Lewis on Conquest

(Special thanks to Dr. Wenthe for quickly providing a copy of Graham's version of this poem, reproduced below.)

I was struck by the tragic tone of "Erthe Toc of Erthe" the first time we read it. Then when Dr. Wenthe read Jory Graham's version of it in class, it reminded me of something I had read in C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man. This entry outlines the relationship between these poems and biblical conceptions of humanity, and how it all relates to Lewis's book.

First, the poem in two versions:

Erthe toc of erthe erthe wyth woh,
erthe other erthe to the earthe droh,
erthe leyde erthe in erthene throh,
tho hevede erthe of erthe erthe ynoh.

--Anonymous


Earth took of earth earth with ill;
Earth other earth gave earth with a will.
Earth laid earth in the earth stock-still:
Then earth in earth had of earth its fill.

--Jory Graham

The key to reading these seems to be deciphering the many uses of the word "erthe" (0r "earth", as it were). At any point "erthe" can mean "dirt", "nature", or "human flesh". All are biblical uses of the word. The Genesis author understands human flesh to have been made out of dirt, formed by God himself: "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Ge. 2:7). Thus the author of Ecclesiastes can take up the theme: "Remember him--before... the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ec. 12:6-7). Finally, the book of Revelation uses "earth" in the cosmic sense: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea" (Re. 21:1).

These associations encourage a reading of the poems above as both primeval and apocalyptic:

"Earth took of earth earth with ill;"
i.e., the cosmos brought from the ground flesh tainted by evil.

"Earth other earth gave earth with a will."
Women bore to the world men with a will, including a will to dominate.

"Earth laid earth in the earth stock-still:"
Humans laid humans in the ground, stiff and cold. Domination resulted in death.

"Then earth in earth had of earth its fill."
This line has at least three meanings. First, humans on earth had their fill of one another. Second, humans on earth had their fill of living (in the cosmos). Third, the land in the cosmos had its fill of humanity (and decided to be done with it, metaphorically speaking).

Interestingly, this is Lewis's reading in his book, The Abolition of Man, although he is not explicit about the fact that he is echoing the poems listed above. But let's take a look.

"Flesh tainted with evil"

"I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man who, having stepped outside traditional morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently" (Lewis, 66). Or, to use Lord Acton's oft-quoted axiom, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The point that is overshadowed by Acton's version, but permitted in Lewis's, is that the problem is not power per se, but human nature. In Lewis, the deficit is in human composition, whereas in Acton it is in the power held thereby. Thus Lewis's view holds much more closely to the poems above.

"A will to dominate"

"We reduce things to mere Nature in order that we may 'conquer' them. We are always conquering Nature, because 'Nature' is the name for what we have, to some extent, conquered" (Lewis, 71). These are the words of a man who witnessed industrial buildup, profound scientific advance, and the modernization of society that begat mechanized warfare.

"Domination resulted in death"

"Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car" (Lewis, 58). It comes as no surprise that these are the words of a man who has lived through two world wars, and witnessed profound changes in culture--especially in attitudes toward the value of life--as the result of Western modernization. In the face of modern science's will to dominate, Lewis cries, "Is nothing sacred anymore?"

"Then earth in earth had of earth its fill."

For Lewis, to say that "humans on earth had their fill of one another" is the same as saying both "humans on earth had their fill of living" and "the land in the cosmos had its fill of humanity." Consider the first of these in light of the following:

"The price of conquest is to treat a thing as mere Nature. Every conquest over Nature increases her domain. The stars do not become Nature till we can weigh and measure them: the soul does not become Nature till we can psychoanalyse her... As long as this process stops short of the final stage we may well hold that the gain outweighs the loss. But as soon as we take the final step of reducing our own species to the level of mere Nature, the whole process is stultified, for this time the being who stood to gain and the being who has sacrificed are one and the same" (Lewis, 71).

"Having our fill of one another" took its ugliest form in Hitler's Final Solution, mentioned, perhaps, obliquely here (cf., "final stage"). It is in this sort of senseless violence that Lewis sees that our race has had its fill of living. But the most striking conclusion he reaches, also insinuated by the anonymous medieval poet and Jory Graham, is that in exterminating our own kind we bequeath the victory thought to belong to the 'winner' to nature itself:

"At the moment, then, of Man's victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely 'natural'--to their irrational impulses. Nature, untrammelled by values, rules... all humanity. Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man. Every victory we seemed to win has led us, step by step, to this conclusion. All Nature's apparent reverses have been but tactical withdrawals. We thought we were beating her back when she was luring us on. What looked to us like hands held up in surrender was really the opening of arms to enfold us for ever" (Lewis, 67-68).

It is a chilling conclusion to reach, and one that accounts for the solemnity of the poems above. It is not insulated from moralism, for that is Lewis's point: we must adhere to the traditional morality which, he argues, cuts across cultures and history (Lewis, Appendix). If we accept the dilemma he has presented, the alternative is dire:

"Nature will be troubled no more by the restive species that rose in revolt against her so many millions of years ago, will be vexed no longer by its chatter of truth and mercy and beauty and happiness" (Lewis, 68).