The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [31]
Then Ilúvatar raised his right hand, and he no longer smiled but wept; and behold a third theme, and it was in no way like the others, grew amid the turmoil, till at the last it seemed there were two musics progressing at one time about the feet of Ilúvatar, and these were utterly at variance. One was very great and deep and beautiful, but it was mingled with an unquenchable sorrow, while the other was now grown to unity and a system of its own, but was loud and vain and arrogant, braying triumphantly against the other as it thought to drown it, yet ever, as it essayed to clash most fearsomely, finding itself but in some manner supplementing or harmonising with its rival.
At the midmost of this echoing struggle, whereat the halls of Ilúvatar shook and a tremor ran through the dark places, Ilúvatar raised up both his hands, and in one unfathomed chord, deeper then the firmament, more glorious than the sun, and piercing as the light of Ilúvatar’s glance, that music crashed and ceased.
Then said Ilúvatar: “Mighty are the Ainur, and glorious, and among them is Melko the most powerful in knowledge; but that he may know, and all the Ainur, that I am Ilúvatar, those things that ye have sung and played, lo! I have caused to be—not in the musics that ye make in the heavenly regions, as a joy to me and a play unto yourselves, alone, but rather to have shape and reality even as have ye Ainur, whom I have made to share in the reality of Ilúvatar myself. Maybe I shall love these things that come of my song even as I love the Ainur who are of my thought,4 and maybe more. Thou Melko shalt see that no theme can be played save it come in the end of Ilúvatar’s self, nor can any alter the music in Ilúvatar’s despite. He that attempts this finds himself in the end but aiding me in devising a thing of still greater grandeur and more complex wonder:—for lo! through Melko have terror as fire, and sorrow like dark waters, wrath like thunder, and evil as far from my light as the depths of the uttermost of the dark places, come into the design that I laid before you. Through him has pain and misery been made in the clash of overwhelming musics; and with confusion of sound have cruelty, and ravening, and darkness, loathly mire and all putrescence of thought or thing, foul mists and violent flame, cold without mercy, been born, and death without hope. Yet is this through him and not by him; and he shall see, and ye all likewise, and even shall those beings, who must now dwell among his evil and endure through Melko misery and sorrow, terror and wickedness, declare in the end that it redoundeth only to my great glory, and doth but make the theme more worth the hearing, Life more worth the living, and the World so much the more wonderful and marvellous, that of all the deeds of Ilúvatar it shall be called his mightiest and his loveliest.”
Then the Ainur feared and comprehended not all that was said, and Melko was filled with shame and the anger of shame; but Ilúvatar seeing their amaze arose in glory and went forth from his dwellings, past those fair regions he had fashioned for the Ainur, out into the dark places; and he bade the Ainur follow him.
Now when they reached the midmost void they beheld a sight of surpassing beauty and wonder where before had been emptiness; but Ilúvatar said: “Behold your choiring and your music! Even as ye played so of my will your music took shape, and lo! even now the world unfolds and its history begins as did my theme in your hands. Each one herein will find contained within the design that is mine the adornments and embellishments that he himself devised; nay, even Melko will discover those things there which he thought to contrive of his own heart, out of harmony with my mind, and he will find