“Cassilda’s Song” opens The King in Yellow, setting the tone for the anthology, and giving us our most liberal taste of what the eponymous play would read like: the nature of its prose and plot, and its atmosphere, mood, and setting. We learn of Carcosa – a blighted planet, city, dimension or state of mind – wrapped in quiet desperation and morbid decadence.
It is a region dominated by disturbing contradictions. Its haunted Lake of Hali is composed of “cloud waves,” causing us to wonder whether they are cloudy waters or watery clouds. Its stars – symbols of stable, spiritual direction – glow with inexplicable, inscrutable black light, implying that in Carcosa this has been obscured by evil and depravity.
It has two suns (symbolic of the duplicity of human nature and the lack of a clear moral foundation) which – like the dripping moon described in a later story – are implied to literally sink into Hali, as well as multiple moons (often symbolic of human weaknesses and temptations: on Carcosa there is more than one source of vulgar enticement), and it is recognized by the Hyades constellation (implying either that the literal stars worship Carcosa, or the alien civilizations therein).
Finally, we learn of the worshipful potentate dressed – not in silks and furs, but in tatters: a king who revels in campy opulence, in shredded dignity, in disfigured elegance. Like the King of Fools – a beggar made king for a day on Mardi Gras – his existence and supremacy serve as a mockery and refutation of human ideals and civilized values. This is the realm of the King in Yellow, where souls weary and quiver, where hopes are dashed, where life is degenerate and hollow – and Chambers beckons you in with a crooked smile.
Here is the poem in full:
“Along the shore the cloud waves break,
The twin suns[1] sink beneath the lake,
The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa.
“Strange is the night where black stars[2] rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.
“Songs that the Hyades[3] shall sing,
Where flap the tatters[4] of the King,
Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.
“Song of my soul, my voice is dead;
Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed
Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.”
— Cassilda's[5] Song in The King in Yellow, Act i, Scene 2.
[1] Although it had long been asserted that planets could orbit two stars, the first circumbinary planet wasn’t confirmed until 1993
[2] Although there is such an object in astronomy – a gravitational object composed of matter – I believe that Chambers intended to suggest a literal sun: a flaming ball of gas that somehow emits black light, in order to create a mood of contradictions
[3] Three mournful nymph sisters in Greek mythology who are responsible for bringing rain, watering the earth with their tears, and who are associated with the cycle of life, change, transformation, sorrow, and feminine power. Also, a V-shaped star cluster located within the constellation Taurus. Whether Chambers intends to refer to the stars, nymphs, or both, this is noteworthy – and intentionally disturbing – because it locates hellish Carcosa within our own physical and cultural universe
[4] Tattered robes
[5] This Arabic-influenced, Spanish name is of disputed etymology, with multiple theories, ranging from “poem,” to “virgin,” to “battle” – all fitting to Chambers’ themes