"Where now the horse and the rider?" is a poem of the Riders of Rohan, recited by Aragorn in The Two Towers, as he approaches Edoras with Gandalf, Gimli and Legolas. It is perhaps my favourite of all the poems by Tolkien, and indeed one of my favourite poems.
In the recently published Collected Poems of JRR Tolkien (edited by C Scull and WG Hammond, pp 1225-6) is quoted some annotations by Tolkien with reference to this poem, in relation to the Old English lyric The Wanderer from which the first line is derived:
["Where now the horse and the rider"] laments the ineluctable ending and passing back into oblivion of the fortunate, the full-lived, the unblemished and beautiful.
To me that is more poignant than any particular disaster, from the cruelty of men or the hostility of the world.
This strikes me as a profound and startling statement from Tolkien, and one with which I am in full sympathy. What he is saying is that the ultimate tragedy of this mortal life and world is not evil, but death and what we might term "entropy".
In other words, for JRRT and for myself; what is ultimately tragic is the inevitable and unavoidable evanescence of all that is Good, all that is True, Beautiful and Virtuous; all that is best - and every person and "thing" that we most love.
In this life; all changes, and eventually degenerates and dies.
Yes there is new creation, but it is not the same.
There is only memory; but memory fades. And even while memory survives, over the generations and the span of time, this loss accumulates in our awareness.
What Tolkien is saying here; is that even if we consider only the very best of this mortal life, the fortunate, the full-lived, the unblemished and beautiful - considering only that which is good, and eliminating from consideration all that is evil - the cruelty of men or the hostility of the world...
Even then; the sufficiency, the adequacy, the acceptability of our life and world is undercut by the fact that the best and good will move towards the ineluctable ending and passing back into oblivion.
It is from this inevitability of change and death - as much as, or indeed more than, from evil - that Jesus Christ has offered us salvation.
1 comment:
Stunningly beautiful! Thanks for bringing this passage to light. I don't have much to add to your posts, so I don't comment very often. Your writing is very warm and has given me great peace and wonderful insights over the years. Thank you for continuing on!
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