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.
“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.