Did the Stewards know the Istari came from the West?

David Joslin <tjoslinSpamBegone.TakeThisOut@san.rr.com> wrote:
> "Chocoholic" <Chocoholic.TakeThisOut@Cocoa.org> wrote in message

>> yes, he uses her exact words: "And now, what ship will bear you
>> back across so wide a sea?' he mocked. 'It will be a grey ship, and
>> full of ghosts.' He laughed, but his voice was cracked and
>> hideous."

> The question then becomes: is Galadriel's song an improvisation of the
> moment, or a part of her repetoire, so to speak, with which Saruman might
> have been familiar?

At least the phrase itself seems to have been common. Arwen uses it,
for example: "Nay, dear lord [...] that choice is long over. There is
now no ship that would bear the hence [...]".

And Saruman would be very familiar with Galadriels situation,
including her refusal and/or her ban to return to Valinor. So even if
he didn't listen to Galadriel's farewell song, it wouldn't be to
difficult for him to guess Galadriel's feelings.

> IIRC, the song is a meditation on her own condition of exile, not
> tied to the specific moment of delivery,

Exactly.

- Dirk

<stephen.DeleteThis@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:bmedub$1t5$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu...
> David Joslin <tjoslinSpamBegone.DeleteThis@san.rr.com> wrote:
> : <stephen.DeleteThis@nomail.com> wrote in message
> : news:bm4i0i$316j$1@msunews.cl.msu.edu...
>
> :> :> Personally, that final exchange between Saruman and Frodo
> :> :> always seemed out of place to me. The appear to be far more
> :> :> familiar with each other than they should be. They have
> :> :> never met before, other than the brief encounter when the
> :> :> returning fellowship passed Saruman on the road.
> :> :>
>
> : Perhaps the immediate conversation itself is enough to give Saruman
insight
> : into Frodo's character, don't you think? What more does Saruman need to
know
> : about Frodo to say the words he does, beyond Frodo's act of mercy
itself?
>
> He needs to know that Frodo has grown, so that his sentence
> "you have grown" makes sense. Given that Saruman never met Frodo
> before the Ring was destroyed, he obviously has nothing to base
> an opinion about Frodo's growth on. You could just chalk it up
> to "magic" on Saruman's part, but magic is a poor substitute
> for real character interaction.

Frodo displays a moral stature so outstanding and a knowledge of the Istari
so discriminating that growth is implicit within them. You would not
reasonably expect someone from the provincial backwater that is the Shire to
possess this kind of wisdom. Ergo, he has grown.

It would be as if you met a nobody from nowhere who began spouting to you
the most intricate details of string theory. You could fairly conclude that
he or she had learned a great deal, while knowing nothing else about them.

>
> : This is a very great moment in the book, perhaps the culmination: his
> : earliest wish for Gollum to have been slain, Gandalf's reproof, and his
> : later sparing of Gollum out of pity come to this last moment in which he
> : proves in himself the lesson of mercy. Mercy above pity, since here he
is
> : moved rather by hope for Saruman's restoration. So the divine
intervention
> : of Gandalf bears its fruit: the mere hobbit rises to the wisdom of the
> : angel, and God's plan and love for the mortals is vindicated. All this
in
> : the very face of the angel who has cast himself down! No wonder Saruman
is
> : so bitter! And no wonder he and Frodo are so familiar, as you put it:
they
> : share the same perspective, if from opposite endpoints.
>
> : The conversation is not out of place. To the contrary.
>
> : David Joslin
>
> But Saruman does not know that Frodo wanted to kill Gollum.
> Saruman does not know all the stuff the reader knows. It may
> make sense to you as a reader that Frodo has grown, but it
> does not make sense to have Saruman comment on it.
>

Here I spoke as a reader, to your comment about the place of the passage in
the work. I did not mean to say that Saruman shares the all the knowledge of
the reader. He speaks for the reader only to recognize with us the nature
and the stature of Frodo's moral knowledge, which he clearly does perceive.

David Joslin