Читать книгу The Lays of Beleriand онлайн | страница 8

‘Is it dauntless Hurin,’ quoth Delu-Morgoth,‘stout steel-handed, who stands before me,a captive living as a coward might be?Knowest thou my name, or need’st be toldwhat hope he has who is haled to Angband –55the bale most bitter, the Balrogs’ torment?’

‘I know and I hate. For that knowledge I fought theeby fear unfettered, nor fear I now,’said Thalion there, and a thane of Morgothon the mouth smote him; but Morgoth smiled:60‘Fear when thou feelest, and the flames lick thee,and the whips of the Balrogs thy white flesh brand.Yet a way canst win, an thou wishest, stillto lessen thy lot of lingering woe.Go question the captives of the accursed people65I have taken, and tell me where Turgon is hid;how with fire and death I may find him soon,where he lurketh lost in lands forgot.Thou must feign thee a friend faithful in anguish,and their inmost hearts thus open and search.70Then, if truth thou tellest, thy triple bondsI will bid men unbind, that abroad thou farein my service to search the secret placesfollowing the footsteps of these foes of the Gods.’

‘Build not thy hopes so high, O Bauglir –75I am no tool for thy evil treasons;torment were sweeter than a traitor’s stain.’

‘If torment be sweet, treasure is liever.The hoards of a hundred hundred ages,the gems and jewels of the jealous Gods,80are mine, and a meed shall I mete thee thence,yea, wealth to glut the Worm of Greed.’

‘Canst not learn of thy lore when thou look’st on a foe,O Bauglir unblest? Bray no longerof the things thou hast thieved from the Three Kindreds.85In hate I hold thee, and thy hests in scorn.’

‘Boldly thou bravest me. Be thy boast rewarded,’in mirth quod Morgoth, ‘to me now the deeds,and thy aid I ask not; but anger thee noughtif little they like thee. Yea, look thereon90helpless to hinder, or thy hand to raise.’

Then Thalion was thrust to Thangorodrim,that mountain that meets the misty skieson high o’er the hills that Hithlum seesblackly brooding on the borders of the north.95To a stool of stone on its steepest peakthey bound him in bonds, an unbreakable chain,and the Lord of Woe there laughing stood,then cursed him for ever and his kin and seedwith a doom of dread, of death and horror.100There the mighty man unmovéd sat;but unveiled was his vision, that he viewed afarall earthly things with eyes enchantedthat fell on his folk – a fiend’s torment.

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