Lay of Leithian Canto V
From Tolkien Gateway
Lay of Leithian cantos |
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This Canto speaks of Lúthien Tinúviel after the departure of Beren and how she went to her mother Melian and friend Dairon, begging for aid, from the first foresight and from the second music. Melian said that Beren was in the dungeons of Thû, and Dairon refused to play any music. A second time Dairon betrayed her, this time out of love, to her father Thingol, who placed her in a guarded treehouse. But by magic she grew out her hair and made a robe and rope of it "a magic dress/that all was drenched in drowsiness". Lowering the rope she put to sleep her guards and escaped.
The Canto
- So days drew on from the mournful day;
- the curse of silence no more lay
- on Doriath, though Dairon's flue
- and Lúthien's singing both were mute.
- The murmurs soft awake once more
- about the woods, the waters roar
- past the great gates of Thingol's halls;
- but no dancing step of Lúthien falls
- on turf or leaf. For she forlorn,
- where stumbled once, where bruised and torn,
- with longing on him like a dream,
- had Beren sat by shrouded stream
- Esgalduin the dark and strong,
- she sat and mourned in a low song:
- 'Endless roll the waters past!
- To this my love hath come at last,
- enchanted waters pitiless,
- a heartache and a loneliness.'
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