“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.