The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun
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The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun is a poem of 508 lines, written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1930, and published in Welsh Review in December, 1945.
Aotrou and Itrou are Breton words for "lord" and "lady". The poem is modelled on the genre of the "Breton lay" popular in Middle English literature of the 12th century, and it explores the conflict of heroic or chivalric values and Christianity, and their relation to the institution of marriage.
In the poem, Aotrou and Itroun are a couple of Breton nobility. They are childless, and Aotrou seeks the help of a witch. When Itroun is with child, the witch reappears, revealing herself as the Corrigan, and asks for Atrou's love as payment. Aotrou sacrifices his knightly honour to Christian values, and breaks his word.
- "I gave no love. My love is wed;
- my wife now lieth in child-bed,
- and I curse the beast that cheated me
- and drew me to this dell to thee."
Cursed by the Corrigan to die in three days, Aotrou takes the consequences and places his trust in Providence:
- In three days I shall live at ease
- and die but when it God doth please
- in eld, or in some time to come
- in the brave wars of Christendom.
Aotrou passes away after three days, his wife dies of broken heart and they are buried together, and they do not live to see their offspring grow up.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
| J. R. R. Tolkien |
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| Bibliography |
| Fiction: Songs for the Philologists (1936) • The Hobbit or There and Back Again (1937) • Leaf by Niggle (1945) • The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945) • Farmer Giles of Ham (1949) • The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (1953) • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), The Return of the King (1955) • The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962) • The Road Goes Ever On (1967) • Tree and Leaf (1964) • The Tolkien Reader (1966) • Smith of Wootton Major (1967) |
| Posthumous publications : The Silmarillion (1977) • Unfinished Tales (1980) • Bilbo's Last Song (1990) • The History of Middle-earth (12 Volumes) (1983–1996) • Roverandom (1998) • The Children of Húrin (2007) • The History of The Hobbit (2007) |
| Academic Works : A Middle English Vocabulary (1922) • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925) • Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography (1925) • The Devil's Coach Horses (1925) • Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad (1929) • The Name 'Nodens' (1932) • Sigelwara Land parts I and II, in Medium Aevum (1932-34) • Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale (1934) • Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (1937) • The Reeve's Tale: version prepared for recitation at the 'summer diversions' (1939) • On Fairy-Stories (1939) • Sir Orfeo (1944) • Ofermod and Beorhtnoth's Death (1953) • Middle English "Losenger": Sketch of an etymological and semantic enquiry (1953) • Ancrene Wisse: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle (1962) • English and Welsh (1963) • Introduction to Tree and Leaf (1964) • Contributions to the Jerusalem Bible (as translator and lexicographer) (1966) • Tolkien on Tolkien (autobiographical) (1966) |
