LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 09 - The Great River

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Heraclites was right about rivers: they mark much more than the boundary between earth and water, but between different modes of experience, perhaps even different ways of being. Along with his most famous phrase about stepping in rivers, Heraclites also left to posterity 130 other ‘fragments’ in which his philosophy is revealed. A few of the more relevant to this chapter are, I think:

This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now and ever shall be an ever-living Fire, with its measures kindling and its measures going out [20]

The sun is new every day [32]

You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you [41-42]

Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the other's death and
dying the other's life [67]

It rests by changing [83]

So why am I inflicting upon you all the fragmentary remains of a Greek philosopher who died 2500 years ago? Because it strikes me that these sentiments are extremely helpful in thinking through the importance of this chapter.

Tolkien is a writer obsessed with roads – more properly, with The Road. The journeys of his heroes take place on the Road as they move forward in a linear way through their life’s experiences. The Roads that they travel return them to their home, completing a circle, but still the journey is one that they must undertake on their own. To traverse a Road one must do so through dint of one’s own efforts. There are landmarks to achieve, miles to cross and resting points to reach. One cannot drift upon the Road of Life, but be an active participant. Travelling on rivers is entirely different. I have spent a lot of time canoeing the rivers in the land about my childhood home, and what I have learned about rivers is that travelling them is a more passive activity, particularly if one is going with the current, as the Fellowship is doing. Rivers do not turn back upon themselves or return to their source. With rivers, the journey is not yours but the river’s itself: unlike the material of Roads, the water is physically moving, bearing you along.

Rivers are thus all about change and flux, flow and impermanence. Heraclites knew this, and that is why he asserted that you can never step in the same river twice: not just because the water is always changing, but because you are always changing. The experience of being human is one of flux, of alteration, and of change. Tolkien knew this, which is why his Men and Hobbits are so different from the Elves, for whom change is anathema and to be avoided. It is only appropriate and right, I think, that the Fellowship leaves the unchanging – and even sterile – land of the Elves by travelling a River and once again entering into the flux and movement of human life, and living.

In this chapter I think we can see all the members of the Fellowhip in the process of change. The plot and tenor of the book – that ineffable thing called ‘tone’ – is certainly changing from one of adventurous brotherhood to the darker and more fragmentary pursuits and trials which await them. But the two characters in whom we can see this process most clearly are, I think, Frodo and Aragorn:

‘But the wearing is slow in Lórien,’ said Frodo. ‘The power of the Lady is on it. Rich are the hours, though short they seem, in Caras Galadhon, where Galadriel wields the Elven-ring’

‘Fear not!’ said a strange voice behind him. Frodo turned and saw Strider, and yet not Strider; for the weatherworn Ranger was no longer there. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes: a king returning from exile to his own land.

‘Fear not!’ he said. ‘Long have I desired to look upon the likenesses of Isildur and Anárion, my sires of old. Under their shadow Elessar, the Elfstone son of Arathorn of the House of Valandil Isildur’s son, heir of Elendil, has nought to dread!’

Then the light of his eyes faded, and he spoke to himself: ‘Would that Gandalf were here! How my heart yearns for Minas Anor and the walls of my own city! But whither shall I go?’

Frodo’s lament for Lórien is not only toching, but revelatory of a change in him. He is speaking now more like an Elf than a Hobbit. He is even speaking, although he doesn’t know it, in verse:

Rich are the hours
though short they seem
in Caras Galadhon
where Galadriel wields
the Elven-ring

The change in Aragorn is even more pronounced – but this is not a completed transformation. Just as Frodo is speaking in verse, but also in prose, so too is Aragorn still “Strider, and yet not Strider”. He has a moment of heroic revelation that raises the hackles on my neck every time, but it is short-lived: as soon as it is over he lapses ‘back’ into the uncertain Ranger of the North, in need of guidance from the Wizard. Quite wonderfully, his process of changing will not be completed until he undertakes another river journey upon the Anduin when he will save Minas Tirith. In that journey he not only will travel against the current, but he will do so without first consulting Gandalf about it. In this chapter we see him moving toward that moment, but not really there yet.

One particular fragment from Heraclites I think has profound resonance with the current chapter and discussion: “Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the other's death and dying the other's life”. Could there be any more accurate description of the tragedy that lies behind the journeys of Frodo and Aragorn? In Aragorn is, and will be united the bloodlines of the immortal Elves and mortal Men. The success of his quest will mean the “death and dying [of] the other’s [the Elves/Arwen] life”. The same for Frodo: with the destruction of the Ring there will come about the destruction of Lórien, and Frodo will pass from the mortal realm into the Timeless Land.

That all this is happening as they drift along the current of the greatest river in Middle-earth is perfectly appropriate. The process of change that they are caught up in is one that is beyond their control. They can choose to ride the river, to enter the current and let it bear them where they wish, but they cannot make that journey themselves, nor can they make the River follow any course but the one that it lays out for them. Of course, in the end, this process of change and flux must reach at least a momentary result or conclusion: in this case, the breaking of the Fellowship, which will itself become the beginning of their new journeys, the successful completion of which will again set off further journeys.

And on we go.