Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.
In a cave deep underground on Perelandra, Ransom defeated the Un-Man, killing the body of his foe Weston and throwing it into an underground fire. After this, he slowly found his way through the dark, subvenerean caverns, seeing sights there that were not meant for humans. Finally, he fell into an underground river, which swept him back to the surface, depositing him in a pool on the side of a mountain. There, he spent some time recovering from his injuries. One remained: a bite from Weston on his heel that would not stop bleeding.
Once he had recovered sufficiently, Ransom descended to the valley below, then ascended the great mountain on the other side. Though reluctant to continue, thinking himself to be approaching a holy place, he felt himself urged on. At the peak of the mountain was a basin or crater, completely covered in red flowers, with a pool at the centre. A coffin like the one that had brought him to Perelandra lay there, open and waiting to return him to Earth. He also perceived two spiritual presences with him.
Ransom recognizes the two beings as one is the Oyarsa of Malacandra (known here only by "Malacandra"; he explains that "Oyarsa" is a title reserved for one's own sphere) and the other is the Oyarsa of of Perelandra. Today is the day that the latter turns the rule of the planet over to the King and Queen. Such had not been possible on Thulcandra (Earth), but here Ransom has made it possible.
The Oyeresu decide it is time to show themselves, and after a few terrifying manifestations, they settle on humanoid figures, thirty feet tall, expressionless and sexless, and glowing white.
Perelandrian animals assemble
in the basis: some of the giant singing animals Ransom had seen while
descending from his ledge, birds, crawling creatures, and other heasts
of all colours, shapes, and sizes. They come in pairs, reminding
Ransom of Noah's ark. The light becomes unnatural, like something
ceremonial is about to happen. Then the King and Queen enter the
basin, and the two Oyeresu bow down before them.
Last week I said that there was only one fixed island on Perelandra, and either Lewis's description of it is inconsistent at the beginning and end of the novel, or Ransom's perception of it had changed. This chapter makes it clear that this holy mountain is a different landmass than the Fixed Land where Ransom and the Green Lady first encountered Weston.
Despite being the hero of the hour, Malacandra notes that Ransom's thoughts would be enough to quench the light of the eldila, if they thought them. It's a reminder that although he has been the salvation of Perelandra, as a human of Thulcandra, he remains a fallen man from a fallen world. Nonetheless, this fallen man has prevented the fall of another world. On Thulcandra, the "greater thing" was forced by the Fall, meaning the Incarnation and Christ's crucifixion, but here it will not be necessary. Ransom, though not great, has done greatness; and "Deep Heaven sees it with amazement." On Earth, "angels long to look" into the work of salvation and redemption, it being a closed mystery to them (1 Peter 1:12); and on Perelandra, they are similarly astonished and amazed that Ransom has accomplished such a great feat.
Malacandra also reminds us that Ransom's given name is Elwin, and that he is "the friend of the eldila." The name "Elwin," in fact, comes from Ælfwine, or "elf-friend." I suppose that in the cosmology of the Space Trilogy, an eldil is the closest thing to a magical being such as an elf. Perhaps it's another nod to J. R. R. Tolkien, who, like Ransom, was a philologist, and who of course wrote an awful lot about elves and elf-friends.1
Before settling on their giant humanoid forms, the two Oyeresu cycle through an number of appearances that Ransom cannot bear: "Darting pillars filled with eyes, lightning pulsations of flame, talons and beaks and billowy masses of what suggested snow, volleyed through cubes and heptagons into an infinite black void," and finally "concentric wheels moving with a rather sickening slowness one inside the other." A wheel within a wheel a-rolling, way in the middle of the air? Eyes, beasts, and wheels call to mind Ezekiel's visions of the seraphim. Their rainbow "halo" perhaps alludes to the rainbow surrounding the throne of God in Revelation 4:4.
In Ransom's cottage, narrator-Lewis perceived Malacandra as an indistinct column of light. Here, the Oyaresu take on a more visible form, though how "real" it is, is unknown. Lewis calls them "hypersomatic," meaning Ransom's perception of them comes from their directly affecting his mind rather than through his senses. He notes that though they are standing still, the Oyeresu appear to be moving, because they are keeping up with the planet while it revolves around the sun. They are also not quite vertical, either, as though they are aligned to a different—more cosmic—frame of reference than the planet's surface. Narrator-Lewis had noted the same thing about Malacandra on Earth: he was crooked, but in such a way that the whole "terrestrial horizontal" seemed crooked instead.
Though the figures are visibly sexless, Malacandra is unmistakably masculine, and Perelandra feminine. The philologist in him ruminates about gendered language: what makes some things "masculine" and others "feminine"? Of course, what we call grammatical "gender" is simply an arbitrary way of organizing words for the sake of clarity; what is "masculine" in one language may well be "feminine" in another, and it would make no difference if we called those words "Type 1" or "Type 2." "Gender" comes from the Latin genus, meaning simply "kind"; it's unfortunate that the term has become largely synonymous with "sex," especially in the present day with its confused sexuality. But witnessing this scene, Ransom concludes that gender logically precedes sex: it is the fundamental cosmic reality that divides all created things, with biological sex being simply a particular adaptation of the greater reality. Hence the masculine Malacandra is strong and protective, a warrior bearing a spear; the feminine Perelandra is receptive, holding out her hands in welcome.
Ransom thinks, seeing these figures, "I have seen Ares and Aphrodite"—who are, of course, the Greek names for Mars, the god of war, and Venus, the goddess of love. Lewis originally rejected Christianity because he believed that the story of Christ, the dying and resurrected god, was simply an imitation of the pagan myths he loved. But later, Tolkien convinced him that myths weren't mere fiction; they were vehicles for truth. And when the death and resurrection of Christ happened in history, myth became fact. Here in Perelandra, we finally learn that the Oyeresu of Malacandra and Perelandra are the "true myths": the antitypes of which Mars/Ares and Venus/Aphrodite were the archetypes. Like the dying and resurrected god, another old story has come true.
In fact, if we take the story of Adam and Eve to be the "myth" (albeit another true one), then Ransom on Perelandra has seen another version of that story unfold. Only this time he isn't just reading a Bible story; he's an ordinary guy who has become a a character in the Venerean redemption story. It seems to be a pattern that repeats itself throughout the cosmos. Who knows how it played out on Malacandra or whatever other life-bearing planets there might be in Lewis's fictional universe?
The Oyarsa of Perelandra has been maintaining the planet until now. Lewis describes this in an almost pantheistic way, as though Perelandra has been the personification of the planet itself. However, the time has now come to turn it over to the King and Queen. Though she questions if Ransom can understand, he uses an earthly analogy: "when the children of a great house come to their full age. Then those who administered all their riches, and whom perhaps they have never seen, come and put all in their hands and give up their keys." He is paraphrasing Galatians 4:1-7: before the son comes of age, he is nobody; but when the time comes, he receives his inheritance. Paul uses this cultural analogy to say that with the coming of Christ to redeem his people, those who had been in bondage to legalism had now received full adoption as sons in God's family. The Oyarsa has been the steward of Perelandra until now, but the King and his Green Lady are about to come into their inheritance.
Footnote
1. In Tolkien's The Book of Lost Tales, there is a character named Ælfwine, father of Hengist and Horsa, the legendary founders of England. Though The Book of Lost Tales was unpublished before Lewis's or Tolkien's deaths, no doubt Lewis was familiar with the material thanks to Tolkien reading it for the Inklings.
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