return

1150 the return of the king
not done this and little more in all the days of Denethor?
But no! I said this would be prudent. I do not counsel prudence.
I said victory could not be achieved by arms. I still
hope for victory, but not by arms. For into the midst of all
these policies comes the Ring of Power, the foundation of
Barad-dûr, and the hope of Sauron.
‘Concerning this thing, my lords, you now all know enough
for the understanding of our plight, and of Sauron’s. If he
regains it, your valour is vain, and his victory will be swift
and complete: so complete that none can foresee the end of
it while this world lasts. If it is destroyed, then he will fall;
and his fall will be so low that none can foresee his arising
ever again. For he will lose the best part of the strength that
was native to him in his beginning, and all that was made or
begun with that power will crumble, and he will be maimed
for ever, becoming a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself
in the shadows, but cannot again grow or take shape. And so
a great evil of this world will be removed.
‘Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself
but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all
the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour
of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the
fields that we know, so that those who live after may have
clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours
to rule.
‘Now Sauron knows all this, and he knows that this precious
thing which he lost has been found again; but he does
not yet know where it is, or so we hope. And therefore he is
now in great doubt. For if we have found this thing, there
are some among us with strength enough to wield it. That
too he knows. For do I not guess rightly, Aragorn, that you
have shown yourself to him in the Stone of Orthanc?’
‘I did so ere I rode from the Hornburg,’ answered Aragorn.
‘I deemed that the time was ripe, and that the Stone had
come to me for just such a purpose. It was then ten days
since the Ring-bearer went east from Rauros, and the Eye of
Sauron, I thought, should be drawn out from his own land.