Scene IV - Maglor

“But seeking for Lúthien in despair he wandered upon strange paths, and passing into the mountains he came into the East of Middle-earth, where for many ages he made lament beside dark waters for Lúthien, daughter of Thingol, most beautiful of all living things.”

      -Of Beren and Lúthien, The Silmarillion

[A decade later: Daeron has returned to his solitude in the woods, wandering alone. He has a piece of wood in his hand, and is playing whittling with it with, as if not sure what he is making, though it begins to look suspiciously like a flute. He is walking, then sits down under a tree. A voice suddenly wafts down to him from above, speaking in Sindarin:]

So you also are here.

[He starts up, startled, and backs away, looking up into the tall tree boughs. There he sees a figure that startles him even more: a person with dark hair surrounding a white face, hollow cheeks, and sunken eyes devoid of light, ringed about with dark lines; and yet within them burns a fierce fire. The haunted face makes him start back, and move away from the tree. Then the figure speaks again.]

Maglor: Even you turn away from me in disgust.

Daeron: Nay, it is not disgust I feel; merely surprise.

Maglor: You know me?

Daeron: I deem that once I did, and yet I cannot place you.

Maglor: Then better it is for you that you know me not, lest you be drawn into a curse deeper than your imagining. Now get you gone, that you may feel no more the echoes of my torment.

Daeron: Who are you?

Maglor: I have no longer any name among Elves or Men.

Daeron: All have names, save those who deny them.

Maglor: [sneering:] And what may your name be, Dark-Elf Minstrel?

Daeron: [surprised:] It seems you already know me, so I need not say.

Maglor: Yet ever you were one of that nature – self-pitying, selfish.

Daeron: [angry:] Naught may you say, e’en though I knew you!

Maglor: [dangerously soft:] You do know me; yet I am so altered that even you may not recognize me! You who spent long hours with me at the Reuniting, winding our instruments together, the woodwind and string. Yes, you would deny me.

Daeron: [finally understands; amazed:] The Reuniting! Mag-

Maglor: [holding up his hand; in anguish and ire:] Speak not that name! It belongs not to me. He who bore that name was lost in the Curse long ago, and was swallowed up by his Oath, and he returns not. In the blackness of the Void he dwells, bereft of his kin, and all light and joy.

[Daeron does not answer.]

Maglor [sneering:] Why do you not speak, silent one? Lost in thoughts of your threnodies beside the dark waters?

Daeron: [looking up; sharply:] He who speaks only of himself would beware to speak such to one who thinks only of another!

Maglor: [caustic:] Yea, merely another. That I deem well.

[darkly:]

But when one is lost in a dim void, stripped of all else, what more can he think of but himself?

Daeron: [angrily:] You know nothing of –

[Then he stops, perhaps realizing this is a moot point with his present listener.]

Maglor: [sarcastic:] Yea, continue: I know nothing, you would say? I know nothing of the torment of loss, of pain, of sorrow? I know nothing - ?

[At that his eyes blaze forth, and Daeron, caught off his guard, falls down to his knees, his mind seared with the pain of the Silmaril, burning a hand; of a long blood-stained oath unfulfilled; of murder; of loss of all kin and loved ones; of a rejection of the world, of Endor and of Aman, so complete that there is no hope that he might ever come thither while the world lasts; a knowledge that coming there is worse than the perennial exile on the Hither Shore. He falls on his face, tearing the grass with his hands, and at last the connection fades, the vision ceases, and he looks up through blurred eyes. Maglor has turned away from him, in pain or shame he does not know. It appears he is about to swing down the tree and leave, when Daeron calls out to him, softly.]

Daeron: Dartho! Do not go!

Maglor: [turns back with scarcely concealed pain in his eyes]

      Tell me not that you did not know, or that you pity me. I spit upon your pity.

Daeron: I offer you no pity.

Maglor: That is well, for I would not accept it if you did.

[snorts]

I will not listen to one who sighs for his own fate all his days, and goes not to the Blessed Realm only because of his own self-pity. I cannot comprehend such folly.

Daeron: [angry:] Such love you do not understand.

Maglor: [acid:] Do I not, Dark-Elf Minstrel? How know you such a thing? That my brother fled from my face, and cast himself in a burning chasm, that I see him never more? That is the last that ever I saw of him, or any of my kin.

[becoming sarcastic:]

Not a lovely vision for last days, is it? A memory to haunt me and yet guard me through the ages, whilst I stride on the edge of madness in the haunts of my mind.

Daeron: [softer:] I am not an enemy to you. I am sorry if my conduct appears such to you. Please, be not so hasty toward me.

[Maglor looks at him in silence for several minutes and his glance slightly softens.]

Daeron: I deem that maybe I may understand some measure of your pain, though it be of a different sort.

Maglor: [slowly:] Verily.

[looks at him]

Never you were a fool, Daeron, and in past days many a time had I learned from your music, so far as it surpasses mine. And mayhap that still holds true in this age, as it has passed.

Daeron: I know not, for no longer do I play aught of music. I deem far has your music now surpassed mine.

[Maglor looks at him piercingly for several moments.]

Maglor: Neither have I played for many years, although in times past I did.

Daeron: Why do you play no more?

Maglor: All songs I sung were of sorrow and separation, and a Curse, and it pierced the wound even more than already it is. Naught else can I play now but those songs.

Daeron: [looks thoughtful] And yet I deem that music may be as fair a nepenthe as any other.

Maglor: [caustic:] Deem not thyself my healer, since thou hast cursed the Blessed Ones as well.

Daeron: Never have I cursed them.

Maglor: Your very denial of their Realm is in form a curse.

Daeron: I curse nothing, save that which separated me from the kin of my soul.

Maglor: Spare me from your self-obsessive ramblings. I would as soon hear the prating of mortal children.

Daeron: You also have odium for that onerous kindred?

Maglor: Nay. For though Ulfang I slew with mine own hand, never could I represent the entire Kindred for one opprobrious wretch. And Bór was yet faithful in the Nirnaeth.

[Daeron looks at him pensively.]

Daeron: I deem you speak the truth, though my heart may still tell me otherwise. It is the bitterness of my heart that speaks.

Maglor: You know naught of the bitterness of heart.

Daeron: Nay; and naught you know of love.

Maglor: [abrupt:] Leave me now, Minstrel. I wish your company no more.

Daeron: My kinsman, I pray we may yet together play music in harmony.

Maglor: Prayer? I pray no more. My life is a Void. Leave me.

[Maglor then backs away down the tree and soon disappears from sight. Daeron stands for a moment, looking lost, then slowly walks away. He walks for many miles, until at last he comes back again to that city and the town square fountain, where he had sat with Beleg a decade earlier. He sits down, as if in a daze, on the fountain’s rim, not noticing the damp or anyone around him. Some children are playing with a ball by the fountain, squealing and talking delightedly together, but he seems to not even notice they are there. After several moments, the ball becomes loose and bounds toward where Daeron’s sitting. One of a children, a small peasant girl, runs after it and picks it up, where it has rolled at Daeron’s feet. She stands up and looks at his face slowly.]

Girl: Excuse me, sir.

[Daeron looks up at her slowly.]

You look kind of sad. Do you want to play with us?

[Daeron shakes his head wordlessly. By this time the other children are coming up behind her.]

Can I do anything, sir? You look sad.

[Daeron only smiles bitterly. One of the little boys in the group steps forward.]

Boy: My mum always plays music when she feels sad. I know! I’ll go get her flute.

[He runs away and the other children watch Daeron for a few moments. He doesn’t look at them. He seems not to notice they are there at all, lost in his own thoughts.]

Girl: It’s okay, sir. You don’t have to be sad. Philip, the other little boy, is right. Music makes me feel better too.

[At this point the little boy comes running back.]

Girl: Philip, you silly boy, you never thought that maybe this man can’t even play the flute!

[whispering:]

You might embarrass him!

[Daeron cannot help but smile inwardly at this.]

Leave it right there, that’s right.

[She takes the wooden flute from him and sets it next to Daeron on the fountain’s rim.]

Boy: You can play with us, sir, if you like. It’s lots of fun. My Dad plays sometimes with us, but he can’t today.

[When Daeron still doesn’t answer, they all just shrug at each other and turn away to go back to their game. When they are almost out of range, one of the little boys says:]

Maybe he can’t talk.

[Daeron does smile slightly at this, and watches them as they go back to their space in the square and begin to play again. He watches until the sun fades in the sky and the children pack up their things and go home; the boy, obviously, forgetting his mother’s flute on the fountain. Daeron still sits for a moment, after the sun has gone down and all is dark. Then he slowly looks down at the flute, picks it up with his long fingers, and gazes at it. He lifts it up to his mouth, and softly begins to play.]

[The next morning, the girl and boy from the afternoon before come running to the fountain to see if their dumb stranger still resides there. They had had dreams all the night long, in which music so heart-breakingly lovely played in their minds, that they saw beautiful gardens and towers, and a beautiful maiden who danced in the forest, and other things that they had never imagined before. The stranger was gone, but the boy’s flute still lay on the rim of the fountain, intact and seemingly untouched.]

THE END