The Lord of the Rings: The Stairs of Cirith Ungol (Part Four)

The Tale

‘In a dark crevice between two great pieces of rock they sat down: Frodo and Sam a little way within, and Gollum crouched upon the ground near the opening.’ The hobbits take what they expect to be their last meal before going into Mordor, maybe their last meal ever. They eat some of the food Faramir gave them and some lembas, and drink only enough water to moisten their mouths. Gollum eats nothing but accepts a mouthful of water.

Sam wonders if they’ll ever find water again. He guesses that even over in Mordor, they have to drink. ‘Orcs drink, don’t they?’ Frodo says that yes, they do, but not to speak of it. ‘Such drink is not for us.’ Sam opines that there isn’t any water up in these mountains, not any that he’s even heard trickling. And anyway, Faramir said not to drink any water in Morgul.

None flowing out of Morgul Vale, Frodo corrects him. They are above that now. Any water they find will be flowing into the Vale. Sam says he still wouldn’t drink it, not until he was dying of thirst. The place feels wicked; it even smells ‘queer’, and Sam doesn’t like that smell. Frodo doesn’t like anything about it; here, everything seems 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 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. Folk seem to have been just 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, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a 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 a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.'
'No, sir, of course not. Beren now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that's a long tale, of course, and goes on 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 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.’

Sam says that then they can have some rest and sleep. He laughs grimly. He explains he means real rest and sleep, not a metaphor for dying and being done with it. He’s always just been hoping; big plans are not his style. He realizes they’re in a ‘story’, but he also wonders if their tale will ever be written up, in ‘a great big book with red and black letters,’ and read out to generations. “Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he, dad?” “Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.”

Frodo laughs at this, a good clean clear laugh that seems to astonish the very rocks of that dark land. ‘Such a sound had not been heard in those places since Sauron came to Middle-earth.’ Frodo laughs again, then says the children will want to hear about one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. Sam’s talk would make them laugh, and ‘Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?’

Sam says he shouldn’t make fun; he was serious. Frodo assures him that so is he, but they’re getting ahead of themselves: they’re still in the tale, and a nasty dark part too, that might make the kids shudder and want to close the book. Sam’s not so sure. Bad things made into stories are different. Why, even Gollum might not be so bad in a tale. He used to like tales himself, by his own account. ‘I wonder if he thinks he’s the hero or the villain.’

Sam turns to ask Gollum if he wants to be the hero, but Gollum has crawled off quietly sometime while they were talking. They imagine he may have gone to find food again, but there’s nothing up here, ‘not unless there’s some kind of rock he fancies.’ Frodo says it’s no use wondering if he’ll be false to them now. They wouldn’t have got this far without him. Still, Sam would rather have him under his eye: he said the pass wasn’t watched and now they see a tower. What if he betrays them to the Orcs?

Frodo doesn’t think so, that would mean the Ring would get to Sauron and be beyond his reach forever. ‘No, if it’s anything, it will be some little trick of his own that he thinks is quite secret.’ Sam agrees, but doesn’t doubt that Gollum would turn him over to the Orcs ‘as gladly as kiss his hand.’ All his schemes have been about ‘the Precious for poor Smeagol.’ But why bringing them up here helps his plans is more than Sam can guess. He is Slinker and Stinker, and the closer they get to Mordor the stronger Stinker is getting.

Frodo believes the poor muddled creature doesn’t have one plain plan, but perhaps is just biding his time and waiting on chance. Sam says they need to ‘keep our eyes skinned’ till they cross over into Mordor. It wouldn’t do to be caught napping. But for now, they do need some rest. Frodo can be safe enough laying in his lap. Even if Sam drifts off himself, ‘no one could come pawing you without your Sam knowing it.’ Frodo sighs. Yes, even here he could sleep. And so, the two lie down.

Notes

Here Tolkien draws The Lord of the Rings closer into the orbit of his long-cherished stories of The Silmarillion, showing how it is still part of the ‘great stories’ that lie behind them. It is an interesting meditation upon the nature of ‘adventures,’ and how they seem to the people within them.

Sam also seems to have the same philosophy as the narrator of The Hobbit, when he talks about the dark parts of the tale as being intense and important: ‘Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.’

A bit of Sam’s humble and non-acquisitive nature is demonstrated when he corrects himself from saying ‘we’ to ‘you’ when talking about having the phial of Galadriel. It is this care about what’s what that will help him resist the temptation of the Ring.

Of course, later in the tale, they are put into a song by a minstrel of Gondor, and the tale is recorded and told in the Red Book of Westmarch, which, in a deleted epilogue, Sam is shown reading to his children, so his hopes come true. ‘A big book with black and red letters’ might recall some editions of the Bible, which are printed with the words of Christ in red or even older editions with tables of feast days in red letters. From which we get the term 'a red letter day.'

‘As gladly as kiss his hand’ is a saying related to the phrase ‘as simple as kiss your hand,’ meaning that something is very simple and easy to do, not involving any great effort or sacrifice. “Keeping your eyes skinned (or as we might say, peeled)"merely means to keep your eyes open, lids wide, and attentive to what’s going on. Sam seems to love these little sayings; they are sprinkled throughout his speech and might be what Frodo perceives as what would make the children laugh.

Even the dark land about them seems to marvel at Frodo’s laugh. In Middle-earth, even someplace as wicked as Mordor seems to have an awareness and character.

This passage goes far to accentuate the affection and respect Frodo and Sam have for each other. In the congeniality of talking about tales, Sam can finally find a place in his heart to sympathize with Gollum, to think about his point of view. That is soon doused by suspicion, but is perhaps a hint of Sam’s growing pity towards ‘the poor muddled’ creature. 

There are only about three more pages in this chapter, but they are so important I think it best to leave them until next time.