Nov 17 24

17 min read

Myth & Longing

The Rise and Fall of Númenor

The Númenóreans lust for immortality leads to their ruin. Co-created with Sean Berube.

Númenor was a prosperous island kingdom in Tolkien’s Middle Earth, raised from the sea by the god-like Valar as a gift to Men.

For their virtue the Númenóreans were gifted wisdom and long life, and became unequaled craftsmen and mariners.

As centuries passed, they grew proud of their virtues. They began to hate death and envied the immortality of the Eldar, their elven friends.

In collaboration with expert Sean Berube (@SeanBerube4), we'll spend the next few episodes exploring the Tolkien legendarium.

We begin with today's reading of 'The Silmarillion,' on the rise and fall of Númenor.

It is said by the Eldar that Men came into the world in the time of the Shadow of Morgoth, and they fell swiftly under his dominion. They worshipped the Darkness and yet feared it.

But there were some that turned from evil and left the lands of their kindred, and wandered ever westward; for they had heard a rumour that in the West there was a light which the Shadow could not dim.

These men were named the Edain and they became friends and allies of the Eldar, and did deeds of great valour in the war against Morgoth.

In the Great Battle when at last Morgoth was overthrown, the Edain alone of the kindreds of Men fought for the Valar, whereas many others fought for Morgoth.

A land was made for the Edain to dwell in, neither part of Middle-earth nor of Valinor, for it was sundered from either by a wide sea.

This was the beginning of that people that in the Grey-elven speech are called the Dúnedain: the Númenóreans, Kings among Men.

But they did not thus escape from mortality, the doom of death, though their years were long, and they knew no sickness, ere the shadow fell upon them. Therefore they grew wise and glorious.

Thus the years passed, and while Middle-earth went backward and light and wisdom faded, the Dúnedain dwelt under the protection of the Valar and in the friendship of the Eldar, and they increased in stature both of mind and body.

Above all arts [the Dúnedain] nourished ship-building and sea-craft, and they became mariners whose like shall never be again since the world was diminished; and voyaging upon the wide seas was the chief feat and adventure of their hardy men in the gallant days of their youth.

But the Lords of Valinor forbade them to sail too far westward [so they wouldn’t become enamoured by the immortality of the Valar and Eldar], for in those days Valinor still remained in the world visible.

But the Númenóreans began to hunger for the undying city that they saw from afar, and the desire of everlasting life.

They began to murmur, at first in their hearts, and then in open words, against the doom of Men, and most of all against the Ban which forbade them to sail into the West.

And they said among themselves: 'Why do the Lords of the West sit there in peace unending, while we must die and go we know not whither, leaving our home and all that we have made?'

'And the Eldar die not, even those that rebelled against the Lords. And since we have mastered all seas, and no water is so wild or so wide that our ships cannot overcome it, why should we not go greet our friends?'

The people of Númenor became divided. On the one hand was the greater party, and they were called the King’s Men, and they grew proud and were estranged from the Eldar and the Valar. And on the other hand was the lesser party, and they were called the Elendili, the Elf-friends;

The fear of death grew ever darker upon [the King’s Men], and they delayed it by all means that they could; and they began to build great houses for their dead, while their wise men laboured unceasingly to discover if they might the secret of recalling life, or at the least of the prolonging of Men’s days.

Yet they achieved only the art of preserving incorrupt the dead flesh of Men, and they filled all the land with silent tombs in which the thought of death was enshrined in the darkness.

Thus it came to pass in that time that the Númenóreans first made great settlements upon the west shores of [Middle-earth]. The lordships and strongholds that they made have left many rumours in the legends of Men.

The Mightiest Númenórean

Ar-Pharazôn builds army to challenge Sauron. Co-created with Sean Berube.

When Sauron declared himself King of Middle-earth, Númenor's King — Ar-Pharazôn — was offended.

Ar-Pharazôn assembled a massive Númenórean fleet, unparalleled in its might, and sailed to Middle-earth to confront Sauron.

When Sauron saw the might of the Númenórean fleet, he recognized the futility of military resistance and surrendered.

Here Ar-Pharazôn would make a critical mistake, taking Sauron back to Númenor as prisoner.

Sauron was secretly delighted. Though weaker, he was devilishly intelligent and armed with a serpent's tongue. And as Númenor's prisoner, Sauron could now corrupt the Númenóreans from within.

Of all those that had wielded the Sceptre of the Sea-Kings since the foundation of Númenor, [Ar-Pharazôn] was the mightiest and proudest.

Four and twenty Kings and Queens had ruled the Númenóreans, and slept now in their deep tombs lying upon beds of gold.

And sitting upon his carven throne in the glory of his power, he brooded darkly, thinking of war. For he had learned in Middle-earth of the strength of the realm of Sauron [who had claimed the title, 'King of Men'].

He determined without counsel of the Valar, or the aid of any wisdom but his own, that the title of King of Men he would himself claim, and would compel Sauron to become his vassal and his servant.

Therefore he began in that time to smithy a great hoard of weapons, and when all was made ready he himself set sail with his host into the East.

[The men of Middle-earth] saw his sails coming up out of the sunset, dyed as with scarlet and gleaming with red and gold, and fear fell upon the dwellers by the coasts, and they fled far away.

For seven days he journeyed with banner and trumpet, and he came to a hill, and he went up, and he set there his pavilion and his throne; and the tents of his host were ranged all about him, blue, golden, and white, as a field of tall flowers.

Then he sent forth heralds, and he commanded Sauron to come before him and swear to him fealty.

And Sauron came. Even from his mighty tower of Baraddûr he came, and made no offer of battle. For he perceived that the power and majesty of the Kings of the Sea surpassed all rumour of them.

[Sauron] was crafty, well skilled to gain what he would by subtlety when force might not avail.

Therefore he humbled himself before Ar-Pharazôn and smoothed his tongue; and men wondered, for all that he said seemed fair and wise.

But Ar-Pharazôn was not yet deceived, and it came into his mind that, for the better keeping of Sauron and of his oaths of fealty, he should be brought to Númenor, there to dwell as a hostage for himself and all his servants in Middle-earth.

To this Sauron assented as one constrained, yet in his secret thought he received it gladly, for it chimed indeed with his desire [to destroy Númenor from within].

[Within three years, Sauron] had become closest to the secret counsels of the King; for flattery sweet as honey was ever on his tongue.

Sauron

"In the east and even in the west, there lay yet many seas and many lands for your winning, wherein wealth lay uncounted."

"And still, if you should at the last come to the end of these lands and seas, beyond all lay the Ancient Darkness."

"And out of it the world was made. For Darkness alone is worshipful, and the Lord thereof may yet make other worlds to be gifts to those that serve him, so that the increase of their power shall find no end."

Ar Pharazon

"Who is the Lord of the Darkness?"

Sauron

"It is he whose name is not now spoken; for the Valar have deceived you concerning him, putting forward the name of Eru (God), a phantom devised in the folly of their hearts, seeking to enchain Men in servitude to themselves."

"For they are the oracle of this Eru, which speaks only what they will. But he that is their master shall yet prevail."

"He will deliver you from this phantom; and his name is Melkor, Lord of All, Giver of Freedom, and he shall make you stronger than they."

The King Ar-Pharazôn turned back to the worship of the Dark, and of Melkor the Lord thereof, at first in secret, but ere long openly and in the face of his people; and they for the most part followed him.

Thus Ar-Pharazôn, King of the Land of the Star, grew to the mightiest tyrant that had yet been in the world since the reign of Morgoth, though in truth Sauron ruled all from behind the throne.

But the years passed, and the King felt the shadow of death approach, as his days lengthened; and he was filled with fear and wrath.

Now came the hour that Sauron had prepared and long had awaited. And Sauron spoke to the King...

Sauron

"Your strength is now so great that you might think to have your will in all things, and not be subject to the Valar's ban from sailing west."

Far Off Country

"Exploring the ineffable longing for beauty."

The word Sehnsucht is a German term that means 'longing.' C.S. Lewis believed it contains the meaning of life itself.In today's episode, writer and intellectual Sean Berube introduces Lewis's sermon, "The Weight of Glory."

Throughout Lewis's life, he was plagued by 'stabbings of joy': sudden moments of happiness, followed by intense heartache.He yearned for a true happiness he could never seem to find.

He wondered, what is this longing inside of me? Am I doomed to unhappiness? Is life sheer misery?

He spent years searching for answers, following his Sehnsucht - this constant sadness and desire for joy.He'd read great literature and discussed his dilemmas with friends like J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton.Finally, he reached a conclusion.

Sehnsucht was not pointless heartache; it was pointing to something."If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world," a 'far off country.'

In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency.

I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence.

The secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves...

The secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.

We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter.

Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat.If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.

These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers.

For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited.

For more insights by Sean Berube, follow him on X (@SeanBerube4).In the next Crone episode, we'll continue our exploration of Sehnsucht through C.S. Lewis's autobiography, "Surprised by Joy."

The Long Winter Broke

C.S. Lewis reawakens after seeing an illustration.

As we read in the last episode, C.S. Lewis's spiritual life was set in motion by 'Sehnsucht,' joy and longing for the ideal. For Lewis, true Joy must always carry the stab and pang of inconsolable longing.

We'll read from his autobiography, 'Surprised by Joy,' about his 'renaissance' from the dark ages of boyhood, thanks to a chance encounter with an illustrated opera cover.

I DO NOT much believe in the Renaissance as generally described by historians. The more I look into the evidence the less trace I find of that vernal rapture which is supposed to have swept Europe in the fifteenth century.

I half suspect that the glow in the historians' pages has a different source, that each is remembering, and projecting, his own personal Renaissance; that wonderful reawakening which comes to most of us when puberty is complete.

It is properly called a rebirth not a birth, a reawakening not a wakening, because in many of us, besides being a new thing, it is also the recovery of things we had in childhood and lost when we became boys. For boyhood is very like the "dark ages."

In my own life it was certainly so. My childhood is at unity with the rest of my life; my boyhood not so. The authentic "Joy" had vanished from my life: so completely that not even the memory or the desire of it remained.Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.

This long winter broke up in a single moment. Spring is the inevitable image, but this was not gradual like Nature's springs.

It was as if the Arctic itself, all the deep layers of secular ice, should change not in a week nor in an hour, but instantly, into a landscape of grass and primroses and orchards in bloom, deafened with bird songs and astir with running water.

My eye fell upon a headline and a picture, carelessly, expecting nothing. A moment later, as the poet says, "The sky had turned round."

What I had read was the words "Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods." What I had seen was one of Arthur Rackham's illustrations to that volume.

I had never heard of Wagner, nor of Siegfried. [And yet] pure "Northernness" engulfed me: a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer, remoteness, severity...

And with that plunge back into my own past there arose at once, almost like heartbreak, the memory of Joy itself, the knowledge that I had once had what I had now lacked for years, that I was returning at last from exile and desert lands to my own country;

And the distance of the Twilight of the Gods and the distance of my own past Joy, both unattainable, flowed together into a single, unendurable sense of desire and loss, which suddenly became one with the loss of the whole experience.

As I now stared round that dusty schoolroom like a man recovering from unconsciousness, [the experience] had already vanished, had eluded me at the very moment when I could first say It is. And at once I knew (with fatal knowledge) that to "have it again" was the supreme and only important object of desire.