The Lady Galadriel

Galadriel is one of Tolkien’s more developed – and most fascinating – female characters.  In part, this is because she is extremely powerful.  And though this power rests partly in her great beauty, she is full of complexity and surprises.  In the chapter “The Mirror of Galadriel,” she charms Gimli the Dwarf not just with her appearance, but with her knowledge of and respect for his culture.  Despite the enmity that existed between Elves and Dwarves, she says, “Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dûm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone.”  “And the Dwarf, hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding.”

Galadriel isn’t just beautiful – she is profoundly intelligent, covertly ambitious, and generally “deep.”  What does Galadriel see, when she looks into the Mirror of water and starlight that offers visions from afar?  When tempted by the offer of the One Ring, she notes that she could become “Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain!  Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning!  Stronger than the foundations of the earth.”  Surely she could see those forces echoed in her own mind and body.  Or she might simply see “a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.”  In Galadriel there is power and humility, urgency and patience, mystery and revelation.

Is Aragorn right to say that there is no evil in her?  Perhaps.  Yet surely he is right to say “Speak no evil of the Lady Galadriel!” – for she is, as Frodo says of her, “wise and fearless and fair.”

 

 

Image: Adapted from Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee.

 

The Beauty That Changes Us

In the chapter “Lothlórien,” the Fellowship enters the forest inhabited by the Galadhrim, the Elves of the Lady Galadriel.  Yet not everyone is comfortable with this part of the journey.  Boromir says “And now we must enter the Golden Wood, you say.  But of that perilous land we have heard in Gondor, and it is said that few come out who once go in; and of that few none have escaped unscathed.”  Aragorn, however, replies, “Say not unscathed, but if you say unchanged, then maybe you will speak the truth…. Perilous indeed… fair and perilous; but only evil need fear it, or those who bring some evil with them.”

The beauty of nature and the power of love both have the ability to change us.  Perilous is the drowning ocean, and the sadness of loss; perilous is the summer storm, and the labyrinth of desire; perilous is the beauty of Lothlórien … and of Galadriel.  Yet living is by its very nature dangerous – only death and nonexistence are “safe.”  Earnest, hopeful souls may find in life what they find in Lothlórien – beauty that changes them, and makes them better than they were.


Image: Arthur Rackham
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhinegold_and_the_Valkyries_p_022.jpg

The Temptation of Galadriel (art)

 

The sculpture can be seen at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

http://www.philamuseum.org/

The nebula image was adapted from one on hubblesite.org.

http://hubblesite.org/