Текст книги "The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two"

Автор книги: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

One or two other points may be noticed in this outline. The great spider, called Ungweliantл in C but here Wirilуmл (‘Gloomweaver’, see I.152), is here encountered by Eдrendel in the far South, not as in C on his westward voyage: see p. 256. Elwing in this version comes to Eдrendel as a seabird (as she does in The Silmarillion, p. 247), which is not said in C and even seems to be denied.

Another isolated page (associated with the poem ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel’, see pp. 269–70 below) gives a very curious account of Eдrendel’s great voyage:

Eдrendel’s boat goes through North. Iceland. [Added in margin: back of North Wind.] Greenland, and the wild islands: a mighty wind and crest of great wave carry him to hotter climes, to back of West Wind. Land of strange men, land of magic. The home of Night. The Spider. He escapes from the meshes of Night with a few comrades, sees a great mountain island and a golden city [added in margin: Kфr]—wind blows him southward. Tree-men, Sun-dwellers, spices, fire-mountains, red sea: Mediterranean (loses his boat (travels afoot through wilds of Europe?)) or Atlantic.* Home. Waxes aged. Has a new boat builded. Bids adieu to his north land. Sails west again to the lip of the world, just as the Sun is diving into the sea. He sets sail upon the sky and returns no more to earth.

The golden city was Kфr and he had caught the music of the Solosimpл, and returns to find it, only to find that the fairies have departed from Eldamar. See little book. Dusted with diamond dust climbing the deserted streets of Kфr.

One would certainly suppose this account to be earlier than anything so far considered (both from the fact that Eдrendel’s history after his return from the great voyage seems to bear no relation to that in B and C, and from his voyage being set in the lands and oceans of the known world), were it not for the reference to the ‘little book’, which must mean ‘Notebook C’, from which the outline C above is taken (see p. 254). But I think it very probable (and the appearance of the MS rather supports this) that the last paragraph (‘The golden city. was Kфr…’) was added later, and that the rest of the outline belongs with the earliest writing of the poem, in the winter of 1914.

It is notable that only here in the earliest writings is it made clear that the ‘diamond dust’ that coated Eдrendel came from the streets of Kфr (cf. the passage from The Silmarillion cited on p. 257).

Another of the early Eдrendel poems, ‘The Shores of Faлry’, has a short prose preface, which if not as old as the first composition of the poem itself (July 1915, see p. 271) is certainly not much later:

Eдrendel the Wanderer who beat about the Oceans of the World in his white ship Wingelot sat long while in his old age upon the Isle of Seabirds in the Northern Waters ere he set forth upon a last voyage.

He passed Taniquetil and even Valinor, and drew his bark over the bar at the margin of the world, and launched it on the Oceans of the Firmament. Of his ventures there no man has told, save that hunted by the orbed Moon he fled back to Valinor, and mounting the towers of Kфr upon the rocks of Eglamar he gazed back upon the Oceans of the World. To Eglamar he comes ever at plenilune when the Moon sails a-harrying beyond Taniquetil and Valinor.*

Both here and in the outline associated with ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel’ Eдrendel was conceived to be an old man when he journeyed into the firmament.

No other ‘connected’ account of the Tale of Eдrendel exists from the earliest period. There are however a number of separate notes, mostly in the form of single sentences, some found in the little notebook C, others jotted down on slips. I collect these references here more or less in the sequence of the tale.

(i) ‘Dwelling in the Isle of Sirion in a house of snow-white stone.’—In C (p. 254) it is said that Eдrendel dwelt with Tuor and Idril at Sirion’s mouth by the sea ‘on the Isles of Sirion’.

(ii) ‘The Oarni give to Eдrendel a wonderful shining silver coat that wets not. They love Eдrendel, in Ossл’s despite, and teach him the lore of boat-building and of swimming, as he plays with them about the shores of Sirion.’—In the outlines are found references to the love of the Oarni for Eдrendel (D, p. 259), the coming of the mermaids to him (E, p. 260), and to Ossл’s enmity (C, p. 254).

(iii) Eдrendel was smaller than most men but nimble-footed and a swift swimmer (but Voronwл could not swim).

(iv) ‘Idril and Eдrendel see Tuor’s boat dropping into the twilight and a sound of song.’—In B Tuor’s sailing is ’secret’ (p. 253), in C ‘Idril sees him too late’ (p. 254), and in E Eдrendel is present at Tuor’s departure and thrusts the boat out: ‘he hears a great song swelling from the sea’ (p. 260).

(v) ‘Death of Idril?—follows secretly after Tuor.’—That Idril died is denied in C: ‘Tuor and Idril some say sail now in Swanwing…’ (p. 255); in D Idril swam after him (p. 260).

(vi) ‘Tuor has sailed back to Falasquil and so back up Ilbranteloth to Asgon where he sits playing on his lonely harp on the islanded rock.’—This is marked with a query and an ‘X’ implying rejection of the idea. There are curious references to the ‘islanded rock’ in Asgon in the outlines for Gilfanon’s Tale (see I.238).

(vii) ‘The fiord of the Mermaid: enchantment of his sailors. Mermaids are not Oarni (but are earthlings, or fays?—or both).’—In D (p. 259) Mermaids and Oarni are equated.

(viii) The ship Wingilot was built of wood from Falasquil with ‘aid of the Oarni’.—This was probably said also in D: see p. 260.

(ix) Wingilot was ‘shaped as a swan of pearls’.

(x) ‘The doves and pigeons of Turgon’s courtyard bring message to Valinor—only to Elves.’—Other references to the birds that flew from Gondolin also say that they came to the Elves, or to Kфr (pp. 253, 255, 257).

(xi) ‘During his voyages Eдrendel sights the white walls of Kфr gleaming afar off, but is carried away by Ossл’s adverse winds and waves.’—The same is said in B (p. 253) of Eдrendel’s sighting of Tol Eresseдa on his homeward voyage from Kфr.

(xii) ‘The Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl awakened by Littleheart’s gong: a messenger that was despatched years ago by Turgon and enmeshed in magics. Even now he cannot leave the Tower and warns them of the magic.’—In C there is a statement, rejected, that the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl was Idril herself (see note 6).

(xiii) ‘Ulmo’s protection removed from Sirion in wrath at Eдrendel’s second attempt to Mandos, and hence Melko overwhelmed it.’—This note is struck through, with an ‘X’ written against it; but in D (p. 260) it is said that ‘Ulmo forbade his quest but Eдrendel would yet sail to find a passage to Mandos’. The meaning of this must be that it was contrary to Ulmo’s purpose that Eдrendel should seek to Mandos for his father, but must rather attempt to reach Kфr.

(xiv) ‘Eдrendel weds Elwing before he sets sail. When he hears of her loss he says that his children shall be “all such men hereafter as dare the great seas in ships”.’—With this cf. The Cottage of Lost Play (I.13): ‘even such a son of Eдrendel as was this wayfarer’, and (I.18): ‘a man of great and excellent travel, a son meseems of Eдrendel’. In an outline of Eriol’s life (I.24) it is said that he was a son of Eдrendel, born under his beam, and that if a beam from Eдrendel fall on a child newborn he becomes ‘a child of Eдrendel’ and a wanderer. In the early dictionary of Qenya there is an entry: Eдrendilyon ‘son of Eдrendel (used of any mariner)’ (I.251).

(xv) ‘Eдrendel goes even to the empty Halls of Iron seeking Elwing.’—Eдrendel must have gone to Angamandi (empty after the defeat of Melko) at the same time as he went to the ruins of Gondolin (pp. 253, 255).

(xvi) The loss of the ship carrying Elwing and the Nauglafring took place on the voyage to Tol Eressлa with the exodus of the Elves from the Great Lands.—See my remarks, pp. 258–9. For the ‘appeasing’ of Mоm’s curse by the drowning of the Nauglafring see the Appendix on Names, entry Nauglafring. The departure of the Elves to Tol Eressлa is discussed in the next chapter (p. 280).

(xvii) ‘Eдrendel and the northern tower on the Isle of Seabirds.’—In C (p. 255) Eдrendel ‘sets sail with Voronwл and dwells on the Isle of Seabirds in the northern waters (not far from Falasquil)—and there hopes that Elwing will return among the seabirds’ in B (p. 253) ‘he sights the Isle of Seabirds “whither do all the birds of all waters come at whiles”.’ There is a memory of this in The Silmarillion, p. 250: ‘Therefore there was built for [Elwing] a white tower northward upon the borders of the Sundering Seas; and thither at times all the seabirds of the earth repaired.’

(xviii) When Eдrendel comes to Mandos he finds that Tuor is ‘not in Valinor, nor Erumбni, and neither Elves nor Ainu know where he is. (He is with Ulmo.)’—In C (p. 255) Eдrendel, reaching the Halls of Mandos, learns that Tuor ‘is gone to Valinor’. For the possibility that Tuor might be in Erumбni or Valinor see I.91 ff.

(xix) Eдrendel ‘returns from the firmament ever and anon with Voronwл to Kфr to see if the Magic Sun has been lit and the fairies have come back—but the Moon drives him back’.—On Eдrendel’s return from the firmament see (xxi) below; on the Rekindling of the Magic Sun see p. 286.

Two statements about Eдrendel cited previously may be added here:

(xx) In the tale of The Theft of Melko (I.141) it is said that ‘on the walls of Kфr were many dark tales written in pictured symbols, and runes of great beauty were drawn there too or carved upon stones, and Eдrendel read many a wondrous tale there long ago’.

(xxi) The Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin has the following entry (cited on p. 215): ‘Eдrendel was the son of Tuor and Idril and ’tis said the only being that is half of the kindred of the Eldaliл and half of Men. He was the greatest and first of all mariners among Men, and saw regions that Men have not yet found nor gazed upon for all the multitude of their boats. He rideth now with Voronwл upon the winds of the firmament nor comes ever further back than Kфr, else would he die like other Men, so much of the mortal is in him.’—In the outline associated with the poem ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel’ Eдrendel ‘sets sail upon the sky and returns no more to earth’ (p. 261); in the prose preface to ‘The Shores of Faлry’ ‘to Eglamar he comes ever at plenilune when the Moon sails-a-harrying beyond Taniquetil and Valinor’ (p. 262); in outline C ‘he cannot now return to the world or he will die’ (p. 255); and in citation (xix) above he ‘returns from the firmament ever and anon with Voronwл to Kфr’.

In The Silmarillion (p. 249) Manwл’s judgement was that Eдrendel and Elwing ‘shall not walk ever again among Elves or Men in the Outer Lands’ but it is also said that Eдrendel returned to Valinor from his ‘voyages beyond the confines of the world’ (ibid. p. 250), just as it is said in the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin that he does not come ever further back than Kфr. The further statement in the Name-list, that if he did he would die like other Men, ‘so much of the mortal is in him’, was in some sense echoed long after in a letter of my father’s written in 1967: ‘Eдrendil, being in part descended from Men, was not allowed to set foot on Earth again, and became a star shining with the light of the Silmaril’ (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien no. 297).

This brings to an end all the ‘prose’ materials that bear on the earliest form of the Tale of Eдrendel (apart from a few other references to him that appear in the next chapter). With these outlines and notes we are at a very early stage of composition, when the conceptions were fluid and had not been given even preliminary narrative form: the myth was present in certain images that were to endure, but these images had not been articulated.

I have already noticed (p. 257) the remarkable fact that there is no hint of the idea that it was Eдrendel who by his intercession brought aid out of the West; equally there is no suggestion that the Valar hallowed his ship and set him in the sky, nor that his light was that of the Silmaril. Nonetheless there were already present the coming of Eдrendel to Kфr (Tirion) and finding it deserted, the dust of diamonds on his shoes, the changing of Elwing into a seabird, the passing of his ship through the Door of Night, and the sanction against his return to the lands east of the Sea. The raid on the Havens of Sirion appears in the early outlines, though that was an act of Melko’s, not of the Fлanorians; and Tuor’s departure also, but without Idril, whom he left behind. His ship was Alqarбmл, Swanwing: afterwards it bore the name Eдrrбmл, with the meaning ‘Sea-wing’ (The Silmarillion p. 245), which retained, in form but not in meaning, the name of Eдrendel’s first ship Eдrбmл ‘Eaglepinion’ (pp. 253–4, and see note 9).

It is interesting to read my father’s statement, made some half-century later (in the letter of 1967 referred to above), concerning the origins of Eдrendil:

This name is in fact (as is obvious) derived from Anglo-Saxon йarendel. When first studying Anglo-Saxon professionally (1913–)—I had done so as a boyish hobby when supposed to be learning Greek and Latin—I was struck by the great beauty of this word (or name), entirely coherent with the normal style of Anglo-Saxon, but euphonic to a peculiar degree in that pleasing but not ‘delectable’ language. Also its form strongly suggests that it is in origin a proper name and not a common noun. This is borne out by the obviously related forms in other Germanic languages; from which amid the confusions and debasements of late traditions it at least seems certain that it belonged to astronomical-myth, and was the name of a star or star-group. To my mind the Anglo-Saxon uses seem plainly to indicate that it was a star presaging the dawn (at any rate in English tradition): that is what we now call Venus: the morning star as it may be seen shining brilliantly in the dawn, before the actual rising of the Sun. That is at any rate how I took it. Before 1914 I wrote a ‘poem’ upon Eдrendel who launched his ship like a bright spark from the havens of the Sun. I adopted him into my mythology—in which he became a prime figure as a mariner, and eventually as a herald star, and a sign of hope to men. Aiya Eдrendil Elenion Ancalima ([The Lord of the Rings] II.329), ‘hail Eдrendil brightest of Stars’ is derived at long remove from Йalб Йarendel engla beorhtast.* But the name could not be adopted just like that: it had to be accommodated to the Elvish linguistic situation, at the same time as a place for this person was made in legend. From this, far back in the history of ‘Elvish’, which was beginning, after many tentative starts in boyhood, to take definite shape at the time of the name’s adoption, arose eventually (a) the C[ommon] E[lvish] stem* AYAR ‘sea’, primarily applied to the Great Sea of the West, lying between Middle-earth and Aman the Blessed Realm of the Valar; and (b) the element, or verbal base (N) DIL, ‘to love, be devoted to’—describing the attitude of one to a person, thing, cause, or occupation to which one is devoted for its own sake. Eдrendil became a character in the earliest written (1916–17) of the major legends: The Fall of Gondolin, the greatest of the Pereldar ‘Half-elven’, son of Tuor of the most renowned House of the Edain, and Idril daughter of the King of Gondolin.

My father did not indeed here say that his Eдrendel contained from the beginning elements that in combination give a meaning like ‘Sea-lover’ but it is in any case clear that at the time of the earliest extant writings on the subject the name was associated with an Elvish word ea ‘eagle’—see p. 265 on the name of Eдrendel’s first ship Eдrбmл ‘Eaglepinion’. In the Name-list to The Fall of Gondolin this is made explicit: ‘Earendl [sic] though belike it hath some kinship to the Elfin ea and earen “eagle” and “eyrie” (wherefore cometh to mind the passage of Cristhorn and the use of the sign of the Eagle by Idril [see p. 193]) is thought to be woven of that secret tongue of the Gondothlim [see p. 165].’

I give lastly four early poems of my father’s in which Eдrendel appears.

I

Йalб Йarendel Engla Beorhtast

There can be little doubt that, as Humphrey Carpenter supposes (Biography p. 71), this was the first poem on the subject of Eдrendel that my father composed, and that it was written at Phoenix Farm, Gedling, Nottinghamshire, in September 1914.¹⁰ It was to this poem that he was referring in the letter of 1967 just cited—‘I wrote a “poem” upon Eдrendel who launched his ship like a bright spark’: cf. line 5 ‘He launched his bark like a silver spark…’

There are some five different versions, each one incorporating emendations made in the predecessor, though only the first verse was substantially rewritten. The title was originally ‘The Voyage of Йarendel the Evening Star’, together with (as customarily) an Old English version of this: Scipfжreld Earendeles fensteorran; this was changed in a later copy to Йalб Йarendel Engla Beorhtast ‘The Last Voyage of Eдrendel’, and in still later copies the modern English name was removed. I give it here in the last version, the date of which cannot be determined, though the handwriting shows it to be substantially later than the original composition; together with all the divergent readings of the earliest extant version in footnotes.

Йarendel arose where the shadow flows

At Ocean’s silent brim;

Through the mouth of night as a ray of light

Where the shores are sheer and dim      4

He launched his bark like a silver spark

From the last and lonely sand;

Then on sunlit breath of day’s fiery death

He sailed from Westerland.      8

He threaded his path o’er the aftermath

Of the splendour of the Sun,

And wandered far past many a star

In his gleaming galleon.      12

On the gathering tide of darkness ride

The argosies of the sky,

And spangle the night with their sails of light

As the streaming star goes by.      16

Unheeding he dips past these twinkling ships,

By his wayward spirit whirled

On an endless quest through the darkling West

O’er the margin of the world;      20

And he fares in haste o’er the jewelled waste

And the dusk from whence he came

With his heart afire with bright desire

And his face in silver flame.      24

The Ship of the Moon from the East comes soon

From the Haven of the Sun,

Whose white gates gleam in the coming beam

Of the mighty silver one.      28

Lo! with bellying clouds as his vessel’s shrouds

He weighs anchor down the dark,

And on shimmering oars leaves the blazing shores

In his argent-timbered bark.      32

Readings of the earliest version:

1–8   Eдrendel sprang up from the Ocean’s cup

In the gloom of the mid-world’s rim;

From the door of Night as a ray of light

Leapt over the twilight brim,

And launching his bark like a silver spark

From the golden-fading sand

Down the sunlit breath of Day’s fiery Death

He sped from Westerland.

10 splendour] glory

11 wandered] went wandering

16 streaming] Evening

17 Unheeding] But unheeding

18 wayward] wandering

19 endless] magic darkling] darkening

20 O’er the margin] Toward the margent

22 And the dusk] To the dusk

25 The Ship] For the Ship

31 blazing] skiey

32 timbered] orbйd

Then Йarendel fled from that Shipman dread

Beyond the dark earth’s pale,

Back under the rim of the Ocean dim,

And behind the world set sail;      36

And he heard the mirth of the folk of earth

And the falling of their tears,

As the world dropped back in a cloudy wrack

On its journey down the years.      40

Then he glimmering passed to the starless vast

As an islйd lamp at sea,

And beyond the ken of mortal men

Set his lonely errantry,      44

Tracking the Sun in his galleon

Through the pathless firmament,

Till his light grew old in abysses cold

And his eager flame was spent.      48

There seems every reason to think that this poem preceded all the outlines and notes given in this chapter, and that verbal similarities to the poem found in these are echoes (e.g. ‘his face is in silver flame’, outline C, p. 255; ‘the margent of the world’, outline E, p. 260).

In the fourth verse of the poem the Ship of the Moon comes forth from the Haven of the Sun; in the tale of The Hiding of Valinor (I.215) Aulл and Ulmo built two havens in the east, that of the Sun (which was ‘wide and golden’) and that of the Moon (which was ‘white, having gates of silver and of pearl’)—but they were both ‘within the same harbourage’. As in the poem, in the Tale of the Sun and Moon the Moon is urged on by ‘shimmering oars’ (I. 195).

II

The Bidding of the Minstrel

This poem, according to a note that my father scribbled on one of the copies, was written at St. John’s Street, Oxford (see I.27) in the winter of 1914; there is no other evidence for its date. In this case the earliest workings are extant, and on the back of one of the sheets is the outline account of Eдrendel’s great voyage given on p. 261. The poem was then much longer than it became, but the workings are exceedingly rough; they have no title. To the earliest finished text a title was added hastily later: this apparently reads ‘The Minstrel renounces the song’. The title then became ‘The Lay of Eдrendel’, changed in the latest text to ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel, from the Lay of Eдrendel’.

33 Then] And

38 And the falling of] And hearkened to

46–8 And voyaging the skies

Till his splendour was shorn by the birth of Morn

And he died with the Dawn in his eyes.

There are four versions following the original rough draft, but the changes made in them were slight, and I give the poem here in the latest form, noting only that originally the minstrel seems to have responded to the ‘bidding’ much earlier—at line 5, which read ‘Then harken—a tale of immortal sea-yearning’; and that ‘Eldar’ in line 6 and ‘Elven’ in line 23 are emendations, made on the latest text, of ‘fairies’, ‘fairy’.

‘Sing us yet more of Eдrendel the wandering,

Chant us a lay of his white-oared ship,

More marvellous-cunning than mortal man’s pondering,

Foamily musical out on the deep.

Sing us a tale of immortal sea-yearning      5

The Eldar once made ere the change of the light,

Weaving a winelike spell, and a burning

Wonder of spray and the odours of night;

Of murmurous gloamings out on far oceans;

Of his tossing at anchor off islets forlorn      10

To the unsleeping waves’ never-ending sea-motions;

Of bellying sails when a wind was born,

And the gurgling bubble of tropical water

Tinkled from under the ringйd stem,

And thousands of miles was his ship from those wrought her      15

A petrel, a sea-bird, a white-wingйd gem,

Gallantly bent on measureless faring

Ere she came homing in sea-laden flight,

Circuitous, lingering, restlessly daring,

Coming to haven unlooked for, at night.’      20

‘But the music is broken, the words half-forgotten,

The sunlight has faded, the moon is grown old,

The Elven ships foundered or weed-swathed and rotten,

The fire and the wonder of hearts is acold.

Who now can tell, and what harp can accompany      25

With melodies strange enough, rich enough tunes,

Pale with the magic of cavernous harmony,

Loud with shore-music of beaches and dunes,

How slender his boat; of what glimmering timber;

How her sails were all silvern and taper her mast,      30

And silver her throat with foam and her limber

Flanks as she swanlike floated past!

The song I can sing is but shreds one remembers

Of golden imaginings fashioned in sleep,

A whispered tale told by the withering embers      35

Of old things far off that but few hearts keep.’

III

The Shores of Faлry

This poem is given in its earliest form by Humphrey Carpenter, Biography, pp. 76–7.¹¹ It exists in four versions each as usual incorporating slight changes; my father wrote the date of its composition on three of the copies, viz. ‘July 8–9, 1915’; ‘Moseley and Edgbaston, Birmingham July 1915 (walking and on bus). Retouched often since—esp. 1924’ and ‘First poem of my mythology, Valinor……….1910’. This last cannot have been intended for the date of composition, and the illegible words preceding it may possibly be read as ‘thought of about’. But it does not in any case appear to have been ‘the first poem of the mythology’: that, I believe, was Йalб Йarendel Engla Beorhtast—and my father’s mention of this poem in his letter of 1967 (see p. 266) seems to suggest this also.

The Old English title was Ielfalandes Strand (The Shores of Elfland). It is preceded by a short prose preface which has been given above, p. 262. I give it here in the latest version (undateable), with all readings from the earliest in footnotes.

East of the Moon, west of the Sun

There stands a lonely hill;

Its feet are in the pale green sea,

Its towers are white and still,

Beyond Taniquetil      5

In Valinor.

Comes never there but one lone star

That fled before the moon;

And there the Two Trees naked are

That bore Night’s silver bloom,      10

That bore the globйd fruit of Noon

In Valinor.

There are the shores of Faлry

Readings of the earliest version:

1 East…..west] West….. East

7 No stars come there but one alone

8 fled before] hunted with

9 For there the Two Trees naked grow

10 bore] bear 11 bore] bear

With their moonlit pebbled strand

Whose foam is silver music      15

On the opalescent floor

Beyond the great sea-shadows

On the marches of the sand

That stretches on for ever

To the dragonheaded door,      20

The gateway of the Moon,

Beyond Taniquetil

In Valinor.

West of the Sun, east of the Moon

Lies the haven of the star,      25

The white town of the Wanderer

And the rocks of Eglamar.

There Wingelot is harboured,

While Eдrendel looks afar

O’er the darkness of the waters      30

Between here and Eglamar—

Out, out, beyond Taniquetil

In Valinor afar.

There are some interesting connections between this poem and the tale of The Coming of the Elves and the Making of Kфr. The ‘lonely hill’ of line 2 is the hill of Kфr (cf. the tale, I.122: ‘at the head of this long creek there stands a lonely hill which gazes at the loftier mountains’), while ‘the golden feet of Kфr’ (a line replaced in the later versions of the poem) and very probably ‘the sand That stretches on for ever’ are explained by the passage that follows in the tale:

Thither [i.e. to Kфr] did Aulл bring all the dust of magic metals that his great works had made and gathered, and he piled it about the foot of that hill, and most of this dust was of gold, and a sand of gold stretched away from the feet of Kфr out into the distance where the Two Trees blossomed.

18 marches] margent

20–21 To the dragonheaded door, The gateway of the Moon] From the golden feet of Kфr

24 West of the Sun, east of the Moon] O! West of the Moon, East of the Sun

27 rocks] rock

28 Wingelot] Earliest text Wingelot > Vingelot; second text Vingelot; third text Vingelot > Wingelot; last text Wingelot

30 O’er the darkness of the waters] On the magic and the wonder

31 Between] ’Tween

In the latest text Elvenland is lightly written over Faлry in line 13, and Eldamar against Eglamar in line 27 (only); Eglamar > Eldamar in the second text.

With the ‘dragonheaded door’ (line 20) cf. the description of the Door of Night in The Hiding of Valinor (I.215–16):

Its pillars are of the mightiest basalt and its lintel likewise, but great dragons of black stone are carved thereon, and shadowy smoke pours slowly from their jaws.

In that description the Door of Night is not however ‘the gateway of the Moon’, for it is the Sun that passes through it into the outer dark, whereas ‘the Moon dares not the utter loneliness of the outer dark by reason of his lesser light and majesty, and he journeys still beneath the world [i.e. through the waters of Vai]’.

IV

The Happy Mariners

I give lastly this poem whose subject is the Tower of Pearl in the Twilit Isles. It was written in July 1915,¹² and there are six texts preceding the version which was published (together with ‘Why the Man in the Moon came down too soon’) at Leeds in 1923* and which is the first of the two given here.

(I)

I know a window in a western tower

That opens on celestial seas,

And wind that has been blowing round the stars

Comes to nestle in its tossing draperies.

It is a white tower builded in the Twilight Isles,      5

Where Evening sits for ever in the shade;

It glimmers like a spike of lonely pearl

That mirrors beams forlorn and lights that fade;

And sea goes washing round the dark rock where it stands,

And fairy boats go by to gloaming lands      10

All piled and twinkling in the gloom

With hoarded sparks of orient fire

That divers won in waters of the unknown Sun

And, maybe, ’tis a throbbing silver lyre,

Or voices of grey sailors echo up      15

Afloat among the shadows of the world

In oarless shallop and with canvas furled;

For often seems there ring of feet and song

Or twilit twinkle of a trembling gong.

O! happy mariners upon a journey long      20

To those great portals on the Western shores

Where far away constellate fountains leap,

And dashed against Night’s dragon-headed doors,

In foam of stars fall sparkling in the deep.

While I alone look out behind the Moon      25

From in my white and windy tower,

Ye bide no moment and await no hour,

But chanting snatches of a mystic tune

Go through the shadows and the dangerous seas

Past sunless lands to fairy leas      30

Where stars upon the jacinth wall of space

Do tangle burst and interlace.

Ye follow Earendel through the West,

The shining mariner, to Islands blest;

While only from beyond that sombre rim      35

A wind returns to stir these crystal panes

And murmur magically of golden rains

That fall for ever in those spaces dim.

In The Hiding of Valinor (I.215) it is told that when the Sun was first made the Valar purposed to draw it beneath the Earth, but that

it was too frail and lissom; and much precious radiance was spilled in their attempts about the deepest waters, and escaped to linger as secret sparks in many an unknown ocean cavern. These have many elfin divers, and divers of the fays, long time sought beyond the outmost East, even as is sung in the song of the Sleeper in the Tower of Pearl.