aesc: (viator quondam)
aesc ([personal profile] aesc) wrote2005-04-30 03:06 am

[drabble repost] Dustsceawung [B/Fa: PG]

One from the vault...

Title: Dustsceawung
By: HF
Pairing: B/Fa (hinted)
Rating: G
Warnings: Angst?
Disclaimer: Tolkien made this. I dabble.

Notes: Repost from a long-lost [livejournal.com profile] lotr100 drabble. I think it was originally for a foreign language challenge, but it seems to fit [livejournal.com profile] tolkien_weekly's "Dust" challenge, too.


Dustsceawung Éowyn names it when he goes, time and again, to Boromir’s tomb to mourn his brother. His grief never lessens, for it has no focus – no body, no beloved face. It has only the tomb, and the knowledge that it is empty, and that his brother is lost.

Faramir asked her its meaning once, dustsceawung.

“Contemplation of the dust,” she said.

But what if there were no dust, no bones, no body?

For Anduin has swept them away, and the Sea has swallowed them up, and they are gone.

He knows Rohan’s words for this: swá híe næfre wæren.


----
dustsceawung - The translation is that of Bruce Mitchell and Fred Robinson. Clark-Hall uses dustsceawung to refer to a wake or vigil, but the one time the word occurs is when a man is looking upon the long-dead body of his friend and meditating on the difficulty of life. (Depressing, no?)

swá híe næfre wæren – “just as if they had never been.” Adapted from one of my favorite poems, "The Wife's Lament"

[identity profile] archet.livejournal.com 2005-05-01 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
This is so beautiful, I'm glad you've reposted it...Faramir's heartbreak and loss is so present and so powerful. Thank you!

[identity profile] aesc.livejournal.com 2005-05-03 03:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you, Archet!

Faramir's heartbreak and loss is so present and so powerful.

I've always thought that, even though Faramir is wiser than most, all his knowledge would be insufficient to the task of comforting him after losing Boromir. Some things are beyond wisdom, I suppose.

[identity profile] archet.livejournal.com 2005-05-05 12:48 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, yes I think you've got it exactly right. I think of him as feeling things so deeply, losing Boromir...well, you've said it already. *hugs them both*