The final project for this class was to perform a selection from The Lord of the Rings, incorporating elements from Wagner's Ring Cycle and The Odyssey. I told you it was the best class ever. My group chose the Grey Havens scene, and we of course did not near do it justice. But we tried.
Because I'm slightly-no-really-a-lot obsessed with metaliterature/metafiction, one of the things that most intrigues me about LotR is the frame story. While it's not explicitly stated, there are many hints that Bilbo's Red Book is either the same as or very closely related to the book I hold in my hand. Tolkein is attempting to justify the existence of The Lord of the Rings in a universe where Middle Earth was a reality, which I appreciate immensely. But how then do I explain the very end of the book, where the author describes the arrival of Frodo, Bilbo, and company at the Valinor (assuming that no one ever goes to Valinor and comes back)?
This is where the invocation of the Muse comes in. It's a nod to the Greek epics, but within The Lord of the Rings I think it makes the most sense at the end of the story, where the task of writing the book has been passed on to Sam. He is charged with finishing the story, but how might he know what the story would be, from Frodo and Bilbo's perspective--and eventually, as Frodo hints, the end of his own story? The Muse: in this world, Elbereth (proper name 'Varda').
So that was my contribution to the performance... the invocation of the Muse. And in the middle of the performance I forgot the second half of the fourth stanza (laerflhaerfgluaegr. frustration.) but that was how it must be. It was an oral class; what I had written didn't make a whit of difference. But I like it well enough and figure that anyone who follows my blog has got to be weird enough to appreciate it (except Jake, but hi Jake! I love you anyway. You probably abandoned ship at 'meta' and aren't even reading this. oh well.) so enjoy...
A Elbereth, Gilthoniel!
Speak, O Starkindler, of joy-
the beauty high and infinite,
the bracing light of stillness, clear
and cold and ancient, young as Spring,
which rises from the from the silent earth
with quiv’ring, scintillating song.
And speak, O Ever-White, of peace:
the coming-home of weary souls,
the drawing-near of wand’rers far;
the final surety of end,
the heart-borne confidence that hence
no traveller shall e’er depart.
Tell of the wind that stirs the soul
on seeing that eternal shore.
Tell of the swift and valiant course
the heav’nly spheres with joy do trace,
enlightening the tired eyes--
there lies the close of all our hopes!
Now speak, Queen of the Stars, of here.
Tell of the years that stretch before,
of life in wholeness newly found.
Sing of the home and happiness
my heart may know in staying here
below, before the eternal end.
Tell me where I might find my peace;
A Elbereth! Where here is joy?
With singing breath that quietness?
When all the world is chaos: rest
as fixed and tenuous with life
as the center of the turning earth.
And say, Star-queen, the long-off day,
when the world will whirl me off itself;
and moved by piercing softness, I
will know the joy the poets told,
and feel the final wholeness--peace--
and see, myself, Gilthoniel.
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