The Lord of the Rings: The Black Gate is Closed (Part Four and Last)

The Tale

The day draws on as they lay silent in their little grey hollow. The sky above and veiled with fleeting smoke. Not even an eagle could have seen the hobbits in their Elven cloaks. It might have seen Gollum: ‘a tiny figure sprawling on the ground: there perhaps lay the famished skeleton of some child of Men, its ragged garments still clinging to it, its long arms and legs almost bone-white and bone-thin: no flesh worth a peck.’

Sam is leaning back looking at the sky when he spots a winged figure flying into his sight, wheeling and turning, dark and menacing. Three others join it, and Sam can tell that they are huge, though far away. The travelers cower. They feel the same fear they felt in the presence of the Black Riders. ‘Gollum huddled himself together like a cornered spider.’

Eventually the Nazgul pass on. Sam wonders if they saw the hobbits; the Riders couldn’t see much in the daylight, could they? Perhaps, says Frodo, but the beasts they ride on can. ‘They are like great carrion birds.’

The fear eventually passes, but the silence has been broken. Frodo still makes no decision whether he should follow Gollum on his new path or not. At last, he stirs and stands up, as if he is about to speak and decide, but he stops, suddenly hearing something. There is singing and hoarse shouting, far away at first, but drawing nearer. The fear falls upon them that the Black Riders have sent troops to capture them. They freeze. Flight is impossible. The hobbits loosen their swords.

‘Gollum rose slowly and crawled insect-like to the lip of the hollow.’ He remains there, still and silent, until the noises pass. A distant horn sounds from the walls of Mordor, welcoming the troops in. Gollum reports what he has seen: Men with dark faces, black eyes and hair, and with gold rings in their ears. Their flags are red, and their round shields are yellow and black. ‘Not nice; very cruel wicked Men they look.’ Almost as bad as Orcs, and bigger. Perhaps they are from the lands beyond Anduin’s end. They came up that road. They are part of the new folk always coming into Mordor. ‘One day all the peoples will be inside.’

Were there any oliphaunts? Sam asks eagerly. ‘No, no oliphaunts. What are oliphaunts?’ said Gollum.’ Sam stands up and puts his hands behind his back (‘as he always did when ‘speaking poetry’), and recites the old Shire poem ‘Oliphaunt’, about a huge grey beast with a nose like a snake and horns in its mouth. Sam has heard distant tales Men of the South (‘Swertings , we call ‘em’) who ride around on oliphaunts and that’s why he asked about them, though he guesses it might all be traveler’s stories, ‘not sure as Shiretalk.’

But ‘Smeagol has not heard of them. He does not want to see them. He does not want them to be … Smeagol wants master to go. Nice master, won’t he come with Smeagol?’

Frodo stands. He laughed as Sam recited the old fireside rhyme of Oliphaunt, and it released him from hesitation. ‘I wish we had a thousand oliphaunts with Gandalf on a white one at their head … Then we’d break a way into this evil land, perhaps.’ But they’ve only got their own tired legs. ‘Well, Smeagol, the third turn may turn the best. I will come with you.’

Gollum cries in delight, praising the good, kind, wise master. They must rest now, well hidden, till the ‘Yellow Face’ (sun) sets. ‘Then we can go quickly. Soft and quick as shadows we must be!’

 

Bits and Bobs

We are given a good ‘bird’s-eye’ view of Gollum, establishing his ragged clothing, bone-white skin, and pitiable thinness. Perhaps his ‘darkness’ has been the effects of the shadows he dwells in or the slimes of his habitual haunts; perhaps now he is drying out. Where does he get his clothes? Tolkien speculates that, besides the Elves of Mirkwood having clothed him (perhaps not so potently as the productions of Lorien), Gollum would likely steal new raiment from Men or even Orcs when he needed them.

While later it is established that the Witch-King rides the reptilian ‘Fell Beast’, here it hinted that the regular ride of the Nazgul is some kind of raptor, like an eagle or a vulture. Perhaps this is just the impression that Frodo has of them from a distance; maybe they are all pterodactyl-like.

The name Sam gives for the Men of the South, ‘Swertings’, is related to the modern term ‘swarthy’, a word meaning dark-skinned or dark-colored, dusky. ‘Oliphaunt’ is of course an old version for the word ‘elephant’, who to the people of England for a long time was just a legendary beast of a far-off land, just as oliphaunts were to the Hobbits. The poem is a reworking of one of Tolkien’s already existing poems, ‘Jvmbo, or Ye Kinde of Ye Oliphaunt’. Some of the comparisons the little rhyme makes recall the tale of the Six Wise Blind Men and the Elephant (a nose like a snake, etc.), where they try to describe the beast by what only each can feel. There is a giant, Sir Oliphant, in the works of Chaucer.

Frodo recalls the old folk belief that ‘the third time’s the best’, or as we might say, ‘third time’s the charm’. Gollum has led them out of the Marshes, and then to the Gate; perhaps this third time will prove the pinnacle of his service. Or perhaps not. 

On a personal note, I can never hear of Gandalf riding on a white elephant in front of a herd without thinking of the scene in the 1972 Journey Back to Oz where Mombi, riding on the lead, heads a pack of green elephants against the Emerald City.

The Lord of the Rings: The Black Gate is Closed (Part Three)

The Tale

Gollum is in a pitiable state after Frodo’s stern words, and for a while they can get nothing from him but squeaks and mumbles and begging for them to be nice to ‘poor little Smeagol!’ Eventually he calms down enough to begin revealing, in fits and starts, the alternative road he is proposing.

If they travel down the road that turns west of the Ephel Duath they will come to a crossroads in a circle of trees. The road on the right goes down to the ruined city of Osgiliath. The road in the middle goes down to the Great Water (the Sea), full of fish and ‘nice birds’; Gollum never went there, alas! Further down that road (he’s heard) are lands where the Yellow Face is very hot and there are fierce men with dark faces. But it is the road to the left that he means to lead them on.

That road immediately begins climbing up into the dark mountains. When the road turns, they will see a fortress, very old and horrible now. Smeagol heard tales when he was young (‘we used to tell lots of tales in the evening, sitting by the banks of the Great River, in the Willow Lands, when the River was younger too,’) of the Men of the West and their tall buildings and of the white-walled Tower of the Moon.

‘That would be Minas Ithil that Isildur the son of Elendil built,’ said Frodo. ‘It was Isildur who cut off the finger of the Enemy.’

‘Yes, He has only four on the Black Hand, but they are enough.’ Gollum shudders. Anyway, Sauron took that city long ago and it is terrible now, full of Orcs and ‘worse things’, and the Silent Watchers guard the road. Sam grumbles that the way seems just as bad as the Black Gate with another long march to it to boot. Gollum explains that while the Eye watches everywhere, and especially the Gate where he expects his enemies to attack his land, ‘He can’t see everything all at once, not yet.’ This way does not have his full attention.

You seem to know a lot about it, says Sam. Have you been talking about it with Him, or just ‘hobnobbing with Orcs?’

“Not a nice hobbit, not sensible.’ He has talked to Orcs before he met master, yes, but what he says many people are saying now. It’s here in the North that the great danger to Sauron is (and to them, too, while they stay) and the Enemy is always watching. But to the west He is not afraid, and He has the Silent Watchers. Are we to just stroll up to the City, then, and ask if we’re on the right way to Mordor, then? asks Sam. Or are the Silent Watchers too silent to answer?

‘Don’t make jokes about it,’ hissed Gollum. ‘It isn’t funny, O no! Not amusing at all.’ It makes no sense trying to get into Mordor, but if Frodo says he must go or will go, he has to try some way. This is where nice Smeagol helps. He’s not proposing they go to Minas Morgul. He found another way, long ago. Near the ruined city there is a path leading into the mountains, then a long narrow stair, then a long winding stair, and then - his voice drops – a dark tunnel. That is how he escaped Mordor, long ago, so long he cannot be sure the way is still there.

Sam is sure if it is there, the way must be guarded, somehow. Frodo presses Gollum on the matter: isn’t it guarded? And did he escape, or was he let loose on an errand for the Dark Lord? That’s what Aragorn thought when he caught Gollum near the Dead Marshes.

‘He lied on me, yes he did!’ Gollum has no fond memories of his captor. He did escape on his own. Of course he had been told to seek the Precious, but he went looking for it for himself. Frodo notices that he is using ‘I’ while he tells this story; this seems to mean he is telling the truth … or the truth as he knows it. The escape might have been arranged by the Dark Tower itself and allowed. And he does seem to be keeping something back. He presses him again. Is the way guarded?

But mention of Aragorn has made Gollum sullen. No really safe places in these lands; master must try it or go home. If he knows the name of the high pass, he refuses to say it, or anything more.

‘Its name was Cirith Ungol, a name of dreadful rumor.’ Maybe Aragorn could have told them what the name meant, and Gandalf would have warned them. But Frodo is alone in this decision. But even at that moment, when Gandalf is striving with Saruman in the ruins of Isengard, the wizard’s thought is seeking for Frodo and Sam over the long leagues in hope and pity.  

Maybe Frodo feels it, though he thinks Gandalf long fallen in Moria. He sits silently a while, trying to remember everything the old wizard ever told him, but none of his advice seems to fit the situation. He wonders if Gandalf himself ever had any real plan to get into Mordor; he doesn’t think he’d ever been there himself. Here he is, a little hobbit from the Shire, trying to go where the great ones could not or dare not go. It is a dark path and an evil fate, but one he chose back at Bag End at a time that seems ‘so remote now that it was like a chapter in a story of the world’s youth’.

‘This was an evil choice. Which way should he choose? And if both led to terror and death, what good lay in choice?’

Bits and Bobs

I love the little glimpse we have of Gollum back in the days of his relative innocence, and how he knows from personal experience that Sauron has only four fingers on one hand, apparently unable to regenerate from this wound though he can rebuild another body. We also see from Gollum’s point of view his travels and how he has even interacted with Orcs and survived. His Cain-like wanderings have given him strange knowledge far beyond that of Frodo, even with all his counsel from the Wise.

Lots of travel lore here, pushing us to the edge of the map of Middle-Earth. The image of Gollum possibly frolicking at the seashore and eating fish to his heart’s content is rather delightful. The significance of the name Cirith Ungol is hinted at here; I shall not translate it just yet.

I also like the insight of where this story thread is at in relation to the one following the other members of the Fellowship. It is hinted that Gandalf’s ‘thoughts and prayers’ may indeed be of some help to Frodo, if only dimly felt as emotional support. 

The Lord of the Rings: The Black Gate is Closed (Part Two)

The Tale

Sam is very dubious about Gollum’s sudden suggestion. He remembers the wretch’s inner debate, and ‘Smeagol’ did not have the last word of that dialog. Both the Smeagol and Gollum parts (whom Sam thinks of as Slinker and Stinker) seem to want to keep Frodo from being captured and the Ring away from Sauron, but Sam thinks that’s only to have a chance to get his Precious for himself. Sam doubts if there is any secret way into Mordor. And if Gollum really knew Frodo’s intention of destroying the Ring, ‘there’d be trouble pretty quick.’

Suddenly, in the growing morning light, they see vast armies marching across the plain toward the Gate, and trumpets ring out. For a moment Frodo’s heart leaps up, thinking it is an attack upon Mordor, but ‘The trumpets had not rung in challenge but in greeting.’ These are vast armies out of the East come to swell Sauron’s forces. Frodo shrinks back, aware in the growing light of their precarious position. He turns to Gollum.

Frodo will trust him once more. It seems he is fated to get help from Gollum, where he never looked for it, and for Gollum to help him, whom he long hunted. Gollum has been faithful so far: twice the hobbits have been completely in his power, and Gollum has never tried to take the Ring. ‘May the third time prove the best!’ But Gollum himself is in dreadful danger.

Gollum agrees. Terrible danger, his ‘bones shake to think of it,’ but he must risk it to help master. Frodo replies he does not mean the danger they all share of capture, torture, and death. Gollum has sworn a promise on the Precious. ‘It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing.’ The twisting is already revealed in his asking just now to have the Ring back, but that could never be. He might as well put the thought out of his mind. In the last need, Frodo would put the Precious on and command Gollum to leap off a cliff or into the fire, and he would have to do it. ‘And such would be my command. So have a care, Smeagol!’

‘Sam looked at his master with approval, but also with surprise.’ Sam has always thought of Frodo as one of the wisest people he knows (along with Old Mr. Bilbo and Gandalf) but with a measure of kindness that almost amounted to blindness. Gollum may have made this mistake too (but then he’s only known Frodo a short while) and this sudden streak of steel surprises and terrifies him so that for a while he is reduced to groveling and incoherent protestations.

Frodo waits a while, then speaks ‘less sternly’. ‘Come now, Gollum or Smeagol if you wish, tell me of this other way, and show me, if you can, what hope there is in it, enough to justify me in turning aside from my plain path. I am in haste.’

Bits and Bobs

One may notice that these Frodo and Sam chapters do not have all the dash and adventure of the Fellowship chapters, but they go very deep into psychological and moral territory, and that creates a tension and interest all its own. Frodo, Sam, and Gollum have been compared to the Super-Ego, Ego, and Id wandering the wasteland, seeking some reconciling end.  

The armies of ‘wicked men’ approaching the Gate puts an extra cherry on top, emphasizing the futility of that approach, and helps Frodo to decide to consider Gollum’s unlikely offer. He does not grasp it as an immediate solution to the problem but asks Gollum for details before he decides. And before they go forward, he lays out for Gollum plainly what the creature’s situation is.

I think that this is what separates ‘Book Frodo’ from ‘Movie Frodo’. Movie Frodo is buffeted around by emotions and insecurity; Book Frodo, though he may have moments of doubt about his quest decisions, has this inner core of steel and determination. I think perhaps the movie writers might also have mistaken kindness for blindness, and suffering for wimpiness.

The Lord of the Rings: The Black Gate is Closed (Part One)

The Tale

‘Before the next day dawned their journey to Mordor was over. The marshes and the desert were behind them. Before them, darkling against a pallid sky, the great mountains reared their threatening heads.’

Where the Ephel Duath (Mountains of Shadow) meet the Ered Lithui (the grey Ash Mountains) is Cirith Gorgor (the Haunted Pass), entrance into Mordor. Guarded in the old days by the Numenorean-built Towers of the Teeth to keep the horrors of Mordor pent in, Sauron has taken them over and built a rampart of stone with one iron gate between them. Innumerable Orcs are garrisoned there, ‘and each window was full of sleepless eyes.’

Frodo and Sam look on the towers and gate in despair. Even in the pre-dawn light they can see the guards swarming along the walls and patrols marching before the gate. Day dawns, and brazen trumpets call the changing of the guards, and are answered with mighty horns and a thunder of drums. ‘Another dreadful day of fear and toil had come to Mordor.’

Sam sits back and assesses the situation. He supposes by the looks of things that this is as far as they’ll get. He’ll never see his old Gaffer again, and the Gaffer won’t have a chance to say ‘I told ye so.’  They can’t get in, unless they want to ask the Orcs for a lift.

Gollum agrees. He knew going to the Gate was useless. He told them so. Sam loses his temper and asks then why did he bring them here? Master said to, Gollum says. Master said bring us to the Gate, then good-bye Smeagol.

I did, Frodo answers. He is no longer cowering, but grim and set, haggard but resolute. ‘I purpose to enter Mordor, and I know no other way.’ He says no one else has to go with him.

The prospect distresses Gollum greatly. He wails and paws at Frodo. That’s just taking the Precious straight to Him, to Sauron! ‘He’ll eat us all, if he gets it, eat all the world.’ Either keep it, or go home to nice places and leave the Precious with Smeagol, who will keep it safe.

 ‘I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor, and therefore I shall go.’ Whatever happens after that will happen. Sam can tell that Frodo is serious and that words are useless. Sam never had any real hope, ‘but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed.’ He’ll go with Frodo, and at least they’ll be rid of Gollum.

But Gollum has a desperate alternative. He knows another way into Mordor, hard to find and dark, that he discovered long ago.

Frodo asks why he never mentioned it before: Gollum answers ‘because Master never asked’. He just said take him to the Gate, not what he meant to do. Smeagol promised to keep the Precious safe from Him, but Frodo seems to be taking it straight to the Dark Lord. To save it and the Master he remembers this other way. ‘Nice master. Smeagol very good, always helps.’

Bits and Bobs

Not many notes or observations on this little section. It starts with many details about the layout of Mordor, more than the bare-bones summary I’ve given here. The Towers of the Teeth are named Narchost and Carchost, and the Black Gate’s Sindarin name is the Morannon.

The insight into Sam’s character is interesting. Because he is not relying on hope, he cannot be stopped when there seems no hope to be had. He plods along on sheer loyalty and duty; the situation might be doomed, but he will follow Frodo.

Frodo’s phrasing ‘I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor’ is rather odd. You cannot say he was commanded by anybody; he was, from the beginning, a reluctant but determined volunteer. Perhaps he feels that, in some way, circumstances are commanding his path.