My son, hear the instruction of your father,
And do not forsake the law of your mother;
For they will be a graceful ornament on your head,
And chains about your neck.
-Proverbs 1:8-9
My son left us for college this month So what? It happens every year. That this is commonplace does not diminish the import of a child’s departure from the household. When a child departs, parents mourn a birth, a birth into adulthood, a challenging emergence into a world of different airs and dangers.
Fathers mourn the parting different than mothers. Explaining how different is like trying to explain why The Three Stooges are funny: most women will never understand.
The ancients understood and gave us the tale of Iron John. You should read this short tale now.
The story was popularized in the 1990s by the late mytho-poet Robert Bly in Iron John: A Book About Men. I have my own interpretations of the ancient tale that are less Freudian-fruit-bat than Bly. Better men than I have explained this story, but I will expand on how I feel.
We fathers keep secret our treasures and pains, triumphs and digressions, defeats and conquests. We share these with our sons in sips and crumbs until they come to an age of understanding and we ourselves come to an age of calmer, un-prideful wisdom. We fathers become, or should become, men in black, forsaking all vanities and affectation, our tossing passions long behind us and leading a contemplative life. Humility. We must be prepared to be as Lincoln, Priam and the gracious father of the prodigal son all at the same time.
Iron John is at once the prince himself and the boy’s father: the wild, warrior the father was before his marriage. Iron John, in a cage locked by a key found only under the queen’s pillow, awaits the day when the boy discovers him through innocent play. The boy wants his toy back, but Iron John demands his freedom. Defying the mother, as all boys must eventually do, the prince steals the key and sets the wild man free and takes the child into the forest. Iron John is wild, but not savage. He is the red-eyed Esau pushing aside the white and un-calloused hands of Jacob.
Iron John, Eisenhans, loves the little prince. He teaches and enriches him but banishes him from the forest for doing what cannot be avoided by any boy. Iron John knew the boy was fated to go into the world, but promised to be with him always. By calling Iron John’s name three times at the edge of the forest, the wildman would appear and help him.
Hard work, valor and fate put the boy in a position to win a princess by catching a golden apple that she would toss to a host of Knights. Iron John promises the boy that he shall catch it. But the boy proves his worth not by merely catching one golden apple, but catching three over three days dressed in a different armor each day. The first day, his armor and horse are red, the color of passion, of Eros and Achilles. The second day, Iron John gives the boy white armor and a white horse representing purity, law and obedience by rote. The third day the boy catches the golden apple in black armor while riding a black horse but this time is wounded by the King’s men. The black represents solemnity, forbearance and contemplation and balances the red and white.
Together with the gold, all these metals are needed for manhood. They parallel the four humours of Greek medicine: red (blood), white (water), yellow bile (gold) and black bile. If any one was out of balance with the others, illness and death could take one’s life. The wound the boy received was a reward for his humility and daring. We are often wounded in our long suffering, our patience or a desire to keep our charity or valor anonymous. He was “bled” in this sense, to keep his balance.*
Fathers, experienced ones anyway, have been whip-sawed from passions, combats and dissipation to conformity, reverence and obedience (like Augustine) or the other way around (like Sam Kinison). If God gives us time and wisdom, we get our black armor, often one piece at a time. When fully girded, we can finally discern when a fight is worthy of our blood and sweat or one more worthy of patience and forbearance. Jacob and Esau both reconciled wearing this armor. I will endeavor to give this metal as a final blessing to my sons and lift this heavy enchantment of fatherhood. I pray I am up to the task.
The Black Knight always triumphs!
NOTE: there is Pink Floyd below. I have always thought it coming-of-age song.
*The Medieval virtue of Balance is part of the Force mythos and explained well in Stephen Kent’s “How the Force Can Save the World.” See his substack here: This is the Way.
FEARLESS!
Wow, it does sound tough for the dads (and sons) out there. Not to mention how different things are these days! Wishing you both a smooth adjustment to the changes. I remember being amazed at how much my parents "grew up" and mellowed when I went away to university. (And btw, the 3 Stooges are hilarious).