[Findegil]

WARNING: This has become a very long post! Sorry, for that. But maybe I was during working on it somewhat in the same possessed mode as Mîm during his work.
Let's go through the text and see what we learn:

Under a hill, in a wayless land,
lay a deep hole, all filled with sand.
One evening Mîm stood before his den:

The cavern described in the first sentence is Mîm's den. The 'wayless land' is ambiguous enough to be everywhere and nowhere, but I think it would fit Amon Rûdh more than Nargothrond even after its fall. The sand reminds me strongly of the description of the shelf named by Mîm 'the gartrh' in The Children of Húrin. Sand is not mentioned their directly as it is in the poem. But we have 'a thicket of thorns', 'a little grove of dwarfed birches' and 'a green sward of the shelf, from brink to brink'. These are all pioneer plants (as is the ‘heather’ mentioned in the poem later on) living on such meagre soil as sand.

His beard was grey; and his back was bent.
Long paths he had wandered, homeless and cold,
The Petty-dwarf Mîm, two hundered years old.

A bit of description that only makes clear that we see Mîm not in his youth. The ‘long paths he had wandered‘ must be in his past not right now, because he comes out of his ‘den’ right now.

All that he had made, the work of his hand,
with burin and chisel, with hassle without end,
the fiends had robbed from him, a few tools only, beside his life,
of his handicraft were left to him and a long knife
venomed in a sheath under his tattered cloak.

As we have just read some events from his former life (the ‘long paths’) it is tempting to see these as well as flashback, maybe even as the reason for his wandering. But if that is the case, we have here a break in the telling and shift back to the present with the next two sentences:

His clouded Eyes blinked, still reddened from the smoke;
since, stemmed with thorn and heather, they had,
at last, his passages cruelly on fire set,
and thus came he out, sickened and choked.
Mîm spat in the sand and thus he spoke:

The blinking of his eyes, reddened from the smoke, the stemmed passages set on fire, Mîm being sickened and choked fit all together with him spitting before he speaks. That means here is no way around the fact, that we are at the present time and not looking back into Mîm’s past. Thus we can at least be certain that Mîm was smoked out of his ‘den’ (wherever that was) just in the moment before he uttered what we could call his Lament.
A farther point of importance here is that what follows is in direct speech (layed by the author into the mouth of Mîm). That must not apply to all the text that follows, but for much of it, since Mîm is often addressed by ‘I’ in the rest of the text, and the style of the text in many passages, with the repeating onomatopoeic ‘tink-tonk’ or ‘tom-tom-tap’ marks it as very homogeneous and a bit in contrast to what had been written so fare. It is sad that no speech marks were used in the translation (maybe following the original text). But in the German use that is more understandable, since they would normally not been repeated at the beginning of each paragraph. Thus if all that follows is in direct speech, in the translation would have been only before the first ‘Tink-tink-tink, …’ that follows immediately and at the final End behind ‘… Keine Zeit zum Denken!’ The English use with a repeated speech mark at the beginning of each paragraph would have been very helpful, but I would here argue that H. J. Schütz, the translator would have marked the difference and incorporated a clear indication if in the original any part of what followed would have been clearly not in direct speech. Therefore, for me the reminder of the text is in Mîm’s words.

Tink-tink-tink, tink-tonk, tonk-tonk, tink!
No time to eat, no time to drink, tonk, tink!
Tink, tonk, no time, tonk-tink, no time to waste!
No time to sleep! All night, all day, always in haste!

This is a back reference to ‘the work of his hand, … with hassle without end’ from the beginning.

Hammered and bended to shape the silver and gold,
and small hard stones, glittering and cold.
Tink-tink, green and amber, tink-tink, blue and pale:
Under my hands quietly did sprout and swell
long leaves and flowers, and red eyes glowed
in beasts and birds between blossoms and bough.

We learn that Mîm was not only a goldsmith but as well a cutter of gemstone and that his works were depictions of nature – leaves, flowers and animated things with eyes. We reach here the end of the poem and change to prose text, but it is sure that the next sentence is still direct speech of Mîm, since it states works were ‘things my eyes had seen’.

All the things, that my eyes had seen, when they were still clear, when I was young and the world was kind.

This is the first glimpse we get for Mîm's inspiration. But not so much for the time when he fashioned his works. The inspiration clearly comes from his young times long ago.

How have I spent myself, to make them more lasting than memory!

The first part is difficult to translate and I have taken some liberties here. The German reads ‘Wie habe ich mich geknechtet, sie dauerhafter zu machen als die Erinnerung!‘ German ‘Knecht‘ means ‘farmhand’, ‘minion’, ‘vassal’. ‘geknechtet’ is past tense of ‘knechten’, which means to bring someone, who is firmly under your control, to do some toilsome work. In German this can easily be used for a think some does to himself or - as here - something you have done to yourself. The connotation is that Mîm had in a way forced himself to make these artefacts. If some one has a better idea how to transport that connotation back to English, I would gladly learn. The second part is easier to translate but maybe more difficult to understand. I think that it means that these artefacts are not only depictions of the beauty seen by Mîm in his youth, they are means to wake again the same feelings as experienced in youth when confronted with the beauty of nature. That is, way I think they are not (at least not purely) naturalistic. At least in their intention they are as well impressionistic (and since Mîm finds his work is good, they seem to work in that way).

And they sprouted from my heart and formed under my hands, bent and combined into strange and beautiful images – always growing and changing, and yet ever routed in the memory of the world and my love for it.

Here again we have contrast been impressionistic (‘sprouted from my heart’) and naturalistic (‘routed in the memory of the world’).

One day I stopped awhile and raised my head, and my hands rested on the stony workbench. I looked at my work. Since out of Mîm it had grown, yet it was Mîm no more, and he marvelled thereat.

Here we come to one of the strange shifts in perspective. My translation is relatively straightforward, and there is no question that the same shift is in the German text. The first two parts of the last sentence - ‘Denn aus Mîm war es erwachsen, doch es war Mîm nicht mehr,‘ in German - would still be okay in direct speech. But ‘und er staunte darob.‘ is unusual, especially because in the next sentence we shift back to ‘ich’/’I’ in reference to Mîm. I am sure that ‘er’ is not a mistake for the more natural ‘ich’. The book is celebrating 10 years annual of the publisher. It was surely lectures with all care they could put into it. Therefore, I think, Schütz had to defend his use of ‘er’, and in that case the most natural defence is that he followed the original closely in this respect.

Jewels I beheld, glowing in the light of my small forge-fire, and now they lay in my brown hand, old now, yet still slender and crafty.

What I translated with ‘Jewels’ reads ‘Juwelen’ in the German text. I don’t think it is a ‘false friend’ on my side (nor on the side of H. J. Schütz), but I have some doubts about the translation here. I would have expected (in the English original) a more general term in this place, referring not only to gems but to all the kind of artefacts Mîm had made. But since we don’t have the original text to cross check, ‘Jewels’ seem the best I could use for the back translation. Here we learn a bit more about the time Mîm made his artefacts: When he halts for a while his hand is ‘brown’ and ‘old’, that means either he really spent a very long time on that work or he worked long after his days of inspiration in his youth.

And I thought: Mîm was very clever. Mîm had worked very hard. Mîm had a fire in him, hotter than the hearth. But Mîm had poured it almost all into these things. They are a piece of Mîm, since without them there is little left of him.

In this reporting by Mîm of his own thoughts the use of Mîm instead of a pronoun seems quiet natural to me (at least in the German text). What we he reports is, I think, a first sign that his inspiration is failing at last and instead some possessiveness setts in: ‘he poured it almost all’ and ‘without them little is left of him’. In addition, it is very much like Sauron and the One Ring. As long as Mîm does possess his artefacts it is well form him, but when he losses them he is diminished.

So I thought about a right way to store them, like goods in a storehouse, that wise memory my find them again. For everywhere they lay on the floor, or hung in the corners, and some hung on pegs on the walls – like the pages of an ancient book of dwarven-law, which time had worn and the winds have devastated.

The description of how the Mîm’s artefacts were cluttered in his smithy, sound for me not like he had any kind of possessiveness felt before, rather like an obsessive artificer, putting his works heedless a side as soon as he is satisfied with how he has shaped them. Here again I have some doubts about the German translation: ‘hung in the corners, and some hung on pegs on the walls’ reads in the German text ‘angehängt in den Winkeln, und manche hingen an Pflöcken von den Wänden’. ‘angehängt in den Winkel’ is by itself a bit unusual. ‘angehängt an Winkeln’ would be more natural but is a full repetition in sense of what follows, ‘angehäuft in den Winkel’ would fit nicely between the first part the ‘pegs on the Wall’. So ‘angehängt’ could be a misprint for ‘angehäuft’, seeing that there are only two letters have to be shifted. But we can not be sure and thus have to take the text as it stands. Next are the ‘books of dwarven-lore’. The German ‘Zwergengeschichten’ transports, at least for me, a wrong connotation: It is to near to ‘fairy tales’. ‘-lore’ is a good translation of ‘-geschichten’ but does not transport that connotation (I think, and therefore I mention it here). ‘-tales’ would in this respect maybe be nearer to the German text, but since I found the connotation not fitting I used ‘-lore’. By the way, this picture of the torn book reminds me strongly on the Book of Mazarbul from The Lord of the Rings.

Clap-clip-clatter! Crack-tap, tom-tom-tap! Tack-Tack! Timber and bones to me! No time to lose. The work begins. Think, saw, whittle, chisel, rasp, rattle. No time to rest. Thus, I crafted my big chest, furnished with boxes and secret drawers. Dragon-guards glowered from the lid, twined and twisting up from their grasping claws. The hinges rested between their sharp teeth. Ancient dwarves with axes flanked its mighty claps. Clap-clap, tack-tack! Hammer and nail, tink-tonk, the key was forged and bound by magic. Well done!

As in the beginning of his speech Mîm describes his own working very onomatopoeic. Mark specially how he comes back to the ‘tink-tonk’ used at the beginning for his work on gold and silver, when working the metal of the key.
Some remarks on the back translation:
‘kralligen Klauen’ => ‘grasping claws’: I don’t know if or how to transport back the German repetition of ‘kralligen Klauen’. ‘Kralle’ is used in German for a single talon while ‘Klaue’ means the ‘claw’ as a limb or appendage with more than on talon. Thus ‘talon embattled claws’ would possibly work, but I don’t think that was the original reading. That some repetition was in the original can be seen in the phrases just before this with the ‘verschlungen und sich hochwindend’, which both would translate to ‘twisting’.
‘Wohlan!’ => ‘Well done!’ Someone any better idea here? ‘Wohlan’ is not much used nowadays in German. The first reference that comes to mind is Schiller’s Glocke where it is used as kind of encouragement for the companions in the work to be started. But that use does not fit here entirely and even if, I have no clou how I would translate in that case. Maybe the original had a simple ‘Lo!’, but than I would have rather expected ‘Siehe!’ which would fit not badly in the German translation.

The great lid felt close and my weary eyes too. Long did I sleep with the head upon my treasure chest, my hoard of memories and bygone years.

The long sleep with the head on the treasure (chest), just after that treasure was acquired and secured, is so much dragon like, isn’t it? Maybe it is another symptom of the Dragon-sickness?

Did I sleep long? I know not how much time passed. The forge-fire was cold, but choking smoke roused me. Men came and robbed all that I possessed: the ore, that a long time ago I had dug out of the rock, the small piles of gems; and they bore my chest away. They smoked me out like a rat, and in mocking mercy they made me run like a wild beast, through burning thorns and heather around my deep home. They laughed as I kicked the hot ash, and the wind snatched away my curses. My reddened eyes could find no path; and all I could save, was a sack of small tools and underneath an old, tattered cloak in a black sheath my secret knife with the poisoned runes on its blade. Often have I sharpened it, spitting on the edge until it shone under the cruel stars in the dark and dreary places.

Now here we have clearly a robbery. It might be the same as that mentioned at the beginning as the description is very similar. But how could Mîm come out of his ‘den’ in the beginning, if beforehand he had been smoked out and by mocking mercy had been made run like a wild beast, through burning thorns and heather, not finding a way with his reddened eyes? For me at least it seems impossible that we have here mid-sentence a shift of perspective from Mîm reflecting his past to him being actually mishandled. Therefore I think at least the smoking out happened twice: Once here in his past after his time of inspiration, his time of work and his time of rest and then a second time just before he uttered his lament. The ‘dark and dreary places’ are interesting as well. When did he sharpen his knife there? Earlier, before his time of work? I don’t think so. It is rather the first glimpse we get of the time that follows: Mîm’s long wandering in homeless and cold paths.

Thus they took from Mîm all his memories and all the joyful leaps and bounds of his mind, making of them gems for their sword hilts, rings for greedy fingers and moons and stars and artless ornaments for the breasts of haughty ladies. They bartered them for petty kingdoms and false friendships; they lusted for them; they murdered for them and darkened the gold with blood of their kin. There is a fire in the memories of the dwarves of old, and a craft goes out of their slender hands, that drives Men to madness, though they know nothing about it.

This is the one paragraph of the text that could be told by the narrator instead of Mîm, but I doubt it. The joyful leaps and bounds of his mind are to much of an inside to be told from a narrator. And anyhow there is no reason why Mîm should not tell this himself. And it would as well not help to explain some perspective shift. Since that if it occurred must have been earlier in the text. What follow is one of the clearest descriptions of the symptoms of Dragon-sickness we have - even so as yet no Dragon is involved, beside the images on the chest - but only the handicraft of the old dwarves. And that functions as a lead-over to the next part.

But now I am old and embittered, and in my shelter in the wild hills I must try the work, the echo of my memories to catch, before they totally elapse. Alas, still my work is good; but it is haunted now. The freshness is missing, a veil lies between me and things, that I see and create, as if the shapes and lights were scattered in a mist of tears. What I have once created, I glimpse fleeting, but not that which once I saw.

This now is a jump forward. Mîm does not tell us more about his homeless time of wandering. He has found a ‘Zuflucht’/‘shelter’, the narrator called it a ‘Bau’/‘den’, not a ‘deep home’/’tiefes Heim’, that he had possessed before the robbery. He is now ‘old and embittered’ not ‘old now, yet still slender and crafty’. ‘Alas, still my work is good’ can only mean that he is not missing the handicraft to fashion new artefacts, but rather the right inspiration. And he goes on to explain that in more detail. Cumulating the statement that he only can remember the artifacts he made earlier but no longer the real things that inspired them. For me that marks these earlier artefacts as impressionistic, since a really good naturalistic artefact if remembered in sufficient detail would be re-creatable.

I am dangerous they say, full of hate and malice, old Mîm, the petty-dwarf. If you touch me, I will bite with blackened teeth or stab in the dark, and nothing can heal the wounds from my knife. They don’t dare to come near me; but shoot arrows at me from a distance if I come out to look at the sun. It was not always so, and it is not good that it is so now.

Here we have Mîm’s telling of his interactions with his ‘neighbours’ – whoever they might be, they are living near enough to his ‘shelter’ to encounter him, when he ‘comes out to see the sun’. It is unclear how this toxic relationship started. But mistrusted on both sides is clearly a factor. Because first he tells that they call him dangerous, but than he confirms that he would bite and stap in the dark if they touch him. Thus they shun him and shoot at him from a distance. The examples sound similar but are not identical to what we hear about Mîm’s relationship to Túrins band.
At the end of this passage, we get a deep inside view to Mîm’s mind: ‘It was not always so,’ to which time can that refer? Mîm’s time of homeless wandering - Rather not since what we know is that he is often sharpening his knife. Mîm’s time of rest – most unlikely as he is unconscious. Mîm’s time of work – maybe, but he seems to be very obsessed with his work. So most probably his time of inspiration or before in his early youth.
‘it is not good that it is so now.’ So at least he is regretting the change.

The course of the world is become crooked and dubious, deceit goes about, things creep up out of dark places, and under my fingers grows fear instead of joy.

Here Mîm is blaming the outer world for what goes wrong in his life. He might not be absolutely wrong, since we know he lived in darkening times, but in part it might as well be his attitude towards the world that causes part of the darkening for him.

If I could but forgive, it might nonetheless be possible to shape a leaf, a flower with dew upon it, as it once glistened beside Tarn Aeluin, when I was young and felt for the first time the cleverness of my fingers.

We learn a lot here: Mîm nonetheless does know the way of healing. His time of inspiration had at least in part been in Dorthonion. Since he than ‘felt for the first time the cleverness of his fingers’ we learn that his time of work either overlapped with his time of inspiration or followed immediately. So it is clear that he worked for a very, very long time from ‘when I was young and felt for the first time the cleverness of my fingers’ to ‘my brown hand, old now, yet still slender and crafty’.

But Mîm cannot forgive. The embers still smoulder in his heart. Tink-tonk, tonk-tink! No time to think!

This is the tragic end of the text. Mîm can not forgive. The memories of the wrongs done to him are to deep. He only can stand them or drive them out of his mind by working farther. The ‘Tink-tonk, tonk-tink!’ don’t mean he is actually gone back into his smoked out ‘den’ to smith again, but rather that he has shifted his focus back to work, equally to the beginning of his speech, when he is not actually smithing anything, but only recounting his time of work. And that is than emphasised by his last uttering of ‘No time to think!’

So what can we make out of it? At least a kind of sequence of events or periods of Mîm’s life:
- Mîm’s time of inspiration in his youth: He spent some time in Dorthonion around Tarn Aeluin, was inspired by the beauty of nature and had good relationships to other beings around him.
- Mîms time of work: probably it in the beginning overlapped with the time of inspiration and it lasted very long. He had at least at the end of this time a ‘deep home’. The contact to his surrounding must have died down at the end at least, due to his obsession with his work. The result were many beautiful artefacts.
- Mîm’s time of possessiveness and his time of rest: He makes his treasure chest and sleeps on it.
- The robbery: ‘Men/fiends’ come and smoke him out of his deep home. They robe his ore and gems and carry away his chest. They chase him away from his home.
- Mîm’s time of homeless wandering: we do not know how long this lasted, but it is not just a short episode since we hear of long paths wandered and often sharping his knife.
- Mîm’s time in his ‘shelter’: He must be long enough in this place to have some encounter with his neighbours and develop the toxic relationship. He tries and fails in re-creating artefacts like of old.
- He is smoked out of his shelter, but we do not know, if he is driven forth from it. We only know that he utters his lament. So someone is around to hear it. But it’s not clear, who that is. Probably not the ‘they’ that smoked him out and as well not his neighbours that shot at him with arrows from afar, when he came out to see the sun. But I could well imagine that these neighbours could have smoke him out.

How that combines with all the other stuff we learn in the legendarium about Mîm, is quiet another cane of worms.

Respectfully
Findegil