Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth

[Athrabeth]

Breogan, in many ways, I couldn't agree more. I much prefer viewing the cosmic structure of Arda strictly within the realm of myth, and more specifically, within the realm of Tolkien's myth. He made the rules, and I like them! I get a little nervous when he strays from efforts of expanding or deepening his creation and begins to change things around a bit too much. His universe is that strongly imagined for me that when "the real world" intrudes (even if I know it's Tolkien's real world), I resent it. I don't want to be disconnected from the myth in that way, and I certainly don't want "Earth history" and "Arda history" to somehow be connected either!

For me, the Athrabeth is first and foremost, a love story. The love between two lovers, between two brothers, between two friends. It's about loss and leaving, which, without the bonds of love, would mean so much less to us. Us? Yes, I think all of Tolkien's tales are about us, about the human condition in all its shades of light and dark. And that is message enough for me.

[Breogán]

Amen to that

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Breogán]

My vision of the Athrabeth http://www.thehalloffire.net/forum/modu ... _photo.php

[truehobbit]

I agree that Tolkien's greatest strength is in depicting the human condition with a compassionate and understanding heart. That's what I mostly like him for, I think.
I also think that's what he meant to do, the reason he tried so hard to keep obvious references to real life religion out of his writings. If all you want is ME without linking it back to the real world, you are fully in line with what Tolkien hoped his stories would achieve.
But his stories still contain an ethical mindset, it's just that the idea is that the reader absorbs this subliminally. So, I still think it's interesting and worthwhile to compare the lines of thought and trace the ideas that made up his view of the human condition, and to try (vain attempt though it may be) to become consciously aware - in our minds - of what Tolkien makes happen in our hearts.

"For one year, one day, of the Flame I would have given all: kin, youth, and hope itself:

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Aegnor truly loves Andreth and yet he makes a decision that will only bring pain to him and the person he loves, altering her perception of life to the point she forsakes all Hope.

I think you guys should join in our group read of "Werther". Just sayin'.

[/shameless plug]


Btw - awesome pic, Bre!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Bre, is that Andreth with Finrod, or with Aegnor?

[Breogán]

Aegnor.
I thought the silly stiff hair would make that clear
Now, serioiusly, the scene illustrates the time Andreth and Aegnor met, that last evening Andreth and Aegnor by the waters of Aeluin.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's what I thought, but when you said that it was your vision of the Athrabeth, that seemed to imply that it was picturing the debate between Andreth and Finrod.

It's a great picture.

[Breogán]

Thanks guys

[Tar-Palantir]

This is my first posting, and it has the rather egotistical purpose of seeking feedback on my essay The Marring of Men
- which is an alternative English language title of Tolkien's that I gave to "Athrabeth" in the hope it might help the piece become more widely known.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/20 ... f-men.html

The piece was published in The Chronicle of the Oxford University C.S. Lewis Society, 2008; Vol 5, Issue 3: 20-29; and also links Tolkien and Lewis.

Anyway, my article was written about 18 months ago, but without the benefit of having read any other criticism on the topic; and I was not aware of this superb thread.

I shall leave it at that and hope that my essay might stimulate comments and critique.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I look forward to reading it, when I have the time to do it justice.

[Galin]

From the link:

And indeed Elves are not truly immortal, since when the world eventually ends, they will die; and to Finrod it seems likely that this death will mean utter annihilation:

"You see us...still in the first ages of being, and the end is far off.... But the end will come. That we all know. And then we must die; we must perish utterly, it seems, because we belong to Arda (in [body] and in [spirit]). And beyond that what? The going out to no return, as you say; the uttermost end, the irremediable loss?"

I realize this essay says 'it seems likely' to Finrod, but is this even so?

To my mind Finrod is raising a seeming possibility that must be entertained (at least) by the Eldar ('we'), but in the very next paragraph he says that beyond the day when the hunter shall blow the mort: '... we have no certainty, no knowledge. And no one speaks to us of hope.'

According to the Author's Commentary: 'It seemed clear to them that their hröar must then end, and therefore any kind of reincarnation would be impossible. All the Elves would then 'die' at the End of Arda. What this would mean they did not know.'

They did not know, but various Elves had various ideas. In any case the commentary then goes on to say that: 'The alternative: that their fear would also cease to exist at 'the End', seemed even more intolerable. Both absolute annihilation, and cessation of conscious identity, were wholly repugnant to thought and desire' -- and later that the Elves, in the last resort: '... were obliged to rest on 'naked estel' (and etc).

I would think Finrod's personal opinion would rather line up with this later estel-related section of the commentary, as to me it just seems out of character for him personally to hold such a view that the Elves would cease to exist at the Great End.

No one speaks to the Elves of hope, because (with emphasis on the last part of this sentence): 'Beyond the 'End of Arda' Elvish thought could not penetrate, and they were without any specific instruction.' (Commentary p. 331 Morgoth's Ring), but yet they were obliged to rest on estel, and trust in Eru.

Comments? Corrections?

[MithLuin]

Comment? This thread was why I registered at HoF. Not that I've ever bothered to post in it, that I recall.


But, yes, I agree that Finrod, of all the Noldor, was most likely to have hope on this account. He seems to have trusted in the goodwill of the Valar (and, by extension, Eru) more than his Feanorean cousins, at any rate. But it remained hope without prophecy.


What I think of elvish hope is fanfiction, not essay. Maybe I should finish Lessons from the Mountain someday, though I still think the best fanfic about the Athrabeth isn't mine and doesn't contain Finrod or Andreth . It's Perelleth's In Vino Veritas.

[Galin]

Thanks Mithluin.

By the way (just in case), apologies to Tar-Palantir if my post appears a 'nit-pick' with respect to your larger work -- the question concerning Finrod just interested me.

[Tar-Palantir]

My impression from Athrabeth was that the elves would die into oblivion when the world ended unless Men succeeded in renewing or unmarring the world in some way.

I got the idea that this was not inevitable, but something that might happen given courage and effort from Men.

Having read a bit more of Tolkien's obscurer writings since, I would tend to think that he might be implying that this vision of heaven would inevitably happen eventually, but would perhaps not be universal; not for all elves or all Men.

But this is more what I guess he was driving at, than what is specifically said in Athrabeth...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I've had an opportunity to read the essay now, and I liked it very much. The one thing that I was surprised at was that you didn't discuss the Tale of Adanel, which certainly goes directly to the question of the Marring of Men.

My impression from Athrabeth was that the elves would die into oblivion when the world ended unless Men succeeded in renewing or unmarring the world in some way.

I think this is a reasonable impression. I think it would be worth repeating something that I wrote in an email to Verlyn Flieger in the course of a discussion that I had with her about her paper about Fate and Free Will in the most recent issue of Tolkien Studies called "The Music and the Task":

I particularly like your comments about the purpose of the Children of completing Eru's design "being two-fold in its action, for otherwise there would be no necessity for two separate races." I agree with this. There is an interesting passage in the Athrabeth commentary (Note 7) in which I think Tolkien describes very well how that two-fold action plays out in the end:

"The Elves find their supersession by Men a mystery, and a cause of grief; for they say that Men, at least so largely governed as they are by the evil of Melkor, have less and less love for Arda in itself, and are largely busy in destroying it in the attempt to dominate it. They still believe that Eru's healing of all the griefs of Arda will come now by or through Men; but the Elves' part in the healing or redemption will be chiefly in the restoration of the love of Arda, to which their memory of the Past and understanding of what might have been will contribute. Arda they say will be destroyed by wicked Men (or the wickedness in Men); but healed through the goodness in Men. The wickedness, the domineering lovelessness, the Elves will offset. By the holiness of good men - their direct attachment to Eru, before and above all Eru's works - the Elves may be delivered from the last of their griefs: sadness; the sadness that must come even from the unselfish love of anything less than Eru."

Tolkien makes it clear in the Ainulindalë that the two gifts of Men - the freedom to shape their own lives beyond the reach of the Music, and the ability to leave the world, are related ("It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it.") Men are free even to mirror the folly of Melkor, and the shadow he has cast upon the world. I think it is the fact that Men as a race are not bound to the circles of the world that allow them to ultimately transcend the Music in a way that the Elves are unable to do, not because they are endowed individually with Free Will and the Elves are not. It is that freedom as a race that allows them to be Eru's primary tool of ultimately healing and perfecting Arda.

This idea of Men being Eru's primary tool of ultimately healing and perfecting Arda was an important one to Tolkien. In the later Quenta text of what would become "Of the Sun and the Moon" there is a passage that states states that the Light of the Trees lives only in the Silmarils, and that someday their fire may be used to regenerate the “ancient joy and glory.” It then describes how Ulmo foretells that this would only take place with the help of Men, and that only Manwë heeded his words, because the rest of the Valar were angry at the Noldor on account of of their ingratitude and the Kinslaying or were afraid of Morgoth’s might and cunning (see MR, 198–99; and Lost Road 242–43). As I write in Arda Reconstructed:

This passage would have provided additional insight into the
minds of the Valar and particularly well illustrates the statement in
the Ainulindalë that “Manwë and Ulmo have from the beginning been
allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of
Ilúvatar” (Silm, 19). It seems clear that the failure to include this passage
relates to Christopher’s decision not to include at the end of the
Quenta Silmarillion the “Second Prophecy of Mandos” that predicts
the remaking of the Earth after the last battle, when the Silmarils are
recovered and used to rekindle the Two Trees. This omission may have also been influenced by the decision not to include the Athrabeth
as an appendix, as Tolkien directed,7 since the idea that appears in this
omitted passage of the importance of the role of Men in the healing
of Arda is particularly emphasized in that work (see, e.g., MR, 318).

T-P, you write in your essay that the Athrabeth is comparatively unknown, and that only Tolkien scholars read HoMe in general. I think that is largely true. It is quite unfortunate, in my opinion, that writings such as the Athrabeth and the Second Prophecy were not included as part of The Silmarillion (as I think Tolkien clearly intended) as I think that that has resulted in a lack of understanding of the deeper nature of Tolkien's work.

[Tar-Palantir]

I'm very pleased that you liked the essay.

I didn't write about the Tale of Adanel since I didn't have a clear understanding of it - although having read some earlier coments in this thread I think it is clearer to me now. Also I think that the Marring of Men can stand alone.

I personally find the single volume Silmarillion (1977) to be my least-favourite of Tolkien's books - I was terribly disappointed by it on publication (I was aged 18) and since I have tended to avoid reading it.

Instead I prefer to regard the Unfinished Tales and the 12 volume HoME as if they were multiple surviving texts from a lost Simarillion - I am almost completely lost in HoME, and prefer it that way!

On the other hand I recognize that the vast majority of people who love Lord of the Rings will never enjoy browsing HoME, comparing versions and drafts etc. For them, it would probably be valuable to reconstruct the Silmarillion chronologically - but not aiming for complete consistency of narrative, nor for a seamless narrative flow; but instead using the most vivid prose versions separately but in-order. More on the lines of Lost Tales, in fact.

Some of HoME should (or could, in principle) be published in stand-alone volumes (or downloadable e-books - which would be more practical), using different principles of selection and organization. For example, the Notion Club Papers could make a novella; and a volume including 'everything' about Elves ending in Athrabeth would appeal to many.

The possibilities are endless!