"Not yet"... Frodo's plan to claim the power of the One Ring

Having not noticed this for many years and multiple re-readings; I have become increasingly aware of the ways in which Frodo's - illegitimate - use of the One Ring, and expectations of using the One Ring, prepared the ground for his inability to destroy The Ring when he arrived at the cracks of doom on March 25. 

Significant was Frodo's first, and frivolous, use of The Ring in the House of Tom Bombadil. 

But Frodo later begins to reveal that he is considering using the ring as an instrument of power, specifically against Gollum; and (as previously described) this recurs in the climactic scene on the slopes of Mount Doom, when Frodo actually claims the One Ring for the first time (i.e. even before the he stood beside the cracks of doom). 

Knowing this, I have now become aware of clear instances of foreshadowing - incremental steps by which led towards Frodo claiming The Ring - that I had previously missed. 

Outside the Black Gate on March 4, Frodo makes the following threat to Gollum:

"You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing. 

"Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Sméagol, you said. 

"Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end. 

"You will never get it back. In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command.

"So have a care, Sméagol!"

This is a very explicit and convincing threat to use the One Ring illegitimately; not merely to escape from danger, but to overpower the will of another.

Another clear but subtle sign of the way that Frodo had begun to think, happened a few days later on March 10, outside Minas Morgul - expressed in just two words. 

I have added the italicized emphasis, but I had not noticed these words - or their significance - before my current re-reading:

Maybe it was the Ring that called to the Wraith-lord, and for a moment he was troubled, sensing some other power within his valley. This way and that turned the dark head helmed and crowned with fear, sweeping the shadows with its unseen eyes. 

Frodo waited, like a bird at the approach of a snake, unable to move. And as he waited, he felt, more urgent than ever before, the command that he should put on the Ring. But great as the pressure was, he felt no inclination now to yield to it. He knew that the Ring would only betray him, and that he had not, even if he put it on, the power to face the Morgul-king - not yet. 

There was no longer any answer to that command in his own will, dismayed by terror though it was, and he felt only the beating upon him of a great power from outside.

Those words "Not yet" seem to be revealing that at least part of Frodo was actually - even before he had entered Mordor - planning to achieve sufficient mastery over the power of The Ring; to be able, at some point in the future, to face the Morgul-King - most powerful of Sauron's servants. 

From the above; it seems evident that the idea of becoming The Ring Lord was growing in Frodo's mind for about three weeks, before it reached the point of full domination over his will.

The above helps explain why it is that Frodo was so badly affected by the destruction of The Ring, and contributed to Frodo's later malaise. 

It was on a March 13th that Farmer Cotton heard him muttering "It is gone forever, and now all is dark and empty." 

This was not the anniversary of The One Ring being destroyed; but of the date when The Ring was taken from Frodo for safe-keeping by Sam; after Frodo was stung by Shelob. 

In other words; Frodo was not so much affected by the anniversary of being poisoned by Shelob, as by the first, and temporary, loss of The Ring; which he had by then begun to regard as his own. 

  

The lyricism of Gollum

Just as Shakespeare gave the monster Caliban some of the most haunting words in The Tempest; so Tolkien gives Gollum some of the most evocative passages in The Lord of the Rings. 

Gollum is not only surprisingly well-informed; but during the time he is (mostly) dominated by his Smeagol persona, and remembers his early life - he is capable of poetry. 

Here are three of my favourites:

Gollum turned to the right, southward more or less, and splashed along with his feet in the shallow stony stream. He seemed greatly delighted to feel the water, and chuckled to himself, sometimes even croaking in a sort of song.

 

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! 

++

‘Yes, yes,’ said Gollum. ‘All dead, all rotten. Elves and Men and Orcs. 

The Dead Marshes. There was a great battle long ago, yes, so they told him when Smeagol was young, when I was young before the Precious came. 

It was a great battle. Tall Men with long swords, and terrible Elves, and Orcses shrieking. They fought on the plain for days and months at the Black Gates. 

But the Marshes have grown since then, swallowed up the graves; always creeping, creeping.’

++

‘On, on, on,’ said Gollum. ‘We never went that way, but they say it goes a hundred leagues, until you can see the Great Water that is never still. 

'There are lots of fishes there, and big birds eat fishes: nice birds: but we never went there, alas no! we never had a chance. 

'And further still there are more lands, they say, but the Yellow Face is very hot there, and there are seldom any clouds, and the men are fierce and have dark faces. We do not want to see that land.’ 

‘No!’ said Frodo. ‘But do not wander from your road. What of the third turning?’ 

‘O yes, O yes, there is a third way,’ said Gollum. ‘That is the road to the left. 

'At once it begins to climb up, up, winding and climbing back towards the tall shadows. When it turns round the black rock, you’ll see it, suddenly you’ll see it above you, and you’ll want to hide.’ 

‘See it, see it? What will you see?’ 

‘The old fortress, very old, very horrible now. 

'We used to hear tales from the South, when Smeagol was young, long ago. O yes, we used to tell lots of tales in the evening, sitting by the banks of the Great River, in the willow-lands, when the River was younger too, gollum, gollum.’ 

He began to weep and mutter. The hobbits waited patiently. 

‘Tales out of the South,’ Gollum went on again, ‘about the tall Men with the shining eyes, and their houses like hills of stone, and the silver crown of their King and his White Tree: wonderful tales. 

'They built very tall towers, and one they raised was silver-white, and in it there was a stone like the Moon, and round it were great white walls. 

'O yes, there were many tales about the Tower of the Moon.’