The Measure of Love

"At the center of all the virtuous forces of light and of goodness, Tolkien shows us love. His presentation of this central human ideal is unique and intriguing, for he has presented it as an idea and a feeling lacking any hint of sexual passion. Love in Tolkien assumes an ideal medieval quality – a beatific caritas" (Mathews, Lightning from a Clear Sky 29).

Frodo and Sam’s journey to Mount Doom is a trial of such love. The light of this self-donating and heroically sacrificial love illumines the heart of the Red Book. It does not selfishly take; it selflessly gives and pours itself out on the beloved. Such is agape love, the highest and purest form, “from soul to soul,” as a woman I once knew called it, who was not even familiar with the story but was told by friends about it. It is God’s love. It gives Frodo the power to offer himself up as a living sacrifice, even as his suffering increases and his burden threatens to utterly consume him. It strengthens Sam to carry his beloved master, not only physically but emotionally and spiritually, and to be Hope-bearer for the Ring-bearer.

It is no coincidence that Sam is born the same year Frodo’s parents drown, for there is never a time that Ilúvatar does not watch over him. The Creator takes away two guardians, but He replaces them with another to be ready when the time comes. Sam always sees Frodo’s bright, shining soul, as he has loved it since childhood. He was made to love it, because without this love Frodo cannot do what he was made to do. “The measure of love is to love without measure,” said St. Francis de Sales. (Also attributed to St. Augustine). Frodo and Sam, as do many others in the tale, both show this depth of commitment, which makes “love . . . the dominant emotion in The Lord of the Rings” (Bradley 76) and the “peculiar excellence” of hobbits (Zimbardo 70). Jane Chance adds, “love binding one individual to another, cements together the ‘fellowship’ of the Hobbits in book 1 and later, in book 2, the differing species who form the enlarged Fellowship. The ‘chain of love’ such fellowship creates contrasts with the chains of enslavement represented by Sauron’s one Ring” (Tolkien’s Art 150).

Martin Luther King Jr. said that “everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. . . . You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.” Even though such words were not said in regard to hobbits, they certainly apply. Ilúvatar chooses as His Ring-bearer a small, mortal vessel with a quaking heart, but with a strong will and determination, who allows himself to be offered up “out of love – to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could; and also in complete humility, acknowledging that he was wholly inadequate to the task” (Tolkien, Letters 327).

After Frodo resolves to leave the Company at Parth Galen and strike out for Mordor alone, Sam refuses to be left behind. He would rather die at his master’s side than live without him. After Frodo says he would be safely on his way if Sam had not come, such words scandalize and horrify the gardener that Frodo would ever believe such a thing even possible without his Sam looking after him. The Ring-bearer acknowledges this impossibility as he says, “It is plain that we were meant to go together” (LotR II:10, 397). Ralph C. Wood calls their bond “a thing of exquisite beauty, even holiness” (Gospel 135). Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J. says, “Friendship is the highest expression of human love. . . . There is no greater happiness in this life than basking in the love of a friend” (“My divine friend” 80). Though the priest does not speak of hobbits, the bond the Ring-bearer has with Sam, Merry, and Pippin reveals the truth of such words. The Quest shows Frodo that “a faithful friend is a sure shelter, whoever finds one has found a rare treasure” (Ecclus./Sir. 6:14). He makes sure that the enduring love and heroism of Sam, his “dearest hobbit, friend of friends,” (LotR IV:2, 610) receives pride of place in the reverent tribute which makes up his part of the Red Book.

After the Ring-bearer tells Sam near the Dead Marshes that they need not worry about food for the return journey because there would not be one, the gardener cries over his master’s held hand. He weeps also in Shelob’s lair and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. These times well reflect Washington Irving’s words: “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief . . . and unspeakable love.” The same could be said of Sam’s other silent expressions: the kisses to Frodo’s brow and hand and the hand and body he holds while his master sleeps.

Sam makes a beautiful profession of love as he watches Frodo sleep in Ithilien and sees his master’s inner light: “He was reminded suddenly of Frodo . . . asleep in the house of Elrond, . . . a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. . . . Sam . . . murmured: ‘I love him. He’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no’” (IV:4, 638).

This light shines brighter as Frodo fights through his hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and terror to fulfill his vocation. Even more than his own will to continue, Sam motivates him to keep going after the weight of despair crushes his own hope. The gardener thinks the task itself is hopeless, but he pushes through his own suffering because he has hope and faith in Frodo. Ilúvatar has knit their souls together for decades so that they would be inseparable for this one task. They would much rather be back home in the sun-filled, idyllic Shire, yet they walk, stagger, and crawl to the heart of evil and darkness instead. “It is the heroism of obedience and love not of pride or wilfulness that is the most heroic and the most moving” Tolkien wrote in “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son” (Tolkien Reader 22). Sam voluntarily endures torment and terror “only for the sake of one he loves beyond everything else” (Bradley 90). Frodo bears it for the Free Peoples of Middle-earth. “And in the last analysis,” Richard Purtill observes, “their self-sacrificing love rises to such heights as to be comparable to the greatest love the world has known” (Tolkien: Myth 77).

The words Mayor Rudolph Guilani used to describe the firefighters of New York fit also Frodo, Sam, and the others who fought for the Light. "There are some people who believe . . . courage represents the absence of fear. We know that is not true. Firefighters are in most ways ordinary people, but they are capable of extraordinary heroism because they do not let fear determine their actions. Their courage is found in letting their love for human life, their sense of duty and obligation to their fellow human beings, cause them to rise above their own immediate concerns. In doing so, they set an example for all of us. They remind us what each of us can become – selfless, courageous, and heroic at the moment when the pressure is greatest. They show us what we all are capable of in the most difficult and dramatic moments of our lives, as well as in the smaller moments all along the way" (Brotherhood xvi).

Linda Greenwood states that

"J. R. R. Tolkien gives reality a ‘new twist’ by writing in the form of myth. . . .

"It becomes a world in which faith without faith becomes faith, hope without hope becomes hope, and myth becomes more real than reality. The catalyst for this freeplay of words and meanings, the element that allows things to turn around and reverse themselves is love. Love . . . allows myth to invade the reality of this world and become fact. In Tolkien’s work, love motivates faith to reach beyond the boundaries of the known, to rekindle hope in the midst of the uncertain. Love turns death into a gift and transforms defeat into victory. This force of love permeates The Lord of the Rings. . . "(“Love: ‘The Gift of Death’” 171).

Many in the tale show in convincing ways that “fear is driven out by perfect love” (1 Jn 4:18). As the examples are quite numerous, only a handful are here given. Merry, Pippin, and Sam follow Frodo out of the Shire, even after they know that great peril lies ahead. Frodo pushes through his fears at Bag End and throughout the Quest. Sam cannot swim, but he does not hesitate to dash into the water after his master starts to leave without him. He does not like heights, but he crosses the rope bridge over the River Celebrant and uses the Elven rope in the Emyn Muil. Frodo refrains from killing Gollum after love in the form of pity takes hold in his heart. As Sam fights Shelob, “No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate” (LotR IV:10, 711). Gimli, Legolas, and the rest of the Grey Company traverse the Paths of the Dead out of love for Aragorn.

Sam gives another beautiful profession of love as he faces the desolation of Frodo’s apparent death. He promises to return and to in effect become a human Greyfriars Bobby, the faithful Scottish dog who remained at his master’s grave until his own death: “‘Good-bye, master, my dear! . . . Forgive your Sam. He’ll come back to this spot when the job’s done – if he manages it. And then he’ll not leave you again. Rest you quiet till I come; and may no foul creature come anigh you! And if the Lady could hear me and give me one wish, I would wish to come back and find you again’” (IV:10, 716).

Astonishment fills Sam after he learns that Frodo is not dead after all. His love again overcomes his fear as he mounts a rescue mission. He cries out “I’m coming Mr. Frodo!” (VI:1, 879) despite his terror of discovery by Orcs. Later he sings to the Ring-bearer during the search in the dread Tower of Cirith Ungol, so Frodo would know that he is not alone in such a terrible place. “Tolkien implies that love is an important aspect of heroism, as we see in the way Sam is inspired by his love for Frodo. It is not that Sam’s attention to Frodo supersedes his commitment to the Ring-quest; rather, Sam implicitly understands that love and loyalty are essential to the success of the quest itself” (Gardner et al. 228). The concern of everyone else is to save Middle-earth as a whole, but Sam’s sole focus in on one person. Because of this devotion, he helps save everyone. It saves Sam himself as he confronts the temptation of the Ring: “In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm” (LotR VI:1, 881).

The tender reunion of Frodo and Sam in the Tower is the most beautiful scene in the tale. Far from erotic, it demonstrates the purity and innocence of their love. “Under the most adverse and improbable circumstances, surrounded by the hideous evidence of senseless slaughter, Frodo and Sam share a moment’s happiness and release from the burdens of the Quest” (Klinger 193). As Frodo lies “back in Sam’s gentle arms, closing his eyes, like a child at rest when night-fears are driven away by some loved voice or hand” (LotR VI:1, 889), “the Ring’s influence is – almost miraculously – suspended or eclipsed” (Klinger 193). Their coming together again has overcome despair, seemingly irrevocable loss, and impossible odds. It leaves Sam feeling that “he could sit like that in endless happiness,” (LotR VI:1, 889) but their task is still ahead. He rouses his master, best friend, brother, and child with a kiss to the brow and a cheerful voice and “gently takes on himself the task of bringing Frodo to the end of his Quest” (Bradley 87).

Sam continues to love even as his heart breaks after Frodo calls him a thief. “Love is not blind,” Rabbi Julius Gordon said. “It sees more, not less but because it sees more, it is willing to see less.” The words of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who spoke of how Jesus viewed sinners, aptly describe how Sam views Frodo, as the Ring torments and twists its Bearer: “He saw that a jewel had fallen into the mud and though encrusted with foulness that it was still a jewel” (Fulton Sheen’s Guide 155).

Sam’s care becomes that of a parent, who loves his child even after the child does unlovable things and who forgives automatically and without thought, because though the act is bad, the child is not. Sam already practices what St. Paul later speaks of: “Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience” (Eph. 4:2). “Love . . . is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end” (1 Cor. 13:6-8). Words of Washington Irving also fit well here: “A mother’s love endures through all . . . She remembers the . . . innocent eyes of her child so can never be brought to think him all unworthy. A mother’s love ever lives, ever forgives and while it lives, it stands with open arms and gives and gives, the strongest thing in the universe, never failing, enduring forever, always hoping.” Marion Zimmer Bradley notes beautifully, “From [the Tower onward, Frodo] places himself unreservedly and passively in Sam’s hands, allowing Sam to clothe him, to deal out their food, to choose their road. As his will and endurance are sapped by the destructive, tormenting power of the Ring he speaks of himself as ‘naked in the dark’ (III, 215) while every thought and movement of Sam’s reaches an almost religious devotion and tenderness toward easing Frodo’s path, even though he cannot share his torment or even his burden” (“Men, Halflings, and Hero Worship” 88)

Through such loving care, Sam “epitomizes the ideal of servanthood, which, in Christian terms, is the epitome of heroism” (Hein 207). Such words apply equally well to Frodo in his service to his Creator, who he is not even truly aware of but who holds his heart and soul together even as they are torn apart by the terrible malice of the Ring. Ralph C. Wood adds, “To be a servant is to be liberated from self-concern. It is to be so fully devoted to the common good that one hardly thinks of one’s own wants and needs at all” (Gospel 163). Dag Hammarskjöld does not speak of hobbits, but his words could certainly be applied to them: “Love – that much misused and misinterpreted word – for them [medieval mystics] meant simply an overflowing of the strength with which they felt themselves filled when living in true self-oblivion. And this love found natural expression in an unhesitant fulfillment of duty and an unreserved acceptance of life, whether it brought them personally of toil, suffering – or happiness” (Markings viii)

Sam constantly renounces his own desires and needs and puts his master’s first. In contrast to Sauron, who is rightly depicted as the Eye, for the ‘I’ is all that he sees, there is no ‘I’ in Sam. There is only ‘you’. The Dark Lord will “eat all the world” (LotR II:3, 623) if he gets the Ring back, but Frodo’s humble gardener is like to a starving mother who feeds her dying child rather than herself, or a mother bird who pecks at her breast to feed her chicks her own blood if she has nothing else. But the nourishment Sam provides his master is much more than just food and drink. Ilúvatar places Sam at Frodo’s side as a reflection of Himself, so that every time the Ring-bearer looks at his gardener, he sees love. Frodo needs this as the Ring’s hatred torment him. Sam gives his master his cloak for a pillow, his arms for a bed, his hand to clasp. He is strength to Frodo’s weakness, peace to his turbulence, hope to his despair, warmth to his coldness, and sweetness to his bitterness. Far more than Galadriel’s phial, the humble servant is the Ring-bearer’s “light . . . in dark places” (II:8, 367). Indeed, the two hobbits are living phials for each other. Ilúvatar is also always with Frodo even when Sam cannot be and sustains both hobbits through His grace and the Eucharistic lembas bread.

"Prayer is being with God or another person” says N. Duncan Sinclair (Horrific Traumata 104; italics in original).Though Sinclair does not speak of hobbits, Sam proves the truth of these words after Frodo feels the compulsion to put the Ring on while near the Fire and whispers to his guardian for help. The gardener gently takes his master’s hands in his, places the palms together as though in prayer, and kisses them. This breaks the coercive power that seemed irresistible a moment before. “Sam redeems Frodo in a spiritual sense” at this moment (Gardner et al. 231).

The terrible journey from Bag End to the Sammath Naur shows that “at the heart of Tolkien’s work, [as] Provost suggests, is a clear religious theme of struggle between power and love” (Agan 45). Frodo’s will is not always strong enough to withstand the lure of the Ring on its own, but it receives strength through the grace-filled presence of others, especially Sam and Elbereth. Only through the renunciation of unlimited power and the embrace of unconditional love are the Ring-bearer and his companion able to make it to Mount Doom.

In the end, the Ring overcomes Frodo’s will, yet he still fulfills his vocation as its Bearer. It takes every single drop of his will, strength, and love to do it, and in so doing, he enables Sam to fulfill his vocation as well. After Frodo has nothing left to give, he is still open to receive mercy from Love itself. C. Baillie speaks beautifully of this.

"Love watched [Frodo] all the way through Mordor. 'You can do this and you must do this, or I will demand a reckoning of you,' Love said. Then Frodo came to the brink of utter damnation and fell, and Love said, 'This is beyond your strength, what I am allowing to happen. Therefore I will not demand reckoning of you. I will save you.'

"In that instant, when [Frodo’s] soul hung imperiled between life and eternal night, he became no longer responsible. The trial had become too much.

"So, no, I don’t think Frodo failed, not morally. Because nothing he could give could save him, only something given to him.

 "Only Love" (“Frodo and Grace,” entropyhouse.com).

The blessing Frodo receives through Arwen’s gift of the voyage West is commensurate with his complete donation of heart, body, mind, and soul.

After Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin return to the Shire, Sam “longs to stay with Frodo forever,” (Bradley 90) but he also wants to be with Rosie. Frodo grants both wishes for a little while.

Alison Milbank beautifully and profoundly describes the enduring bond the Ring-bearer shares with his beloved guardian and their physical sundering at the Grey Havens.

"The main problem for the reader is how to separate in his or her mind two characters who have been a pair all through the novel, and who belong together. Despite his marriage, parenthood and obvious delight in Shire life, Sam is incomplete without Frodo, and Frodo an attenuated presence without Sam’s earthliness. It is partly a problem of analogy, with Sam the ‘answer’ or common feature that unites Blessed Realm and Shire. . . . Tolkien in his essay ‘On Fairy-Stories’ refers to . . . the ‘Great Eucatastrophe’, when all our bodiliness shall share in some sense with our spirit – our Sam with our Frodo side. For Frodo hardly seems to have a body at all in the later parts of The Lord of the Rings, and even his pains back home in the Shire have a spiritual basis. Sam, on the contrary, is not just a reassuring physical presence but an active agent in the rebuilding of his community, and in forming human relationships. The true happy ending of the novel lies beyond the pages of the book, and yet is anticipated in moments such as Sam and Frodo’s descent from Mount Doom, when Sam, a true Bunyanesque ‘Hopeful’, leads the lost and broken Frodo to safety, just as he had borne Frodo and the Ring up to the summit, and found the burden surprisingly light. Sam is not to be reduced to an allegory of the body, for he is much more than that, but the separation of the two at the Grey Havens is emblematic of the sorrow of the separation of the soul and body at death, while their solidarity gives a taste of the ecstatic reunion of soul and body at the Resurrection" (Chesterton and Tolkien 111).

The image that arises is of Sam as the body that encases the soul, and the light that shines softly from Frodo is the light of the soul from within the body. This surpasses what was my favorite description of their blessed bond: “Their mutual regard is . . . akin to the friendship of Jonathan and David: ‘the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul’ (1 Sam. 18:1)” (Wood, Gospel 136). They are actually closer than this, for they are one soul within one body.

Even after Frodo and Sam physically separate, the gardener has a long and fruitful life with his beloved Rose. We hope the Ring-bearer heals from his wounds and that body and soul reunite at long last across the Sundering Seas, sundered no more.

Works Cited

Agan, Cami. “Song as Mythic Conduit in The Fellowship of the Ring.” Mythlore 26, no. 3/4 Issue 101/102 (Spring/Summer 2008): 41-63.

Baillie, C. “Frodo and Grace.” Accessed January 7, 2012.          http://entropyhouse.com/baillie/candme/essays/frodoandgrace.html.

Baker, Kenneth. “My divine friend.” Editorial. Homiletic & Pastoral Review December 2006: 80.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer. “Men, Halfings, and Hero Worship.” Zimbardo and Isaacs 76-92.

Chance, Jane. Tolkien’s Art: A Mythology for England. Rev ed. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001.

Gardner, Patrick and Drake Bennet, John Henriksen and Joel Dodson. SparkNotes:”The Lord of the Rings”. New York: Spark Publishing, 2002.

Greenwood, Linda. “Love: ‘The Gift of Death’.” Tolkien Studies Volume II: An Annual Scholarly Review. Ed. Douglas Anderson, Michael D.C. Drout and Verlyn Flieger. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2005: 171-195.      

Hammarskjöld, Dag. Markings. Trans. Leif Sjöberg and W.H. Auden. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964.

Hein, Rolland. Christian Mythmakers. 2^nd ed. Chicago: Cornerstone Press Chicago, 2002.

Hendra, Tony. Brotherhood. New York: American Express Publishing Corporation, 2001.

The Jerusalem Bible Reader’s Edition. Gen ed. Alexander Jones. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966.

 Klinger, Judith. “Hidden Paths of Time: March 13th and the Riddles of Shelob’s Lair.” Tolkien and Modernity 2. Ed. Thomas Honegger and Frank Weinreich. Zollikofen, Switzerland: Walking Tree Publishers, 2006: 143-209.

Mathews, Richard. Lightning from a Clear Sky. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1978.

Milbank, Alison. Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians: The Fantasy of the Real. London: T & T Clark, 2008.

Purtill, Richard. J. R. R. Tolkien: Myth, Morality & Religion. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2003.

Sinclair, N. Duncan. Horrific Traumata: A Pastoral Response to the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Binghamton, New York: The Haworth Pastoral Press, 1993.

Sheen, Fulton J. Fulton J. Sheen’s Guide to Contentment. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Ed. Humphrey Carpenter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

---. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965-66.

---. The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballantine Books, 1966.

Wood, Ralph C. The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth. Louisville, KY: Knox, 2003.

Zimbardo, Rose A and Neil D. Isaacs, eds. Understanding The Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.

Zimbardo, Rose A. “Moral Vision in The Lord of the Rings.” Zimbardo and Isaacs 68-75.

This was originally published in somewhat different form in the fourth issue of Silver Leaves (2012). It has been since modified and adapted in part from my book, Moments of Grace and Spiritual Warfare in The Lord of the Rings (WestBow Press, 2012), which also includes a chapter on The Hobbit. For more details and to order the book, please visit http://ow.ly/ez2dT