Now the Children of Ilúvatar are
Elves and Men, the Firstborn and the Followers. And amid all the splendours of
the World, its vast halls and spaces, and its wheeling fires, Ilúvatar chose a
place for their habitation in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the
innumerable stars. And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who
consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness; as
who should take the whole field of Arda for the foundation of a pillar and so
raise it until the cone of its summit were more bitter than a needle; or who
consider only the immeasurable vastness of the World, which still the Ainur are
shaping, and not the minute precision to which they shape all things therein.
But when the Ainur had beheld this habitation in a vision and had seen the
Children of Ilúvatar arise therein, then many of the most mighty among them
bent all their thought and their desire towards that place. And of these Melkor
was the chief, even as he was in the beginning the greatest of the Ainur who
took part in the Music. And he feigned, even to himself at first, that he
desired to go thither and order all things for the good of the Children of
Ilúvatar, controlling the turmoils of the heat and the cold that had come to
pass through him. But he desired rather to subdue to his will both Elves and
Men, envying the gifts with which Ilúvatar promised to endow them; and he
wished himself to have subjects and servants, and to be called Lord, and to be
a master over other wills.
But the other Ainur looked upon
this habitation set within the vast spaces of the World, which the Elves call
Arda, the Earth; and their hearts rejoiced in light, and their eyes beholding
many colours were filled with gladness; but because of the roaring of the sea
they felt a great unquiet. And they observed the winds and the air, and the
matters of which Arda was made, of iron and stone and silver and gold and many
substances: but of all these water they most greatly praised. And it is said by
the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more
than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of
Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for
what they listen.
Now to water had that Ainu whom the
Elves call Ulmo turned his thought, and of all most deeply was he instructed by
Ilúvatar in music. But of the airs and winds Manwë most had pondered, who is
the noblest of the Ainur. Of the fabric of Earth had Aulë thought, to whom Ilúvatar
had given skill and knowledge scare less than to Melkor; but the delight and
pride of Aulë is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and neither in
possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he gives and hoards not, and is
free from care, passing ever on to some new work.
And Ilúvatar spoke to Ulmo, and
said: ‘Seest thou not how here in this little realm in the Deeps of Time Melkor
hath made war upon thy province? He hath bethought him of bitter cold
immoderate, and yet hath not destroyed the beauty of thy fountains, nor of thy
clear pools. Behold the snow, and the cunning work of frost! Melkor hath
devised heats and fire without restraint, and hath not dried up thy desire nor
utterly quelled the music of the sea. Behold rather the height and glory of the
clouds, and the everchanging mists; and listen to the fall of rain upon the
Earth! And in these clouds thou art drawn nearer to Manwë, thy friend, whom
thou lovest.’
Then Ulmo answered: ‘Truly, Water
is become now fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought
conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the
rain. I will seek Manwë, that he and I may make melodies for ever to thy
delight!’ And Manwë and Ulmo have from the beginning been allied, and in all
things have served most faithfully the purpose of Ilúvatar.
