LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 04 - Treebeard

[Lalwendë]

‘Ents are more like Elves: less interested in themselves than Men are, and better at getting inside other things’.

This has made me think again about the nature of time and immortality. Men have finite lives, and as we ourselves know, much of that time is taken up with considerations of spirituality, the nature of life and death, and this grows as we get older. If we did not face the inevitability of death, we would not need to consider such things; as it is, we spend a lot of time thinking about ourselves and our essential nature and purpose.

Elves may of course consider the nature of death in Men, but Elves also seem to keep themselves separate from Men in Middle Earth - and I often think that this is to spare them the grief which will inevitably arise from all too brief friendships with Men. A good example of a friendship between Elves and mortals is that between Legolas and Gimli - inevitably, that friendship will come to a halt when Gimli reaches the end of his days - leaving Legolas to face an eternity of grief. It would be like having a best friend for only a week of your entire life. I think that for Ents, much the same would happen. Perhaps this is one reason why they isolate themselves within Fangorn.

But for most Elves, living separate from Men, not facing death, having no end, there would be all the time and the space to consider other matters; perhaps this is why Elves have the time to teach Ents to speak. This will be why Elves spend time thinking about the essential nature of other creatures and other species; they have the time for it, and they do not need to consider their own ends.

Now consider Saruman - he too is immortal, like Elves and Ents but his time in Middle Earth is limited. He works quickly, he studies quickly, he destroys the woodlands and builds up his forces quickly. Saruman only has so long to do what he must do - or wants to do. And to an Ent he would indeed be young - and very hasty.

Thinking about this brings up another question: Are Ents immortal? Are we presuming this? What happens to an aged Ent? Does he become more treelike, eventually ceasing to move altogether? And if he does, is he still an Ent?

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

Very nice thoughts on Elves Lalwendë ! And it rings very true as well.

But I am wondering now about the immortality of Ents. I take it that you question whether they have a doom of their own or go to some Undying Land. I would guess (mind you, it is a guess) that they are immortal, as Treebeard said, none have died, not from the inside. Where precisely they wind up is another matter, though. I don't think that they fall into the same catagory as either Elves or Men, so it is hard to think what would become of them. I should like to think of them sheparding trees in the blessed realm.

It also occurred to me this morning, that there is a very weak parallel between the Ents and Entwives and the story of Cain and Abel, one shepards and one gardens, and in the end, the gardener heads east. Of course the Elves sing of the Entwives eventually meeting up with the Ents in the West again, and the Entwives didn't harm the Ents....

[Aldarion Elf-Friend]

Since I sort of kicked off this discussion of the Ents vs. Tom Bombadill w/respect to age (at least in this thread), I thought I would add some rambling, barely coherent thoughts to the conversation. I think that the apparent contradiction between Treebeard and Tom both being the oldest living thing that walks the earth might simply be semantic. Let's first look at Gandalf's quote concerning Treebeard:

"The little that I know of his long slow story would make a tale for which we have no time now. Treebeard is Fangorn, the guardian of the forest; he is the oldest of the Ents, the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the Sun upon this Middle-earth."

Now, here is what Tom says about himself:

"Who are you, Master;" [Frodo] asked.

"Eh, what?" said Tom sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. "Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees; Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn."

It is quite clear from Tom's quote that he pre-existed the ents - "Tom remembers ... the first acorn." But Gandalf says that Treebeard is "the oldest living thing that still walks beneath the sun..."

So, how do we balance these two authorities? I believe that the answer lies not in the authority of the respective sources, but in the nature of Tom Bombadill, himself. I think this is similar to the passage in the Gospels when the Saducees ask Jesus concerning the theortical woman with 8 successive husbands to whom she would be married in the afterlife, we don't understand the very nature the of question we are asking. (Matt 22:23-33)

One more quote. This is from Chapter 2 of the Silmarillion, Of Aule and Yavanna:

"When the Children awake, then the thought of Yavanna will awake also, and it will summon spirits from afar, and they will go among the kelvar and the olvar, and some will dwell therein..."

When it comes right down to it, all of the Ainur are essentially the same age, and all pre-exist the world, much more the Ents. By that definition, any creature in Middle Earth inhabited by a Maiar spirit (Istari, Ents, certain Eagles, Sauron, etc.) is the same age. The only difference is when they entered the limits of physical form in ME. The Eagles and Ents were inhabited at the same time as the awakening of the Elves. It is also apparent that the four major spirit/flesh beings (Sauron and the Istari, not including the two that disappeared into the East) are the only ones that retain a great portion of their pre-incarnate knowledge.

So, "The Oldest Living Thing that still walks beneath the sun" implies to me that it is very likely that all the Elves that awoke next to the waters of Cuivienen have passed to the Halls of Mandos, but Treebeard was also inhabited at that moment of awakening. So, how do we deal with the stated fact that Tom was there "before the first acorn?"

I believe that these two statements can only be reconciled if we accept that Tom Bombadill is something other than Valar or Maiar (no, not Eru Iluvatar). It has been postulated elsewhere that Tom (and his partner, Goldberry) is a being of the spirit of the earth, and his essence is that of the earth. What I'm saying is that Tom is not alive in the sense that Elves, Ents and even Istari are alive. He and Goldberry exist as an extension of the being of the earth, and are simply an animation of the forces that move the world, itself. They don't live, per se, they simply are, and have been since "before the first acorn".

Therefor, Tom is eldest, and Treebeard is oldest.

Oh, and Balrogs have wings...

[Estelyn Telcontar]

It seems to me that this long chapter has not yet been exhausted; the poetry, for example, has not been discussed yet. I'd like to give those who didn't have time due to the holidays a chance to join in, so I will wait another week to start the next chapter discussion. I hope for many good contributions during the next days!

[Bêthberry]

Thank you, Estelyn, for keeping this thread on top for another week. I too think there is much we can still natter about, although it is a challenge deciding just where to jump in with so many excellent ideas already raised. SpM, however, has asked for more discussion about Pippin and about the entwives, and who am I to deny a gentleman such a polite request? So, for this post, on to Pippin!

There is a fascinating passage about Pippin, our peregrinating hobbit. Whether this relates to his alleged greater intuitiveness I cannot say, but I think it is part of Tolkien?s belief in the importance of story or of language. We have already discussed in a previous chapter how Tolkien suggests that Pippin will survive. (Being neither Ent nor Entwife, memory fails me now and I cannot remember if it is in ?The Riders of Rohan? chapter or ?The Uruk-hai.?) We have here a more extensive suggestion of what Pippin will make of his adventures. Settle down for a long read now?don?t be hasty--for this is a long quotation.

They found that they were looking at a most extraordinary face. It belonged to a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen foot high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say. At any rate the arms, at a short distance from the trunk, were not wrinkled, but covered with a brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating. They were brown, shot with a green light. Often afterwards Pippin tried to describe his first impression of them.

"One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present; like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don't know, but it felt as if something that grew in the ground?asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years." my bolding

If I am reading this correctly (well, of course I think I am ) the first paragraph is spoken by the third-person narrator while the second is spoken by Pippin. The first paragraph reports Merry's and Pippin's first sight or perception about this wonderous strange new creature; it uses ?they? and talks about what the hobbits saw. The second paragraph is not part of the ?regular? narrative but reflects Pippin's future recollections, using the first person pronoun ?I? and the British form of the self-effacing first person pronoun, ?one.? This is personal recollection; it even addresses the Reader as "you". As such, this paragraph looks forward to the time when Pippin attempts to create story ought of this direct, personal experience.

And, more particularly, we see Pippin developing an extended metaphor to account for his perception of Treebeard's eyes. And not simply his eyes, of course, but of the effect of them and the particular springs of Entish nature. The first paragraph offers simple description, a listing of Treebeard's physical characteristics. The second paragraph supplies the comparison to the well of water illuminated by the light of ages and obviously will therefore include Pippin's further experience of Treebeard. This second paragraph of first person recollection extends our knowledge of the Ents beyond what a first, cursory perception would offer. Pippin's metaphor, as recollection after the fact, represents a summation of his experience of ents. All of his time with Treebeard and the other ents, the Entmoot and Quickbeam, and of course the subsequent events of the War of the Ring, are part of this metaphor.

Thus, Tolkien is able to suggest a depth of character to the Ent even at a first meeting with this remarkable character. He is also able to show a facet of Pippin beyond the "Fool of a Took" which characterised him early on in the Quest. Tolkien 'breaks' narrative time to do this in an extraordinary way. It is part, I think, of the many examples in this chapter which suggest his profound respect for story. It is through story that language and people live. This is the significance, I think, of the exchange between the hobbits and Treebeard over the hobbits' place in the old stories. Saucepan is right that this reflects Tolkien's own subtle play about reading the hobbits back into the legendarium, but it also reflects Tolkien's own concept of how stories are developed synchretically. This is a grammatical point and part of Tolkien's philological approach. (To provide a definition: ?the merging, as by historical change in a language, of two or more inflectional categories in a specified environment.? I am using this by analogy of course. from Random House College Dictionary.)

But how extraordinary to jump ahead in time, as it were, to provide a future recollection! (As this post is long enough, I think I shall have to return another time for the entwives.)

[drigel]

good analysis Beth!
Battles, adventures, and Captains of Gondor and Rohan aside, I always thought that the capture of M and P by the orcs and the meeting of the Ents was the most significant, life changing experience for those two, and was relayed as such by the author.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Aside from Bêthberry's excellent contribution and drigel's comment, this chapter discussion has lain dormant for the past week. I was hoping our resident poetry experts would jump at the chance to discuss Treebeard's poems, but apparently they're all still hibernating. Since I don't want the poems to go unmentioned, I will at least briefly touch upon them in hopes that my post might spark interest and encourage some last-minute posting before the next chapter thread goes up.

All of the poems are Entish ones, though they are given in 'Westron'. The first one is the 'old list', beginning "Learn now the lore of Living Creatures". It is alliterative verse and only a portion of the whole work is quoted. From the fragment we have, it is difficult to deduct if there is any particular logic to the order in which the animals are named. The Free Peoples seem to be listed in order of the age of each race, which would place Ents between Dwarves and Humans. Though hobbit poetry is normally written in rhyme, the line Pippin adds for Hobbits is in the mode of the rest of the poem.

There are two lines given in Elvish when Treebeard speaks of Lothlórien:

Laurelindórinan lindelorendor malinornélion ornemalin,
Taurelilómëa-tumbalemorna Tumbaletaurëa Lómëanor.

The first word I can recognize, the longer name for Lothlórien, but perhaps someone has a translation of the whole text. I cannot tell if it is meant to be part of a poem or just prose.

Next comes "In the willow-meads of Tasarinan"; I have heard this sung to the tune by Donald Swann, a very nice version in my opinion. I'm not sure I can identify the type of poetry - it does not rhyme, but it's not in the alliterative mode either. It is wonderfully descriptive and evocative, following the seasons in the various woods, most of which have disappeared under the water at this time.

"When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf" is written in a simple rhyme scheme, with some repetition of whole or partial phrases. It also follows the seasons from spring to winter, and the stanzas alternate speakers, with Ents and Entwives given their varying views of each. Only the last two lines are spoken by both. It is also very descriptive and shows by the viewpoints of the genders how different they are. So much could be said about it, but I lack the time to go into detail. The most interesting thing to me is the fact that the only season they find a common ground is the winter, or a joined future in the West.

Quickbeam is the speaker of the next poem, “O Orofarnë”. It mourns the passing of trees that were his friends and is written in rhyme. The contrast between the appearance of the trees while alive to the way they looked after being destroyed is made almost visible.

The last poem is a marching song, beginning with “We come, we come with roll of drum” and continuing with “To Isengard!” It is very strongly rhythmic and repetitive; I have heard the recording of Tolkien reading this and increasing the speed – very dramatic! The sound of the words is very important in this poem – especially the word “doom” emphasizes the spirit of the marching Ents. I find it almost impossible to read the poem without getting on my feet and moving!

I’d be more than delighted to hear your comments on the poems and their significance to you!