The History of Middle Earth: Volume 8 - The War of the Ring
Page 15
The famous pass of [Ennyn (Dur) > Morennyn >] Mornennyn the Gates of Mordor was guarded by two towers: the Teeth of Mordor [Nelig Morn Mel >] Nelig Myrn. Built by Gondorians long ago: now ceaselessly manned. Owing to ceaseless passage of arms they dare not try to enter so they turn W. and South. Gollum tells them of Kirith Ungol beneath shadow [of] M. Morgul. It is a high pass. He does not tell them of the Spiders. They creep in to M[inas] M[orgul].
This text is accompanied by a further sketch of the site of Kirith Ungol, reproduced on p. 114. It is clear from this that the transference of Minas Morgul to become the fortress guarding the Black Gates was a passing idea now abandoned; and it was no doubt at this very point (Minas Morgul being restored to its old position in the Mountains of Shadow a good way south of the Black Gates) that the southward journey along the western side of the mountains entered the narrative. But it is also clear that the Tower of Kirith Ungol had not yet emerged: the cleft of the spiders passes beneath Minas Morgul, on the south side (on the assumption that the scene is depicted from the West); and the original story in the outline 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien' is again present, that Frodo and Sam entered Minas Morgul (but there is here no mention of Frodo's capture).
In the text accompanying Sketch I on p. 108 it is Minas Morghul, above the Black Gates, that was called 'the White Tooth', Neleglos; now there emerge (or perhaps re-emerge, from the original two towers guarding the pass, see p. 106) the Teeth of Mordor, Nelig Myrn.
It will be seen subsequently (p. 122) that at this stage 'the Gates of Mordor', 'the Black Gates' (Ennyn Dur, Mornennyn) were specifically names of the pass, not of any barrier built across it.
The other brief text on this page places Sam's overhearing of Gollum's disputation with himself (foreseen already in the preliminary notes to the chapter, p. 105) at this point in the narrative (though it seems that at this stage my father envisaged them passing a night, not a day, before the Black Gates).
The night watching the [Ennyn D(ur) >] Mornennyn. It is Frodo's turn to watch. Sam sleeps and suddenly awakes thinking he has heard his master calling. But he sees Frodo has fallen asleep. Gollum is sitting by him, gazing at him. Sam hears him arguing with himself: Smeagol versus 'another'. Pale light and a green light alternate in his eyes. But it is not hunger or desire to eat Frodo that he is battling with: it is the call of the Ring. His long hand keeps on going out and paw[ing] towards Frodo and then is pulled back. Sam rouses Frodo.
The actually reported 'colloquy' of Gollum was developed in stages. His references to 'She' ('She might help'), and Sam's passing reflection on who that might be, were added subsequently, doubtless when that part of the story was reached. A change made much later altered what the 'two Gollums' said about Bilbo and the 'birthday present'; roughly in the initial draft, and then in the manuscript and subsequent typescripts, the passage read:
'Oh no, not if it doesn't please us. Still he's a Baggins, my precious, yes a Baggins. A Baggins stole it.'
'No, not steal: it was a present.'
'Yes, steal. We never gave it, no never. He found it and he said nothing, nothing. We hates Baggins.'
Lastly, in the manuscript and following typescripts the chapter ended at the words: 'In the falling dusk they scrambled out of the pit and slowly threaded their way through the dead land' (TT p. 242). All that follows in TT, describing the menace of a Ringwraith passing overhead unseen at dusk and again an hour after midnight, and the prostration of Gollum, was added to the typescripts at a later stage (see the Note on Chronology below).
NOTES.
1. My father went on to speak of a letter he had written adjudicating a dispute in an army mess concerning the pronunciation of the name of the poet Cowper (Letters no. 61). A draft for this letter is found on a page of drafting for the passage describing the change in the weather over the marshes, TT pp. 236 - 7.
2. This, I believe, is the first appearance of the conception that the fortresses on the confines of Mordor had been built looking inwards and not outwards.
3. Cf. the Etymologies (V.376), stem NÉL-EK 'tooth'.
4. My father had in fact moved Minas Morgul further north from its position as originally shown on the First Map (east of Osgiliath), and placed it not far from the northern tip of the Mountains of Shadow (see VII..310). With this cf. 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien', where Minas Morgul was said to be reached by a path that 'led up into the mountains - the north horn of the Mountains of Shadow that sundered the ashen vale of Gorgoroth from the valley of the Great River' (VII.333). But Minas Morgul was still on the western side of the mountains (i.e. on the other side of the mountains to the Pass of Kirith Ungol).
5. In notes at the end of 'The Story Foreseen from Lorien' my father had suggested that Frodo should be taken as captive to one of the guard-towers of the pass, and in a time-scheme of that period he changed 'Sam rescues Frodo in Minas Morgul' to 'Sam rescues Frodo in Gorgos' (see VII.344); and again (VII.412): 'The winding stair must be cut in rocks and go up from Gorgoroth to watch-tower. Cut out Minas Morgul.' Now, as it appears, these conceptions were to be fused: Frodo was again to be taken to Minas Morgul, but Minas Morgul was itself the watch-tower above the pass.
6. the third day: see the Note on Chronology below.
7. This passage was developed in the manuscript thus, before being changed to the text of TT (p. 238):
Frodo knew just where the present habitation and heart of that will now was. He could have walked, or flown straight there. He was facing it: and its potency beat upon his brow if he raised it for a moment. He felt like someone who, covered only by a grey garment, has strayed into a garden, when his enemy enters. The enemy knows he is there, even if he cannot yet see him, and he stands at gaze, silent, patient, deadly, sweeping all corners with the hatred of his eye. Any movement is fraught with peril.
8. when the White Eye is up: throughout this part of the story Gollum's names for the Sun and Moon were originally the Yellow Eye and the White Eye, not the Yellow Face and the White Face. - TT has here, as does the manuscript, 'when the candles are lit': see note 10.
9. Cf. Gollum's words in TT (p. 235): 'There was a great battle long ago, yes, so they told him when Smeagol was young'. His words in the present draft ('a great battle here long long ago when Smeagol was young') might suggest the far shorter time-span (see p. 21, and VII.450 note 11); but the manuscript had from the first 'so they said when Smeagol was young'.
10. This was no doubt the point at which the idea of the marsh-lights entered (ignis fatuus, u ill-o'-the-wisp, jack-o'-lantern). In TT, as in the manuscript, Gollum calls them 'candles of corpses', and in time-schemes of this period my father referred to the 'episode of the corpse-candles'. Corpse-candle is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as 'a lambent flame seen in a churchyard or over a grave, and superstitiously believed to appear as an omen of death, or to indicate the route of a coming funeral.'
11. In the conversation between Frodo and Sam that follows (TT (Frodo's journey to the Morannon.) p. 231), in Frodo's words 'If we can nurse our limbs to bring us to Mount Doom' the name is spelt thus in the preliminary draft, but the manuscript has 'Mount Dum': this spelling is found also in the preliminary draft of Frodo's vision on Amon Hen, VII.373.
12. The large-scale map of Gondor and Mordor was closely based on a map of my father's. This included the track of Frodo's journey from Rauros to' the Morannon, and I have redrawn this section from the original (p. 117). My father's map is in some respects hard to interpret, for it was made roughly and hastily in point of its actual execution, the 'contour-lines' being very impressionistic, while the Nindalf and the Dead Marshes are shown merely by rough pencil hatching, for which I have substituted conventional reed-tufts; but I have attempted to redraw it as precisely as I can. The features of the uppermost line of squares were only roughed in on the original, above the top of the map, in order to show the track of the journey, and my version published in The Return of the King excluded this element. The squares are of one inch side, = 25 miles.
As the story stood when the manuscript of this chapter was completed but before those changes were made to it that belong to a later stage the chronology was as follows (proceeding from the date February 1, when Frodo and Sam climbed down out of the Emyn Muil, p. 100):
(Day 1)
Feb. 1 - 2 Night. They advance along the gully. (Journey 1)
Feb. 2 They sleep in the gully all day.
Feb. 2 - 3 Night. They continue along the gully and come to its end towards daybreak. (Journey 2)
(Day 2)
Feb.3 They enter the marshes and continue the journey by day ('So passed the third day of their journey with Gollum', manuscript text and TT p. 234). (Journey 3)
Feb. 3 - 4 Night. They see the dead faces in the pools. 'It was late in the night when they reached firmer ground again', manuscript text and TT p. 236; followed by change in the weather and flight of the Nazgûl. (Journey 4)
(Day 3)
Feb.4 When day came 'the outer buttresses and broken hills' at the feet of the mountains were 'no more than a dozen miles away' (p. 112). They were among the slag- mounds and poisonous pits. Day spent hiding in a hole. At dusk they went on (night of Feb. 4 - 5). (Journey 5)
(Day 4)
Feb. 5 (Beginning of the next chapter) They reach the Black Gate at dawn.
Both of the brief time-schemes of which the beginnings are given on p. 100 express precisely this chronology. Scheme B was written, apparently, when the story had already reached the departure from Henneth Annûn, but A accompanied the writing of the present chapter and scarcely extends beyond it. Notably, in A the actual journeys they made are numbered (as I have numbered them in the chronology set out above), and it may well be that '3' against February 3 explains the statement cited above: 'So passed the third day of their journey with Gollum' - for it was the third journey, but not the third day.
Both schemes refer to the flight of the Nazgûl. In B, under February 3, 'Nazgûl passes over marshes and goes to Isengard', with a subsequent addition 'reaching there about midnight'. This is hard to understand, since already in the completed manuscript 'it was late in the night when they reached firmer ground again', and that was before the change in the weather and the flight of the Nazgûl. In A it is said that 'Nazgûl goes over at early morning before daybreak' (of February 4), agreeing with the text of the chapter; but Théoden and Gandalf and their company left Isengard on the evening of February 3, and camped below Dol Baran (over which the Nazgûl passed) that night, so that this offers equal difficulty.
In his notes of October 1944 (see p. 100) my father commented, under the heading 'Passage of the Marshes', that 'the Nazgûl over marshes cannot be the same as passed over Dolbaran', and directed that the relevant passage in that chapter, and also that at the end of 'The Palantír', should be changed. It must have been at this time, then, that the description of the Nazgûl's flight over the marshes was altered - it wheeled round and returned to Mordor (p. 110); while at the same time, in 'The Palantír', Gandalf's original words to Pippin 'It could have taken you away to the Dark Tower' (p. 77) were extended by Pippin's further question 'But it was not coming for me, was it?' and Gandalf s reply: Of course not. It is 200 leagues or more in straight flight from Baraddur to Orthanc, and even a Nazgûl would take some hours to fly between them, or so I guess - I do not know. But Saruman certainly looked in the Stone since the orc-raid, and more of his secret thought, I do not doubt, has been read than he intended. A messenger has been sent to find out what he is doing....'
Scheme S (in which the dates of Frodo's journey are a day earlier than in A and B, see p. 101) has the folIowing chronology:
(Day 2)
Feb. 2 Journey in the marshes by day.
Feb. 2 - 3 Night. 'Episode of corpse-candles' (see note 10).
(Day 3)
Feb. 3 Reach slag-mounds at dawn. Day spent hiding in a hole, going on at nightfall. Gandalf, Théoden, etc. leave Isengard at sunset and camp at Dolbaran.
(Day 4)
Feb. 4 Reach the Black Gate at daybreak and hide all day.
Gandalf and Pippin sight Edoras at dawn.
In the notes accompanying the changes made in October 1944 my father also directed that 'the first Nazgûl' should pass over Frodo and his companions at dusk (5 p.m.) on the evening of February 3 'just about when they start from the slag-mounds', and reach Dol Baran about 11 p.m. 'The second Nazgûl, sent after Pippin used the Stone', despatched from Mordor about one o'clock in the morning of the night of Feb. 3 - 4, should pass over Frodo at the end of the chapter 'Passage of the Marshes' before they reach the Morannon. This Nazgûl would pass over Edoras on February 4, about six hours later. 'But both may pass high up and only give them faint uneasiness.'
Scheme S is confused on the subject of the flights of the Nazgûl, offering different formulations, but in the result it agrees well with the notes just cited; here however the second Nazgûl leaves Mordor 'at 11 p.m.' or 'about midnight', and it 'scouts around the plain and passes over Edoras at? 8 a.m.' These movements fit very well with the added conclusion to 'The Passage of the Marshes' {TT pp. 242 - 3; see p. 115), which I presume was introduced at this time. Thus the unseen Ringwraith that passed overhead soon after they left the hole amid the slag-heaps, 'going maybe on some swift errand from Barad-dûr', was the one that passed over Dol Baran six hours later (on its way to Orthanc to 'find out what Saruman was doing'); and that which passed over an hour after midnight, 'rushing with terrible speed into the West', was the one sent in response to Pippin's looking into the Palantír.
In the final chronology as set out in The Tale of Years two days were added to the journey to the Morannon, during which Frodo and his companions passed through 'the arid moors of the Noman-lands' (see p. 112):
(Day 2)
Mar. 1 Frodo begins the passage of the Dead Marshes at dawn.
Mar. 1 - 2 Night. Frodo comes to the end of the Marshes late at night.
(Day 3)
Mar. 2 - 3 Night. Frodo journeys in the Noman-lands.
(Day 4)
Mar. 3 - 4 Night. Frodo journeys in the Noman-lands. Battle of the Hornburg.
(Day 5)
Mar. 4 Dawn, Frodo reaches the slag-mounds (and leaves at dusk). Théoden and Gandalf set out from Helm's Deep for Isengard.
(Day 6)
Mar. 5 Daybreak, Frodo in sight of the Morannon. Théoden reaches Isengard at noon. Parley with Saruman in Orthanc. Winged Nazgûl passes over the camp at Dol Baran.
Thus according to the final chronology neither of the unseen Nazgûl that passed over high up at the end of the chapter 'The Passage of the Marshes' (at dusk on March 4, and again an hour after midnight) can have been the one that wheeled over Dol Baran on the night of March 5, nor the one that passed over Edoras on the morning of March 6. A rigorous chronology led to this disappointing conclusion.
III. THE BLACK GATE IS CLOSED.
I have already quoted (p. 104) my father's letter of 23 April 1944 in which he said that he had 'nearly done' the chapter which he called 'Gates of the Land of Shadow'. Since in the first fair-copy manuscript of this chapter the text goes on without a break through what was subsequently called 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit', he had probably at that date got well beyond the point where 'The Black Gate is Closed' ends in TT (at Frodo's decision to take the southward road}; and this is borne out by what he said on the 26th (continuation of a letter begun on 24 April, Letters no. 63): 'At this point I require to know how much later the moon gets up each night when nearing full, and how to stew a rabbit!'
Here I restrict my account to the portion of the new chapter that corresponds to 'The Black Gate is Closed'. This was a part of the narrative that largely 'wrote itself', and there is not a great deal to record of its development; it was achieved, also, in a much more orderly fashion than had been the case for a long time. Here there is a continuous, and for most of its length readily legible, initial draft, which extends in fact to the point where 'The Black Gate is Closed' ends in TT,
and then becomes a brief outline that brings Frodo, Sam and Gollum to the Cross-roads and up the Stairs of Kirith Ungol - showing that at that time my father had no notion of what would befall them on the southward road. He headed this draft 'Kirith Ungol' (the original title of 'The Passage of the Marshes', p. 104), sure that he could get them there within the compass of this new chapter (but 'Kirith Ungol' now bore a different significance from what it had when he gave it to the previous chapter, see p. 106).
The draft was followed by a fair copy manuscript (in this chapter called 'the manuscript', as distinguished from 'the draft') which, as already noticed, extends without break through 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit', and here again the first title given to it was 'Kirith Ungol', changed to 'The Gates of the Land of Shadow' (the title my father used in his letter of 23 April), and then to 'Kirith Gorgor: The Black gate is Closed'. At some stage, for some reason, he made a further manuscript of the chapter (ending it at the point where it ends in 11 ) in his most beautiful script, and this was copied in the first typescript. The chapter number is XXXIV.