Perelandra (Planet)

**Perelandra**, also known as the **Morning Star**, the **Third Heaven**, and **Paradise**, is the second planet of the Field of Arbol, known on Earth as **Venus**. Perelandra is first mentioned in *Out of the Silent Planet*, and the main subject of the novel of the same name. It is between Viritrilbia and Thulcandra. Unlike most other planets such as Thulcandra, Malacandra, Glundandra, Lurga and Neruval, it has no moons.

Perelandra is an ocean world, even more so than the Earth, with a few Floating Islands and a small piece of *terra firma* called the Fixed Island, which has an underland.

When Elwin Ransom arrives on Perelandra, he finds only two native hnau or inhabitants. There is the Queen or Lady, Tinidril who is green skinned and innocent, and the King, Tor who has been missing for a few days.

## *Out of the Silent Planet*

The first mention of Perelandra or Venus is in the first book of the Space Trilogy, *Out of the Silent Planet*, when Elwin Ransom looking at the inscriptions at Meldilorn on Malacandra sees depictions of the various planets. Viritrilbia is one of these:

> *In the next, a similar ball carried another of the flaming figures. This one, instead of even the suggested face, had two bulges which after long inspection he decided were meant to be the udders or breasts of a female mammal. By this time he was quite sure that he was looking at a picture of the solar system. The first ball was Mercury, the second Venus – 'And what an extraordinary coincidence,' thought Ransom, 'that their mythology, like ours, associates some idea of the female with Venus.'*
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## Atmosphere and climate

Unlike parts of Malacandra, Ransom has no trouble breathing as he did on the harandra. Perelandrian air is thick, and humid, and its skies are heavily clouded, so that no one at the surface can see the other worlds and stars in Deep Heaven. It is essentially a hothouse world. The only other celestial body which can be seen from the surface is Arbol, which appears larger here than on Earth.

Perelandra never becomes cold, even at night, and has a tropical climate. It appears to have no seasons, although it occasionally rains. The Sun appears slightly larger here.

## Landscape

Perelandra has a unique landscape. Most of Perelandra consists of an ocean called Lur, with many Floating Islands made of weeds. The Floating Islands take on the form of the waves they pass over, so they have no firm shape. As the Floating Islands are not anchored to the sea bed, they move to different places all the time.

There is only one known island of *terra firma*, the Fixed Island, where the king and queen of Perelandra are forbidden to live. The island has one mountain range, an underland beneath the island full of great earth crawlers, hnau, lava, and ice-glass caves in crystal cliffs, several different types of unique forests, and many beaches.

Unlike Earth's oceans, Lur is drinkable.

## Flora

The Floating Islands have trees on them, which Ransom called bubble trees. Some of these trees are like palm trees but they absorb water from their roots, from under the Floating Islands and release the water in bubbles near the top of the tree. The trees also have edible gourds growing on them.

There are also trees somewhat like giant reeds or bamboo, which grow in groves. At one point Ransom sleeps in one of these.

Upon the Fixed Island, Ransom sees lily-like plants on a lake, and also some springy plants which resemble grass.

## Fauna

Perelandran wildlife is very friendly and trusting, and only at one point does Ransom encounter an animal which shies away from him. The Un-man takes advantage of the animals' naïveté and is cruel to them, ripping them apart for pleasure. There is no indication that any of the Perelandran animals prey upon one another, and Tinidril is surprised to learn one could make clothes out of their feathers or skins.

One of the creatures is a dragon-like reptile which is the size of a large dog. Despite the Edenic allegory, this dragon is actually a good-natured animal, and it is a bent human instead which proves to be the bent influence.

Other beasts that Ransom encounters are brightly coloured birds, large frogs, a species on the Fixed Island which resemble large sheep, a type of fish which takes him between the islands, and submen which resemble mermaids and mermen from Earth mythology - these are not hnau and offer no hostility to Ransom. Perelandran animals prove to be much more diverse than those of Malacandra. Ransom briefly encounters great earth crawlers in the underland beneath the Fixed Island. Once the Un-man's presence is removed, and the fear it generated is gone, Ransom also ceases to fear the great earth crawlers, and speculates that they may, in fact, be sentient beings.

Ransom also encounters an unnamed creature called a singing beast:

> *Treading delicately during one of the loudest bursts of music he at last saw through the flowery branches a black something. Standing still whenever it stopped singing, and advancing with great caution whenever it began again, he stalked it for ten minutes. At last it was in full view, and singing, and ignorant that it was watched. It sat upright like a dog, black and sleek and shiny, but its shoulders were high above Ransom's head, and the forelegs on which they were pillared were like young trees and the wide soft pads on which they rested were large as those of a camel. The enormous rounded belly was white, and far up above the shoulders the neck rose like that of a horse. The head was in profile from where Ransom stood-the mouth wide open as it sang of joy in thick-coming trills, and the music almost visibly rippled in its glossy throat. He stared in wonder at the wide liquid eyes and the quivering, sensitive nostrils. Then the creatures stopped, saw him, and darted away, and stood, now a few paces distant, on all four legs, not much smaller than a young elephant, swaying a long bushy tail. It was the first thing in Perelandra which seemed to show any fear of man. Yet it was not fear. When he called to it it came nearer. It puts its velvet nose into his hand and endured his touch; but almost at once it darted back and, bending its long neck, buried its head in its paws. He could make no headway with it, and when at length it retreated out of sight he did not follow it. To do so would have seemed an injury to its fawnlike shyness, to the yielding softness of its expression, its evident wish to be for ever a sound and only a sound in the thickest centre of untravelled woods. He resumed his journey: a few seconds later the song broke out behind him, louder and lovelier than before, as if in a paean of rejoicing at its recovered privacy.*
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Torlindri explains:

> *"The beasts of that kind have no milk and always what they bring forth is suckled by the she-beast of another kind. She is great and beautiful and dumb, and till the young singing beast is weaned it is among her whelps and is subject to her. But when it is grown it becomes the most delicate and glorious of all beasts and goes from her. And she wonders at its song."*
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## Background

### Scientific basis

Only a limited amount was known about Venus was known at the time Lewis wrote, and only from Earth-based observation. It was often thought of as an ocean world in the earlier twentieth century, but Soviet landings in the seventies and eighties proved it is a dry hell-world, rather than the Perelandran paradise. One element that Perelandra does share with the real Venus is thick cloud cover, meaning that stars would not be visible from its surface.

A Venusian day lasts for over 243 Earth days, and so is nothing like the 23 hour day portrayed in the book. In the novel, the Sun sets quickly and it is suddenly dark, but in reality Venusian twilight would last a number of Earth weeks.

The real life Venus has such horrors as sulphuric acid rain, but this evaporates before reaching a surface which is hot enough to melt lead. In fact, Venus' surface is the hottest of any planet in the solar system.

Previous science fiction had dealt with Venus as a potential ocean world, or stuck in the carboniferous/Cambrian period. Edgar Rice Burroughs had also set a planetary romance series on Venus before Lewis.

### Astrological significance

Somewhat like Gustav Holst's musical suite, *the Planets*, written just before WW1, Lewis' conception of Perelandra/Venus owes as much to mediaeval astrology as modern astronomy.

Venus is associated in astrology with femininity, and the Roman goddess of love, both by name and by influence. She is represented here in part by Tinidril, the Green Lady. In the novel *Perelandra*, however, the love discussed is *agape* or divine love rather than *eros* or the sexual/Romantic variety. It is notable that while Ransom and Tinidril are both naked on Perelandra that neither of them seem to express any such feelings for one another.

Perelandra owes even more to the Bible, and it is a new Garden of Eden where the forces of Good and Evil fight over the first Woman, and later Man. Much as the bent humans try and introduce war to Mars, one of the humans tries to turn Venus, the planet of love, into the planet of hatred by perverting it and causing it to fall as Earth once did.

At least one author sees this as a parallel to *The Chronicles of Narnia* published after the Space Trilogy which he says is also based on astrology. Venus is the brightest natural object in the Earth's skies after the Sun and the Moon. It was sometimes seen as being two "stars" - Hesperus and Phosphorus, the Evening and Morning Stars.

Venus' associated day is Friday, and its associated metal is copper.

## Cultural references

* In the early 1960s, composer and songwriter Donald Ibrahim Swann wrote an opera based on Perelandra. It received three performances in 1964, and a revival in more recent times. Although Clive Staples Lewis did not see it performed, he did see the libretto and voiced his approval.
* Perelandra was an Adelaide based Progressive Rock band formed in October 1973.
* Perelandra Jones is a character that appears in Season 2 of Dark Matter.
* Perelandra is the second album by progressive rock band Glass Hammer. It was released in 1995 .
* Christian horror punk band Blaster the Rocket Man, whose lyrics frequently subsist on monster themes, borrowed heavily from The Space Trilogy in their album *The Monster Who Ate Jesus*. Their song "Ransom vs. The Unman" is a direct retelling of the struggle between Ransom and the Unman in Perelandra. The very next song, entitled "March of the Macrobes," alludes to the N.I.C.E. Institute's attempts to disembody the heads of those who wish to gain immortality with lines such as, "Leave flesh behind / There's only mind / Or set the brain apart / To elevate the heart / Whatever happened to the individual? (N.I.C.E.) / Where is his soul? (R.A.P.E.)." Lastly, "Tundra Time on Thulcandra" is a tribute to Out of the Silent Planet, with an allusion to the planet Perelandra as well. "Malacandra on my mind / Perelandra all the time / Nevermind it's tundra / It's tundra time."
* Circle of Dust, a Christian industrial band, reference The Space Trilogy on Disengage, an album which includes two instrumental tracks named Thulcandra and Perelandra.
* Progressive rock band Glass Hammer have based the concept of their album *Perelandra* on the stories of The Space Trilogy and *The Chronicles of Narnia*.
* Hip-hop artist and singer-songwriter Heath McNease has a song titled "*Perelandra*" on his C.S. Lewis tribute album, *The Weight of Glory*.
* Space Music composer Kevin Braheny, on his album *The Way Home*, has a track named "Perelandra".

## Quotations

> *"“The nearer waves, though golden where their summits caught the light, were green on their slopes: first emerald, and lower down a lustrous bottle green, deepening to blue where they passed beneath the shadow of other waves."*
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> *"If he [Ransom ]now failed, this world also would hereafter be redeemed. If he were not the ransom, another would be. Yet nothing was ever repeated. Not a second crucifixion; perhaps-who knows-not even a second Incarnation... some act of even more appalling love, some glory of yet deeper humility.”*
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> *"Long since on Mars and more strongly since he came to Perelandra, Ransom had been perceiving that the triple distinction of truth from myth and both from fact was purely terrestrial-was part and parcel of that unhappy distinction between soul and body which resulted from the fall. Even on earth the sacraments existed as a permanent reminder that the division was neither wholesome nor final. The Incarnation had been the beginning of its disappearance. In Perelandra it would have no meaning at all.”*
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