The death of Aragorn

“Your Fingers Would Remember Their Old Strength Better, if They Grasped a Sword-hilt.” Gandalf and The Healing of Théoden.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 671-677

It is in the record for the 2nd of March in the year 3019 of the Third Age in the Tale of Years that we are told explicitly, “Gandalf comes to Edoras and heals Théoden.” And yet what kind of healing is this when the patient will be dead within two weeks, falling in battle before Minas Tirith, slain by the Lord of the Nazgûl? Surely if Gandalf had left Théoden to the darkness of Meduseld and the care of Wormtongue he would have lived longer. At least until the armies of Saruman overcame the defence of Edoras and he fell in his own hall.

Last week we thought about how Gandalf overthrew Wormtongue, revealing for a brief moment something of his greatness and power, now made all the more potent after he was sent back again by command of Ilúvatar to complete his work in Middle-earth. And as Wormtongue grovels on the floor Gandalf calls Théoden to rise from his chair and leave the darkness of his hall. At first Théoden’s steps are uncertain and he is aided by Éowyn, sister of Éomer and Théoden’s niece. But even as he begins to walk again strength slowly returns to his body and as he steps out of the doors of his hall he takes in deep breaths of fresh cool air and feels the rain upon his face.

“It is not so dark here,” he says to Gandalf. And Gandalf replies, “Nor does age lie so heavily on your shoulders as some would have you think”

At Gandalf’s bidding Théoden casts aside his stick and draws himself up slowly, “as a man that is stiff from long bending over some dull toil”.

Théoden calls for Éomer to be released from his imprisonment, imposed upon him after his disobedience in riding north to deal with the orc company that were going to Isengard bearing Pippin and Merry as prisoners and for threatening death to Wormtongue in Théoden’s presence. As they wait for Éomer to come Gandalf secretly takes Théoden into his confidence about Frodo’s mission to take the Ring to Mordor and as he does so “the light shone brighter in Théoden’s eyes, and at the last he rose from his seat to his full height”.

For a brief moment Théoden is stirred by the tale of Frodo’s bravery and the hope of victory but soon he becomes aware again of the slenderness of that hope and slumps back into a seat. Like Frodo in the study at Bag End a year before he bemoans his fate that such evil things should come to him instead of the peace that old age has earned and he clutches at his knees with his wrinkled hands.

“Your fingers would remember their old strength better, if they grasped a sword hilt,” said Gandalf.

Éomer offers Théoden his own sword and new strength surges through the body of the old man. He swings the sword aloft and cries out a mighty call to arms.

“Forth Eorlingas!”

The King of Rohan will go to war at the head of his men.

Glory lies ahead of him in the last days of his life and he will be remembered as the greatest King of Rohan since Eorl himself rode victoriously to the relief of Gondor many years before. But the question remains to be answered. What kind of healing does Gandalf perform when the patient’s life is almost certainly shortened by it? Was not Théoden right in saying that he had earned the right to peace in his old age?

It was Abraham Lincoln, another man whose life was violently foreshortened, who said that “it’s not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years”. Such a spirit seems to run very much counter to the contemporary desire to extend life for as long as possible, even to achieve some form of immortality. And this is not only a desire of our own time. Tolkien gave us the Kings of Númenor who were seduced by Sauron to resent death as a form of unjust punishment who tried to seize immortality by force. Elendil’s faithfulness in opposing his king and Sauron meant an acceptance of death but also, as Aragorn was one day to say to Arwen that “we are not bound to the circles of the world, and beyond them there is more than memory”. Théoden, in accepting his healing, foreshortens his life but in those last days he lives that life to its fulness.

Théoden and The Lord of the Nazgûl

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It is but thirteen days since Gandalf came to Edoras and restored a shrivelled old man to life and to vigour. Now his body lies broken upon the field of battle and life ebbs swiftly away. It is Merry who is near him at the end, who hears the words of a man at peace.

“Farewell, Master Holbytla!” he said. “My body is broken. I go to my fathers. And even in their mighty company I shall not now be ashamed. I felled the black serpent. A grim morn, and a black day, and a golden sunset!”

And we remember, that day after day, the wizened creature enslaved by the leechcraft of Grima Wormtongue had to look upon the image of his mighty forefather, Eorl the Young, as he rode to victory and glory long ago and so won the plains of Calenardhon for his people as a gift from the Steward of Gondor. Doubtless this torture was a part of Wormtongue’s purpose as the shame Théoden felt worked its way into his heart and so unmanned him. It was from this that Gandalf freed him so that he could lead his people into battle, casting down the chieftain of the Haradrim and his serpent banner and driving his forces from the field. And it was from this that Gandalf freed him so that he could lie broken before the wreck of the Lord of the Nazgûl and the foul monster that the Ringwraith had ridden through the air into the battle.

If Gandalf had failed to heal him or if he had chosen to leave him in his chair then doubtless Théoden would have held onto life a little longer. For many it is this clinging onto life that is regarded as the final work of old age and when the weakness and the pain of the last days of life is borne with courage as it was by Pope John Paul II who allowed the world to watch his final struggle and, as I remember it, by my own father who bore great pain with quiet dignity in his last days, then this is praiseworthy. But to hold onto life merely for the sake of extending our existence just a short while longer is hardly an achievement of any merit.

At the ending of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen Aragorn speaks to Arwen as he draws near to the end of his great life. Arwen finds the choice of her husband to lay down his life a hard one but Aragorn replies, “Take counsel with yourself, beloved, and ask whether you would indeed have me wait until I wither and fall from my high seat unmanned and witless.”

Aragorn chooses the grace given to the Númenorians by the Valar of old to lay down their lives freely and so entrust themselves to the mystery of death unafraid. “In sorrow we must go,”  he says, “but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”

Aragorn lays down his life in freedom in the glory of his kingship. Théoden lays down his life in freedom upon the field of battle in the glory of a promise kept and his people raised from shame to honour. It is this freedom that is the essence of both in the ending of their lives. At the end of his great book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz, puts it like this, “Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.” Frankl recognised that our choice to find life as meaningful is the greatest one that we make and that we must make it daily. Théoden made the choice on that day in Edoras, made it again on the Pelennor Fields and so he ends his life in peace.