LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 09 - Shelob’s Lair

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

To be dead honest, I was terrified going into this chapter (although, bad me, I haven't read it in some two years or so). I've always loved Tolkien's chapter titles, but this one creeped me out. Given that I'd read The Hobbit a very short time before first reading the LotR, I remembered Bilbo calling the Mirkwood spiders "lazy lobs". That was my first hint as to the contents. Given Gollum's mentions of "she", I took an educated guess. And my arachnophobic brother's dire warnings of "you're going to absolutely hate this chapter" started to clue me in that I was right.

Did anybody else know what this chapter was about before ever reading it?

[Shelob]

The First time I remember hearing this chapter I had some susspicion what I was getting into, and like your arachnophobic brother said, Feanor, I wasn't going to like it.
The First time my father read The Lord of the Rings to me we got as far as this chapter before I was to scared for him to continue reading it (keep in mind I was about 6yrs old at the time). Three years later when he read it to my brother and I again one of the three things I remember was that there was a HUGE-AND-TERRIFYING-SPIDER. To my 9yr old self though Shelob wasn't as bad as I remembered, and while Shelob still creeps me out (I really do hate spiders) this chapter has since become one of my favorites.

Unfortunately I haven't read this chapter recently enough to really discuss it, but I'm now interested in this 'Galadriel's v. Eärendil’s' name thing that Estelyn mentions so don't be surprised if I reread and come back to speak further.

[Lathriel]

This chapter freaked me out as well. I have re-read it so often and yet...Each time I come to this chapter I take a few precautions. First of all I try not to read it by night. Second of all I try to read it when I am NOT Home alone. Third of all, I make sure I have some re-assuring music at hand.

On thing that makes this chapter creepy apart from the description of Shelob is the way the tension builds. Also when Sam and Frodo make it through Shelob's lair you think they are safe. But no, Shelob catches them outside. That fact always catches me offguard and I don't like it.

[Lalwendë]

I've never been scared of spiders, and I've been close to some very hairy tarantulas and large tropical jumping spiders, but when I first read the books I found this a truly frightening chapter. I think there is definitely something of the horror film conveyed here; the overly large, human eating bug is a well used motif in horror and sci-fi. I think it resonates with our basic fears that in general spiders and insects are not wholly safe creatures, and are to be avoided. Even if we don't have that fear, the idea of a huge, ravenous, murderous creature who only desires to kill us is one that will give us a thrill of fear.

Monstrous and abominable eyes they were, bestial and yet filled with purpose and with hideous delight, gloating over their prey trapped beyond all hope of escape.

Shelob appears to be a real spider - the other week I was looking at a dead spider through a magnifying glass and could see its many faceted eyes. But she is also an evil spider, one with purpose and intent, which adds to the scary image of her; all spiders are fairly ruthless predators, but cannot be said to be evil as it is their nature. To have a sentient, hungry, giant spider is surely one of the ultimate nightmares?

she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Duath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood.

And what is worse, she has offspring...

[davem]

‘This thing all things devours...’

I suppose Shelob & what she symbolises has been discussed so often that the subject is almost redundant. She is the ‘last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world’. In fact, in the early drafts Shelob was called ‘Ungoliant’. Like Ungoliant she consumes light itself & vomits out darkness. In fact, it seems it is not only light, but time, sound & memory that she eats.

"Well," said Frodo, 'Orcs or no, if it's the only way, we must take it." Drawing a deep breath they passed inside, in a few steps they were in utter and impenetrable dark. Not since the lightless passages of Moria had Frodo or Sam known such darkness, and if possible here it was deeper and denser. There, there were airs moving, and echoes, and a sense of space. Here the air was still, stagnant, heavy, and sound fell dead. They walked as it were in a black vapour wrought of veritable darkness itself that, as it was breathed, brought blindness not only to the eyes but to the mind, so that even the memory of colours and of forms and of any light faded out of thought. Night always had been, and always would be, and night was all.

It seems she is like some kind of Black Hole, moving through her tunnels & taking into herself all living things, all light, all meaning, all hope. Yet she is conscious & filled with desire. She welcomes, apparently, Gollum’s ‘worship’ of her:

Already, years before, Gollum had beheld her, Smeagol who pried into all dark holes, and in past days he had bowed and worshipped her, and the darkness of her evil will walked through all the ways of his weariness beside him, cutting him off from light and from regret. And he had promised to bring her food. But her lust was not his lust. Little she knew of or cared for towers, or rings, or anything devised by mind or hand, who only desired death for all others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer hold her up and the darkness could not contain her.

One difference between Shelob & Ungoliant though is that Shelob fears the Light of the Silmaril which blazes from the Star Glass, whereas her infamous ancestor sought it greedily.

As to the Star-glass itself, I was struck by a few things: In the darkness of Shelob’s Lair Sam first thinks of the Barrow & Tom Bombadil, & wishes Tom was nearby. It is at this point that he recalls Galadriel’s Gift to Frodo. I wonder if Tom played some part in this remembrance of the Golden Wood. Its odd that Sam ‘invokes’ Tom & then suddenly remembers the one thing that can aid himself & his Master - the Star-glass. This makes me wonder about the ‘relationship’ of Tom & Galadriel. Is it simply a matter of Sam thinking of one supernatural helper & being reminded of another, or is there something more going on?

Another couple of passages that got me thinking:

Slowly his hand went to his bosom, and slowly he held aloft the Phial of Galadriel. For a moment it glimmered, faint as a rising star struggling in heavy earthward mists, and then as its power waxed, and hope grew in Frodo's mind, it began to burn, and kindled to a silver flame, a minute heart of dazzling light, as though Earendil had himself come down from the high sunset paths with the last Silmaril upon his brow.

&

From sun and moon and star they had been safe underground, but now a star had descended into the very earth.

I’m not sure why, but this image, of a star descending into the earth, seems very symbolic. The Light of Earendel is a ‘Holy’’ Light, & its difficult not to think if the ‘Harrowing of Hell’ at this point, & some interesting lines from ‘Piers Ploughman’ spring to mind:

I will bear witness
That tho this bairn was ybore ,there blazed a star
That all the wise of this world in O wit accorded-
That such a bairn was ybore in Bethlehem the Citee
That man’s soul should save & sin destroy.
And all the elements ...hereof bearen witness.
That he was God that all wrought the wolkne (heavens) first showed
Though that were in Heaven token Stella Comata
And tended her as a torch to reverence his birth;
The Light followed the Lord into the low earth

(Spelling modernised by Matthews in her essay ‘The Rosicrucian Vault as Sepulchre & Wedding Chamber’ in Stewart: The UnderWorld Initiation). Without following Ms Matthews into the realms of Rosicrucianism & Alchemy it is clear that there is an ancient tradition of a heavenly light shining in the depths of the earth - a ‘Light shining in the Darkness - one account of the Holy Grail depicts it as a stone which fell from Heaven & embeded itself in the heart of the earth.

This ‘Light’ is powerfully symbolic - the Light itself is of ‘Heavenly’ or Divine origin, but it has been given physical form by a woman & I can’t help wondering if this is one of those ‘consciously so in the revision’ moments Tolkien mentioned in his letter.

[littlemanpoet]

As to the Star-glass itself, I was struck by a few things: In the darkness of Shelob’s Lair Sam first thinks of the Barrow & Tom Bombadil, & wishes Tom was nearby. It is at this point that he recalls Galadriel’s Gift to Frodo. I wonder if Tom played some part in this remembrance of the Golden Wood. Its odd that Sam ‘invokes’ Tom & then suddenly remembers the one thing that can aid himself & his Master - the Star-glass. This makes me wonder about the ‘relationship’ of Tom & Galadriel. Is it simply a matter of Sam thinking of one supernatural helper & being reminded of another, or is there something more going on?

I was struck by this too, davem, and in the same way. When I reread this chapter just a few days ago, I was struck by how Sam's thought of Tom seemed to lead to his thought of the light of Galadriel. But rereading it again, now, I see contrast rather than similarity. At the risk of reading the text too closely, the sentence after Sam's wish is begun with a recapitulation of the darkness around him, and the blackness of the despair and anger inside him. Only then does it switch to his seeing what seems like a light, which grows in clarity and diversity until it's revealed as Galadriel giving gifts.

So it seems to me that it's not wishing for Tom, so much as wishing. Tom would have no power in Shelob's Lair; his land is far away. But Galadriel's gift of the light of the star of Earendil, that does have power in Shelob's Lair.

I think that Tolkien uses the logic of the story here - what would Sam be reminded of? Looking at his sword, he'd be reminded of the similarly black and evil place where the sword came from. Sam being the simple hobbit he is, he'd think of Tom, and being hopeful against all reason, or barring hope, being stubborn in the face of overwhelming adversity, he'd wish for the best good he could think of at the moment. Within the logic of the story, Manwe's eye is always watching, and Varda's ear is always listening, and they know as well as does Elrond that the quest's hope stands upon a knife-edge, and Varda hears Sam's wish for the best good, and supplies to his mind that which would really be the best good right there right then. Of course, very little of that is in the text, but all of it, or something like it, was likely in Tolkien's mind. I could be all wet, but maybe this is how Tolkien got from the dire threat of Shelob and the sword in Sam's hand, to the light of the phial of Galadriel. Just a guess.

[davem]

An interesting connection just occured to me regarding Frodo's cry as he holds up the Star-glass:

Frodo gazed in wonder at this marvellous gift that he had so long carried, not guessing its full worth and potency. Seldom had he remembered it on the road, until they came to Morgul Vale, and never had he used it for fear of its revealing light. Aiya Earendil Elenion Ancalima! he cried, and knew not what he had spoken; for it seemed that another voice spoke through his, clear, untroubled by the foul air of the pit.
But other potencies there are in Middle-earth, powers of night, and they are old and strong. And She that walked in the darkness had heard the Elves cry that cry far back in the deeps of time, and she had not heeded it, and it did not daunt her now.

In Letter 297 Tolkien explains:

Before 1914 I wrote a 'poem' on Earendil who launched his ship like a bright spark from the Havens of the Sun. I adopted him into my mythology, in which he became a prime figure as a mariner, & eventually as a herald star, a sign of hope to men. Aiya Earendil Elenion Ancalima 'Hail Earendil brightest of stars' is derived at long remove from Eala Earendel engla beorhtast but the name could not be adopted just like that: it had to be accomodated to the Elvish linguistic situation...

In other words it is the Elvish 'equivalent' of a line from the Anglo-saxon poem that was the 'spark' of the whole Legendarium, the Crist of Cynewulf, that Frodo utters in the darkness of Shelob's Lair! I find this fascinating. Its also interesting that Tolkien tells us that the Elves had cried that cry far back in the deeps of time. So in other words, Tolkien is saying that the origin of those words was not Cynewulf, but the Elves! Those words, it seems, had been passed down through the ages, starting out as an Elvish invocation of Light in the darkness & ending up in a poem about Christ.

Frodo speaks the words that would, millenia later & in another language, inspire Tolkien himself to 'rediscover' England's lost mythology! I don't know if this was another 'consciously so in the revision' moment, but certainly the connection between the 'light' which sprang into being in Tolkien's mind at his discovery of those words & the Light which sprang from the Starglass in Frodo's hand is both interesting &, to me, quite moving.