Turin's first sorrow
From
Steve Morrison@21:1/5 to
All on Thu Oct 29 19:16:07 2020
XPost: alt.fan.tolkien
This has bothered me for some time: /what/ was Turin's first sorrow
again?
After Turin left home for Doriath and was parted from Morwen, the text
of /CoH/ says, "This was the first of the sorrows of Turin." (/CoH/ p.
75, or /UT/ p. 73 for the corresponding passage in the /Narn/.) But
how can that be true? Lalaith had already died at that point!
Obviously the death in childhood of his beloved little sister was a
huge sorrow for him.
One possibility is that this was simply a traditional phrase which was
copied from earlier versions of the story. In fact, there is something
like it in the tale of "Turambar and the Foaloke": on p. 72 of /BoLT
2/ we read, "Very bitter indeed was that sundering, and for long Turin
wept and would not leave his mother, and this was the first of the
many sorrows that befell him in life." But in that case, it should
still have been edited out once the character of Lalaith was
introduced.
On the other hand, maybe it means "the first of the sorrows of Turin
*which was caused by Morgoth's curse*". I don't know, what do people
think?
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)