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The Princes of Hell

Okay, this is it. After six and a half hours, I have finished the post.

This includes all canon information and my theories. Feel free to reblog with your own.

Tag list: (love y'all, tell me if you want to be added or removed!) @the-blackdale @patalliumapples @murderbabies @blueth0rn @herondalesofterrasen @revati3008 @tenacioushubb @pjo-tsc-trc-otherthingstoo @bookeater34 @unorganisedbookshelf @clarys-heosphoros

Extra thanks to @patalliumapples without her help this post never would have been finished. So thank you for helping me.

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Meanings behind Chain of Iron chapter titles (part I, Ch1-15)

1. The Bright Web

From Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s sonnet “Body’s Beauty” (1866), alternatively titled “Lilith”, written to accompany his painting Lady Lilith.

Of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake’s, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

2. All That Turns

3. Bitter and Sweet

4. A Good Name

From “This Marriage” by Rumi, date unknown.

May these vows and this marriage be blessed. May it be sweet milk, this marriage, like wine and halvah. May this marriage offer fruit and shade like the date palm. May this marriage be full of laughter, our every day a day in paradise. May this marriage be a sign of compassion, a seal of happiness here and hereafter. May this marriage have a fair face and a good name, an omen as welcome as the moon in a clear blue sky. I am out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this marriage.

5. The King is Dead

“The King is dead, long live the King“ is a well-known traditional saying, and is the first thing that comes to mind, though I’m not convinced that this is the particular source for this title.

6. Things To Come

There are way too many possibilities for this one to narrow it down. I’ll put two of them here:

One the poem “The Flesh and the Spirit“ by Anne Bradstreet, published in 1650. An excerpt:

In secret place where once I stood Close by the Banks of Lacrim flood, I heard two sisters reason on Things that are past and things to come. One Flesh was call’d, who had her eye On worldly wealth and vanity; The other Spirit, who did rear Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.

And the other is “Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1798. An excerpt:

So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

7. Tread Lightly

Most likely “Requiescat” by Oscar Wilde, written in the 1880s. In the poem, the speaker speaks of and to an unnamed woman, who is buried and cannot hear.

Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust.

8. To Bring a Fire

9. The Scars Remaining

Most likely from “Christabel”, an unfinished narrative ballad written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge from 1797-1800. The ballad focuses on a young lady named Christabel and her encounter with a strikingly beautiful stranger called Geraldine, who claims to have been kidnapped from her home. Christabel takes Geraldine in to share her bed, and they spend the night together. The story also involves Geraldine putting a spell on Christabel that leaves her unable to tell anyone about what they do or what Geraldine’s “true form“ is.

Brings to mind a certain other strikingly beautiful character in TLH who also does spells to a similar effect, doesn’t it?

This excerpt that includes the phrase “the scars remaining”, however, is about Christabel’s father and his long-lost friend with whom he had a falling-out, but who also turns out to be Geraldine’s father.

They parted—ne'er to meet again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining— They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between;— But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been.

10. The Damned Earth

Likely from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “Lenore”, published in 1843.

Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise, “But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days! “Let no bell toll! — lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth, “Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth. “To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven — “From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven — “From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.

11. Crowns and Pounds and Guineas

From an untitled poem (but often identified by its first line) by A. E. Housman, included in his poetry book A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896. According to Wikipedia, this collection sold “slowly at first, it then rapidly grew in popularity, particularly among young readers. Composers began setting the poems to music less than ten years after their first appearance.”

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, “Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.” But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.

12. Requiem

A requiem is a mass for the repose of the souls of the dead, or a piece of musical composition in honor of the dead. It’d be impossible to narrow this down to a specific quote, though.

13. The Wintry Wind

Likely from “The Withering of the Boughs“ by W. B. Yeats, published as part of his poetry volume In The Seven Woods (1903). Each of the three stanzas of the poem ends with the following two lines:

“No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind, The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.”

14. The Flaming Forge

From “The Village Blacksmith“ (1840) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem makes use of the image of “the flaming forge“ twice.

And children coming home from school Look in at the open door; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

[…]

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught! Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought.

15. Walk by Daytime

From poem V in “A Dark Month” by Algernon Charles Swinburne, written in May 1881.

Dreams that strive to seem awake, Ghosts that walk by daytime, Weary winds the way they take, Since, for one child’s absent sake, May knows well, whate'er things make Sport, it is not Maytime.

Part 2 (chapters 16-29) here.

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