Posted: January 15, 1999 at 08:42:00: by Martin Read
: : I would suggest that the two lines relating to the One Ring
: : were possibly part of the magick which bound the rings
: : together. We know that Sauron was skilled in songs of power
: : since he whooped Finrod during the first age. Maybe the
: : enchanting of the One involved some sort of Song of Power to be
: : incanted by Sauron and the two lines relating to the One were
: : always meant to part of it.: : The other lines could then have been added afterwards, after it
: : was known to whom the other rings of power had been given. But
: : these lines of the verse were merely a method of knowing to
: : whom the rings went and they had no part in the enchantment
: : that bound all the rings (lesser or otherwise) to the One Ring. : : This seems plausable, it could well fit and does not require
: : and inventiveness or addition to what we already know (or
: : suppose). : All of the detailed accounts of the history of the Rings of Power (in Tolkien's letters, in "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age", and in UNFINISHED TALES) agree that the Elves made the Rings strictly for themselves. Hence, there is no way that rhyme could have been composed before Sauron took the Seven and the Nine from Eregion. : The two lines Sauron inscribed in the One Ring were simply incorporated, as you surmise, into the rhyme. Of course, they were "translated" from the Black Speech into whatever language was originally used (probably Sindarin) for the rhyme, and then into Westron, and for LOTR into English (following the path of translation implied by Tolkien's role as "translator").
I would say there were two other possible explanations an external one and an internal one.
External - Tolkien wrote the rhyme some time before his ideas on the origin of the rings had crystallised, and the inconsistancy is a result of this. Internal - Though the elven smiths thought they were making them for their own use and purposes, Sauron had warped them during their construction, or design, towards his own purposes; which included a pre-determined adaption of the Nine to human use, and the Seven to Dwarven use. Here's a possibly interesting question - If the rings had no pre-adaptation why did Sauron not use some or all the Seven, when they came into his possession, to enslave more human Nazgul? Tolkien says that the rings did not have the same effect on Dwarves as on men, but if the rings were all of a similar nature surely Sauron would have used them to create sixteen such useful human servants as the Ringwraiths.
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