Welcome back to another analysis of a Cradle of Filth song, The Black Goddess Rises. We’ll talk about the Anti-Christian and the Pagan in Cradle of Filth’s lyrics and, of course femininity and 19th century fiction (which are recurring topics with Cradle of Filth).

 

I’ve talked before about how majestically the female is represented in the lyrics of Cradle of Filth and about the typologies of female characters that we can encounter there. We’ve analysed on this channel the typology of the seductress in A Gothic Romance, the lover in Her Ghost in the Fog, the noblewoman and delusional murderer in the Cruelty and the Beast album, and we’ve always encountered a lot of invocations of female goddesses throughout their songs that we’ve discussed. So today I’ve chosen one of their songs focusing on the image of the goddess. A very iconic one.

 

What I find interesting about Cradle of Filth’s depictions of religion is that their anti-Christian attitudes are often seen as Satanic, when in fact a lot of them are tied, rather, to paganism. But most invocations of supernatural figures that we hear in their lyrics are of pagan goddesses. 

 

The goddess in Cradle of Filth’s lyrics is more than a mythological figure, she is a symbol. She is the perfect antithesis to Jesus Christ, more so than Satan, in that she is a woman. And keep in mind how important the inversion of Christian symbolism is to Black Metal! We have the inverted cross, and Cradle of Filth even has the Dinner at Deviant’s Palace where they say Our Father backwards and it’s the most eerie thing ever. So, back to the Black Goddess, she represents all of the prominent ancient pagan goddesses worshipped from prehistory - dethroned by the newer religion of Christianity - and she has now returned to take revenge and take back her rightful place.

 

The theory of a matriarchal prehistory - a time long ago when women were ruling the world and were being honoured by men as avatars, if you will, of the Great Goddess, for their life-giving powers -  is a 19th century myth. Completely unhistorical. Let me get a bit into this because I find it fascinating: this theory was accepted as historical fact by a lot of feminists a few decades ago but this myth was actually fabricated in the 19th century by men with the purpose of proving that the honouring of women is the mark of a primitive society, and the world has “advanced” to the honouring of men, to patriarchy and to religions that worship men. So what Cradle of Filth does here, is play into that 19th century myth, revive it and turn it into an anti-Christian commentary - Dani Filth is so well-versed in 19th century fiction that he makes it become a seamless part of their music and he ties it to the principles of Black Metal (perhaps the most prominent of which is the criticism of Christianity).

 

Let's see how all these ideas are reflected in the lyrics.

 

Thee I invoke, born less one

All woman, pure predator

Where in conspiracy and impulse dwell

Like a seething fall from grace

Thee I worship

 

Thou art darkest Gabrielle

Lilith who rode the steed,

Though art pale Hecate

Rising from Thessaly.

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The Goddess’s identity: like I said before, Black Goddess is not one being, but several female entities embodied in one: she is a female version of the Archangel Gabriel; she is Lilith - the “insubordinate” wife of Adam, consort of Samael and mother of demons from Judaic mythology with Mesopotamian roots; and she is Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic.

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Crush their unworthy idols

No church shall bar our path

Seductive Evil drink your fill

Of the bleeding Christ in your arms.

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The “drink your fill of the bleeding Christ in your arms” evokes a wonderful image of a vampiric Pietà, with the woman being not a protective and loving figure, but a sensual blood-sucking demon who can’t wait to take advantage of Christ’s vulnerability. And the church, we’re told, is their greatest enemy.

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You are in my dreams

The darkness in my eyes

The rapture in my screams

Black Goddess arise

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The speaker is invoking her by declaring his devotion, how she is his inspiration and rapture, and I love how “rapture in my screams” evokes a trance-like state in which the spirit receives divine revelations, but also has a double, sexual meaning, very congruent with how the speaker’s relationship with the Goddess is presented. Dani Filth is a master of innuendos.

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Nothing will keep us apart

We could kill them all

If our desire tore free

Our union is one, sweet, sinful Eve

And the night draws in beside her

As we embrace the dark side by side

I pour my soul to those eyes full of fire

To harvest the seed ploughed inside her.

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This is a declaration of love. Their passion is strength, their union makes them invincible, they could destroy anything in their path. Eve, is another mythical figure to add to the list of Goddesses, who is both sweet and sinful, since in the myth she eventually fails to be the homely wife and corrupts her man. The references to sexuality are striking: the desire, the embrace, the fire, the seed, which have here a double meaning, their desire is not only sexual, but it is also a desire for greatness and a bloodlust, they embrace the darkness and harvest the seed of evil.

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"Archangel, snare the flesh

Suck dry the ebbing wound

Leave them lifeless and broken

My beloved"

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A while back I was unsure of how to interpret the use of the word Archangel. But given that the entire song is a conversation between the speaker and the goddess, it’s clear now that she’s addressing him as Archangel; he is her lieutenant, he will destroy her enemies in her name to win her love, and will in turn be elevated as a reward. So they are just exchanging declarations of a very Gothic love. He doesn’t just kill the enemies, he drinks their blood and leaves them broken, something very demonic, very vampiric. Moreover Suck dry the ebbing wound echoes the “vampiric Pietà” from the earlier stanza, highlighting how well these two complete each other.

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Oh, how I craved for you

You so pure and other-worldly

With your scent of winter

Am I to bleed myself dry to see your delight?

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Pure Gothic love. I’ve talked about Gothic traits in Cradle of Filth’s lyrics over and over again, but this just fits perfectly. The speaker is idealising his lover, describing her as magical, exotic, associated with cold, darkness (and all these Gothic elements), she becomes his whole world until his love for her becomes an obsession. Gothic love is always obsessive, consuming, and it involves a lot of suffering - she is a powerful and demanding mistress and he would suffer for her pleasure, and there is always this masochism in the way the male is viewing the relationship). 

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And the fear retreats forever

(Come to me Black Goddess arise)

When my secrets are buried in thine

(Come to me Black Goddess arise)

Under seven stars we came together

(Come to me Black Goddess arise)

To plot the new age's decline

(Come to me, arise)

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This mantra has a very personal feel (Come to me, the use of the word together). He is s speaking to her as if to a lover, not a god. And this is juxtaposed with their plans to bring about the downfall of the “new age” and restore the old establishment, under seven stars - which may refer to the planets (or the Pleiades, for female mythological figures which are also stars) - so, in front of the whole universe or solar system, to show the grandeur of their scope. When they are together and have shared their secrets and everything else,  there is no more fear.

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Ishtar, my Queen come forth to me

And help me seize my future from the House of Death

That in the release of immortality

I should slay their fucking Nazarene

Ah, the lies, the Jew, I kill for you

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-Another incarnation of the Black goddess, Ishtar, Queen of Heaven, the Mesopotamian goddess also known as Inanna in early Sumerian myth. She is going to repay him for his outstanding service: she will grant him immortality if he slays Jesus Christ in her name. 

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You are in my dreams

The darkness in my eyes

The rapture in my screams

Black Goddess arise

 

Hidden lusts will break the gates and swarm

As love secretes the thrill for war

The virgin raped shall seek to whore

She-wolf bare your snarling jaw

 

Again, feminine traits that in the traditional sense as seen as negative are here given power. The vulnerability of the raped virgin, who is there to be taken advantage of, the immorality and lawlessness of the whore that she becomes, also marginal to society; this figure in fact a she-wolf, she is bloodthirsty and is coming to take revenge on those who wronger her. Why? Transgression.  This is the keyword when it comes to extreme metal, and black metal in particular. Inversion. Everything should go against the establishment, especially when it has to do with religious views, and it should be an inversion.

 

The entirety of the Principle of Evil Made Flesh is about the return of the Goddess. We see this in The Principle of Evil Made Flesh:

 

“May the winds gather her together

From the secrets of men

After thousands of years of terrifying silence

She comes again… Shattered are the icons of the worthless

The Goddess scorned is a Valkyrie born”

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She who was dethroned has come back with full force, belligerent like a Valkyrie, determined to rule again. The idea that the male speaker is the commander of her forces and her consort, who is rewarded with glory and with her presence by his side comes up several times, including in the song A Crescendo of Passion Bleeding: 

 

I will rule as a king

And the Goddess will sit as my guiding Queen

In the glory of the earth our crowns are studded

With the jewels of blasphemy.

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