Thread: Of Men
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Old 09-07-2017, 03:26 PM   #4
Findegil
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Beside some details that I will list later, I see three mayor elements in the additions from LT that we have to discuss:
1. Tû: What kind of being is he? LT says he is a ‘fay’, but that does not fit in the later work. LT names him ‘Tû the wizard’. That might be useable. When he hear about Nuin finding Murmenalda, he is reported to in ‘fear of Manwë, nay even of Ilúvatar the Lord of All’. Such knowledge in my opinion make him one of the Ainur. But being ‘more skilled in magic than any that have dwelt ever yet beyond the land of Valinor’? This must have included even in its old circumference in LT Melko and all his servants (the Balrogs ...). Sounds very strange to me. But Tolkien is especially in LT very free with his use of such superlatives. So we might change that one as well as the use of ‘fay’ earlier. So in the end if we include him we have to unspecific about what he is.
As said, before Tû’s connotation is for me that of a bad boy. Tolkien might not have been planed him as a servant of Melko, but to ‘draw the Elves to him’ to ‘become a mighty king among them’ and ‘send them ... on his business’ does not sound good for me. Teaching the Elves ‘many deep things’ could be seen neutral, but that the doors of Tû’s abode ‘have long been sealed and none know now the entry’ makes a farther sinister impression. Also the fact that ‘Tû faded before the sun and hid in his bottomless caverns’ doesn’t make for a more comfortable feeling about that character.
Overall I don’t see any forcing reason not to include Tû, but he is a difficult character, so I think we would need some good reason to include him.
2. Murmenalda: As we read in the The legend of the Awaking of the Quendi about the unbegotten elves that: ‘While their first bodies were being made from the 'flesh of Arda' the Quendi slept 'in the womb of the Earth', beneath the green sward, and awoke when they were full-grown.’ That sounds very much like to Murmenalda and the sleepers in that valley. So I would say yes Murmenalda and it description could be taken.
3. Nuin as an {Ilkorin}[Avari] to find the sleepers in Murmenalda: That one of the Elves coming upon these unbegotten Men while they sleep seems possible, but that Elves were companions of Men from the first awakening (or even woke a pair before their time)? How could that fit to the things that Andreth told Finrod [Athrabeth:
Quote:
'This lore takes no account of you,' said Andreth, 'for we knew nothing of the Eldar. We considered only dying and not-dying. Of life as long as the world but no longer we had not heard; indeed not until now has it entered my mind.'
'To speak truly,' said Finrod, 'I had thought that this belief of yours, that ye too were not made for death, was but a dream of your pride, bred in envy of the Quendi, to equal or surpass them. Not so, you will say. Yet long ere ye came to this land, ye met other folk of the Quendi, and by some were befriended. Were ye not then already mortal? And did ye never speak with them concerning life and death? Though without any words they would soon discover your mortality, and ere long you would perceive that they did not die.'
'"Not so" I say indeed,' answered Andreth. 'We may have been mortal when first we met the Elves far away, or maybe we were not: our lore does not say, or at least none that I have learned. But already we had our lore, and needed none from the Elves: we knew that in our beginning we had been born never to die. And by that, my lord, we meant: born to life everlasting, without any shadow of any end.'
For me at least this makes clear that Nuin or any other Elves as immediate instructor of the Men after their awakening is out of question. And how could that ‘lore’ be developed without speech? So Nuin as the father of Speech is gone.
So what is left of the story in LT? Nuin coming to the Mumenalda and telling Tû about the sleepers. But Tû did know already about them, as he shied back from sending his people to these parts of Endor. Is this worth lifting into this chapter? I am in doubt.

A bit more details:
OM-01: I think the first sentence is not useable. Can we say that the Quendi ‘had the gift of speech direct from Ilúvatar’? When we read in the Story of their awakening that:[quote]Then they were so enamoured of their beauty that their desire for speech was immediately quickened and they began to 'think of words' to speak and sing in. ...
Now after a time, when they had dwelt together a little, and had devised many words, ...[/b]For me that is a clear contradiction.

The same here: ‘... yet is none so little changed as the tongue of the Dark Elves of {Palisor}[Endor].’ If we compare to Shiboleth:
Quote:
It was, however, certainly the contact with Sindarin and the enlargement of their experience of linguistic change (especially the much swifter and more uncontrolled shifts observable in Middle-earth) that stimulated the studies of the linguistic lore-masters, and it was in Beleriand that theories concerning Primitive Eldarin and the interrelation of its known descendants were developed.
OM-02: In LT the fairies were not Elves. There seemed to be a difference between the Elves of Tû and his ‘many strange spirits [that] fared in and out’ of the dwelling of Tû. So I would take ‘spirits’ as a replacement for ‘fairies’.

Stature of sleepers:
Quote:
"and methought," said he, "that all who slumbered there were children, yet was their stature that of the greatest of the Elves."
This is clearly out of place the later Legend. We have to change it. Elves were not smaller than Men in all the later writings.

Not important but as an aside note: ‘..., and he said to Nuin’ is the end of the addition nominated as from LT. You have missed a ‘>’ sign at this point. And the nomination could be more specific, so I did find the source easy, that might not be true for everybody. I think LT, Gilfano’s Tale is appropriate and the Outlines should also get an LT before, because there are other outlines all over HoME

‘At last, overcome by curiosity, he awakened two … Ermon and Elmir alone of’: As explained above at least this must go, since it is contradicted by the Athrabeth. That Men saw the first sun rise in the West might be used, but it is told only in slightly different words in the basic text §82.

OM-05: This is not a footnote in Outline D, so it should not be so in our editing. Maybe it must be put in a bit later, if it is to be text and not footnote. But what so ever ‘Men grew in stature’ should not be used. See above.

OM-06: I don’t think this change is not needed if Nuin waking Ermon and Elmir is gone.

OM-07: I am not happy with this change. What about:
Quote:
OM-07 <GA 60 Indeed {we learn}the Elves have learned now in Eressëa from the Valar, through {our}their kin that dwell still in Aman, that after Dagor-nuin-Giliath …
OM-08: Agreed, but you missed one ‘Gnomes’ and one ‘Gods’ that §. And by the way this § does stay that ‘In those days Elves and Men were of like stature and strength of body’.

OM-09: Agreed.

OM-10: Agreed.

Respectfully
Findegil
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