Book II, Chapter 6: Lothlorien
I hold in my hands now the copy of The Fellowship of the Ring that I have been looking forward to since this journey started. This is the oldest copy of The Lord of the Rings that I anticipate I will ever hold in my hands for a casual read -- the second American edition, which was published in 1965 with some of Tolkien’s first textual revisions. First editions remain, of course, totally out of my price range, but this book (and the other two volumes -- we own the boxed set) has been in my life for a very long time now. In 2003, Betsy and I were planning ahead for our wedding (which took place in 2004), and realized that we weren’t crazy about the expense and challenge of fresh flowers for the event -- instead, we chose to acquire some good fake flowers for arrangements, and to spend the rest of our small flowers budget at Seattle’s Antiquarian Book Fair acquiring some nice, slightly-rare books for bridesmaids to carry in lieu of larger bouquets (we also planned some old book centerpieces for the reception tables, but those relied on books we already had in hand). One of our purchases for this purpose was this boxed set of the Second American Edition, in its original dust jackets -- the bindings are very nice and the text is really clear on the page, it’s a lovely edition even if the image on the jacket is a bit abstract. As mentioned, bridesmaids carried books, and our bridesmaid Jessica was selected to carry one of the three volumes from this set, in honor, as I recall, of our very fond memories going to screenings of the Peter Jackson films with her and her husband, Mark. My personal recollection is that it is this very volume that Jessica carried in our wedding. I remember being charmed by the idea that on the day that Betsy and I formed our own little “Fellowship of the Rings”, so to speak -- I’m sorry, was that too cloying for you? Well, tough, this is a cloying entry, folks, you are in the Golden Wood so get ready for more where this came from -- it felt like the right choice. (Full disclosure -- while I am 99% sure of this selection, Betsy is 99% sure it was either The Two Towers or The Return of the King, and unless Jessica happens to remember what book she was holding for about an hour on the evening of July 9, 2004, we may never know. Since it’s my blog, I’m going with my version for now.) Anyway, this set is important to us, but I’ve never actually hauled it out for a read -- my more recent editions, of course, have just slightly more corrected text thanks to Tolkien’s continued tinkering with it, and the books are just valuable and sentimental enough (as well as being bulky) that I wouldn’t take them as a vacation reading copy or anything, so it was really nice to sit with this book in my hands today, and to have those nostalgic memories of engagement and our wedding day in the back of my mind as I went into Lothlorien.
I don’t know what to make of the Fellowship’s ability to move on after Gandalf’s death: they cried a good long while for him after getting into the light of the Dimrill Dale, at the end of the last chapter, but here they seem to be able to move forward without being too broken by grief. On the one hand, I can understand -- we are able to go on under heavy burdens, especially when pressed (as they are) by need. On the other, though, there are moments that ring just slightly false -- Gimli’s inability to pass without looking into Kheled-zaram, or Aragorn’s laughter at Frodo’s coat of mithril mail. I wonder, though, if I’m meant to read them as shock being expressed: that Gimli’s gazing into Mirrormere is a way of drowning his emotions a little in the endless deep of that lake, or that Aragorn’s laughter is a way of letting out some complicated emotions (frustration with Gandalf for not having foreseen the dangers that Aragorn warned him of, relief that at least Frodo was saved miraculously from death, worry about the burden of leading in the wake of this loss). Tolkien was a man well acquainted with death and grief, and perhaps his memories of the Great War would have guided him here, thinking of how it is in wartime to lose a soldier, even one very close to you, and find yourself continuing with daily life.
The encounter with the Elves of Lorien creates a sort of answer to my puzzlement over Elrond appointing Legolas to the Fellowship -- at least he is very familiar with Sindarin, the language spoken here east of the Misty Mountains, and it seems that the Elves of Lothlorien consider him and his people their “Northern kindred”. I’m still not entirely sold -- Haldir says at one point “little faith and trust do we find now in the world beyond Lothlorien, unless maybe in Rivendell”, which sure sounds to me like an indication that there’s a closer feeling of kinship between them and Elrond’s folk than there is with Legolas, and that perhaps Glorfindel (or Galdor, or Elladan, or hey, pick almost anybody from Elrond’s household) would have been even more warmly received. Haldir sure isn’t warm and fuzzy, is he -- the tense conversation involving Gimli and Legolas is the most strained the Fellowship has yet been, and even though I know Haldir’s just following orders, it’s hard not to be frustrated by him a little here. Still, a good chunk of the tension in this chapter is just the fallout from the loss of Gandalf -- Aragorn basically commanding Boromir to enter the Golden Wood in the first place, and now having to manage a very, very old grudge between Elves and Dwarves (which had already surfaced around Legolas’s tale of Nimrodel, who fled the evil woken by the Dwarves in Moria) -- and we can’t blame Haldir or his companions for that. Certainly my covid-19 reading of LOTR is more sympathetic to Haldir than ever before -- I sure have a better understanding of the feeling that I “live now upon an island amid many perils” and that I “dare not by [my] trust endanger our land”. And Haldir gets some really lovely lines, since until we reach Galadriel, he will be the mouthpiece of Lothlorien for us, and that land is just aching with bittersweet joy. A couple of his statements are in my personal top 20 quotes from LOTR, maybe in particular, “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” Talk about a sentence for a covid-19 reading of this novel.
Their arrival at Cerin Amroth is a wonderful surge of joy in a narrative that needs it, and their being blindfolded is a great cinematic flourish by Tolkien, since it allows him to hold back a lot of his visual descriptions for a couple of pages as they journey, only to drown us in it as the blindfolds come off and Haldir tells them they stand where winter flowers ever bloom in the unfading grass, the yellow elanor and the pale niphredil. The rich, golden leaves of every mallorn tree combine with the silver of their trunks and create an overwhelming sense of awe that, with apologies to Gimli, makes the city of the Dwarrowdelf rather second-rate by comparison. I’ve always found it strange that Peter Jackson plays up the beauty of Moria while rushing past these scenes of incredible beauty in Lorien. Certainly this is a significant moment for Frodo -- he feels lost in wonder, and he senses that somehow he will always be walking here, no matter when he leaves or how many years pass thereafter. Sam tells him that he feels like he’s living inside of a song. All of this is preparation for his encounter with Galadriel, which Jackson bobbles a little also -- Blanchett is fantastic in the role, of course, and the film probably needs to keep the tension up, but it’s never really clear why Frodo would offer the Ring to a terrifying “Elf-witch” as Gimli calls her, given how weird and sad and strained their experience generally is in Lothlorien at that point. Whereas here, I think it is very easy to understand Frodo feeling that he has reached the safest place on Middle Earth, and when he gets the chance to meet its rulers, why wouldn’t he extend to them a trust he has felt for almost no one he’s met so far on this journey? What a magical place.
I’m trying to leave most of the Aragorn/Arwen stuff for the Appendices, when we can get into their story, but I cannot skip the final moments of this chapter -- they’re too beautiful. For us reading the text, all we see is that Aragorn is moved by being here at Cerin Amroth -- Frodo sees him, holding a perfect little elanor flower in his hand, with a light in his eyes as he sinks into a memory. He says the words “Arwen vanimelda, namarie”, then turns to Frodo and tells him that “here my heart dwells ever” -- and as he takes Frodo’s hand and they descend from Cerin Amroth, the narration tells us that he “came there never again as living man”. What Frodo (and the reader) cannot see is that Aragorn remembers another day at Cerin Amroth, when he stood with Arwen, the daughter of Elrond and granddaughter of Galadriel, barefoot in the undying grass, and they looked at the Shadow to the east and the Twilight to the west. She called him “Estel” -- which means “Hope”, the name he had as a boy, before he knew that he was Aragorn, the son of Arathorn and the heir of Isildur -- and said that he would destroy that Shadow. And he called her “Undomiel” -- which means “Evenstar”, in honor of Earendil, her ancestor, who literally pilots the evening star in the night sky -- and told her that he would reject the power of that Shadow, and asked her if she would forsake the western twilight, the immortality waiting for her beyond the Grey Havens, and be his love. And, as the Annals record it, “she stood then as still as a white tree, looking into the West, and at last she said: ‘I will cleave to you, Dunadan, and turn from the Twilight.’” So, there upon Cerin Amroth, Aragorn remembers that day -- the day he and Arwen pledged their love to each other -- and as he does, he says “Fair Arwen, farewell.” He will see her again, of course, and live a long and happy life with her -- but in that long life, they will never return here to the elanor and the niphredil and the mallorn trees, and so that one perfect day on Cerin Amroth will remain a memory for them both. I think it is that memory he cherishes for a moment, and then honors as he bids it “namarie”. I have my own memories, Aragorn -- a lady in white, a perfect day, and this book, the one I hold in my hands now, with us there in place of flowers. Here my heart dwells ever.
Tomorrow, friends, we will go to The Mirror of Galadriel, before saying our Farewell to Lorien, in Book II, Chapters 7 and 8.