"They Began to Hum Softly", Murray Smith

[Faramir Jones]

I'm glad that you liked my article, Bêthberry.

Your last post was very interesting. First, regarding the reference to a monarch by his territorial title:

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

If I may, I'd like to interject an observation here about the separation of king and kingdom. Or, in the case of my example, Duke and Duchy.

In our life time I have heard the current heir to the English throne, Charles, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall, refer to himself as "Cornwall." It was a television show some years back about the agricultural practices he had instituted and he was commenting on pictures and videos that showed him amidst some of the farms. Charles very clearly did not say, "Here you will see that I have . . ." It was always "Cornwall", as in "Here Cornwall discusses with . . . .". Charles was of course speaking of the old bond whereby the king is the kingdom. So if Charles at the end of the Twentieth Century could still name himself as Cornwall, I would think that, at the mid of the twentieth century Tolkien might very well still be applying that old concept. If this is the case, then Pippin's oath to Gondor was also to the King, even though absent.

The point may be a small one, but it perhaps is one reason why I have never particularly thought of Gondor as a modern nation state. To me, it's more like one of those Italian 'city states.' (Possibly I think this because of its geography, the latitude something like Venice's.).

I recall that Shakespeare's plays have a lot of such references to monarchs by their territories. In 'Anthony and Cleopatra', the dying Mark Anthony, in Act 4, Scene 15, says to Cleopatra, 'I am dying, Egypt, dying;' In Act I, Scene 1, of 'King Lear', the two suitors of Cordelia are the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy, referred to by their territorial designations of 'France' and 'Burgundy'.

That said, the oath Pippin swears explicitly refers to Gondor as a state; because he then swears allegiance to Denethor, who is called 'Steward' to the 'High King'. This is because there is no king, the throne being vacant.

I was amused when you said that you thought Gondor was more like an Italian 'city state'. Tolkien, with his daughter Priscilla, visited Italy, including Venice, from late July to mid-August 1955, and would in a later letter compare Venice to Gondor. In it, he thanked his correspondent for his letter, saying it came 'while I was away, in Gondor (sc. Venice)'. (Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 168, p. 223.)

Such Italian city states were quite sophisticated, and saw themselves as the inheritors of Roman republicanism and its virtues. From this sense of the past developed the idea of a national, Italian, patriotism. Writers such as Dante and Petrarch equated Italy with Rome, and Italian with Latin. This was particularly the case from the time of the Renaissance.

That said, this Italian national sentiment was something new, despite its use of the past. For one thing, it was very interested in something that the Romans professed to despise: trade. According to one historian:

The Italians indeed had a 'Middle Age' but not as reborn Romans. They were the businessmen of Christendom, pursuing trade not empire, freedom not dominion, the European leaders in economic innovation, commercial and financial growth, merchantile morality, emancipation and power - in short, the acknowledged progenitors, recognised in a tradition of centuries perfected by Adam Smith and Marx, of Western Capitalism, individualism and democracy. The country closest to Rome was also the most modern. (Philip James Jones, The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria, (Oxford: OUP, 2004), p. 54.)

Second, about Aragorn's song or poem:

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Perhaps I can also say that Aragorn's song or poem, "Gondor, Gondor", has never struck me as a national anthem, but more rather a lament. It reminds me instead of the Old English poem "The Ruin" with its longing for a greatness that has fallen away. Aragorn gives to his song a hope that the greatness shall be rebuilt, but I think it is the past tense verbs with which the song begins--blew, fell--which recall to me the ancient theme of mutability. To that mutability Aragorn brings, of course, hope. Yet the poem remains a lament for lost glory, which is not something I normally associate with national anthems.

While it is in the style of a lament, that doesn't mean that such a song could not be a national anthem. It's true that most national anthems tend to talk about how great the relevant country is, shown particularly in the title of the Danish national anthem, 'There is a lovely land'. In the film Borat, there is a version of the national anthem of Kazakhstan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixavbzGylcU

which says that not only is this country the best in the world; all other countries are run by 'little girls'. It's a spoof of what is often sung.

That said, there are other national anthems that don't fit into this mould. One which I specifically mentioned in my essay was that of Poland, 'Poland Has Not Perished Yet'. It was composed in 1797, two years after Poland disappeared as an independent state. This is one translation of its first verse:

Poland has not perished yet
So long as we still live
That which alien force has seized
We at sabrepoint shall retrieve.

It expressed the idea that the nation of Poland had not disappeared, as long as the Polish people lived and fought in its name. In 1926, some years after Poland re-emerged as an independent state, it became that country's national anthem.

While I didn't call the song 'Gondor, Gondor' a national anthem, I said that it had the elements of one, using this Polish example.