"GL4" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol03)

IV.
THE LAY OF LEITHIAN
RECOMMENCED.

When my father began the Lay of Leithian again from the beginning, he
did not at first intend much more, perhaps, than a revision, an improve-
ment of individual lines and short passages, but all on the original plan
and structure. This, at least, is what he did with Canto I; and he carried
out the revisions on the old B typescript. But with Canto II he was
quickly carried into a far more radical reconstruction, and was virtually
writing a new poem on the same subject and in the same metre as the old.
This, it is true, was partly because the story of Gorlim had changed, but
it is also clear that a new impulse had entered, seeking a new rather than
merely altered expression. The old typescript was still used at least as a
physical basis for the new writing, but for a long stretch the typed verses
were simply struck through and the new written on inserted pages and
slips.
The old Canto II of just over 300 lines was expanded to 500, and
divided into new Cantos 2 and 3 (the old and the new can be conveniently
distinguished by Roman and Arabic numerals).
The rewriting on the old typescript continues for a short distance into
Canto III (new Canto 4) and then stops. On the basis of this now
extremely chaotic text my father wrote out a fine, decorated manuscript,
'C', inevitably introducing some further changes; and this stops only a
few lines short of the point where the rewriting on the B-text stops.
Subsequently, an amanuensis typescript ('D') was made, in two copies,
apparently with my father's supervision, but for the moment nothing
need be said of this beyond noticing that he made certain changes to these
texts at a later time.

The rewriting on the B-text was no doubt a secondary stage, of which
the preliminary workings no longer exist; for in the case of the new
Canto 4 such preliminary drafts are extant. On one of these pages, and
quite obviously done at the same time as the verse-drafts, my father drew
a floor-plan of part of the house 99 Holywell Street, Oxford, to which he
removed in 1950. He doubtless drew the plan shortly before moving
house, while pondering its best arrangement. It is clear then that a new
start on the Lay of Leithian was one of the first things that he turned to
when The Lord of the Rings was complete.
I give below the text of the manuscript C in its final form (that is, after
certain changes had been made to it) so far as it goes (line 624), incor-

porating one or two very minor alterations made later to the D type-
script(s), followed by a further short section (lines 625 - 60) found only in
draft before being added to D. Brief Notes and Commentary are given on
pp, 348 ff.

THE LAY OF LEITHIAN.

I. OF THINGOL IN DORIATH.