When Spring comes to Imladris, the Mayflies
appear everywhere, all on one warm day They live their Entire lives in
the space of one Sun’s passage across the Sky. All that they know of
Middle Earth they must learn and wonder at in the space of a few of my
Heart’s beats, then they fall lifeless to the Earth and give up their
substance to the Green things. Thus is their Existence ordered.
Such, too, are the lives of Men to me and my
Kind. They are born and live their quick hot lives and it is as if I
view some image of Life much speeded, their limbs moving in a blur,
their faces darkening with their easy Emotions, lips moving, voices
like the sound of the Mayfly’s sheer wings, until they bend with their
short years and fall.
As long as I have lived here on Middle Earth,
thus long have I watched them as they move past my Sight, running,
running, always running, devouring their Time, fearful, hastening to
some End I cannot see. Their Kingdoms rise and fade, great Empires that
to me are as a child’s Castle of sand before the oncoming Tide.
Some have I loved. Yes, loved, though I felt
the pain of Loss with the first turning of my Heart to them. I let my
Heart warm to one, here and there, and the bitter end shadows our time
together like a Cloud. Bilbo, for one, who is already Old as his kind
measure it, already bent and wrinkled and becoming vague of thought.
Beloved friend, great of heart, gifted with Song, brave and noble and
fine—falling into ghastly ruin. The Gift of the One to Men! How very
strange it is, and how unknowable the Thought that made it so.
Great events loom. The End of Days as we have
lived them draws nigh. Here in my House Bilbo’s heir rests, back in
Life after a bitter struggle, bearing the awful burden of the Enemy’s
Ring. Like Bilbo he is, but not in all ways. He is Bilbo refined,
forged in a crucible of Pain, orphaned, wounded, clear of sight, pure
of Heart. Long have I sat by Frodo’s bed, even after Death and the
Shadow were vanquished. He sleeps peacefully, the air of Imladris
refreshes and heals him, his strength returns, he will rise tomorrow,
and he will turn to me—for guidance. He and the others gathered here,
they have come seeking the Wisdom of Master Elrond.
The Wisdom of Master Elrond! Bitter, bitter
as Ashes in my mouth, choking me. For all my Wisdom, I cannot banish
the agony of my own Heart. For as I sit and muse upon these things, my
daughter walks out in the Moonlight with her lover, the thief who has
stolen her from me, the thief I let into my House, the thief to whom I
myself gave the Key to my treasure. The thief that I love, Aragorn,
Estel my foster son.
In him I see again my brother Elros.
Longfather of centuries, his beauty lives in Aragorn. Not his face and
form only, but his Nature, high and noble, stern and firm of purpose.
Such as Aragorn is, I have shaped him, at least in part. How could I
not love him? His care was my trust and my duty, but love ruled there,
and another son he became to me. There is nothing in him to make him
unfit for Arwen, except that he is a Man. That is it. That alone. And I
myself, in my great Wisdom, I myself mixed the cup that now poisons me,
I myself nursed the Viper that has turned upon me! She cannot know what
it is she asks of me, nor can he. I would give Everything else I have,
gladly with open hands and a smiling face, if I did not have to give
this.
But, it is done. Some Wisdom I have, and that
is to know that there is no calling back Yesterday. No unsaying the
words, no undoing the deeds, no unloving the loved. Arwen will now
never stand with me upon the shores of Elvenhome, never again see
Celebrian her mother who waits even now for the grey ship. She is lost
to us, to our People. Even should Aragorn fail, even should the Enemy
at last conquer all of Middle Earth, Arwen will not come with me. She
has given her Heart to this Man, and will stand or fall with him,
despite my forewarning that she must be Queen to his King. It is not
mine to bestow my daughter like a Thing, I cannot give her away and no
more can I keep her. She has her Life and it is hers to spend as she
wishes.
In the Golden Wood Galadriel, too, is
preparing for the oncoming Battle. Counsel we have had together, but
never once have I cast up to her that it was she who saw first where
Arwen’s heart turned. Galadriel it was who made Aragorn’s path smooth.
Oh, she is wise, is Galadriel! Can it be that she saw more than I? That
to some end it is necessary for me to endure this Pain? And this must
now be put aside, my Heart must close itself upon this agony, so that I
may turn my thoughts to the Ring.
Tomorrow we will sit in Council. Here are
gathered Men, and Elves and Dwarves and now Hobbits, all come here to
Imladris to discover what next to do. Boromir, son of Denethor, come
all the way from Minas Tirith with riddles and dreams to Solve. Aragorn
will lay before him the Sword that was broken, and so answer part of
what Boromir asks. Legolas Greenleaf son of Thranduil comes heavy with
news. Gloin and the others with news of their own, and wanting to take
advice, and eager to give it. Here is Mithrandir, like me one of the
Wise, anxious and heavy of heart, wounded like Frodo, not by knife, but
by treachery. Frodo, who both is and bears the other part of Boromir’s
riddle, and his companions. They think they are done, that their
journey is over, that they have found safety and rest. They are
hardened somewhat by their days in the Wild, but they are not hardened
enough perhaps, for what is to come.
For there is no turning back now, no
returning home to the Hearth that waits with a fire ready laid, no
opening the round Door of Bag End, hanging a cloak on the hook, sighing
with gladness to be Safe. Frodo is come here to Imladris bearing his
future and the future of all, and it is for me to set the wheels in
motion that may carry it forward. It is for me and for the others of
the Wise to take matters into our hands. We shall turn things about and
over and up and down, looking this way and that, striving to see what
might come, what might forestall the Storm.
As for me, and my Kin, we have always the
Straight Road. We can, if we wish, put down our burdens and leave
Middle Earth, we can go Home to our own place and leave these Men and
Dwarves and Hobbits to face the Enemy. I confess that it has come to
me, deep in the night, that I could do thus. I could say: this War is
not my War—I did my part, long ago. Yet I chose to stay then. I did not
go, then, when I could have gone with Honour. Staying, I undertook to
take on this burden, and so now I must bear it, and I will do so. My
reward for my labour is to lose what I love most, and to have to leave
this place after all, one way or the other!
The East lightens with the coming Dawn. Soon
the snows above will blush with the first Sun. We will sit in Council,
we who gather here. Wisdom we will seek, and so we will plan our next
move in this Game. The Wise! Always there comes something that we Wise
have not foreseen, for we cannot know all ends. Always comes the
unexpected-- the treachery not suspected; or the greatness unseen,
hidden like Mithril deep in the Earth, shining forth to startle and
enlighten us, perhaps, a gift more welcome because unlooked for. It may
be that tomorrow will bring such a gift. It may be that tomorrow we
will be amazed and heartened. Well, I will go there and open my purse
of Wisdom and pour out such coinage as it contains. It will be counted
over and perhaps added to, piled up, then spent. What will it purchase?
