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 Ódin 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 death, 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. 

Sometimes a Goad Is Just a Goad -- Adventures in an Ancient Greek Dictionary

The phrase "it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" has for centuries years been a common English translation of the phrase in Acts 26:14, "σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν." Jesus says this to Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus. Jesus is comparing him to a draught animal kicking when his driver prods him with his goad (=prick) to get him moving.

Unsurprisingly, this translation has also been the cause of much snickering.

The Greek noun kentron (κέντρον) basically means "goad," and sometimes a goad is just a goad. Pretty sure that is the case here. I can't see the risen Jesus making bawdy puns as a way of persuading Saul that he is who he says he is. Jesus was not an internet troll. (Though Paul might have been.)

But it need not be, and thereon hangs a tale. Scanning through the various meanings of the word, one stood out immediately. Because it was defined only by another Greek noun, πόσθη, posthe. That's a dead giveaway that this sense of the word is obscene. It's a 19th Century thing, equal parts prudish and prurient. So I then looked up that word. It's defined only in Latin. So there's dead giveaway # 2. The definition? membrum virile. You got that? verbum sat sapienti. (That's Latin for "nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more.")

Next I looked up the verb related to kentron, which is kenteo (κεντέω), "to goad," and scanned through its definitions. I found another entry defined only by another Greek verb, βινέω, bineo. Dead Giveaway # 3. I looked that verb up. Again the definition is in Latin (DG #4) -- "inire, coïre" -- but with a brief explanation in English: "of illicit intercourse."

Tolkien's Imaginary Time and Our Real World

Tolkien, it seems quite clear from multiple statements he made in his letters, thought of his tales as taking place in our world, but in an imaginary, mythical, or mythological time period. These are the words he uses repeatedly across the decades. He first refers to "this imagined world" in a letter to Sir Stanley Unwin on 15 October 1937 (Letters no. 17 p. 30). He first mentions the idea of an imaginary time period in another letter to Sir Stanley Unwin from 24 February 1950, where he calls the Silmarillion "a long legendary* of imaginary times in a ‘high style’" (Letters no. 124 p. 193). The final reference comes in Letter no. 316 to R. W. Burchfield, then editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, on 11 September 1970. There he offers a definition of the word Hobbit for inclusion in the forthcoming supplement to the dictionary:

One of an imaginary people, a small variety of the human race, that gave themselves this name (meaning ‘hole-dweller’) but were called by others halflings, since they were half the height of normal Men. (p. 569)

The present entry in the OED reads: "a member of an imaginary race of small people." It would be quite reasonable at this point to object that "imaginary people" don't necessarily inhabit an imaginary place or time period. True enough. But the others mentioned, those who call Hobbits "halflings," are also imaginary. You could say it's imaginary people all the way down, but it's more pertinent and less impertinent to show further clear evidence that these imaginary people live in an imaginary time period.

In Letter 211 on p. 404 (14 October 1958) Tolkien wrote to Rhona Beare, mentioning among many other things how far in the past the Fall of Barad-dûr was supposed to be, and expanding on the subject in a note at the bottom of the page:

May I say that all this is ‘mythical’, and not any kind of new religion or vision. As far as I know it is merely an imaginative invention, to express, in the only way I can, some of my (dim) apprehensions of the world. All I can say is that, if it were ‘history’, it would be difficult to fit the lands and events (or ‘cultures’) into such evidence as we possess, archaeological or geological, concerning the nearer or remoter part of what is now called Europe.... I hope the, evidently long but undefined, gap* in time between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days is sufficient for ‘literary credibility’, even for readers acquainted with what is known or surmised of ‘pre-history’.

* --I imagine the gap to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh.

The bold italics are mine. Earlier in this same letter Tolkien had mentioned his "mythical pre-history," a phrase he uses again in the very next letter (no. 211 p. 398; no. 212 p. 406). Let's look at a few more passages, which I think can speak for themselves. At the bottom of the page, I shall attach a list of all the letters in which Tolkien refers to this world as imaginary, mythical, or mythological. 

There is of course a clash between ‘literary’ technique, and the fascination of elaborating in detail an imaginary mythical Age (mythical, not allegorical: my mind does not work allegorically). As a story, I think it is good that there should be a lot of things unexplained (especially if an explanation actually exists); and I have perhaps from this point of view erred in trying to explain too much, and give too much past history. Many readers have, for instance, rather stuck at the Council of Elrond. And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally). (Letters no. 144 p. 263)

 _______________

The particular ‘myth’ which lies behind this tale, and the mood both of Men and Elves at this time, is the Downfall of Númenor: a special variety of the Atlantis tradition. That seems to me so fundamental to ‘mythical history’ – whether it has any kind of basis in real history... is not relevant – that some version of it would have to come in. (Letters no. 154 p. 293)

_______________

I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. The name is the modern form (appearing in the 13th century and still in use) of midden-erd > middel-erd, an ancient name for the oikoumenē, the abiding place of Men, the objectively real world, in use specifically opposed to imaginary worlds (as Fairyland) or unseen worlds (as Heaven or Hell). The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary. The essentials of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of N.W. Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if a little glorified by the enchantment of distance in time. (Letters no. 183 p. 345)

_______________

Mine is not an ‘imaginary’ world, but an imaginary historical moment on ‘Middle-earth’ – which is our habitation. (Letters no. 183 p. 351)

_______________

I have, I suppose, constructed an imaginary time, but kept my feet on my own mother-earth for place. (Letters no. 211 p. 404)

 _______________

 

In your paragraph there is a missing link, more important (I think) for the purpose than what I said, or should have said, about ‘invention’. Namely: how did linguistic invention lead to imaginary history? So that I think the passage would be more intelligible if it ran more or less so: ‘The imaginary histories grew out of Tolkien’s predilection for inventing languages. He discovered, as others have who carry out such inventions to any degree of completion, that a language requires a suitable habitation, and a history in which it can develop.’ (Letters no. 294 p. 527)

So what Tolkien presents to us is an imaginary time period in our world, a time period in which many aspects of our world were quite different. Without even getting into the metaphysical differences arising from the mythical aspects of this period, like the immortality and reincarnation of the Elves or the marring of Arda before its creation, the physical differences alone, like a flat earth that becomes a globe with a secret straight path only Elves can find that exists tangentially to the now round earth, complicate fitting this mythical time into the past of our world. Yet if Tolkien's imagination was of such power and generosity of soul that he could convincingly inspire a secondary belief his readers cherish, how can ours be so poor that many of us find the suggestion of a non-white Elf, Dwarf, or Hobbit intolerable?

__________________________________

Letters no. 124, p. 193; no. 131, p. 202 (twice); no. 142, p. 257; no. 144, p. 263 (twice); no. 153, p. 282, 284; no 163, p. 311, 313; no. 183, p. 345 (three times), 351 (twice); no. 190, p. 359, 360 (twice), 361; no. 211, p. 404; no 247, p. 469; no. 294, p. 527 (twice); no. 297, p. 541; no. 316, p. 569.

__________________________________

*The noun "legendary" refers here "a collection of stories or legends" (OED). Tolkien more commonly uses the Latin form of the word, legendarium: "A body or system of myths, legends, stories, etc., concerning or relating to a particular fictional world; a work containing this" (OED).

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). 

"What really happened," or, "Was hat Ranke mit Tolkien zu tun?"

 A name I often came across when I was in school studying history and how to write it was Leopold von Ranke (1795 - 1886). Rather than try to summarize his long career as a writer and teacher of history and historiography, I'll say that he was one of those astonishing 19th century German scholars who seemed to know everything and whose days had 168 hours in them. His views on writing history were that scholars should use sources as close to the period about which they were writing as they could possibly get, and that these sources should be wide-ranging, including contemporary local documents and records not just narrative histories. The goal, Ranke believed, was to create an account of "wie es eigentlich gewesen." 

Again in the interests of brevity, I'll quote from Andreas Boldt's discussion of this phrase in Esharp's supplement from 2007. 

Many scholars have written on Ranke and analysed his understanding of history. One example of how Ranke was scrutinised is the discussion of the meaning of his most famous phrase of ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’. The book History of the Latin and Germanic Nations is known chiefly for the statement that:

Man hat der Historie das Amt, die Vergangenheit zu richten, die Mitwelt zum Nutzen zukünftiger Jahre zu belehren beygemessen: so hoher Aemter unterwindet sich gegenwärtiger Versuch nicht: er will bloß sagen, wie es eigentlich gewesen. (Ranke, 1824, pp.v-vi).

To history has been assigned the office of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of future ages. To such high offices this work does not aspire: It wants only to show what actually happened. (Stern, 1973, p.57, translation by Fritz Stern).

The meaning of Ranke’s aim to study the past ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’ has been the subject of much debate among historians. A number of writers have translated the phrase as ‘what actually happened’, ‘as it really was’ or ‘simply tell how it was’ and have understood it as an endorsement of ‘colourless’ history. Historians, Ranke claimed, should stick to the facts and there should be no evidence of their views and commitments in their writing. It is only when they remove all trace of themselves that they can revive the past. More recent commentators, such as Iggers, have argued that such a translation is not accurate because it does not reveal Ranke’s ‘idealistic’ conception of history. He pointed out that the term ‘eigentlich’ does not only mean ‘actually’, but also ‘essentially’ or ‘characteristically’. Therefore Iggers preferred to translate the phrase as ‘[History] merely wants to show how, essentially, things happened’ (1988, p.67). The translation of Ranke’s quotation into English has its problems. One thing is certain, however, Ranke’s famous sentence is a conscious formula that contains a very complex meaning. The word ‘bloß’ shows Ranke’s modesty while the word ‘eigentlich’ touches on issues like ‘truth’ and ‘the greatest good’. The translation ‘happened’ describes an event or condition; it does not describe a development. The usual translation ‘how it really was’ is too short and does not describe what Ranke intended to say. As a more correct translation, I would suggest ‘how things really were’.

Very interesting, Tom, but what has Ranke to do with Tolkien? I can see the eyes rolling back in my readers' heads, like the guests at Bilbo's party when he won't shut up about his adventures. 

So here it is. Every time I read Letter 180 (p. 336) in Tolkien's Letters, I run into the following sentence:

"I have long ceased to invent (though even patronizing or sneering critics on the side praise my ‘invention’): I wait till I seem to know what really happened." (italics mine)

And when I think of "what really happened" and "wie es eigentlich gewesen," I think of Tolkien's famous rejection of allegory in the "Foreword to the Second Edition" of The Lord of the Rings (xxiv):

... I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse "applicability" with "allegory"; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

Andreas Boldt's apt comment on the humility in Ranke's choice of the word bloß, "only" -- "to say only how things really were" -- fits beautifully with the humility in Tolkien's preference of "the freedom of the reader" to "the purposed domination of the author."

I can't say if Tolkien knew Ranke's work firsthand, or whether the similarity of phrasing is just coincidental. Still, Ranke would have been far better known in Tolkien's day than he is today, and the phrase "wie es eigentlich gewesen" has been quoted more and more since 1900. A Google Ngram of the phrase shows that it's been on a steeply downward trend since 2017. I guess, starting in 2017, people no longer wish to know how things really are. I'll leave it in the freedom of the reader to decide what that really means.

 ______________________________

I was curious to see how a German translation of Tolkien's Letters rendered Tolkien's statement -- "I wait till I seem to know really happened" -- and whether it would end up echoing Ranke's original phrase. Thanks to Marcel R. Bülles, Der Tolkienist, I can quote Helmut Pesch's translation: 'Ich warte, bis mir scheint, ich wüßte, was wirklich geschehen ist.'

______________________________

In the long quotation from Andreas Boldt above, he refers to the following works: 

• Iggers, G.G. 1988. The German conception of history. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press.
• Ranke, Leopold von. 1824. Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1535. Leipzig: Reimer. 
• Stern, F. 1973. The varieties of history from Voltaire to the Present. New York: Vintage.

Star Trek: "The Man Trap" -- the First Episode Ever Broadcast.

 I have to admit when I watched the very first episode of Star Trek ever shown on television, there were lots of things I never noticed. First of all, I was six in September 1966. Second, my parents, though hardly perfect, were not racist or sexist, and didn’t mention certain defining features of the show that some today are in denial about.

Even before the opening credits, we see a Black woman officer sitting at the station we later learn is navigation. This of course is Lieutenant Uhura, who is more usually found at communications, where she will appear later in the episode.

Also before the opening credits, we see a non-human with pointed ears sitting in the captain’s chair in command of the ship while the captain is visiting the planet below. This is Lieutenant-Commander Spock, the ship’s first officer and chief science officer.

An alien man and a black woman, officers on the bridge of the starship Enterprise, a name packed with meaning a little more than twenty years after the end of the Second World War in the Pacific, a war whose bloody history was exacerbated by racial hatred on both sides, some of it prejudice, some of it arising because it is very easy to dehumanize an enemy who looks so different. The American aircraft carrier Enterprise had played a leading role throughout that war, even taking part in an attack on Tokyo in in February 1945.

Speaking of the war (sorry, Basil), another character debuts later in the episode, Lieutenant Sulu, who seems to work as a botanist. Although his ethnic background is not mentioned any more than Uhura’s or Spock’s, there would have been many in the audience that night who would have looked at him and immediately assumed him to be Japanese (as the character is later revealed to be). That would have raised a fair number of eyebrows. Even more surprising, Sulu is next seen on the bridge running security on the ship. In the final scene, Sulu is seen again on the bridge sitting at the helm, the station he will become most well known for.

In 1966, as I said, I was six years old. My parents and the parents of everyone in my generation had lived through the Second World War. So many had fought and suffered, lost friends and family. There was still great and widespread bitterness about the war. To put a Japanese officer in so prominent a position of authority on a television show was bold, just as it was bold to put a Black woman officer. By comparison, making an alien the second in command was minor.

One of the great ironies, of course, is that the actor who played Sulu, George Takei, is a Japanese-American. As a child he had been unjustly imprisoned along with thousands of other Japanese-Americans in concentration camps just because they were of Japanese descent. I don’t know how my parents felt about this in 1942, but in the 1960s they were teaching me what a disgraceful wrong our country had done to them. Over and over my father spoke of the extraordinary courage Japanese-American soldiers displayed when the government allowed them to enlist and fight in their own units in Europe. They were done wrong by their country, and did their country only right in return. And they were not the only ones. Nichelle Nichols could have told some stories, too.

When you look at this or other episodes of Star Trek (No bloody TOS, TNG, DS9, VGR — to paraphrase Mr. Scott), there are plenty of opportunities to shake our heads at things that wouldn’t fly today. The ridiculously short completely impractical uniform skirts worn by the women in Starfleet, and the insanely skimpy attire worn by the non-human yet still very enticingly human-passing alien women, costumes designed to look like they just might fall off, are only the beginning of things we could mention. The 1960s were poised between two worlds. Some were holding desperately onto the way things had been, and some had let go to reach out for what could be.

Finally, what is in some ways the most challenging and the most relevant aspect of that episode, is the interaction between Captain Kirk and Professor Crater. Crater is trying to protect “a creature,” which is the last of its kind, sentient, intelligent, and capable of love, but whose extreme need for salt to survive drives it to kill some of Kirk’s crew. The professor likens it to the American buffalo, of which there had been 50,000,000 or more circa 1800, but only a few thousand remained in North America by 1900. When Crater argues that the creature is just trying to survive, Kirk, who is just as desperate to protect his crew, replies:

“You bleed too much, Crater. You’re too pure and noble.”

In effect, Kirk has just called him “woke.”

Even so, after the creature has been killed attempting to kill Kirk, Spock sees Kirk looking pensive and sad. Approaching him, Spock says:

“Something wrong, Captain?”

With a rueful smile, Kirk replies:

“I was thinking about the buffalo, Mr. Spock.”

He, Spock, and McCoy exchange thoughtful looks, and the episode ends with Kirk ordering Sulu, now at the helm, to resume their journey, while Uhura works at communications in the background.

We’ll see this dynamic over and over again throughout the history of Star Trek in all its incarnations. The characters, who have already put certain attitudes behind them, are confronted by their need to do the same again in another context. This is what boldly going is all about. 

"Fled from the Company" -- Frodo and Sam not looking back

At the beginning of Book 4, in the chapter called "The Taming of Sméagol," there's a beautifully subtle little touch, a single word that I've read countless times without catching its implications. Since the last time we saw Frodo and Sam is 200 very eventful pages ago, we can easily lose track of how little time has passed since Boromir tried to take the Ring and Frodo and Sam left all their companions behind. The drama of "The Breaking of the Fellowship" no longer stands out quite so prominently. For us. That is, for the readers. It's easy to find ourselves looking ahead, as Frodo and Sam do, as they stare out from the top of the Emyn Muil across the plain beyond which lies Mordor: 

‘What a fix!’ said Sam. ‘That’s the one place in all the lands we’ve ever heard of that we don’t want to see any closer; and that’s the one place we’re trying to get to! And that’s just where we can’t get, nohow.' (TT 4.i.603)

Gollum, too, has been following them, as they know. There may also be orcs about. And the bare hills of the Emyn Muil, which they haven't been able to find their way out of despite several days of trying, leave them feeling terribly exposed. A fix indeed. All of this draws our attention in to where they are and what they are doing. Frodo and Sam are so focused on where they are trying to go that they are no longer entirely sure of how long they've been wandering around the Emyn Muil.  

"It was the third evening since they had fled from the Company, as far as they could tell" (TT 4.i.603).

That word, fled, compresses all the drama of "The Breaking of the Fellowship"--Frodo's indecision, Boromir's attempt to compel Frodo to give him the Ring, Frodo's escape from him, his even more dangerous brush with the Eye of Sauron, the panic of the Company, the attack of the orcs--all this and more that Frodo and Sam don't know about. Of Boromir's recovery, his courageous attempt to save Merry and Pippin, and his death, they are entirely ignorant. For all they know, Boromir might be hunting them as well.

Let's look back, though, for just a moment at what Frodo had fled from:

Frodo rose to his feet. A great weariness was on him, but his will was firm and his heart lighter. He spoke aloud to himself. "I will do now what I must," he said. "This at least is plain: the evil of the Ring is already at work even in the Company, and the Ring must leave them before it does more harm. I will go alone. Some I cannot trust, and those I can trust are too dear to me: poor old Sam, and Merry and Pippin. Strider, too: his heart yearns for Minas Tirith, and he will be needed there, now Boromir has fallen into evil. I will go alone. At once."

(FR 2.x.401)

These are Frodo's thoughts as he thinks through the choice he must make. The Ring is not just a danger to him, but to his companions. We can even, I believe, see the Ring at work on him. He says "some I cannot trust." If he had said "one I cannot trust," it would have been perfectly clear whom he meant. But "some" is more than "one." Does he not trust Legolas and Gimli? They are the only members of the Company he does not name. "None" or "almost none" would have been more accurate and more honest. And it's the Company he is said to have "fled," not simply Boromir (or even "some" of his companions), which again would have been completely understandable. 

Not also that it could have said "left the Company," "(de)parted from the Company," "separated from the Company," "exited the Company," "abandoned the Company," or many other words with connotations that have nothing to do with escape. But the text doesn't choose a different word. No. It chooses fled.

Quite a fix indeed.

 

As if the Story of Túrin Weren't Already Tragic Enough

While analyzing the death scenes of Nienor Níniel and Túrin in the chapter "Turambar and the Foalókë" in The Book of Lost Tales, I noticed that parts of the last words of each character seemed to be iambic verse. 

Before leaping to her death in a waterfall, Níniel addresses the river with a statement that begins and ends with the same sentence: "O waters of the forest whither do ye go?" I believe the text in between also scans as iambic with slight variations like an extra unstressed syllable or a very brief switch to trochees. 

For reference, an iamb or an iambic foot is two syllables long, the first unstressed, the second stressed. In the following example, I have indicated the stressed syllable with an acute accent:

Tomórrow ánd tomórrow ánd tomórrow

A trochee or a trochaic foot, which we'll also be looking at today, is the opposite of an iamb, a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Trochees go fast. The word trochee derives from the Greek verb τρέχω, meaning run. Iambs walk; trochees run. Here's another example from Macbeth, but this time trochees:

Doúble, doúble toíl, and troúble

Fíre búrn and caúldron búbble

The prose text "Turambar and the Foalókë" reads :

“O waters of the forest whither do ye go? Wilt thou take Nienóri, Nienóri daughter of Úrin, child of woe? O ye white foams, would that ye might lave me clean—but deep, deep must be the waters that would wash my memory of this nameless curse. O bear me hence, far far away, where are the waters of the unremembering sea. O waters of the forest whither do ye go?” (LT II.109) 

Recast as verse, it might read: 

"O waters of the forest whither do ye go?
Wilt thou take Nienóri, Nienóri, daughter
of Úrin, child of woe? O ye white foams,
would that ye might lave me clean—but deep, deep must be
the waters that would wash my memory of this (5)
nameless curse. O bear me hence, far far away,
where are the waters of the unrememb'ring sea.
O waters of the forest whither do ye go?”

To begin with, I thought it was just the opening sentence, but the repetition of the same phrase in the closing sentence made me wonder about the words in between. After studying the scansion for a while I noticed that structuring it with six beats per line yielded eight full lines of what we might call iambic hexameter. Now in English we are far more used to iambic pentameter, which is thought to best reproduce the rhythm of the spoken language. The ancient Greeks, however, felt that what they called iambic trimeter accomplished this end. And? So? We count iambic feet differently than the Greeks did. For us it's one iamb per foot, and a line of verse composed of five iambs is iambic pentameter. The Greeks thought of an iambic foot as having two iambs. So a line of Greek iambic trimeter has the same number of beats as a line of English iambic hexameter. 

Iambic trimeter, as Tolkien well knew, is the standard form of verse for dialogue in Greek Tragedy. Since schoolboys were often required to translate English poetry into Greek or Latin verse, Tolkien had very likely translated lines of Shakespeare into Greek and set them in iambic trimeter. The story of Túrin and his family owes much to the story of Oedipus and his family. Tolkien said so himself, and his opinion of Greek Tragedy was clearly quite high (Letters² #131 p. 210; #156 p. 297). In this same section of "Turambar and the Foalókë" the character Tamar (Brandir) reproaches Túrin with the suicide of Nienor Níniel, saying that she died "blind with horror and with woe, desiring never to see thee again" (LT II.111). This very Sophoclean line recalls Oedipus who blinded himself so he would not have to see his children who were also his siblings in this world, or his wife who was also his mother in the next. 

Just because I can make the scansion work does not completely persuade me, however. Certain parts work better than others. What most inclines me to think that Tolkien was consciously mimicking Greek Tragic Trimeters in Nienor Níniel's final words is that Túrin's final words seem to be doing the same thing. First the prose: 

“Thee only have I now—slay me therefore and be swift, for life is a curse, and all my days are creeping foul, and all my deeds are vile, and all I love is dead."

The last twelve beats of this sentence can easily be seen as two lines of iambic trimeter:

"life ís a cúrse, and áll my dáys are creéping foúl,
and áll my deéds are víle, and áll I lóve is deád."

It does not surprise me in the least to think that Tolkien embraced this tragic form to enhance the last words of his most tragic characters. If he can draw inspiration from the tragedy of Oedipus Tyrannos, he can also draw inspiration from one of its most characteristic forms of verse.

Gollum said, Sméagol said

Recently I was asked to present a 30 minute talk on the first five chapters of Book 4 of The Lord of the Rings. (When? Later in the summer. Where? That would be telling.) So, last night I was reading "The Taming of Sméagol" and "The Passage of the Marshes" and giving the matter some thought. I've thought about these chapters a lot over the years. In addition to being just so good they are essential for understanding Gollum, since Book IV is the reader's longest exposure to him.

A thought struck me as I was looking at the moment when Frodo starts calling Gollum Sméagol, after which Gollum begins using it to refer to himself. Even Sam uses it a few times. I wondered whether the narrator ever called him Sméagol when telling the story in his own voice. So, not in the speech or thoughts of the characters. Since Frodo is supposed to be the main writer of this story, what he does here might be revealing. 

I first searched for "Sméagol" plain and simple, and discovered 155 instances, not counting appendices, tables of contents, indices, etc. Scanning through these I didn't see a single instance where the narrator calls him Sméagol in direct narration. (The debate Sam overhears between Sméagol and Gollum not only represents Sam's thoughts, but also helps to distinguish for the reader which of them is speaking at a given moment.)

Without going too far down this rabbit hole, I conducted four more searches I thought could be useful. I searched:

• "said Gollum"
• "Gollum said"
• "Sméagol said"
• "said Sméagol"

The first, "said Gollum," appears forty-five times, all in Book IV. There's nothing unusual here. It's exactly what we might expect. 

The second, "Gollum said," is a bit trickier, since the search ignores punctuation. Of six results, only two represent the voice of the narrator.

• 1.i.33: "Even if Gollum said the same once," said Bilbo
• 3.iii.456: "Gollum, gollum!" said Pippin
• 4.ii.624: Gollum said nothing to them -- spoken by the narrator
• 4.iv.652: "Gollum!" said Sam
• 4.ix.717: As Gollum said -- spoken by the narrator
• 5.iv.815: "Gollum," said Pippin

The third, "Sméagol said" is much the same as the second and for the same reason. Of twelve occurrences, all in Book IV, the voice we hear is always Frodo's, Sam's, or Gollum's.

• 4.i.616 "Sméagol," said Frodo
• 4.i.618 "Sméagol," said Gollum
• 4.ii.633 "But Sméagol said..." spoken by Gollum
• 4.iii.637 "Sméagol said so" -- spoken by Gollum
• 4.iv.655 "A present from Sméagol," said Sam
• 4.vi.687 "Sméagol," said Frodo
• 4.vi.687 "Sméagol," said Frodo
• 4.vi.689 "Sméagol!" said Frodo
• 4.viii.715 "Sméagol," said Gollum
• 4.viii.715 "Sméagol," said Frodo
• 4.ix.717 "Sméagol?" said Frodo
• 4.ix.719 "Sméagol!" said Frodo

The fourth and last, "said Sméagol," is found just three times, all on 1.ii.53, when Gandalf is recounting for Frodo the conversation Sméagol had with Déagol just before he murdered him. It worth noting that Gandalf will call Gollum "Sméagol" six more times in this chapter of the The Lord of the Rings (1.ii.53, 56). Everywhere else he calls him Gollum. In this chapter, "The Shadow of the Past," Gandalf is trying to get Frodo to pity Sméagol before Frodo learns that Sméagol is Gollum.

Now I believe that, since the story of The Lord of the Rings claims to be written largely by Frodo, we should take that seriously enough to consider the implications of that assertion. This is not to say that we should think that no changes were made in later years long after Frodo and Sam were gone. But the pervasiveness of "said Gollum" versus the rarity of "said Sméagol," together with the narrator's exclusive use "Gollum" when speaking of this character, makes clear where the narrator stands on him. And this fits perfectly with the fact that Frodo may address him as "Sméagol" but, with only one exception, never speaks of him to others by any name but "Gollum."*

________________________________

The sole exception is when Frodo in Ithilien formally pledges to Faramir to take "this Sméagol" under his protection (TT 4.vi.690). The alternative was Gollum's execution.

Once again I am indebted to the indispensable James Tauber and The Digital Tolkien Project for their expertise and labor in the fields of Arda