Lay of Leithian Canto III

Lúthien by Ted Nasmith

Lay of Leithian cantos
Canto I Canto II Canto III Canto IV Canto V Canto VI Canto VII Canto VIII Canto IX Canto X Canto XI Canto XII Canto XIII Canto XIV

This Canto starts out with the tale of Thingol and Melian. Then it gives a description of Lúthien their daughter, and tells how Beren watched in amazement. Dairon warns Lúthien, and she hides, but Beren touches her arm by accident. Again Beren searches, and months later catches her again, naming her Tinúviel. Below is recounted the second meeting.

The Canto

There once, and long and long ago

before the sun and moon we know

were lit to sail above the world

when first the shaggy woods unfurled

and shadowy shapes did stare and roam

beneath the dark and starry dome

that hung above the dawn of Earth

the silences with silver mirth

were shaken; the rocks were ringing

the birds of Melian were singing

the first to sing in mortal lands

the nightingales with her own hands

she fed, that fay of garments gray;

and dark and long her tresses lay

beneath her silver girdle’s seat

and down unto her silver feet.

She had wayward wandered on a time

from gardens of the Valar, to climb

the everlasting mountains free

that look upon the outmost sea

and never wandered back, but stayed

and softly sang from glade to glade.

Her voice it was that Thingol heard

and sudden singing of a bird

in that old time when new-come Elves

had all the wide world to themselves.

Yet all his kin now marched away

as old tales tell, to seek the bay

on the last shore of mortal lands

where mighty ships with magic hands

they made, and sailed beyond the sea.

The Valar them bade to lands of ease

and gardens fair, where earth and sky

together flow, and none shall die.

But Thingol stayed, enchanted, still

one moment to hearken to the thrill

of that sweet singing in the trees.

enchanted moments such as these

from gardens of the Lord of Sleep

where fountains play and shadows creep

do come, and count as many years

in mortal lands. With many tears

his people seek him ere they sail

while Thingol listens in the dale.

There after but an hour, him seems,

he finds her where she lies and dreams

pale Melian with her dark hair

upon a bed of leaves. Beware!

there slumber and a sleep is twined!

he touched her tresses and his mind

was drowned in the forgetful deep

and dark the years rolled o’er his sleep.

Thus Thingol sailed not on the seas

but dwelt amid the land of trees

and Melian he loved, divine

whose voice was potent as the wine

the Valar drink in golden halls

where flower blooms and fountain falls;

but when she sang it was a spell

and no flower stirred nor fountain fell.

A king and queen thus lived they long

and Doriath was filed with song

and all the Elves that missed their way

and never found the western bay

the gleaming walls of their long home

by the gray seas and the white foam

who never trod the golden land

where the towers of the Valar stand

all these were gathered in their realm

beneath the beech and oak and elm.

In later days when Morgoth first

fleeing the Valar, their bondage bust

and on the mortal lands set feet

and in the North his mighty seat

founded and fortified, and all

the newborn race of Men were thrall

unto his power, and Elf and Gnome

his slaves, or wandered without home

or scattered fastnesses walled with fear

upraised upon his borders drear

and each one fell, yet reigned there still

in Doriath beyond his will

Thingol and deathless Melian

whose magic yet no evil can

that cometh from without surpass.

Here still was laughter and green grass

and leaves were lit with the white sun

and many marvels were begun.

In sunshine and in sheen of moon

with silken robe and silver shoon

the daughter of the deathless queen

now danced on the undying green

half elven-fair and half divine;

and when the stars began to shine

unseen but near a piping woke

and in the branches of an oak

or seated on the beech-leaves brown

Dairon the dark with ferny crown

played with bewildering wizard’s art

music for breaking of the heart.

Such players have there only been

thrice in all Elfinesse, I ween:

Tinfang Gelion who still the moon

enchants on summer nights of June

and kindles the pale firstling star;

and he who harps upon the far

forgotten beaches and dark shores

where western foam for ever roars

Maglor whose voice is like the sea;

and Dairon, mightiest of the three.

Now it befell on summer night

upon a lawn where lingering light

yet lay and faded faint and gray

that Lúthien danced while he did play.

The chestnuts on the turf had shed

their flowering candles, white and red;

there darkling stood a silent elm

and pale beneath its shadow-helm

there glimmered faint the umbels thick

of hemlocks like a mist, and quick

the moths on pallid wings of white

with tiny eyes of fiery light

were fluttering softly, and the voles

crept out to listen from their holes;

the little owls were hushed and still;

the moon was yet behind the hill.

Her arms like ivory were gleaming

her long hair like a cloud was streaming

her feet atwinkle wandered roaming

in misty mazes in the gloaming;

and glowworms shimmered round her feet

and moths in moving garland fleet

above her head went wavering wan–

and this the moon now looked upon

uprisen slow, and round, and white

above the branches of the night.

Then clearly thrilled her voice and rang;

with sudden ecstasy she sang

a song of nightingales she learned

and with her elvish magic turned

to such bewildering delight

the moon hung moveless in the night.

And this it was that Beren heard

and this he saw, without a word

enchanted dumb, yet filled with fire

of such a wonder and desire

that all his mortal mind was dim;

her magic bound and fettered him

and faint he leaned against a tree.

Forwandered, wayworn, gaunt was he

his body sick and hear gone cold

gray his hair, his youth turned old;

for those that tread that lonely way

a price of woe and anguish pay.

And now his heart was healed and slain

with a new life and with new pain.

He gazed, and as he gazed her hair

within its cloudy web did snare

the silver moonbeams sifting white

between the leaves, and glinting bright

the tremulous starlight of the skies

was caught and mirrored in her eyes.

Then all his journey’s lonely fare

the hunger and the haggard care

the awful mountains’ stones he stained

with blood of weary feet, and gained

only a land of ghosts, and fear

in dark ravines imprisoned sheer–

there mighty spiders wove their webs

old creatures foul with birdlike nebs

that span their traps in dizzy air

and filled it with clinging black despair

and there they lived, and the sucked bones

lay white beneath on the dank stones–

now all these horrors like a cloud

faded from mind. The waters loud

falling from pineclad heights no more

he heard, those waters gray and frore

that bittersweet he drank and filled

his mind with madness – all was stilled.

He recked not now the burning road

the paths demented where he strode

endlessly … and ever new

horizons stretched before his view

as each blue ridge with bleeding feet

was climbed, and down he went to meet

battle with creatures old and strong

and monsters in the dark, and long

long watches in the haunted night

while evil shapes with baleful light

in clustered eyes did crawl and snuff

beneath his tree – not half enough

the price he deemed to come at last

to that pale moon when day had passed

to those clear stars of Elfinesse

the hearts-ease and the loveliness.

Lo! all forgetting he was drawn

unheeding toward the glimmering lawn

by love and wonder that pompelled

his feet from hiding; music welled

within his heart, and songs unmade

on themes unthought-of moved and swayed

his soul with sweetness; out he came

a shadow in moon’s pale flame–

and Dairon’s flute as sudden stops

as lark before it steeply drops

as grasshopper within the grass

listening for heavy feet to pass.

‘Flee, Lúthien!’, and ‘Lúthien!’

from hiding Dairon called again;

‘A stranger walked the woods! Away!’

But Lúthien would wondering stay;

fear had she never felt or known

till fear then seized her, all alone

seeing that shape with shagged hair

and shadow long that halted there.

Then suddenly she vanished like a dream

in dark oblivion, a gleam

in hurrying clouds, for she had leapt

among the hemlocks tall, and crept

under a mighty plant with leaves

all long and dark, whose stem in sheaves

upheld an hundred umbels fair;

and her white arms and shoulders bare

her raiment pale, and in her hair

the wild white roses glimmering there

all lay like spattered moonlight hour

in gleaming pools upon the floor.

Then stared he wild in dumbness bound

at silent trees, deserted ground;

he blindly groped across the glade

so the dark trees’ encircling shade

and, while she watched with veiled eyes

touched her soft arm in sweet surprise.

Like startled moth from deathlike sleep

in sunless nook or bushes deep

she darted swift, and to and fro

with cunning that elvish dancers know

about the trunks of trees she twined

a path fantastic. Far behind

enchanted, wildered and forlorn

Beren came blundering, bruised and torn;

Esgalduin the elven-stream

in which amid tree-shadows gleam

the stars, flowed strong before his feet.

Some secret way she found, and fleet

passed over and was seen no more

and left him forsaken on the shore.

‘Darkly the sundering flood falls past!

To this my long way comes at last–

a hunger and a loneliness

enchanted waters pitiless.’

A summer waned, and autumn glowed

and Beren in the woods abode

as wild and wary as a faun

that sudden wakes at rustling dawn

and flits from shade to shade, and flees

the brightness of the sun, yet sees

all stealthy movements in the wood.

The murmurous warmth in weathers good

the hum of many wings, the call

of many a bird, the pattering fall

of sudden rain upon the trees

the windy tide in leafy seas

the creaking of the boughs, he heard;

but not the song of sweetest bird

brought joy of comfort to his heart

a wanderer dumb who dwelt apart;

who sought unceasing and in vain

to hear and see those things again:

a song more fair than nightingale

a wonder in the moonlight pale.

An autumn waned, a winter laid

the withered leaves in grove and glade;

the beeches bare were gaunt and gray

and red their leaves beneath them lay.

From cavern pale the moist moon eyes

the white mists that from earth arise

to hide the morrow’s sun and drip

all the gray day from each twig’s tip.

By dawn and dusk he seeks her still;

by noon and night in valleys chill

nor hears a sound but the slow beat

on sodden leaves of his own feet.

The wind of winter winds his horn;

the misty veil is rent and torn.

The wind dies; the starry choirs

leap in the silent sky to fires

whose light comes bitter-cold and sheer

through domes of frozen crystal clear.

A sparkle through the darkling trees

a piercing glint of light he sees

and there she dances all alone

upon a treeless knoll of stone!

Her mantle blue with jewels white

caught all the rays of frosted light.

She shone with cold and wintry flame

as dancing down the hill she came

and passed his watchful silent gaze

a glimmer as of stars ablaze.

And snowdrops sprang beneath her feet

and one bird, sudden, late and sweet

shrilled as she wayward passed along.

A frozen brook to bubbling song

awoke and laughed; but Beren stood

still bound enchanted in the wood.

Her starlight faded and the night

closed o’er the snowdrops glimmering white.

Thereafter on a hillock green

he saw far off the elven-sheen

of shining limb and jewel bright

often and oft on moonlit night;

and Dairon’s pipe awoke once more

and soft she sang as once before.

Then nigh he stole beneath the trees

and heartache mingled with hearts-ease.

A night there was when winter died;

then all alone she sand and cried

and danced until the dawn of spring

and chanted some wild magic thing

that stirred him, till it sudden broke

the bonds that held him, and he woke

to madness sweet and brave despair.

He flung his arms to the night air

and out he danced unheeding fleet

enchanted , with enchanted feet.

He sped towards the hillock green

the lissom limbs, the dancing sheen;

he leapt upon the grassy hill

his arms with loveliness to fill:

his arms were empty, and she fled;

away, away her white feet sped.

But as she went he swiftly came

and called her with the tender name

of nightingales in elvish tongue

that all the woods now sudden rung:

‘Tinúviel! Tinúviel!’

And clear his voice was as a bell;

its echoes wove a binding spell:

‘Tinúviel! Tinúviel!’

His voice such love and longing filled

one moment stood she, fear was stilled;

one moment only; like a flame

he leaped towards her as she stayed

and caught and kissed that elfin maid.

As love there woke in sweet surprise

the starlight trembled in her eyes.

A! Lúthien! A! Lúthien!

more fair than any child of Men;

O! loveliest maid of Elfinesse

what madness does thee now possess!

A! lissom limbs and shadowy hair

and chaplet of white snowdrops there;

O! starry diadem and white

pale hands beneath the pale moonlight!

She left his arms and slipped away

just at the breaking of the day.

Concerning the Canto

This canto, in contrast to the previous one, shows peace and hope, and the beauty of Doriath. It tells of the meeting and love of Thingol and Melian, mirroring in a way the future meeting and love of Beren and Lúthien; one elf to maia, the other man to elf. This canto also includes the short paragraph about the minstrels: Tinfang Gelion, Maglor, and Dairon, the first of which has only this place laid aside for him in all the known writings of Tolkien. Beren's mixture of sorrow and bliss and the fleeing of Lúthien is shown, and at the last when he catches her in the vivid description of her dancing it culumnates. Then is a paragraph unlike the rest of the Lay, unless it were Thingol's thoughts of pity on Lúthien; a sort of cry from the poet to the one he writes about, asking her why she took her doom, and left elven immortality. On a final note, she slips away "just at the breaking of the day".