Face up, Face down with Gollum and Boethius

Recently I saw someone somewhere inline asking about Gandalf's characterization of Gollum in The Shadow of the Past.  

The most inquisitive and curious-minded of that family was called Sméagol. He was interested in roots and beginnings; he dived into deep pools; he burrowed under trees and growing plants; he tunnelled into green mounds; and he ceased to look up at the hill-tops, or the leaves on trees, or the flowers opening in the air: his head and his eyes were downward.

            (FR 1.ii.53)

The poster wanted to know what was so wrong about his not looking up but down. The characterization starts off well enough, but it begins to feel like something has gone wrong when it reaches "and he ceased ... air." And the last phrase, singled out and pointed to by the colon, reads like a final verdict in a capital case. So why is downward bad? 

It's part of an old notion that looking up, whether to the heavens or to heaven, is something that distinguishes humans from animals. Off the top of my head I am unsure where it started, but it can be found in Plato and Aristotle. Tolkien was certainly familiar with Plato's Timaeus, which along with the Critias, speaks of Atlantis, and helped inspire Númenor. The description from The Shadow of the Past quoted above makes me think that Tolkien would have more likely been drawing on Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy, an exceptionally important work in the Middle Ages in Europe. There is even a translation of it into Old English, which has been attributed to Alfred the Great. It probably wasn't really translated by Alfred himself, however, and it's really more of a reboot than a straighforward translation. Tolkien certainly knew both of these works, each of which contains at a similar moment in its fifth book a poem on this difference between humans and animals. First take a look at my translation of a Latin poem from the fifth book of The Consolation of Philosophy. I include the original after that. I've also tried to keep the translation close to the original, line for line, more or less, if not word for word. It's not, however, a literal translation, and I have not tried putting it into verse.

Creatures of such different shapes wander the earth!

Some lie stretched in the dust and sweep it,

And propelled by the strength of their body

They drag a continuous furrow in the earth.

Others beat the air with their light wandering wings

And swim in liquid flight the vast spaces of the heavens.

Still others happily leave their footprints on the ground

Whether crossing green fields or entering a wood.

All these creatures, you see, differ in shape,

Yet their downward gaze can only weigh down their dull senses.

Mankind alone raises its lofty summit higher,

Stands erect and looks down on the earth as trivial.

Unless you have mud for brains, your human form bids  

You raise up your soul also when with face uplifted

You seek the heavens, lest your mind, weighed down

And inferior, sink down when your body is raised higher.

Quam uariis terras animalia permeant figuris!
Namque alia extento sunt corpore pulueremque uerrunt 
Continuumque trahunt ui pectoris incitata sulcum,
Sunt quibus alarum leuitas uaga uerberetque uentos
Et liquido longi spatia aetheris enatet uolatu,
Haec pressisse solo uestigia gressibusque gaudent
Vel uirides campos transmittere uel subire siluas.
Quae uariis uideas licet omnia discrepare formis,
Prona tamen facies hebetes ualet ingrauare sensus.
Vnica gens hominum celsum leuat altius cacumen
Atque leuis recto stat corpore despicitque terras.
Haec nisi terrenus male desipis, admonet figura,
Qui recto caelum uultu petis exserisque frontem,
In sublime feras animum quoque, ne grauata pessum
Inferior sidat mens corpore celsius leuato.

And now my translation of the Old English, followed by the original:

You might have noticed, if you enjoy such thoughts,

That many different creatures exist on the earth.

They have various colors and modes of movement

And forms of many kinds known and unknown.

Some creep and crawl, their whole body pressed to the earth;

they get no help from feathers, they cannot go on foot,

they cannot, as it is their fate, take pleasure in the earth.

Some others walk the earth on two feet,

some do so on four, some on beating wings

soar under heaven. Yet each of these creatures
inclines to the ground, bends its head down,

looks upon this world, wants from the earth

some necessity, some object of desire.

Man alone of God's creatures goes

with his face directed upwards.

By this it is betokened that his faith

and mind should look more up to heaven

than down, lest he turn his soul downward as a beast does.

It is not fitting that any man's mind

be bent downwards and his face upwards.

Hwæt ðu meaht ongitan, gif his ðe geman lyst,
Þætte mislice manega wuhta
geond eorðan farað ungelice.
Habbað blioh and fær bu ungelice
and mæg-wlitas manega cynna
cuð and uncuð. Creopað and snicað,
eall lichoma eorðan getenge;
nabbað hi æt fiðrum fultum, ne magon hi mid fotum gangan,
Eorð brucan, swa him eaden wæs.
Sume fotum twam foldan peððað,
Sume fierfete, sume fleogende
windað under wolcnum. Bið ðeah wuhta gehwylc
onhnigen to hrusan, hnipað ofdune,
on weoruld wliteð, wilnað to eorðan,
sume nedþearfe, sume neodfræce.

Man ana gæð metodes gesceafta
Mid his andwlitan up on gerihte.
Mid ðy is getacnod þæt his treowa sceal
and his modgeþonc ma up þonne niðer
habban to heofonum, þy læs he his hige wende
niðer swa ðær nyten. Nis þæt gedafenlic
þaet se modsefa monna æniges

niðerheald wese and þæt neb upweard.

So the problem with Gollum looking down all the time is that he has stopped being human and become an animal instead. This is analogous to something Boethius says earlier in The Consolation, that "the man who ceases to be human because he has abandoned goodness, turns into a beast since he cannot be transformed into a godlike state" (4.3). It's also worth remembering how Gollum is sometimes called "it" rather than "he," a "creature," a "thing," and is likened to an insect, a spider, and a dog. In fact, all of these words are used of him throughout The Taming of Sméagol. Fittingly, when Frodo and Sam first see Gollum in this chapter, he is "creeping" and "crawling" down the cliff-face head first, words which echo the sixth line in the Old English poem above: "creopað and snicað." I must admit, however, that I'm disappointed to find that "snicað" does not seem etymologically connected to "sneak." It would be so nice to hear Gollum's response to Sam's accusation of "sneaking" on the stairs: "snicð! snicð!" he hiscte."

The Politeness of Théoden and the Healing of Gandalf

In his new book The Literary Role of History in the Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Nick Birns has written a very interesting chapter called "Hobbits, the Rohirrim, and Modern Histories of Politeness."

In the paragraph shown below, he comments on what we can see in Théoden's first encounter with Merry and Pippin at the gates of Isengard:

Earlier on Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli had been rather rudely welcomed to Edoras by Théoden and Wormtongue. Gandalf replies as tartly as we might expect him to do: "The courtesy of your hall is somewhat lessened of late, Théoden son of Thengel," (TT  4.vi.513). And even amongst themselves the Rohirrim have seen the politeness appropriate to the King's Hall wear thin. Éomer has threatened Wormtongue with his sword in the hall and disobeyed the King's orders, breaches for which he has been imprisoned. 

With this in the background and the King's healing by Gandalf, we can see the politeness of the King which so impressed Merry and Pippin as proof of that healing, and as an assurance that Théoden is restored enough to be able to face Saruman without being taken in by his polite lies. The Riders may doubt him when the moment comes, but Gandalf does not. Nor do most readers, I would imagine. 

"You do not belong here" -- The presence of Men in Faërie

 

...fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faërie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being. Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.

On Fairy-stories ⁋ 10, p. 32 (Flieger & Anderson edition)

Reading these words over and over across the years, I have come to conclude that Tolkien did not regard the world as disenchanted, as we often hear it called. To him everything but us was naturally a part of Faërie. We must be enchanted in order to be "contained" in that "realm or state." So, does this mean that we mortals are normally unenchanted, not normally a part of Faërie as everything else in this world is? Or we were once enchanted, but have since become disenchanted by the Fall and expulsion from Paradise, or more mundanely by materialism and positivism and the industrial revolution? 

I don't have the time to sort through all of this right now, but something else Tolkien has said makes me think that he would have answered that we were not normally a part of Faërie. In the Atrabeth Finrod ah Andreth Finrod says of the fëa (soul) and hröa (body) of mortal Men:

‘But what then shall we think of the union [of fëa and hröa] in Man: of an Indweller [i.e., fëa], who is but a guest here in Arda and not here at home, with a House [i.e., hröa] that is built of the matter of Arda and must therefore (one would suppose) here remain?

(Morgoth's Ring p. 317)

Every other living creature lives and dies with this world, as does every other piece of creation, because this world is "the realm or state in which [they] have their being." In this world, which is coterminous with Faërie, we mortal humans are no more than guests. Faërie is not our home. Or at least it is not the home of our fëa.

As the birch tree in Faërie says to Smith in Smith of Wootton Major: "You do not belong here. Go away and never return!" (Smith, extended edition, p. 30). 

Tolkien Tuesday -- "Pride and Prejudice" -- part 2 (Not All Elves!)

After the composed and often wise Elves we meet in The Lord of the Rings, the dangerously passionate Elves of The Silmarillion can come as quite a shock. I've seen more than one meme contrasting the Elves of the First and Third Ages. When we learn how bigoted many of the Elves were towards Men and Dwarves alike, calling Men "the Sickly" and "the Usurpers" among other charming names, and calling the Dwarves "the stunted people," and hunting them as if they were animals, it can come as something of a disappointment (S 91, 103, 204). 

In The Book of Lost Tales we find the earliest evidence for the prejudice against Men, and its roots may be very deep indeed. The first indication comes in "The Music of the Ainur," when Rúmil, the Elf who tells the tale, comments on some of the differences between Elves and Men.

Lo! Even we Eldar have found to our sorrow that Men have a strange power for good or ill and for turning things despite Gods and Fairies to their mood in the world; so that we say: “Fate may not conquer the Children of Men, but yet are they strangely blind, whereas their joy should be great.”

            (LT I 59)

Now to be fair to the Elves in The Book of Lost Tales only one group of Men is loyal to the Elves and they pay dearly for it. I mean of course the Men of Hithlum, led by Húrin. His son, Túrin, also sides with the Elves, but his is a complex and troubled legacy. Tuor is also from Hithlum, but unrelated to Húrin at this early stage of the legendarium. Together with his wife, Idhril, he leads the survivors of Gondolin to safety. Their child is Eärendil. (Keep in mind that at this point Beren is an Elf, not a Man.) It's also true that by time Rúmil is telling the tale, thousands of years later, Men and Elves are still in conflict with each other. Blindness may not seem such a terrible thing to accuse them of under the circumstances. 

But in The Book of Lost Tales the prejudice of Elves towards Men predates not only their first meeting, but even the awakening of Men. For when the Elves wished to pursue Melkor back to Middle-earth, Manwë tried to dissuade them. 

... he told them many things concerning the world and its fashion and the dangers that were already there, and the worse that might soon come to be by reason of Melko’s return. “My heart feels, and my wisdom tells me,” said he, “that no great age of time will now elapse ere those other Children of Ilúvatar, the fathers of the fathers of Men, do come into the world—and behold it is of the unalterable Music of the Ainur that the world come in the end for a great while under the sway of Men; yet whether it shall be for happiness or sorrow Ilúvatar has not revealed, and I would not have strife or fear or anger come ever between the different Children of Ilúvatar, and fain would I for many an age yet leave the world empty of beings who might strive against the new-come Men and do hurt to them ere their clans be grown to strength, while the nations and peoples of the Earth are yet infants.” To this he added many words concerning Men and their nature and the things that would befall them, and the Noldoli were amazed, for they had not heard the Valar speak of Men, save very seldom; and had not then heeded overmuch, deeming these creatures weak and blind and clumsy and beset with death, nor in any ways likely to match the glory of the Eldalië.

        LT I 150

That last sentence, which I have italicized, is hardly a flattering portrait of the Elves, and the narrator here in this tale, "The Theft of Melko and the Darkening of Valinor," is another Elf, Lindo. By this time in the story Melkor had been working for some time to estrange the Noldoli (Noldor) from the Valar by insinuating that the Valar had brought the Eldar to Valinor in order to use them as unwitting slaves and to cheat them of their god-given birthright, the world itself. Now Melkor's lies bear fruit, as hearing Manwë about the destiny of Men and the need to give them time to grow, Fëanor puts 2 and 2 together and, quick as an internet conspiracy theorist, comes up with 5. 

“Lo, now do we know the reason of our transportation hither as it were cargoes of fair slaves! Now at length are we told to what end we are guarded here, robbed of our heritage in the world, ruling not the wide lands, lest perchance we yield them not to a race unborn. To these foresooth—a sad folk, beset with swift mortality, a race of burrowers in the dark, clumsy of hand, untuned to songs or musics, who shall dully labour at the soil with their rude tools, to these whom still he says are of Ilúvatar would Manwë Súlimo lordling of the Ainur give the world and all the wonders of its land, all its hidden substances—give it to these, that is our inheritance."

(LT I 151)

Of this speech and its consequences, Lindo says: 

In sooth it is a matter for great wonder, the subtle cunning of Melko—for in those wild words who shall say that there lurked not a sting of the minutest truth, nor fail to marvel seeing the very words of Melko pouring from Fëanor his foe, who knew not nor remembered whence was the fountain of these thoughts; yet perchance the [?outmost] origin of these sad things was before Melko himself, and such things must be—and the mystery of the jealousy of Elves and Men is an unsolved riddle, one of the sorrows at the world’s dim roots.

       (LT I 151)

In this Lindo echoes something he had said previously about the early days of the darkening of Valinor: "Nay, who shall say but that all these deeds, even the seeming needless evil of Melko, were but a portion of the destiny of old?" (LT I 142).

It's easy to see the pride and prejudice of the Elves here, and maybe hear a distant echo of it in Gandalf's remark that the Elves, too, were at fault for their poor relations with the Dwarves (FR 2.iv.303). It's also easy to get the feeling that the sundered paths of Elves and Men begin in the Music itself. What I find most interesting, though, is the way both Manwë and Lindo struggle to understand why things are this way and whether it will prove a good thing in the end. They don't have answers. They have questions and they hope that this evil will be good to have been, even if it remains evil. 

Tolkien Tuesday -- "Pride and Prejudice"

I had read The Lord of the Rings many times before I discovered Jane Austen. Yet the tone of the beginning sounded so familiar. I can easily imagine that, if Bilbo had married a silly person, and had had five daughters, the oldest two of whom would be remarkable, Mr Baggins and Mr Bennet would have had much in common.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.

“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”

Mr. Bennet made no answer.

“Do not you want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife, impatiently.

“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”

                    Pride and Prejudice, chapter 1


When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return. The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure.

This is probably not what was expected for Tolkien Tuesday, but here it is. There may be more later.

And I do think that Pippin would be very Mister Bingley.