The Lays of Beleriand (31 page)

937. Original reading of B: the last of Men, as songs now sing (with like echoes 939)

941. Original reading of B: the last of Men alone to hold 983-5. These lines are marked with an X on the B-text, and the words on dragons underlined and marked with an X -

presumably because the creatures of Morgoth were not carved on the walls of the Thousand Caves.

987-9. These lines are repeated from Canto III, lines 408-10.

1010. silver: original reading of B gold.

1059-63 . These lines are marked with an X on the B-text, as also are lines 1068 - 9. It may be that my father wished to represent Dairon as less unequivocally hostile to Beren, and also as ashamed of his words to Thingol (909-19).

1087. A: that Celegorm of Nargothrond with Celegorm emended first to Felagoth and then to Felagund (as at line 304).

1098. Gnomes: in the margin of B is written Elves/smiths. This is clearly a late change intended simply to get rid of the word Gnomes (see I. 43 - 4).

1102 -3. A: the badge that Feanor made of yore and Celegorm his son now bore.

Celegorm is not emended here as it is at line 1087, but the couplet is enclosed within brackets in the manuscript.

1141. Glingal, Belthil: original readings of B Glingol, Bansil.

The same changes were made in The Children of Hurin (pp. 80 - 1, notes to lines 2027 - 8), where I retain the earlier forms.

1144-5. These lines are marked with an X on the B-text, perhaps simply because of the word Gnomes which here occurs in rhyme and cannot be easily replaced (see note to 1098); but C. S. Lewis criticised the word their in line 1145 as obscure in its reference (see his commentary, p. 329).

1151. A: in Morgoth Bauglir's dungeons drear. See p. 182.

1161. Here is written in the margin of the A manuscript: 'Mar. 27, 28 1928'.

1175. This line was not originally in A but was pencilled in with queried indications to place it either after 1172 or (with irregular rhyming) after 1174, as it is in B.

Commentary on Canto IV.

Comparison of this Canto with the Tale of Tinuviel shows that the narrative has undergone a deepening of significance, and this is largely brought about by the cardinal change of Beren's being no longer an Elf but a mortal Man (see p. 171). The story told in the poem is that of The Silmarillion (pp. 165-8); for the prose version, close to the Lay in every feature large and small, and indeed in many actual phrases, was based directly on the verses, and in this Canto the verses underwent no significant later revision. There are some elements in the poem that were not taken up into the prose version, such as the description of the Thousand Caves (980 ff.), whose splendour and beauty now first appear (cf. my remarks on Thingol's wealth, pp. 160-1) - but a description of Thingol's dwelling is given earlier in The Silmarillion, p. 93. In the original text of the Silmarillion version Daeron's part was in fact entirely excluded, though obviously only for the sake of compression (it was reintroduced into the published work*). The loud laughter of Thingol's warriors at Thingol's demand that Beren fetch him a Silmaril is not in the prose account, and was perhaps deliberately excluded. This feature harks back rather to the scene in the Tale of Tinuviel (II. 13), where Thingol 'burst into laughter' at the aspect of Beren as suitor for his daughter, and where the courtiers smiled when Thingol requested a Silmaril as the bride-price, seeing that he 'treated the matter as an uncouth jest'. Cf. my commentary on the Tale, II. 53: The tone is altogether lighter and less grave than it afterwards became; in the jeering laughter of Thingol, who treats the matter as a jest and Beren as a benighted fool, there is no hint of what is quite explicit in the later story: 'Thus he wrought the doom of Doriath, and was ensnared within the curse of Mandos.'

Canto III was in being by the autumn of 1925; while against Canto IV

(* On pp. 166, 172; but the passage concerning Daeron on p. 183 is original. My father apparently intended to insert references to Daeron's betrayals of Luthien, but did not do so.) line 1161 in A there stands the date 27 - 8 March, 1928. The rough drafts for the opening of I V (lines 758 - 863) are written on the backs of invoices dated December 1925 and February 1926, but this does not show very much. In any case it seems to me most improbable that my father was writing lines 758 - 1161 over a period of two and a half years (September 1925 to March 1928): it is far more likely that there was a long gap, and that this fourth Canto was written pretty much at one time. Other evidence in fact suggests that he paused. There exist three pages of notes written on the backs of booksellers' invoices dated February, March, and May 1926, and these pages are of great interest for the development of the legend, for they contain a rapidly-composed plot-outline in which my father is seen working out the narrative of the next Cantos of the Lay.

This outline I will refer to as 'Synopsis I'. I give here its content as far as the end of Canto IV. Contractions used for names are expanded, and passages struck out (done at the time of writing) are included.

Beren and Tinuviel dance in the woods.

Dairon reports to the king.

Beren taken captive to the king.

Dairon will have him slain.

The king will shut him in his dungeons.

Tinuviel pleads.

Melian [struck out: says that he must not be slain, and that] refuses to advise but warns Thingol darkly that Beren must not be slain by him, and his coming was not without fate.

Thingol sends him for the Silmaril.

Beren's speech.

Melian says [struck out: this was better than his death, but] it were better for Thingol if Beren succeeded not.

Thingol said he would not send him if [he] were going to succeed.

Melian smiles.

Flight of Beren.

In the Tale of Tinsuviel Beren was led by Tinuviel into Thingol's caves (II. 13), and as I noted (I I. 52-3):

The betrayal of Beren to Thingol by Daeron... has no place in the old story - there is nothing to betray; and indeed it is not shown in the tale that Dairon knew anything whatsoever of Beren before Tinuviel led him into the cave, beyond having once seen his face in the moonlight.

Moreover, in the Tale Dairon was Tinuviel's brother (II. 10; see p.124).

In the Lay (lines 909 ff.) Dairon utters strong hints concerning the strange quietness of the forest, which lead directly to a declaration by Luthien of Beren's presence, and a demand that her father shall not harm him; Thingol swears that he will not, but sends Dairon with archers to prevent Beren's escape - needlessly, for Luthien brings him that same night to Thingol's hall. This first part of Synopsis I suggests ideas that were never given form. Thus Dairon speaks to Thingol of Beren, as in the Lay, but Beren is actually apprehended and taken to the king as a prisoner; moreover (while it is of course impossible to be certain of the precise articulation of the plot from such an extremely compressed outline) Dairon seems more actively to seek Beren's death than he does in the poem (despite line 1068), and Tinuviel pleads against her father's policy.

For explanation of the references in A to Celegorm (notes to lines 1087, 1102 - 3) see p. 171. According to the earlier story seen in A the ring given to Barahir was made by Feanor, Celegorm's father. In B the later story is present, and the badge of the entwined serpents is that of Felagund's father Finrod (Finarfin in The Silmarillion) who now first appears (other than in a later note to The Children of Hurin, see pp. 80, 138. Barahir now first replaces Egnor as Beren's father in A; and by later emendation to B (lines 937, 941) Beor appears, who at this time, as is seen from the prose texts, was Barahir's father. With exceedingly complex genealogical and chronological restructuring of the houses of the, Elf-friends in later years Beor came to be removed from Barahir by many generations.

The name Tavros given to Orome (891, 904) has occurred long before in the Gnomish dictionary, defined as the 'chief wood-fay, the Blue Spirit of the Woods' (I. 267, entry Tavari). With his tree-propped halls (892) compare the description of Orome's dwelling in Valmar in the tale of The Coming of the Valar and the Building of Valinor, I. 75 - 6. At line 893 is the first mention of the golden hooves of Orome's horse.

V

So days drew on from the mournful day;

the curse of silence no more lay

on Doriath, though Dairon's flute

and Luthien's singing both were mute.

The murmurs soft awake once more 1210

about the woods, the waters roar

past the great gates of Thingol's halls;

but no dancing step of Luthien falls

on turf or leaf. For she forlorn,

where stumbled once, where bruised and torn, 1215

with longing on him like a dream,

had Beren sat by the shrouded stream

Esgalduin the dark and strong,

she sat and mourned in a low song:

'Endless roll the waters past! 1220

To this my love hath come at last,

enchanted waters pitiless,

a heartache and a loneliness.'

The summer turns. In branches tall

she hears the pattering raindrops fall, 1225

the windy tide in leafy seas,

the creaking of the countless trees;

and longs unceasing and in vain

to hear one calling once again

the tender name that nightingales 1230

were called of old. Echo fails.

'Tinuviel! Tinuviel! '

the memory is like a knell,

a faint and far-off tolling bell:

'Tinuviel! Tinuviel! ' 1235

'0 mother Melian, tell to me

some part of what thy dark eyes see!

Tell of thy magic where his feet

are wandering! What foes him meet?

0 mother, tell me, lives he still 1240

treading the desert and the hill?

Do sun and moon above him shine,

do the rains fall on him, mother mine?'

'Nay, Luthien my child, I fear

he lives indeed in bondage drear. 1245

The Lord of Wolves hath prisons dark,

chains and enchantments cruel and stark,

there trapped and bound and languishing

now Beren dreams that thou dost sing.'

'Then I alone must go to him 1250

and dare the dread in dungeons dim;

for none there be that will him aid

in all the world, save elven-maid

whose only skill were joy and song,

and both have failed and left her long.' 1255

Then nought said Melian thereto,

though wild the words. She wept anew,

and ran through the woods like hunted deer

with her hair streaming and eyes of fear.

Dairon she found with ferny crown 1260

silently sitting on beech-leaves brown.

On the earth she cast her at his side.

'0 Dairon, Dairon, my tears,' she cried,

'now pity for our old days' sake!

Make me a music for heart's ache, I 265

for heart's despair, and for heart's dread,

for light gone dark and laughter dead! '

'But for music dead there is no note,'

Dairon answered, and at his throat

his fingers clutched. Yet his pipe he took, I 270

and sadly trembling the music shook;

and all things stayed while that piping went

wailing in the hollows, and there intent

they listened, their business and mirth,

their hearts' gladness and the light of earth 1275

forgotten; and bird-voices failed

while Dairon's flute in Doriath wailed.

Luthien wept not for very pain,

and when he ceased she spoke again:

'My friend, I have a need of friends, 1280

as he who a long dark journey wends,

and fears the road, yet dare not turn

and look back where the candles burn

in windows he has left. The night

in front, he doubts to find the light 1285

that far beyond the hills he seeks.'

And thus of Melian's words she speaks,

and of her doom and her desire

to climb the mountains, and the fire

and ruin of the Northern realm 1290

to dare, a maiden without helm

or sword, or strength of hardy limb,

where magic founders and grows dim.

His aid she sought to guide her forth

and find the pathways to the North, 1295

if he would not for love of her

go by her side a wanderer.

'Wherefore,' said he, 'should Dairon go

into direst peril earth doth know

for the sake of mortal who did steal 1300

his laughter and joy? No love I feel

for Beren son of Barahir,

nor weep for him in dungeons drear,

who in this wood have chains enow,

heavy and dark. But thee, I vow, 1305

I will defend from perils fell

and deadly wandering into hell.'

No more they spake that day, and she

perceived not his meaning. Sorrowfully

she thanked him, and she left him there. 1310

A tree she climbed, till the bright air

above the woods her dark hair blew,

and straining afar her eyes could view

the outline grey and faint and low

of dizzy towers where the clouds go, 1315

the southern faces mounting sheer

in rocky pinnacle and pier

of Shadowy Mountains pale and cold;

and wide the lands before them rolled.