Athrabeth na Dorthonion

Eluchil · Atani Joined: 26 Apr 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Menegroth

During my journey to and from Bogotá, I was reading a French book on Tolkien (Leo Carruthers, Tolkien et le Moyen Âge, CNRS éditions, Paris, 2007). A chapter with a promising title (“De la grande musique d'Ilúvatar aux chants de pouvoir : la place de l'art poétique et musical en Terre du Milieu”, or in English “From the Great Music of Ilúvatar to songs of power : the place of poetry and music in Middle-earth”) caught my eye - though I have to say that I was a bit upset in the end. In this chapter is a - short - paragraph about Sauron's and Finrod's battle of songs of power, mentioning a very (imho) interesting aspect of how Tolkien describes this battle, but falling (still imho) quite short of the whole scene. I thus decided to read it again, while being more careful about its structure.

The text of this battle has been included by Christopher Tolkien in The Silmarillion, with some editing of his. The original text (and the only published one) can be found in HoMe III (The Lay of Leithian, 2173-2205) and is the basis of what follows. It is basically divided in three stanzas of respectively nine, ten and twelve (or eleven ? see infra) rhyme and alliterative verses.

The first stanza is the following one :

He chanted a song of wizardry,
of piercing, opening, of treachery,
revealing, uncovering, betraying.
Then sudden Felagund there swaying
sang in answer a song of staying,
resisting, battling against power,
of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
and trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
of changing and shifting shape,
of snares eluded, broken traps,
the prison opening, the chain that snaps.

The battle doesn't start very well for Finrod : while Sauron only needs three verses, he needs the double or even more for each of them. And while Sauron only uses short phrases, Finrod has to use more elaborated ones, like an illustration of how difficult this fight is for him. Nevertheless he answers to the untold goal of the Enemy (Morgoth's first but not ultimate one, and Sauron's one), imprisonment, slavery, with freedom and escape. This stanza is about a direct fight between Sauron and Finrod, which sets it apart from the two next ones. Because of this and for other reasons, I will treat them as a whole.

The first verse is the link with the first stanza, as it answers and unites its first and fourth verses : Sauron's and Finrod's songs are becoming one (note the singular). The four next verses are still about the direct fight between the two competitors, but the proportion is not the same anymore, Finrod seeming to take the lead when bringing “the magic and the might ... of Elfinesse”. And Sauron suddenly ... disappears !

Backwards and forwards swayed their song.
Reeling foundering, as ever more strong
Thû's chanting swelled, Felagund fought,
and all the magic and might he brought
of Elfinesse into his words.
Softly in the gloom they heard the birds
singing afar in Nargothrond,
the sighting of the sea beyond,
beyond the western world, on sand,
on sand of pearls on Elvenland.

Then the gloom gathered; darkness growing
in Valinor, the red blood flowing
beside the Sea, where the Gnomes slew
the Foamriders, and stealing drew
their white ships with their white sails
from lamplit havens. The wind wails.
The wolf howls. The ravens flee.
The ice mutters in the mouths of the sea.
The captives sad in Angband mourn.
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn,
a vast smoke gushes out, a roar -
And Finrod swoons upon the floor.

Finrod's part slowly goes from East to West (Nargothrond > Elvenland > Valinor), which is underlined by two repetitions (“beyond”, “on the sand”). But then, still without any mention of Sauron, appear the Teleri and the First Kinslaying at Alqualondë (“amplit havens”), followed by the Helkaraxë (“the mouths of the sea”). This second move, from West to East this time, stops in Angband. Treachery, explicitly invoked by Sauron in the first stanza, and slavery, which was untold, have won. And all this still without any mention of Sauron (though one could always claim that he does stay in the background, with the wolf howling). This absence means that Finrod's defeat, in the last verse of the third stanza (or, rather, the conclusion of the text, starting with Sauron and finishing with Finrod), is not directly due to Sauron's song, but to Finrod's one. Indeed, he invoked Valinor and Elvenland, where those evil events took place. The Holy Land, which almost allowed him to take the lead over Sauron, brought back to him those bloody and painful memories, and therefore weakened his position, which ultimately led him to defeat. But is it any surprise, when Finrod already told “that the Oath of Fëanor is again at work” and that “yet my own oath holds; and thus we are all ensnared” ?

E: I just realised that this thread could perhaps rather belong to the HoMes section. Move it if you like Smile

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"But behold!" said he, "in the armour of Fate (as the Children of Earth name it) there is ever a rift, and in the walls of Doom a breach, until the full-making, which ye call the End. So it shall be while I endure, a secret voice that gainsayeth, and a light where darkness was decreed."

Avatar Art by Alice Picard.

Findaráto · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 11:29 pm Post subject:

Eluchil · Atani Joined: 26 Apr 2008 Posts: 21 Location: Menegroth

Findaráto · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 1:37 am Post subject:

Oh, I agree. I think when he agreed to help Beren, the curse was set into play, but when he reached the point in the Song where he invoked Valinor, the curse reached its climax and destroyed him.
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'But why dost thou say 'mere words'? Do not words overpass the gulf between one life and another? Between thee and me surely more has passed than empty sound?'
~Finrod, Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth

Avatar art by Alice i Angel Falto.