Celegorm's Lament
Celegorm the Cruel, Celegorm the heartless. Celegorm most hated son of Fëanor.
Celegorm the Fair.
These are all my names and everyone a curse.
Did I love my father? Yes, more than any one will ever know for I will not speak of it. I learned long ago that to share your feelings and emotions is to bare your soul to the deepest pain. To make available to pain the part of you that does not heal with time.
And Eru knows I've suffered enough.
Many do not know this, but my Atar began to devise the workings of the Silmarils during my most tender years. During the period in my life when I most desired the love and approval of my father the forge door was shut in my face.
How I hated the forge!
It stole my Atar from me and left me to fend for myself. Ama always busy with the other boys was never available to me. I had seen Maglor's tender heart wounded over and over by our father's rejection and I came to guard my own heart jealously.
To none would I speak of my pain. I wasn't a fool and as the third eldest I was expected to bear every affront with manly endurance. And I did by Eru, I did! Every blow a scar to my heart.
Every time a bone is broken it heals with double strength, and in time my heart became rock hard from pain.
I refused to allow it to hurt and longer. As I grew I discovered I had inherited my Atar's gift of speech. I could stir the hearts of my companions by simply speaking words from my heart. I found an outlet for my passion here. I wasn't strange to have elflings brought to me to instruct them in the graces of speech.
Then I was Celegorm the Fair, and greatly loved by our people. I found unconditional love among the elflings. And slowly I opened up unknowingly to their gentle coaxing hands. I spent a great deal of time with them teaching the language my father had created.
But finally the storm broke over my peaceful life and my father demanded my time in his forge. I didn't want to be there among the glowing metals and twinkling gems. But I went because for once my father wanted me, desired my presence near him.
His words were daily of correction and sneering rebuke for my lack of Smith's skills. I cannot tell you the hours I labored over the molten metals striving for perfection. Only to have my work endlessly compared to that of my younger brothers. I was ever silent to his harsh words, always submitting outwardly and dieing inwardly.
My father was never able to see passed the door of his forge and all of us fell under that measure.
I was always found wanting…..
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Now I am fighting for my life. I fight as never before with the Peredhel called Dior, he refused us the gem. I have seen my younger brothers fall to the sword of Luthien's son. I see the blood split by us for the gem and its mates. I see the fire in his eyes, he means to kill me.
Suddenly I don't care.
Why should I carry on? I know we will never regain the Silmarils, it is just hopeless. And now I face him the beautiful son of Luthien Tinuvel. If we had met another way perhaps we would have been friends? If my pride had not been too great.
I would tell him how I loved his mother, how I love her still. I would tell him that I would never have taken the Silmarils while it hung around her pretty throat.
I would tell him……….
His sword pierces my chest and all breath is expelled from my lungs. I stare at the hilt in shock, I am dieing.
I am dieing without my father's love…dieing without Luthien's love…without my brothers by my side…
Sudden wrath overcomes me and even with my waning strength I wound Dior mortally. His human blood brings his death quicker and more mercifully then mine. I collapse beside him and see the last spark of life leave his brilliant blue eyes…..so like his mothers.
I weakly gather the young man into my blood drenched arms and cradle his limp head against my heart. He might have been my own son…
Now as death's dark cold fingers close around my heart, and I regret my life. After all what have I given the world? But the memory of a cruelly fair elf, who was ever found wanting……
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Authorial note: We tend to forget that under the beautiful cruel face of Celegorm Fëanorian there was a beating heart. Since we can never fully understand what drove him, I tried to capture some of what he once confided in me here. Now these thoughts no longer plague him, but never has his spirit left the halls of Mandos. I decided that I should disclose this in memory of the elf, the Fair one who taught me to speak.