Q. a Eruion Mardorunando, Eru órava (o)messë “God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us”

Q. a Eruion Mardorunando, Eru órava (o)messë “God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us”

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The seventh line of Tolkien’s Quenya translation of the Litany of Loreto prayer (VT44/12). The first word is the vocative a “O” followed by Eruion, a name for Christ as the “Son of God”. The third word Mardorunando seems to be a translation of “Redeemer of the World”. The fourth word Eru is Tolkien’s usual Quenya name for God. The phrase órava (o)messe “have mercy on us” is essentially the same as in the first line; see that entry for discussion.

Decomposition: Broken into its constituent elements, this phrase would be:

a Eru-ion Mard-o-runando, Eru órava (o)me-sse = “*o God-son world-of-redeemer, God have-mercy us-on”

Conceptual Development: Tolkien began two incomplete forms Io >> Yón before settling on Eruion. As in the first line, Tolkien first used the dative ómen for “on us” before revising it to the locative (o)messe (VT44/12, notes on line 7).

Reference ✧ VT44/12 ✧ A {Io >> Yón >>} Eruion Mardorunando, Eru órava {ómen >>} (o)messe “God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us”

Elements

“O, Oh” ✧ VT44/15
Eruion “*Son of God” ✧ VT44/16
Mardorunando “*Redeemer of the World” ✧ VT44/17
Eru “The One, God” ✧ VT44/17
órava- “*to have mercy” aorist ✧ VT44/14
me “us (exclusive)” locative ✧ VT44/15 ((o)messe)

Element In