Morgoth's Ring (64 page)

And we did his bidding, and more than his bidding; for anything that we thought would please him, however evil, we did, in the hope that he would lighten our afflictions, and at the least would not slay us.

For most of us this was in vain. But to some he began to show favour: to the strongest and cruellest, and to those who went most often to the House. He gave gifts to them, and knowledge that they kept secret; and they became powerful and proud, and they enslaved us, so that we had no rest from labour amidst our afflictions.

Then there arose some among us who said openly in their despair: 'Now we know at last who lied, and who desired to devour us. Not the first Voice. It is the Master that we have taken who is the Darkness; and he did not come forth from it, as he said, but he dwells in it. We will serve him no longer! He is our Enemy.'

Then in fear lest he should hear them and punish us all, we slew them, if we could; and those that fled we hunted; and if any were caught, our masters, his friends, commanded that they should be taken to the House and there done to death by fire.

That pleased him greatly, his friends said; and indeed for a while it seemed that our afflictions were lightened.

But it is told that there were a few that escaped us, and went away into far countries, fleeing from the shadow. Yet they did not escape from the anger of the Voice; for they had built the House and bowed down in it. And they came at last to the land's end and the shores of the impassable water; and behold!

the Enemy was there before them.

Together with the Athrabeth papers there is a Glossary (as my father termed it), a brief index of names and terms with definitions and some etymological information. This is confined to the Athrabeth itself, and so from the nature of the work is not large, but there are a few omissions (as Athrabeth, Andreth, and names of the People of Beor).

Written in manuscript, it was made after the amanuensis typescripts of the Athrabeth had been taken from the manuscript and emended, as the entry Mirroanwi shows (see p. 326 note 10). It seems curious that my father should have provided this, since most of the definitions or explanations would be unnecessary to one who had read The Silmarillion, and taken with the explanations of fundamental conceptions that appear in the Commentary may suggest that he conceived it as an independent work - although on one of the newspaper wrappers of the Athrabeth papers (p. 329) he noted that it should be the last item in an Appendix (to The Silmarillion).

Most of the information provided is readily found elsewhere, and I give only a selection of the entries, in whole or in part, with very slight editing for purposes of clarity.

Adaneth Sindarin, 'woman, mortal woman'.

Arda 'kingdom', sc. the 'kingdom of Manwe'. The 'Solar System', or Earth as the dramatic centre of this, as the scene of the war of the

'Children of Eru' against Melkor.

Edennil (Quenya Atandil) 'devoted to the Atani, Men'; name given to Finrod.

[Extracted from entry Eldar:] But only part of the Eldar actually reached Aman. A large part of the Third Host (Lindar 'Singers', also called Teleri Those Behind ) remained in the West of Middle-earth.

These are the Sindar 'Grey-elves'.... The Elves who were in or who ever had dwelt in Aman were called the High-elves (Tareldar).(24) fea 'spirit': the particular 'spirit' belonging to and 'housed' in any one hroa of the Incarnates. It corresponds, more or less, to 'soul'; and to 'mind', when any attempt is made to distinguish between mentality, and the mental processes of Incarnates, conditioned and limited by the co-operation of the physical organs of the hroa. It was thus in its being (apart from its experience) the impulse and power to think: enquire and reflect, as distinct from the means of acquiring data. It was conscious and self-aware: 'self' however in Incarnates included the hroa. The fea was said by the Eldar to retain the impress or memory of the hroa and of all the combined experiences of itself and its body. (Quenya fea (dissyllabic) is from older * 'phaya.

Sindarin faer, of the same meaning, corresponds to Quenya faire'

'spirit (in general)', as opposed to matter (erma) or 'flesh' (hrave').) Finarphin I Finarfin [the name is given thus in alternative spellings]

hroa See fea. (The Quenya form is derived from older * srawa. The Sindarin form of hroa and hrave (srawe) was rhaw: cf. Mirroanwi.) Mandos [extract] (The name Mandos (stem mandost-) means approximately 'castle of custody': from mbando 'custody, safe-keeping', and osto 'a strong or fortified building or place'. The Sindarin form of mbando, Quenya mando, was band, occurring in Angband 'Iron-gaol', the name given to Morgoth's dwelling, Quenya Angamando.)

Melkor (also Melko) [extract] (Melkor, in older form Melkore, probably means 'Mighty-rising', sc. 'uprising of power'; Melko simply 'the Mighty One'.)(25)

Mirroanwi Incarnates; those (spirits) 'put into flesh'; cf. hroa. (From

* mi-srawanwe.)

Noldor The name means 'lore-masters' or those specially devoted to knowledge. (The most ancient form was ngolodo, Quenya noldo, Sindarin golodh: in the transcription n = the Feanorian letter for the back nasal, the ng of king.)(26) The Quenya word nole meant 'lore, knowledge', but its Sindarin equivalent gul, owing to its frequent use in such combinations as morgul (cf. Minas Morgul in The Lord of the Rings) was only used for evil or perverted knowledge, necromancy, sorcery. This word gul was also used in the language of Mordor.

Valar [extract] (The name) means 'those with power, the Powers'.

But it should more strictly be translated 'the Authorities'. The

'power' of the Valar resided in the 'authority' they had from Eru.

They had sufficient 'power' for their functions - that is, vast or godlike power over, and knowledge of, the physical structure of the Universe, and understanding of the designs of Eru. But they were forbidden to use force upon the Children of Eru. The stem melk- (27) (seen in Melkor) on the other hand means 'power' as force and strength.

I have referred (p. 303) to the existence of original draft material for the Athrabeth. The chief element in this is a small bundle of slips made from Merton College documents of 1955 and written very rapidly in ball-point pen; but it is plain that my father was following an earlier text, no longer extant, which he could not read at all points: words are marked with queries, dots are put in for missing phrases (some of which were filled in doubtfully afterwards), and some sentences do not seems to be correct. This draft, which I will call 'A', corresponds to the section in the final text from Finrod's words 'But what then shall we think of the union in Man' on p. 317 to 'then Eru must come in to conquer him' on p. 322; but the one is in certain respects extraordinarily different from the other. I give here two extracts to illustrate this.

The first takes up from Finrod's questions (p. 318) 'Or is there some- þ where else a world of which all things which we see, all things that either Elves or Men know, are only tokens or reminders?':

'If so it resides only in the mind of Eru,' said Andreth. 'But to such questions I know no answer. This much only can I say: that among us some hold that our errand here was to heal the Marring of Arda, and by making the hroa partake in the life of the fea to put it beyond any marring of Melkor or any other spirit of malice for ever. But that "Arda Healed" (or Remade) shall not be "Arda Unmarred", but a third thing and a greater. And that third thing maybe is in the mind of Eru, and is in his answer. You have spoken to me of the Music and you have conversed with the Valar who were present at its making ere the world began. Did they hear the end of the Music?

Or was there not something beyond the final chords of Eru, which (being overwhelmed thereby) the Valar did not hear? Or again maybe, since Eru is for ever free, He made no music and showed no Vision beyond a certain point. Beyond that point (which neither Valar nor Eldar...) we cannot see or know, until, each by our own roads, we come there.'

'In what did Melkor's malice show itself?'

Darkness lies over that. Saelon (sc. Andreth)(28) has little to answer. 'Some men say that he blasphemed Eru, and denied His existence, or His power, and that our fathers assented, and took Melkor to be a Lord and God; and that thereby our fear denied their own true nature, and so became darkened and weakened almost to the death (if that be possible for fear). And through the weakness of the fear our hroar fell into unhealth, and lay open to all evils and disorders of the world. And others say that Eru himself spoke in wrath, saying: "If the Darkness be your God, little here shall you have of Light, but shall leave it soon and come before Me, to learn who lieth: Melkor or I Who made him."'(29)

The second passage corresponds in its placing to that beginning at Andreth's words in the final text (p. 321) 'Asleep or awake, they say nothing clearly':

'... Some say that ... Eru will find a way of healing that will heal both our fathers and ourselves and those that shall follow us. But how that shall come to pass, or to what manner of being this healing will make us, only those of the Hope (as we say) can guess; none can clearly assert.

'But there are among us a few (of whom I am one) who have the Great Hope, as we call it, and believe that His secret has been handed down from the days before our wounding. This is the Great Hope: that Eru will himself enter into Arda and heal Men and all the Marring.'

'But this is a strange thing! Do you claim to have known of Eru before ever we met? What is his name?'

'As it is with you, but different only in form of sound: The One.'

'But still this passes my understanding,' said Finrod. 'For how could Eru enter into the thing that He has made, and than which He is infinitely greater? Can the poet enter his story or the designer enter his picture?'

'He is already in it, and outside it,' said Saelon, 'though not in the same mode.'

'Yea verily,' said Finrod, 'and so is Eru in that mode I sense in Arda. But you speak of Eru entering into Arda, which is surely another matter. How could he do so, who is infinitely greater: would it not shatter Arda, or indeed Ea?'

'He could find a way, I doubt not,' said Saelon, 'though indeed I cannot conceive the way. But whatever you think, that is the Great Hope of Men. And I do not see - so to speak with humility - what else could be done; since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to triumph and abandon His own work. But there is nothing more powerful that is conceivable than Melkor, save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if he will not relinquish his work to Melkor, who is......., Eru must come in to conquer him.

At this point the draft text A ends. It will be seen in the first of these passages that the large vision of Finrod in the final form of the Athrabeth concerning 'Arda Remade', which arises in his mind from the words of Andreth, was originally a belief held by certain of the Atani, and it is Andreth who proposes the idea that this vision was absent from the end of the Music of the Ainur, or was not perceived by them; while in the second passage Andreth names herself as one of those who entertains 'the Great Hope', and to Finrod's incredulity that Eru could enter into Arda she provides those same speculative answers that are given to Finrod in the final text. It is thus apparent that my father's ideas concerning not only the structure and tenor of the

'Converse of Finrod and Andreth' but the very nature of the beliefs of the first Men in Beleriand underwent a major development as he worked on the Athrabeth.

An isolated page ('B') written, like draft A, on a Merton College document of 1955, carries an interesting passage that was not used in the final version.

'What says the wisdom of Men concerning the nature of the Mirruyaina?' said Finrod. 'Or what do you hold, Andreth, who know also much of the teaching of the Eldar?'

'Men say various things, be they Wise or no,' said Andreth.

'Many hold that there is but a single thing: the body, and that we are one of the beasts, though the latest come and the most cunning.

But others hold that the body is not all, but contains some other thing. For often we speak of the body as a "house", or as "raiment", and that implies an indwelling, though of what we speak in uncertainty.(30)

'Among my folk men speak mostly of the "breath" (or the

"breath of life" ), and they say that if it leaves the house, it may by seeing eyes be seen as a wraith, a shadowy image of the living thing that was.'

'That is but a guess,' said Finrod, 'and long ago we said things similar, but we know now that the Indweller is not "breath"(31) (which the hroa uses), and that seeing eyes cannot see one that is houseless, but that the living eyes may draw from the fea within an image which the houseless conveys to the housed: the memory of itself.'

'Maybe,' said Andreth. 'But among the people of Marach men speak rather of the "fire", or the "fire on the hearth", from whose burning the house is warmed, and from which arise the heats of the heart, or the smokes of wrath.'

'That is another guess,' said Finrod, 'and holds also some truth, I believe.'

'Doubtless,' said Andreth. 'But those who speak thus, of the