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| Poems and Tales of Middle-Earth: |
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(illustration by Alan Lee) |
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Rhymes of old days:
"When the black breath blows
and death's shadow grows
and all lights pass,
come athelas! come athelas!
Life to the dying
in the king's hand lying!"
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The Lord of the Rings
Part III. The Return of the King
Quotes from Tolkien's Novel
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| Gondor: The Houses of Healing |
"A mist was in Merry's eyes of tears and weariness when they drew near to the ruined
Gate of Minas Tirith. He gave little heed to the wreck and slaughter that lay about all. Fire and smoke and stench
was in the air; for many engines had been burned or cast into the fire-pits, and many of the slain also." |
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" 'Are you going to bury me?' said Merry.
'No, indeed!' said Pippin, trying to sound cheerful, though his heart was wrung with fear and
pity. 'No, we are going to the Houses of Healing.' " |
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" 'Wholesome verily,' said Aragorn. 'And now, dame, if you love the Lord Faramir,
run as quick as your tongue and get me kingsfoil, if there is a leaf in the City.' " |
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"Now Aragorn knelt beside Faramir, and held a hand upon his brow. And those that
watched felt some great struggle was going on. For Aragorn's face grew grey with weariness; and ever and anon he called
the name of Faramir, but each time more faintly to their hearing, as if Aragorn himself was removed from them, and walked
afar in some dark vale, calling for one that was lost. [...] And then he cast the leaves into the bowls of steaming
water that were brought to him, and at once all hearts were lightened. For the fragrance that came to each was like
the memory of dewy mornings of unshadowed sun in some land of which the fair world in Spring is itself
a fleeting memory." |
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" 'When I first looked on her and perceived her unhappiness, it seemed to me
that I saw a white flower standing straight and proud, shapely as a lily, and yet knew that it was hard, as if wrought
by elf-wrights out of steel. Or was it, maybe, a frost that had turned its sap to ice, and so it stood, bitter-sweet, still
fair to see, but stricken, soon to fall and die? Her malady begins far back before this day, does it not, Éomer?' [Aragorn]
'I marvel that you should ask me, lord,' he answered. 'For I hold you blameless in this matter, as in all
else; yet I knew not that Éowyn, my sister, was touched by any frost, until she first looked on you. Care and dread
she had, and shared with me, in the days of Wormtongue and the king's bewitchment; and she tended the king in growing
fear. But that did not bring her to this pass!'
'My friend,' said Gandalf, 'you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born
in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man,
whom she loved as a father, and watch him falling into a mean dishonoured dotage; and her part seemed to her more
ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.'
'Think you Wormtongue had poison only for Théoden's ears? Dotard! What is the house of
Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs?
Have you not heard those words before? Saruman spoke them, the teacher of Wormtongue. Though I do not doubt that
Wormtongue at home wrapped their meanings in terms more cunning. My lord, if your sister's love for you, and her will
still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips, you might have heard even such things escape them. But who knows
what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the
walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?'
Then Éomer sat silent, and looked on his sister, as if pondering anew all the days of their
past life together. But Aragorn said: 'I saw also what you saw, Éomer. Few other griefs amid the ill chances of
this world have more bitterness and shame for a man's heart than to behold the love of a lady so fair and brave that
cannot be returned. Sorrow and pity have followed me ever since I left her desperate in Dunharrow and rode to the Paths
of the Dead; and no fear upon that way was so present as the fear for what might befall her. And yet, Éomer,
I say to you that she loves you more truly than me; for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow
and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from Rohan.'
'I have, maybe, the power to heal her body, and to recall her from the dark valley. But to
what she will awake: hope, or despair, I do not know. And if to despair, then she will die, unless other healing comes
which I cannot bring.' " |
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" 'Do not be afraid', said Aragorn. '[...] His grief he will not forget; but it
will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.'
Then Aragorn laid his hands on Merry's head, and passing his hand gently through the brown
curls, he touched the eyelids, and called him by his name. And when the fragrance of athelas stole through
the room, like the scent of orchards, and of heather in the sunshine full of bees, suddenly Merry awoke, and he said:
'I am hungry. What is the time?' " |
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"Merry seized his hand and kissed it. 'I am frightfully sorry,' he said. 'Go at once!
ever since that night at Bree we have been a nuisance to you. But it is the way of my people to use light words at
such times and say less than they mean. We fear to say too much. It robs us of the right words when a jest is out of
place.'
'I know that well, or I would not deal with you in the same way,' said Aragorn. 'May the Shire
live forever unwithered!' " |
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