What is the meaning of “home”, to Earendil?

Flammifer

Well-Known Member
Specifically, what is the meaning of “home”, the second time it is used in the poem?

“From World’s End then he turned away,
and yearned again to find afar
his home through shadows journeying,
and burning as an island star”


“Home” is an important concept or theme in the Hobbit and TLOTR. How many times, in “The Hobbit”, did Bilbo think, “I wish I was back in my hobbit-hole by my own warm fireside with the lamp shining”, or words to that effect? The hobbits seem to have valued home very highly. Perhaps one of the greater privileges of being part of a privileged family such as the Tooks or the Brandybucks, was that one could live in the same home all one’s life. “(The Brandybuck family) grew and grew, and… continued to grow, until Brandy Hall occupied the whole of the low hill, and had three large front-doors, many side-doors, and about a hundred windows.” If you were a Brandybuck, born in Brandy Hall, (or a Took, born in the Great Smials – though we don’t know this yet as a first-time reader) you never had to leave. If there was no space free to move into, when setting up your own household, just excavate a few more rooms. In the song, “Upon the hearth the fire is red,” sung by Frodo, Sam and Pippin, as they trek away from Bag End, the desired end of a journey is, “The world behind and home ahead, We’ll wander back to home and bed.” For Bilbo, the perfect title for his book about his journey is, “There and Back Again”.
It is not only through the hobbits that we see the importance of ‘home’, in TLOTR. The ‘Blessed Realm’ is called ‘Elvenhome’. The ‘House of Elrond’ is called ‘The last homely house’.
If we are not reading TLOTR for the first time, we know that the ending of the whole book is; Sam, “Well, I’m back (home)”.
So, ‘home’ is an important concept.
Now, the word has appeared once before in the ‘Earendil was a Mariner’ poem:

“The winds of wrath came driving him,
and blindly in the foam he fled
from west to east and errandless,
unheralded he homeward sped.”


In this first reference to ‘home’, home is Middle Earth, or, somewhere in Middle Earth (Arvernien?). But, does ‘home’ have the same meaning, or, only the same meaning, the second time it is used?

Curiously, there is little reference to Earendil having a home. He is a mariner. A seafarer. A wanderer. He ‘tarries’ in Arvernien, rather than ‘dwells’ there.

When Earendil ‘homeward sped’, it is not clear that he ever reached ‘home’. ‘There flying Elwing came to him, and flame was in the darkness lit’. Where is ‘there’? Somewhere on his homeward way? Presumably not ‘home’ (whatever that meant to Earendil) or why would Elwing need to come ‘flying’ (whatever that means) to him? Wouldn’t she be there?

Is his home wherever Elwing is? Well, she came to him after he ‘homeward sped’, but seems to have disappeared again before he “yearned again to find afar his home”. What about wherever his children are? Well, we don’t really know at this point that he has any children. (Strider, on Weathertop says that Elrond is ‘of the Kin’ of Luthien, but does not mention that he is a child of Earendil. “And of Earendil came the Kings of Numenor”, may imply that Earendil had at least one child. It is not a very clear reference.)

So, what is the ‘home’ that Earendil yearns to find?

Of course, it could be Middle Earth, or someplace in Middle Earth. However, we should also consider that ‘Elvenhome’ is the proper home for Elves, but what is the proper ‘home’ for mortals?

It could be wherever they go after they die. Earendil, being turned into an ‘orbed star’, ‘til Moon should fade’, is denied either version of ‘home’.

I remember the epitaph on the grave in Samoa of that sailor and wanderer, Robert Louis Stevenson:

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I lay me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.


This might bring up the question, “But, is Earendil mortal”? Well, we have no reason so far in TLOTR to think otherwise. It is also clear that Bilbo, in the poem, positions him as mortal. If he were not mortal, his boat bearing him ‘by paths that seldom mortal goes’, would hardly need to be mentioned in the poem.[1]

So, what does ‘home’ mean to Earendil?



[1] Or, it might barely merit a footnote.
 
Specifically, what is the meaning of “home”, the second time it is used in the poem?

[snip]
If we are not reading TLOTR for the first time, we know that the ending of the whole book is; Sam, “Well, I’m back (home)”.

If we have read carefully (and not just stopped at the end of the narrative), we know that the choice of "Well, I'm back" rather than "Well, I'm home" seems to be a careful choice.
From the Appendices we know that Sam will spend another 61 years in Middle-Earth raising a family and being Mayor of the Shire for nearly half a century, and yet shortly after the death of his Rosie he departs for the Blessed Realm to find rest. He could be described as tarrying for a time before heading into the West, just like the Elves that he admires so much.

So, ‘home’ is an important concept.

Home is indeed an important concept. It appears to describe where a person feels that they belong and therefore can change.
Note that it doesn't necessarily mean it is where they belong, but where they feel they belong.

[snip]

Of course, it could be Middle Earth, or someplace in Middle Earth. However, we should also consider that ‘Elvenhome’ is the proper home for Elves, but what is the proper ‘home’ for mortals?

It could be wherever they go after they die. Earendil, being turned into an ‘orbed star’, ‘til Moon should fade’, is denied either version of ‘home’.
'Elvenhome' might not be the proper home for all Elves. All we can say with certainty is that Arda is the 'home' of all Elves (barring Luthien).

If he accepts the doom that is placed upon him, then where he ends up could be considered 'home' for him. After all, he was given the choice of Elvish or Mortal fate, and he chose Elvish for the sake of his wife. While the published text doesn't specifically give us all of this detail, it is nonetheless available to us for this analysis: If his desire for the Mortal 'home' was great enough he would have chosen mortality and death, but instead he chose Elvendom and immortality and was given an "an errand that should never rest".

[snip]

This might bring up the question, “But, is Earendil mortal”? Well, we have no reason so far in TLOTR to think otherwise. It is also clear that Bilbo, in the poem, positions him as mortal. If he were not mortal, his boat bearing him ‘by paths that seldom mortal goes’, would hardly need to be mentioned in the poem.[1]
So, what does ‘home’ mean to Earendil?



[1] Or, it might barely merit a footnote.
Bilbo identifies as mortal, and knowing the ambiguous status of Eärendil's mortality until the point of decision, it is easy to see how his perspective would side with mortality.
We don't see an Elvish account of Eärendil's journeys to compare, but such an account could be expected to have a different perspective, and given that Numenor (Westernesse) hasn't been established at the time of his errand having been appointed, an Elvish author (working in Westron) might even finish with:
'for ever still a herald on
an errand ending never more
to bear his shining lamp afar,
the Flammifer of Valinor.'

The line you single out for attention is important for a mortal, but truthfully the paths are seldom followed by any and, seemingly, the Elves that go seldom return.

Finally, it is somewhat disingenuous to make one assertion based on 'If we are not reading TLOTR for the first time...' and then go back to the 'Well, we have no reason so far...' position.

Beyond set readings for English Literature studies, it is extremely rare (unheard of?) for a first time reader to apply the sort of careful analysis that we are applying here. Even for set texts, my experience is that the analytical results are not delivered 'on-the-fly', but upon re-reading after reading the entire text and potentially some supplementary (e.g. Lost Tales, or The Silmarillion, etc.) or contrasting texts.
 
Hi Anthony,

I agree with you, that first time readers don't often read so carefully. I can't really remember what I thought when I got this far the first time I read the book. I was ten years old, and it was long ago.

I do remember, though, the feeling that this poem was important. I think it is one of the critical hinges of the book, but I'm still not sure about all the ways that it is important. Some of the ways could be:

  • It may mark the point where the later shape of the story became clear to Tolkien.
  • Bilbo, by reciting this poem at a feast in honor of Frodo is comparing Frodo to Earendil, signalling that Frodo's quest will go on.
  • Frodo (I think) realizes subconsciously, upon hearing the poem that his quest will go on.
  • The book looks for the first time at the themes of death and immortality together (which Tolkien later says, in a letter, are key themes).
  • We have seen providence (or 'chance, if chance you call it') playing a part many times in 'The Hobbit' and TLOTR so far, but hitherto the sources of providence have been obscure. Now we see two actors, Elbereth and the 'Elder King', actively doing things that influence mortals (Earendil) and Middle Earth (sending a 'Flammifer'). (We have seen Elbereth being invoked before, and that invocation having an impact, but we have not seen Elbereth acting herself before.)
  • We get a glimpse of Elvenhome for the first time (and some detail).
  • Elves and Humans are grouped together 'and heard at last the weeping sore of women and of elven-maids', as similar, whereas, hitherto, they have more frequently been contrasted as different.
  • We have had glimpses of the deep history of Middle Earth before, but this poem starts to link some of those glimpses together, and, most importantly, link them to Frodo. Bilbo would hardly have composed this poem for a feast in honor of Frodo if he did not mean to link Earendil to Frodo.

There are probably some other key themes in the poem besides these. Now, a first time reader might not have parsed them all out, but, they are all there, and at some level, the first time reader should get some sort of sense that this poem, in the Hall of Fire, is an important moment in the book.

I think that this is the moment that 'On (Frodo) mighty doom was laid'. Or, perhaps more accurately, this is the moment that Frodo (and, even more consciously, the reader) should realize that 'mighty doom' has been laid upon Frodo.
 
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