#the origins of marriage is also wild and a little infuriating

[itbmojojoejo]

The marriage is approved in the hearts of the readers no matter what the stinky lords of the kingdom have to say

so when i was researching i discovered that men used to 'kidnap' noblewomen and hide them away for a while but no one would go looking cause it was a staged 'kidnap' and was 'easier' to put down on record than "my daughter fell in love with a low born." or "my daughter didn't like her actual betrothed" and happened all the time! unmarried or widowed women would also disappear to convents for 9 months then come back and there would be a random new child on some lord's estate being treated the same as his legitimate kids lmao.xo

[godzillabreath]

aggretsuko

Just wanted to get a few thoughts out there about the season finale of Aggretsuko and my feelings about the show overall...

spoilers for season 5 below

With such a strong first season that discussed the way corporate culture grinds your personhood down into the dust and leaves you little opportunity to express yourself or feel like you have a life beyond the abuses of your job, it was really a shame to see the show take such a 180 by Season 5. 

For a show that railed so hard against the toxic work environment, it feels strange to see Retsuko being so condescending to Haida in season 5 for the sole reason that he no longer has a job. She started out in season 1 as a character that didn’t fit within the social borders for a traditional woman--not wanting marriage, not wanting kids, wanting something of a career--nor the social borders for a loyal corporate drone, but by season 5 she’s appalled and embarrassed by Haida because he’s unemployed. She’s afraid to bring him home to her parents, rehearsing a whole fake narrative for him to give them about his employment history because she can’t stand the idea of being the sole provider, even temporarily. She even cuts him out of her life (!!) as an ultimatum until he finds a job in a show of “tough love,” which is just a wild way to treat your significant other.

There are other issues with Retsuko’s progression as a character as well. Beyond season 1, it becomes increasingly evident that not only has the show centered her as the main character, but she has also centered herself as the main character in everyone else’s lives. She shows little empathy in reaching out to friends, but asks the world of them and their time whenever she’s in any kind of emotional distress. I thought originally this would be a growth point in her character, that she would learn she can’t just have this unreciprocal relationship to people, but she NEVER changes. It makes me unable to understand why Haida pines over her--where is the chemistry between them??--let alone why any of her friends stick around and carve out so much time for her. 

My last gripe is that there’s a political subplot that starts up mid-way through season 5 and it is not good. 

They introduce Shikabane as this homeless drifter character moving between internet cafes to sleep as she struggles to keep her head afloat between freelance work. Haida befriends her as he is in much the same situation once his family pulls the rug out from under his living situation. This was an interesting choice, and I personally really liked to see life from the point of view of this group of people living in the internet café. 

So when the politician subplot rolls around and Retsuko is foisted into the spotlight as the next district candidate for an underdog party, I was baffled that they never again touched on the very specific, very real, and very difficult struggles that homeless people in Tokyo are shown to be facing. Instead, Retsuko’s political platform boils down to something as flat as “youngs vs olds.” We as the audience can intuit that she is running to oppose the old guard conservative politicians in Haida’s family, but the show never goes out of its way to make any of Retsuko’s (or her party’s) ideology clear in a frankly infuriating way. The show could have said something not only about the killer work culture that so defines Aggretsuko as a series, but also the plight of people without stable living environments, wage stagnation, the lack of voice for the younger generation in not only the workplace but in parliament, really it could have said literally anything at all. But it did not. Retsuko fumbles through a strange speech about small inconveniences in her life (being unable to rip a soy sauce packet, for example) leading to rage, and all the elements of social critique that you think the show ought to be making fall by the wayside.

So, I don’t know. This is a lot of words, it just felt so unsatisfying and frustrating to have a show that was ostensibly self-aware of the working class struggle to flip around and not seem to care or have any desire to disrupt the status quo. I think a series like this becomes more irritating over time because there are pieces of interesting social commentary there that the creative team refuses to explore in a meaningful way. 

[thephantomessoftheopera]

Notes on Gaston Leroux’s “The Phantom of the Opera” - Chapter 13: “Apollo’s Lyre”

Image of the Apollo statue on the rooftop of the Palais Garnier from Wikimedia Commons

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The chapter “Apollo’s Lyre” constitutes the basis for the “rooftop scene” between Raoul and Christine in the ALW version, but in the book, it is really all about Erik. It’s quite possibly the most important chapter in the novel because we meet our title hero face-to-face for the first time, and because Erik overhearing Christine‘s plan to escape provides a turning-point for the plot.

The symbol of Apollo's Lyre is not only present in the Apollo statue on the highest point of the rooftop (that Erik is supposedly clinging to here), but also adorns the chandelier both in the Palais Garnier and in the original production of the musical.

At the end of the preceding chapter, Raoul had vowed to take Christine away, but she is still at war with herself about the idea. She wants to leave because she is afraid, but at the same time, warns Raoul that he will probably need to force her to leave since she isn’t emotionally ready to let go:

““But if I refuse to go with you when the time comes for you to take me away, you must make me go!” [...] she spoke these words with a forcefulness that seemed to be directed against herself.”

Every time Raoul offers to take her away right then and there, Christine refuses with an excuse of why it’s not possible to leave just now. Yet she is afraid that the next time she goes to Erik, she may never leave again. Erik seems to make her feel very deeply - but too much feeling can be very terrifying, especially if it’s a wild ride on that emotional rollercoaster of ecstasy, horror, pity, despair and passion that he sends her on. It’s no wonder she rationally wants to get out before it consumes her, and yet is afraid of losing it.

While she begins telling Raoul the whole story from her perspective, they repeatedly think they hear sighs, but still remain in the same place. This is a bit odd, considering how they kept running around before, but now, Christine insists that they stay, which is a bit curious. It is possible that she thought they were safe - but considering her general unwillingness to leave, I think it is even possible that she might be subconsciously sabotaging her own escape plan.

When Christine speaks about how she first met Erik, it becomes clear that masquerading as the Angel of Music was not initially Erik‘s idea. When Christine heard Erik in her dressing-room for the first time three months ago, he sang and spoke to her like a real man, except that he had this beautiful angelic voice and was hiding in the passage behind her room, so that he could not be seen. The first person to suggest that he might indeed be the Angel of Music is Mama Valerius, who prompts Christine to ask Erik if he is the Angel her father had sent for her. Erik jumps at the opportunity presented to him and confirms that her assumption is correct, and asks if she will let him teach her. She consents, and together they make amazing progress, developing both Christine’s technique and her inspiration to hitherto unknown heights.

One day, Christine sees Raoul at the Opera, and eagerly tells Erik about it. I bet he bitterly cursed himself then for passing himself off as an Angel, leaving enough space in Christine’s heart for a real man. But his threats to leave cause her to despair and to try to ignore Raoul - also because a marriage to him would be out of her reach anyway. Now it’s Erik’s turn to whine and accuse Christine of being in love with Raoul in the same way we’ve seen Raoul do before. But just like with Raoul, she won’t have that and even challenges Erik that she will ask Raoul to accompany her to Perros. According to her, Erik’s jealous reaction made her realize that she loved Raoul. I wonder if madly jealous Raoul also made her realize that she might possibly be just a little bit in love with two very different men?

Subconsciously, she seems to kind of know already that Erik is not really an angel, because when the chandelier falls, she is half-mad with panic and terribly afraid that it may have killed “the Voice” (and it would be a bit difficult to kill a heavenly being even if you dropped a chandelier on it). She also admits that then, Raoul and Erik were both “the equal halves of her heart” (and I think they still are, beneath all the complications that have arisen in the meantime). She runs to her dressing-room because that is where she is most likely to find “the Voice”, and when she hears the sounds of Erik singing and playing the “Resurrection of Lazarus” on his violin, she follows his voice through the mirror without being able to say how exactly she disappeared through it. She suddenly finds herself being gripped by a man in a black cloak and a full-face mask and tries to fight back, but then faints. When she wakes, she is resting on the ground near a fountain, and Erik is gently tending to her, but doesn’t reply to her questions so as not to give himself away as “the Voice”. Christine recognizes César the horse, and realizes that even though she never believed in the ghost, she had heard the rumours about him stealing the horse.

Erik takes Christine to the house by the lake, first on César’s back (that’s what he needed the horse for, after all) and then in the famous boat (which is rowed in the novel). She is no longer terrified, but feels strangely peaceful - an effect which she attributes to the possibility of having been drugged, even though she admits that at the same time, she was still in full possession of her senses.

“Lake Averne”, the name of the lake under the Opera House, is a play on words as well as meaning. First, “lac averne” is almost the same as “la caverne”, which means “the cavern”. There is also a real lake named “Lago d’Averno” in Italy, and in Roman mythology, that lake is one of the entrances to the Underworld. This fits with the fact that Erik also bears characteristics of Charon, the ferryman to the Underworld, whose name can be literally translated as “with glowing eyes”. The iconic boat ride certainly resembles the passage into the Hades, which is even alluded to in the novel.

The water tank below the Palais Garnier. Image from atlasobscura.com

Let’s stay in the Underworld for a moment. “The Phantom of the Opera” can also be seen as a variation on the story of Hades and Persephone (Christine’s ship in “Love Never Dies” is not called “Persephone” for nothing). Hades, the god of the Underworld, fell in love with the young and beautiful Persephone and wanted to marry her, but as the goddess of spring, she wasn’t willing to abandon the world above and go to live in the Underworld. Therefore Hades abducted her, she finally consented to marry him and became queen of the Underworld. Due to the intervention of her infuriated mother Demeter, it was finally decided that she would divide her time between living on earth for some months every year and living in the Underworld for the rest of the time.

When they arrive, Erik sets a confused Christine down in his brightly lit drawing-room, which has been decorated with an enormous amount of golden baskets full of flowers. It is not quite clear where all the flowers come from, so I guess he bought them all for her. With a salary of 20,000 francs, he could probably afford the luxury of spending so much on flower decorations… He tells her that she is in no danger, as long as she doesn’t touch his mask. When Christine realizes that the Voice is not an angel, she starts crying. Erik then kneels down in front of her and proceeds to tell her without further ado who he is, begs her to forgive him, and lays his heart at her feet. He confesses how much he loves her, and how wrong his actions were, but that he did everything out of love for her. It seems that Erik was rather anxious to reveal the truth that he is not really the Angel of Music and end his deception, but at the same time, was waiting for an opportunity that would allow him to explain everything without the risk of her running away from him forever. Keep in mind that he took on the role of the Angel of Music for just a couple of months, not years as it is commonly assumed.

Christine then stands up to demand her freedom, and is taken aback when he actually concedes it to her, telling her that she is free to leave. But after all, she does not leave because he starts to play the harp and sing for her. The piece he is singing here is the “Canzone del Salice” from Rossini’s “Otello”, in which Desdemona laments the cruelty of love. It is often assumed that the „Otello“ Leroux is referencing here is the more famous “Otello” by Verdi, but that one didn’t premiere until 1887, while the story is definitely set before 1886. Furthermore, Rossini’s version of the “willow song” is the only one that starts with a harp solo. The song is included in the playlist, listen to it here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/25ILZhCIWIRjJVK8SqDWzn?si=U5EPiO_ySBOlIy5XvI1BGw&dl_branch=1

The next morning, Christine awakes on the couch in „her“ bedroom (aka the “Louis-Philippe room”) where Erik must have carried her after she had fallen asleep. When she can‘t get out, she suffers a fit of hysterics, although it seems that she has simply been unable to locate the door set within the wall. Erik has been out shopping for her, which is a rather cute scene when he comes back with all the boxes for her while she yells at him. He calmly tells her to get ready for lunch, and she slams the door in his face so she can take a bath in peace. She places a pair of scissors within reach so that she could kill herself if Erik “stopped behaving like an honourable man”. Her concern is understandable, being alone with the man who is madly in love with her, however it is important to note that Erik never physically forces himself on her throughout the story.

Remarkably, Erik’s house had both hot and cold running water, something that was still very rare then, which suggests that he actually lived in better hygienic conditions than most people at that time, and that he was a skilled engineer.

When she finally joins him, he tells her that she does not need to be afraid, and that all he asks for is that she will spend 5 days with him. After that, he hopes that she will come back to see “poor Erik” from time to time, shedding a few tears beneath his black mask as he speaks. He serves Christine lunch in the drawing-room, consisting of crayfish, chicken wings and Tokay wine, but he himself does again not eat or drink. From their conversation, we learn that Erik has taken on his name “by chance”, whatever that means. The meaning of the name is “sole ruler” which is quite fitting for him.

When Christine has finished eating, Erik invites her to see his room, and she doesn’t hesitate as she instinctively trusts him. Apparently Erik has a very gothic taste as far as room decorating goes, and all this also plays heavily into the death symbolism of his character. Erik sleeping in a coffin is reminiscent of vampire stories, especially because it seems to be a choice and not a necessity. There is also an organ with the score of “Don Juan Triumphant” on it, written in Erik’s customary red ink(?). Erik tells her that he started composing it 20 years ago. Christine asks him to play her something from his “Don Juan”, but Erik refuses because “some music is so formidable that it consumes everyone who approaches it”. It is quite significant that the “sing for me” motif is absent from the novel version, in contrast to the ALW version where it is very strong. Erik, in the novel, has no plans for Christine to sing any of his music. He wants her companionship and her love, and he wants to sing together with her and lose himself in their shared passion for music, but he definitely does not see her as an instrument of sorts. He did help advance her career, but not with the intention of having her perform his work.

Erik makes it clear that his own music is very different from Mozart’s „Don Giovanni“ and from “opera music” in general. “Don Juan Triumphant” can be seen as an allusion to Lord Byron’s epic poem “Don Juan” (in which, incidentally, Don Juan is sold as a slave to the sultana of Constantinople).

He sits down at the piano and starts singing the duet from “Otello” with Christine. There is of course more than one duet in “Otello”, but this one is most likely “Non arrestare il colpo/Notte per me funesta” from Act III (here: https://open.spotify.com/track/151M60b3qxzqKLDFwIVuUB?si=WX4TDWCeQVmIChqd6u7CyQ&dl_branch=1 and here: https://open.spotify.com/track/2Ep1OncGZCNR9yFevG6Pb6?si=QzG2JztuQ42MDoiVrLAaew&dl_branch=1 ) In this scene, Othello accuses Desdemona of betraying him, while she tries to convince him that she is innocent. She realizes that she has fallen victim to Iago’s plot, but Othello does not believe her and stabs her. This opera, for once, is in Italian, while most of the other pieces that appear in the “Phantom” are sung in French.  

The unmasking in the novel happens while Christine is swept up in the passion of her duet with Erik. She “stepped closer to him, attracted and fascinated, enticed by the idea of dying at the center of such passion. But before dying [she] wanted to see his face…”

It’s not like she is sneaking up to him out of pure curiosity, but rather reacting to an instinctive wish to pull away the barrier between them. The scene is even more tragic because with a normal face, the passionate mood that Christine was in would have potentially led to her kissing him. But sadly, his face is anything but normal, so Christine recoils in horror instead. Erik’s reaction to the unmasking is violent and horrific as he goes mad with rage at her, even hurting his own face with her fingernails - an expression of his self-loathing. Throughout the scene, Christine seems fixated on the horror of his face more than his behaviour, though. Ashamed of himself, Erik crawls out of the room and shuts himself up in his bedroom.

“Apollo’s Lyre” by Annie Stegg Gerard

Erik’s appearance as described in the novel is indeed bordering the realm of the fantastic and supernatural. He is so stuffed with death symbolism that it is hard to take everything literally. Christine’s description makes it rather hard to see him as “real” because he seems to look like something straight out of a nightmare.

It is important to note that Erik is not just run-of-the-mill ugly, but that he is very clearly associated with death in many ways - from sleeping in a coffin and having funeral-style decor in his room to actually looking like a „living corpse“. Erik and Christine can be seen as a literal expression of the artistic topos „death and the maiden“, which especially towards the end of the 19th century associated death very strongly with the erotic (see https://eclecticlight.co/2020/01/05/paintings-for-our-time-death-and-the-maiden/ for a very good overview of the motif). Death here is usually represented as either a skeleton or corpse, or as an angel - which is very much in line with Leroux’s Erik.

”Girl and Death” by Edvard Munch

Combined with the fact that Erik‘s music creates feelings of passion, rapture and ecstasy in Christine, it is not a big stretch to conclude that Erik is associated not only with death, but also with sexuality. The duality of sex as both a life-creating and life-threatening force was acutely perceived by the people of that period. Love and death are connected, and both are represented in Erik‘s character. ALW‘s musical adaptation recognized this strongly erotic undercurrent in the story and translated it very aptly into songs such as „Music of the night“ or „Point of no return“. The way in which Christine describes her lessons with Erik - that they “awakened an ardent, voracious, and sublime life” in her, and made her live in a “kind of ecstatic dream” can also be interpreted as her romantic awakening, with all the frightening emotional chaos attached to it.

Raoul, on the other hand, is more associated with purity and propriety - which is reflected in how he views Christine, and the standards that she must conform to in his opinion.

Before seeing Erik’s face, Christine admits that she *would* have come back, but that now, she would never return because “you don’t go back into a grave with a corpse that loves you”. Note how she switches from the first person to the impersonal “you” in this sentence - “you” might not do that, but we already know she did in fact go back more than once. And she is still able to see something of the angel in him because he does not take advantage of the situation, but leaves her alone, turning to his music again.

And then, “music has the power to abolish everything in the outside world except its sounds, which go straight to the heart”. Erik starts playing the finale of “Don Juan Triumphant” where “ugliness, lifted on the wings of love, had dared to look beauty in the face”. Through the music, Christine can glimpse into the depths of Erik’s heart and soul, feel his torment and suffering, and is overwhelmed with compassion.

Once again, she is the one to tear down the wall between them. She pushes open the door to Erik’s room and asks him to show his face, sincerely thinking that she can handle it - but it turns out, she really isn’t quite able to when there’s no music between them. But she manages to put on a brave facade and lie to him about being able to look at him without horror. She despises herself for her lies, but then she also does what she must in order to be set free. Erik takes her for walks along the shore of the underground lake, and for carriage rides to the Bois de Boulogne (that’s where they ran into Raoul in Chapter 9). After two weeks, Erik finally trusts her so much that he is willing to set her free (with conditions, of course). It’s really heartbreaking when she mentions how he dared to try to make her look at him even when he wasn’t singing, like a “timid dog”. At this point, he is in her power just as much as she is in his.

When she finally leaves, she is moved more by his tears than by his threats, and his pain is what gets her to come back in the first place: “Those sobs attached me to him more strongly than I thought when I said good-bye to him.” Part of why she is afraid to leave is that she fears it will kill him if she leaves him.

At the end of the chapter, Raoul asks the fateful question that sums up the tragedy of Erik and Christine:

“You’re afraid, but do you love me? If Erik were handsome, would you love me?” “Why tempt fate, Raoul? Why ask about things that I keep hidden at the back of my mind, like sins?”

Christine’s reply along the lines of “Don‘t ask” was cut from the de Mattos translation. It clearly evidences that Christine has conflicted feelings for Erik that go beyond only horror or pity, and that she prefers to suppress them so she doesn't have to deal with them. The statement also shows that if Erik had not been cursed with his face, then things might have looked very different for him and Christine. Attentive readers of de Mattos might nevertheless notice that her next line „If I did not love you, I would not give you my lips“ evades addressing the „what ifs“ Raoul posed, but it still makes her appear less conflicted than she really is. Christine’s heart is a pretty deep ocean of secrets, and at the back of her mind, there seem to be quite a few things that she is unwilling to admit to herself, as Raoul suspected before:

“You obviously love him, and your fear, your terror - all that is still love, of the most exciting kind! The kind you don’t admit to yourself.”

I haven‘t really counted, but this must be like the fifth time that Raoul insists on his suspicion that Christine is in love with Erik, and he just can‘t get a „no“ out of her. That “no” is given very directly though when he asks her if she hates him. She kisses Raoul to prove that she loves him, at the same time telling him that the kiss is just a one-time thing („for the first and last time“). Then “the night is torn apart”, and the last thing they see is a pair of glowing eyes looking down on them from Apollo’s lyre - which are clearly Erik’s, who has overheard the entire conversation…

Image from wikipedia

Next chapter >>

[dwellordream]

“Almost at once, Eleanor set out for Poitiers with some members of her household, and Poitevin nobles who had attended the council formed an escort to accompany their duchess. She was in danger of being abducted and forced into a new marriage by some nobleman eager to acquire her inheritance. The former queen knew that she could not remain single for long and that unless she acted quickly to take a husband of her own choosing, she would soon find herself married against her will to a stranger. 

She had two narrow escapes during her flight from Beaugency: first from the count of Blois and Chartres, Theobald V, later to become her younger daughter’s husband, who tried to take her as she traveled past Blois; then she had to evade another attempted abduction by Geoffrey Plantagenet, Henry’s sixteen-year-old younger brother. He planned to capture her at Port-de-Piles on the border of Touraine and Poitou, but “warned by her angels” at Tours she took a different road into her own county. As soon as Eleanor was safely at Poitiers, she wrote to Henry that she was free to marry. 

Modern writers explain her hasty marriage almost entirely in emotional terms, as due either to her falling in love or to her quest for a younger man more vigorous than her former husband. They ignore her vulnerability once she left her former husband’s court: a woman alone and in need of a protector—both of her person and of her duchy. She had little choice but to find a new husband capable of defending her and her lands as quickly as possible. As heir to the largest of the French duchies and as a former queen, Eleanor had few options in marriage partners, but she had to take the initiative in making a new marriage before being forced into wedding someone not of her own choosing. 

In an act almost unheard of in her time, Eleanor acted independently without consulting her kin or other counselors. Of all available princes, Henry Plantagenet, although nine years her junior, “came nearest to being a worthy partner for a discarded queen.” Everything points toward first plans for their marriage having been laid during his August 1151 visit to the French court. Her true feelings toward the Angevin heir cannot be known, but she must have found his youth and ardor appealing. Something definitely happened between the French queen and Henry during the August visit, and it had a dual effect: it resolved Louis on a separation, and Henry, aware of the political advantage a marriage to Eleanor would bring him, determined to have her as his wife.

…Barely two months after the annulment of Eleanor’s first marriage, she had a second husband, the future Henry II of England. Eleanor and Henry’s marriage took place in the cathedral at Poitiers in a hastily organized ceremony on 18 May 1152. Preparations for the wedding had been made in secret for fear of attempts to stop it, and the simple service with only a few intimates present hardly matched the couple’s lofty status. No doubt the advantage that the marriage would bring Henry was the dominant consideration in his desire to wed Eleanor. It was more than the prestige of the title of duke of Aquitaine that made Eleanor an appealing bride for the young count-duke. 

The Angevin counts had a long record of trying to expand their power into Poitou, and in the tenth and eleventh centuries they had occupied portions of northern Poitou and the Saintonge stretching along the Atlantic coast and the Charente river. Indeed, the counts of Anjou still held two castles, Loudun and Mirebeau, that lay within Poitou’s borders with the counts of Poitou technically as their lords. It has been pointed out that “The union of Anjou and Aquitaine was not only workable, but the culmination of two centuries of Angevin pressure.” Furthermore, Henry saw that Poitou in some other powerful lord’s possession would threaten Anjou and all his Loire valley lands. He could see more immediate practical advantages too, for possessing Poitou would enable him to deal more effectively with plots by his younger brother Geoffrey, who was count of Nantes.

The young duke of Normandy should have anticipated trouble with his putative lord over his lands, his new wife’s ex-husband, Louis VII; as an English chronicler noted, his marriage to Eleanor “was the cause and origin of great hatred and discord between the French king and the duke.” It cannot be known whether or not Louis was surprised at Eleanor’s quick remarriage but he was certainly enraged when he heard the news, and he never gave up his conviction that her new marriage was somehow displeasing to God.

He had good reason for bitter resentment and remorse at losing his wife and her great duchy to such a powerful enemy as the young duke of Normandy, and he must have pondered the possibility of Henry ruling not only both the county of Anjou and Normandy, but one day making good his mother’s claim to the kingdom of England. Even without a royal title, Henry Plantagenet had become the largest landholder in France, surpassing Louis in possessions, and his control over all western France seemed to block any expansion of Capetian domains in that direction.

…One chronicler stated the issue succinctly: “When King Louis heard of [the marriage], he was greatly incensed against Duke Henry, for he had two daughters by the aforesaid Eleanor, who would be disinherited if she should bear a son by any other husband.” Louis seems to have believed that Eleanor had no right to marry without first taking counsel with him and that Henry, her chosen spouse, had no right to take her as his wife without consulting him, his lord. Already in England and Normandy, lords’ prerogative of controlling their vassals’ marriages was customary, but this was not yet accepted in other regions as one of the privileges of lordship. 

…In marrying Eleanor, Henry Plantagenet apparently felt concern neither for his bride’s questionable fertility during her first marriage nor for her age; as she was approaching thirty, she seemed to her contemporaries to be bordering on middle age. After undergoing no more than three pregnancies as the French king’s wife, Eleanor’s second marriage would prove remarkably fruitful in sons, a fact that infuriated Louis, but must have pleased her greatly. She would produce eight or nine children by Henry within thirteen years: five sons—and possibly a sixth who died in early infancy—three of whom lived to be crowned kings of England, and three daughters, all of whom married important foreign princes. Eleanor gave birth to her last two children, Joanne and John, when she was over forty. She was a remarkably healthy woman to have survived numerous childbirths in an age when giving birth was a major cause of women’s deaths. 

Eleanor could be assured of her new husband’s virility, for Henry already had illegitimate offspring by the time of his marriage, as was not uncommon among scions of aristocratic families. He acknowledged a bastard son, Geoffrey Plantagenet, whose mother, according to the gossip Walter Map, was a harlot named Ykenai or Hikenai who had duped the young king into admitting that he was her child’s father. Whatever Henry’s reason, he was willing to acknowledge young Geoffrey and to welcome him into the royal household soon after winning the English Crown.

Henry had another illegitimate child born before wedding Eleanor, a daughter named Matilda, whom he would install in the late 1170s as head of Barking Abbey, a convent in Essex. Matilda’s predecessor as abbess of this rich and aristocratic house was Thomas Becket’s, appointed in 1173 as part of the king’s restitution to the martyred archbishop’s family. Henry’s bride, brought up in the sophisticated atmosphere of the Poitevin court, would not have found it shocking that her new husband had fathered illegitimate sons in his youth. 

Toleration for the offspring of aristocratic youths sired while “sowing their wild oats” was greater than for children resulting from a married man’s adulterous affair. Nor would a bastard’s presence in his household have upset her unduly, for she knew that such illegitimate sons frequently found places in their father’s household. Indeed, young Henry’s bastard son sent an encouraging signal to Eleanor that he might give her sons. Despite Eleanor’s need for a protector after her divorce, her speedy remarriage two months later to Henry Plantagenet added fodder for rumors of serial adulteries, and talk spread of the former French queen’s scandalous conduct. 

…Still others labelled the marriage felonious because Henry had entered into it for the purpose of opposing his lord, King Louis. Two monastic writers, William of Newburgh and Gervase of Canterbury, depicted Eleanor as taking the initiative in her marriage to Henry. Both were surprised by a woman arranging her own marriage alliance, a rare occurrence in the twelfth century, although their impression was none too favorable. Both presumed to know Eleanor’s mind, although they were writing a generation after the events. Newburgh, profoundly anti-woman like other clerics and believing that a woman’s libido was stronger than a man’s, ascribes Eleanor’s quick remarriage to her wish for a new, more virile partner. 

He writes that after Louis and Eleanor’s return from the East, “the former love between them gradually grew cold,” and he reports rumors that Eleanor “even during her marriage to the king of France . . . longed to be wed to the duke of Normandy as one more congenial to her character,” and that she “eventually obtained the marriage which she desired.” Gervase of Canterbury comments that after the divorce Eleanor returned to Poitou, “disdaining [Louis’s] decrepit Gallic embraces.” Gervase also portrays Eleanor as the initiator of her marriage so soon after Louis VII’s repudiation of her; according to him, “by means of a messenger sent secretly to the duke, she announced that she was free and dissolved [from her marriage] and stimulated the duke’s mind to contract matrimony.” Yet Gervase also admits that Henry “had long desired” the marriage, “above all driven by the desire to possess all the honors that belonged to her.”

These chroniclers, following conventional thinking, attribute personal, emotional, or sexual motives to Eleanor’s quick marriage to Henry. As one commentator notes, “It is striking that chroniclers consistently avoid any suggestion that Eleanor could have been driven to divorce Louis and marry Henry by any other motivation than sexual desire. [They] consistently sexualize women’s power to depict it as a disorderly, uncontrollable force and to discredit it.” They take no note of Eleanor’s vulnerability as a woman alone and without a protector in a masculine society where single women were expected to be under a male’s guardianship. 

Romantically inclined biographers see her marriage to Henry as a love match, or at least find strong sexual attraction motivating them. No doubt Eleanor did find Henry, aged nineteen, more attractive than Louis, whom she considered insufficiently virile, more monk than monarch, but physical attraction—or lust, in contemporary churchmen’s opinion—was certainly not the chief factor in their marrying. The marriage resembled closely that of Henry’s parents: the much younger Geoffrey le Bel taking as his wife the older, previously married Empress Matilda, and no one could suspect their marriage of being a love match. It had been the work of Matilda’s father, guided by dynastic concerns.”

- Ralph V. Turner, “A Husband Lost, a Husband Gained, 1149–1154.” in Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France, Queen of England

[papermoonloveslucy]

HORSEBACK RIDING

April 15, 1949

“Horseback Riding” (aka “Liz Takes Horseback Riding Lessons”) is episode #39 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on April 15, 1949 on the CBS radio network.

Synopsis ~ George’s female co-chair for his horseback riding club's upcoming weekend breakfast ride has Liz so jealous that she's determined to overcome her fear of horses and learn to ride herself.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Gale Gordon and Bea Benadaret do not appear in this episode.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz (above right), a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

GUEST CAST

Frank Nelson (Salesman) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”. This is one of his 11 performances on “My Favorite Husband.”  On “I Love Lucy” he holds the distinction of being the only actor to play two recurring roles: Freddie Fillmore and Ralph Ramsey, as well as six one-off characters, including the frazzled train conductor in “The Great Train Robbery” (ILL S5;E5), a character he repeated on “The Lucy Show.”  Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs.  

Whenever there was a salesman role, Nelson was top of the casting list. He perfected the ingratiating and infuriating salesperson on Jack Benny’s radio and television shows. “Yeeeees?”

Doris Singleton (Audrey Peters) created the role of Caroline Appleby on “I Love Lucy,” although she was known as Lillian Appleby in the first of her ten appearances. She made two appearances on “The Lucy Show” and four appearances on “Here’s Lucy.”    

Alan Reed (Mr. Lloyd aka ‘Little Ole Lloyd’ / Farmer / Land-Owner) is probably best remembered as the voice of Fred Flintstone. He started his acting career in 1937. In 1963 he played a café owner in “Lucy Visits the White House” (TLS S1;E25). In 1967, he made an appearance on the Desi Arnaz series “The Mothers-in-Law”. He died in 1977 at the age of 69.

Coincidentally, Reed’s only appearance with Lucille Ball on television also had Lucy on horseback! 

Pinto Colvig (Gulliver) was the original voice of Disney’s Pluto and Goofy, until his death in 1967. In 1993, the Walt Disney Company honored him as a ‘Disney Legend.’ On May 28, 2004, he was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He provided the dog barks for “Lucy is Her Own Lawyer” (TLS S2;E23) in 1964.

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers, we find Katie the maid serving Liz her breakfast. George is upstairs getting into his riding habit as this is the day he meets with his horseback riding club.”

Katie wants to know why Liz never goes with George to his horseback riding club. Liz says she had an incident with a horse as a child. They had to stop the merry-go-round.  George comes down to breakfast and tells Liz that he is getting a ride to the stables by Audrey Peters. They are chairing next weekend’s breakfast ride. Liz is instantly jealous. 

Audrey rings the bell. Liz is icy toward her, at best.  Audrey asks Liz why she won’t come with them. 

AUDREY: “Are you afraid of horses?” LIZ: “No dear, I’m allergic to cats. It’s too bad I won’t get to see you ride, though. George says you look like part of the horse.” GEORGE: “Audrey’s been riding since she’s a child and she’s never lost her seat. Can you believe it?” LIZ: “Believe it? I can see it!” 

When George and Audrey have gone, Liz tells Katie she’s going to learn to ride a horse. 

Liz is shopping and asks the salesman (Frank Nelson) to show her some riding clothes.

FLOORWALKER: “A habit?” LIZ: “No, I’m just starting.” 

Liz gives her sizes as “thirty around the withers” and “seven along the fetlocks.” He shows her some English riding clothes.  Although he suggests a size seven boot, Liz insists on a six. 

At the stables, he meets with Mr. Lloyd aka ‘Little Ole Lloyd’ (Alan Reed). She tells him she wants to talk lessons. He suggests a swayback, toothless horse named Gulliver. Liz is afraid of Gulliver. 

She insists she can mount him on her own, but gets on backwards!  Gulliver falls asleep before they take their first trot! 

Next day, Liz returns for her second lesson. It seems Gulliver has developed an affection for Liz, perking up as soon as she comes in the stall.  Gulliver sighs in love when Liz smiles at her. 

At her sixth lesson, Lloyd says Gulliver won’t eat unless Liz is there, and he won’t allow anyone else to ride him. Liz still hasn’t even gone once around the ring without falling off.  She finally masters walking once around the ring on her twelfth lesson. Now if she can only do it with Gulliver. 

On the day of the breakfast ride, Liz is anxious for Audrey to come pick up George and take him to the stables.  Audrey honks the horn.

GEORGE: “I’d better go.” LIZ: “Yes. She mustn’t keep her broomstick running.”

ANNOUNCER: “George is out on a breakfast ride with his horseback riding club. Liz, to surprise him, has secretly learned to ride and is going to make a grand entrance by galloping up to greet them.”

Lloyd lets Gulliver out of the trailer about a half mile from the breakfast ride location. Gulliver trots up to the spot but a farmer (Alan Reed) tells them they rode on another ten miles to Hickory Falls. 

Arriving at Hickory Falls, Gulliver is winded. The land-owner (Alan Reed again) warns her that the breakfast riders were trespassing and he shooed them off to Buzzard’s Roost. He charged them ten dollars for trespass and does the same to Liz. She rides on to Buzzard’s Roost but ends up back where she started from!  

Back at the Cooper home, Katie answers the doorbell and finds Liz lying on the welcome mat exhausted.  

LIZ: “What a wild ride. I felt like Paul Revere. Come to think of it, we probably had the same horse!” 

Paul Revere (1734-1818) was a silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, and Patriot in the American Revolution. He is best known for his midnight ride to alert the colonial militia in April 1775 to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord. In a 1964 “Jack Benny Special” Lucy and Benny played Mr. and Mrs. Paul Revere.  In the sketch, it is Mrs. Revere who makes the famous midnight ride, not Paul. 

Liz asks Katie to help her get her riding boots off - but they don’t budge. Liz’s feet have swollen and the boots won’t come off. Katie she suggests Liz go down to the store and ask the salesman for help.  Once she gets there, the salesman gloats that he warned her to buy sevens. He thinks he knows the trick to getting them off, but he can’t do it.  He struggles and the boot finally comes off - but he has shattered the store window in the process!  

Liz comes home. The boots are off but her feet look like two thermometers. George comes home. He says that Audrey was thrown, when as a joke she attempted to mount an old swayback named Gulliver! 

LIZ (laughing): “I’ll have to send over a nice bouquet of flowers. GEORGE: “Audrey will appreciate that.” LIZ: “Who said anything about Audrey? I’m gonna send them for the horse!”  

End of Episode

The announcer reminds listeners that Lucille Ball will soon be seen in the Paramount Picture Sorrowful Jones.

Coincidentally, Sorrowful Jones was also about horses!