Re: Muta cum liquida in JRRT (was "Double stressed" words)

Pavel Iosad scripsit:

> (But we were speaking of Quenya, and it can't
> have anything of the like, since _muta cum liquida_ requires complex
> onsets, and these are an absolute no-no)
True.

> However, evidence from verse can be quite confusing. Thus, in _The Lay
> of Leithian_, _Nargothrond_ seems to be regularly stressed on the first
> and third syllables rather than on the second one as App. E suggests.
Likewise in the line "Of mighty kings in Nargothrond" in Gimli's chant.
                      x   -   x  -    x   -  x   -
This poem is absolutely regular iambic tetrameter except for a single
trochaic substitution in "Buckler and corslet, axe and sword".
                           -   x  x    -   x   -   x     -

> Come, tell me true, O Morgoth's thralls,
> what then in Elfinesse befalls?
> What of Nargothrond? Who reigneth there?
> Into that realm did your feet dare?
Ouch.

> Murmurless Esgalduin doth flow
> x - x - x - x -
No, that scansion is impossible:  "murmurless" has initial stress.
It has to be "Murmurless Esgalduin doth flow",
               -  x  x   x  -  x-   x     -
which would be a very clunky line, except that it is plainly imitative
harmony, which is rare but not unknown in English verse:

        'Tis not enough no harshness give offence,
        The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
        Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
        And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows:
        But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
        The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar:
        When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
        The line too labours, and the words move slow;
        Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
        Flies o'er th'unbending corn, and skims along the main.
                --Pope, "Essay on Criticism"

> Esgalduin that fairies call
> x - x - x - x -
This is just promotion (the assignment of a metrical stress to a syllable that
is rhythmically slack), which constantly occurs in English foot-verse.

> of Feanor's sons, who takes or steals
> or finding keeps the Silmarils
> (1640-1)
I think "Silmarils" is purely English.

> But there of Finrod's children four
> were Angrod slain and proud Egnor.
Promotion again.

> Felagund and Orodreth then
   - x -   x   - x  x     -

Promotion on "gund" and "then", otherwise unexceptionable.

> Lo! Celegorm and Curufin
> here dwell this very realm within
Promotion.

> In _The Lay of the Children of Húrin_, a word like _Thangorodrim_
> participates in the th-alliteration as the first lift of the second
> half-verse, and this must be stressed on the first syllable, but
> Sindarin didn't have a retraction period (at least it's not mentioned),
> and so hardly warrants a stress on the first syllable.
Now thaaaaaaaat's ugly.

> Etc. etc. So evidence form verse is something to be cautious about here.
Indeed.

--
But that, he realized, was a foolish            John Cowan
thought; as no one knew better than he          jcowan@reutershealth.com
that the Wall had no other side.                http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
        --Arthur C. Clarke, "The Wall of Darkness"

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