Conan Compilation - The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian Part 68

"Good," grunted the king, "but kiss Numa's dancing girls for yourself only, lest you involve the states!"

His gusty laughter followed Prospero out of the chamber. The carven door closed behind the

392.Poitanian, and Conan turned back to his task. He paused a moment, idly listening to his friend's retreating footsteps, which fell hollowly on the tiles. And as if the empty sound struck a kindred chord in his soul, a rush of revulsion swept over him. His mirth fell away from him like a mask, and his face was suddenly old, his eyes worn. The unreasoning melancholy of the Cimmerian fell like a shroud about his soul, paralyzing him with a crus.h.i.+ng sense of the futility of human endeavor and the meaninglessness of life. His kings.h.i.+p, his pleasures, his fears, his ambitions, and all earthly things were revealed to him suddenly as dust and broken toys. The borders of life shrivelled and the lines of existence closed in about him, numbing him.

Dropping his lion head in his mighty hands, he groaned aloud.

Then lifting his head, as a man looks for escape, his eyes fell on a crystal jar of yellow wine.

Quickly he rose and pouring a goblet full, quaffed it at a gulp. Again he filled and emptied the goblet, and again. When he set it down, a fine warmth stole through his veins. Things and happenings a.s.sumed new values. The dark Cimmerian hills faded far behind him. Life was good and real and vibrant after all not the dream of an idiot G.o.d. He stretched himself lazily like a gigantic cat and seated himself at the table, conscious of the magnitude and vital importance of himself and his task. Contentedly, he nibbled his stylus and eyed his map. (The Phoenix on the Sword, first submitted draft, see pp. 360-361)

When Howard said that "the man Conan seemed suddenly to grow up in my mind without much labor on my part," he was probably telling the truth. What he did not realize was that this act of creation obeyed deep-seated motives: Conan's "gigantic melancholies" echo Howard's "black moods," as he called them, just as Cimmeria echoes Dark Valley. And just as Dark Valley was a haunting memory for Howard, "a gloomier land" than Cimmeria never existed for Conan.

Howard's Conan, at least in the early phases of his creation, was thus much more a projection of what Howard was, than what he wanted to be.

The poem Cimmeria is not, strictly speaking, part of the Conan canon, but it is the piece of writing that helped bring about the Conan stories: Conan or Howard can only "remember"

Cimmeria; it is a terrible land, the mere evocation of which brings unhappy recollections and invites forgetfulness. This is why no Conan story can take place in Cimmeria and why no other Cimmerian is or could be ever featured in any of the Conan tales. In Queen of the Black Coast, Conan will explain to Belit that "[i]n this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle.... Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content." This is what the Conan series is really about then, a

393.wish to drown oneself in a turbulent life. Conan's intense physical life appears as a desperate attempt to forget Cimmeria and whatever frightful memory is a.s.sociated with that country.

Perhaps the same can be said of Howard's intense writing activity, which could be seen as an attempt to forget Dark Valley. When Conan is inactive as is the case at the beginning of The Phoenix on the Sword and reminded of Cimmeria, his first reflex is to seek oblivion and drink his gloominess away. Different solutions to the same problem.

Once Cimmeria was written, after having expressed the need to flee that country and to forget it as much as possible, Howard was psychologically ready to compose the first of these action- filled Conan stories.

When Howard returned to Cross Plains in February 1932, there still remained the task of creating what was to become known as the "Hyborian" world.

The reasons behind the invention of the Hyborian Age were probably commercial. Howard's sole market up to 1929 had been Weird Tales, but in the early thirties several new markets opened up to him, notably Oriental Stories and the short-lived Soldiers of Fortune. Howard had an intense love for history and the stories he sold to Oriental Stories rank among his best. At the same time he recognized the difficulties and the time-consuming research work involved in maintaining historical accuracy. By conceiving a universe that was not ours but that may once have been ours, by carefully choosing names that resembled our past history, Howard skirted the problem of anachronisms and the need for lengthy explanatory chapters. Lovecraft later criticized him for this, but concluded that: "The only thing to do is to accept the nomenclature as he gives it, wink at the weak spots, and be d.a.m.ned thankful that we can get such vivid artificial legendry." (Letter to Donald Wollheim, used in the introduction to The Hyborian Age, 1938).

Howard was perfectly able to come up with imaginary names when he wanted to: the Kull stories that Lovecraft so much admired feature strange-sounding empires such as Zarfhaana, Valusia and Grondar. But by dubbing Howard's method "artificial legendry," Lovecraft had touched upon one of the most important factors presiding over the creation of the Hyborian Age.

Although he is not represented in Howard's library, nor alluded to in his papers and correspondence, there seems a strong likelihood that Howard's conception of the Hyborian Age originates in Thomas Bulfinch's The Outline of Mythology (1913), acting as a catalyst that enabled him to coalesce into a coherent whole his literary aspirations and the strong psychological/autobiographical elements underlying the creation of Conan.

Bulfinch (1796-1867) had a keen interest in cla.s.sical studies and much of his spare time was spent writing a series of books popularizing cla.s.sical legends and mythological episodes. The

394.Outline of Mythology combines his three most famous books, The Age of Fable (1855), The Age of Chivalry (1858) and Legends of Charlemagne, or Romance of the Middle Ages (1863).

Between the covers of Bulfinch's books were heroic tales set in various places and epochs of history and legendry, that is to say, the very substance of the Hyborian Age. It is thus not surprising to find that many of the names used in Howard's early conception of his imaginary world are found in Bulfinch, beginning with Conan: "...the next event of note is the conquest and colonization of Armorica, by Maximis, a Roman general, and Conan, lord of Miniadoc or Denbigh-land, in Wales." (Bulfinch, The Outline of Mythology, p. 388)

Of course, Howard was familiar with the name Conan before the inception of the Hyborian series, since he had already used the name for the protagonist in People of the Dark. But perhaps this only indicates that Howard had already read or was reading Bulfinch by the time he wrote that story.

As to the country of Conan's birth, Cimmeria, Bulfinch offers a description similar to Howard's:

"Near the Cimmerian country, a mountain cave is the abode of the dull G.o.d Somnus. Here Phoebus dares not come, either rising, at midday, or setting. Clouds and shadows are exhaled from the ground, and the light glimmers faintly. The bird of dawning, with crested head, never there calls aloud to Aurora, nor watchful dog, nor more sagacious goose disturbs the silence.

No wild beast, nor cattle, nor branch moved with the wind, nor sound of human conversation, breaks the stillness. Silence reigns there; but from the bottom of the rock the River Lethe flows, and by its murmur invites to sleep." (Bulfinch, pp. 71-72)

Some commentators have noted the closeness of description between Howard's Cimmeria and Herodotus' description of this country; this could well have come from Bulfinch, who drew some of his material from Herodotus. Bulfinch adds: "The earliest inhabitants of Britain are supposed to have been a branch of that great family known in history by the designation of Celts. Cambria, which is a frequent name for Wales, is thought to be derived from Cymri, the name which the Welsh traditions apply to an immigrant people who entered the island from the adjacent continent. This name is thought to be identical with those of Cimmerians and Cimbri, under which the Greek and Roman historians describe a barbarous people, who spread themselves from the north of the Euxine over the whole of Northwestern Europe" (p. 529). In March 1932, precisely at the time he was writing the first Conan tales, Howard echoed Bulfinch, writing to Lovecraft that "Most authorities consider the Cimbri were Germans, of course, and they probably were, but there's a possibility that they were Celtic, or of mixed Celtic and German blood, and it gratifies my fancy to protray [sic] them as Celts, anyway."

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These elements alone are far from conclusive, but are sufficient to show that Howard may have been using Bulfinch's recountings of widespread legends as a handy reference for his own Hyborian world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the first Conan tale, The Phoenix on the Sword.

Around May of 1929, Howard wrote two drafts of a Kull story ent.i.tled By This Axe I Rule! The story was submitted to and rejected by Argosy and Adventure. Nearly three years later, in March 1932, Howard salvaged this story from the unpublished files and rewrote it as The Phoenix on the Sword. It is impossible to ascertain exactly what was modified between the last draft of the Kull story and the first draft of the Conan one, since the final draft of By This Axe I Rule! has not come to us (the published text is that of the first and only extant draft). At any rate the physical description of Kull was carried over to Conan, with the notable exception of the color of his eyes: grey for the Atlantean, blue for the Cimmerian. The Conan version of the story also dropped the love interest of the Kull tale and replaced it with a supernatural element; understandably so since the Conan story was aimed at a fantasy market while the Kull version had been intended for general fiction magazines. In the three years that had elapsed since the writing of the Kull story, Howard had begun corresponding with Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Many of Howard's weird stories from the year 1931 were attempts at writing stories in Lovecraft's style. By the end of the year, however, Howard had successfully a.s.similated the influence, and he was now able to include Lovecraftian elements in his stories without aping his Providence colleague. The Lovecraftian monster of this story is a perfect example, as is the fact that the published version's discreet reference to the "Nameless Old Ones" replaced the first draft's "Cthulhu, Tsathogua, Yog-Sothoth, and the Nameless Old Ones."

In the Kull story, the names of the conspirators were Ascalante, Gromel, Volmana, Kaanub and Ridondo. In the Conan version, all names were retained except Kaanub and Ridondo. The replacement of Kaanub by Dion is easily explained, since the former was mentioned in the Kull stories Howard had sold to Weird Tales. However, this was not the case with Ridondo. So why change the name to Rinaldo? Rinaldo, in fact, appears in Bulfinch: "Rinaldo was one of the four sons of Aymon, who married Aya, the sister of Charlemagne. Thus Rinaldo was nephew to Charlemagne and cousin of Orlando" (p. 660). Not only are there lengthy pa.s.sages about Rinaldo in Bulfinch, but the fact that he was not always in favor at the court of his king furnishes enough explanation for Howard's change from Ridondo to Rinaldo: the two Rinaldos share ambivalent feelings toward their respective kings.

It seems likely that all the names introduced between the Kull and the Conan version, with the notable exceptions of Prospero and Publius (undoubtedly derived from Shakespeare) came from Bulfinch:

"Hyborea/Hyboria" and "Aquilonia" (The word "Hyborian" was not introduced by Howard until the last draft of his essay The Hyborian Age ; the original word was "Hyborean"): "When

396.so many less active agencies were personified, it is not to be supposed that the winds failed to be so. They were Boreas or Aquilo, the north wind." Since "Hy" is Irish for "country of," and given Howard's interest in things Celtic, Hyboria would thus be "the country of Borea" or "the country of the north wind."

"King Numa" : "It was said that Numa, the second king of Rome...."

"Epemiteus/Epemitreus" (in the first draft of Phoenix, this character was named Epemiteus): "Prometheus was one of the t.i.tans, a gigantic race, who inhabited the earth before the creation of man. To him and his brother Epimetheus was committed the office of making man, and providing him and all other animals with the faculties necessary for their preservation."

"Hyperborea": "The northern portion of the earth was supposed to be inhabited by a happy race named the Hyperboreans, dwelling in everlasting bliss and spring beyond the lofty mountains whose caverns were supposed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north wind, which chilled the people of h.e.l.las (Greece). Their country was inaccessible by land or sea. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare."

"Hyrkania": "...no less a personage than the Prince of Hyrcania...."

"Brythunia and the Picts": "...a history of Britain, brought over from the opposite sh.o.r.e of France, which, under the name of Brittany, was chiefly peopled by natives of Britain, who from time to time emigrated thither, driven from their own country by the inroads of the Picts and Scots." (Of course, Howard was well aware of the Picts before reading Bulfinch.)

"Stygia": as such, several times.

"Thoth-amon": "The Egyptians acknowledged as the highest deity Amun, afterwards called Zeus, or Jupiter Ammon." (The name "Thoth" doesn't appear in Bulfinch.)

"Boethian/Bossonian Marches" ("Boethian Marches" was used in the first draft): "fleet and army a.s.sembled in the port of Aulis in Boeotia."

"Zamora": as "Zumara."

The second Conan story completed by Howard, The Frost-Giant's Daughter, borrowed more than names from Bulfinch. The idea for the plot probably emerged while Howard was writing The Phoenix on the Sword, which would account for the remarks about Conan's days with the Vanir and the aesir found in that story:

397."Asgard and Vanaheim," Prospero scanned the map. "By Mitra, I had almost believed those lands to be fabulous."

Conan grinned fiercely and involuntarily touched the various scars on his clean shaven face.

"By Mitra, had you spent your youth on the northern borders of Cimmeria, you had realized they are anything but fabulous! Asgard lies to the north, and Vanaheim to the northwest, of Cimmeria, and there is continual war along the borders. These people are tall and fair and blue- eyed, and of like blood and language, save that the Aesir have yellow hair and the Vanir, red hair. They are great ale drinkers and fighters; they fight all day and drink ale and roar their wild songs all night. Their chief G.o.d is the frost-giant Ymir, and they own no over-king, but each tribe has its war-chief." (Draft a, p. 9)

The following names are found in both Howard's story and Bulfinch: Asgard, Vanaheim, Ymir, Horsa, Heimdal, Bragi, and even the Frost-giants. While Howard had already written many stories featuring northern characters, the inspiration here was much more than the names: the basic plot of The Frost-Giant's Daughter can be found in its entirety in Bulfinch. For Howard's Atali, the frost-giant's daughter, owes more to Atalanta than just her name. As Bulfinch tells us:

The innocent cause of so much sorrow was a maiden whose face you might truly say was boyish for a girl, yet too girlish for a boy. Her fortune had been told, and it was to this effect: "Atalanta, do not marry; marriage will be your ruin." Terrified by this oracle, she fled the society of men, and devoted herself to the sports of the chase. To all suitors (for she had many) she imposed a condition which was generally effectual in relieving her of their persecutions "I will be the prize of him who shall conquer me in the race; but death must be the penalty of all who try and fail." In spite of this hard condition some would try. (Bulfinch, pp. 141-142)

Howard combined this basic outline with yet another reworked Bulfinch legend, that of Daphne and Apollo, but he reversed the roles. Whereas Apollo was a G.o.d and Daphne a mortal, Howard made Atali a G.o.ddess and Conan a mortal. In the original, Cupid had struck Apollo with an arrow to excite love for Daphne, but struck her with an arrow to cause her to find love repellent. Howard kept the idea of the love-maddened Apollo (rather a l.u.s.t-maddened Conan) pursuing the girl until she invokes the aid of her divine father:

Apollo loved her, and longed to obtain her [...] He followed her; she fled, swifter than the wind, and delayed not a moment at his entreaties. [...] The nymph continued her flight, and left his plea half uttered. And even as she fled she charmed him. The wind blew her garments, and her unbound hair streamed loose behind her. The G.o.d grew impatient to find his wooings

398.thrown away, and, sped by Cupid, gained upon her in the race. It was like a hound pursuing a hare, with open jaws ready to seize, while the feebler animal darts forward, slipping from the very grasp. So flew the G.o.d and the virgin he on the wings of love, and she on those of fear.

The pursuer is the more rapid, however, and gains upon her, and his panting breath blows upon her hair. Her strength begins to fail, and, ready to sink, she calls upon her father, the river G.o.d: "Help me, Peneus! open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger..." (Bulfinch, pp. 20-22; compare with Howard's: "Oh, my father, save me!") It seems Howard was telling Clark Ashton Smith the truth when he wrote that, "Episode crowded on episode so fast that I could scarcely keep up with them. For weeks I did nothing but write of the adventures of Conan." After Howard sent The Phoenix on the Sword and The Frost-Giant's Daughter to Farnsworth Wright in early March 1932, he didn't even wait for them to be accepted or rejected before he wrote another story, The G.o.d in the Bowl.

The G.o.d in the Bowl took three drafts before Howard was satisfied with it. This time Howard probably borrowed his names from Plutarch's Lives, some of which had already been jotted down in a list of names and countries Howard had prepared while writing The Phoenix on the Sword (see Appendix, p. 417). Compare the names from Plutarch with their equivalent in Howard's story: Oenarus (Enarus), Demetrius (Demetrio Howard used Demetrius in error in three instances in the first draft of the story), Postumius (Postumo), Dion (Dionus), Areus (Arus), Deucalion (Deucalion in the page of notes, Kallian [Publico] in the story) and Petinus (as [Aztrias] Petanius). The story takes place in Numalia (Numantia appears in Plutarch), and the Palian Way undoubtedly corresponds to the Appian Way. As had been the case with Phoenix, it seems the "influence" was limited to the borrowing of those names.

Howard was writing these stories in very quick succession and his page of names and countries had become obsolete. Howard, probably sensing that this new series had potential, began writing what would become The Hyborian Age. The essay required four successive versions before he was satisfied with the result. Starting out as a brief two-page outline, it soon developed into an 8,000 word essay, enriched with each successive version.

Over the years, the idea that Howard had written The Hyborian Age first and the stories later has become widespread, no doubt because of Howard's own ambiguous phrasing on the subject: "When I began writing the Conan stories a few years ago, I prepared this 'history' of his age and the peoples of that age, in order to lend him and his sagas a greater aspect of realness."

While there is no denying that Howard had some ideas as to what his Hyborian world was to become, there was no attempt at systematization until after the first three stories were written.

The country of Zingara and the Sea of Vilayet (as the "inland sea") were introduced with the first draft, Ophir and Gunderland in the second, and Corinthia, Argos, Ophir and Turan in the