Beren and Luthien

So in reading for one of my other classes, I came across a great romance that I thought I would share with the rest of you. As the title of this blog suggests, it's called "Beren and Luthien" and is a chapter in the book by J. R. R. Tolkien. The chapter itself is rather long, but I'll try to sum it up in a few sentences or so.

A man named Beren is wandering through an enchanted forest when he comes across Luthien. She is, of course, the most beautiful elf in the world. As such, he is instantly spell bound and can only pine after the woman after she vanishes into the trees. He spends the next few years wandering the forest in search of her until he finally sees her again and calls out to her. She turns to look at him and is, of course, at once spell bound by him as well. Of course they must go to her father and get his permission for the marriage. He, not wanting to lose his daughter to a human tells the man that he will give her hand in marriage if he will only bring a jewel from the crown of the evil demon king in the north. He, of course, expects the man to die in the quest and so feels confident in his agreement. Beren accepts the mission and sets off to accomplish this task. There are several adventures that ensue during which Beren and Luthien struggle through several hazards in order to accomplish their goal. I will not tell you the specific details as I might want to use part of this for my final romance, and I think each of you should pick up the book if only to read that chapter. Needless to say they succeed and eventually return the jewel to the king, though Beren is mortally wounded in the process. Perhaps the most romantic portion of the story comes, then, when Luthien travels to the land beyond the sea and receives a boon from the gods, so great is her grief. She may either choose to leave the world of men behind and live in the world of gods without any memory of her beloved, or she can give up her immortality and return with Beren to the land of men. She, of course, chooses the latter, and they are both given their lives back to live and die together as mortals.

This story was perhaps most memorable to me because of the end. I remembered Dr. Sexson mentioning the other day that romance always ends in death and I couldn't help but notice that perhaps the most romantic aspect of this particular story was an immortal elf giving up immortality, even eternal peace to live but a short time with her true love. It seems then that the greatest understanding of love comes as the flame burns brightest, but in its bright burning, it is burned up more quickly, and we are required to love all the more fiercely. I guess what I'm trying to say in a round about sort of way is that it is through our mortality that we can love and live as we do. In Troy, a not so fantastic movie, but one that was brought to mind by the puppet show on Friday, Brad Pitt explains that it is the gods who are jealous of men because it is our mortality that drives us to greatness, that spurs us into heroic acts that would never be considered before. Immortals last. They can hold grudges and maintain feuds for a millennium. Man loves because he does not know what breath will be his last or whether his next moments will give him the immortality that only song can bring.

Returning then to "Beren and Luthien,"  it is this same understanding of love as something special and bonding, uniquely through death, that creates a fantastic, and I would perhaps argue, perfect romance. The loves of both main characters for the other, leads each to their deaths, and, while those deaths are at one time postponed, still each chooses to give up much longer lives in exchange for the other, and there is true beauty in that choice.