Reading Sam and Frodo through the Greek Loves

A conference paper, from me to you!

Hello substack readers, it’s good to see you again. What I’m posting here is essentially the script from a conference paper I gave at Oxonmoot 2024, with some of the slides/images thrown in for your benefit. This is a long one, so make a nice cup of tea and settle in for a read. For the sake of flow, there are a lot of quotes regarding the different loves on the slide images rather than in the body of the text, but I’ve popped the text of these quotes into the alt text for those who listen rather than read. The premise of this conference paper was to read Sam and Frodo through the concept of the Greek Loves, as a means of looking at Sam and Frodo outside of our traditionally binary of Romance vs Friendship, and to showcase the wide variety of types of love that their relationship embodies. I hope you enjoy!

***

I know usually what people expect from me is something really citation heavy and historical. That’s not what I’ve done today. I needed something light, and I thought you would enjoy this as well. Today we’re going to be Reading Sam and Frodo’s relationship through the Greek Loves. The goal for today is to look at different passages in the text, mostly in this case in The Two Towers, through the lens of these different loves, as a means towards understanding the depth of this relationship a little better. It’s pretty much all close reading today. My hope is that we can come out of this process with a broader understanding of what qualifies as love, and how Sam and Frodo’s relationship reflects every version of Love that falls under this category of “the Greek Loves”. If we expand our vocabulary, we can expand our openness to diverse readings and understandings.

I am Intentionally not going to be referring to Lewis’s work on the Greek Loves because I have a bug in my ear about conflating Lewis’s opinions with Tolkien’s, and I think he gets close to something brilliant but ends up being quite reductive instead.

art by Molly Ostertag

So let’s start with the basics, what are the Greek Loves?

Disclaimer, I’m going to wildly oversimplify this because these are broad philosophical concepts that not everyone agrees with across the board. If you google the Greek Loves you get lists of everywhere from four to nine. I’ve gone with the eight which gives us the widest breadth, but excluding Xenia because that’s hospitality not love, I will put my foot down and draw the line there. Some of these words are actually used in this way in Ancient Greek and in ancient sources, and some are a lot more modern, or have developed over time. Some are words that are just not used this way in modern Greek but have become part of pop-cultural zeitgeist. If I were to break the history down of all of these words we would be here forever. That’s a published paper for another time. So we are just using these terms as helpful signifiers in this case. They represent ideas, as they tend to be used now by philosophers, sociologists and psychologists, pop or professional.

Ironically, the term “Greek Loves” should not be confused with the term “Greek Love”, which is specifically a Neoclassical term regarding homoeroticism, but I think to ignore crossover would be naive at best, so it’s worth noting, keeping in mind, but not dwelling on.

The Greek Loves are, very simply, a group of distinct and different words for Love based on ancient philosophy, which has, as said, expanded and developed over time. It’s much more expansive than our singular English word “Love”, and can be useful in looking at nuance, and in our case the nuances in Sam and Frodo’s relationship. This isn’t a be all end all, and we have to be careful when using the Greek Loves to not taxonomize Love. These are signifiers for concepts not taxonomies, and they often overlap and blur together. Relationships between people can include multiple forms of love in various degrees, and its not a mutually exclusive categorization system.

I’ve included here a list of the Greek Loves, and I will go through them more thoroughly in detail in this order.

1. Storge - familial love, kinship

2. Philia - affectional love between friends

3. Ludus - playful love, juvenile affection

4. Eros - passionate romantic/sexual love

5. Pragma - committed, married love

6. Agape - selfless love, empathy and compassion

7. Mania - obsessive, co-dependent love

8. Philautia - love and respect for one’s self

STORGE

Storge can be simplified to familial love, or a love based on natural kinship. This can then be also love for one’s countryman, love between friends who are part of a tight community, such as a queer found family (see a past conference paper to be published on JTR hopefully soon). It’s the often unconditional love based on circumstance.

While there are plenty of examples of storge throughout the story, the moment I want to use as an example here is from The Two Towers, when Sam is waking Frodo up after he passed out near Minas Morgul. Frodo hears Sam calling for him, and recalls the familiar comforts of home, which Sam’s company inspires.

“Then at a great distance, as if it came out of memories of the Shire, some sunlit early morning, when the day called and doors were opening, he heard Sam's voice speaking. 'Wake up, Mr. Frodo! Wake up!' Had the voice added: 'Your breakfast is ready,' he would hardly have been surprised. Certainly Sam was urgent. 'Wake up, Mr. Frodo! They're gone,' he said.”

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch.8

PHILIA

Philia is where most heteronormative readings will place Sam and Frodo’s relationship, and stop there. Philia is affectionate, loyal love sans physical attraction, a loving friendship between equals, the concept of Brotherly Love. The most important citation for Philia would be Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. According to Roman Kzarnic, “it was about showing loyalty to your friends, sacrificing for them, as well as sharing your emotions with them.”

This is important, and I don’t want to diminish the Philia present in the text, because we do see Sam and Frodo becoming close friends and equals, where they are not equal socially. I don’t want to dismiss Philia. I just think we should not stop at Philia, because these terms can overlap. You can have Philia and other loves as well. Plato himself noted that the strongest loving relationships were ones where Philia led to Eros, in a “friends to lovers” situation as put by Dictionary.com of all places, which I found great. Kzarnic notes that in the Dutch Golden Age, it was believed that married life should also offer Philia. Achilles and Patroclus are also often a model form of battlefield Philia which is…an interesting framing to say the least.

“But Samwise Gamgee, my dear hobbit – indeed, Sam my dearest hobbit, friend of friends – I do not think we need give thought to what comes after that.”

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch.2

“...he laughed again. 'Why, Sam,' he said, 'to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you've left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. "I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn't they put in more of his talk, dad? That's what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam, would he, dad?"

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch.8

Again, there are plenty of great examples that we all know! The two I have here are just particularly good examples from The Two Towers. Frodo refers to Sam as “Sam, my dearest hobbit, friend of friends.” And then of course we have the very iconic passage in which Sam is wondering if stories will be told about Frodo, and Frodo insists that it is both of their stories equally.

Frodo and Sam’s Philia is deeply loyal, deeply affectionate, and equal.

LUDUS

Now we get to have a little fun. The keen eyed among us might have noticed the word Ludus is not Greek! It’s Latin! That’s because it’s our first of the later additions, popularized by Ovid, insert further research here in the future. Ludus in Latin means “game” or play”, and a possible Greek equivalent is the word erotoropia or “courtship”. The idea behind this is that Ludus is playful, noncommittal love, the “playful affection between children or casual lovers”, what Krznaric refers to as an “adult frivolity”. We can think of Ludus in this case as the playful, flirty, early stages of romance which are ritual aspects of courtship as well as a foundational part of close friendship.

“‘A stout little fellow with red cheeks,’ said Mr. Butterbur solemnly. Pippin chuckled, but Sam looked indignant.”

Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Ch.10

“Sam muttered something inaudible. ‘It’s out of his own head, of course,’ said Frodo. ‘I am learning a lot about Sam Gamgee on this journey. First he was a conspirator, now he’s a jester. He’ll end up by becoming a wizard – or a warrior!’”

Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Ch. 12

“At that moment there was a knock on the door, and Sam came in. He ran to Frodo and took his left hand, awkwardly and shyly. He stroked it gently and then he blushed and turned hastily away. ‘Hullo, Sam!’ said Frodo. ‘It’s warm!’ said Sam. ‘Meaning your hand, Mr. Frodo. It has felt so cold through the long nights.”

Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Ch.1

What I love about looking at Sam and Frodo’s relationship through Ludus is that you can see how their relationship develops very early on in Fellowship. You can trace how quickly Sam and Frodo become a unit, rather than two individuals, by how closely Sam sticks to Frodo. I’ve put three moments up here on the slide, though there are many more little things throughout, because they show this flirtatious courtship transition. In the first, Sam is indignant about Frodo being described as “a stout little fellow with red cheeks”, like he’s taking defensive offense at that, but says nothing.

Then, later, when Sam has recited a poem out of his own head with some embarrassment, Frodo affectionately teases him for it (while, mind you, being severely injured from the Morgul Blade, finding time to affectionately rib Sam for being charming and clever.)

It then culminates with Sam’s absolutely adorable awkward, shy blushing as he caresses Frodo’s hand, after spendings days at his bedside. By reading these early interactions through the lens of Ludus, we can see the development of their relationship from playful flirtation to deepest affection.

EROS

Now, I want to take a moment to actually go into Eros with some detail. To really go into it in depth…again, we’d be here forever, this has been widely discussed for thousands of years. Eros is often considered simply to be passionate sexual love, but that is an oversimplification. The modern Greek word erotas means “intimate love” and I think that definition does a lot of work. Eros is about passionate physical intimacy, a desire to succumb to passions that feels beyond control but is not so beyond control as to become Mania. It’s not an uncontrollable obsessive lust, though it can border on that. Plato takes Eros a step further, and suggests that Eros is related to the appreciation of the beauty of another person that can become transcendent. So, Eros is then the passionate drive towards the sexual and/or the intimate based on the beauty we see in another person, and how this beauty is communicated between bodies.

Certainly Tolkien doesn’t give Sam and Frodo a sexual relationship, I’m not arguing that and very few would based on the text alone—(though there is plenty of empty space to extrapolate within if you choose to, it’s not denied it’s just not there in the text, there’s no evidence of absence just absence of evidence).

What Tolkien does do though that fits within the realm of Eros is show Sam and Frodo’s love as being physically intimate on a level that goes beyond Philia. We get a lot of descriptions of Frodo and Sam’s physical intimacy, descriptions of touch, and physical closeness, of kisses and other physical affection, a constant sense of a desire to be touching. And I’m not going to go into the nuances of touch, I would recommend Anna Smol’s work on Frodo’s body and bodies in war which do a great job analyzing this, though I do think there is still more work to be done in regards to queerness and touch Tolkien’s lifetime–talk to me in five years about this after my thesis is done.

art by Molly Ostertag

The passage that shows this physical intimacy the most effectively is when Sam is watching Frodo sleep.

“The early daylight was only just creeping down into the shadows under the trees, but he saw his masters face very clearly, and his hands too, lying at rest on the ground beside him. He was reminded suddenly of Frodo as he had lain, asleep in the house of Elrond, after his deadly wound. Then as he had kept watch Sam had noticed that at times a light seemed to be shining faintly within; but now the light was even clearer and stronger. Frodo’s face was peaceful, the marks of fear and care had left it; but it looked old, old and beautiful, as if the chiselling of the shaping years was now revealed in many fine lines that had before been hidden, though the identity of the face was not changed. Not that Sam Gamgee put it that way himself. He shook his head, as if finding words useless, and murmured: ‘I love him. He’s like that, and sometimes it shines through, somehow. But I love him, whether or no’.”

The Two Towers

I’m going to come back to this in a moment when discussing Pragma, because this is also an excellent example of Pragma, but it highlights that Sam is drawn to Frodo’s beauty, and loves that beauty as it shines out through his face which can be read as a form of Eros. Eros loves another person physically and is drawn to that physicality, whether or not that becomes sexual.

PRAGMA

Pragma is where I want to spend the most time, and is the love that I think we see most clearly through Frodo and Sam’s relationship in these chapters. Pragma is another one of those late additions. It was popularized by Canadian sociologist John Allan Lee in the 70s, who described it as a mature, realistic love that is commonly found amongst long-established couples. Pragma is, functionally, married love. It is the love built over a long-term commitment to each other, to building a home together and a life together, through compromise for the love of this deep, long-lasting companionship, as a couple grows to honor, respect and cherish each other, accepting each other’s differences and learning to compromise. This is the love that I think we see most clearly in Sam and Frodo. And I’m going to give you lots of examples. My examples are focusing on married-like intimacy, but I know this audience doesn’t need my help pulling plenty of other examples of Pragma. We all know Sam and Frodo pretty damn well.

Let’s start with the same passage we looked at for Eros. When I read that passage, and I see Sam watching Frodo sleep, seeing the age in his face, and saying “he’s like that sometimes, and I love him whether or no” it reads to me like the love of an old married couple, who know each other’s ins and outs, their whether or nos, and find them beautiful even as they wear the passage of the years on their faces.

Art by vanyaliful @ tumblr

“While Gollum was away Sam took another look at Frodo. He was still sleeping quietly, but Sam was now struck most by the leanness of his face and hands. 'Too thin and drawn he is,' he muttered. 'Not right for a hobbit. If I can get these coneys cooked, I'm going to wake him up.'”

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch. 4

“Then at a great distance, as if it came out of memories of the Shire, some sunlit early morning, when the day called and doors were opening, he heard Sam's voice speaking. 'Wake up, Mr. Frodo! Wake up!' Had the voice added: 'Your breakfast is ready,' he would hardly have been surprised. Certainly Sam was urgent. 'Wake up, Mr. Frodo! They're gone,' he said."

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch.8

Sam also expresses concern over Frodo being “too thin and drawn”, and how he wants to feed him to fix that. That can certainly be Storge, or familial love, but married love, Pragma, and Storge go hand in hand.

We can look again at the passage we looked at for Storge. In the darkest night, in the shadow of Minas Morgul, Frodo imagines home, with Sam making him breakfast. We should remember that this wasn’t Sam’s job back in Bag-end. He was just his gardener, his groundskeeper. This is a projection, a hope of this deep, long-lasting companionship of the home, which Frodo does try to muster when they do get back to Bag End, in his desire for Sam to move in with him.

The next passage I want to look at it Sam protecting Frodo while he sleeps. Sam is insisting that Frodo sleep, and that he can protect Frodo as he does so. But he doesn’t do this by keeping guard with a sword. He does this by holding Frodo in his arms to bring them both some peace.

“ If we're caught napping, Stinker will come out on top pretty quick. Not but what it would be safe for you to have a wink now, master. Safe, if you lay close to me. I'd be dearly glad to see you have a sleep. I'd keep watch over you; and anyway, if you lay near, with my arm round you, no one could come pawing you without your Sam knowing it.'
'Sleep!' said Frodo and sighed, as if out of a desert he had seen a mirage of cool green. 'Yes, even here I could sleep.'

'Sleep then, master! Lay your head in my lap.'

And so Gollum found them hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path out of the gloom ahead. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo's head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam's brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master's breast. Peace was in both their faces.”

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch. 8

There is some degree of Eros here, in the level of intimate touch, and Philia as has been well described in terms of Medieval loyalty, but what I think is more important is the sense of intimate unity, this married couple relationship where now Sam is husband, the protector, the big spoon as it were, who can keep Frodo safe from the outside world. This isn’t motherly, this isn’t paternal, this isn’t brotherly. Sam’s concern is Gollum coming to paw at Frodo, to get his hands on Frodo in whatever unsavoury way you want to imagine. Sam’s protection in this case is romantic intimacy, the romantic intimacy of a committed partnership. Safety of this variety is what you want to have a life partner for.

The scene then continues into something that I can only describe as romantic intimacy, and romantic play to wake a lover up gently.

“But never mind. I'll wake master up.' Gently he smoothed the hair back from Frodo's brow, and bending down spoke softly to him. 'Wake up, Mr. Frodo! Wake up!' Frodo stirred and opened his eyes, and smiled, seeing Sam's face bending over him. 'Calling me early aren't you, Sam?' he said. 'It's dark still!'”

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch. 8

I look at this brief exchange, and I think, were these two characters of different genders, were the names taken out of this passage, we would immediately read it as sweetly romantic. In fact, let’s do that now.

“But never mind. I'll wake master up.' Gently he smoothed the hair back from HER brow, and bending down spoke softly to HER. 'Wake up, MS. Frodo! Wake up!' SHE stirred and opened HER eyes, and smiled, seeing Sam's face bending over HER. 'Calling me early aren't you, Sam?' SHE said. 'It's dark still!'”

I truly think that if you did this to all of the passages I’ve just read, we would be having a very different conversation. It is only our preconception of what this relationship should be that keeps us from reading intimate, loving romance, when it is right there on the page.

There is one last example of Pragma I want to point out, and that is when Sam thinks Frodo is dead.

“Then as quickly as he could he cut away the binding cords and laid his head upon Frodo's breast and to his mouth, but no stir of life could he find, nor feel the faintest flutter of the heart. Often he chafed his master's hands and feet, and touched his brow, but all were cold.

'Frodo, Mr. Frodo!' he called. 'Don't leave me here alone! It's your Sam calling. Don't go where I can't follow! Wake up, Mr. Frodo! O wake up, Frodo, me dear, me dear. Wake up!'

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch.10

In desperately calling out “It’s your Sam calling. Don’t go where I can’t follow!” I read these words, the use of your, your Sam, the desperation of needing to follow, and it brings to mind marriage vows, the vow to be together till death do they part. In his grief, he agonizes that Frodo has gone before him, without him, as one might, in old age, grieve that their partner has gone before them. As Tolkien, much later than the writing of this, grieved for Edith. As Tolkien did, long before writing Frodo and Sam, when Geoffrey Bache Smith went before him (see my future thesis, watch this space). And it actually makes me tear up to think about.

AGAPE

Now, moving on to Agape– Agape is another one like Philia that is often attributed to Sam and Frodo, and there are plenty of examples of Agape in Return of the King, which, again, you all know. I’m not going to linger too long on Agape because it’s well discussed in regards to The Lord of the Rings, I have very little to say about it, that's in any way novel. Agape is Selfless Love, empathy and compassion. It is often in Christian terms considered to be “the Love of God”, because it is attributed to being self-sacrificing and profound, beyond the physical body and trivial concerns. But the Ancient Greeks DID use Agape in relationships as well, so any of the previously mentioned relationships could also extend to Agape, it’s not distinct as being superior to, but rather just being different from.

We see Sam perform Agape profoundly in Return of the King. But there is one place I do see it earlier, in relational terms, and in connection to Pragma.

When Sam is defending Frodo from Shelob, Tolkien writes:

He sprang forward with a yell, and seized his master's sword in his left hand. Then he charged. No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts; where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate.”

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch.10

Tolkien’s use of the word mate here is interesting. He is directly identifying Frodo and Sam’s relationship as this committed bond between two individuals, using a word that is usually reserved for procreative couples, especially in the realm of the animal, which is what he’s doing in this metaphor. The reason I think this is a good place to spot Agape, is that Sam’s love for Frodo in this case is so protective, so Pragmatic (to create a different definition of the word Pragmatic here), that he is willing to sacrifice himself to save him. He will continue to do this to greater and greater extents as they reach Orodruin.

MANIA & PHILAUTIA

The last two are Mania and Philautia. Mania is not something we see a lot of from Sam and Frodo, because it is the worst side of Love. Gollum’s love for the Ring is Mania. Mania is obsessive, co-dependent, destructive and self-destructive love. But we do see hints of it from Sam in The Two Towers, when he is considering suicide because he thinks Frodo is dead.

“But he could not go, not yet. He knelt and held Frodo's hand and could not release it. And time went by and still he knelt, holding his master's hand, and in his heart keeping a debate. Now he tried to find strength to tear himself away and go on a lonely journey – for vengeance. If once he could go, his anger would bear him down all the roads of the world, pursuing, until he had him at last: Gollum. Then Gollum would die in a corner. But that was not what he had set out to do. It would not be worth while to leave his master for that. It would not bring him back. Nothing would. They had better both be dead together. And that too would be a lonely journey. He looked on the bright point of the sword. He thought of the places behind where there was a black brink and an empty fall into nothingness. There was no escape that way.”

[…]

“He fancied there was a glimmer on the ground down there, or perhaps it was some trick of his tears, as he peered out at that high stony place where all his life had fallen in ruin. “

The Two Towers, Book 4, Ch.10

He can’t seem to leave Frodo’s body even though he must. He considers throwing himself down on his sword, he considers throwing himself into the black brink into an empty fall of nothingness, because he can’t fathom living without Frodo. That is encroaching on Mania. When he has finally left, he considers Frodo’s death to be the point “where all his life had fallen to ruin.” This is co-dependent grief, and also gets quite close to Mania, but he never goes too far into it.

Philautia is love and respect of one’s self. In Modern Greek Philautia means something closer to narcissistic ego, but we’re using it here in the pop-psychology sense, which is more about self-care and self-respect. Sam’s journey throughout the Lord of the Rings, is a journey towards Philautia. Sam transforms from a hobbit who sees himself as lesser, who is sometimes awkward, embarrassed, ashamed, who spends a lot of time dwelling on his father berating him and calling him a fool in so many words (ask me why I think the Gaffer was not a great father and that’s my answer), to someone who knows his worth and his value, and can act accordingly. This Philautia, this self-respect and self-love that Sam learns, is born from the love that Frodo has for him, and that love he gave in return.

All of these loves are linked, they cross over, they influence each other, they build a rich emotional environment for development and for growth. To define relationships between people, between characters like these, by rigid structures of what is and isn’t love is unrealistic, it doesn’t reflect reality and the rich fabric of love and connection that we have at our fingertips. And I think the heart of Tolkien’s work is a deep understanding of the richness of the human experience, and the varied tapestry of ways we can love one another.

Art by xeemart @ tumblr

‘8 Greek Words For Love That Will Make Your Heart Soar’. Dictionary.Com, https://www.dictionary.com/e/greek-words-for-love/.

Birch, Jenna, et al. ‘7 Greek Words For Love That Will Have You Rethinking Your Relationships’. Well+good, https://www.wellandgood.com/greek-words-for-love/.

Krznaric, Roman. How Should We Live? Great Ideas from the Past for Everyday Life. BlueBridge Books, M.
---. ‘The Ancient Greeks’ 6 Words for Love (And Why Knowing Them Can Change Your Life)’. YES! Magazine, https://www.yesmagazine.org/health-happiness/2013/12/28/the-ancient-greeks-6-words-for-love-and-why-knowing-them-can-change-your-life.

Moseley, Alexander. ‘Philosophy of Love’. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/love/.

Smol, Anna. ‘Frodo’s Body: Liminality and the Experience of War’. The Body in Tolkien’s Legendarium: Essays on Middle-Earth Corporeality, McFarland & Company , 2013, pp. 39–62.
---. ‘Male Friendship in The Lord of the Rings: Medievalism, the First World War, and Contemporary Rewritings’. The Ring Goes Ever On, vol. 1, The Tolkien Society, 2008, pp. 320–26.