Dominus Litis: Smear, smear, whoever you may be. I am the Lord of the Smear said he.

 I ran across the Latin legal phrase dominus lītis the other day, which means "the master of the suit." According to The Law Dictionary, it designates "the person who was really and directly interested in the suit as a party, as distinguished from his attorney or advocate." 

Not the most interesting phrase on its own, I suppose, but it caught my eye for two reasons: first, it was misspelled, and second, it was in a decision by a federal judge in an important case here in the States. The incorrect spelling was dominus litus. That would be an entirely different matter. It's a common enough mistake to make, assimilating first the sound and then the spelling of one word to another which it qualifies. Dominus litis too easily becomes dominus litus. 

The word lītis is the genitive singular of the noun līs, and means "of the suit."

So what would dominus litus mean? There are several possibilities, some of them amusing. 

Keep your eye on the length of the vowels. A short ĭ is pronounced as in English "fit," a long ī as in "feet." A short u is as in "but," a long ū as in "boot."

There are three possible words: 1) lītŭs, lītoris; 2) lĭtus, lĭtūs; and 3) lĭtus, lĭtī.

1) Lītŭs, a noun, means "beach" or "shore." In this form, dominus lītŭs would have to be taken to mean something like "master beach." But you can't just put nouns together like that in Latin, or even in Legal Latin. Perhaps in Harry Potter Latin. You would have to say something like dominus lītoris, "master of the beach."

2) A different noun lĭtŭs means "smearing, besmearing, anointing." As it happens, the genitive singular of this noun is lĭtūs, which yields up "the master of smearing." Given the identity of the dominus litis in the case I was reading about, that would be an apt description, but legally irrelevant. The suit isn't even about defamation.

3) Lĭtŭs can also be the perfect passive participle of the verb lĭno, which means "smear, besmear, anoint." If dominus lĭtŭs is taken this way, "the besmeared master" or "the anointed master" would be the translation. Again, this would be apt depending on what you think of this person in question.

Turning back to the correct noun, līs lītĭs, it is also true that before it came to have the technical meaning of "suit at law," it meant simply "strife" or "accusation." So "master of strife" or "master of accusation" also works.

Treebeard on Tom Bombadil

In view of the recent news that Tolkien once said in a letter previously unpublished that Treebeard knew more about what was going on in The Shire than seems to be the case in The Lord of the Rings -- thus leading everyone to point at the screen and shout "AHA!" in vindication of Sam's cousin, Hal -- I thought a passage from The Treason of Isengard might be interesting. Not only does it lend a degree of support to the general idea that Treebeard knew more than he let on, but it comments on the elusive Bombadil in ways relevant to what Old Tom says about himself and to what Tolkien said about him in various letters. I don't have the time right now to discuss what we might learn about Bombadil from Treebeard, but I do love how impressed Treebeard is by the length of Tom's name. It must be long indeed.  

In his first conversation with Merry and Pippin Treebeard explains to them about "real names" and Old Entish:

'I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate.’ A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. ‘For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I’ve lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.'

(TT 3.iv.465, italics added)

In a draft of this conversation, Treebeard points out that the trees [in the Old Forest] have no one to care for them.

'What about Tom Bombadil, though?’ asked Pippin. ‘He lives on the Downs close by. He seems to understand trees.’

‘What about whom?’ said Treebeard. ‘Tombombadil? Tombombadil? So that is what you call him. Oh, he has got a very long name. He understands trees, right enough; but he is not an Ent. He is no herdsman. He laughs and does not interfere. He never made anything go wrong, but he never cured anything, either. Why, why, it is all the difference between walking in the fields and trying to keep a garden; between, between passing the time of a day to a sheep on the hillside, or even maybe sitting down and studying sheep till you know what they feel about grass, and being a shepherd. Sheep get like shepherd, and shepherd like sheep, it is said, very slowly.'

(The Treason of Isengard 415-416, italics original)

Of this passage Christopher Tolkien writes:

It would be interesting to know why Treebeard’s knowledge of and estimate of Tom Bombadil was removed. Conceivably, my father felt that the contrast between Bombadil and the Ents developed here confused the conflict between the Ents and the Entwives; or, it may be, it was precisely this passage that gave rise to the idea of that conflict.

(Treason of Isengard 419 note 4) 

"Galadriel," he murmured.

At the bottom of the Emyn Muil, Sam and Frodo realize that they would have to leave the Elven rope behind which they had used to descend the cliffs. Frodo wryly suggests that Sam climb back up, untie the knot, and bring the rope back down with him.

Sam scratched his head. ‘No, I can’t think how, begging your pardon,’ he said. ‘But I don’t like leaving it, and that’s a fact.’ He stroked the rope’s end and shook it gently. ‘It goes hard parting with anything I brought out of the Elf-country. Made by Galadriel herself, too, maybe. Galadriel,’ he murmured, nodding his head mournfully. He looked up and gave one last pull to the rope as if in farewell. 

To the complete surprise of both the hobbits it came loose. Sam fell over, and the long grey coils slithered silently down on top of him.

(TT 4.i.611)

The last thing Sam says before giving the rope a last tug is “Galadriel,” and down the rope comes.

Tolkien and Clarke's Third Law: a Corollary

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law, as just quoted, is extraordinarily well known. It has reached that hallowed stage of auctoritas (gravitas is reserved for Newton) wherein, given any triad of physical or mathematical laws, no more than one of the three will be remembered at any given time by non-specialists.

Not all magic is the same, however. It can be used to dominate or control nature or other people. It can be used to create transcendent wonder and beauty, to heal and to preserve. Motives and intentions are the key, even though they are not even clear to ourselves. While Clarke is not thinking in terms of morality or intent in his formulation, Tolkien is. He regards magic which seeks to rule others as evil, and technology or "the machine" is usually the means to this end (Letters # 131 p. 205; # 155 p. 295-96; Rev.). The One Ring is a perfect example of this in his legendarium. On the other hand, a palantir would not be. It is really only a device for communicating over great distances. Tolkien, however, would certainly regard a palantir created to surveil others and strip them of their privacy as evil.

The other kind of magic, the kind that aims at beauty, healing, and preservation, I'll call enchantment. And the means to achieve it, usually through music or song, I'll call Art (as Tolkien does). This leads me to propose Tolkien's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law:

"Any sufficiently advanced Art is indistinguishable from Enchantment."

Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age

Here's a one-paragraph excerpt from something I'm working on, which has to do with children and heroic tales in Tolkien's legendarium. First, I'll quote the passage from The Lord of the Rings I am discussing in the paragraph that follows. 

Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dûr. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be. (RK 6.i.901)

Sam’s relationship to hearing and telling tales is pretty much the first thing we learn about him, and we learn it in the first real scene in The Lord of the Rings, from the very first character to speak, Sam’s own father, the Gaffer: “crazy about stories of the old days, he is, and he listens to all Mr. Bilbo’s tales” (FR 1.i.24). Despite the Gaffer’s no doubt relentless admonitions about the “trouble too big for you” that awaits Sam in the adventures he longs for, Sam knows at least some heroic poetry by heart and creates some poetry of his own. In response to one of these poems, Frodo jokes that Sam “will end up becoming a wizard—or a warrior” (FR 1.xii.208). Though Sam demurs, it’s no accident that the temptation he faces when he has the Ring takes precisely this form (RK 6.i.901). The warrior he fantasizes about becoming is also familiar. He does not walk, but strides like Aragorn, and wields a flaming sword, which recalls the name of Aragorn's sword, Andúril, the Flame of the West (RK 6.i.901). But then there's the tiniest hint of something darker. For Boromir, who would have been quite familiar with heroic tales since his boyhood, also imagined that "all men would flock to my banner" (FR 2.x.398; RK 6.i.901).