There had he nonetheless fallen to thinking deep cunning thoughts of his own, all of which he showed not even to Ilъvatar. Some of these devisings and imaginings he now wove into his music, and straightway harshness and discordancy rose about him, and many of those that played nigh him grew despondent and their music feeble, and their thoughts unfinished and unclear, while many others fell to attuning their music to his rather than to the great theme wherein they began.

In this way the mischief of Melko spread darkening the music, for those thoughts of his came from the outer blackness whither Ilъvatar had not yet turned the light of his face; and because his secret thoughts had no kinship with the beauty of Ilъvatar’s design its harmonies were broken and destroyed. Yet sat Ilъvatar and hearkened till the music reached a depth of gloom and ugliness unimaginable; then did he smile sadly and raised his left hand, and immediately, though none clearly knew how, a new theme began among the clash, like and yet unlike the first, and it gathered power and sweetness. But the discord and noise that Melko had aroused started into uproar against it, and there was a war of sounds, and a clangour arose in which little could be distinguished.

Then Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar, 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 Ilъvatar shook and 1a tremor ran through the dark places, Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar’s glance, that music crashed and ceased.

Then said Ilъvatar: “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 Ilъvatar, 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 Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar’s self, nor can any alter the music in Ilъvatar’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 Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar 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 them but a part of the whole and tributary to its glory. One thing only have I added, the fire that giveth Life and Reality”—and behold, the Secret Fire burnt at the heart of the world.

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 gl1ad 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 Ilъvatar had instructed deeper than all others in the depths of music; while the air and winds and the ethers of the firmament had Manwл Sъlimo devised, greatest and most noble of the Ainur. The earth and most of its goodly substances did Aulл contrive, whom Ilъvatar had taught many things of wisdom scarce less than Melko, yet was there much therein that was nought of his.⁵

Now Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar: “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 Sъlimo of the air and winds, that he and I play melodies for ever and ever to thy glory and rejoicing.”

Now Ulmo and Manwл have been great friends and allies in almost all matters since then.⁶

Now even as Ilъvatar spake to Ulmo, the Ainur beheld how the world unfolded, and that history which Ilъvatar had propounded to them as a great music was already being carried out. It is of their gathered memories of the speech of Ilъvatar 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 Ilъvatar 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.