Akallabêth

[Findegil]

BY-HL-16: I agree to ArcusCalions argument. So we will change the title.

AK-HA-01: Okay, I forgot to mention the things that I did not develop back to the original text. But in this case their was only a remark about an earlier version.

AK-HA-03: As far as I remember, one king was by accident left out of the Appendix A of LotR and Christopher felt bound to this.

AK-SL-02: Agreed.

AK-SL-04: Agreed.

AK-SL-05: Agreed.

AK-SL-06: Agreed. So I like to edit it by splitting the insert and not inserting part of the deleted text.

AK-SL-07: I wanted the reasoning be named. So what about this:

The Elendili alone were not subservient to him, or dared to speak against his wishes, and it became well-known to all in that time that Amandil the Lord of Andúnië was head of their party though not openly declared. Therefore Ar-Pharazon persecuted the Faithful, stripping them of any wealth that they had, and he deprived the heirs of Valandil of their lordshipAK-SL-07b<HoME 12; The History of the Akallabêth; Note on the marriage of Míriel and Pharazôns; text d since they had aided Tar-Palantir and supported his daughter.>. Andunie he took then and made it a chief haven for the king's ship-building, and Amandil who was now the Lord he commanded to move and dwell also in Romenna. Yet he did not otherwise molest him {[?} at this time{]}, nor dismiss him from the Council of the Sceptre, because he remembered still in his heart their friendship of old; and Amandil was well beloved also by many who were not of the Elendili.>

AK-HA-09: I left here the text as in Sil77. Christopher Tolkien writes to this passage:

In the second sentence I altered the original text 'Umbar, where there was a mighty haven that no hand had wrought' to 'Umbar, where was the mighty haven of the Numenoreans that no hand had wrought', in view of Appendix B, Second Age 2280: 'Umbar is made into a great fortress of Numenor' (nearly a thousand years before the coming of Ar-Pharazon). For the same reason I changed the original text in the following sentence, from 'Empty and silent under the sickle moon was the land when the King of the Sea set foot upon the shore' to 'Empty and silent were all the lands about when the King of the Sea marched upon Middle-earth'. (It is probable that when my father wrote this he did not yet suppose that Umbar was a Numenorean fortress and harbour at the time of Ar-Pharazon's landing.)

AK-SL-08: Okay, if both of you think that scene is valid, we will keep it, so I have some doubts.
But to the use of ‘Tar-marion’ at this place I don’t agree. We might add it earlier when we speak about the things that the Númenoreans hear about Sauron. But in Númenor Sauron was never king, so the prefix ‘Tar-‘ is not appropriate. I think we should use ‘Marion’.

AK-HA-12: I don’t think this is right. Tolkien wanted to make a difference between father addressing the son and son addressing the father.

AK-SL-09: Is it not a bit inconsistent to include ‘Tar-marion’ but remove the Quenya from the speech of Isildur and Elendur? But however we are after the restoration of Tar-Palantir, so it might be that it was not before Sauron convinced Pharazôns to attack Valinor, that Quenya was again forbidden.

AK-SL-12: Agreed.

AK-SL-14: I agree that we should update the Quenya.

AK-SL-14.1: I have to think a bit more about this. It is not impossible to use the name in this text only, but you might be right.

AK-SL-14.2: Okay.

AK-SL-14.3: Agreed.

AK-SL-15.1: Agreed.

AK-SL-23 through AK-SL-28: Agreed.

AK-SL-28.1: See above. I think the discussion can more or less stand as it is. The reference might than not be to Andunaic but a some other language that Sauron promotes, that is even farther removed from the elvish influence.

AK-SL-30: Even so it is risky, I like that addition.

Respectfully
Findegil

[ArcusCalion]

AK-SL-07: Agreed, I like this.

AK-HA-09: Ahh, ok.

AK-SL-08: To the Tar-Mairon question, I see your point. I agree to use Mairon.

AK-HA-12: Hmm this might be difficult then. I will give this more thought.

AK-SL-09: I see that, but Sauron does not yet know the political status of Numenor, and we are told by Tolkien that Sauron referred to himself as Mairon. We therefore cannot use Sauron here, but we may debate if we wish to use the Adunaic name for him: Zigûr (given in the Drowning of Anadune). As to the Elvish, I had forgotten about Tar-Palantir, but I think with Pharazon being a complete continuation of the King's Men and the rule of his father and other anti-elvish peoples, we must assume that he reinstated their policies. It says that Tar-Palantir was the last to support the Faithful, and so I can hardly say that Pharazon would continue to allow the speaking of Quenya.

AK-SL-14: I will then post my proposal for the edit:

Now her voice sang an even-song in the Eressëan tongue, but made by men, long ago. The nightingale ceased. {Elendil}[Isildur] stood still to listen; and the words came to him, far off and strange, as some melody in archaic speech sung sadly in a forgotten twilight in the beginning of man's journey in the world.

AK-SL-13.4 Illu Ilúvatar en {kare}[carnë] Eldain {a firimoin}[ar Fírimain]
ar {antarota}[antanéses] mánnar {Valion}[Valaron]: {numessier}[ëaltë Númessë].....

The Father made the World for elves and mortals, and he gave it into the hands of the Lords, who are in the West.

So sang Fíriel on high, until her voice fell sadly to the question with which that song ends: Man tárë antuva nin Ilúvatar, Ilúvatar, enyárë {tar i tyel}[i metta pella,] írë Anarinya queluva? What will Ilúvatar, O Ilúvatar, give me in that day beyond the end, when my Sun faileth?’ AK-SL-14 <[Footnote: From Helge’s updated version
Ilu Ilúvatar carnë Eldain ar Fírimain
ar antanéses mánnar Valaron: ëaltë Númessë.
Naltë ainë, mánë ar meldë - hequa morion:
alanties. Melkor Mardello lendë: nás mára.
Carneltë Eldain Isil, Hildoin Úr-anar,
yar nar írimë. Ilyain antaneltë lestanen i annar
Ilúvataro. Ilu ná vanya, fanya, ëari,
i cemen, ar ilya ya ëa taissë. Írima ná Númenor.
Nan lá ëa sérë indonyan sinomë tennoio,
an sinomë ëa tyelma, ar euva metta ar i narquelië,
írë ilya nauva nótina, ar ilya hostaina, i mettassë:
ananta úva tárë fárëa, úfárëa!
Mana tárë antuva nin Ilúvatar, Ilúvatar
enyárë i metta pella, írë Anarinya queluva?
The Father made the World for Elves and Mortals, and he gave it into the hands of the Lords. They are in the West. They are holy, blessed, and beloved: save the dark one. He is fallen. AK-SL-14.1 {Melko}[Melkor] has gone from Earth: it is good. For Elves they made the Moon, but for Men the red Sun; which are beautiful. To all they gave in measure the gifts of Ilúvatar. The World is fair, the sky, the seas, the earth, and all that is in them. Lovely is Númenor. But my heart resteth not here forever; for here is ending, and there will be an end and the Fading, when all is counted, and all numbered at last, but yet it will not be enough, not enough. What will the Father, O Father, give me in that day beyond the end when my Sun faileth?]>
'{E man}[Mana tárë] antuvas? What will he give indeed?' said {Elendil}[Isildur]; and stood in sombre thought.

AK-SL-14.1: In the text it is said to be his original name, but we know that is Melkor. Melkor means 'He who arises in might' and Alkar means 'Radiance'. Tolkien uses Melkor in the story, so we are left with a confusing mess of a history. If Alkar is used, it would only be a name for Melkor given in Numenor, since it occurs nowhere else. However, to give a name to the mortal enemy of the universe, and to name him 'Radiance' seems to me to be impossible. Its use in the story clearly suggests it is meant to be his 'true' name, but we know that can't be true. Therefore, I think we must remove it.

AK-SL-28.1: This, for me, is impossible. The 'ancestral speech of Men' clearly means Adunaic, and to have it refer to some (hitherto unmentioned) speech seems to me to be a great liberty taken, and not to be what Tolkien intended. In this older story the situation is clearly different. In this version, there had been far fewer kings of Numenor, and Tarkalion was the first evil king. Therefore all the anti-elvish sentiment was still new and the languages of Men were unused and forgotten. However, in the newer version this is simply not true, and the Adunaic is spoken by the vast majority of Numenoreans as a daily speech. In fact, the use of Adunaic instead of elvish is seen as a sign of the King's Men, (since they took their regnal names in Adunaic) and so to revive some other unknown language would go counter to their goals and culture all along. Therefore I feel very strongly that we cannot use this discussion, due to its outdated and in-applicable nature.

AK-SL-30: Gondowe expressed his concerns for this addition, but to me saying 'it should have been more developed' is not a reason for excluding something. We need a contradiction or an impossibility in order to get rid of something, and as this is new information not found elsewhere, I think it is worth including.

[gondowe]

What I wanted to mean is that it comes from a text older than the Akallabeth, not retaken later. And such remarkable "technology" must appear or have notice of that even in the Third Age, and that not happens, it is not "developed" so it seems very rare to have this paragraph here and then, what...? (IMHO).
As for Alkar I still think that is valid because we are agreed that this legends are mannish and it cuold be a name taken by the Numenoreans (or some of them) as an alternative name for the Ainu in his orinal form, but nevertheless it is not so important for the story itself.
Greetings

[Findegil]

AK-SL-09: Hmm, yes Pharazôns reverted the restoration of Palantir as soon as he had married Míriel. But that in the house of the lords of Andunië the knowledge of Quenya was maintained can not be doubted. And we have here Isildur one of the Leaders of the Faithful, raised during the restoration period and his son being one a secret visit in their own old home in an area of the land that must have been rather empty after the Faithfull had to move to Rómenna. Why shouldn’t they speak Quenya on such an occasion?

AK-SL-16.5: About Saurons name: I agree to use Mairon in AK-SL-09, but probably we should mention Zigûr as well. It is translated ‘wizard’. And therefore probably not suitable for Sauron to use it for himself. But we could add it in here;

'There were no temples in this land. But on the Mountain we spoke to the One, who hath no image. It was a holy place, untouched by mortal art. Then Sauron came. We had long heard rumour of him from seamen returned from the East. The tales differed: some said he was a king greater than the king of Númenor; some said that he was one of the Powers, or their offspring set to govern Middle-earth. A few reported that he was an evil spirit, perchance Morgoth returned; but at these we laughed.{(21)} AK-SL16.5<The Drowning of Anadune And this evil thing was called by many names, but {the Eruhil named him Sauron, and }men of Middle-earth (when they dared to speak his name at all) named him mostly Zigur the Great.>
'It seems that rumour came also to him of us. …

AK-SL-09.7: About the names Almariel and Terendul: Elendur says that he is called that by ‘the sons of the friends of his father’. As things stand in Númenor at this time I would be sure that the friends of Isildur would nearly all be of the Faithfull themselves, so that neither an original name of Almariel nor a nickname Terendul seem fully impossible. Especially a nickname given in such a circle of young adults with a background of ‘rebellious’ parents, that will anyhow in any time and any society not much care about official interdictions, seems very probable to me.

AK-SL10.1: General change {Tarkalion}[Ar-Pharazôns]: Agreed.

AK-SL-10.2: Here I think we have simply to remove Nuaran Númenóren. I think we can not use Adûnakhôr as that was the title of one of Pharazôns ancestors, an d I don’t think it would have been reused.

AK-SL-13.4 & AK-SL-14: Okay, the version of Helge should be okay. I agree as well that in this special case Alkar should be replaced by Melkor in the Text of the poem and in the translation.

AK-SL-14.1: ‘Alkar the Radiant’ reminded me of the following passages, One from Myths Transformed, Text II:

… And in his thought which deceived him, for the liar shall lie unto himself, he [Melkor] believed that over the Children he might hold absolute sway and be unto them sole lord and master, as he could not be to spirits of his own kind, however subservient to himself. For they knew that the One Is, and must assent to Melkor's rebellion of their own choice; whereas he purposed to withhold from the Children this knowledge and be for ever a shadow between them and the light.
As a shadow Melkor did not then conceive himself. For in his beginning he loved and desired light, and the form that he took was exceedingly bright; and he said in his heart: 'On such brightness as I am the Children shall hardly endure to look; therefore to know of aught else or beyond or even to strain their small minds to conceive of it would not be for their good.' But the lesser brightness that stands before the greater becomes a darkness. And Melkor was jealous, therefore, of all other brightnesses, and wished to take all light unto himself.

And the second from The Tale of Adanel:

Then he [Melkor] went away, and we did not see him for a long time, and without his gifts we were poor. And there came a day when suddenly the Sun's light began to fail, until it was blotted out and a great shadow fell on the world; and all the beasts and birds were afraid. Then he came again, walking through the shadow like a bright fire.

Therefore the association of Alkar in my mind was directly to the original name of the chosen Master of the first Fall of Men, which fits the story of the Fall of Númenor very well.

AK-SL-28.1: I agree that the discussion cannot stand as it is, but I would try to remove only the contradiction:

'Yea: that one learneth day by day,' said {Herendil}[Elendur]. 'But some of the new songs are strong and heartening. Yet now AK-SL-28.1b<editorial addition the Elvish tongues are again forbidden. And >I hear that {some counsel us to abandon the old tongue. They say we should leave Eressëan, and revive the ancestral speech of Men.} Sauron {teacheth it}<editorial addition supports this>. In this at least I think he doth not well.'
'Sauron deceiveth us{ doubly. For men learned speech of the Firstborn, and therefore if we should verily go back to the beginnings we should find not the broken dialects of the wild men, nor the simple speech of our fathers, but a tongue of the Firstborn. But the}. The Eressëan is of all the tongues of the Firstborn the fairest, and they use it in converse with the Lords, and it linketh their varied kindreds one to another, and them to us. If we forsake it, we should be sundered from them, and be impoverished.{(27)} Doubtless that is what he intendeth. But there is no end to his malice. Listen now, {Herendil}[Elendur], and mark well. The time is nigh when all this evil shall bear bitter fruit, if it be not cut down. Shall we wait until the fruit be ripe, or hew the tree and cast it into the fire?'

AK-SL-30: gondowe, I see your point. But this last paragraph of the Akallabêth is in all its parts ‘prophetic’ or ‘anachronistic’, looking into a far future from the time of the Downfall. Neither the discovery of the new lands in the west that did know death as well as the old lands nor the discovery of the fact that the earth was round were ever mentioned in any narrative of the Third Age. Therefore all these events could have been still in the future at the time of Bilbo and Frodo or Saelon of The New Shadow for that matter. So a development of aircrafts (as is clearly described in this passage) is possibly as well in the future. And that flight pioneers, when they came down amid ‘wild people’ where not always unhappy to be held in awe is for sure witnessed in our own real history and used as a motive in many tales (e.g. C-3PO and his friends among the Ewoks in ‘The Return of the Jedi’).

Respectfully
Findegil

[ArcusCalion]

AK-SL-09: I think a lot of the point of this story is that Elendur is much less knowledgable of the Faithful and how deep his family is into it. So I think he would not be speaking Quenya so openly. Also, later on, he is very scared that Sauron's servants will hear his father speaking ill of Sauron, and urges him to stop talking. If he thought they were being watched so closely, he would not speak Quenya out in the open.

AK-SL-16.5: Agreed, I like this very much!

AK-SL-09.7: This is actually a very good point, and so I will agree to leave it.

AK-SL-10.2: Agreed

AK-SL-14.1: This seems to me to be a very risky thing to leave, but I suppose I cannot find reasons in our rules to change it, and so I suppose we can leave it in. However, I think we must equate Alkar with Melkor, since the first occurrence of the name is not explained. I think we should do it like this:

'There{(15)} is Ilúvatar, the One; and there are the Powers, of whom the eldest in the thought of Ilúvatar was AK-SL-14.25 <editorial addition Melkor, who of old we named> Alkar the Radiant;{(16)}

This way it makes it clear that the name is specific to Men, and clarifies that it is a name of Melkor.

AK-SL-28.1: Agreed, this works.

AK-SL-30: This is very very true.

[gondowe]

Findegil wrote.
AK-SL-30: gondowe, I see your point. But this last paragraph of the Akallabêth is in all its parts ‘prophetic’ or ‘anachronistic’, looking into a far future from the time of the Downfall. Neither the discovery of the new lands in the west that did know death as well as the old lands nor the discovery of the fact that the earth was round were ever mentioned in any narrative of the Third Age. Therefore all these events could have been still in the future at the time of Bilbo and Frodo or Saelon of The New Shadow for that matter. So a development of aircrafts (as is clearly described in this passage) is possibly as well in the future. And that flight pioneers, when they came down amid ‘wild people’ where not always unhappy to be held in awe is for sure witnessed in our own real history and used as a motive in many tales (e.g. C-3PO and his friends among the Ewoks in ‘The Return of the Jedi’).

Yes, I also can see your point, and is something I thought when I faced this paragraph at first time.

But, although this could be again a misunderstanding from me of the English text, I thought and I think that, at least as the text is presented, that point of view is erroneous.
In the later Akallabeth is stated that the Númenoreans knew of the new round world (I suppose simply by the conventional sailing).
In the LOTR is implicit this round world (not said with all the words but implicit), The Eldar and the Dunedain knew it.

The "Númenoreans of old" in my opinion shouldn't be Númenoreans of the fifth or later ages, to say.
But (again with no certain security cause I have not my texts with me, I beg you pardon if I'm mistaken) I think the later Akallabeth have many passages taken directly of this version, and possibly is a fact that the same professor didn't liked this flying ships and rejected them. I don't know.

Greetings

[Findegil]

AK.SL-14.1: Okay, but must it not be ‚whom of old we named‘?

AK-SL-09: Okay, probably you are right and the removal of the Quenya is the safer way to go. I will go through each single change not yet agreed upon:

AK-SL-09.5: I think we have to remove with the Quenya the strange feeling of Isildur:

At length there was an answering call: a young voice very clear came from some distance away - like a bell out of a deep cave.
'{Man-ie, atto, man-ie?'
For a brief moment it seemed to {Elendil}[Isildur] that the words were strange. 'Man-ie, atto? }What is it, father?'{ Then the feeling passed.}
'Where art thou?'

AK-SL-13.1 to AK-SL-13.35: Again I think with the Quenya the strangeness of Isildurs feeling has to go:

… I fear the dungeons. And I love thee, I love thee. AK-SL-13.1{Atarinya tye-meláne.}'
AK-SL-13.2{Atarinya tye-meláne, my father, }I love thee: the words AK-SL-13.25{ sounded strange, but sweet: they} smote {Elendil}[Isildur]'s heart. 'AK-SL-13.3{A yonya inye tye-méla: and}And I too, my son, I love thee,' he said, feeling each syllable AK-SL-13.35{strange but }vivid as he spoke it. …

AK-SL-29.5: Right at the end of the Lost Road material Elendur does again use the Quenya phrase, and since we are now behind closed doors and in a very intimate setting we seem to agree that we would let this stand. If that is so, I think we should use part of what we have skipped in AK-SL-13.2 to AK-SL-13.25:

… Wilt thou stay?'
'Atarinya tye-meláne' said {Herendil}[Elendur] suddenly, and clasping his father's knees he laid his {[?}head there{]} and wept. AK-SL-29.5<editorial addition moved from above Atarinya tye-meláne, my father, I love thee: the words sounded strange, but sweet: they smote {Elendil}[Isildur]'s heart. >'It is an evil hour that {[?}putteth{]} such a choice on thee,' said {his father}he, laying a hand on his sons head. 'But fate calleth some to be men betimes. What dost thou say?'

AK-SL-30: Yes, it is a possibility that JRR Tolkien rejected this passage intentionally. And if we want to go on the safe side, we should remove it.
But I do not share your impression that the passage in the later Akallabêth refers to a time immediately after the Downfall. Even so I agree that in LotR the Round world might be implied (but for sure not very explicit), that does not mean much, since it could refer to the Myths Transformed cosmology where the world was round from the start. But since we rejected this (for this project), we would not be bound to it.

Respectfully
Findegil