A few years ago I wrote the seed of this article. For whatever reason, these pasts few months I heavily researched it, found some new exciting things and decided to footnote it. I don't know why. I guess I just find it fascinating. Of course, it strikes me that I just might be the only person I know who will find it interesting. C'est la vie. That's why the subtitle of this blog is: My thoughts - what else?
“I was brought up in the Classics,
and first discovered
the sensation of literary pleasure in
Homer.”
Tolkien
and the Immortal Expression
In
the midst of 2013, playing in my library, I stumbled upon something in an old language
that stirred my thoughts about two of my favorite writers – Homer and Tolkien.
If I had found a Thoreau connection it would have been a dream, as those are
the three writers who I have been most affected by, but he wasn’t even a vague
thought at the time.Yet, three years
later, as I rewrite the essay, the third connection was made and a literary trail
beginning in ancient Ugarit and perhaps even further back than recorded history
led up to 20th century England and 19th century America.
I
will very briefly summarize the argument I will develop here: One phrase in a sentence in The Lord of the Rings (“LOTR”) has been
suggested by a literary scholar to stem from an expression that appeared in a 14th
century Middle English anonymous elegy, Pearl.
Given Tolkien’s career and translation of that very poem, this was interesting,
but hardly earth shaking. But, other scholars have traced the same expression
from the Second Millennium in ancient Syria through Homer and other renowned
ancient Greeks. Separated by so much time, distance and unmeasurable language
changes – the phrase as it appeared in Northern Europe had lost its ancient
metaphorical meanings and was just used, at least in Germanic languages,
including English, for alliterative and more prosaic purposes. Though it may at
first blush seem likely that Tolkien simply used a phrase he found sonorous in Pearl, both the textual and
circumstantial evidence is extremely
strong that he modeled his own use of the phrase not on Pearl, but on Homer. Tolkien used the phrase in almost exactly the
same formula as it existed in Homer (which other Germanic and English writers
who used it did not), and also intended it to have the same meaning that Homer
and the ancients used. And that is remarkable, for it means that the use of the
phrase as originally conceived can now be brought forward to the 20th
century – nearly 4000 years in all. Separate and apart from Tolkien, almost a
century earlier in America, Thoreau also used the phrase in such a way as to
show that there was no doubt he also meant it as anciently understood.
Tolkien
- Fulfilling the Prophecy
Tolkien’s fiction is so
well known, he easily falls into the category of “needs no introduction.” I
have no intention of reviewing his work or life here. But, I do wish to
introduce him for my own purposes and in my own way through the words of
another celebrated writer:
“The Elder Edda is much
the more important of the two [eddas]. It is made up of separate poems, often
about the same story, but never connected with each other. The material for a
great epic is there, as great as the Iliad, perhaps even greater, but no poet
came to work it over as Homer did the early stories which preceded the Iliad.
There was no man of genius in the Northland to weld the poems into a whole and
make it a thing of common beauty and power: no one even to discard the crude
and the commonplace and cut out the childish and wearisome repetitions. There
are lists of name in the Edda which sometimes run on unbroken for pages.
Nevertheless the somber grandeur of the stories comes through in spite of the
style. Perhaps no one should speak of ‘the style’ who cannot read ancient
Norse; but all the translations are so alike in being singularly awkward and
involved that one cannot but suspect the original of being responsible, at
least in part. The poets of the Elder Edda seem to have had conceptions greater
than their skill to put them into words. Many of the stories are splendid.
There are none to equal them in Greek mythology, except those retold by the
tragic poets. All the best Northern tales are tragic, about men and women who
go steadfastly forward to meet death, often deliberately choose it, even plan
it long beforehand. The only light in the darkness is heroism.”
If you have only watched
the movie versions of The Lord of the
Rings (“LOTR”) or read the books once, you might not know your Elder Edda from your Iliad and be unaware of Tolkien’s scholarship
and career. But, if you’ve read LOTR a few times, or delved into some of the many
books written about the author, you may have sufficient interest to be aware of
not only the linguistic aspects of his work, but also that he was intimately familiar with northern European mythology and its languages in particular. If so, there is a much better chance you have read or are
at least familiar with Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, first
published in the early 1940s and still being re-published today. Her discussion
of the Elder Edda
contained that seemingly prophetic tidbit above.
You could certainly argue as to whether Tolkien qualifies
as her “man of genius,”
although undoubtedly he had
the skill to put the
Edda poets’
conceptions into words. He read Ancient Norse and other languages to varying
degrees, and was also a renowned expert, perhaps
the expert on
Beowulf, amongst other literature. And at the
time Hamilton was writing the above words, he was already writing the epic she
described. Indeed it was a completion of work he had long ago started. His
masterpieces, LOTR,
the earlier
published The Hobbit, the
less celebrated and the posthumously published prequel
The Silmarillion,
and other works also posthumously published which were edited by his son, tell
the tales of ancient human and other human-like civilizations, drawing from
this Oxford philologist’s storehouse of myth and language. No doubt the dark
foreboding of northern myth most often influenced his writing, so much so that I
can almost see putting Hamilton’s two last quoted sentences above in the mouth
of one of his characters -
All the best Northern tales are tragic, about
men and women who go steadfastly forward to meet death, often deliberately
choose it, even plan it long beforehand. The only light in the darkness is
heroism.
One of Tolkien’s goals in creating Middle-Earth (a name
itself is derived from the
Elder Edda)
was to create a modern mythology for England. “
I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own
beloved country: it had no stories of its own … Do not laugh! But once upon a
time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or
less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of
romantic fairy-story… which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my
country.” (Letters, p. 144). It was no failure. Even in his own lifetime he must have
known that he succeeded wildly, as, he has given longer life to traditions that
would be much less known in the world today were it not for his fictional work,
even though relatively few
people will ever crack the binding on the
Eddas or The
Kalevala (a Finnish work which greatly inspired him) to read from
primary influences. Nor, because of the quality of his fiction, would most
readers be likely to be more captivated by those older poems than his – one
only has to compare the sales figures to know that.
There are numerous books and webpages on Tolkien and his
work, and, many are interesting, although I have not yet found one that I would
say was even close to comprehensive.
Most worthwhile for my
purposes here is the collection of Tolkien’s letters, because his own lengthy
correspondence is the most direct and illuminating source about his creations. But,
I would also recommend the works of Professor Tom Shippey who started me on my
path from Tolkien to the gates of Ugarit.
The Beginning of
the Path - English Stocks and Stones
Professor Shippey (b. 1943), who happily lives in
Tolkien’s shadow and seems to have no professional jealousy, has written
several books celebrating and studying Tolkien’s works. Some years ago I
was reading his
The Road to
Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. TOLKIEN Created a New Mythology in
which there is a chapter 6 entitled “When All our Fathers Worshipped
Stocks and Stones.” It centers on a scene near the end of LOTR in
which an Ent (meaning "giant" in Old English) named Treebeard in “the
common tongue,” the eldest living creature in Middle-Earth and half
tree-half man, bids farewell to an Elf Lord and Lady who are also ancient far beyond
mortal measure.
Treebeard
says –
“It is long, long
since we met by stock or by stone. . . ."
Shippey goes on to
suggest "'by stock or by stone' is an echo of the fourteenth-century poem Pearl, written by the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and
probably the most powerful of all medieval elegies."
Pearl
was
written in Middle, not Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), and patient modern readers
can wend their way through it with just a little help. In Pearl, the grieving father speaks the following words: "We
meten so selden by stok other ston. . . ." Or, in Modern English – “We meet so
seldom by stock or stone” (Gordon translation). Ironically, Tolkien,
who later put the stock and stone alliteration in Treebeard’s mouth,
actually translated that line of Pearl
less literally - "We meet on our roads by chance so rare."
Shippey’s chapter “All
our Fathers Worshipped Stocks and Stones” is long and meandering (45 pages in
my soft cover edition), and many points he addressed in it do not concern me
here. But, he returns to this phrase "by stock and by
stone" at the end of it, asserting Wordsworth's echoing of Pearl: "With rocks, and stones, and
trees!" Shippey remarks, "He should have written 'stocks', not
'rocks'. But he preferred the alliteration on r (and the
tautology)."
I admit I have always
been a little puzzled by Professor Shippey’s above quoted comment on Wordsworth,
who he derides as "a linguistic critic of the most ignorant type." By
alliteration on the “r” (see the full stanza below at p. 10) I presume he was referring
back to the “r’s” starting the first two words of the preceding line, which
seems rather remote and disconnected from “rocks” to be called alliteration, at
least to my ear, if not technically. If Wordsworth avoided the tautology of
rock and stone, and presciently followed Shippey’s advice, he would have had alliteration
with “Stock and Stone,” and a tautology of sorts with stock and trees. But why should he have
used “stock?” Whatever he may think of Wordsworth’s flaws as a critic, he
should at least credit him as a poet and knowing his own mind.
Shippey also addresses
John Milton's own purported homage to Pearl
in a sonnet with "When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones. .
." – from whence he took the title to his chapter. Unlike Shippey, I am
not sure that Wordsworth and Milton were necessarily paying homage to Pearl in using the phrase. For one
thing because there were other sources for the expression, as I will come to
below, and reference to elemental material such as rocks and trees would seem
to readily come to mind even to non-poets. It seems more likely that Wordsworth
did not use the alliterative phrase “stock and stone” simply because he wasn’t echoing
Pearl. Peruse only Evangeline and you will see that, if
nothing else, Wordsworth repeatedly described nature in simple elemental forms. Nor can we be sure that Milton was not
just using a phrase he knew from either his own life or readings. His time
was not so far removed from that of Pearl as Wordsworth or Tolkien and he may have actually have used
the phrase "stock and stone" just as all authors use a multitude of
phrases while not necessarily taking it from any particular author or
source. Shippey gives me no reason to believe that Milton had taken it
from Pearl at all as opposed to other
sources, though given Milton’s education, perhaps he had read it.
In English and other languages the use of
“stock and stone” seemed to be widespread. From a blog, logismoi.blogspot.com, essentially an
Orthodox Christian commentary, but rich in language discussion, I found yet
another stock and stone reference, this one from a 13th century Snorri
Sturluson saga, Heimskringla, which has St. Olaf preach
that the gold and ornaments should be given to wives and daughters and never
again hung upon stocks (trees) and stones. Logismoi,
8/12/2009. Snorri seems not to use it as a metaphor there at all, but
rather in a straightforward fashion. The blog author (a deacon and Christian
school teacher named Aaron Taylor) ponders whether the phrase goes back to
Proto-Germanic poetic tradition, but does not seem aware of the even deeper
Indo-European roots I will come too. But I can find very few who are.
Nevertheless, as far as
English goes, logismoi is a
treasure trove for "stock" references. In a follow up post on
8/14/2009, assisted by some knowledgeable commenters, he notes 14th
century uses in Chaucer from Troilus
and Chryseyde ("by stokkes and by stones), from a 13th century Brut (Brutus) by Lazamon ("Mid
Stocken & mid stanen. . ." - "With stockes and with stones. .
.") and from an OED reference, to Reson
and Sensuallyte by a John Lydgate in 1407 ("As deffe as stok or
ston."). As with his other post, there are no Classical or more ancient
references. Other prior uses can be found in a Shakespearian index. When so many examples can
be given of which we have evidence, experience tells us that many others likely (I do not say necessarily) existed of which we do not know.
As a loose analogy, many people including myself felt very confident that there
were planets circling other stars long before our scientists and telescopes
could detect them. It would have been shocking to us if they were not there
because they are plentiful around our own star and we had no reason to think
our solar system unique. “Stock and stone” was just a generally used phrase at
some point, and the only time we have proof of it is when it was written down
and fortuitously survived.
Nevertheless, the use of a
phrase coupling rock and tree arose long before there was an Anglo-Saxon or even
a Proto-Germanic language, even before Ancient Greek, and though evidence will
peter out in the depths of time (an example of a common phrase I can use while not paying homage to any particular author), it can be traced back
thousands of years earlier to relatively earlier descendants of Proto-Indo-European
language speakers.
I don't know exactly when
I read Shippey's book for the first time, but I think it was in hardcover
borrowed from the library in 2003 or 2004. "By stock and by stone"
was just a pleasant alliteration that stuck in my head upon reading his book,
and I did not analyze his theory about it. Though I had read the scene in LOTR of
which Shippey was speaking way back in the early 1980s, I do not recall especially
noticing that phrase at all. I wasn't that interested in languages at the time,
at least in the way I am now. But the scene in which the phrase was used did
stick in my head as it represented to me what I think it did for Tolkien -- the
dying of a mythologically rich and agrarian way of life and the advent of a
more urban and technological one. I shall return to it shortly.
Homer
Jump ahead about a
decade to 2013 when I am trying to translate some lines from The Iliad in which Hector is
thinking about whether or not to fight Achilles. I came across a phrase
that was rendered in the English translation of the Iliad translation I most frequently consulted as: "In no wise may
I now from oak-tree or from rock hold dalliance with him . . . ." Ch. 22:126-127. Professor
Murray's translation is awkwardly rendered in Modern English. Perhaps it is not
an easy line to translate because it makes little sense without learning the
underlying meaning. Some other translators
just paraphrase or interpret the words.
Professor Murray actually
takes fewer liberties than most other translators of The Iliad I have read, in my amateur opinion, and that’s why he is
my favorite translator to refer to when I (all too often) feel stuck. In this
case, it appears that "from oak (tree) and from stone (or rock)" is
an expression and not meant to be taken literally. Professor Murray
himself notes as follows in a footnote: "This phrase . . . recurs a number
of times in Greek literature, and appears to be a quotation from an old
folk-tale dealing with the origin of mankind from trees or stones." P. 462.
Whatever the meaning of
that phrase, the words “from oak or from stone” fired a synapse in my brain
when I read it in Homer. I knew I had seen something like it before and thought
I knew where. The spirit of discovery upon me, I went straight to my second
hand soft-cover copy of Shippey to re-read the chapter about "stocks and
stones." I can't say I had anything more than an intuition when I started,
but it ripened quickly into something else.
On
to the Ancient East
Reviewing Shippey, I
quickly suspected he had stopped far too soon in the 14th century
A.D. (arguably he merely stayed within his field of expertise in order to make
the points he desired, but I think it is more probable he did not know of the
antiquity of the expression) and that "stock or stone" could be
related to the Ancient Greek "(oak) tree and stone" even if they no
longer had the same meaning. I wondered if there was any evidence of it
going even further back than Homer. I went online, the only way I could
conveniently research, and directly searched for
ancient phrases concerning oak trees or just trees with stones and like words.
I was rewarded with a paper by a Harvard philologist, A. S. W. Forte, on what
seemed like a comparable phrase. It was a scholarly article which has grown
with time – there are three versions on the web I’ve read, the last (2015)
published in a journal being the one cited here, is a treasure trove of
information. Unlike scholars, who can sometimes be quite rough on each other, I
am always uncomfortable summarizing a scholar’s work for fear of misstatement
or misunderstanding. But I know no other way to go about it – so I will
generally summarize what I learned from him that is pertinent to my topic:
- The phrase in Ancient Greek is found not
only in The Iliad (Il, 22.126), but also in The Odyssey (Od, 19.163), in Hesiod (the other great poet from the pre-classical
Greek Epic poetry era at Theogeny,
1.3``5) and even several times in Plato (Phaedrus,
The Republic and The Apology).
- There is also similar
phraseology and symbolism dating back to the 13th century B.C.E. Ugaritic Baal
cycle found at Ras Shamra and also a picture on a
seal from the 18th century B.C. from Northern Syria which strongly resembles a
pictogram of the same phrase. [I should note here that it is generally accepted
that Baal has many characteristics in common with the Greek Zeus, including the
aspects of lightning and thunder and there is almost certainly a transference
of myth because of the proximity of the area known as the Levant to the
Mediterranean, which has been well documented. As Forte notes, the tree
associated with Zeus as well as other gods, was, in fact, the oak tree.] Forte
reviews in footnotes the scholarship on this phrase in Indo-European literature
(ps. 1-3, fns. 2-4).
- The phrase includes the
idea of speech coming from oak and rock and is a metaphor for
thunder and lightning, but representing divine speech (oracular or prophetic)
and generative power (origins of man). That conclusion is based on evidence throughout
his article. I accept it on its face as a premise for my argument.
- “There is a clear,
inherited ideological system that persists from the Bronze-Age through Homer
and Hesiod and
is received by various, later local sources, both Hebrew and Greek."
Forte, p. 30.
- The visual evidence
from Northern Syria suggests that even earlier antecedents of this phrase, ‘speech
from tree and/or rock,’ may be lurking in cultures of the early third millennium
B.C.E. Forte, p. 31.
- There is no way to tell
what access writers/poets like Homer, Hesiod or Plato had to the earlier
metaphoric meaning of the phrase or precisely what it meant at any given time.
He uses English examples of "by hook or by crook," "to make ends
meet" and "the proof is in the pudding" to explain that we can't
be sure what they meant to any one at any given time.
*
Presuming all of the above
is correct, the phrase lasted relatively intact from circa 18th century B.C.E.
through Plato in the 4th century B.C.E. or roughly 1400 years
(and possibly far longer). I am suggesting here that the life of this phrase in
Tolkien – “by stock and by stone” - and the phrase in Homer – “from (Oak) tree
and stone” is actually much longer than most scholars believe, in fact, right up
to the 20th century, though the ancient meaning has been scrubbed
through time, distance and language except in two startling modern examples
where the original meaning seems intact.
It is fair to ask, “Why
are you suggesting that an ancient expression concerning an (oak) tree and
stone (rock) is related to the English language ‘stock and stone’?
Perhaps they are only vaguely similar, but have different origins?”
It is ultimately a
quibble. The great similarity in various examples in literature that can be
pointed to far outweighs slim differences between them. According to A Compendious Anglo-Saxon and English
Dictionary "stoc" or "stock" was "a stock,
stem, trunk, block, stick.” But, England is far from the Eastern Mediterranean
and it would be more surprising if the exact phrasing was used (it is not even
precisely the same in Homer, Hesiod and Plato), particularly over such a long
period of time. Clearly the words will have changed. But, if there is any leap
at all, a taxonomical leap from oak to tree is not a great one, the former
being a subset of the latter. Similarly, from a tree to a part of a tree, like
a branch or stump, is hardly a great leap either. In fact the leap one takes in
finding a metaphor concerning generative myths or prophecy from an expression
about stones and trees is undoubtedly far greater than the simple one from a
log or stick to a tree.
Pointing to authority
does not prove anything, but, it is usually the most persuasive argument you
can make to readers. There is scholarship who would likely support this
connection. The philologist Carolyn López-Ruiz uses an example from The Gospel of Thomas in which the wooden
material is translated by her as a piece of wood (“ξύλον”), consistent
with dictionary definitions.
She also writes: “Watkins
has also interpreted the appearance of ‘logs and stones’ in Homer (φιτρóς and λâaς,
Il. 12. 26-27 and 21. 314) as an
early instance of the “tree and stone” couple, but there referring to the
transformed or finished raw materials; that is, our drûs
and pétra would belong to the realm
of nature, while phitrós and lâas to that of culture.
Hence, in the literature,
it is already accepted by at least some scholars that stock, meaning log or
other tree part, coupled with stone or “stock und stein” in German, is a
version of “tree and stone.” Why so few scholars that I have come across has
made this obvious step to the Germanic writers, including in English, using
“stock and stone” I cannot say, except to surmise the obvious that the scholars
in one field were not aware of the scholarship in the other, or perhaps not
that interested in it.
Perhaps
it would be easier to make the connection if the English stocks or stumps
spoken of were said or inarguably meant to be from “oak” trees. That is certainly
not clear at all, but it is hardly unlikely. In Homer, we know that drus can mean “oak tree” and can
also represent a “tree” in general, as Forte mentions. What about in Britain? Pliny
believed that drus comes
stems from the Greek name of oak tree and arguably druid stems from the Proto-Indo-European
words for “oak-tree” and “to see.” The connection between
druids and oak trees is too well established to dwell on here. But, whether all
of that is correct or not, it is still not clear what kind of trees the author of Pearl or Milton or Wordsworth
were referring to, or if they had any particular type of tree in mind.
The same goes for
meaning. From the literature it is apparent that there are different meanings
of this phrase among the Greeks – some are different metaphysical metaphors,
some are just descriptive. When Wordsworth refers to these elemental objects,
he does not appear to use them as a metaphor at all, but matter-of-factly, as
common articles one would find in or on the ground rolling along with the deceased
Lucy:
“No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.”
Milton's poem, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, which
treats the expression as a reference to an archaic time "when all our
fathers worshiped stocks and stones" readily brings imagery of Druid
priests worshipping oak trees and stones. This matches the little we know about
druids, who are traditionally associated with oak trees but also stones - such
as at Stonehenge - particularly in Milton's time (though, as far as I know,
there is no real evidence that they had anything to do with building
Stonehenge). And, of course, druids were also associated with wizards and magic.
Milton, like Wordsworth, was no stranger to them.
Pearl
possesses some relationship to the phantasmagorical world - the father has
woken upon the border of heaven. It is a religious poem which also concerns, at
least tangentially, an element of prophecy, but that is clearly a reference to
Christian prophecy, and not regarding the phrase we are interested in at all.
It would be a stretch to view Pearl
to make out of it a generative myth, or to concern thunder and lightning or
prophesy. Certainly not talking or whispering trees and rocks. It seems that
this phrase has generally speaking come down to us primarily as a phrase stripped of its ancient meaning in Pearl and elsewhere among the German
derived languages.
What
did Tolkien mean when he used the Immortal Expression?
The use of a simple
phrase referencing material logs and rocks is simply not so of Tolkien’s
Treebeard in this speech. It is pregnant with generative and oracular
meaning. Once you see the connection, it
is difficult, if not impossible to believe that that the alliterative farewell
words of Tolkien's giant human-tree, Treebeard, were merely prosodic or meant
to simply give flavor to his character. Tolkien knew a phrase that had a
powerful meaning perfect for his needs and he wanted to use it. Knowing his
love of language it would not be surprising even that the entire scene was composed
so that he could use that one phrase.
Although it would be
absurd to suggest that Tolkien, a professor of Anglo-Saxon and related
languages, did not know the meaning of “stock,” nevertheless, thanks to the
Logismoi blog, I can readily document
it. A knowledgeable commenter to that blog pointed out that in Tolkien/Gordon's
1925 edition of the Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight the word "stubbe" is given as "stock,
stump" and in Tolkien's Middle
English Vocabulary (1922), he gives "stok(ke)" itself as
"stem, tree-trunk."
I cannot say that Tolkien
intended Treebeard to have meant an oak tree
stump by using the word "stock." The Encyclopedia of Arda, an online Tolkien reference site states
that oaks are "[o]ne of the commonest trees in Middle-earth, found throughout its
forests," but I do not know if that is so and don't off-hand remember any
specific reference to “oaks” myself in Tolkien's Middle-Earth save for a very
important one - the chief of the dwarves who accompanied Bilbo was named Thorin
Oakenshield (it was figurative, as he once used an oak branch as a shield). That
dwarf’s name, as with his other dwarves (and Gandalf), can be found in a list
in the Elder Edda. Hence, although it
might seem obvious, we can at least know that oak trees existed in Tolkien's
literary world of Middle-Earth. In any event, though it would have added
to the connection had Treebeard uttered the word “oak,” we do not know that
Homer meant an “oak” tree either,
just that the word he used could mean that and some translators use it.
But, there are also much
clearer metaphorical elements found in this scene which precisely relate to
those reckoned in Forte's paper. Tolkien was telling a riveting story and it
would be easy to miss them – until you are aware of them – and then they are a
beacon.
First and foremost, in
Middle-Earth, Treebeard is an Ent, that is, a sentient tree with many human
qualities, including speech. This brings us directly back to the Ugaritic and
Greek mythic metaphoric meaning of trees
speaking or whispering. This in itself would seem too clear a reference to
the ancient meaning to call it likely a coincidence. Were this all there was to
my argument, I would feel satisfied. But it is not.
We should remember that
the entire Tolkien corpus is essentially a creation myth that ends with the Fourth
Age or “age of man.” The Silmarillion begins
with the creation of the universe. The Elves were indeed called “first-born,” and
Treebeard was the first animate creature in Middle-Earth itself (the Elves
coming from outside Middle-Earth to it). And clearly Ents were originally trees
become sentient, just as elsewhere in Tolkien, we learn that the Dwarves, also
speaking creatures, were created from rock.
The meeting of the Elves
and Treebeard for the last time in Middle-Earth is a very meaningful and
poignant one highlighting their diminishing and leaving the “real world” as the
fourth age of man dawns. And, if there was any doubt, Tolkien refers to that in
the very scene, having Gandalf say to the collected Elves, Dwarf and talking
tree – “The new age begins . . . and in this age it may well prove that the
kingdoms of Men shall outlast you, Fangorn my friend.”
Prophecy also plays an
important role in this parting scene as Galadriel, perhaps the most oracular
character in Tolkien's books, expressly
prophesizes in this very scene when she predicts that they will all
meet again when the lands under the wave rise again (at a certain spot she
describes). And this too speaks to regeneration.
Tolkien could use “stock
and stone” as an expression devoid of this ancient meeting when he wanted. Earlier
in LOTR another character (Pippin) relates a separate and unrelated use of
“stock and stone” by Treebeard as part of a double alliteration, which was not
noted by Shippey: “‘Hoom! Gandalf!’ said Treebeard. ‘I am glad you have come.
Wood and water, stock and stone, I can master; but there is a Wizard to master
here.’” Here clearly, by “stock
and stone,” Treebeard means the actual natural materials which he can control
as opposed to a wizard he cannot. There is no evident symbolic meaning in this
case. Arguably, comparing the two uses of the phrase, the merely factual one
puts a spotlight on the other being drenched in generative and prophetic symbolism.
And, as will be presently shown, the one imbued with symbolism is also the one
that mirrors the language of The Iliad.
Thus, remarkably, all of the
elements of the Ugaritic phrase’s likely meaning as described by Forte are
found here in the very scene in which Tolkien uses the phrase perhaps excepting that of thunder and
lightning. The scene is too well endowed with circumstances to be fortuitous,
particularly when we recognize Tolkien’s familiarity, in some cases mastery, of
languages dating from the ancient Near East through Homer and then to the
Germanic languages. I am reminded of a Thoreau quote from his journal – “Some
circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”
But, we should even
hesitate before excepting out an association of Ents with thunder and lightning,
for a dim memory of it sent me back to LOTR. Sometimes it seems that
you can almost always find some connection or association in literature if you
look hard enough. Once found, it may seem revelatory, as if the author intended it or left a clue, whether it was in his
or her mind or not. The probability or improbability of the coincidence and our
own biases makes us believe it or not. Though some will state such an association with certainty, they are really stating
their bias.
The thunder and lightning
association to which I refer occurs in the second volume of LOTR, where Pippin,
a hobbit, relates his hearing the destruction of an evil wizard’s keep by the Ents:
“Later there was a great rumble of thunder away south, and flashes of lightning
far away across Rohan.”Why thunder and
lightning? Though battles are violent and usually make a lot of noise, I am not
aware of thunder and lightning being a common metaphor for destruction by an
army, although, arguably, it might be for a deity. Ents are mythological
creatures, so perhaps they might fall under that designation. One could use
this statement by Pippin to conclude that Ents were in fact associated in one
place with thunder and lightning. I am cynical enough to believe that if I had
a publisher to please, he or she would like me to state this association much
more emphatically than I am willing to do here. But the circumstantial evidence
or degree of coincidence does not seem so sufficient to me (as it does with
speaking trees, prophecy and generative myth) that I can say it was very likely meant to convey symbolism.
Using Occam’s razor, it is more likely Tolkien simply meant that there was a
lot of noise when the Ents were breaking up the wizard’s keep. Forte does note
(p. 15) that thunder was associated with the grinding of stones. Nevertheless,
the fact is that the analogy was expressly made, so that I can at least raise
the point here and someone else’s biases might make it more persuasive to them
than it is to me.
We cannot, of course, be
sure that Tolkien, who studied Greek and Latin when young, was thinking about
the meaning of stock and stone or trees and rock in ancient Greece when he
wrote the farewell scene or that he was even conscious of a connection. But, it
certainly seems as he must have unconsciously known of it. He also might have known of some Ugaritic
connection, Ras Shamra having been excavated since 1929, and unconsciously
borrowed it. That would again be speculation, but certainly not idle
speculation. Tolkien himself had been aware of unconscious borrowing in almost the very same context before,
acknowledging it in 1967 in order to explain his unintentional borrowing of the
Mesopotamian place name “Erech.” He comments that “naturally, as one interested
in antiquity and notably in the history of languages and ‘writing’, I knew and
had read a good deal about Mesopotamia.” Letters,
p. 384. Whether that would include the Ugarit area, I cannot say. He likely
knew something of the language, possessing a 1926 Babylonian-Assyrian grammar
in transcription. I could not begin to
guess as to how far along in interpretation Ugarit scholars had gotten before
Tolkien wrote Treebeard’s speech, how much he knew about Ugarit or whether that
knowledge included a certain Immortal Expression. We have not reached the end
of possible investigation, but it is outside the limits of my capabilities and
resources.
In any event, I am
satisfied to stop with Homer, with whom we know Tolkien was quite familiar and
only suggest he may have been aware of earlier sources. The Indo-European origins of English from
multiple sources - Germanic, Latin, Greek and their derivatives - is more than
sufficient to suggest that someone so deeply learned in history, language,
literature (knowledge of which he sometimes unaccountably denied) and culture as Tolkien, might
at least unconsciously absorb such connections, whether they were from Syria or
Greece, and their meanings better than most, if not anyone else.
Textual
Evidence Connecting Tolkien’s Stock and Stone with Homer’s Tree and Stone
Of course, though the
evidence of his other unconscious borrowing (“Erech”) is persuasive, suggesting
that an author unconsciously borrowed something from literature is still necessarily
speculative. But, in this instance, the speculation can be lessened
considerably by reference to a text. Indeed, the textual evidence in Tolkien is
rather startlingly strong that he borrowed “stock and stone” directly from Homer at least more so
than from the author of Pearl or other
source. Compare how Tolkien
uses the phrase spoken by Treebeard with how Homer has Hector speak:
Treebeard: by stock or by stone
[preposition] [noun] [coordinating
conjunction] [repeat preposition] [noun]
Too say it is quite
similar would be an understatement. There are slight differences – Homer and
Tolkien arguably uses a different
preposition and Homer uses a negative conjunction. The words in The Odyssey are much in the same form,
though there are differences such as an added adjective there not found in The Iliad. But Tolkien, when he borrowed
from anywhere, was not slavish to sources but intent on making everything his
own creation, and he made such use of language and nomenclature as he chose. I
believe the evidence strongly supports my hypothesis that Tolkien’s muse for
that particular phrase was Homer rather than the author of Pearl. The author of Pearl, Milton, Wordsworth and the others
I cite above simply do not use this formula – preposition, noun, coordinating conjunction
(generally “and” or “or”), repeat preposition and noun. Homer did at least once
in The Iliad and similarly in The Odyssey.
So did Tolkien. Perhaps some others did, but I did not come across them. Nor
would it lessen the likelihood that The
Iliad was Tolkien’s primary source, if I had, unless we knew Tolkien was
familiar with that writing.
Even this textual
evidence is circumstantial. But it is so strong, it is again like finding a
trout in the milk. Homer we know was composing according to a meter and this
phrase worked. Tolkien also was extremely sensitive to meter and rhythm, but I
am not aware of his having used dactylic hexameter. But he was so sensitive
to the very words that he and others used and to the way he and others wrote
that I cannot believe it was coincidence that he used the same pattern as
Homer - the same parts of speech in the same order, especially given the
regular word order of English as compared to the far less regular word order of
Greek.
But still, even with enough evidence to convince me that
Tolkien derived “by stock and by stone” from Homer, someone else might say –
well maybe he was just writing a story and knew the phrase from literature and
the similarities with it and The Iliad
are an odd coincidence and it is not enough to convince us that “stock and stone”
is the same as “tree and rock.” One would have to ignore all of the
circumstantial evidence developed above to come to that conclusion. But let us
say though, that it would advance my theory if another modern writer had used
the same phrase and told us precisely what he meant by it. And one did.
A
Last Startling Discovery
“What is this
Titan that has possession of me? Talk of mysteries!—Think of our life in
nature,--daily to be shown matter, to come in contact it,--rocks, trees, wind
on our cheeks! That solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact!
Contact! Who are we? Where are
we?”
But still, it could not
be plainer that he again meant real rocks and trees. However, that was not
always the case. It startled me to come upon such a glaring example:
“It would imply the
regeneration of mankind if they were to become elevated enough to truly worship
sticks and stones.”
The use of “worship” here
tells us that he was referring to Milton’s Late
Massacre poem. You need not read much about Thoreau to know that, like many
if not all Harvard graduates at the time, he had studied Milton extensively. That Thoreau used
“sticks” rather than “stocks” is not important. It likely just shows that either
he knew what “stock” meant or perhaps was going by memory.
He expressly states the ancient theme of “the regeneration of
mankind.” If I can be as giddy as the proverbial schoolboy for a moment – Eureka! He says it right there in the
same sentence! He uses the phrase and tells us he means by it the same thing as
the ancients meant by it. Arguably, he therefore also suggests that Milton used
it for those purposes, but I am not persuaded of it.
With Thoreau, the meaning is expressly
announced – it is the very point of the sentence. Thoreau had no audience at
the time, and no reason to coddle or explain further. But, if there were to be
any readers (and, if few now, it is still over a century and a half of them) he
expected them to understand the allusions he made. This is more than another
trout in the milk, circumstantial evidence so strong it cannot be ignored. It
is a plain statement of meaning with very little if any circumstantial evidence
even necessary. And whatever circumstantial evidence is necessary, our
knowledge of Thoreau’s study of Milton and Homer easily provides it.
It also stood to reason
that if Thoreau used this expression – Emerson may have too. And so he had. It took seconds on the
internet to find the same phrase in Emerson’s journal, possibly also stemming
from his reading of Milton. And in seconds more from Emerson to “über stock und
stein” in Grimm’s Fairy Tales in a
tale known as The Golden Bird. I cannot say the
Brothers’ source. I doubt very much it was reading from Milton or Pearl, but far more likely it
was already part of the story from whatever source they received it from, or, perhaps
they borrowed it from Goethe, who had the devil and his witches “über stock und
stein springen.” Perhaps they just knew it as we know
“sticks and stones can break your bones. . . .” Though probably seen by many
people today as mere collectors of stories, the brothers were extremely
accomplished philologists themselves and their source might even be unknown to
them if they had read or heard the phrase enough.
Suffice to say here that
Old English or Anglo-Saxon was a Germanic language, and unless shown otherwise,
we would expect that the words likely traveled north-west with the Angles,
Saxons and Jutes and not the reverse – but again, it is possible. I am not
going to research it further, for I fear if I continue on this path it will
lead me around the world to many languages all of which I would need great help
to read, and I will never finish this. Suffice to say that a quick internet
search reveals that “über stock und stein” is a phrase commonly used in German even today as it probably was in the
Grimm’s and Goethe’s time.
Nor is there a great reason
for me to search (though some scholar might wish to), because to find infinite
repetitions of variations of sayings about rocks and trees or sticks and stones
in English, German, Latvian or Hebrew is only a starting point in finding a
connection between the ancient world and the modern unless the some ancient symbolism
is present: regeneration, talking or whispering rocks and trees, prophecy or
even thunder and lightning.
I merely have to refer to
the use of the expression by Emerson, Grimm and Goethe to show the expression
is a traveling one, even when stripped of its ancient meaning. If we cannot say
for a certainty that the “stock and stone” of Pearl and Milton, the Bros. Grimm and many others is the very same
phrase as the “rocks and trees” scholars have met in Homer, in the Bible and in
ancient Syria, we can at least say that Thoreau and Tolkien believed it so.
They were not writing those words for pedagogical purposes but to entertain us and
express themselves with all the power and wisdom of their learning. For us,
they are virtual time machines.
Some
Personal Remarks
I am not a historian,
linguist or philologist but a lawyer who wishes he was. Admittedly, I barely
understand the arcane notations and methodologies of linguists. I have learned
the difference between concepts like voiced and unvoiced speech and what
sibilants and fricatives are, but to tell you the truth, I cannot maintain very
much interest in it and that is about as far as my knowledge goes. On the other
hand, I have waded through enough sentences like - "The dissimilatory loss
of the labialization in the environment of u . . . , common to all
Greek dialects, is illustrated qoukoro - gwoulolos 'cowherd' ˂
*gwouqwolos, and kunaja = gunaia. . . ." that there are times when the mist briefly lifts and there is some clarity. Philologists are much
generally easier for me to understand than linguists, when they are not being
linguists themselves, and historians generally do not have a specialized lingo
impenetrable to the unenlightened. Rare is the day I do not spend at least a
moment in grateful praise of the scholars who enlighten my life. They do more
to preserve our heritage and enrich our lives than probably anyone else and I
am baffled that so few people have an interest in it.
To the best of my memory
I was taught to read by my mother with two books, the first being Joy Adamson’s
Born Free and the second Hamilton’s Mythology. I suspect that this led to my
overriding interest in nature and myth. History eventually surpassed the first
two interests. Thus, it is no great surprise that my three favorite writers
have been Homer, Thoreau and Tolkien, all of whom are awash in the natural world
and myth. Though always a reader, language itself was something I found myself
adept at, but, for many reasons, did not apply myself to when young, and became
interested in it much later in life.
It is too late for me to
determine if my affinity for Thoreau colored my philosophy of life or if my
philosophy of life explains my affinity for Thoreau (though I think the latter),
but he comes closer to expressing many of my beliefs than anyone else I have
ever read and of course did so much more eloquently than I could hope to
accomplish. If by some trick, we could cajole Thoreau’s spirit to read Tolkien,
I believe he would have been enamored with him too – even if by temperament he
might refuse to acknowledge it - and be almost entirely
in sympathy with him except for his ardent Catholicism.
It is hard for me not to
see Thoreau behind every stock and stone in Tolkien, though this is purely my
imagination, having no reason to think Tolkien ever read him. But just reading
Emerson’s obituary for his friend, one cannot help thinking
that Thoreau, had he a single martial bone in his body, would have made an excellent
Ranger. Or that he was a model for the minor character Radagast. Even more so,
it is not hard to imagine that Thoreau’s companions, could they have read
Tolkien, would not have suspected that Tolkien’s Tom Bombadil was modeled in
part after him. The similarities are remarkable and perhaps even worthy of an
article. Emerson, noting Thoreau’s lack of ambition in his eulogy, described
him a little too critically for a eulogy as “captain of a huckleberry party,”
which I took to mean that Emerson believed he was capable of much greater
things. That would also seem an apt if understated appellation for Old Tom, who
was immensely powerful but remained in his small domain and doted on his simple
tasks. In fact, as with Bombadil, I suspect the One Ring would have had no
power over Thoreau. And, had the Ring been entrusted to his safekeeping, he
might lose it, which was what the Wise feared would happen if they gave it to
Bombadil. In the same way, I am sure Tolkien, reading Thoreau, would have
recognized a kindred spirit, again in all but religion, with whom he could take
many walks in the countryside, where, no doubt, they would discuss rocks and
trees, Thor and Homer. But I do not know if he did read him.
These remarks about
Tolkien and Thoreau have a purpose. They demonstrate that it is no great
surprise that I found what I believe are the same phrases spanning many
millennia in the writings of those three writers, as they too are infused with
the same love of mythology and nature as I am and I have read them all quite a
bit. It is perhaps the only places that I
would have found it.
I learned right away when
I started studying Homeric Greek in my middle age that what I most
enjoyed was finding the many connections between Ancient Greek and modern
languages – mostly English, but also in the little French and German I knew -
the way some people enjoy dancing or ice fishing. It felt as if I had put on a
ring of power finding more English root words in the opening lines of The Iliad than I could in the opening
lines of Beowulf, which, after all,
though archaic, was still an early form of our own language. It was the
discovery early on that I would be able to fairly easily remember some Greek words
by association with their English counterparts that gave me confidence that I
could at least substantially learn the ancient language, even in middle age. Of
course, I could. It just takes discipline like learning anything else that
doesn’t come to us naturally – and I was well past the age where it came
naturally. Still, translating Homer, although an end in itself, was what led me
to the connections between the modern and ancient world I speak of here.
Whether the Immortal
Expression passed down through centuries and many hands and lips across distant
lands to make its way to become “stock und stein” in Germany and then from
Germany to England to become the “stock and stone” of Pearl and Milton and then last to Miltonists and Thoreau at Harvard
and separately to Tolkien in Oxford - or - whether similar phrases simply
sprang up from time to time in different places out of man’s affinity for the
tools nature has provided, or through some Jungian collective conscience, I cannot present as a
certainty, any more than a biologist can show you the creature by creature
march that turned a fin into a hand or wing. Nevertheless, with enough
education in evolution, most of us are convinced of it, and though human language
is far more mutable than that of DNA, I believe there is sufficient evidence to
strongly support my conclusion.
There are always loose
ends and the answer to a question always leads to more. The absence of loose
ends over the course of almost four millennia would be a far greater mystery
than finding an expression that appears immortal. How far back it goes I do not
guess. Proto-Indo-European speakers? Pre-Proto-European speakers? If Lucy or a
Neanderthal could speak, and if there was one phrase one would guess they used,
it would probably be a wise bet that it concerned rocks and trees.
There are few things we
can be as certain about as that ancient mankind spoke about rocks and trees and
probably in conjunction. They were all around our ancestors lying on the ground
or growing out of it. I need believe nothing speculative I’ve read of
Proto-Indo-Europeans to know for certain that these objects were everywhere in
their world and undoubtedly on their minds and tongues. They built their shelters
with them, tripped over them and conked each other over the head with them, dug
them up, burned the logs for fuel in circles of stone and made decorations from
stones and trees. They were undoubtedly as important in their lives as the rain
and livestock. It would be more far more unlikely if rocks and trees had never
been written about in tandem so often than it is that we notice it centuries or
millennia later.
There are also few things
with which modern humans, communing with nature, have more in common with the
ancients than rocks and trees. Perhaps, having read this, readers of
literature, particularly older literature, will start seeing phrases about “rock
and tree” or “stock and stone” everywhere in their texts, for it is doubtful this
phrase was transmitted through time and space because just a few writers we coincidentally
still read, happen to use it. Without proof, I presume, as with extra-solar
planets, they are out there. In fact, I
have come across many other examples that I simply have not commented upon.
What
makes it interesting?
It is only when there is
something more than just the mention
of rocks and trees that we get really excited. I asked myself as I was working
through all this – when is it more than just interesting to come upon a phrase
like “by stock and stone” or “from rock or tree” and instead truly meaningful? The
only answer I can come to is necessarily vague and subjective. Thoreau wrote, “A fact stated barely is dry.
It must be the vehicle of some humanity in order to interest usWhen there is enough
evidence from the circumstances of a writing, whether from the text itself or our
knowledge of the author or the author’s times to let us feel a connection between the ancient and the modern, is it
exciting and an advancement in our collective knowledge.
I recognize that for many
people, maybe almost everyone, the literary connection that I’ve spent so much
time on here is not meaningful at all. Without the knowledge I received from Shippey
and then Forte and others, I would not have even focused on what Treebeard said
or the context he said it in, and never bothered to search out whether Thoreau
wrote anything about it. But knowledge is not enough. Personal interest is
necessary too. I remember some years back the feeling I got walking through
ancient ruins in the Greek Island of Delos, while my friend – who was half
Greek and had been to Greece many times – was relatively unaffected. The
difference was obvious to me – I had an emotional connection to the island from
reading and was thinking of Leto and her twin children almost as if they were
real. I felt a connection to the past he did not. I have had the same
experiences walking where Michelangelo, da Vinci and Donatello worked. I was
able to see that same feeling in someone who is disinterested in history, in general, but was enthused when I
pointed out that her grandfather had once walked and played on the very same
spot we were then standing on in a small town in Ireland.
Though I am not a
religious person, I call these feelings “spiritual.” By spiritual I do not mean
to imply visits from a spirit world or that I had a Pearl like dream. My own definition of spiritual is “a feeling of
connection to the universe that many people identify with a deity.” Although I
cannot know for sure, I believe the feelings I and others get thinking about
the distant past are similar or identical to those someone else might
experience as religious. The words sublime, sacred, etc., work too. It is
enough for me to feel that connection by communing with men and women who lived
thousands of years ago or by reading mythology or staring at an obelisk or
mountain. For others a creative and/or binding presence, i.e., a deity, is
necessary.
While scholars in this
field have more knowledge and their interest is a given, I do not think it is
conceptually different for them in the abstract as when a lay person comes upon
any information in his life that interests them. The difference is that when
scholars find something new, they yell – Eureka
– “I found it,” at least metaphorically, and they write about it.
This is how I feel right
now. I found a connection or association between two strands of research that
has enabled me to see a path leading from the far distant ancient literate world
through my favorite ancient writer to my two favorite modern writers, one who
died only in my lifetime. And finding these links is sublime for many of us. As
usual, nobody quite explains it like Thoreau:
“The age of the world is
great enough for our imaginations, even according to the Mosaic account,
without borrowing any years from the geologist. From Adam and Eve at one leap
sheer down to the deluge, and then through the ancient monarchies, through
Babylon and Thebes, Brahma and Abraham, . . . down through Odin and Christ
to—America. It is a wearisome while.—And yet the lives of but sixty old women,
such as live under the hill, say of a century each, strung together, are
sufficient to reach over the whole ground. Taking hold of hands they would span
the interval from Eve to my own mother. A respectable tea-party merely,--whose
gossip would be Universal History.”
Of note I would include Tolkien:
A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings (Ballantine
Books, 1969) by a not so good fantasy writer but better editor
named Lin Carter, which concerns, among other things, Tolkien’s influences and
the development of fantasy literature. There is also a now lengthy series of
books by Tolkien’s own son, Christopher, himself a scholar, who has chronicled
his father’s development of Middle-Earth. As well, Christopher has edited other
of his father’s books and also translations which were unpublished at the time
of Tolkien’s death, including one of Beowulf. Speaking purely as a reader, I find some of
it riveting and some stultifying.
Tolkien's
translated Pearl himself. Tolkien,
J.R.R. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
Pearl and Sir Orfeo. Ballantine Books, 1992. It is likely the best known of the translations, though I would
hazard a guess that it is because of his more popular writings than its merits.
It was first published posthumously in 1975 when he was already quite famous.
However, he and his student, then colleague, E.V. Gordon, had begun a scholarly
edition in 1925, which Gordon took over. However, he died young in 1938 with
the work unfinished. It was then given to Tolkien to finish, but it was finally
passed back to Gordon’s wife, Ida, also a philologist. It was published in 1953
under Gordon’s name. Anderson, Douglas A. “An industrious little devil: E.V.
Gordon’s Collaboration with Tolkien.” Tolkien
the Medievalist, edited by Jane Chance, Routledge, 2003, p. 20.
Sometimes the only way to
make sense of a line in another language is to change it grammatically or add
or subtract a word(s) or even a phrase. Professional translators do this all
the time in order to give us the best sense of what they think the author meant
and/or to make it more readable to those speaking another language. It does not
make it wrong. Martin Luther, the fiery 16th century Protestant
reformer, fuming about critics complaining that his insertion of the word for
“only” in a German translation of The New
Testament was an impermissible addition, wrote in An Open Letter on
Translating (1530):
“I also know that in Rom. 3, the
word “solum” is not present in either Greek or Latin text – the papists did not
have to teach me that—it is fact! The letters s-o-l-a are not there. And these
knotheads stare at them like cows at a new gate, while at the same time they do
not recognize that it conveys the sense of the text—if the translation is to be
clear and accurate, it belongs there.”
http://www.archive.org/stream/anopenletterontr00272gut/ltran11.txt.
Speech from Tree and Rock: Recovery of a
Bronze Age Metaphor, American Journal of Philology 136, ps.
1–35 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015). At least two earlier versions
are available on the web. The first, dated 2012, was the one which I relied on in
my earliest version of this paper.
Claude Schaeffer,
who led the Ugarit excavation, lectured at Oxford (The Cuneiform Texts of
Ras Shamra-Ugarit, Schweik Lectures,
1936) and Oxford had its own experts Tolkien may have known. For specifics,
see, Birns, Nicholas. “The Stones and the Book: Tolkien, Mesopotamia and
Mythopaeia.” Tolkien and the Study of his
Sources: Critical Essays, edited by Jason Fisher. McPharland & Co,
2011, p. 45-68. I have reviewed some of the books about Ras Shamra that
preceded LOTR, but have found no reference to the subject expression. I must
confess, my French, the language in which they were written, is weak and my
Ugarit, of course, non-existent. Nonetheless, I do not have any evidence that
Tolkien could have been aware of the Immortal Expression from these sources. I
simply note his familiarity with work in the near eastern area and it being
within the realm of possibility for reasons stated in Stones.
Thoreau, Henry D. The Maine Woods, edited by J. J.
Moldenhauer. Princeton University Press, 1972, p. 71.
To my surprise, the importance of Milton to Thoreau and others in early America
is well documented. Van Anglen, K. P.
The New England Milton: Literary
Reception and Cultural Authority in the Early Republic. The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1993, ps. 60, 189-228.
“I am not a stock or stone, as one said in the old time. . . .” is found in a
July 28, 1838 letter to Henry Ware, Jr. Myerson,
ed., Selected Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Columbia University Press, 1997, p. 186.
Valentine, William Winston. New High
German: A Comparative Study, Vol. II
– Syntax, edited by A H. Keane. Isbister & Co., 1894, p. 189.
Thoreau, Henry D. A Week
on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Doer Publications, 2001, p. 211.
In warmer weather I see a tremendous variety of birds at the Bluff including terns, plover, herons (a night heron once with its long toreador like ponytail), hawks, osprey, swans (normally 2 or 4, but one day over 30 of them, as if they were having a convention) and once many years ago, a bald eagle. Of course, always gulls.
\\
I found this heron (I think) sitting at the bottom of Lace Falls at the end of the trail at the Natural Bridge like he was posing for a picture. It might be an egret, but they are usually white. Frankly, there is not a lot of difference between egrets and herons as they are in the same family, but herons vary more in shape and color. At least I think so. I didn't say I was an expert.
