Noble Enemies at War?

I do not know that there need be any war between you and us.

To understand Peter’s above reply to Emeth let us examine Peter’s context and perspective. At this point in “The Last Battle,” Peter himself does not know whether he will be sent back to our world, or even where he is. His answer, then, cannot reflect what we might expect from the finality of history at which time all truths will be revealed, and all falsehood will be buried.

Perhaps due to this uncertainty, Peter does not answer Emeth’s implied question. He does not know as of yet, whether Emeth is a friend or enemy. He does not know whether Emeth has met Aslan and has been converted to his side. Peter suggests “there need not be war between you and us.” Why?

The ambiguity in Peter’s response could arise for one of two reasons:

First, it could be that, unsure of Emeth’s status, he is unsure whether war is necessary. If, however, it is later revealed that Emeth is not a friend but an enemy, war becomes necessary.

Second, perhaps Peter is suggesting that, because Emeth is a noble enemy, war is not necessary. This idea would counter Emeth’s worldview. Emeth (later) states, “Now when I first heard that we should march upon Narnia I rejoiced; for I had heard many things of your Land and desired greatly to meet you in battle.” Of course as a noble enemy Emeth feels shame in how he comes to Narnia, “... when I found that we were to go in disguised as merchants (which is a shameful dress for a warrior and the son of a Tarkaan) and to work by lies and trickery…” But the desire for battle with a noble enemy is there.

Perhaps Peter is hinting that noble enemies need not engage in war. Rather they must engage in partnership to find the truth.

Pints with Jack

I'm happy to announce that my interview with David Bates on Pints with Jack is now live. Thank you again to David for having me on. I hope everyone listening to the podcast enjoys it as much as I did. 

Calormene Poetry: Noble Enemies

Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble enemy the next best?

We have spent quite some time analyzing Calormene poetry. Lewis appears to have been rather dismissive of this literary genre despite its apparent similarities to biblical works such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Our studies of this poetry have revealed why this is so. While perhaps superficially appealing, the ideas conveyed by Calormene poetry are subtly but deeply flawed or conveniently misapplied.

There is, however, one line of Calormen poetry that should be differentiated from the rest. The narrator of this poetic line is Emeth, who’s name (in Hebrew) means truth. The circumstances for his quotation of Calormene poetry are thus.

As we have seen, The Last Battle starts with the Ape Shift posing as the prophet of the recently arrived Aslan (actually the Donkey Puzzle dressed in a lion’s skin). Shift’s motivation appears to be simple greed, he wants oranges and bananas and is willing to sell his fellow Narnians as slaves to Calormen to achieve those selfish desires. The ‘new Aslan’ movement, however, quickly outgrows Shift. The Calormenes become aware of it and (correctly) perceive an opportunity to destabilize Narnia and, with select Narnians, devise an Aslan-Tash composite ‘Tashlan’ to convince the Narnians of their friendship and common purpose. Tashlan is housed in a Stable and emerges only occasionally allowing the Narnians to pay homage.

One evening the Narnians and newly arrived Calormenes are gathered around the Stable and Shift gives permission for anyone to go inside and see Tashlan, but only one at a time. The first to enter is the Cat Ginger, who at this point is the actual Narnian leading the movement. Ginger enters confidently but with a ‘horrible caterwaul,’ races out, and has clearly ceased to be a Talking Beast. It is at this point that Emeth requests to enter the Stable. The Calormene Captain is unwilling, but Emeth insists that, as a servant of Tash, he must be allowed to look upon the face of Tash once, even at the cost of death.

Emeth’s loyalty to his god and his willingness to risk death for his love of Tash, strikes King Tirian and those loyal to him. "By the Lion's Mane,” says Jewel the Unicorn, “I almost love this young warrior, Calormene though he be. He is worthy of a better god than Tash." And, indeed, he is, for upon entering the Stable Emeth finds himself in the afterlife reserved for the worthy. He wanders those heavenly lands until he meets Aslan. Emeth is now sure he has met his death, but Aslan explains that it is not Tash but He who Emeth has spent his life truly seeking with such love and dedication.

After a time, Emeth is come upon by the Seven Lords of Narnia and their entourage. He bows before them and, addressing the High King Peter quotes the Calormene poet:

I know not whether you are my friend or my foe, but I should count it my honour to have you for either. Has not one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble enemy the next best?"

Now, given the high regard Lewis has for Emeth given his name, we should take care to understand Emeth's words. We can plainly understand the value of a noble friend. Lewis spends quite a bit of time defining friendship in his book The Four Loves. Paraphrasing, a friend is one with whom one shares a common interest or insight that separates them from others. A noble friend would be such a person who is also idealistic, moral, and perhaps even illustrious. No doubt that a noble friend is the best gift.

But what is a noble enemy?

Presumably a noble enemy, in contrast to one that is not noble, is moral, idealistic, and a person of principle. Perhaps we might say that noble enemies, given their nobility, are seeking truth. Of course, as enemies their pursuit has not led them to the same conclusion and thus they are not friends. Nonetheless, while perhaps at odds, noble enemies strive towards the same ends.

The Calormene poet properly places the noble enemy as the “next best gift.” Noble enemies will motivate each other to fight harder, to do better, to seek more diligently. A noble enemy will not take short-cuts, will not stab you in the back after slipping on a tussock, nor attempt trickery or even bribery. Ignoble enemies seek to win at all costs, even at the cost of ideals and principles, noble enemies seek to discover the truth.

In The Last Battle Shift, Ginger, and the Calormene captain are ignoble enemies. Their goal is not truth but material gain and they seek to achieve their goals through deceit and disguise. In doing so they compromise their religious principles and even basic decency. They exploit the naive, torture the innocent, and confuse those seeking understanding.

Emeth, in contrast, is indeed a noble enemy. He strives for truth and perceives himself as a true servant of Tash. He seeks war with Narnia to prove the greatness of Tash against (in his mind) the falsehoods portrayed by the fiend which is Aslan, and he is willing to die for his ideals. Of course, his views are incorrect, but because he seeks truth, he eventually finds it. For when noble enemies finally reach the truth they have been seeking all along, they can no longer be enemies. Each must recognize the truth and the noble enemies are transformed noble friends.

Emeth is yet unsure whether that finality has been achieved. Has he become the noble friend of the Seven Lords? We await the response of Peter in our next post.

Passover Thoughts

Passover begins tomorrow night, so I wanted to link to our Passover related posts:

1) In Every Generation noting the parallel between the statement of the eldest dwarf in The Silver Chair, "Those northern witches always mean the same thing, but in every age they have a different plan for getting it." And the declaration in the Passover haggadah, "In every generation they rise up to destroy us, and the Holy One Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands." 

2) Calormen Poetry: Questions contrasting the Calormen and Jewish approach to questions

3) Pre-Commemorating Christmas How Tumnus "pre-celebration" of Christmas echoes our Sages understanding of Abraham's pre-celebration of Passover.

I'll also take a moment to expand on the last of these posts. R' Gavriel Ze'ev Margolis in his haggadah called Agudat Aizov, comments as follows on the song, "Who Knows One?" This song, he asserts, is appropriate for the second half of the seder as it is a song that will be sung in the holy city of Jerusalem after the final redemption when the Jews have settled peacefully in their land. At that time, they will look back on the exile and sing of the ideals that supported them through their trials and tribulations as enumerated in this song. 

The future redemption, he continues, is the major theme of the second half of the seder, when the Exodus from Egypt is not even mentioned. It is as if, to embellish of R' Margolis' points, we are pre-celebrating the final exodus which has yet to come. We sing a song appropriately sung only after the final exodus has come to fruition. We look back on an exile of which we are still in its midst. But on Passover that's doable. For just as during the first half of the seder to relive the Exodus from Egypt, during the second half we 'pre-live' the exodus that we still pray for today.    

The Gnomes of Bism

Prince Rilian is not the only one bewitched by the Lady of the Green Kirtle. The gnomes of Bism were also under her spell. Our first encounter with these gnomes is after our heroes, Eustace, Jill, and Puddleglum, fall down deep into the earth. The gnomes arrive to bring them to the Lady of the Green Kirtle and appear before our heroes, sad and gloomy. They appear so sad, in fact, that, rather than being afraid, Jill’s first reaction is to want to cheer them up. 

Of course, it turns out that the gnomes are not like that at all. Their true nature reawakens when they are freed from the witch’s enchantment, “leaping, turning cart-wheels, standing on their heads, playing leap-frog, and letting off huge crackers,” clearly a playful lot.

The story of the gnomes’ enchanting is not told by Lewis. Perhaps the Lady of the Green Kirtle entered Bism and overpowered the gnomes with her magic. Or perhaps, similar to her enchantment of Rilian, she enticed the gnomes of Bism with power and riches and then was able to seize control of them. Either way, Golg, the gnome who relates the gnomes' story to our heroes, succinctly summarizes the nature of the enchantment:

We didn't know who we were or where we belonged. We couldn't do anything, or think anything, except what she put into our heads.

His description teaches us something about becoming enchanted, and maybe even about becoming enamored or entranced.

The first symptom, or perhaps the first step, to being enchanted is not knowing oneself and one’s purpose. The spiritual danger of loss of self was already commented on by Screwtape (remember Screwtape is a devil, so everything is backwards), “As a preliminary to detaching him from the Enemy [God], you wanted to detach him from himself…” The midrash similarly states, “Just as their faces are unlike each other, so are they unlike in disposition. Rather each and every individual has his own individual disposition.” Loss of individuality dampens the “image of God” which imbues every human. Losing hold of oneself causes confusion in the knowledge of to Whom one truly belongs.

Each gnome looked different and unique, “some had tails and others not, some wore great beards and others had very round, smooth faces, big as pumpkins. There were long, pointed noses, and long, soft noses like small trunks, and great blobby noses. Several had single horns in the middle of their foreheads.” This diversity in appearance could have reflected a vibrance of thoughts and ideas, a multitude of strengths and talents with each individual using their uniqueness (and banding together to reflect a grand panoply) in the service of God. But it didn’t.

The gnomes’ lost identity and purpose allowed the Lady of the Green Kirtle to put into their heads whatever she wanted. She was not concerned with individuality and uniqueness and certainly not interested in the service of God, “But in one respect they [the gnomes] were all alike: every face in the whole hundred was as sad as a face could be.”  

Not surprisingly, the powerful and controlling prefer that the masses be the same and easy to control. To all fall to the lowest common denominator, to be sad and gloomy. Unlike God, Who wants individuals to be sons and serve Him from a sense of love, duty, and responsibility, human tyrants want slaves, with no individuality and no concept of God. Thus, she puts only "glum and gloomy things" there. 

We do not see that the gnomes of Bism recognize Aslan. But once freed and returned to themselves they have, once again, achieved the capacity to realize God.