'untouchable now by pity' -- Frodo on the slopes of Mt Doom (RK 6.iii.944)

Then suddenly, as before under the eaves of the Emyn Muil, Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more than the shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet filled with a hideous lust and rage; and before it stood stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice. 

(RK 6.iii.944)

The disturbing description of Frodo in this passage is fascinating. Frodo is now ‘a figure’, an 'it', not Frodo himself. He is ‘untouchable now by pity’, which given Gandalf’s emphasis on the crucial role of Pity (FR 1.ii.59), can only be a bad thing. That a commanding voice -- whose? -- speaks out of the fire blurs the distinction between Frodo and the Ring, the 'wheel of fire' which he has declared to be the only thing that he can see any more (RK 6.ii.919; iii.938). Indeed they now seem one, though whether it matters any longer whether Frodo has claimed the Ring or the Ring Frodo may be impossible to say.  What of “robed in white”? Gandalf is now robed in white, though Frodo doesn't know that. So was Saruman before he lost his way. Most importantly, perhaps, Galadriel wears white, while black is the color of Sauron and his servants. Is this the nearly fallen Frodo’s vision of himself that we are seeing? Like Galadriel’s projection of herself as a ruling queen? Yet she knew it would all end in despair.

In answer to these questions the text is silent. Yet it is Sam who takes up the Pity that the figure of Frodo has laid down (RK 6.iii.944).

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The Last Word on Adventure -- TT 3.viii.711

'I guess that you have been having adventures, which is not quite fair without me.' 

Merry Brandybuck, A Conspiracy Unmasked

One of the more marked differences between the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is the initial attitude of the main characters towards the prospect of 'adventure.' Bilbo, as we recall, responded quite unfavorably when Gandalf tried to recruit him for one:  'We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,' (Hobbit 12).  By the time that Frodo has reached the age at which 'adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo' (FR 1.ii.43.), however, the tales of Bilbo's exploits have taught at least some of the younger hobbits connected to him to see things differently.  Merry (FR 1.iv.102, quoted above), Pippin (FR 1.iv.104), and Sam (FR 1.iv.99), all look gleefully forward to the adventure upon which they are embarking with Frodo, even is they also realize there must also be darkness and danger for it to be an adventure:

'Three cheers for Captain Frodo and company!’ they shouted; and they danced round him. Merry and Pippin began a song, which they had apparently got ready for the occasion.  

It was made on the model of the dwarf-song that started Bilbo on his adventure long ago, and went to the same tune....

(FR 1.iv.106)

Frodo, however, who would love to go on just such an adventure as Bilbo's, is gloomily aware that his journey is quite unlikely to be one (FR 1.ii.62; cf. 1.iii.77, and note the capital A): 

‘Of course, I have sometimes thought of going away, but I imagined that as a kind of holiday, a series of adventures like Bilbo’s or better, ending in peace. But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, drawing it after me.

In fact Frodo fully expects his journey 'there' to have no 'back again' (FR 1.iii.66). Even so, neither he nor any of the others ever guessed that their adventures might involve fighting before Tom Bombadil handed them the swords from the barrow (FR 1.viii.146). Had Old Tom not rescued them, again, they would have all 'come to the end of [their] adventure' (FR 1.viii.140) then and there. All the hobbits then, including the more mature and sober Frodo, approach their journey with a certain naivete. 

In keeping with this it is no surprise to find that in The Lord of the Rings 'adventure' overwhelmingly records or reports the attitudes of the hobbits towards Bilbo's journey or their own. Of the twenty-eight instances of the word, only twice does a character who is not a hobbit use it. Glóin does so, but he is speaking to Frodo of his experiences on the road to Rivendell (FR 2.i.228). Gandalf alone employs it of the exploits of those who are not hobbits, when he says rather grimly of the Dúnedain: 'It may be that this War of the Ring will be their last adventure' (FR 2.i.221), an assessment haunted by the prospect of no 'back again'.

It is also no surprise that after the Company leaves Rivendell, by which time even Sam's 'desire for adventure was at its lowest ebb' (FR 2.iii.280), the word occurs only four more times. The first three are quite matter of fact, without the least air of Adventure. Once the Company are discussing their 'adventures' with each other as they seek to decide whether to go to Mordor or Minas Tirith (FR 2.x.402). Merry and Pippin then speak of their 'adventures' when Treebeard bids them to tell him their tale (TT 3.iv.471). Frodo, too, narrates the 'adventures' of the Company when he meets Faramir in Ithilien (TT 4.vi.677). The journey to Rivendell, the seemingly hopeless quest begun there, the shattering loss of Gandalf, Boromir's near fall and his self-sacrifice, have forced a shift in perspective on the hobbits. To sit at Bilbo's feet as children and with kindling eyes hear him speak of the brave deaths of Thorin and Fíli and Kíli is one thing; to watch their friends and comrades die -- even die heroically -- is quite another. Now they have not only have they known adventure, but the loss that too often comes with it, even before they have reached the most challenging parts of their journey. 

And it is precisely in the moment before Sam and Frodo plunge into the worst part of their adventure that the last use of word comes.

The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind.

(TT 4.viii.711, italics mine)

Their growth as characters is reflected in their evolving understanding of the very words they use. Step by step on their journey they leave behind both the conceptions they had, and the hobbits they were, when they began, which makes Sam's thoughts as he crosses the Brandywine for the first time seem almost prophetic: 

Sam was the only member of the party who had not been over the river before. He had a strange feeling as the slow gurgling stream slipped by: his old life lay behind in the mists, dark adventure lay in front. 

(FR 1.iv.99)

And, as is the way of prophecy, he had no idea how true it was.

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Etymology is Destiny, Saruman, Saruman

As many are aware, Tolkien derived the name 'Saruman' from Old English. The entry in Bosworth- Toller for searu starts with ambiguity (I.) and moves straight to the 'bad sense' (II.). The good sense (III.) comes in a distant and by comparison feeble third, all the examples of which are adverbial uses of the instrumental case. searwum, 'skillfully, ingeniously, with art'. Amid the wealth of marvelous, damning examples under sense II. we find right near the end of the section a quote from the Blickling Homilies (173.8) in which St. Peter tells St. Paul of Simon Magus and recounts

'Hwylce searwa se drý árefnde what artifices the sorcerer practised'

So while it is true to say that searu can be either negative or positive, the surviving evidence indicates that negative is the far more common meaning. When we also consider that the word is so frequently ambiguous that this uncertainty merits the first place in the dictionary entry, it seems a fitting source for the name of a wizard who, even as his 'wickedness' was 'laid bare' (TT 3.ix.567), had proclaimed himself no longer Saruman the White, but 'Saruman of Many Colours' (FR 2.ii.259):

'I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.'

Since Tolkien named him Saruman from his first appearance in his plot outlines (Treason 70, 72-73), his character and his fate were coeval with his name.

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Review: The Wolf in the Attic

The Wolf in the Attic by Paul Kearney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An enjoyable read, which got steadily more interesting as it went along. It does a good job of maintaining a child's perspective, though it's not a children's book, and of suggesting that there's more out there in the dark, in the woods beyond the lights of Oxford, than most adults would be comfortable admitting. The characters range from a Dickensian evil landlord and a wastrel father to the Devil, werewolves, and (apparently) Cerunnos. Lewis and Tolkien also appear as peripheral characters, who are welcome and amusing, but may not be strictly necessary as themselves. On the other hand, there is no little irony in their seeming ignorance of the perilous realm that surrounds and even penetrates Oxford. And this may be the point of their presence, since their ignorance underlines the greater ignorance of the modern world.

View all my reviews

But How Do You Really Feel, Mr Bliss?

Since I never read introductions first, I only just looked at the preface to Dunning and Bliss' edition of The Wanderer just last night, after reading the poem five or six times back to back. At the end of the first paragraph (vii) appears the following sentence:

If we appear to have singled out Dr. Leslie rather often for disagreement, this is because his [edition] is usually the most accessible, and often the most able, defence of interpretations which we find unacceptable.

Well alrighty then. That in turn made me think of this passage from another source:

This was unexpected and rather difficult. There was some scattered clapping, but most of them were trying to work it out and see if it came to a compliment. 

(FR 1.i.30)

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The Wanderer, T. P Dunning & A. J. Bliss edd., Methuen 1969. 

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