Sauron Defeated (64 page)

And whether they came in truth to that harbour which of old the Adunai could descry from Menel-Tubal; or whether they found it not, or came to some other land and there assailed the Avaloi, it is not known. For the world was changed in that time, and the memory of all that went before is unsure and dim.

$47 Among the Nimri only was word preserved of the things that were; of whom the wisest in lore of old have learned this tale. And they say that the fleets of the Adunai came indeed to Avalloni in the deeps of the sea, and they encompassed it about; and still all was silent, and doom hung upon a thread.

For Ar-Pharazon wavered at the end, and almost he turned back; but pride was his master, and at last he left his ship and strode upon the shore. Then Aman called upon Eru, and in that hour the Avaloi laid down the governance of the Earth. But Eru showed forth his power, and he changed the fashion of the world; and a great chasm opened in the sea between Anadune and the Deathless Land, and the waters flowed down into it, and the noise and the smoke of those cataracts went up to heaven, and the world was shaken. And into the abyss fell all the fleets of the Adunai and were swallowed in oblivion. But the land of Aman and the land of his gift, standing upon either side of the great chasm in the seas, were also destroyed; for their roots were loosened, and they fell and foundered, and they are no more. And the Avaloi thereafter had no habitation on Earth, nor is there any place more where a memory of a world without evil is preserved; and the Avaloi dwell in secret, or have become as shadows and their power has waned.

$48 In an hour unlooked-for this doom befell, on the seventh evening since the passing of the fleets. Then suddenly there was a mighty wind and a tumult of the Earth, and the sky reeled and the hills slid, and Anadune went down into the sea with all its children, and its wives, and its maidens, and its ladies proud; and all its gardens and its halls and its towers, its riches and its jewels and its webs and its things painted and carven, and its laughter and its mirth and its music and its wisdom, and its speech, they vanished for ever. And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, took to its bosom Ar-Zimrahil the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls; too late she strove to climb the steep ways of Menel-Tubal to the holy place, for the waters overtook her, and her cry was lost in the roaring of the wind.

$49 But indeed the summit of the Mountain, the Pillar of Heaven, in the midst of the land was a hallowed place, nor had it ever been defiled. Therefore some have thought that it was not drowned for ever, but rose again above the waves, a lonely island lost in the great waters, if haply a mariner should come upon it. And many there were that after sought for it, because it was said among the remnant of the Adunai that the far-sighted men of old could see from Menel-Tubal's top the glimmer of the Deathless Land. For even after their ruin the hearts of the Adunai were still set westward.

$50 And though they knew that the land of Aman and the isle of Anadune were no more, they said: 'Avalloni is vanished from the Earth, and the Land of Gift is taken away, and in the world of this present darkness they cannot be found; yet they were, and therefore they still are in true being and in the whole shape of the world.' And the Adunai held that men so blessed might look upon other times than those of the body's life; and they longed ever to escape from the shadows of their exile and to see in some fashion the light that was of old. Therefore some among them would still search the empty seas,. but all the ways are crooked that once were straight,' they said.

$51 And in this way it came to pass that any were spared from the downfall of Anadune; and maybe this was the answer to the errand of Arbazan. For those that were spared were all of his house and kin, or faithful followers of his son. Now Nimruzan had remained behind, refusing the king's summons when he set out to war; and avoiding the soldiers of Zigur that came to seize him and drag him to the fires of the Temple, he went aboard ship and stood out a little from the shore, waiting on the hour. There he was protected by the land from the great draught of the sea that drew all down into the abyss, and afterward from the first fury of the storm and the great wave that rolled outwards when the chasm was closed and the foundations of the sea were rocked.

But when the land of Anadune toppled to its fall, then at last he fled, rather for the saving of the lives of those that followed him than of his own; for he deemed that no death could be more bitter than the ruin of that day. But the wind out of the West blew still more wild than any wind that men had known; and it tore away sail and threw down mast and hunted the unhappy men like straws upon the water. And the sea rose into great hills; and Nimruzan, and his sons and people, fleeing before the black gale from twilight into night were borne up upon the crests of waves like mountains moving, and after many days they were cast away far inland upon Middle-earth.

$52 And all the coasts and seaward regions of the world suffered great ruin and change in that time; for the Earth was sorely shaken, and the seas climbed over the lands, and shores foundered, and ancient isles were drowned, and new isles were uplifted; and hills crumbled, and rivers were turned into strange courses.

$53 And here ends the tale to speak of Nimruzan and his sons who after founded many kingdoms in Middle-earth; and though their lore and craft was but an echo of that which had been ere Zigur came to Anadune, yet did it seem very great to the wild men of the world.

$54 And it is said that Zigur himself was filled with dread at the fury of the wrath of the Avaloi and the doom that Eru wrought; for it was greater far than aught that he had looked for, hoping only for the death of the Adunai and the defeat of their proud king. And Zigur sitting in his black seat in the midst of his temple laughed when he heard the trumpets of Arpharazon sounding for battle; and again he laughed when he heard the thunder of the storm; and a third time, even as he laughed at his own thought (thinking what he would now do in the world, being rid of the Eruhin for ever), he was taken in the midst of his mirth and his seat and his temple fell into the abyss.

$55 But Zigur was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, yet ere long he devised another; and he came back also to Middle-earth and troubled the sons of Nimruzan and all men beside. But that comes not into the tale of the Drowning of Anadune, of which all is now told. For the name of that land perished, and that which was aforetime the Land of Gift in the midst of the sea was lost, and the exiles on the shores of the world, if they turned to the West, spoke of Akallabe that was whelmed in the waves, the Downfallen, Atalante in the Nimrian tongue.

*

I have shown (p. 353) that the original text of The Drowning of Anadune (DA I) can be placed between the composition of the manuscript (E) of Part Two of The Notion Club Papers and the rejected section F 1 of the typescript, on the evidence of the name of the Pillar of Heaven: Meneltyula in DA I (appearing as an emendation in E) but Menel-tubel (>-tubil) in F 1 (from here onwards, in comparative passages, I use the circumflex accent on all forms whatever the usage in the text cited). On the same basis the present text DA II belongs with F 1, since the Pillar of Heaven is here Menel-Tubal, whereas the replacement section F 2 of the typescript of the Papers has Minul-Tarik. Similarly DA II and F 1 agree in Avaloi, Adunai for F 2 Avaloim, Adunaim (for the different forms of Adunaic names in F 1 and F 2 see pp. 240 - 1, 305).

On the other hand, DA II has Anadune, as does F 2, whereas F 1 has Anadun; and F 1 had the Adunaic name of Earendil as Pharazir, changed on the typescript to Azrubel, while DA II has Azrabel from the first. In DA II appears the name Amatthane of 'the Land of Gift', which supplanted the name in F 1, Athanati (see p. 378, $12); F 2 has the final name, Yozayan.

From this comparison it is clear that the writing of DA II fell between the original and rewritten forms (F 1 and F 2) of Lowdham's account of Adunaic in Night 66 of The Notion Club Papers.

This greatly extended version of The Drowning of Anadune serves, looking further on, as an extraordinarily clear exemplification of my father's method of 'composition by expansion'. Separated by years and many further texts from the published Akallabeth, in DA II (most especially in the latter part of it) a very great deal of the actual wording of the Akallabeth was already present. The opening of DA II is totally distinct (for here the Akallabeth was expanded from The Fall of Numenor); but beginning with $12 (the sailing to Anadune following the Star) I calculate that no less than three-fifths of the precise wording of DA II was preserved in the Akallabeth. This is the more striking when one looks at it in reverse: for I find that, beginning at the same point in the Akallabeth (p. 260), only three-eighths of the latter (again, in precisely the same wording) are present in DA II. In other words, very much more than half of what my father wrote at this time was exactly retained in the Akallabeth; but very much less than half the Akallabeth was an exact retention from DA II.

A good deal of this expansion came about through the insertion (at different stages in the textual history) of phrases or brief passages into the body of the original text (and a small part of this belongs to the further textual history of The Drowning of Anadune). To a much greater extent the old narrative was transformed by the introduction of long sections of new writing. There were also significant alterations of structure.

There follows here a commentary, by paragraphs, on DA II, which includes all alterations of significance made to the text after it was typed, and also indications of the later expansions found in the Akallabeth.

Commentary on the second version.

$1. In DA II the ambiguity of the term Avalai in DA I is removed, and the Avaloi are 'mighty lords, whom Men remembered as gods', the Valar; while in $5 appear the Nimri (Eldar). The phrase 'whom Men remembered as gods' was changed to 'who were before the world was made, and do not die'.

This opening paragraph had been very roughtly rewritten on DA I nearly to its form in DA II, but for 'the Lord Arun' the name was 'the Lord Kheru'.

$2. his brother Aman (DA I Manawe). In all the texts of The Drowning of Anadune Manwe is named Aman, and this is the sole reference of the name. Aman was one of the names that my father listed as 'Alterations in last revision [of The Silmarillion]

in 1951' (see p. 312), and there seems good reason to suppose that Aman actually made its first appearance here, as the Adunaic name of Manwe.

$5. some said that they were the children of the Avaloi and did not die. In $16 the Nimri are called, without any qualification of

'some said', 'the children of the Deathless Folk'. Cf. the opening of the Quenta Silmarillion (V.204, $2):

These spirits the Elves name the Valar, which is the Powers, and Men have often called them Gods. Many lesser spirits of their own kind they brought in their train, both great and small; and some of these Men have confused with the Elves, but wrongly, for they were made before the World, whereas Elves and Men awoke first in the World, after the coming of the Valar.

Though not mentioned in this passage, the conception of 'the Children of the Valar' is frequently encountered in the Quenta Silmarillion; and cf. especially The Later Annals of Valinor (V.110): 'With these great ones came many lesser spirits, beings of their own kind but of smaller might... And with them also were later numbered their children...' (see commentary on this, V.120 - 1).

Eledai: this name is found elsewhere; see pp. 397 ff.

$7 and were not brought to nought: changed to 'and did not perish wholly from the Earth.'

$8 At the end of the opening sentence, '... than that of all other men', the following was added in:

for often he would launch his boat into the loud winds, or would sail alone far from the sight even of the mountains of his land, and return again hungry from the sea after many days.

Azrabel: cf. the rejected section F 1 of the typescript of Part Two of the Papers (p. 305): 'Azrubel, made of azar "sea" and the stem bel-'. The form Azrabel became Azrubel in the course of typing the third text DA III; but there is a single occurrence of Azrubel, as typed, in DA II ($23). On the significance of the two forms see p. 429.

Rothinzil: this name is found in the Akallabeth (pp. 259 - 60).

Vingalote: in DA I Wingalote; becoming Wingalote in DA III, and reverting to Vingalote in the final text DA IV.

$11 The concluding passage, beginning 'But Aman would not permit Azrabel...', was changed to read:

Azrubel did not return to bear these tidings to his kindred, whether of his own will, for he could not endure to depart again living from the Blessed Realm where no death had come; or by the command of Aman, that report of it should not trouble the hearts of the Eruhin, upon whom Eru himself had set the doom of death. But Aman took the ship Rothinzil and filled it with a silver flame, and set therein mariners of the Nimir, and raised it above the world to sail in the sky, a marvel to behold.