Conflict In Ys

 

The King Of Ys tetralogy by Poul and Karen Anderson is a tragedy - although I am not sure that it is that in the Classical sense? We can see the hero's doom, though not his death, bearing down upon him but is it brought about by any weakness or flaw in his character?

In any case, the Irish King Niall curses Ys on page 287 in terms that are quite specific and that will be fulfilled later. Dahilis is pregnant and that is also highly relevant to the fate of Ys.

Conflicts:

Gratillonius refuses to wear the crown;
he persuades Ysans, against their better judgement, to defend the Empire;
forgetting that burials are forbidden, he promises to bury his second in command, then insists that he must keep his promise;
unwittingly, he initiates a Mithraist in running water sacred to the Goddess;
later, he will refuse to consummate his marriage with one of the Nine.

There are probably other conflicts that I will re-find on rereading.

Social Decay and Change

In Roma Mater (London, 1989) by Poul and Karen Anderson, Gratillonius' father, Marcus, is of the curial class which is being ruined by enforced casteism, a declining economy and mounting taxes. Some are becoming serfs and one is believed to be hiding among the proletary of Londinium.

That last phrase anticipates and summarises many subsequent centuries. Feudalism grew from the ruins of Empire. Land worked by serfs was held by lords loyal to and protected by greater lords but some serfs fled to towns where they became either bourgeois or proletarian. The former, employing the latter, developed trade and industry, accumulated wealth as money, not land, then challenged the lords. Hence, the scientific revolution, the Protestant Reformation, political revolutions, the Industrial Revolution and the eventual replacement of feudal realms by modern nation-states.

Thus, Marcus' absconding neighbour, despised for hiding in Londinium, is really in the first wave of a very revolutionary future.

Rumors Of Ys

In Roma Mater (London, 1989) by Poul and Karen Anderson, when Gratillonius mentions Ys, his father, Marcus, makes the sign of the cross:

"...the Cross of Light that marked the shield of his warrior God." (p. 58)

The famously rich Croesus also makes this Mithraic sign of the cross in a Time Patrol story.

Marcus comments, " 'That's an uncanny place.' " (p. 58)

So Gratillonius asks him what he really knows about Ys which " '...has been left alone so long that...wild stories...have sprung up.' " (p. 58) The Andersons must explain to the readers why this European city was important in the early Christian period but has since been forgotten except in legend. Part of the answer is that it was secluded even at the time.

Between Gratillonius' question and Marcus' answer there is an entire paragraph, a descriptive passage that serves the usual purposes of such passages but that also sets the scene for a description of this uncanny place:

"Wind roared and whistled. Clouds were appearing over the horizon. Their shadows raced across winter-grey hills..." (p. 58)

We expect to hear about something "wild." Marcus is a Mithraist, was married to a Christian and knows that the Roman state has changed its allegiance from the Olympians to Christ but the Ysans worship Someone or Something else - male, female and elemental, as we will learn soon.

Although Marcus had owned a ship, he had never visited the Armorican port of Ys. He had spoken to three or four captains who had each visited it only once. The Ysans want only trade carried out by themselves and minimal contact with Rome. They are a foederate (ally) but have not had a Roman prefect for maybe two hundred years. Their city is " '...wonderful...of the hundred towers...' " but also has an " '...an otherness.' " (p.58)

We expect Ys to be strange, foreign, alien, as if further away in space and time, not just a port across the Channel from Britannia. It had been prominent, " '...the queen of the Northern seas.' " (p. 59) Gratillonius does not believe the rumors that it is a " '...witch-nest...' " (p. 59)

So we have been intriguingly introduced to "...magical Ys..." where Gratillonius will become both prefect and King (p. 60).

The Wealth Of The Past

I am grateful to correspondent Sean M Brooks for suggesting that I reread Poul and Karen Andersons' Ys tetralogy shortly after rereading Poul Anderson's The Golden Slave. It is good to spend more time in Anderson's pasts before returning to his futures.

The connections between Anderson's various historical novels are clearer when they are reread successively. The tetralogy is rich in information not only about the by that time Christianised Roman Empire but also about other parts of Europe like the still Pagan Hivernia (Ireland) - the characters include a young man who will later be called St Patrick - and the mythical Ys.

So far, I have focused on what we are told about Irish gods and about the hero's deity, Mithras, the latter an early alternative to Christ. However, other details worthy of attention while rereading are:

the antecedents and history of Ys;

Ysan domestic life and politics;

 
the nature of the city's gods, the Three, and the role of its Witch-Queens, the Nine;

the various Challengers to Gratillonius' Kingship of Ys and what happens to them;

the network of resistance to Roman rule and Grallon's (Gratillonius') fruitful contact with it;

the aftermath, with Ys destroyed, Rome withdrawing, Christ triumphant, the beginning of the Dark Ages and the seeds of the Middle Ages (Gratillonius lived at the end of an age as we do now).

Roma Mater II

Roman Pagans worshiped Jupiter whereas Roman Christians worshiped Christ. Simple? Well, no, a bit more complicated. In Poul and Karen Anderson's Roma Mater (London, 1989), Gratillonius, a British Roman Centurion, worships neither Jupiter nor Christ but Mithras. A Christian calls him " '...pagan...' " but he denies that he worships Jupiter... (p. 23).

It is interesting to read about a group who differentiated themselves from Pagans but who were not Christians either. The Andersons' Note says that little is known about Mithraic doctrines and that "...there is virtually no record..." of Mithraic rites. (p. 480).

We can now differentiate five perspectives on Jupiter. He was:

the chief god, according to Roman Pagans;
a lesser god, according to Mithraists;
a demon, according to Roman Christians and to John Milton in Paradise Lost;
a manifestation of the One God, according to some Hindus (one of "...My million faces...," according to Krishna in the Gita);
non-existent, according to modern Christians and secularists.

That is very comprehensive. It would be a tough assignment to imagine a sixth possibility. Where an answer is uncertain, people seem to have the capacity to formulate and live by every possible answer. The Christian merely tells Gratillonius that he will burn forever if he does not convert. This has to be the vilest doctrine ever imagined by human beings.

Anderson Celebrates Life

Poul Anderson celebrates humanity throughout history and into speculative futures. His characters inhabit diverse locations, including:

Hiram's Tyre;
the legendary Ys;
the city of Gray on the planet Avalon;
a future era, the "Winter of the World," when technology has been lost.

They can struggle for survival or enjoy great wealth, can meet gods, aliens or superior AI, may be pious like Gratillonius of Ys and van Rijn of the League or cynical like Everard of the Patrol and Flandry of the Empire. What they have in common is that they live and Anderson conveys their sensations and perceptions.

While an escaped mutineer hides, floating in the water of a harbor, he smells salt, smoke, tar and fish, sees docks, warehouses, fishing smacks and steamboats and -

"Inshore, Newkeep raised walls, towers, battlements. The light of a newly risen sun glowed on lichenous brick, flashed off high windows, gave back red and gold from the Imperial standard which flew above...Despite its name, as commonly translated by the Seafolk, Newkeep was over three thousand years old." (1)

It is always worth rereading Anderson's novels to savor descriptive passages. Here, our viewpoint character is on the run, in danger of his life and up to his neck in water but, like van Rijn feasting and conniving, he is alive.

(1) Anderson, Poul, The Winter Of The World, New York, 1976, p. 19.

The History of Ys

As Gratillonius, Roman centurion and future last king of Ys, approached Ys, he found an inscription marking an immemorial frontier. The inscription was dated DCLXXXVIII AVC (= 688 from the founding of Rome = 65 BC). (1) Gratillonius reflected that that was four and a third centuries ago. Thus, Gratillonius entered Ys about 368 AD and reigned for over two decades before Ys was destroyed. After that, Gratillonius, who had been a Mithraist and, while King, an incarnation of Taranis, became a Christian. The Empire withdrew and the Dark Ages, containing the seeds of the Middle Ages, began, polytheism becoming witchcraft.

Ys was a colony of Carthage which had been a colony of Tyre. One Witch-Queen's arcane instruments include a female figurine from ancestral Tyre. Both Tyre and Carthage play important roles in Anderson's Time Patrol series. The title of the Patrol story, "Delenda Est," refers to the Latin phrase, "delenda est Carthago," meaning "Carthage must be destroyed." (2) Hannibal must be prevented from sacking Rome. Romans must destroy Carthage. Time criminals must be prevented from destroying Tyre.

Caesar visited Ys but did not mention it in his writings although it then became a foederate of Rome. Brennilis, one of the Nine Witch-Queens of Ys, negotiated with Caesar for eternal silence about the new age of Ys which she had seen in a prophetic vision. The Three of Ys held Themselves and Their city apart from the new God Who was to come. Ys grew obscure as chronicles about it crumbled. We read of it as a legend and, in the Andersons' tetralogy, as a fiction.

The Anderson character, Skafloc, saw with elf-eyes things only glimpsed or dreamed by mortal sailors, including "...the drowned tower of Ys..." (3) Mermen must have seen it. (4) The parallel universes accessed from the Old Phoenix might include a world where the towers of Ys were never inundated and still exist in the far future with spacecraft and alien visitors. (5)

(Added, August 3rd, 2011: A "foederate" was a subordinate ally. Rome could insist that Ys accept a Christian chaplain but not prevent Ysans from worshiping the Three. The third volume implies that, when Ys was destroyed, Grallon (Gratillonius) had been there for seventeen years so less than two decades. (6) The volume also implies that Ys was destroyed in 400 AD which contradicts the date as calculated above. (7) ) 

(1) Poul and Karen Anderson, The King of Ys: Roma Mater, London, 1988, p. 99.
(2) Poul Anderson, Time Patrol, New York, 2006, p. 173.
(3) Anderson, The Broken Sword, London, 1973, p. 31.
(4) Anderson, The Merman's Children, London, 1981.
(5) Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest, London, 1975, pp. 90-106, 228-229.
(6) Poul and Karen Anderson, The King of Ys: Dahut, London, 1988, p. 450.
(7) op. cit., p. 483.