Tony Meade
Active Member
SESSION 132
Reviewing Boromir’s perspective:
Reviewing Boromir’s perspective:
- Boromir’s interruption of Elrond is presumptuous, but also courteous, as he asks for leave and then takes his chance to speak without waiting for the answer. He assumes that leave is given.
- His elevated style reflects his own high opinion of himself, but this is justified both by his birthright as the son of the Steward, but also by the merit of his deeds for the people of Gondor.
- Note: There is a strong tradition in medieval traditions in which there is no expectation of humility among great heroes, such as Beowulf or the Arthurian knights, who speak proudly.
- Boromir is also standing on the dignity of Gondor, whom he is representing, and in that position feels that he is attending this Council as an equal with the Elf-lords, not as a beggar.
- Note: While Gondor has less of the boastful heroic tradition than Rohan, for instance, there are also personal differences between Boromir and other characters, like Faramir, who is very little like someone in the mold of Beowulf. Faramir’s claim to not love the sword for its sharpness, meaning liking war as an end unto itself, probably doesn’t apply to Boromir.
- While the pride of Boromir’s words is for Gondor and not for himself, it does seem as though in Boromir would think of those two things as intertwined.
- Note: Importantly, at this point in the text, we have not been told who Boromir is, only that he is a stranger from Gondor, and what he looks like when he speaks.
- It’s possible that Boromir’s assertion that Gondor stands alone in defense between Mordor and the rest of the continent probably rankled Aragorn and some of the others.
- Boromir also has come practically fresh from the battlefield, so he is a witness to the most recent events in Gondor that the others don’t know, but also shows his provincialism.
- He probably disregards the stories of Glóin and the others as sideshows and not fronts in the same war in which Gondor is engaged with Mordor, and he seems not to have paid them heed.
- In a way, Boromir, and the rest of the Gondorians, are as ignorant of the world outside their realm as the Hobbits of the Shire are about things and events outside their own.
- Boromir’s “yet” is a rhetorical turn from the imagined consequences of Gondor’s fall to the real possibility in the near future. He has created a tension that would draw attention to his stories.
- It’s possible that this delivery of his news has been rehearsed for many weeks while on the road.
- Boromir is a captain of men, so he needs these rhetorical skills to be a good speaker and leader.
- He may not have expected to deliver this news to a Council, as it was unplanned and his arrival unexpected, but he would have anticipated a personal interview with Elrond.
- He also might not have expected to defend the honor of Gondor but is prompted by Elrond.
- Though it sounds as though Boromir thinks he is delivering news that the others already know, this is a rhetorical technique to set the scene in order to make his story real for the councilors.
- He is also explaining this in the mythic terminology of Gondor, which helps them understand the experience in Gondor of the threat of Mordor, including how they see Sauron.
- From a military standpoint, Boromir establishes that Sauron is very strong through his alliances, but this is only setup for the real peril in Gondor. This new power represents a crisis.
- Boromir has explained that the Gondorians have been living in a state of vigilance and almost siege for many generations, but that things have changed, and not just because of the armies.
- He is appealing to the fact that whatever the new power there is, it is supernatural in origin.
- Boromir’s real news is that what is happening in Gondor is not just new for this generation but has never happened in all the time of Gondor. They have faced Mordor’s armies, but not this.
- In all the time that the Nazgûl have occupied Minas Morgul, they have never come forth.
- The Witch-king has taken to the battlefield before, but only in Arnor, and more than a thousand years before. When King Eärnur was taken by the Witch-king, he was lured into Minas Morgul.
- Even the taking of Minas Ithil wasn’t really a military engagement, as it was mostly empty at the time and seems to have been taking using a spiritual siege by the Nazgûl, almost like a haunting.
- This may have been a larger scale version of what happened around the house at Crickhollow. There is no mention of an army of orcs or any battles.
- When the Nazgûl attack with the armies at Minas Tirith later, they will do a similar thing, though this time the city is well-defended and occupied and thus requires a besieging army as well.
- Note: In the film, the Nazgul’s threat is physical, but that is not what happens in the book, where the primary attacks of the Nazgûl are psychological and spiritual prior to the arrival of Grond.
- The only physical attack of any of the Nazgûl is the Witch-king’s attack on Théoden before engaging with Éowyn, but even that was an attempt of spiritual warfare against the Rohirrim.
- A spiritual siege like in Crickhollow that went on for two years would likely empty out Minas Ithil without having to engage in physical combat. They may or not have needed an army there.
- The only times that we see the Nazgûl engage in physical force is when it is as a last resort when their other powers aren’t sufficient, and they are desperate, such as when escaping the Shire.
- Is Boromir skeptical of the reports of this horseman, since he uses the phrase “some said”?
- Nowhere in his recounting of these events so far has Boromir used “I”, only “we”, as he is speaking for Gondor, not himself. This is not the abstract “royal we”, but as a part of the army.
- Note: The purpose of the royal “we” is to show that the monarch is not speaking as an individual, but with the authority of the throne and as the voice of the kingdom. A monarch speaks in the first-person singular when speaking only about their own person. In Boromir’s case, he does not have the authority to speak for the whole kingdom in the legal sense.
- In using the phrase “some said”, there is a shift from a collective “we” and begins to speak in more of a third person, as if this was not something he witnessed, though he might have.
- This may be a rhetorical tactic of speaking of himself in the third person but not naming himself, and this is more likely as there are very few others among the army who could have seen it.
- The story of the black horseman turns from the broader political situation to a personal account of a specific event. Only at the end of the description does he reveal that he witnessed it.
- Note: Though Boromir has said that their bravest fled from the Witch-king, the hobbits will tell how they stood up the Nazgûl many times, and the Witch-king himself twice.
- There may be a touch of humility in the idea of not leading with the fact that he was a witness. He wouldn’t want to give the impression that this story was all about him, but about Gondor.
- This doesn’t downplay Boromir’s heroism, as his brand of heroism doesn’t require humility.
- Boromir identifies himself with Gondor very strongly, but that is not in competition with his own sense of his glory or reputation, though he would see those things as necessarily intertwined.
- Note: The Christian virtue of humility would not apply to Boromir in this pre-Christian setting. Though pride is seen as a vice in Middle-earth, it is not analogous to the Greek idea of hubris, which is a specific kind of pride, not just an excess of pride, which seems to be mostly tolerable.
- Note: The tale of swimming the river is reminiscent of the boasting of Unferth in Beowulf.
- The rhetorical scope has descended from the global to the national to the personal in steps.
- The phrase “much praise but little help” is a more than a veiled jab at those in other lands, and he even claims that most of their deeds have been anonymous to other peoples