Scene II - Beleg

“Then Beleg departed with these gifts from Menegroth and went back to the north marches, where he had his lodges, and many friends. Then in Dimbar the Orcs were driven back, and Anglachel rejoiced to be unsheathed; but when winter came, and war was stilled, suddenly his companions missed Beleg, and he returned to them no more.”

      -The Silmarillion, Of Túrin Turambar

[In a park in the country side of England, in the late 1900’s, a tall slender man with black hair approaches a bench where another is sitting. He is less tall, but equally beautiful and graceful, with deer-coloured hair and a pale, wan face.]

Beleg: [comes up to him and sits beside him] Oh, here you are.

Daeron: [turns toward him] So you have returned again, I see.

Beleg: Of course. You wouldn’t expect me to leave you alone; not after last time.

Daeron: [annoyed:] And you still insist on using that disgusting mortal tongue – what is it called? English?

Beleg: I like to use the mortal tongues when I’m in mortal lands, yes. You could at least answer me in English, you know. I mean, Doriathrin’s rather a dead tongue by this age. It’s only been ... several millennia since anyone spoke it.

Daeron: [trying to change the subject:] What of our last meeting?

Beleg: You, my friend, have not seen reason for some time.

Daeron: [nettled:] What means that?

Beleg: Your comments about the Atani were – egregious at the least.

Daeron: I speak only the truth.

Beleg: You were speaking in ignorance.

Daeron: [correcting himself defensively:] I was speaking the truth of what I know.

Beleg: Ah, of what you know. But has it occurred to you that perhaps others may have more experience than you in certain matters?

Daeron: Have you come merely to torment me, or will you leave me?

Beleg: No and no.

Daeron: [sighs] I speak through my own experience.

Beleg: Exactly. And that experience is perhaps affected by your own opinion.

[Daeron says nothing.]

Your experience comes from a meeting with only one Atan, and that was –

[he pauses]

Daeron: [finishing for him:] - egregious, at the least.

[Beleg smiles ironically.]

Beleg: Yes, well, that is what you made it. Now, think through this for a minute. What had Beren ever done to harm you or anyone else of the Eldar?

[Daeron’s face flushes and he begins to speak in anger when Beleg interrupts him.]

Beleg: Falling in love with Lúthien aside. That could be construed as meritorious, actually. We would not have recovered the Silmaril otherwise.

Daeron: [scowls] He could not love as we do.

Beleg: He could not? How do you know that?

Daeron: Such frailty, such ... ephemera could never have the love that we do.

Beleg: I don’t agree with that, not at all. Do you remember – oh, never mind, you weren’t around then –

[Daeron flinches almost imperceptively]

 - when Túrin and I spent those three years together on the marches of Doriath – and that year in Dor Cúarthol –

[he smiles sadly]

- that was the best time in my life. He loved me, like I loved him. He loved me more deeply than any of the Eldar had, even Mablung. I remember once, when we were on the marches of north Doriath, we were resting with some of the other guys, and he, for the first time, opened up to me, and told me some things about his childhood – which he never talked about before, and I don’t think anyone had heard anything about it. He told me about Lalaith, his sister, and about his other sister Nienor, whom he’d never seen, and his wish to be able to see them again. And he told me about his mother, Morwen.

[he sighs]

Then I was able to understand some things that I never had before about him. And I think that he felt closer to me after that, too. Did you know I was the one who found him and his mother’s servants in the woods when they first came to Doriath?

[Daeron looks up at him.]

Daeron: A coincidence...

Beleg: Come again?

Daeron: [explaining:] I also was the one who found Beren first in the woods of Doriath.

Beleg: You and Lúthien.

Daeron: [looks sad] Yes.

Beleg: But, what Túrin told me was a conversation that he had with one of his father’s servants when he was a child, after his sister Lalaith died. He asked him, “Where has Lalaith gone?”

“She will not come back. Where she has gone no man knows; or I do not,” the servant said.

“Has it always been so? Or do we suffer some curse of the wicked King, perhaps, like the Evil Breath?” Túrin asked him.

“I do not know ... The Mountains stand between us and the life that they came from, flying from no man now knows what.”

“We are not afraid any longer,” Túrin said, “not all of us. My father is not afraid, and I will not be; or at least, as my mother, I will be afraid and not show it.”

Then the servant said, “How it will be with your heart I cannot guess; but seldom and to few will you show what is in it.”

[Beleg pauses, perhaps due to his emotion; his face is lowered and Daeron cannot tell. Then he continues:]

But Túrin would always turn his face to the mountains of the North, and he cursed them. But he told me, “Even though I curse these mountains, somehow I feel that my Doom flows from them, and ever when I curse them, an even greater curse shall redound from them back onto me. And yet I would have it no other way, for the hatred of the Black Foe is the greatest gift that any could grant me. I would sooner have that than its laughter or approval.”

[He stops, and looks down. Daeron looks at him very closely and thoughtfully.]

Daeron: [slowly:] It seems that not all mortals are the same.

Beleg: [looks up at him:] If you are referring to the differences between Beren and Túrin, I would say that Beren was more like Túrin than anyone else I’ve known.

Daeron: [carefully:] I have not met Túrin, so I could not say.

[pause]

Beleg: [returning to his earlier thought:] His hatred for the Lord of Fetters did redound on him – and that’s how I died.

Daeron: What do you mean?

Beleg: It’s what I was talking about the other day, when I last saw you – in my effort to rescue Túrin from the orcs, he - well, he killed me by accident.

Daeron: [looks up sharply, speaks almost in anger:] And yet you – you love this mortal, and all mortals? Cúthalion, you have fallen to a folly deeper than I ever fathomed in you.

Beleg: No, no, Daeron old chap. You don’t understand at all, once again. You’re blinded by your own opinions, which are so old now that it seems time would wear them out if nothing else. Your tunnel vision –

Daeron: [interrupts him:] “Tunnel vision”? I am not familiar with such mortal idioms.

Beleg: It means you’ve got blinders on your eyes and you can’t see anything else, through your own choice. Listen to me: It wasn’t Túrin who killed me. That’s what I’m trying to say, and what I was trying to say about the Music last time. It was the hatred of Morgoth that killed me. It was what Túrin was talking about, that day on the north marches. It wasn’t Beren that took Lúthien away from you, nor was it Lúthien’s own choice to reject you.

[Daeron flinches.]

- It was in the Song. The Music. Don’t you get it yet? If Beren and Lúthien hadn’t loved one another, we wouldn’t have the Silmaril. Morgoth wouldn’t have been overthrown.

Daeron: [mutters:] Lúthien never loved Beren.

Beleg: [incredulous:] How can you say that? Of course she did. Would she have gone on to Tol Sirion, to Angband, and even beyond the Circles of the World if she did not?

[Daeron does not respond, but looks troubled.]

Daeron: [softly, as if making a concession:] I – I cannot understand it. That is all.

Beleg: [gentle:] Precisely. You do not understand it, so you cannot think that it is right. I had the same feeling before Túrin came.

[Daeron looks up sharply to see if he is mocking him; but Beleg is speaking in all seriousness.]

Beleg: I knew I couldn’t have any friend better than old Mablung. Sure, I thought Beren was a pretty cool guy when I knew him, but I figured that I could never actually have a friend that close who was a mortal. But I didn’t have enough experience to know anything about that. When I met Túrin, well, it all changed.

Daeron: I have no wish to know any other of mortal kind.

Beleg: Well, if you want to live in eternal ignorance, then that’s a good way to go. But if you want to know more about the world – I suggest broadening your horizons a bit.

Daeron: [muttering, as if to himself:] That Thingol himself would take one of these as his own son!

[He shakes his head in unbelief. Beleg leans forward and begins to speak earnestly:]

Beleg: Something you may have conveniently forgotten, or wish to not acknowledge, Daeron, is that the Atani are Eruhíni as well. They are our brethren, or brothers.

[Daeron turns away, his face twists as if trying to hold back tears.]

Daeron: [painfully:] No, no, please don’t tell me that.

Beleg: You can try to keep denying it, but you’ll have to face it some day. The One Himself, to undo the Marring, entered the world as one of them.

Daeron: Cease, please! Will you not leave me? I must think on these things. I need to be alone.

[Beleg looks at him rather sadly.]

Daeron: Farewell.

[With that he turns and strides into the woods quickly, soon disappearing from view. Beleg looks after him for a moment, then sighs and turns away.]

Author’s Note: The part in italics is an abridged version of Túrin’s conversation with Sador from Narn i Hîn Húrin, in Unfinished Tales.