* *A New Project ~~~ Revising the Ainulindale* *

[Findegil]

Ai-1W-01: Agreed.

Yavanna as a tree:
I still hesitate to agree to Aiwendils suggestion. It is changing the personal expierience of Pengolodh to that of some unknow group. If you are both adamant on not using it as an footnote (still do not quiet understand the reason for this), then I would suggest this:

But {think not, Ælfwine, that} the shapes wherein the Great Ones array themselves are not at all times like unto the shapes of kings and queens of the Children of Ilúvatar; for at whiles they may clothe them in their own thought, made visible in forms terrible and wonderful. And I myself, long years agone, in the land of the Valar have seen Yavanna in the likeness of a Tree; and the beauty and majesty of that form could not be told in words, not unless all the things that grow in the earth, from the least unto the greatest, should sing in choir together, making unto their queen an offering of song to be laid before the throne of Ilúvatar.

Thus we would hold the personal touch and make hint at Pengolodh since only he would mention "the land of the Valar.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Aiwendil]

If you are both adamant on not using it as an footnote (still do not quiet understand the reason for this)

My objection is not to a footnote as such but rather to the use of the first person. These problems arise regardless of whether we are ostensibly constructing the "real" Ainulindale or not.

Insofar as your objection to my proposal is that it emends a single reported sighting of Yavanna as a tree into multiple such reports, we might try:

But {think not, Ælfwine, that} the shapes wherein the Great Ones array themselves are [not] at all times like unto the shapes of kings and queens of the Children of Ilúvatar; for at whiles they may clothe them in their own thought, made visible in forms terrible and wonderful. And {I myself}, long years gone, in the land of the Valar {have seen} Yavanna [has been seen] in the likeness of a Tree; and the beauty and majesty of that form could not be told in words, not unless all the things that grow in the earth, from the least unto the greatest, should sing in choir together, making unto their queen an offering of song to be laid before the throne of Ilúvatar.

[Findegil]

Posted by Aiwendil:

My objection is not to a footnote as such but rather to the use of the first person. These problems arise regardless of whether we are ostensibly constructing the "real" Ainulindale or not.

So we have at long last found the core of the problem. Could you be more specific what is wrong for you with the first person, assuming that we would move the scene into a footnote ascribed to Pengolodh?
I can understand the awakwardness of the first person within the text and therefore find your last suggestion better then my own, but still I would like to understand fully why we do not keep Pengolodh as the source.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Findegil]

Even so I did not (yet) fully understand way the perosnal experience of Pengolodh is removed I agree to do so and we will take Aiwendils last suggestion.

Therefore this chapter is done.

Respectfuly
Findegil

[gondowe]

Hello, after revising and compare this Ainulindale with mine, first of all I decided to edite the text with the idea of QS77 but with some differences. The words of Pengolodh were distributed in the Valaquenta, the first chapter of QS "Of the beggining of Time", and the second "Of Valinor and the Two Trees". But in general, the 95% of text more or less is the same, with a different reconstruction. As the information is the same I don't think necesary to say here. (And it would be very difficult to me, because I wasn't proffesional editing, and don't have annotated the source paragraphs like you.

I only would like to point that I had changed some "Worlds" by "Eäs", and "Earths" by "Ardas", from the passage Ilúvatar says "Eä, the World that Is".

And a possible addition:

§25 But the Valar now took to themselves shape and hue; and because they were drawn thither by love for the Children of Ilúvatar, for whom they hoped, they took shape after that manner which they had beheld in the Vision of Ilúvatar; save only in majesty and splendour, for they are mighty and holy. Moreover their shape comes of their knowledge and desire of {the} visible {World}[Eä], rather than of {the World}[Eä] itself, and they need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being. Therefore the Valar may walk unclad, as it were, and then even the Eldar cannot clearly perceive them, though they be present. But when they clad themselves the Valar arrayed them in the form some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice; even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment, but is not made thereby. Words, Phrases and Passages- Eldarin roots and stems, PE17, <The fanar <taken from above[or "raiment"]> of the Great Valar were said, by the Elves who had dwelt in Valinor, usually to have {had} a stature greater than that of tallest Elves, and when performing some great deed, or issuing great commands, to {have assumed} assume an awe-inspiring heigth.>
And Manwë and Ulmo and Aulë were as Kings; but Varda was the Queen of the Valar,{ and the spouse of Manwë,} and her beauty was high and terrible and of great reverence. {Yavanna was her sister, and Yavanna espoused Aulë; but Nienna dwells alone, even as does Ulmo. And these with Melkor are the Seven Great Ones of the Kingdom of Arda.} AINU-09 But{ think not, Ælfwine, that} the shapes wherein the AINU-10 Great Ones array themselves are not at all times like unto the shapes of kings and queens of the Children of Ilúvatar; for at whiles they may clothe them in their own thought, made visible in forms terrible and wonderful.

Some {} are because for me are redundant.

Greetings

[Findegil]

That is a good find! I like that addition of yours. And will number it for easier reference as Ainu-08.8. But I am not sure that we need to change the time as Gondowe did.

What do other say?

Respectfuly
Findegil

[Findegil]

As I said in the introduction thread, were I gave the intro to the Appendix, I will provide what I did further on the Appendix:

Ainulindalë
The basic text in this chapter is taken from Ainulindalë text D given in HoM-E 10. The necessary additions were limited. Most of them are small points of detail. Only the story of the First War of the Valar was taken out of the Annals of Aman found in HoM-E 11.
As the groupe deciseded that the framestory of Eriol / Ælfwine would not be used all reverence to Eriol in the text of the Ainulindalë were skipt. Rúmil of Túna and Pengolodh the Sage remained as writers or commentators to the text.
One mayor point of discussion was the arnagement of the text. We did consider to follow Christopher Tolkiens lead and move the words of Pengolodh concerning the coming of the Valar and their First War to the first chapter of the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’. The main argument for this movment is the straight forward chronology. But in the end the argument prevailed that the Quenta deals with the Silmaril and the real beginning of that story line is the making of the trees which is recounted at the start of the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’.
In addition there was the issue of Pengolodh giving an verbal side note to Ælfwine about Yavanna seen by him as a tree. The nice and pictural remark that provided an information not given elsewere motivated all members to keep that passage in some way. But as it contained direct speech to Ælfwine it was clear that we had to change it. The real motive behind the arguments were only late in the discussion revealed and so many a possible solution was proposed without any real chance of success.
Aiwendil and Maedhros suggested to incooperat the passage into the text, by deleting the indications of the spoken communication. This would mean to make the observer of scene unkown and to give the actuel wording to Rumil. The advantage is that we hold the passage as a part of the text.
Antoine and Findegil suggested to move the passage into a footnote. The advantage is that we could leave the passage in the mouth of Pengolodh without to much emendations in the passage itself. The disadvantage is that we lift a spoken word of Pengolodh to a writen word a scribed to or written by Pengoloð and that we creat a textual footnote (in contrast to editorial footnotes) which we have avioded.
Later it came out that Aiwendils concern was exactly the first person reporting of the sight and not so much the footnote. Therefore, even so Aiwendil never explained his concerns in more detail in the end the Yavanna as a tree passage was taken into the body of the text.
Further details:
In §15 Tolkien left "Halls of Aman" unchanged so he in all other places changed it to "Halls of Eä". We considered that as a slip of the pen and changed it consitent with the rest of the text.
In §16 Tolkien left in the passage about Aulë same verbs in present tense, while all the serounding was changed to past tense. We considere that also a slip of the pen and changed it to past tense.
In §17 we added from the C text of the Ainulindalë "Behold the towers and mansions of ice!" since we thought that it was lost without intention.
In the §'s 23 and 24 we have take up passages from Myths Transformed in HoM-E 10 dealing with the first establishment of the kingdom of Arda and the first strife of Melkor with the other Valar. Even so Myths Transformed dealed mostly with the round earth changes, we found that the changed motives and additional details in these passages should not be lost to our flat earth version.
In §25 we took up a passage from Words, Phrases and Passages- Eldarin roots and stems, Parma Eldalamberon no. 17 dealing with the fanar of the Valar and their stature.
In §32 we added a passage from Myths Transformed in HoM-E 10 that dealt with the grive of the Valar seeing that Melkor had turned darkness and night to time of fright. Its content is not fully compatible with the story of the lamps and their aferlasting light during the spring of Arda, but we nonetheless found it essential enough to add it.

Especially the last point mentioned might be worth reconsidering.

Respectfully
Findegil