28 replies to this topic

[av_nefardec]

*cough except for Robert Frost*

[Halmirion]

Thanks all for your kind remarks. It'll be a while until I get the next sizable chunk finished, but I'm excited: almost out of Valinor!

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From Taniquetil, high and white.  

What about:

From Taniquetil, tall and white.

Obviously much better, thanks. I'll change it.

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And in that time of fairest glow,
When gold and silver softly shone,
An evil hand would deal a blow
As Aman yet had never known.

The third line has a meter that doesn't match

Hmm....does to me.

"An evil hand would deal a blow"

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But ere he ran to hither shore,
From land of light now filled with gloom,
The Enemy in hatred sore
Would seal on Fëanor his doom.

Again, a meter problem, but with the fourth line here.

Again, I think it works:

"Would seal on Fëanor his doom."

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Then Fëanor's fair face grew fell;
He rose in wrath and rage and might
And grief that never tale can tell,
And swore to bring the Vala fight.

Just out of aesthetics I'd change it to:

Fëanor's face once fair grew fell
He rose in wrath and rage and might
And grief that never tale can tell,
And swore to bring the Vala fight.

I'm inclined to agree with you that the first line doesn't read well, but "Fëanor's face once fair grew fell" doesn't fit the meter, as each line starts with a weak beat, and I read "Fëanor" as Fëanor. The diaeresis over the "e" indicates that it's sounded seperately, and not together with the "a".

But thanks for taking the time to read and keep offering suggestions if you find something seems amiss.

[av_nefardec]

"An evil hand would deal a blow"

Right now you have:
An e+vil hand would de+al a blow- nine syllables not eight like the others.

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"Would seal on Fëanor his doom."

Hmm you must pronounce words such as "deal" and "seal" differently than I do. I pronounce them "dee + ul", but I suppose it's fine to pronounce it "deel" too. So I guess it comes down to your preference then, which is clearly the latter.

"Would seal on Fëanor his doom."

I still would look for some aliteration here - S and D don't necessarily go well together in this regard.


A note about Fëanor - quenya words have specific stresses - this word being:

fëAnor

Thus the correction I proposed allows you to pronounce Quenya properly.

[Halmirion]

You're right, I do say "deel" rather than "dee-ul". I suppose it's a preference somewhat like "fire" and "fi-ur", or "jool" and "jew-el". What part of country are you from anyway? Maybe it's a local thing.

And you're probably right also about S and D not being the best together here. But Tolkien didn't alliterate every line of his poems, either. So as much as I try to work alliteration in, I can't always do so, and allow some lines, like this one, to pass.

From RotK, Appendix E:

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"Where the last syllable but one contains (as often) a short vowel followed by only one (or no) consonant, the stress falls on the syllable before it, the third from the end. Words of the last form are favoured in the Eldarin languages, especially Quenya.
"In the following examples the stressed vowel is marked by a capital letter: isIldur, Orome, erEssea, fEanor...."

Therefore: Fëanor. (With "nor" receiving a secondary stress).

[av_nefardec]

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What part of country are you from anyway?

Ohio. I've always used such words as one syllable and regarded it personally as using poetic license. But I think that one syllable is the correct way to pronounce it in the rest of the country perhaps

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Where the last syllable but one

Hmm I always remembered this simply as "the last syllable"! Well that changes a lot of things for me Thanks for pointing that out.


- looking back at the Ardalambion Quenya course that I printed out the main reason for this is that the stress should never fall on a short vowel, such as the "a" in Fëanor - thus stress is favored on the ë according to Helge Fauskanger.

[Halmirion]

Instead of starting a whole new thread, which I deem quite unnecessary, I've decided to appropriate this thread for poetry and such, if no one objects .

Sadly, Turgon ran into a huge block a while at about the place where Feanor gives his big speech and the frenzied Noldor leave Tirion. I haven't worked on it much since then, though by no means is it abandoned. Rather I've started a new one about Finrod Felagund. (For those of you interested in the reason why, I play a poet/singer in Imladris on ElendorMUSH, and one of the noble houses is holding a festival honoring Finrod Felagund. So all the members of the singers guild (including me) are invited to provide some verse and song.)

Anyway, I need your guys' artistic opinion. I can't decide what style I want to use for this, and thought that I'd take the easy way out and ask other people to decide for me .

So here are just a few lines that I've whipped up in both styles. Which do you like better? (Never mind that A is longer than B or has a better conclusion of thought, or whatever; just the style.)

A:

When all the world was still in night,
And Hither Lands had seen no sight
Of Sun or Moon in Arda’s air,
In Valinor lived Finrod fair.
Of Finwe’s house, Finarfin’s son
Did walk the stairs of Tirion
Before the Silmarils were wrought,
Or Noldor in their fates were caught.
But soon to Middle-earth he came,
Through barren hill and icy rain,
Through Helcaraxe’s bitter cold
Came Finrod, Elven-king of old.

Or B:

When all the world was still in night,
And neither light of moon nor sun
Was set to sail in Arda’s air,
Then Finrod fair, Finarfin’s son
Did walk the strands of Elvenhome
That shimm’ring shone with jewelled light,
And strode the crystal stairs that run
Through Tirion on Tuna bright.

Thanks .

[Enarwaen]

@Halmirion

i'd favor style B

be sure to post your finished verses here too

[Gilluin]

Absolutely great writing!

On a bit of a different vein, when you hear the tale of Gondolin do you imagine that there were hosts of Balrogs or only seven? I can't shake off the hosts idea, even though the later writings state that there were never more than seven Balrogs. What are others thoughts on this?

By the way I think the great majority of the writings from LTII is/was meant to remain, but I guess Rog would have lost his name to something more suitable.

[Aldandil]

Wow, Halmirion, your poetry is lovely! I do look farward to more of the Gondolin/Flight of the Noldor poem but in the meantime I would love to see one about Finrod, he is my favorite character! Of your two examples I would say I like the second one better, but I confess I have difficulty telling their meters apart.