Sauron Defeated (57 page)

$4 The gods forbade them to sail beyond the Lonely Isle and would not permit them to land in Valinor; for the Numenoreans were mortal, and though the Lords of the West had rewarded them with long life, they could not take from them the weariness of the world that cometh at last, and they died, even their kings of the seed of Earendel, and their span was brief in the eyes of the Elves. And they began to murmur against this decree, and a great discontent grew among them. Their masters of knowledge sought unceasingly for secrets that should prolong their lives; and they sent spies to seek hidden lore in Avallon; and the gods were angered.

$5 Now it came to pass [added: in the days of Tar-kalion, and twelve kings had ruled that land before him,](3) that Sauron, servant of Morgoth, grew strong in Middle-earth; and he learned of the power and splendour of the Numenoreans, and of their allegiance to the gods; and he feared lest they should come and wrest from him the dominion of the East and rescue the men of Middle-earth from the Shadow. And the king from his mariners heard also rumour of Sauron, and it was reported that he would make himself a king, greater even than the king of Numenor. Wherefore, taking no counsel of the gods or of the Elves, Tar-kalion the king sent his messengers to Sauron and commanded him to come and do homage. And Sauron, being filled with malice and cunning, humbled himself and came; and he beguiled the Numenoreans with signs and wonders. Little by little Sauron turned their hearts towards Morgoth, his master; and he prophesied to them, and lied, saying that Morgoth would come again into the world. And Sauron spake to Tar-kalion, and to Tar-ilien his queen, and promised them life unending and the dominion of the earth, if they would turn unto Morgoth. And they believed him, and fell under the Shadow, and the greater part of their people followed them. And Tar-kalion raised a great temple to Morgoth upon the Mountain of Iluvatar in the midst of the land; and Sauron dwelt there, and all Numenor was under his vigilance. [This passage, from

'upon the Mountain of Iluvatar ...', was struck out and replaced by the following: in the midst of the city of Numenos,(4) and its dome rose like a black hill glowering over the land; and smokes issued from it, for in that temple the Numenoreans made hideous sacrifice to Morgoth, beseeching the Lord of Darkness to deliver them from Death. But the hallowed place of Iluvatar was upon the summit of the Mountain Menelmin, Pillar of Heaven, in the midst of the land, and thither men had been wont to climb to offer thanksgiving. There only in all Numenor Sauron dared never to set his foot, and he forbade

[any] to go there under pain of death. Few dared to disobey him, even if they so wished, for Sauron had many eyes and all the ways of the land were under his vigilance. But some there were

;:, who remained faithful, and did not bow to him, and of these the chief were Elendil the fair, and his sons Anarion and Isildur, and they were of the royal blood of Earendel, though not of the line direct.]

$6 But in the passing of the years Tar-kalion felt the oncoming of old age, and he was troubled; but Sauron said that the bounty of Morgoth was withheld by the gods, and that to obtain plentitude of power and freedom from death the king must be master of the West. And the fear of death was heavy upon Tar-kalion. Therefore at his command the Numenoreans made a great armament; and their might and skill had grown exceedingly in those days, for they had in these matters the aid of Sauron. The fleets of the Numenoreans were like a land of many islands, and their masts were like a forest of mountain-trees, and their banners like the streamers of a thunderstorm, and their sails were scarlet and black. And they moved slowly into the West, for all the winds were stilled, and all the world was silent in the fear of that time. And they encompassed Avallon; and it is said that the Elves mourned and sickness came upon them, for the light of Valinor was cut off by the cloud of the Numenoreans. Then Tar-kalion assailed the shores of Valinor, and he cast forth bolts of thunder, and fire came upon Tuna, and flame and smoke rose about Taniquetil.

$7 But the gods made no answer. Then the vanguard of the Numenoreans set foot upon the forbidden shores, and they encamped in might upon the borders of Valinor. But the heart of Manwe was sorrowful and dismayed, and he called upon Iluvatar, and took power and counsel from the Maker; and the fate and fashion of the world was changed. The silence of the gods was broken and their power made manifest; and Valinor was sundered from the earth, and a rift appeared in the midst of the Great Sea, east of Avallon.

Into this chasm the Great Sea plunged, and the noise of the falling waters filled all the earth, and the smoke of the cataracts rose above the tops of the everlasting mountains. But all the ships of Numenor that were west of Avallon were drawn down into the abyss, and they were drowned; and Tar-kalion the golden and bright llien his queen fell like stars into the dark, and they perished out of all knowledge. But the mortal warriors that had set foot upon the Land of the Gods were buried under fallen hills; there it is said they lie imprisoned in the Caves of the Forgotten until the day of Doom and the Last Battle.

$8 Then Iluvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressea were taken from it into the realm of hidden things. And thereafter, however a man might sail, he could never again reach the True West, but would come back weary at last to the place of his beginning; for all lands and seas were equally distant from the centre of the earth. There was flood and great confusion of waters in that time, and sea covered much that in the Elder Days had been dry, both in the West and East of Middle-earth.

$9 Numenor, being nigh to the east of the great rift, was utterly thrown down, and overwhelmed in the sea, and its glory perished, and only a remnant of all its people escaped the ruin of those days. Some by the command of Tar-kalion, and some of their own will (because they still revered the gods and would not go with war into the West) had remained behind when the fleets set sail, and they sat in their ships upon the east coast of the land, lest the issue of war should be evil. Therefore, being protected for a while by the wall of their land, they avoided the draught of the sea; and many fled into the East, and came at length to the shores of Middle-earth.

Small remnant of all the mighty people that had perished were those that came up out of the devouring sea upon the wings of the winds of wrath, and shorn were they of their pride and power of old. But to those that looked out from the seaward hills and beheld their coming, riding upon the storm out of the mist and the darkness and the rumour of water, their black sails against the falling sun, terrible and strong they seemed, and the fear of the tall kings came into lands far from the sea.

$10 For lords and kings of men the Numenoreans became, and nigh to the western shores of Middle-earth they established realms and strong places. Some few were indeed evil, being of those who had hearkened to Sauron and still did not forsake him in their hearts; but the most were those of good will who had revered the gods and remembered the wisdom of old. Yet all alike were filled with the desire of long life upon earth, and the thought of death was heavy upon them. Their fate had cast them east upon Middle-earth, but their hearts still were westward. And they built mightier houses for their dead than for their living, and endowed their buried kings with unavailing treasure; for their wise men hoped still to discover the secret of prolonging life, and maybe of recalling it. Yet it is said that the span of their lives, which had of old been thrice that of lesser men, dwindled slowly; and they achieved only the art of preserving incorrupt the dead flesh of men. Wherefore the kingdoms of the western world became a place of tombs and were filled with ghosts. And in the fantasy of their hearts, amid the confusion of legends concerning half-forgotten things that once had been, they imagined in their thought a land of shades, filled with the wraiths of the things that are upon the mortal earth; and many deemed that this land was in the West and ruled by the gods, and that in shadow the dead should come there, bearing with them the shadows of their possessions, who could in the body find the True West no more. Therefore in after days many would bury their dead in ships, setting them forth in pomp upon the sea by the west coasts of the ancient world.

$11 Now the blood of the Numenoreans remained most among men of those western lands and shores; and the memory of the primeval world abode most strongly there, where the old paths to the West had aforetime set out from Middle-earth. For the ancient line of the world remained in the mind of Iluvatar, and in the thought of the gods, and in the memory of the world, as a shape and plan that has been changed and yet endureth.

And it has been likened to a plain of air, or to a straight vision that bendeth not to the curving of the earth, or to a level bridge that rises slowly above the heavy air. Of old many of the exiles of Numenor could still see, some clearly and some more faintly, the paths to the True West; and they believed that at times from a high place they could descry the peaks of Taniquetil at the end of the Straight Road, high above the world. Therefore they built very high towers in those days, and their holy places were upon the tops of mountains, for they would climb, if it might be, above the mists of Middle-earth into the clearer air that doth not veil the vision of things far off.

$12 But ever the number of those that had the ancient sight dwindled, and those that had it not and could not conceive it in their thought scorned the builders of towers, and trusted to ships that sailed upon the water. But they came only to the lands of the new world, and found them like to those of the old and subject to death; and they reported that the world was round.

For upon the Straight Road only the gods could walk, and only the ships of the Elves could journey; for being straight that road passed through the air of breath and flight and rose above it, and traversed Ilmen in which no mortal flesh can endure; whereas the surface of the earth was bent, and bent were the seas that lay upon it, and bent also were the heavy airs that were above them. Yet it is said that even of those Numenoreans of old who had the straight vision there were some who did not comprehend this, and they were busy to contrive ships that should rise above the waters of the world and hold to the imagined seas. But they achieved only ships that would sail in the air of breath. And these ships, flying, came also to the lands of the new world, and to the East of the old world; and they reported that the world was round. Therefore many abandoned the gods and put them out of their legends. But men of Middle-earth looked up with fear and wonder seeing the Numenoreans that descended out of the sky; and they took these mariners of the air to be gods, and some of the Numenoreans were content that this should be so.

$13 Yet not all the hearts of the Numenoreans were crooked; and knowledge of the days before the Downfall and of the wisdom descended from the Elf-friends, their fathers, was long preserved among them. And the wisest among them taught that the fate of Men was not bounded by the round path, nor set for ever upon the straight. For the round has no end, but no escape; and the straight is true, but has an end within the world, and that is the fate of the Elves. But the fate of Men, they said, is neither round nor ended, and is not complete within the world.

But even the wisdom of the wise was filled with sorrow and regret; and they remembered bitterly how the ruin was brought about and the cutting off of Men from their portion of the Straight Path. Therefore they avoided the shadow of Morgoth according to their power, and Sauron they held in hatred. And they assailed his temples and their servants, and there were wars among the mighty of Middle-earth, of which only the echoes now remain.

The concluding section ($14) of the earlier versions of The Fall of Numenor concerning Beleriand (see p. 331) was omitted in FN III.

Accepting the conclusion (see p. 331) that the version just given, as it was originally written, comes from a much earlier stage in the writing of The Lord of the Rings than do The Notion Club Papers, it seems almost certain that the alterations and additions made to it belong to the period of the Papers and The Drowning of Anadune.

The chief evidence for this (5) lies in the addition to $5 stating that Tar-kalion was the thirteenth king of Numenor, and in the correction in $5 of the description of the temple: it was not on the Mountain of Iluvatar, but 'in the midst of the city of Numenos' (see notes 3 and 4).

The most remarkable, and indeed astonishing, feature of these later additions to FN III is the statement in $2 that while 'the life of the Firstborn' was given to Elrond in accordance with his choice, 'yet a grace was added, that choice was never annulled, and while the world lasted he might return, if he would, to mortal men, and die.' To my present knowledge no such thing is said elsewhere of the Choice of Elrond; and contrast Appendix A (I, i) to The Lord of the Rings: 'At the end of the First Age the Valar gave to the Half-elven an irrevocable choice to which kindred they would belong.' This passage in FN III concerning Elrond and Elros reappeared years later in the Akallabeth, but with this sentence removed (The Silmarillion, p. 261).