Hell...

I so wish that I had read the Lay of Leithian before the abridged narrative in The Silmarillion. I am sure those readers of this blog who read these posts have already read The Silmarillion, and therefore know already what happens. I think this is a shame, for the prose has not the aesthetic and gripping power of verse, and in my opinion, ergo, falls short of Tolkien. Apropos, instead of giving the boring narrative, I post here some staves of Canto XIII of the Lay.

Into the vast and echoeing gloom,

more dread than many tunnelled tomb

in labyrinthine pyramid

where everlasting death is hid,

down awful corridors that wind

down to a menace dark enshrined;

down to the mountain's roots profound,

devoured, tormented, bored and ground

by seething vermin spawned of stone;

down to the depths they went alone.

The arch behind of twilit shade

they saw recede and dwindling fade;

the thunderous forges' rumour grew,

a burning wind there roaring blew

foul vapours up from gaping holes.

Huge shapes there stood like carven trolls

enormous hewn of blasted rock

to forms that mortal likeness mock;

monstrous and menacing, entombed,

at every turn they silent loomed

in fitful glares that leaped and died.

There hammers clanged, and tongues there cried

with sound like smitten stone; there wailed

faint from far under, called and failed

amid the iron clink of chain

voices of captives put to pain.

Loud rose a din of laughter hoarse,

self-loathing yet without remorse;

loud came a singing harsh and fierce

like swords of terror souls to pierce.

Red was the glare through open doors

of firelight mirrored on brazen floors,

and up the arches towering clomb

to glooms unguessed, to vaulted dome

swatched in wavering smokes and steams

stabbed with flickering lightning-gleams.

To Morgoth's hall, where dreadful feast

he held, and drank the blood of beast

and lives of Men, they stumbling came:

their eyes were dazed with smoke and flame.

The pillars, reared like monstrous shores

to bear earth's overwhelming floors,

were devil-carven, shaped with skill

such as unholy dreams doth fill:

they towered like trees into the air,

whose trunks are rooted in despair,

whose shade is death, whose fruit is bane,

whose boughs like serpents writhe in pain.

Beneath them ranged with spear and sword

stood Morgoth's sable-armoured horde:

the fire on blade and boss of shield

was red as blood on stricken field.

Beneath a monstrous column loomed

the throne of Morgoth, and the doomed

and dying gasped upon the floor:

his hideous footstool, rape of war.

About him sat his awful thanes,

the Balrog-lords with fiery manes,

redhanded, mouthed with fangs of steel;

devouring wolves were crouched at heel.

And o'er the host of hell there shone

with cold radiance, clear and wan,

the Silmarils, the gems of fate,

emprisoned in the crown of hate.

(The Lay of Leithian, Canto XIII, lines 3840-3903).