Tea at Trianon: The Rosary and "The Lord of the Rings"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, April 7, 2017

The Rosary and "The Lord of the Rings"

From Word on Fire:

In The Lord of the Rings, the Lady Galadriel gives Frodo a gift upon his departure from Lothlórien: a phial, somehow filled with the light of Eärendil, the star that serves as a sort of Polaris or Morning Star to guide the Eldar (elves) to the Undying Lands. When Galadriel gives Frodo the phial, she expresses her purpose for the gift: “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” Frodo first uses the phial as a light in Shelob’s lair, a cave which bore a “sense of malice so intense that Frodo reeled” (Lord of the Rings, IV.9). As he raises the phial aloft, he exclaims “Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima!” which translates to “Hail Eärendil, brightest of stars!” At his words, the light shines forth brighter. Later, when Sam uses the phial, he cries out:

O Elbereth Gilthonielo menel palan-diriel,le nallon sí di’nguruthos!A tiro nin, Fanuilos!

Oh Elbereth Starkindler,from the high firmament gazing afar,to thee do I cry amid this horror!Look kindly upon me, Ever-pure Lady!”

For those who aren’t Tolkien geeks, Elbereth (or Varda) is the Queen of the Stars in Tolkien’s mythology. At Sam’s words, the light “flamed like a star that leaping from the firmament sears the dark air with intolerable light.”

Given by Lady Galadriel and a source of light through prayer, the phial is for us an image of the Rosary. The Blessed Virgin Mary, fairest of all women, gave us the Rosary as a light in dark places. In praying the Rosary, we cry out to Mary the Morning Star that she may guide us to Heaven in her Son. In whispering our Aves, we ask the Queen of Heaven, the Woman robed in stars, for Her aid in the darkest times of life. Even Sam’s prayer to Elbereth is suspiciously similar to the Hail Holy Queen, which we pray to end the Rosary: “Hail Holy Queen…to thee do we cry…in this valley of tears! Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us.” (Read more.)