the fickle folk now loudly cried
with Felagund who would not ride.
Orodreth spake: ‘The kingdom now
660is mine alone. I will allow no spilling of kindred blood by kin.
But bread nor rest shall find herein
these brothers who have set at nought
the house of Finrod.’ They were brought.
665Scornful, unbowed, and unashamed stood Celegorm. In his eye there flamed a light of menace. Curufin
smiled with his crafty mouth and thin.
‘Be gone for ever—ere the day
670shall fall into the sea. Your way shall never lead you hither more,
nor any son of F?anor;
nor ever after shall be bond
of love twixt yours and Nargothrond.’
675‘We will remember it,’ they said, and turned upon their heels, and sped, and took their horses and such folk
as still them followed. Nought they spoke but sounded horns, and rode like fire, 680and went away in anger dire.
Towards Doriath the wanderers now
were drawing nigh. Though bare the bough, though cold the wind, and grey the grasses through which the hiss of winter passes, 685they sang beneath the frosty sky uplifted o’er them pale and high.
They came to Mindeb’s narrow stream
that from the hills doth leap and gleam by western borders where begin
690the spells of Melian to fence in King Thingol’s land, and stranger steps to wind bewildered in their webs.
There sudden sad grew Beren’s heart:
‘Alas, Tinúviel, here we part
695and our brief song together ends, and sundered ways each lonely wends!’
‘Why part we here? What dost thou say,
just at the dawn of brighter day?’
‘For safe thou’rt come to borderlands
700o’er which in the keeping of the hands of Melian thou wilt walk at ease
and find thy home and well-loved trees.’
‘My heart is glad when the fair trees
far off uprising grey it sees
705of Doriath inviolate.
Yet Doriath my heart did hate,
and Doriath my feet forsook,
my home, my kin. I would not look
on grass nor leaf there evermore
710without thee by me. Dark the shore of Esgalduin the deep and strong!
Why there alone forsaking song
by endless waters rolling past
must I then hopeless sit at last,
715and gaze at waters pitiless in heartache and in loneliness?’
‘For never more to Doriath
can Beren find the winding path,
though Thingol willed it or allowed;
720for to thy father there I vowed to come not back save to fulfill
the quest of the shining Silmaril,
and win by valour my desire.
“Not rock nor steel nor Morgoth’s fire 725nor all the power of Elfinesse, shall keep the gem I would possess”:
thus swore I once of Lúthien
more fair than any child of Men.
My word, alas! I must achieve,
730though sorrow pierce and parting grieve.’
‘Then Lúthien will not go home,
but weeping in the woods will roam,
nor peril heed, nor laughter know.
And if she may not by thee go
735against thy will thy desperate feet she will pursue, until they meet,
Beren and Lúthien, love once more
on earth or on the shadowy shore.’
‘Nay, Lúthien, most brave of heart,
740thou makest it more hard to part.
Thy love me drew from bondage drear,
but never to that outer fear,
that darkest mansion of all dread,
shall thy most blissful light be led.’
745‘Never, never!’ he shuddering said.
But even as in his arms she pled,
a sound came like a hurrying storm.
There Curufin and Celegorm
in sudden tumult like the wind
750rode up. The hooves of horses dinned loud on the earth. In rage and haste
madly northward they now raced
the path twixt Doriath to find
and the shadows dreadly dark entwined
755of Taur-na-fuin. That was their road most swift to where their kin abode
in the east, where Himling’s watchful hill o’er Aglon’s gorge hung tall and still.
They saw the wanderers. With a shout
760straight on them swung their hurrying rout as if neath maddened hooves to rend
the lovers and their love to end.
But as they came their horses swerved
with nostrils wide and proud necks curved; 765Curufin, stooping, to saddlebow with mighty arm did Lúthien throw,
and laughed. Too soon; for there a spring fiercer than tawny lion-king
maddened with arrows barbéd smart,
770greater than any hornéd hart that hounded to a gulf leaps o’er,
there Beren gave, and with a roar
leaped on Curufin; round his neck
his arms entwined, and all to wreck
775both horse and rider fell to ground; and there they fought without a sound.
Dazed in the grass did Lúthien lie
beneath bare branches and the sky;
the Gnome felt Beren’s fingers grim
780close on his throat and strangle him, and out his eyes did start, and tongue gasping from his mouth there hung.
Up rode Celegorm with his spear,
and bitter death was Beren near.
785With elvish steel he nigh was slain whom Lúthien won from hopeless chain,
but baying Huan sudden sprang
before his master’s face with fang
white-gleaming, and with bristling hair, 790as if he on boar or wolf did stare.
The horse in terror leaped aside,
and Celegorm in anger cried:
‘Curse thee, thou baseborn dog, to dare against thy master teeth to bare!’
795But dog nor horse nor rider bold would venture near the anger cold
of mighty Huan fierce at bay.
Red were his jaws. They shrank away,
and fearful eyed him from afar:
800nor sword nor knife, nor scimitar, no dart of bow, nor cast of spear,
master nor man did Huan fear.
There Curufin had left his life,
had Lúthien not stayed that strife.
805Waking she rose and softly cried standing distressed at Beren’s side:
‘Forbear thy anger now, my lord!
nor do the work of Orcs abhorred;
for foes there be of Elfinesse,
810unnumbered, and they grow not less, while here we war by ancient curse
distraught, and all the world to worse decays and crumbles. Make thy peace!’
Then Beren did Curufin release;
815but took his horse and coat of mail and took his knife there gleaming pale, hanging sheathless, wrought of steel.
No flesh could leeches ever heal
that point had pierced; for long ago
820the dwarves had made it, singing slow enchantments, where their hammers fell in Nogrod ringing like a bell.
Iron as tender wood it cleft,
and sundered mail like woollen weft.
825But other hands its haft now held; its master lay by mortal felled.
Beren uplifting him, far him flung,
and cried ‘Begone!’, with stinging tongue; ‘Begone! thou renegade and fool,
830and let thy lust in exile cool!
Arise and go, and no more work
like Morgoth’s slaves or curséd Orc;
and deal, proud son of F?anor,
in deeds more proud than heretofore!’
835Then Beren led Lúthien away, while Huan still there stood at bay.
‘Farewell,’ cried Celegorm the fair.
‘Far get you gone! And better were
to die forhungered in the waste
840than wrath of F?anor’s sons to taste, that yet may reach o’er dale and hill.
No gem, nor maid, nor Silmaril
shall ever long in thy grasp lie!
We curse thee under cloud and sky,