[Child of the 7th Age]

Someone questioned whether Frodo was still alive when Sam sailed from the Grey Havens to Tol Eressa. I'm quite sure he must have been. In his Letters, Tolkien confirms that mortals who go to Tol Eressa must eventually die, but they have the choice as to where and when that is. It's the same idea that you see in the LOTR appendix about Aragorn. He chose where and when he lay down to die and made sure that Arwen was at his side. I think Bilbo, who was so much older, would have decided to move on after he made sure Frodo was healed as best as could be expected. But I think Frodo would have decided to continue on a bit longer. No way he would have left Tol Eressa before his buddy Sam got there. Otherwise Sam sailing from the Grey Havens doesn't make a lot of sense, since he wouldn't have needed the same physical or even spiritual healing Frodo and even Bilbo did. After Sam's arrival, the two might have caught up with each other's lives and tried to make sense of questions like "why me?", "why you?", "why did Sam get to stay in the Shire with the richness of family while Frodo had to leave immediately?" After that, I think they would have stayed side-by-side and chosen to go on together to the circles beyond the world.

Frodo certainly deserved a loving family, especially because he had been orphaned so young. But I just don't think it was in the cards. An author who created the beauty of Lorien which was said to mirror the timelessness of Valinor and then let this pass from the earth would not have "tidied up" his book by adding domestic arangements for Frodo, even if readers wished it could be so. Above all else, Tolkien loved two things: the legends of the North, in all their stark beauty, and the Catholic religion. Neither of these would permit the kind of accomodation some readers are clamoring for. The northern legends were bleak and often pessimistic, stressing the need for courage even against hopeless odds. And Tolkien's Catholic faith required that some things in life be bought with sacrifice, at least in this world. Remember it wasn't only Frodo who was sacrificing, but the entire coterie of elves who left Middle-earth with obvious reluctance.

There is one thing Tolkien wrote that actually made me feel more comfortable with the sailing from Grey Havens. It's the poem "Bilbo's Last Song" published as a children's book with illustrations by Pauline Baynes. The book is wonderfully illustrated. One part of the page shows Bilbo's memories of his earlier life, and the other half shows the progression of the entire entourage to the Grey Havens, including the segment where Bilbo and Frodo meet up and ride off together with Galadriel, Gilrond, Elrond, and the other elves. This wasn't the happy ending I wanted for Frodo, with the wife, children, and the Shire. But it was a scene of quiet peace blessed by the magic of the departing elves. The poem reads like this:
Bilbo's Last Song
Day is ended, dim my eyes,
But journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
Beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
The wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
Beneath the ever-bending sky,
But islands lay behind the Sun
That I shall raise ere all is done;
Lands there are to west of West,
Where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
Beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the havens fair and free,
And beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
And fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last,
I see the Star above your mast.

J.R.R. Tolkien

sharon [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]