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Old 01-05-2005, 11:27 AM   #12
Aiwendil
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RD-EX-51:

Findegil wrote:
Quote:
Are you sure that "Now one there was, Fangluin the aged, and did he jeer at them mightily on their return, ..." is what you want? I would at least add a "now" after the "and"
I don't see a need for the extra "now".

RD-SL-20:

I was talking about this:

Quote:
… could any such come thither RD-SL-20 {unaided by treachery from within}.>
Our removal of the treachery of the Elves in actual fact does not necessitate the removal of this hypothetical talk of the Dwarves.

RD-EX-58

Findegil wrote:
Quote:
Wouldn't that mean that the dwarves assembled at the borders of Doriath when the first sentence is true, thus more than a month before the hunt?
It seems to me that the account is sufficiently compressed here that no precise chronology is implicated by our revision. In any case, if there were a problem, the addition of "at this time" surely would not solve it.

Quote:
But is the lose of "Somehow" wanted? I think we should retain it. It the clearest statment that we do not know, even more that Tolkien did not know. If we skip it it reads as if we do simple not tell, not indicating at all if we know how they did it or not.
Well, "somehow" is the crux of the awkwardness, I think. We can either delete it to obtain something like good prose or retain it for the sake of ambiguity and accept that it reads poorly.

Actually, though, I don't really see "somehow" as doing any canonical or story-line work. What is the difference between "they contrived it" and "somehow they contrived it"? If "they contrived it" then clearly "somehow they contrived it". And why should it be so important that we indicate to the reader that we do not know the precise manner of the contrivance? I see nothing wrong with simply stating that "they contrived it" and nothing more.

The problem I see with removing "somehow" is another one - specifically, it seems to me to be a stylistic revision, and that is something we have specifically decided not to engage in. Yet we have already accepted minimal emendations that are surely stylistic; and clearly the sentence as we have it is not something Tolkien would have let stand in a narrative.

So in the end I lean toward my former proposal, removing "somehow".

Findegil wrote:

Quote:
Here at least we have the change. It seems Melian first did depart and then the Dwarves saked Menegroth. Since the note is to be taken we have to change my text
Yes, I think you are right.

RD-EX-60

Findegil wrote:
Quote:
If we write "Now was the king far in the woods with all his company,. ..." we would jump back in the timeline without a clear indication. I think we need at least "Now {is} when the king was far in the woods with all his company, ..."
I don't see a problem with "Now was the king far in the woods with all his company . . ."; I think it is clear from the context that we are moving back to Menegroth and back to a time before Thingol's death.

But I do see now (looking at TN) that we are making a jump backward in time that is not made in the original. So if you and Maedhros feel that the "wehn" is necessary, I can accept it.

RD-EX-63

Findegil wrote:
Quote:
Sorry, I can't see your point here. The "cry" that grew to "a firece noise by the clash of steel" did not strike me as grammaticaly bad, other than that a cry does not grew by additional noises. But any way you are more likely to know your gramma then I am. so if you want a change we will make one, but the change of "by" -> "of" is very awakward, in my view by the duplication of "of" in such a short distance.
The problem is the preposition. I have no problem with a cry growing to a fierce noise, because of the clash of steel. But "by" is the wrong word (and note that Tolkien did not use "by" in this way; the deletion of the illegible words results in a grammatical problem). We could say "grew to a fierce noise by reason of the clash of steel" or ". . . with the clash of steel" if you prefer either of those to ". . . of the clash of steel" (and as a matter of fact I suspect that either of those options preserves the intended meaning better than "of").

§40b

Findegil wrote:
Quote:
In the original this is addressed for the Orcs in Naugladurs host. They are gone in our version. But what I tried was to hold the sentence but change its meaning, so that now Naugladur reffers to the destroied relam of Doriath that he would leaf behind for the Orks of Morgoth to play with. Naugladur is here in a subtle way boasting that he had brought about the Ruin of Doriath that Morgoth could not accomplished in all the long wars of Beleriand.
And Maedhros:
Quote:
I agree with this.
I'm afraid I still don't. Not to be petulant, but "to hold the sentence but change its meaning" is exactly what I'm against. I made a point (long ago) in the principles debate of specifying not only that we are not to alter Tolkien's words but also that we are not to alter their meaning. Now this particular situation is a minor one, but I think it's an important point, particularly in principle. In TN Naugladur says that what remains of goods or folk may be plundered by the rest of his host as they please. That is the total of the meaning of his statement. He does not in the original boast that he has brought the end of Doriath that even Morgoth could not accomplish. To put such an implication in our version is to invent a fact.

In most cases, it is the deletion of a piece of text that brings it away from Tolkien's intention, and that's why it's normally advisable to keep as much as we can. But we see that in cases like this one, the retention of the text brings it away from Tolkien's intention, because though the words are retained, their meaning is altered.

That's why I want to delete the reference to the Orcs.

About names:

Naugladur can surely stand.

Nielthi: I'm not sure what the etymology of this would be, but at least there are no phonological problems that I'm aware of. It can stand.

Bodruith: I remember now my objection to the name. According to "Names in the Lost Tales" in II, GL glosses "bodruith" as "revenge". Christopher Tolkien speculates (quite plausibly, I think) that the Lord of Belegost received this name as a result of his actions in TN. Since this part has been removed from our version, I would drop the name.
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