LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 07 - Journey to the Cross-Roads

[davem]

Where to start? certainly it seems as if this is a ‘transitional’ chapter, merely intended to get the characters from Henneth Annun to the Mountains. CT points out that Tolkien added in an extra day in this chapter to bring the chronology into line with events on the other side of the Anduin, hence the slow build up of menace in this chapter, with the gradual darkening of the skies & the slow increase of the ‘darkness of Mordor’ spilling over the Mountains. Another example of serendipity.

Another thing he mentions is that the staffs given to the Hobbits by Faramir originally had heads like shepherd’s crooks. One wonders why Tolkien changed his mind about this - perhaps the religious symbolism of the Bishop’s Crozier seemed too blatant? As Esty has pointed out, the ‘virtue’ placed on the staffs is quite interesting - placed by whom? Does this mean the staffs are ‘magical’? Also, what is the significance, if any, of the fact that both Frodo & Sam will lose their staffs by the end of this volume, at the darkest, most desperate point in their story up to then? Is Tolkien using the loss (& in one case the breaking) of the staffs to emphasise the hopelessness of the Hobbits state at that point, implying that the virtue of the staffs may have failed, & that there may be no ‘finding’ or ‘returning’?

The most significant incident in this chapter for me used to be the moment at the Cross-roads, but now its something else. As many of you may know, I’m a member of the Tolkien Society, & I’ve been to their annual Oxonmoot weekend in September for the last three years. The culmination of the weekend is Enyalie (sp?), when we visit Tolkien & Edith’s grave. Every year there is a short reading from the book, & at my first visit to Tolkien’s final resting place it was the passage where Frodo & Sam said farewell to Faramir, so this chapter is far from insignificant to me - in fact, it is now one of the most significant in the whole book....

Faramir’s final farewell to Frodo & Sam struck me also this time -

He embraced the hobbits then, after the manner of his people, stooping, and placing his hands upon their shoulders, and kissing their foreheads.

This is the way Frodo says his final farewell to Sam. This, it seems, is a Numenorean custom, perhaps, who knows, inherited from the Elves. Are we seeing at the end, in Frodo’s farewell, another sign of his growth into ‘Elvishness’?

Whatever, we do see Gollum’s growing malice surfacing:

"Have they gone at last?" said Gollum. 'Nassty wicked Men! Smeagol's neck still hurts him, yes it does. Let's go!"
'Yes, let us go," said Frodo. "But if you can only speak ill of those who showed you mercy, keep silent!"
Always forgives, he does, yes, yes, even nice Master's little trickses. Oh yes, nice Master, nice Smeagol!"

Rereading this passage I’m struck by the sentence: 'Nice Master!" said Gollum. ‘’Smeagol was only joking. Tolkien tells us that Gollum is speaking even though he refers to himself by his old Hobbit name - is he telling us that the ‘two’ have now become ‘one’? Certainly, Smeagollum’s snide comment that he even forgives ‘Master’s little trickses’ shows us the exact opposite - he hasn’t forgiven ‘Master’ at all. Its interesting that neither Frodo nor Sam attempt to explain to Gollum why Frodo did what he did - did they feel that they would be wasting their breath, or was it more that they didn’t actually want him too close, that they didn’t actually want him ‘back’?

Something else caught my attention:

Frodo shuddered as he looked again at the distant pinnacles now dwindling into night, and the sound of the water seemed cold and cruel: the voice of Morgulduin, the polluted stream that flowed from the Valley of the Wraiths.

Haven’t we been told that the voice & presence of Ulmo ran through all the waters of Middle-earth, even that water, of all the elements, retained an echo of the Music of the Ainur? For the ‘voice’ of Morgulduin to seem ‘cold & cruel’, taken along with Faramir’s warning not to drink from any stream that flows out of Imlad Morgul, seems to imply that we are dealing with a ‘pollution’ more potent, & more evil than merely toxic chemicals.... I couldn’t help being reminded of the river of Mirkwood in TH which brought loss of consciousness - loss of ‘self’...

Then we have Sam’s dream:

‘Off hunting, I suppose," said Sam and yawned. It was his turn to sleep first, and he was soon deep in a dream. He thought he was back in the Bag End garden looking for something; but he had a heavy pack on his back, which made him stoop. It all seemed very weedy and rank somehow, and thorns
and bracken were invading the beds down near the bottom hedge.
'A job of work for me, I can see; but I'm so tired," he kept on saying. Presently he remembered what he was looking for. 'My pipe!" he said, and with that he woke up.
"Silly!" he said to himself, as he opened his eyes and wondered why he was lying down under the hedge. "It's in your pack all the time!" Then 385 he realized, first that the pipe might be in his pack but he had no leaf, and next that he was hundreds of miles from Bag End.

This is a deeply symbolic dream, & tells us something about the dreamer himself. This is no longer the old Sam, who in the house of Bombadil dreamt nothing at all while his companions, Frodo especially, dreamt deep..

The Garden is overgrown & rank, & is slowly being invaded by thorns & bracken - chaos is reasserting itself, the fragile work of ‘humans’, their struggle to keep the wild in check, is failing. Its interesting that he is looking for his pipe, symbolic of the comforts of home. The ‘garden’ is being absorbed back into unconscious nature, ‘Home’ will at this rate soon be no more....

Finally we encounter the statue of the King (which one?) at the cross-roads. Obviously the head, with it’s single eye, symbolises Sauron. Sauron is the new ‘king’. Yet its interesting that his ‘head’ stands on the body of another - perhaps a symbol of the effect of his power, & by extension the power of the Ring, which takes over the mind (the ‘head’) of the individual, & dominates them....Yet, though the ‘head’ is cast down it regains its crown. This moment for Frodo seems to be for him what Sam’s later glimpse of the single star will be for him - both of them are given an insight into the nature of reality (in Middle-earth at least) - there is high beauty which no Shadow can forever conquer. Yet the ‘light’ of that realisation is taken away almost instantly.

As for the Cross-roads, well, cross-roads have always been symbolic places. They are places of choice, places where decisions must be made. In a sense they aare also places ‘outside the world’ - suicides were often buried at Cross-roads, perhaps in the belief that the restless spirit would become confused by the multiple choices. However, I don’t think we can entirely dismiss the Christian symbolism of the Cross here. We have a ‘King’ whose body is broken, & on whose head is a ‘crown’ - not of thorns but of flowers. The King will come again. because, as Frodo says ‘They cannot conquer forever!’