View Single Post
Old 02-07-2013, 09:34 PM   #86
Aiwendil
Late Istar
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,224
Aiwendil is a guest at the Prancing Pony.Aiwendil is a guest at the Prancing Pony.
I'm re-opening this thread (closed in 2002!) for discussion of revisions to the text of this chapter.

First of all, I should say that I half suspect that I'm working from an old copy of the text, as it seems to have a lot of errors in it. If I am, that should become clear from what follows. These notes were made a few years ago, but I've glanced over them again and reminded myself what the various issues were.

• Horns of Ulmo - I thought this was dropped when the revisions to the opening were deemed too risky. (Revised Fall of Gondolin part 5 thread). In any case, I am against its inclusion in its current form, with the transition accomplished by:

Quote:
FG-HY-02 Inland musics subtly magic that those reeds alone could weave −
{It was in}[In] the Land of Willows {that}[I recall that] once {Ylmir}[Ulmo] came at eve.
It seems altogether too sudden and unrelated to what has gone before. (I do actually think it would be nice to include the poem, but I seem to recall that others felt it should be omitted).

• A moot point if we drop the poem, but for line 63 it appears that the correction of ‘Gods’ to ‘Lords’ has been made, something I think we simply missed the first time around. However, I think a better emendation would be:

Quote:
When the world reeled in the tumult as the FG-HY-02.7 {Great Gods}[Valar] tore the Earth
(I do actually like this poem quite a bit, and all else being equal, I would like to include it, if we can convince ourselves that the necessary revisions are justified).


FG-B-04:
Quote:
Fearful too they were for that FG-B-04 {slaughter}[tremendous fight that] Rog had done amid the Balrogs, because of those demons they had great courage and confidence of heart.
As far as I can tell at the last discussion of this (Balrogs thread, page 2) we had decided on:

Quote:
Fearful too they were for that slaughter Rog had done amid the Balrogs, because of those demons they had great courage and confidence of heart.
. . . with the reasoning that we don’t specify whether Rog is slaughtering Balrogs, one Balrog, or something else merely ‘amid’ the Balrogs. In any case we cannot use ‘tremendous fight that’.

Quote:
Then said Rog in a great voice: ‘Who now shall fear the Balrogs for all their terror? See before us the accursed ones who for {ages}[centuries] have tormented the children of the {Noldoli}[Noldor], and who now set a fire at our backs with their shooting.
This one wasn’t discussed, though it is worth thinking about. But in the Lost Tales, wasn’t the time-frame for the Noldor in Beleriand actually shorter than in the later versions? In which case, if ‘ages’ was acceptable there, it ought to be acceptable here.

FG-C-24
Quote:
FG-C-24 {Now the folk that had passed into the Eagles' Cleft and who saw the fall of Glorfindel had been nigh eight hundreds − a large wayfaring, yet was it a sad remnant of so fair and numerous a city.} But they who arose from the grasses of the Land of Willows {in years after} and fared away to sea, {when spring set celandine in the meads and they had held sad festival in memorial of Glorfindel,} these numbered but three hundreds and a score of men and man-children, and two hundreds and three score of women and maid-children.’
Findegil points out that the dwindling from 800 to 580 may depend on the longer period of their wandering found in the Lost Tales. But is it really not possible that a fair portion of the company (many of whom were already wounded) died in the shorter period of wandering in the dangerous lands north of the Crissaegrim?

FG-T-23: I think this can be made to read better by moving one of our additions slightly:

Quote:
FG-T-23 Then Turgon [K]ing of Gondolin[,] <TO tallest of all the Children of the World, save Thingol[,]> robed in white with a belt of gold, and a coronet of garnets was upon his head, <TO {with a}[and at his side] a white and gold sword in a ruel-bone sheath[,]> stood before his doors and spake from the head of the white stairs that led thereto.
FG-T-24: I am no longer convinced that Ulmo's counsel of attack on Angband was dropped. It’s still present in Q30, which is the latest account of Tuor's meeting with Turgon that we have. I can find no contradiction with it in the later 'Tuor' or anywhere else. And consider the late Tale of Years:

Quote:
Ulmo sends a last warning to Gondolin, which now alone is left; but Turgon will have no alliance with any after the kinslaying of Doriath.
Now, this last warning of Ulmo is undoubtedly a projected change that we cannot implement, but the suggestion is that Ulmo recommends (and has been recommending) an ‘alliance’, which suggests that the earlier version of his counsel was retained.

Also here: ‘makest’ is a mistake for ‘makes’, but actually I don’t think this should be changed from ‘maketh’ at all.

FG-D-02: I thought that we had decided not to make these changes (see the "Mechanical Dragons" thread, where, just to make things maximally confusing, this is FG-D-01). In any case, I am still against them.

FG-B-01:
Quote:
and iron and stone melted before them and became as water and {upon}[with] them {rode}[moved the] Balrogs FG-B-01 {in hundreds}
The 'rode' > 'moved the' appears to have been a silent normalization that was not discussed. But it is awkwardly phrased; better would be:

Quote:
and iron and stone melted before them and became as water and {upon}[with] them {rode}[went] Balrogs FG-B-01 {in hundreds}
FG-D-04: Here again are stylistic changes regarding mechanical dragons that I thought we had dropped.

• ‘Legolas Greenleaf’ changed to ‘Laegolas’. Why drop the ‘Greenleaf’?

FG-D-29:
Quote:
{fire drakes}[drakes of fire]
The purpose of this change escapes me completely. Fire drakes are drakes of fire. This should definitely be dropped.

FG-C-03:
‘Great is the fall of the Hidden Rock’ - I thought we had decided against using this.

FG-C-25: This sentence is very awkward with the names of the cities removed. Perhaps we should delete the sentence entirely.

• Last sentence: ‘Isle of Sirion’ - does not that now suggest Tol Sirion? Perhaps change it to ‘at the mouths of Sirion’.
Aiwendil is offline   Reply With Quote