Arwen's Grave Choice

[The Saucepan Man]

Doh! Of course Turin died before his mother. Although I'd forgotten those Hobbit and Elven graves. The perils of posting without the books to hand. At least its always guaranteed here that a knowledgable Downer or two will come along to complete the picture.

And, to take my part in doing so, I will mention Balin's tomb in Khazad-Dum. The Dwarves too appear to have taken the time to mark the graves of their dead when they could, even under the stressful circumstances that the last survivors of Balin's party must have endured.

The point remains, though, that only the mortal races seem to have "celebrated" death by marking the graves of their dead. Then again, maybe we just never hear of the cemetary just behind the Last Homely House.

[Hot, crispy nice hobbit]

Hamlet - "How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?"
First Clown - "Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,- as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in, - he will last you some eight year or nine year; a tanner will last you nine year."
Hamlet [Act V, Scene 1, Line 177 - 183]

Alas, poor Yorick! Little should he realise that long after his presence has faded to dust, his manner of decomposition should be discussed on an international forum... But pardon the expression.

Such talks of burial brings to mind the Death Marshes. There, if one recalls, lies the numerous unburied dead of the Last Alliance. If that is true, it seems that the spirits of both Men and Elves would haunt their place of death in the case of violent death; if a decent interring is not granted to their remains.

"'Who are they? What are they?' asked Sam shuddering, turning to Frodo, who was now behind him.
'I don't know,' said Frodo in a dreamlike voice. 'But I have seen them too. In the pools when the candles were lit. They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead. A fell light is in them.' Frodo hid his eyes in his hands. 'I know not who they are; but I thought I saw there Men and Elves, and Orcs beside them.'

Sam then suggested that the 'devilry' was hatched by Sauron. But Sauron was defeated in the Last Alliance. One is left to wonder if the houseless spirits persisted because of the unceremonious abandonment of their bodies. If so however, then it rises the question of whether Orcs have got spirits... (NO! I am not going to open another discussion on that! This subject has deviated enough already! Let's get back on topic!)

Arwen's mortal flesh is of the stuff of the earth. If she simply lie down and died, then it has to be supposed that it decomposes in the open air. (What morbid thought that) I can't suppose any hand-maiden would follow her to Loth-lorien even though the Elves would have been gone. Just think of Boromir and his loath of Loth-Lorien. The Lore concerning Elves would probably be even more obscured by the time Arwen died. It is entirely possible, of course, that Arwen have went to Loth-lorien to try and reminisce about her Elven heritage (thats not something her children and those around her could understand), and at the same time to pass from Middle-Earth.

[mark12_30]

(Yeah... but Denmark is consistently damp and moist. In New England it's more like twenty year...)

Maybe I'm grasping at straws here; Tolkien's MacDonald-influence was limited.
But MacDonald heavily influences my own thinking and this may be another reason this is bugging me....

MacDonald described the grave as the door, or very threshhold, of eternity. Elves' doors seem green. Rohirrim graves, even for the kings, are barrows, mounds. Green. But Gondor's royalty-- like Numenor-- are buried in stone, buildings, in the Avenue of the Dead. Brrr. Merry and Pippin end up in Rath Dinen too-- a most un-hobbitlike, stony burial.

They have a stone threshhold to eternity, not a green one? Whereas the Rohirrim have green thresholds? Is it just a hangover from Numenorian customs? Or is there something else?

Balin was buried in Stone but as a dwarf that seems appropriate.

[Lalaith]

A tangential thought: I think I read somewhere that the Barrows were originally burial mounds from the days before men into Beleriand and met the elves.

[Bêthberry]

I'm going back to Lush's remembrance that Arwen and Aragorn were betrothed in Lothlorien, for that point has taken me back to the Lothlorien chapter in LOTR.

The chapter concludes with Frodo finding Aragorn "wrapped in some memory." The passage is long but rewards quotation.

At the hill's foot Frodo found Aragorn, standing still and silent as a tree; but in his hand was a small golden bloom of elanor, and a light was in his eyes. He was wrapped in some fair memory: and as Frodo looked at him he knew that he beheld things as they once had been in this same place. For the grim years were removed from the face of Aragorn, and he seemed clothed in white, a young lord tall and fair; and he spoke words in the Elvish tongue to one whom Frodo could not see. Arwen vanimelda, namarië! he said, and then he drew a breath, and returning out of his thought he looked at Frodo and smiled.

"Here is the heart of Elvendom on earth, " he said," and here my heart dwells forever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!" And taking Frodo's hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man.

The bolding is, of course, my own, but what suggestive possibilities lie within that phrasing! It is left open to suggest that Aragorn does come again, but not as living man.

There is yet more of Cerin Amroth. Frodo finds Aragorn at the foot of the hill, but just before this, Frodo had followed Haldir up the hill into the circle of white trees. Here is what Frodo experiences, and here also is an even more suggestive passage.

Though he walked and breathed, and about him living leaves and flowers were stirred by the same cool wind as fanned his face, Frodo felt that he was in a timeless land that did not fade or change or fall into forgetfulness. When he had gone and passed again into the outer world, still Frodo the wanderer from the Shire would walk there, upon the grass among elanor and niphredil in fair Lothlorien.

Again, the bolding is my own. What does that phrase, "passed again into the outer world" mean? It is simply an eloquent way to describe Frodo's return to the task and obligation he has laid upon himself? Or are we to read here of the circles beyond Middle-earth? Does Frodo, even after he sails West for respite and thence to die, return in unearthly form to Cerin Amroth?

And yet more still. Cerin Amroth is the heart of the ancient realm , "the mound of Amroth" where his house was built, and, indeed, Frodo's experience of it describes the particular elven 'magic', the unity of experience, thought and creation, as well as any other passage in Tolkien's Legendarium, I would think. "Mound" is used rather than barrow, but 'mound' is used elsewhere to refer to burial mound, as in Eómer's cry upon the death of Théoden, yet what the site commemorates is rather Amroth's and the elves' achievement.

It seemed to him that he had stepped through a high window that looked on a vanished world. A light was upon it for which his language had no name. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear uct, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured forever. All that he saw was shapely, but the shapes seemed at once clear cut, as if they had been first conceived and drawn at the uncovering of his eyes, and ancient as if they had endured for ever. He saw no colour but those he knew, gold and white and blue and green, but they were fresh and poignant, as if he had at that moment first perceived them nd made for them names new and wonderful.

The lay which Legolas sings of Lothlorien is the story of the elf-maid Nimrodel and her lover Amroth, a song of how sorrow came upon Lothlorien.

It is any wonder that there could be a more fitting, symbolic place for Arwen to be laid?

[mark12_30]

Bb-- now that makes huge sense. Yes, it seems to me that "outer world" could very well refer to outside the circles of the world as well as to Arda. (Perhaps it's one of those layered statements I'm so fond of...) And if time is translucent there, then what better place for ghosts to meet?

Perhaps she went there hoping to actually find Aragorn's spirit lingering, or visiting, there. Or perhaps simply to sense the echo of his presence.

I wonder if she did.

I wonder if she was hoping for a time. like Tinuviel, to walk in the forest again with her "Beren".

Now that rocks.

[Bêthberry]

Interesting ideas, Helen.

To me, she returned to the scene where her choice sealed her fate, the return making the choice even more significant. It is as aesthetically appropriate as is Elessar's burial in Rath Dinen. And completely unique and original, nothing like Emily Bronté's end for Heathcliff and Catherine.

As John Donne once wrote, "The grave's a fine and private place but none I think do there embrace."

[Child of the 7th Age]

Bb, Helen


Hmm! The words are suggestive, but I really do have a question here.

Frodo returning in unearthly form to Cerin Amroth? (Child shudders..... ) That seems diametrically opposed to everything Tolkien stresses in his writing: that we are not to wish for immortality or to cling needlessly to life once it is time to depart. And Frodo and Bilbo, like Aragorn, would have the option of choosing when they passed on.

All the examples I can think of where people's spirits linger on Arda are very unhappy ones -- the B-W and his crew, the residents of the Paths of the Dead. I can't think of a single instance where a "good" soul happily lingered.

Why would Frodo and Aragorn's ghosts still be poking around Middle-earth, unless they were not yet at rest? An image like that doesn't fit in. Given Aragorn's stern deathbed scene, I can not imagine him lingering for Arwen. He would have expected her to come. And to be truthful, no matter how many times I read the words in the appendix and the Downs thread where it is discussed, I still can't help feeling that it is Aragorn who has understood the message of life, and Arwen who lags behind him.

Bb - I did always view those words about Lothlorien as referring to the mutability of time within the borders of Lorien. There are many other phrases in that part of the book that can be explained in a similar way. Flieger also has a great deal to say about this. But never did I regard them as referring to the disposition of the fea after death.

If we leave the example of Frodo aside, it is possible that Arwen could feel an echo of Aragorn in Lorien and Cerin Amroth because of the vows they had exchanged. In that sense, I can understand her wanting to return there. But beyond that I am reluctant to go.

If there's another way of looking at this in terms of Tolkien's overall feelings about life and death, please let me know.

~Child