Search "Dominus Anulorum"

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Ring Poem- REVISED

Hello Everyone!

So I am only a few days late with this, but this time I actually have a valid reason: I've been sick with a nasty cold which prevented me from completing my revisions sooner. Anyways, here, finally, is the revised Ring Poem:

Tres Anuli sub caelo Regibus Elbicis
Septem Dominis Nanis in hypogeis ex saxo,
Novem moriendum Mortalibus damnatis,
Unus Domino Atro qui sedet in solio atro
In Terra Mordore operta Umbris
Unus Anulus eos omnes regendos, Unus Anulus eos inveniendos,
Unus Anulus eos omnes conferendos et in tenebris vinciendos
In Terra Mordore operta Umbris

You will notice that I have done several things this time round:

1) I finally gave in and made the infinitives gerundives

2) I realized that there is a rhyming scheme to the original english (namely in the first half its ABABA format, dont know what the proper term for it is, was never very good with poetry), I've tried to replicate it in the first half of the poem. I find the second half works better with putting the gerundives at the end and having them rhyme with each other in Latin.

And now I must acknowledge where I have stolen from (read: taken influence from :P):

1) I went back to Earendilyon's (the man who originally started translating LOTR into Latin) original translation and realized I had made a mistake by having Mordor in the genitive when it should have been in the ablative. This has now been corrected. Also, for the second half, you will notice that eos omnes and eos alternates, just like in the english. This was also taken from Earendilyon's translation of the poem, as well as the use of the gerund in line 3. I should also like to point out that his influence can be seen in parts of my translation for page two of FOTR which I posted earlier this week. I think in fact that he may be aware of this project, and I really do hope that he is okay with my translating anew and blatant borrowing/stealing/taking influence from his original work.

2) I would like to personally thank my friend Thomas Volpius from the SCHOLA online community, who allowed me to use his translation of the poem. Thomas' influence can be seen most clearly in lines 1-5 and line 8. Although in lines 1 and 2 I did not use the exact words he used, they did inspire me to look for others. Thomas' poem originally uses Regibus Elborum for the elves where as I decided to create the adjective Elbicus, a, um to use. In my opinion using the adjective is a little bit closer to the original BUT Thomas has infact helped to solve the debate on what word to use for elf. Originally I was going to use Eldar, -is, but now I think I will keep this just for the mention of the Eldar in the text. Elbicus, a , um, will be used for something that is Elven, and Thomas' word Elbus (which is really quite clever considering that word elf is related to the latin Albus) will be the word used for elf. Thomas' use of cryptoporticibus in the second line was a little bit too unwieldy for the flow of the poem but it did get the correct connotation of the underground hall. It inspired me to find something similar: cryptogeum, an underground chamber or room, which I've made a note of in the glossary to translate as hall for the purposes of the poem. At any rate, much credit and thanks goes out to Thomas for allowing me to use his translation.

Also, if you haven't already, PLEASE have a look at the revised translation of page one and the new translation of page two. I fear that due to my absence some of you have decided to jump ship as it were. I hope not.

Mike

5 comments:

  1. I know almost nothing about Latin, but I still think this is an interesting Tolkien-related project. Therefore I follow your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It has a nice feel to it. I like it.
    For a laugh over the summer, I translated parts of Waiting For Godot. The long summer vacation seemed particularly long this year.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just would like to say, that it was me who directed Thomas in here from schola originally :p And I'm your great fan!
    Thank for this astonishing job and finish it!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I look forward to the completion of this project.

    Feliciter!

    ReplyDelete