Eldy
Dor-Lomin
1:24am
Views: 36
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Is it significant that the Celeborn and Galadriel coupledom ends like the Ents and Entwives (she leaves, he's sad)?
For what it's worth, the LOTR prologue strongly suggests that Celeborn and Galadriel will be reunited eventually, probably sooner rather than later. Early in the Fourth Age, Celeborn moved to Imladris to stay with his grandsons, Elladan and Elrohir (i.e. the sons of Elrond; this is also mentioned in Appendix B), and although "there is no record of the day when at last he sought the Grey Havens, and with him went the last living memory of the Elder Days of Middle-earth",* the implication seems pretty clear that (the translator–editor of the Red Book believes) he departed eventually. Elladan and Elrohir may have gone with him; Tolkien says "they delay[ed] their choice, and remain[ed in Middle-earth] for a while" after their father's departure, though he played coy about whether they eventually sailed or not (Letters, no. 153). It seems plausible to me that Celeborn and his grandsons left on the same ship, sometime before IV.120, when Aragorn referred to "the garden of Elrond where none now walk" (LOTR, Appendix A, The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen). If so, Celeborn and Galadriel's separation lasted for little more than a century, if not less. That said, this sits oddly with Celeborn's farewell to Aragorn, "May your doom be other than mine, and your treasure remain with you to the end!" (ROTK, VI 6), which implies he expects his separation from Galadriel will be permanent.
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* The users/editors of Tolkien Gateway have spilt a fair amount of digital ink agonising over how to synthesise this statement with the following line from Appendix A.I.iii: "At the Grey Havens dwelt Círdan the Shipwright, and some say he dwells there still, until the Last Ship sets sail into the West. In the days of the Kings most of the High Elves that still lingered in Middle-earth dwelt with Círdan or in the seaward lands of Lindon. If any now remain they are few." This line was printed within quotation marks, indicating an ostensible direct quotation from an in-universe text. In context, it's clear that the passage was (a) written in the late Third Age rather than the early Fourth, since it refers to "the days of the Kings" in the past tense, and (b) was written by someone poorly informed about Lindon since they didn't know if it was still populated. As such, we shouldn't take the idea of Círdan's "Last Ship" literally. The statement in the prologue was not printed in quotation marks, but rather was Tolkien in his pretend guise as the modern translator of the Red Book speaking directly, purportedly thousands of years after the last events described in the Red Book. However, given pretend-Tolkien's professed ignorance about the date of Celeborn's departure, it's debatable how much weight we should give to the "last living memory" line (to say nothing of what a literal reading implies about the fates of Bombadil and Treebeard).
(This post was edited by Eldy on 1:30am)
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