J. R. R. Tolkien — The Lay of Leithian – Canto VI

So days drew on from the mournful day; the curse of silence no more lay on Doriath, though Daeron's flute and Lúthien's singing both were mute. The murmurs soft awake once more about the woods, the waters roar past the great gates of Thingol's halls; but no dancing step of Lúthien falls on turf or leaf. For she forlorn, where stumbled once, where bruised and torn, with longing on him like a dream, had Beren sat by the shrouded stream Esgalduin the dark and strong, shе sat and mourned in a low song: 'Endless roll the watеrs past! To this my love hath come at last, enchanted waters pitiless, a heartache and a loneliness.' The summer turns. In branches tall she hears the pattering raindrops fall, the windy tide in leafy seas, the creaking of the countless trees; and longs unceasing and in vain to hear one calling once again the tender name that nightingales were called of old. Echo fails. 'Tinúviel! Tinúviel!' the memory is like a knell, a faint and far-off tolling bell: 'Tinúviel! Tinúviel!' 'O mother Melian, tell to me some part of what thy dark eyes see! Tell of thy magic where his feet are wandering! What foes him meet? O mother, tell me, lives he still treading the desert and the hill? Do sun and moon above him shine, do the rains fall on him, mother mine?' 'Nay, Lúthien my child, I fear he lives indeed in bondage drear. The Lord of Wolves hath prisons dark, chains and enchantments cruel and stark, there trapped and bound and languishing now Beren dreams that thou dost sing.' 'Then I alone must go to him and dare the dread in dungeons dim; for none there be that will him aid in all the world, save elven-maid whose only skill were joy and song, and both have failed and left her long.' Then nought said Melian thereto, though wild the words. She wept anew, and ran through the woods like hunted deer with her hair streaming and eyes of fear. Daeron she found with ferny crown silently sitting on beech-leaves brown. On the earth she cast her at his side. 'O Daeron, Daeron, my tears,' she cried, 'now pity for our old days' sake! Make me a music for heart's ache, for heart's despair, and for heart's dread, for light gone dark and laughter dead!' 'But for music dead there is no note,' Daeron answered, and at his throat his fingers clutched. Yet his pipe he took, and sadly trembling the music shook; and all things stayed while that piping went wailing in the hollows, and there intent they listened, their business and mirth, their hearts' gladness and the light of earth forgotten; and bird-voices failed while Daeron's flute in Doriath wailed. Lúthien wept not for very pain, and when he ceased she spoke again: 'My friend, I have a need of friends, as he who a long dark journey wends, and fears the road, yet dare not turn and look back where the candles burn in windows he has left. The night in front, he doubts to find the light that far beyond the hills he seeks.' And thus of Melian's words she speaks, and of her doom and her desire to climb the mountains, and the fire and ruin of the Northern realm to dare, a maiden without helm or sword, or strength of hardy limb, where magic founders and grows dim. His aid she sought to guide her forth and find the pathways to the North, if he would not for love of her go by her side a wanderer. 'Wherefore,' said he, 'should Daeron go into direst peril earth doth know for the sake of mortal who did steal his laughter and joy? No love I feel for Beren son of Barahir, nor weep for him in dungeons drear, who in this wood have chains enow, heavy and dark. But thee, I vow, I will defend from perils fell and deadly wandering into hell.' No more they spake that day, and she perceived not his meaning. Sorrowfully she thanked him, and she left him there. A tree she climbed, till the bright air above the woods her dark hair blew, and straining afar her eyes could view the outline grey and faint and low of dizzy towers where the clouds go, the southern faces mounting sheer in rocky pinnacle and pier of Shadowy Mountains pale and cold; and wide the lands before them rolled. But straightway Daeron sought the king and told him his daughter's pondering, and how her madness might her lead to ruin, unless the king gave heed. Thingol was wroth, and yet amazed; in wonder and half fear he gazed on Daeron, and said: 'True hast thou been. Now ever shall love be us between, while Doriath lasts; within this realm thou art a prince of beech and elm!' He sent for Lúthien, and said: 'O maiden fair, what hath thee led to ponder madness and despair to wander to ruin, and to fare from Doriath against my will, stealing like a wild thing men would kill into the emptiness outside?' 'The wisdom, father,' she replied; nor would she promise to forget, nor would she vow for love or threat her folly to forsake and meek in Doriath her father's will to seek. This only vowed she, if go she must, that none but herself would she now trust, no folk of her father's would persuade to break his will or lend her aid; if go she must, she would go alone and friendless dare the walls of stone. In angry love and half in fear Thingol took counsel his most dear to guard and keep. He would not bind in caverns deep and intertwined sweet Lúthien, his lovely maid, who robbed of air must wane and fade, who ever must look upon the sky and see the sun and moon go by. But close unto his mounded seat and grassy throne there ran the feet of Hirilorn, the beechen queen. Upon her triple boles were seen no break or branch, until aloft in a green glimmer, distant, soft, the mightiest vault of leaf and bough from world's beginning until now was flung above Esgalduin's shores and the long slopes to Thingol's doors. Grey was the rind of pillars tall and silken-smooth, and far and small to squirrels' eyes were those who went at her grey feet upon the bent. Now Thingol made men in the beech, in that great tree, as far as reach their longest ladders, there to build an airy house; and as he willed a little dwelling of fair wood was made, and veiled in leaves it stood above the first branches. Corners three it had and windows faint to see, and by three shafts of Hirilorn in the corners standing was upborne. There Lúthien was bidden dwell, until she was wiser and the spell of madness left her. Up she clomb the long ladders to her new home among the leaves, among the birds; she sang no song, she spoke no words. White glimmering in the tree she rose, and her little door they heard her close. The ladders were taken and no more her feet might tread Esgalduin's shore. Thither at whiles they climbed and brought all things she needed or besought; but death was his, whoso should dare a ladder leave, or creeping there should set one by the tree at night a guard was held from dusk to light about the grey feet of Hirilorn and Lúthien in prison and forlorn. There Daeron grieving often stood in sorrow for the captive of the wood, and melodies made upon his flute leaning against a grey tree-root. Lúthien would from her windows stare and see him far under piping there, and she forgave his betraying word for the music and the grief she heard, and only Daeron would she let across her threshold foot to set. Yet long the hours when she must sit and see the sunbeams dance and flit in beechen leaves, or watch the stars peep on clear nights between the bars of beechen branches. And one night just ere the changing of the light a dream there came, from the West, maybe, or Melian's magic. She dreamed that she heard Beren's voice o'er hill and fell 'Tinúviel' call, 'Tinúviel.' And her heart answered: 'Let me be gone to seek him no others think upon!' She woke and saw the moonlight pale through the slim leaves. It trembled frail upon her arms, as these she spread and there in longing bowed her head, and yearned for freedom and escape. Now Lúthien doth her counsel shape; and Melian's daughter of deep lore knew many things, yea, magics more than then or now know elven-maids that glint and shimmer in the glades. She pondered long, while the moon sank and faded, and the starlight shrank, and the dawn opened. At last a smile on her face flickered. She mused a while, and watched the morning sunlight grow, then called to those that walked below. And when one climbed to her she prayed that he would in the dark pools wade of cold Esgalduin, water clear, the clearest water cold and sheer to draw for her. 'At middle night,' she said, 'in bowl of silver white it must be drawn and brought to me with no word spoken, silently.' Another she begged to bring her wine, in a jar of gold where flowers twine 'and singing let him come to me at high noon, singing merrily.' Again she spake: 'Now go, I pray, to Melian the queen, and say: "thy daughter many a weary hour slow passing watches in her bower; a spinning-wheel she begs thee send."' Then Daeron she called: 'I prithee, friend, climb up and talk to Lúthien!' And sitting at her window then, she said: 'My Daeron, thou hast craft, beside thy music, many a shaft and many a tool of carven wood to fashion with cunning. It were good, if thou wouldst make a little loom to stand in the corner of my room. My idle fingers would spin and weave a pattern of colors, of morn and eve, of sun and moon and changing light amid the beech-leaves waving bright.' This Daeron did and asked her then: 'O Lúthien, O Lúthien, What wilt thou weave? What wilt thou spin?' 'A marvelous thread, and wind therein a potent magic, and a spell I will weave within my web that hell nor all the powers of Dread shall break.' Then Daeron wondered, but he spake no word to Thingol, though his heart feared the dark purpose of her art. And Lúthien now was left alone. A magic song to Men unknown she sang, and singing then the wine with water mingled three times nine; and as in golden jar they lay she sang a song of growth and day; and as they lay in silver white another song she sang, of night, and darkness without end, of height uplifted to the stars, and flight and freedom. And all names of things tallest and longest on earth she sings: the locks of the Longbeard dwarves; the tail of Draugluin the werewolf pale; the body of Glaurung the great drake; the vast upsoaring peaks that quake above the fires in Angband's gloom; the chain Angainor that ere Doom for Morgoth, the just Valar wrought of steel and torment. Names she sought, and sang of Glend the sword of Nan; of Gilim the giant of Eruman; and last and longest named she then the endless hair of Uinen, the Lady of the Sea, that lies through all the waters under skies. Then did she lave her head and sing a theme of sleep and slumbering, profound and fathomless and dark as Lúthien's shadowy hair was dark each thread was more slender and more fine than threads of twilight that entwine in filmy web the fading grass and closing flowers as day doth pass. Now long and longer grew her hair, and fell to her feet, and wandered there like pools of shadow on the ground. Then Lúthien in a slumber drowned was laid upon her bed and slept, till morning through the windows crept thinly and faint. And then she woke, and the room was filled as with a smoke and with an evening mist, and deep she lay thereunder drowsed in sleep. Behold! her hair from windows blew in morning airs, and darkly grew waving about the pillars grey of Hirilorn at break of day. Then groping she found her little shears, and cut the hair about her ears, and close she cropped it to her head, enchanted tresses, thread by thread. Thereafter grew they slow once more, yet darker than their wont before. And now was her labour but begun: long was she spinning, long she spun; and though with elvish skill she wrought, long was her weaving. If men sought to call her, crying from below, 'Nothing I need,' she answered, 'go! I would keep my bed, and only sleep I now desire, who waking weep.' Then Daeron feared, and in amaze he called from under; but three days she answered not. Of cloudy hair she wove a web like misty air of moonless night, and thereof made a robe as fluttering-dark as shade beneath great trees, a magic dress that all was drenched with drowsiness, enchanted with a mightier spell than Melian's raiment in that dell wherein of yore did Thingol roam beneath the dark and starry dome that hung above the dawning world. And now this robe she round her furled, and veiled her garments shimmering white; her mantle blue with jewels bright like crystal stars, the lilies gold, were wrapped and hid; and down there rolled dim dreams and faint oblivious sleep falling about her, to softly creep through all the air. Then swift she takes the threads unused; of these she makes a slender rope of twisted strands yet long and stout, and with her hands she makes it fast unto the shaft of Hirilorn. Now, all her craft and labour ended, looks she forth from her little window facing North. Already the sunlight in the trees is drooping red, and dusk she sees come softly along the ground below, and now she murmurs soft and slow. Now chanting clearer down she cast her long hair, till it reached at last from her window to the darkling ground. Men far beneath her heard the sound; but the slumbrous strand now swung and swayed above her guards. Their talking stayed, they listened to her voice and fell suddenly beneath a binding spell. Now clad as in a cloud she hung; now down her roped hair she swung as light as squirrel, and away, away, she danced, and who could say what paths she took, whose elvish feet no impress made a-dancing fleet?