rules of the universe. Maldoror metaphorically describes his first encounter with them as if they were three beautiful women who summoned him to them in his youth, when he groped and molested them while discerning their secrets.
Maldoror credits the lessons he learned from the three goddesses for keeping him detached as he watched countless men die on countless battlefields during his long, long life. And for keeping him detached as he noted the death tolls of earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters over the centuries and as he saw generation after generation of humanity start out with hope only to die with that hope beaten out of them by the cruelty of God’s world.
Incongruously he also credits the three goddesses for providing him with insight into humankind that filled him with both compassion and contempt for them. Most importantly he considers Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry jointly to be “the envenomed weapon” through which he has used logic and rational thought to dethrone God.
Maldoror closes this stanza asking the three goddesses to console the remainder of his days for the wickedness of humanity and the injustices perpetrated by God. +++
Yes, I know, this stanza was noticeably lacking in horror or even moderate tension. To make up for it I’ll examine the very next section tomorrow or Monday. It features Maldoror in all-out combat with an actual angel sent down from Heaven.
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/
© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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I know how you feel!
This was in French?
Originally, yes.
Can’t wait til the next one!
It’s up already.
This guys getting kind of dull.
Things pick up again in his battle with the angel of the lamp.
Why didnt u call this The Three Goddesses?
Because going back to when I first read The Songs of Maldoror this stanza always made me think of rational thought as “The Envenomed Weapon” used to combat religious superstition.
Does this guy get back to doing anything like killing?
Yes, he does. Some of his most depraved murders lie ahead.
This one was boooooooooooooooring.
You left out an “O”. I’m surprised spellcheck didn’t catch that.
Insane guy.
Maybe so.
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