— Ch. 1 · Origins And Text —
Namárië.
~3 min read · Ch. 1 of 5
J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the poem Namárië in one of his constructed languages, Quenya. He published it within The Lord of the Rings during Book 2, chapter 8 titled Farewell to Lórien. The text serves as Galadriel's lament while she remains in the realm of Lothlórien. It stands as the longest continuous Quenya passage found anywhere in that novel series. An English translation accompanies the original Elvish verses in the book itself. Tolkien also provided a guide for pronunciation and intonation later in his songbook The Road Goes Ever On. This version differs slightly from an earlier draft published posthumously in The Treason of Isengard.
Musical Settings By Swann
Donald Swann proposed a musical setting for the poem before Tolkien intervened with his own idea. The author hummed a Gregorian chant melody directly to Swann who then adopted it for their collaboration. They released sheet music and an audio recording together in their 1967 book The Road Goes Ever On. The final composition sits in the key of A major using 4/4 time signatures throughout. Gill Gleeson described the result as an improvisatory plainsong featuring a self-contained unharmonised melody. She noted the piece balances tension between two modal scales with C# acting as a pivot note. A separate recording exists where Tolkien himself sings the poem over this Gregorian chant background.Modern Musical Adaptations
The Danish group known as The Tolkien Ensemble recorded two versions of Namárië on their album An Evening in Rivendell. Caspar Reiff composed both settings while Signe Asmussen performed them as a Danish Mezzo-soprano. One version keeps the original Quenya text intact while the other uses the English translation instead. Howard Shore incorporated part of the poem into his score for Peter Jackson's film trilogy between 2000 and 2004. A female chorus sings the lines during the scene called The Fighting Uruk-hai. Finnish composer Jukka Lindfors created another setting for a theatre production titled Sagan om Ringen at the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki. Spanish band Kogaionon released a studio album named Namárië in 2008 containing a track called Galadriel's Lament.