A book post: Tolkien and Shakespeare

[redbird]

I ought to write something about the new John M. Ford collection, Heat of Fusion and other Stories. I probably will. But instead, while waiting for the bus this afternoon I started thinking about The Return of the King and, thence, literary allusion and William Shakespeare.



I was thinking about Eowyn, and wondering what different book it would be--and what a different world or mindset Tolkien would have had to have been writing in--for it to have been her brother who got tired of war and decided to become a healer. And that, exhausted though she was--as were many who fought on those fields--it also seemed to be an easy evasion of the praise and honor she deserved for her part in the slaying of the Witch King/Ringwraith. And I remembered "No living man shall slay me."/"No living man am I. You look upon a woman."

And that, of course, echoes Macbeth and the witches' promise that he could not be slain by any man "of woman born." Whence I found myself wondering whether it was common, in Elizabethan times, to think of someone delivered by Caesarian section as not being born of woman. (And, now, writing this up, I wonder how common that surgery was then, and how often the woman survived.) I suspect someone here knows about this.

I also remembered that I've been meaning to post about an episode that's bothered me, on and off, for the almost 30 years since I first read The Lord of the Rings. After Aragorn takes the throne, and the hobbits are traveling home to the Shire, they pass through Bree where, of course, they stay at the Prancing Pony. [This is in Book VI, Chapter 7, "Homeward Bound".] The hobbits and Gandalf are talking with Barliman Butterbur, and after getting the news of Bree, they fill him in a bit on what's happened elsewhere in the world, and that there's a king again, and elves may visit.

"Well, that sounds more hopeful, I'll allow," said Butterbur. "And it will be good for business, no doubt. So long as he lets Bree alone."

"He will," said Gandalf. "He knows it and loves it."

"Does he now?" said Butterbur looking puzzled. "Though I'm sure I don't know why he should, sitting in his big chair up in his great castle, hundreds of miles away. And drinking wine out of a golden cup, I shouldn't wonder. What's The Pony to him, or mugs 'o beer? Not but what my beer's good, Gandalf. It's been uncommon good, since you came in the autumn of last year and put a good word on it. And that's been a comfort in trouble, I will say."

"Ah!" said Sam. "But he says your beer is always good."

"He says?"

Of course he does. He's Strider. The chief of the Rangers. Haven't you got that into your head yet?"

It went in at last, and Butterbur's face was a study in wonder. The eyes in his broad face went round, and his mouth opened wide, and he gasped. "Strider!" he exclaimed when he got back his breath. "Him with a crown and all and a golden cup! Well, what are we coming to?"

"Better times, for Bree at any rate," said Gandalf.

This seemed slightly off at the time, and I reread from the beginning of the episode (i.e. when they get to the Pony), and couldn't find any reason why Butterbur should, or indeed could, have figured out who the new king was without being told. But Sam clearly expected him to, and the narrative voice seems to agree. I still don't see what information or evidence Butterbur has and is overlooking: the Rangers deliberately kept quiet their connections to the old royal house of Arnor. Is there something back in Book I that would explain this? Or are Sam and the authorial voice enjoying a sense of superiority to the rustic innkeeper?
[Yes, this is papersky-safe: it's a book post.]