Bêlit and Conan: Eros
Bêlit from "Queen of the Black Coast" by Robert E. Howard
The love between Bêlit and Conan is “eros,” divine desire, which includes but is more than just sexual love. And that is enough, because Conan’s and Bêlit’s desires naturally go in the same direction at this point in Conan’s life. It is his first real love.
This essay contains spoilers for Queen of the Black Coast, by Robert E. Howard. You can read the story first, for free, at Project Gutenberg Australia: Queen of the Black Coast.
Both are fearless adventurers, with no goals other than the hedonistic, Conan as well as Bêlit. All Conan cares about is living deeply, which to him, means “I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content.” He gets pleasure and direction from her; she gets pleasure and strength from him. And, like a goddess, she also enchants the environment around her.
They are bound by eros, divine desire, so it makes sense that Bêlit plays the role of a pagan divinity, even though Howard writes her as a mortal. She never shows any consideration for anyone, even the crew of her pirate ship, except as a means to her own ends, and this includes Conan. She makes no sacrifices for him, gives nothing up.
Although she says he has “conquered” her, I see no aspect in which he actually has. He has merited her – met her requirements for a lover – and she has accepted him in a pagan love-making ritual.
No, she never gave up her weapons or stopped fighting because Conan “conquered” her, because she was never doing that in the first place. In the story, it never shows her actually fighting, herself. She doesn’t even seem to carry a battle weapon: instead of a sword or a spear, she had only a jeweled dagger when her ship chose to attack the merchant ship Conan was on. And she wasn’t even wearing armor, let alone carrying a shield. She commands her crew and they have always done the actual fighting, not her, because they see her as a goddess.
And she doesn’t even give up command of her crew. Nor does Conan ever give her a command that I could find. The closest was where he says, “We can't drink this river water. I'll take twenty men and search for fresh water in the jungle,” to which she answers “Very well.” At most, they discuss what they’re going to do and she shares the command with him.
Of course, he hasn’t given up anything for her, either.
And yet, he is not quite as self centered as she is. He was loyal, at the start of this story, to the soldier who killed a guard to protect his girlfriend. He won’t betray him, which was why he had to fight his way out of a court of law, and ended up on the merchant ship that was attacked by Bêlit’s ship in the first place. And he pities the once-human servants of the monster from the jungle; an emotion Bêlit never shows.
In the end, just as she has promised, Bêlit comes back from the dead to save Conan’s life, very like a pagan divinity, although Howard attributes it to her love for him, which has bound them together, heart and soul. And with Bêlit gone, when Conan turns back to the sea, it is no longer enchanted.
Is that the part of her heart and soul he has lost with her death?
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Donn Harper The Apocaloptimist
Beautiful essay, yes certainly it seems that thematically the river is no longer enchanted because Belit has died. Interesting fact; he later recruits another crew full of Africans so to speak, takes on her reputation as his own and builds up a pirate-rep. But the difference is that as seen in Hour of the Dragon, he loves that crew and fights savagely to save them, and they in turn love him. I'd say they love him and revere him more than their predecessors did Belit because in this case it is reciprocal.
That said, Belit certainly does play the role of Pagan goddess and fancies herself one, and she has little regard for others. The funny thing is that her 'successor' in Conan's bed, Valeria is far more loyal, and struggles with the idea of abandoning men to die such as Conan. In this relationship it is complicated as she gives herself by story's end to Conan with few conditions placed on him, and the relationship is certainly strange.
As to Zenobia I'd argue it is a complete and utter and total love as we understand it to-day.