A Elbereth Gilthoniel!

Going through my blog archives, I have realised that I haven't explained the quotation in the Header. It was invoked by Samwise Gamgee in the Pass of Cirith Ungol when he was faced by the monstrous spider Shelob (probably the last of the foul brood of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world). It says:

A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-díriel, le nallon sí di'-nguruthos! A tíro nin, Fanuilos!

Which means:

O Queen of the Stars, Star-kindler [in the perfect tense: the title comes from very ancient days, when Varda kindled the ancient stars with the dews of Telperion, and does not refer to a permanent function] from Heaven gazing-afar, to thee I cry now in the shadow of the fear of Death! O look towards me, Ever-white!

''Ever-white'' is a compromise, poetic translation. The element ui, from the Quenya oio (as in Oiolossë, another name of Taniquetil) means ''ever;'' both fan- and los(s) mean ''white,'' but two different kinds of white; fan connotes the whiteness of clouds in the light of the Sun; whereas los refers to the whiteness of snow (seen either in darkness or in sunlight). So it sounds better to say ''ever-white,'' rather than ''ever-white-as-snowy-clouds-seen-in-the-Sun,'' or however it could be rendered.

This very invocation was one of the chief edits made by Tolkien to the First Edition of The Lord of the Rings in preparation for the Second (1966). I say ''chief'' edits, but I don't think that it needed to have been corrected. The matter was the use of the letter O, instead of A, by Sam in the invocation. I say that it never needed to have been ''corrected'' because he was a Hobbit, and while he knew no Sindarin whatsoever (in spite of his love and reverence for the Elves), and the words were ''given'' to him in his plight, this sort of ''solecism'' is to be expected. Since, however, the invocation is entirely Elvish, the inaccuracy was his own. Notice that it is reminiscent of the style and metre of the other Marian ''hymns'' in the Tale, such as the one heard in Rivendell. It was a clever literary device employed by Tolkien to blame his oversights on the characters in his story!

Very Marian isn't it? Which is, incidentally, why I chose it...

The above painting is of course by Ted Nasmith, and depicts Amon Uilos (Taniquetil) in the sunlight.