The Lays of Beleriand (50 page)

[The original reading of B in lines 741 - 5 was: His voice such love and longing fill 741

one moment stood she, touched and still;

one moment only, but he came

and all his heart was burned with flame. 744]

741-2. The historic present is always to be suspected. The second verse is hopelessly corrupt. Touched in this sense is impossible in the language of the Geste: and if the word were possible, the conception is fitter for a nineteenth century drawing-room in Narrowthrode than for the loves of heroes. HL read:

And clear his voice came as a bell

Whose echoes move a wavering spell

Tinuviel. Tinuviel.

Such love and longing filled his voice

That, one moment, without choice,

One moment without fear or shame,

Tinuviel stood; and like a flame

He leapt towards her as she stayed

And caught and kissed that elfin maid.

[My father marked the passage 'revise', and very roughly corrected it (adopting the concluding verses of Lewis's version) to the form which I have given in the text, despite the defective couplet.]

[The original reading of B was:

aswoon in mingled grief and bliss,

enchantment of an elvish kiss.)

760-1. L Aswoon with grief, aswoon arith bliss, Enchanted of an elvish kiss.

[enchanted for enchantment was adopted.)

[The original reading - the text B(1) seen by Lewis, see p. 194- of lines 762 - 73 was:

and saw within his blinded eyes

a light that danced like silver flies

a starlit face of tenderness

crowned by the stars of Elfinesse.

A mist a:as in his face like hair, 5

and laughing whispers moved the air -

'O! dance with me now, Beren. Dance! '-

a silver laugh, a mocking glance:

'Come dance the wild and headlong maze

those dance, we're told, beyond the ways 10

who dwell that lead to lands of Men!

Come teach the feet of Luthien! '

The shadows wrapped her. Like a stone

the daylight found him cold and lone.

On line 8 of this passage Lewis commented:]

L a silver laughter, an arch glance

'Whether mocking or arch is the more intolerably miss-ish I care not to decide' (Peabody).

[The line was abandoned in the B(2) version. On lines 9 - 12 Lewis commented:]

JHL omit. Is not the whole passage [from the beginning of the Canto to the end of the passage from B(1) given above] unworthy of the poet?

[It is clear that this severe criticism led to the rewriting of the opening of the Canto.]

775. The chiasmus 'is suspiciously classical. H gives Dark is the sun, cold is the air.

[Against this my father scribbled: But classics did not invent chiasmus!

- it is perfectly natural.' (Chiasmus: a grammatical figure by which the order of words is one of two parallel clauses is inverted in the other.)]

[The passage criticised by Lewis in the following comment was: Hateful art thou, 0 Land of Trees!

My flute shall finger no more seize;

may music perish etc.]

849. Clearly corrupt. HJL Oh hateful land of trees be mute! My fingers, now forget the flute!

[Against this my father wrote: 'Frightful 18th century!!!' But he re-ordered the second line to: my fingers the flute shall no more seize, and subsequently rewrote the passage to the form given in the text, lines 849-52.]

849-83. 'These lines are very noble' (Pumpernickel).

909. cometh. HJL comes. HJL is certainly the more emphatic rhythm.

[No alteration made to the text.]

[The original reading of B at line 911 was:

...those shores,

those white rocks where the last tide mars]

911. 'Where eight dull words oft creep in one low line.'

Lines of monosyllables are often to be found in the Geste, but rarely so clustered with consonants as this. No satisfactory emendation has been suggested.

I suspect this is a garbled version of 1142 - 3: our scribes do not always accept or understand epic repetition.

[The emendation made to B and given in the text is derived from lines 1142 - 3 as Lewis suggested. His reference is to Pope, An Essay on Criticism, line 347: And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.]

978-9. In Gestestudien Vol. XIII pp. 9 - 930 the reader will find a summary of the critical war that has raged round the possibility of the assonance (or rime) of within-dim. Perhaps a great deal of ink would have been saved if the scholars of the last century had been familiar with the L reading Where out of yawning arches came A white light like unmoving flame.

'My own conclusion is that if the assonance in the textus receptus is correct, the same phenomenon must originally have occurred often, and have been suppressed elsewhere by the scribes. Editorial effort might profitably be devoted to restoring it' (Schuffer).

But cf. 1140-1.

[The original reading of B in lines 980 - x was: With gentle hand there she him led

down corridors etc.]

980. J Downward with gentle hand she him led, which explains the corruption. The verse originally ran Downward with gentle hand she led.

The scribe of J, wrongly believing an object to be needed, inserted him. Vulg. then 'emends' the metre by dropping Downward and inserting there: thus giving a clumsy line.

[In this note Vulg. = Vulgate, the common or usual form of a literary work. My father wrote in Lewis's line on the B-text with his initials, and made the consequent change of down to through in line 981.]

[The original reading of B was: as into arched halls was led]

991. HJL she led

996. L in old stone carven stood

[No alteration made to the text.]

[The original reading in B was: while waters endless dripped and ran]

1007. H While water forever dript and ran

[The original reading in B was: in lightless labyrinths endlessly]

1075. Labyrinths. HJL Labyrinth.

[Lewis corrected his spelling to Laborynth(s), against which my father queried: 'Why this spelling?']

980-1131. The whole of this passage has always been deservedly regarded as one of the gems of the Geste.

1132-61. I suspect that this passage has been greatly expanded by the late redactors who found their audience sometimes very ignorant of the myths. It is, as it stands, far from satisfactory. On the one hand it is too long an interruption of the action: on the other it is too succinct for a reader who knows nothing of the mythology. It is also obscure: thus in 1145 few readers can grasp that their means 'the Silmarils'. The shorter version of H and L, though not good, may in some respects be nearer the original:

Then Thingol's warriors loud and long

Laughed: for wide renown in song

Had Feanor's gems o'er land and sea,

The Silmarils, the shiners three,

Three only, and in every one

The light that was before the sun

And moon, shone yet. But now no more

Those leavings of the lights of yore

Were seen on earth's back: in the drear

Abysm of Morgoth blazing clear

His iron crown they must adorn

And glitter on orcs and slaves forlorn etc.

[My father put an exclamation mark against the shiners three; and he wrote an X against lines 1144 - 5 (see note to these lines).]

*

Here C. S. Lewis's commentary on The Gest of Beren and Luithien ends, and no more is recorded of the opinions of Peabody, Pumpernickel, Schuffer and Schick in the volumes of Gestestudien - nor indeed, on this subject, of those of their generous-minded inventor.

IV.

THE LAY OF LEITHIAN

RECOMMENCED.

When my father began the Lay of Leithian again from the beginning, he did not at first intend much more, perhaps, than a revision, an improvement of individual lines and short passages, but all on the original plan and structure. This, at least, is what he did with Canto I; and he carried out the revisions on the old B typescript. But with Canto II he was quickly carried into a far more radical reconstruction, and was virtually writing a new poem on the same subject and in the same metre as the old.

This, it is true, was partly because the story of Gorlim had changed, but it is also clear that a new impulse had entered, seeking a new rather than merely altered expression. The old typescript was still used at least as a physical basis for the new writing, but for a long stretch the typed verses were simply struck through and the new written on inserted pages and slips.

The old Canto II of just over 300 lines was expanded to 500, and divided into new Cantos 2 and 3 (the old and the new can be conveniently distinguished by Roman and Arabic numerals).

The rewriting on the old typescript continues for a short distance into Canto III (new Canto 4) and then stops. On the basis of this now extremely chaotic text my father wrote out a fine, decorated manuscript,

'C', inevitably introducing some further changes; and this stops only a few lines short of the point where the rewriting on the B-text stops.

Subsequently, an amanuensis typescript ('D') was made, in two copies, apparently with my father's supervision, but for the moment nothing need be said of this beyond noticing that he made certain changes to these texts at a later time.

The rewriting on the B-text was no doubt a secondary stage, of which the preliminary workings no longer exist; for in the case of the new Canto 4 such preliminary drafts are extant. On one of these pages, and quite obviously done at the same time as the verse-drafts, my father drew a floor-plan of part of the house 99 Holywell Street, Oxford, to which he removed in 1950. He doubtless drew the plan shortly before moving house, while pondering its best arrangement. It is clear then that a new start on the Lay of Leithian was one of the first things that he turned to when The Lord of the Rings was complete.

I give below the text of the manuscript C in its final form (that is, after certain changes had been made to it) so far as it goes (line 624), incorporating one or two very minor alterations made later to the D typescript(s), followed by a further short section (lines 625 - 60) found only in draft before being added to D. Brief Notes and Commentary are given on pp, 348 ff.

THE LAY OF LEITHIAN.

I. OF THINGOL IN DORIATH.

A king there was in days of old:

ere Men yet walked upon the mould

his power was reared in caverns' shade,

his hand was over glen and glade.

Of leaves his crown, his mantle green,

his silver lances long and keen;

the starlight in his shield was caught,

ere moon was made or sun was wrought.

In after-days, when to the shore

of Middle-earth from Valinor 10

the Elven-hosts in might returned,

and banners flew and beacons burned,

when kings of Eldamar went by

in strength of war, beneath the sky

then still his silver trumpets blew 15

when sun was young and moon was new.

Afar then in Beleriand,

in Doriath's beleaguered land,

King Thingol sat on guarded throne

in many-pillared halls of stone: 20

there beryl, pearl, and opal pale,

and metal wrought like fishes' mail,

buckler and corslet, axe-and sword,

and gleaming spears were laid in hoard:

all these he had and counted small, 25

for dearer than all wealth in hall,

and fairer than are born to-Men,

a daughter had he, Luthien.

OF LUTHIEN THE BELOVED.

Such lissom limbs no more shall run

on the green earth beneath the sun; 30

so fair a maid no more shall be

from dawn to dusk, from sun to sea.

Her robe was blue as summer skies,

but grey as evening were her eyes;

her mantle sewn with lilies fair, 35

but dark as shadow was her hair.

Her feet were swift as bird on wing,

her laughter merry as the spring;

the slender willow, the bowing reed,

the fragrance of a flowering mead, 40

the light upon the leaves of trees,

the voice of water, more then these

her beauty was and blissfulness,

her glory and her loveliness.

She dwelt in the enchanted land 45

while elven-might yet held in hand

the woven woods of Doriath:

none ever thither found the path

unbidden, none the forest-eaves

dared pass, or stir the listening leaves. 50

To North there lay a land of dread,

Dungorthin where all ways were dead

in hills of shadow bleak and cold;

beyond was Deadly Nightshade's hold

in Taur-nu-Fuin's fastness grim, 55

where sun was sick and moon was dim.

To South the wide earth unexplored;

to West the ancient Ocean roared,

unsailed and shoreless, wide and wild;

to East in peaks of blue were piled, 60

in silence folded, mist-enfurled,

the mountains of the outer world.

Thus Thingol in his dolven hall

amid the Thousand Caverns tall

of Menegroth as king abode: 65

to him there led no mortal road.

Beside him sat his deathless queen,

fair Melian, and wove unseen

nets of enchantment round his throne,

and spells were laid on tree and stone: 70