Data Graham posted:

Will they perform the liturgy in Quenya or lowly demotic Westron?

quote:

In the 1950s, Tolkien made a series of translations of Catholic prayers into Quenya, including the Lord’s Prayer. The rendition of the latter was evidently of importance to him since he wrote no less than six versions. All were published and commented in Vinyar Tengwar n° 43. We here give the final version (“Átaremma VI”), edited for the punctuation.

Facing it is the corresponding part of the traditional English version from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, still used by the Catholic Church – with the final doxology not included, but used afterwards as a liturgical element during the Mass. This must have been the version familiar to Tolkien.

This Quenya translation is remarkable in its expression of heaven. In earlier drafts, Tolkien used menel, the usual Quenya word for the sky; but finally, he preferred alternative renderings. In the first line, i ëa han ëa reads literally “who art beyond the Universe” or alternatively “who art beyond being” – this because in Quenya, ëa “to be” is also used as a name for the Universe, in reference to the creation word of the One God Eru Ilúvatar. In the fifth line, Erumande “in Heaven” contains, in the locative case, the name Eruman which could be translated “the blessed dwelling of God”. All of this points towards the willingness of Tolkien to distinguish in Quenya the physical sky and the metaphysical heaven, in accordance with modern Christian theology.

Otherwise the Quenya meaning is quite close to the English one. In particular, the word úcare used in the fifth petition refers to bad deeds, trespasses, according to the tradition arisen from the gospel of Luke - whereas other versions following the text of the gospel of Matthew use wordings like “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors”.

The text is transcribed in tengwar or “letters of Fëanor” according to the classical mode for Quenya described by Tolkien in the Appendix E to The Lord of the Rings and used for instance by the Namarië manuscript in The Road Goes Ever On p. 65. We made use of Johan Winge’s typeface Tengwar Annatar.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

https://aleteia.org/2018/07/14/will-tolkien-and-chesterton-be-declared-saints/

Tree Bucket posted:

Iiiinteresting! I thought you had to have done a miracle to count as a Saint. I mean, ever since reading the Sil, whenever I've engaged with Catholic theology I've found myself thinking "hmm, makes sense" or "I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere" which I guess is pretty miraculous.
I seem to remember the young Tolkien getting disinherited by his wealthy relatives for sticking with Catholicism. I wonder what they'd think about him attaining sainthood.....

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

http://file770.com/visiting-middle-earth/

Tree Bucket posted:

Iiiinteresting! I thought you had to have done a miracle to count as a Saint. I mean, ever since reading the Sil, whenever I've engaged with Catholic theology I've found myself thinking "hmm, makes sense" or "I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere" which I guess is pretty miraculous.
I seem to remember the young Tolkien getting disinherited by his wealthy relatives for sticking with Catholicism. I wonder what they'd think about him attaining sainthood.....

Tree Bucket posted:

Iiiinteresting! I thought you had to have done a miracle to count as a Saint. I mean, ever since reading the Sil, whenever I've engaged with Catholic theology I've found myself thinking "hmm, makes sense" or "I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere" which I guess is pretty miraculous.
I seem to remember the young Tolkien getting disinherited by his wealthy relatives for sticking with Catholicism. I wonder what they'd think about him attaining sainthood.....

HIJK posted:

If the RCC tries to make Tolkien a saint without ascertaining whether a miracle has occurred than they are truly lost as a religious organization and are only chasing headlines which is goddamn sad

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

So Tolkiens' at step one here, but it's like at this stage they're just doing his initial background check to make sure he can join the military as an officer. If he's admitted as an Ensign, then they'll see if he gets promoted to Lieutenant, etc.

My guess is the real hurdle for Tolkien would be the "heroic virtue" part. Although he did survive the Somme, which is kinda heroic, that might be his best argument. If he can get past that hurdle I'll bet plenty of people will be willing to attest that Tolkien's intervention miraculously changed their lives etc.

Marijuana posted:

Why do you think they rushed to make Mother Teresa a saint?

Tree Bucket posted:

Also, isn't it rad that the bit in FotR where Gandalf talks about Bilbo's song of Earendil is an author writing a story about a person talking about a person writing a song about a book about a story about a person...

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

The crazy thing about that, to me at least, is that all those layers would not be publicly explained for twenty-three years. Not until the Silmarillion was published in 1977 would readers get a reasonably detailed explanation of all the layers at work there. But Tolkien wrote it that way anyway.

Tree Bucket posted:

I didn't realise that! On the plus side, I no longer feel quite so stupid for not getting the references earlier.
Incidentally, my copy of the Silmarillion includes (as an introduction) a letter Tolkien wrote to a friend explaining the whole shemozzle, which includes these lines:
"the cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, weilding paint and music and drama. Absurd."
Which is endearingly nerdy, and oddly satisfying; because it means that the maps ten-year-old me drew after reading the Hobbit are in some small way a continuation of what Tolkien intended.

Data Graham posted:

He's like a kid doodling on his book covers

Look at the detail he put on all those gold coins, while totally ignoring the structure of the cave or most of the foreground. That's the kind of thing I would have done while not paying attention in Social Studies class.

skasion posted:

“From life” seems more like his latter-day illustrators like Naismith, Lee, Howe to me. He’s more like Roger Garland’s style if I had to compare him to another of his illustrators.

His paintings are really neat though.

Data Graham posted:

He's like a kid doodling on his book covers

Look at the detail he put on all those gold coins, while totally ignoring the structure of the cave or most of the foreground. That's the kind of thing I would have done while not paying attention in Social Studies class.

Data Graham posted:

He's like a kid doodling on his book covers

Look at the detail he put on all those gold coins, while totally ignoring the structure of the cave or most of the foreground. That's the kind of thing I would have done while not paying attention in Social Studies class.

Lester Shy posted:

I'm finally reading these books after years of being a fantasy fan. Well, I got about 20 pages into The Silmarillion in elementary school because it was the only Tolkien book our library had in stock, but other than that I've stuck to more modern authors. Since I know the broad strokes from the movies, and every fantasy story I've ever read has been at least partially Tolkien-inspired, I'm shocked at how fresh and exciting it feels. I've had to stop myself from staying up too late reading just one more chapter.

I wish I could temporarily delete the movies from my brain, though. I'm excited to start TTT today. I've seen Fellowship 3 or 4 times, but I've only seen the other two once, so there should be a lot more to "discover" now.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

euphronius posted:

What is the last one

turn left hillary!! noo posted:

Wow, that's a lot more abstract than what I've ever seen of his art before, and I like it a lot.

Lester Shy posted:

Just finished TTT. I am a huge arachnophobe, and I never thought anything would top the Shelob scene in the movies, but reading it was somehow even worse (in a good way). The whole thing feels absolutely filthy, and the fact that she "vomits darkness" is metal as gently caress.

Lester Shy posted:

Just finished TTT. I am a huge arachnophobe, and I never thought anything would top the Shelob scene in the movies, but reading it was somehow even worse (in a good way). The whole thing feels absolutely filthy, and the fact that she "vomits darkness" is metal as gently caress.

Ginette Reno posted:

Gandalf practically has a panic attack when he learns Frodo and Sam went that way but I dunno what he expected them to do. Trying to sneak through the Black Gate would probably have been as bad or worse.

Ginette Reno posted:

Gandalf practically has a panic attack when he learns Frodo and Sam went that way but I dunno what he expected them to do. Trying to sneak through the Black Gate would probably have been as bad or worse.

Sauron never even considers that someone would try to destroy the ring at least in part because the plan is madness. The Black Gate is heavily watched and guarded, and then there's Shelob.

skasion posted:

Probably have a not-dead wizard, or at least a capable adult to make sure they didn’t run bare assed into primordial monsters/ringwraiths/orcs/any other fun Mordor stuff we never found out about. Gandalf and Aragorn probably always intended to send the bulk of the company to Gondor but there’s no reason to suspect it was in anyone’s plans to give Frodo and Sam a kick on the rear end in the direction of Mordor and just hope it turned out. Aragorn has probably been to Mordor before, or at least close, and who knows where Gandalf has been.

Honestly Frodo should have probably been a bit wary from the moment he heard the name. He has at least a bit of elvish, surely Cirith Ungol sounds suggestive enough.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Gandalf's plan was, clearly, to take the Eagles. That's why he says "fly, you fools" !

quote:

As his story was unfolded of his meeting with Frodo and his servant and of the events at Henneth Annûn, Pippin became aware that Gandalf’s hands were trembling as they clutched the carven wood. White they seemed now and very old, and as he looked at them, suddenly with a thrill of fear Pippin knew that Gandalf, Gandalf himself, was troubled, even afraid. The air of the room was close and still. At last when Faramir spoke of his parting with the travellers, and of their resolve to go to Cirith Ungol, his voice fell, and he shook his head and sighed. Then Gandalf sprang up.

‘Cirith Ungol? Morgul Vale?’ he said. ‘The time, Faramir, the time? When did you part with them? When would they reach that accursed valley?’

‘I parted with them in the morning two days ago,’ said Faramir. ‘It is fifteen leagues thence to the vale of the Morgulduin, if they went straight south; and then “they would be still five leagues westward of the accursed Tower. At swiftest they could not come there before today, and maybe they have not come there yet. Indeed I see what you fear. But the darkness is not due to their venture. It began yestereve, and all Ithilien was under shadow last night. It is clear to me that the Enemy has long planned an assault on us, and its hour had already been determined before ever the travellers left my keeping.’

Ginette Reno posted:

But again, where else could they go? The Black Gate would have been impossible without using the Ring and if they did Sauron would have immediately detected them. Trying to sneak by Shelob is not the best idea either but probably a little less tough than walking right past Sauron's office.

If I'm remembering the passage right though Gandalf says something like: "Cirith Ungol? Why that way?" And it's like dude what other way ya want em to go.