Beren and Lúthien - Changes needed

[Aiwendil]

I'm really sorry that I'm proceeding with this so slowly . . .

BL-EX-03: I agree that it must have been known that Beren fought with spiders in Nan Dungortheb. The real issue, I suppose, is only the ract that Tolkien did not include the passage in the revision. I must think on this a bit more, but for the moment, I'm still inclined not to use it.

BL-RG-09: I don't think that "and Varda" can be used to replace "Lord of Gods", unfortunately - they have the same total number of syllables, but "and Varda" is only one stress, whereas "Lord of Gods" is two. "Lord of Arda" is useable but not ideal.

BL-RG-11.5: Again, the problem is with the number of stresses - "not any might on Earth" has one too many.

BL-SL-03: This one's looking difficult to me. I don't see a solution as yet.

BL-EX-09: Well, I don't think the added "and" would help matters. But looking back at this, I think that your original suggestion is not bad.

BL-RG-21: This leaves a couplet that doesn’t rhyme (“thou” and “do”). But we could fix it by changing to the second person plural/formal:

And Beren muttered: 'BL-RG-21{Doth Gorthu}[Who are you]
{now}[to] hinder work that is to do?

This, however, still leaves the problem of the antecedent-less “him” that follows. This could be solved by changing the “him” to “you” in the following passage, but this alters the import of the dialogue somewhat.

It would be good if we could find a rhyme for “Sauron” or “Gorthaur” to use in line 2162, but I cannot come up with a good one. So I suppose my choice would be to go with “you” and change “him”.

BL-RG-22: One possibility that comes to mind is:

Yet not all unavailing were (2215)
BL-RG-22the spells {of Felagund; Gorthu}[; for Sauron did not know]
{neither} the name{s} nor purpose of his foe.

The removal of the “s” in “names” is possibly not necessary; I’m not sure whether it’s valid to use “foe” as a collective singular.

BL-RG-23: I think “Great” is fine here, as it can be read simply as an epithet. Isn’t there a general change Tavros > Tauron, though? I’ll check.

BL-RG-24: I think that the “had” can be included without doing much damage to the metre.

BL-RG-26: The extra “thus” actually damages the metre, I think. “Sauron’s packs him feared as Death” is fine.

BL-RG-27: Same thing here; I would go with “Sauron’s wolves of late of dared”.

BL-RG-28: Same here. All of these cases are illustrations of the fact that this is not really a metre based on syllables but rather on feet. Since “Sauron” is accented on the first syllable, it should really be scanned as the second syllable of the first foot, with the first syllable missing (alternatively one could view the whole line as trochaic rather than iambic and consider the last syllable to be missing).

BL-RG-30: We could try a rhyme on “rescue” in the second line but this would still be awkward, since “rescue” is stressed on the first syllable.

Another possibility is:

who Beren heeded not, and who
had little cause now to pursue

But this may be too much of a change.

BL-RG-32: How about:

{Thu}[Sauron] heard that voice, and {sudden} stood
wrapped in his cloak and sable hood

BL-RG-33: It might be possible to use:

that fed on flesh of Man and Elf
beneath the chair of BL-RG-33 {Thu} [Sauron] himself. (2715)

The metre there is not perfect but I think it’s passable.

BL-RG-34: I’m not sure we should leave out the “and”. It leaves a construction that is technically ungrammatical, though used often enough in written English. The “and” would not destroy the metre.

BL-RG-35: This looks good.

But some other interesiting question: since he left behind the “wolvish corpse” had Sauron given up for a moment his incarnation just to build himself a new body at once? If that’s true then why didn’t he do that before he gave Lúthien the “password”?

It does seem to me that Sauron was “killed” here (just as he was, again, in the fall of Numenor and for a third time at the Last Alliance). But you make a good point – why yield the password if he was going to “die” in any case?