Quenya 

ortírië

patronage

#ortírië noun "patronage", isolated from ortírielyanna "to thy patronage" (VT44:7). A verbal stem #ortir- "over-watch" (look after, care for, protect) seems implied.

ortírië

noun. *patronage, (lit.) watching over (from above)

Quenya [VT44/05; VT44/07] Group: Eldamo. Published by

ortírielyanna

Ortírielyanna

Tolkien’s translation of the Sub Tuum Praesidium prayer into Quenya, composed sometime in the 1950s (VT43/7), first published in the “Words of Joy (Part Two)” article in Vinyar Tengwar #44 (VT44/5). Tolkien did not provide an English translation of the prayer; following the editors of the “Words of Joy” article, I used a modern English translation of the prayer (VT44/5).

Further discussion can be found in the analysis of the individual phrases. My analysis largely follows that of the “Ortírielyanna” section (VT44/5-11) of the “Words of Joy” article.

ortírielyanna rucimmë, aina eruontari

we fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God

The first line of Ortírielyanna, Tolkien’s translation of the Sub Tuum Praesidium prayer. The first word Ortírielyanna “to thy patronage” is 2nd-person-polite (-lya “thy”) ablative (-nna “to”) form of ortírië “patronage”. The second word rucimmë “we fly” is the 1st-person-plural-exclusive inflection (-mmë “we”) of the verb ruc- “flee”. The third word is aina “holy” and the last word is Eruontari, a name of Mary as the genetrix (female begetter) of the Son of God.

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

> ortírie-lya-nna ruci-mme, Aina Eru-ontari = “✱patronage-thy-to flee-we, Holy God-genetrix”.

Conceptual Development: The first word was initially written Ortírielyanne (with final e instead of a), but Wynne, Smith and Hostetter suggested this is probably a slip (VT44/5). The third word was initially written Aini >> Aina. Tolkien considered several different Quenya translations for “Mother of God”; ignoring incomplete forms, the development was Eruamillë >> Eruontarië >> Eruontari.

ruc-

fly (to)

#ruc- (2) vb. "fly (to)", in the phrase ortírielyanna rucimmë, "to thy patronage we fly" (VT44:7). If this is really the same verb as ruc- #1 above, it would indicate that ruc- combined with the allative case implies flying in horror to some refuge (denoted by the allative noun).