Many Meetings
"Gandalf," cried Frodo, sitting up. There was the old wizard sitting in a chair by the open window. (265)
"You have talked long in your sleep, Frodo," said Gandalf gently, "and it has not been hard for me to read your mind and memory" (266).
I suspected that there was some fragment of the blade still in the closed wound. But it could not be found until last night. Then Elrond removed a splinter. It was deeply buried, and it was working inwards" (268).
"Thank goodness I did not realize the horrible danger!" said Frodo faintly. "I was mortally afraid, of course; but if I had known more, I should not have dared even to move" (268).
But to the wizard's eye there was a faint change, just a hint s it were of
transparency, about him, and especially about the left hand that lay outside
upon the coverlet.
"Still that must be expected," said Gandalf to
himself. "He is not half through yet, and to what he will come in the
end not even Elrond can foretell. Not to evil, I think. He may
become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can"
(270).
Frodo was now sage in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, "a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all." Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness. (272)
Young she was and yet not so. The braids of her dark hair were touched by no frost, but white arms and clear face were flawless and smooth, and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, grey as a cloudless night; yet queenly she looked, and thought and knowledge were in her glance, as of one who has known many things that the years bring. . . . So it was that Frodo saw her whom few mortals had yet seen, Arwen, daughter of Elrond, in whom it was said that the likeness of Luthien had come on earth again, and she was called Undomiel, for she was the Evenstar of her people. (274)
[Arwen's] two brothers, Ellandan and Elrohir, were out upon errantry, for they rode often far afield with the Rangers of the North, forgetting never their mother's torment in the dens of the orcs. (274-5)
To [Frodo's] distress and amazement he found that he was no longer looking at Bilbo; a shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found himself eyeing a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands. He felt a desire to strike him (280).
"The Dunadan," said Bilbo. "He is often called that here. But I thought you knew enough Elvish at least to know dun-adan, Man of the West, Numenorean" (281).
Earendil was a mariner . . . [see 282-85 for entire poem].
"As a matter of fact it was all mine. Except that Aragorn insisten on my putting in a green stone. He seemed to think it important. I don't know why. Otherwise, he obviously thought the whole thing rather above my head, and said that if I had the cheek to make verses about Earendil, in the house of Elrond, if was my affair" (285)
A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
silivren penna miriel
o menel aglar elenath!
Na-chaered palan-diriel
o galadhremmin ennorath,
Fanuilos, le linnathon
nef, aear, si nef aearon! (286)
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