[davem]

First of all, apologies for my late arrival! Secondly, further apologies if I repeat what others may have posted to some degree, as I feel a bit rushed. Thirdly, even more apologies for this being a bit long - I’m trying to get a fortnight’s posts into one. If anyone feels daunted, as the poet said, ‘Look, & pass.’

1

The chapter begins with Gandalf & Pippin having just departed - the Fellowship, having in part rejoined, has now broken up again. This fragmentation will continue in this chapter. Only four of the original nine remain. Soon three will depart - Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli - & Merry will be left alone. Its often overlooked that he, of all the Fellowship is left completely alone with ‘strangers’. Its understandable in a way that he feels like a piece of luggage. Merry ends up isolated from kith & kin, having to make his way among a group of men who all know each other, share a history & cullture & with high matters on their minds. He is a Hobbit who set off for an adventure many months back, who in many ways had been the leader of their expedition at the start. Even after their capture at Parth Galen, when it was just him & Pippin, one got the sense that (as far as he was concerned at least) he was the ‘leader’. To go from that to feeling like ‘a piece of baggage’ must have been a shock to the system to say the least. The appearance of the Dunedain can only have added to his feelings of insignificance. Great deeds are afoot - what can one lone(ly) Hobbit do but get in the way?

One can feel his despair:

'Don't leave me behind!' said Merry. 'I have not been of much use yet; but I don't want to be laid aside, like baggage to be called for when all is over. I don't think the Riders will want to be bothered with me now. Though, of course, the king did say that I was to sit by him when he came to his house and tell him all about the Shire.'
'Yes,' said Aragorn, 'and your road lies with him, I think, Merry. But do not look for mirth at the ending. It will be long, I fear, ere Theoden sits at ease again in Meduseld. Many hopes will wither in this bitter Spring.'

He has not been much use, he says, no-one could possibly want to be bothered with him. Even though Aragorn tells him that his road lies with Theoden, he offers little hope for that road. Perhaps Aragorn’s own feelings of despair cloud his judgement, but from Merry’s point of view the situation could hardly seem worse. Worse will come, of course, but he will pass through the coming darkness. I can’t help but be reminded of the end of Bilbo’s tale. Both he & Merry find themselves in the midst of a terrible battle where the one they swore to serve is killed & both are made into better people as a result. Through suffering & loss they find maturity. Its also interesting that like Bilbo, Merry goes on to write books. There is a difference though - Bilbo’s books - his ‘Translations from the Elvish’ - deal with high & ancient glories of the lost past, whereas Merry’s are about the simple things of the Shire. As he will tell Pippin later, it is best to love first what you are fitted to love..& the soil of the Shiire is deep.

For now, though, his mind is on the situation at hand. He will die defending the King if needs be - like Fili & Kili long ago.


2

The Dunedain appear - summoned by Aragorn? Well, only in wish. Thirty have come with Halbarad, along with the Sons of Elrond. Thirty? What point is Tolkien making here? That the Dunedain of the north are a fading people - even gathering thirty together was a major achievement. Denethor, it seems, is right - if Aragorn is not exactly the last of a ragged house he is pretty close to being so. But these are Dunedain. Even thirty of them is a force to be reckoned with. They each bear a single star as insignia - as did the seven shipe that survived the downfall of Numenor - Seven Stars & Seven Stones & One White Tree....

It is Elrohir who passes on his father’s word about the Paths of the Dead, & Aragorn rejects it. This is interesting in itself. If he knows the words of the Seer & believes himself to be the Heir of Isildur then it is his destiny to take that road, but he is here seeking to avoid it. Halbarad then shows him the Standard of Arwen. This is the Standard of the King of the Dead - Aragorn himself, not the leader of the dead host. Yet Arwen has made this standard. The one who stands beneath that standard is King of both the Living & the Dead. In this we see Arwen’s foreknowledge & her power manifest. She is a ‘shadowy’ figure, little glimpsed in the story itself, but here she seems to be a ‘power’ - like her foremothers, Galadriel, Luthien & Melian. Whatever device she has woven onto the standard is invisible to mortal eyes - only the dead may read the signs upon it. As has been said before, the High Elves live in both worlds at once. Legolas will later say that he does not fear the dead, & in the folklore Tolkien drew upon the Elves have a close association with the dead - often there is no distinction made between them.

3

Aragorn looks into the Palantir, confronts & challenges Sauron

'I have looked in the Stone of Orthanc, my friends.'
'You have looked in that accursed stone of wizardry!' exclaimed Gimli with fear and astonishment in his face. 'Did you say aught to--him? Even Gandalf feared that encounter.'
'You forget to whom you speak,' said Aragorn sternly, and his eyes glinted. 'What did you fear that I should say to him? Did I not openly proclaim my title before the doors of Edoras? Nay, Gimli,' he said in a softer voice, and the grimness left his face, and he looked like one who has laboured in sleepless pain for many nights. 'Nay, my friends, I am the lawful master of the Stone, and I had both the right and the strength to use it, or so I judged. The right cannot be doubted. The strength was enough--barely.'
He drew a deep breath. 'It was a bitter struggle, and the weariness is slow to pass. I spoke no word to him, and in the end I wrenched the Stone to my own will. That alone he will find hard to endure. And he beheld me. Yes, Master Gimli, he saw me, but in other guise than you see me here. If that will aid him, then I have done ill. But I do not think so. To know that I lived and walked the earth was a blow to his heart, I deem; for he knew it not till now. The eyes in Orthanc did not see through the armour of Theoden; but Sauron has not forgotten Isildur and the sword of Elendil. Now in the very hour of his great designs the heir of Isildur and the Sword are revealed; for I showed the blade re-forged to him. He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay, doubt ever gnaws him.

Aragorn states his right to the stone - a right even Sauron himself does not have. In the battle of wills Aragorn came out the victor, wrenching the stone from the control of Sauron himself. Sauron has seen Aragorn - but in ‘other guise’ than Gimli sees him - what ‘other guise’? Legolas has already seen Aragorn with a ‘crown’ of flame flickering on his brow in the earlier confrontation with Eomer. How did Sauron see him? It seems that Aragorn is also a ‘dweller in both worlds’ - he is not what he seems. But with the passage of time that ‘inner’ Aragorn is surfacing, breaking through. This is not so much an evolution as a gradual revelation of his true nature.

Over the land there lies a long shadow,
westward reaching wings of darkness.
The Tower trembles; to the tombs of kings
doom approaches. The Dead awaken;
for the hour is come for the oathbreakers:
at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again
and hear there a horn in the hills ringing.
Whose shall the horn be? Who shall call them
from the grey twilight, the forgotten people?
The heir of him to whom the oath they swore.
From the North shall he come, need shall drive him:
he shall pass the Door to the Paths of the Dead.

Here we have a glimpse of Aragorn, the King to come, seen by Malbeth centuries previously. Malbeth has seen that Aragorn shall walk the Paths of the Dead. So, what of free will in Middle earth? In a sense Aragorn has already walked the Paths of the Dead, because Malbeth has ‘seen’ him do it. So, where did Malbeth’s vision have its origin? Eru?


4

Aragorn leads the Grey Company into the Underworld, dwelling place of the Dead who have bound themselves to an eternity between the worlds, unable to die unless they are released by the heir of the one to whom the Oath they swore. They cannot release themselves from the oath of service they swore. It is binding on them.

The company halted, and there was not a heart among them that did not quail, unless it were the heart of Legolas of the Elves, for whom the ghosts of Men have no terror.

What do they fear? Ghosts? Horror of the fate of the Oathbreakers? What power do the Oathbreakers have? Simple terror. Certainly this is what they use against the enemy when they come face to face with them later. It is the horror of death without release that the Oathbreakers exude, an eternity spent in the dark, not alone, but with others suffering in the same horrific way, horror feeding on horror with no end in sight, in full knowledge that they have brought it on themselves.

Yet Aragorn can release them, & he summons them to follow:

'The Dead are following,' said Legolas. 'I see shapes of Men and of horses, and pale banners like shreds of cloud, and spears like winter-thickets on a misty night. The Dead are following.'
'Yes, the Dead ride behind. They have been summoned,' said Elladan.

The Elves can see the Dead following their company. Its interesting the way the Oathbreakers are called the Dead, capitalised. they are truly ‘Dead’ - bound within the Circles of the World by their oath. Mortals die, yes, but this is a release, a moving on to their destined home. The Oathbreakers cannot move on. They are the dead who cannot ever truly die.

Long had the terror of the Dead lain upon that hill and upon the empty fields about it. For upon the top stood a black stone, round as a great globe, the height of a man, though its half was buried in the ground. Unearthly it looked, as though it had fallen from the sky, as some believed; but those who remembered still the lore of Westernesse told that it had been brought out of the ruin of Numenor and there set by Isildur at his landing. None of the people of the valley dared to approach it, nor would they dwell near; for they said that it was a trysting-place of the Shadow-men, and there they would gather in times of fear, thronging round the Stone and whispering.

The Dead can pass out from their dwelling & gather at the Stone brought by Isildur from Numenor. The stone is (or was) clearly sacred. What kind of ceremony was involved in the Oathtaking is difficult to imagine, but it was obviously not just a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that the Oathbreakers would ‘help out’ if they weren’t too busy that day. They swore an oath that would bind them, living or dead. Again, we see the power of oaths in Middle earth - once sworn they are inescapable. At this point we may remember that Merry himself has just sworn an oath of service to Theoden. The chapter begins with an oath sworn out of love by a simple Hobbit, which we may find touching. It ends with a display of the consequences of taking such an oath.

Aragorn summons the Dead to serve not him but the oath they swore. He is not binding them to his service but rather offering them a way out of Death. They not only accept but seem driven to do what they must to achieve release:

and the Shadow Host pressed behind and fear went on before them, until they came to Calembel upon Ciril, and the sun went down like blood behind Pinnath Gelin away in the West behind them.

This is the chapter in which Aragorn’s true nature is made manifest to all. He has become King in all but title.