níve qímari ringa ambar

the pale phantoms in her cold bosom

The third line of the Oilima Markirya poem (MC/213). The first word is plural of the adjective níva “pale” modifying the plural of the noun qímar “phantom”. This is followed by the adjective ringa “cold” modifying the noun ambar “bosom”. It seems that the words “her” and “in” do not appear in the Quenya phrase, although Gilson, Welden, and Hostetter suggested ambar might be an idiomatic dative form of a variant noun amba “bosom” (PE16/82, notes on line #3).

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

> nív-e qímar-i ringa ambar = “✱pale-(plural) phantom-(plural) cold bosom”

Element in

• Eq. Oilima Markirya “The Last Ark”