The Treason of Isengard (16 page)

Both 'I' and 'II' were subjected to emendation at different times: for one substantial passage of rewriting the August 1940 examination script was used, but many other minor alterations may be earlier or later. In view of these uncertainties I shall do no more here than look briefly through the chapter (now numbered XIII, since the 'Bree'

chapter had been divided into two, IX and X) and show what seems to have been its form at the stage of development we have now reached.

Looking first at changes made to section 'I' of the manuscript, the passage in the third phase version (VI.362-3) beginning 'It is no small feat to have come so far and through such dangers, still bearing the Ring', in which Gandalf told of his captivity at the hands of Giant Treebeard and teased Frodo's curiosity about Trotter, was entirely rewritten. It now begins:

'We should never have done it without Trotter,' said Frodo.

'But we needed you. I did not know what to do without you.' .

'I was delayed,' said Gandalf; 'and that nearly proved our ruin. And yet I am not sure: it may have been better so.

Knowing the peril I should not have dared to take such risks, and we might either have been trapped in the Shire, or if I had tried some long way round we might have been hunted down in,, some wild place far from all help. As it is we have escaped the pursuit - for the moment.'

To Frodo's astonished 'You?' when Gandalf said that he was held captive his reply now takes this form:

'Yes, I, Gandalf the Grey,' said the wizard solemnly. 'There are many powers greater than mine, for good or evil, in the world. I cannot stand alone against all the Black Riders.'(1)

'Then you knew of the Riders already - before I met them?'

The text is then as in FR, including Gandalf's words 'But I did not know that they had arisen again or I should have fled with you at once.

I heard news of them only after I left you in June' (see p. 78). He says:

'There are few left in Middle-earth like Aragorn son of Kelegorn.(2) The race of the Kings from over the Sea is nearly at an end', and Frodo in reply says: 'Do you really mean that Trotter is of the race of Numenor?'(3) To Frodo's 'I thought he was only a Ranger' Gandalf replies 'indignantly':

'Only a Ranger! Many of the Rangers are of the same race, and the followers of Aragorn: all that he has left of the realm of .

his fathers. We may need his help before all is over. We have: reached Rivendell; but the Ring is not yet at rest.'

From this point to the end of section 'I' of the manuscript the 'third phase' text was little changed, and the differences from FR noted in VI.363 - 6 were mostly still present. Gandalf's words 'And the Elves of Rivendell are descendants of his chief foes' (VI.364) were changed to

'And among the Elves of Rivendell are some descendants of his chief foes', and 'the Wise say that he [the Dark Lord] is doomed in the End, though that is far away' (ibid.) was removed. Also removed of course were the references to Odo's arrival, and when Frodo goes down with Sam to find his friends in the porch Odo's remarks are given to Pippin.

The sentence describing Elrond's smile and laughter (VI.365) was struck out, and Gloin's wink (VI.366) also disappears: his reply to Frodo's question concerning his errand from the Lonely Mountain now takes the form it has in FR (p. 240).

In section 'II' of the manuscript (see p. 81), beginning at Frodo's question 'And what has become of Balin and Ori and Oin?', the text of FR (pp. 241 ff.) was very largely reached (apart from the absence of Arwen), and there are only a few particular points to notice.

When in the first draft (VI. 392) Bilbo said 'I shall have to get that fellow Peregrin to help me', he now says the same of Aragorn, changed in the act of writing to Tarkil (in FR, the Dunadan). At this stage Aragorn's absence from the feast was still explained by his being much in demand in the kitchens.

I noted that in the original draft 'the entire passage (FR pp. 243 - 4) in which Bilbo tells [Frodo] of his journey to Dale, of his life in Rivendell, and his interest in the Ring - and the distressing incident when he asks to see it - is absent.' In this version Bilbo does give an account of his journey, but it was at first different from what he says in

- FR:

When he had left Hobbiton he had wandered off aimlessly along the Road, but somehow he had steered all the time for Rivendell.

'I got here in a month or two without much adventure,' he said, 'and I stayed at The Pony in Bree for a bit;(4) somehow I have never gone any further. I have almost finished my book.

And I make up a few songs which they sing occasionally...'

This was changed, probably soon, to the text of FR, in which Bilbo tells of his journey to Dale. The rest of the passage, in which Bilbo speaks of Gandalf and the Ring, was present in this version from the start, the only differences being that Bilbo names the Necromancer, not the Enemy, and where in FR he says that he could get little out of Gandalf concerning the Ring but that 'the Dunadan has told me more', here he calls him Tarkil, and adds 'He was in the Gollum-hunt'

(this being afterwards struck out).

The episode of Bilbo's asking to see the Ring is present as in FR, the only difference here being that where FR has 'When he had dressed, Frodo found that while he slept the Ring had been hung about his neck on a new chain, light but strong', this version has 'When he dressed Frodo had hung the Ring upon a chain about his neck under his tunic.'

When Aragorn joins Bilbo and Frodo, the conversation is as in FR, with Tarkil for Dunadan, the Dunadan; but Bilbo's reply to Frodo's

'What do you call him Tarkil for?' is different:

'Lots of us do here,' answered Bilbo, 'just to show off our knowledge of the old tongue, and to show our deep respect. It means Man of the West, out of Numenor, you know, or perhaps you don't. But that is another story. He can tell it you some other time. Just now I want his help. Look here, friend Tarkil, Elrond says this song of mine is to be finished before the end of the evening...'

This was changed to:

'He is often called that here,' answered Bilbo. 'It is a title of honour; The Elder Tongue is remembered in Rivendell; and I thought you knew enough at least to know tarkil: Man of Westernesse, Numenorean. But this isn't the time for lessons.

Just now I want your Trotter's help in something urgent. Look here, friend Tarkil...'(5)

The passage leading up to Bilbo's song is much as in FR (pp.

245 - 6), but the sentence beginning 'Almost it seemed that the words took shape...' is absent, and where FR has 'the interwoven words in elven-tongues' ('in the Elven-tongue', First Edition) this text has 'the interwoven words in the high elven-tongue'.

The reception of the song moves close to the text of FR (p. 249), but with some differences. No Elf is individually named (Lindir in FR).

From Bilbo's words about Men and Hobbits - 'They're as different as peas and apples' - this version has:

'No! - little peas and large peas!' said some. 'Their languages all taste much the same to us, anyway,' said others.

'I won't argue with you,' said Bilbo. 'I am sleepy after so much music and singing. I'll leave you to guess, if you want to.'

'Well, we guess that you thought of the first two lines, and Tarkil did all the rest for you,' they cried.

'Wrong! Not even warm; stone cold, in fact!' said Bilbo with a laugh. He got up and came towards Frodo.

'Well, that's over!' he said in a low voice. 'It went off better than I expected. I don't often get asked for a second hearing, for any reason. As a matter of fact quite a lot of it was Tarkil's.'

'I'm not going to try and guess,' said Frodo, smiling. 'I was half asleep when you began - it seemed to follow on from something I was dreaming about, and I didn't realize it was, really you who were speaking until near the end.'

The chapter ends now as it does in FR, except that the old form of the chant to Elbereth remains (VI.394), and the passage following it, concerning Aragorn and Arwen, is of course absent.

*

No poem of my father's had so long and complex a history as that which he named Errantry. It issued ultimately in two entirely distinct poems, one of which was the song that Bilbo chanted at Rivendell; and this is a convenient place to set out fairly fully the nature of this divergence, this extraordinary shape-changing.

My father described the origin and nature of Erranty in a letter written to Donald Swann on 14 October 1966. (Errantry had been published in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil in 1962, and it was set to music by Donald Swann in The Road Goes Ever On, 1967: see his remarks on the poem in his foreword to that book.) In this letter my father said:

With regard to Errantry: I am most interested in your suggestion.

I wonder if it is not too long for such an arrangement? I looked to see if it could be abbreviated; but its metrical scheme, with its trisyllabic near-rhymes, makes this very difficult. It is of course a piece of verbal acrobatics and metrical high-jinks; and was intended for recitation with great variations of speed. It needs a reciter or chanter capable of producing the words with great clarity, but in places with great rapidity. The 'stanzas' as printed indicate the speed-groups. In general these were meant to begin at speed and slow down. Except the last group, which was to begin slowly, and pick up at errand too! and end at high speed to match the beginning.(6) Also of course the reciter was supposed at once to begin repeating (at even higher speed) the beginning, unless somebody cried 'Once is enough'.(7)

The piece has had a curious history. It was begun very many years ago, in an attempt to go on with the model that came unbidden into my mind: the first six lines, in which, I guess, D'ye ken the rhyme to porringer had a part.(8) Later I read it to an undergraduate club that used to hear its members read unpublished poems or short tales, and voted some of them into the minute book. They invented the name Inklings, and not I or Lewis, though we were among the few 'senior'

members. (The club lasted the usual year or two of undergraduate societies; and the name became transferred to the circle of C. S.

Lewis when only he and I were left of it.)(9) It was at this point that Errantry began its travels, starting with a typed copy, and continuing by oral memory and transmission, as I later discovered.

The earliest version that my father retained is a rough pencilled manuscript without title: there were certainly preliminary workings behind it, now lost, since this text was set down without hesitations or corrections, but it seems very probable that it was in fact the first complete text of the poem, possibly that from which he read it to the original 'Inklings' in the early 1930s. The page has many alterations and suggestions leading to the second version, but I give it here as it was first set down.

There was a merry passenger,

a messenger, an errander;

he took a tiny porringer

and oranges for provender;

he took a little grasshopper

and harnessed her to carry him;

he chased a little butterfly

that fluttered by, to marry him.

He made him wings of taffeta

to laugh at her and catch her with;

he made her shoes of beetle-skin

with needles in to latch them with.

They fell to bitter quarrelling,

and sorrowing he fled away;

and long he studied sorcery

in Ossory a many day.

He made a shield and morion

of coral and of ivory;

he made a spear of emerald

and glimmered all in bravery;

a sword he made of malachite

and stalactite, and brandished it,

he went and fought the dragon-fly

called wag-on-high and vanquished it.

He battled with the Dumbledores,

and bumbles all, and honeybees,

and won the golden honey-comb,

and running home on sunny seas,

in ship of leaves and gossamer

with blossom for a canopy,

he polished up and burnished up

and furbished up his panoply.

He tarried for a little while

in little isles, and plundered them;

and webs of all the attercops

he shattered, cut, and sundered them.

And coming home with honey-comb

and money none - remembered it,

his message and his errand too!

His derring-do had hindered it.(10)

Among my father's papers are five further texts, all titled Errantry, before the poem's publication in The Oxford Magazine, Vol. LII no. 5, 9 November 1933, which I give here. In fact, the form published in 1933 was virtually achieved already in the second version, apart only from the beginning, which went through several stages of development: these are given at the end of the Oxford Magazine version.

There was a merry passenger

a messenger, a mariner:

he built a gilded gondola

to wander in, and had in her

a load of yellow oranges

and porridge for his provender;

he perfumed her with marjoram

and cardamom and lavender.

He called the winds of argosies

with cargoes in to carry him

across the rivers seventeen

that lay between to tarry him.

He landed all in loneliness

where stonily the pebbles on

the running river Derrilyn