The Lord of the Rings: The Voice of Saruman (Part Four)

The Tale

Having failed with Theoden, Saruman makes one last desperate effort to win Gandalf to his side. He asks the wandering wizard why he rides with such foolish and violent people. Even now, won’t he listen to his old superior’s counsel?

Gandalf reminds him of the circumstances of their last meeting when Saruman imprisoned him to await turning over to Sauron. What more does he want to say? Or perhaps he has things to unsay?

Saruman pretends to be puzzled. Perhaps he lost his temper a bit because Gandalf refused to listen to his good advice, but then Gandalf was always proud of his own wisdom, which he admits is great. A bit of flattery to oil the way never hurts. He never held any ill-will towards Gandalf, and indeed doesn’t now. They are both ‘members of a high and ancient order, most excellent in Middle-earth’. Saruman understands him. Shouldn’t they be friends? Wouldn’t it be great if Gandalf would come on in and join him, so that together they can heal the disorders of the world. ‘Will you not come up?’

‘So great was the power that Saruman exerted in this last effort that none that stood within hearing were unmoved.’ One must assume that included even Aragorn and the other members of the Fellowship. Everyone feels that they will be dismissed as stupid servants by these two ‘of loftier mould … reverend and wise.’ Even Theoden, who has successfully resisted all of Saruman’s blandishments himself, fears that Gandalf will betray them, go up into Orthanc, and all will be lost.

‘Then Gandalf laughed. The fantasy vanished like a puff of smoke.’

Gandalf tells Saruman that he missed his job calling; he should have been a jester and earned his bread and beatings by mimicking court counsellors. All that he’s been saying is surely a joke. Saruman does not understand him at all, indeed Gandalf may be ‘beyond his comprehension.’ Gandalf remembers his last visit all too well. That time, Saruman was to be ‘the jailor of Mordor.’ But ‘the guest who has escaped by the roof, will think twice before he comes back in by the door.’ And now, rather, shouldn’t Saruman come down? Isengard has proved less strong than he fancied; maybe Mordor will be as well. Perhaps Saruman should try turning to different things, and come down to them?

For a moment Saruman’s face goes deathly white. His mask falls, and all can see the writhing of a mind in doubt, hating to stay but fearing to leave. Finally pride and hate conquer his spirit.

He mocks Gandalf; an unarmed man does not go out to meet robbers. He can hear what the other wizard has to say well enough where he stands. He does not trust Gandalf, and he knows where he has ‘the wild wood-demons’ lurking in wait.

‘The treacherous are ever distrustful’ Gandalf says wearily. But Saruman does not have to be scared. When he says Saruman can go free, he means really free. But he’s giving him a last chance; leave Orthanc, and Gandalf will protect him.

Very kind of you, Saruman sneers. Very condescending. No doubt Gandalf would find the tower accommodating for himself if he left. Why would Saruman want to go? And what would be the conditions if he should leave?

The reasons he can see all around him. Saruman’s forces are destroyed, his neighbors roused against him, and he has tried to cheat his new master, Sauron, who will not be best pleased. But Gandalf means he will really be free, even free to go to Sauron, if he wants to. But he must leave the Key of Orthanc and his staff as pledges of his conduct. He will get them back if his actions merit them.

This makes Saruman livid, his face twisted with rage and his eyes smoldering. A modest plan! And Gandalf won’t stop until he has ‘the Keys of Barad-dur crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards … and a pair of boots many sizes larger than you have now!’ Saruman turns to leave Gandalf with ‘these cut-throats and small rag-tag that dangle at your tail! Good day!’ (I say good day to you, sir!)

But Gandalf calls him back in a commanding voice, and to everyone’s surprise he does turn back, as if dragged against his will, breathing hard, face lined and shrunken. ‘His hand clutched his heavy black staff like a claw.’

Gandalf has not given him leave to go. Saruman has become a pitiable fool. He might have repented, but he seems fixed in his folly. Gandalf is no longer Gandalf the Grey, but Gandalf the White, who has passed through death. By his new authority he declares that Saruman has no ‘colour’ now, and that he is cast out both from the order of wizards and from the White Council. Gandalf raises his hand, and pronounces in a cold, clear voice, ‘Saruman, your staff is broken.’

With a crack, Saruman’s staff splits asunder, its head falling at Gandalf’s feet. Gandalf abruptly commands the fallen wizard to go, and Saruman falls back and crawls away. But at the same moment a shining object comes hurtling down from above, right where Saruman had been standing, and barely missing Gandalf’s head. It snaps the iron rail and splinters the stone step. But it is unharmed itself. It is a black ball of crystal, glowing with a fire at its heart. As it rolls toward a pool, Pippin runs over to stop it.

Eomer thinks it was thrown by Saruman, by Gandalf pronounces it to be more likely a parting shot from Wormtongue. Those two traitors will have little comfort of each other, and if Wormtongue gets out alive that will be more than he deserves. He suddenly sees Pippin coming up the stairs bearing the black ball and goes hastily down to meet him. He takes the globe and wraps it away in his cloak. It is not something Saruman would have wanted thrown away, he says.

But there might be other things to throw, says Gimli. If all this business is over, they should move out of range, at least.

‘It is the end,’ said Gandalf. ‘Let us go.’

 

Bits and Bobs

I must admit that the first time I read about Saruman ‘earning his stripes’ as a jester, I somehow connected this with a jester’s parti-colored outfit, or perhaps even in some attenuated fashion to earning military distinction. I realized later, of course, that stripes meant the weals or scars left from beatings with whips or rods.

It is interesting that Tolkien, the Master of Modern Fantasy, uses the term ‘fantasy’ here (and I don’t know if it occurs anywhere else in LOTR) only in its sense of an illusion or a false imagining or even a lie.  

In an interesting inversion, Saruman says, in effect, not that Gandalf is getting too big for his boots, but that he wants too big a pair of boots than he can fill. It is interesting to note that it is here that the concept of ‘The Five Wizards’ entered Tolkien’s writing, a detail that he went to some trouble to explore long after the books were published. Indeed it is fascinating that there are more intriguing hints about the nature of the wizards spoken between these two than any other of the peoples of Middle-earth care to say or speculate. Gandalf throws Saruman out of the order by breaking his staff, much as a soldier in disgrace was thrown out of the army by breaking his sword.