Still messing around in Quenya. This time I am writing about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Yes, you read correctly, I am going to reinterpret stories from a Chinese historical epic into Tolkien's ancient Elvish. I could try to sell you some BS about "Middle Earth" and the "Middle Kingdom," but really I'm doing it for no reason other than I think both are cool. And one cool thing plus another cool thing equals "super-bizarre-happy-fun cool." I'm also writing this in Vim, which blew this off the happy-fun cool meter. We are pretty wild here in the TZ household, with our made up languages, Chinese history, imaginary history, fancy text-editors, and Oxford commas.

Before we get to the Quenya, I have a few disclaimers:

  1. This is my first attempt at something longer than a clause. I've poured a little time into the grammar, but grammatical mistakes almost certainly remain, some of which may dramatically alter the meaning from what I wanted this to mean. If you know Quenya better than me, feel free to post a polite comment letting me know what I screwed up. If you don't, then this is doubtfully a good model for you.
  2. As I mentioned in my previous Quenya post, I think proper nouns in Quenya from other languages should be reinterpreted when creating proper nouns in Quenya, based on the examples I have seen in The Silmarillion and Tokiens other works, and I have done so below. When I have done so, I've made a note of my reasoning.
  3. The events of the Three Kingdoms period are the subject of both legitimate history of second century AD China and of popular legend. Though the broad events of the legends are accurate, other bits are not. (The Shu-Han minister Zhuge Liang, though undoubtably a real figure, is attributed in popular legend with powers to control the weather, for example.) So as to keep everyone straight, I will just come out and say: I am going with the Three Kingdoms period of legend, mostly out of ignorance of the difference.

All that out of the way, I've chosen for my little project the HuaRong Pass Incident. Before the Quenya, let's go over that for a bit. During the Three Kingdoms period, the founder of the Wei kingdom was a man named CaoCao, notorious for his Machiavellian political style, and the founder of the Shu-Han was LiuBei, famous for being a just and wise ruler. Guan Yu was the sworn-brother of LiuBei, but developed a friendship with CaoCao at a time when he thought his brother may have been killed. When he found out LiuBei lived, he returned to him, but never totally got over his friendship with CaoCao, even after LiuBei and CaoCao became mortal enemies. This despite the fact that CaoCao had only ever been nice to him because he wanted GuanYu in his service as a general.

The result: after years of warfare, the armies of LiuBei managed to surround CaoCao and almost had him. This would have put to an end decades of Chinese civil war and would have changed the course of Chinese history. But Guan Yu was the weak-link and allowed CaoCao to escape through Huarong Pass. As a result, the Three Kingdoms civil war continued for decades longer, until, eventually, CaoPi (son of CaoCao) would take the imperial throne for himself.

That's the back-story. Here is the Quenya:

Rastaya yeni
Airalmevo alanyassë
matanen Findo ar Failwo.
Or Falqua-Alcara
Menel Cemenyë nyényë Aranië-Neldëo

In English:

1800 years ago
Guan-Yu's misery grew
because of the fighting of CaoCao and LiuBei.
Over HuaRong Pass
Heaven and Earth wept for the Three Kingdoms.

Notes:
Airalmevo : Guan Yu (lit. Red Skinned Man. One of the two major points of description we get for Guan Yu is his ruddy complexion. The other is his beard.)
Findwo : CaoCao (lit. Cunning Man.)
Failwo : LiuBei (lit. Just Man.)
Falqua-Alcara : Huarong Pass (lit. Glorious Mountain Pass. The best I could do.)



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