A Gloomy Power that Dwelt Apart

"Far in the North neath hills of stone

in caverns black there was a throne

by fires illumined underground,

that winds of ice with moaning sound

made flare and flicker in dark smoke;

the wavering bitter coils did choke

the sunless airs of dungeons deep

where evil things did crouch and creep.

There sat a king: no Elfin race

nor mortal blood, nor kindly grace

of earth of heaven might he own,

far older, stronger than the stone

the world is built of, than the fire

that burns within more fierce and dire;

and thoughts profound were in his heart:

a gloomy power that dwelt apart."

 

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Lay of Leithian

(a.k.a. Beren and Luthien, beta version 0.571)

 

 

Continuing my leisurely drift along The History of Middle-Earth, I'm relieved at Tolkien having quickly dropped strict alliteration for something less jangly, but most of this version as well is simply forgettable, hobbled by its skaldic metre rather than sustained. The Middle-Earth we all know and love was evoked more eloquently in poetic prose than prosaic poesy. Except for that description of Morgoth above, which struck me as immediately recognizable, archetypal, almost inexplicably so... until visions by Gustave Dore flickered through my semi-consciousness. The Morgoth of The Silmarillion never struck me as "profound" but rather an infantile force of id, a deity of greed, envy and rot. Here though, just as I once chuckled to myself at realizing Robert Heinlein at the time of By His Bootstraps was largely channeling the literature of his youth, having not yet found his own style, Tolkien's mid-development description of Morgoth smacks of the recalcitrant Satan of Paradise Lost, a creature primarily of Pride.

Sure, as per the author's need to reconcile Christian and Nordic mythologies, Morgoth remained, inescapably, The Devil, but in a less literal sense and I find it interesting how the decadent noble's veneer of his description also fell away, only to find its way into others' characterization. In that comically alliterated version of The Children of Hurin, Morgoth even bloviates the role of fiendish tempter to his mortal captive (prompting the quoted incorruptible hero's rejoinder) a feature later downplayed and shifted onto his successor the saurian shapeshifter and his temptation of the Atlanteans to hubristic ruin. Morgoth's comparison to natural forces again was minimized, only for the relevant lines to be paraphrased by Galadriel (stronger than the foundations of the earth) and Mithrandir (servant of the secret fire) in meeting their respective fates. Pride, of course, has been later remembered more as the tragic flaw of the Noldor.

 

"do I repent, or change,
Though chang'd in outward lustre; that fixt mind
And high disdain, from sence of injur'd merit"

-Milton