Wow, I'm away from teh interwebs for a few days and a great discussion breaks out! Feels like the old days.
Thanks,
Esty, for a marvellous thread, and
All you Downers for interesting replies. (I can't help but recall that refrain from Monty Python, "Bring out your Dead".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rumil
Very interesting Esty,
I'd not clocked the significance in Aragorn/Eowyn exchanges.
As I remember it thee and thine etc are archaic, and therefore bring to mind legendary romances (Tristan and Isolde etc) but also archaic in that they bring to mind great leaders of old.
The major contrast here is between the hobbits' modern usage of you and yours and the 'heroic types' use of thee and thine. However the romantic use is a very telling sub-set of usage.
Also that the Fellowship are 'you and yours'-ers generally, perhaps tying in with (Denethor's?) comment that Pippin uses a strange idiom. Were the Fellowship (Gimli, Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir) using the modern forms as a more every-day form of speech?
Also backing up Selmo in that Oop North number of these archaic forms are still part of regonal dialect.
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In addition to
Rumil's point about the archaic use in the old romances, the verse translation of the
Kalevala which Tolkien knew so well also uses the older forms.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by WF Kirby, trans
Wherefore at thy heart's desire
Should I not thy flesh devour,
And drink up thy blood so evil?
I who guiltless flesh had eaten
Drank the blood of those who sinned not?
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This is the sword's reply when Kullervo asks if it is willing to kill him.
Romance and myth were a strong pull for Tolkien.