Marriage

“They Go Only Because They Would Not Be Parted From Thee- Because They Love Thee.” Some Thoughts on Éowyn’s Unrequited Love For Aragorn

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 765-767

Éowyn has tried in every way that she can think to persuade Aragorn to take her with him on what she is convinced is little more than a suicide mission through the Paths of the Dead into Gondor, laying bare her soul to him, of her fear of remaining within a cage for the whole of her life, whether long or short. And at the last all she hears are these words:

“Stay! For you have no errand to the South.”

Aragorn has given up any attempt to be gentle. He knows that he is risking everything on this venture and that everything may well be lost. All his hopes and even his life itself and the lives of all who go with him. Nothing must stand between him and his effort to come to Minas Tirith in time before it falls to the forces of Mordor and this includes the desperate young woman who stands before him. She too must be swept aside and it must be done swiftly.

And so Éowyn is left with but one thing remaining that she can offer of herself. Her heart. She longs to be claimed by this hero and all she can hear and feel is his rejection. She heard him say that were his heart to be where it most desires to be it would “be wandering in the fair valley of Rivendell”. She did not hear Aragorn speak of Arwen but she fears that there might be someone else in his life. But she has come to believe that the only hope of the freedom for which she longs lies in his hands and that if he casts her aside then she is left with nothing. And at this moment it is this nothing that she fears above all.

So when Aragorn brutally commands her to stay in Rohan, that she has no errand to the South she speaks the words that she has kept hidden from him until now.

“Neither have those others who go with thee. They go only because they would not be parted from thee- because they love thee.”

Then, having given everything that she can give she turns away and vanishes from sight.

Does Éowyn really love Aragorn? Or does she only love what he represents for her? The possibility of achieving the freedom from captivity and degradation that she has come to hate and to fear? How many of us truly know our own hearts? Does this mean that none can really know whether they love another person or not? To fall in love is a glorious thing. Perhaps the most exalted state that any human being can ever achieve. But to go beyond this state that can become a thing desired in itself because it is so all consuming, so intoxicating, takes something greater than the action of falling into it. It requires a commitment to remain with another person through everything.

As a priest in the Church of England I have presided at many weddings over the years and time and time again I have felt a thrill run through my body when I have heard a couple promise to one another that they will love and cherish each other:

For better, for worse; for richer for poorer; in sickness and in health.

These are words of commitment that I know will be tested to the limit in the lives of everyone who speaks them aloud before many witnesses, and, I believe, before God. But perhaps one of the greatest gifts that someone can give to the world is a life that has been true to those promises, through all its tests and even through failure. Such a life, such a gift, can be a source of great strength to others who struggle through their own trials, that it is worth not giving up, that there remains something to hope for.

Later in the story Éowyn will respond to the declaration of love made by another man and we will read that “the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it”. I would add to these words that she understood her heart as it appeared to her at that moment, but she would come to understand it even better after years together with the man that she chose. This is true for all of us and as with Éowyn, though not by the path that she will walk that is unique to her, we will go through many trials and through many joys to the day when we can truly understand our hearts.

Éowyn and Faramir Declare Their Love as Éowyn Understands her Heart at Last

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Éowyn receives her brother’s invitation to join the triumph at the Field of Cormallen after the fall of Sauron but she does not go. Once more the Warden of the Houses of Healing becomes anxious about her unhappiness and bids Faramir take time from his duties as Steward of Gondor to speak with her.

Faramir is a man of wise insight and he has learned much from the day he spent with Merry and so he says to her plainly:

“You do not go because only your brother called for you, and to look on the Lord Aragorn, Elendil’s heir, in his triumph would now bring you no joy. Or because I do not go, and you desire still to be near me. And maybe for both these reasons, and you yourself cannot choose between them. Éowyn, do you not love me, or will you not?”

In March 1941 Tolkien wrote a remarkable letter to his son, Michael, on the subject of marriage and relations between men and women. It is remarkable partly because it displays a closeness between father and son that is sadly very rare. Also because of its depth of insight. I think that most men on reading this letter would would wish they had enjoyed this closeness with their own father or that they could achieve it with their sons. Richard Rohr describes the general poverty of relations between fathers and sons as “The Father Wound”. Faramir has known this wound deeply but Tolkien, who never knew his own father shows that it need not be passed on to the next generation .

In the letter Tolkien writes about the Western romantic idea of courtly love in which a great lady would enjoy the devotion and admiration of young men, often expressed through poetry or deeds that would prove their love. A physical expression of the love was considered unacceptable although the two great Arthurian love stories of Guinevere and Lancelot and of Tristan and Isolde show that such relationships could move disastrously from the idealised form to the physical form. In his letter Tolkien also notes that to idealise a woman, to grant her some kind of divinity, does her no good at all. Tolkien describes this as “false and at best make believe. The woman is another fallen human being with a soul in peril.”

I refer to this, partly because I believe it to be Éowyn’s temptation. She desired the adoration of the greatest knight of his age and, with it, the adoration of all men and women. I also wonder if Faramir was tempted to idealise Éowyn. “Were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you.” Perhaps not, perhaps Faramir simply feels that he has to declare his love with as much passion as he can to make Éowyn see it. Thankfully for his own sake he never has to know what it would be like to love the Queen of Gondor without hope! Éowyn sees reality at last or, as Tolkien puts it so beautifully, “the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it”.

It is only possible to love flesh and blood although such love always points us beyond itself towards divine love which we glimpse in the temptation to idealise. Tolkien puts this powerfully in his letter. Every marriage, in a certain sense he writes, is a mistake. We could all find “more suitable mates”. It is possible to spend a whole lifetime either looking for the perfect mate or saying, “if only”. And we will never know. Even the best of marriages requires self-denial, perseverance and forgiveness. They require the decision to say the greatest, Yes, to reality, to the real person in front of us. I know that it has become popular to create our own wedding vows, as if by doing so we give the wedding ceremony more authenticity, but I become more deeply impressed by the vows of the old English Sarum Rite which is over five hundred years old and in which each person promises to “love and to cherish” for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part”. Both Éowyn and Faramir have to renounce some kind of idealised form of romantic love and commit themselves to the real person in front of them.