The Mirror of Middle-earth is what is presented to the Dreamer in the Vision of Piers Plowman, so to look into it and see his heart’s desire:
A merveillous metels mette me thanne.
For I was ravysshed right there -- for Fortune me fette
And into the lond of longynge and love she me broughte,
And in a mirour that highte Middelerthe she made me to biholde.
[A marvelous happening then took place, for I was abducted right there, and Fortune carried me away / to bring me into the land of longing and love / and in a mirror called Middle-earth she made me look] (Piers Plowman, B-text, Passus XI: 6-11 in Schmidt 1978: 118, author’s emphasis)
Looking into the Mirror of Middle-earth entails the already-mentioned threefold sin of 1 John 2:16, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life: “Sithen she seide to me, -Here myghtow se wondres, / And knowe that thow coveitest, and come therto, peraunter.' / Thanne hadde Fortune folwynge hire two faire damyseles: / Concupiscencia Carnis men called the elder mayde, / And Coveitise of Eighes ycalled was that oother. / Pride of Parfit Lyvynge pursued hem bothe” [Then she said to me: ‘Here you may see wonders, / And know what you desire, and come to obtain it, perchance.’ / Then Fortune was followed by two fair damsels: / Lust of the Flesh men called the elder maid, / And Coveting of the Eyes was called the other. / Pride of Perfect Living pursued both of them] (Piers Plowman, B-text, Passus XI: 12-15 in Schmidt 1978: 118). In Piers Plowman the Dreamer is instructed to avoid the threefold sin and follow the double counsel of Clergie and Kynde Wit (Instruction and Common Wisdom). Another two-fold mirroring, in which oneness is found. Tolkien in his essay On Fairy-stories writes:
Even fairy-stories as a whole have three faces: the Mystical towards the Supernatural; the Magical towards Nature; and the Mirror of scorn and pity towards Man. The essential face of Faërie is the middle one, the Magical. But the degree in which the others appear (if at all) is variable, and may be decided by the individual story-teller. The Magical, the fairy-story, may be used as a Mirour de l’Omme; and it may (but not so easily) be made a vehicle of Mystery (OFS 44)
Mirour de l’Omme is the title of the unfinished Anglo-Norman work by John Gower, an instance of the encyclopedic “speculum literature” of the Middle Ages to which another work certainly known to Tolkien, the Ormulum [Mirror of the Dragon], belongs. Despite the title, Ormulum is simply a 12th century collection of early Middle English homilies in verse by an Augustinian friar named Orm (a common first name meaning “Worm” or “Dragon”). As we earlier saw, Perseus in Confessio Amantis shielded himself against Medusa thanks to the magical arms received from Mercury and Athena, in an act mirroring virtue: “Bot he, which wisdom and prouesse / Hadde of the god and the godesse, / The Schield of Pallas gan enbrace, / With which he covereth sauf his face” [But he, that wisdom and valor / Had received from the god and the goddess, / Embraced the Shield of Pallas / And used it to cover his face safely] (Confessio Amantis I: 429-432 in 1900: 47). In the Mirour de l’Omme, instead, Gower narrates the story of mankind’s salvation as a struggle between virtues and sins personified. Virtues mirror sins, scorn mirrors pity, the Mirror of Man mirrors mankind, and the Mirror of Fairy-story mirrors the Magical. But the fourth face in the Mirror of Fairy-story is Woman, Love beyond scorn and pity, between Nature and the Supernatural, Mystery made plain.
A Mirror of Desire Unbidden is twice double: in its being a mirror, we have the reflection and the original, but in its desiring and at the same time being unbidden, there is yet another double. It is a doubled reflection of a double. As such, the doubled doubleness may stand for adultery and sin, but it may equally well represent fidelity and salvation. The Mirror is a perfect symbol of both the loss occurred in the Fall and the Redemption brought about by the retrieval of the imago Dei. Indeed, the former is present in the vision of the Eye of Sauron that Frodo sees in the Mirror, while the latter is in Galadriel’s sharing of Frodo’s preoccupations for such a vision, when she says: “‘I know what it was that you last saw,’ she said; ‘for that is also in my mind’” (LotR II, vii). When two people share the same fantasy, whether it be the worst horror or the highest glory, they become connected, and in such a connection the female image of God, the true imago Dei, is retrieved and revived. “But in such 'fantasy', as it is called, new form is made; Faërie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator” (OFS 42). What Frodo has just got is what the very Sauron wants and cannot have, as Galadriel tells Frodo: “I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed!” (LotR II, vii).
Instead, Frodo has been able to look deeply into Galadriel’s mind. As she tells him, “as Ring-bearer and as one that has borne it on finger and seen that which is hidden, your sight is grown keener. You have perceived my thought more clearly than many that are accounted wise” (LotR II, vii). In Piers Plowman’s terms, Frodo and Galadriel share both Clergie and Kynde Wit. They embrace virtue and understand sin. Even in the sharing of a fear, of a dark fantasy of doom there lies reciprocity, the evil yetzer turned good, the redemption from Augustinian adultery. Galadriel learns how Frodo cannot succeed, and yet she lets him go. She does so because she knows that she could not be able to destroy the Ring herself, but she trusts that, by letting him go, Frodo too will let someone else take the Ring to its doom.
The fate of the Ring is decided in Lothlórien, as Galadriel renounces the slavery of the One Ring to keep faith to the Ring of Waters, Nenya, associated with the same water of the Mirror. She keeps faith to her husband Celeborn. In Shelob’s lair, Frodo will be saved by clinging to the Phial of Galadriel, another symbolical mirror in its containing the same water. On Mount Doom, everything will be a repetition of Galadriel’s renunciation1: Frodo will be subject to the final Temptation as she was, and the outcome will be that Gollum will take the Ring to its destruction as Frodo had in Lothlórien. In their sharing the water of Ring-Phial-Mirror, and in their achieving together the destruction of the Ring through a slipping foot, slipping as though on water, Frodo and Galadriel both succeed in the Quest and become symbolically married like Christ and the Church, or Mary. We had already seen how the Mirror of Galadriel was located in an enclosed garden echoing Song of Songs 4:12, and how the words spoken by Galadriel when she is tempted echo Song of Songs 6:10.
The “Fairy marriage” between Galadriel and Frodo, their being tied as likeness and image in the Mirror, their reciprocal complementarity, consist in what accomplishes the Quest, even though Frodo will need to further reflect himself in Gollum. If both the One Ring and Gollum, as we saw in relation to Chaucer’s goddess pryvetee in the Miller’s Tale, stand for adultery, it only follows that Frodo’s claim of the Ring as his own is an actual adulterous intention, a true adultery of the heart (to be distinguished from the Augustinian form, identified in the mere bodily attraction). But, as the Biblical account witnesses, Israel itself, as well as the Church, is an adulteress. Forgiveness was given to all, provided that idolatry was abandoned and the “wife” returned to her “husband”. Moreover, it is when an unrepenting adulterer such as Gollum obtains the Ring that the power of Sauron is destroyed. In other terms, it is when somebody who is tempted to adultery actually comes to the point of realizing to have committed adultery of the heart, that they have the opportunity to repent before the actual deed.
If the “marriage” between Frodo and Galadriel must be reflected in Gollum, a middle stage in the series of reflections is Samwise, who will then marry Rosie and write the concluding chapters of the story. It is Sam who reminds Frodo of the Phial of Galadriel in Shelob’s lair. It is Sam who keeps the Ring briefly before returning it to Frodo, and willingly so. His only temptation is to cultivate Mordor into a green land. He certainly manages to resist the opportunity to claim the Ring because of the short time he is given it, but also because his primary traits are loyalty and fertility. If the latter is meant in a sexual sense, the responsibility for children is another reason not to betray one’s spouse, besides loyalty.
Then again, if Tolkien’s primary focus is on Beren and Lúthien, whose story is repeated in the tale of Aragorn and Arwen, then The Hobbit is the story of how a diminutive Beren called Bilbo won a Lúthien who never even appears in the tale, and The Lord of the Rings is the tale of a diminutive Beren called Frodo won a Lúthien called Galadriel who never appears as his lover but is nevertheless his helper in the Quest, the achievement of which is rewarded by permission to spend the rest of his life in her company in Aman. In this reciprocity, in this complementarity, in these mirrored reflections in the Mirror, not only a marriage of both fantoum and faierie is celebrated, but a new realization is found, and Fantasy may indeed be married to Reality, the Primary and Secondary World be one and be Truth as well.
