The stars and
the earth and the sun and the moon and the winds
Are about to dance the war dance round you, men!
When I say the word, they will start.
For sun and stars and earth and the very rains are weary
Of tossing and rolling the substance of life to your lips.
They are saying to one another: Let us make an end
Of those ill-smelling tribes of men, these frogs that can't jump,
These cocks that can't crow
These pigs that can't grunt
This flesh that smells
These words that are all flat
These money vermin.
These white men, and red men, and yellow men, and brown men, and black men
That are neither white, nor red, nor yellow, nor brown, nor black
But everyone of them dirtyish.
Let us have a spring cleaning in the world.
For men upon the body of the earth are like lice,
Devouring the earth into sores.
This is what stars and sun and earth and moon and winds and rain
Are discussing with one another; they are making ready to start.
So tell the men I am coming to,
To make themselves clean, inside and out.
To roll the grave-stone off their souls, from the cave of their bellies,
To prepare to be men. (The Plumed Serpent, chapter XVI)
Are about to dance the war dance round you, men!
When I say the word, they will start.
For sun and stars and earth and the very rains are weary
Of tossing and rolling the substance of life to your lips.
They are saying to one another: Let us make an end
Of those ill-smelling tribes of men, these frogs that can't jump,
These cocks that can't crow
These pigs that can't grunt
This flesh that smells
These words that are all flat
These money vermin.
These white men, and red men, and yellow men, and brown men, and black men
That are neither white, nor red, nor yellow, nor brown, nor black
But everyone of them dirtyish.
Let us have a spring cleaning in the world.
For men upon the body of the earth are like lice,
Devouring the earth into sores.
This is what stars and sun and earth and moon and winds and rain
Are discussing with one another; they are making ready to start.
So tell the men I am coming to,
To make themselves clean, inside and out.
To roll the grave-stone off their souls, from the cave of their bellies,
To prepare to be men. (The Plumed Serpent, chapter XVI)
From one of the
hymns, QUETZALCOATL LOOKS DOWN ON MEXICO.
Lawrence seems to be wrestling with the notion that the soul of Man can take
the form of superstitions – like the feathered serpent – that represent a
people; represent an individual in the greater whole.
Quetzalcoatl is
the Moring Star – Venus, harbinger of the rains – and is wind, rain and star
all together. Jesus, and the saints in their carved wooden icons, have grown
tired of Mexico and the peons, and the president of the Republic, Ramon has,
after a vision, called back the one god that is truly Mexican.
Why is it not – Pictorial
66 – that Jesus and the saints cannot take their places alongside such
native superstitions, when all these things rely on belief? This, at any rate,
is how the plot unfolds, possibly seeing as Mexicans have a certain
temperament, a mixture of Spanish and peon (the mixture of Indian races like
Aztec and Mayan).
Poor old Jesus
and his Mother are sent back to heaven, where she sleeps on the white moon the
sleep of exhaustion, while the drums thud to the hymns of Quetzalcoatl.
For the old
dances of the Aztecs and the Zapotees, of all the submerged Indian races, are
based upon the old, sinking bird-step of the Red Indians of the north. It is in
the blood of the people; they cannot quite forget it. It comes back to them,
with a sense of fear, and joy, and relief. (chapter XVII)
This reminded me
of a story in DT about the revival of an ancient Aztec ball game that involves
rotating the hips to hit the ball. The guys had an almost racial pride, at ease
and free in themselves. It is a pretty peculiar thing that all ball games
appear to be British inventions, with the exception of lacrosse!
Lawrence pursues
this idea of theme and variation, largely through the persona of Ramon, who has
become the voice of Quetzalcoatl – here speaking to General Cipriano.
Then I,
Cipriano, I, First Man of Quetzalcoatl, with you, First Man of Huitzilopochtli,
and perhaps your wife, First Woman of Itzpapalotl, could we not meet, with sure
souls, the other great aristocrats of the world, the First Man of Wotan and the
First Woman of Freya, First Lord of Hermes, and the Lady of Astarte, the
Best-Born of Brahma, and the Son of the Greatest Dragon? I tell you, Cipriano,
then the earth might rejoice, when the First Lords of the West met the First Lords
of South and East, in the Valley of the Soul. Ah, the earth has Valleys of the
Soul, that are not cities of commerce and industry. (chapter XVII)
If only it could
be so again! General Cipriano meanwhile, is peon – or maybe hale Indian – and seems
to embody the typical preference for running everything.
Cipriano in
town was amusing. He seemed to exude pride and arrogant authority as he walked
about. But his black eyes, glancing above his fine nose and that little goat
beard, were not to be laughed at. They seemed to get everything, in the stab of
a glance. A demoniacal little fellow. (chapter
XVII)
The Fourth Hymn
of Quetzalcoatl is probably the most intriguing, and rounds on the Mexicans and
peons for their technological stupidity. That’s all very well, but why should
all countries of the world be identically lit at the expense of local colour?
I’ll quote from
Fourth Hymn at the end. Lawrence wrestles with these topics and it makes one
wonder if there is an a priori error at the heart of technology? We live
in a world of the solar serpent – which is essentially order (light) – while Quetzalcoatl
represents the feathered serpent of the Morning Star (Venus) – rain, wind.
Rain and wind
exist in cyclical symmetry with the Earth as it revolves in the cosmos. That is
essentially a type of order – not pure order since it incorporates disorder,
the tornadoes and whirlwinds, the sludge of heavenly downpours. Order and
disorder have a dynamic intensity that modern life cannot abide. The reason is
really that they are cyclical and incorporate regeneration at the harvest.
Our modern system
of order is run by the words of acolytes, telling us what to do. It is not run
by actions of nature. It is not run by the rustic actions of herds and cowboys
on the range. What moderns do is put more order on top of order (“Order order”,
the parliamentary refrain). It’s a type of tautology (Pictorial 67),
since what is wanted is disorder that revives through the cyclical regeneration
of decay and rebirth. This is also a religious question; hence the comradeship
between Quetzalcoatl and Christ in The Plumed Serpent.
Those that have mastered the forces of the world, die into the forces, they have homes in death.
But you! what have you mastered, among the dragon hosts of the cosmos?
There are dragons of sun and ice, dragons of the moon and the earth, dragons of salty waters, dragons of thunder;
There is the spangled dragon of the stars at large.
And far at the centre, with one unblinking eye, the dragon of the Morning Star.
Conquer! says the Morning Star. Pass the dragons, and pass on to me.
For I am sweet, I am the last and the best, the pool of new life.
But lo! you inert ones, I will set the dragons upon you.
They shall crunch your bones.
And even then they shall spit you out, as broken-haunched dogs,
You shall have nowhere to die into. (chapter XVII)
Those that have mastered the forces of the world, die into the forces, they have homes in death.
But you! what have you mastered, among the dragon hosts of the cosmos?
There are dragons of sun and ice, dragons of the moon and the earth, dragons of salty waters, dragons of thunder;
There is the spangled dragon of the stars at large.
And far at the centre, with one unblinking eye, the dragon of the Morning Star.
Conquer! says the Morning Star. Pass the dragons, and pass on to me.
For I am sweet, I am the last and the best, the pool of new life.
But lo! you inert ones, I will set the dragons upon you.
They shall crunch your bones.
And even then they shall spit you out, as broken-haunched dogs,
You shall have nowhere to die into. (chapter XVII)