Solomon Kane: a fighter, a lover … or both?
Solomon Kane: puritan, swordsman, adventurer. Robert E. Howard's dour creation was most definitely a fighter not a lover. But even this ascetic individual was not entirely immune to the appeal of a pretty face. This post is an examination of those rare moments when Kane reveals an interest in women. As with so many aspects of Kane’s life, the evidence is suggestive rather than informative, lending itself more to speculation than definitive conclusions.
Devil woman
In 'The Moon of Skulls', When Solomon Kane first sees Nakari, queen of Negari, he feels 'his pulse quicken'.[1] This could simply be due to the excitement of the situation, to having finally tracked down the quarry he spent a long time searching for. No doubt that is part of the reason, but there is surely more to it than that. Let's place that quote in it's full context.
A black woman she was, young and of a tigerish comeliness. She was naked except for a beplumed helmet, armbands, anklets and a girdle of colored ostrich feathers and she sprawled upon the silken cushions with her limbs thrown about in voluptuous abandon.
Even at that distance Kane could make out that her features were regal yet barbaric, haughty and imperious, yet sensual, and with a touch of ruthless cruelty about the curl of her full red lips. Kane felt his pulse quicken.[2]
Look at the language used here, with its description of Nakari's comeliness, her voluptuous abandon, her sensual features and her full red lips. There's no wonder that Kane watches her, 'fascinated though repelled.'[3] Kane continues to experience this conflicted reaction to the woman. Kane watches her from behind a tapestry, and ‘in spite of himself the watcher was struck with admiration for her lithe beauty.’[4] Later, when a prisoner in Nakari's dungeon, Kane admits to her, "You are beautiful", but at the same time that he hates her, "As a man hates a serpent".[5] Kane finds Nakari beautiful and is physically attracted to her, but, he is also repelled by her on a moral and intellectual level. She is the demon queen 'whose crimes had become almost mythical’,[6] and Kane himself has witnessed her enjoy having a man put to death.
Things between Kane and Nakari come to a boil when she offers to love him, and to make him her king so that they can conquer the world together. Kane is 'sorely tempted'.[7] If we go by what is revealed in the story, then Kane is tempted by the prospect of power,[8] rather than by lust, but the text does not reveal everything that happens in that encounter between Kane and Nakari. In 'Solomon Kane's Homecoming', Kane says of Nakari that “Her kiss was like an adder’s fang, / with the sweetness Lilith had".[9] There was certainly no mention of any kissing in 'The Moon of Skulls', and if that could have been omitted then it raises the question of what else might have been discreetly left out. Nakari's kiss was sweet, and Kane might have gone back for more. Kane ultimately rejects Nakari's offer, but it's ambiguous how much he gives in to temptation before doing so.
Girl, you’ll be a woman soon
Trapped in the dungeons of Negari, in 'The Moon of Skulls', Solomon Kane finds himself wrestling with temptation -- if not with Nakari herself. Kane has moral qualms about betraying his race to foreign conquerors, but he also has the more immediate concern of what will happen to Marylin Taferal if he agrees to Nakari's proposal. The decisive moment in Kane's struggle comes when 'before his mind's eye rose the wistful, sad face of Marylin Taferal'.[10]
Kane sets himself up as Marylin's rescuer and protector, stepping into the role of an elder brother -- but is there more going on here? Nakari suspects as much. "You love the white girl, perhaps?"[11] she asks Kane, and taunts him with knowledge that she is going to whip Marylin (naked, no less) while Kane is powerless to help her. Is there anything in Nakari's accusation? Kane may call Marylin 'child' and 'little Marylin',[12] but he hasn’t failed to notice that she is now a woman: Kane says to Marylin, "you are beautiful as the nymphs of the heathen books".[13]
To say anything more about Kane's feelings for Marylin would be pure speculation, with no support in the canonical literature. However, there is one more thing that is worth adding. It relates to a difficulty with the chronology of 'The Moon of Skulls' and Kane's African journey that starts with 'The Hills of the Dead'. ('The Hills of the Dead' must be set after 'The Moon of Skulls', but the timings do not work if Kane returns to England with Marylin between the two stories.)[14] One way of resolving this would be if Marylin Taferal dies before Kane manages to get them back to England. If Kane had fallen in love with Marylin this might explain his later behaviour. The Solomon Kane we see during his long African odyssey is not the Kane of the earlier tales. He is more broken, more prone to losing his self-control, and, for the first time, he is painfully aware of his own limitations.
The one that got away
The poem 'Solomon Kane's Homecoming' mentions a woman named Bess, who is now buried in Kane's home town in Devon.
“Where is Bess?” said Solomon Kane.
“Woe that I caused her tears.”
“In the quiet churchyard by the sea
she has slept these seven years.”
The sea-wind moaned at the window-pane,
and Solomon bowed his head.
“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
and the fairest fade,” he said.[15]
This isn’t the only time that a Bess is referred to in the Kane stories. In 'Hawk of Basti', Jeremy Hawk asks, “does good Queen Bess still rule old England?”[16] This Bess is clearly Queen Elizabeth I, who was queen of England from 1558 until her death in 1603 -- but is she the Bess who is mentioned in 'Solomon Kane’s Homecoming'? Fred Blosser apparently seemed to think so, as he placed the poem in the year 1610, that is, seven years after the queen’s death.[17] However, several pieces of evidence argue against the Bess of 'Solomon Kane's Homecoming' being Elizabeth I.
Firstly, there is the fact that Kane had no great love for the monarch. When discussing her with Jeremy Hawk, in 'Hawk of Basti', Kane speaks abruptly, and declares that, “She herself has lied to and betrayed the folk of my faith”.[18] Contrast this with 'Solomon Kane’s Homecoming', where Kane bows his head in grief on learning that Bess is dead -- it is unlikely that the death of Elizabeth I would get this reaction from him. Secondly, the timing of Elizabeth I's death does not fit with the chronology of the poem. Elizabeth died in 1603, and seven years after this would bring us to 1610. However, there is evidence that 'Solomon Kane's Homecoming' cannot take place before 1611, and may well be significantly later.[19] Lastly, and perhaps most obviously, Elizabeth I is buried in Westminster Abbey in London, not in a quiet churchyard on the coast.
Who, then, is the Bess of 'Solomon Kane’s Homecoming', and what can we say about her relationship with Kane? It seems that she cared about Kane, as his behaviour -- perhaps his long absences -- caused her pain. Kane, in his turn, cared about her, and feels remorse for having hurt her. The adventurer who has seen so much violence and death during his life is clearly moved to sadness by the news of her passing. Lastly, Kane refers to Bess as ‘the fairest’ -- he clearly thought that she was beautiful, even if this is not evidence that he was romantically attracted to her.
It may be the conventional, the predictable, solution to suggest that Kane was in love with this unknown woman, but the evidence does point in that direction. In the variant version of the poem, Kane says “I left her -- though it racked my heart / to see the lass in tears”.[20] Note the fact that he talks of leaving Bess -- not his home, or England, or even his friends, but specifically this woman -- and that he found it emotionally painful to part with her. Kane may indeed have loved Bess, but he loved adventure more, and his wanderlust lured him away from her.
It's tempting to wonder about the precise nature of Kane's relationship with Bess. Had they ever spoken of their feelings for each other? Had they even discussed the possibility of marriage? It’s even possible that they were married, although I doubt that Solomon Kane, on returning to his home town, would have visited the local tavern before going to see his wife. Perhaps Kane envisaged returning home to Devon and settling down with Bess. The fact that she has been dead for seven years by the time he returns must have been a double blow: not merely the fact of her death but also the knowledge that she has been dead for a long time while he roamed the world, unaware of what had happened at home. There is, perhaps, no more poignant indictment of Kane’s way of life than the fact that this woman -- whom he may have loved, and perhaps dreamed of returning home to -- had been dead for seven years before he even learnt of it.
Sir Galahad
All that can definitely be said about Solomon Kane is that he is attracted to women, and that he tries to remain celibate when Nakari attempts to seduce him. (It's ambiguous whether he succeeds.) Kane frames his desire for Nakari in terms of a moral, religious struggle. We are told, undoubtedly from Kane’s viewpoint, that 'the Devil sorely tempted Solomon Kane.'[21] Kane compares Nakari to a serpent, calling to mind Eve being tempted by the devil in the Garden of Eden. He rejects Nakari with the words "Out on ye, daughter of Satan! Avaunt!" Kane's reaction here is what one would expect of a good puritan, who would have regarded sex outside of marriage as a sin. (However, the puritans did not believe that enjoying sex was sinful, and were largely in favour of making it a frequent, and enjoyable, activity.)[22] The devil might tempt people, putting wicked thoughts and desires in their minds,[23] but a good Christian was expected to resist that temptation.
This raises the wider question of whether Kane always fought temptation in this way, and whether he succeeded. To put it bluntly: has Solomon Kane ever had sex? Some readers will say that Kane is just a man, and, as such, there must have been times when he gave in to temptation. Other readers might argue that Kane is no ordinary man, that he has a fanatical devotion to what he believes to be right, the sort of iron willpower that would not allow him to go against his puritan sense of morality.
It's possible that Robert E. Howard envisaged his creation as celibate. On multiple occasions, Kane is referred to as Sir Galahad.[24] Galahad, one of the knights of the Arthurian tales, was renowned not just for being a rescuer of damsels in distress but also for being the most pure of Arthur's knights, dying a virgin. This image of Galahad was found in Malory's Morte d'Arthur, where he is described as 'clean and without spot', and 'a clean maiden'.[25] The same idea was put forward by Tennyson, a poet whom Howard admired,[26] in his poem 'Sir Galahad'.[27]
At the end of the day, Howard's writings do not provide a definite answer to this most personal of questions about Solomon Kane's life. It is left to each reader to choose how they wish to view the man, and that is no bad thing.
1 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 114.↩
2 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, pp. 114-5.↩
3 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 115.↩
4 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 128.↩
5 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 134.↩
6 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 115.↩
7 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 136.↩
8 'What man can say truthfully that in his heart there lurks not a yearning for power and conquest?' (R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 136.)↩
9 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 382.↩
10 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 136.↩
11 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 137.↩
12 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, pp. 125 and 168.↩
13 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 127.↩
14 See the post "Solomon Kane: a chronological conundrum" for more details.↩
15 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 382.↩
16 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, pp. 258-9.↩
17 F. Blosser, “The Trail of Solomon Kane: An Informal Biography”, in The Saga of Solomon Kane, Dark Horse 2009, p. 9.↩
18 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 259.↩
19 The chronology of the Solomon Kane canon is discussed more fully in the post "Solomon Kane: a chronological conundrum". To summarise, the chain of evidence runs like this: in "The Moon of Skulls", Kane quotes from the King James Bible, which was not published until 1611; "The Moon of Skulls" is referenced in "Wings in the Night", which must happen after it; "Solomon Kane's Homecoming" mentions events from "Wings in the Night", so is set at a later date.↩
20 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 388.↩
21 R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 136.↩
22 F.J. Bremer, Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press 2009, pp. 51-4.↩
23 F.J. Bremer, Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press 2009, p. 47.↩
24 In "Red Shadows", Le Loup uses the nickname 'Galahad' five separate times. (R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, pp. 40, 41, 48 and 54.) In "The Blue Flame of Vengeance", Jonas Hardraker calls him Galahad once. (R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 202.)↩
25 T. Malory and E. Strachey (ed.), Le Morte Darthur, London 1893, pp. 380 and 410. The text can be found online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46853/46853-h/46853-h.htm.↩
26 Tennyson is found in a list of Howard's favourite authors that he included in a letter to H.P. Lovecraft. (R.E. Howard, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, New York: Del Rey 2004, p. 395.)↩
27 Tennyson gives the knight the following lines, 'I never felt the kiss of love, / Nor maiden's hand in mine'. Alfred Tennyson, Oxford University Press 2000, p. 97.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment