The image chosen for this entry in Recovery of Freshness is a drawing, possibly in charcoal, from one of my favorite Tolkien illustrators, the Polish traditional artist Anna Kulisz. Despite being essentially in monochrome, Elrond and his ward Estel, also known as Aragorn, are framed in a brilliant interplay of sunlight streaming in from the nearby tracery window and the shadows receding into the background, providing a sense of perspective and realistic depth to the scene. The ancient wisdom of Elrond, the greatest lore-master in Middle-earth, is mixed with the childlike joy of the Elves in his serene smile as he watches his future son-in-law playfully flipping through a favorite book.
The scene portrayed in this image is not taken directly from Tolkien’s stories but gives a beautiful insight into Aragorn’s childhood. After his father was slain by orcs when he was only two, Aragorn became the foster son of Elrond, given the name Estel (meaning “hope” in Sindarin) to protect his royal identity. Elrond then raised him as if he were his own child, teaching him all the wisdom and virtue that he had learned through his many millennia of life, and watching as this young Dúnadan, journeying on adventures with his blood sons Elladan and Elrohir and falling in love with his daughter Arwen, became truly a part of his family. The films by Peter Jackson somewhat downplayed this relationship, but Elrond loved Estel with fatherly affection, as this image illustrates.
Aragorn is one of the greatest heroes in the history of Middle-earth and the greatest Man who had ever lived. He also became one of the greatest kings - central to this was his formation under Elrond, through whose training he became what Socrates described as a “philosopher-king,” the ideal ruler who rules himself, who governs through the wisdom and virtue with which his own life is governed and assumes power out of duty rather than selfish ambition. Aragorn was not perfect, of course, but he overcame his faults - a key element of virtue - and learned from them, gaining compassion for all, a respect for the humility of Hobbits, Boromir’s sense of honour and love for his homeland, a familiarity with all the lands and peoples of Middle-earth through his many years of service in Rohan, Gondor and elsewhere, and a sufficient hatred for evil and love for the good that he could resist the temptation of the One Ring.
Aragorn is also an ideal Catholic king, as described in St. Thomas Aquinas’s work De Regno. Recognizing that humans, including himself, are prone to sin but that we are also ordered towards happiness through possession of the highest good (summum bonum), Aragorn saw his role as integrally subservient to the common good and to higher spiritual authority, as represented by Gandalf. He repeatedly laid down his life for his people and refused even to enter his own city of Minas Tirith until fulfilling his obligation to ensure the downfall of Sauron. In this way, he imitated great Catholic saint-kings such as St. Louis IX and St. Ferdinand. While appreciating his own people’s cultural heritage, he also worked for unity among the Free Peoples, knowing that, as Haldir said, “Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.”1 The foundation for his long life of heroic virtue was laid down in the quiet contemplative peace of Imladris, “the Last Homely House”2 of Elrond.
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J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, 2004), 348. Kindle.
Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, 224.