Bear One Another’s Burdens

The Eagles of Manwë Praise the Faithfulness of the People of Minas Tirith.

/ stephencwinter / 12 Comments

Last week I promised to continue the love story of Faramir and Éowyn but I ask you to permit me to make you wait one week more before we return to it. Last week we thought about the great wave that seemed to threaten the end of all things and yet brought a joy that was both entirely unlooked for and which brought tears to those who were pierced by it. Now all the people in the city learn what has brought such joy for,

“Before the Sun had fallen far from the noon out of the East there came a great Eagle flying, and he brought tidings beyond hope from the Lords of the West, crying:

Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor, for the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever, and the Dark Tower is thrown down.”

I hope that discerning readers will have noticed that Tolkien is careful about the use of capital letters for nouns in his work. In an earlier post on this blog we saw it in his use of the word, Pity, and so here Tolkien uses it to draw our attention to the importance of the noun that is capitalised. In the sentence that I quoted above there are four nouns that receive a capital letter, a sign that this is a sentence of particular importance, but the one that I want to focus on is the word, Eagle.

This is no ordinary Eagle. For one thing the Eagle sings in human speech and comes to Minas Tirith as the herald of the free peoples of Middle-earth. For another this Eagle was one of those who came to the climactic battle before the Black Gate. This Eagle is a descendant of those that Manwë, the lord of the Valar, sent to Middle-earth in the First Age to be his messengers. Their task was to keep watch on Morgoth, who was Sauron’s lord, and to do this they built their eyries on the peak of Thangorodrim itself, the very mountain beneath which Morgoth built his fortress of Angband.

They have kept their watch faithfully through long ages and from time to time, at crucial moments, they have intervened directly in the affairs of the free peoples. They carried Beren and Lúthien from Angband, the party of Thorin’s dwarves from the trees in which they were trapped by orcs and wargs, Gandalf from the Tower of Orthanc when he was held captive by Saruman and later carried him from the mountain top after the great battle with the Balrog and finally they attacked the Nazgûl at the Battle of the Black Gate.

It is thus no coincidence that it is an Eagle of Manwë that is the herald of the fall of Sauron. The faithfulness of the Eagles speaks to the faithfulness of Minas Tirith.

“Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard, for your watch hath not been in vain.”

Just as the armies of the West were drawn into the story of Frodo and Sam at the Field of Cormallen so that it became their story too so all who have remained in the city as the host went to battle are brought into the story of the faithful vigil of the ages. The boys who play with Bergil, son of Beregond of the Guard of the Tower, the women who Ioreth of the Houses of Healing tells of the first coming of the king to his city, all become part of the story of the faithful watch.

The 16th century English theologian, Richard Hooker, once wrote, “How are the people to know they are faithful unless their captains tell them?” Faithfulness will lie at the very heart of the civilisation that is born with the downfall of Sauron and the return of the King and the story of faithfulness with which the new age begins will dignify every man, woman and child to whom the captains tell it. It is this act of giving dignity to the people that is one of the central tasks of the captain whether a parent, teacher, chief executive, president or king. Any who fail in this task are not true captains.

  

The Meeting of Éowyn and Faramir. Defences Begin to Come Down.

/ stephencwinter / 7 Comments

Why would we want to be unhappy, to choose thoughts of darkness, even to seek out death? Why would we choose to build defences against the light, using all our strength to try to keep it out? There are some, like Sauron, who have chosen the dark, believing that the light is some small, temporary and fragile thing that must ultimately fail against the overwhelming power that is darkness. Sauron has made his choice and it is fixed for ever. Happily this is not the path that Éowyn has taken. She has not said the great “Yes!” of her life to the dark.

But her soul is in danger. The years of hopeless misery in the halls of Théoden as he became a shrivelled figure dominated by the whispering of Wormtongue have left their mark upon her. At least in part she regards herself as a woman from “a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs”. Briefly a door opened into her inner darkness and the glorious light that is Aragorn shone into her heart. She allowed herself to believe that he would take her away from her unhappiness to a place of glory. She would become a queen, adored by the world and untouched by her past.

And then her fragile dream was snatched away. Aragorn chose the Paths of the Dead as he was destined to do and he rejected her love, even refusing to take her with him as the shieldmaiden that she believed herself to be. Since that moment she has sought death in battle believing that this is the only escape for her from dishonour and misery. She will not risk to hope for herself again. The pain of rejection feels too great. She cannot ride with the host to battle with Mordor as she did before and so she is condemned to wait, longing for the safe return of her brother whom she loves but refusing to hope for herself again. The danger for her soul is that the darkness that she believes to be her fate might yet become a choice. She might become embittered, vengeful and cruel or she might take the road of despair just as Denethor did.

And then she meets Faramir in The Houses of Healing and everything begins to be transformed within her. Her first words are proud but “her heart faltered, and for the first time she doubted herself. She guessed that this tall man, both stern and gentle, might think her merely wayward, like a child that has not the firmness of mind to go on with a dull task to the end.”

This sternness and gentleness so wonderfully combined in one man she has met before in Aragorn and as with Aragorn she knows that Faramir is a mighty warrior, tested in battle. Of course she does not wish to appear like a little girl before him but her defences remain firm against hope. Then Faramir does something that Aragorn could never do.

“Éowyn of Rohan, I say to you that you are beautiful. In the valleys of our hills there are flowers fair and bright, and maidens fairer still; but neither flower nor lady have I seen till now have I seen in Gondor so lovely, and so sorrowful.”

Éowyn still resists, speaking of herself as a shieldmaiden and ungentle, but her defences are a little weaker. She is not yet ready to take the risk that any who fall in love must take; the risk of hurt and rejection. And she does not yet want to take the risk that lies beyond that fear, that to fall in love means to give yourself away into the hands of another, not just when all seems fair but in times of sorrow and anger too. The old English marriage service speaks of having and holding “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish”. Éowyn is still far from being ready to make that choice but at the very least she has ceased to walk away from its possibility. Faramir has called her back towards the light.

Image by Anke Eissmann anke.edoras-art.de

 

Éowyn of Rohan Is In Great Unrest in The Houses of Healing

/ stephencwinter / 2 Comments

The times in our lives of not knowing are a great trial and Éowyn, the Princess of Rohan who rode to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in deep despair close to Théoden who had been as a father to her and there did battle with the Lord of the Nazgûl and slew him, is “in great unrest”. I will not try to compare her suffering with that of Frodo and Sam in their last journey through Mordor or that of the Host of the West as they march without hope towards inevitable annihilation at the Black Gate. This is not a desire to diminish her suffering. She must carry her own load as best they may and do, as we all must, to support others in theirs. But Éowyn’s burden is hard in part because there seems to be no meaning to it. When she rode to battle with her people she looked for death in battle because the man that she had hoped would bring the meaning and the dignity that she desired had rejected her and now this same man had brought her back from the edge of death. But for what?

The Warden of the Houses of Healing is in no doubt as to what her purpose is and that is to get better and he is distressed to see that she has left her bed. “You should not have risen from your bed for seven days yet, or so I was bidden. I beg you to go back.”

Éowyn, on the other hand, knows that this is not her purpose. Simply to be healed in body is not enough for her. She does not even desire it. Gandalf spoke of her true dis-ease when she was first brought to the Houses of Healing from the battle.

“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 own part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.”

For Tolkien there is nothing unusual about a woman with the spirit that Éowyn has. His greatest love story is the tale of Beren and Lúthien, names that are written upon the stones beneath which he and his wife, Edith, are buried in an Oxford churchyard. In that story Lúthien goes into battle alongside the man she loves with a passion and ferocity that overcomes both Morgoth and Sauron too, the greatest foes of all. That Tolkien gave the name of Lúthien to his wife means that he recognised this spirit in her. Aragorn was inspired by this greatest of love stories in his love for Arwen of Rivendell and Éowyn is a woman who longs for a hero of Beren’s quality.

She also wants to be a queen. Gandalf spoke of this too to her brother, Éomer as he remembered Saruman’s contemptuous words at the doors of Orthanc.

“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?”

So Éowyn is “in great unrest”. Death in battle has been denied her, for a time at least, and she is permitted no other occupation. What can she do?

I think that she reaches inside herself and begins to find her own answer. She is a woman of truth. She may not yet know her own heart but she does not lie to it or seek to deceive it either. This is essential to the healing that she will find in this place.

“Who commands in this City?”

“I do not rightly know,” the  Warden answers. “Such things are not my care. There is a marshal over the Riders of Rohan; and the Lord Húrin, I am told, commands the men of Gondor. But the Lord Faramir is by right the Steward of the City”

I am so glad that it was not the marshal of Rohan or the Lord Húrin that Éowyn asks to see, but I am not surprised either. Éowyn rightly knows her own greatness and that only an equal can meet her need.

 

 

Frodo Gets Ready for The Feast at the Field of Cormallen

/ stephencwinter / 6 Comments

The Day of Praisegiving at the Field of Cormallen comes to an end with a great feast and the reuniting of friends as Frodo and Sam, and Merry and Pippin, and Legolas and Gimli greet one another and delight in the joy of being alive after great tribulation.

It is in preparation for the feast that Gandalf adopts the role of squire to the knights of the West who are Frodo and Sam.

“Gandalf, as if he were their esquire, knelt and girt the sword-belts about them, and then arising he set circlets of silver upon their heads. And when they were arrayed they went to the great feast; and they sat at the king’s table”

At first, when Gandalf presents a sword to Frodo, Frodo refuses to wear it. “I do not wish for any sword,” he says. For Frodo the days of battle are at an end. He fought with all the strength that he could muster and he was bested at the last by a power too great for him. If it had not been for his enemy he would have failed at the last and all the struggle would have been in vain. It was Gollum who took the Ring to the Fire, albeit by accident as it were, and not the one appointed to bear the Ring.

In part Frodo’s refusal to carry a sword is a recognition of his own sense of failure. In another it is a desire on his part to have no more to do with war. Frodo has seen at first hand the horror of war, the malice and hatred that Sauron sought to unleash upon the earth, and he hates it.

But Gandalf knows that the feast is not for Frodo alone nor is the magnificent raiment with which he is arrayed. When a great gift is received with grace it is not just the one who receives who is honoured but the one who gives as well. The circlet of silver with which Frodo is crowned, the sword with which he is girt, the mithril coat and the Elven cloak in which he is arrayed, are all an act of doing honour to those who gather at the feast. Some are great knights of Gondor, or of the Dunedain, or of the guard of the King of Rohan. Others are simple farming folk in valleys of Gondor far from Minas Tirith or in the fields of the Westfold of Rohan and when Frodo is arrayed as a fellow warrior and sits to eat with them he does them honour. He declares that their deeds in the war, their hopeless march to the Black Gate, perhaps achieved by overcoming great fear, are all worthy of honour. He names them brothers by sitting among them. And it is not just the warriors who are gathered at the feast who are honoured thus but every village, every family from which they have come.

The Ring was not destroyed by warfare, indeed the war was not won by strength of arms. If the War of the Ring had been a matter of besting the enemy by arms and superior power then it would have been necessary to use the Ring. That would have been as great a catastrophe as Sauron’s victory would have been. But the battles at Helm’s Deep, at Pelargir, at the Pelennor Fields and finally before the Black Gate, were not thereby of no account in comparison to the deeds of the Ringbearer. Without their courage, without their willingness to lay down their lives there would have been no journey through Mordor to the Mountain. And so it is not to seek the praise of others that Frodo must wear a sword at the feast but to honour all who fought. As Shakespeare puts in the mouth of King Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt:

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”

Frodo Comes to the End of All Things on Mount Doom but Sam is Not So Sure.

/ stephencwinter / 2 Comments

“I am glad that you are here with me,” said Frodo. “Here at the end of all things, Sam.”

The Ring has gone to the Fire; the mighty tower of Barad-dûr has fallen into the dust; and the Dark Lord has passed forever into the shadow never to rise again. Amidst all of the ruin Frodo is content that his labours are at an end, his burden has gone and the night is falling. He has no wish to make some kind of escape. There is no future that he can see in which he might play some part. He has been wounded in the shoulder by the terrible knife of the Lord of the Nazgûl in the attack upon the camp below Weathertop; he has received a sting in the neck from Shelob in her lair; and his finger has been bitten clean off by Gollum in his desperate and final attempt to regain the Ring. Besides this he has been wearied beyond any strength that he might possess by the Ring that he has borne, mile after mile all the way from Bag End to the Cracks of Doom themselves.

And there is one thing further. At the very end of his journey he failed. He came to Orodruin with the purpose of casting the Ring into the Fire but when he came there he could not do the deed and claimed the Ring for himself. If it had not been for Gollum’s final attack Sauron would have regained it and all would have been lost. Frodo may be free from the Ring’s hold upon him, the Quest may be achieved, he may even be at peace in a certain way having forgiven Gollum but it is a peace that almost welcomes death. Death means that nothing further need be explained or even resolved.

Three times Frodo tells Sam that they have come to the end but Sam is not so sure.

“Yes I am with you, Master,” said Sam, laying Frodo’s wounded hand gently to his breast. “And you’re with me. And the journey’s finished. But after coming all that way I don’t want to give up yet. It’s not like me somehow, if you understand.”

Sam has much to live for. His love for Frodo means that he will always do what he can for him, always seek, to the best of his understanding, his best good. And Sam has other longings too. He longs for life itself. You will recall that as they approached the mountain and their water had finally run out that Sam remembered “every brook or stream or fount that he had ever seen, under green willow-shades or twinkling in the sun… He felt the cool mud about his toes as he paddled in the Pool at Bywater with Jolly Cotton and Tom and Nibs, and their sister Rosie.” There is much that Sam would like to go home to, the gentle beauty of the Shire, good friends and Rosie Cotton. Sam would like to be married, to build a home and raise a family. Simple and good desires.

The twentieth century philosopher and theologian, Paul Tillich, spoke about the need, in our age of anxiety about meaninglessness, to find a courage to be. In many ways Frodo is a modern man in search of meaning. His restlessness is growing even before he leaves the Shire and when the Ring goes to the Fire he sees no more purpose to his existence. Sam is, by contrast, a pre-modern man, rooted in a sense of place and a stable society and unafflicted by Frodo’s anxiety. Ultimately, and much to his disappointment, Sam will not be able to heal Frodo, but now amidst the ruin of Mordor, he will do what he can.

And so he gently but firmly leads Frodo away from the Cracks of Doom and down the road that they had taken in their ascent of the mountain until they reach a low ashen hill at the mountain’s foot that, for a brief moment, has become an island in the sea of ruin round about them. He cannot give up and it is his indomitable spirit as well as his love for Frodo that keeps them alive just long enough for Gandalf and Gwaihir to rescue them, performing a kindness for which all Tolkien’s readers have been grateful ever since he first brought us this wonderful story.

Gollum Takes The Ring to The Fire

/ stephencwinter / 14 Comments

Frodo cannot cast the Ring into the Fire. It has mastered him and will not be destroyed in that way. In the last two weeks, firstly in my own post, Frodo Claims The Ring For Himself and in Anne Marie Gazzolo’s wonderful meditation, The Ring Claims Frodo we saw that Frodo spent all that he could of himself just to bring the Ring to the Mountain. He had nothing more to give. As Tom Hillman put it, with typical wisdom in a comment on Frodo Claims The Ring For Himself, “no-one could have achieved the Quest by throwing the Ring into the Fire”

I think it is necessary to pause here a moment to say that when Tom says no-one he means that not Elrond, nor Galadriel nor Gandalf nor Aragorn could have thrown the Ring into the Fire. There is an amusing meme that does the rounds of the World Wide Web in which the entire plot of The Lord of the Rings is simplified by Gandalf and the Eagles flying to the Mount Doom and dropping the Ring into the Fire. All that the witty purveyors of this meme achieve is to reveal their spiritual shallowness. For one thing, as a comment from Gwen showed on the same post the mountain would not have been undefended except through the remarkable coalescing of circumstances that Tolkien gives us. Secondly, there is no such thing as a simple throwing of the Ring into the Fire.

And so a grace is given in a form that could not have been anticipated and that form is the last desperate attack by Gollum. It is a form that Sauron ignores entirely regarding it as being completely insignificant. When Shagrat took his report to Barad-dûr of the events in Cirith Ungol did he leave out the detail of “her ladyship’s sneak” turning up again after a long absence? I doubt it. I think that, compared to the news of the dangerous spy who has somehow got past Shelob, Sauron thought that there was nothing more for him to learn about Gollum than he already knew.

That is Sauron’s fatal weakness. He is only capable of seeing things in terms of power and once he had extracted from Gollum all that he had done and all that he knew Sauron had no more interest in him allowing him to play the role in relation to Shelob that Shagrat and Gorbag referred to.

Only Gandalf had a sense that Gollum might have a role to play in the story. “My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end.” Gandalf learned respect for small things in his long pilgrimage and for deeds that no-one else notices. “The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many- yours not least.”

Gandalf has learned a deep wisdom through a conscious attentiveness to small people and small deeds, a wisdom that began with his long tutelage in the school of the Lady Nienna, a school in which I suspect he may have been the only pupil. It was Nienna, one of the Valar, who taught him pity, both its necessity as a moral quality and its significance in the history of the world. It is Gandalf who realised that in the long, violent and malicious history of the Ring only Bilbo took it without violence and only Bilbo gave it up freely. Grace takes Bilbo’s kindly disposition, a very small thing in the great scheme of things and puts it to world-transforming use. Grace perfects Nature and so opens the door to Frodo’s pity for Gollum and Sam’s realisation that he too cannot kill Gollum, much as he wished to do so. And it opens the door to Gollum’s last attack upon Frodo and his fall into the Fire with the Ring on his grasp. Without all these small things the Ring could not have been destroyed. Grace would have had no door by which to enter the story. Grace cannot achieve perfection without Nature.

“But for him, Sam,” says Frodo after the Ring has gone, “I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him!”

And let us all forgive Gollum too and trust that he finds his way at the last to peace and to healing just as we long for peace and healing for ourselves too.

 

The Ring Claims Frodo

/ stephencwinter / 15 Comments

From time to time it is a great pleasure to welcome guest authors to my blog that explores wisdom from Tolkien’s great work, The Lord of the Rings. This week it is a particular pleasure to welcome Anne Marie Gazzolo with whom I have enjoyed a regular correspondence in the Comments Section of the blog for some time now. I have enjoyed reading her book (see below!) and warmly recommend it to you. In this post Anne Marie picks up from my own reflections on the dramatic climax to Frodo and Sam’s journey in the Cracks of Doom that I posted last week and takes them further. I am sure that you will enjoy her reflection and that you will want to read more of her work. 

Anne Marie Gazzolo is the author of Moments of Grace and Spiritual Warfare in The Lord of the Rings, which includes a chapter on The Hobbit. Sign up for her mailing list at http://www.annemariegazzolo.com and get a free copy of her ebook about applying to your life the lessons taught by Hobbits, Wizards, Elves, Men, and Dwarves. Works in progress include Chosen, which focuses on the journeys of Bilbo and Frodo, due out on their birthday 2018, from which this essay comes, and a book of poems inspired by the Quest. Two original fantasy series also await their turn as patiently as they can. You can also connect with her on Facebook and Pinterest.

 

Despite Frodo’s formidable endurance to the Ring, he becomes increasingly aware his resistance to its demonic assaults weakens the longer he bears it. After he reaches the Sammath Naur, worn out physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, he has nothing left with which to defend himself against the last terrible attack. “Tolkien is close to Paul and Augustine and their long train of followers who argue that real freedom is the liberty to choose and do the good, and that to do evil is to act unfreely, to exercise an enslaved will. … Not all evil is chosen. For while evil can subtly seduce, it can also brutally enforce its will. … The Ring creates a compulsion, in short, that cannot be broken with mere human strength of will” (Ralph C. Wood, Gospel According to Tolkien 70, 71). With the Ring’s power to “burn [the] mind away” (LotR V:4, 796), it is no wonder after months of incessant torment, Frodo’s will gives way. That it lasts as long as it does is a moving testament to its incredible strength, fortified as it is by grace and by Sam. Tolkien wrote, “But one must face the fact: the power of Evil in the world is not finally resistible by incarnate creatures, however ‘good’; and the Writer of the Story is not one of us” (Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien 252). He notes in another letter, “It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome – in themselves” (252-53).

At the same time Éowyn speaks of feeling as though she stands upon the edge of an abyss, Frodo truly does stand at the brink of “the spiritual abyss into which Sauron has fallen ages earlier” (Brian Rosebury, Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon 37).

As the Ring consumes Frodo, its Bearer can battle it no more. He said yes to Ilúvatar many thousands of times with each painful breath and step, but there is now but a strand of will that can no longer speak. “Towards the end of the quest, Frodo is left with only the capacity to will, as he becomes physical incapable of performing his task. Then, when the moment comes for the actual destruction of the Ring, the theme of self-negation in sacrifice reaches its highest point: the ability to will is taken from him” (Barry Gordon, “Knighthood, Priesthood and Prophecy in The Lord of the Rings”).

Sam hears Frodo use a strange tone of voice, as he speaks terrible words: “I have come…. But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!” (LotR VI:3, 924). This is not the freely willed act it appears. The hobbit cannot resist the evil power anyone else would fall prey to much sooner, but this does not mean he actively chooses to surrender to it. Frodo does not claim the Ring; the Ring at last claims him. His will is, in actuality, the least free at this time, as he already knew was near. He told Sam not long before, “I am almost in its power now. I could not give it up” (LotR VI:3, 916).

Tom Shippey remarks, “It is…interesting that Frodo does not say, ‘I choose not to do’, but ‘I do not choose to do’. Maybe (and Tolkien was a professor of language) the choice of words is absolutely accurate. Frodo does not choose; the choice is made for him” (Tolkien: Author of the Century 140). Tolkien agrees. “I do not think that Frodo’s was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum – impossible…for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted. Frodo had done what he could and spent himself completely (as an instrument of Providence)…” (Letters 326, italics in original)

The weight of Sauron’s dark power crushes the created, but it has no power over his Creator. The Dark Lord is but a servant himself, serving a greater evil, just as the hobbits serve a greater Good. Morgoth wove evil into the Song from the beginning and into the fabric of Middle-earth from the time of its creation. Ilúvatar could have changed that, but He allowed it to continue, so He could use even that to show it had no power over Him and His designs. Frodo and Sam and so many others suffer because of this evil, but Ilúvatar does not allow it to claim them utterly. He wants to show He can overcome Sauron’s might in the hobbits’ weakness. The Ring plays a part in its own destruction. Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are the vessels to get it there.

“Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), ‘that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named’ (as one critic has said)” (Tolkien, Letters 253).

Even if Ring-bearer and Ring-destroyer was thought by others and by Frodo himself to be one and the same, they are actually two different missions in the mind of Ilúvatar. Frodo’s task is to create “a situation in which the object of his quest could be achieved” (Letters 326). This he does perfectly. Indeed, only after Frodo fulfills his vocation does his will fail at last.

In response to readers who cried for Frodo’s condemnation for claiming the Ring, Tolkien argued the Ring-bearer should be judged not from actions resulting from breaking under torment, but like those who were broken by torture while a POW in WWII: “by the will and intentions with which they entered the Sammath Naur; and not demand impossible feats of will…” (252). Frodo’s will and intent to destroy the Ring never alters, but he comes to the Cracks of Doom at the nadir of his own strength and the height of the Ring’s. His will is no longer his own to claim.

Ilúvatar knew the burden would be too much for His child at the end, but He wants Frodo as a living sacrifice, not a dead one. He turns the no the Ring forces out of Frodo’s broken body and will into the yes foreseen from all eternity. “[Gollum] did rob him and injure him in the end – but by a ‘grace’, that last betrayal was at a precise juncture when the final evil deed was the most beneficial thing anyone cd. have done for Frodo!” (234). Because the Ring-bearer pitied Gollum and showed him mercy and compassion, he receives the same. Ilúvatar returns to him what the hobbit relinquished to Him: his self and his life.

Works Cited

Gordon, Barry. “Knighthood, Priesthood and Prophecy in The Lord of the Rings”. Accessed 10/4/17.

Rosebury, Brian. Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Shippey, Tom. J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Houghton
Mifflin, 2000.

—. The Lord of the Rings. 2nd edition. Houghton Mifflin, 1965, 1966.

Wood, Ralph C. The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth.
Louisville, KY: Knox, 2003.

 

The Mercy of Sam Will Rule the Fate of Many

/ stephencwinter / 4 Comments

Throughout the journey through Mordor Frodo and Sam have been aware that Gollum is not far away but although Sam, in particular, has remained wary, the sheer immensity of their task has meant that they have not been overly concerned about him. Sam’s attention has been primarily centred upon getting Frodo to, and then up, the mountain. Frodo’s attention has been given to the Ring. He has little choice. He is almost in its power. So it is, as Sam carries Frodo up towards the Cracks of Doom upon his back, that they are taken by surprise by Gollum’s attack.

“A sudden weight smote him and he crashed forward, tearing the backs of his hands that still clasped his master’s. Then he knew what had happened, for above him as he lay he heard a hated voice. ”

Gollum’s attack rouses Frodo in a way that nothing else could do and he resists fiercely. Gollum too has the same desire for the Ring but whereas Frodo has been sustained on his journey by lembas, which, while not satisfying hunger, has the capacity to give “a potency that increased as travellers relied on it alone and did not mingle it with other foods”, Gollum has had no such sustenance. He is starved and greatly weakened.

Frodo drives him away and makes his way, “walking slowly but erect, up the climbing path”.

And now,  at long last, Sam has the opportunity to do what he has long wished to do, and that is to kill his enemy, the one who betrayed Frodo to Shelob, the one that he has hated ever since they first caught him in the Emyn Muil. But when he has Gollum at his mercy and his sword is held, ready to strike the fatal blow, he finds that he cannot do it.

“He could not strike this thing, lying in the dust, forlorn, ruinous, utterly wretched. He himself, though only for a little while, had borne the Ring, and now dimly he guessed the agony of Gollum’s shrivelled mind and body, enslaved to that Ring, unable to find peace or relief ever in life again.”

Sam is not able to put what is happening to him into words but the same thing is happening to him as happened to Bilbo at the entrance to the tunnels of the Misty Mountains, the same thing as happened to Frodo when they caught Gollum in the Emyn Muil and he cried out to an absent figure, “Now that I see him I do pity him”.

The absent figure was, of course, Gandalf, and at the moment when Frodo had the opportunity to kill Gollum he was remembering the words that Gandalf had to spoken to him in Bag End when Frodo first learned the story of the Ring.

“Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity and Mercy: not to strike without need… My heart tells me that [Gollum] has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that time comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many- yours not least.”

And now the end has come and Bilbo’s Pity and Mercy, and Frodo’s too, have brought them all, with the Ring, to this place. And what Sam finds is that Pity and Mercy are not abstract concepts arrived at in leisurely reflection but they are a Connection that binds us to each other. We find that we are not separate from each other but that we belong to each other. When we discover this reality about someone that we love it is the cause of profound joy but when we discover it about someone that we hate then our first response may well be horror. At a level deeper than words Sam realises his connection to Gollum, the suffering that they have both shared and that they share now at this terrible moment.

Would Sam have been just if he had killed Gollum? Probably. Gollum’s desire will lead him to one last attack upon Frodo and he deserves to die for every murder that he has committed but as with Bilbo and Frodo,  the pity of Sam will “rule the fate of many” not least his own and Frodo’s.

 

Sam Gamgee Finds Strength to Finish the Job.

/ stephencwinter / 16 Comments

It was in trusting to luck on the roads of Mordor that Frodo and Sam were driven northward by the orcs in a forced march almost to the same Black Gate that they had seen from the other side just two weeks before. In those short days they have encountered Faramir and his Rangers of Ithilien; journeyed through the Morgul Vale; made the long climb to the pass of Cirith Ungol and there Frodo has been assailed by Shelob and carried by orcs into Mordor and the tower that guards the pass while Sam has defeated Shelob, briefly taken the Ring and rescued Frodo. 

Now as Frodo lies, exhausted by the torment of the march, Sam begins to ponder the journey that still lies before them to Mount Doom. 

“‘It looks every step of fifty miles,’ he muttered gloomily, staring at the threatening mountain, ‘and that’ll take a week, if it takes a day, with Mr Frodo as he is.’ He shook his head, and as be worked things out, slowly a new dark thought grew in his mind. Never for long had hope died in his staunch heart, and always until now he had taken some thought for their return. But the bitter truth came home to him at last: at best their provision would take them to their goal; and when the task was done, there they would come to an end, alone, houseless, foodless in the midst of a terrible desert. There could be no return.”

As we shall see as they make this last journey Sam is never quite able to despair. There is always an action that can be taken to get them a little nearer to their goal and, even at the very end, a place that is a little safer than the utter destruction that lies within the Cracks of Doom. Sam cannot quite abandon the optimism that has played such a part in bringing them so far upon the impossible journey. Trusting to luck, to wyrd, on the roads of Mordor that we thought about two weeks ago, was not just the consequence of dire necessity but a part of Sam’s character formed long before. And even when all hope has gone he must give luck every opportunity that he can.

Sam longs for a happy ending to his story and to Frodo’s and it is Rosie Cotton that he first recalls. His longings are for home and family and a woman to share them with and now, for the first time, it seems to him that he is never to enjoy these things. He would have the right to be angry, with Gandalf or Elrond who sent him on such a hopeless task, or with whatever sense of higher power that Sam has but at this moment he discovers something quite new, and even exciting. “He felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone or steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.”

It is only possible to make such discoveries at moments when they become necessary. Life must be entirely wagered on a venture whose outcome is, at best, doubtful, and most likely impossible, before such strength is given. Sam has laid his bets already, choosing to leave the comfortable world from which he came in order to go with Frodo. It is the kind of wager that we all consider at some point of our lives when the really big choices are laid before us. For only the big choices have the kind of degree of uncertainty about them that make us truly afraid. Now Sam sees, for the first time, the possible consequences of his wager and with it his will hardens and mighty strength is given. He is ready to carry himself, and Frodo if necessary, to the mountain and to the end of their journey. And that readiness to see the wager through to the end is what makes Sam great.  

    

Sam Gamgee Sees Something More Real Than the Shadow.

/ stephencwinter / 10 Comments

Whether it is day or night in the ever dark land of Mordor Sam and Frodo hardly know but the darkness seems to be deepening and they are weary and in need of rest. Frodo falls asleep almost immediately but Sam remains wary and stays awake. And it is in this state of exhaustion that he experiences a moment of absolute clarity of vision.

“Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a bright star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.”

As we saw last time “the blind dark” is getting into Frodo’s heart and he can no longer see as Sam can see. The Ring exercises an ever greater hold upon him and so Sam must see for them both. So often we mistakenly believe that we walk alone not realising that at all times we bear one another’s burdens. Frodo must bear the Ring, not just for Sam but for the whole world. This is his destiny and in order to fulfil it he must remain in desolation. We do not blame him for the moments of anger or the growing silence that is taking hold of him. Our hearts go out to him just as Sam’s does.

For even as Frodo falls into “the blind dark” Sam’s heart becomes ever more compassionate and his capacity for the vision of beauty grows. We have reflected on more than one occasion on how Sam’s adventures begin with a desire “to see Elves”, but it is one thing to be able to see, and to long for, beauty in the Shire, it is another thing to be able to see it in Mordor. Sam does see it and sees it as something that is deeper and more real than the “small and passing thing” that is the Shadow.

In the seeing of the beauty of the star Sam is able to carry Frodo through Mordor; in the bearing of the burden of the Ring Frodo carries the hopes and fears of the world.

And there is something more and this is what Sam is able to glimpse for a moment and that is that it is neither Sam’s vision of beauty nor Frodo’s ability to bear the Ring that matters most but that there is “light and high beauty” for ever beyond the reach of the Shadow. That such light and beauty should be matters more even than the success or failure of their mission. It matters even more than whether they live or die. There is a Love that holds and cradles Frodo and Sam of which they are only dimly aware, catching glimpses of it when they find water in the Morgai, attributing their good fortune to the favour of the Lady of Lothlórien but that there should be such a Love for them matters less than the reality that the Love, the Beauty, the Goodness and the Truth simply are.

And Sam does what such a vision always calls those who see to do. He puts away all fear and casts himself into a deep untroubled sleep. It is not that he feels safe in the land of Shadow. It is a still a place of danger as he will soon find out but he has seen something deeper than the danger and that is enough.