[davem]

Then Eowyn rose up. 'Come now, Meriadoc!' she said. 'I will show you the gear that I have prepared for you.' They went out together. 'This request only did Aragorn make to me,' said Eowyn, as they passed among the tents, 'that you should be armed for battle. I have granted it, as I could. For my heart tells me that you will need such gear ere the end.'

I don’t know whether this is true ‘foresight’ on Eowyn’s part, yet it seems to be. If we take Merry’s later perception of her as ‘one who goes in search of death’ then maybe this is similar to Halbarad’s foresght that his death lay beyond the Paths of the Dead. Of course, it could simply be that she is reaching out, in her despair & loneliness, to one she considers to be a kindred spirit.

What she eventually achieves could not have been achieved without Merry’s aid. In fact, it could be said that (as Tolkien originally intended her fate to be) that if she hadn’t taken him along, she would have died on the Pelennor Fields. It is only this reaching out, this compassion for a fellow sufferer, that ensured her survival - another example of the way a selfless act can bring benefit.

The difference between them is that while Merry also wants to go to the battle, he is not looking to perish there - though it seems he expects to. When he looks into ‘Dernhelm’s’ face & sees there the desire for death he ‘shivers’. This desire for death terrifies him. It also seems to inspire in him pity & horror, rather than a feeling of ‘kinship’. Does Eowyn understand Merry’s desire to fight, hoping against hope that he will come through, or does she think he too desires death? Their relationship is a ‘strange’ one, to say the least. Merry seems to have an insight into her state which she does not have into his, yet only together can the two of them defeat the Witch King.

I don’t want to go too deeply into later events here, but I wonder exactly how deep Eowyn’s desire for death actually goes. Certainly, she doesn’t simply want to die - she could just slash her wrists or hang herself if that was all she desired. Oddly, it is her desire to ‘die’ that inspires her to act, to move, & not simply curl up into a ball & waste away in despair. It seems, almost, that her desire for ‘death’ is what finally makes her do something, makes her take control of her life & act. Its almost as if before she wanted to die she was unable to truly live. Its as if she didn’t truly seek her own death - much as she may have thought she did: what she truly sought was the ‘death’ of her old self. Deep down, all unawares, it seems what she wanted was to live, to be fullly & completely alive. Maybe this is what she saw & responded to in Merry. At the very least, I think it accounts for her ‘change of heart’ when she met Faramir. He was what she had wanted all along, but, not believing he (& what he ‘symbolised’) could exist, she latched onto the only alternative she could concieve. When it comes to the test, standing over Theoden & facing the Witch King, she makes an instinctive choice to live - ie, when she is faced with ‘Death’ (‘Do you not know Death when you see it’ he asks Gandalf) she defies it & ultimately ‘kills’ it. Yes, it is only with Merry’s aid that she dispatches the Witch King, but it is she herself who ‘kills’ what he symbolises for her - the false Death, despair & meaninglessness that has obsessed her for so long.

It is in the encounter with Aragorn that she is forced to confront this growing obsession/possession of her true self, but only by, in a sense, surrendering to it, that she can pass through it & come to the ‘Light’ beyond.

Back to Merry. His perception of Eowyn’s state shows yet again that he is no ‘ordinary’ Hobbit - he can look into a person’s eyes & see their ‘soul’. The more we see of Merry (if we pay attention) the more complex a character he becomes.

Aside: the ‘song of Rohan’ is a later interpolation. This raises all kinds of questions about what was contemporary to the story & what was added later - & who by. Who put the song into the Red Book, when, & what for? We come back to the ‘Translator conceit’ again. Is this the only example of such a later ‘addition’ ? What about the ‘spontaneous’ song of Aragorn & Legolas at Boromir’s funeral? Were other verses ‘tided up’, so that what we have were the final ‘approved’ versions of the songs. It may seem a petty point, but no-one in the story ‘umms & ahhs’, stumbles over their words, etc. In fact, whenever anyone is expected to say something meaningful &/or profound they do so. This verse & the account of its presence at that point in the story, rather than in an appendix, is in many ways another reference to the way life can be seen as a ‘story’, & I can’t help but recall the final line from the movie ‘The Man who shot Liberty Valance’: ‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend!’ The interpolation of this verse at once heightens the emotional impact of the episode, & at the same time confirms that we are not reading ‘reportage’. What we actually have is the legend of the War of the Ring set down for us, in a translation of a translation (to what degree?) of a lost original. This, I think, was Tolkien’s intention, & a ‘conceit’ he did not want us to forget.

Oh, & finally, I just have to say that this verse contains one of the lines in the whoole of LotR that always reduces me to tears:

Six thousand spears to Sunlending.