The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1 - J. R. R. Tolkien [32]
Then the Ainur marvelled to see how the world was globed amid the void and yet separated from it; and they rejoiced to see light, and found it was both white and golden, and they laughed for the pleasure of colours, and for the great roaring of the ocean they were filled with longing. Their hearts were glad because of air and the winds, and the matters whereof the Earth was made—iron and stone and silver and gold and many substances: but of all these water was held the fairest and most goodly and most greatly praised. Indeed there liveth still in water a deeper echo of the Music of the Ainur than in any substance else that is in the world, and at this latest day many of the Sons of Men will hearken unsatedly to the voice of the Sea and long for they know not what.
Know then that water was for the most part the dream and invention of Ulmo, an Ainu whom Ilúvatar had instructed deeper than all others in the depths of music; while the air and winds and the ethers of the firmament had Manwë Súlimo devised, greatest and most noble of the Ainur. The earth and most of its goodly substances did Aulë contrive, whom Ilúvatar had taught many things of wisdom scarce less than Melko, yet was there much therein that was nought of his.5
Now Ilúvatar spake to Ulmo and said: “Seest thou not how Melko hath bethought him of biting colds without moderation, yet hath not destroyed the beauty of thy crystal waters nor of all thy limpid pools. Even where he has thought to conquer utterly, behold snow has been made, and frost has wrought his exquisite works; ice has reared his castles in grandeur.”
Again said Ilúvatar: “Melko hath devised undue heats, and fires without restraint, and yet hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of thy seas. Rather behold now the height and glory of the clouds and the magic that dwells in mist and vapours; listen to the whisper of rains upon the earth.”
Then said Ulmo: “Yea truly is water fairer now than was my best devising before. Snow is of a loveliness beyond my most secret thoughts, and if there is little music therein, yet rain is beautiful indeed and hath a music that filleth my heart, so glad am I that my ears have found it, though its sadness is among the saddest of all things. Lo! I will go seek Súlimo of the air and winds, that he and I play melodies for ever and ever to thy glory and rejoicing.”
Now Ulmo and Manwë have been great friends and allies in almost all matters since then.6
Now even as Ilúvatar spake to Ulmo, the Ainur beheld how the world unfolded, and that history which Ilúvatar had propounded to them as a great music was already being carried out. It is of their gathered memories of the speech of Ilúvatar and the knowledge, incomplete it may be, that each has of their music, that the Ainur know so much of the future that few things are unforeseen by them—yet are there some that be hidden even from these.7 So the Ainur gazed; until long before the coming of Men—nay, who does not know that it was countless ages before even the Eldar arose and sang their first song and made the first of all the gems, and were seen by both Ilúvatar and the Ainur to be of exceeding loveliness—there grew a contention among them, so enamoured did they become of the glory of the world as they gazed upon it, and so enthralled by the history enacted therein to which the beauty of the world was but the background and the scene.
Now this was the end, that some abode still with Ilúvatar beyond the world—and these were mostly those who had been engrossed in their playing with thoughts of Ilúvatar’s plan and design, and cared only to set it forth without aught of their own devising to adorn it; but some others, and among them many of the most beautiful and wisest of the Ainur, craved leave of Ilúvatar to dwell within the world. For said they: “We would have the guarding of those fair things of our dreams, which