A Beleriand Treasury

The question being: what do I need to work on in my writing?

Answers on a postcard, please - or just attached in comments to the bottom of this post! Seriously, I am a masochist and would love to be taken apart. All comments are welcome from anyone at all who cares to reply, signed or anonymous. Style, characterisation, description, genre, punctuation...?

Title: The Journal of Alatáriel, Missionary (6/7)
Author: clodia_metelli
Characters: Galadriel (Alatáriel), Celeborn (Teleporno), Erestor, OC, Olwë, Fëanor, Sons of Fëanor, Various Residents of Valinor, Various Residents of Beleriand.
Rating: K+
Warnings: Non-graphic violence in the last chapter.
Disclaimer: I am not J.R.R. Tolkien and I own neither Middle-earth nor The Lays of Beleriand (1985), to which I am once again much indebted. And "canon" becomes amazingly negotiable when the Unfinished Tales (1980) are brought into play...

Back to TITLE PAGE; PREFACE; EDITORS' FOREWORD
Back to INTRODUCTION
Back to ALQUALONDË AND TELEPORNO
Back to DARKNESS FALLS UPON VALINOR
Back to THE SACK OF ALQUALONDË

( ARRIVAL IN MIDDLE-EARTH )
( CRITICAL NOTES )

Back to the master list

Title: The Journal of Alatáriel, Missionary (5/7)
Author: clodia_metelli
Characters: Galadriel (Alatáriel), Celeborn (Teleporno), Erestor, OC, Olwë, Fëanor, Sons of Fëanor, Various Residents of Valinor, Various Residents of Beleriand.
Rating: K+
Warnings: Non-graphic violence in this chapter.
Disclaimer: I am not J.R.R. Tolkien and I own neither Middle-earth nor The Lays of Beleriand (1985), to which I am once again much indebted. And "canon" becomes amazingly negotiable when the Unfinished Tales (1980) are brought into play...

Back to TITLE PAGE; PREFACE; EDITORS' FOREWORD
Back to INTRODUCTION
Back to ALQUALONDË AND TELEPORNO
Back to DARKNESS FALLS UPON VALINOR

( THE SACK OF ALQUALONDË )
( CRITICAL NOTES )

On to ARRIVAL IN MIDDLE-EARTH
Back to the masterlist

Title: The Journal of Alatáriel, Missionary (4/7)
Author: clodia_metelli
Characters: Galadriel (Alatáriel), Celeborn (Teleporno), Erestor, OC, Olwë, Fëanor, Sons of Fëanor, Various Residents of Valinor, Various Residents of Beleriand.
Rating: K+
Warnings: Non-graphic violence in a later chapter.
Disclaimer: I am not J.R.R. Tolkien and I own neither Middle-earth nor The Lays of Beleriand (1985), to which I am once again much indebted. And "canon" becomes amazingly negotiable when the Unfinished Tales (1980) are brought into play...

Back to TITLE PAGE; PREFACE; EDITORS' FOREWORD
Back to INTRODUCTION
Back to ALQUALONDË AND TELEPORNO

( DARKNESS FALLS UPON VALINOR )
( CRITICAL NOTES )

On to THE SACK OF ALQUALONDË
Back to the masterlist

"Julius Caesar is supposed to have accused Sulla of political illiteracy. There is a delicious irony here. Both Sulla and Caesar used military force to take over the Roman state. Sulla used his success to make an elaborate constitutional settlement which established rules for the public careers of the next generation; he then laid aside his powers voluntarily and died in his bed. Caesar, on the other hand, revelled in his new-found power, showed no inclination to give it up, indeed adorned it with a quasi-monarchical and religious aura unexampled in the Roman tradition, and died violently at the hands of men of whom he would have numbered many among his friends. What Sulla realised, but Caesar did not, was that the men who joined him did so not for his benefit but for their own".

-- Paterson J. 1985. ‘Politics in the Late Republic’ in Wiseman T.P. (ed.) Roman Political Life 90 B.C.—A.D. 69. University of Exeter: Exeter. 21—43 (p25).

≈(;,;)≈

Title: The Journal of Alatáriel, Missionary (3/7)
Author: clodia_metelli
Characters: Galadriel (Alatáriel), Celeborn (Teleporno), Erestor, OC, Olwë, Fëanor, Sons of Fëanor, Various Residents of Valinor, Various Residents of Beleriand.
Rating: K+
Warnings: Non-graphic violence in a later chapter.
Disclaimer: I am not J.R.R. Tolkien and I own neither Middle-earth nor The Lays of Beleriand (1985), to which I am once again much indebted. And "canon" becomes amazingly negotiable when the Unfinished Tales (1980) are brought into play...

Back to TITLE PAGE; PREFACE; EDITORS' FOREWORD
Back to INTRODUCTION

( ALQUALONDË AND TELEPORNO )
( CRITICAL NOTES )

On to DARKNESS FALLS UPON VALINOR
Back to the masterlist

Title: The Journal of Alatáriel, Missionary (2/7)
Author: clodia_metelli
Characters: Galadriel (Alatáriel), Celeborn (Teleporno), Erestor, OC, Olwë, Fëanor, Sons of Fëanor, Various Residents of Valinor, Various Residents of Beleriand.
Rating: K+
Warnings: Non-graphic violence in a later chapter.
Disclaimer: I am not J.R.R. Tolkien and I own neither Middle-earth nor The Lays of Beleriand (1985), to which I am once again much indebted. And "canon" becomes amazingly negotiable when the Unfinished Tales (1980) are brought into play...

Back to TITLE PAGE; PREFACE; EDITORS' FOREWORD

( INTRODUCTION )
( CRITICAL NOTES )

On to ALQUALONDË AND TELEPORNO
Back to the masterlist

Here. Have a summary of Cicero's Philippic 3.

And because I'm nice (well, okay, because I summarised it for myself just now) you can have some context for this one as well!

( Brief introduction to PHIL. 3 )
( PHIL. 3 ~ Abridged )

Title: The Journal of Alatáriel, Missionary (1/7)
Author: clodia_metelli
Characters: Galadriel (Alatáriel), Celeborn (Teleporno), Erestor, OC, Olwë, Fëanor, Sons of Fëanor, Various Residents of Valinor, Various Residents of Beleriand.
Rating: K+
Warnings: Non-graphic violence in a later chapter.
Disclaimer: I am not J.R.R. Tolkien and I own neither Middle-earth nor The Lays of Beleriand (1985), to which I am once again much indebted. And “canon” becomes amazingly negotiable when the Unfinished Tales (1980) are brought into play...



( PREFACE )
( EDITORS' FOREWORD )

On to INTRODUCTION
Back to the masterlist

Because really, while I'm skimming through my notes anyway, I might as well...

This time, the abridged version of Cicero's Pro Sestio, a defence speech given in March 56 BC in gratitude for Sestius’ actions as tribune the previous year in attempting to get Cicero recalled from exile; Cicero's defence is based on a lengthy exhumation of recent political history and contemporary woes.


CICERO - PRO SESTIO

Kaster R.A. 2006. (trans. with intro. and comm.) Cicero. Speech on behalf of Publius Sestius. Clarendon Press: Oxford.

Gardner R. (trans.) 1958. Pro Sestio and In Vatinium. Loeb Classical Library: London.


1

Hey, judges! Don’t you think it’s rather surprising that any patriots can still be found (if there are any going spare) given that patriots are now in mourning clothes and the recent brigands and downright nasty people are bouncing around merrily and devising yet more new torments for patriots?

( ON TO THE SPEECH... )

... well, a brief summary of Cicero's speech in defence of Milo, anyway. Context: 52 BC, everything is in a mess, Milo has killed Clodius (hence the court case in which, incidentally, Cicero failed miserably to orate this very speech - something we know only thanks to a commentary on the speech by Asconius from the next century - resulting in Milo's hasty departure to eat the excellent mullet of Massilia) and Pompey is sole consul.


CICERO – PRO MILONE

Watts N.H. (trans.) 1953. Cicero. Pro Milone. In Pisonem. Pro Scauro. Pro Fonteio. Pro Rabirio Postumo. Pro Marcello. Pro Ligario. Pro Rege Deiotaro. Loeb Classical Library: London.


1

Er… this isn’t looking good…

2

… there’s an awful lot of armed guards standing around the place…

I would be terribly worried if I thought this was pointedly directed at Milo BUT I DON’T because Pompey is such a wonderful person.

3

So, uh, all these guards must be here to protect us!

All the real citizens are on our side…

… only Clodius’s blood-sucking mobs are against us – but ignore them!

4

So, gentlemen, sit back, relax, listen to what I have to say. It’s up to you whether we loyal, patriotic citizens shall be released from our dire state of dread and awfulness!

( ON WITH THE SPEECH... )

erat enim facillimum iustitiam radices non habentem labefactare

for it was very easy to shake a justice that had no radishes

~ Lactantius div. inst. V 14


... leading us towards a delightful figure of speech, the Radishes of Justice.



*snerk*