LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 09 - The Great River

[Lalwendë]

Frodo:
'In that land, maybe, we were in a time that has elsewhere long gone by. It was not, I think, until Silverlode bore us back to Anduin that we returned to the time that flows through mortal lands to the Great Sea’

Aragorn:
…in that land you lost your count. There time flowed swiftly by us, as for the Elves

This realisation that time has somehow been corrupted has a lot in common with both ancient and modern phenomena. The modern is the conviction of people who believe they have been abducted in some way by aliens; in many ‘sightings’ people believe they have lost several hours of their life, as though they have been asleep. The ancient is the journey into the otherworld of the faeries. There is much folklore concerning mortals who have spent what they believe to have been seven days in Faerie, but in fact have spent seven or even seventy years there. It is as though they themselves have become immortal simply by entering that place.

I do believe Tolkien was drawing upon this time-shift folklore, but that he also attempted in some way to ‘explain’ it as it related to the Elves and other immortal creatures. When Legolas gives his speech, this is an attempt at that, but it is a very difficult concept to grasp, so it does bear careful consideration.

Legolas:
For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last

The above statement bears reading through several times, and breaking the concepts down does help.

Swift, because they themselves change little, and all else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Imagine having been born two thousand years ago and still being alive today. You would have seen the world move through all its many changes. You would have known so many mortals that you would as likely as not have forgotten even some of the most important ones in your long life.

I’m no mathematician so I can’t give any numerical comparisons, but if you consider how, in what seems like no time at all, a kitten grows into an adult cat and then sadly grows old, this is what an immortal would experience with their mortal friends. In terms of what Arwen gave up for Aragorn, it could be compared with giving up your life at the age of 25 just to spend two weeks with somebody you met yesterday. Sometimes I think it is not surprising that so many Elves are portrayed as keeping their distance from mortals – it would indeed have been heart-breaking to see people die in no time at all, so perhaps it may have been better to keep away from the possibility.

Slow, because they do not count the running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever repeated in the long long stream. This, I think, refers to the fact that mortals’ running years are quite literally not counted by the elves for themselves. Their concept of a year would be much longer than ours; 144 years of mortal time made up one Yeni of Elven time, if I’m correct. To put this into the context of time passing slowly, instead of clock watching for one hour until you can go home, an Elf might have to do this for say, 3 or 4 days.

To an elf, a phase of the moon would pass by as though we had just clicked our fingers. Sayings such as ‘once in a ‘blue’ moon may mean once a month, i.e. something regular. It makes you wonder if they would celebrate events such as birthdays or anniversaries in the way that mortals might.

Yet beneath the Sun all things must wear to an end at last. This is an enigmatic and beautiful statement. It suggests ‘the end of all things’. Or does Legolas refer only to the end of Elvenkind in Middle Earth by saying ‘under the Sun’?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Heraclites was right about rivers: they mark much more than the boundary between earth and water, but between different modes of experience, perhaps even different ways of being. Along with his most famous phrase about stepping in rivers, Heraclites also left to posterity 130 other ‘fragments’ in which his philosophy is revealed. A few of the more relevant to this chapter are, I think:

This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now and ever shall be an ever-living Fire, with its measures kindling and its measures going out [20]

The sun is new every day [32]

You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you [41-42]

Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the other's death and
dying the other's life [67]

It rests by changing [83]

So why am I inflicting upon you all the fragmentary remains of a Greek philosopher who died 2500 years ago? Because it strikes me that these sentiments are extremely helpful in thinking through the importance of this chapter.

Tolkien is a writer obsessed with roads – more properly, with The Road. The journeys of his heroes take place on the Road as they move forward in a linear way through their life’s experiences. The Roads that they travel return them to their home, completing a circle, but still the journey is one that they must undertake on their own. To traverse a Road one must do so through dint of one’s own efforts. There are landmarks to achieve, miles to cross and resting points to reach. One cannot drift upon the Road of Life, but be an active participant. Travelling on rivers is entirely different. I have spent a lot of time canoeing the rivers in the land about my childhood home, and what I have learned about rivers is that travelling them is a more passive activity, particularly if one is going with the current, as the Fellowship is doing. Rivers do not turn back upon themselves or return to their source. With rivers, the journey is not yours but the river’s itself: unlike the material of Roads, the water is physically moving, bearing you along.

Rivers are thus all about change and flux, flow and impermanence. Heraclites knew this, and that is why he asserted that you can never step in the same river twice: not just because the water is always changing, but because you are always changing. The experience of being human is one of flux, of alteration, and of change. Tolkien knew this, which is why his Men and Hobbits are so different from the Elves, for whom change is anathema and to be avoided. It is only appropriate and right, I think, that the Fellowship leaves the unchanging – and even sterile – land of the Elves by travelling a River and once again entering into the flux and movement of human life, and living.

In this chapter I think we can see all the members of the Fellowhip in the process of change. The plot and tenor of the book – that ineffable thing called ‘tone’ – is certainly changing from one of adventurous brotherhood to the darker and more fragmentary pursuits and trials which await them. But the two characters in whom we can see this process most clearly are, I think, Frodo and Aragorn:

‘But the wearing is slow in Lórien,’ said Frodo. ‘The power of the Lady is on it. Rich are the hours, though short they seem, in Caras Galadhon, where Galadriel wields the Elven-ring’

‘Fear not!’ said a strange voice behind him. Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: a king returning from exile to his own land.

‘Fear not!’ he said. ‘Long have I desired to look upon the likenesses of Isildur and Anárion, my sires of old. Under their shadow Elessar, the Elfstone son of Arathorn of the House of Valandil Isildur’s son, heir of Elendil, has nought to dread!’

Then the light of his eyes faded, and he spoke to himself: ‘Would that Gandalf were here! How my heart yearns for Minas Anor and the walls of my own city! But whither shall I go?’

Frodo’s lament for Lórien is not only toching, but revelatory of a change in him. He is speaking now more like an Elf than a Hobbit. He is even speaking, although he doesn’t know it, in verse:

Rich are the hours
though short they seem
in Caras Galadhon
where Galadriel wields
the Elven-ring

The change in Aragorn is even more pronounced – but this is not a completed transformation. Just as Frodo is speaking in verse, but also in prose, so too is Aragorn still “Strider, and yet not Strider”. He has a moment of heroic revelation that raises the hackles on my neck every time, but it is short-lived: as soon as it is over he lapses ‘back’ into the uncertain Ranger of the North, in need of guidance from the Wizard. Quite wonderfully, his process of changing will not be completed until he undertakes another river journey upon the Anduin when he will save Minas Tirith. In that journey he not only will travel against the current, but he will do so without first consulting Gandalf about it. In this chapter we see him moving toward that moment, but not really there yet.

One particular fragment from Heraclites I think has profound resonance with the current chapter and discussion: “Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the other's death and dying the other's life”. Could there be any more accurate description of the tragedy that lies behind the journeys of Frodo and Aragorn? In Aragorn is, and will be united the bloodlines of the immortal Elves and mortal Men. The success of his quest will mean the “death and dying [of] the other’s [the Elves/Arwen] life”. The same for Frodo: with the destruction of the Ring there will come about the destruction of Lórien, and Frodo will pass from the mortal realm into the Timeless Land.

That all this is happening as they drift along the current of the greatest river in Middle-earth is perfectly appropriate. The process of change that they are caught up in is one that is beyond their control. They can choose to ride the river, to enter the current and let it bear them where they wish, but they cannot make that journey themselves, nor can they make the River follow any course but the one that it lays out for them. Of course, in the end, this process of change and flux must reach at least a momentary result or conclusion: in this case, the breaking of the Fellowship, which will itself become the beginning of their new journeys, the successful completion of which will again set off further journeys.

And on we go.

[The Saucepan Man]

Hence the River is both symbolic of the Fellowship's delay in choosing a course, and the means by which that delay is achieved. They are letting themselves be passively carried along rather than actively making a decision (as the text reminds us both at the beginning and at the end of the Chapter).

Interesting that this passive mode of proceeding almost spells their doom. The River was about to carry them either into the deadly rapids or to the eastern shore were their enemies lay in wait. So, they can only allow themselves to be carried along for so long, unless they are to risk being carried into danger.

[davem]

I think Fordim's points on the nature of the River are incredibly significant - its not only the physical River which carries the Fellowship, but also the 'river' of Time. this is a chapter which focusses primarily on being ‘carried’, being ‘swept along’. Aragorn himself makes the connection when he says:

‘Winter is nearly gone. Time flows on to a spring of little hope.’

In the last chapter, our final glimpse of Lorien, specifically of Galadriel herself, was:

As they passed her they turned & their eyes watched her slowly floating away from them. For so it seemed to them: Lorien was slipping slowly backward, like a bright ship masted with enchanted trees, sailing on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey & leafless world.

Suddenly, its not they who are standing still watching things pass away from them, it is they themselves who are sailing away, down the River, but also through time. Lorien was a passive time for them, now they are moving - or more precisely they are choosing to be moved both through space & through time. In Lorien it was as if there was no Time at all, now, in this chapter we are given a very specific time scale for the events. Time had stopped, now it is moving, even if only to a ‘spring of little hope’.

I suspect that’s why this chapter seems so ‘cluttered’ with events - almost too many to keep up with. Like the Fellowship, we’ve been in the Timeless Land, where even though a month had passed we ourselves cannot ‘remember’ more than a few days there. Its as if Time itself was waiting for us to emerge, with a month’s worth of events for us to deal with in a few days. We’ve experienced both Elvish ‘Time’ while in Lorien, & now, in this chapter, we will experience Human ‘Time’, where change is so fast that we can hardly keep up. The sudden rush, the panic, the attacks by enemies - all of it is like awakening from a soothing dream to a hectic day. And so it is - Elves inhabit the dreamworld, Men the waking world. If the Fellowship are ‘passively’ carried along by the ‘Great River’ of Time, well, aren’t we all? For three chapters we’ve inhabited the dreamworld of Lothlorien (the Dreamflower) now we have awakened.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

If the Fellowship are ‘passively’ carried along by the ‘Great River’ of Time, well, aren’t we all?

Precisely. But, like the Fellowship, there is a danger in letting ourselves be carried through space and time for too long. There comes a time when we must take positive action to "go against the flow", lest we become swept up in events which we cannot control or ambushed by unforseen dangers. The Fellowship had to battle (hard) against the stream, and found themselves very near to being on the end of an orcish arrowhead, when they found that they had let it take them too far (farther than Aragorn had realised).