Master of Middle Earth (13 page)

Jokes and laughter
are often on elves' lips, and their singing wrings the heart with mingled joy
and sadness. They have the vitality of everlasting youth and the melancholy of
their centuries. Legolas enjoys an endurance that never tires in the long chase
after the ores, as well as a lightness of body that allows him to skim along on
the crust of the snow of Caradhras when even the smaller hobbits break through
the surface. He can always see farther than anybody else, and can hear the very
stones of Eregion lamenting the passing of their elven masters many years
before: "
'. . . deep they delved us, fair they forged us, high they
builded us; but they are gone . . . They sought the Havens long ago.'
" Elf senses are keener, bodies more perfectly composed, than ours, as
befits immortals, but they are still physical senses and bodies raised only a
notch above the human, and not beyond the reach of our understanding. Elves are
not immaterial spirits. They are not supernatural but "natural, far more
natural" than man, Tolkien insists in the essay "On
Fairy-stories."

Over against the
many elves who have abandoned Middle-earth, or who linger on uncaring, Tolkien
sets the many others, past and present, who assume the burdens of its history.
On Weathertop, where Elendil and his host once awaited his elfin allies led by
Gil-galad in the Last Alliance, Sam chants the ballad of that last of the
elvenkings, "whose realm was fair and free/between the Mountains and the
Sea." Those were the days of elfin power and leadership. Gil-galad cared
enough for the fate of Middle-earth to give up his otherwise immortal life for
it in battle. The elves are far weaker in the Third Age and cannot take the
offensive to oppose the reincarnated Sauron, but their tradition of concern is
carried on by Elrond, who makes Rivendell a rallying point for all the races of
Middle-earth endangered by the impending war. Born half-man, half-elf from the
union of Eärendil the man with the elfin princess Elwing, and subsequently made
all elf by the Valar, a veteran also of past battles against the Enemy, Elrond
is the logical chairman, his house the inevitable place, for the Council of
Free Peoples, which debates what to do with the Ring Frodo has just brought
there. Yet the sorrow is that, whether Sauron wins or loses, Elrond and his
elves will lose. If Sauron wins, they must flee Middle-earth or become his
slaves. If Sauron loses, by the destruction of his Ring and theirs they must
still flee, or diminish from their elf natures to a lesser breed. What holds
Elrond to his task is what holds Galadriel, a moral choice that "what
should be, shall be." It is enough.

The Council at
Rivendell is guided by "the long wisdom of Elrond." It is clear from
the start that in his opinion the Ring should be melted down in the fires of
Mount Doom, into which he long ago vainly urged Isildur to throw it. But with
Gandalf s help, and Aragorn's, he skillfully nudges the discussion of the
various speakers along in directions that will lead them to reach that decision
for themselves. He is adamant that he himself will not handle the Ring in any
way: "I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to
wield it." If nothing else, this self-distrust of one of the noblest among
the elves should prove that elves are not incapable of evil.
⁹
Elrond's assent to Frodo's offer to take the Ring to Mordor arises from his
faith that a higher providence is guiding the deliberations of the Council.
Accordingly, in the search for a Ring-bearer he is not inclined to rely on the
more obvious selection of candidates who axe wise and strong. The task may well
be one for the weak, aided by the strength that is not of earth, for "such
is the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them
because they must..."

The same
principle, together with a wise political expediency, seems to govern his
choice of members of the Company that will go south with Frodo. Sauron has
sowed distrust among the free peoples. Therefore each of these (save the ents,
who are forestbound) must have a representative who, by living daily with the
others, will help to constitute a community of mutual trust. Moreover, each
will serve as an ambassador of good will to the different species he will meet
along the road. No less than Gimli for the dwarves is Legolas an emissary for
the elves, both races being now suspected by each other and by other races,
especially men. Elrond might have picked a mighty elf lord like Glorfindel or
an older, more experienced dwarf. Instead he prefers young and adaptable
unknowns. Tolkien's point about Legolas, for instance, surely is that he is a
rather typical young elf in whom the essential qualities of his people shine
out most visibly. The close friendship that develops between Legolas and Gimli
is exactly what Elrond hopes for.

Rivendell stands
for the horizontal capacities of elf society to reach out, touch, and influence
the other intelligent people of Middle-earth. Everybody is welcome there,
everybody feels at home, everybody talks to everybody else freely as he would
in no other place. Very different is Lórien, "the heart of Elvendom on
earth," as Aragorn calls it. That is all perpendicular, all elvish.
Strangers are not welcome there. The population consists wholly of Silvan elves
living not in houses but on platforms in the tops of huge mallorn trees, which
grow nowhere else on Middle-earth. Indeed, all its vegetation, from the flowers
of
elanor
and
niphredil
in the grass to the tree walls enclosing
the city of the Galadrim is unique. So, especially, is "the power and the
light that held all the land in its sway," perceived by Frodo. Later he
comes to understand that the whole enchanted region is created by the power of
Galadriel focused through the elf ring Nenya, which she is wearing: "The
power of the Lady is on it... where Galadriel wields the Elven-ring."

No such light
shines over cosmopolitan Rivendell. In Lórien is the purest essence of faery,
resembling the light of the Two Trees in Valinor, whereby Galadriel has made
for herself and her people a region and a life as close to that of the Undying
Lands as she can contrive on Middle-earth. In keeping with the nature of the
elf ring from which it springs, Lórien the fair is a land of peace and healing
where the Company recovers from weariness and grief for the loss of Gandalf,
and where the reborn Gandalf himself comes after his fight with the Balrog,
naked, to be clothed in white and nursed by Galadriel. Just across the river
Sauron's stronghold of Dol Guldur broods on its stony heights above twisted,
rotting trees. But the darkness it generates can make no headway against its
opposite, the light of Lórien. Tolkien has arranged the confrontation with a
purpose, of course. The elf Haldir speaks for him in seeing in the combat
between light and darkness large implications for the theme underlying the
whole War of the Ring: "In this high place you may see," he points
out to Frodo standing on a tree platform, "the two powers that are opposed
to one another; and ever they strive in thought, but whereas the light
perceives the very heart of the darkness, its own secret has not been
discovered. Not yet." But Tolkien also wants to bring the struggle being
waged in Lórien right down to a personal one between Galadriel and Sauron. He
manages this in a subsequent garden scene in which she demonstrates to Frodo
and Sam how her mirror works. What defends Lórien, she tells them, is not so
much the singing or even the arrows of her elves as her ability to read the
Enemy's thoughts in its waters: "... I perceive the Dark Lord and know his
mind, or all of it that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my
thought. But still the door is closed!" Matched against the sight which
the inherent sympathies of goodness give it, the selfishness of evil is blind.
¹⁰

Nevertheless this
advantage cannot save Lórien in the end. It was doomed an Age ago at the first
forging of the rings. Haldir, speaking for his fellows, knows and laments it.
Even if Sauron is beaten, "For the Elves, I fear, it will prove at best a
truce, in which they may pass to the Sea unhindered and leave the Middle-earth
for ever. Alas for Lothlórien that I love! It would be a poor life in a land
where no mallorn grew. But if there are mallorn-trees beyond the Great Sea,
none have reported it." A homebody himself, Sam recognizes that the elves
"belong here" in Lórien, more even than hobbits do in the Shire. From
this love of the elves for Lórien, which Galad-riel tells Frodo is deeper than
the deeps of the sea so that their regret for it will be undying and never
wholly assuaged, arises most acutely her temptation to accept the Ring when
Frodo freely offers it to her. For this would be the one forbidden way to save
her land. For centuries she and her husband, Celeborn, have loved it and
"fought the long defeat" (superb phrase!) which is to be their lot.
Now if she accepted the one Ring she could not only conquer Sauron with it but
preserve the elf ring on which hangs the very existence of her country. She has
even thought of taking it by force from her guest. In the final temptation
scene, one of the finest Tolkien ever wrote, she dreams aloud of all the good
she might do as Queen of Middle-earth, building up to the explosive
recognition, "All shall love me and despair!" This settles the issue
for her. Rather, she will "remain Galadriel," fight the good fight
against Sauron for the sake of Middle-earth, and return with all her people to
Valinor across the sea.

Tolkien's
characterization of this greatest of elf women is remarkable throughout. One of
the original Noldor leaders who left the Undying Lands with Fëanor in the First
Age, she proudly declared, when exiled, that she had no wish to return.
Consequently the approaching loss of Lórien is made more poignant for her by
the possibility that she will be obliged to remain on Middle-earth, and sink to
a rustic state in which she will "forget" all her high knowledge.
¹¹
Her temptation to accept the one Ring is increased correspondingly. Her
intuitive understanding of Gandalf's motives for risking the Moria passage is
keener than her husband's. So is her ability to absorb at a glance the inmost
thoughts of each of her guests, especially Gimli, whose adoration she wins by a
single unexpected glance of love. She has sternness, too. Apart from its
meaning for Lórien, Frodo's mission is too crucial for all Middle-earth for her
not to test the integrity of his companions by an unspoken offer to each of
whatever he most desires. Boromir's knowledge that he has failed her scrutiny
makes him hate her and drives him to looks and actions that warn Frodo of his
danger. "There is in her and in this land no evil, unless a man bring it
hither himself," Aragorn has assured the Company. Boromir has brought his
in his own heart—the intention to seize the Ring.

As the Company
prepares to leave Lórien, Galadriel has the fortitude to encourage her sad lord
though "already our evening draweth nigh." She and her women with
their own hands weave cloaks for all the travelers into which they embroider
the hues of the land they cherish, "for we put the thought of all that we
love into all that we make." Much better than the anonymous products of
our machines today, Tolkien implies. She also bestows on Frodo and his
companions parting gifts carefully selected to meet the needs of each.
Aragorn's brooch of elfstone is both the fullfillment of a prophecy and a
"token of hope" for his kingship; Frodo's phial of water infused with
the light of Eärendil's star will take him safely through dark places in
Mordor, and so on. The strands of her golden hair that Galadriel gives Gimli
bind them together in affection and signify the passing of the old feud between
elves and dwarves. All her gifts come from a generous, wise, and tactful heart.
She appears briefly once more at the end of the epic, pardoned by the Valar and
ready for the journey overseas. Her true farewell, though, is at her last meal
with the Company in Lórien, where to Frodo "already she seemed ... as by
men of later days Elves still at times are seen: present and yet remote, a
living vision of that time which has already been left far behind by the
flowing streams of Time."

But we do not
understand her yet, not until we understand better the slow pace of time in
Lórien, and why she made it so. Through this we shall learn something
fundamental about the inner life of all elves. As they float down the river,
Anduin, the members of the Fellowship debate why their stay in Lórien seemed to
them subjectively to last only a few days, whereas the shape of the moon they
now see overhead indicates that by objective time they were there about a
month. Frodo remembers that on first stepping over its borders he felt
"that he had stepped over a bridge of time into a corner of the Elder
Days, and was now walking in a world that was no more. In Rivendell there was a
memory of ancient things; in Lórien the ancient things still lived on in the waking
world." He thought himself in a timeless country exempt from change, and
actually heard the cries of seabirds whose race had perished when the world was
young. Accordingly he now suggests that in Lórien "we were in a time that
has elsewhere long gone by." It must have been before any moon existed,
for he saw none there. Time had been stopped.

Legolas, out of
his personal experience, corrects him by saying that time never stops, though
it may flow more slowly in some places than in others. He then goes to the
heart of elf psychology: "For the Elves the world moves, and it moves both
very swift and very slow. Swift, because they themselves change little and all
else fleets by: it is a grief to them. Slow, because they do not count the
running years, not for themselves. The passing seasons are but ripples ever
repeated in the long long stream." This analysis tells why the
deathlessness of the elves makes them forever sad. Undying themselves, they
watch all mortal things around them, which they love, always growing old and
dying. "It is a grief to them." This is the swiftness of time. Then
they turn inward to contemplate their own hardly changing natures. This is the
slowness of time.