Back to text
3 A note on one of the title pages of Quendi and Eldar indicates that the Ósanwe-kenta was intended by Tolkien as an adjunct to the longer essay: “To which is added an abbreviation of the Ósanwe-kenta or ‘Communication of Thought’” (X:415). Furthermore, Christopher Tolkien notes that his father used the title Quendi and Eldar not only for the longer essay, but also to include the Ósanwe-kenta and another brief essay on the origin of Orcs (the latter published in Morgoth’s Ring, cf. pp. 415 ff.). All three essays are extant in typescript versions that are “identical in general appearance” (X:415).
The association of the Ósanwe-kenta with Quendi and Eldar also extends to terminology and subject matter. For example, the Ósanwe-kenta employs certain linguistic terms defined and discussed in some detail in Quendi and Eldar (e.g. tengwesta, lambë) in a manner that assumes that the definitions and distinctions given there are already known. Further, the Ósanwe-kenta amplifies certain statements in the Note on the ‘Language of the Valar’ that concludes Quendi and Eldar: e.g. that “It was the special talent of the Incarnate, who lived by necessary union of hröa and fëa, to make language” (XI:405); and, more strikingly, that “the Valar and Maiar could transmit and receive thought directly (by the will of both parties) according to their right nature”, although their “use of bodily form … made this mode of communication less swift and precise” (XI:406). It likewise amplifies upon “the speed with which … a tengwesta may be learned by a higher order”, by the aid of direct “transmission and reception of thought” in conjunction with “warmth of heart” and “desire to understand others”, as exemplified by the quickness with which Finrod learned the Bëorian language (ibid.)
In its remarkable natural and moral philosophical range, the Ósanwe-kenta also has strong affinities with other, similarly philosophical, and closely contemporary writings published in Morgoth’s Ring: e.g. Laws and Customs among the Eldar, the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, and many of the briefer writings collected in Part V, “Myths Transformed”. Of these, of particular note in connection with the present essay are texts II (X:375 ff.), VI Melkor Morgoth (X:390 ff.), and VII Notes on motives in the Silmarillion (X:394 ff.), all in some manner concerned with the motives and methods of Melkor and his dealings with Manwë and the other Valar and the Incarnates. The beginning of part (ii) of this last text (X:398 ff.) is especially noteworthy; though very much briefer and less detailed than the Ósanwe-kenta, it is also concerned with “thought-transference” and with many of the same philosophical issues surrounding it as are discussed in the present text.
Back to text
4 In this and every subsequent instance, “Eruhíni” has been altered by Tolkien from typed “Eruhin” (cf. X:320).
Back to text
5 Tolkien replaced “willing” with “intending” in the act of typing.
Back to text
6 The concept of the Marring of Arda was much elaborated by Tolkien among the closely contemporary writings published in Morgoth’s Ring (for the many references, see X:455). Cf. also XI:401.
Back to text
7 Tolkien wrote “an impediment” above deleted “a barrier”.
Back to text
8 On the “binding” nature of the use by those not naturally incarnate of a body for bodily pleasures, see BODY AND SPIRIT in App. I.
Back to text
9 This is perhaps a reference to the c. 1925–31 Lay of Leithian (cf. III:252–4, ll.2740–2822), where it is said that Sauron (then called Thû) escaped from Huan as “A vampire shape with pinions vast”, though leaving behind “a wolvish corpse”. In the published Silmarillion (S:175), however, it is plain that Sauron yields to Lúthien and is let loose by Huan in order to avoid his bodily destruction.
Back to text
10 Cf. the discussion of essi apacenyë ‘names of foresight’, given by a mother to her child in the hour of its birth in indication of “some foresight of its special fate” (X:216).
Back to text
11 Tolkien wrote “forecasting” in the margin as a replacement for deleted “predicting”.
Back to text
12 With this statement of the impossibility of forced penetration of the mind, compare the first paragraph of part (ii) of the Notes on motives in the Silmarillion (X:398–9), which appears to say that such an act is possible, though forbidden and, even if done for “good” purposes, criminal.
Back to text
13 With this discussion of Melkor’s deceitful methods of winning entry through the door of the sáma, it is interesting to compare the contemporary depiction of his failed attempt to cozen, flatter, and entice Fëanor into allowing him to enter through the (physical) door of Formenos, in the second-phase expansion of the Quenta Silmarillion chapter “Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor” (X:280 §54, also S:71–2).
Back to text
14 This sentence originally ended: “they have ceased to be [?– and] have become mere prudence”.
Back to text
* * *
* * *
X Notes on Órë
1 The Etymologies gives the base ORO- ‘up; rise; high; etc.’, whence Q. óre ‘rising’ (V:379).
Back to text
2 I.e., LR:1123.
Back to text
3 Cf. LR:59, 266, 797, 802.
Back to text
4 This footnote continues with an incomplete sentence: “But during the”.
Back to text
5 The word “indirectly” replaced original “mediately”.
Back to text
6 An exceedingly difficult marginal note against this paragraph reads, so far as I can determine: “[? heart] what one might call [????] feelings, a presentiment [?? believe though this does not] arise from evidence [?gathered] by [?one’s] conscious mind.”
Back to text
7 In apparently closely contemporary writings (i.e., c. Jan. 1968) elsewhere in Tolkien’s papers, the verbal base √NID is glossed ‘force, press(ure), thrust’. Among the Quenya derivatives given there are the noun indo ‘the mind in its purposing faculty, the will’, and the verb nirin ‘I press, thrust, force (in a given direction)’, which “though applicable to the pressure of a person on others, by mind and ‘will’ as well as by physical strength, could also be used of physical pressures exerted by inanimates”.
Back to text
8 In the top margin of the page, above these glosses, is an exceedingly difficult note, which so far as I am able to make out reads: “hóre also the conscience. The inner or inherent knowledge of what was good for the health of the [?mind & soul? the good??] beyond wisdom of experience [?? pity???].
Back to text
9 Tolkien here wrote: “Q. felme | feafelme | hroafelme”, presumably to be translated as ‘impulse, emotion’, ‘spirit-impulse’, and ‘body-impulse’, respectively.
Back to text
10 The word “thought” here replaced earlier “believed” in the act of writing.
Back to text
11 This is the c. 1959 text published as Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth in Morgoth’s Ring (X:303 ff.).
Back to text
12 Cf. LR:1062. Aragorn also states there that he had been given “a span thrice that of Men of Middle-earth”. Cf. chaps. XVIII, “Elvish Ages & Númenórean”, in part one of this book, and XI, “Lives of the Númenóreans”, and XII, “The Ageing of Númenóreans”, in part three.
Back to text
13 Cf. The Tale of Adanel, X:345–9; also X:351 and 354–6. As first written, the manuscript read “a god”; “god” was then altered to “God”. The indefinite article was not deleted, but presumably should have been, and so has been removed here editorially. With the fallen nature of Men, in Elvish and Mannish thought, see chaps. XII, “Concerning the Quendi in Their Mode of Life and Growth”, in part one of this book. See also THE FALL OF MAN in App. I.
Back to text
14 Tolkien’s handwriting becomes extremely difficult at this point; so far
as I can determine, the note continues: “because though not physical [?] were [?] it was [??] of the fëa [?when] it was [? heart] of the [?] by the [?impact] of the experience of its hroa / body [?] the óre [??].”
Back to text
* * *
* * *
XI Fate and Free Will
1 The query mark is Tolkien’s own. The symbol “>” is commonly used in linguistics to mean “yielded”, either in form (by phonological development) or meaning (by semantic variation). Here the meaning is that from the basic sense ‘settle, establish’ arose the sense ‘to erect permanent buildings or dwellings’.
Back to text
2 Greek οἰκουμένη ‘inhabited region; the inhabited world’.
Back to text
3 I.e. LR:1080.
Back to text
4 Cf. also Gandalf’s statement, “I did no more than follow the lead of ‘chance’” in The Quest of Erebor (UT:322).
Back to text
5 This paragraph, interpolated from the first version of the note, continues with a partial sentence: “Ambar is complex enough, but only Eru who made and designed both Ambar (the processes of Eä)”. Tolkien interrupted the sentence at this point to provide an etymological note on Eä, which reads: “Eä ‘it is’ only = the total of Ambar: the given material and its processes of change. Outside Eä is the world/sphere of aware purpose and will”. This was followed at the bottom of the page by an etymological note on the Quenya word for ‘will’:
?DEL: Q. lēle, v[erb] lelya (lelinye): To will with conscious purpose, immediate or remote. To be willing, to assent, consent, agree – quite different, for it partakes of will but is an additional [?accident]. A man may say “I [?wish], I agree, I will” to some proposition of another without special purpose of his own (but he may also have reflected that it fits in with some design of his own and so agree to it as he might not otherwise have done).
Back to text
6 The apparent ascription to Eru here of less than complete foreknowledge of the Music and the resulting Tale, in apparent contradiction of the absolute omniscience ascribed to God in both Catholic and classical theistic thought, may help explain the apparently hesitant nature of this roughly and faintly written addition. In any event, as Tolkien wrote before applying the simile of an author of a tale to Eru, it is “only a likeness … the nearest experience of the Incarnates to this problem”.
Back to text
* * *
* * *
XII The Knowledge of the Valar
1 That is, imagining or projecting a bodily form onto (in this case) spiritual beings.
Back to text
2 On the openness of minds, see chap. IX, “Ósanwe-kenta”, above; on the substitution of a Vala as God in place of Eru, see chap. X, “Notes on Órë”, above.
Back to text
3 See chap. XIV, “The Visible Forms of the Valar and Maiar”, below.
Back to text
* * *
* * *
XIII Spirit
1 The question mark here is Tolkien’s own, expressing that S. thû is perhaps derived from earlier thus.
Back to text
2 That is, “spirit” as a “manifestation” or “incorporeal presence” (see the end of the second paragraph.
Back to text
3 With “mental picture” in this footnote, see “Mind-Pictures” above.
Back to text
4 For “Máyar” as a seldom-used form of the name “Maiar” see chap. VII, “The March of the Quendi”, n.11, above
Back to text
5 On the natural unity of body and spirit in Incarnates, see BODY AND SPIRIT in App. I.
Back to text
6 Q. palanyantië was altered from “palannexe” in the act of writing. For more on telepathy between spirits, see chaps. VII, “Mind-Pictures”, and XI, “Ósanwe-kenta”, above.
Back to text
7 As first written, this sentence read: “Ar thúle Manwëo etturinye etsurinye ar[?a] Melkoro”, before “Melkoro” (gen. ‘of Melkor’) was struck out; the whole being apparently an aborted translation of “And the spirit of Manwë went out and the servants of Melkor were stayed”. While etturinye was not likewise struck out, I take it as intended to be replaced by following etsurinye in light of surinye in the subsequent jottings (q.v.). Similarly, “Eldaron indor” replaced the deleted false starts: “in indor Eld in Eldar” in the act of writing. Both in this and in the following Quenya sentence, the three occurrences of the conjunction “ar” was revised from, apparently, original “ara”.
Back to text
8 As first written, this sentence began with the false start: “Sustane i sul”. The genitive form “Sindicollo” ‘of Thingol’ was altered from original “Sindicolluo” in the act of writing.
Back to text
9 I have provided the mark “*” (indicating a primitive form) editorially, regularized Q sūta(ne) to súta(në), and rearranged some items to indicate the “historical” and phonological developments implied by these forms.
Back to text
* * *
* * *
XIV The Visible Forms of the Valar and Maiar
1 In the footnote, the words “as forms of evil and enemies undisguised” replaced original “as enemies of dreadful shape”. But with this cf. the statement at UT:254 n.7 that when in the Second Age in Eregion, long after Melkor’s destruction of the Two Trees, Sauron “came among the Noldor he adopted a specious fair form”. With the fragrance of uncorrupted spirits see ODOUR OF SANCTITY in App. I.
Back to text
2 I.e. LR:377.
Back to text
3 With this gesture of rejection, cf. chap. III, “Eldarin Hands, Fingers, and Numerals” above.
Back to text
4 Cf. LR:377–8.
Back to text
5 A deleted footnote at this point read:
The fanar were physical or had the properties of material substances, i.e. were not transparent, could move other objects, cast shadows (if not themselves shining) and were resisted by or offered resistance to other physical things. But the Vala (or Maia) could move or pass over Sea. For their bodies were self-made. They houseless as spirits could go where they would (either slowly or immediately), and could then reclothe themselves. In Middle-earth they usually occluded their radiance.
Back to text
6 Cf. The Road Goes Ever On (1968), p. 66.
Back to text
7 With indemmar cf. chap. VII, “Mind-Pictures”, above.
Back to text
* * *
* * *
XV Elvish Reincarnation
1 For the implications of the form Melcor for dating this and other texts, see my editorial introduction to chap. XVII, “Death”, below.
Back to text
2 As first typed, this paragraph read:
Eru answered: “It shall be within your authority, but it is not within your power. Those [for whom ye judge that re-birth >>] whom ye judge fit to be reborn, if they desire it ye shall [?name] to Me, and they must then await My will. I shall consider them and understand clearly what they incur.
Tolkien then typed an alternative to this paragraph, subsequently struck through:
Eru answered: “It is in your power; but ye shall have authority to choose from among those who desire it the fëar for whom re-birth is fitting, but ye find any that desire re-birth, ye shall instruct them, and if when they learn all that is entailed they still desire it, they shall be reserved to Me, to await my will.
Back to text
3 On the natural unity of hröa (‘body’) and fëa (‘spirit’) in Incarnates, see BODY AND SPIRIT in App. I.
Back to text
4 As first typed, this sentence ended:
they could not do anything nor achieve any new design, since by nature they were made to work through the body.
Back to text
5 For the “gift of will” and its limits, see chap. XI. “Fate and Free Will”, above
.
Back to text
6 With the concept of the erma as a single, undifferentiated first thing or matter, see PRIME MATTER in App. I. With the concept of a “pattern” that defines the kind and identity of a material and its “virtues and effects”, cf. “The Primal Impulse” (below), and cf. HYLOMORPHISM in App. I. Noting that únehtar are, it appears, quite literally “atoms” (i.e., ‘indivisible things’), the discussion of minute and rare variations of the únehtar of a nassë (material) is highly reminiscent of the phenomenon of isotopes of elements, as for example deuterium (2H) of hydrogen. The form “únehtar” replaces earlier “únexi” (of the same apparently literal meaning, but with nominal rather than deverbal derivation).
Back to text
7 For evil as a lack in the conceived and unrealized pattern, see EVIL (AS LACK OF PERFECTION) in App. I.
Back to text
8 For more on the “primal life-pattern”, see chap. II, “The Primal Impulse”, in part three of this book.
Back to text
9 For the blending and varying of the patterns of living things, again see “The Primal Impulse”; and cf. EVOLUTION (THEISTIC) in App. I.
Back to text
10 Tolkien would have been aware of the “unstable” nature of certain elements that decay and become other elements over time, as for example when uranium (238Ur) through a chain of mutations becomes various other elements before stabilizing as lead (206Pb).
Back to text
11 Tolkien later drew a vertical line and the word “no” in red ball-point pen against the last three sentences of this paragraph. At apparently the same time he added the footnote naming Míriel the “first case”, also in red ball-point pen. For the ramifications of Míriel’s death being the first in Aman, see X:269–71.
The Nature of Middle-earth Page 44