Sauron Defeated by J. R. R. Tolkien Read Free Book Online

on the basis of the drafts A and B described above, in a form only differing in a few minor points from that in RK. The chapter now opens exactly as it does in the published work (see p. 22), and Sam now has to climb back over the stone door leading into the passage to the under-gate, since he still cannot find the catch (note 1). The events
    'out westward in the world' are described in the same words as in RK
    (with the addition, after 'Pippin watched the madness growing in the eyes of Denethor', of 'and Gandalf laboured in the last defence'); but the date ('noon upon the fourteenth day of March' in RK) is now
    'morning upon the thirteenth day of March'. The name Morgai appears as an early addition to the text (p. 22). The Tower now has three tiers, and the note about the dimensions of the bastions, still present (see pp. 20, 22), was accommodated to this: the tiers now projected 40, 30 and 20 yards from the cliff, and their heights were 80, 70, and 60 feet, changed at the time of writing to 100, 75, and 50 feet.
    'The top was 25 feet above Sam, and above it was the horn-turret, another 50 feet.'(11)
    From '"That's done it!" said Sam. "Now I've rung the front-door bell!"' a draft text ('C') takes up. This is written in a script so difficult that a good deal of it would be barely comprehensible had it not been closely followed in the fair copy D.(12) The final story was now reached, and there is little to record of these texts. At the point in the narrative where Sam climbed up to the roof of the third (topmost) tier of the Tower there is a little diagram in D showing the form of the open space (not clearly seen in the drawing reproduced on p. 19): rectangu-lar at the base but with the sides drawing together to a point (cf. the
    'pointed bastions' referred to in the description of the Tower), roughly in the shape of a haystack. To the statement that the stairhead was
    'covered by a small domed chamber in the midst of the roof, with low doors facing east and west' D adds 'Both were open': this was omitted in the second manuscript ('E'), perhaps inadvertently. The name of the sole surviving orc beside Shagrat is Radbug in both C and D (Snaga in RK; see LR Appendix F, p. 409), Radbug being retained in the final story as the name of an orc whose eyes Shagrat says that he had squeezed out (RK p. 182); in C the orcs whom Sam saw running from the gate and shot down as they fled are Lughorn and Ghash > Mazgash (Lagduf and Muzgash in D, as in RK). Where in RK Snaga declares that 'the great fighter' (Sam) is 'one of those bloody-handed Elves, or one of the filthy tarks', and that his getting past the Watchers is 'tark's work',(13) C has 'that's Elvish work'; D has 'one of these filthy wizards maybe' and 'that's wizard's work' ('wizard' being changed in pencil to 'tark', which appears in the second manuscript E as written).
    Only in one point does the story as told in the draft C differ from that in D. When Gorbag rouses himself from among the corpses on the roof Sam sees in the latter, as in RK (p. 183), that he has in his hand 'a broad-headed spear with a short broken haft'; in C on the other hand he has 'a red [?and shining] sword. It was his own sword, the one he left by Frodo.' With this cf. text B (p. 25 and note 9): 'Frodo has to have orc-weapons. The sword is gone.'
    Sam's sony as he sat on the stair in the horn-turret was much worked on.(14) I give it here in the form that it has in D, which was preceded by rougher but closely similar versions.

    I sit upon the stones alone;
    the fire is burning red,
    the tower is tall, the mountains dark;
    all living things are dead.
    In western lands the sun may shine,
    there flower and tree in spring
    is opening, is blossoming;
    and there the finches sing.

    But here I sit alone and think
    of days when grass u as green,
    and earth was brown, and I was young:
    they might have never been.
    For they are past, for ever lost,
    and here the shadows lie
    deep upon my heavy heart,
    and hope and