Boromir

“Better Fear Undeserved Than Rash Words”. Can Frodo Trust Faramir?

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 874-878

The question of trust is one of life’s greatest challenges. When we are able to trust someone it creates a liberty that enlivens and energises like nothing else. When trust is betrayed the very foundations of the soul are undermined. In Dante’s Inferno it is traitors who are placed in the deepest circle of hell. Faramir himself has had to struggle with the question, “Can he trust Frodo?”. When he was interrogating Frodo after the battle against the Haradrim it was the one thing that he was striving to establish. Boromir was dead and here was someone who clearly had known him. Had Frodo played some part in his brother’s death?

“Treachery not the least.” Can Faramir trust Frodo? Anke Eissman depicts Faramir’s interrogation of Frodo.

One of the central themes of The Lord of the Rings is the creation of the bonds of fellowship. Fellowship is in the very title of the first volume of Tolkien’s great work, the one title in which he had full confidence, having wished himself that the book should have been published in a single volume and not three as his publisher decided to do. When Elrond formed the Fellowship following the Council in Rivendell and Frodo’s courageous offer to carry the Ring to the Fire of Orodruin in Mordor he had two purposes. One was the decision to choose nine walkers to stand in opposition to the Nazgûl, Sauron’s nine riders. This was a symbolic choice and not a practical one. Perhaps only Gandalf of the nine could match any of the Nazgûl in combat. That one of the hobbits should play a part in the death of their chief was due, not to his prowess in battle, but to the part played by deeper and providential forces at work, another of the central themes of Tolkien’s great work.

The Nine Walkers of the Free Peoples against Sauron’s Nine Riders. The team photo from Peter Jackson’s films.

The other purpose in Elrond’s choice, and the purpose that we are considering in this reflection, was to create a fellowship of the free peoples of Middle-earth; elves, men, dwarves and hobbits. That these had been sundered from one another over long years had been one of the greatest sorrows of its long history. There had been no alliance of men and elves since the end of the Second Age and the war against Sauron in which Elendil the only High King of both Gondor and Arnor, and Gil-galad, the last High King of the Elves in Middle-earth, were able, just, to stand against Sauron in battle and to overthrow him. Indeed it had been one of Sauron’s main purposes throughout the Third Age once he began to take shape again following his defeat and the loss of the Ring, was to weaken those essential bonds of fellowship among his enemies. Elves and Dwarves had long mistrust in one another as we learned when Gimli came to Lothlorian. Indeed it was one of the greatest fruits of the stay of the Fellowship in that land that Gimli gave his heart to Galadriel and formed a deep friendship with Legolas, the son of an elven king who had once held Gimli’s own father prisoner. Elves and Men had become sundered as the elves had slowly withdrawn into secret lands and a secret way of living, the outcome of which was that elves had become a thing of legend in the minds of men, even an uncanny thing, a thing to be feared little less than Mordor itself. And hobbits, if they were known at all, were largely disregarded as a people of small consequence.

Throughout the Third Age it was examples of friendship between its free peoples that was always remarkable. Elrond’s own “Last Homely House” in Rivendell was a place of hospitality to all free peoples, and its way, The Prancing Pony in Bree played a similar role but on a lesser scale. That Elves never made use of its welcome played its part in the growing belief amongst other peoples that they were fey and to be feared. The west door of Moria through which the Fellowship entered with such difficulty had a password of beguiling simplicity. All a traveller needed to do in order to gain access to the greatest kingdom of the Dwarves was to say the word, friend, and the door would open. And the friendship between Dale and the kingdom under the mountain, near neighbours in the north of Middle-earth, was a rare example of friendship between Dwarves and Men.

Indeed each of these examples brought prosperity and strength and it was to deepen, even create, friendship to which Gandalf devoted his long sojourn in Middle-earth, using Narya, the even ring of fire to “rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill. In our own human history it was the creation of Christian monasteries, first formed in the deserts of Egypt and Syria in the 4th century, and then in the West of Europe following the fall of the Roman Empire, places of hospitality, learning and healing, that played a central role in the renewing of Europe, giving a part to friendship in the history of that continent that stood in sharp distinction to the role of power in the Roman Empire and in the many attempts to recreate empire in the centuries since that time.

So can Frodo trust Faramir? Or is fear, even if undeserved, a wiser cause of action? Perhaps the whole future of Middle-earth rests upon the choice that Frodo will make. Fortunately for all it is Sam’s simplicity that will make the choice for all and that is wonderfully providential.

Can Frodo trust Faramir? He remembers the effect of the Ring upon Boromir. Anke Eissman depicts Boromir’s treachery when he tried to take the Ring from Frodo.

“Whatever Befell on the North March, You, Frodo, I Doubt No Longer.” Faramir Hears Frodo’s Story and Tells of The Death of Boromir.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 866-874

Boromir “was alive and strong when we parted. And he lives still for all that I know”, says Frodo to Faramir. “Though surely there are many perils in the world.”

Anke Eissman depicts the moment when Faramir encounters the funeral craft of his brother, Boromir.

“Many indeed,” says Faramir, “and treachery not the least.”

Frodo stands before Faramir and his men as Faramir judges the truth of the story that Frodo tells and also the teller of the tale. How did Boromir die? And what part did Frodo play in his death? Was Frodo a traitor who betrayed his companion to his death at the hands of orcs?

Sam reacts to the implied accusation of treachery with fury and he tells Faramir to mind his own business much to the amusement of Faramir’s men, but Faramir is determined to find out the truth, in part because he wants to know what happened to his brother, in part because he wants to judge Frodo fairly.

What persuades him that Frodo is a truth teller is the story of Lothlórien. As soon as we learn that Faramir knows the most name of the hidden land we know, as we began to think about last week, that he is a man of wisdom. Laurelindórenan, he names it, the valley of singing gold. Treebeard also used the ancient name of that land when he spoke with Merry and Pippin, sadly remarking that just as the name was diminishing to Lothlórien or even Lórien so too the enchantment of the elder days was fading away.

Fading it may be but Faramir still understands its potency. In part this power lies in its beauty. Faramir thinks of the beauty of the belt in which his brother was arrayed in the boat from Lórien that Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli had sent him down the Anduin on the day of the breaking of the Fellowship. He also recognises the beauty of the broach of green and silver leaf that fastens Frodo’s elven cloak about his neck.

But Faramir also recognises the potency of Lothlórien in two other ways. One is in the mystery of Frodo himself. Right at the beginning of his journey Gildor Inglorien names Frodo Elf-friend and Goldberry recognises him as such in the house of Tom Bombadil. Gandalf sees a light shining within him and a certain transparency to his body when Frodo lies in Rivendell recovering from the wound that the Lord of the Nazgûl gave him at Weathertop. Sam saw this light too as Frodo slept in Ithilien, seeing that his face was “old, old and beautiful, as if the chiselling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed.”

Frodo and Galadriel in Lothlórien.

Frodo shares in the enchantment that comes from the elder days but is also marked by the wound he received at Weathertop and by the power of the Ring. Gandalf wondered which of these would prevail within him but concluded that he did not think that he would come to evil but might become “a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.”

Faramir is one who has such eyes and can perceive this light. “There is something strange about you, Frodo, an Elvish air maybe”, he says. But here we recognise the third element of the potency of Lothlórien that Faramir perceives. Its peril. “It is perilous for mortal man to walk out of the world of this Sun, and few of old come thence unchanged.”

There are tales in so many cultures of mortals straying into Faerie and emerging changed. Later Faramir will speak of what change came over his brother to Frodo and Sam. Now he merely asks the question and perceives something of the beauty and the peril in Frodo.

There is much talk now of re-enchantment and who would deny the need for this in a dying world. But might there be a naive optimism about such speech? We want the beauty without the peril. In C.S Lewis’s Prince Caspian Susan says of the Maenads who surround her and Lucy and who unleash glorious chaos in a Narnia that is dying of rationalism that if Aslan were not with them she would be very afraid. The Christian wisdom of the Cross recognises both the healing that flows from it but also its horror. We cannot separate the two but would love to reduce our desire for re-enchantment to little more than a pleasant walk in the country or a neatly tendered border of pretty flowers in a garden. There is beauty in both of these but this is not the perilous beauty of re-enchantment. It is not what Faramir perceives in Frodo. He perceives it yet he has the wisdom to trust it.

Pauline Baynes wonderful illustration of Susan, Lucy, Aslan and the Maenads from Prince Caspian by C.S Lewis. One of my favourite scenes from the entire Chronicles of Narnia.

“It Was Not in Vain That The Young Hobbits Came With Us.” Gandalf Speaks of The Fall and Redemption of Boromir.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 646-648

“Tell me of yourselves,” Gandalf asked of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and so Aragorn tells the tale of the doings of the Fellowship since Gandalf fell in Moria until their meeting in Fangorn some six weeks later. He tells of their stay in Lothlórien, of the journey down river to Sarn Gebir in the hills of Emyn Muil and then of the sundering of the Fellowship and the death of Boromir.

“You have not said all that you know or guess, Aragorn my friend,” Gandalf replies to Aragorn as he thinks of Boromir. “Poor Boromir! I could not see what happened to him. It was a trial for such a man: a warrior, and a lord of men. Galadriel told me that he was in peril. But he escaped in the end. I am glad. It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir’s sake.”

It was not in vain that the young hobbits came on the journey, if only for Boromir’s sake. Matthew Stewart captures the nobility of Boromir that he rediscovers at the end.

“A warrior, and a lord of men,” Gandalf says of Boromir, but not a thinker. And in this regard Boromir is different from his father, Denethor. Boromir set out upon the journey to Rivendell because it seemed a heroic enterprise. A dream came many times to Faramir his brother, as Boromir recounted to the Council of Elrond, and once it came to him. Why Faramir did not speak sooner of the dream we are not told. Perhaps he needed time for reflection. But as soon as Boromir had the dream he went straight with his brother to their father and demanded leave to go to Rivendell. Perhaps it required the man of action to put things in motion.

It was Boromir who had to do the heroic deed. Catherine Chmiel imagines the final parting of Boromir and Faramir as Boromir begins his fateful journey.

But why did the heavenly powers send the dream in the first place? Why was it necessary to make the link between Minas Tirith and Rivendell? Perhaps the link was meant to be Faramir who, like Aragorn, had been a pupil of Gandalf and who would have understood the need to destroy the Ring and not to use it in war against Sauron. An understanding that he was later to show when he met with Frodo and Sam in Ithilien. But Faramir made the dream a matter for thought and not for action, for understanding and not for deed, a private matter and not for debate and counsel. It was Boromir who instinctively made the connection between the dream and heroic action. The dream spoke of Imladris, of Rivendell, and so a journey had to be made. And perhaps this was a right reading of the dream and of the heavenly mind that sent it. The Council of Elrond was a providential gathering of the free peoples of Middle-earth. Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and Humankind were represented there and were represented when the Fellowship was chosen to go with the Ring-bearer on his journey to Mordor.

Boromir never understood the necessity of the journey. “Why do you speak ever of hiding and destroying?” he asked of the Council. “Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of need?” Perhaps the use of the adjective, Great, was a clue even then of Boromir’s state of mind. Greatness, power and decisive action were all that he could envisage. To hide and to destroy seemed unmanly, even craven. And although when Elrond and Gandalf sought to make it clear to him that the Ring could not be used against Sauron because it was “altogether evil”, Boromir bowed his head and replied, “So be it” his heart never accepted this answer. As a soldier he accepted the orders as they were given by the Council but his heart was never in them. And after Gandalf’s fall when everything was thrown into disarray and into doubt, and when it seemed that Aragorn did not know what action should be taken, whether to go directly to Mordor or to Minas Tirith, Boromir began to think of taking the Ring so that it could be used in battle to do what the only thing that he thought had any importance, the defeat of Sauron.

I suspect that Boromir was ultimately taken by surprise by his own thoughts. Not the thoughts about the need of his people but the fantasies that he was nourishing about his own greatness. When Gandalf and Galadriel were offered the Ring they were able to resist the temptation at least in part because they had brought it from the shadow places within their hearts into the light of conscious thought. Boromir never did that inner work nor thought that work was even of any importance. And so when his desires burst out into the open at the moment he tried to take the Ring from Frodo they took him by surprise. I think that we can see this by his horrified reaction after Frodo escaped from him. And we see his true spirit in the way in which he gave his life for Merry and Pippin. It was because the young hobbits were there and in need that allowed him to declare to himself what he truly was. A warrior, a lord of men, and a man of truth and nobility.

It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir’s sake.

“They Will Look for Him From The White Tower… But He Will Not Return.” Boromir is Laid to Rest in an Elven Boat.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991,2007) pp. 538-544

Legolas and Gimli find Aragorn kneeling beside the body of Boromir and, at first, they fear that he is mortally wounded too. But soon they are reassured and learn of all that has taken place, of the slaying of Boromir by many orcs as he sought to defend the hobbits.

Now there are questions to answer. Are the hobbits still alive or have they been taken by the orcs? And if they have been taken which way have they gone? They know that Boromir had gone to defend Merry and Pippin but were Frodo and Sam among them? What should they do now? Should they follow the orcs to aid Merry and Pippin or should they find Frodo’s tracks and follow him for the sake of the quest? It is an evil choice that lies before them.

“First we must tend the fallen,” Legolas says. “We cannot leave him lying like carrion among these foul orcs.”

Aragorn stands over the body of Boromir in this poignant depiction by Anke Eissmann.

They do not have time to bury Boromir or raise a cairn of stones above him and so they determine to lay him to rest in one of the elven boats. We are reminded here of the ship burials of the Norse or Germanic peoples of Europe. The most famous of these burials here in England is the Sutton Hoo burial from the early 7th century of an Anglo-Saxon king laid to rest in a a ship that was nearly 90 feet long and when discovered in a famous excavation in 1939 was found to contain the most spectacular treasures from as far afield as Byzantium and Sri Lanka.

The Sutton Hoo ship burial and the famous warrior’s mask now kept in the British Museum.

Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli lay what treasures they can around the fallen hero, son of Denethor, Lord of Gondor. “The grey hood and elven-cloak they folded and placed beneath his head. They combed his long dark hair and arrayed it about his shoulders. The golden belt of Lórien gleamed about his waist. His helm they set beside him, and across his lap they laid the cloven horn and the hilt and shards of his sword; beneath his feet they put the swords of his enemies.”

And so the Anduin, the mighty river of Gondor, takes Boromir over the Rauros falls and down through Osgiliath “out into the Great Sea at night under the stars”.

It is a deeply poignant moment within the story. A brief pause amidst all the frantic action that has taken place that day and all that lies ahead of the three companions. As Tolkien was writing this scene he must have thought of the many fallen soldiers at the Battle of the Somme in which he fought and, most of all, of Robert Gilson and Geoffrey Bache Smith of the Tea Club, Barrovian Society, the T.C.B.S of King Edward’s School in Birmingham, both of whom fell in 1916.

For so many of the dead in that war there could be no pause amidst the fighting and the carnage amidst the trenches of the western front. Many bodies could not even be identified and it was not until after the war ended that the people of Great Britain began the long and patient task of creating memorials to their war dead. From the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, over which Queen Elizabeth’s coffin was carried at her funeral, to the memorial at the Menin Gate in Ypres in Belgium where those whose bodies were never identified are remembered, to the war cemeteries in Belgium and in France where thousands upon thousands lie, among whom are two of my mother’s uncles, and then the memorials raised in communities up and down the land for those who they had lost, the people of Britain did all that they could to honour their fallen. And we still do on each Sunday nearest to the 11th of November every year at those same memorials in all but a small number of villages across the land where everyone came home from the war. No such villages exist in my county of Worcestershire.

There is much debate among Tolkien scholars about the extent to which The Lord of the Rings is as much a memorial to the fallen of the Great War as it is the creation of a myth that reaches back into a distant past. The recent biopic about Tolkien’s early life certainly suggests this and I, for one, am persuaded. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli do all that they can to give meaning to the fall of Boromir and Tolkien makes heroes of the thousands who fell on the western front by creating a myth big enough to contain their stories.

One of the many war cemeteries in Belgium and Northern France from the Great War of 1914-18.

“It is I That Have Failed. Vain Was Gandalf’s Trust in Me.” Aragorn’s Despair at The Breaking of the Fellowship.

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 537-540

“Alas!” said Aragorn. “Thus passes the heir of Denethor, Lord of the Tower of the Guard! This is a bitter end. Now the Company is all in ruin. It is I that have failed. Vain was Gandalf’s trust in me. What shall I do now? Boromir has laid it on me to go to Minas Tirith, and my heart desires it; but where are the Ring and the Bearer? How shall I find them and save the Quest from disaster?”

The Death of Boromir by Anke Eissmann

Boromir is dead, having fallen in the attempt to protect Merry and Pippin from the Uruk-hai of Isengard, and Aragorn kneels in despair beside his body. At the moment when he makes this speech he knows nothing of the whereabouts of any other member of the Fellowship. Boromir died before he could tell Aragorn whether Frodo and Sam were captured along with the young hobbits and he does not even know where Legolas and Gimli are. For all intents and purposes it seems that the Quest has failed and that all hope has died.

Aragorn does not know it yet, but this, for him, is the lowest and the darkest point of the story. From the moment when the Company was defeated in its attempt to cross the Misty Mountains beneath Caradhras and the decision was taken to attempt the journey through Moria Aragorn has been an inner pathway downwards to this place. It seems clear that he had some kind of foresight of Gandalf’s fall in Moria even before the battle at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. Apart from the speech that he makes to the Fellowship in the dark of the Mines in order to raise their faltering morale he remains silent and a little distant. The next speech that he makes is to a grief stricken Company who have come through Moria but are themselves in despair at the loss of their guide. “We must do without hope, ” he says to them, and there is little doubt then that he has lost his own.

When, at last, the Fellowship reach the refuge of Lothlórien, Frodo descends from the hill of Cerin Amroth to find Aragorn “standing still and silent as a tree”, and hears him say, “Arwen vanimelda, namarië!” These are words of longing and of farewell as Aragorn bids his own farewell to any hope that he might achieve happiness in this life.

At the last parting from Lothlórien Galadriel reminds Aragorn of his mighty lineage and gives to him “the Elessar”, the green stone that Idril, the daughter of Turgon of Gondolin gave to Eärendil, her son, with the words, “there are grievous hurts to Middle-earth which maybe thou shalt heal”. Galadriel reminds Aragorn that he holds this story of healing as heir of Gondolin and of Eärendil, as rightful King of Gondor and of Arnor, and sends him upon his journey down the Anduin with this declaration ringing in his ears. When the boats of the Fellowship pass through the Argonath Aragorn greets his mighty ancestors as one who has come to claim the inheritance that is his but soon after comes the sundering and now he is alone amidst the wreckage of all his hope, both for personal happiness and for the world.

The Hildebrandt brothers depict the moment when Galadriel gives the Elessar to Aragorn.

Boromir dies with the horn of Gondor and his sword in his hand. Despite his own sense of failure Boromir dies a hero’s death in a way that both he and his warrior people understand. Such a death for them is a good death, offered in despite of despair. But at the very moment in which Boromir was fighting his last battle Aragorn was running first up, and then, down Amon Hen first in vain search for Frodo and then in vain attempt to come to Boromir’s aid. All is vain and Aragorn carries this sense in his unhappy heart even as he kneels beside Boromir. As those who know the ending of the story we know that this is Aragorn’s lowest point but he does not know this. For him it seems that a door is opening that bears the words that Dante reads above the gate of Hell. “Abandon all hope you that enter here.” There is no comfort that can be offered to Aragorn. Not yet. We must simply wait with him in silence.

Abandon all hope. Inger Edelfelt depicts Aragorn’s despair.

“You Have Conquered. Few Have Gained Such a Victory. Be at Peace!” Is Aragorn Just Being Kind to Boromir as He Dies?

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The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp.537-540

In Tolkien’s telling of the tale the whole of Boromir’s last fight takes place off stage and we are taken with Aragorn upon his pointless climb after Frodo up Amon Hen and then his equally pointless descent of the hill when he hears the horn of Boromir and realises that both Boromir and, probably, the hobbits are in need. At last he draws his bright sword, and crying out, Elendil! Elendil! he crashes through the trees.

But it is all too late. Aragorn finds Boromir “sitting with his back to a great tree” as if he was resting. His body is pierced by many orc arrows, his sword is broken near the hilt and his horn is cloven in two by his side.

Inger Edelfelt’s poignant depiction of the death of Boromir.

Boromir’s final words are both a report on how the hobbits have been taken by orcs and an admission of guilt.

“I tried to take the Ring from Frodo,” he said. “I am sorry. I have paid.”

Anke Eissmann depicts the terrible moment in which Boromir comes to try to take the Ring.

Aragorn’s response is one of great, and gentle, kindness.

“No!” said Aragorn, taking his hand and kissing his brow. “You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace! Minas Tirith shall not fall!”

And Boromir smiles; and then he dies.

Is Aragorn simply being kind to a dying man? One might begin to try to answer this question by saying that such kindness is never a simple matter. When we are with someone as they reach the moment in which they will cross the river, never to return, it is a deeply solemn affair. We are aware that a fellow human being is entering into a mystery about which we know almost nothing. If we are people of faith then we will have received from our traditions some sense of what awaits them and rightly we will seek to comfort the one who is dying with the confidence of that tradition but we all know that faith does not mean seeing. We may even receive some comfort from the dying. A good friend of my wife told me that when her mother was dying she began to speak with joy to the people who were waiting to greet her and our friend was, indeed, greatly comforted by this. But for all the comforts death remains a mystery.

“Alas!” said Aragorn. “Thus passes the heir of Denethor, Lord of the Tower of Guard! This is a bitter end.”

But Aragorn’s words to Boromir are more than a matter of comfort, important though that is. They are a matter of truth. Boromir did conquer. Although he did try to take the Ring from Frodo, almost immediately after Frodo’s escape he became aware of what he had done and returned with bitter regret to the place where the rest of the Company were. He met Aragorn’s distress and anger without any attempt at self justification and upon Aragorn’s command to go after Merry and Pippin and to watch over them he did so without question and then gave his life in their defence when they were attacked and taken by the Uruk Hai of Isengard. One might think that for the heir of the Steward of Gondor, one of the mightiest lords of Middle-earth, to give his life for hobbits, perhaps the least significant of its peoples, was a wasted gift, but doubtless Boromir remembered his words to Frodo, of his curse upon all halflings, and wished with all his heart to undo them, to pay a price for what he had sought to do.

Boromir’s deed in laying down his life for the hobbits was a victory over his desire, at all costs, to achieve greatness, to be the hero of Middle-earth and the Third Age. In itself this was a conquest. But it also achieved much in the task of the Fellowship. In taking Merry and Pippin the orcs believed that they had accomplished their mission to seize the halflings and so Frodo and Sam were able to make good their escape and to continue their journey to Mordor. Surely the fact that a great warrior was defending the hobbits convinced Uglûk and the Isengarders that they had done what they had been ordered to do. There was no need to hunt and kill anyone else. They could return to base. The lives of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli were probably saved by this mistake. And surely there is something in Aragorn’s declaration that Minas Tirith would not fall that is linked to Boromir’s conquest. Just as the pity of Bilbo, when he did not begin his keeping of the Ring with the murder of Gollum, was to rule the fate of Middle-earth, might we not say that Boromir’s conquest over the corrupting power of the Ring in his own heart, expressed in his sacrifice for the hobbits and his truth telling to Aragorn, also rules the fate of his people?

I love this depiction of Boromir’s last moments. The picture is entitled ‘The Horn of Boromir’ by Matthew Stewart. Note the contrast between the fear on the faces of Merry and Pippin, the violence of the orcs, and the achievement of an inner peace shown upon the face of Boromir. He has conquered indeed.

Many thanks to Overly Devoted Archivist for letting me know about the source of the artwork. To find Matthew Stewart’s work please go to the comment below and click on the link there.

“You Are Come and Are Met, In This Very Nick of Time, By Chance As It May Seem.” Wisdom From ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) p.236

As readers of this blog will know I have come to the end of a long and careful reading of The Fellowship of the Ring and before I continue with The Two Towers I would like to do what the title of my blog speaks of. I would like to spend a few weeks thinking about the wisdom that we can find in Tolkien’s great tale. Perhaps it might help us as we ponder our own journeys.

I am not sure why I ended the quotation that is the title for this week’s reflection where I did. I am sure that my readers will recognise that the words quoted thre are those that are spoken by Elrond at the Council in Rivendell. They speak of how Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, Men and a wizard have all arrived in the Halls of Elrond at this moment, one described as but a ‘nick’ in the long tally of time, but it is the right moment, even the last possible moment.

Alan Lee’s depiction of the Council of Elrond

Elrond ponders the meaning of this council. He did not summon these people. Had he done so it would surely have been a meeting of the White Council, a meeting of the Wise. Galadriel would have been there, as would Círdan of the Grey Havens. And Saruman would have been its leader. The descendants of Númenor would not have been summoned, nor Durin’s folk, nor the people of the realm of Thranduil in the northern marches of Mirkwood. And hobbits would most certainly not have been invited.

So is it merely a matter of chance that has brought Glóin from the Lonely Mountain of Erebor to Rivendell with Gimli his son? Or Legolas, the son of Thranduil from his land? Or Boromir from Minas Tirith; or a small group of hobbits from the Shire with their guide, Aragorn, the heir of Isildur?

Elrond chooses his words with care. “By chance as it might seem.” By using this word, seem, Elrond deliberately draws a distinction between those things that merely appear to us, like traffic passing by on a busy highway, and something of a deliberate purpose. Actually, if we were to ponder the deliberate purpose behind every one of the journeys being taken by those travelling down a particular highway on any given day, we might be able to discern and then tell a story in which each of those participants would have a part to play. The song, “Another Hundred People”, from Stephen Sondheim’s show, “Company”, comes to mind here and that tale is rather beautiful.

So Elrond chooses not to end with chance. “Yet it is not so,” he continues. “Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.” Elrond chooses to speak of belief. By this he does not mean an assent to certain doctrines. He encourages his guests to accept that their presence in his halls, at this precise moment, this “nick of time”, is a part of a big story in which each one of them has a part to play.

We might want to say at this moment that it is the unseen presence of The Ring that gives significance to the whole proceeding. Certainly, if it were not for The Ring there would be no hobbits present. I wonder if Boromir had this thought in mind when he cried out to Frodo, “It is not yours save by unhappy chance. It might have been mine. It should be mine.” Frodo made a similar statement when he bemoaned the seemingly cruel fate by which he has come to be in possession of The Ring. Gandalf’s response was that “Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.”

Bilbo was meant to find the Ring

Neither Gandalf, nor Elrond, choose to give themselves to lengthy metaphysical speculation about such matters. They receive encouragement from the thought that there seems to be a power for good at work in the world, one that put the Ring of Power into the hands of first Bilbo and then Frodo, neither of whom had any interest in power for its own sake; and one that has gathered this particular company of people together in Rivendell at this moment. Frodo is not encouraged by either of these things. As we saw last week, he simply accepts that he has been given a job to do and that is enough.

Frodo, and each member of the Fellowship, has been given a job to do. Bohemian Weasel depicts the Company before Durin’s Doors.

“It’s No Good Trying to Escape You.” Frodo and Sam Set Off For Mordor Together.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 395-398

Even though all the Fellowship recognise the wisdom of Sam’s words when he spoke of how Frodo was determined to go alone to Mordor, and that the time that he was taking was not to make up his mind about the right course of action but to find the courage to begin, the debate is not at an end. Merry and Pippin, at least, are still certain that they all should all go to Minas Tirith. It is only when Boromir arrives that the story is able to move on.

‘”Where have you been, Boromir?” asked Aragorn. “Have you seen Frodo?”‘

Boromir is not ready yet to tell his story, to admit his failure, but he says enough to throw the rest of the Company into panic and despite Aragorn’s efforts to prevent them Merry and Pippin run off in one direction, Legolas and Gimli in another and Sam in another yet.

“Boromir! I do not know what part you have played in this mischief, but help now! Go after those two young hobbits, and guard them at the least, even if you cannot find Frodo.”

And so Aragorn runs after Sam while Boromir makes his final journey in search of redemption. For he will fall in battle while doing as Aragorn had commanded, willingly laying down his life for the hobbits, willingly paying with his life for his attempt to seize the Ring from Frodo by force.

Once again it is Sam, who is closest to the mind and heart of Frodo, who works out what is really going on. After Aragorn catches and passes him, making his way up to Amon Hen, Sam realises that Frodo is making his way to the boats using the invisibility that the Ring gives him, and that it is Frodo’s intention to escape them all. Desperately, Sam makes his way towards the place to where the boats are moored, caring nothing now for anything, not even for his own life, as long as he can find Frodo. Even his fear of water will not stop him until the moment comes when he fears that he will drown.

Even his fear of water will not keep Sam from Frodo.

“Save me, Mr. Frodo!” gasped Sam. “I’m drownded. I can’t see your hand.”

At last Frodo gets them all safe back to shore but he is furious, convinced that Sam has come to do what he feared the most, to prevent him from going to Mordor. It is only when he realises that Sam wants to help him do what he planned that he relaxes at last and is actually pleased that Sam has caught him.

“So all my plan is spoilt!” said Frodo. “It’s no good trying to escape you. But I’m glad, Sam. I cannot tell you how glad. Come along! It is plain that we were meant to go together. We will go, and may the others find a safe road! Strider will look after them. I don’t suppose we shall see them again.”

So it is Boromir who sends each member of the Fellowship towards the place that they must go. Merry and Pippin will be carried by the Uruk-hai of Isengard just in time to meet Treebeard who has made a rare visit to a hill on the eastern border of Fangorn Forest. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, while in the process of a vain pursuit of the young hobbits, will arrive in Fangorn just in time to meet Gandalf and so rouse Rohan and their king from deadly slumber to great deeds. And Frodo and Sam will go step by step towards Mordor and the destruction of the Ring.

Frodo is sure that he is going to his death but he is at peace with his choice. All that he has to do is to do his duty. But Sam is not so sure that they are going to die. Nothing will keep him from staying with Frodo right to the very end but he has not forgotten the Shire and his heart lies there. Will he see the others again?

“We may, Mr. Frodo. We may. ”

Sam still looks beyond the Cracks of Doom to the future.

“Give It To Me!” Boromir Tries to Take The Ring From Frodo.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 387-390

We have heard this before. The long speech full of self-justification and fine sounding words. But when we heard this speech before it came from the mouth of Saruman when he gave it to Gandalf in Isengard, calling upon Gandalf to co-operate with him and with Sauron. Do the greatest crimes always require such grandiosity? Are such justifications always couched in terms of a particular action being an exception to moral law?

After Aragorn announced to the Fellowship that the day of choice had come, the day on which they would have to decide whether to make a journey directly towards Mordor on the east bank of the Anduin or to remain on the west bank and go to Minas Tirith, Frodo was given permission to spend an hour in thought alone. And it was during this time that Boromir finds him and begins to declare his mind.

Anke Eissmann depicts the moment when Boromir finds Frodo

The speech begins with kindliness as it must. If the speaker intends to justify a crime then they must first establish their intention to do good.

“Are you sure that you do not suffer needlessly?” Boromir says. “I wish to help you. You need counsel in your hard choice. Will you not take mine?”

Ted Nasmith imagines Boromir as he gives “counsel”

So the speech begins with sweet reason but soon it begins to display the same kind of exceptionalism that we saw in Saruman. He spoke to Gandalf about the failing of the Elves and of “dying Númenor”, and of “weak or idle friends”, and all this is with the intention of justify his own desire to rule and his need to obtain the One Ring in order to do so. Boromir also speaks dismissively of “elves and half-elves and wizards”, of their claim to be wise which he considers to be merely a cloak for timidity. And for Boromir it is “failing Númenor” that is the exception, “true-hearted Men” who “will not be corrupted”. It is the same speech albeit with a different cast of characters and a different exception. And in both speeches what begins with a we ends inexorably with an I.

“The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!”

Compare these speeches to the words that Gandalf and Galadriel speak when Frodo offers the Ring to them. They both acknowledge what they might do if they were to possess the Ring and both are tempted to take it so that they might do good through its possession. But both know that the achievement of personal power always ends with a contempt for the lives of others. Others exist merely for the sake of the one who rules. Saruman and Boromir dismiss this refusal of personal power as timidity. Gandalf and Galadriel have both achieved this rejection of power for the sake of personal gain through long inner struggle and it is that struggle that proves vital in the ultimate destruction of the Ring and the overthrow of Sauron.

There is a wonderful moment in The Lord of the Rings in which Tolkien exposes the true reality of the speeches that Saruman and Boromir make and that comes when Gollum makes the same speech to himself, to his Sméagol self, during the journey that he makes with Frodo and Sam through the desolation before Mordor.

“See, my precious: if we has it, then we can escape, even from Him, eh? Perhaps we grows very strong, stronger than Wraiths. Lord Sméagol? Gollum the Great? The Gollum! Eat fish every day, fresh from the sea. Most Precious Gollum! Must have it! We wants it, we wants it, we wants it!”

Gollum the Great

It may be that Gollum’s ambition goes no further than a desire to eat fresh fish three times a day but once you realise that it is the same speech as Saruman and Boromir both make then you realise also that all desire for power for the sake of self-aggrandisement is ultimately as pathetic as is Gollum’s. It is not that Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond reject the use of power, but that power must be wielded for the Common Good and with as much restraint as possible. They also recognise that their part in the story of Middle-earth is soon to reach its conclusion, that they have played their part in it, and they recognise that power must pass to the ordained authority, which is the kingship that Aragorn will bear.

“Give it to me!”

“We wants it, we wants it, we wants it!”

The same speech. The same tragic desire.

“Maybe The Paths That You Shall Tread Are Already Laid Before Your Feet Though You Do Not Know Them.” The Fellowship Prepare to Leave Lothlórien.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.358-360

Galadriel and Celeborn gather the Fellowship together and Celeborn addresses them.

“Now is the time… when those who wish to continue the Quest must harden their hearts to leave this land”

Which way will the Fellowship take?

All the Company are resolved to go forward but which way shall they go? The journey will take them down the valley of the Silverlode to the Anduin, the great river of Middle-earth, but which bank of the river will they follow after that? The west bank of the river will take them to Minas Tirith and Gondor. The east bank will take them to Mordor. It is “the straight road of the Quest”, the “darker shore”, but which way will they choose?

For Boromir the choice is clear. He will return to Gondor and to the defence of Minas Tirith. Most of the rest of the Company would prefer to go with him. Such a choice would at least delay the terrible moment when the path of the Quest must take them eastward and to the land of shadow.

Aragorn says nothing. In Rivendell the promise that he made was to go to the war in Gondor to fight alongside Boromir bearing Andúril, the Sword that was Broken reforged, but when Gandalf fell in Moria he became the leader of the Company and which way would Gandalf had chosen were he still with them?

Which way will Aragorn go?

Frodo, too, says nothing. He will not make his choice until the breaking of the Fellowship at Amon Hen and the Falls of Rauros. There the choice will be forced upon him and it will be to go on alone to Mordor, but it is a terrible choice, it is almost certainly a choice to die, and until that moment he remains in silence for he does not wish to die.

Celeborn offers the gift of boats to the Company and they are grateful for this, Sam excepted. On the one hand it eases their journey. They do not have to walk down the Anduin with packs upon their backs. On the other it postpones the moment when the choice will have to be made.

It is Galadriel who offers her wisdom to them regarding the choice. “Do not trouble your hearts overmuch with thought of the road tonight. Maybe the paths that each of you will tread are already laid before your feet, though you do not know them.” And so it will prove. When the time comes the path will be clear for each one of them. Merry and Pippin will be forced to take the road to Isengard when they are captured by orcs. Aragorn will choose to follow the captives and Legolas and Gimli will choose to go with him. Frodo will seek some kind of sign to help him find the way ahead and in the end the sign will be that Boromir will try to take the Ring from him and this will lead him to resolve to go alone to Mordor. Thankfully he will not succeed in going alone because Sam made his choice at the Mirror of Galadriel. Wherever Frodo goes he will follow. He no longer has any uncertainty in his heart about the path that lies before him.

I am sure that Galadriel knows that her words of counsel will not keep the Fellowship from anxious thoughts. The choice that must be made is so great, so terrible, that it is impossible that it can be made without being turned over and over in their minds. At least this is true for Aragorn who must lead them and Frodo upon whom the burden of the Ring has been laid, partly by his own choice at the Council of Elrond, partly by the command of that Council. Perhaps we will always agonise over the great choices of our lives and yet when we look back we see a certain simplicity in the pathway that we have followed. The paths that we have trodden have seemed laid before our feet only we were not able to see those paths until the moment came and we had to follow them. The wisdom of Robert Frost’s wonderful poem, The Road Not Taken, only seems clear as Frost puts it, “somewhere ages and ages hence”. Perhaps when paths must be chosen there has to be agony. We are rarely given freedom from that, at least with the big choices.

Frodo and Sam will go alone but together.