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pitya
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Post Oath of Fëanor
on: May 21, 2007 05:03
i do apologize for all the posts concerning translations and questions, but this one is rather important to me, and i need answers rather quickly, so here goes.

i am scheduled to get inked in two weeks, and decided to get the Oath written in quenya. however, i'm not as up on my quenya as i used to be. i wanted to do most of the translating myself, but i don't want to put a bunch of jumbled, incorrect elvish on myself either.

i would appreciate any help with corrections greatly; like i said, i don't want horrendous quenya tattoed on my arm. so here goes.

Nai ná meldo var saura tanwë
Morgotho Bauglir, nai ná Fírima tumna
Ya mi Auri túlla Endorenna nuvar,
Úva varyaryës ilar axan, melmë, ilar Yomenië Valaro,
Ilar túr ilar senië, ilar ahyála Marto,
Oialë atacarmo uruva
Yondoro Fëanaro, i-man mapas var STEAL
Var ihíriel hepis i vanimar luhtala
Mirili silmar i Alcaro umir firir,
I Silmarili. Avándielmë oialë.

Literal translation:
May it be friend or foul creation
Of-Morgoth Bauglir, may it be Mortal dark
That in Days to Come on Earth will dwell,
It will not protect. No law, love, nor meeting of-Gods
Not power nor forgiveness, nor changeless Fate,
Forever vengeance flaming
Sons of-Fëanor, whoso seize or STEAL
Or finding keep the beautiful enchanted
Jewels of Silma that Glory-theirs dies not,
The Silmarils. We-have-sworn forever.


Tolkien's original:
‘Be he friend or foe or foul offspring
of Morgoth Bauglir, be he mortal dark
that in after days on earth shall dwell,
shall no law nor love nor league of Gods,
no might nor mercy, nor moveless fate,
defend him for ever from the fierce vengeance
of the sons of Fëanor, whoso seize or steal
or finding keep the fair enchanted
globes of crystal whoso glory dies not,
the Silmarils. We have sworn forever!’

as is apparant, i am having trouble finding an equivilant to 'steal' for line 7. any help is welcome.

hantanyel.


[Edited on 22/5/2007 by pitya]
Malinornë
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 22, 2007 10:50
Pitya, I haven't looked at your translation yet, but I thought I could post a version that we discussed here three years ago. Hopefully you'll find an idea or two there. I'm not entirely sure who did the translation... It could be mine, or it was done by Corintur (whom I've unfortunately lost contact with). Anyway, here it is:

"Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean,
brood of Morgoth or bright Vala,
Elda or Maia or Aftercomer,
Man yet unborn upon Middle-earth,
neither law, nor love, nor league of swords,
dread nor danger, not Doom itself,
shall defend him from Fëanor, and Fëanor´s kin,
whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh,
finding keepeth or afar casteth
a Silmaril. This swear we all:
death we will deal him ere Day´s ending,
woe unto the world´s end! Our word hear thou,
Eru Allfather! To the everlasting
Darkness doom us if our deed faileth.
On the holy mountain hear in witness
and our vow remember, Manwë and Varda!"

"Ai cotumo var nildo, ai saura var poica,
hína Moriono var calima Vala,
Elda var Maia var Apanóna,
Atan er unostaina Endorenna,
Lá axan, lá melmë, lá únotimë macili,
aista var nwalmë, lá métima Umbar.
varyuva eryë Fëanarollo ar hildollon Fëanaro,
aiquen nurta var mapa,
túvala harya, var haiya et-cóla
Silmaril. Á lasta vandalma:
qualmë antuvalmes epë Aurëmetta,
nyérë mennai Ambar-metta! Hlárel quettalmar,
Eru Ilúvatar! Nai namuvalyem
Morië vorimanna ai úvalme carë carer sinë.
Aira orontossë lasta ar cimë
ar enyála vandalma, Manwë ar Varda!"
Malinornë
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 22, 2007 10:52
Here's a line for line explanation of the translation I posted above:

"Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean,
"Ai cotumo var nildo, ai saura var poica,
If enemy or friend, if putrid or pure,

brood of Morgoth or bright Vala,
hína Moriono var calima Vala,
child of the Dark one or bright Vala,

Elda or Maia or Aftercomer,
Elda var Maia var Apanóna,

Man yet unborn upon Middle-earth,
Atan er únostaina Endorenna,
Man still unbegotten upon Middle-earth

neither law, nor love, nor league of swords,
lá axan, lá melmë, lá horma maciliva,
not law, not love, not countless swords,


dread nor danger, not Doom itself,
aistalë var nwalmë, lá métima Umbar.
dread or torment, not (the) final Doom,

shall defend him from Fëanor, and Fëanor´s kin,
varyuva se Fëanárollo ar nossello Fëanáro,
will protect him from Fëanor and Fëanor´s kin

whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh,
aiquen nurta var hosta var mapa máryanen,
whoever hides or collects or seizes with his hand

finding keepeth or afar casteth
túvala hepë, var cóla oar haiya
finding keeps, or carries away far

a Silmaril. This swear we all:
Silmaril. Á lasta vandalma:
a Silmaril. Listen to our oath:

death we will deal him ere Day´s ending,
qualmë antuvalmes epë Aurëmetta,
death will we give him before Day-ending

woe unto the world´s end! Our word hear thou,
nyérë tenn´Ambar-metta! Hlárel quettalmar,
grief until (the) Ending of the world! You hear our words,

Eru Allfather! To the everlasting
Eru Ilúvatar! Nai hehtuval me
Eru Allfather! May you judge us

Darkness doom us if our deed faileth.
Morië vorimanna ai úvalme harya túrë sinassë.
to everlasting Darkness if we will not have victory in this

On the holy mountain hear in witness
Aira orontessë á hlarë ar cimë
On (the) holy mountain hear and heed

and our vow remember, Manwë and Varda!"
ar enyala vandalma, Manwë ar Varda!"
and remember our vow, Manwë and Varda!"

Again, this is from three years ago and I haven't read it since then...
Lambengolmo
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 22, 2007 11:45
Here's my opinion (bear in mind that I may have made some mistakes myself and/or not have caught everything, so it would be good to wait for someone else to look over it as well):

I really don't like your use of nai, in the first few lines as it doesn't correlate at all with the meaning of Tolkien's original. Dropping the nai and using the resulting imperative-like construction would be a little better than what you have now.

It would be better to use a Quenya name for Morgoth, such as Melkor or Moringotto, rather than the Sindarin one. His title Bauglir doesn't seem to have a direct analogue, but I'm sure you could invent one.

What's nuvar on line 3? In any case, you probably want maruva.

I don't really understand what you're trying to do with the sentence structure on lines 4 through 7. What I'd do is scrap "Úva varyaryës " from line 4 and add varyuva se to the start of line 6.

Line 5; for "moveless", how about úrúmimë (based on únótimë from Nam)?

You need to have "from vengeance" on line 6 (ablative case perhaps?), but I don't understand where you got atacarmo from. Could to spread some light on this?

I would translate "whoso" as ar i "and those who".

Just mapa, not mapas

My only suggestion for "steal" would be to find another verb that means something else but still makes sense in the context and use that (e.g. you could use the other "find" verb tuv-).

Instead of i "that which" on line 9, I would use yo "whose, which's" (inflected from ya).

Since vanda is a noun, how about translating the final part as Sin vandalma oiolë nauva? "this shall be our oath forever".

I also have a couple of more stylistic (and therefore quite subjective) points that I won't mention unless you want me to.
Lambengolmo
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 22, 2007 12:00
Mal posted while I was still thinking, but I just have to say that it's a really good translation; keeps the metre relatively well.
Malinornë
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 23, 2007 12:13
Pitya, you've received good advice from Lambengolmo now, so I'll wait with having a look until you've posted an updated version of your translation.

And another thing... I will spare you the usual 'lecture' on tattoos, but, please consider that even if you end up with a translation that seems perfect today, it will, more likely than not, prove to be wrong in some aspect a few months or years from now. For example, I used 'ai' for 'if' in my version, which we now know should perhaps rather be 'mai'. But if that doesn't bother you... cool
pitya
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 26, 2007 06:52
first off, thank you so much for the help--it's greatly appreciated.

as to the 'good elvish' in ink, i'm cool with it. so long as it is relatively good for the time; imperfections make it unique . however, i would like it to have some semblence of 'good elvish'.

to Lambelgolmo's response:

in all honesty, i cannot find where i found atacarmo. i assume it was from some other translation i saw (i thought i saved my resources, but apparantly not). i imagine it was some sort of nont-Tolkien compound that looked good from the explanation they gave...but now i can't find it, so i'll scrap it. any ideas for vengeance?

also, as far as vanda goes, i believe it was ardalambion.com that modified it into a verb as well, as a sort of back-formation. i went with it because i liked the flow of Avándielmë more than it's drawn out alternatives. however, if the back-formation is unlikely, i will change it.

i had a bit of a problem with ar i, simply because the english syntax doesn't seem to allow an 'and', and it detracts a bit from the original meaning, that 'this and this and this and this won't protect whoever', vs. "'this and this and won't protect, and whoever'.

so the updated version, modified and newly inspired by Malinornë's translation, as it stands:

Mai meldo var saura tanwë
Moringotto Nwalco, mai Fírima tumna
Ya mi Auri túlla Endorenna maruva,
Ilar axan, melmë, ilar horma macili,
Ilar túr ilar senië, ilar ahyála Marto,
Varyuva se oialë VENGEANCE úrúmimë
Yondor Fëanaro, aiquen mapa var nurta
Var ihíriel hepis i vanimar luhtala
Mirili silmar yo Alcara umir firir,
I Silmarili. Avándielmë oialë.

Literal translation:
If friend or foul creation
Of-Morgoth Cruel, may it be Mortal dark
That in Days to Come on Earth will dwell,
No law, love, nor countless swords
Not power nor forgiveness, nor changeless Fate,
Will protect him forever vengeance flaming
Sons of-Fëanor, whoso seize or hide
Or finding keep the beautiful enchanted
Jewels of Silma whose Glory dies not,
The Silmarils. We-have-sworn forever.

a sidenote: i modified the english text a bit from the previous post, from 'meeting of-gods' to 'countless swords'. it just seemed to ring a bit more, and incorporates the lines before the oath itself in HoME: 'blood thereafter it spilled like a sea and spent the swords of endless armies'

once again, thanks so much for the help!

[Edited on 27/5/2007 by pitya]
Lambengolmo
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 26, 2007 10:06
Sorry, I misinterpreted that bit about "whoso". Now that you point it out, I agree that "and" doesn't make sense there. Aiquen isn't quite the same since it doesn't link the relative clause back to the "him" in "shall protect him" like the English does, but it'll do.

Also, something I missed before; The construction ilar (which I assume means "and not") looks a little dubious to me. I'd drop the "and"s and use lá to express "no".

I didn't mean úrúmimë as a substitute for uruva, but rather ahyála "changing" which has the opposite meaning to what you want. (By the way, the active participle of ahya is probably ahyala)

Concerning vengeance; if you don't mind scrapping the adjective "fierce", then you can use another one as a way to more easily express the concept. I would suggest something like naraca paityala "violent repayment".
Tyrhael
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 27, 2007 06:26
Regarding *atacarmo, I'm guess it's a misspelling of Parma Penyanë Quettaron's *atacarmë, based off Sindarin acharn.
pitya
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 27, 2007 08:44
ah, that must be where atacarmo from. i'm guessing i replaced the -ë with -o because of its place and function...glad to figure that one out. it had me scratching my head.

(By the way, the active participle of ahya is probably ahyala)


got it.

Ilar i picked up from Milan Rezac's interpretation,

ilar...ilar for neither...nor (cf. Hom. Grk. oute...oute).


for lack of a better neither/nor compound, trying to capture more than a simple no this, not that, no... since Fëanor was a craftsman, i thought perhaps his theoretical original would be something more along those lines, too.

would something along the lines of aiquen i, work better than just simply aiquen? or aiquen ya?

third draft:

Mai meldo var saura tanwë
Moringotto Nwalco, mai Fírima tumna
Ya mi Auri túlla Endorenna maruva,
Ilar axan, melmë, ilar horma macili,
Ilar túr ilar senië, ilar úrúmimë Marto,
Varyuva se oialë naraca paityala
Yondor Fëanaro, aiquen mapa var nurta
Var ihíriel hepis i vanimar luhtala
Mirili silmar yo Alcara umir firir,
I Silmarili. Avándielmë oialë.

If friend or foul creation
Of-Morgoth Cruel, may it be Mortal dark
That in Days to Come on Earth will dwell,
No law, love, nor countless swords
Not power nor forgiveness, nor changeless Fate,
Will protect him forever violent repayment
Sons of-Fëanor, whoso seize or hide
Or finding keep the beautiful enchanted
Jewels of Silma whose Glory dies not,
The Silmarils. We-have-sworn forever.


hantanyel.
Malinornë
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 28, 2007 09:16
Here are some ideas re. your latest revision.

Be he friend or foe or foul offspring
Mai meldo var saura tanwëIf friend or foul creation

- I would suggest 'onna', creature, instead of 'tanwë, which sounds more like a thing, than something living

of Morgoth Bauglir, be he mortal dark
Moringotto Nwalco, mai Fírima tumna
Of-Morgoth Cruel, may it be Mortal dark

- I think 'tumna' is mostly 'dark' in the sense a deep, low-lying valley may be dark, so here I would suggest 'morna'

that in after days on earth shall dwell,
Ya mi Auri túlla Endorenna maruva,
That in Days to Come on Earth will dwell,

- It seems to me that the locative may be better to describe time, so I suggest 'auressen túlala' (in coming days)...I doubt 'túlla' is a valid form

shall no law nor love nor league of Gods,
Ilar axan, melmë, ilar horma macili,
No law, love, nor countless swords

- as 'horma' is 'host', that may require genitive for 'of swords', so I'd go for únótimë (countless) here

no might nor mercy, nor moveless fate,
Ilar túr ilar senië, ilar úrúmimë Marto,
Not power nor forgiveness, nor changeless Fate,

defend him for ever from the fierce vengeance
Varyuva se oialë naraca paityala
Will protect him forever violent repayment

- I think the element 'from' may be missing here; an ablative should do it, but 'paityala' looks like an active participle (?)

of the sons of Fëanor, whoso seize or steal
Yondor Fëanaro, aiquen mapa var nurta
Sons of-Fëanor, whoso seize or hide

- you need something to say 'of the' (sons)

or finding keep the fair enchanted
Var ihíriel hepis i vanimar luhtala
Or finding keep the beautiful enchanted

- 'finding' would rather be an active participle, hírala, for 'beautiful', the normal plural vanimë works better, and enchanted would be a passive participle, luhtainë (plural)

globes of crystal whose glory dies not,
Mirili silmar yo Alcara umir firir,
Jewels of Silma whose Glory dies not,

- mirilli (stem form). If 'silmar' is meant as the plural form of the adjective silma, then change to silmë (plural). But, if you mean it as a noun, then it seems to rather be 'silmë' (singular), and then you could use the possessive case to express that the jewels are made from it (silmeva).
- 'dies not' refers to the glory, not the silmarils, so the negative verb should rather be in the singular, and the main verb should be an infinitive. I'd suggest aorist (umë firë) or future tense (uva firë), or simpler 'lá firuva'

the Silmarils. We have sworn forever!’
I Silmarili. Avándielmë oialë.
The Silmarils. We-have-sworn forever.

- Silmarilli (double L in plural)
- If we accept vanda- as a verb, then it would rather be avandielmë here, with short 'a', because of the consonant cluster coming just after it
Lambengolmo
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 28, 2007 12:14
Sorry; typo.

I meant to write naraca paityalë (using an abstract noun rather than a participle). I also trusted that you would be able to put it in the ablative case yourself, but it looks like you forgot.
pitya
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 28, 2007 04:59
i hang my head in shame. i confess i've spent more time in german, spanish, and original language studies than quenya; in addition to the fact that my last post was done rather hurriedly for sake of time. your patience is much appreciated.

so let's see if i can get this right:

Mai meldo var saura onna
Moringotto Nwalco, mai Fírima morna
Ya auressen túlala Endorenna maruva,
Ilar axan, melmë, ilar únótimë macili,
Ilar túr ilar senië, ilar úrúmimë Marto,
Varyuva se oialë naraca paityalello
Yondoro Fëanaro, aiquen i mapa var nurta
Var hírala hepë i vanimë luhtainë
Mirilli silmë yo Alcara uva firë,
I Silmarilli. Avandielmë oialë.

For dark in line 2 i was going back and forth between which quenyan equivelant to use: trying to decipher Tolkien's original intent of the word and then finding its best quenyan translation...I think morna works best, though.

i went ahead with the aiquen i, using the i instead of ya because the subject is already defined, and it just seemed more appropriate.

hopefully this draft is good; it's just about time to take the design in.
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 29, 2007 08:28
Yondoro Fëanaro, aiquen i mapa var nurta


Just two more things about this line:
- yondoron (genitive plural)
- I think 'aiquen mapa var nurta' (if anyone seizes or hides) works a lot better than 'aiquen i mapa var nurta' (if anyone that seizes or hides). If you want to have an 'i' for 'who' or 'that', then it seems to me that it would be better to just write 'quén i mapa var nurta' (a person who seizes or steals). But, I do prefer just 'aiquen' without the added 'I'.

That's all from me, I believe, since the other things about choice of vocabulary have been discussed by others already.

Edited to say: Do you plan to have this in Tengwar, or in Latin letters?

[Edited on 29/5/2007 by Malinornë]
pitya
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: May 31, 2007 08:24
Thank you, thank you, and thank you again.

I will fix those two and call it good, since I think it has been effectively weeded out of the obvious and heinous mistakes my poor elvish invoked. Alas, no matter how I try, I am not an elf, and probably won't ever be. No harm in trying, though.

to Malinornë, I plan to have it in the tengwar, though I have studied that a bit more and feel comfortable in just writing it up myself; luckily the guy I went to with the request knows the Silmarillion like the back of his hand, and is familiar with the script. He doesn't know much quenya, or any elvish for that matter, or I would've just had him edit it. And however many heads are in this forum are better than just his and mine. Obviously. I appreciate your help.

Now off to find a calligraphy pen...:evil:
Malinornë
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: June 01, 2007 06:54
Uhm... if you plan to write a text in Quenya with Tengwar, it is a good idea to know a bit of Quenya; I mean that the writing 'modes' are different for different languages... the different tengwar are used for different sounds in different languages, so if you pick a word, it would look differntly written with Tengwar depending on whether you used the writing modes for Quenya, Sindarin, or English.
pitya
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: June 01, 2007 12:44
oh yes. i went to see him today and we talked about it; i suppose what i meant to say in the earlier post was that he has seen a lot of the script and done several different designs in it, so it's not some random runes to him. i wrote it out myself in the quenya-tengwar mode, and we discussed what characters i used and what it would read in latin-letters etc. there was also a woman there who knew what i was talking about, so between her, me, and him it should turn out fine. it's scheduled for next wednesday...

[Edited on 2/6/2007 by pitya]
thorsten
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: June 02, 2007 08:39
I think the use of mai as 'if' in Quenya is highly questionable - it dates back to the Early Qenya Grammar from 1930 - but we know (from 'Eldarin Hands, Fingers and Numerals (HFN)') that in later Quenya it meant 'well'.

The ai in aiquen seems to express what is meant here - 'whoever it is, he will not be protected'. So I don't quite know why to use mai in the first place.

Ya auressen túlala Endorenna maruva

Ideas outlined in HFN would indicate that the relative pronoun becomes ye for persons. In other texts, i would seem to be appropriate, but I don't know evidence that ya should be used when a person is involved.

túlala means 'presently coming' with no particular connotation to the future. Maybe rather something along the lines of enyárë with a demonstrative pointing to the future?

Endorenna means 'towards Middle-Earth' - clearly that cannot be the right case for 'dwell in' for which Endoresse would seem fitting.

For a construction like ?ilar there is not much evidence in Tolkien's writings - we do know that in Gnomish simply u... u... was used, cf u laud u laith hasta unweg '*Neither flood nor time wait for anyone.' (PE11:53), i.e. a repetition of the simple negation, so lá... lá as suggested by Lambengolmo seems far more plausible.

Why should senië mean 'forgiveness'? In the Ataremma 6 apsene- is used for 'to forgive' - sen- alone seems to mean 'to let loose'.

se would probably parsed by most people as female 'her', though I think Tolkien did consider it for both male and female at some point.

'glory' seems to be alcar or alcare - I don't know where ?alcara is from.

Avandielmë oialë.

That seems to be directed towards the future, so I'd rather use tennoio here, but that may be a mere matter of taste.
pitya
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Post RE: Oath of Fëanor
on: June 05, 2007 10:20
many thanks, thorsten. i'm scheduled to get it done tomorrow (or rather today, i guess...sun hasn't risen yet, it doesn't count). i'll take your suggestions and see what i can do. it's good to know, though. i'll update my record of it. i don't have a lot of time to post addressing your questions, but i can either post again or edit this post when i do. terribly sorry, just didn't want you to think i was slighting you off. thank you again for the suggestions.
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