Minas Tirith

March 9 3019 TA

Gandalf and Pippin reach Minas Tirith. 

A long and beautifully desciptive paragraph, of which I shall take very little.

"For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into the hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate."

Pippin's reaction.

"Pippin gazed in growing wonder at the great stone city, vaster and more splendid than anything he had dreamed of; greater and stronger than Isengard, and far more beautiful. Yet it was in truth falling year by year into decay; and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there. In every street they passed some great house or court over whose doors and arched gates were carved many fair letters of strange and ancient shapes: names Pippin guessed of great men and kindreds that had once dwelt there; and yet now they were silent, and no footsteps rang on their wide pavements, nor voice was heard in their halls, nor any face looked out from door or empty window."

And they meet my beloved Beregond, who was tragically removed from the movie (SHAME, Peter Jackson, shame.).  

"'I am named Beregond son of Baranor. I have no duty this morning, and I have been sent to you to teach you the pass-words, and to tell you some of the many things that no doubt you will wish to know. And for my part, I would learn of you also. For never before have we seen a halfling in this land and though we have heard rumour of them, little is said of them in any tale that we know. Moreover you are a friend of Mithrandir. Do you know him well?'"

Beregond is one of my favorite people, and is actually fairly important to the story. Needless were none of the characters of Tolkien, for they almost all serve some purpose, no matter how small, and without which a lot of other stuff would have been different. For want of a nail the war was lost etc. And even if he didn't serve any purpose, Beregond is just wonderful all by himself. And you know the line of Gimli's in the movie "the very warmth of my blood seems stolen away"? Well that is Beregond's line, so there. Although I think that it was less stealing his lines as paying an homage to a character that they (stupidly) cut out. Much like how they gave some of Tom's lines to Treebeard.

"'You have been in Rohan, I hear. There is much I would as you of that land also; for we put much of what little hope we have in its people. But I am forgetting my errand, which was first to answer what you would as. What would you know, Master Peregrin?'
'Er well,' said Pippin, 'if I may venture to say so, rather a burning question in my mind at present is, well, what about breakfast and all that? I mean, what are the meal-times, if you understand me, and where is the dining-room, if there is one? And the inns? I looked, but never a one could I see as we rode up, though I had been borne up by the hope of a draught of ale as soon as we came to the homes of wise and courtly men.'"

I love hobbits. 'Ask any question about this great city. I will tell you all the tales I know, explain everything that I can, give you the pass codes to the gates, whatever you want to know, only ask'.....and he asks about food.

Frodo and Sam reach the Morgul Road in the evening.

Adorable stuff which may or may not actually be on this day.

"'Maybe,' said Sam; 'but where there's life there's hope, as my Gaffer used to say; and need of vittles, as he mostways used to add.'"

And also the old statue.

"The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hair yellow stonecrop gleamed."

Theoden and Co. reach Dunharrow

On the way:

"Merry looked out in wonder upon this strange country, of which he had heard many tales upon their long road. It was a skyless world, in which his eye, through dim gulfs of shadowt air, saw only ever-mounting slopes, great walls of stone behind great walls, and frowning precipices wreathed with mist. He sat for a moment half dreaming, listening to the noise of water, the whisper of dark trees, the crack of stone, and the vast waiting silence that brooded behind all sound."

And Dunharrow:

"He was on a road the like of which he had never seen before, a great work of men's hands in years beyond the reach of song. Upwards it wound, coiling like a snake, boring its way across the sheer slope of rock. Steep as a stair it looped backwards and forwards as it climbed." 

 

(Lest there should be any confusion or matter of rights and whatnot, all quotes in this post are from The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, unless otherwise mentioned. There may be slight errors, misspellings, or alternate punctuation in the quotes, and if you notice such, please inform me so that I can speedily remedy them. But I think the fact that I made this blog proves that I would never intentionally change something of Tolkien's in the transcribing of it.)