6. The Forbidden Pool; 7. The Journey to the Cross-roads; 8. The Stairs of Cirith Ungol
We return to the story’s chronology to see if there are further intriguing elements. What stands out in the meeting between Frodo and Faramir is that both are steadfast in character, wise, and sincere (as far as circumstances allow). In light of the observation in the previous comment, Frodo appears remarkably mature.
Faramir also notes Frodo’s wisdom and ability to respond truthfully without revealing his secret. When they are alone, it becomes clear that Faramir has deduced what “Isildur’s Bane” refers to - the enigma Boromir traveled to Rivendell to unravel. Yet he assures Frodo that he need not fear him. Faramir states that he desires nothing from the Ring-bearer.
In the end, when a deep mutual trust has been established, Frodo reveals the full truth. He has nothing to fear from Faramir, even now that the latter knows the hobbit carries “the One Ring.” “Even if I were a man who desired such a thing…” Faramir says. Once again, we see how the Ring is tied to desire and the illusion of satisfying it; it follows that one who desires nothing for himself is not seduced by the Ring.
6. The Forbidden Pool
Gollum is absent when the men first appear. As we have seen, Frodo distances himself from Gollum in the initial meeting with Faramir. Rationally, this is not a given, but symbolically, it is consistent that the energy of the Good Mother is activated in Gollum’s absence. As a representative of the Terrible Mother, he is, of course, entirely incompatible with the episode where Frodo and Faramir establish a trusting relationship.
But now that all is said and done between them, and the secrets are revealed, Gollum re-enters the scene. Symbolically, this can be seen as Frodo no longer having anything to hide from his wise and trustworthy companion.
It is telling that Faramir’s men discover Gollum at the Forbidden Pool - an apt name for the personal unconscious and its shadow. We also see symbolism in Faramir waking Frodo at night, under the clear light of the full moon, to lead him to the dark pool. According to a not entirely obvious law, a death sentence hangs over anyone who enters it without permission. Faramir asks Frodo why they should not shoot Gollum. Frodo replies that Gandalf would have urged them not to, though he himself is unsure why. “But somehow he is tied to my task,” he says. He declares that he will go down and fetch Gollum.
To succeed, he must “crawl” on all fours “in Gollum’s manner.” We are reminded that “crawling” and “creeping” are associated with the Terrible Mother. To meet this with the intent of establishing a renewed relationship, Frodo must, in other words, approach the content on its own terms, not on his.
As he draws near, silent as a hobbit, he hears Gollum muttering about fish and strangulation. He listens with both pity and revulsion. The conflict rises within him. “One well-aimed shot, and Frodo would be freed from that dreadful voice forever.” He realizes he could rid himself of his shadow (that is, repress it). But at the same time, he knows Gandalf would advise against it, and besides, Gollum has actually been helpful. Frodo knows he needs Gollum. Thus, half-tricking, half-forcing, Frodo compels the now deeply suspicious Gollum to follow him. Gollum comes “like a disobedient dog called back by its master.” This dog-like Gollum sniffs at Frodo and becomes “kind” because the hobbit is “kind.” But Faramir’s men overpower him and drag Gollum up to the secret hideout.
“I hate the whole business,” Frodo says to Sam. To grapple with one’s shadow entails pain and conflict.
Faramir interrogates Gollum as best he can. Then he warns Frodo against taking Gollum along. Faramir, by his own account, can not only see that Gollum is evil and harbors malicious intentions but also that he has killed before…! Such near-supernatural abilities underscore how “great” Faramir is in the story’s universe, in line with the discussion about him in the previous comment. Frodo, fittingly, likens him to Gandalf, which, from a rational or superficial perspective, is somewhat surprising. But we have seen before that such unexpected comparisons carry symbolic significance in the story. Faramir, for his part, remarks that there is something elvish about Frodo.
7. The Journey to the Cross-roads
Frodo, Sam, and Gollum leave the adventure’s last safe haven and travel south through the forest, with Faramir’s unsettling warnings behind them. The environment, which had grown increasingly pleasant up to Faramir’s hideout, now becomes ever more foreboding. An oak has “serpent-like” branches, Gollum speaks of the “Doomed City” that must be avoided. He leads them through a wilderness that signals their re-entry into the domain of the Terrible Mother. They struggle through thickets and thornbushes, among deep ravines and dark hollows, down into black, shrub-covered depressions; gnarled branches, tangles of vines; the “Valley of Wraiths” is mentioned, the air is stifling, the ground seems to tremble with distant hordes. The days grow literally darker. When Sam peers out from their hiding place, he sees only a gray-brown, shadowless world, a twilight without color or form - he cannot discern anything, everything blends together in this domain.
Gollum returns. He is agitated, saying they must hurry.
8. The Stairs of Cirith Ungol
They travel along the road toward the “City of the Ringwraiths.” Before Sauron’s return, the city belonged to Gondor and was called Minas Ithil, meaning Tower of the Moon. Now it is known as Minas Morgul, the Tower of Black Magic. With wraiths and dark sorcery, we understand that the Terrible Mother rules the place today, whereas it once had a more neutral, yet still feminine, quality (moon).
The place is ghostly, everything is dark, but a light comes from the towers, a “flickering and gasping [light] like vile gusts of decay, a corpse-light, a light that illuminated nothing.” The towers contain countless black holes facing “the emptiness within.” Other descriptions include “shadow-dark meadows,” “distorted forms,” “nauseating stench of decay,” the air saturated with “rot.” Images of darkness, death, and decay recur here on the border of Mordor. Once again, we are in the underworld, a kind of realm of the dead. The ghostly imagery is familiar, above all from the Dead Marshes but also more indirectly from Emyn Muil and the Black Gate. All along their journey, ghostly images have appeared, with the sole exception of Ithilien and Faramir. Erich Neumann writes:
“[The] dark side of the Terrible Mother takes the form of monsters, whether in Egypt or India, Mexico or Etruria, Bali or Rome. In the myths and tales of all peoples, ages, and countries—and even in the nightmares of our own nights—witches and vampires, ghouls and specters, assail us, all terrifyingly alike. … Death and destruction, danger and distress, hunger and nakedness, appear as helplessness in the presence of the Dark and Terrible Mother.”[1]
Gollum leads them away from the city and toward the cliffs; in the darkness, they see only his eyes when he turns to urge them on. “Then his eyes shone with a green-white light, reflecting the noisome Morgul-sheen perhaps, or kindled by some answering mood within.” The ghostly glow of the Terrible Mother emanates both from Minas Morgul and from Gollum’s inner self. By this point, he is beyond salvation, unable to do anything but yield to her desires.
As they begin to ascend the mountain, an eruption bursts forth from Mordor, as if in reaction to their secret intrusion with the Ring. It rumbles like thunder, and a red bolt shoots up from Gorgoroth on the other side of the mountain, accompanied by a thunderclap. Minas Morgul responds: leaden-gray lightning flares upward, a Ringwraith’s cry echoes; the gate opens, and black-clad figures stream out, led by the leader of the Ringwraiths. The tension that has built up as Sauron amassed his forces is now unleashed, released against the lands of men as the Ring is carried across Mordor’s border. It is like an instinctive reaction, an irrational but overwhelming counteraction to the threat Frodo poses and the transgression he commits.
Frodo, Sam, and Gollum are gripped by terror. They lie down, trying to remain hidden. The Witch-king pauses and scans the surroundings. Frodo feels an urge to put on the Ring, stronger than ever. But he knows it would betray him. He is paralyzed with fear. He resists, yet an external force seems to guide his hand toward the Ring. Then, summoning his willpower, he clutches Galadriel’s phial instead. Thoughts of the Ring fade momentarily as he holds the vessel of the Good Mother to his heart. The army begins to march again. Courage returns, and Frodo grips his staff in one hand (yang) and the phial in the other (yin) as he begins the long climb up the mountainside.
The phial Frodo received from Galadriel, containing starlight, is above all a symbol of consciousness. As Frodo, in this Hades-like environment, begins to ascend the black mountain, he clings tightly to his phial. This reminds us of a dream Carl Gustav Jung had as a young man:[2]
“It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious, in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all the dangers.”
He comments:
“I knew that this little light was my consciousness, the only light I have. … Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light.”
He further states that the wind constantly tries to push us back into the past, “a mighty suction” that draws all life toward it. We can only escape it by pressing forward - and in our story, we see how Frodo’s ability to keep moving forward, no matter how dark and dangerous it becomes, is crucial and becomes an increasingly central image.
We have mentioned or alluded several times to the idea that Frodo carries the consciousness of this world, and that this is why he, as an individual, is so vital to those who know more than ordinary mortals - Gandalf, Elrond, Aragorn, and Galadriel. If Frodo’s light goes out, everything goes out. This unique consciousness is symbolized by the starlight he carries. He bears the Ring, the unconscious bond, and the light, the vessel of consciousness.
They climb a mountain to enter the cave of the Terrible Mother, near which a tower rises. Apart from the tower, we see similar imagery at the Barrow-downs, at Moria, but also - on the other hand - at Faramir’s hideout. While stone and rock are masculine symbols, the mountain as a whole (in our context) is feminine. This is underscored by the fact that mountains in the story are typically something the adventurers climb in order to walk in to. The mountain is always thought to contain something, not only in this universe but also in folktales and myths. In our story, it is the mountain’s interior (or its chasms) that is of interest - the Misty Mountains, Moria, Cirith Ungol, and Mount Doom (as well as the Elves’ chambers and the Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit). The symbol thus describes something enveloping, a vessel, something distinctly feminine; a symbol of the Great Mother, in most cases in our story the Terrible one. Regarding the mountain as the Great Mother, Joseph Campbell writes:
“Images of the Goddess frequently show her atop a mountain. The whole mountain is the Goddess. This goes back to the old Sumerian times, when the cosmic mountain is represented in the ziggurats. In India, Parvati is the goddess of the mountain, even as she is the mountain—that’s what her name means: ‘mountain’.”[3]
At the same time, there is, unexpectedly, a tower near the cave, high up on the mountain. This image of cave and tower is one we have not seen before. Moreover, Frodo’s ascent here differs from previous imagery - never before has it been so perilous, long, and arduous. They climb a staircase that is initially so steep they must scramble as if it were a ladder, ascending hundreds of meters - a dizzying and life-threatening endeavor. This long ascent has clear yang qualities. We recognize it from the archetypal theme where a hero or adept climbs a mountain for spiritual reasons, perhaps to gain a vision or meet a wise old man. In any case, the image of mountain-climbing depicts an approach to the heavens, to the sky gods. The mountain as mother and the climbing as father, together with the cave up above and the tower beside it, suggest the androgyny of the Mordor or Sauron symbol. We have touched on this before and will return to it in a later comment, but for now, we can only note that on Gorgoroth, on the other side of the mountain, the central symbols are also a tower and a cave within a mountain.
They must ascend a series of three staircases; the first is perilously steep, and the third “winds like a serpent” along the cliff face. They begin to suffer from a lack of water, but as expected in this barren environment, there are no streams (we are reminded again of Moria). Sam is troubled by a smell: “A queer kind of a smell, stuffy.” It fills him with unease, for, without knowing it, he is sensing the odor of the mother-monster.
After climbing the three long staircases, they sit and rest while Sam talks about the adventure stories of their childhood, which are nothing like their own journey. In those tales, the hero left home as if to cheer himself up with an adventure. But he says melancholically that it was not so with the adventures that truly mattered. In those, he says, people seem to have simply stumbled into the adventure - their path just happened to lead that way. From another perspective, fate and necessity emerge as factors in their own journey; they did not choose this, and they cannot turn back. Had they had a choice between staying home in the Shire or eventually climbing the stairs of Cirith Ungol, they would, of course, not be here now.
Jung returns to this theme in his writings and seminars. In an essay, he devotes a passage to the criticism leveled against him, that he supposedly insists on a method involving work with dreams, fantasies, and so forth. He says it is not about a method, and he would not encourage a patient to embark on that path without reason (the individuation process). But he argues that some people have this fate, and he writes about their experiences:
“I merely put it on record that there are certain cases where such a development occurs, not because I force anyone to it, but because it springs from inner necessity. ... The way of the transcendent function is an individual destiny.”[4]
In a similar vein, he describes the daemon, the impersonal inner driving force we have discussed earlier, as something that can overtake a person like a fate.[5] The following quote from Jung’s autobiography captures Frodo’s predicament:
“The man, therefore, who, driven by his daemon, steps beyond the limits of the intermediary stage, truly enters the ‘untrodden, untreadable regions,’ where there are no charted ways and no shelter spreads a protecting roof over his head.”[6]
When Sam speaks of the adventures that truly matter, as opposed to those undertaken simply because one feels like it, he describes, as noted, this very fate discovered like a path already laid out that must be walked. “Their path just happened to lead that way.” In other words, it was something predestined, set in motion by necessity. This underlying pattern is revealed in the story through the recurring motifs of threes and nines. In this episode, as mentioned, there are three staircases the hobbits must climb.
Sam’s thoughts turn to light-hearted hobbit chatter. Sam makes Frodo laugh, easily and unforced. For a moment, Frodo is in good spirits thanks to Sam. But then they notice that Gollum is gone. (We have noted that Gollum was absent during their “human” moment that drew good people to them in Ithilien, but Gollum was also out of the picture when Frodo, at the foot of the mountain, clutched Galadriel’s phial.) There is nothing they can do about it, so they decide to sleep for a while. Frodo rests his head in Sam’s lap, and Sam puts his arm around him to sense if Gollum tries to reach for the precious or harm his master. But Sam accidentally falls asleep too.
This is how Gollum sees them when he returns. “Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate.” We said earlier in this commentary that Gollum is beyond salvation, but here we see that there is still something human within him. He approaches Frodo and cautiously extends his trembling hand toward the hobbit’s knee, almost like a caress. “For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.”
Sam wakes and is harsh with Gollum, calling him “old villain” and so forth. Gollum’s humanity vanishes as if blown away. The green gleam returns to his eyes, and he is described as “spider-like” again. “The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall.” Gollum has already betrayed them; there is no going back, and there is no longer anything within him that wants to make him try.
Frodo wakes and asks Gollum if they can part ways now, if he and Sam can find the way from here on their own. “If so, your task is done,” he says. “You are free.”
But this is unexpectedly naïve of Frodo if he believes his own words. Gollum is bound and given to the darkness - he will never be free. He protests, saying they cannot find the way on their own; they need him.
This scene on the cliff ledge is the last to describe the relationship between Frodo and Gollum. It is remarkable that Gollum is portrayed as so human, even as we know he has just betrayed the hobbits to the monster; how he is depicted as a pitiable old man for whom everything is over, even his own life, and how, for the first time, he shows genuine tenderness. It was the spark of life, even the soul, that awakened as he gazed at the sleeping hobbit who had accepted and trusted him, but whom he intends to betray. It flared up one last time - and then went out for good; like a dying man who suddenly has a moment of clarity and presence, only to finally breathe his last.
Footnotes
[1] Neumann, The Great Mother, p. 148f.
[2] Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 107f.
[3] Campbell, The Goddess, p. 52.
[4] Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, par. 369. The transcendent function can, in this context, be understood as the autonomous impulse of the unconscious.
[5] Jung, "Archetypes of the Collective Unconsicous," CW 9i, par. 51.
[6] Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 377.