[davem]

Some random thoughts....

Sam crept out from the fern, but no one paid any attention to him, and he placed himself at the end of the rows of men, where he could see and hear all that was going on. He watched and listened intently, ready to dash to his master's aid if needed. ..

Frodo's tone was proud, whatever he felt, and Sam approved of it; but it did not appease Faramir. Sam had been getting more and more impatient and angry at this conversation. These last words were more than he could bear, and bursting into the middle of the ring, he strode up to his master's side....

He planted himself squarely in front of Faramir, his hands on his hips, and a look on his face as if he was addressing a young hobbit who had offered him what he called 'sauce' when questioned about visits to the orchard.

In fact the ‘tone’ of both Sam & Frodo is somewhat ‘proud’, but for different reasons. One can perhaps see the power of the Ring growing on Frodo. His tone is is proud in spite of his position. He (& the fate of Middle-earth itself let’s not forget) are in great danger here, but Frodo is no longer the humble hobbit we first met. He has already dominated Gollum, using the threat of the Ring to cow him. Now he stands before the Captain of armed warriors, defiantly attempting to put him in his place.

‘’Yet those who claim to oppose the Enemy would do well not to hinder it."

Frodo is speaking to a man who has repeatedly laid his life on the line, & Frodo has just witnessed an example of this, yet still he can tell Faramir that he ‘would do well’ not to hinder him. This is a threat, & it is made by Frodo Baggins! Faramir’s response is entirely understandable, if a bit callous to our ears, after having followed Frodo’s long struggles:

"So!" he said. 'You bid me mind my own affairs, and get me back home, and let you be”.

We shouldn’t forget that Frodo is a trespasser in Ithilien, during wartime.

But Frodo’s display of ‘pride’ is not the same as Sam’s. Sam stands up in defence of Frodo, willing to risk his safety in defence of his master, & one feels he is motivated more by frustration & desperation than by hubris.

Yet Frodo’s manifestation of pride is in the end replaced by something else - hopelessness & despair:

"Will you not put aside your doubt of me and let me go? I am weary, and full of grief, and afraid. But I have a deed to do, or attempt, before I too am slain. And the more need of haste, if we two halflings are all that remain of our fellowship.
'Go back, Faramir, valiant Captain of Gondor, and defend your city while you may, and let me go where my doom takes me."

This volte face is almost as extreme as the one we have witnessed in Smeagol/Gollum, & it clearly shows that Frodo’s personality is being slowly broken down by the Ring itself - he is falling apart, wavering between extremes, highs & lows...

Frodo had felt himself trembling as the first shock of fear passed. Now a great weariness came down on him like a cloud. He could dissemble and resist no longer.
"I was going to find a way into Mordor," he said faintly. "I was going to Gorgoroth. I must find the Mountain of Fire and cast the thing into the gulf of Doom. Gandalf said so. I do not think I shall ever get there."

Thus Frodo, who we see in this chapter running the gamut of emotions from pride, through humility:

They were led then to seats beside Faramir: barrels covered with pelts and high enough above the benches of the Men for their convenience. Before they ate, Faramir and all his men turned and faced west in a moment of silence. Faramir signed to Frodo and Sam that they should do likewise.
"So we always do," he said, as they sat down: 'we look towards Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be. Have you no such custom at meat?"
'No," said Frodo, feeling strangely rustic and untutored. "But if we are guests, we bow to our host, and after we have eaten we rise and thank him."
"That we do also," said Faramir.

to hopelessness. He is humbled by greatness - by being exposed to a higher culture - as Merry will say to Pippin later, at least he now knows & can worship greater things than the Shire.

But what of Sam? In what is almost an ‘echo’ of Gimli’s confrontation with Eomer over Galadriel, Sam also comes to the Lady’s defence - but here the characters & situation are different, & Sam’s ‘teaching’ is more polite..

"The Lady of Lorien! Galadriel!" cried Sam. 'You should see her, indeed you should, sir. I am only a hobbit, and gardening's my job at home, sir, if you understand me, and I'm not much good at poetry--not at making it: a bit of a comic rhyme, perhaps, now and again, you know, but not real poetry--so I can't tell you what I mean. It ought to be sung. You'd have to get Strider, Aragorn that is, or old Mr. Bilbo, for that. But I wish I could make a song about her. Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes like a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowndilly, small and slender like. Hard as di'monds, soft as moonlight. Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime. But that's a lot o' nonsense, and all wide of my mark."

"Then she must be lovely indeed," said Faramir. 'Perilously fair."
"I don't know about perilous," said Sam. "It strikes me that folk takes their peril with them into Lorien, and finds it there because they've brought it. But perhaps you could call her perilous, because she's so strong in herself. You, you could dash yourself to pieces on her, like a ship on a rock; or drownd yourself, like a hobbit in a river. But neither rock nor river would be to blame.

Sam has learned a lesson, & sets about teaching it to Faramir! Sam has experienced the perilous ‘reality’ of the OtherWorld, & realised that that peril is within the traveller, not within the Other World. Which makes me wonder about his later resistance to the Ring ....