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#1 |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,855
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Mīms Klage / The Complaint of Mim the Dwarf
I seem to be making a digital hoard of hard-to-find Tolkien texts. I have Songs for the Philologist, Concerning... 'The Hoard', and even The Boorman Script. I'm still hoping for a copy of the Zimmerman script treatment, but until that surfaces I have something, well, actually Tolkien...ish.
"The Complaint of Mīm the Dwarf" is a blended poem and prose piece by Tolkien which has never been published. The Estate has made it clear (post by Urulókė) that they will not publish it at all. But what has been published, way back in 1987, is a translation into German by Hans J. Schütz: Mīms Klage A scan from the 1987 book. 26 lines of poetry, and three pages of prose. Even my limited German tells me that it's very much a stream-of-consciousness - look at that section after the first paragraph break, where Mim speaks: Tink-tink-tink, tink-tonk, tonk-tonk, tink! No time to eat, no time to drink, tonk-tink! Tink-tonk, no time, tonk-tink, no time [to waste]! No time to sleep! No night and no day, just [haste]! Only silver and gold, hammered and [formed and shaped] and small, hard stones, [glittering] and cold Tink-tink, green and gold, tink-tink, blue and white Under my hands [quietly sprout and grow] long [leaves] and flowers, and red eyes [glowing] of [beasts] and birds between [branches and blossoms]. (Translation mine; [square brackets] are words I had to look up. I've not bothered to try and keep the rhyme or rhythm at this time.) Without translating the full piece it's hard to know when it takes place: Mim is described in the poem as 200 years old, but we don't have any other ages for him. Dwarves were typically born 100 years after their fathers, so even if this poem is set right before Mim's death he could still have the two adult or near-adult sons we see in the books. It takes place "Under a mountain, in an [impassable] land", which sounds like Amon Rudh, but poetically could be the ruins of Nargothrond. There's a rhyming translation of the poem in video here, along with some snippets of the prose. I will probably keep poking at the whole thing in my rough way, unless someone happens to come along who actually speaks German. ![]() (It's very tempting to imagine this as Mim working his curse into the hoard of Nargothrond, and thus link it directly to Concerning... 'The Hoard', but without translation I don't know how viable that is.) EDIT: My full, low-quality back-translation into English (as created in this thread) is here. hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera Last edited by Huinesoron; 07-13-2023 at 01:38 AM. |
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#2 | |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,855
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Taking a break from work-translating to do some fun-translating instead, I took a stab at the rest of the poem:
Quote:
Now the Orcs, finding the issue of the secret stair, left the summit and entered Bar-en-Danwedh, which they defiled and ravaged. They did not find Mim, lurking in his caves, and when they had departed from Amon Rudh Mim appeared on the summit, and going to where Beleg lay prostrate and unmoving he gloated over him while he sharpened a knife. The fiends/monsters who stole Mim's stuff are the Orcs; the pit of sand is the caves he hid in; and we even have a mention of the knife. Or perhaps the scene is a little later, after Androg drives him off "shrieking in fear... to the brink of the cliff and... down a steep and difficult goat's path that was known to him". That would certainly offer more opportunity for smithying than while he was waiting to go and stab Beleg, and the vague summaries I've seen of the prose section say that Mim thinks about his inability to forgive, which would link to having just gone after Beleg. I'm sure the answers, at least by implication, lie in the prose, but I'm not getting into that right now. ![]() hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera Last edited by Huinesoron; 02-27-2023 at 10:57 AM. Reason: Reuniting poem. |
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#3 |
Loremaster of Annśminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,307
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I wonder why the Estate is so opposed to its publication? It's a rather odd position to take on an original JRRT poem.
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#4 | ||
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Quote:
I've taken a stab at the first prose paragraph, and hoooo boy, Mim is crazy: Quote:
hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#5 | |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
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Quote:
But is that what he's doing now, after his flight? Or is he muttering to himself about what he did before, and what has been taken from him? hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#6 | |
Overshadowed Eagle
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: The north-west of the Old World, east of the Sea
Posts: 3,855
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Quote:
One line has me so baffled that I've bracketed it: the German reads "Ringe für gierige Finger und Monde und Sterne und kunstlosen Schmuch fur die Buste hochmutiger Weiber." I'm comfortable with the translation, and without "und Monde und Sterne" it makes perfect sense (gems for swords, rings for fingers and brooches for women). But what does "and moons and stars" mean here? Are they more jewels for the women? Is this a German idiom? In any case, there's one (long) paragraph to go, in which we not only have the phrase "kleine Zwerg" - "petty-dwarf" - but the only conclusive link to the Legendarium: "eine Blute mit Tau darauf, so wie er einst glanzte am Tarn Aeluin". A flower with dew on it, as once shone beside Tarn Aeluin. hS
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Have you burned the ships that could bear you back again? ~Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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