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Breastplates of Silk: Homeric Women in <I>The Lord of the Rings</I>

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Breastplates of Silk: Homeric Women in <I>The Lord of the Rings</I> Volume 21 Number 3 Article 4 Summer 7-15-1996 Breastplates of Silk: Homeric Women in The Lord of the Rings Mac Fenwick Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Fenwick, Mac (1996) "Breastplates of Silk: Homeric Women in The Lord of the Rings," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 21 : No. 3 , Article 4. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol21/iss3/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Notes parallels between women characters in Homer’s Odyssey and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, especially Circe, Calypso, and Galadriel. All assist the hero and give gifts which allow him to defeat female monsters such as the Sirens and Shelob. Additional Keywords Charybdis; Female monsters; Homer—Characters—Calypso; Homer. The Odyssey—Influence on J.R.R. Tolkien; Scylla; Sirens; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Galadriel; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Shelob; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Women; Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol21/iss3/4 fflaoRnose I s s u e 81 W jS u C O C O e R 1996 P a c e 17 JlfeS&girplL&S®© @{p jSflUS J^OCDGRIC ff[0 CD6 M IKJ Tt>€ L/OJZO O f Tfye %\lbJQS JWa.c Bewwick t a meeting of the Tolkien Society of America in an analogue to The Hobbit's chronicle of Bilbo's adventures 1966, Tolkien's old student and friend, W.H. Auden, in Odysseus' wanderings during the four "fairy-tale" delivered a lecture on Tolkien's Middle-earth to the assem­ books of the Odyssey. These studies, while useful, find only bled fans. "Tolkien is fascinated with the whole Northern isolated events or persons that bear some resemblance to thing," he said, "People seem to divide— they're attracted equally isolated events or persons in the epics. There are, by either the Northern thing or the Southern thing, by however, several structural elements of The Lord o f the Scandinavia or the Mediterranean— and for Tolkien north Rings that I believe demonstrate extensive and compelling is a sacred direction" ("The Elvish Mode"). similarities to the structure of the Odyssey, one of the most important being the conflict between Galadriel and There can be no denying that for Tolkien North was Shelob, as mediated by Frodo. This battle between an indeed a sacred direction and that the bulk of his imagina­ idealized woman and her antithetical counterpart is tive enterprise is based upon a lifetime's intimate acquain­ highly reminiscent of the conflict between Circe/Calypso tance with the literature of the ancient North: and the female monsters of the Odyssey as mediated by In any case if you want to write a tale of this sort you must Odysseus. consult your roots, and a man of the North-west of the Old World will set his heart and the action of his tale in an In the Odyssey, Circe and Calypso both aid and advise imaginary world of that air, and that situation. (Letters 212). the hero, rule and protect a secluded, magical realm of their own, and present challenges to Odysseus' growing While remaining firmly rooted in the North, however, wisdom. With the aid of these two women Odysseus is Tolkien's imagination encompassed far more than this one able to escape the female monsters of the epic— the Sirens, comer of the globe: during his years as an undergraduate Scylla and Charybdis — who are themselves anti-types of at Exeter College, Tolkien was enrolled in Classical Mod­ the Homeric ideal that Circe and Calypso represent. The erations and specialized for a year in Creek philology, in Lord o f the Rings similarly has a ruler, the Lady Galadriel, which he was awarded an A+ (Letters 12). While the whose advice, given in her realm after challenging the "Northern thing" was preeminent in Tolkien's imagina­ hero, takes Frodo and Sam past the female monster Shelob. tion, it was not alone — North and South existed side by side in his mind, one preferred but both familiar. The primary function of the queen in both Homer and Tolkien is to aid the hero in the furtherance of his quest, Beyond the fact that Tolkien was fluent in the language and this aid takes two distinct forms: gifts and advice. of Homer we can have certain knowledge of only two There are some standard Homeric gifts that all good hosts instances when the epics were consciously in his mind as give deserving guests: a well-woven cloak, food and drink he wrote of Middle-earth: first, in the margins of an early and, occasionally, if the guest is exceptionally worthy, draft of the chapter "Minas Tirith" from The Lord o f the tripods, cauldrons and other treasure. Although tradition­ Rings, Tolkien scrawled "Homeric catalogue" next to the ally given by the king, Odysseus consistently receives description of the Gondorian nobles as they bring in their these things from the hands of women. men for the final defense (War o f the Ring 229); second, and Although treasure has the greater monetary value and finally, he consistently refers to the Riders of Rohan as food and drink the greater intrinsic worth, the only gift "heroic 'Homeric' horsemen" (Letters 154, 159). Beyond that Odysseus receives from Circe before his descent into these facts we must rely upon critical observation and the Underworld is a "tunic and cloak" (10.397, 585) that internal evidence, and, despite Tolkien's dislike of the she wove in her magical grotto. When in Phaeacea, Odys­ search for sources, two critics have in this way been able seus receives a cloak from Arete's daughter, Nausicaa, and to trace some of Homer's influence upon him. is allowed to keep it after the queen recognizes it as her The lengthy title of David Greenman's article, own work (7.250). Of the three queens, it is Calypso who "Aenedic and Odyssean Patterns of Escape and Return in provides Odysseus with the most; not only does she give Tolkien's "the Fall of Gondolin' and The Return o f the King" him tools to construct a raft (5.243-246), and a cloth for a speaks for itself. Greenman compares the homecoming of sail (5.267-268), she also gives him provisions and, of the hobbits in the final chapters of The Lord o f the Rings to course, a cloak that she has woven for him: "'Stores I shall Odysseus' return to Ithaca. In ""There and Back Again' — put aboard for you - bread, water, / and ruby-coloured Odysseus and Bilbo Baggins," Kenneth J. Reckford finds wine, to stay your hunger — / give you a sea cloak and a pA.ee is Issue 81 W ^ U C D C O e R 1996 cnaonnoRe following wind'" (5.175-177). Later, as Odysseus relates Such a gift as this is one that the sea-faring Achaeans for his tale to Arete in the hall Alcinous, he describes the cloak whom the Odyssey was written would not have failed to as "'Immortal clothing'" and as "'a cloak divinely woven'" appreciate. In an era of small boats and uncertain naviga­ (7.277-278,284). tion, Calypso's unerring nautical skill would indeed have seemed to be nothing less than magical. Galadriel gives her heroes many of the same things that the Homeric queens give Odysseus. Galadriel gives the Galadriel's gift to Sam also resembles what Circe (indi­ magical food of the Elves, lembas, to the members of the rectly) gives Odysseus; at their parting, Galadriel gives Fellowship (389). Galadriel not only provisions the Fellow­ Sam a small box, telling him that: ship with food and drink, she also gives them several very "In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing important, and interestingly Homeric, gifts. Foremost as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it. It will not keep you among these are the cloaks that she dresses them in: on your road, nor defend you against any peril; but if you "Are these magic cloaks?" asked Pippin, looking keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may at them with wonder. reward you." (396) "I do not know what you mean by that," answered The reward of the soil is renewal of the Shire after Saru- the leader of the Elves. "They are fair garments and man's Revenge; thanks to Circe's guidance in the Under­ the web is good, for it was made in this land.. Yet world, Odysseus also gains the secret of renewal as Tiresias they are garments, not armour, and they will not turn tells him how to abate Poseidon's W rath (10.126-146).
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