The Lord of the Rings: The Choices of Master Samwise (Part Two)

The Tale

In the waning light of evening, Sam crawls back to check on the fallen Frodo. As he was running eagerly forward, Shelob had ‘stung’ him swiftly in the neck. Now he lies pale and motionless, not responding to Sam’s call of ‘Master, dear master!’ Sam listens a long time without any answer.

Then he quickly cuts away the binding cords and lays his head against Frodo’ chest and lips, but can hear neither heartbeat nor breath. He rubs Frodo’s hands and feet and feels his forehead, but all is cold.

‘Frodo, Mr. Frodo!’ he called. ‘Don’t leave me here alone! It’s your Sam calling. Don’t go where I can’t follow! Wake up, Mr. Frodo! O wake up, Frodo, me dear, me dear. Wake up!’

Anger overtakes him and he starts stabbing the air and hitting the rocks and yelling challenges, until his anger wears out. He comes back to Frodo and looking at him, suddenly recognizes his vision in the Mirror of Galadriel, where he thought Frodo was sleeping. But now it’s obvious that he was dead. At the thought Frodo’s face seems to go ‘a livid green’. Black despair overwhelms Sam and he bows down, night coming into his heart and for a while he knows no more.

When Sam looks up again there are complete shadows around him; he can’t tell how long he was out of it. ‘The mountains had not crumbled, nor the earth fallen into ruin.’

Sam wonders what he should do now. Then he remembers something he had said at the beginning of the journey, something he hadn’t understood himself at the time. I have something to do before the end. I must see it through, sir, if you understand. Should he leave Frodo behind, unburied, and go on?

He begins to compose Frodo’s body, folding his hands and wrapping his elven cloak around him. Sam lays his own sword, the barrow blade, at Frodo’s side, with the lebethron staff on the other side. He leaves him the mithril coat but must take Sting and the Phial of Galadriel with him if he is to go forward. After all, Frodo did lend him the ‘star-glass.’

But Sam can’t leave him just yet. If only he can find the strength to tear himself away. If once he could, he’s chase Gollum to the ends of the earth for vengeance and then kill him. But that would accomplish nothing. He briefly considers killing himself, but ‘that was to do nothing, not even to grieve.’ But he has a long, lonely journey ahead, all the way to the Cracks of Doom. To do that, he must take the Ring from Frodo. That is why the Council of Elrond gave Frodo companions, so the Quest wouldn’t fail. He wishes he wasn’t the last left.

But he has been thrust forward. If he doesn’t, the Thing will be found on him, and that’s the end of the Shire and all the good places he’s seen on their journey. He can’t go back for advice. He has to make his own choice. ‘But I’ll be sure to go wrong: that’d be Sam Gamgee all over.’

He stoops and undoes the clasp of the chain that holds the Ring, kisses Frodo’s cold forehead, and slips the chain over his master’s  head. There is no change in Frodo’s face, and that more than any other sign convinces Sam that Frodo is truly dead and has ‘laid aside the Quest.’ He bids Frodo farewell. If he has one wish it would be that after all is done, he could return and find Frodo again. ‘And then he’ll not leave you again.’

He puts the Ring on its chain over his head, and the sudden weight drags his head down. ‘But slowly, as if the weight became less, or new strength grew in him’ he stands up and finds he can bear the burden. Sam lifts up the Phial in tribute and in its gently burning light ‘Frodo’s face was fair of hue again, pale but beautiful with an elvish beauty, as of one who has long passed the shadows.’  With that bitter comfort he turns, hiding the light and stumbling into the dark.

He goes forward a few steps, and then he is right under the shadow of the orc-tower. Before him is the Land of Mordor, and behind him is the blot of darkness where Frodo lies. He takes a few heavy, reluctant steps onward, but suddenly stops. There are orc-voices, both ahead and behind, and the sounds of tramping feet and harsh shouts. There are red torches coming out of the tunnel behind him. He is caught. He has delayed too long.

‘How could he escape, or save himself, or save the Ring? The Ring. He was not aware of any thought or decision. He simply found himself drawing out the chain and taking the Ring in his hand. The head of the orc-company appeared in the cleft right before him. Then he put it on.’

Bits and Bobs

Frodo is ‘stung’ (bitten? True spiders don’t have stings, but then Shelob is only ‘most like a spider’ in form) on his neck, right where his invulnerable mithril mail can do him no good whatsoever.

In his panic and fear, Sam forgets to address Frodo formally as Mister. In The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion, it is noted that ‘me dear’ is a Cornish form of address, used by everyone to everyone and not a special endearment, although Frodo is obviously dear to Sam. The real-life ‘Gaffer Gamgee’, on whom Sam’s father is based, lived in Cornwall, so this informal address would come naturally to him. Sorry, shippers.

Also it is noted that Sam’s period of unconsciousness lasts from morning until almost evening. The Orcs have waited a good long time before they decide it’s safe enough to investigate. I’d be cautious around Shelob myself.

In his despair Sam briefly considers suicide, either by stabbing himself or throwing himself into a chasm. ‘But that was to do nothing, not even to grieve.’ This is a direct repudiation of the Anglo-Saxon custom of faithful retainers ‘joining’ their masters in death. Sam also rejects vengeance on Gollum as an adequate motive to go forward. Tolkien admired many aspects of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, but as a Christian rejected these pagan motivations. Sam does, however, leave Frodo ‘grave goods’, of staff and sword, cloak and mail.

Sam seems to have come to think of Galadriel as some kind of genie, able to grant all wishes. ‘If the Lady could hear me’, he’d wish to come back and find Frodo again.

Frodo’s face being ‘beautiful’ in death echoes a rather Victorian motif, that ‘Death is the Mother of Beauty.’ Leonard Wolf, both in his A Dream of Dracula and The Annotated Dracula, remarks how it had long been noted that ‘weathered faces lined in pain’ will relax into peaceful lines after the struggle of life is over, restoring a remembrance of youth and calm, especially in cases of ‘consumption’ (tuberculosis). The Ring has certainly been ‘consuming’ Frodo. But that seems past. When he doesn’t respond to the Ring being taken from him, it convinces Sam more than ever that he is dead.

Sam puts the ring on rather abruptly, without thinking too much about it. He is, of course, driven to it by necessity, but it seems a rather easy decision. Is it perhaps part of the Ring’s secret prompting? Here come some more Orcs again.