Morgoth's Ring (70 page)

Nonetheless Melkor would not leave Arda in peace; and above all he begrudged to the Valar their dwelling on Earth, and desired to injure their labours there, or bring them to naught, if he could. Therefore he returned to Earth, but for fear of the might of the Valar and of Tulkas more than all he came now in secret. And in his hatred of the Sun he came to the North at night in winter. At first he would depart when the long day of summer came; but after a time, becoming bolder again, and desiring a dwelling place of his own, he began the delving (* [marginal note] Indeed some say that it was released from Ea.) (+ [marginal note] Also some of the Wise have said that the ordering of Arda, as to the placing and courses of its parts, was disarrayed by Melkor, so that the Earth was at times drawn too near to the Sun, and at others went too far off.)

underground of his great fortress in the far North, which was afterwards named Utumno (or Udun).

The Valar therefore, when they became aware by the signs of evil that were seen upon Earth that Melkor had stolen back, sought in vain for him, though Tulcas and Orome went wide over Middle-earth even to the uttermost East. When they perceived that Melkor would now turn darkness and night to his purposes, as he had aforetime sought to wield flame, they were grieved; for it was a part of their design that there should be change and alteration upon Earth, and neither day perpetual nor night without end.* For by Night the Children of Arda should know Day, and perceive and love Light; and yet Night should also in its kind be good and blessed, being a time of repose, and of inward thought; and a vision also of things high and fair that are beyond Arda, but are veiled by the splendour of Anar. But Melkor would make it a time of peril unseen, of fear without form, an uneasy vigil; or a haunted dream, leading through despair to the shadow of Death.

Therefore Manwe took counsel with Varda, and they called Aule to their aid. And they resolved to alter the fashion of Arda and of Earth, and in their thought they devised Ithil, the Moon.

In what way and with what labours they wrought in deed this great device of their thought, who shall say: for which of the Children hath seen the Valar in the uprising of their strength or listened to their counsels in the flower of their youth? Who hath observed their labour as they laboured, who hath seen the newness of the new?

Some say that it was out of Earth (16) itself that Ithil was made, and thus Ambar (17) was diminished; others say that the Moon was made of like things to the Earth and of that which is Ea itself as it was made in the Tale.(18)

Now when the Moon was full-wrought it was set above Ambar, and directed to go ever round and about, bringing a light to dark places from which the Sun had departed. But it was a lesser light, so that moonlight was not the same as sunlight, and there was still change of light upon the Earth; moreover (* [footnote to the text] For it is indeed of the nature of Ea and the Great History that naught may stay unchanged in time, and things which do so, or appear to do so, or endeavour to remain so, become a weariness, and are loved no longer (or are at best unheeded).) there was still also night under the stars, for the Moon and the Sun were at certain times and seasons both absent.

This at least is what came after to be by that doom spoken by Iluvatar..... the evil of Melkor should in its own despite bring forth things more fair than the devising of his ..... For some have held that the Moon was at first aflame, but was later made

[?strong] and life .....: later but while Arda was unfashioned and still in the turmoils of Melkor.

So much is known to the Wise, that Tilion - [sic] and that Melkor was filled with new wrath at the rising of the Moon.

Therefore for a while he left Ambar again and went out into the Outer Night, and gathered to him some of those spirits who would answer his call.

A page of rough and disconnected notes obviously preceded this text, but must belong to much the same time: ideas found in the discussion and synopsis preceding the narrative are found also here, such as the 'great darkness of shadow' created by Melkor that blotted out the Sun. In these notes my father was still asking himself whether he should 'keep the old mythological story of the making of the Sun and Moon, or alter the background to a "round earth" version', and observing that in the latter case the Moon would be a work of Melkor's to provide 'a safe retreat' - thus returning to the idea of the origin of the Moon found years before in text C* of the Ainulindale'

(p. 41, $31). Doubt and lack of certain direction are very strongly conveyed, as he wrestled with the intractable problems posed by the presence of the Sun in the sky under which the Elves awoke, which was lit only by the stars.(19)

There are features in the present text that clearly associate it with the Commentary on the Athrabeth (see notes 2 and 3 below), among them the use of the name Arda to mean the Solar System; but while the Earth itself is in the Commentary named Imbar it has here the older name Ambar (see note 17). There can be no doubt, I think, that the present text was the earlier of the two. On the other hand, no more finished or complete presentation of the new conceptions at large, the

'new mythology', is found; and it seems at any rate arguable that while committed in mind to the abandonment of the old myth of the origin of the Sun and Moon my father left in abeyance the formulation and expression of the new. It may be, though I have no evidence on the question one way or the other, that he came to perceive from such experimental writing as this text that the old structure was too comprehensive, too interlocked in all its parts, indeed its roots too deep, to withstand such a devastating surgery.

NOTES.

1. In AAm $15 (p. 52) 'there was great growth of trees and herbs, and beasts and birds came forth' in the light of the Lamps: that was the Spring of Arda. But after the destruction of the Lamps Yavanna 'set a sleep upon many fair things that had arisen in the Spring, both tree and herb and beast and bird, so that they should not age but should wait for a time of awakening that yet should be' ($30, p. 70).

2. On the astronomical knowledge to be presumed among the High-elves cf. Note 2 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth (p. 337) - where as here Arda is equated with the Solar System -

and Text I (p. 370).

3. The thought of this paragraph is closely paralleled in Note 2 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth (p. 337), and the final sentence is very similar to what is said in the Commentary itself, p. 334 ('Melkor was not just a local Evil on Earth...').

4. In AAm $24 (p. 54) it is told that after the Fall of the Lamps

'Middle-earth lay in a twilight beneath the stars that Varda had wrought in the ages forgotten of her labours in Ea', and in $34

(p. 71) Varda looked out from Taniquetil 'and beheld the darkness of the Earth beneath the innumerable stars, faint and far', before she began the making of new and brighter stars; so also in the revised Quenta Silmarillion (p. 159, $19): 'Then Varda made new stars and brighter against the coming of the First-born.

Wherefore she whose name out of the deeps of time and the labours of Ea was Tintalle, the Kindler, was called after by the Elves Elentari, the Queen of the Stars.' But if she can still perhaps be called Elentari, she can no longer be called Tintalle (see however p. 388 and note 3).

In a late emendation to the final text D of the Ainulindale (p. 34, $36) the words concerning Varda 'she it was who wrought the Stars' were changed to 'she it was who wrought the Great Stars'; and it seems possible that this was done in the light of the ideas presented here.

5. Cf. Note 2 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth (p. 337), with note 13 to that passage.

6. This is of course altogether different from the form of the legend in the Ainulindale' (p. 14, $23): 'But Melkor, too, was there from the first, and he meddled in all that was done'; while in the text C* (p. 40) Melkor entered Arda before the other Ainur.

7. The legend in Ainulindale' C* that Melkor himself made the Moon so that he 'could observe thence all that happened below'

(p. 41, $31) had been abandoned (but see p. 383).

8. In AAm (p. 131, $172) and in QS ($75) Tilion was no Vala, but

'a young hunter of the company of Orome'. In AAm $179

appears the story that Morgoth assailed Tilion, 'sending spirits of shadow against him', but unavailingly.

9. On names of the Sun and Moon see QS $75 and commentary (V.241, 243) and the later revision of the passage (p. 198); also AAm $171 and commentary (pp. 130, 136).

10. In AAm (p. 133, $179) it was told that 'Arien Morgoth feared with a great fear, and dared not to come nigh her'.

11. On the name Endor see AAm $38 (pp. 72, 76).

12. See p. 327 note 16.

13. 'at the time of Felagund': i.e. at the time when Finrod Felagund encountered Men, first of the High-elves to do so (p. 307).

14. 'Men must awake while Melkor is still in Arda?': 'Arda' must be an error for 'Middle-earth' (i.e. before his captivity in Aman).

15. An s is pencilled over the r of Ar(i).

16. Above Earth my father wrote Ambar, then struck it out, and wrote 'Mar = House'. See the next note.

17. In Note 2 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth (p. 337, and see note 12 to that passage) appears Imbar, translated 'the Habitation', = Earth, 'the principal part of Arda' (= the Solar System).

18. From this point the manuscript becomes very rough, in places illegible, and soon peters out.

19. In other scribbled notes (written at the same time as text II and constituting a part of that manuscript) my father wrote that Varda gave the holy light received in gift from Iluvatar (see p. 380) not only to the Sun and to the Two Trees but also to 'the significant Star'. The meaning of this is nowhere explained. Beside it he wrote Signifer, and many experimental Elvish names, as Taengyl, Tengyl, Tannacolli or Tankol, Tainacolli; also a verbal root tana

'show, indicate'; tanna 'sign'; and kolla 'borne, worn, especially a vestment or cloak', with the note 'Sindikoll-o is masculinized'.

III.

This very brief and hasty statement was found in a small collection of such notes folded in a newspaper of April 1959. It was written on a slip of paper torn from a bill from Merton College dated in June 1955; a similar bill of October 1955 was used for a passage of drafting for the Athrabeth (p. 352). I have noticed (p. 304) that the use of such documents of the year 1955 might suggest that the Athrabeth was not the work of a single concentrated period, although if my father had prepared a supply of such slips for brief notes or passages of drafting and other purposes the date would be misleading.

What happened in Valinor after the Death of the Trees? Aman was 'unveiled' - it had been covered with a dome (made by Varda) of mist or cloud down through which no sight would pierce nor light. This dome was lit by stars - in imitation of the great Firmament of Ea. This now rendered Valinor dark except for starlight [i.e. after the death of the Trees]. It was removed and Aman was lit by the Sun - its blessing was thus removed.

(Melkor's defilement of the Sun must thus precede the Two Trees which had light of Sun and Stars before Melkor [?tainted]

it - or the Trees [?could ?would] be lit by light before the

[?Turbulence] of Melkor.)

I do not feel altogether certain of the meaning of the extremely elliptical concluding sentence in brackets, but it should perhaps be interpreted thus - as the statement of a problem arising from what has been said. The Dome of Varda must have been contrived after the ravishing of Arie by Melkor, in order to keep out the Sun's polluted light,(1) and Aman was lit beneath the Dome by the Two Trees. But on the other hand, it is an essential idea that the light of the Trees was derived from the Sun before it was 'tainted'. A resolution of this conflict may be found (reading 'could', not 'would', in the last phrase) in the idea that the light of the Trees was an unsullied light preserved by Varda from a time before the assaults of Melkor.

In the initial discussion in text II it is made clear that the Sun had been defiled before the Two Trees came into being: 'Now one of the objects of the Trees... was the healing of the hurts of Melkor' (p. 377); but it is also said that 'Varda has preserved some of the Primeval Light... The Two Trees are made.' This appears to be the solution to which my father came in the present text, thus suggesting that it preceded text II. On the other hand, there is no suggestion of the Dome of Varda in text II, and that text gives the impression that my father was beginning a new story, working it out as he went. It is probably vain to try to establish a clear sequence of composition from these papers, since he might return to the same problem and find what appears to be the same resolution at different times.

It is a notable fact that the Dome of Varda appears in my father's final work on the narrative text of the Quenta Silmarillion Chapter 6