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FOTR, Book 3, Chapter
IV, Treebeard
Treebeard relates to Merry and Pippin
the Song of the Entwives. He begins by saying:
There was an Elvish song that spoke
of this, or at least so I understand it. It used to be sung up
and down the Great River. It was never an Entish song, mark you:
it would have been a very long song in Entish! But we know it by
heart, and hum it now and again. This is how it runs in your
tongue:
He
then sings the call of the Ent and the response of the Entwives for the
seasons of Spring and Summer. The call of the Ent for Winter goes:
ENT. When Winter comes,
the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay;
When trees shall fall and starless night devour
the sunless day;
When wind is in the deadly East, then in the
bitter rain
I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to
thee again!'
The
line, "I'll come to thee" inspires "We will meet again."
The
response of the Entwives mentions the darkness of the starless night,
evoking the line of In Dreams that reads, "In the dark I hear a call":
ENTWIFE. When Winter comes, and singing
ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;
I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!
At
the end of the song, Ent and Entwife, presumably reunited at last, sing
together:
BOTH. Together we will take the road that
leads into the West,
And far away will find a land where both our hearts may rest.
Again, this hearkens to the line, "We will meet again." In the dark the
Entwives heard a call and they went.
It
also leads us directly to life beyond this world, or the world of
Middle-earth. The song strongly implies the 'next step' of existence.
Quenta Silmarillion, Chapter XIX, Of Beren and
Lúthien
HobbitLove writes, "Seas and mountains comes from a phrase in the
Silmarillion referring to Aman. Finrod Felagund says to Beren"
I go now to my long rest in the timeless
halls beyond the seas and the Mountains of Aman..."
She
continues, "Can we assumes that when they "fall" it is the end of the world
as the elves know it?" The Song of the Entwives and the quote from the
Silmarillion both deal touch on what comes after life as we know it: when we
come to 'end of days'
note: I am indebted to HobbitLove and OrdinaryHobbit who made me aware of
these connections between the song, "In Dreams", and Tolkien's writings. |
