[davem]

At first he could see little. He seemed to be in a world of mist in which there were only shadows: the Ring was upon him. Then here and there the mist gave way and he saw many visions: small and clear as if they were under his eyes upon a table, and yet remote. There was no sound, only bright living images. The world seemed to have shrunk and fallen silent. He was sitting upon the Seat of Seeing, on Amon Hen, the Hill of the Eye of the Men of Numenor. Eastward he looked into wide uncharted lands, nameless plains, and forests unexplored. Northward he looked, and the Great River lay like a ribbon beneath him, and the Misty Mountains stood small and hard as broken teeth. Westward he looked and saw the broad pastures of Rohan; and Orthanc, the pinnacle of Isengard, like a black spike. Southward he looked, and below his very feet the Great River curled like a toppling wave and plunged over the falls of Rauros into a foaming pit; a glimmering rainbow played upon the fume. And Ethir Anduin he saw, the mighty delta of the River, and myriads of sea-birds whirling like a white dust in the sun, and beneath them a green and silver sea, rippling in endless lines.

My first response on reading this was of how similar it is to the episode in Matthew chapter 4:

Then the devyll tooke hym up agayne and ledde hym into an excedynge hye mountayne, and shewed hym al the kyngdomes of the worlde, and the beauty of them, and sayde unto hym: all these will I geve the, iff thou wilt faull doune and worshp me. Then sayde Jesus unto hym. Avoyd Satan. For it is written, Thou shalt worshyp thy Lorde God, and hym only shalt thou serve.

(Sorry about the Tyndale translation - it was the first to hand because its my favourite).

CT points out that his father at first wasn’t sure whether the clarity of Frodo’s vision was due to the power of the seat or of the Ring, but either way Frodo’s vision is ‘magical’ or ‘psychic’. Its not the result of him simply being high up. It seems that in the final conception the hill itself enhances the viewer’s sight. My own feeling is that its something that can’t be accounted for, & is simply necessary for the effect. Tolkien needs Frodo to have this vision, so he does. The ‘vision’ itself seems threefold - first there is the vista across the land, nature perfect & for the most part unsullied (though the black spike of Isengard is present). Then there come the signs of war - we’ve moved from the ‘timeless’ world of nature to the temporal world, & the war:

But everywhere he looked he saw the signs of war. The Misty Mountains were crawling like anthills: orcs were issuing out of a thousand holes. Under the boughs of Mirkwood there was deadly strife of Elves and Men and fell beasts. The land of the Beornings was aflame; a cloud was over Moria: smoke rose on the borders of Lorien. Horsemen were galloping on the grass of Rohan; wolves poured from Isengard. From the havens of Harad ships of war put out to sea; and out of the East Men were moving endlessly: swordsmen, spearmen, bowmen upon horses, chariots of chieftains and laden wains. All the power of the Dark Lord was in motion.

Finally the vision moves into the heart of evil:

Then at last his gaze was held: wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant, he saw it: Baraddur, Fortress of Sauron. All hope left him. And suddenly he felt the Eye. There was an eye in the Dark Tower that did not sleep. He knew that it had become aware of his gaze. A fierce eager will was there. It leaped towards him; almost like a finger he felt it, searching for him.

Its almost like the vision in Galadriel’s mirror: first Frodo saw

‘the Mirror cleared and he saw a twilit land. Mountains loomed dark in the distance against a pale sky. A long grey road wound back out of sight.’

Then ‘The sea rose and raged in a great storm. Then he saw against the Sun, sinking blood-red into a wrack of cloudsthe black outline of a tall ship with torn sails riding up out of the West. Then a wide river flowing through a populous city. Then a white fortress with seven towers. And then again a ship with black sails, but now it was morning again, and the water rippled with light, and a banner bearing the emblem of a white tree shone in the sun. A smoke as of fire and battle arose, ‘

Finally ‘ The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat's, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing. ‘

As I say, virtually the same vision reiterated. Why Tolkien chose to do this is another question. We have a vision of the world, followed by the appearance of Men, culminating in the vision of ultimate evil.

We do seem to be presented with Frodo’s ‘temptation’ here, & once again the old Boethian/Manichaen problem rears its head. Frodo watches the war, as if spread out on a table below him. He’s distanced from the events, looking down on them, holding the fate of the world literally in his hands. He’s an ‘outsider’, free to choose his course of action. But then he realises something - his response to the Eye:

He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come, I come to you? He could not tell. Then as a flash from some other point of power there came to his mind another thought: Take it off! Take it off! Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring! The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points, he writhed, tormented. Suddenly he was aware of himself again. Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do so. He took the Ring off his finger.

It seems that the ‘Voice’ & the ‘Eye’ are both within him & without, internal ‘drives’ & external ‘forces’. Or perhaps he has so ‘internalised’ the Ring & all it represents by this stage that he can’t distinguish the Ring’s response (‘Verily I come, I come to you’) from his own (‘Never, never!). Its interesting that Tolkien writes ‘The two powers strove in him’, but then instantly qualifies this by saying ‘Take it off! Take it off! Fool, take it off! Take off the Ring! The two powers strove in him. For a moment, perfectly balanced between their piercing points, he writhed, tormented.’

How can Frodo be balanced between something within him? Perhaps for the same reason as Galadriel can say that the Eye ‘is also in my mind’. The whole vision (both visions actually) seem to be both external & internal happenings. There are two ‘wars of the Ring’, & both are summed up in this moment of vision on the Seat of Seeing. Or to be more accurate, there is a single war being fought, & it is fought both by the individual & within him.

One last point, for now, about Boromir. Was anyone else struck by how Gollum like he became in the confrontation with Frodo - moving between being friendly, almost wheedling, then haughty & threatening, & finally attacking him & then bursting into tears when he fails? You can almost see the same thing happening in Isildur. It seems that Tolkien sees this as the inevitable transformation of the personality that the Ring brings about.