The Road Goes Ever On. Part 2
translated into Sindarin by Ryszard Derdzinski
The Road Goes Ever On is a very important poem which, according to Professor Tolkien, was composed by Mr. Bilbo Baggins from the Shire. Its second part was composed by Frodo Baggins. I present here my Sindarin translation of this second part of The Old Walking Song Adel i vennas which comes from The Lord of the Rings, Book VI, The Grey Havens (pp. 326-327). You should see also its first part by Bilbo Baggins.
Adel i vennas dartha aen
I ven eden, annon thurin;
Ar ae na-lim im bant nef hain,
I aur telitha na-vedui
Ir aphadathon i min haill
annûn od Ithil, rhûn 'd Anar.
Original poem by J.R.R. Tolkien
Still
round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
Word-for-word translation
Behind the corner waits maybe
The road new, gate secret;
And though often I went near them,
The day will-come at-last
When I-will-follow the roads hidden
West of Moon, east of Sun.
Notes (selected comments)
Most words can be found in the standard dictionaries. The form *ae 'if; though' comes from D. Salo's movie dialogs (cf. Quenya ai- 'if-'). The adverb *na-lim is to represent English 'often' (cf. *lim 'many', and na-vedui 'at last': *na-lim 'at many = often'. The form 'd is my elision of od 'from' - it's a poetical elision due to the metrum.