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APPENDIX.

C. S. Lewis's Commentary on the Lay of Leithian

I give here the greater part of this commentary, for which see pp. 150-1.*
Lewis's line-references are of course changed throughout to those in this
book. The letters H, J, K, L, P, R refer to the imaginary manuscripts of
the ancient poem.
For the text criticised in the first entry of the commentary see
pp. 157-8, i.e. text B(1).

Meats were sweet. This is the reading of PRK. Let
any one believe if he can that our author gave such a
cacophany. J His drink was sweet his dishes dear.
L His drink was sweet his dish was dear. (Many
scholars have rejected lines x - 8 altogether as un-
worthy of the poet. 'They were added by a later hand
to supply a gap in the archtype,' says Peabody; and
adds 'The more melodious movement and surer nar-
rative stride of the passage beginning with line g [But
fairer than are born to Men] should convince the
dullest that here, and here only, the authentic work of
the poet begins.' I am not convinced that H, which
had better be quoted in full, does not give the true
opening of the Geste.

That was long since in ages old
When first the stars in heaven rolled,
There dwelt beyond Broseliand,
While loneliness yet held the land,
A great king comely under crown,
The gold was woven in his gown,
The gold was clasped about his feet,
The gold about his waist did meet.
And in his many-pillared house
Many a gold bee and ivory mouse
And amber chessmen on their field
Of copper, many a drinking horn
Dear purchased from shy unicorn
Lay piled, with gold in gleaming grot.
All these he had etc.)

(* An account of it, with some citation, has been given by Humphrey Carpenter in The
Inklings, pp. 29-31, where the view expressed in his Biography, p. 145, that 'Tolkien did
not accept any of Lewis's suggestions', is corrected.)

[It seems virtually certain that it was Lewis's criticism that led my father
to rewrite the opening (the B (2) text, p. 154). If the amber chessmen and
ivory mice found no place in the new version, it is notable that in Lewis's
lines occur the words 'And in his many-pillared house'. These are not