📖👀 Chapter 2 (📔Book IV): The Passage of the Marshes

[Rivendell_librarian]

This chapter could be called "Grim and Grimmer" for if you thought Emyn Muil was bad well The Dead Marshes are a lot worse. Tolkien stated that he drew on his experience of the Western Front when writing this chapter. What is more Frodo is struggling with the increased weight of the Ring. Does the Ring sense Frodo and Sam's intention? That seems far fetched but assuming it wants to return to Sauron you wouldn't automatically think it would get heavier as they approach Mordor.

The sense of isolation has increased in this chapter. Yes they could have skirted round to the NE and avoided the marsh altogether but then they would be exposed to passing Nazgul of which there are at least three occasions in the chapter. In the marsh they are shrouded by its mists. Not much happens in this chapter so Tolkien uses it to further explore this strange menage a trois. Sam is more suspicious, Frodo more civil with Gollum but the reason seems clear. Frodo sees in Gollum how the Ring can affect someone so he has a reason to believe Gollum is not beyond redemption. Sam sees Gollum as a threat to Frodo.

It can be argued that they are both right. Gollum hasn't given up his desire to take back the Ring. Towards the end of the chapter, Sam overhears Gollum's intentions to take back the Ring with the possible help of the mysterious "She". Sam has the wit not to let on what he has heard.

No, sweet one. See, my precious: if we has it, then we can escape, even from Him, eh? Perhaps we grows very strong, stronger than Wraiths. Lord Smeagol? Gollum the Great? The Gollum! Eat fish every day, three times a day, fresh from the sea.

It could be argued that Gollum is just about the most fascinating character in the whole of fantasy literature. Yes his desire for the Ring makes him malicious, but what would he do with the power of the Ring? Make sure he eats fish, fresh from the sea, three times a day! One wonders whether Gollum didn't realise what the Ring really was until after Bilbo stole it from him.

The relationship between Frodo and Sam is also further developed. Sam is worried about their food situation. Sam sees their task as "this job" - like a big gardening job. Frodo is more pessimistic about their chances of survival and is doubting that they will make it to Mount Doom. This must be due to the effect of the increased weight of the Ring. This upsets Sam who has to hide his tears.

Even so, this chapter is dominated with descriptions of the awful terrain

Frodo looked round in horror. Dreadful as the Dead Marshes had been, and the arid moors of the Noman-lands, more loathsome far was the country that the crawling day now slowly unveiled to his shrinking eyes. Even to the Mere of Dead Faces some haggard phantom of green spring would come; but here neither spring nor summer would ever come again. Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light.

It ends on a suitably dour note:

So they stumbled on through the weary end of the night, and until the coming of another day of fear they walked in silence with bowed heads, seeing nothing, and hearing nothing but the wind hissing in their ears.

 

[Eljorahir]

I love how Gollum interrupts his poetry performance then comes back and finishes the first poem at the end of the second poem.

The cold hard lands
they bites our hands,
they gnaws our feet.
The rocks and stones
are like old bones
all bare of meat.
But stream and pool
is wet and cool:
so nice for feet!
And now we wish----

‘Ha! ha! What does we wish?’ he said, looking sidelong at the hobbits. ‘We’ll tell you,’ he croaked. ‘He guessed it long ago, Baggins guessed it.’ A glint came into his eyes, and Sam catching the gleam in the darkness thought it far from pleasant.

Alive without breath;
as cold as death;
never thirsting, ever drinking;
clad in mail, never clinking.
Drowns on dry land,
thinks an island
is a mountain;
thinks a fountain
is a puff of air.
So sleek, so fair!
What a joy to meet!
We only wish
to catch a fish,
so juicy-sweet!

 

[TrackerOrc]

So they stumbled on through the weary end of the night, and until the coming of another day of fear they walked in silence with bowed heads, seeing nothing, and hearing nothing but the wind hissing in their ears.

Grim and grimmer indeed!
This, and the next few chapters (probably the whole of Book IV really) are just so focused on the relationship between Gollum and the Hobbits. Obviously there is a lot going on in Ithilien and with Faramir, but to me the abiding image is the three of them trudging along through this bleak landscape.
On to the Black Gate then...

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Some further notes on this chapter:
@Eljorahir quoted Gollum singing to himself as he "splashed along with his feet in the shallow stony stream. He seemed greatly delighted to feel the water, and chuckled to himself . . .". This lifting of spirit echoes a similar incident, the crossing of the Nimrodel, upon venturing into Lothlorien:

For a moment Frodo stood near the brink and let the water flow over his tired feet. It was cold but its touch was clean, and aa he went on and it mounted to his knees, he felt that the stain of travel and all weariness was washed from his limbs.

One very minor note on the description of the stream: when they rest later, much further down, the mention of "wide flat shelves of dry stone" with the water running "in a channel on the other side" seems to hint at the work of hands. I may be reading this into it, but it wouldn't be the first remains of ancient workings we've encountered along the way, nor will it be the last.

The "contrasted parallels", as Shippey puts it, continue: as the hobbits are led by Gollum into and through the maze-like Marshes, their "blindness" is repeatedly emphasized, just as they had been guided while blindfolded into and through the woods of Lorien. It's a much less pleasant journey, , of course.

It is in fact a demonic parody of several episodes of the "Lothlorien" chapter; the Nimrodel runs into the Silverlode, which joins the Anduin, to flow finally down to the Sea, beloved of elves. The stream in the current chapter runs down only to the stagnant pools of the Dead.

And there we see demonic parody in concentrated form: the katabasis episode of Galadriel's mirror is parodied by the dead faces seen in the pools. The light reflected in the mirror comes from Eärendil's Star -- a Silmaril, whose light ultimately originates from the Two Trees, symbols of the mythical Tree of Life; the "tricksy lights" emanate from the fruits of death. The ambiguous nature of the visions seen are noted in both episodes, and Gollum echoes Galadriel's injunction: "Do not touch the water". The prohibition is broken this time, with gruesome result.

This chapter, featuring demonic parody as it does, also constitutes a Night Journey, even though, as the linked article says, parts of it take place in daylight:

For a while they stood there, like men on the edge of a sleep where nightmare lurks, holding it off, though they know that they can only come to morning through the the shadows.

they would be exposed to passing Nazgul of which there are at least three occasions in the chapter.

'Three times!' he whimpered. 'Three times is a threat.'

We've encountered what I've elsewhere called the "Rule of Threes" before, and we'll meet more examples in the next chapter.

 

[TrackerOrc]

Maybe completely wide of the mark here, but 'three times is a threat' could be an illusion to something I grew up being told, which is that in the trenches of WWI, you were never supposed to accept a light for your cigarette from the same match if you were the third to do so because the German sniper would have focused his sights on you, and you would be shot dead.
It sounds bizarre, but being 'third on the match' was regarded as being as unlucky as walking under a ladder, or having a black cat crossing your path.
Maybe something from Tolkien's experiences in the war?

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

The supposed origins of the "three on a match" superstition are many and varied, but Tolkien made an explicit reference to a Medieval saying; I quoted it here:

The "Rule of Threes" As a Structural Principle in Tolkien

I'd noticed the occurrence of groups of threes in a casual way, over the years, but a couple of things caused me to take a closer look. One was Douglas Anderson's note on Bilbo's "third time pays for all" in The Annotated Hobbit, where he says it is a Medieval proverb, and gives a quote from a...

thetolkien.forum

 

[Eljorahir]

The quote:
…a wide almost circular pit, high-banked upon the west. It was cold and dead, and a foul sump of oily many-coloured ooze lay at its bottom. In this evil hole they cowered… …[Frodo] had fallen asleep, and had slid down nearly to the bottom of the pit… … [Sam] stumbled down the bank and roused his master. Strangely enough, Frodo felt refreshed. He had been dreaming. The dark shadow had passed, and a fair vision had visited him in this land of disease. Nothing remained of it in his memory, yet because of it he felt glad and lighter of heart. His burden was less heavy on him…

The comments:
In previous chapters we’re given vivid descriptions of Frodo’s dreams. In this chapter we’re told he’d dreamt a “fair vision” and it lightened his heart, but that’s all we get. Why should Frodo receive such a pleasant and refreshing dream while he’s asleep in such a horrid place? Why does Tolkien leave us guessing at the details of this particular dream? I feel like I may be missing a connection. Or, maybe, dreams are best left mysterious and fleeting.

Maybe related?: @Squint-eyed Southerner mentioned some demonic parodies comparing the Dead Marshes with Lothlorien. Is this pit an apt demonic parody of Galadriel’s mirror? Here we have an “almost circular pit…foul sump of oily many-coloured ooze”. If so, then I’ll speculate that Frodo’s heart-lightening dream may have Galadriel as its source—a little much-needed relief transmitted from one ring-bearer to another.