(no subject)
"I don't like anything here at all," said Frodo, " step or stone, breath or bone. Earth, air, and water all seem accursed. But so our path is laid."
"Yes, that's so," said Sam. "And we shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. 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 sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folks seem to have just been landed in them, usually--their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect, they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, but they didn't....I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?"
"I wonder," said Frodo. "But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know."
"No, sir, of course not. Beren, now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that's a long tale, of course, and it goes past the happiness and into grief and beyond it--and the Silmaril went on and came to Eärendil. And why, sir--I never thought of that before! We've got--you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's still going on. Don't the great tales never end?"
"No, they never end as tales," said Frodo. "But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later--or sooner."
"Yes, that's so," said Sam. "And we shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. 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 sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folks seem to have just been landed in them, usually--their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect, they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, but they didn't....I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?"
"I wonder," said Frodo. "But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know."
"No, sir, of course not. Beren, now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that's a long tale, of course, and it goes past the happiness and into grief and beyond it--and the Silmaril went on and came to Eärendil. And why, sir--I never thought of that before! We've got--you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's still going on. Don't the great tales never end?"
"No, they never end as tales," said Frodo. "But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later--or sooner."