Galadriel's death
 

I've started to read again the LoTR, and found something in the prologue that puzzles me.

From "Note on the Shire records" - extract from the French version (sorry again):

"Là, bien qu'Elrond fût mort, ses fils demeurèrent longtemps, ainsi que certains des hauts Elfes. On dit que Celeborn alla y résider après la mort de Galadriel..."

It is said that Merry went a lot of times to Rivendell to collect information for his book. In this place, he was with Elrond's sons after his death + Celeborn himself who used to come there after Galadriel's death.

I haven't noticed that before. But are Elrond and Galadriel not supposed to leave Middle-Earth and not to die?

I'm reading the Grey Havens and the appendice. The chronology states:

3021 - 29th september: Frodo and Bilbo, from the Grey Haven leave Middle-earth by the sea with the three Guardians. End of the 3rd Age.

Is there something I missed. In that case, shame on me, I thought to know the book enough not to ask such a question.
Or is it an interpretation: when Cirdan, Gandalf, Galadriel and the hobbits leave Middle-Earth, this departure is considered as a "terrestrial" (arghh) death?

Or is it again, a bloo** mistake from Francis Ledoux in his translation of the Lord of the Rings... For that you cannot answer.

The translation is faulty, apparently. The original is:

To translate "departure" as "mort" is very bizarre and would seem to indicate a critical lack of understanding of the story. Unless "mort" in French deviates significantly from the meaning of its cognates in other languages.

Thanks for that. I think it's the worst I have read from Ledoux, in his already long list of mistakes. (no, "mort" is not a synonym of "departure")

"mort" is from the verb mourir, which is of course....to die.

So, it must just be a faulty translation. Because, as above mourir is
French for to die. And as Aiwendil points out Galadriel didn't die. I would think the word partir, should be much better suited, as partir is french for to leave, or depart.

It happens sometimes with translations... aslo there are things that cannot be translated. For example, my LoTR books are in spanish and that funny quote of Sam telling Gandalf that there were no Eaves in his garden (I can't remember the exact quote but it appears on the top right of the page sometimes). In Spanish, there is no exact translation for "eavesdropping" and therefore the joke does not work.

Now I'm taking the thread 'far over misty mountains old' from where it began, but I just had to compare 'eavesdropping' passage with my Russian translation (Muraviev, Kistakovsky) and found that it is very finely handled:

Sam tells Gandalf that he was being trimming the grass. Gandalf inquires if Sam was eavesdropping, with the verb 'podslushivat' (literally - 'to listen under'), and Sam answers that the grass need not be specially dried, but will dry out by itself, with the verb 'podsushivat' (literally 'to make dry bit by bit').


Now thread started with an example of erring translation, and I provided you with neatly done one. To retain the balance, let me tell you that same translation contains many other blunders which one day I may bother my and your selves with listing of :D

Translation is a difficult art, to be sure. There is always a conflict between a literal rendering and an idiomatic rendering. HerenIstarion gives a great example of an idiomatic rendering. Beleg gives an example of a very poor one. I think that a lot of translators (not just of LotR, but in general) err on that side, feeling the need to 'interpret' when a literal translation would be preferable.

I think what may have led to the confusion is that in English terms such as "to depart", "to pass away", "to pass" are often used as euphemisms (polite synonyms) for "to die". Perhaps the translator was confused by Tolkien's tendency to use poetic language and assumed he really meant that Elrond and Galadriel had died...only in this case they did literally depart--on a ship!

This reminds me of a joke from a movie, in which a character mentions "my dear departed wife"

"Oh, is she dead?"

"No, just departed." :p

Did the translator do the translation of the book from beginning to end? If he had looked back at this passage after translating the end of the story it should have been obvious that the translation was not correct.

Just a sidenote...Elrond goes with them, not Cirdan. Elrond has one of the three Elven rings. Cirdan no longer has his - he gave it to Gandalf upon Gandalf's arrival. Cirdan stayed there longer - he eventually takes the "last ship" to leave Middle-earth for Aman.