*Feanor,Turin and the Second Prophecy of Mandos*

[Maédhros]

From the Later Quentas

Here ends The Valaquenta. If it has passed from the high and beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwë and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos.

The Second Prophecy of Mandos (V.333) had now therefore definitively disappeared. This passage was used to form a conclusion to the published Silmarillion (p. 255).

The question for me is does this means that the Prophecy actually dissapears from the Legendarium or only in the lore of the Elves.
As it has been posted before, there were prophecies by mannish traditions regarding the end.

One way is to preface the whole thing with a completely fabricated statement of the sort: "Among Men a tale is told of the Second Prophecy of Mandos, and that tale is here given." I don't really like that, as it is, again, a complete fabrication. Another way, very similar, would be to replace the first sentence: "It is said by some Men that Mandos spake thus in prophecy, when the Valar sat in judgement in Valinor." However, we still have a problem with excessive creative writing.

With the risk involved in this, I would favor not using the Prophecy, unless both of you think that an alteration of the kind that Aiwendil made is acceptable.

[Findegil]

The motivation of my editing the fisrt sentence was ecaxtly to get the tradtion of the pophecy a manish one. In the original text the it is stated that the words reported are the what Mandos said ("Thus spake Mandos ..."). In contarst to this my version reports only that this is what the Man of the West remembered about the second Phrophecy ("... this rumour of his words was whispered among all the Men of the West").
I must addmiss that this is very fine spun. But I think it does work as well as any created text that could only make the same thing. We have only this version of the phrphecy and since it is reported by man it is doubtfull. So how can it be more doubtfull than being a romour whispersed about men?

Or is your point that we still report as a fact that Mandos gave some Phrophecy what so ever at this occasion? If that is the case we need some intorduction other than I have tried to give.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Aiwendil]

Findegil: Your version would begin:

Mandos spake in prophecy, when the Valar sat in judgement in Valinor, and this rumour of his words was whispered among all the Men of the West.

This has exactly the same meaning as:

Thus spake Mandos in prophecy, when the Valar sat in judgement in Valinor, and this rumour of his words was whispered among all the Men of the West.

So in this version Mandos definitely speaks a prophecy; and what follows is in fact the rumour of his words that is whispered among Men.

What we need is a version where according to Men Mandos spoke this prophecy.

[Findegil]

Okay, it is eacxtly what I feared, you would not only like to make the content of Prophecy dubious but also the fact that it was uttered at all. But I still think we should use the first sentece for that an rebulid it to give the meaning we want:
Forum formated:

VE-21 The Second Prophecy of Mandos
A <BT rumour{ of his words} was whispered among all the {Elves}[Men] of the West>, that{Thus spake} Mandos [spoke this words ]in prophecy, when the Gods sat in judgement in Valinor{, and the rumour of his words was whispered among all the Elves of the West}. When the world is old and the Powers grow weary, ...

Plain text:

VE-21 The Second Prophecy of Mandos
A rumour was whispered among all the Men of the West, that Mandos spoke this words in prophecy, when the Gods sat in judgement in Valinor. When the world is old and the Powers grow weary, ...

Does that do the trick?

Respectfully
Findegil

[Fingolfin II]

Nice little addendum, Findegil.

You said:

VE-21 The Second Prophecy of Mandos
A rumour was whispered among all the Men of the West, that Mandos spoke this words in prophecy, when the Gods sat in judgement in Valinor. When the world is old and the Powers grow weary, ...

But I was wondering, would all the Men of the West know about the rumour of the prophecy of Mandos, or just the Numenoreans? You're probably talking about the Numenoreans when you say all Men of the West, but it could also be perceived to be all the 'good' Edain, and some stayed in Middle-Earth. A proposed way to overcome this I think is to get rid of the 'all' so then we simply have-

VE-21 The Second Prophecy of Mandos
A rumour was whispered among the Men (or Elves?) of the West, that Mandos spoke these words in prophecy, when the Gods sat in judgement in Valinor. When the world is old...

[Findegil]

I would be possible to skip the "all" but, in the original it were all Elves of the West which would incloud all those that lingered still in Middle-Earth. Thus in the original the knowledge was not restricted from Middle-Earth and I would not do so in our version. We have in addition not in any way made clear to which date the Words reffer. Thus it could reffer to the later ages when Numenor was no more. With all that I can't seen a forcing reason to restrit the rumor to the numenorens by skiping "all".

I don't understand what you would like to suggest with the addition of "(or Elves?)".

Respectfully
Findegil

[Fingolfin II]

The (or Elves?) bit was just because I'm unsure about whether the prophecy will be rumoured amongst Men, or the Elves of Tol Eressea.