The last ADVENTure of the race of the Kings from over the sea

Doc Staples

New Member
Now that my grades are submitted for the semester, I can finally comment on a few things from the last few episodes of ELOTR. First up:

In Episode 97, on Gandalf's comment: "The race of the Kings from over the Sea is nearly at an end. It may be that this War of the Ring will be their last adventure."

The discussion focuses on the fact that it's the same word that refers to Bilbo's activities in the Hobbit and that it was "first Gandalf's word," and Corey, you propose that perhaps it refers to "their last uncertain undertaking" and says that the term conveys two things:

1) That there's a purpose in these activities. It's not just errandry but a quest.
2) The uncertainty of it. "Otherwise it would just be a venture."

While I don't disagree with those connotations, I was surprised that the discussion never turned to the fact that the Latin adventus (nominal form of advenio) means "arrival" or "coming" and frequently carries the connotation of "invasion" or "incursion" in a military context (e.g., the famous saying of Julius Caesar veni, vidi, vici; "I came/arrived, I saw, I conquered"; the prefix is lacking but the verb stem is the same). I find it extremely unlikely that Tolkien would not have been nodding to this sense of advent when having Gandalf use the term "adventure" here, especially since as a Roman Catholic, Tolkien was regularly bathed in that meaning of advent, not only in the season preceding Christmas in the church calendar but also in the Pater Noster (Lord's Prayer), which he almost certainly prayed (in Latin) daily and includes the line: "Adveniat regnum tuum" ("your kingdom come").

In this context, the "last adventure" of the race of the kings not only connotes a purposeful quest with potentially uncertain results but ultimately the final coming/incursion of the kingdom of that race of kings. The term thus contains a deliciously ironic double meaning that hints at the purpose of that purposeful quest.
 
Good point, especially when one thinks of Aragorn's words at his crowning, when he quoted Elendil's words on returning -- coming back -- to Middle-earth to establish a kingdom: "Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world." (only in Quenya) I suppose the first adventure for these future 'Kings over the Sea' was coming over the Blue Mountains into Beleriand.
 
Tolkien might also have been acquainted with the "Adventus Saxonum", the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain.
 
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