Auta i lóme

2012 version

By Findegil / Björn Fromén

A free rendering into Quenya of a much-loved Swedish song often heard on the nights of Winter Solstice. The Swedish lyrics were written by Jan Arvid Hellström, poet and hymn writer, to the tune of the aria Lascia ch’io pianga from Handel's opera Rinaldo.

Auta i lóme,
tuluva’n·aure,
cenuvan cále
amaureo.

Haira hrestallo
raine tercánar
airómaron líri.

Umbaro cólo
hecilin lumna;
nu vinya silme
lehtaleo lís.

The night is passing,
the day will come,
I shall see the light
of dawn.

From a distant shore
songs of holy voices
are announcing peace.

Fate’s burden
is heavy for outcasts;
under new starlight
the sweetness of liberation.

Notes

*tercánar ‘are announcing’, plural present continuative of *ter-can-, isolated from tercáno ‘herald’

*airómaron genitive plural of *airóma, a compound of aira or aire ‘holy, angelic’ and óma ‘voice’

*lehtaleo ‘of liberation’, genitive of *lehtale, a verbal noun derived from (ete)lehta- ‘deliver’, cf. Sindarin Leithian ‘Release from Bondage’

lís ‘honey’, here used metaphorically = lisse ‘sweetness; grace’