Read Online Sauron Defeated by J. R. R. Tolkien - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: J. R. R. Tolkien
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risk taking the road to the Dark Tower.
Another slight difference in the original text follows Frodo's words to Sam on the morning on which they left the road and turned south towards Mount Doom: 'I can't manage it, Sam. It is such a weight to carry, such a weight' (RK p. 214).
Sam knew what he meant, but seeking for some encouragement amid despair he answered: 'Well, Mr Frodo, why not lighten the load a bit. We're going that way as straight as we can make.' He pointed to the Mountain. 'No good taking anything we're not sure to need.'
Like a child, distracted from its trouble by some game of make-believe, Frodo considered his words seriously for a moment.
Then 'Of course,' he said. 'Leave everything behind we don't want. Travel light, that's the thing, Sam!' He picked up his orc-shield and flung it away, and threw his helmet after it; and undoing his heavy belt cast it and the sword and sheath with it clattering on the ground. Even his grey cloak he threw away.
Sam looked at him with pity.
This was struck out immediately and replaced by the text of RK, in which Sam suggests that he should bear the Ring for a while. But neither in the text B nor in the fair copy C is there mention of the phial of Galadriel or of the little box that she gave to Sam.(2) The height of Mount Doom was at first differently conceived: 'It was indeed some 3000 feet or so from foot to the.... broken crater at its crown. A third of that height now lay below him ...' Text C still differs from RK (p. 218): 'The confused and tumbled shoulders of its great sprawling base rose for maybe three (3) thousand feet above the plain, and above them was reared, almost as high again, its tall central cone, like a vast oast or chimney capped by a jagged crater. But already Sam stood half way up the base ...' (where RK has 'half as high again' and 'more than half way up'). My father's drawing, reproduced in Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien no. 30, and in this book on p. 42, from a small page that carries also a scrap of drafting for this part of the chapter, seems to show the final conception, with the cone
'half as high again' in relation to the 'base'; but in this drawing the door of the Sammath Naur is at the foot of the cone, whereas in all versions of the text the climbing road came 'high in the upper cone, but still far from the reeking summit, to a dark entrance'.(4) When Gollum fell upon Sam as he carried Frodo up the road, both in the original text and in the fair copy C Sam not only tore the backs of his hands as he crashed forward (RK p. 220) but also cut his forehead on the ground. In B, against the words 'But Sam gave him no more heed. He suddenly remembered his master. He looked up the path and could not see him' (RK p. 222) my father wrote in the margin: 'his head was bleeding?' This was not taken up in C, but a little earlier, after the words 'Sam's hand wavered. His mind was hot with wrath and the memory of evil' (RK p. 221) C has: 'Blood trickled down his forehead.' Both these references to Sam's bleeding forehead were later struck from C. It is not clear to me what my father had in mind here. At first sight there might seem to be a connection with Sam s blindness in outline V (p. 11): Sam feels a blindness coming on and wonders if it is due to water of Mordor ... Sam half-blind is lagging behind', but that seems to have been introduced to explain how it was that when Gollum attacked Frodo went on unaware of what had happened; whereas here the blood in Sam's eyes was the result of Gollum's attack, and he himself urged Frodo to go on.
Possibly the cutting of his forehead was intended to explain why Sam could not see Frodo when he looked up the path, and was removed when my father came to the point when Sam was again felled by Gollum in the Sammath Naur: 'He was dazed, and blood streaming from his head dripped in his eyes' (RK p. 223).
When Sam urged Frodo to go on up alone while he dealt with Gollum Frodo replied, both in B and C: 'The Quest
Another slight difference in the original text follows Frodo's words to Sam on the morning on which they left the road and turned south towards Mount Doom: 'I can't manage it, Sam. It is such a weight to carry, such a weight' (RK p. 214).
Sam knew what he meant, but seeking for some encouragement amid despair he answered: 'Well, Mr Frodo, why not lighten the load a bit. We're going that way as straight as we can make.' He pointed to the Mountain. 'No good taking anything we're not sure to need.'
Like a child, distracted from its trouble by some game of make-believe, Frodo considered his words seriously for a moment.
Then 'Of course,' he said. 'Leave everything behind we don't want. Travel light, that's the thing, Sam!' He picked up his orc-shield and flung it away, and threw his helmet after it; and undoing his heavy belt cast it and the sword and sheath with it clattering on the ground. Even his grey cloak he threw away.
Sam looked at him with pity.
This was struck out immediately and replaced by the text of RK, in which Sam suggests that he should bear the Ring for a while. But neither in the text B nor in the fair copy C is there mention of the phial of Galadriel or of the little box that she gave to Sam.(2) The height of Mount Doom was at first differently conceived: 'It was indeed some 3000 feet or so from foot to the.... broken crater at its crown. A third of that height now lay below him ...' Text C still differs from RK (p. 218): 'The confused and tumbled shoulders of its great sprawling base rose for maybe three (3) thousand feet above the plain, and above them was reared, almost as high again, its tall central cone, like a vast oast or chimney capped by a jagged crater. But already Sam stood half way up the base ...' (where RK has 'half as high again' and 'more than half way up'). My father's drawing, reproduced in Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien no. 30, and in this book on p. 42, from a small page that carries also a scrap of drafting for this part of the chapter, seems to show the final conception, with the cone
'half as high again' in relation to the 'base'; but in this drawing the door of the Sammath Naur is at the foot of the cone, whereas in all versions of the text the climbing road came 'high in the upper cone, but still far from the reeking summit, to a dark entrance'.(4) When Gollum fell upon Sam as he carried Frodo up the road, both in the original text and in the fair copy C Sam not only tore the backs of his hands as he crashed forward (RK p. 220) but also cut his forehead on the ground. In B, against the words 'But Sam gave him no more heed. He suddenly remembered his master. He looked up the path and could not see him' (RK p. 222) my father wrote in the margin: 'his head was bleeding?' This was not taken up in C, but a little earlier, after the words 'Sam's hand wavered. His mind was hot with wrath and the memory of evil' (RK p. 221) C has: 'Blood trickled down his forehead.' Both these references to Sam's bleeding forehead were later struck from C. It is not clear to me what my father had in mind here. At first sight there might seem to be a connection with Sam s blindness in outline V (p. 11): Sam feels a blindness coming on and wonders if it is due to water of Mordor ... Sam half-blind is lagging behind', but that seems to have been introduced to explain how it was that when Gollum attacked Frodo went on unaware of what had happened; whereas here the blood in Sam's eyes was the result of Gollum's attack, and he himself urged Frodo to go on.
Possibly the cutting of his forehead was intended to explain why Sam could not see Frodo when he looked up the path, and was removed when my father came to the point when Sam was again felled by Gollum in the Sammath Naur: 'He was dazed, and blood streaming from his head dripped in his eyes' (RK p. 223).
When Sam urged Frodo to go on up alone while he dealt with Gollum Frodo replied, both in B and C: 'The Quest
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