Master of Middle Earth (19 page)

Whether, safely
arrived at Rivendell with his charges, Aragorn has many opportunities for
lovers' meetings Tolkien does not say. Presumably at least some. The
indications, however, are that they are few. Frodo sees him with Arwen only
once, and then they are only talking together in the presence of Elrond.
Aragorn is gone much of the time with the sons of Elrond, scouting the country
for Sauron's forces. He is not even present at the feast celebrating Frodo's
recovery, though he manages to get away from his duties in time for the music
afterward. Besides, things are rather awkward for Aragorn in the house of
Elrond. He is still on probation, as it were, under the ban of Arwen's father
against pressing his suit with her so long as he remains a homeless wanderer
unable to offer her the rank she merits by birth and worth. This sort of
parental restriction might mean little to what Treebeard would call more "hasty
lovers," but it is one which Arwen and Aragorn both have felt bound to
honor through years of separation. We can treat it as a mere fairy-tale
prohibition, if we like, but if we accept the tradition of the genre we cannot
interpret the lovers' acceptance of it as meaning that they do not deeply love
each other.

We do not need to
look upon the situation as merely traditional, however. Tolkien has so drawn
the characters of the lovers as to make their obedience entirely in character,
without detracting from the ardor of their love. Arwen is deeply devoted to her
father and her kin, the noblest among the elves. Marrying Aragorn will mean
that she must surrender her immortality as an elf and become a mortal being
whose soul at death will be separated from the soul of her people while time
endures, and perhaps eternally. She will do it, but she owes it to her father
to fulfill his conditions before taking the hardly imaginable parting step.

On his side
Aragorn has many reasons for respecting Elrond's wishes. He has been saved
since infancy and trained by Elrond, incurring a heavy debt of gratitude and at
the same time feeling for him something of the affection due to a father.
Moreover, Aragorn is a man who, as later developments will show, has a strong
sense of the importance of authority, propriety, law. It is by these principles
that he governs when he himself becomes king in the end. He knows that if he
expects his subjects to obey him freely out of respect for these principles he
must first learn to obey them himself. It is unthinkable that he would urge
Arwen to run off with him into the woods without her father's consent, or
perhaps even with it. To ask Arwen to marry him under the best of conditions is
to ask her to receive eventual old age and death, "the choice of
Lúthien" as she herself calls it, an intolerable gift for any sensitive
man to bestow on the woman he loves. The one thing he cannot do in that
position is to press his suit hard upon her. Hence his apparent inactivity in
wooing, and also the deep inner convulsions of his mind, the outward grimness,
as he confronts the complex ironies of his lot.

When the members
of Elrond's Council assemble to decide what to do with Sauron's Ring, Aragorn
sits "in a corner alone . . . clad in his travel-worn clothes again"
and takes no leading role in the final decision. This he leaves to Elrond and
Gandalf, whose ideas about the Ring he knows from their years of mutual search
for it, and which by his silence he approves. The task Aragorn sets himself is
to win over Boromir, who as eldest son of the present Steward ruling in Gondor
is a key factor in his hopes to ascend its throne. Nominally the Stewards still
hold it in fealty to a rightful King who may return, but for centuries the
southern branch of Elendil's heirs has been extinct, and nobody in Gondor
dreams that any direct descendant of Isildur survives in the northern branch.
Gondor's dire need for help against Sauron's armies and a recurring dream
urging Boromir to seek it at Rivendell through "the Sword that was
broken" give Aragorn his opportunity to reveal himself and assert his
claim. As soon as Boromir has told his story, Aragorn dramatically casts on the
table the two pieces of his sword and identifies it as the weapon of the dream.
To a surprised Boromir Elrond then introduces Aragorn as "descended
through many fathers from Isildur, Elendil's son of Minas Ithil" and hence
by implication the legal heir to Gondor's throne, of which Elendil was first
founder. Frodo exclaims that then Aragorn also must be rightful owner of the
Ring, since his ancestor Isildur once owned and lost it. But Aragorn
immediately renounces all ownership in it, and later in the scene says that he
helped Gandalf search for it only because "it seemed fit that Isildur's
heir should labour to repair Isildur's fault." He toiled only to undo an
inherited wrong. As far as he is concerned the Ring belongs to nobody.

Instead, when
Frodo displays the Ring, Aragorn relates an ancient prophecy among his people
that when the Ring is found the sword, which Elendil broke while fighting with
Sauron, will be reforged. Having thus reinforced the identification of the
present sword as Elendil's, he presses Boromir directly with the question,
"Now you have seen the sword that you have sought, what would you ask? Do
you wish for the House of Elendil to return to the Land of Gondor?" The
dynastic resonances of the question are obviously crucial. Boromir dodges them
by admitting that the "sword," (not the "House") of Elendil
would be immensely helpful—if indeed it is the true sword of Elendil. Aragorn
replies with a courteous but firm kingliness: "I forgive your doubt."
Little does he resemble at the moment the figures of his great ancestors, he
admits, because he has had "a hard life and a long," enduring many
journeys. But his home is in the North. He stresses the fact, vital to his
legal title, that the line of descent in the northern kings has never been
broken: " 'For here the heirs of Valandil have ever dwelt in long line
unbroken from father unto son for many generations.'"

Boromir in his
opening speech has boasted that his city of Minas Tirith stands as the sole
bulwark against Sauron, "and thus alone are peace and freedom maintained
in the lands behind us, bulwark of the West." Aragorn rebuffs that vaunt
by recounting the exploits of his Dúnedain: "You know little of the lands
beyond your bounds. Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known
them little but for us. Fear would have destroyed them. But when dark things
come from the houseless hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from
us." And for this service the Rangers have not had the glory and the
thanks Gondor has. But now that the Ring is found, the times are changing.
Aragorn abandons his earlier exploratory question to Boromir and concludes with
a decisive assertion: "I will come to Minas Tirith." Boromir still
avoids an answer by demanding proof that the Ring Frodo has shown him is in
fact Sauron's Ring of power. In verification Frodo and Gandalf join in
reconstructing the movements of the Ring from the time when Isildur cut it off
Sauron's hand until it came through Gollum to Bilbo and thence to Frodo.
Seventeen years ago when he began to suspect that the ring Bilbo had was the
ruling Ring, Gandalf says, he called upon the Dúnedain to help guard the Shire,
"and I opened my heart to Aragorn, the heir of Isildur."
Significantly, by giving him this title Gandalf is adding to Elrond's his
endorsement of Aragorn's legitimacy as claimant to Gondor.

Aragorn's
successful capture and imprisonment of Gollum offers us a contrast with the
behavior of Gandalf, Frodo, and Sam under comparable circumstances. Says
Aragorn, describing the capture, "He will never love me, I fear; for he
bit me, and I was not gentle. Nothing more did I ever get from his mouth than
the marks of his teeth. I deemed it the worst part of all my journey, the road
back, watching him day and night, making him walk before me with a halter on
his neck, gagged, until he was tamed by lack of drink and food, driving him
ever toward Mirk-wood." There Aragorn left Gollum with the elves of the
forest to be kept secure for later questioning by Gandalf.

Anyone who thinks
that Aragorn, the future King, is or should be all sweetness and light should
reflect on this passage. He is not gratuitously cruel to his prisoner but he
feels no need to be gentle with the malevolent. Whatever measures of binding,
gagging, and starving are necessary to his job of getting the slippery wretch
into strong hands without danger of escape he takes. Not that he has no pity
for Gollum. He recognizes that "he had suffered much. There is no doubt
that he was tormented, and the fear of Sauron lies black on his heart."
But such a one is far too dangerous to be on the loose. "His malice is
great," and Aragorn is sure that he had just come from Mordor "on
some evil errand." Under such circumstances there is a stern justice about
Aragorn that weighs and rejects the risk of mercy. Consequently he does not get
from Gollum the information which Gandalf later manages to charm out of him,
but neither does he lose his prisoner to rescuing ores as do the elves, through
what Legolas admits was "overkindliness." Also he never comes close
to winning Gollum's loyalty as Frodo does, but then he never suffers the
concomitant betrayal, either. What Aragorn lacks is the conviction of Gandalf
and Frodo that a free Gollum will perform ultimate good that Gollum himself
does not intend. But this is an intuition beyond all reason. As King, Aragorn
will later know how to temper justice with forgiveness. But we cannot expect a
practical judge to act upon irrational intuitions that a criminal left at large
intending to do evil will do good without meaning to.

The last stage of
the skirmish between Aragorn and Boromir at the Council opens with the latter's
proposal to its members that the Ring be not destroyed but wielded by one of
their number against Sauron its maker. Already the thought of using it himself,
which is implemented later in his attempt to snatch it from Frodo by force at
Parth Galen, is stirring in his mind. Informed by Elrond of the Ring's deadly
power for evil, he submits "doubtfully" for the time being and, in
lieu, comes back to the possibility that for Gondor "the
Sword-that-was-Broken may still stem the tide —if the hand that wields it has
not inherited an heirloom only, but the sinews of the Kings of Men." Not a
tactful doubt, but Boromir is a blunt man. Aragorn returns a soft answer, which
is also soothingly indefinite as to time: "Who knows? We will put it to the
test one day." Not wanting to return home empty-handed Boromir then moves
on to the important step of issuing what is, in effect, as outright and
immediate an invitation to Aragorn as his pride allows: "May the day not
be too long delayed . . . For though I do not ask for aid, we need it."

By a combination
of tact and boldness Aragorn has now won from Boromir everything he wants:
recognition that the sword is Elendil's and that Aragorn is its rightful owner
by unbroken succession, together with an invitation to accompany him back to
Gondor without delay. Of course, Boromir is not yet yielding any specific
admissions on the question of the succession. It is hard to visualize a man so
dedicated to power eventually surrendering his position of advantage, as
Faramir does afterward. What will happen when the two men reach Minas Tirith
will happen. But Aragorn has already made a great stride toward his goal.

In keeping with
his faith in individual freedom of choice is Elrond's refusal to exact an oath
from any member of the Fellowship as to how far he will accompany Frodo. Each
is to go only so far as he wills, and can turn back at any time. The general
understanding at the outset is only that "they are willing to go at least
to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond." Aragorn clearly intends
to go with Boromir to help defend Minas Tirith, not to accompany Frodo into
Mordor. He says as much when he smilingly asks leave of Frodo once again to go
be his companion, and Frodo welcomes him with the delighted cry, "I would
have begged you to come . . . only I thought you were going to Minas Tirith
with Boromir." Aragorn answers, "I am . . . But your road and our
road lie together for many hundreds of miles." To leave the options open
as Elrond wishes, Aragorn and Gandalf make definite plans only as far as their
stopover in Lothlórien, after which the members of the Company are to decide
their several courses for the next stage. This vagueness of planning will throw
Aragorn into an unexpected conflict of duties after Gandalf's disappearance in
Moria and will thwart his desire to hasten on to Gondor.

On the night of
their leaving Rivendell the Company wait silent and subdued. Aragorn, in
particular, "sat with his head bowed to his knees; only Elrond knew fully
what this hour meant to him." What it means is the beginning of the
supreme trials which are to determine whether he dies defeated or lives to win
Arwen and his crown. The odds against him are high, but he is girding up his
will to overcome them. Once the Nine Walkers are on the trail southward he
becomes again the excellent companion the hobbits have come to know when his
cares do not press too heavily on him—dependable, approachable, and full of
hope. Estel ("I hope") he was named as a child, and his natural buoyancy
asserts itself when it can.

Aside from the
normal precautions against lurking dangers, Aragorn's main concern in the first
part of the trip is to persuade Gandalf not to cross the Misty Mountains via
the Moria caverns from which, as legends tell, Durin's dwarves were driven by a
Balrog fleeing there from Morgoth's overthrow. Devoted as he is to his old
mentor, Aragorn has a strong presentiment that Gandalf will never come out
alive if he meets that dire spirit of the underworld. King Celeborn of Lórien
evidently has the same thought later, for on hearing of Gandalf's death he
exclaims against his "folly, going needlessly into the net of Moria."
Galadriel comments more wisely, however, that none of Gandalf's actions was
ever needless. She seems to mean that although Gandalf knew his peril he
accepted even death if necessary as the only way to speed the Ring-bearer on
his mission. There was no other pass over or around the mountains once cruel
Caradhras hurled his blizzards at the travelers and Saruman blocked the Gap of
Rohan against them.