Et Tu, Faramir? - Page 2
© Michael Martinez
The passage can be reasonably dated to sometime between Shire Year 1436 and S.Y. 1442. Elanor became one of the queen's handmaids in 1436, and in 1442 her family rode to Gondor on a visit. She was probably not in Arwen's service for more than a year or two. Sam was Mayor in these years, and Merry had become Master of Buckland in 1432. Pippin became Thain in 1434.
Another citation, much longer than that given above, occurs in the section on Gondor's kings. It begins in the midst of the summary of the career of Romendacil II with "For the high men of Gondor already looked askance at the Northmen among them; and it was a thing unheard of before that the heir to the corwn, or any son of the King, should wed one of lesser and alien race...."
This just does not sound like something a Hobbit, even Master Meriadoc of the Buckland, would write. Furthermore, the citation concludes with "...Umbar remained at war with Gondor for many lives of men, a threat to its coastlands and to all traffic on the sea. It was never again completely subdued until the days of Elessar; and the region of South Gondor became a debatable land between the Corsairs and the Kings."
Another citation follows immediately upon this one, but the closing sentence implies that this particular citation was written after Elessar's (Aragorn's) death. We know that the last Gondorian to have written any of the Red Book's material was Findegil, the King's Writer in Fourth Age 172, more than 50 years after Aragorn died. The language is formal and stylized, as a royal writer's should be.
But not all the late citations are derived strictly from Gondor (if any). "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", for example, is offered completely as a citation, but it concludes with "Here ends this tale, as it has come to us from the South; and with the passing of Evenstar no more is said in this book of the days of old."
One must ask if the entire story, up to but not including this final sentence, represents a Gondorian style, or if some Hobbit write of the late Second Century (Fourth Age) rewrote the story, which Tolkien then translated for his readers.
"The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" may be the longest citation Tolkien included in his Middle-earth works. Of course, some people might argue that "Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife" is another translated story, but the presentation is wholly different. And Tolkien never finished the tale, so we have no obvious clues about whose voice the narration conveys, Tolkien's or some imaginary ancient writer's. Even "The Disaster of the Gladden Fields" fails that test because it is accompanied by Author's Notes which clearly show that Tolkien was interweaving texts to fill out the history provided in The Lord of the Rings (including "Cirion and Eorl").
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