Painful beauty
The more I read Tolkien, the more certain things strike me with a pain because of their beauty. There are of all his books that are both painful and beautiful, and the two feelings are combined into what I call exquisite pain. Sometimes it is something that is full of pain and beauty at the same time, and sometimes it is something that is so beautiful it hurts.
For example, a good many of the bits about Rohan, the glorious calls that Theoden and Eomer give, are so beautiful they make my heart swell with something that is almost pain:
"Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!"
and:
"Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing inthe sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!"
I will post more as I think of them, but do any of you have any parts of the books (any, not just LotR) that strike you in the same way?
(I have a similar topic in the Movies forum, so if there are parts of the movies that evoke similar emotions, you can go there.)
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Then came there from the south of the city the people of the Fountain, and Ecthelion was their lord, and silver and diamonds were their delight; and swords very long and bright and pale did they wield . . .
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