[Aiwendil]

So we have a vote against the conservative emendations. I'm certainly sympathetic to that.

All quotes are from Findegil's last post.

Line 1:

"Here" does not alliterate with the line. I am not sure if that is needed, but I thought it would be nice to alliterate.

Nor does the original "'Twas". Sometimes, alliteration is used as an extra device in this kind of verse (a few times in the poem), but it is not a required element of the structure, as it is in alliterative verse, and it is fine to have a line without it. Your line - "I wander . . ." is good enough in itself, but as you say, it adds new meaning. Also, my impression is that Tuor is singing this song to Earendil - so it seems improbable that he is wandering about.

Line 2:

But following your example and my line 1 I would think that "walk" will go.

I'm hesitant about this for the same reason - if he's singing to Earendil, I don't know whether it's good to say that he's walking around. The trouble is that whatever word we substitute for "was" (aside from the clumsy "am"), we will be inventing some action. I tried to think of the most innocuous action I could invent, and it was sitting. Of course he could have been walking - which throws the whole thing into doubt; are we justified in inventing the detail that he was sitting, or that he was walking, however minor it may be?

If it's simply a matter of "sit" vs. "walk", though, I'd tend toward "sit".

I was not sure if we should change the second half-line at all. We can assume that the wind had already crept and inspired the Song and stopped when the poem is made.

I think we have to change "had" to "has", because it has to agree with the tense of the previous verb ("sit" or "walk"). If we used the pluperfect ("had") we would need to have specified some past time before which the wind had crept.

Lines 3 and 4:

At least we should right the "are" as "Are" since it is the start of the line.

You're right; I'd missed that.

As said before I think we could leave the wind in past tense.

I'm not so sure about that. I really think that we need "has" instead of "had", for the reasons I gave above. But after the perfect ("has") the past tense does not work here. What we would really need for your suggestion would be to change "for a wind had crept unseen" into a simple past tense rather than some form of perfect: "for a wind crept unseen"; but of course, then we lose the syllable "had" and ruin the meter.

Also, I think that if we use the past tense in the section that is supposed to be describing the present, we weaken the transition to the flashback.

Line 5:

That is the hard part as you said. Your line is good in it self. But it is as if you swept of the old one and made a new.

Exactly the problem. I had to invent Tuor's recollection as a pivoting point from the present to the flashback, which added some syllables and forced the deletion of "subtly magic". I guess the central issue is whether "But my heart recalleth . . ." is too liberal an addition. I'm not sure whether I think it is or not. It's certainly risky enough to give me pause, but it's not quite risky enough for me to reject it outright.

I have no better solution but I am not sure if we could not bear the break if this line is unchanged from the original?

You mean retain "Inland musics subtly magic . . ." and remain in the present until line 6? Yes, that's another option. One could simply leave that lines 5 and 6 as they are, as a sort of "natural" version - but that's not really satisfactory:

Inland musics subtly magic that those reeds alone {could} [can] weave −
It was in the Land of {Willows} [Nevrast] that once {Ylmir} [Ulmo] came at eve.

There the switch to the flashback comes out of nowhere and has no relation whatsoever to the previous lines. You suggest something along the lines of:

{It was}[I wander] in the Land of Willows [recalling] that once {Ylmir} [Ulmo] came at eve.

In other words, keep the "Inland musics . . ." line in the present tense and then re-work line 6 so as to accomplish the transition. I like your idea in principle. But your line has a foot too many - I realize it's only meant to indicate the general idea, but I'm not sure that the extra syllables will be easy to excise. I can't see any element of the line that could be removed (that's the advantage to making the transition in line 5 - "subtly magic" is a nice bit of detail but not essential to the meaning). The other problem here is that the transition, while not nearly as abrupt as in the "natural" version I mentioned above, is still a little sudden. It's nice to have the line "It was in the land of Nevrast . . ." if only because it spreads the transition out over an extra line and thus better orients the reader. But maybe improvements to this idea are possible.

I think, if I may say so, that my solution is at least elegant conceptually. Where it gets ugly is in the sheer magnitude of the fabrication needed (four words - that's a lot in this project!).

What do others think?