While grimacing my way through Lord of the Rings, I thought about
something that I have considered before, not just with LOTR, but with
other fantasy books that I’ve read.
Many of the poems and songs in LOTR are given in the common tongue as
translations from some other language, Elvish, Dwarven, etc… so why to
they all rhyme? Surely they would only rhyme in their original language?
In the German translation they’re all in … German. And they rhyme. I guess that’s more important than the meaning of the actual words.
Ever read the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam? Written in medieval Persian about 1000 years ago and yet the poems therein rhyme . . . well they do in most translations.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light