The Standard of Aragorn and the Shield of Aeneas

Aragorn unfurling the standard of the Kings of Gondor as he reaches Minas Tirith, sailing up the river Anduin, has got to be one of the most moving passages of The Lord of the Rings. I did not realize until recently that the scene is quite close to the arrival of Aeneas at the Trojan camp in Virgil’s Aeneid, book X.

Aeneas receives word that the Trojan camp is under attack and sails down the river to their aid. He sails through an anxious night with the rowers striving to bring them to the camp. Then in early morning a water-nymphs comes and speaks to Aeneas. She tells him to fling his sheets to the wind:

Up with you! Call your men to arms with the dawn.

That first, then seize the indestructible shield

the God of Fire gave you, ringed with gold.

Daybreak, if you find my urgings on the mark,

will see vast heaps of Rutulians cut down in blood!

Aeneas, propelled by the nymph, reaches the Trojan camp as the day is breaking. He raises his shield and it shines in the sun; the Trojans take it as a sign and their hope is renewed as they throw their spears into the air. The Rutulians and Latins marvel seeing the new hope of the Trojans and the armada bearing down on them, with Aeneas’s crested helm flashing with sunlight and his shield burning like fire.

No more words. As the wheeling sun swung round

to the full light of day and put the dark to flight,

first he commands his troops to follow orders,

brace their hearts for battle, gear for war.

                                                Now Aeneas,

standing high astern, no sooner catches a glimpse

of his own Trojan camp than he quickly hoists

his burnished, brazen shield in his left hand.

The Trojans up on the ramparts shout to the skies—

fresh hope ignites their rage—and wing their spears

like cranes from the river Strymon calling out commands

as they swoop through the air below the black clouds,

flying before the Southwinds, cries raised in joy.

The Rutulian king and the Latin captains marvel

till, glancing back, they see an armada heading

toward the shore and the whole sea rolling down

on them now in a tide of ships. From the peak

of Aeneas’ helmet flames are leaping forth

and a deadly blaze comes pouring from its crest.

The golden boss of his shield spews streams of fire,

strong as the lethal, blood-red light of comets streaming

on in a clear night, or bright as the Dog Star, Sirius,

bearing a plague and thirst to afflicted mortals,

rises up to shroud the sky with gloom.

Many of Virgil’s images in this scene are also used by Tolkien in Aragorn’s arrival at Minas Tirith. The armada sailing through the night to relieve the king’s own city under siege. The citizens sending messengers to ask for help who are killed before they can escape. The wind turning to speed the ships on. The arrival as the dawn breaks. The raising of a sign of the king, bright and shining in the sun—a sign that was the gift of a woman to the king: Aeneas’ shield, given by Venus, or Aragorn’s standard, given by Arwen. The sign gives hope to the defenders and wonder to the besiegers. The defenders throwing their weapons in the air; Éomer throws his sword. The flashing of the king’s helm: Aeneas’ crested helm, Aragorn’s winged helm.

Tolkien also drew images from other scenes of the Aeneid: Aeneas on his way to Latium goes through the land of the dead, like Aragorn taking the paths of the dead. The bright light of Aeneas’ shield in the sun like the light of Theoden’s golden shield. Also Aeneas leads his troops through a hidden valley to reach Latium, like the Riders of Rohan taking the Stonewain road to reach Minas Tirith. The death of Mezentius. Even Denethor burning himself on a pyre is like Dido in Aeneid IV.

I take this as confirmation of what Bruce Charlton has said about the nature of Tolkien’s creativity: that he was inspired especially by images. He gets an image in his head from some source of inspiration—sometimes dreams, here the work of Virgil; however it happens he becomes fixated on a certain image and then work out how that image fits into the story. Sometimes he would radically change the meaning of an image in the process. Charlton has given the example of the black rider sniffing for the hobbits in the Shire: at one point in revision this was not a Nazgul but a good character (Gandalf? I forget). What was important was the image of the black rider sniffing the ground.

Likewise the scene of Mezentius’ death in the Aeneid. Mezentius is on horseback and Aeneas throws his spear, killing the horse, which rears up and collapses on Mezentius. Mezentius’ son steps forth to defend him and exchanges fighting words with Aeneas.

Here the Witch-King stands in the place of Aeneas and Theoden of Mezentius, Éowyn in the place of Mezentius' son. Perhaps Tolkien was inspired by the scene, but he changed it reverse the positions of hero and villain.

We have a glimpse of Tolkien’s creative process: a process of assembling meaningful, striking images into a connected narrative. The image of the king sailing down the river to relieve his city from seige, raising a brightly shining standard in the new dawn—it is powerfully moving, stirring, almost heartbreaking. It seems to be one of those mythic or archetypal images that just strikes a chord no matter what. Could it be that the entire story of Aragorn’s journey to Pelargir—his taking the Paths of the Dead, riding across the southern fiefs, capturing the fleet of Umbar and sailing it up the river Anduin—was all developed so that Aragorn would arrive at Minas Tirith by ship to unfurl the Standard of the Kings? Did Tolkien grasp that this scene was the proper climax of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and then write The Return of the King in such a way as to bring it about? 

Two things necessary for successful art

Paul Fussell, Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, 1979:

All this is to say that art works by artifice, by illusion, and by technique, and that no amount of talent, idea, or largeness of soul or heart in the artist produces anything except through artifice or technique, through, that is, a mastery of the conventions appropriate to the art.

Bruce Charlton, Reviewing the Current Doctor Who, 2014:

The script-editors/ writers themselves, however talented, are what CS Lewis called 'Men without Chests'. At bottom the makers of Doctor Who apparently only believe in positive virtues of kindness and happiness. ... At bottom modern secular morality is just a matter of opinion; which sets a limit to how good, how deep, a script can be.

In this light, it is interesting that the explicitly Roman Catholic author Frank Cottrell Boyce has been hired as a writer - this means that there is at least the potential (if the bosses allow it) for a coherently moral story, with a morality more deeply rooted than 'doing this is what makes me feel good'.

There are two things that go to make art: matter and form. Matter is the content, Form is the technique. If either fails then the work of art itself will be a failure. Success in the one, no matter how great, cannot supply what is lacking from the other.

This is why enduring, classic works of art tend to unite technical mastery with a great subject or theme. Milton’s Paradise Lost sets out to “justify the ways of God to man.” Dante’s Divine Comedy is about the journey of the person from estrangement and sin to union with God. If we want some non-Christian works, Virgil’s Aeneid is not only about the founding of Rome (a subject not of universal significance) but also the resolve and suffering imposed by a vocation: mens immota manet, “the mind remains unmoved as the vain tears fall.”

Even in lighter or smaller works of art, where a weighty subject may not be appropriate, one needs a base of seriousness, especially a moral seriousness, or else the result will be thin. Take a comedy like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and compare it to Helen Fielding’s imitation, Bridget Jones’s Diary. Austen’s work has a moral foundation which the author herself takes seriously; therefore the events in which the comedy takes place are important and consequential in themselves. Fielding only has the morality Charlton describes above: ‘doing what makes me feel good.’ Nothing that happens has any importance except in relation to Bridget Jones’s feelings; and by necessity the comedy is more trivial and less funny. But it is not easy to separate matter from form, and in fact not only her theme but also Jane Austen’s artistry is superior to most modern writing.

Modern art, in all fields but especially in writing, tends to fail on both accounts. Writers now are ‘men without chests’ and do not believe anything has objective significance or meaning. Their work is morally thin; there is nothing there to chew on, no crunch. But they also tend to be inferior in skill and mastery of form than in former years. Partly through overt and conscious rejection of tradition, which means rejection of the great tools and techniques which have been handed down by the masters—it is like trying to build a house but refusing to use a ladder, hammer, or nails. But this is only part of it. Artists and writers are much worse educated than they used to be. Our educational philosophy, and the bureaucratic management of its practice, have worked together to ensure that most people are much stupider than they need to be.

In relation to hymn writing and liturgy you have a perfect storm: badly educated people who reject the tools of art and who do not believe in any objective meaning.