The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - The Balrog as the Loathly Lady from medieval literature.

monks · 08-03-2020, 09:43 AM

Hi Mindil, thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

Firstly, I don't come on here trying to troll people. People have responded to my posts often in the most disrespectful and dismissive manner. I will only be disrespectful and combative with people if they start the conflict. If Morthoron had actually read my posts or even half-politely inquired-he would have known already that I had incorporated the transformation of the Loathly Lady into the Lovely Lady in my analysis and posts. That transformation involves The Star of the North most obviously. That's how you make yourself look like an idiot. My 'fight me' is just a bit of banter after previously encountering those kinds of responses. So me responding to that disrespect becomes clickbaiting. Puh-lease.

Pot kettle black.

This is part of the problem. A general point. The fact that people once they accept that there *just might possibly* be some things hidden within Tolkien, then they say "well even if it is true, why should I care, why is it relevant to us?". They move the goal posts. The extremely obvious answer to that is that if Tolkien cared about it, then why the heck shouldn't we? And the moving the goal posts thing (otherwise known as no_integrity) is the line people take when they avoid the exposition, the analysis, if it involves uninteresting or inconvenient things like geometry, but equally will then turn around and with the same mouthful take umbrage all day long at film makers etc who don't care about the details in Tolkien. Shysters all of em.

For example, most of Tolkien's hidden system is hidden in the etymologies of the words. That's how I arrived at my understanding of it over 15 years. If you don't care about the etymology of words, then you don't care about the same things as Tolkien. And then as critics (all very expert on here I see in their attacks on my posts) Tolkien straight away puts you in the Lit camp, the oak camp, yaknow..the camp with the trolls? Speaking of trolls. And from that point you expose yourself to being extremely dumb as a brick in your critique and getting hammered by people like me if you've got the cojones to face me or lack the good old fashioned humility to maybe just listen.

People wondering about what and who Bombadil is oh for like 70 years...

Seth's anagram from the name of Bombadil WARN FRODO AND BILBO I BE A MAIA – MR RONALD T

Nah..me I'm not buying that for one moment...Tolkien only ever left one anagram in his works and that is YOU LEFT THE PATH OF WISDOM

He's a Maia clearly. And that's just the start of it. Tom and Goldberry are the circles of the World (symbolized by the two wedding rings of Tolkien and Edith), Space Time, and the left and right hands of Ilúvatar no less. And that was discovered by 'looking for hidden things' and 'leaving the path of wisdom'. That comment is an untenable, preposterous opinion- the last refuge of the bone-idle and eternally clueless- because clearly Tolkien also did. That's actually what Bombadil is- the philologist who lives in a very private world and appears to talk complete gibberish to everyone around him and in fact, appears to be a bit of a fool. So, I'm in good company. heh..This is the kind of thing Bombadil would do. He would take a name like say uhm I dunno 'Morthoron' and break it down into a composite of two words ''thor' -that is the oak, the lit camp (opposite of the birch, Oden in his system) and moron. hahaha :-) Yours is not much better ..sorry. Mind..yeh that's a good start but 'il'..that's the mystic word for the reversal of something...oh oh spaghettio. :-D Like me he is 'fond of parties' (past participle of partir "to divide, separate" (10c.), from Latin partire/partiri).

Which leads me to this. Here's one example of a benefit to be gained from etymological analysis to the Tolkien community and to Tolkien as a writer and his understanding within the literary establishment. The whole Middle Earth taxis thing. The eagles. The eagles do not arrive as taxis to rescue Frodo and Sam. There is a compelling reason why they arrive at that precise juncture. They arrive because they are part of the Wheel of Fortune machinery. The hunt. This is the subject of Seth's anagrams. During the course of the Lord of the Rings. The wheel turns twice 90 degrees (see THE TURN). The Powers are the figures of the Tetramorph. Eagle, Bull, Lion and Man. The eagles move from the west into the north when the Fellowship turn through Lorien and the Naith and then they move from the north into the east when the Ring is destroyed- but technically when Frodo fails to destroy the Ring because that failure is the TURN, a fall. If you want me to further illustrate how that works just let me know. Here's the diagram. And this is a symbolic landscape as I keep saying. So the abstract symbolic forms (of the geometry) that Tolkien refers to, the Wheel and the Powers, manifest in the World in the narrative.

If you want to keep fielding that in ignorance, feel free. Ignorance of something does not make you stupid. What makes you a fool is if you're offered an explanation politely with 102 predictions driving that understanding, you dismiss it as...God only knows what goes on in minds like that...

Here's another benefit. The so called cheating that Tolkien was accused of in the fall and return of Gandalf. His fall and return is also part of the Wheel of Fortune. It is not cheating. People just don't understand his work. I was able to make my prediction (#102) about the etymology of 'attentive' from the context of the letter I had quoted on these boards at the end of that thread ("but I have purposely kept all allusions to the highest matters down to mere hints, perceptible only by the most attentive"), because I understand his system. 'Attentive' is from the root 'to stretch'. I guess I must be one of 'the most attentive' that Tolkien speaks of huh? :-D. And note Mindy that he doesn't describe the 'most attentive' as anything else..no offensive words at all for those peeps. And I'm attentive because I actually listen before I gob it about online as some kind of self-inflated balloon. Yeh I've studied the etymology of massive numbers of his words in the text and how they relate to each other as a whole and how he builds structure and linking and echoes and foreshadowing. Narrative technique. And equally importantly I also understand how he drops hints and riddles people. After all that work I understand (much of) his private symbolism. Believe it or not Tolkien is a great writer. And I mean even by the Literary Establishment's highest standards of Shakespeare, Joyce, Dante, etc. And regards philology- 'the love of words'. I've actually given Tolkien the respect that any decent literary critic should. If he tells us in the most clear manner that his works are philologically driven and based, then you should obviously start your understanding by looking at the etymology of his words in the texts right? It's a no brainer. He actually describes the non-philologist critics as the oak, the Enemy. Jeez how more obvious do you guys want it? lol. Now little ole me I just looked at them because I love words, always did, so ironically I didn't approach this at all as a literary critic. The first thing Tom Shippey does is look at the etymology of a word. If you don't care about that that's fine- my philosophy is everyone is different!..but just don't expect to be taken as an expert on his works. You ain't because you don't even speak the same language as Tolkien.

The quote most relevant to his hinting at the Wheel of Fortune machinery:

In which class, as a class not as a competitor, The Lord of the Rings really falls though it is only founded on the author's own first draft! I think the way in which Gandalf's return is presented is a defect, and one other critic, as much under the spell as yourself, curiously used the same expression: 'cheating'. That is partly due to the ever-present compulsions of narrative technique. He must return at that point, and such explanations of his survival as are explicitly set out must be given there – but the narrative is urgent, and must not be held up for elaborate discussions involving the whole 'mythological' setting. It is a little impeded even so, though I have severely cut G's account of himself. I might perhaps have made more clear the later remarks in Vol. II (and Vol. III) which refer to or are made by Gandalf, but I have purposely kept all allusions to the highest matters down to mere hints, perceptible only by the most attentive, or kept them under unexplained symbolic forms. So God and the 'angelic' gods, the Lords or Powers of the West, only peep through in such places as Gandalf's conversation with Frodo: 'behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker's' ; or in Faramir's Númenórean grace at dinner. Gandalf really 'died', and was changed: for that seems to me the only real cheating, to represent anything that can be called 'death' as making no difference. 'I am G. the White, who has returned from death'. Probably he should rather have said to Wormtongue: 'I have not passed through death (not 'fire and flood') to bandy crooked words with a serving-man'. And so on. I might say much more, but it would only be in (perhaps tedious) elucidation of the 'mythological' ideas in my mind; it would not, I fear, get rid of the fact that the return of G. is as presented in this book a 'defect', and one I was aware of, and probably did not work hard enough to mend. But G. is not, of course, a human being (Man or Hobbit). There are naturally no precise modern terms to say what he was. I wd. venture to say that he was an incarnate 'angel'– strictly an γγελος:2 that is, with the other Istari, wizards, 'those who know', an emissary from the Lords of the West, sent to Middle-earth, as the great crisis of Sauron loomed on the horizon. By 'incarnate' I mean they were embodied in physical bodies capable of pain, and weariness, and of afflicting the spirit with physical fear, and of being 'killed', though supported by the angelic spirit they might endure long, and only show slowly the wearing of care and labour.

*The passage through fire and flood is a reference to the geometry and his chessboard scheme which he took form Alice Through the Looking Glass. Gandalf makes the same journey across Rhovanion and the TURN through the Door which the Fellowship make at the Tongue. It's the same journey because the inner spiritual reality is the real one. No time to explain here as it involves the symbolic map.
The reference to Faramir's Númenórean grace at dinner is a reference to planar orientation which is the basis of his system of geometry. You can see a discussion of it in my essay The Riddle of the Hidden Imagery of the West Gate which I posted about on these boards here.

And here's a little illustration of how Tolkien's mind and artistic soul works. It's about Gandalf's *fall* and return.

cheat (v.)
mid-15c., "to escheat, to seize as an escheat," a shortening of Old French escheat, legal term for revision of property to the state when the owner dies without heirs, literally "that which falls to one," past participle of escheoir "happen, befall, occur, take place; fall due; lapse (legally)," from Late Latin *excadere "fall away, fall out," from Latin ex- "out" (see ex-) + cadere "to fall" (from PIE root *kad- "to fall").

So by looking for hidden things and leaving the path of wisdom I've suddenly joined Tolkien on his path ya know with the wizard in Eeriness? Where you can clearly see the geometry? I can now see how the word 'cheat' in this context would be even more relevant to Tolkien. It's derived form cadere to *fall*. And it's even more relevant than that because the machinery (the narrative compulsion) is the Wheel which turns towards a fall- twice in fact. The compulsions of narrative technique which obviates the need to call yo Middle-earth taxi. HAHA. Go look at his use of the word 'chance' in the Lord of the Rings. Nah scratch that, leave it to them that can be bothered to get off their mental jacksies. Chance is from cadere to fall. And the word chance is integral to the whole Moria episode where Gandalf falls and the whole machinery of the Wheel starts turning. 'Now is the last chance. Run for it! ' I can also elaborate that for you if you'd like. Chance is in fact the cadences in the Music. Cadence also from cadere.

He must return at that point, and such explanations of his survival as are explicitly set out must be given there – but the narrative is urgent, and must not be held up for elaborate discussions involving the whole 'mythological' setting.

Now I knew to look at the etymology of the word 'urgent' because I've got 15 years of the study of the etymology of his works and a good nose for his idiosyncracies, hints and riddle methods. From urge.

Old English wrecan "drive, hunt, pursue"), via a notion of "to weigh down on," hence "to insist, impel." The other possibility is that the PIE root is *ureg- "to follow a track."

And...'mere hints'

from Old English hentan "to seize," from Proto-Germanic *hantijan (source also of Gothic hinþan "to seize"), related to hunt (v.).

So you can see why he drops those hints (using the word 'urgent') because the context he uses it in is the fall, and the Wheel of Fortune -which is the Hunt involving the higher powers. And that's how I was able to predict that 'attentive' would be form PIE root *ten- "to stretch". See the other post.

The Hunt which is hinted at throughout The Lord of the Rings. And that's the Wheel of Fortune. The whole 'mythological setting'. The Powers hunt each other. And that's the deeper symbolism of the Three Hunters. An eagle is described as a hunting eagle AFTER they cross the Naith. The eagles are hunting the bull, the Enemy. And then when the eagles rescue Frodo they are described as 'coming from the north'. If you don't care about his mythological setting and think it tedious what are you even doing on these boards? Tolkien is clearly being self-deprecating in his 'perhaps tedious'. I mean he spent 50 years working on his mythological setting. Clearly he doesn't find it tedious. But he certainly does find critics tedious because...? They don't look at the etymologies and understand his works. 'They always get things wrong' as he told Kilby. Like the 'experts' on here Mindill. Tolkien cared to the point of distraction as Kilby pointed out.

Another major thing to be gained from understanding Tolkien is it addresses a couple of other criticisms which fall under the umbrella 'he didn't live in the real world'. The first is that Tolkien has not included women and thinks they're unimportant. Well I've been stating that his whole mythological setting is centred on the Loathly Lady theme, the Battle of the Sexes and his marriage to Edith. And that centres around the mistreatment of women in both society and in relationships, sex, marriage, and it includes the Virgin Mary and religion too apropos the splits in the church, etc.

That is, the misunderstanding of their place in God's order according to his beliefs and Faith as different yes, but nonetheless, EQUALS. The whole Loathly Lady theme of giving her what she wants and trusting her to not rule over you and only take equality. That's the I Love Sixpence which is part of my Prediction #2. The husband's complaint and supposedly the 'domineering' wife. That misunderstanding and confusion begins at the Discord of Melkor where the geometry is created and the handedness of that geometry begins (Ilúvatar's hand sequence). Why do you think so many characters raise their hands and arms? Why so many references to hands and this going on? See my homepage. That's the secret grammar. Tolkien's system. Nothing to see here move along. Facepalm. haha.

On the contrary women are actually held in (slightly) higher regard than men because they have been given a raw deal in his eyes. Tolkien makes Goldberry the Eldest, not Bombadil. And there we return to 6 and 9 which those numbers symbolize (2 and 6 as well). Those numbers might just be numbers to you but they are symbols of gender inequality and lots of other things to Tolkien- including I might add the death of his Mother and her treatment. And here's a wee insight to add to the many in my posts. The conflicting claims to being eldest: Bombadil and Treebeard. Here's the rub, it's the claim itself which is important because that's part of the battle of the sexes, and the Hands of Ilúvatar and the Discords of Melkor. Go see my previous posts.

The 7 stars for example. They are all female figures in the Histories. They are guiding stars and guide the men through the maze and through the Door to higher rational planes. Like his mother Mabel, his wife Edith and the Virgin Mary. She That is Fallen is the island star of Númenor. And there we have the link between stars and 'She'-That is Fallen and the link between The Star of the North which is restored from where it fell (the south) to the north. The island star of Númenor symbolizes Womankind and Stella Maris, Our Lady, Star of the Sea the Virgin Mary- which links to what I've just said about the guiding stars in Tolkien's life. And that links to Dante's Divine Comedy, Beatrice and Purgatorio. And that's why the geometry matters too. The geometry is the inner spiritual reality (the Music of the Spheres), the inner spiritual journey, which takes exterior manifestation. That's why we see Minas Tirith as obviously a reference to Dante's Purgatory. The Lord of the Rings IS Tolkien's Purgatorio because the Fellowship climbs a spiritual journey just like Dante, through 7 rational planes during the course of the Quest. And that manifests in the incarnation of Minas Tirith with its seven levels and its plan clearly suggesting the classical labyrinth. The plane of wrath is the Moria sequence with the Balrog. It's a medieval symbolic landscape after the Arthurian Romances and views found in the Ancient World. Tolkien's purgatory was his forced separation from Edith during which time he mostly created his geometry. Elrond who withholds Arwen's hand from Aragorn who must prove his worth, symbolizes Friar Francis. Aragorn is Tolkien in this framework. At the end of this purgatory Aragorn marries Arwen and Tolkien married Edith.

But none of this matters right? Just the small matter of Tolkien's Catholic faith, his mother who died young in tragic circumstances, leaving the children orphaned, and his beloved wife and soul-mate Edith.

The Star of the North, which is instrumental in moving the Wheel of Fortune and turning the world the right way up again is given by Silmarien from the Akallabêth. A woman. His entire geometry and narrative cycle on the restoration of the woman to her rightful place (aka transformation of the Loathly Lady into the Lovely Lady) is a statement that 'men should treat women better' and understand that they are different but equal and as a note to self for Tolkien, that he should listen to his wife! And the final beat in the narrative of the Akallabêth is the seizure of the sceptre from Tar-Miriel, another attack on women. And if that's not enough of a hint the Akallabêth translates as 'She That is Fallen', 'The Downfallen'. If none of that is important, well...you'll just have to put up with the shoddy critiques of his works by the oak camp, people who don't understand Tolkien at all and in fact don't even care when offered compelling evidence and argument. Much easier to file it all under 'conspiracy' and 'keyboard warrior'.

A derivative of that is that I get to fight the likes of Germain Greer on her own territory of writer's technique while simultaneously pointing out that Tolkien was still voted the most popular in that famous Waterstones Book of the Century poll by people who are not literary critics at all. She described TLotR as Nazi-tosh'...and that Tolkien winning the poll was a 'bad dream'. And she's a feminist too- so any criticism of Tolkien not respecting women is roundly trounced by the previous point as well. Germain Greer is a person who likes to stand like the guard on the front gate of the Literary Establishment- she's a snob and a proper little shirrif who hasn't done her homework on Tolkien. A.k.a the oak from the lit camp.

This is what it is, Mr. Baggins, said the leader of the Shirriffs, a two-feather hobbit: ‘You’re arrested for Gate-breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food.’

I guess I must be with Mr. Baggins with his clickbait. Again I'm in good company. //grin Tolkien knew about Gatekeepers..don't we all?

The World turns twice during the LotR and in that it appears to be turning on its head. Hence Sam's words in Mordor.

Sam reeled, clutching at the stone. He felt as if the whole dark world was turning upside down. So great was the shock that he almost swooned, but even as he fought to keep a hold on his senses, deep inside him he was aware of the comment: 'You fool, he isn't dead, and your heart knew it. Don't trust your head, Samwise, it is not the best part of you. The trouble with you is that you never really had any hope. Now what is to be done? ' Fur the moment nothing, but to prop himself against the unmoving stone and listen, listen to the vile orc-voices.

The head thinks it knows where UP is but the heart knows better and that's why Sam's heart is instrumental in the journey and why he was chosen to accompany Frodo by Gandalf. This is a reference to the machinery turning the world on its head which is at work. Sam is one of the 'attentive' ones. In other words, he's got a good heart. That's the geometric language and 'the path of the heart' which I understand after a LOT of work and you don't after doing NO work. Seems like a reasonable outcome. The whole world is confused. 9 is up and 6 is down. If you understood the 6 and 9 you would understand that they are the two spirals of the Two Trees that go up and down to heaven and hell. The vile orc voices are those people who don't understand 6 from 9, up from down. Got some big news for ya'll. The map of the Lord of the Rings is a symbolic landscape and can only be properly understood if you TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN to read it. But hey ho...not listenin don't care...la la la. You're actually looking at a map much like the medieval T-O maps or this one he drew- but one in which the symbolic forms are much more cunningly disguised. Here have a fish //throws Mindil a fish. The spiritual realities were turned on their head at the Downfall, the Akallabêth. That inner spiritual reality, that confusion is incarnate in the symbolic map. And when the world (the Wheel of Fortune) turns twice by 90 degrees, turning on its head, it actually rights itself because...? It was already turned on is head to start with- at the Downfall. And that's Tolkien's implementation of the Eucatastrophe. Where the apparent inevitable fall to certain disaster produces the happy TURN. And that my friend is why you should care about 6 and 9. His machinery is probably the coolest thing in literature, period.

You can see the overall structure of the Eucatastrophe, the 7 rational planes of the spiritual journey and the machinery of the TURN in the words he chooses to end On Fairy Stories, the seminal essay of his.

Even modern fairy-stories can produce this effect sometimes. It is not an easy thing to do; it depends on the whole story which is the setting of the turn, and yet it reflects a glory backwards. A tale that in any measure succeeds in this point has not wholly failed, whatever flaws it may possess, and whatever mixture or confusion of purpose.
...
Far more powerful and poignant is the effect in a serious tale of Faërie. In such stories when the sudden “turn” comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.

“Seven long years I served for thee,
The glassy hill I clamb for thee,
The bluidy shirt I wrang for thee,
And wilt thou not wauken and turn to me?”

He heard and turned to her.

'the setting'. The same mythological setting he mentions. Yes it was written before TLotR but his machinery is right there form the start from late King Edward's and the Book of Ishness.

Tolkien's system was most influenced by Plato and Dante. Numerology...patterns not important? So the rhyme of lore is not important then? Clue to patterns in poetry = Rhyme. Rhymes being important for meaning and mnemonics. And stress patterns- clue is in the word 'patterns' haha. Ancient tradition dude. D'you want me to spell if out for ya?

Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land
Over the flowing sea?
Seven stars and seven stones
And one white tree.

And that demonstrates my point. Lore was passed on from one generation to the next and the decline of the Line of Kings illustrates that, if you study it. Fat chance. Lore was passed on often orally- see ancient traditions. And you would be one of those who didn't think patterns were important. Oh dear.

Or the fact that there are 3, 7 and 9 rings with which the Enemy desires to bring about the *Fall* of the Free Peoples which just so happen to match the stations of the cross where Christ *fell*? Got lots of evidence for that- oh from 4 or more years ago now. Tolkien is just being quaint isn't he when he uses numbers *cough*...

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

Do you think it's a coincidence that the lines 'sky, die' lie' rhyme then? That's a pattern btw. If you understood the 6 and 9 you would understand that they are the two spirals of the Two Trees that go up and down to heaven, the sky, and hell in Tolkien's system of geometry and rational planes- the same journey that the Fellowship take which manifests as the city of Purgatory in his symbolic landscape. And up is where you go to heaven and DO NOT die. And that's the same confusion I just mentioned regards Sam and up and down and the map etc. The Enemy's lies at the Downfall..convince Men that when you go to heaven in the sky you die..there is only everlasting death. The 'Shadows' lie...hmmm..the Shadow is the Enemy and he lies huh? Extracting meaning from a pattern that Tolkien the poet made. Fancy that. Ever considered the possibility of a homopheme in the two instances of the word lie there? And that process of confusion produces the symbolic map of TLotR. The Enemy has convinced the World that down is up and up is down. Not knowing your ar** from your elbow yaknow? Hence why we need to read the map upside down. For the believer, the Faithful (Silmarien's heirs led the Faithful) believe the opposite, that the Door leads to the After LIFE. And you'll find that I said exactly the same stuff about orientation and confusion in my post regarding The Riddles of the Hidden Images in the West Gate. And when the World turns on its head up and down are reversed and the Loathly Lady goes through her transformation into the Lovely Lady. It's all consistent because Tolkien is consistent.

And you can also see the three lines ending three, sea, tree also rhyme in the Rhyme of Lore. The rhyme of Lore is kinda important to the 'mythological setting' and it has this numerology all over it and those God awful patterns. The 3 times 3? Each turn consists of 3 turns (see my essays) and there are 3 turns which move the Wheel of Fortune. There's your 3 times 3 which are symbolized by the 9 ships. 3 x 3 = turns within turns, wheels within wheels c.f Saruman's attempt to counterfeit Tolkien's narrative machinery with his wheels and his desire to "become a "Power" (The Powers of the Tetramorph) and the 'wheels within wheels' in the Book of Ezekiel which is where medieval culture derived the Tetramorph. And then those taxis, 3 of em. So many 3s...could be a pattern. And the origin of Frodo's cryptic words in Mordor 'the third turn may turn the best' which you'll find for good reason at the top of my homepage. Tolkien's Powers on the 4 compass points. And that Wheel restores the Woman to her rightful place, the Loathly Lady turns to the Lovely Lady.

The Ring poem is 8 lines long. They appear at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings for a reason. It's rather important. And there's those rather dull numbers in it. There are 6 books because...? 8 + 6 is the form of the Sonnet (Petrarch again Classical education). The rhyme scheme is ababacca. And you'll find that rhyme scheme to be one of the forms listed for the 8 line block in the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. And what happens between those two blocks of 8 and 6 lines in sonnets? There is this thing called THE TURN. All good writers that use the form know this. See my website. The same turn that the Wheel of Fortune makes and Fairy Stories should do. According to the traditional form of the sonnet, the 8 lines are 'the problem'. And the 6 lines are 'the solution'. The problem is the Enemy and the Rings, and the One Ring, which is the subject of the 8 line section of the Ring verse. The Enemy seeks to separate Man from God for ever. The Enemy seeks the 'closed circle' that Tolkien speaks (see the quote below) of which is a state of no repentance. The closed circle is a prison. That closed circle is symbolized, in the form, by the two matching lines ending in the word 'lie'. Those two lines are identical. That symbolizes an unchanging state between them. The prison I spoke of. But, if you listen carefully and are 'attentive' enough, there is a key, a way out of this prison. The key is in being able to tell the difference between two homophemes, that is, the ability to be able to spot a lie, a riddle, as it turns out in fact. And that requires you to know your lore- hence the Rhyme of Lore and the importance of patterns. And that requires you to LISTEN before you speak. The two lines end in the two homophemes 'lie', in the sense of to lay on the ground and 'lie', in the sense of to tell an untruth. Homophemes are the subject of his poem Lit and Lang from Songs of the Philologists in which oaks cannot tell the difference between the two. Oaks, otherwise known as 'experts' who do not ever look up an etymological definition because they KNOW_it_ALL. Sound familiar? That's why it appears in the Songs for the PHILOLOGISTS. And that's why they end up in hell- the closed circle. And here's me wasting my time leaving the path of wisdom eh? ha. Poetic form and meaning. Ever encounter that at all? It's all there like a damned good writer should have. And he even uses the same homopheme in the poem Oliphaunt which is delivered by Sam in Mordor...right under your very nose, just to really give y'all a helping hand. From that closed circle there is no progress or escape. The Enemy seeks to stop all growth and change. It's a prison. Rather like the circle, the tomb of the barrow and rather like these forums if you don't watch yourselves :-D. And the solution is the narrative of the 6 books and the spiritual journey through those rather tiresome planes up to heaven. So we have 8 + 6 form of the sonnet. We could extend the analysis and look at the rhyming scheme in the 6 Books and determine which of the available Petrarchan sonnet forms it is modeled on (cdecde or cdccdc or cdcdcd), and indeed what the 'rhyme' is. The TURN between the two blocks is the Downfall at which point all roads becomes bent...into a circle- the same circle in the poem symbolizing the One Ring.

As far as we can go back the nobler part of the human mind is filled with the thoughts of sibb, peace and goodwill, and with the thought of its loss. We shall never recover it, for that is not the way of repentance, which works spirally and not in a closed circle; we may recover something like it, but on a higher plane. [Letter 96 To Christopher Tolkien 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford]

I dunno..maybe Tolkien just likes babbling on about spirals and rational planes...who knows huh?

The 'works spirally' bit? You guessed it. The Spindle of Necessity from Plato leading up to heaven and down to hell and the 6 and 9 again. And that numerology (oops I did a swear word) also extends to the 6 books- the same symbolism the downward spiral to seeming certain disaster which is followed by the Happy turn, which turns the 6 into a 9. That's why Tolkien chose 6 Books peeps. The interesting thing is not that he chose 6 Books but that 6 is the downward spiral evident in the course of the narrative towards seeming destruction. It's not JUST a number- it's the narrative. D'OH. So, if you want to continue reading the map the wrong way up, then don't trouble yourself with trivialities like 6 and 9. No, it won't ruin your enjoyment of anything at all really, it never did mine for decades, happy as Larry me, still am, //smokin but at the same time those people should be wary of taking absurd positions like I'm a Tolkien expert and I already know you're wrong (in the most conceited manner) without even having to read what you're going to say or have written.

And speaking of stanza lengths being important to Tolkien -his influence in Dante 'the supreme poet'. See Tolkien's letter regarding his curious interest in stanza length.

I can get a carbon copy made. It has 101 twelve-line stanzas. It is (I think) evidently inspired by the loss in infancy of a little daughter. It is thus in a sense an elegy; but the author uses the then fashionable (it was contemporary with Chaucer) dream-framework, and uses the occasion to discuss his own theological views about salvation. Though not all acceptable to modern taste, it has moments of poignancy; and though it may in our view be absurdly complex in technical form, the poet surmounts his own obstacles on the whole with success. The stanzas have twelve lines, with only three rhymes: an octet of four couplets rhyming a b, and a quartet rhyming b c. In addition each line has internal alliteration (it occasionally but rarely fails in the original; the version is inevitably less rich). And if that is not enough, the poem is divided into fives. Within a five-stanza group the chief word of the last line must be echoed in the first line of the following stanza; the last line of the five-group is echoed at the beginning of the next; and the first line of all is to wind up echoed in the last line of all. But oddly enough there are not 100 stanzas, but 101. In group XV there are six stanzas. It has long been supposed that one of these was an uncancelled revision. But there are also 101 stanzas in Sir Gawain. The number was evidently aimed at, though what its significance was for the author has not been discovered. The grouping by fives also connects the poem with Gawain, where the poet elaborates the significance: the Five Wounds, the Five Joys, the Five virtues, and the Five wits.
Enough of that. I hope you are not bored.

I hope you too are not bored Mindil. Tolkien wouldn't even have bothered coming on here and telling the 'experts' on here would he? ha. But it's rather important to his mythology because every single poem he wrote in his mythology uses the number system based, at core, on Dante's. So there's Tolkien the world expert in philology and professor leaving the path of wisdom again. Along with Dante, probably the most accomplished poet in history.

The other thing is sex. There's a lot of it in his works. It is after all, according to my theory, about his relationship with Edith. To be honest I didn't really want to find sex..yaknow? heh.. I kinda tried to avoid it..haha...but it's undeniable. And then I read Kilby's book and Tolkien's statement about him writing a 'couple' of sex stories and then I found the images in the West Gate cliff face and others too I might add. I've made 102 predictions so I'm fairly sure I'm right and you aren't. So that sets straight anyone who thinks there is no sex in Tolkien, that Tolkien didn't live in the 'real world' derrr including those in the Game of Thrones crowd who like to say such things.

Well...I dunno...thinking about all of this...I think people should have left Dante's Divine Comedy and Shakespeare's oeuvre well alone, and not left the path of wisdom and done all of that damned analysis of them over the centuries. Dum de dum dum dumb.

I might have taken on a slightly 'smart ar**' sarcastic tone in this reply but I assure you I only come on the boards to talk Tolkien and *be respectful* of people.

Peace.

monks

08-03-2020, 09:43 AM	#7
monks Animated Skeleton Join Date: Feb 2013 Posts: 35	Hi Mindil, thanks for taking the time to read and respond. Firstly, I don't come on here trying to troll people. People have responded to my posts often in the most disrespectful and dismissive manner. I will only be disrespectful and combative with people if they start the conflict. If Morthoron had actually read my posts or even half-politely inquired-he would have known already that I had incorporated the transformation of the Loathly Lady into the Lovely Lady in my analysis and posts. That transformation involves The Star of the North most obviously. That's how you make yourself look like an idiot. My 'fight me' is just a bit of banter after previously encountering those kinds of responses. So me responding to that disrespect becomes clickbaiting. Puh-lease. Pot kettle black. This is part of the problem. A general point. The fact that people once they accept that there just might possibly be some things hidden within Tolkien, then they say "well even if it is true, why should I care, why is it relevant to us?". They move the goal posts. The extremely obvious answer to that is that if Tolkien cared about it, then why the heck shouldn't we? And the moving the goal posts thing (otherwise known as no_integrity) is the line people take when they avoid the exposition, the analysis, if it involves uninteresting or inconvenient things like geometry, but equally will then turn around and with the same mouthful take umbrage all day long at film makers etc who don't care about the details in Tolkien. Shysters all of em. For example, most of Tolkien's hidden system is hidden in the etymologies of the words. That's how I arrived at my understanding of it over 15 years. If you don't care about the etymology of words, then you don't care about the same things as Tolkien. And then as critics (all very expert on here I see in their attacks on my posts) Tolkien straight away puts you in the Lit camp, the oak camp, yaknow..the camp with the trolls? Speaking of trolls. And from that point you expose yourself to being extremely dumb as a brick in your critique and getting hammered by people like me if you've got the cojones to face me or lack the good old fashioned humility to maybe just listen. People wondering about what and who Bombadil is oh for like 70 years... Seth's anagram from the name of Bombadil WARN FRODO AND BILBO I BE A MAIA – MR RONALD T Nah..me I'm not buying that for one moment...Tolkien only ever left one anagram in his works and that is YOU LEFT THE PATH OF WISDOM He's a Maia clearly. And that's just the start of it. Tom and Goldberry are the circles of the World (symbolized by the two wedding rings of Tolkien and Edith), Space Time, and the left and right hands of Ilúvatar no less. And that was discovered by 'looking for hidden things' and 'leaving the path of wisdom'. That comment is an untenable, preposterous opinion- the last refuge of the bone-idle and eternally clueless- because clearly Tolkien also did. That's actually what Bombadil is- the philologist who lives in a very private world and appears to talk complete gibberish to everyone around him and in fact, appears to be a bit of a fool. So, I'm in good company. heh..This is the kind of thing Bombadil would do. He would take a name like say uhm I dunno 'Morthoron' and break it down into a composite of two words ''thor' -that is the oak, the lit camp (opposite of the birch, Oden in his system) and moron. hahaha :-) Yours is not much better ..sorry. Mind..yeh that's a good start but 'il'..that's the mystic word for the reversal of something...oh oh spaghettio. :-D Like me he is 'fond of parties' (past participle of partir "to divide, separate" (10c.), from Latin partire/partiri). Which leads me to this. Here's one example of a benefit to be gained from etymological analysis to the Tolkien community and to Tolkien as a writer and his understanding within the literary establishment. The whole Middle Earth taxis thing. The eagles. The eagles do not arrive as taxis to rescue Frodo and Sam. There is a compelling reason why they arrive at that precise juncture. They arrive because they are part of the Wheel of Fortune machinery. The hunt. This is the subject of Seth's anagrams. During the course of the Lord of the Rings. The wheel turns twice 90 degrees (see THE TURN). The Powers are the figures of the Tetramorph. Eagle, Bull, Lion and Man. The eagles move from the west into the north when the Fellowship turn through Lorien and the Naith and then they move from the north into the east when the Ring is destroyed- but technically when Frodo fails to destroy the Ring because that failure is the TURN, a fall. If you want me to further illustrate how that works just let me know. Here's the diagram. And this is a symbolic landscape as I keep saying. So the abstract symbolic forms (of the geometry) that Tolkien refers to, the Wheel and the Powers, manifest in the World in the narrative. If you want to keep fielding that in ignorance, feel free. Ignorance of something does not make you stupid. What makes you a fool is if you're offered an explanation politely with 102 predictions driving that understanding, you dismiss it as...God only knows what goes on in minds like that... Here's another benefit. The so called cheating that Tolkien was accused of in the fall and return of Gandalf. His fall and return is also part of the Wheel of Fortune. It is not cheating. People just don't understand his work. I was able to make my prediction (#102) about the etymology of 'attentive' from the context of the letter I had quoted on these boards at the end of that thread ("but I have purposely kept all allusions to the highest matters down to mere hints, perceptible only by the most attentive"), because I understand his system. 'Attentive' is from the root 'to stretch'. I guess I must be one of 'the most attentive' that Tolkien speaks of huh? :-D. And note Mindy that he doesn't describe the 'most attentive' as anything else..no offensive words at all for those peeps. And I'm attentive because I actually listen before I gob it about online as some kind of self-inflated balloon. Yeh I've studied the etymology of massive numbers of his words in the text and how they relate to each other as a whole and how he builds structure and linking and echoes and foreshadowing. Narrative technique. And equally importantly I also understand how he drops hints and riddles people. After all that work I understand (much of) his private symbolism. Believe it or not Tolkien is a great writer. And I mean even by the Literary Establishment's highest standards of Shakespeare, Joyce, Dante, etc. And regards philology- 'the love of words'. I've actually given Tolkien the respect that any decent literary critic should. If he tells us in the most clear manner that his works are philologically driven and based, then you should obviously start your understanding by looking at the etymology of his words in the texts right? It's a no brainer. He actually describes the non-philologist critics as the oak, the Enemy. Jeez how more obvious do you guys want it? lol. Now little ole me I just looked at them because I love words, always did, so ironically I didn't approach this at all as a literary critic. The first thing Tom Shippey does is look at the etymology of a word. If you don't care about that that's fine- my philosophy is everyone is different!..but just don't expect to be taken as an expert on his works. You ain't because you don't even speak the same language as Tolkien. The quote most relevant to his hinting at the Wheel of Fortune machinery: In which class, as a class not as a competitor, The Lord of the Rings really falls though it is only founded on the author's own first draft! I think the way in which Gandalf's return is presented is a defect, and one other critic, as much under the spell as yourself, curiously used the same expression: 'cheating'. That is partly due to the ever-present compulsions of narrative technique. He must return at that point, and such explanations of his survival as are explicitly set out must be given there – but the narrative is urgent, and must not be held up for elaborate discussions involving the whole 'mythological' setting. It is a little impeded even so, though I have severely cut G's account of himself. I might perhaps have made more clear the later remarks in Vol. II (and Vol. III) which refer to or are made by Gandalf, but I have purposely kept all allusions to the highest matters down to mere hints, perceptible only by the most attentive, or kept them under unexplained symbolic forms. So God and the 'angelic' gods, the Lords or Powers of the West, only peep through in such places as Gandalf's conversation with Frodo: 'behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker's' ; or in Faramir's Númenórean grace at dinner. Gandalf really 'died', and was changed: for that seems to me the only real cheating, to represent anything that can be called 'death' as making no difference. 'I am G. the White, who has returned from death'. Probably he should rather have said to Wormtongue: 'I have not passed through death (not 'fire and flood') to bandy crooked words with a serving-man'. And so on. I might say much more, but it would only be in (perhaps tedious) elucidation of the 'mythological' ideas in my mind; it would not, I fear, get rid of the fact that the return of G. is as presented in this book a 'defect', and one I was aware of, and probably did not work hard enough to mend. But G. is not, of course, a human being (Man or Hobbit). There are naturally no precise modern terms to say what he was. I wd. venture to say that he was an incarnate 'angel'– strictly an γγελος:2 that is, with the other Istari, wizards, 'those who know', an emissary from the Lords of the West, sent to Middle-earth, as the great crisis of Sauron loomed on the horizon. By 'incarnate' I mean they were embodied in physical bodies capable of pain, and weariness, and of afflicting the spirit with physical fear, and of being 'killed', though supported by the angelic spirit they might endure long, and only show slowly the wearing of care and labour. The passage through fire and flood is a reference to the geometry and his chessboard scheme which he took form Alice Through the Looking Glass. Gandalf makes the same journey across Rhovanion and the TURN through the Door which the Fellowship make at the Tongue. It's the same journey because the inner spiritual reality is the real one. No time to explain here as it involves the symbolic map. The reference to Faramir's Númenórean grace at dinner is a reference to planar orientation which is the basis of his system of geometry. You can see a discussion of it in my essay The Riddle of the Hidden Imagery of the West Gate which I posted about on these boards here. And here's a little illustration of how Tolkien's mind and artistic soul works. It's about Gandalf's fall* and return. cheat (v.) mid-15c., "to escheat, to seize as an escheat," a shortening of Old French escheat, legal term for revision of property to the state when the owner dies without heirs, literally "that which falls to one," past participle of escheoir "happen, befall, occur, take place; fall due; lapse (legally)," from Late Latin excadere "fall away, fall out," from Latin ex- "out" (see ex-) + cadere "to fall" (from PIE root kad- "to fall"). So by looking for hidden things and leaving the path of wisdom I've suddenly joined Tolkien on his path ya know with the wizard in Eeriness? Where you can clearly see the geometry? I can now see how the word 'cheat' in this context would be even more relevant to Tolkien. It's derived form cadere to fall. And it's even more relevant than that because the machinery (the narrative compulsion) is the Wheel which turns towards a fall- twice in fact. The compulsions of narrative technique which obviates the need to call yo Middle-earth taxi. HAHA. Go look at his use of the word 'chance' in the Lord of the Rings. Nah scratch that, leave it to them that can be bothered to get off their mental jacksies. Chance is from cadere to fall. And the word chance is integral to the whole Moria episode where Gandalf falls and the whole machinery of the Wheel starts turning. 'Now is the last chance. Run for it! ' I can also elaborate that for you if you'd like. Chance is in fact the cadences in the Music. Cadence also from cadere. He must return at that point, and such explanations of his survival as are explicitly set out must be given there – but the narrative is urgent, and must not be held up for elaborate discussions involving the whole 'mythological' setting. Now I knew to look at the etymology of the word 'urgent' because I've got 15 years of the study of the etymology of his works and a good nose for his idiosyncracies, hints and riddle methods. From urge. Old English wrecan "drive, hunt, pursue"), via a notion of "to weigh down on," hence "to insist, impel." The other possibility is that the PIE root is ureg- "to follow a track."* And...'mere hints' from Old English hentan "to seize," from Proto-Germanic hantijan (source also of Gothic hinþan "to seize"), related to hunt* (v.). So you can see why he drops those hints (using the word 'urgent') because the context he uses it in is the fall, and the Wheel of Fortune -which is the Hunt involving the higher powers. And that's how I was able to predict that 'attentive' would be form PIE root ten- "to stretch". See the other post. The Hunt which is hinted at throughout The Lord of the Rings. And that's the Wheel of Fortune. The whole 'mythological setting'. The Powers hunt each other. And that's the deeper symbolism of the Three Hunters. An eagle is described as a hunting eagle AFTER they cross the Naith. The eagles are hunting the bull, the Enemy. And then when the eagles rescue Frodo they are described as 'coming from the north'. If you don't care about his mythological setting and think it tedious what are you even doing on these boards? Tolkien is clearly being self-deprecating in his 'perhaps tedious'. I mean he spent 50 years working on his mythological setting. Clearly he doesn't find it tedious. But he certainly does find critics tedious because...? They don't look at the etymologies and understand his works. 'They always get things wrong' as he told Kilby. Like the 'experts' on here Mindill. Tolkien cared to the point of distraction* as Kilby pointed out. Another major thing to be gained from understanding Tolkien is it addresses a couple of other criticisms which fall under the umbrella 'he didn't live in the real world'. The first is that Tolkien has not included women and thinks they're unimportant. Well I've been stating that his whole mythological setting is centred on the Loathly Lady theme, the Battle of the Sexes and his marriage to Edith. And that centres around the mistreatment of women in both society and in relationships, sex, marriage, and it includes the Virgin Mary and religion too apropos the splits in the church, etc. That is, the misunderstanding of their place in God's order according to his beliefs and Faith as different yes, but nonetheless, EQUALS. The whole Loathly Lady theme of giving her what she wants and trusting her to not rule over you and only take equality. That's the I Love Sixpence which is part of my Prediction #2. The husband's complaint and supposedly the 'domineering' wife. That misunderstanding and confusion begins at the Discord of Melkor where the geometry is created and the handedness of that geometry begins (Ilúvatar's hand sequence). Why do you think so many characters raise their hands and arms? Why so many references to hands and this going on? See my homepage. That's the secret grammar. Tolkien's system. Nothing to see here move along. Facepalm. haha. On the contrary women are actually held in (slightly) higher regard than men because they have been given a raw deal in his eyes. Tolkien makes Goldberry the Eldest, not Bombadil. And there we return to 6 and 9 which those numbers symbolize (2 and 6 as well). Those numbers might just be numbers to you but they are symbols of gender inequality and lots of other things to Tolkien- including I might add the death of his Mother and her treatment. And here's a wee insight to add to the many in my posts. The conflicting claims to being eldest: Bombadil and Treebeard. Here's the rub, it's the claim itself which is important because that's part of the battle of the sexes, and the Hands of Ilúvatar and the Discords of Melkor. Go see my previous posts. The 7 stars for example. They are all female figures in the Histories. They are guiding stars and guide the men through the maze and through the Door to higher rational planes. Like his mother Mabel, his wife Edith and the Virgin Mary. She That is Fallen is the island star of Númenor. And there we have the link between stars and 'She'-That is Fallen and the link between The Star of the North which is restored from where it fell (the south) to the north. The island star of Númenor symbolizes Womankind and Stella Maris, Our Lady, Star of the Sea the Virgin Mary- which links to what I've just said about the guiding stars in Tolkien's life. And that links to Dante's Divine Comedy, Beatrice and Purgatorio. And that's why the geometry matters too. The geometry is the inner spiritual reality (the Music of the Spheres), the inner spiritual journey, which takes exterior manifestation. That's why we see Minas Tirith as obviously a reference to Dante's Purgatory. The Lord of the Rings IS Tolkien's Purgatorio because the Fellowship climbs a spiritual journey just like Dante, through 7 rational planes during the course of the Quest. And that manifests in the incarnation of Minas Tirith with its seven levels and its plan clearly suggesting the classical labyrinth. The plane of wrath is the Moria sequence with the Balrog. It's a medieval symbolic landscape after the Arthurian Romances and views found in the Ancient World. Tolkien's purgatory was his forced separation from Edith during which time he mostly created his geometry. Elrond who withholds Arwen's hand from Aragorn who must prove his worth, symbolizes Friar Francis. Aragorn is Tolkien in this framework. At the end of this purgatory Aragorn marries Arwen and Tolkien married Edith. But none of this matters right? Just the small matter of Tolkien's Catholic faith, his mother who died young in tragic circumstances, leaving the children orphaned, and his beloved wife and soul-mate Edith. The Star of the North, which is instrumental in moving the Wheel of Fortune and turning the world the right way up again is given by Silmarien from the Akallabêth. A woman. His entire geometry and narrative cycle on the restoration of the woman to her rightful place (aka transformation of the Loathly Lady into the Lovely Lady) is a statement that 'men should treat women better' and understand that they are different but equal and as a note to self for Tolkien, that he should listen to his wife! And the final beat in the narrative of the Akallabêth is the seizure of the sceptre from Tar-Miriel, another attack on women. And if that's not enough of a hint the Akallabêth translates as 'She That is Fallen', 'The Downfallen'. If none of that is important, well...you'll just have to put up with the shoddy critiques of his works by the oak camp, people who don't understand Tolkien at all and in fact don't even care when offered compelling evidence and argument. Much easier to file it all under 'conspiracy' and 'keyboard warrior'. A derivative of that is that I get to fight the likes of Germain Greer on her own territory of writer's technique while simultaneously pointing out that Tolkien was still voted the most popular in that famous Waterstones Book of the Century poll by people who are not literary critics at all. She described TLotR as Nazi-tosh'...and that Tolkien winning the poll was a 'bad dream'. And she's a feminist too- so any criticism of Tolkien not respecting women is roundly trounced by the previous point as well. Germain Greer is a person who likes to stand like the guard on the front gate of the Literary Establishment- she's a snob and a proper little shirrif who hasn't done her homework on Tolkien. A.k.a the oak from the lit camp. This is what it is, Mr. Baggins, said the leader of the Shirriffs, a two-feather hobbit: ‘You’re arrested for Gate-breaking, and Tearing up of Rules, and Assaulting Gate-keepers, and Trespassing, and Sleeping in Shire-buildings without Leave, and Bribing Guards with Food.’ I guess I must be with Mr. Baggins with his clickbait. Again I'm in good company. //grin Tolkien knew about Gatekeepers..don't we all? The World turns twice during the LotR and in that it appears to be turning on its head. Hence Sam's words in Mordor. Sam reeled, clutching at the stone. He felt as if the whole dark world was turning upside down. So great was the shock that he almost swooned, but even as he fought to keep a hold on his senses, deep inside him he was aware of the comment: 'You fool, he isn't dead, and your heart knew it. Don't trust your head, Samwise, it is not the best part of you. The trouble with you is that you never really had any hope. Now what is to be done? ' Fur the moment nothing, but to prop himself against the unmoving stone and listen, listen to the vile orc-voices. The head thinks it knows where UP is but the heart knows better and that's why Sam's heart is instrumental in the journey and why he was chosen to accompany Frodo by Gandalf. This is a reference to the machinery turning the world on its head which is at work. Sam is one of the 'attentive' ones. In other words, he's got a good heart. That's the geometric language and 'the path of the heart' which I understand after a LOT of work and you don't after doing NO work. Seems like a reasonable outcome. The whole world is confused. 9 is up and 6 is down. If you understood the 6 and 9 you would understand that they are the two spirals of the Two Trees that go up and down to heaven and hell. The vile orc voices are those people who don't understand 6 from 9, up from down. Got some big news for ya'll. The map of the Lord of the Rings is a symbolic landscape and can only be properly understood if you TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN to read it. But hey ho...not listenin don't care...la la la. You're actually looking at a map much like the medieval T-O maps or this one he drew- but one in which the symbolic forms are much more cunningly disguised. Here have a fish //throws Mindil a fish. The spiritual realities were turned on their head at the Downfall, the Akallabêth. That inner spiritual reality, that confusion is incarnate in the symbolic map. And when the world (the Wheel of Fortune) turns twice by 90 degrees, turning on its head, it actually rights itself because...? It was already turned on is head to start with- at the Downfall. And that's Tolkien's implementation of the Eucatastrophe. Where the apparent inevitable fall to certain disaster produces the happy TURN. And that my friend is why you should care about 6 and 9. His machinery is probably the coolest thing in literature, period. You can see the overall structure of the Eucatastrophe, the 7 rational planes of the spiritual journey and the machinery of the TURN in the words he chooses to end On Fairy Stories, the seminal essay of his. Even modern fairy-stories can produce this effect sometimes. It is not an easy thing to do; it depends on the whole story which is the setting of the turn, and yet it reflects a glory backwards. A tale that in any measure succeeds in this point has not wholly failed, whatever flaws it may possess, and whatever mixture or confusion of purpose. ... Far more powerful and poignant is the effect in a serious tale of Faërie. In such stories when the sudden “turn” comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through. “Seven long years I served for thee, The glassy hill I clamb for thee, The bluidy shirt I wrang for thee, And wilt thou not wauken and turn to me?” He heard and turned to her. 'the setting'. The same mythological setting he mentions. Yes it was written before TLotR but his machinery is right there form the start from late King Edward's and the Book of Ishness. Tolkien's system was most influenced by Plato and Dante. Numerology...patterns not important? So the rhyme of lore is not important then? Clue to patterns in poetry = Rhyme. Rhymes being important for meaning and mnemonics. And stress patterns- clue is in the word 'patterns' haha. Ancient tradition dude. D'you want me to spell if out for ya? Tall ships and tall kings Three times three, What brought they from the foundered land Over the flowing sea? Seven stars and seven stones And one white tree. And that demonstrates my point. Lore was passed on from one generation to the next and the decline of the Line of Kings illustrates that, if you study it. Fat chance. Lore was passed on often orally- see ancient traditions. And you would be one of those who didn't think patterns were important. Oh dear. Or the fact that there are 3, 7 and 9 rings with which the Enemy desires to bring about the Fall of the Free Peoples which just so happen to match the stations of the cross where Christ fell? Got lots of evidence for that- oh from 4 or more years ago now. Tolkien is just being quaint isn't he when he uses numbers cough... Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them, In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. Do you think it's a coincidence that the lines 'sky, die' lie' rhyme then? That's a pattern btw. If you understood the 6 and 9 you would understand that they are the two spirals of the Two Trees that go up and down to heaven, the sky, and hell in Tolkien's system of geometry and rational planes- the same journey that the Fellowship take which manifests as the city of Purgatory in his symbolic landscape. And up is where you go to heaven and DO NOT die. And that's the same confusion I just mentioned regards Sam and up and down and the map etc. The Enemy's lies at the Downfall..convince Men that when you go to heaven in the sky you die..there is only everlasting death. The 'Shadows' lie...hmmm..the Shadow is the Enemy and he lies huh? Extracting meaning from a pattern that Tolkien the poet made. Fancy that. Ever considered the possibility of a homopheme in the two instances of the word lie there? And that process of confusion produces the symbolic map of TLotR. The Enemy has convinced the World that down is up and up is down. Not knowing your ar from your elbow yaknow? Hence why we need to read the map upside down. For the believer, the Faithful (Silmarien's heirs led the Faithful) believe the opposite, that the Door leads to the After LIFE. And you'll find that I said exactly the same stuff about orientation and confusion in my post regarding The Riddles of the Hidden Images in the West Gate. And when the World turns on its head up and down are reversed and the Loathly Lady goes through her transformation into the Lovely Lady. It's all consistent because Tolkien is consistent. And you can also see the three lines ending three, sea, tree also rhyme in the Rhyme of Lore. The rhyme of Lore is kinda important to the 'mythological setting' and it has this numerology all over it and those God awful patterns. The 3 times 3? Each turn consists of 3 turns (see my essays) and there are 3 turns which move the Wheel of Fortune. There's your 3 times 3 which are symbolized by the 9 ships. 3 x 3 = turns within turns, wheels within wheels c.f Saruman's attempt to counterfeit Tolkien's narrative machinery with his wheels and his desire to "become a "Power" (The Powers of the Tetramorph) and the 'wheels within wheels' in the Book of Ezekiel which is where medieval culture derived the Tetramorph. And then those taxis, 3 of em. So many 3s...could be a pattern. And the origin of Frodo's cryptic words in Mordor 'the third turn may turn the best' which you'll find for good reason at the top of my homepage. Tolkien's Powers on the 4 compass points. And that Wheel restores the Woman to her rightful place, the Loathly Lady turns to the Lovely Lady. The Ring poem is 8 lines long. They appear at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings for a reason. It's rather important. And there's those rather dull numbers in it. There are 6 books because...? 8 + 6 is the form of the Sonnet (Petrarch again Classical education). The rhyme scheme is ababacca. And you'll find that rhyme scheme to be one of the forms listed for the 8 line block in the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. And what happens between those two blocks of 8 and 6 lines in sonnets? There is this thing called THE TURN. All good writers that use the form know this. See my website. The same turn that the Wheel of Fortune makes and Fairy Stories should do. According to the traditional form of the sonnet, the 8 lines are 'the problem'. And the 6 lines are 'the solution'. The problem is the Enemy and the Rings, and the One Ring, which is the subject of the 8 line section of the Ring verse. The Enemy seeks to separate Man from God for ever. The Enemy seeks the 'closed circle' that Tolkien speaks (see the quote below) of which is a state of no repentance. The closed circle is a prison. That closed circle is symbolized, in the form, by the two matching lines ending in the word 'lie'. Those two lines are identical. That symbolizes an unchanging state between them. The prison I spoke of. But, if you listen carefully and are 'attentive' enough, there is a key, a way out of this prison. The key is in being able to tell the difference between two homophemes, that is, the ability to be able to spot a lie, a riddle, as it turns out in fact. And that requires you to know your lore- hence the Rhyme of Lore and the importance of patterns. And that requires you to LISTEN before you speak. The two lines end in the two homophemes 'lie', in the sense of to lay on the ground and 'lie', in the sense of to tell an untruth. Homophemes are the subject of his poem Lit and Lang from Songs of the Philologists in which oaks cannot tell the difference between the two. Oaks, otherwise known as 'experts' who do not ever look up an etymological definition because they KNOW_it_ALL. Sound familiar? That's why it appears in the Songs for the PHILOLOGISTS. And that's why they end up in hell- the closed circle. And here's me wasting my time leaving the path of wisdom eh? ha. Poetic form and meaning. Ever encounter that at all? It's all there like a damned good writer should have. And he even uses the same homopheme in the poem Oliphaunt which is delivered by Sam in Mordor...right under your very nose, just to really give y'all a helping hand. From that closed circle there is no progress or escape. The Enemy seeks to stop all growth and change. It's a prison. Rather like the circle, the tomb of the barrow and rather like these forums if you don't watch yourselves :-D. And the solution is the narrative of the 6 books and the spiritual journey through those rather tiresome planes up to heaven. So we have 8 + 6 form of the sonnet. We could extend the analysis and look at the rhyming scheme in the 6 Books and determine which of the available Petrarchan sonnet forms it is modeled on (cdecde or cdccdc or cdcdcd), and indeed what the 'rhyme' is. The TURN between the two blocks is the Downfall at which point all roads becomes bent...into a circle- the same circle in the poem symbolizing the One Ring. As far as we can go back the nobler part of the human mind is filled with the thoughts of sibb, peace and goodwill, and with the thought of its loss. We shall never recover it, for that is not the way of repentance, which works spirally and not in a closed circle; we may recover something like it, but on a higher plane. [Letter 96 To Christopher Tolkien 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford] I dunno..maybe Tolkien just likes babbling on about spirals and rational planes...who knows huh? The 'works spirally' bit? You guessed it. The Spindle of Necessity from Plato leading up to heaven and down to hell and the 6 and 9 again. And that numerology (oops I did a swear word) also extends to the 6 books- the same symbolism the downward spiral to seeming certain disaster which is followed by the Happy turn, which turns the 6 into a 9. That's why Tolkien chose 6 Books peeps. The interesting thing is not that he chose 6 Books but that 6 is the downward spiral evident in the course of the narrative towards seeming destruction. It's not JUST a number- it's the narrative. D'OH. So, if you want to continue reading the map the wrong way up, then don't trouble yourself with trivialities like 6 and 9. No, it won't ruin your enjoyment of anything at all really, it never did mine for decades, happy as Larry me, still am, //smokin but at the same time those people should be wary of taking absurd positions like I'm a Tolkien expert and I already know you're wrong (in the most conceited manner) without even having to read what you're going to say or have written. And speaking of stanza lengths being important to Tolkien -his influence in Dante 'the supreme poet'. See Tolkien's letter regarding his curious interest in stanza length. I can get a carbon copy made. It has 101 twelve-line stanzas. It is (I think) evidently inspired by the loss in infancy of a little daughter. It is thus in a sense an elegy; but the author uses the then fashionable (it was contemporary with Chaucer) dream-framework, and uses the occasion to discuss his own theological views about salvation. Though not all acceptable to modern taste, it has moments of poignancy; and though it may in our view be absurdly complex in technical form, the poet surmounts his own obstacles on the whole with success. The stanzas have twelve lines, with only three rhymes: an octet of four couplets rhyming a b, and a quartet rhyming b c. In addition each line has internal alliteration (it occasionally but rarely fails in the original; the version is inevitably less rich). And if that is not enough, the poem is divided into fives. Within a five-stanza group the chief word of the last line must be echoed in the first line of the following stanza; the last line of the five-group is echoed at the beginning of the next; and the first line of all is to wind up echoed in the last line of all. But oddly enough there are not 100 stanzas, but 101. In group XV there are six stanzas. It has long been supposed that one of these was an uncancelled revision. But there are also 101 stanzas in Sir Gawain. The number was evidently aimed at, though what its significance was for the author has not been discovered. The grouping by fives also connects the poem with Gawain, where the poet elaborates the significance: the Five Wounds, the Five Joys, the Five virtues, and the Five wits. Enough of that. I hope you are not bored. I hope you too are not bored Mindil. Tolkien wouldn't even have bothered coming on here and telling the 'experts' on here would he? ha. But it's rather important to his mythology because every single poem he wrote in his mythology uses the number system based, at core, on Dante's. So there's Tolkien the world expert in philology and professor leaving the path of wisdom again. Along with Dante, probably the most accomplished poet in history. The other thing is sex. There's a lot of it in his works. It is after all, according to my theory, about his relationship with Edith. To be honest I didn't really want to find sex..yaknow? heh.. I kinda tried to avoid it..haha...but it's undeniable. And then I read Kilby's book and Tolkien's statement about him writing a 'couple' of sex stories and then I found the images in the West Gate cliff face and others too I might add. I've made 102 predictions so I'm fairly sure I'm right and you aren't. So that sets straight anyone who thinks there is no sex in Tolkien, that Tolkien didn't live in the 'real world' derrr including those in the Game of Thrones crowd who like to say such things. Well...I dunno...thinking about all of this...I think people should have left Dante's Divine Comedy and Shakespeare's oeuvre well alone, and not left the path of wisdom and done all of that damned analysis of them over the centuries. Dum de dum dum dumb. I might have taken on a slightly 'smart ar' sarcastic tone in this reply but I assure you I only come on the boards to talk Tolkien and be respectful of people. Peace. monks Last edited by monks; 08-04-2020 at 02:55 PM.