The Renunciation of Despair

“They Say that Men Who Go Warring Afield Look Ever to the Next Hope of Food and Of Drink.” Pippin Makes the Acquaintance of Beregond of the Guard.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 744-745

After his gruelling encounter with the Lord Denethor, Steward of Gondor, Pippin unsurprisingly responds to this experience as would any self respecting hobbit. He looks for something to eat. The tower bell has just struck 9 o’clock and Pippin stands alone in the street.

“Just the time for a nice breakfast, by the open window in spring sunshine,” he says to himself and immediately we are reminded of Bilbo on the adventure that we know as The Hobbit. Pippin reminds more of Bilbo than of Frodo. It is unlikely that Thorin Oakenshield would have praised Frodo for his pleasure in the matters of the table as he did Bilbo but he would have recognised in Pippin a kindred spirit to his friend and travelling companion. And he would not have mistaken Pippin’s love for food and drink for inadequacy in martial valour. Nor does Beregond of the Guard when Pippin asks him where he might find something to eat.

“Beregond looked at him gravely. ‘An old campaigner, I see,’ he said. ‘They say that men who go warring afield look ever to the next hope of food and drink; though I am not a travelled man myself.”

Tolkien, an army veteran himself of the First World War (1914-18), knew of what he spoke. It is thought that one of the things that encouraged young men in Britain to sign up at the outbreak of the war in 1914 was the guarantee of a good meal every single day. My father, himself a veteran of the Normandy landings in the Second World War of June 1944, and of the battles that followed them, used to speak of how the officers would never sit down for their own meal in the evening until they had made sure that the men under their command had eaten theirs.

Unbeknown to himself Pippin has already eaten breakfast in the company of the Steward of Gondor. As he says to Beregond it was “no more than a cup of wine and a white cake or two by the kindness of your lord”. To Pippin this was little more than a snack and hard earned because of Denethor’s interrogation but Beregond laughs and then replies that Pippin has broken his fast “as well as any man in the Citadel, and with greater honour.” It is worth noting here that the character of Denethor that Tolkien draws is very different from that created by Peter Jackson. I am sure that my readers will remember the scene in the film in which Denethor consumes a lavish meal served by a Pippin who is trying to hide his distaste as Faramir leads his men into battle in a suicidal cavalry charge. This is far from Tolkien’s creation. Denethor is no glutton. If anything he is a man incapable of escaping the bleak austerity of a city under siege. In the last post on this blog we spoke of Denethor’s wanhope, a state of mind to quote Chaucer, “that is despair of the mercy of God that comes sometimes of too much outrageous sorrow and sometimes of too much dread”.

Pippin, like Gandalf as we have thought about in recent posts, is a lover of life. By this we do not mean that he will “eat, drink and be merry” for all that he has to look forward to is death. Pippin does eat and drink, and he is certainly merry, but he does so in celebration of life. Pippin knows deep sorrow. He saw Boromir fall and he carries the pain of that sorrow with him wherever he goes and has offered himself in service to Boromir’s father in payment of the debt he feels he owes. But Pippin does this because in all things he joyfully affirms the life that Boromir laid down for him. Maybe that is why he was able to see the mirth in Gandalf that always lies just below the surface. Maybe that is why he is drawn to Gandalf. Maybe that is also why Gandalf is drawn to him.

“Opposing The Fire That Devours and Wastes With The Fire That Kindles.” Gandalf Kindles a Flame in The Hearts of The Free Peoples of Middle-earth.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 741-743

Readers of my blog will know that it is my custom to make the heading of each post a quotation taken from the passage in The Lord of the Rings that I am thinking about. In this post, the last in this short series on Gandalf in which I have been thinking about the question that Pippin asked of himself as he stood between Gandalf and Denethor, “What was Gandalf?”, I have taken my quotation from a different source.

To help me in my reflections I have been using an essay that Tolkien wrote but never published, and that his son, Christopher, included in Unfinished Tales. The title of the essay is The Istari, and can be found between pp. 502-520 in that volume. In that essay Tolkien wrote this of Gandalf:

“Warm and eager was his spirit (and it was enhanced by the ring Narya) for he was the Enemy of Sauron, opposing the fire that devours and wastes with the fire that kindles, and succours in wanhope and distress; but his joy, and his swift wrath, were veiled in garments grey as ash, so that only those who knew him well glimpsed the flame that was within.” (Unfinished Tales p.505 Harper Collins 1998)

I hope that you, like me, will have found your heart warmed by this description of Gandalf, and that thoughts about many passages in The Lord of the Rings will have been evoked as you read it. Indeed, so much was fire associated with Gandalf that when he kindled fire with a word of command in the snows of the Misty Mountains to save the company from freezing to death he declared to them:

“If there are any to see, then I at least am revealed to them… I have written Gandalf is here in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin.” (The Fellowship of the Ring p. 283)

Perhaps it was this spirit that Círdan of the Grey Havens recognised when Gandalf first arrived in Middle-earth around the year 1,000 in the Third Age, for it was Círdan who gave him Narya, the ring of fire, that was at that time in his possession. Círdan had received Narya from Celebrimbor in order to keep it safe from Sauron but he never used it, knowing that he had no particular affinity to the ring, that there was nothing in his spirit that would mean that he could use the ring’s fiery capabilities. He knew that this quality of the ring would be needed in the struggle against Sauron and in recognising Gandalf’s “joy and swift wrath”, hidden though these qualities were beneath his “garments grey as ash”, he knew that he had found the true keeper of the ring of fire.

Gandalf opposed Sauron in two ways. On occasion, when necessity demanded it, he would literally fight fire with fire, opposing the power of darkness with light. In The Lord of the Rings the occasion in which we see this most clearly is in the battle against the Balrog of Moria, the “the flame of Udûn”, when Gandalf declares himself as a “servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor”. (Fellowship p.322). The Balrog knows what he means by these words and we read that the fire in it seems to die as it hears them. After a long struggle the Balrog meets its end at Gandalf’s hands and although Gandalf gives up his life in this battle it is the flame of Anor that prevails and Gandalf receives his life again from Iluvatar.

Gandalf can wield fire in battle when necessary but for much of his time in Middle-earth it is the second way in which he opposes Sauron that is most prevalent. He opposes the fire that destroys, not in open conflict but “with the fire that kindles and succours”. Gandalf warms the hearts of the peoples of Middle-earth.

Tolkien uses a word that is rarely used in the English language to describe the condition of so many that seek to oppose the Dark Lord. It is the word, wanhope. We still use the word, wan, to speak of something that is a poor version of the best, but wanhope is a stronger word yet. In Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale (c.1400), we read:”now comes wanhope that is despair of the mercy of God that comes sometimes of too much outrageous sorrow and sometimes of too much dread” (my translation of Chaucer’s Middle English). I am sure that Tolkien had the good parson’s words in mind in using this word in Unfinished Tales and in describing the state of mind of many who despair of prevailing in the struggle against Sauron. Gandalf was able to save Théoden from wanhope but failed to do so in Denethor. Théoden renounces his despair while Denethor gives into his. Eventually it is the unexpected and unlooked for good fortune found in the person of Gollum in the Cracks of Doom that will save Middle-earth from destruction but it is Gandalf’s tireless work that means that there is a world worth saving.

“Is This The Only Way, Sméagol?” Frodo Prepares to Enter Shelob’s Lair.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 938, 939

By the time Frodo arrives at the foul smelling entrance to Shelob’s Lair he is already a dead man. Some might call him a dead man walking. Usually that means that others intend to kill him or have him killed. But in Frodo’s case there is a sense in which he has already given up on his own life.

Readers might remember the moment when he arrived at the Black Gate of Mordor and found it shut and impassable.

“His face was grim and set, but resolute. He was filthy, haggard and pinched with weariness, but he cowed no longer, and his eyes were clear. ‘I said so, because I purpose to enter Mordor, and I know no other way. Therefore I shall go this way. I do not ask anyone to go with me.”

Indeed we might go even further back to the moment when the Fellowship was broken and Frodo resolved to make the journey alone. This was not a choice he made out of hubris although he might have developed a feeling that only he could accomplish the task. But after the fall of Gandalf in Moria Frodo lost what hope he might have had. Now he knew that his mission was impossible, that it was beyond him. That it was beyond any of the company. That the Ring was too much for any of them. Of that last certainty he was even more sure after the treachery of Boromir.

So Frodo is hopeless. What I mean by this is that he does not expect to succeed. All he knows is that he is not allowed to give in. He has to keep on going. A few weeks ago we thought about a moment outside the haunted fortress of Minas Morgul when he was tempted to despair having just witnessed the hosts of the Lord of the Nazgûl march past him on their way to besiege Minas Tirith. On that occasion it was the Shire that called to him from a deep unconquered place within his soul, a place that lay deeper even than his despair. And Tolkien told us that “he even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do”.

So when Frodo asked Gollum whether the foul smelling tunnel that lay ahead of them was the only way it was not because he wished to discuss options. And if Gollum had replied that it was the only way, but that what lay before him was a monster, so terrible, that he had little or no chance of getting past it, it would have made little difference to him. We began this piece by describing him as a dead man walking. He has got past the stage of wondering whether he is going to get through this whole thing alive. He simply has to do his duty.

And he has little interest in whether Gollum is trustworthy or not. He has not put his trust in Gollum because he believes Gollum to be worthy of it. He has got past that as well. Sam is angered by Gollum, believing that he is going to betray them. Frodo knows deep within himself that his destiny is bound up with Gollum’s, perhaps in that same secret place within that took him past the despair he felt outside Minas Morgul, that same unconquered place that the darkness still cannot reach. And so he says to Sam:

It’s no good worrying about him now,.. We couldn’t have got so far, not even within sight of the pass, without him, and so we’ll have to put up with his ways. If he’s false, he’s false.”

As we have seen, and will see on other occasions, this grim determination, remarkable though it is, cannot be not enough. He would not have got far without Sam, whose cheerful optimism keeps him going through every hardship; and he would not have got far without Gollum whose knowledge of the way into Mordor is essential to the mission. But without his grim determination that goes deeper than any hope he would not be standing here. He would not be about to walk into Shelob’s Lair. The only way into Mordor.

We Are Not Bound For Ever to the Circles of the World, and Beyond Them There is More Than Memory. The Death of Aragorn and Arwen.

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When Arwen made her choice it was with the greatest of men standing before her in his glory. It was Aragorn that she chose even as she bade the twilight farewell. But Elrond knew that the day would come at the ending when her choice would seem hard.

The years of Aragorn’s life were long beyond that of his people. He was a Númenorean in whom the blood of kings ran true “yet at last he felt the approach of old age and knew that the span of his life-days was drawing to an end, long though it had been.”

This was the point in his existence at which Ar-Pharazôn, the last king of Númenor, sought to grasp hold of immortality for himself by launching an invasion of the Undying Lands. He believed that the Valar withheld the gift of immortality from Men and gave it to Elves maliciously. Indeed he believed that his own mortality and death was a kind of punishment. And although the followers of Elendil rejected Ar-Pharazôn’s rebellion, in the years of Gondor’s decline they too did all that they could to extend their lives. It was Pippin who gazed in wonder at the great stone city of Minas Tirith even as it was falling into decay with empty houses in every street. “They were silent, and no footsteps rang on their wide pavements, nor voice was heard in their halls, nor any face looked out from door or empty window.”

So Aragorn reaches the moment in life in which a choice must be made. He could choose the sullen resentment of Gondor in its long decline and do all that lay within his considerable power to extend his existence for as long as possible. Or he might even choose the way of rebellion as did Ar-Pharazôn or the Witch King of Angmar. But he chooses to embrace his mortality and not to rail against it.

When Arwen realises that she is about to lose Aragorn she suddenly understands the bitterness of Ar-Pharazôn and pities him. “If this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive.”

Aragorn recognises that this is the greatest of tests but he bids her not to be overthrown at it who renounced both the Shadow and the Ring long before. “In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.”

In the early years of the church the Fathers taught that the life of faith begins with the renunciation of despair. This is the great renunciation that opens the way for the daily embrace of goodness, beauty and truth. It is a way that looks the reality of our mortality full in the face and chooses not to be afraid. It is a dying before we die but it is a choice to live. It is the choice not to hold onto life until it becomes stretched out thin. Théoden made this choice when he stepped out of his chair in which he had been withering away and embraced life after the manner of his glorious ancestors. Gollum, on the other hand,  chose the misery of endless existence. Denethor expressed his despair through suicide trying to take Faramir with him. Aragorn turns his face courageously to his mortality and trusts the One who calls him. He does not know what lies ahead. He does not know his own destiny but trusts that love and goodness have the last word.

Arwen is heartbroken at her loss and she is not so sure. Yet she too embraces the mortality that was her choice laying herself to rest on the hill of Cerin Amroth where she chose Aragorn long ago. In a comment on last week’s blog post Tom Hillman suggested that Arwen’s choice might open the door for her people to a destiny that lies beyond the circles of the world. It is a beautiful thought that seems to me to be in keeping with a divine consummation that will unite all things earthly and heavenly. Faery will enrich Humanity and Humankind will open the way to Faery. Of course Tolkien was looking forward to the Incarnation in his great legendarium. The tale of Aragorn and Arwen points to this more than any of his tales. It is a tale of sorrow but not despair and it draws us into its hope even as Arwen’s last words to Aragorn are the calling of the name of his youth, “Estel, Estel!”

Hope! Hope!