I think I would take that to mean "started openly wielding it again" and/or "resumed using it from Barad-dur." I just couldn't see him leaving it on the mantlepiece while he went off to Numenor. There was simply too much of himself in it. Maybe he could trust the Nazgul to guard it, since they were already completely enslaved (and he did send them out to the Shire, several thousands of years later, to fetch it), but it still seems too much of a risk.
I think I'd maybe compare it to Gandalf finally wearing Narya openly, just before embarking on the ship back to Valinor.
Very interesting source, though, d4rk3lf.
Quote:
Sauron was an 'angelic' spirit, after all, and even though he lacked a physical body, maybe what carried the Ring was his will.
|
By the same token, I'm guessing that beings such as Gandalf and Sauron would not feel the Ring's magical weight, either. Elrond refers to the Ring-quest as "a heavy burden," and I think his intended meaning is literal as well as metaphorical, but although great among the Wise, and a descendant of Melian, he is not an angelic being himself, and is probably remembering Isildur, the first "mortal" Ringbearer, whom he would remember in his earliest days of "possessing" the Ring.