To: Muser44
From: Hudson hermit
Re: Sipping from the Cup of Hope, Part IV

The Labors of Samwise, Son of Hamfast

Well things were not going well for the English at Malden. The battle had become a route. But some knights and members the earl's household, his heor[d]werod, made a stand. And near the end of the battle, an old retainer, an old veteran, Beorhtwold utters these words as he prepares to die:

"Will shall be the sterner, heart the bolder, spirit the greater as our strength lessens."

This, as Tolkien writes, sums up the heroic code. Indeed. The words of Beorhtwold ring through English history: the charge of the light brigade and the stand at Rorke's Drift are two examples. Yet, the heroic code is not only for battles. I last left Samwise at the gates of Cirith Ungol. He was pondering the tales of old and how he and Frodo might figure in them.

Suddenly Sam realizes that he and Frodo are part of a larger tale, one of the tales of adventure he had just finished talking about. They possessed the Phial of Galadriel, a gift from the Elven queen, which carried the light of the Silmaril, a jewel that Beren Halfhand had retrieved from the crown of Morgoth. Morgoth, then the master of Sauron, had stolen the Silmarils from the Elves and it was a theft which triggered the many sagas of an almost forgotten age. He asks Frodo, "Don't the great tales ever end?"

They do not. It is a never ending struggle to bring light into the world.

Soon after, Sam is tested. Frodo is poisoned and is believed dead. Doubt consumes Samwise, as he is alone. The fate of the quest is in his hands. In his head, he hears a voice, see it through. His choice was to see it though as he promised at the beginning of the quest. Well, I don't wish to provide too many spoilers. Suffice to say, that he did see it through. He saw it through and persevered through many hardships on their way to Mount Doom. And at the foot of Mount Doom, Samwise Gamgee utters a soliloquy while an exhausted Frodo sleeps:

'So that was the job I felt I had to do when I started,' thought Sam: 'to help Mr. Frodo to the last step and then die with him? Well, if that is the job then I must do it. But I would dearly like to see Bywater again, and Rosie Cotton and her brothers, and the Gaffer and Marigold and all. I can't think somehow that Gandalf would have sent Mr. Frodo on this errand, if there hadn't a' been any hope of his ever coming back at all. Things all went wrong when he went down in Moria. I wish he hadn't. He would have done something.'

But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it turned to a new strength. Sam's plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt though all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor endless barren miles could subdue.

These creatures of stone and steel are not unique to England, or Faerie. I am still enchanted with the story of Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine on Little Round Top. Low on ammunition, they affix bayonets for a charge. I am in awe of the bravery of those Rangers as they scaled the cliffs of Pointe de Hoc during the invasion of Normandy. "These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc," the Great Communicator remembered 40 years later. And lest we forget, Americans too are capable of matching the eloquence of Beorhtwold in battle. As the 101st Airborne was encircled at Bastogne, the Germans asked that the surrender. General McAuliffe gave the one word reply, "Nuts." Such is the stuff that legends are made of.

I am enchanted, I am awed, because I share the basic ideas, values and creed. These men seemed to tap into hope, when others would despair.

I wrote in the second part of this essay that Chomsky is an anti-Tolkien. Chomsky is a weird leftist (which would mean he's normal) who is the archetypical anti-American. Blame America first. Indeed he denied that the killing fields of Cambodia existed, but when such a denial was impossible, he deemed that it was America's fault. Chomsky came to fame as a linguist. His contribution to natural philosophy (i.e., science) had an impact on philosophy. He claimed that human children had an innate disposition toward learning language. He held that children were born with knowledge of grammar. This self-knowledge cuts across the grain of Thomism. As an othodox Catholic, Tolkien would have had some idea of the philosophy of Aquinas.

Whether there is some aspect of truth to Chomsky's theories, I am not a fit judge. I've come across the internet sites of some linguists who feel that Chomsky's merely spouts off meaningless drivel common to post-modernists. The idea, I gather, is to intimidate your audience with highfalutin technical words that look like English but the sentences are impossible to parse. Perhaps, that is the secret of Chomsky's linguistic theories.

But I trust in the knowledge of the philologist Tolkien. For him, words do have meaning, and the following undercuts, at least in part, the idea that language is inborn:

"Philology has been dethroned from the high place it once had in this court of inquiry. Max Muller's view of mythology as a "disease of language" can be abandoned without regret. Mythology is not a disease at all, although it may like all human things becomes diseased. You might as well say that thinking is a disease of the mind. It would be more near the truth to say that languages, especially European languages, are a disease of mythology." ("On Fairy Tales", Tolkien)

There is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation which perhaps illustrates the meaning. In "Darmok," the Enterprise crew encounters the Tamarians, a race for which the hi-tech universal translators are useless. They hear English words and phrases, but they are unable to gather their meaning. An example phrase is "Darmok and Jelad at Tenagra." The Enterprise crew is stumped. Dathon, the Tamarian starship captain, decides to gamble, and kidnaps Captain Picard. He and Picard are placed on planet with an invisible monster. My impression is that the monster is like Beowulf's Grendel (this impression may have been intended by the script writers). Dathon's intent is that the common experience of defeating the monster will teach Picard his language. Dathon is mortally wounded in the first battle. Later at night, around a campfire (and it must be a campfire), Picard continues to try to communicate with the dying Dathon. Dathon manages to persuade Picard to tell a story. Picard picks the Sumerian/Babylonian tale of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. He does a fair job of telling the tale; Dathon appears comforted. Then Picard has a flash of insight -- the Tamarian language is one of tales. He is finally able to break the cipher of the Tamarian language. Alas, Dathon dies, but Picard is able to defeat the monster and he returns to the Enterprise which is in combat with the Tamarian ship. Using his newfound skill he is able to stop the battle.

According to Tolkien, Fairy tales (and myths for that matter) should meet certain requirements. At least the good ones should. In describing one of the requirements, Tolkien finds that he needs to invent a word, because the word is lacking in the English language. His word, eucatastrophe in fairy tales, is the opposite of tragedy in drama. "The eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function." It denies the universal final defeat and is evangelium, giving a glimpse of Joy, "poignant as grief." Tolkien describes the Christian Story, the Gospel "which embraces all the essence of fairy stories."

[T]his story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the "inner consistency of reality." There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.

I have quaffed from the cup of hope.

The difference between yesterday's post and today's post, I pray, is striking. The men who had fallen were ugly men. The men in today's post were more than just honorable men in a fight, they were men with dignity. As Chesterton writes in The Everlasting Man, "When the man makes the gesture of salutation and of sacrifice, when he pours out the libation or lifts up the sword, he knows he is doing a worthy and virile thing. He knows he is doing one of the things for which a man was made."

Conversely, men tied to the material world barely rise to the level of human, if at all. They consider man to be mere animal and they rise to it. They find little meaning in life if at all. Perhaps, it is all the inward searching, the "soul-searching," that all consuming self as center of the world.

The dignity of man is in the outward gaze. Men who acknowledge the Creator are grateful. They acknowledge His gift that sets them apart. Made more than animal, they are human. They aspire and they bow. "[T]he gesture of the worshipper [is] generous and beautiful." Chesterton also wrote that men feel freer when bent, taller when they bow. "If a man cannot pray he is gagged; if he cannot kneel he is in irons."

I feel this is an appropriate place to stop -- here, where I have prepared the setting for my next post. I realize that I could end my series of posts, I've done enough (hopefully without putting everyone to sleep), and I've already told of one Eucatastrophe. I've explained my approach to Joy. This should be sufficient. Just the same, I'd like to finish my tale. There is one smaller eucatastrophe left.

Peace be with you,
a hermit from Hudson