The War of the Ring (26 page)

'But the words said with Isildur's Bane in hand,' said Falborn.(3) 'If you are the Half-high then you should have that thing in hand, whatever it be. Have you it not? Or is it hidden because you choose to hide it?'

'Were Boromir here he would answer your questions,' said Frodo. 'And since Boromir was many days ago at Rauros on the way to your city, if you return swiftly you will learn the answer.

My part in this company was known to him and to all and to the Lord Elrond indeed. The errand given to me brings me into this land, and it is not [?wise] that any enemy of the Dark Lord should hinder it.'

'I see there is more in this than I first perceived,' said Falborn.

'But I too am under command: to slay or take prisoner as

[?reason justifies] all found in Ithilien. There is no cause to slay thee.'

Here this barely legible draft ends. At the end of it is written in pencil: Death of Boromir known. This is probably to be associated with the following notes written across the outline given on p. 135 (see note 11 to the last chapter):

Is Boromir known to be dead?

Only by a vision of the boat with a light about it floating down the river and a voice. And by some things of his drifting?

This is Feb. 6. Gandalf only arrives at sunset on Feb. 5 and the Rangers must have left Tirith long before that. Hardly time for messenger from Edoras to Minas Tirith (250 miles).

..... Jan. 31 morning to [Feb. 4 o] night Feb. 3. 3 1/2 days.

Rangers must have left on night of Feb. 3rd.

NO.

On the date 6 February see pp. 140 - 2. 31 January was the day on which Gandalf came with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli to Edoras and left with Theoden, riding west across the plains (see pp. 3 - 5). My father was evidently calculating that a man riding 70 miles a day could have brought the news of Boromir's death by word of mouth to Minas Tirith before Falborn and his men left the city to cross the river into Ithilien, but decided that this was not what had happened.

A new draft text ('B'), at the outset clearly written, was now begun, opening with Mablung's words 'Sleep, if thou wilt,'(4) and continuing as in the original draft A (p. 145): there is thus still no suggestion at this point that the hobbits will not be allowed to go on their way (see note 18 to the last chapter), and the leader of the men of Gondor is still Falborn. A was followed closely in this new text (which was a good deal emended subsequently) almost to its end,(5) but at the point where Frodo says 'But those who claim to oppose the Dark Lord would do well not to hinder it' the dialogue moves to the same point in TT

(p. 272): 'Frodo spoke proudly, whatever he felt, and Sam very much approved of it; but it did not appease Falborn', and continues almost as in the final form, through the wary conversation about Boromir, as far as Frodo's 'though surely there are many perils in the world.' At Falborn's reply 'Many indeed, and treachery not the least' Sam does not in this text intervene, and Falborn continues: 'But thou askest how do we know that our captain is dead. We do not know it for a certainty, but yet we do not doubt it.' And he asks Frodo whether he remembers anything of special mark that Boromir bore with him among his gear, and Frodo fears a trap and reflects on his danger just as in TT (pp. 273 - 4). Then follows:

'I remember that he bore a horn,' he said at last.

'Thou rememberest well, as one who hath verily seen him,'

said Falborn. 'Then maybe thou canst see it in thy mind's eye: a great horn of the wild ox of the [Eastern wilderness >] East, bound with silver, and written with his name, [struck out: worn upon a silver chain]. That horn the waters of Anduin brought unto us maybe [> more than] seven nights now gone. An ill token we thought it, and boding little joy to Denethor father of Boromir; for the horn was cloven in twain as by sword or axe.

The halves of it came severally to shore ...'

Falborn's account of how the pieces of the horn were found now follows as in TT (p. 276),(6) ending 'But murder will out, 'tis said',- then he continues:

'Dost thou not know of the cleaving of the horn, or who cast it over Rauros - to drown it for ever in the eddies of the fall, doubtless? '

'No,' said Frodo, 'I do not know. But none of our Company has the will for such a deed, and none the strength unless it were Aragorn. But though it may be a token of ill, a cloven horn does not prove the wearer's death.'

At this stage, therefore, Boromir's death was a supposition in Minas Tirith depending solely on the finding of the pieces of his horn in the river. But now there follows (and at this point my father's handwriting speeded up markedly and becomes very difficult, often a sign that a new conception had entered that would entail the rewriting and rejection of what had preceded, so that what follows slips back, as it were, into a more 'primitive' stage of composition):

'No. But the finding of the horn followed another and stranger thing,' said Falborn. 'And that sad chance befell me, and others beside [changed to: No, said Falborn. But the finding of the horn followed another and stranger thing that befell me, and others beside]. I sat at night beside the waters of Anduin, just ere the first quarter of the moon, in the grey dark watching the ever moving stream and the sad reeds rustling....'

The account of the boat bearing the body of Boromir is for most of its length very close indeed to that in TT (p. 274), and it is here, most curiously, that Falborn becomes Boromir's brother, though he does not change his name: 'It was Boromir my brother, dead.' It is as if he slipped without conscious decision into the role that had been preparing for him. What else could he be, this captain of Gondor so concerned with Frodo's story and the fate of Boromir? Foreshortening the actual development, my father wrote in his letter of 6 May 1944

(Letters no. 66):

A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir ...

Falborn's story is different in its ending from the final form:

'... The boat turned into the stream and passed into the night.

Others saw it, some near at hand, others from far off. But none dare touch it, nor maybe would even the evil hands of those that hold Osgiliath dare to hinder it.

'[?This] I thought was a vision though one of evil boding, and even when I heard the tale of others we doubted, Denethor my father and I, if it were more, though it boded evil. But none can doubt the horn. It lies now cloven in twain upon the lap of Denethor. And messengers ride far and wide to learn news of Boromir.'

'Alas,' said Frodo. 'For now I do not on my side doubt your tale. The golden belt was given him in Lorien by the Lady Galadriel. It was she who clothed us as you see us. This brooch is of the same workmanship' - he touched the [?enamelled] leaf that caught his cloak about his neck. Falborn looked at it curiously. 'Yes,' he said, 'it is work of the same [?manner].'

'Yet even so,' said Frodo, 'I think it can have been but a vision that you saw. How could a boat have ridden the falls of Rauros and the [?boiling] floods, and naught have been spilled but the horn, and founder not with its burden of water?'

'I know not,' said Falborn, 'but whence came the boat?'

'From Lorien, it was an elven-boat,' said Frodo;

'Well,' said Falborn, 'if thou wilt have dealings with the mistress of magic that ....eth [added: dwells] in the Golden Wood then they [sic] must look for strange things and evil things to follow.'

This was too much for Sam's patience. He stood up and walked into the debate. 'Not evil from Lorien,' he said. 'Begging your pardon, Mr Frodo,' he said, 'but I have been listening to a deal of this talk. Let's come to the point before all the Orcs of Mordor come down on us. Now look here, Falborn of Gondor if that is your name' - the men looked in amazement (not in merriment) at the small ... hobbit planted firmly on his feet before the seated figure of the captain. 'What are you getting at?

If you think we murdered your brother and then ran away, say so. And say what you mean to do about it.'

'I was in mind to say so,' answered Falborn. 'Were I as hasty as thou I would have slain thee long ago. But we have taken but a few minutes in speech to learn what sort ye be. I am about to depart at once. Ye will come with me. And in that count yourselves fortunate!'

Here this second draft B ends,(7) and my father now proceeded to a third version ('C'), beginning at the same point as did draft B (p. 146) with Mablung's words 'Sleep, if you will', and extending no further into the chapter, but C is written on odd bits of paper, much of it very roughly, is not continuous, and contains some sections of the narrative in divergent forms. It seems clear therefore that these pages accompanied the commencement of the completed manuscript.

This third drafting C, in which Falborn has become Faramir,(8) largely retains the structure of B, while at the same time moving in detail of expression a good way towards the form of the opening dialogue between Faramir and Frodo in TT (pp. 271 - 6). There were various intricate shiftings and displacements and new conjunctions within the matter of this dialogue before my father was satisfied with its structure, and these I largely pass over. The essential differences from the final form are that Sam's indignation does not explode at Faramir's words 'and treachery not the least', but as in the second draft B at his disparaging remark about Lorien; and that Faramir's tale of how he heard far off, 'as if it were but an echo in the mind', the blowing of Boromir's horn had not entered.

There are a number of particular points to notice. At the beginning of his interrogation of Frodo ('which now looked unpleasantly like the trial of a prisoner') Faramir no longer cites the words of the verse as with Isildur's Bane in hand (see p. 145 and note 3), but as Isildur's Bane upholding,(9) and continues - in the completed manuscript as well as the draft - 'If you be the Halfling that was named, then doubtless you held it before the eyes of all the Council of which you speak, and Boromir saw it.' In TT (p. 271), when the concluding words of the verse were For Isildur's Bane shall waken,/And the Halfling forth shall stand, Faramir says: 'But it was at the coming of the Halfling that Isildur's Bane should waken ... If then you are the Halfling that was named, doubtless you brought this thing, whatever it may be, to the Council of which you speak, and there Boromir saw it.'

When Frodo says that if any could claim Isildur's Bane it would be Aragorn, Faramir replies, both in the draft and in the manuscript:

'Why so, and not Boromir, prince of the city that Elendil and his sons founded?', where in TT (p. 271) he speaks of 'the sons of Elendil' as the founders. The story that Elendil remained in the North and there founded his realm, while his sons Isildur and Anarion founded the cities of the South, appears in the fifth version of the 'Council of Elrond' (VII.144); and this may suggest that that version of 'The Council of Elrond' was written lacer than 1 have supposed.

As already mentioned, the sound of Boromir's horn blowing far off was not yet present in this third drafting C; and Faramir still relates the finding of the pieces of the horn before he tells of the funeral boat passing down Anduin. In answer to Frodo's objection that 'a cloven horn does not prove the wearer's death' (p. 147) there now follows:

'"No," said Faramir. "But the finding of the shards of the horn followed another and stranger thing that befell me, as if it were sent to confirm it beyond hope." ' Thus the words '(that befell me) and others beside' in B are omitted; but in this tale of the boat that bore Boromir's corpse Faramir still declares that he was not the only one to see it:

'Others too saw it, a grey shadow of a vessel from afar.' In yet another revision of this passage before the final form was reached he ends: 'A vision out of the borders of dream I thought it. But I do not doubt that Boromir is dead, whether his body of a truth has passed down the River to the Sea, or lies now somewhere under the heedless skies.'

The remote sound of Boromir's horn blowing only entered in the manuscript, and Faramir there says that he heard it 'eight days ere I set out on this venture, eleven days ago at about this hour of the day', where TT (p. 274) has the same, but with 'five' for 'eight'.(10) As my father wrote this passage in the manuscript he went on, after 'as it might be only an echo in the mind': 'And others heard it, for we have many men that wander far upon our borders, south and west and north, even to the fields of Rohan.' This was apparently struck out immediately.

To Sam's indignant and courageous confrontation of this great man from Minas Tirith Faramir's response in this draft was gentle:

'... Say what you think, and say what you mean to do.'

'I was about to do so,' said Faramir smiling, and now less stern. 'Were I as hasty as you I might have slain you long ago. I have spared the short part of [? an hour] in spite of peril to judge you more justly. [?Now] if you wish to learn what I think: I doubted you, naturally, as I should. But if I am a judge of the words and deeds of men I may perhaps make a guess at hobbits. I doubted but you were friends or allies of the orcs, and though the likes of you could not have slain my brother, you might have helped or fled with some picking.'