Boromir

Lineage and youth

Boromir was born in 2978, the elder son of Denethor II, Ruling Steward of Gondor, and Finduilas of Dol Amroth. He was named for the eleventh Ruling Steward. His mother died when he was ten, and he grew up in Minas Tirith in the shadow of Mordor and under the eye of a father who saw in him everything he valued: strength, courage, a love of arms and of the deeds of war, a mind for command, and no patience for lore. He and his brother Faramir, five years younger, loved each other without rivalry, and Boromir was his brother's protector from childhood. He was tall and fair of face, broad-shouldered, black-haired and grey-eyed, a great fighter in the old Númenórean mould, and his father trusted him beyond all others. He never married.

Captain of Gondor

Boromir became Captain-General of Gondor's armies and Captain of the White Tower in his father's service, and the soldiers and people of the city loved him. In June 3018 Sauron opened the war with a sudden assault on Osgiliath, and Boromir commanded the defence. The eastern half of the ruined city was lost, but he and Faramir held the last bridge with a handful of men until it could be broken behind them and swam the river to safety. The night before that battle Faramir had dreamed a dream, which came to him many times afterward and once to Boromir: a voice out of the West bidding the hearer seek the Sword that was Broken in Imladris, where counsel would be given, and speaking of Isildur's Bane and of a Halfling. Boromir insisted on being the one to seek the meaning, since the road was long and perilous and he would not send his younger brother, and Denethor let him go.

The road to Rivendell

He set out on 4 July 3018 and rode north alone. The way was harder than he had thought: the road through Rohan was safe enough, but beyond the Gap he lost his horse fording the Greyflood at the ruins of Tharbad and came the rest of the way on foot, through lands where Gondor's name was barely known. He reached Rivendell on 24 October, a hundred and ten days after leaving Minas Tirith, on the evening before the Council of Elrond. There he told his dream, learned what Isildur's Bane was, and saw the Sword that was Broken in the hands of a ragged Ranger who claimed to be Isildur's heir. He was courteous to Aragorn but unconvinced, and he argued at the Council that the Ring should be used as a weapon against its maker. He was answered, and accepted the answer, and when the Fellowship was chosen he was one of the nine, since his road home lay with theirs.

The Fellowship

Boromir was the strong arm of the Company. He carried a shield, a long sword and the great Horn of Gondor, the heirloom of the Stewards, which he blew at the setting out despite Elrond's caution. On Caradhras he and Aragorn forced a way through the snowdrifts for the others; he argued against the road through Moria; he fought at the doors of the Chamber of Mazarbul and on the bridge of Khazad-dûm. In Lothlórien he was ill at ease and would not say what Galadriel had offered him in his mind, and from then on the hobbits noticed that he watched Frodo and bit his nails. Down the Anduin he kept his own counsel. He wanted the Company to go to Minas Tirith, and the Ring with it.

Amon Hen

On 26 February 3019 the Fellowship landed at Parth Galen below Amon Hen, and Frodo went apart to decide the road. Boromir followed him. At first he reasoned: the Ring could be used by the valiant, Gondor needed it, Elrond and Gandalf were timid, a true-hearted man would not be corrupted. When Frodo refused, Boromir raged and lunged for the Ring, and Frodo put it on and vanished. Boromir tripped, fell, and lay weeping as the madness passed; then he called out that he had been mad and begged Frodo to come back. It was too late. Frodo, seeing the Ring's power over even the best of Men, decided to go on alone, and the Fellowship was broken.

Boromir returned to the others too ashamed to explain, and when the hobbits scattered to look for Frodo, the Uruk-hai of Saruman attacked. He found Merry and Pippin beset on the hillside and stood over them, and there he made his last fight. He killed many of the Orcs, blew the Horn of Gondor until the woods rang, and fell at last pierced by many black-feathered arrows, with the hobbits carried off alive. Aragorn came to him as he died. Boromir confessed that he had tried to take the Ring, told him the hobbits had been taken, and asked him to save Minas Tirith. Aragorn answered that he had conquered and that few had won such a victory, and Boromir smiled and died.

Funeral and legacy

Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli laid him in one of the Elven boats with his sword and the cloven horn and the weapons of his enemies at his feet, and sent him over the falls of Rauros. Faramir saw the boat pass down the river in the moonlight below Osgiliath, and the two halves of the horn were washed up and carried to Denethor, who laid them on his knees when he received Gandalf. The knowledge of Boromir's death broke something in Denethor, and the Steward's preference for his dead son over his living one poisoned the last days of his life.

Boromir's fall was the Ring's first victory over the Fellowship and its last; his death proved what Frodo had guessed and sent the Ring-bearer alone into Mordor, which was the only road on which the Ring could be destroyed. Faramir, Aragorn and the hobbits remembered him as a great man undone by a temptation beyond his strength, and in Gondor his name was honoured with the songs of his city.

Slain by the Uruk-hai of Saruman on the slopes of Amon Hen on 26 February 3019, defending Merry and Pippin; laid in a boat and sent over the falls of Rauros.