LotR --- Appendix A: I, (v) -- The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen

[davem]

(As usual, this was written before reading Esty’s intro. Any repetitions of what she may have said are due to my laziness in not going back & editing them out.)

One of the easier parts of the Appendices to discuss, as we already know the main characters. On the surface there are both primary & secondary world echoes of the story of Aragorn & Arwen. In the primary world we have Tolkien’s own betrothal to Edith being delayed by Father Francis forbidding him to marry (or even to see Edith from the age of seventeen (?) when he found out about the relationship) till he came of age at twenty-one. In the secondary world there is the story of Beren & Luthien, where once again a father forbids his daughter’s suitor to wed her till he has achieved an apparently impossible task (gaining the Silmaril in Beren’s case, becoming king of Gondor & Arnor in Aragorn’s).

However, for all the apparent similarities, there is a difference between Elrond’s conditions & Thingol’s: as Hammond & Scull point out in LotR: A Reader’s Companion, Thingol’s motivation is to send Beren to his death; Elrond loves Aragorn like a son. He also loves Middle-earth, & is simply requiring Aragorn to show his committment to his people & his world, to fulfil his destiny. Whether he is overstepping the mark is something for the individual reader to decide.

The tale itself is one of happiness achieved against the odds, but it ends in loss & grief. The constant references to the pair’s ancestors, the way events from the earlier story repeat in this one seem to forshadow both the happiness & the loss in the later. H&S also point up the similarities between the story of Aragorn & King Arthur(fostered in secret by Elrond/Sir Ector to preserve his safety after the death of Arathorn/Uther). Both recieve a sword at the time they learn of their true identity. The Aragorn-Gandalf/Arthur-Merlin teacher-pupil relationship has also been pointed up.

As an aside, H&S give a quote from Tolkien’s essay ‘The Rivers & Beacon Hills of Gondor’ http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache...rvo/t/vt42.doc regarding the name Gilraen:

The meaning of Gilraen as a woman's name is not in doubt. It meant ‘one adorned with a tressure set with small gems in its network', such as the tressure of Arwen described in L.R. I 239.23 It may have been a second name given to her after she had come to womanhood, which as often happened in legends had replaced her true name, no longer recorded. More likely, it was her true name, since it had become a name given to women of her people, the remnants of the Numenoreans of the North Kingdom of unmingled blood. The women of the Eldar were accustomed to wear such treasures; but among other peoples they were used only by women of high rank among the "Rangers", descendants of Elros, as they claimed. Names such as Gilraen, and others of similar meaning, would thus be likely to become first names given to maid-children of the kindred of the "Lords of the Dunedain". The element raen was the Sindarin form of Q. raina ‘netted, enlaced'.

(The ‘tressure set with small gems in a network’ calls to mind my earlier Thread ‘Galadhremmin Ennorath’ http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=12132. )

I suppose the part of the Tale that some readers have most difficulty with is Aragorn’s death. He chooses to die & leave Arwen alone before he needs to. He could have spent several more years with her, but he left her to grieve for him. Tolkien did refer to the fact in one of his letters (H&S cite his unpublished letter to Eileen Elgar) that Arwen could have opted to die at the same time as her husband, but chose not to. Apparently though she had chosen mortality to wed Aragorn her Elven nature rebelled against actually dying.

Aragorn displays trust in something ‘beyond the Circles of the World’, but we are not told what it is, or what the nature of that other existence he looks forward to is. Perhaps it is part of the Gift of Eru to mortals that along with mortality comes a sense of there being ‘something’ more, but if it is then it seems Arwen doesn’t recieve that part of it. Death is an alien thing to her people, & only became a fact when Aragorn died. Her words are Tolkien’s most direct challenge to the idea of death being a ‘gift’ so far in the Legendarium:

There is now no ship that would bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Numenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive."

In fact, the final conversation between Aragorn & Arwen seems a pre-cursor to the Athrabeth. Death, of individuals & peoples, times & cultures, runs through this whole story. The Tale begins with the death of Arador & ends with the death of Arwen, & in the space of a few pages we see the deaths of Arathorn, Gilraen & Aragorn. What light & joy there is seems a temporary thing, overshadowed by darkness & grief.

Finally, was anyone else reminded of Beowulf - if only in terms of the structure of the Tale? it divides into two, with the first half focussing on the young hero’s exploits, his achieving fame & glory & finally ascending his throne. The second half focusses on his old age, his surrender of his rule & his death (followed by the grief of those who remain). I think that by deliberately echoing both the stories of the Christian Arthur & the Pagan Beowulf Tolkien has given us a perfect symbol of his mythology as a whole (as well, perhaps, of himself).