Khazad-dûm

“But He is No Fool; And I Will Not Think of Dying Until He Despairs of Life.” Further Thoughts on Despair and Hope From Peregrin Took.

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The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 806-807

In my title I speak of Pippin’s thoughts, but these are not really deep reflections offered in a leisurely symposium. Pippin is not really inclined to such a thing, and anyway, he doesn’t have the time. Denethor is about to kill both himself and Faramir and the city is under attack from the Enemy.

So, what we see here is the true Pippin. Pippin presented to us as an image created by just a few simple brushstrokes, by the bare essentials of his Pippin-ness. Pippin when he doesn’t have the time to try to be something.

We have noted that it is the task of a true captain to show us whether we are being faithful or not. And the true captain has discerned what we need to be faithful to, whether it is to what is good, or beautiful, or true, or whether it is merely to our self-interest, that is, what am I going to get out of this?

In 1943, the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote a deep reflection on this question that he sent to two friends and co-workers in the resistance to the Nazi regime just before he was arrested and then imprisoned in a military prison in Berlin. Later on, after his death at the hands of the Gestapo in 1945, these thoughts were published as After Ten Years (Nach Zehn Jahre). It is a short essay full of profound wisdom, and perhaps its heart is expressed in a simple question that he posed.

“The ultimate question for one who lives responsibly to ask is not how are we to extricate ourselves heroically from the affair, but how the coming generation is to live.”

Now, as I said, Pippin is not a philosopher. We would not go to him to ask ourselves what the really important questions are that we should ask. But Pippin wants to know that his captains have thought about the important questions and that the answers they have found are good ones. And what I mean by good answers is not that they are clever answers but that the world that such answers is able to describe is good, that it is a world in which my children and all the children of the world will be able to live life in all its fulness.

And so, while Pippin offered his service to Denethor because he wanted to offer some act of grateful thanks to Boromir, his heart is given in service to Gandalf, to Aragorn and to Faramir, because he trusts them, because they call him to the best version of himself, to a faithful Peregrin Took.

This is what he tries to say to Denethor when the Lord of the City tells him to “die in what way seems best to you”.

“I will not say farewell, my lord,” said Pippin kneeling. And then suddenly hobbit-like once more, he stood up and looked the old man in the eyes. “I will take your leave, sir,” he said; “for I want to see Gandalf very much indeed. But he is no fool; and I will not think of dying until he despairs of life.”

For Pippin has already seen Gandalf in a moment of extreme peril. He has seen Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm standing before Durin’s Bane and denying him passage. He has seen the wizard fall into the abyss of Moria beneath the bridge and heard him cry, Fly you fools! He knows that at the moment of extreme peril Gandalf was not thinking of himself but of the mission that he was prepared to give his life to. Gandalf did not despair as he fell from the bridge and so Pippin is sure that he will not despair now. Soon we will see Gandalf as he seeks to deny the Morgul Lord, the Chief of the Nazgûl, entry into the city, and we will know that at this critical moment it will be the Gandalf who pities even the slaves of Sauron and desires their welfare who will be standing there immoveable. This is the captain that Pippin wants to see now, the leader who calls him to his very best, one who can give him something worth dying and living for, one in whose service even the last moment would be to live life in all its fulness.

“We Must Do Without Hope”. The Company Go On After The Fall of Gandalf.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 321-324

How do we carry on after the catastrophe has happened? The journey of the Fellowship through Moria has taken them at last to the terrible climax at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. Gandalf has broken the bridge upon which both he and the Balrog confronted one another and then,

“With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasping vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. ‘Fly, you fools!’ he cried, and was gone.”

All in the briefest of moments the Company experience the terrible juxtaposition of relief at the fall of their deadly foe and then sheer horror as they witness in total helplessness the fall of Gandalf into the dark. At that moment it is Aragorn who is able to lead them all away from what remains a deadly danger out from Moria into the bright sun beyond its doors where grief overcomes them all.

And so they stand in the strange unreality of a sunlit day after the dark, and the yet stranger unreality of being alive after they have lost one whom they have all loved, who presence has seemed to them to have been one of the few certainties in a world that is in constant flux; one whose very existence has enabled them to give shape to that world. It is Aragorn again who finds words to express this.

“‘We must do without hope,’ he said. ‘At least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long road, and much to do.'”

This begins a thread that runs through the narrative of the next part of the story and is associated most with Aragorn. It is the theme of hope, the loss of hope and how to continue after hope has gone. Ever since the debate between Gandalf and Aragorn took place about which way the Company should cross the Misty Mountains Aragorn has been gripped by an inner sense that if they were to go through Moria something terrible would happen to Gandalf. All through the journey in the dark he has remained separate from the others, breaking his silence only at a moment when it seemed that doubt would take hold of them all. Might it be said that this inner sense, this foresight, has in some way prepared him for this moment? Might it be said that that all through Moria he has begun to live without Gandalf, who has been guide, even father to him?

“Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we without you?”

The Fellowship must continue their journey, not because they have hope that they will succeed but simply because they have a task to fulfil. The Ring must go to the Fire. What part each one of them will play in this is not yet clear. Only upon Frodo has the obligation to complete the task been laid by the Council and Sam will go with him because that is who Sam is. The point will come in the journey when each member of the Company will have to make their own choice about what they must do and as this point is reached for most of them the choice will become harder to make. Only Boromir will be certain about what direction the Fellowship must take and at the last it will be his certainty that will enable, even force, Frodo to make his choice and the attack by the Uruk-hai will force the choice of the others. But what they will all have to do will have to be done without the hope that Gandalf gave them, that sense that whatever happened there would be someone to sort everything out. It has been wisely said that we know for certain that we are grown ups when we know that our parents are not going to come to rescue us from whatever predicament we have got ourselves into. That realisation can be catastrophic in nature and for some it comes too soon in life. Only time will tell whether it has come too soon for the Fellowship of the Ring.

“You Cannot Pass.” Gandalf Confronts The Balrog at The Bridge of Khazad-dûm.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp.310-323

At the end of their journey through Moria the Company are pursued by orcs and trolls and then, worst of all, by a Balrog, one of the most terrible servants of Morgoth, a survivor of the Elder Days, that had hid from the wrath of the Valar in the depths of the Misty Mountains until it was disturbed by dwarves delving ever deeper in search of mithril in the Mines of Moria. For this is Durin’s Bane. This is why the dwarves have always failed to return to their ancient kingdom and why Balin and his companions had finally fallen after early success in their attempt to regain their ancestral home.

Not knowing the true identity of his foe Gandalf has attempted to turn back its power and has exhausted himself in the process. Now he stands alone on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm knowing that unless he overthrows his enemy the Quest of the Ring and the lives of all the Fellowship are at an end.

“The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm.”

It is at this moment of crisis, of deepest need, that Gandalf reaches down into the innermost depths of his being, of his soul, there to find his true self.

“‘You cannot pass,’ he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. ‘I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.'”

Those who are careful readers of Tolkien will have become used to certain aspects of his style as a writer. Things such as the way that he uses capital letters in certain nouns and his use of exclamation marks. They will notice that the sentence, “You cannot pass”, does not end with an exclamation mark neither at the moment when Gandalf first speaks to the Balrog nor when he repeats these words. In other words Gandalf does not shout. This is not a challenge of a warrior to his foe. It is a simple statement of reality.

The reality is that of the world in which Gandalf and the Balrog both stand. The Balrog is, even in its terrible power, a creature of the shadow, not of the flame in whose light all the works of evil are no more than shadow, even its fire. In his excellent study of the spiritual vision of J.R.R Tolkien, Stratford Caldecott describes the Secret Fire, “the flame of Anor” as “Tolkien’s term for the distinctive creative power of Eru. It is God’s ‘secret’, for only God can truly create ex nihilo (from nothing). For Tolkien the fire represents life, love and creativity, the wisdom and love of God that burns at the heart of the world and sustains it in existence- it is a willed emanation from the creative energy of God’s own self; it is the life of God shared with the world” (Secret Fire by Stratford Caldecott, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003, p107).

This is what Gandalf serves, what Morgoth lusted after in order to possess for himself but could never attain except as a gift freely offered by Eru to all who, like Gandalf, offer their lives in free service to him. Morgoth and his terrible servants, like the Balrog and like Sauron himself, could never possess the fire because they could never serve. The fire that they wield is mere shadow and it is to the Shadow that Durin’s Bane must return. It cannot pass.

Tolkien expresses this wonderfully as the Balrog responds to Gandalf’s words. “The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew.” And so begins their mighty struggle upon the Bridge of Khazad-dûm to which I will return next week.

“Dark is The Water of Kheled-zâram and Cold Are The Springs of Kibil-nâla. My Heart Trembles at the Thought That I May See Them Soon.” Gimli Draws Near To The Halls of His Ancestors.

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The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991) pp. 274-276

The mood of the pages that follow the departure of the Fellowship from Rivendell is in keeping with the season in which they travel. An icy wind blows from the East down from The Misty Mountains and the land is empty. But its emptiness is not of a place where no-one has ever lived. Once this land was full of life for the company are passing through an ancient kingdom of the Elves. This was Eregion or Hollin and it was ruled by Celebrimbor of the Noldor. We have thought about him before and how he, the grandson of Feänor, was the greatest of craftsmen among his people after his mighty ancestor.

It was Celebrimbor who was seduced by Sauron in his guise as Annatar into sharing his knowledge of the making of Rings of Power, a knowledge that was to enable Sauron to make the One Ring but also the Three Elven Rings that were to enable the Elves to resist Sauron and to do works of healing in Middle-earth. At the last Sauron made war upon Celebrimbor and slew him, destroying his kingdom and so it is an empty land through which the Fellowship passes.

But it is not just a kingdom of the Elves that once flourished here. Close neighbour to Eregion and Celebrimbor its lord, was Khazad-dûm, Moria, greatest of all the kingdoms of the Dwarves. Celebrimbor and Durin, Lord of Moria, were close allies through many years and their shared love of the making of things meant that they gave much and learned much to and from one another. This alliance was one of the greatest fruits of the peace that followed the fall of Morgoth at the ending of The First Age before the rise to power of Sauron and its fall along with that of the kingdoms that comprised it was one of greatest unhappinesses of the Second Age.

Legolas mourns the passing of Eregion and acknowledges the greatness of its people in comparison to his own woodland folk and then Gimli expresses his longing for a sight of the Mirrormere, a lake in a mountain valley east of the Misty Mountains that is so shrouded by the shadows of the mighty peaks that surround it that it is said that one who looks into it will see only the stars of the night sky. It was this sight that led Durin to build his kingdom beneath the same mountains and it is one of the holiest places in the hearts of all Dwarves.

“Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram,” said Gimli, “and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla. My heart trembles at the thought that I may see them soon.”

The Dwarves and the Elves look back to a greatness that is now lost. It is one of the triumphs of Peter Jackson’s films that they succeeded in conveying this. The moment when Gandalf’s staff is lit and so reveals Durin’s halls in all their glory is one of the finest in The Fellowship of the Ring and Howard Shore’s music conveys the beauty of this sight to great effect. Moria is still magnificent but it is a glory of the past and not of the present and Gimli and all his people feel this deeply. It was this sense of loss that led Balin, one of the companions of Thorin Oakenshield and the Dwarf who was closest to Bilbo, to lead an expedition to Moria with the intention of making it a Dwarf kingdom once again. One of the reasons why Gimli has joined the company is to make contact with Balin and his companions if it is possible.

This elegiac mood, this winter mood, this setting of the great quest of the Ring in a winter journey, is an essential part of the way in which Tolkien tells his story. If there is to be a springtime, a renewing of life after Sauron, it will not be for all the peoples of Middle-earth. Perhaps one of the reasons why there is no singing or laughter at the departure of the Fellowship from Rivendell is because that departure is a signal that the beauty that the Elves have brought to Middle-earth is passing away. It is not just Eregion in which only a memory of the Elves is left.