Taking a short break from the Great Tales, I dove into this strange little collection. Tom Bombadil is a funny part of Middle-earth.70th book of 2024.
Taking a short break from the Great Tales, I dove into this strange little collection. Tom Bombadil is a funny part of Middle-earth. In a way, he seems very disjointed from the rest of the world, and yet, at the same time, an ancient and powerful part of it. He was inspired by a doll Michael, Tolkien's son, played with as a child. In my introduction, the letters are quoted, where Tolkien himself answered some questions by saying he preferred to leave Tom as a mystery. To Peter Hastings, 'I don't think Tom needs philosophising about, and is not improved by it. But many have found him an odd or indeed discordant ingredient.' My feelings about him are paradoxical. On the one hand, I am enamored with the early bits of The Lord of the Rings, where everything feels more playful, before the adventure truly begins. The Shire is a place of contentment and whimsy.
I returned to my copy of The Lord of the Rings to consider Tom Bombadil in the light of this first poem, which predates the trilogy. Bombadil is introduced the same in both, only with a tense change. In the poem:
Old Tom Bombadil was a merry fellow; bright blue his jacket was and his boots were yellow
And in LOTR (bk.i, ch. vii):
Old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow; bright blue his jacket was, and his boots are yellow
It is here that Frodo questions Goldberry.
'Fair lady!' said Frodo again after a while. 'Tell me, if my asking does not seem foolish, who is Tom Bombadil?' 'He is,' said Goldberry, staying her swift movements and smiling.
It is easy to see Bombadil as God, though Tolkien himself denies such claim. And later, Frodo, questions again, but this time Bombadil himself.
'Who are you, Master?' he asked. 'Eh, what?' said Tom sitting up, and his eyes glinting in the gloom. 'Don't you know my name yet? That's the only answer. Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless? But you are young and I am old. Eldest, that's what I am. Mark my words, my friends: Tom was here before the river and the trees: Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn. He made paths before the Big People, and saw the little People arriving. He was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights. When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless—before the Dark Lord came from outside.'
Once again, it puts us in mind of God. But Bombdail in the poem, though there is Old Man Willow, Goldberry, Barrow-wights, etc., everything (perhaps because of the rhyme?) feels happy and childlike. 'You let me out again, Old Man Willow! / I am stiff lying here; they're no sort of pillow'.
Middle-earth appears in a few, like "The Sea-Bell" (which Auden considered Tolkien's best poem), "The Last Ship", "Oliphaunt". The latter is penned, supposedly, by Samwise Gamgee himself, along with a few others. And there are a few credited to Bilbo too. So they become stories within the Middle-earth universe. One can see, the introduction says, how many of the poems would be told and loved by hobbits. There is also "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late", penned by Bilbo and sung by Frodo in Bree in LOTR.
So once again, as I read more of Tolkien's expanded Middle-earth texts, I see how many crossovers there are. Of course, he had been working on the stories and characters for some twenty years before The Fellowship of the Ring was published. It was all gathering, overlapping. These are cute, whimsical and fun. If I had a small child (and/or hobbit) to read them too, they'd be all the sweeter. It doesn't unlock too much more, but reinforces the history of Bombadil as an old Tolkien character, reformed, repurposed, and fitted into the trilogy. I do have a soft spot for him, all things told....more
The "epilogue" of The Lord of the Rings; I never knew it existed until the other day. The song itself is small, just three stanzas, 68th book of 2024.
The "epilogue" of The Lord of the Rings; I never knew it existed until the other day. The song itself is small, just three stanzas, but this edition shows just two lines per double-page spread with plenty of illustrations (quirky, 70s style fantasy illustrations, at that). And of course a bit of extra material at the back to pad it out some more.
Tolkien wrote it originally in the 20s (so it's supposed) and it was a composition in Old Norse. He called it Vestr um haf, or "West Over Sea". In 1968, Tolkien gave it to his secretary, Joy Hill, as a gift for setting up his new office.
After Tolkien's death in 1973, she showed it to Donald Swann, who loved it, and set it to music and included it in The Road Goes Ever On in 1978. The poem was also illustrated by Pauline Baynes in 1974 and put on a poster.
[image]
Here is the poem. I will keep it neither secret nor safe.
Bilbo's Last Song (At the Grey Havens)
Day is ended, dim my eyes, but journey long before me lies. Farewell, friends! I hear the call. The ship's beside the stony wall. Foam is white and waves are grey; beyond the sunset leads my way. Foam is salt, the wind is free; I hear the rising of the Sea.
Farewell, friends! The sails are set, the wind is east, the moorings fret. Shadows long before me lie, beneath the ever-bending sky, but islands lie behind the Sun that I shall raise ere all is done; lands there are to west of West, where night is quiet and sleep is rest.
Guided by the Lonely Star, beyond the utmost harbour-bar I'll find the havens fair and free, and beaches of the Starlit Sea. Ship, my ship! I seek the West, and fields and mountains ever blest. Farewell to Middle-Earth at last. I see the Star above your mast!
Clarke writes a short, lucid introduction about this ancient poem/song. She explains that the writer attributed to the text, Aneirin35th book of 2024.
Clarke writes a short, lucid introduction about this ancient poem/song. She explains that the writer attributed to the text, Aneirin, is one of the earliest British poets we can name. (The other being Taliesin.) This piece is a lament for fallen of the Gododdin tribe, at the battle of Catraeth, somewhere in the late sixth century. The original language is early Welsh. It has been remembered, sung, passed down, sung some more. ‘The Welsh word cerdd means both ‘song’ and ‘poem’. For seven centuries, in this way, ‘singer to listener’, Y Gododdin passed, until a medieval scribe put it to paper.
‘The Gododdin were a tribe from what we now think of as southern Scot-land, or Yr Hên Ogledd, ‘The Old North’, as it is known in the Welsh tradition. Aneirin’s poem elegises three hundred men of the war-band Mynyddog Mwynfawr, who feasted on mead for a year before marching from the court of Dyn Eidyn, now Edinburgh, to the battle of Catraeth, probably Catterick in North Yorkshire.’
As Clarke reminds us, Welsh is the oldest literary language in Europe still being written and spoken today, and claims Y Gododdin as being one of the greatest treasures from the islands of Britain. There is one small and very particular reason I read this, but I will come to it later on, because despite reading this for such a small purpose, I found the whole lament to be surprisingly moving. I’ll quote some of my favourite passages below. Clarke has rendered the laments so each falls under the subject’s name. I couldn’t help but imagine a lament, in this way, for each man who died at the Somme, for example. The size of the book, the words for each and every man. For the first elegy, I’ve also penned the Welsh, just so I can later goggle at its beauty.
2
Greddf gŵr, oed gwas, Gwryd amddias; Meirch mwth myngfras O dan forddwyd mygrwas; Ysgwyd ysgafn lydan Ar bedrain main fuan; Cleddyfawr glas glân, Eddi aur affan. Ni bu ef a fi Cas y rhof a thi: Gwell gweneif â thi Ar wawd dy foli. Cynt i waedlawr Nogyd i neithiawr, Cynt i fwyd brain Nog i argyfrain, Cu gyfaill Ywain, Cŵl ei fod o dan fain. Marth im pa fro Lladd un mab Marro.
Owain 2
A boy with a man’s heart, on fire for the front, restless for war, lush-manned, fleet-hoofed stallion between young thighs, shield laid on the horse’s flank, his sword a blue-bright blade, his armour burnished gold.
As the singer of this song I lay no blame but only praise for him sooner gone to the battlefield than to his marriage-bed; sooner carrion for the crow, sooner flesh to feed the raven. I mourn him, laid in his grave.
Dear friend, Owain. Marro’s Only son. Slain.
I even found the smaller elegies moving, for how humanising they were. It reminded me of the sentiments I read earlier this year in Graeber and Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, that our great ancestors were not simian-people devoid of brains, but almost exactly as we are today.
Ceredig 30
Ceredig, celebrated, famed, loved life dearly, as his name tells — favoured, favourite, till his day came.
Quiet and courteous, may he who loved song find his place at home in Paradise.
And no doubt Clarke has done a wonderful job of translating it, too. From ‘Mynyddog 68’:
On Tuesday, they put on dark blue armour. On Wednesday, white-limed their shields for war. On Thursday, agreed their battle plan. On Friday, they counted the dead. On Saturday they fought as one. On Sunday they raised red blades. On Monday they waded in blood.
And to return to the main reason I wanted to read this ancient text (as well as it being one of the great treasures of my homeland): one single line in the whole one-hundred odd verses, from 99 of 100:
Gwawrddur 99
Charging ahead of the three hundred he cut down the centre and the wing.
Blazing ahead of the finest army, he gave horses from his winter herd.
He fed ravens on the fortress wall though he was no Arthur.
Among the strongest in the war, Gwawrddur, citadel.
That singular line: ‘though he was no Arthur’ has fascinated people for generations. If original, it is the earliest mention of the mythical King Arthur, as early as the sixth century. Some say it is an interpolation, but the mystery continues....more
My first Limón. I liked the personal poems and the nature, two things I care about myself. I think all good writing is, in essence,16th book of 2024.
My first Limón. I liked the personal poems and the nature, two things I care about myself. I think all good writing is, in essence, autobiographical. Some poems were far better than others, of course. She has a talent for looking at a bird and realising that that bird, or the that moment, reflects something bigger about herself or her experience. One that really struck me was
Joint Custody
Why did I never see it for what it was: abundance? Two families, two different kitchen tables, two sets of rules, two creeks, two highways, two stepparents with their fish tanks or eight-tracks or cigarette smoke or expertise in recipes or reading skills. I cannot reverse it, the record scratched and stopping to that original chaotic track. But let me say, I was taken back and forth on Sundays and it was not easy but I was loved each place. And so I have two brains now. Two entirely different brains. The one that always misses where I'm not, and the one that is so relieved to finally be home.
I also thought highly, particularly, of the beginning of,
The Hurting Kind
I. On the plane I have a dream I've left half my torso on the back porch with my beloved. I have to go
back for it, but it's too late, I'm flying and there's only half of me.
Back in Texas, the flowers I've left on the counter (I stay alone there so the flowers are more than flowers) have wilted and knocked over the glass.
At the funeral parlour with my mother, we are holding her father's suit and she says, He'll swim in these.
For a moment, I'm not sure what she means,
until I realise she means the clothes are too big.
I go with her like a shield in case they try to upsell her the ridiculously ornate urn, the elaborate body box.
It is a nice bathroom in the funeral parlour, so I take the opportunity to change my tampon.
When I come out my mother says, Did you have to change your tampon?
And it seems, all at once, a vulgar life. Or not vulgar, but not simple, either.
1. Blue: the first thing I think of is that it is the colour of sadness. The second thing I think of is my childhood bedroom, painte13th book of 2024.
1. Blue: the first thing I think of is that it is the colour of sadness. The second thing I think of is my childhood bedroom, painted a duck egg blue.
2. Being a man and realising most things in my wardrobe are blue. Being an adult and realising there aren’t as many colours as you thought when you were a child: at least not wearable colours.
3. People say everything was brighter when they were child.
4. On the train I briefly put Bluets down to look out the window. On both sides, fields. Soon the castle on my right, up on the hill. It looks as if the landscape has been painted and then washed over completely with blue. Everything has its own colour, but everything tainted by blue. It’s before 8am in January – that’s why.
5. My sudden hunting of the colour blue seems a little childish and forced and yet at the same time, I haven’t been able to help myself. I’ve been photographing the blue I’ve found in unlikely places: a little blue padlock, the blue wire-frames in a vegetable garden, a row of blue garage doors. It doesn’t necessarily make me feel any particular way, other than surprise. For example: I went into the palace gardens only a five minute walk from my workplace. I tend to do a walk there before clocking-in. At this point, it’s just past eight o’clock in the morning. Ignoring the sky (which, mostly, has actually been a kind of grey colour anyway), I found it incredibly hard to find anything blue in the whole gardens. Not even flowers. At a push, some of the pigeons were bluish-grey, but I didn’t count those. The only thing I found in the whole gardens that was blue was on the little map there was a little circle marked ‘POND’ and coloured blue. Funnily enough, I’ve never seen a pond there.
6. And funnily enough, again, Pond is a novel written by Claire-Louise Bennett, published by Fitzcarraldo. Now Fitzcarraldo blue is something my house is covered in. Shelves of them, piles of them, everywhere.
7. Blueberries aren’t blue.
8. Nelson says at one point about yellow being the most unattractive colour. In recent years, you’ve decided you quite like ochre. Bright yellow, is, of course, horrible; but a deep yellow is lovely. Sadly, my toes are coming through the only ochre pair of socks I own.
9. What started as an aching in my back, which spread to my neck and down my calves, has turned into illness. I am sent home from work. I lie on my blue bedsheet and stare at the white ceiling. I shut my eyes tightly and behind my eyelids is blue, then black, then blooms a fleshy red. Eventually, it goes black again. I wonder how many times I’ve fallen asleep in this bed, how many times I’ve had sex, had a nightmare.
10. When I think about, blueness being the colour of depression seems strange when the sea, spanning out in azure blue, is so healing. And what more do we want but a blue sky? Particularly being British; it’s all we ever hope for.
11. Though my eyes are blue, I’ve often been associated with earthy colours. Green, usually. I think I’m blue on the inside and green on the outside.
12. Conversely, my girlfriend is yellow on the outside and green on the inside. Come to think of it, she has green eyes: maybe our eyes reflect our inside colours and not outside colours.
13. Sundays, to me, are blue. Sunday is my least favourite day of the week.
14. The opening chapter of Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World, “Prussian Blue”, is the perfect radical companion to Bluets.
15. Blue isn’t a frightening colour, despite all its associations. Blue isn’t scary, it’s just deep, sometimes a little dark, but not scary.
16. On a Greek island (Zakynthos?) as boys, all my brother and I had eyes for was a blue bottled drink we’d seen. My parents vetoed it immediately: blue drinks are not good for you. I think it must have been a blue Powerade. All week we brought it up, this blue drink we’d seen. It was the first of its kind for us. Finally, on the last day, my parents buckled (or planned all along) and said, You can have the blue drink. We both took one sip of it and decided it was the most disgusting thing we’d ever had. My dad finished it, reluctantly. But a lesson was clearly learnt, because to this day I avoid energy drinks, blue or not.
17. After discussing our respective colours, my girlfriend and I then discussed colour more broadly. She said depression wasn’t a dark blue to her but a pale one, like ice. I could not believe it; I’d never considered depression to be anything but dark blue.
18. Grief is undoubtedly black: does this mean it is the darkest and most painful of all emotions? In the newspaper the other day I read the statement of the mother of one of the 19-year-old students murdered last year in June on the way back from a night out. She said, “I have been to the darkest corners of my mind.”
19. ‘134. It calms me to think of blue as the color of death. I have long imagined death’s approach as the swell of a wave—a towering wall of blue. You will drown, the world tells me, has always told me. You will descend into a blue underworld, blue with hungry ghosts, Krishna blue, the blue faces of the ones you loved. They all drowned, too. To take a breath of water: does this thought panic or excite you? If you are in love with red then you slit or shoot. If you are in love with blue then you fill your pouch with stones good for sucking and head down to the river. Any river will do.’
20. Pockets full of stones: Woolf. Sucking on stones: Molloy.
21. Arguing between colour and color.
22. Is boredom also blue?
23. Still ill. Bored blue. My bedsheets blue enough that I could be bobbing on a wave. That would explain the headrush. The slight wobbly stomach.
24. Blue could be the most human of all the colours....more
A cute new collection of Cope poems. I know "The Orange" by heart, anyway. It's one of those poems that did nothing for me for a lon8th book of 2024.
A cute new collection of Cope poems. I know "The Orange" by heart, anyway. It's one of those poems that did nothing for me for a long time until I then read it at a certain point in time and it just clicked for me. Now it always reminds me of that door opening and revealing solace. After all, it's about finding beauty and peace in the small things.
The Orange At lunchtime I bought a huge orange— The size of it made us all laugh. I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave— They got quarters and I had a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy, As ordinary things often do Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park. This is peace and contentment. It’s new.
The rest of the day was quite easy. I did all the jobs on my list And enjoyed them and had some time over. I love you. I’m glad I exist.
The rest, as ever with Cope: sweet, sad and sometimes poignant. Some really tiny ones in here like,
Two Cures for Love
1. Don't see him. Don't phone or write a letter. 2. The easy way: get to know him better.
I like that in the universe of Cope's poetry, things are simple, they work out, and only need a bit of tending to, like a garden....more
I'm a big fan of Heaney but this collection is mostly filled with misses. I like to read poetry aloud but by halfway, I didn't eve138th book of 2023.
I'm a big fan of Heaney but this collection is mostly filled with misses. I like to read poetry aloud but by halfway, I didn't even have the heart to do that. I've spread them out over a few days, but none of them will have lasting impressions on me. Conversely, some of the lines from Death of a Naturalist still resurface in my mind at random intervals....more
Tolkien never finished this poem, which Christopher says is perhaps the saddest of all of his father's unfinished projects. It's ha127th book of 2023.
Tolkien never finished this poem, which Christopher says is perhaps the saddest of all of his father's unfinished projects. It's hard to rate what we have of the poem as it's so sparse; it didn't hugely move me or inspire me, frankly, and I'm a big Tolkien fan. However, the subsequent 100+ pages written by Christopher were surprisingly great. I didn't think I'd be interested in the scraps of unfinished work, the fragmented ideas and the history of Arthurian poetry on the whole, but Christopher writes with great wisdom. As a supplement of my Arthurian readings, his dive into the tradition, his father's decisions vs Malory and the surviving medieval poems was helpful. This is the first time I've gone into a Christopher edited work of Tolkien's as I usually just reread The Lord of the Rings, but I've found my respect for him already. It is a shame Tolkien never finished this. Christopher also relates the poem and the Arthurian tradition to Middle-Earth and his father's later writing, which was also a great read. Christopher saves it, who knew. ...more
Goodreads didn't like me trying to distinguish the translations of this. Firstly, I read Armitage's translation. A few days ago I f145th book of 2023.
Goodreads didn't like me trying to distinguish the translations of this. Firstly, I read Armitage's translation. A few days ago I finished the Burrow edited, but not translated, version of the poem. I found it difficult to get a hold of a copy of the poem that isn't translated into modern English, so the copy I did eventually find in the basement of a library was ugly-covered, but just what I wanted. The edits to the text are merely standardisations of letters. Otherwise, it's original. As a comparison to the original text and Armitage's translation I have chosen one of the passages in which the Green Knight and his steed are described.
And all graythed in grene this gome and his wedes: A strayt cote ful streght that stek on his sides, A mery mantyle above, mensked withinne With pelure pured apert, the pane ful clene With blithe blaunner ful bryght, and his hode both, That was laght fro his lokkes and layd on his schulderes, Heme wel-haled hose of that same grene That spend on his sparlyr, and clene spures under Of bryght gold upon silk bordes barred ful rich, And scholes under schankes there the schalk rides; And all his vesture verayly was clene verdure, Both the barres of his belt and the blithe stones That were richly rayled in his aray clene, Aboute himself and his sadel upon silk werkes. That were to tor for to telle of trifles the halve That were enbrawded above with bryddes and flyes, With gay gaudi of grene, the gold ay inmyddes. The pendauntes of his payttrure, the proud cropure, His molaynes and all the metail anamayld was then, The stiropes that he stode on stayned of the same, And his arsouns all after and his athel skyrtes, That ever glemered and glent all of the grene stones. The fole that he ferkes on fyne of that ilk, Sertayn, A grene horse grete and thik, A stede ful stuf to strayne, In brayden brydel quik, To the gome he was ful gayn.
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And his gear and garments were green as well: a tight-fitting tunic, tailored to his torso, and a cloak to cover him, the cloth fully lined with smoothly shorn fur clearly showing, and faced with all-white ermine, as was the hood, worn shawled on his shoulders, shucked from his head. On his lower limbs his leggings were also green, wrapped closely round his calves, and his sparkling spurs were green-gold, strapped with stripy silk, and were set on his stockings, for this stranger was shoeless. In all vestments he revealed himself veritably verdant! From his belt-hooks and buckle to the baubles and gems arrayed so richly around his costume and adorning the saddle, stitched onto silk. All the details of his dress are difficult to describe, embroidered as it was with butterflies and birds, green beads emblazoned on a background of gold. All the horses's tack - harness-strap, hind-strap, the eye of the bit, each alloy and enamel and the stirrups he stood in - were similarly tinted, and the same with the cantle and skirts of the saddle, all glimmering and glinting with the greenest jewels. And the horse: every hair was green, from hoof to mane. A steed of pure green stock. Each snort and shudder strained the hand-stitched bridle, but his rider had him reined.
126th book of 2023.
This is a wonderful, poetic and lively translation by Armitage. I know the story well enough, so I was really reading for the translation and the poetic licenses. Well worth it. Even just the journeying parts of the poem are written beautifully. I've got a few other translations kicking about that I'll read soon and then return here to compare them. This is an excellent place to start....more
Matthew Ted
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