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. 

Foalókë & The Digital Tolkien Project -- How it Helps my Work, part 2

At the end of last year I shared a post on how The Digital Tolkien Project helps my work, in particular in studying the story of Túrin as told in The Book of Lost Tales. I now have a little more to show on the same subject, picking up more or less where I left off.

Parallel to this use of Turambar is that of Foalókë, the other name in the title. Tolkien employs Foalókë eighteen times in this story (Tauber, “‘Foalókë’ in The Book of Lost Tales. ”). The first two times come when the narrator is giving the title at the beginning (LT II.70). The last sixteen all occur after Túrin has met the dragon and the dragon has won his hoard (91, 94-99, 103-04, 105-06, 108, 108). Significantly, for according to the “Qenya Lexicon” Foalókë designates a lókë, a dragon, who guards a foa, a hoard (“The Qenya Lexicon” 38).[1] The single use of just lókë, moreover, is found precisely at the narrator’s transition from characterizing lust for gold as a trait common to all dragons to identifying and explaining the actions taken by Glaurung in pursuit of his lust: “Thus it was that this lókë….” (LT II.85). Túrin becomes Turambar and Glaurung becomes Foalókë in the same scene.

---

[1] With foalókë Tolkien is likely thinking of OE hordweard, “guardian of the hoard,” a poetical word used several times of dragons in Beowulf (Fulk et al. 2293, 2302, 2554, 2593; “DOE: Hord-Weard”). It’s not impossible that Tolkien intends lókë to remind the reader of the treacherous and deceptive Norse god, Loki. He thus implies to the reader the untrustworthiness of a dragon through the similarity of the sounds.

The Digital Tolkien Project -- How it Helps My Work

The Digital Tolkien Project, founded by my friend, James Tauber, and brought to life by James with the help of so many dedicated and talented fans and scholars, is perhaps the most significant Tolkien related project since The History of Middle-earth was published in the 1980s and 1990s. Yes, I have just compared James to Christopher Tolkien. But I would argue that the compliment is well-deserved and so not flattery. 

I consult The Digital Tolkien Project pretty much every day. Sometimes just out of idle curiosity about Tolkien's use of a word, but more often my purpose is driven by a desire to consult it about something I am working on, either for this blog or for publication. I am currently over 200 pages into what I hope will be my next book, which will study how the Great Tales and (what I call) the Great Themes, such as Fate and Free Will, Divine Justice and the Problem of Evil, Death and Immortality, shape the legendarium in the years 1916-1937, that is, before Tolkien set aside the Silmarillion to write The Lord of the Rings. (I hope there will be a subsequent volume later on in which treat the same subjects after he returned to the Silmarillion.)

Today I want to provide an example of how The Digital Tolkien Project helps me in my studies. Below I have added an excerpt from the first of my chapters on Túrin in the early legendarium, here specifically in "Turambar and the Foalókë," the very first telling of his story, published in The Book of Lost Tales. So here's a single paragraph of my draft chapter, which I will no doubt rewrite quite a few times before I am done with it. But all those stats on the words drake, worm, dragon, Túrin, and Turambar, whose use by Tolkien suggests so much, come from The Digital Tolkien Project. Yes, I could have counted them all myself, but not so easily or accurately, or without having to separate out all the times Christopher himself uses these words in his notes and commentary.

The final words of the prophecy in “Turambar and the Foalókë” are also the final words of the tale: “and Melko and his drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil” (LT I.116). A drake is of course a dragon, and in The Book of Lost Tales it is Tolkien’s preferred word for such creatures, appearing 23% more often than worm and 59% more often than dragon.[1] Turambar, the other word in the title, occurs 101 times in “Turambar and the Foalókë”: 99 of these 101 instances come after Túrin names himself Turambar in his first meeting with the dragon (LT II.86).[2] By contrast, Túrin appears 116 times in “Turambar and the Foalókë:” 83 of these 116 instances occur in the first sixteen pages of the text (69-86); the remaining 33 come in the last thirty pages of the text, that is, after Túrin renames himself (86-116). All or nearly all of these uses are the direct speech or reported direct speech or thought of Morwen, Nienor, Húrin, Thingol, Airin, Brandir, Glaurung, and Túrin himself. It is not simply the narrator speaking of Túrin in the normal course of narrating his actions. 24 of these 33 instances of Túrin occur in the portion of the tale devoted to the search for him undertaken by Morwen and Nienor (91-99). Turambar never appears in this section. In a tale whose title may be translated as “The Conqueror of Fate and the Drake” Tolkien’s use of words like drake, Túrin, and Turambar here disclose their essential significance to the story. Once Túrin proclaims himself the “Conqueror of Fate,” the narrator unironically accepts this declaration because he knows something the reader does not. He knows and believes the prophecy about Túrin’s return. Even when explaining the meaning of the title at the beginning of his tale, he follows up by emphasizing the connection in Men’s minds between this tale and the evils they suffered from Melkor and his drakes, a statement echoed by the prophecy in the tale’s final words (69-70, 116). It will not do to leave a Conqueror of Fate and drakes out of our calculations.

---

[1] In “Turambar” Tolkien uses drake 27 times; worm 22 times; dragon 17 times; and serpent 3 times. Tolkien’s seeming avoidance of serpent might indicate a desire not to recall the serpent of Genesis 3.

[2] Eltas twice employs Turumart, which he glosses as Gnomish for Turambar, once when giving the title of the tale and once when explaining the meaning of the name Turambar (LT II.70, 86).