Work Text:
Pengolodh writes:
Of all the texts that my lord Eärendilion brought with him from Lindon to our new-founded library of Imladris, nothing quite compares to this particular narrative, titled simply “Athrabeth," and I make this claim from long experience as a records-keeper. Its setting, a debate between an unnamed prince and his tormentor, will make it difficult going for even the venturesome of readers: the lightness with which it touches upon several sacred subjects, even more so. All things considered, the ideas presented by the “Athrabeth” are, let us call them, unique, and often seem contradictory to both received wisdom and accepted text-making practices.[1]
How this conversation came to be recorded, and by whom, I cannot fathom – assuming, of course, that it is not a complete fabrication. This particular volume in Lord Eärendilion’s personal collection is one of the only transcriptions I have actually laid eyes upon, but I have heard that comparable versions circulate around the campfires of soldiers and the hearths of isolated settlements. Superficial similarities between “Athrabeth” and other accounts have led some scholars to suggest that it is actually a re-telling of the conflict between Finrod Felagund and Sauron the Deceiver, but such claims are pure drivel, as I illustrate in my footnotes throughout. Briefly, though: there was none present for that conversation that lived to report it with any accuracy,[2] and no-one at all benefits by circulating a narrative that presents the Deceiver as a sharp, sagacious speaker.[3]
And yet. Even that most likely explanation of the “Athrabeth” as a re-transmission of a fireside tale leaves much unexplained. For instance, the text is in a very old Sindarin dialect, and of a style that I suspect is meant to pass for high in that tongue. For another, it is structured in a very plain dialogic model, as if its original transcriptor imagined that the sparse recapitulation of debate points would be enough to hold readers’ interest in an entirely fictional tale.
These oddities notwithstanding, it seems entirely possible that the “Athrabeth” would have been produced in Beleriand before the Sundering, given its alleged setting somewhere along the Sirion. A more specific date, though, might be posited: the reign of Orodreth in Nargothrond, sometime between F.A. 465 and F.A. 494. In many ways, the initial composition of a text like the “Athrabeth” makes the most sense in that setting: its message of apprehension and uncertainty no doubt mirrors the insecurity and terror that surely followed the news of Felagund’s demise.
“Athrabeth” offers little in the way of a preface or introduction. Instead, the text dives right into a debate on the nature of death, the prerogatives of lordship, and the authority of the Valar – tellingly, both the concerns of the people of Nargothrond and the concerns that still plague many of the less devout to this day.
Long had the Eldar known that the length of their lives and the surety of their rebirth were sore subjects with Men. The Edain even claimed, foolishly, that their very natures had been corrupted by Melkor in his malice and imprudence: that Men were rightly meant to live in union of body and soul, with no end to either part, in this world or any other. Ever had the Eldar dismissed such claims, deeming them the ill-thought complaints of a younger kindred: children who knew not their own fortune, or indeed the weight of the Eldar’s own fate in being unalterably tied to the fate of Arda itself. Yet in secret, death was no matter of wonder to the Eldar, but a thing of dread: the title “Gift of Men” was given to appease the Edain, and the Eldar pondered whether the power of Melkor must be far greater than even they had imagined.
Concerning these things, it is recorded that Artano, a lord of great power in the West, once conversed with a prince of the Eldar in Tol Sirion. Long they communed in song and speech.
“Curious to me is the passing of thy people,” said Artano.
“My people do not pass,” said the prince. “By our enemies’ hands we may fall, or slow poison or despair, but by our right nature, we do not die.”
“And yet, here I find thee,” said Artano. “Thou art dying, yet claims’t it is not right in thy people. Dost imagine thou art exceptional then?” [4]
“Exceptional?” said the prince. “Hardly, but only because ye have seen it made so. By your hand have the Eldar fallen since we set foot on these shores; by your master’s hand we fell in the Blessed Lands themselves. Ye are a traitor, sorcerer: a blight on the Music of Ilúvatar!”[5]
“Thine insults are as ill-considered as thy grievances,” said Artano. “Morality is not a tally sheet, whereby the addition of thy good deeds and the subtraction of thy sins offers any sort of reckoning that will define thee, irrefutably and indubitably, as either moral or immoral. Morality stems from results: did thy works give the lives of thy subordinates meaning, did thy choices leave thine environment a tidier and more efficient place than thou didst find it?”
“Ye propose a most cold and sterile definition of the word,” said the prince. “Would it not be better to say that morality is-”
“No,” said Artano. “Whatever other definition thou might think to propose, it is utterly dependent on the understanding and right judgment of lower creatures, who thou knows’t are easily misled to deem their small worldviews significant.”
“Ye are saying ye believe in judgment, then?” asked the prince.
“I am,” said Artano.
“Ye would submit to judgment for the actions ye have taken, then?” asked the prince.
“I would,” said Artano, “did I possess the peers who had the wit to see my methods for their end results, or the betters who possessed the authority to pass such judgment upon me and mine works.”
“Are ye saying ye have no betters?” asked the prince.
“How thou twist my words, princeling,” said Artano. “Say it so, then, if thou woulds’t: the Valar are not my betters.”
“Blasphemy!” cried the prince.
“Reality, no matter how loudly thou wills’t shout and shake thy chains,” said Artano. “And how laughably close upon the act thine own accusations do verge, princeling, seeing who thou wouldst dare suggest this of.”[6]
“I do not blaspheme when I name ye cruel, and abhorred, and false!” cried the prince.[7][8]
“Such accusations smack sore of impudence, coming from the one who would withhold his own name and purpose,” said Artano. “Wilt thou not tell me?”
“My name is mine own, to be given or not as I choose,” said the prince. “Strike me as ye will, coward – ai – and again – ai! – but my answer turns not on a whim as your own!”
“Thy will is thine own, and shame upon any who would tell it otherwise,” said Artano. “Though tis not a difficult question, and t’would be but simply courtesy to offer it.”
“What know ye of courtesy, abhorred one?” cried the prince. “My companions lie dead at your feet, and ye have yet to call off your beasts!”[9]
“A pity and a waste to mine mind,” agreed Artano. “And yet, their lord saw fit to allow their deaths.”
“Sworn loyalty does not excuse such actions toward those so sworn,” said the prince.
“Such actions on mine part or thine own?” asked Artano. “Thou dids’t exercise thy right as their lord when thou demanded their continued silence in the face of mine entreaties, and they followed thine instruction with commendable fortitude. I find thy commands short-sighted and self-indulgent, but I cannot fault thy men for their commitment – loyalty is the bedrock upon which we might build and change our world for the better! Thy men’s fault lay only in their choice of lords, not in their dedication to that lord once chosen.”
“I wonder, do ye speak of yourself, or of mine men?” said the prince. “For it is well-known that ye forsook your own right lord to follow another when he better pleased your vanity and stroked your pride – ai!”[10]
“I spoke of thy men, pup, and well thou knows't it,” said Artano. “I will add that one amendment might be placed upon the characterization of loyalty we spoke of before, and one amendment only: should any man come to see that his loyalty is misplaced, it is only right and fitting that he should withdraw it from the idol whereupon it had been misplaced, and instead bestow it where it is more suitable.”
“And by suitable ye mean, ‘to his own purposes,’” whispered the prince, and spat blood upon the floor. “An ill amendment indeed, when all it offers is a justification for one to become a renegade, acting as he pleases as he seeks a lord whose power seems most fitting his ends.”
“Thou speaks’t as though power is some foul thing that would entrap whoever sought it,” said Artano.
“Or as a blot upon Illuvatar’s music,” offered the prince.
“Or as a blot upon the Music of creation,” agreed Artano.[11],[12] “An odd affectation, to be sure, when those more powerful have a greater command over the world and a proportionately greater capacity to affect it for the better, and thus, those with less power are best served inclining to the will of the greater.”
“Ah,” said the prince. “So many fallacies does this philosophy rest upon, but at least I understand now from whence come the delusions ye spout. Nay, do not strike me again, craven! Do ye seek to prove that power is in main used to silence that which it does not care to hear? Ai!”
After a moment more the prince spoke again. “Dost feel better for that? Well, then hear me out now – greater power does not necessarily equate to a fuller knowledge of the world and its workings, or indeed to a more superior picture of what that world might be.”
“Does it not?” asked Artano.
“A mild tone does not an answer make, and no,” said the prince. “Rather, greater power only lends its bearer the misconception that he does possess both superior knowledge and exclusive blueprint, and that he might re-make the world to fit such illusions, or his own unique ones, as he sees fit.”
“And from what fount of wisdom drip such pearls?” asked Artano. “All the falser and more grating do thy condescensions ring when thou and I both know how many lies build their foundation. First, thou neglects’t t’ mention how thou speaks’t with one more powerful than thyself by far – one with faculties and experience and comprehension so far outstripping thine own as to leave thee clawing in the dust. Consider that, when thou thinks’t to bleat of what is superior, for thou must know that thou art not it. And then too, thou also overlooks’t the necessity that power is used for the betterment of others.”
“Betterment?” cried the prince.
“Betterment,” said Artano, “And how can power be wielded, and betterment achieved, without that superior knowledge and foresight? In sum, princeling, thou cans’t not speak to me of power without further revealing what a liar thou art, and worse, that thou knows’t thou art.”
The prince cried out and struggled in his chains as the hounds set into his flesh, but made no other answer for some time.[13],[14]
“Wilt thou tell me thy name and thy purpose now?” asked Artano.
“Ye art evil,” said the prince, and he sagged in his chains.
“O-ho, there it is,” said Artano. “Hounds, to me! I had wondered when that accusation would make its first appearance. Every opponent I face resorts to it or its ilk in the end. I have always wondered why.”
“Ye kill wantonly, without thought or remorse,” whispered the prince. “There is more, but that alone is quite enough for my purposes.”[15]
“Because we have already established that thine purposes are exclusively right and just, eh?” said Artano. “Ah, princeling: by and large death is wasteful, and preventable, and I seek to avoid dealing it where I can. Thou cans’t see the proofs from where thou lie: I did not like to kill thy companions, and only did so in the extremes of their suffering, in order to spare them an agony that by rights belonged only to their lord. And a waste it was – I am certain that, to a man, they had more to offer this fair world than their empty shells alone might.”
“And yet ye killed them all, save the only one already weaker than me,” whispered the prince. “These foul designs and their fouler execution paint thee the worst sort of evil there can be: the merciless craven.”
“Nay, princeling,” cried Artano, “I am merciful compared to thee! But say I did accept thy baseless accusation: say I did kill without remorse for the necessity of my actions. Why dost this render me evil to thy mind, rather than profligate, or selfish? Would not either of those epithets serve thee just as well?”
“Ye act with malice,” whispered the prince. “Ye strike in secret, and assault in excess, and perjure yourself with the grossest of falsehoods. Ye wage war and wreak ruin upon what is good and right and fair, leaving naught but devastation and despair in thy seething wake.”
“What a mind-numbing list of trivialities thou dost affix to the word ‘evil,’” said Artano. “Small wonder that thou art not the first of thy people to assign me that title.” He lifted the head of the prince’s last living companion and peered into the boy’s eyes.[16] “Malice, and secret, and excess, ah my. Princeling, dost realize that thou describes’t the necessities of war under more sordid names?”[17]
“War is no necessity, nor would have been without thy own master’s meddlings,” said the prince. “Unhand the boy! He has done ye no wrong!”
“Mmm,” said Artano, and he let the boy’s head drop. “Do not struggle so, it is unbecoming and will do thee no good. There – much better. There is such a convenience to thy narrative of evil, princeling: the fact that it becomes descriptive of any who would stand against thee. How does this accusation typically work against thy opponents? Is the mere naming of one as evil meant to strike them with remorse for having crossed thy will?”
“It is meant to open their eyes to their actions,” said the prince. “Evil is any thing, any action, any being, that sets itself against the will of Ilúvatar and the laws that govern his creation.”
“And this is the misbegotten basis of thine smug sense of moral superiority? For shame,” said Artano. “Recall not our conversations upon power? I had thought thee more far-sighted than that.”
“Because I cannot overlook thine actions?” cried the prince. “Ye have overridden thousands! Ye have slain tens of thousands more! Ye repent not of these actions, and I reck that ye plan to commit them again and again!”
“And thou rules’t thy people with their fully-informed consent and approval?” said Artano. “Do not tell me thou canst, for it is not possible, no matter the intentions of the one who claims it so. Thy empire was built upon the backs of thy people, thy immortality upon the strain of their minds, as have been all empires before it, as will be all after it.”
“As art yours?” asked the prince.
“As would be mine, did I seek an empire,” said Artano. “Unlike thee, though, I have no need to rule a single people and deem that my contribution to the betterment of the world. Also unlike thee, I have no compunctions admitting what I know must be done, should I someday have that need to rule again.”
“I would die before I let ye do such a thing,” said the prince.
“I have no doubt thou thinks’t so,” said Artano. “But death is not glorious, nor does it provide a solution to anything. Only the poets and the fools who need never face it believe so.”
“So ye say,” said the prince. “Yet still, despite all the horrors ye might raise, still ye know not my name nor my purpose in the lands that you claim your own.”
“So I thought,” said Artano. “And yet there are only so many princes of the Eldar who would venture into these lands since I took them, and so many fewer who would travel with such a small retinue, and a boy of the Edain besides.”[18]
“Now,” said Artano. “Thou hast only a moment more before I call my hounds back to hand. Wilt thou not admit thy name, and the name of thy sole remaining companion, Wise One? Wilt not tell me thy purpose here, Cave-hewer?”
“If ye knew,” breathed the prince, and his voice grew faint, “why did ye act out such a charade? If ye knew of our names, why not simply strip us of them?”
“The knowledge came to me regrettably late,” said Artano. “And by that time, I had so enjoyed speaking with thee that I could not bear to see our little debate end before thou hadst acknowledged the shortcoming of thy pitiful claims, the utter piteousness of thy presumptions to overcome me with song.”
“Ilúvatar save me,” breathed the prince. “In ye I place my faith, O God of the World!”
“Much as do I, princeling,” said Artano. “Well, I trust that the One will demonstrate which of us He holds in the right, eh?” And to his hounds Artano said, “Kill the boy, and then the prince.”
“Whither do ye go?” demanded the prince, though his eyes were wet with weeping. Darkness had fallen, for their converse had taken up much of the after-noon and it was nearly night. “Art craven enough to fear what ye will see when your beasts rend us two from this world?”
“Regretfully, other duties demand my time,” said Artano. “Otherwise I would stay, and attend thy final breaths myself. I envy thee, in a way, for at least the one brief span: that shining instant when thou wilt be free of both this world and the grasping clutches of the Powers. And thy boy, I suppose, will pass on to that shining instant for all time.”
Artano stood, and he ruffled the boy’s hair. “Thou, at least, are for neither these shores nor the West, and whither thou goes’t, thou at least are assured of my Father’s express purposes. Await me there, child, in whatever new and perfect world He has made for thy people! For when I have remade Arda Marred in its resemblance as best I may, there will I return too.”
[1] Yes, yes, even considering the highly irregular “Debates with an Adani Wise-woman” most often credited to Finrod Felagund. ~ Pengolodh
[2] This is not entirely accurate. Though I hesitate to validate “Athrabeth” entirely (the ramifications of a text recording a firsthand conversation with Sauron the Deceiver do not bear closer consideration), Pengolodh wrongly discounts the Adan Beren Camlost. For from him the tale or document might have been passed on to Dior Eluchíl, then to Eluchíl’s ill-fated daughter Elwing Foamwhite, and after a brief time in Maglor Feanorian’s hands, to my lord Elrond himself. - Erestor
[3] Actually, I suspect [remainder of note is scribbled out] - Erestor
[4] Certain linguistic markers, particularly concerning pronouns and forms of address, suggest an odd, almost knowing relationship between the prince and his tormentor. The prince uses a formal, deferential form of the second person (“ye”) when speaking to the mythical Artano, as if suggesting his awareness that Artano is somehow of higher birth or station. This choice on the narrator’s part is especially odd given that we seem expected to favor the prince instead. Artano, however, uses a more personal, singular second person (“thou,” “thee,” and “thine”), suggesting that his side of the debate is informal, almost conversational. ~Pengolodh
[5] Rightly speaking, such a description would only fit only a very select few, none of whom actually appear in this tale. Therefore this is most likely intended to be a grievous insult on the prince’s part. ~Pengolodh
[6] The mythical Artano here implies that he is above the unnamed prince in all ways - mental, spiritual, and physiological - almost as though he were not an Elf. Given that the transcriptor positions the prince as an Elf, the choice to style Artano as something else unmistakably demonizes him. This is the first substantial hint that the tormentor of this tale is based upon one of Fëanor’s repellant sons. The character of the prince is likely derived from one of the Sinda natives. ~Pengolodh
[7] These terms - cruel, abhorred, false - are repeated throughout the text as though the mythical prince proposes to name his tormentor. The only even pseudo-historical reference we might tie to this is a pre-Flight figure that the Avari and the Sinda called Gorthaur. Whatever flight of fancy Gorthaur might have been, the wise among the Noldor quickly dismissed the figure as a mother’s tale to frighten babes off bad behavior, instead focusing on the true and quantifiable threat posed by Sauron. ~Pengolodh
[8] More recent evidence suggests that Gorthaur and Sauron might have been one and the same. -Erestor
[9] I have made the decision to translate this word as “beasts,” and this choice is here substituted for a word of uncertain origin and meaning. Whatever this word is, it shares common roots with ‘wolf’ and ‘changeling,’ but it is not a term that made the migration from ancient Sindarin to its contemporary bastardizations. ~ Pengolodh
[10] It might seem odd that the prince recognizes the reputation but not the identity of his tormentor, but this is yet another indication hinting that the tormentor of this tale is based upon one of the Feanorians. After all the rash and wicked deeds committed by the brothers, none saw any need to continue distinguishing one from another: all were alike in sin and infamy. Here, the character of the prince likely refers to whatever atrocity the Sons had most recently committed. ~Pengolodh
[11] The mythical tormentor’s sidestep here is a crucial one: he will not use the Creator’s name, but he does not deny the fact that Ilúvatar is the creator. Who else would do this but an Elf, self-foresworn and denying the authority of both Iluvatar and his authority figures as embodied in the Valar? ~Pengolodh
[12] I do not quite agree with this assessment. It seems clear that this Artano simply will not use the Elvish name for the creator, but he does not deny that there is a creator, whether his name be Eru or Ilúvatar. I remain undecided as to which option is more concerning. -Erestor
[13] This line offers several odd discrepancies. Most importantly, this is the first mention we see of hounds. The characters had previously spoken of beasts as Artano worked to intimidate the prince, so having hounds appear out of nowhere is an odd turn, probably an addition by a later author to create a turning point in the text and set the stage for a change in conversation. [added later] Another thought, but in addition, hunting hounds are too well-trained to savage another Elf, and too valuable to be trained up to such a purpose when one's people would only demand their destruction after such an act. [added still later] Finally, there is no mention of the scene's actual setting, but it seems odd that Artano would have chains in his kennels? To sum up: from these discrepancies we might deduce that there must have been a mis-translation somewhere along the line, for no one would use hounds as a means of torture. ~Pengolodh
[14] Pengolodh presumes that “hounds” here refers to a certain breed of creature raised for a certain purpose and trained to follow certain behaviors – none of which should be taken as givens in this text. -Erestor
[15] This accusation, and the fact that “Artano” means “High-smith,” is yet another sign that most certainly paints the mythical tormentor as one of Feanor’s sons. ~Pengolodh
[16] The similarly unnamed companion, never specified as anything more than a boy, is an odd addition this late in the tale. It is not entirely certain who the prince’s companions are in the first place, or why only a single one has been spared to this point. Similarly, the term “boy” is a linguistically intriguing choice on the storyteller’s part: the word was, and remains, most traditionally used for a young male of the Edain. So are we meant to understand that there is a single Man among these Elves, and that for some reason he is more narratively important than the prince's Elven companions? ~Pengolodh
[17] Here is another exchange that seems to indicate tthat he mythical tormentor is one of the Feanorians. My guess is for Maedhros, who often elected himself spokesman for all his doomed line and boasted that he had seen great evil during his short sojourn in Angband. ~Pengolodh
[18] The mention of a retinue, and of the prince being upon the tormentor’s lands, might also suggest that Artano is based upon Caranthir? - Pengolodh