Sauron Defeated (70 page)

For there arose a second manifestation of Evil upon Ear&, whether the spirit of Meleko himself took new (though lesser) form, or whether it were one of Meleko's servants that had lurked in the dark and now received the [? counsel] of Meleko out of the Void and waxed great and wicked, tales differ. But this evil thing was called by many names, and the Eruhildi called him Sauron, and he sought to be both king over all kings, and to Men both king and god. His seat was southward and eastward in Kemen, and his power over Men (especially east and south) grew ever greater and moved westward, driving away the lingering Eledai and subjugating more and more of the kindred of the Eruhildi who had not gone to Numenor. And Sauron learned of Numenor and its power and glory; and to Numenor in the days of Tarkalion the Golden (the

[21st >] tenth in the line from Earendel)(13) news came of Sauron and his power, and that he purposed to take the dominion of all Kemen, and of all the Earth after.

But in the meanwhile evil had been at work [?already] in the hearts of the Numenoreans; for the desire of everlasting life and to escape death grew ever stronger upon them; and they murmured against the prohibition that excluded them from Eresse, and the Powers were displeased with them. And they forbade them now even to land upon the island. At this time of estrangement from Eledai and Valai Tarkalion hearing of Sauron determined without counsel of Eldar or Valar to demand the allegiance and homage of Sauron.... [sic]

Numenor cast down.

Eresse and the Eledai removed from the world save in memory and the world delivered to Men. Men of Numenorean blood could still see Eresse as a mirage [?on] a straight road leading thither.

The ancient Numenoreans knew (being taught by the Eledai) that the Earth was round; but Sauron taught them that it was a disc and flat, and beyond was nothing, where his master ruled. But he said that beyond Eresse was a land in the [?utter] West where the Gods dwelt in bliss, and usurped the good things of the Earth.(14) And that it was his mission to bring Men to that promised land, and overthrow the greedy and idle Powers. And Tarkalion believed him, being hungry for life undying.

And the Numenoreans after the downfall still spoke of the Straight Road that ran on when the Earth was bent. But the good ones - those that fled from Numenor and took no part in the war on Eresse - used this only in symbol. For by 'that which is beyond Eresse' they meant the world of eternity and the spirit, in the region of Iluvatar.(15)

Here this text ends, with lines drawn showing that it was completed.

All the concluding passage (from 'The ancient Numenoreans knew

...'), concerning the shape of the world and the meaning of the Straight Road, was struck through, the only part of the text so treated.

It will be seen that in the latter part of Sketch III appear a number of phrases that survived into The Drowning of Anadune (such as 'men fell a second time', 'there arose a second manifestation (of Evil) upon Earth', 'this evil thing was called by many names').

It seems to me that there are broadly speaking two possible lines of explanation of my father's thinking at this time. On the one hand, many years had passed since the progressive development of 'The Silmarillion' had been disrupted, and during all that time the actual narrative manuscripts had lain untouched; but it cannot be thought that he had put it altogether out of mind, that it had not continued to evolve unseen. Above all, the relation between the self-contained mythology of 'The Silmarillion' and the story of The Lord of the Rings boded problems of a profound nature. This work had now been at a standstill for more than a year; but The Notion Club Papers was leading to the re-emergence of Numenor as an increasingly important element in the whole, even as the Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-earth had grown so greatly in significance in The Lord of the Rings.

It might seem at least arguable, therefore, that the departures from the 'received tradition' (not a line of which had been published, as must always be borne in mind) seen in my father's writing at this time represent the emergence of new ideas, even to the extent of an actual dismantling and transformation of certain deeply embedded conceptions. Chief among these are the nature of the 'dwelling' of the Valar in Arda and the interrelated question of 'the shape of the world'; and the Fall of Men, seduced in their beginning by Meleko, but followed by the repentance of some and their rebellion against him.

On the other hand, it may be argued that these developments were inspired by a specific purpose in respect only of The Drowning of Anadune. Essentially this is the view that I myself take; but the other is not thereby excluded radically or at all points, for ideas that here first appear would have repercussions at a later time.

It will be seen that the 'sketches' just given are remarkably dissimilar in many points, although it is true that their haste and brevity, a certain vagueness of language, and my father's characteristic way of omitting some features and enlarging on others in successive 'outlines', make it often difficult to decide whether differences are more apparent than real. But I shall not in any case embark on any comparative analysis, for I think it will be agreed without further discussion that these 'sketches', taken with the opening texts of The Drowning of Anadune, give a strong impression of uncertainty on my father's part: they are like a kaleidoscopic succession of different patternings, as he sought for a comprehensive conception that would satisfy his aim.

But what was that aim? The key, I think, is to be found in the treatment of the Elves (Enkeladim, Eledai, Eldar, Nimri or Nimir).

For beyond a few very generalised ideas nothing is known of them: of their origin and history, of the Great March, of the rebellion of the Noldor, of their cities in Beleriand, of the long war against Morgoth.

In the first text of The Drowning of Anadune this ignorance is extended beyond that of the 'sketches' to a total obscuration of the distinction between Valar and Eldar (see pp. 353 - 4), although in the second text the Eldar appear under the Adunaic name Nimri. In the 'sketches' the isle of Eressea (Eresse) appears, yet confusedly, for (in Sketch III) the Valar dwelt on Eresse, and it was to Eresse that Earendel came and spoke before 'the Chief of the Valar'; while in The Drowning of Anadune Tol Eressea has virtually disappeared.

Where could such ignorance of the Elves be found but in the minds of Men of a later time? This, I believe, is what my father was concerned to portray: a tradition of Men, through long ages become dim and confused. At this time, perhaps, in the context of The Notion Club Papers and of the vast enlargement of his great story that was coming into being in The Lord of the Rings, he began to be concerned with questions of 'tradition' and the vagaries of tradition, the losses, confusions, simplifications and amplifications in the evolution of legend, as they might apply to his own - within the always enlarging compass of Middle-earth. This is speculation; it would have been helpful indeed if he had at this time left any record or note, however brief, of his reflections. But many years later he did write such a note, though brief indeed, on the envelope that contains the texts of The Drowning of Anadune:

Contains very old version (in Adunaic) which is good - in so far as it is just as much different (in inclusion and omission and emphasis) as would be probable in the supposed case:

(a) Mannish tradition

(b) Elvish tradition

(c) Mixed Dunedanic tradition

The handwriting and the use of a ball-point pen suggest a relatively late date, and were there no other evidence I would guess it to be some time in the 1960s. But it is certain that what appears to have been the final phase of my father's work on Numenor (A Description of Numenor, Aldarion and Erendis) dates from the mid-1960s (Unfinished Tales pp. 7 - 8); and it may be that the Akallabeth derives from that period also.

At any rate, there is here unequivocal evidence of how, long afterwards, he perceived his intention in The Drowning of Anadune: it was, specifically, 'Mannish tradition'. It could well be that - while the

'sketches' preceded the emergence of Adunaic - the conception of such a work was an important factor in the appearance of the new language at this time.

It seems to me likely that by 'Elvish tradition' he meant The Fall of Numenor; and since 'Mixed Dunedanic tradition' presumably means a mixture of Elvish and Numenorean tradition, he was in this surely referring to the Akallabeth, in which both The Fall of Numenor and The Drowning of Anadune were used (see pp. 376, 395 - 6).

I conclude therefore that the marked differences in the preliminary sketches reflect my father's shifting ideas of what the 'Mannish tradition' might be, and how to present it: he was sketching rapidly possible modes in which the memory, and the forgetfulness, of Men in Middle-earth, descendants of the Exiles of Numenor, might have transformed their early history.(16)

In The Drowning of Anadune the confusions and obscurities of the

'Mannish tradition' were in fact deepened, in relation to the preliminary sketches: in the submergence of the Elves under the general term Avalai in DA I, and in the virtual disappearance of Tol Eressea, with the name 'Lonely Isle' given to the summit of the Pillar of Heaven sought by seafarers after the Downfall. It is seen too in the treatment of 'Avallon(de)': for in the sketches (see note 12) this name appears already in the final application, the eastward haven in Tol Eressea, while in DA I the reference of Avallonde is obscure, and in the subsequent texts Avalloni is used of the Blessed Realm (see pp. 379

$16, 385 $47). My father seems not to have finally resolved how to present the Blessed Realm in this tradition; or, more probably, he chose to leave it as a matter 'unsure and dim'. In Sketch III it is told that after the banishment of Meleko from the world the Powers 'had no longer any local habitation on earth', and the Land of the Gods in the far West seems to be presented as a lie of Sauron's (see note 14). In The Drowning of Anadune ($16) those in Anadune who argued that the distant city seen over the water was an isle where the Nimri (Nimir) dwelt held also that 'mayhap the Avaloi(m) had no visible dwelling upon Earth'; yet later it is recounted ($47, and still more explicitly in the revision made to this passage, p. 391) that ArPharazon set foot on the Land of Aman, and after the Land of Aman was swallowed in the abyss 'the Avaloi(m) thereafter had no habitation on Earth'.

The attempt to analyse and order these shifting and fugitive conceptions will perhaps yield in the end no more than an understanding of what the problems were that my father was revolving in his mind. But since there is no reason to think that he turned to the subject of Numenor again, after he had forced himself to return to the plight of Sam Gamgee at the subterranean door of the Tower of Kirith Ungol, until many years had passed, it is interesting to see what he wrote of it in his long letter to Milton Waldman in 1951 (Letters no.

131): and I reprint two extracts from that letter here.

Thus, as the Second Age draws on, we have a great Kingdom and evil theocracy (for Sauron is also the god of his slaves) growing up in Middle-earth. In the West - actually the North-West is the only part clearly envisaged in these tales - lie the precarious refuges of thy Elves, while Men in those parts remains more or less uncorrupted if ignorant. The better and nobler sort of Men are in fact the kin of those that had departed to Numenor, but remain in a simple

'Homeric' state of patriarchal and tribal life.

Meanwhile Numenor has grown in wealth, wisdom, and glory, under its line of great kings of long life, directly descended from Elros, Earendil's son, brother of Elrond. The Downfall of Numenor, the Second Fall of Man (or Man rehabilitated but still mortal), brings on the catastrophic end, not only of the Second Age, but of the Old World, the primeval world of legend (envisaged as flat and bounded). After which the Third Age began, a Twilight Age, a Medium Aevum, the first of the broken and changed world; the last of the lingering dominion of visible fully incarnate Elves, and the last also in which Evil assumes a single dominant incarnate shape.

The Downfall is partly the result of an inner weakness in Men -

consequent, if you will, upon the first Fall (unrecorded in these tales), repented but not finally healed. Reward on earth is more dangerous for men than punishment! The Fall is achieved by the cunning of Sauron in exploiting this weakness. Its central theme is (inevitably, I think, in a story of Men) a Ban, or Prohibition.

The Numenoreans dwell within far sight of the easternmost

'immortal' land, Eressea; and as the only men to speak an Elvish tongue (learned in the days of their Alliance) they are in constant communication with their ancient friends and allies, either in the bliss of Eressea, or in the kingdom of Gilgalad on the shores of Middle-earth. They became thus in appearance, and even in powers of mind, hardly distinguishable from the Elves - but they remained mortal, even though rewarded by a triple, or more than a triple, span of years. Their reward is their undoing - or the means of their temptation. Their long life aids their achievements in art and wisdom, but breeds a possessive attitude to these things, and desire awakes for more time for their enjoyment. Foreseeing this in part, the gods laid a Ban on the Numenoreans from the beginning: they must never sail to Eressea, nor westward out of sight of their own land. In all other directions they could go as they would. They must not set foot on 'immortal' lands, and so become enamoured of an immortality (within the world), which was against their law, the special doom or gift of Iluvatar (God), and which their nature could not in fact endure.