The Lays of Beleriand. Christopher Tolkien

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СКАЧАТЬ belly cowering, whom they bleeding cast880in deathly swoon on the dung and sloughof their loathsome lair. O Light of Valinor!and ye glorious Gods! How gleam their eyes,and their tongues are red!’ ‘Yet I Túrin will wrestfrom their hungry hands, or to Hell be dragged,885or sleep with the slain in the slades of Death.Thy lamp shall lead us, and my lore rekindleand wise wood-craft!’ ‘O witless hunter,thy words are wild – wolves unsleepingand wizardry ward their woeful captives;890unerring their arrows; the icy steelof their curvéd blades cleaves unbluntedthe meshes of mail; the mirk to piercethose eyes are able; their awful laughterthe flesh freezes! I fare not thither,895for fear fetters me in the Forest of Night:better die in the dark dazed, forwandered,than wilfully woo that woe and anguish!I know not the way.’ ‘Are the knees then weakof Flinding go-Fuilin? Shall free-born Gnome900thus show himself a shrinking slave,who twice entrapped has twice escaped?Remember the might and the mirth of yore,the renown of the Gnomes of Nargothrond!’

Thus Beleg the bowman quoth bold-hearted,	905
but Flinding fought the fear of his heart,
and loosed the light of his lamp of blue,
now brighter burning. In the black mazes
enwound they wandered, weary searching;
by the tall tree-boles towering silent	910
oft barred and baffled; blindly stumbling
over rock-fast roots writhing coiléd;
and drowsed with dreams by the dark odours,
till hope was hidden. ‘Hark thee, Flinding;
viewless voices vague and distant,	915
a muffled murmur of marching feet
that are shod with stealth shakes the stillness.’

‘No noise I hear’, the Gnome answered,
‘thy hope cheats thee.’ ‘I hear the chains
clinking, creaking, the cords straining,	920
and wolves padding on worn pathways.
I smell the blood that is smeared on blades
that are cruel and crooked; the croaking laughter –
now, listen! louder and louder comes,’
the hunter said. ‘I hear no sound’,	925
quoth Flinding fearful. ‘Then follow after!’
with bended bow then Beleg answered,
‘my cunning rekindles, my craft needs not
thy lamp’s leading.’ Leaping swiftly
he shrank in the shadows; with shrouded lantern	930
Flinding followed him, and the forest-darkness
and drowsy dimness drifted slowly
unfolding from them in fleeing shadows,
and its magic was minished, till they marvelling saw
they were brought to its borders. There black-gaping	935
an archway opened. By ancient trunks
it was framed darkly, that in far-off days
the lightning felled, now leaning gaunt
their lichen-leprous limbs uprooted.
There shadowy bats that shrilled thinly	940
flew in and flew out the air brushing
as they swerved soundless. A swooning light
faint filtered in, for facing North
they looked o’er the leagues of the lands of mourning,
o’er the bleak boulders, o’er the blistered dunes	945
and dusty drouth of Dor-na-Fauglith;
o’er that Thirsty Plain, to the threatening peaks,
now glimpséd grey through the grim archway,
of the marching might of the Mountains of Iron,
and faint and far in the flickering dusk	950
the thunderous towers of Thangorodrim.
But backward broad through the black shadows
from that darkling door dimly wandered
the ancient Orc-road; and even as they gazed
the silence suddenly with sounds of dread	955
was shaken behind them, and shivering echoes
from afar came fleeting. Feet were tramping;
trappings tinkling; and the troublous murmur
of viewless voices in the vaulted gloom
came near and nearer. ‘Ah! now I hear’,	960
said Flinding fearful; ‘flee we swiftly
from hate and horror and hideous faces,
from fiery eyes and feet relentless!
Ah! woe that I wandered thus witless hither!’

Then beat in his breast, foreboding evil,	965
with dread unwonted the dauntless heart
of Beleg the brave. With blanchéd cheeks
in faded fern and the feathery leaves
of brown bracken they buried them deep,
where dank and dark a ditch was cloven	970
on the wood’s borders by waters oozing,
dripping down to die in the drouth below.
Yet hardly were they hid when a host to view
round a dark turning in the dusky shadows
came swinging sudden with a swift thudding	975
of feet after feet on fallen leaves.
In rank on rank of ruthless spears
that war-host went; weary stumbling
countless captives, cruelly laden
with bloodstained booty, in bonds of iron	980
they haled behind them, and held in ward
by the wolf-riders and the wolves of Hell.
Their road of ruin was a-reek with tears:
many a hall and homestead, many a hidden refuge
of Gnomish lords by night beleaguered	985
their o’ermastering might of mirth bereft,
and fair things fouled, and fields curdled
with the bravest blood of the beaten people.

To an army of war was the Orc-band waxen
that Blodrin Bor’s son to his bane guided	990
to the wood-marches, by the welded hosts
homeward hurrying to the halls of mourning
swiftly swollen to a sweeping plague.
Like a throbbing thunder in the threatening deeps
of cavernous clouds o’ercast with gloom	995
now swelled on a sudden a song most dire,
and their hellward hymn their home greeted;
flung from the foremost of the fierce spearmen,
who viewed mid vapours vast and sable
the threefold peaks of Thangorodrim,	1000
it rolled rearward, rumbling darkly,
like drums in distant dungeons empty.
Then a werewolf howled; a word was shouted
like steel on stone; and stiffly raised
their spears and swords sprang up thickly	1005
as the wild wheatfields of the wargod’s realm
with points that palely pricked the twilight.
As by wind wafted then waved they all,
and bowed, as the bands with beating measured
moved on mirthless from the mirky woods,	1010
from the topless trunks of Taur-na-Fuin,
neath the leprous limbs of the leaning gate.

Then Beleg the bowman in bracken cowering,
on the loathly legions through the leaves peering,
saw Túrin the tall as he tottered forward	1015
neath the whips of the Orcs as they whistled o’er him;
and rage arose in his wrathful heart,
and piercing pity outpoured his tears.
The hymn was hushed; the host vanished
down the hellward slopes of the hill beyond;	1020
and silence sank slow and gloomy
round the trunks of the trees of Taur-na-Fuin,
and nethermost night drew near outside.

‘Follow me, Flinding, from the forest curséd!
Let us haste to his help, to Hell if need be	1025
or to death by the darts of the dread Glamhoth!’:
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