LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 02 - The Shadow of the Past

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

One of my favourite chapters in the whole book. I shall attempt to be as brief as possible, and contain myself to two passages only, both of which develop the nature of the Ring, and highlight how it will be the centre of the narrative to follow.

’Three Rings for the Elven kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in the halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and the darkness bind them
In the land of Mordor, where the Shadows lie.’

The famous poem: certainly Tolkien’s best bit of verse (I think). And it clearly sets up a number of very important ideas about the Ring and its relation to other peoples, as well as its nature. First, there’s the resonating and insistent beat of the “One, One, One, One” of the Ring and Sauron versus the multiplicity of the other rings/peoples (three, seven, nine). Where the list of Rings that are associated with the free folk goes up in number (implying increase and diversity?) the Ring of Sauron is singular and one and remains one throughout the poem.

Another aspect of the poem is how it gives us a glimpse into then natures of the free folk: Elves live “under the sky” (beneath the protection/guidance of the Valar? As signified by the presence of Earendil and the other stars that they ‘worship’?); the Dwarves live under the earth where they are walled off from others “in their halls of stone”; and Men who are “doomed to die” – this is both good and bad: death is not nice, nor is having a “doom”, but doom in its fullest sense does not necessarily mean something bad, but “fated”. So in this sense, the Men are contrasted to the Elves (who are ‘trapped’ forever by their immortality “under” the sky like the Dwarves under the earth). Unlike them, Men die and find the gift of Eru.

The words associated with the Ring are extraordinarily telling: “rule, find, bring, bind”. I love the order of the words here – the Ring ‘begins’ with the desire to Rule, which necessitates ‘finding’ how and who to rule, which then leads to ‘bringing’ those people under rule, and brining to bear upon them the methods of rule, and it all ends with ‘binding’ them into that singular Rule. It’s a wonderfully brief and telling description/exploration of how power works.

There’s also two puns in the poem that speak volumes about the Ring. First, it’s from a place where “Shadows lie.” I love this: not just where shadows are, but where the Shadows deceive – this is how Sauron works, and this is how the Ring works: it’s a think of shadows and shadowy lies as it promises power that it will not bring; most importantly it tells the greatest lie of all: that by claiming it, one will find fulfilment of one’s desires, not the emptying of the will. The Ring is the ultimate lie: “take me and rule” when what it’s really all about is “be taken by me and be ruled.”

The second pun is the name of Mordor itself – it’s always looked to me a lot like the Anglo-Saxon word for murder morðor (pronounced “morthor”). I think this contrasts to the “Mortal Men doomed to die” – it is in the nature of humanity to die, it is our fate; the Ring is from a place that perverts that fate through unnatural death (that is, the murder/loss of our very mortality by enslavement to Sauron becoming Wraiths).

[Frodo] unfastened [the Ring] and handed it slowly to the wizard. It felt suddenly very heavy, as if either it or Frodo himself was in some way reluctant for Gandalf to touch it.

The ambiguity of this moment is crucial to any understanding of the Ring, I think. Already, Frodo is unsure of where he ends and the Ring begins: who is the reluctant party here? Is the Ring overmastering his will, or is his will being turned to the point where he can’t give up the precious object. This is an ambiguity that I would suggest lasts through the whole novel – is Frodo being enslaved by the Ring or seduced? This idea of the Ring’s weight is a good way to make this point, for is it getting heavier and thus overpowering Frodo, or is he getting weaker and thus no longer able to bear the weight of the Ring?

One more note: I think we have a slight hint here of what Gandalf might (if pressed by Elrond, for example) have admitted was at the back of his mind for the quest ahead: he is the one who casts the Ring into the fire when Frodo is not able to. As Saucepan Man has already pointed out, Frodo is here at the beginning of his quest already completely incapable of throwing the Ring into his own little “fire,” so from that perspective he’s doomed to fail from the outset. But we’ve got this moment where Gandalf is able to convince Frodo to hand over the Ring, and then he does the deed himself. . . I’m not making any claims, I just think that it’s a reason to pause for thought.