The History of the Hobbit
Page 72
2 For ‘third time pays for all’, Tolkien’s (or, rather, Bungo Baggins’) variant on a traditional but now unfamiliar maxim, see Text Note 3 following Chapter XII on page 516. We now learn a second saying of Bilbo’s father, ‘While there’s life there’s hope’, a familiar proverb credited to the Roman orator Cicero [died 43 BC]. In its original form, appearing in a letter to his friend Atticus (Epistolarum ad Atticum, ix.10), the saying went ‘While the sick man has life, there is hope’.
From these two proverbs, we can conclude a few things about the elusive Bungo, about whom very little indeed appears in the legendarium. First, he shared either his son’s fondness for apt quotation or knack of coining proverbial sayings – cf. Bilbo’s ‘escaping goblins to be caught by wolves’, which Tolkien equates to the later ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ (Chapter VI page 203), and ‘don’t laugh at live dragons’ (Chapter XII page 512), which in typescript became ‘never laugh at live dragons’ and ‘passed into a proverb’ (typescript page 128, Marq. 1/1/62:9; DAA.283). Furthermore, those sayings of his which Bilbo remembers reveal a sunny disposition; they are words of encouragement, the very opposite of the gloomy sayings ‘Sunny Sam’ the blacksmith is fond of airing in Farmer Giles of Ham (e.g., FGH expanded edition page 55). Secondly, he had the daring to court and marry Belladonna Took, who is not only ‘famous’ in her own right but ‘one of the three remarkable daughters’ of The Old Took, who himself seems merely a notable personality in The Hobbit but who we learn in The Lord of the Rings was in fact the ruler of his country at the time (i.e., the Took and Thain, a position held successively by Bilbo’s grandfather, uncle, and, at the time of the Unexpected Party, his first cousin, according to the genealogical tables in Appendix C of The Lord of the Rings) – an example of solid upper middle-class stock marrying old nobility. Finally, Bungo had a gift for satisfying creature comforts (Bag-End, which he planned and built, is an exceptional hobbit-hole, enviously desired by Bilbo’s and Frodo’s relations) and the foresight to plan for future comforts, having laid down wine of such excellence (Old Winyards) that was fully mature seventy-five years after his death (LotR.50 & [1136]).
3 This sentence was replaced in the fair copy by
. . . to real stealth, and they made a deal of puffing and shuffling which the echoes magnified alarmingly. Every now and again in fear Bilbo would stop and listen, but no sound stirred below.
This revision removes the reassurance that ‘no listening ears’ waited below and increases the suspense for readers who did not yet know Smaug was dead, which of course would now only be revealed in the following chapter.
4 At this point, there is a change in the handwriting, which becomes distinctly neater and more legible for the next three paragraphs (the last on manuscript page 160). The ink is also darker, and this same ink has been used to touch up some of the less legible words in the preceding paragraph. Clearly, this represents a pause in composition, but probably only a brief one, possibly no one than from one night’s writing session to the next.
5 This sentence was replaced in the fair copy with ‘“Now I wonder what on earth Smaug is playing at” he said. “He is not at home to day (or tonight, or whatever it is) I do believe . . .”’ (fair copy page ‘c’; 1/1/14:3), once again increasing uncertainty about Smaug’s inexplicable absence for the reader as well as the characters.
6 This paragraph serves as a good example of the sort of development parts of this chapter underwent, where the essential points change very little but their expression was expanded and polished. In both of the examples below I have indicated changes from the previous text in italics:
The dwarves, of course, were very alarmed when Bilbo fell forward with a bump into the dragon’s hall, and they were both frightened & surprised when they heard his voice. At first they did not like the idea of striking a light at all; but Bilbo kept on squeaking out for light, so [added: that at last] Thorin sent Oin and Gloin back to the goods they had saved at the top of the tunnel. Before long a little twinkle showed them returning, Oin with a small pine-torch [added: alight] in his hand, and Gloin with a bundle under his arm.
Then Bilbo knew again in what direction the tunnel was. Quickly he trotted back and took the torch . . . (fair copy page ‘c’; 1/1/14:3).
This passage was revised in both contemporary ink and later pencil, and developed further in the first typescript:
The dwarves, of course, were very alarmed when Bilbo fell forward down the step with a bump into the hall, and they sat [added: huddled] just where he had left them at the end of the tunnel.
‘Sh! sh!’ they hissed, when they heard his voice; and though that helped the hobbit to find out where they were, it was some time before he could get anything else out of them. But in the end, when Bilbo actually began to stamp on the floor, and screamed out ‘light!’ at the top of his shrill voice, Thorin gave way, and Oin and Gloin were sent back to their bundles at the top of the tunnel.
After a while a twinkling gleam showed them returning, Oin with a small pine-torch alight in his hand, and Gloin with a bundle of others under his arm. Quickly Bilbo trotted to the door and took the torch . . . (typescript page 128; 1/1/63:2).
For all the additional detail and fleshing out of the scene, the most significant change here is the addition of the idea that a step down separated the secret tunnel from the vast chamber that Smaug had made his lair; no such step had been mentioned in the earlier descriptions of Bilbo’s two previous trips down the tunnel.
7 This highly suggestive word choice, coming as it does in the paragraph before he pockets the Gem of Girion and becomes ‘a burglar indeed’, survived into the intermediate fair copy text – ‘They saw the little dark shape of the hobbit steal across the floor . . .’ (page ‘c’) – but vanished thereafter; the First Typescript reads instead ‘. . . start across the floor’.
8 Here the manuscript reading, ‘the Gem of Girion’ (manuscript page 161; 1/1/15), survives into the fair copy as ‘the gem of Girion’ (fair copy page ‘d’; 1/1/14), which is then changed in ink to ‘the Arkenstone’. At some later time, probably at the time of the creation of the First Typescript, ‘Heart of the Mountain’ was added in pencil to the fair copy page alongside ‘Arkenstone’. The typescript reading (1/1/63:2) is the same as that of the published book: ‘the Arkenstone, the Heart of the Mountain’.
9 The original story, that Girion had given Thror the Gem in payment for the arming of his sons (see Plot Notes C), is reflected in the wording of the Second Phase manuscript here. Although this paragraph is developed and recast in the fair copy (so that it resembles the typescript and published texts), the phrase ‘the dwarves to whom Girion had given it’ remained, until it was struck out and replaced in faint pencil which seems to read ‘the dwarves who dug it from the mountain’s heart’ (fair copy page ‘d’; 1/1/14:4). In the First Typescript this has become ‘the dwarves, who had dug it from the heart of the mountain long ago’ (typescript page 129; 1/1/63:3), the reading of the published book (DAA.293).
10 This passage was carefully revised to establish the qualities of the Gem or Arkenstone, both physical (that is, its size and weight) and magical, carefully balancing hints of Bilbo’s being under the power of the wondrous stone versus his acting on his own volition when he takes and hides it. First, an addition to the original manuscript made the Gem somewhat smaller, so that ‘larger than the hobbit’s small hand’ became ‘larger than the hobbit’s small hand could close upon’ (manuscript page 161; 1/1/15). The passive tense of the Second Phase manuscript (‘the hobbit’s small hand . . . was stretched out to it’) was initially retained into the fair copy, which devotes its own paragraph to Bilbo’s taking the gem and becomes, for the moment, a new draft (albeit an unusually neat one) as Tolkien experiments with the phrasing:
[Suddenly Bilbo’s hand was drawn towards it. He >] Suddenly Bilbo’s arm went towards it, drawn by its enchantment. [He could scarcely lift it, for it was large and heavy. >] His small hand would not close over it, for it was
a large and heavy gem; but he lifted it, shut his eyes, and put it in his largest pocket.
The typescript stays very close to this, only dropping one comma and substituting deepest for largest, apparently over an erasure. The phrasing of this final version – where Bilbo’s arm is ‘drawn by its enchantment’, but the actual passive tense has been removed, and ending in a string of simple active tenses (lifted, shut, put) – nicely captures the ambivalence of the passage.
11 For Thorin’s assurance that Bilbo could choose his own share, see their discussion near the end of Chapter XII (page 514), from manuscript page 151c:
‘As for your share Mr Baggins’ said Thorin ‘I assure you we are more than satisfied with your professional assistance; and you shall choose it yourself, as soon as we have it! I am sorry we were so stupid as to overlook the transport problem . . .’
The line about Bilbo’s uneasy feeling over what he has just done first appears in the fair copy text, replacing the final sentence of the paragraph:
‘. . . I would choose this, if they took all the rest!’ All the same, he had an uncomfortable feeling that the picking and choosing had not been really meant to include this marvellous gem, and that trouble would still come of it.
12 Here and throughout the original Second Phase manuscript depiction of the scene in Smaug’s empty lair, Bilbo is much less panic-strickened than in the published account. We are told that ‘his courage failed altogether’, but the actual description of his actions, both here and in his earlier stumble in the dark on page 578–9, does not really bear this out – for example, Bilbo is already feeling his way along the walls when the dwarves finally strike a light in the original draft, whereas in the fair copy ‘his wits had returned as soon as he saw the twinkle of their lights’ (fair copy page ‘e’; 1/1/14:5). Many details added at the fair copy and First Typescript stages – e.g., the description of Bilbo’s shouts after the loss of his torch as ‘squeaking’, his peeping timidly through the great doors, ‘ruefully’ being replaced by ‘miserably’, et al. – all have the cumulative effect of diminishing Bilbo’s stature and courage throughout this scene, from the time he enters the dragon’s lair for a third time until the dwarves rejoin him there.
13 The fair copy text (fair copy page ‘e’; 1/1/14:5) adds ‘crept out, one by one,’ which marks a final appearance in the book of the Unexpected Party motif, which we have also seen in the troll scene, the arrival at Medwed and the Mirkwood bonfires scene along the way.
14 The effect that the sight of treasure has on dwarves shifts, from positive (‘his courage grows’) in the Second Phase manuscript to ambivalent (not just ‘bold’ but ‘fierce’, no longer ‘kindled’ but ‘wakened’)† in the fair copy:
. . . when the fire of the heart of a dwarf is wakened by jewels and gold [> by gold and by jewels] he grows suddenly [fierce >] bold, and he may become fierce.
The typescript rearranges this slightly, and makes one significant addition:
. . . when the heart of a dwarf, even the most respectable, is wakened by gold and by jewels, he grows suddenly bold, and he may become fierce.
These changes were obviously made to match the evolving conception and introduction of the idea of dragon-sickness taking hold on Bilbo’s companions, which had been absent in the Second Phase story – cf. the mention of ‘respectable’ dwarves, a term specifically applied to Thorin & Company by Medwed (see page 234).
† Implying it was already there, though dormant.
15 Added in hasty script in the bottom margin, and marked for insertion first following ‘in the light’ in the preceding sentence and then at this point:
They gathered gems in their hands & let them fall
This passage accords well with the conception of the dragon-sickness taking hold on the dwarves and especially Thorin, a plot-point not present when this chapter was first drafted (that is, in the Second Phase story). Accordingly, although there is no appreciable difference in ink, this marginal addition probably dates from the Third Phase and represents drafting for the intermediate fair copy manuscript, a transition between the original story and the familiar one that appears in the typescript and subsequently the published book.
The passage about Fili and Kili playing the harps (cf. DAA.295) entered as a hasty pencilled addition onto the fair copy (page ‘f’), appearing in more polished form in the First Typescript. Fili and Kili were obviously musical; back in the first chapter they had played fiddles (page 36) while it had been Gandalf (= Thorin) who played the harp; here they prove skilled at the harp as well.
16 Added in pencil, and thus appearing in the fair copy and typescript: ‘for some young elf-prince long ago’. This is possibly of significance, because it suggests that Tolkien might have conceived of the elves as somewhat smaller than human size when he originally wrote this passage. Initially, in his early ‘fairy poetry’ such as ‘Goblin Feet’ and ‘Tinfang Warble’ and in The Book of Lost Tales, Tolkien had thought of the elves as much smaller than human, but by the mid-1920s came to reject this and envisioned them instead as of similar stature to humans (as in the feys of medieval romance, legends of the Tuatha dé Danaan, and Spenser’s Faerie Queene).
17 This is of course the same suit of armor which will become Frodo’s mithril coat in The Lord of the Rings, but the idea of ‘mithril’ had not yet arisen. In Plot Notes C, this had been ‘gold & silver mail made like steel’ – that is, soft precious metals somehow hardened by dwarven craft to serve as protection. Tolkien may have changed this upon realizing that such armor would be so heavy that its wearer could hardly move (gold being almost as heavy as lead, and silver roughly twice the weight of iron) – cf. the similar change of Thorin’s armor from ‘a coat of gold’ (Second Phase manuscript and fair copy) to ‘a coat of gold-plated rings’ (First Typescript and published book).
Although it’s tempting to view The Hobbit’s ‘silvered steel’ as simply mithril under another name, the only thing that indicates that Bilbo’s armor is anything more than silver-plated steel here is the fact that it has not tarnished or disintegrated, as real silver does over time,† and the same is obviously true of the many other silver objects in the legendarium – e.g. the Sceptre of Annúminas (already more than five thousand years old when Elrond surrendered it to King Aragorn; cf. LotR.1009 & 1080), the Elendilmir (that is, the silver circlet bearing the Star of Elendil, some three thousand years old), the horn from Scatha’s hoard presented to Meriadoc (‘wrought all of fair silver’ and at least a thousand years old; cf. LotR.1014, 1102, & 1123), and indeed the silver harpstrings Fili and Kili play (which we are specifically told are ‘magical’) – forcing us to conclude that Tolkien simply chose to ignore this detail of physics for aesthetic effect, since he preferred perishable silver to immutable gold.
† Hence we have many more items of gold than of silver from ancient Egypt not just because silver was rarer than gold in the Nile valley but because gold does not oxidize and thus can survive for millennia unharmed, while silver tarnishes within a few years and eventually oxidizes away entirely over the course of centuries.
18 This simple statement is invested with ominous overtones in the fair copy version, which reads ‘All the same Mr Baggins kept his head more clear of the bewitchment of the hoard than the dwarves did’ (fair copy pages ‘f’ – ‘g’). Similarly, the reference to Thorin’s ‘recovering his wits’ when he replies, which enters in with the First Typescript, emphasizes the dweomer the dragon-gold casts upon the unwary.
The reference to Beorn’s refreshments (see DAA.296) also enters in at the fair copy stage; like Bilbo’s thoughts of Gandalf in Chapter XI, this allusion helps remind the reader of this character (who has not appeared since Chapter VII) and helps set up his return a few chapters later.
19 The word old is cancelled in the manuscript but restored in the fair cop
y, so I have retained it here.
20 We never gain any more information about what wild animals might be warily sharing the outer regions of Smaug’s lair than this brief reference. These ‘animal shapes’ became, in the fair copy, ‘furtive shadows’:
. . . no sign of any living thing, save furtive shadows that fled from the approach of their fluttering torches [> torches fluttering in the draughts].(fair copy page ‘g’; 1/1/14:7).
With the exception of one word changed in the typescript (‘save furtive shadows’ > ‘‘only furtive shadows’), this is the reading in the published book (DAA.296), so we never learn any more about these Gollum-like lurkers in Thror’s deserted halls.
21 This statement of course ignores the fact that Bilbo is carrying the Gem of Girion in his pocket; even though it had not yet gained the status it later reached of being worth ‘a river of gold in itself’ (DAA.326), it was nonetheless already the pre-eminent item of treasure within the hoard; cf. Chapter XII page 514 and Text Note 39 following that chapter. Compare the dwarves’ reasonable behavior here of taking as much of the treasure as they can manage on what may be their only chance before the dragon returns (and only after arming themselves and as a last action before leaving the treasure-chamber), not forgetting the more practical business of preserving their supplies and remaining food (another practical detail that vanished after the Second Phase manuscript), with their more greedful behavior in the published account, where they caress the treasure longingly – e.g. the inserted passage cited in Text Note 15 above and its fair copy analogue:
. . . they lifted old treasures from the mound and held them in the light, caressing and fingering them. They gathered gems and stuffed their pockets, and let what they could not carry fall back through their fingers with a sigh.