Oyarsa
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Oyarsa (pl. Oyéresu) is a word in the Old Solar language of C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy. In the first book, Out of the Silent Planet, the hero encounters an immortal, seemingly non-corporeal being (an eldil) that rules Mars (called "Malacandra" in Old Solar). The being is known as "Oyarsa", which the hero takes to be the being's name.
In Perelandra, it is revealed that Oyarsa is not, in fact, a personal name, but is the title of the ruler of a world. When the Oyarsa of Mars visits other worlds, he is known not as "Oyarsa", but simply as "Malacandra". When the humans of Perelandra (Venus) pass their test and inherit rulership of the planet, Tor (the male) is addressed as "Tor-Oyarsa-Perelendri", presumably meaning "Tor, ruler of Perelandra"; the eldil who was formerly Oyarsa-Perelendri surrenders that title.
The other planets of the solar system are likewise ruled by their own Oyéresu. The Oyéresu of Viritrilbia (Mercury), Glund (Jupiter), and Lurga (Saturn) appear in That Hideous Strength, along with the Oyarsa of Malacandra and the former Oyarsa of Perelandra. The Oyarsa of Earth is a rebel against God, and is strongly implied to be Satan.
[edit] Source of term
As Lewis implies in the final chapter of Out of the Silent Planet, he derived his term for these beings from Oyarses, the name given in Bernard Silvestris's Cosmographia to the governors of the celestial spheres. Bernard's word is almost certainly a corruption—or a deliberate alteration—of Greek οὐσιάρχης ("lords of being"), used with the same meaning in the Hermetic Asclepius.
