The Sons of the Valar, the Valfǫður, and Túrin Turambar, Part Two

Continued from Part One

Túrin at the Last Battle

Clearly, in "the sons of the Valar" and "the sons of the Gods" the martial context is paramount. Understandably, while the references to them at the War of Wrath are many, the references to them at the Dagor Dagorath are few. From the in-world perspective of the writers of the works mentioning them, the War of Wrath is in the past, a matter of history and song, but the Dagor Dagorath lies far in the future. It is a matter of prophecy, speaking of a dead man returning in a battle at the world's end. 

That Túrin would be there is consistent with the development of his role in the legendarium from the first. In The Book of Lost Tales we find the first prophecy which mentions that he will be present at the last battle. This first prophecy is recorded, it seems, in two overlapping parts. The first part of this first prophecy appears in the chapter of The Book of Lost Tales called "The Hiding of Valinor." It states that Fionwë and Tulkas will both fight Melkor, but that Fionwë 

shall in the end be Melko’s bane, and shall destroy the world to destroy his foe, and so shall all things then be rolled away(LT I.219).

This is a very Ragnarök ending, a point to which I shall return. For now, note that Túrin is not mentioned here. Note also that neither he nor any other Man has yet entered the main narrative of The Book of Lost Tales, even if Eriol appears in the frame narrative. With that, let us turn to the second part of the first prophecy. In the frame narrative of the (later) chapter, "Turambar and the Foalókë," it is prophesied that 

Turambar indeed shall stand beside Fionwë in the Great Wrack, and Melko and his drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil.  (LT II.116)

In contrast to the earlier passage Tulkas goes unmentioned here. It does not say that Túrin will kill Melkor, though some have interpreted it that way. In fact it says nothing at all about the death or Melkor or the end of the world. It has no need to tell us these details in "Turambar and the Foalókë" because it has already done so in "The Hiding of Valinor." Relevance determines who is included and who omitted in each passage. What we have here is a single prophecy repeated in two different chapters by two different narrators each of whom chooses to focus on details they find more important. An Elf narrates "The Hiding of Valinor," but a Man tells "Turambar and the Foalókë." This view of the prophecy harmonizes with its portrayal in subsequent works.

In the prophecy as recorded in the "Sketch," Túrin explicitly replaces Fionwë as the slayer,* but they are still fighting side by side, and Tulkas is once again present (Shaping 40). Túrin is also prophesied here to be the avenger of "the children of Húrin" (Shaping 40). In the "Quenta Noldorinwa" and "Quenta Silmarillion" Túrin, Tulkas, and Fionwë again join together against Melkor, whom Túrin slays; and he is now called the avenger of "the children of Húrin and all Men" (Shaping 165; Lost Road 333). Thus, Túrin's part increases in scope and importance in each new version up through the 1937 "Quenta Silmarillion," and all along the way he is associated with Fionwë, who is preeminent among the Sons of the Valar (Lost Road 333). Túrin's slaying of Melkor makes it possible for all three of the Silmarils to be reunited and given back to Fëanor, which enables the revival of the Two Trees and the renewal of the World. 

The second version of the prophecy, as given in the last paragraph, is most likely what Tolkien has in mind when he writes to Milton Waldman in 1951 that 

[My] legendarium ends with a vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the ‘light before the Sun’ – after a final battle which owes, I suppose, more to the Norse vision of Ragnarök than to anything else, though it is not much like it.

(Letters² no. 131 p. 208) 

Tolkien was back to working on the Silmarillion at this time, and this later version of the "Quenta Silmarillion" preserves the ending of the 1937 text. There it says that the world will "be broken and re-made" but the breaking seems part of the process of recovering the Silmarils rather than the total destruction spoken of in The Book of Lost Tales: "Fionwë... shall destroy the world to destroy his foe, and so shall all things then be rolled away"(LT II.219). This earlier ending is far more like Ragnarök. Tolkien's characterization of the ending of his legendarium in the Waldman Letter -- "though it is not much like [Ragnarök]" -- describes the later version aptly, and apologetically.

That the original ending was more like Ragnarök may well afford us a clue about The Sons of the Valar and Túrin's place among them. As we turn back to The Book of Lost Tales, keep in mind Túrin's enduring association with Fionwë who is himself closely identified with The Sons of the Valar. First time readers of The Book of Lost Tales often find it surprising that Men never leave the World after they die as they do in the later, more familiar parts of the legendarium. To some degree their fate resembles that of the Elves. The Vala Mandos judges the spirits of deceased Elves and keeps them in his halls until he finds them fit for reincarnation (LT I.76-77). While Men are never reborn, after death they go to Nienna, who judges and sorts them according to their deserts (77). The wicked she casts out to be tormented by Melkor (another surprising feature found only in The Book of Lost Tales, and nowhere else). Those neither too good nor too bad -- the great majority -- go to dwell in a part of Valinor called Arvalin, where they "wait in patience till the Great End come" (77). The few deemed truly good remain with Nienna until some or all of them go to dwell with the Valar, where they also wait "until the Great End come" (77). What are they waiting for? The text does not ask or answer this question. 

Two answers suggest themselves, both of which can be true. One need not exclude the other, but I believe that Tolkien has one primarily, perhaps exclusively, in mind here. The first is that Men, as it says in "The Music of the Ainur," will take part in the Second Music "after the Great End" (LT I.53). I am not going to quibble about the possible shades of difference between after versus until here. For, if one is waiting "until the Great End come" to sing, but does not know when it will come, one can begin to sing only in reaction to its arrival and, therefore, "after the Great End." The use of the subjunctive "come" in "until the Great End come" also emphasizes the uncertainty about when that event will take place, while "after the Great End" speaks of the end and the singing as certain. While these details should be noted, they are not decisive either singly or together.

The second possibility is that the spirits of these Men are waiting for the Ragnarök-like battle at the Great End, in which Túrin, Tulkas, and Fionwë fight against and slay Melkor, completely destroying the universe along the way. In Norse myth din gathers those who have died in battle to Valhǫll, that is, to Valhalla, 'the hall of the slain.' There they wait, feasting and fighting, until Ragnarök, when they will come forth to fight for the gods against the giants. These warriors, as Snorri says in the Gylfaginning become Ódin's óskasynir, his 'adopted sons,' for which reason Ódin is called Valfǫður, 'the father of the slain' (sec. 20). 

Óðinn heitir Alfǫðr,  þvíat hann er faðir allra goða. Hann heitir ok Valfǫðr, þvíat hans óskasynir eru allir þeir er í val falla. þeim skipar hann Valhǫll ok Vingólf, ok heita þeir þá einherjar.

Odin is called All-father, because he is father of all the gods. He is also called Father-of-the-Slain, because his adopted sons are all who fall in battle. For them he prepared Valhalla and Vingolf, and they [i.e. his adopted sons] are called the einherjar.

Sigurd will be one of the dead warriors returning at Ragnarök to fight for Ódin. Tolkien seems to be interpreting Sigurd's name mythologically rather than philologically. By this I mean that for the purposes of his story he preferred to look at the Old Norse version of the name, Sigurð, as if it were composed of the elements Sigi and urðr, which respectively mean victory and fate. In other words, the Master of Doom. That, of course, is the meaning of Turambar. In the Qenya Lexicon, which dates from the earliest days of the legendarium, Tolkien glosses the name Turambar with a note to compare it to Sigurð. The editors of the Qenya Lexicon comment on this note (Parma Eldalamberon 12, pp. 95-96):

The reference to Old Norse Sigurðr implies that it is a calque of Turambar, -amarto ‘Conqueror of Fate (II 86), i.e. sigr ‘victory’ + urðr ‘fate, destiny’, though scholars usually interpret the second element of the Old Norse name as derived from vǫrðr ‘watcher, guard(ian)’.

That some of Túrin's story draws on Sigurd's has long been known, and Tolkien himself declared as much (Letters # 133 p. 209). Most obviously, Túrin slays Glorund/Glaurung in much the same way as Sigurd does Fáfnir. That the name Túrin claims for himself as he seeks to defeat the dragon echoes Sigurd's makes sense. In the 1930s, moreover, Tolkien will construct a version of Sigurd that draws on Túrin. For the Sigurd of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún is prophesied to return at Ragnarök, where he, not Thor, will kill the Midgard Serpent and quite literally save the world from destruction (53-54). So, Sigurd's replacement of Thor parallels Túrin's replacement of Fionwë as the slayer of Melkor, just as Sigurd's return from death parallels Túrin's return from death. We should also note that in Old Norse the element óska- in óskasynir lays emphasis on the wish or choice of the adopter. Another word for "a chosen, adopted child" is óskabarn; a Valkyrie is also an óskmӕr, a "chosen maiden," chosen by Ódin of course. So the óskasynir could also be called Ódin's chosen sons. Tolkien repeatedly refers to Sigurd as "the World's chosen," "the chosen of Ódin," and "the hope of Ódin" (53, 54, 65, 70-71, 73, 93, 121, 184-85, 179, 298). Christopher Tolkien himself calls this reversed inspiration of Túrin upon Sigurd "extremely probable" (184-85).

For Tolkien, then, what the spirits of the dead Men in Valinor seem to be waiting for is the Last Battle at the Great End, when they, along with Túrin, will join "the Sons of the Valar" to fight against Melkor. Does that mean that the dead will be counted among the Sons of the Valar, as Túrin is? I am strongly inclined to believe so given the evidence, especially the parallel with the einherjar, who are Ódin's chosen sons, whom we know are present at Ragnarök but nothing more, and who also do not appear ever to return before the final battle. What then of the statement by Tolkien with which we began?

But of Men in that day the prophecy of Mandos doth not speak, and no Man it names, save Túrin only, and to him a place is given among the sons of the Valar. (Lost Road 333).

The phrasing of this sentence is of a kind that Tolkien uses more than once to create a sense of awe and mystery by suggesting facts it does not reveal, affirm, or deny. We might call it a non-assertion assertion. Its portentous vagueness at best suggests; it cannot confirm or deny.We first encounter it in the sentence with which "The Music of the Ainur" ends:

Yet while the Sons of Men will after the passing of things of a certainty join in the Second Music of the Ainur, what Ilúvatar has devised for the Eldar beyond the world’s end he has not revealed even to the Valar, and Melko has not discovered it.’ (LT I.60)

 It is repeated with some variation in the Silmarillion:

Yet of old the Valar declared to the Elves in Valinor that Men shall join in the Second Music of the Ainur; whereas Ilúvatar has not revealed what he purposes for the Elves after the World’s end, and Melkor has not discovered it. (S 42)

Compare also the coda at the end of the Silmarillion:

Here ends the SILMARILLION. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos. (S 255)

Similarly but with a more positive spin, Aragorn's last words confidently and convincingly promise much, but reveal nothing:

In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory. Farewell!” (RK App. A I.v.1063)

If the prophecy about Túrin's return does not speak of Men or name any Man but Túrin, that really tells us only that the prophecy tells us nothing about Men other than Túrin. It does not say no Men were present. It does not say no other Men were counted among the Sons of the Valar. That would be our inference. But inferences about prophecy are notoriously dangerous, and this prophecy mentions only the most important players: Morgoth, Tulkas, Fionwë, and Túrin in the first part, and Eärendel, Fëanor, Yavanna, and Ilúvatar, in the second. Gods and heroes, all of them. As the avenger of all Mankind, Túrin stands at centerstage. He has at last met his fate and overcome it, just as just as the dragon had told him he would have to do (LT II.87). The doom Melkor had laid on him expired with his death, but his triumph at the Last Battle suggests that Ilúvatar had greater plans for Túrin beyond beath, much as Tolkien's Ódin had more farseeing hopes for Sigurd (S&G 70-71):

‘Whom Ódin chooseth

ends not untimely,

though ways of men

he walk briefly.

In wide Valhöll

he may wait feasting –

it is to ages after

that Ódin looks.’

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*Since Tolkien wrote the "Sketch" to supply background for The Lay of the Children of Húrin, we may reasonably guess that the "Sketch" gives us some idea of what he intended to include in the parts of the Lay he never wrote.


I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude for the amazing usefulness of The Digital Tolkien Project in this and all my posts on Tolkien. Indispensable.

The Sons of the Valar, the Valfǫður, and Túrin Turambar, Part One

Two sections at the end of the 1937 "Quenta Silmarillion" record a prophecy which is familiar to many as The Second Prophecy of Mandos. It speaks of Túrin Turambar, who shall return from death to defeat and kill Melkor in the Last Battle, the Dagor Dagorath, thus exacting vengeance for himself, his family, and all Mankind. The "Quenta Silmarillion" then mentions Túrin one last time right after the prophecy ends:

But of Men in that day the prophecy of Mandos doth not speak, and no Man it names, save Túrin only, and to him a place is given among the sons of the Valar.

(Lost Road 333) 

The phrase "sons of the Valar" at first glance seems to reflect Tolkien's early view that the Valar could have children. Who would the "sons of the Valar" be, if not their children? But if their children, what is Túrin doing among them? Tolkien had a number of similar phrases that could easily be lumped together and confused, as if all these terms have precisely the same meaning. This will prove not to be the case. We'll take each one in turn, which will give us a better understanding of them all as well as an answer to the presence of Túrin. 

Only a few offspring of the Valar are ever mentioned, mainly in The Book of Lost Tales, and for so short a list it contains nearly as many surprises as names. 

• Fionwë is the son of Manwë and Varda, though he is once called the son of Tulkas, perhaps in a slip of the pen (LT I.58; Shaping 57, 68).
• Manwë and Varda also have a daughter, Erinti (LT I.58). 
• Aulë and Yavanna are the parents of Oromë and Nessa (LT I.66-67, 264). 
• Oromë and Vána are the parents of Nielíqui (LT I.93). 
• Tulkas and Nessa are the parents of Telimektar (LT I.75,101). 
• Even Melkor has a son, Gothmog, whose mother is an ogress Ulbandi or Fluithlin (LT II.216).

In time, Tolkien abandoned the whole idea of children being born to the Valar. 

• Fionwë became Eönwë and Erinti became Ilmarë, neither any longer Children of the Valar, but Maiar, that is, less powerful Ainur who accompanied the Valar to Arda. 
• Oromë and Nessa are recast as Valar in their own right, and 
• Nielíqui, their daughter vanishes. 
• Gothmog remains, though he is no longer Melkor's child and 
• his ogress mother is heard of no more. 
• Telimektar is a constellation, set in the heavens to remind Melkor that his day will come. 
  

There are five terms we need to consider:

• The Children of the Gods
• The Children of the Valar
• The Valarindi
• The Sons of the Gods
• The Sons of the Valar

The Children of the Gods

This phrase appears six times, five of these in the two volumes of The Book of Lost Tales. It is an oddly vague and fluid term. It appears four times in the first volume, and seems always to include both the Valar and Maiar (LT I.145, twice on 184, 189). Yet, it is hard to see the Valar themselves described as "Children of the Gods" along with those said to be their children. Two of these four uses come in direct address, once by Manwë and once by Yavanna, and both times there are Elves present, too. If the Elves are excluded, the text gives no clue that this is so. If the Elves are included, then we have both Valar and Elves called "Children of the Gods." 

In the second volume of The Book of Lost Tales the phrase describes Thingol and Melian (LT II.8). Melian is one of the lesser Ainur who entered Arda with the Valar, and who will become known as the Maiar. With Thingol we again see "Children of the Gods" counting Elves. In The Lost Road Fionwë and Erinti are also "Children of the Gods" (Lost Road 162). For the two of them it is literally true. 

Since The Book of Lost Tales employs no phrase but this one, and since it is used only once more in the course of the legendarium, the permeable boundaries of its definition are possibly indicative of its being the first such phrase. Yet, it is also possible that "Children of the Gods" applies to all those who have seen the light of the Two Trees. If so, it could work as the suffix-ing/ingas does in Eorlingas, the People of Eorl.

The Children of the Valar

Occurring only twice, this phrase first appears in the 1937 "Quenta Silmarillion," recording their presence at the overthrow of Melkor at the end of the First Age (Lost Road 329); and the second is in "Ainulindalë" in Morgoth's Ring, where it describes Fionwë and Ilmarë as the eldest of these (Morgoth 20).

Valarindi

Another, similar term that appears six times is Valarindi. The word literally means Children or Offspring of the Valar, but it also includes the Maiar: "With [the Valar] came many lesser spirits, their children, or beings of their own kind but of less might; these are the Valarindi" (Shaping 263). It is a word found only in "The Annals of Valinor" and "The Annals of Aman" (Shaping 263, 264, 285-286; Lost Road 110; Morgoth 49). So it has a distinctly Valinorean flavor. The word occurs only in connection with the entry of the Ainur into Arda.

The Sons of the Gods

Tolkien speaks eight times about "the sons of the gods." Four of the eight occur in different versions of "The Annals of Beleriand" (Shaping 309 twice; Lost Road 143, 144). We find it once in the "Quenta Noldorinwa," and twice in the 1937 "Quenta Silmarillion" (Shaping 165n9; Lost Road 328, 330). Once it appears in the "Lhammas" (Shaping 176). In every one of these passages, the context is battle and war. 

In seven of the eight the battle is The War of Wrath:

• "The sons of the Gods under Fionwë son of Manwë prepare for war" (Shaping 309).
• "The sons of the Gods wrestled with Morgoth in his dungeons...." (Shaping 309).
• "Here the sons of the Gods prepared for war, and Fionwë son of Manwë was their leader" (Lost Road 143).
• "The sons of the Gods wrestled with Morgoth in his dungeons...." (Lost Road 144).
• "...the overthrow of Morgoth by the sons of the Gods" (Lost Road 176).
• "Beleriand was ablaze with the glory of [Fionwë's] arms, for the sons of the Gods were young and fair and terrible, and the mountains rang beneath their feet (Lost Road 328).
• "...the victorious host of Valinor and the might and splendour of the sons of the Gods...." (Lost Road 330).

The eighth refers to the Dagor Dagorath on the Last Day. It is the final line of the narrative of the "Quenta Noldorinwa":

• "But of Men in that day the prophecy speaks not, save of Túrin only, and him it names among the Gods" (Shaping 165n9).

This passage Tolkien emended, changing "among the Gods" to "among the sons of the Gods." So, just as the terms "Children of the Gods" and "Children of the Valar" seem to apply to those who have seen the light of the Two Trees, and Valarindi describes those Ainur, both Valar and Maiar, in the context of their entry into Arda, "sons of the Gods" places those so called in an exclusively martial context while also admitting Túrin to their company. 

The Sons of the Valar

"Sons of the Valar" is by far the most common of all these phrases, used fifteen times. Tolkien's deployment of it indicates that it is synonymous with "sons of the Gods." For in fourteen of these instances the context is again strictly martial, specifically the War of Wrath (Shaping 37, 39, 149, 154, 157, 158, 160, 163, 164; Lost Road 326, 332; Peoples 242), the guarding of the Calacirya (Morgoth 133), and the Dagor Dagorath (Lost Road 333). Again Túrin appears at the Dagor Dagorath "among the sons of the Valar" (as quoted at the start of this post). The only exception is a statement in "The Grey Annals" that compares Thingol to the "sons of the Valar," but does not say that he was one of them: "In Beleriand King Thingol on his throne was as the sons of the Valar" (Jewels 14). As we have seen above, Thingol seems set apart, as one of the first of the Elves to awaken, as the husband of Melian, and as one who has seen the light of the Two Trees.

Part Two is HERE

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This post has grown so long that I have split it into two parts. I hope to post the second part soon. I will add a link when I have done so.

I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude for the amazing usefulness of The Digital Tolkien Project in this and all my posts on Tolkien. Indispensable.

Faramir, Smooth Operator, Shows His Quality

I just noticed this a little while ago. I was reading Faramir’s declaration of love to Éowyn in “The Steward and the King.” One word jumped out at me — sorrowless (RK 6.v.964). I recognized it from another context. Many of you will, too. Then I wondered how often it showed up. In The Lord of the Rings the word occurs only twice, once here and once in Strider’s song about Beren and Lúthien back in “A Knife in the Dark” (FR 1.xi.193). With sorrowless in mind, a couple of other phrases in Faramir’s declaration suddenly stood out.

Let’s start with his words. I’ll highlight the words and phrases I noticed:

… you are a lady beautiful, I deem, beyond even the words of the elven-tongue to tell. And I love you. Once I pitied your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, were you the blissful Queen of Gondor, still I would love you. Éowyn, do you not love me?’ Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her.

To the first highlighted passage compare two verses uttered by Beren, found in both The Lay of Leithian and the Silmarillion (Lays 277; S 178).

Lúthien Tinúviel

more fair than mortal tongue can tell.

To the second compare the words of Strider’s song:

And long ago they passed away

In the forest singing sorrowless.

And for the third there is again Strider’s song (FR 1.xi.192):

When winter passed, she came again,

And her song released the sudden spring,

Clearly, Faramir, the younger brother, put his time in the library at Minas Tirith to good use. He woos Éowyn by subtly, very subtly comparing her to Lúthien. How well versed in Elvish poetry she might have been is uncertain. To judge by her brother’s initial attitude towards Lothlórien, not much. But the most likely place in Rohan to find people knowledgeable about Elvish poetry would be in the ruling family.

If I see anymore connections, I’ll let you know. This one seems pretty cool, though.

Of course we can't understand Tom Bombadil

The difficulty many of us face in understanding Tom Bombadil arises from the fact that he is part of nature and we all too often think of ourselves as separate from nature. We cannot grasp mastery apart from domination. We cannot grasp a steward who does not rule. We are thus far more like Denethor and Saruman than any of us would care to admit. It’s also why neither of them understands Gandalf.

Everything but us is a part of Faerie of its very nature, as Tolkien says in On Fairy-stories.1 We are not naturally enchanted. Not now, and perhaps we never were. Yet, if we were, our disenchantment dates from the moment we began to regard ourselves as ruling stewards, as viceregents rather than vicegerents. We are like Sauron unable to imagine that “we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place,” let alone that “we should try to destroy the Ring itself….” (TT 3.v.497). So, of course we can’t understand Tom Bombadil.

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1

Given Tolkien’s description in On Fairy-stories (see below), I have no doubt that he would say that we are disenchanted, not the world. It would take long thought to work out the dynamics of this point of view in opposition to the standard view that the world is disenchanted.

“Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted."

Gandalf in Latin by Way of Pope Leo

As was widely noted back in May of this year Pope Leo XIV quoted Tolkien in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, specifically Gandalf's statement in chapter 9 of book 6 of The Lord of the Rings (RK 9.vi.879). I was talking to James Tauber, the Mad Max of Digital Humanities, the creator of the fabulously useful Digital Tolkien Project, and an all around nice guy. We were lamenting the absence of a Latin version of this encyclical, because we were wondering how the Tolkien quotation would be rendered in Latin. James suggested that while we wait for the official Latin version to appear I should try my hand at a translation of my own. 

I thought about it, toyed with it, and here it is. Not without blemishes, that's for sure. It is also not a literal translation. Why not? Well, Gandalf is in a council meeting here talking rather vaguely about evil people, not abstract forces. Nor is he in a library penning a scholarly treatise on the metaphysics of evil. Latin, moreover, is far more inclined to speak of "the Romans" than of "Rome" when addressing real world actions. In English we might say either "Rome waged three wars against Carthage" or "The Romans waged three wars against the Carthaginians" but in Latin it would be far more idiomatic to use the much more vivid phrasing of the latter. 

So let's start with the English, followed by the Latin:

‘Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.'

alii vel mali vel malefici sunt qui forsan venient. nam Sauron ipse est tantum unus ex servis aut legatis. at non est nobis regere tempestates omnes huius mundi, sed viribus quam maximis succurrere aetatibus nostris ut malis veteribus eradicatis posteri agros laetos arent. Quae tempestas illis erit eam non est nobis regere.

Here's some notes on some of the Latin phrasing I adopted.

alii vel mali vel malefici -- "others whether evil or evildoers" -- I didn't like the sound of just "alii mali" and it didn't seem to say quite enough on its own. So I added "malefici," which means "evildoer" in general, but often indicates "sorcerers" or "enchanters." 

qui forsan venient -- "that may come." venient is a future indicative, which technically means "will come." I could have also used veniant, a present subjunctive, "may come." I decided that Gandalf really had little or no doubt that other evils were going to come someday, and so an indicative verb (talks about facts) seemed better than a subjunctive verb (talks about possibilities). But I didn't want to eliminate all doubt. Forsan,"perhaps" diminishes the certainty of the future indicative venient.

regere -- "master," but it means "rule" as a king (rex) rules. This is more about control and domination than a form of government, just as we use "democracy" to refer to a principle of one-person-one-vote, not we-all-go-down-to-the-forum-and-vote-on-laws.

tempestates -- "tides." At first glance it's tempting to think Tolkien is talking about the tides in the ocean. But as a good student of early Medieval England he would have known that only a fool of a Took would try to govern those tides. Here the word primarily has its older, original meaning going all the way back to Old English: "A portion, extent, or space of time; an age, a season, a time, a while" (OED). Latin tempestas has a similar range, from period of time to tempest, from weather to misfortune. This works well with Gandalf's later use of "weather" in the last sentence, since I can use both regere and tempestas there, too. The weather imagery also suits the farming imagery, while using the word that actually means tides of the sea (aestus) would clash with that. 

succurrere -- is perfect for "succour," as well as being its semantic and etymological ancestor, literally run to the aid of or assist.

eradicatis -- "uprooting." The verb eradico, with the prefix -e- (out) attached to the stem -radic- (root), means root out, uproot, utterly destroy, eradicate. It leads nicely into the the agrarian metaphor.

So there it is. It's been a long, long time since I've composed anything in Latin, but I don't think I've made any horrendous gaffes. 

When the Vatican gets around to publishing the encyclical in Latin, I'll have a look their translation. And I'll probably be rather embarrassed. 

One thing I know. Tolkien would have been blown away to be cited by the Pope.