The Light that shines in the darkness -- Frodo and Sam in the Shadow of Death

Brocken Inaglory at the English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Lately, as part of another project, I've been working very closely with Shelob's Lair and The Choices of Master Samwise in Book Four, and The Tower of Cirith Ungol in Book Six of The Lord of the Rings. There is so much to comment upon in these chapters, so many links among them as well as between them and other chapters that it would take a discussion of some length to lay them all out.(Working on it.) There is one connection I finally recognized last night that I found so charming that I wanted to say a few words about it.

In Shelob's Lair the narrator points out that Gollum 'had bowed down and worshiped her, and the darkness of her evil will walked through all the ways of his weariness beside him, cutting him off from light and from regret' (TT 4.ix.723). I had long felt that we have here an echo of the Twenty-Third Psalm: 'surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life' (23.6). I became certain of this the other day when I noted that in the hymn which Sam, without knowing what he is saying, sings to Elbereth, he uses the word 'nguruthos' (TT 4.x.729), which Tolkien translates in Letter 211 (p.278) as 'the shadow of (the fear of) death'.* It is hard to imagine that a man of Tolkien's time, upbringing, and piety, did not intend another echo of the same psalm: 'yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death' (23.4).

Since Galadriel plays an important role, at least in the minds of Frodo and Sam during the episode with Shelob, I had also been thinking of her gift to Frodo of the star-glass to be 'a light when all other lights go out' and of her appearance in Sam's vision out of a blaze of blinding light. This moment when the darkness of Shelob is debilitating both Frodo and Sam seems to have been foreseen by Galadriel and provided for with her gift. The interplay of the powers of light and darkness in this scene also reminds us of what Haldir said of Galadriel's power: 'In this high place you may see the two powers that are opposed one to another; and ever they strive now in thought, but whereas the light perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not been discovered. Not yet' (FR 2.vi.352; cf. 2.vii.364-65). 

The other night I was reading aloud to a particular friend what I had been writing about all this. She immediately quoted the Gospel of John (1.5) 'and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot comprehend it'. 

And, as happens at such moments of revelation, the circle suddenly closed. 

Allusion, of course, is what we find here, not allegory. The echoes of the Latin 'comprehenderunt', are heard quite loudly in the English translation of John, but in Tolkien, more fittingly, they sound as dimly as the horns of Elfland. Yet sound they do. The light of the silmaril as borne by Eärendil and captured in the water of Galadriel's mirror does not suggest that she or Eärendil are Christ figures. Rather, it is a matter of all myths reflecting the 'true' myth (the evangelium), and of all uses of the imagery of light and darkness to represent good and evil having common elements. Our knowledge of the one shapes and enhances our understanding of the other. If anything, so many of the characters suggested as 'Christ-figures' in The Lord of the Rings simply underline the need for Christ, for Eru to enter his creation himself, because the Children of Ilúvatar, being fallen, cannot overcome the evil that is the cause and consequence of their own fall.

It is intriguing also to note that the Earendel whom Tolkien found in the Old English poem Christ (1.104), and who sparked the creation of Middle-earth, was understood by some to represent Christ and by others John the Baptist**. In either event, he is the morning star, who presages the sun and brings light and hope to those who 'have had to endure the dark shadow of death' (1.118: deorc deaþes sceadu  dreogan sceoldan), like Sam facing Shelob and like the speaker of the psalm.

Most interesting, finally, are the words of John the Evangelist*** who seems almost in dialogue with this question of who 'the Light' is, as if answering a question already raised during the lifetime of John the Baptist and Jesus -- some thought Jesus might be John come again, others that the Baptist might be the Messiah -- or anticipating that such a question would be raised again and clarifying the truth of the matter ahead of time (1.6-8):

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

Tolkien asserted that his work was 'fundamentally Christian'. He meant that adverb literally, as in 'at its foundation'. This makes sense because his themes are themselves at the foundation of our reality and Middle-earth's. 

__________________________________

* The parenthesis glosses the words before it, explaining them, not adding to them.

** See Cook The Christ of Cynewulf, a 1964 reprint of the 1909 impression, with the notes beginning on p. 88. Since identification of Earendel with Christ or with John the Baptist, except perhaps by Tolkien, is not relevant here, I have not engaged with scholarship later than Tolkien's discovery of him. Given Eärendil's role as the one who prepares the way for the (semi-)divine intervention of the Valar, Tolkien may have seen Earendel as more likely to be John the Baptist.

*** Coincidentally, perhaps, Tolkien regarded John the Evangelist as his patron saint (Letter 309), though the shared name was a coincidence.

A couple of comments on The Inimitable Prancing Pony Podcast

On a recent episode (starting at 3:30) of The Prancing Pony Podcast, Alan and Shawn were discussing the question of whether the Ringwraiths had possession of their own rings or whether Sauron had them. Near the end Alan made an interesting point, to which I think I can add some support. Alan noted that on Weathertop Frodo could not see the rings of the Black Riders, even though the One Ring enabled him to see much about them that was invisible to everyone else present. 

As Alan admitted, this is an argument from silence. But it becomes far more persuasive when we recall that Frodo could see Galadriel's ring when Sam could not, which she attributes specifically to Frodo being the Ring-bearer (FR 2.vii. 365-66). These two points together strike me as pretty compelling, especially when added to the other evidence that Sauron held the Rings of the Nine.

On another episode (starting at 1:34:00) a question arose about the scene in Rivendell in which Bilbo tries to touch the Ring and Frodo sees him momentarily as a Gollum-like creature whom he wishes to strike. I have just a couple of observations here and a question.

• Frodo in this scene is in exactly the same place as Bilbo was in the scene with Gandalf in A Long-expected Party. Both are on the brink of violence towards someone they care deeply for because they see that person as a threat to their possession of the Ring. What Bilbo likely sees in Frodo at this moment is himself. Something similar will happen with Frodo and Sam in Mordor.
• One powerful effect of the Ring is to distort the reality of its bearer even when it is not being worn. Presumably this is connected to the temptations others not in possession of it feel.
• What are we to make of the way Frodo-the-narrator chose to represent this scene?

Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

BY

THE INTERDISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM

OF

BERLIN

1/4/2020 -- 4/4/2020

In few areas do the people of today feel inferior to their predecessors and ancestors. Paradoxically, or not, the most educated among us are most prone to perceive themselves inadequate in comparison to the scholars of times past. Who has not looked upon the vast sweep of the works of a Grimm or Mommsen -- let alone Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Mommsen's son-in-law -- and wondered how they accomplished so much so well? 

The Interdisciplinary Symposium of Berlin is pleased to announce a call for papers to be presented at its inaugural conference in April 2020. The topic will be:

Sitzfleischangst 

or 

The Roots of 21st Century Academic Impostor Syndrome 

in 

The Footnotes of 19th Century German Scholarship

Abstracts of no more than 150 words, not counting footnotes*, are to be laid at the feet of the statue of Theodor Mommsen at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin no later than tomorrow morning.

Mommsen's study

*Endnotes strictly forbidden.

Almost the touch was a caress -- TT 4.viii.714

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo's knee – but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing. 

(TT 4.viii.714)

This paragraph is so remarkable rhetorically that examining it in great detail will repay the effort. Let's take it a sentence at a time.

1. Gollum looked at them. (4)

2. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face.(9)

3. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. (15)

4. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. (28)

5. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo's knee – but almost the touch was a caress. (24)

6. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.(51)

By separating the sentences as I have done, something becomes immediately clear even without counting the words. Five sentences out of the six are significantly longer than the sentences before them. But the sentences do not just get longer. They become more complicated.

The first sentence has a subject, a verb, and a prepositional phrase. The second has the same structure, but by the addition of two adjectives it evokes an archetypal figure of treachery to a benefactor -- 'Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look' (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 1.2.195). The third sentence begins exactly as the first two did (subject, verb, prepositional phrase), but adds a second coordinate clause, with four adjectives in rhythmic alliterative pairs to expand upon the first clause. In doing so, the third sentence answers the suggestion of the second: Gollum's lightless eyes reveal only weariness and age.

The fourth sentence is not just compound, but in its second part becomes complex, using three subordinate clauses ('peering...shaking...as if....') to illuminate the action of its first half. It anticipates the betrayal the reader knows is coming and seems to recapitulate silently the debate Sam overheard in the Dead Marshes.

'Then he came back’, the first four words of the fifth sentence, act like a hinge at the paragraph's center, pivoting the Tale away from treachery, and towards the repentance if not the redemption, which the complex, heavily modified second clause and the blunt, breathtaking third declare to be possible at this instant. The dash before 'but' and the emphatic displacement of 'almost' draw the reader's attention like a manicule to the difference between the 'caress' of Gollum's 'trembling hand' here and the 'long fingers flexed and twitching, claw[ing] towards [Frodo's] neck' at the end of the earlier debate (TT 4.ii.634). Here, too, the betrayal hinted at by the 'interior debate' of the fourth sentence is answered by the 'almost the touch was a caress'.

The sixth sentence sweeps up all the long years of Gollum's life into one astonishingly poignant 'fleeting moment'. It depicts that moment for the reader by means of an exceptionally long and complex sentence in the form of a condition contrary to fact. It imagines a circumstance which did not arise and a sight which was not seen, except by the reader; and yet the reader's vision of Gollum here, echoing Bilbo's vision of Gollum in The Hobbit, feels right and true. Recall that the narrator of The Lord of the Rings is usually Frodo and sometimes Sam, not some omniscient third person. As the narrator tells us, they were both asleep. How then can the reader see this if they did not? (A fascinating question I will address elsewhere.) For the moment we will content ourselves with the thought that the prose here is so rhetorically powerful that it can persuade the readers that they have seen something which, except for the last gesture, no one in the book could have seen or told of. 

__________

Here are a few nice touches to be found in this paragraph.

The first word is 'Gollum', and the last is 'thing', which in apposition with 'hobbit'.

Saying that Gollum was 'shrunken' by the years might be meant to call to mind the Cumaean Sibyl, who shrank as she lived on and on without dying.

The last four words -- 'old starved pitiable thing' -- may be scanned as a spondee, a dactyl, and a spondee, which gives a nice, rhythmic ending to the paragraph, a trick of ancient rhetoric Tolkien will have learned in school.

Review: The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse

The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse by Renée R. Trilling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

fascinating, clear, persuasive

View all my reviews