The Treason of Isengard (67 page)

At first he could see little: he seemed to be in a world of mist in which there were only shadows. The Ring was on him. [Then the virtue (written above: power) of Amon Hen worked upon him] Then here and there the mists gave way and he saw many things: small and clear as if they were beneath him on a table and yet remote: the world seemed to have shrunk. [Added: He heard no sound, seeing only bright images that moved and changed.](4) He looked South and saw below his very feet the Great River curve and bend like a toppling wave and plunge over the falls of Rauros into a foaming pit: the fume rose like smoke and fell like rain lit by a glimmering rainbow of many colours. More remote still beyond the roaring pools were fens and black mountains, many streams winding like shining ribbons. Then the vision changed: nothing but water was below him, a wide rippling plain of silver, and an endless murmur of distant waves upon a shore he could not see.

He looked West and saw horsemen galloping like the wind: their

On beyond the falls his eye wandered, here crossing reed-grown fens, there marking the winding ribbons of swift streams leaping down from small hard black mo(untains).

At this point my father rejected the entire passage from the words

'Then the virtue (power) of Amon Hen worked upon him' and began again:

At first he could see little: he seemed to be in a world of mist in which there were only shadows. The Ring was on him.

[Struck out at once: But also he sat now upon the seat of Sight which the Men of Numenor had made.] Then here and there the mists gave way and he saw many visions...

The new text then reaches the form in FR (p. 416); Frodo is sitting on

'the seat of Seeing, upon Amon Hen, the Hill of the Eye of the Men of Numenor.'

Frodo 'seemed to be in a world of mist in which there were only shadows. The Ring was on him. Then the power of Amon Hen worked upon him': and the mists began to break. Still clearer is the next stage of revision: '... The Ring was on him. But also he sat now upon the seat of Sight which the Men of Numenor had made. Then here and there the mists gave way...' Only one interpretation seems possible: the wearing of the Ring inhibited his sight - he was in a world of mists and shadows; but nonetheless he was sitting on the Seat of Seeing on the Hill of the Eye, and 'the power of Amon Hen worked upon him.' On the other hand, in the last outline written before this point in the narrative was actually reached, the idea of the 'Seat of Seeing' had not emerged (p. 327): Frodo was 'standing on rocks' in the Stone Hills when Boromir attempted to take the Ring. It is said there that from this place the range of the Mountains of Shadow could be glimpsed 'like a smudge of grey, and behind it a vague cloud lit beneath occasionally by a fitful glow'; but when Frodo put on the Ring

'he saw nothing about him but a grey formless mist, and far away (yet black and clear and hard) the Mountains of Mordor: the fire seemed very red.' In its origin, then, the peculiar clarity of Frodo's vision on this occasion derived solely from the wearing of the Ring. This question is discussed further on pp. 380 - 1.

When Frodo came down from the summit of Amon Hen, and putting on the Ring again 'vanished and passed down the hill like a rustle of the wind', the primary draft continues: 'The power of the Ring upon him had been renewed; and maybe it aided his choice, drawing him to Mordor, drawing him to the Shadow, alone.'

There exists a rough outline for the last part of the chapter, where the story turns from Frodo to the Company, sitting where he left them beside the river. This was written in faint pencil, subsequently inked over.

Frodo does not come back in an hour. The hour wears on to two, and the sun is at noon. Trotter gets anxious. He saw Boromir go off, and return. 'Have you seen Frodo?' 'No,' said Boromir, lying with a half truth. 'I looked for him and could not see him.' [Added:? 'Yes,' said Boromir, 'but he ran from me and I could not find him.'] Trotter decides they must search and blames himself for allowing Frodo to go alone. Boromir comes back ?

Great agitation, and before Trotter can control them they all run off into the woods. Trotter sends Boromir after Merry and pippin. He runs himself toward the Hill of Amon Hen followed by Sam. But suddenly Sam stops and claps his head. 'You're a fool, Sam Gamgee. You know quite well what was in Mr.

Frodo's mind. He knew he had to go East - that old Gandalf intended it. But he was afraid, and still more afraid of taking anyone with him...... He's run away, that's it - and .......

boat.'(5) Sam dashed down the path. The green camp-ground was empty. As he raced across it he gasped. A boat was grinding on the shingle - seemingly all by itself was slipping into the water.

It was floating away. With a cry Sam raced to the water-edge and sprang after it. He missed it by a yard and fell into deep water. He went under with a gurgle.

Conversation of Sam and Frodo. They go off together.

At this stage my father was not intending to end the chapter here, and this sketch continues into the story of what became the first chapter of The Two Towers, III.1 'The Departure of Boromir'; but I postpone the remainder of it to the next chapter in this book.

The discussion among the members of the Company during Frodo's absence took draft after draft to achieve,(6) and though the actual content of what was said does not greatly differ from the form in FR

(pp. 418 - 19) it was at first given in part to different speakers (thus in the earlier form it is Trotter who emphasizes, as does Gimli in FR, that on no member of the Company save Frodo was obligation laid).

Notably, there appear in these drafts the phrases found in FR: 'the Lord Denethor and all his men cannot hope to do what Elrond declared to be beyond his power', and 'Boromir will return to Minas Tirith. His father and people need him.' This is where the name Denethor first emerged, with only the slightest initial hesitation: my father wrote a B, or perhaps an R, then Denethor.(7) That Boromir was the son of Denethor is clear, and is explicit in the outline given at the beginning of the next chapter; in any case he was named long before as the son of the King of Ond (VI.411).

As I have said, from the point where Sam intervened in the discussion the conclusion of The Fellowship of the Ring was virtually achieved at its first drafting and with very little hesitation, and there are only two matters to notice. One concerns the return of Boromir to the Company, where at first he replied to Trotter's question quite differently (cf. the outline on p. 375):

'He has not returned then?' asked Boromir in return.

'No.'

'That's strange. To say the truth I felt anxious about him, and went to seek him.'

'Did you find him?'

Boromir hesitated for an instant. 'I could not see him,' he answered, with half the truth. 'I called him and he did not come.'

'How long ago was that?'

'An hour maybe. Maybe more: I have wandered since. I do not know! I do not know!' He put his head in his hands and said no more.

Trotter looked wonderingly at him.

This was rejected at once and replaced by his account as it stands in FR. - The other passage is that describing Sam's headlong descent down the slopes of Amon Hen:

He came to the edge of the open camping-place (8) where the boats were drawn up out of the water. No one was there. There seemed to be cries and faint hornblasts in the woods behind, but he did not heed them.

Before this was written, my father had already sketched out, in the continuation of the outline of which I have given the first part on p.

375, the story of the Orc-attack and Boromir's death (p. 378). He had now abandoned important elements in his former vision of the course of the story after the disintegration of the Company: the journey of Merry and Pippin up the Entwash, and the evil dealings of Boromir in Ondor (pp. 211 - 12, 330). So far as written record goes, it was only now that he perceived that Boromir would never return to Minas Tirith.

NOTES.

1. I think that Trotter's meaning was: 'he will guess, too, much of our divided purposes.'

2. The fair copy in fact followed the draft in the opening sentences, and the paragraph with which 'The Breaking of the Fellowship'

opens in FR, describing the green lawn (Parth Galen), was added.

As the manuscript was written, the green lawn was not named. See note 8, and p. 382.

3. This sentence was subsequently marked: 'Put this into his talk with Frodo' (cf. FR p. 414).

4. The sentence a little later in this passage, 'an endless murmur of distant waves upon a shore he could not see', was not changed when this was added.

5. Written transversely across this part of the text, before the underlying pencil was inked over, and extremely difficult to read, is the following:

A good arrangement would be for Frodo running down hill to run [?into] orcs attacking Merry and Pippin and Boromir.

Boromir is aware of his presence. When Boromir falls Frodo escapes [to or (in) the] boat - because Frodo would not leave Merry and Pippin in hands of orcs.

I do not understand the implication of the last sentence.

6. One of these drafts is written on an Oxford University committee report dated 19 February 1941: see p. 362.

7. In the First Age Denethor led the Green-elves over Eredlindon into Ossiriand. On the name see V.188.

8. Replaced in pencil in the fair copy manuscript by 'the lawn of Kelufain': see note 2.

XIX.

THE DEPARTURE OF BOROMIR.

I mentioned in the last chapter that the outline for the end of the story of 'The Breaking of the Fellowship' (p. 375) in fact continues on into the narrative of the first chapter ('The Departure of Boromir') in The Two Towers (henceforward abbreviated as TT).

Horns and sudden cries in the woods. Trotter on the hill becomes aware of trouble. He races down. He finds Boromir under the trees lying dying. 'I tried to take the Ring,' said Eoromir. 'I am sorry. I have made what amends I could.' There are at least 20 orcs lying dead near him. Boromir is pierced with arrows and sword-cuts. 'They have gone. The orcs have got them. I do not think they are dead. Go back to Minas Tirith, Elfstone, and help my people. I have done all I could.' He dies.

Thus died the heir of the Lord of Minas Tirith. Trotter at a loss.

He is found standing perplexed and grief-stricken by Legolas and Gimli (who have driven off a smaller company). Trotter is perplexed. Was Frodo one of the hobbits? In any case ought he to follow and try to rescue? Or go to Minas Tirith? He cannot go in any case without burying Boromir. With help of Legolas and Gimli he carries Boromir's body on a bier of branches and sets it in a boat, and sends it over Rauros.

Trotter now finds that one boat is missing. No orc-prints at camp. Whether hobbit-marks are old or new cannot be made out. But Sam is missing. Trotter sees that either Frodo and Sam, and Merry and Pippin, were together, or Frodo (and Sam?) have gone off. Now little or no hope of finding Frodo in latter case.

He with Gimli and Legolas decide to follow Merry and Pippin.

'On Amon Hen I said I might see a sign to guide us! We have found a confusion - but our paths at least are set for us. Come, we will rescue our companions or else we will die after slaying all the orcs we can.'

An addition to this text, certainly of much the same time, reads: Trotter sees by the shape and arms of the dead orcs that they are northern orcs of the Misty Mountains - from Moria? In fact they are orcs of Moria that escaped the elves, + others who are servants of Saruman. They report to Saruman that Gandalf is dead. Their mission is to capture hobbits including Frodo and take them to Isengard. (Saruman is playing a double game and wants the Ring.)

At the bottom of the page is written:

Does Trotter have any vision on Amon Hen? If he does, let him see (1) an Eagle coming down. (2) old man, like Frodo [sees] in mirror. (3) orcs creeping under trees.

While working on the book my father would sometimes 'doodle' by writing, often in careful or even elaborate script, names or phrases from a newspaper that lay beside him or on which his paper rested. On the back of the sheet carrying this outline - an examination script, like most of the paper he used - he wrote out many such odds and ends, as

'Chinese bombers', 'North Sea convoy'; and among them are 'Muar River' and 'Japanese attack in Malaya'. It is out of the question, I think, that these writings on the verso should come from a different time from the text on the recto. It is certain, therefore, that the time was now the winter of 1941 - 2.(1)

This obviously agrees with my father's statement in the Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings that he 'came to Lothlorien and the Great River late in 1941.' He said that 'almost a year' had passed since he halted by Balin's tomb in Moria; but I have