Talk:There and Back Again

Question about the title coming from Virgil

I came across the following quote from Virgil's Aeneid:

Quo fata trahunt retrahuntque sequamur.

The quote is translated as follows:

Let us follow wherever the fates take us, there and back again.

To me, "There and Back Again" (trahunt retrahuntque) is too much of a coincidence. In The Hobbit, Bilbo plays a part in the adventure that is far greater than what he had imagined when he set out initially. If I remember correctly, there is a notion in the book concerning what fate may have in store for a person. (Certainly, that theme is developed more fully in the Lord of the Rings.)

Knowing the generation in which Tolkein grew up -- the education that he most certainly had -- and the fact that he was a linguist, it's a safe bet that he read Virgil in the original Latin. It's my guess that the "original" title for The Hobbit is taken from this quote. It seems to give a meaning deeper than the mere happy-go-lucky, a meaning consistent with a theme developed significantly in his later writings on Middle Earth.

My question is, has anyone ever come across any mention of this connection in any biographies or commentaries?

If he did use this quote intentionally, it fleshes out the comment in the article: "The title represents an archetypal Hobbit outlook on adventures." - [2006-07-17 at 21:40 GMT - mariox19]

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)