A thought on the 'sentience' of the Ring

To say definitively if the One Ring is or is not sentient may not in the end be possible. To do so would surely require an attentive and thorough examination of the question. I tend to believe that it is not, but I also think that the ambiguity is both intentional and important. I am not pursuing that overall question here today, only a portion of it that has only recently become clear to me.

It struck me that Of Aulë and Yavanna supplies important testimony against the sentience of the Ring. Here's the passage in question (emphases mine):

Now Ilúvatar knew what was done, and in the very hour that Aulë's work was complete, and he was pleased, and began to instruct the Dwarves in the speech that he had devised for them, Ilúvatar spoke to him; and Aulë heard his voice and was silent. And the voice of Ilúvatar said to him: 'Why hast thou done this? Why dost thou attempt a thing which thou knowest is beyond thy power and thy authority? For thou hast from me as a gift thy own being only, and no more; and therefore the creatures of thy hand and mind can live only by that being, moving when thou thinkest to move them, and if thy thought be elsewhere, standing idle. Is that thy desire?'

Then Aulë answered: 'I did not desire such lordship. I desired things other than I am, to love and to teach them, so that they too might perceive the beauty of Eä, which thou hast caused to be. For it seemed to me that there is great room in Arda for many things that might rejoice in it, yet it is for the most part empty still, and dumb. And in my impatience I have fallen into folly. Yet the making of things is in my heart from my own making by thee; and the child of little understanding that makes a play of the deeds of his father may do so without thought of mockery, but because he is the son of his father. But what shall I do now, so that thou be not angry with me for ever? As a child to his father, I offer to thee these things, the work of the hands which thou hast made. Do with them what thou wilt. But should I not rather destroy the work of my presumption?'

Then Aulë took up a great hammer to smite the Dwarves; and he wept. But Ilúvatar had compassion upon Aulë and his desire, because of his humility; and the Dwarves shrank from the hammer and were afraid, and they bowed down their heads and begged for mercy. And the voice of Ilúvatar said to Aulë: 'Thy offer I accepted even as it was made. Dost thou not see that these things have now a life of their own, and speak with their own voices? Else they would not have flinched from thy blow, nor from any command of thy will.' Then Aulë cast down his hammer and was glad, and he gave thanks to Ilúvatar, saying: 'May Eru bless my work and amend it!'

(S 43-44) 

Without the direct intervention of Ilúvatar, all of Aulë's power and craft and love cannot give sentience or consciousness to the Dwarves. Now Of Aulë and Yayanna dates from 1958, so we must naturally take care when using it to support a point about The Lord of the Rings. Yet the notion of making something in mockery recalls the remarks of Treebeard at TT 3.iv.486 and of Frodo at TT 6.i.914: 'The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them....' So, it seems clear enough that, when writing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien already had in mind some version of the principle we see several years later in Of Aulë and Yayanna. 

The story that Aulë made the Dwarves arose first in the 1930s, but Ilúvatar plays no role in it and the Dwarves have 'no spirit indwelling, as have the Children of Ilúvatar' (Lost Road, 129), though here this does not deprive them of sentience. This strongly suggests that Tolkien's thought was already moving along the lines we see later, even if he had not yet decided that only Ilúvatar could create autonomous beings which have 'a life of their own, and speak with their own voices'. In letter 153, moreover, written only weeks after the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring in 1954, Tolkien points out that while Melkor could have made the flesh and blood of the orcs by the power that was in him, he could not have given them souls or spirits, because that is not a power Ilúvatar 'delegated'. In the same letter he also remarks: 'when you make Trolls speak you are giving them a power, which in our world (probably) connotes the possession of a 'soul'. (Compare also the implicit link between consciousness and speech in Treebeard's remark that the old Elves woke the trees up and taught them to speak [TT 3.iv.468]). What Melkor could not do, Aulë and Sauron could not have done either. 

Note, too, that Gandalf says Sauron 'let a great part of his former power pass into [the Ring], so that he could rule all the others' (FR 1.ii.51), and that, if the Ring is destroyed, Sauron 'will lose the best part of the strength that was native to him in the beginning', which would reduce him to 'a mere spirit of malice that gnaws itself in the shadows, but cannot grow again or take shape' (RK 5.ix.878). Here we see a clear distinction drawn between Sauron's spirit and his power or strength. The Ring contained his power, but not his spirit. Nor could he give it one. So whatever sentience or consciousness the Ring may possess, if it should possess any at all, seems little likely to have arisen from Sauron's having endowed it with his power (which he did) or with his spirit (which he did not do). It was, however, 'fraught with his malice' according to Elrond (FR 2.ii.254), that is, 'furnished with' or 'filled with', 'carrying with it as an attribute', 'destined to produce' (OED). Which is not to say that it feels malice.

What we have seen here argues against the sentience of the Ring. There are other passages that bear on this question in different ways, and other objects that may or may not be sentient, but they are not my concern here. I shall return to them in time. 

The Wonder of the Unexplained (TT 3.v.498)

Carl Emil Doepler

From early on, people have wondered if Tom Bombadil is really Eru Ilúvatar in disguise. As early as September 1954, within weeks of the first volume's publication on 29 July, Tolkien was answering the question of whether Old Tom was God (No: Letter 153). Even at the stage of page-proofs, the question of who Tom seems to have arisen. Naomi Mitchison, who had been reading them early that year, had written to Tolkien with a number of inquiries to which Tolkien responds, but does not answer. At one point he writes:

There is of course a clash between 'literary' technique, and the fascination of elaborating in detail an imaginary mythical Age (mythical, not allegorical: my mind does not work allegorically). As a story, I think it is good that there should be a lot of things unexplained (especially if an explanation actually exists); and I have perhaps from this point of view erred in trying to explain too much, and give too much past history. Many readers have, for instance, rather stuck at the Council of Elrond. And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally). 

(Letter 144, 25 April 1954)

Other mysteries remain as well, and always will I hope. The Watcher in the Water (FR 2.iv.308-09), the 'fell voices on the air' in the night on Caradhras (FR 2.iii.289), the 'nameless things' that gnaw the world 'far, far below the deepest delving of the dwarves' (TT 3.v.501) make up an intriguing set, centered on the Misty Mountains around Moria. Why did Galadriel marry such a dolt? The man Brego and Baldor met at the Door to the Paths of the Dead (RK 5.iii.797-98). Who is that guy? Where does the locked door lead outside which Aragorn found Baldor dead (RK 5.ii.787)? Was that an Entwife Sam's cousin Hal saw up on the North Moors, or was Hal as daft as everybody but Sam seems to think he is (FR 1.ii.xx.44-45). And whose voice was speaking to Sam as he debated what to do when Frodo seemed dead (TT 4.x.731-32). These are only a few of the mysteries we encounter that unexplained make our experience all the richer.  But there's one that seems to have an explanation, but is it the explanation that is suggested to us?

Recall the the night Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas spend beneath the eaves of Fangorn. They briefly see an old man, cloaked and leaning on a staff, wearing a hat pulled down over his eyes (TT 3.ii.442-43). They assume that is Saruman, but the next day they meet Gandalf the White, and Gimli wonders whether they had seen Saruman or Gandalf: "'You certainly did not see me,'answered Gandalf, 'therefore I must guess that you saw Saruman.'" (TT 3.v.498).

But must we guess the same? We never receive a definitive answer, never see a bit of evidence that it was Saruman. Saruman certainly never tells. Who then? In Letter 107 says that he thinks of Gandalf as 'an Odinic wanderer', since Odin sometimes appeared as a wanderer cloaked and in a broad-brimmed hat, much the same garb as Gandalf and (it seems) Saruman wear. He was also called 'All-father' (Alföðr), not unlike Ilúvatar, literally 'the father of the universe', which has il 'all' as one of its roots (Lost Road, 361).

Carl Emil Doepler

Do I really think it's Ilúvatar they see? No. That's not very likely, but it's fun to speculate (so idly) that a visit from god himself might lie hidden in plain sight.  Wouldn't be the first time, I imagine.

Nienna's Room With a View -- Silmarillion, 28

Taken from the International Space Station in September 2010

[Nienna's] halls are west of West, upon the borders of the world; and she comes seldom to the city of Valimar where all is glad. She goes rather to the halls of Mandos, which are near to her own; and all those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom. The windows of her house look outward from the walls of the world.

(Silmarillion, 28)

Recently on the Prancing Pony podcast (which I recommend) the hosts, Alan Sisto and Sean Marchese, were discussing a question sent in by a listener about the Valaquenta, specifically on the meaning of the last sentence quoted above. Is Nienna looking out across Ekkaia, the vast sea that encircles the world, to a physical horizon, or is she somehow looking beyond the world itself to the Void and the Timeless Halls of Ilúvatar? 

The question seems vexed. Over the decades Tolkien wrote of the Walls of the World, the Walls of Night, or even the Wall of Things; nor is it quite clear whether in every case he meant the same walls, or, if he did, whether he conceived of them in precisely the same way, or, if they were different, how they differed. It is also difficult to say if we should make something of the lack of capitalization of the phrase in The Silmarillion, though it is very tempting to do so. In Morgoth's Ring Christopher Tolkien examines these phrases, but does not feel that the matter can be completely sorted out (26-29, 62-64). At this point I can't disagree with him. 

But it got me thinking.  I have, quite literally, just been reading a book that furnishes an interesting context in which to begin thinking about Tolkien's description of the halls of Nienna. In his The Sea and Medieval English Literature Sebastian Sobecki discusses (72-99) how from antiquity onward England was seen as the end of the earth, the farthest shore bounded by the great, all encompassing, infinite Ocean. The Old English word for this shoreless sea that lay beyond England (Ireland notwithstanding -- pay no attention to that far green country behind the grey rain curtain) is garsecg, and while its etymology is in dispute one intriguing possibility is gares secg, literally 'promontory's edge', that is, 'the end of the world' (Anderson, 272; Smith, 16). What makes this attractive is the note of harmony it strikes with what we later find in Middle English (a citation for which I am indebted to Sobecki, 84). In the MED s.v. 'occean' 1a, 'the circumferential sea surrounding the world' we find two instances of the phrase 'clif of occean' defined as 'the end of the world.'

If we look earlier we will see that both the Beowulf poet and the translator into Old English of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, moreover, use garsecg to suggest the liminality of this natural boundary and to hint at what might lay beyond. In Beowulf Scyld comes from and returns to the western sea, and 'no man, not the counsellors in the hall, not warriors under heaven, could say in truth who received' the ship bearing Scyld back into the west (50-52). And as Sharon M. Rowley points out in The Old English Version of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica (71-72), the use of garsecg there, like that of oceanus in the original Latin Bede, not only places the island of Britain on the border of the world, but is part of the strategy of the translator to recast Bede's account of the salvation history of Britain. In both cases this outer sea is the edge of the world, but like an icon directs our attention beyond itself.  For beyond that sea might be found the Earthly Paradise, denied to men since the Fall. Seeing the western sea in this way was quite common in the Middle Ages, as Sobecki shows in his discussion cited above. Indeed, the tradition that the outer ocean was a path to another world was as old as Homer (Odyssey x.520-xi.25, transl. Fagles. See also here.)*

In Tolkien this notion of the sea does a kind of double duty. First there is Belegaer, The Great Sea, that lies between Middle-earth and the Undying Lands, which became inaccessible to all but Elves at the end of the Second Age when Ilúvatar removed Aman from the Circles of the World (another term only indifferently clear). But, in the second place, still the Halls of Nienna remain, and still presumably look outward across the Encircling Sea. There are, moreover, two other factors we cannot ignore here.  First,

it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen. 

(Silmarillion, 19) 

Second, Nienna is in and of the world, as all the Ainur became once they entered it, but her face is turned towards what is beyond. Her halls are near the Halls of Mandos, from which the Elves return to life in Aman, and from which Men depart Ëa entirely.  Let us turn back to the passage with which we began, but expand out focus somewhat:

So great was [Nienna's] sorrow, as the Music unfolded, that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began. But she does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope. Her halls are west of West, upon the borders of the world; and she comes seldom to the city of Valimar where all is glad. She goes rather to the halls of Mandos, which are near to her own; and all those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom. The windows of her house look outward from the walls of the world. 

(Silmarillion, 28)

Given the echo of the Music in the Sea, and given the weaving of Nienna's sorrow into that Music, it is hard to see how the Encircling Ocean, by sight and by sound, could not evoke the thought of what lies beyond the Walls of the World. The Sea does so in and of itself, even if those who hear the Music in its waters do not understand what they hear. And, without the reincarnation within Ëa that is natural to the Elves, the hope, strength, and wisdom Nienna brings to the souls of Men in Mandos can look nowhere but beyond Ëa.

The answer, I fear, can only be a bit Elvish. Do the windows of Nienna's halls look out from the edge of Creation? Physically, no; metaphysically, yes.

photograph by Rick Battle

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Works Consulted

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Anderson, Earl R., Folk Taxonomies in Early English, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (2003), 272, cited in Rowley, 71 n. 5.

Rowley, Sharon M., The Old English Version of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, Anglo-Saxon Studies, Boydell and Brewer (2011) 71-98.  

Smith, Roger, Garsecg in Early English Poetry, English Language Notes 24.3 (1987), 16, cited in Rowley 71 n. 5.

Sobecki, Sebastian, The Sea and Medieval English Literature, Boydell and Brewer (2008).

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*For a good example of Tolkien's awareness and use of this idea of the Sea, see The Notion Club Papers (Part Two) in Sauron Defeated 257-273, passim, especially the included poem, The Death of Saint Brendan, and its revised (later separately published) version on 296-99:

 IMRAM

 At last out of the deep sea he passed,
 and mist rolled on the shore;
 under clouded moon the waves were loud,
 as the laden ship him bore                                        4
 to Ireland, back to wood and mire
 and the tower tall and grey,
 where the knell of Cluain-ferta's bell
 tolled in green Galway.                                             8
 Where Shannon down to Lough Derg ran
 under a rain-clad sky
 Saint Brendan came to his journey's end
 to find the grace to die.                                             12

 'O tell me, father, for I loved you well,
 if still you have words for me,
 of things strange in the remembering
 in the long and lonely sea,                                         16
 of islands by deep spells beguiled
 where dwell the Elvenkind:
 in seven long years the road to Heaven
 or the Living Land did you find?'                              20

 'The things I have seen, the many things,
 have long now faded far;
 only three come clear now back to me:
 a Cloud, a Tree, a Star.                                               24

 'We sailed for a year and a day and hailed
 no field nor coast of men;
 no boat nor bird saw we ever afloat
 for forty days and ten.                                                 28
 Then a drumming we heard as of thunder coming,
 and a Cloud above us spread;
 we saw no sun at set or dawn,
 yet ever the west was red.                                           32

 'Upreared from sea to cloud then sheer
 a shoreless mountain stood;
 its sides were black from the sullen tide
 up to its smoking hood,                                               36
 but its spire was lit with a living fire
 that ever rose and fell:
 tall as a column in High Heaven's hall,
 its roots were deep as Hell;                                         40
 grounded in chasms the waters drowned
 and swallowed long ago
 it stands, I guess, on the foundered land
 where the kings of kings lie low.                                 44

 'We sailed then on till all winds failed,
 and we toiled then with the oar;
 we burned with thirst and in hunger yearned,
 and we sang our psalms no more.                                48
 At last beyond the Cloud we passed
 and came to a starlit strand;
 the waves were sighing in pillared caves,
 grinding gems to sand.                                                 52
 And here they would grind our bones we feared
 until the end of time;
 for steep those shores went upward leaping
 to cliffs no man could climb.                                       56
 But round by west a firth we found
 that clove the mountain-wall;
 there lay a water shadow-grey
 between the mountains tall.                                         60
 Through gates of stone we rowed in haste,
 and passed, and left the sea;
 and silence like dew fell in that isle,
 and holy it seemed to be.                                             64


 'To a dale we came like a silver grail
 with carven hills for rim.
 In that hidden land we saw there stand
 under a moonlight dim                                                68
 a Tree more fair than ever I deemed
 in Paradise might grow:
 its foot was like a great tower's root,
 its height no man could know;                                    72
 and white as winter to my sight
 the leaves of that Tree were;
 they grew more close than swan-wing plumes,
 long and soft and fair.                                                  76

 'It seemed to us then as in a dream
 that time had passed away,
 and our journey ended; for no return
 we hoped, but there to stay.                                         80
 In the silence of that hollow isle
 half sadly then we sang:
 softly we thought, but the sound aloft
 like sudden trumpets rang.                                           84
 The Tree then shook, and flying free
 from its limbs the leaves in air
 as white birds rose in wheeling flight,
 and the lifting boughs were bare.                                 88
 On high we heard in the starlit sky
 a song, but not of bird:
 neither noise of man nor angel's voice,
 but maybe there is a third                                             92
 fair kindred in the world yet lingers
 beyond the foundered land.
 But steep are the seas and the waters deep
 beyond the White-tree Strand! '                                    96

 '0 stay now, father! There is more to say.
 But two things you have told:
 the Tree, the Cloud; but you spoke of three.
 The Star in mind do you hold?'                                    100

 'The Star? Why, I saw it high and far
 at the parting of the ways,
 a light on the edge of the Outer Night
 beyond the Door of Days,                                             104
 where the round world plunges steeply down,
 but on the old road goes,
 as an unseen bridge that on arches runs
 to coasts that no man knows.'                                        108

 'But men say, father, that ere the end
 you went where none have been.
 I would hear you tell me, father dear,
 of the last land you have seen.'                                      112

 'In my mind the Star I still can find,
 and the parting of the seas,
 and the breath as sweet and keen as death
 that was borne upon the breeze.                                    116
 But where they bloom, those flowers fair,
 in what air or land they grow,
 what words beyond this world I heard,
 if you would seek to know,                                            120
 in a boat then, brother, far afloat
 you must labour in the sea,
 and find for yourself things out of mind:
 you will learn no more of me.'                                       124

 In Ireland over wood and mire
 in the tower tall and grey
 the knell of Cluain-ferta's bell
 was tolling in green Galway.                                         128
 Saint Brendan had come to his life's end
 under a rain-clad sky,
 journeying whence no ship returns;
 and his bones in Ireland lie.                                           132

Melkor's Song of Ice and Fire - A Brief Note on The Ainulindalë

And Ilúvatar spoke to Ulmo, and said: 'Seest thou not how here in this little realm in the Deeps of Time Melkor hath made war upon thy province? He hath bethought him of bitter cold immoderate, and yet hath not destroyed the beauty of thy fountains, nor of thy clear pools. Behold the snow, and the cunning work of frost! Melkor hath devised heats and fire without restraint, and hath not dried up thy desire nor utterly quelled the music of the sea. Behold rather the height and glory of the clouds, and the everchanging mists; and listen to the fall of rain upon the Earth! And in these clouds thou art drawn nearer to Manwë, thy friend, whom thou lovest.' 

Then Ulmo answered: 'Truly, Water is become now fairer than my heart imagined, neither had my secret thought conceived the snowflake, nor in all my music was contained the falling of the rain. I will seek Manwë, that he and I may make melodies for ever to my delight!' And Manwë and Ulmo have from the beginning been allied, and in all things have served most faithfully the purpose of Ilúvatar. 

(Silmarillion, 19)

In this conversation, which takes place before Ilúvatar creates the world described in the Music of the Ainur, we see shown forth the first example of Ilúvatar's warning to Melkor that anyone who 'attempteth [to alter the music in my despite] shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined' (17). Ilúvatar then repeats this warning to Melkor in the moment he grants the Ainur a Vision of their Music (17), and while the text tells us that he said 'many other things' (17) to them at this time, we get to hear only his words to Melkor and Ulmo. They are thus singled out, and Ilúvatar's words to them bookend the Vision, with Melkor addressed directly before it and Ulmo directly afterwards. 

While Ulmo responds with wonder and delight and declares his intention to collaborate with Manwë, as we saw, Melkor is for now silent and 'filled with shame, of which came secret anger' (17). The next (and last) time he speaks in the Ainulindalë follows immediately upon the entry of the Ainur into the newly made world:  

And in this work the chief part was taken by Manwë and Aulë and Ulmo; but Melkor too was there from the first, and he meddled in all that was done, turning it if he might to his own desires and purposes; and he kindled great fires. When therefore Earth was yet young and full of flame Melkor coveted it, and he said to the other Valar: 'This shall be my own kingdom; and I name it unto myself!' 

(20-21).  

Melkor's stated intention of course provokes a refusal to submit from Manwë -- 'This kingdom thou shalt not take for thine own, wrongfully, for many others have laboured here no less than thou' (21) -- and leads to war between Melkor and the other Valar.

What's most striking to me in all of this is that the beauty of water described in its various forms arises from the unintentional collaboration of Melkor and Ulmo. Melkor's hostility and selfish desire to dominate the Music has worked upon water to produce beauties 'fairer than my heart imagined,' as Ulmo recognizes. And precisely as Ilúvatar predicted. It should also stand out because it is the only time (I can think of off the top of my head) when Melkor's evil actions produce unquestionable, inspiring beauty untouched by any sorrow. It is a perfect example of the later statement that evil will prove good to have been, and yet remain evil (98). In that thought, however, there can be only sorrow, because Melkor cannot see the beauty he has helped to create, cannot be inspired by it to collaborate with Manwë, his 'brother ... in the mind of Ilúvatar' (21), cannot, therefore, repent of his desire to dominate.  Far from it in fact: 'Melkor hated the sea, for he could not subdue it' (30).

Clearly there is more work to be done here. A study of the meaning imparted by the way the Ainulindalë is structured looks like it could provide some intriguing results, given what we've seen here. I have skipped over the appearance of the Children in the Vision, for example, as well as the perhaps metaphysical implications of the question of why it is that water becomes more beautiful as a result of the effects of evil. Is it because it is the part of creation which best and most preserves the Music of the Ainur, and therefore the primordial thought of Ilúvatar as expressed in the themes he propounded to them? 

But so detailed a study I will have to leave for another day. 

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Works Consulted

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The Dream of Manwë in 'Of Aulë and Yavanna'

After Ilúvatar has sanctioned Aulë's making of the Dwarves because of his humility, Yavanna turns to Manwë, fearful of what the coming dominion of the Children of Ilúvatar will mean for the other life of Arda.

'If thou hadst thy will what wouldst thou reserve?' said Manwë. 'Of all thy realm what dost thou hold dearest?'  

'All have their worth,' said Yavanna, 'and each contributes to the worth of the others. But the kelvar can flee or defend themselves, whereas the olvar that grow cannot. And among these I hold trees dear. Long in the growing, swift shall they be in the felling, and unless they pay toll with fruit upon bough little mourned in their passing. So I see in my thought. Would that the trees might speak on behalf of all things that have roots, and punish those that wrong them!'  

'This is a strange thought,' said Manwë.  

'Yet it was in the Song,' said Yavanna. 'For while thou wert in the heavens and with Ulmo built the clouds and poured out the rains, I lifted up the branches of great trees to receive them, and some sang to Ilúvatar amid the wind and the rain.'  

Then Manwë sat silent, and the thought of Yavanna that she had put into his heart grew and unfolded; and it was beheld by Ilúvatar. Then it seemed to Manwë that the Song rose once more about him, and he heeded now many things therein that though he had heard them he had not heeded before. And at last the Vision was renewed, but it was not now remote, for he was himself within it, and yet he saw that all was upheld by the hand of Ilúvatar; and the hand entered in, and from it came forth many wonders that had until then been hidden from him in the hearts of the Ainur.  

Then Manwë awoke, and he went down to Yavanna upon Ezellohar, and he sat beside her beneath the Two Trees. And Manwë said: 'O Kementári, Eru hath spoken, saying: "Do then any of the Valar suppose that I did not hear all the Song, even the least sound of the least voice? Behold! When the Children awake, then the thought of Yavanna will awake also, and it will summon spirits from afar, and they will go among the kelvar and the olvar, and some will dwell therein, and be held in reverence, and their just anger shall be feared. For a time: while the Firstborn are in their power, and while the Secondborn are young." But dost thou not now remember, Kementári, that thy thought sang not always alone? Did not thy thought and mine meet also, so that we took wing together like great birds that soar above the clouds? That also shall come to be by the heed of Ilúvatar, and before the Children awake there shall go forth with wings like the wind the Eagles of the Lords of the West.'

(Silmarillion, 45-46)

As the postponed 'Then Manwë awoke' clearly indicates, Manwë has just been experiencing a dream of some kind.  He recognizes the Song and the Vision at once, but something new is at hand. His perspective is simultaneously wider, in that he sees for the first time the fundamental and ongoing role of the hand of Eru, and more intimate because, having entered into Arda, he is now an active participant in a present reality and not simply a witness to a vision of what may yet be, as he was when Ilúvatar showed the Ainur what they had sung (Silmarillion, 17). 

What Manwë sees here I find interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the revelation that there is more going on than meets the eye reminds me strongly of a passage in the second book of Vergil's Aeneid, where Venus, seeking to persuade her son, Aeneas, not to kill or even blame Helen but to save himself from the ruin of Troy while he still has a chance, grants him a wider perspective on reality than he normally possesses:

“‘Think: it’s not that beauty, Helen, you should hate,
not even Paris, the man that you should blame, no,
it’s the gods, the ruthless gods who are tearing down
the wealth of Troy, her toppling crown of towers.
Look around. I’ll sweep it all away, the mist
so murky, dark, and swirling around you now,
it clouds your vision, dulls your mortal sight.	750
You are my son. Never fear my orders.
Never refuse to bow to my commands.
“‘There,
yes, where you see the massive ramparts shattered,
blocks wrenched from blocks, the billowing smoke and ash
— it’s Neptune himself, prising loose with his giant trident
the foundation-stones of Troy, he’s making the walls quake,
ripping up the entire city by her roots.
“‘There’s Juno,
cruelest in fury, first to commandeer the Scaean Gates,
sword at her hip and mustering comrades, shock troops
streaming out of the ships.
“‘Already up on the heights	760
— turn around and look—there’s Pallas holding the fortress,
flaming out of the clouds, her savage Gorgon glaring.
Even Father himself, he’s filling the Greek hearts
with courage, stamina—Jove in person spurring the gods
to fight the Trojan armies!
“‘Run for your life, my son.
Put an end to your labors. I will never leave you,
I will set you safe at your father’s door.’
“Parting words. She vanished into the dense night.
And now they all come looming up before me,
terrible shapes, the deadly foes of Troy,	770
the gods gigantic in power.
“Then at last
I saw it all, all Ilium settling into her embers,
Neptune’s Troy, toppling over now from her roots
like a proud, veteran ash on its mountain summit,
chopped by stroke after stroke of the iron axe as
woodsmen fight to bring it down, and
over and over it threatens to fall, its boughs shudder,
its leafy crown quakes and back and forth it sways
till overwhelmed by its wounds, with a long last groan
it goes—torn up from its heights it crashes down	780
in ruins from its ridge . . .
Venus leading, down from the roof I climb
and win my way through fires and massing foes.
The spears recede, the flames roll back before me."
	(transl. Fagles)

Now clearly the perspectives of Manwë and Aeneas differ greatly. Aeneas's vision is of a single moment in time and space; Manwë's appears far more cosmic in scope. Yet the difference between them is not as great as we might expect, which is in a way precisely my point here. Aeneas is a mortal; his vision of reality is necessarily and unsurprisingly limited.  In its limitation Aeneas' vision is like the one Ulmo grants Tuor when he says that his 'heart yearneth rather to the Sea' (Unfinished Tales, 30). Ulmo allows him to see all the breadth and depth of the sea 'with the swift sight of the Valar,' but no more. The vision ends as Tuor catches the merest glimpse of Valinor.

Manwë, however, is the Elder King, the chief of the Valar, the peer of Melkor, an immortal who existed before the world was made and played a central role in its imagining and making. Yet even his sight is limited, as is that of Aulë and Yavanna, the two other Valar in this chapter which bears their names and explores the perils and mysteries of sub-creation both before and after the ongoing creation of Arda. Aulë's dwarves were not in the Song, yet the Eagles of Manwë and the Ents of Yavanna evidently were. The hand of Ilúvatar, unseen by Manwë until this moment, continues to produce wonders from what lay 'hidden ... in the hearts of the Ainur.' The things the individual Valar did not know or had not attended to (since, as Manwë admits, there were things in the Song that he heard, but did not heed) are as much a part of the reality of Arda as all they knew and saw 'with the swift sight of the Valar.'  Much 'lies still in the freedom of Ilúvatar' (Silmarillion, 28; cf. 17-18).  The Valar are of course still quite far from the point alluded to in The Ainulindalë, when total mutual comprehension between Ilúvatar and all his children will accompany -- and perhaps even cause -- the realization of the themes as they sing them:

Never since have the Ainur made any music like to this music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be made before Ilúvatar by the choirs of the Ainur and the Children of Ilúvatar after the end of days. Then the themes of Ilúvatar shall be played aright, and take Being in the moment of their utterance, for all shall then understand fully his intent in their part, and each shall know the comprehension of each, and Ilúvatar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire, being well pleased. 

(Silmarillion, 15-16)

One could well quote the New Testament here, and wonder how much specific inspiration Tolkien might have drawn from it in The Ainulindalë: 'For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known' (1Cor. 13:12 KJV). This most famous chapter of First Corinthians speaks powerfully of knowledge and understanding, both perfect and imperfect, of prophecy of what is to come, and of the critical role of love (charity); it states categorically that 'without charity' 'the tongues of men and angels' can produce only cacophony and discord -- just as happens in the Music thanks to Melkor (Silmarillion, 16-17), from whose heart, it is later said, 'all love had departed forever' (Silmarillion, 66). Given this, it quite easy to suspect that the similarity we see here is no coincidence.

The second interesting connection which Manwë's dream calls to mind is to a passage in On Fairy-Stories:

Now “Faërian Drama”—those plays which according to abundant records the elves have often presented to men—can produce Fantasy with a realism and immediacy beyond the compass of any human mechanism. As a result their usual effect (upon a man) is to go beyond Secondary Belief. If you are present at a Faërian drama you yourself are, or think that you are, bodily inside its Secondary World. The experience may be very similar to Dreaming and has (it would seem) sometimes (by men) been confounded with it. But in Faërian drama you are in a dream that some other mind is weaving, and the knowledge of that alarming fact may slip from your grasp. To experience directly a Secondary World: the potion is too strong, and you give to it Primary Belief, however marvellous the events. You are deluded—whether that is the intention of the elves (always or at any time) is another question. They at any rate are not themselves deluded. This is for them a form of Art, and distinct from Wizardry or Magic, properly so called. They do not live in it, though they can, perhaps, afford to spend more time at it than human artists can. The Primary World, Reality, of elves and men is the same, if differently valued and perceived. 

(OFS para. 74)

What is Manwë experiencing but 'a dream that some other mind is weaving'? Except that he is neither 'deluded' nor forgetful of this 'alarming fact'.  And if it were not already apparent from the description of the dream that Ilúvatar is the weaver of this dream, Manwë's words to Yavanna afterwards -- 'O Kementári, Eru hath spoken....' -- make it absolutely clear. But rather than introduce him to a Faërian Drama or a Secondary World, this dream enlarges his knowledge and understanding of the Primary World and its supernatural underpinnings. Like Aeneas, Manwë sees the hand of God at work. Like Tuor, he sees a deeper, wider world. As elsewhere in Tolkien, we see that dreams are a link to things about the world that are not normally perceived. For men or hobbits this is no surprise. What is unexpected is that the same appears true of the Valar, only on a different scale. 

__________________________________

1) Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2) And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3) And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 

4) Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5) Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6) Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7) Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 

8) Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 9) For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10) But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11) When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12) For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13) And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. 

(1Cor 13:1-13 KJV)