6. Many Partings
Frodo goes to Aragorn and Arwen, who are sitting by the fountain beside the new White Tree. Arwen sings as the tree grows and blooms. The scene depicts the goal of the quest. At the same time there is something naïve about it all; not quite as bad as the apparition of Goldberry, but one has the feeling that something is missing, something that would lend weight to the content, allow it to mature. This sense of emptiness arises from the fact that what is troubling – the virgin we discussed in the previous commentary, for instance – has been repressed. There is no hint of shadow in the situation, and it therefore lacks body, weight, reality.[1] Shelob, as noted, still stirs in Cirith Ungol, while Aragorn and Arwen seem increasingly bloodless – though happy, of course.
In any case Arwen gives Frodo a gift: a white gemstone in the shape of a star. It represents Frodo's "inner core," a concretization of his true self – or whatever term one prefers. The star is singular and eternal, a light in the darkness, and symbolizes the human soul and individuality.[2] Arwen is, in keeping with our earlier discussion, the feminine that transforms. She, the Evenstar, is of couse intimately associated with the transformed Aragorn, whose foremost attribute is the star.
When Frodo first saw her in Rivendell her gaze pierced his heart and he stood as if enchanted. Arwen is thus numinous for Frodo precisely because she represents the anima in her aspect as the connecting link to the Self – which the star she gives him in turn represents. She plays the same role for the star-bearer Aragorn, naturally, and illustrates how Aragorn and Frodo are aspects of a single imagined personality – the one the outer figure who confronted the dark Father and his world, the other the inner figure who confronted the dark Mother and her world. Arwen represents the manifested link between the consciously realized factors of yin and yang, just as the tree beside them has its roots in the earth and its crown in the heavens.
Arwen assumes the role of her grandmother Galadriel – the helpful goddess, one might say, who offers an invaluable gift. From Galadriel, Frodo received the starlight; from Arwen, the star itself, which concretizes the eternal value the starlight in the phial had intimated. That it is the same symbol, transformed from idea into reality, is underscored by the fact that the star-glass has not been mentioned since Mordor and is never mentioned again, while the jewel recurs in the tale when Frodo is back home. One might say that Galadriel's starlight has been concretized in Arwen's star-stone.
The jewel hangs on a chain that she places around Frodo's neck. Henceforth he wears it always, just as he once always wore the Ring on a chain about his neck. Through the sacrifice in the Chamber of Fire the destructive bond to the mother archetype was broken, making possible the manifestation of the Self. Where the Ring was "everything," the star is specific and individual. Jung holds that the archetype – here the Ring – is always something collective, while the Self – the star – "is, by definition, the most individual thing, the essence of individuality. It is the uniqueness."[3]
During the farewell feast in Minas Tirith we learn that Éomer marvels at the beauty of the "ladies" he beholds – yet another image of the feminine influx into what was previously an exclusively masculine environment. Water flows in the fountain, the tree grows, and beautiful women take part in the fellowship. Neither in the Shire, Bree, Rivendell, nor Minas Tirith have women as a group been particularly mentioned, and we recall, for instance, how the Fellowship of the Ring not only consisted exclusively of men but that its members also had almost no relationships with women – they were, in effect, all motherless. We noted at the time that the tale of necessity strives to balance this one-sidedness, and now see – if the repetition may be excused – how this has come to fruition.
It is mentioned later that Arwen, "the Evening," succeeds Galadriel, "the Morning." One might think of morning as childhood, when everything lies ahead and time is infinite, while evening is mature life, where possibilities are limited in proportion to the time that remains. Evening thus becomes an expression of consciousness and perhaps wisdom, while morning represents unconsciousness and perhaps naivety. Galadriel belongs to the enchanted world of the tale, while Arwen belongs to everyday life. She has chosen to marry Aragorn and in doing so sacrifices her immortality for the conscious, measured life. The feminine is no longer a fantasy – like an absent mother – but a concrete and living reality.
All ride to Rohan with the fallen King Théoden. After the festivities in Edoras, where Éowyn offers a cup to drink from and Éomer proclaims that Faramir has asked for her hand, Merry receives an ancient silver horn as a gift from Éowyn. They then ride on and arrive at Isengard, now fair and lush with flowing water. They take their leave of Treebeard, who will also fade now that Men rule the world.
Then the Fellowship begins to dissolve. Legolas and Gimli ride toward Fangorn as previously agreed, and when the others reach the place where Pippin looked into the palantír, Aragorn announces that it is time for him to turn back toward Minas Tirith. The last we see of Aragorn is as he begins to disappear into the dusk with his knights, holding up his stone so that "green fire leapt from his hand." We are perhaps reminded of Frodo's star-shaped stone, of Aragorn's star-attribute, of Frodo's "flaming" hand as he held up Galadriel's starlight in Cirith Ungol, and note once again how Frodo and Aragorn mirror one another.
Before long they come upon an old man, clad in grey, leaning on a staff, in the company of a ”another beggar” – none other than Saruman with Wormtongue in tow. Gandalf offers counsel and aid, but these are not received by the proud former wizard, who regards "the Lady" – Galadriel – with suspicion and repeats his conviction that they have pursued him in order to "gloat over his fall." When his inflation is no longer mirrored in the world around him, nothing remains but bitterness, self-pity and the desire for revenge. They part ways.
Near the Gates of Moria they make camp and remain there for seven days – that is, a cycle is completed – before Galadriel and Celeborn ride eastward toward Lothlórien, for they must first take counsel with Elrond and Gandalf. This group of four sits like "grey shadows" beneath the night sky while the hobbits sleep; they are also entirely silent, for they speak from mind to mind. The 3+1 quartet appears at last, but it is not fully concretized, for they are essentially a group of spirits convening while the hobbits sleep. When Galadriel and Celeborn finally depart, the grey-clad royal pair, the author tells us, seem to melt away among stones and shadows on their way to the mountains. They literally fade, and it is fitting that they do so in the mountains, which have always been considered the dwelling place of spirits. But the last thing Frodo sees is a gleam like a flash of lightning in the thickening mist, and he understands that she has held up her ring as a gesture of farewell – a reminder that the eternal value never entirely disappears.
The remaining company arrives one evening at Rivendell. The hobbits go at once to visit Bilbo, who sits old, peaceful and drowsy by a fire. Once again Frodo lingers in the elven halls. But after a couple of weeks he notices that there is frost outside and that cobwebs shine white in the bushes. He understands then that he must depart – as if the cobwebs reminded him that he cannot remain here. Sam agrees; he enumerates all the adventures they have been through, but then says that now that they have seen everything it is time to go home. "Yes, everything," says Frodo, "except the Sea." He repeats: "Except the Sea." After the quest Frodo himself assumes, as we shall have occasion to return to, an increasingly fading role, while Sam and the other hobbits step into the foreground. Frodo becomes ever more an inner content belonging to the sea, while Sam becomes the one who manifests the fruits of the quest in the outer world.
And so they finally turn homeward. Gandalf accompanies them westward toward Bree, for he wishes to speak with Butterbur. Yes, the innkeeper in Bree – unexpected and a bit strange. Gandalf is the most powerful wizard in the world – in fact an ancient spirit of the same origin as Sauron[4] –, he has been a decisive force in the War of the Ring, has died and been resurrected, driven away the Ringwraiths, played a crucial part in the downfall of Mordor, and so forth. Meanwhile Butterbur, as far as we know an ordinary man, has been at his inn, very far from the center of events. Why does Gandalf ride to Bree to speak with him now? Their conversation is also, as the next chapter ("Homeward Bound") reveals, given the circumstances rather trivial. What is going on?
Butterbur
There is something hidden about Butterbur. Let us pause before the innkeeper of the Prancing Pony and try out a few thoughts about him. The first time the innkeeper is mentioned in the tale – that is, the moment he "comes into being" – is when Tom Bombadil is about to leave the hobbits after having accompanied them a short way following the drama among the Barrow-downs. We recall that Bombadil expressed that the border ran here and repeated that he could not leave Goldberry alone at home any longer. We had the impression that he cannot move outside his domain, which consists principally of the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs – both of them deadly to hobbits. Nevertheless Bombadil speaks of the inn called the Prancing Pony as if he were a regular visitor, which seems strange since Bombadil does not – according to Gandalf at the Council of Elrond – concern himself with the world beyond his own land. Moreover it is difficult to imagine that Tom Bombadil of all people would habitually frequent urban environments with many people, a certain degree of crowding, and considerable noise. Yet he recommends that the hobbits seek out Butterbur, giving as his reason that the innkeeper is a "worthy keeper" – a choice of words that is rather interesting, since it suggests something beyond a "good fellow" or the like of whom Bombadil has heard tell. It implies rather that Butterbur is a man of genuine integrity to whom Bombadil – "the Eldest" – accords a particular value.
Yet the Barliman Butterbur we come to know through the hobbits' experience in Bree is a muddled and forgetful bumbler. Honest and well-meaning, to be sure – but he does not appear to possess qualities beyond those of any other ordinary, decent person.
The first time Butterbur is mentioned after Bree is when Frodo, in Rivendell, gives an account of the perilous journey and describes the innkeeper in passing as "kind and stupid." Gandalf corrects him: Butterbur is not stupid, and adds: "He is wise enough on his own ground. He thinks less than he talks, and slower, yet he can see through a brick wall in time." The phrase is apparently a saying in Bree, but is of course used only here. Gandalf is telling us that Butterbur's intellectual capacity may not impress, but that he possesses intuition – he is shrewd in his own way and can sometimes see what others cannot; much like Tom Bombadil, who saw Frodo despite the Ring of invisibility. Only intuition allows one to perceive what is hidden.[5] According to Jung, intuition is "perception of the unconscious,"[6] which figuratively lends the function a magical quality. Transposed to our context, we understand that Butterbur possesses qualities that ordinary people lack – but just as this faculty allows Butterbur to see what others cannot, others are equally unable to see this quality in him, with the exception of Gandalf and Bombadil, of course.
Common images for intuition in our tale include foxes, aerial beings such as spirits and birds,[7] and precisely the ability to see what is otherwise invisible. Butterbur thus shares certain qualities with the fox – "the light of nature" – with Bombadil, who sees the invisible, and with Gandalf, a spirit of the air. From what has been said we understand that Butterbur, like these figures, belongs in some sense to "the other side" and possesses qualities of the aerial – invisibility, flight, intuition and boundary-crossing creatures are all associated with spirit. If this is correct it would not be surprising that both Gandalf and Bombadil speak well of the innkeeper of the Prancing Pony, while Frodo and Aragorn, for instance, express more or less disparaging opinions of him – since they can only judge the innkeeper by his actions.
For even though the Prancing Pony under ordinary circumstances is a popular inn, Butterbur seems an unsuitable innkeeper – he simply lacks command of his affairs. His most significant contribution to the course of events is that he forgot to send Gandalf's highly important letter to Frodo in the Shire.[8] As a physical human being, he is more than a little scatterbrained — that is, he is confused and moves about aimlessly — or, in other words, dizzy, meaning he ”spins around” in a figurative sense.[9]
With what has been said above, our associations turn to whirlwinds and the trapped spirit – motifs familiar from folktales.[10] Butterbur darts around the inn as if he didn’t belong there – or, if he does, has forgotten it; or to put it another way, within the corpulent body there rages a spirit that makes it difficult to manage the concrete tasks of everyday life, yet now and then grants the innkeeper insights that seem nothing short of supernatural.
If this fantasy of ours were correct, one would expect "air spirits" such as Gandalf and Bombadil to look upon the innkeeper with different eyes than, say, Frodo and Aragorn. While people tend to dismiss Butterbur as a fool, Gandalf and Bombadil share a bond with his true nature and speak of the innkeeper with something close to reverence. Perhaps they feel a certain wistfulness – for while they themselves have been free beneath the open sky and developed their respective potentials, this trapped spirit has in all likelihood lost contact with his own.
The overweight, wheezing, red-cheeked Butterbur represents the physical and the concrete – or the "coagulated" (coagulatio). A spirit that is rejected, displaced from the human world, sinks into the earth, into matter, and becomes strange trees and curious stones with vague facial features, and so forth. (Compare how the fading spirits Galadriel and Celeborn earlier "melted" into the rocks.) One might speculate that the Butterbur-spirit has in some manner been coagulated into the innkeeper of the Prancing Pony. There he manages – in stark contrast to Gandalf and Bombadil – the concrete necessities of everyday life: people must be fed, the dishes must be washed, the horses must be tended, the fire must be kept burning, and so forth.
One might imagine that this coagulated spirit, weighed down to earth by the substantial body, functions as an anchor between the spirits of the air – a compensation for their volatility, and a concretized connecting link between them. Bombadil refers to Butterbur, who in turn conveys information from Gandalf; the wizard wishes to meet Butterbur before riding on to Bombadil. Both speak unexpectedly well of him, and on both occasions when a connection is established between the two air spirits, it passes through Butterbur and his physical, concrete house, where he rushes about like – or with – a spirit trapped in matter.
Butterbur is a "worthy keeper," says Tom Bombadil. One is tempted to ask: "Of what?"