Quenya
ómaryo lírinen airetário
in [by means of] her voice’s song, of the holy-queen
Element in
Variations
- ōma-ryo līrinen aire-tārio ✧ RGEO/59
ómaryo lírinen airetário
in [by means of] her voice’s song, of the holy-queen
Element in
Variations
- ōma-ryo līrinen aire-tārio ✧ RGEO/59
The 7th phrase of the prose Namárië. Tolkien altered the text from the poetic version as follows:
> ómaryo airetári-lírinen >> ómaryo lírinen airetário
Tolkien removed the element airetári “holy queen” from the compound and turned it into a separate genitive element airetário “holy queen’s, of [the] holy queen”. Presumably it modifies the noun lírë “song” in the instrumental phrase ómaryo lírinen “in [by means of] her voice’s song”.
The preceding genitive ómaryo “her voice’s” also modifies the noun lírë. The placement of the two genitives before and after the noun help clarify that they modify the same noun. In English, there isn’t a natural way of having two such distinct modifications of the same noun. This could help explain why the English poetic translation of this phrase is so different from the Elvish: “in the song of her voice, holy and queenly”.
On the other hand, it could be that this phrase is still semi-poetic, since Tolkien gave different “prose” translations of the phrase elsewhere (P17/76, PM/364).