Frodo sighed and was asleep almost before the words were spoken. Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo’s hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.
This. This passage right here. This, my friends, is in my opinion the most beautiful passage in The Lord of the Rings. I’ll put it forth as a strong candidate for the most beautiful passage in the English language. It’s a sentiment that really speaks to me, evidently, because it’s much the same idea as Sam’s song in the Tower of Cirith Ungol: there’s always light beyond the reach of the darkness.
It’s another moment that I can’t help but think came out of the First World War - young Tolkien, looking up from the trenches one night, and seeing a single star twinkling despite all the horror and death surrounding him.
Also, further reinforcing the notion of “it’s all one great story” that Sam talked about while they were climbing the pass, Tolkien did confirm that the star Sam saw was in fact Eärendil. So the light of the Silmarils continues to play a part, beyond them being the source of the light in the Phial.
In more mundane news, Tolkien (believe it or not) tended to pay attention to detail, and many of the complaints about “Tolkien-esque” fantasy don’t actually apply to Tolkien himself. In this case, I’m thinking of the logistical questions that authors often ignore about keeping enormous armies supplied and fed. Tolkien makes a point of addressing this:
Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the fumes of the Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake Núrnen; nor of the great roads that ran away east and south to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the Tower brought long waggon-trains of goods and booty and fresh slaves. Here in the northward regions were the mines and forges, and the musterings of long-planned war; and here the Dark Power, moving its armies like pieces on the board, was gathering them together.
We get more inter-Orc dialogue (I appreciate that Jackson & company included the “Don’t you know we’re at war?” line), which is always great. Gollum is nosing about, still following the Precious.
But mostly this is just Frodo and Sam nearing both the end of their road and the end of their strength. Sauron, luckily, has taken Aragorn’s bait: “The Dark Power was deep in thought, and the Eye turned inward, pondering tidings of doubt and danger: a bright sword, and a stern and kingly face it saw, and for a while it gave little thought to other things.” The last stretch is clear.
I’m totally not intimidated to write a post about the next chapter. Not at all.