The coronation scene at the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King it's a powerful moment of emotional payoff for the entire trilogy. The One Ring has been destroyed, Sauron and his armies have been defeated, and Isildur's heir Aragorn is finally returning to the throne of Gondor. Everything the heroes of the Brotherhood and their friends have worked and sacrificed for is finally coming to fruition.
As Aragorn, son of Arathorn, stands before his assembled friends, allies, and subjects, with the Silver Crown on his forehead, he gives a short speech: "This day does not belong to one man, but to everyone. Let's rebuild this world together, so that we can share the days of peace." Then, in a gentle voice, he sings a short verse in Quenya, the ancient Elvish language, before descending into the crowd. This phrase carries deep meaning in the tradition of Tolkien's Middle Earth.
Aragorn sings Elendil's oath after his coronation in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Words that echo through three thousand years of Middle-earth history
The Elvish song that Aragorn sings after being crowned is a quote from his distant ancestor, Elendil, father of Isildur and first High King of Gondor and Arnor. Elendil was one of the survivors of the destruction of Númenor, the great kingdom of Men across the sea from Middle-earth, who took his children and followers away just before sinking into the sea. As he first stepped onto the shores of the land his descendants would come to call home, Elendil spoke: "Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn' Ambar-metta." Or, translated from Quenya to English:
From the Great Sea to Middle Earth I came. In this place I will dwell, and my heirs, until the end of the world.
This is not the first time Aragorn has expressed himself by singing in an Elvish tongue; in the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ringhe sings part of a stanza of an ancient Elvish poem about Beren and Lúthien as he watches over Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin at the end of a long day's walk through the Midgewater Marshes. This song is particularly relevant, as Beren was a human and Lúthien was an elf, and their love was opposed on all sides, much like Aragorn's love for Arwen.
Having spent his adolescence in Rivendell among the elves, Aragorn is a long-time friend of the elves and a student of elven lore, so it is no surprise that he would know elvish poetry or the portentous elvish words spoken by his distant ancestor. Although Aragorn did not leave the Great Sea for Middle Earth, he did complete a significant journey, and the parallels between him and Elendil cannot be ignored.
The Meaning of Elendil's Oath Explained
A promise to yourself, your children, and your kingdom
The oath Elendil swore was a promise to himself and his family that Middle-earth would forever remain their home. He and the Númenoreans who followed him were exhausted, having fled the destruction of their ancient home at the hands of Ilúvatar, supreme deity of their world. Ilúvatar destroyed the island of Númenor for breaking the pact the Númenoreans made with him not to sail west to the sacred Undying Lands. But the last king of Númenor, Ar-Pharazôn, was manipulated into leading an attack on the Undying Lands by the Dark Lord Sauron.
Elendil, instead of following Ar-Pharazôn until his death, led nine ships of Númenoreans who had remained faithful to Ilúvatar east to Middle-earth, and upon arriving there they built a new home, founding the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Elendil's oath was a promise to continue fulfilling Ilúvatar's will and to never succumb to the lust for power that led to the drowning of Númenor.
Why Aragorn sings Elendil's oath after his coronation
He realizes exactly how he follows in the footsteps of Elendil and Isildur
All over The Lord of the RingsAragorn struggles to compare with his ancestors, particularly Isildur, who failed in his duty to destroy the One Ring, thus allowing Sauron to survive to once again threaten the people of Middle-earth. Aragorn finds himself as fallible to arrogance as Isildur, and spends much of the trilogy worrying about how he will handle his responsibilities as King of Gondor. However, as he stands before the crowd atop Minas Tirith, with the silver crown on his head that Elendil wore over three thousand years ago, he finally sees that he is worthy of his inheritance.
Reciting Elendil's Oath not only literally reaffirms your ancestor's promise to the people of Gondor and Middle Earth, it also highlights a very direct parallel between Aragorn and Elendil. Both kings underwent great and dangerous journeys to protect the people they cared about, and both did so aware of the mistakes their fellow Númenóreans made.
Elendil saw Al-Pharazôn taken advantage of as Sauron used the old king's fear of his mortality to conduct a futile attack on the Undying Lands. Aragorn, in turn, looked to Isildur, whose own greed blinded him to the consequences of keeping the Ring, which in turn led to his death and the throne of Gondor lying empty for three millennia.
Aragorn's internal struggle is a fitting parallel to both the journey he went through to claim the throne of Gondor and the struggles his ancestors had at the end of the Second Age. It is fitting then that The Return of the King it ends with his ascension to the throne, tempered by wisdom and experience and, above all, humility, as the Fourth Age of Middle Earth begins.
The final chapter in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King, concludes the epic saga of the Fellowship's quest to destroy the One Ring and end Sauron's reign of terror. While Frodo and Sam continue on their way to Mordor and Mount Doom, accompanied by Gollom, the rest of the Fellowship works to defend Minas Tirith from Sauron's forces. The film's cast includes Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Vigo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan.