LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 01 - The Departure of Boromir

[davem]

Just want to make a few random observations. First there’s an interesting exchange in one of the early drafts. Aragorn tells Legolas & Gimli what Boromir had done:

’I do not know all, but I know this. Boromir tried to take the Ring by force’
Exclamation of horror from Legolas & Gimli.
‘Think not ill of him,’ said Trotter. ‘He paid manfully & confessed.’

This use of the word ‘confessed’ seems significant - especially in the light of Tolkien’s statement that he had deliberately made the story Catholic in the revision. Actually it seems that his original idea was more Catholic but he changed it. Boromir dies forgiven & absolved of his ‘sins’ because he made a ‘death bed’ confession to Aragorn (well, to Trotter). But what does this say about Aragorn/Trotter? Does it mean that Tolkien saw him as having a ‘priestly’ role - able not simply to hear confession, but to give absolution?

Second, the episode on Amon Hen. Frodo sees with enhanced vision, & Aragorn was also intended to an the early draft, but his ‘vision’ was to have included a sight of Gandalf similar to the one Frodo saw in Galadriel’s Mirror. But why does Frodo see the whole of Middle earth laid out before him while Aragorn sees only what we’d expect him to see from a high hilltop:

Then sitting in the high seat he looked out. But the sun seemed darkened, and the world dim and remote. He turned from the North back again to North, and saw nothing save the distant hills, unless it were that far away he could see again a great bird like an eagle high in the air, descending slowly in wide circles down towards the earth.

So, how ‘magical’ a place is Amon Hen - if even Aragorn only sees what any of us would expect to see what’s so special about the place to earn it its name? And how come Frodo sees so much - is it the power of the Ring? But that would mean that The Hill of Sight only deserved its name & reputation if the person using it had their vision magically enhanced.

Third, why do Aragorn, Gimli & Legolas take so much time over Boromir’s funeral arrangements? It seems illogical - shouldn’t they be off after the Hobbits straight away? I was always struck by the strangeness of their actions. It seems both right & wrong to do what they do. Logically, its silly. Boromir’s dead, the Hobbits are alive & in need, yet the three remaining companions take time to take Boromir to the boat, row it out into the stream & then sing a funeral dirge over his body. Yet on some level I know it was both right & necessary, & I would have lost all respect for them if they hadn’t done what they did - what’s that line about the heart having reasons that reason knows not of?

And that brings me to my final point - the funeral song. They didn’t actually sing that, did they?

Well, how could they? Make up a song, metre perfect, on the spur of the moment. I think what we have here is something added in to the tale afterwards. The truth’ has been mythologised. We know they must have simply expressed their grief at the time & only when the tale came to be written down was the song (possibly composed at a later date in Gondor, possibly by Bilbo or Frodo) ‘inserted’. Tolkien is not writing a novel set in Middle earth, he is writing a legend of that world. History has become legend, & its the legend that we’re given here.

But as to the song itself, its obviously intentional that Legolas sings of the South wind & the Sea.

From the mouths of the Sea the South Wind flies, from the sandhills and the stones; The wailing of the gulls it bears, and at the gate it moans. ...

-so many bones there lie On the white shores and the dark shores under the stormy sky; So many have passed down Anduin to find the flowing Sea.

‘So many have passed down Anduin to find the flowing Sea.

So they have, & others will follow, including Legolas himself.