How it burns my heart to behold the nobility and the most beautiful sacrifice of Frodo. In the very beginning, upon realizing that the Ring could not remain in the Shire, he said, “What must I do?” and he left all comforts of home behind to do it. Through desperate perils he at last came to Rivendell, and there “an overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo’s side… filled all his heart.” It would not be the last time he would so long. And yet, when he saw his path laid before him, “with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words”:

“I will take it,” he said. “I will take the Ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way.”

But this task, undertaken so nobly by Frodo, is a heavy burden, and it “will claim his life.” This is what breaks my heart. I cannot bear to see him suffer, and cower before the awful striving, piercing Eye. Evil is drawn to him and calls to him from all sides, and thus he suffers the wound of the Morgul blade, the sting of Shelob, and the whip of Snaga, which chill and torment him and obscure his sight, in addition to all the terrors and weariness of his dark journey. But yet more oppressive is the awful weight of the Ring dragging him to the ground, straining his will, tormenting him with madness and fear. Always he feels the Ring and feels the Eye commanding him to put it on, to grope for it and to stroke it with his poor, weak hand, and always he struggles in his mind with his own will and desire for the Ring. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” said Sam, bending and weeping over his master’s hand. “You’re not eatin’. You barely sleep.”

The piercing beauty of this is how nobly Frodo bears the Burden. He was ordained to bear the Ring, and therefore was he called to bear evil. Frodo is like unto Christ bearing the sins of His people – evil and suffering break on him because of what he bears, yet his burden is a thing he is not guilty of. He sacrifices himself for the sake not only of the home and friends he loves, but for all Middle Earth, even the Sackville-Bagginses. The fate of all depends on him and the beauty of his willing submission to this, looking unto the end, shines more piercingly than the stars. He is “like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.”

“Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger…. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: ‘I love him. He’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow.’”

Even when the road grows rockier and the path dark ahead, when he wishes the Ring had never come to him, wishes he could give it to someone else, wishes he could simply toss it into a river and forget about it, Frodo falls into the place ordained for him as the Bearer, determined to follow his path unto the bitter end, in spite of his fear and pain. “I know what I must do. It’s just – I am afraid to do it,” he said in Lorien; and as he came to the Black Gate, “His face was grim and set, but resolute. He was filthy, haggard, and pinched with weariness, but he cowered no longer, and his eyes were clear…. ‘I am commanded to go to the land of Mordor, and therefore I shall go,’ said Frodo.”

“That’s the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind,” said Sam. “Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t.” Frodo and Sam pressed on always up the hard, long, narrow road, when all their flesh cried out for the easy way. “No, I’ll go home by the long road with Mr. Frodo, or not at all,” Sam said thickly, struggling with tears.

“You suffer. I see it day by day,” said Boromir. “Are you sure that you do not suffer needlessly?

“There are other ways, Frodo – other paths you might take.”

“I know what you would say, and your words would seem like wisdom but for the warning in my heart,” Frodo replied.

Man’s limited sight finds no hope: “The only plan that is proposed to us is that a halfling should walk blindly into Mordor and offer the Enemy every chance of recapturing it for himself. Folly!” cried Boromir. His wisdom insists, “It is mad not to use it, to use the power of the Enemy against him.” But it has always been so – when all has seemed to man’s eye lost, God was winning His greatest victories, as in Christ’s crucifixion. Therefore man is not to trust to his own view, to how things seem and to what to him seems best to do, but in faith and purity of heart to follow in obedience the appointed path, turning not aside.

Thus when Boromir repents of his own wisdom, it is most beautiful to see. All the journey he had struggled, submitting only begrudgingly, desiring the Ring and the kingship. His desire, as with all tempted by the Ring, was centered in himself – “The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!” But when he sees his gross error, how nobly with three arrows in his chest does he fight to save the little ones, his friends. And at the last he submits himself unto his place, and shines with a piercing beauty:

“I would have followed you, my brother. My captain. My king.”

* * *

April Clark is a hobbit living with her family in Washington state. She hopes one day to bear a host of laddies who will be “jewels among hobbits.”