Notes on TTT: Journey to the Cross-Roads
Sam's point of view throughout, or else 'the hobbits' - no distinct Frodo point of view until the final few lines.
Farmir's warning, 'do not drink of any stream that flows from Imlad Morgul, the Valley of Living Death' indicates that even Ulmo's power is vanquished by that of the Nazgul/Sauron - despite Ulmo being a Vala. This prefigures the light of Galadriel's Phial, which is a spark of the primeval light, being 'cold and pale' at Sammath Naur. The concentrated evil of lesser beings can be stronger than the forces that founded the world.
'[A] waiting silence broods. . . Storm is coming' too late for it to be the one that met Gandalf in Edoras. This 'storm' is likely to be metaphorical but perhaps also physical.
'[T]ake these staves . . a virtue has been set upon them of finding and returning'. Faramir doesn't say who set the virtue on them; maybe himself.
'The hobbits bowed low' reciprocating Faramir's bow to Frodo in the last chapter - and later 'to the ground' with their packs already on their backs, showing far more than ordinary politeness: 'It was said to me by Elrond Halfelven that I should find friendship on the way, secret and unlooked for.'
'Gollum squealed and squirmed, and clutched at Frodo' until Frodo volunteered to be blindfolded along with him. There is no record that this actually quiets Gollum, but no further reference to his whinging. At least when the only other choice is Faramir, Gollum seems to trust Frodo, which Frodo may take as a chance to start over with him.
'The land dreams in a false peace' - so says Faramir. After he and his men 'vanish,' [t]he forest . . .stood empty and drear, as if a dream had passed'. The next thing that happens is 'Frodo sighed and turned back southward.' No matter what the land dreams, the interval of peace is over for him and Sam.
'But if you can only speak ill of those who showed you mercy, keep silent!' The exclamaition point indicates speaking sharply; I think that not only the content of Gollum's word, but his voice pains Frodo.
'Always forgives, he does yes, even nice Master's little trickses' - which shows that Gollum does not forgive at all. 'Frodo and Sam did not answer' as one, but perhaps with different feelings. Frodo may feel a disappointment and wariness about the fancied fresh start, which Sam would never have expected any good of anyway.
'The silence seemed deeper; the air grew heavy, and it began to be stifling under the trees.' In the Old Forest and Fangorn, this heavy, stifling air was the anger of the forest, and the forests were personified in Old Man Willow and Treebeard, but this forest has no persona, only anger.
'To the right the mountains of Gondor glowed, remote in the West, under a fire-flecked sky' even though the Fire is in the east. Could the disorientation of the border zone (Shelob's domain) extend, however weakly, this far?
'[A} road went winding down like a pale ribbon, down into chill grey mists that no gleam of sunset touched. It seemed to Frodo that he descried far off, floating as it were on a shadowy sea, the high dim tops and broken pinnacles of old towers forlorn and dark.' This is the inverse of the voyage to the Undying Lands, a journey into darkness, over a 'shadowy sea' (one the obstacles to the way West in JRR's earliest stories), to 'old towers' (such as Tirion on Tuna). It is as if the voyage west is superimposed on the journey east.
Both these quotes are from the point where they turn east, away from Faramir's route and onto Gollum's.
'"No use hiding in the dark'" said Gollum. "It's in day that hobbits must hide now, yes in day.'" Their dependency on starlight, 'inner light', and ultimately Galadriel's Phial begins here.
'The hobbits did not shut their eyes' not only due to the discomfort of their perch but because of the fear that engulfs them.
Gollum 'listened and sniffed, which seemed, as they had noticed before , his usual method of discovering the time of night'. 'I am sure it is very important' as Pippin said about the Nazgul's 'sniffing' in A Shortcut to Mushrooms: Creatures of darkness have their own senses, not dependent on light. Curiously, Frodo's sense of smell is not one of the two that the Ring seemed to strengthen; only his sight and hearing are mentioned.
Gollum switches from a cringing if sarcastic voice - 'nice Master, nice Smeagol' - to one of command: '''Are we rested? Have we had a beautiful sleep" he said. "Let's go!"'
'There seemed to be a great blackness looming slowly out of the east, eating up the faint blurred stars.' This is a reference to Shelob/Ungoliant - the race of spiders from the Void who eat light (as Ungoliant ate the light of the Two Trees and killed them) and freeze time (similar to a black hole). 'Ephel Duath . . .where night lay thick and did not pass away' explicitly connects the absence of light with the stilling of the passage of time.
'"Need we think about it yet?" said Sam. The 'yet' means that he has an inner sense of time in which things arise when they have to. In the next few chapters both inner time and inner light are going to be challenged.
Even the 'dull red glare' which 'was not the red of dawn . . . died away'.
'Sam . . .was soon deep in a dream'. This is the only dream of Sam's that gets recorded. He dreams of 'the Bag End garden. . .very weedy and rank somehow, and thorns and bracken were invading the beds'. He is weighted down by 'a heavy pack on his back'. '"A job of work for me, I can see; but I'm so tired,' he kept on saying. He is looking for something and finally realizes, just before waking, that it is his pipe. On waking he says 'Silly!' but is not dismissing the dream, because he is still half in it; he 'wondered why he was lying down under the hedge. . .Then he realized first that the pipe might be in his pack but he had no leaf, and next that he was hundreds of miles from Bag End. . .Why had his master let him sleep out of turn, right on till evening?'
There is more to this dream than meets the eye: Possible damage to the Shire is on Sam's mind, but he is 'too tired' for that 'job of work'; to keep on with the job that he has to do now, he needs to imagine the Shire intact behind him. More than that, he is looking for his pipe, which was there all along - a homely vessel that contains fire. This foreshadows the Phial, which is there all along, which he will remember 'when all other lights go out' - a vessel that contains a splinter of the light of the Two Trees. It is Sam, not Frodo, who will remember the Phial, although Frodo carries it - but Sam, whose gift includes seeing the light in Frodo, carries the knowledge of this light; when he remembers it, he will, as Cara points, out, experience 'a light in his mind, almost unbearably bright at first'. He will not only think of it, but see it; thinking of it there, when it is needed, creates a connection with it, as if it had been asleep all this time, waiting to feel the need.
Once more, Sam is not the eternal optimist: 'Is there a storm coming? If so, it's going to be the worst there ever was . . .But it would be just like [Gollum], after coming all these miles, to go and get lost now, just when we shall need him most - that is, if he's ever going to be any use, which I doubt . . . And I hope he doesn't fall into other hands, as you might say. because if he does, we shall soon be in for trouble.' Only Frodo's 'I'm afraid our journey is drawing to an end' calls him back to duty: 'but where there's life, there's hope, as my Gaffer used to say; and need of vittles, as he mostways used to add.'
'Frodo slept unquietly . . . Twice Sam thought he heard him speaking Gandalf's name.' Gandalf may still be able to contact Frodo in dreams since he is not yet inside Mordor, or else he dreams about Gandalf on his own, either as his guide or as one who has 'passed the shadows'.
Gollum 'seemed frightened or excited' but Sam couldn't be sure which. Could Frodo? Probably he felt both, so close to the dangers of the pass and the hope of getting the Ring for himself.
'"Silly!" hissed Gollum. "We're not in decent places. Time's running short, yes, running fast."' This may indicate that he went ahead into Shelob's realm, where time runs slowly and stops, so that time outside seems to be rushing by.
'oppressed by the gloom and the absolute stillness of the land' - This means that both light and sound are dimmed or absent, another effect of the proximity of Shelob, or of the Nazgul. These are the hobbits' primary means of gaining sensory information. In Shelob's Lair, memory, too will begin to fail.
'a belt of trees. . . of vast size, very ancient it seemed, and still towering high, though their tops were gaunt and broken, as if tempest and lightning blast had swept across them, and had failed to kill them or to shake their fathomless roots.' (The old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by the frost.)
It is Frodo who sees that '"The king has got a crown again!" . . . A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed.' This flash of wild hopefulness - "They cannot conquer forever!' - is connected to the brief presence of both sunlight and flowering plants, essential to the happiness of all hobbits, and antithetical to Mordor. This prefigures Sam's insight that 'the shadow was but a passing thing' even if they die under it.
Farmir's warning, 'do not drink of any stream that flows from Imlad Morgul, the Valley of Living Death' indicates that even Ulmo's power is vanquished by that of the Nazgul/Sauron - despite Ulmo being a Vala. This prefigures the light of Galadriel's Phial, which is a spark of the primeval light, being 'cold and pale' at Sammath Naur. The concentrated evil of lesser beings can be stronger than the forces that founded the world.
'[A] waiting silence broods. . . Storm is coming' too late for it to be the one that met Gandalf in Edoras. This 'storm' is likely to be metaphorical but perhaps also physical.
'[T]ake these staves . . a virtue has been set upon them of finding and returning'. Faramir doesn't say who set the virtue on them; maybe himself.
'The hobbits bowed low' reciprocating Faramir's bow to Frodo in the last chapter - and later 'to the ground' with their packs already on their backs, showing far more than ordinary politeness: 'It was said to me by Elrond Halfelven that I should find friendship on the way, secret and unlooked for.'
'Gollum squealed and squirmed, and clutched at Frodo' until Frodo volunteered to be blindfolded along with him. There is no record that this actually quiets Gollum, but no further reference to his whinging. At least when the only other choice is Faramir, Gollum seems to trust Frodo, which Frodo may take as a chance to start over with him.
'The land dreams in a false peace' - so says Faramir. After he and his men 'vanish,' [t]he forest . . .stood empty and drear, as if a dream had passed'. The next thing that happens is 'Frodo sighed and turned back southward.' No matter what the land dreams, the interval of peace is over for him and Sam.
'But if you can only speak ill of those who showed you mercy, keep silent!' The exclamaition point indicates speaking sharply; I think that not only the content of Gollum's word, but his voice pains Frodo.
'Always forgives, he does yes, even nice Master's little trickses' - which shows that Gollum does not forgive at all. 'Frodo and Sam did not answer' as one, but perhaps with different feelings. Frodo may feel a disappointment and wariness about the fancied fresh start, which Sam would never have expected any good of anyway.
'The silence seemed deeper; the air grew heavy, and it began to be stifling under the trees.' In the Old Forest and Fangorn, this heavy, stifling air was the anger of the forest, and the forests were personified in Old Man Willow and Treebeard, but this forest has no persona, only anger.
'To the right the mountains of Gondor glowed, remote in the West, under a fire-flecked sky' even though the Fire is in the east. Could the disorientation of the border zone (Shelob's domain) extend, however weakly, this far?
'[A} road went winding down like a pale ribbon, down into chill grey mists that no gleam of sunset touched. It seemed to Frodo that he descried far off, floating as it were on a shadowy sea, the high dim tops and broken pinnacles of old towers forlorn and dark.' This is the inverse of the voyage to the Undying Lands, a journey into darkness, over a 'shadowy sea' (one the obstacles to the way West in JRR's earliest stories), to 'old towers' (such as Tirion on Tuna). It is as if the voyage west is superimposed on the journey east.
Both these quotes are from the point where they turn east, away from Faramir's route and onto Gollum's.
'"No use hiding in the dark'" said Gollum. "It's in day that hobbits must hide now, yes in day.'" Their dependency on starlight, 'inner light', and ultimately Galadriel's Phial begins here.
'The hobbits did not shut their eyes' not only due to the discomfort of their perch but because of the fear that engulfs them.
Gollum 'listened and sniffed, which seemed, as they had noticed before , his usual method of discovering the time of night'. 'I am sure it is very important' as Pippin said about the Nazgul's 'sniffing' in A Shortcut to Mushrooms: Creatures of darkness have their own senses, not dependent on light. Curiously, Frodo's sense of smell is not one of the two that the Ring seemed to strengthen; only his sight and hearing are mentioned.
Gollum switches from a cringing if sarcastic voice - 'nice Master, nice Smeagol' - to one of command: '''Are we rested? Have we had a beautiful sleep" he said. "Let's go!"'
'There seemed to be a great blackness looming slowly out of the east, eating up the faint blurred stars.' This is a reference to Shelob/Ungoliant - the race of spiders from the Void who eat light (as Ungoliant ate the light of the Two Trees and killed them) and freeze time (similar to a black hole). 'Ephel Duath . . .where night lay thick and did not pass away' explicitly connects the absence of light with the stilling of the passage of time.
'"Need we think about it yet?" said Sam. The 'yet' means that he has an inner sense of time in which things arise when they have to. In the next few chapters both inner time and inner light are going to be challenged.
Even the 'dull red glare' which 'was not the red of dawn . . . died away'.
'Sam . . .was soon deep in a dream'. This is the only dream of Sam's that gets recorded. He dreams of 'the Bag End garden. . .very weedy and rank somehow, and thorns and bracken were invading the beds'. He is weighted down by 'a heavy pack on his back'. '"A job of work for me, I can see; but I'm so tired,' he kept on saying. He is looking for something and finally realizes, just before waking, that it is his pipe. On waking he says 'Silly!' but is not dismissing the dream, because he is still half in it; he 'wondered why he was lying down under the hedge. . .Then he realized first that the pipe might be in his pack but he had no leaf, and next that he was hundreds of miles from Bag End. . .Why had his master let him sleep out of turn, right on till evening?'
There is more to this dream than meets the eye: Possible damage to the Shire is on Sam's mind, but he is 'too tired' for that 'job of work'; to keep on with the job that he has to do now, he needs to imagine the Shire intact behind him. More than that, he is looking for his pipe, which was there all along - a homely vessel that contains fire. This foreshadows the Phial, which is there all along, which he will remember 'when all other lights go out' - a vessel that contains a splinter of the light of the Two Trees. It is Sam, not Frodo, who will remember the Phial, although Frodo carries it - but Sam, whose gift includes seeing the light in Frodo, carries the knowledge of this light; when he remembers it, he will, as Cara points, out, experience 'a light in his mind, almost unbearably bright at first'. He will not only think of it, but see it; thinking of it there, when it is needed, creates a connection with it, as if it had been asleep all this time, waiting to feel the need.
Once more, Sam is not the eternal optimist: 'Is there a storm coming? If so, it's going to be the worst there ever was . . .But it would be just like [Gollum], after coming all these miles, to go and get lost now, just when we shall need him most - that is, if he's ever going to be any use, which I doubt . . . And I hope he doesn't fall into other hands, as you might say. because if he does, we shall soon be in for trouble.' Only Frodo's 'I'm afraid our journey is drawing to an end' calls him back to duty: 'but where there's life, there's hope, as my Gaffer used to say; and need of vittles, as he mostways used to add.'
'Frodo slept unquietly . . . Twice Sam thought he heard him speaking Gandalf's name.' Gandalf may still be able to contact Frodo in dreams since he is not yet inside Mordor, or else he dreams about Gandalf on his own, either as his guide or as one who has 'passed the shadows'.
Gollum 'seemed frightened or excited' but Sam couldn't be sure which. Could Frodo? Probably he felt both, so close to the dangers of the pass and the hope of getting the Ring for himself.
'"Silly!" hissed Gollum. "We're not in decent places. Time's running short, yes, running fast."' This may indicate that he went ahead into Shelob's realm, where time runs slowly and stops, so that time outside seems to be rushing by.
'oppressed by the gloom and the absolute stillness of the land' - This means that both light and sound are dimmed or absent, another effect of the proximity of Shelob, or of the Nazgul. These are the hobbits' primary means of gaining sensory information. In Shelob's Lair, memory, too will begin to fail.
'a belt of trees. . . of vast size, very ancient it seemed, and still towering high, though their tops were gaunt and broken, as if tempest and lightning blast had swept across them, and had failed to kill them or to shake their fathomless roots.' (The old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by the frost.)
It is Frodo who sees that '"The king has got a crown again!" . . . A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed.' This flash of wild hopefulness - "They cannot conquer forever!' - is connected to the brief presence of both sunlight and flowering plants, essential to the happiness of all hobbits, and antithetical to Mordor. This prefigures Sam's insight that 'the shadow was but a passing thing' even if they die under it.