Thoughts of Írimë, daughter of Indis by Alvian  

The Grief of Mortal Men
The grief of mortal Men is strange, and unlike the grief of the Eldar.
When first Aradan son of Marach came with his kin to serve my brother, the Noldóran, they were unlearned in our lore, and rough were their songs. Seldom did I hear them; for before us they sang little. Yet at times, when they held their gatherings apart, the wind would bring me broken snatches of their music.
At first many of those songs seemed dark and monotonous, and in them dwelt a shadow of despair; they pleased us little. But as the Men learned our tongue, their songs also changed. More often they sang of parting and death. Often the song told of a young man riding northward. A black arrow found him, or a black sword, and his friends laid him down upon the earth.
“Do not weep, beloved,” he would say, while breath departed from him. “You shall find a faithful friend still.”
A strange mortal thing, to wish another love upon the beloved. Yet the faces of Men seemed to lighten when they sang of the world continuing in love after they were gone.
Many springs later, when young Hador Lórindol dwelt among us, I heard him once as he groomed the horse my brother had given him.
“How good it is to die for the King,” he sang.
But when he saw me draw near, his face changed; and at once he sang instead, “I’ll ride through the cattle to my lady fair,” and fled as though I had found him stealing treasure.
He never sang that song before my brother.
Love that serves must often hide itself, when it is pure; for it cannot bear to be mistaken for flattery.
Now Hador’s hair is streaked with grey, and my brother’s heart is heavy.

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How swiftly ice melts beneath the rays of a new light

It seemed that we had only just emerged from the dark ices of the Helcaraxë, weary and no longer believing that light or warmth awaited us ahead. But then Arien came forth into the sky, and everything around us burst into flower and began to grow, as though the seeds sleeping beneath the earth had waited only for that hour. I remember how those who walked beside us laughed, and how I too laughed, turning my face towards the rays.
Nerwen alone looked up at the sky without a smile. I laid a hand upon her shoulder, thinking that the memory of the shores of Aman we had left behind, and of blood upon the sand, kept her heart from warming beneath the new rays. But she whispered, “What burns brightly is soon spent,” and turned away.
Suddenly I remembered Míriel, the mother of my eldest brother. Her life might have endured until the end of Arda, had she not given all her strength to his bright flame. For a moment the new light ceased to gladden me, and I understood what Nerwen had meant: the rays of Anor brought the world not only riotous flowering, but age.

How there is ice that never melts

I remember how Nelyafinwë bowed his head as he yielded the crown to my brother. My brother Nolofinwë is generous in forgiveness, and in his presence none would have dared remind Fëanáro’s eldest son of the past.
But Turukáno was the first to leave the hall, and rode out to take the watch so that he would not be present at the feast. I went out to see him off and speak to him of patience. The gold of sunset trembled around us.
“So shone the gold of her hair,” he said. “She followed me where even my mother would not go, so that I would not be left in the darkness without her light. There was no blood upon her hands, no falsehood in her. The sons of Fëanáro shed blood and betrayed us, and behold, they live, and she is dead.”
And I found no honest words with which to speak to him of patience.
Ever since we first set foot upon these lands, each winter we walk bearing torches in memory of the crossing of the Ice.
At that time the sons of Fëanáro are never among us.

How spring comes in its appointed season

When much later Findaráto stayed with us and spoke to my brother, the Noldóran, of the Atani, the Second People, he mentioned a woman wearied by long wandering. She was still young, but her fëa took no joy in life, and when spring came, she turned away from its flowers and colours.
Not so with us, the Eldar. Míriel alone could not be healed by the beauty of Arda. We were not made for endless sorrow. The wise say that our spirits must endure until the end of Arda, and therefore, however great the grief of the Eldar may be, spring, sovereign, merciless, awakens in us the will to live.
Every winter I remember the Ice and the last time I held my husband’s hand. He remained there, and it seemed to me that my spirit had remained with him. And every spring I am called back to life, and who among the wise can say which of the two is the more painful?

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