Rosie and Erendis: The Untameables
At first glance one would see nothing in common with the Númenórean Aldarion and the Hobbit Sam. Look more closely and you’ll see the untameable spirits that reside in them. Aldarion was moved by something he cannot comprehend (perhaps the same hand that put the Númenóreans in Vinyalondë centuries later?); Sam was moved by his fierce devotion to Frodo.
How did their other halves react to these passions? Let us see:
“Hullo, Sam!” said Rosie. “Where’ve you been? They said you were dead; but I’ve been expecting you since the Spring. You haven’t hurried, have you?”
“Perhaps not,” said Sam abashed. “But I’m hurrying now. . . . ”
“Well, be off with you!” said Rosie. “If you’ve been looking after Mr. Frodo after all this while, what d’you want to leave him for, as soon as things look dangerous?”
This was too much for Sam. It needed a week’s answer, or none at all. He turned away and mounted his horse. But as he started off, Rosie ran down the steps.
“I think you look fine,” she said. “Go on now! But take care of yourself, and come straight back as soon as you have settled the ruffians.” LR VI 8
~*~
“You come late, my lord.” [Erendis] said. “I had long ceased to expect you. I fear that there is no such welcome prepared for you as I had made when you were due.”
“Mariners are not hard to please,” [Aldarion] said.
“That is well,” she said; and she turned back into the house and left him. . . .
“You leave more promptly than you came, my lord,” she said. “I hope that (being a mariner) you have not found this house of women irksome already to go thus before your business is done. Indeed, what business brought you hither? May I learn it before you leave?”
“I was told in Armenelos that my wife was here, and had removed my daughter hither,” he answered. “As to the wife I am mistaken, it seems, but have I not a daughter?”
“You had one some years ago,” she said. “But my daughter has not yet risen.”
“Let her rise, while I go for my horse,” said Aldarion.
UT II 2
Warmth and Coldness. Acceptance and Rejection. Patience and well . . . Impatience. What more antonyms can I use to show the difference between the two reactions?
But why the different responses? Pride is the first thing that jumps out. Aldarion and Erendis fenced the moment they met and the resulting collision of egos killed any hope of reconciliation. The hobbits had no such pretensions. If Rosie had any hint of pride in her, she would not have eagerly showed herself to Sam when he came suddenly a-knocking.
Another element is a mutual sense of purpose. Rosie knew Sam was needed to do something important (if only she knew
how important
), and did not hold Sam back from his responsibilities.
Erendis, because she had no heart beyond Númenor, did not realise Aldarion’s purpose (oh, I don’t know—he may just have planted the seeds of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men), and thus gave him no support. No, worse—she made his job hard for him.
Of course one might argue that the fulfilment of Sam’s purpose was within the lifetime of Rosie, whereas Aldarion’s was not (it had to wait until the time of Ciryatur before the first fruits of his actions were seen). But then Erendis should still have been patient. After all, Sam’s devotion to Frodo did not end at the fulfilment of the Quest. She could still have prevented Aldarion from being torn in two (as Tar-Meneldur had done when he abdicated). But her pride and her inhibited mindset got in the way of that. And thus she failed to tame the untameable.