Arwen's Grave Choice

[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."

[davem]

Bethberry

First of all, this isn't what I wanted to say - unfortunately, its as close as I can come to saying what I want, so it will have to do, & I hope everyone can somehow pick up on what I really mean.

'Where' is Frodo? In his dream in Tom's house, he is, in a sense, both in his bed & on the ship, seeing the Undying Lands - his body is sleeping, but his mind is in a different place & time. Looked at in one way, he is always on Cerin Amroth, & always approaching the Undying Lands, always at every point in his story.

Memory is, as the Elves have it, a 'reliving' of the past, rather than a remembering of it. So, we are not speaking of looking back to something which is gone forever, but returning & being there, in full awareness.

Its like the book. We can open LotR & read of Frodo walking on Cerin Amroth whenever we choose, or read of him coming to Tol Eressea. Your quote takes that moment of him walking on Cerin Amroth out of the story & presents it to us, here, 'out of context'. So, in a sense, because the event has been described by Tolkien & set in print, Frodo is 'always' there, 'always' walking on Cerin Amroth. Aragorn never comes back to Cerin Amroth in the story, as a living man, yet he is 'always' there, with Arwen.

How shall we understand Arwen's 'return' to Cerin Amroth - as a bald statement of fact - she went back to Lorien? Should we not rather understand that she returned in spirit to that time with Aragorn, & only physically went to a deserted Lorien? When she dies physically, where is she spiritually? Still there, still with him?

I don't think we need to resort to ghosts returning to their old 'haunts' Aragorn, Arwen, Frodo, all of them, are eternally in every moment of their 'story', & always will be.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem,

I have no problem viewing time and spirit in the way that you have described.

This is preferable, I believe, to populating Middle-earth with "ghosts"....

~Child

[Bêthberry]

Child and davem,

Hey, I'm no ghost-buster.

I think there is a confusion simply of words here. I never used the word ghost, although Helen did. And my point in referring to these passages in the Lothlorien chapter is not to argue their metaphysical meaning but rather to suggest their symbolical importance.

When I referred to Frodo in "unearthly form" I was simply using my rather inglorious and clumsy way of saying what Tolkien has Aragorn say, "here my heart dwells forever."

And my point is less to expound upon Tolkien's mythology than to suggest a function for Arwen's character, a symbolic or aesthetic function rather than a psychological function.

I read this as a writer trying to get inside a story and feel what is right for each character but I take also a nod from "On Fairy Stories" where Tolkien asks, "But what of the banana skin? Our business with it really only begins when it has been rejected by historians." At the end of the following paragraph he concludes,

I wish to point to someting else that these traditions contain: a singularly suggestive example of the relation of the 'fairy-tale element' to gods and kings and nameless men, illustrating (I believe) the view that this element does not rise or fall, but it there, in the Cauldron of Story, waiting for the great figures of Myth and History, and for the yet nameless He or She, waiting for the moment when they are cast into the simmering stew, one by one or all together...

Arwen, for me, does not function as a psychologically driven character. There is simply too little given to her as a figure in the story. And, actually, I would say the same of Goldberry and Galadriel--not of Eowyn, please note. And this is in no way to demean their depiction. They are like characters out of old narrative whose purpose is to act out an idea--and by this I do not mean allegory. It seems to me absolutely fitting that the elf who choses the doom of man should, once her lover has died and is given all the rituals of the king's burial, return to the place where she made her choice and plighted her troth, particularly given the special sense of magic which Tolkien wishes the elves to represent. She returns to the heart of Elvendom. This is not for me a tenet of belief so much as of good story-telling.

My suggestion about Frodo at Cerin Amroth was designed to show how significant the site is, in terms of its importance to him, of what he understands there with Haldir's help, not to suggest that he or Aragorn linger there as spirits unwilling to leave. This is why the song about Nerindel and Amroth is important. All of this is not to deny what you have to say about the meaning within the Legendarium. For my purpose here the specific contents or the meaning within the Legendarium is not at question.

[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