Читать книгу The Shaping of Middle-earth онлайн | страница 68

In the account of Gondolin and its history S is fairly close to the tale of The Fall of Gondolin, but there are some developments, if mostly of a minor kind. There is first a notable statement that ‘Ylmir’s messages come up Sirion bidding them [i.e. the host of Turgon retreating from the battle] take refuge in this valley’; this is unlike the Tale, where Tuor speaking the words of Ulmo in Gondolin says: ‘There have come to the ears of Ulmo whispers of your dwelling and your hill of vigilance against the evil of Melko, and he is glad’ (II. 161, 208). Here in S we have the first appearance of the idea that the foundation of Gondolin was a part of Ulmo’s design. But Tuor’s journey is as in the old story, and the visitation of Ulmo is in Nan Tathrin, not at Vinyamar. The bidding of Ulmo offers Turgon similar choices, to prepare for war, or, if he will not, then to send people of Gondolin down Sirion to the sea, to seek for Valinor. Here, however, there are differences. In the Tale, Ulmo offers scarcely more than a slender hope that such sailors from Gondolin would reach Valinor, and if they did, that they would persuade the Valar to act:

[The Gods] hide their land and weave about it inaccessible magic that no evil come to its shores. Yet still might thy messengers win there and turn their hearts that they rise in wrath and smite Melko … (II. 161–2).

In S, on the other hand, the people of Gondolin, if they will not go to war against Morgoth, are to desert their city (‘the people of Gondolin are to prepare for flight’) – cf. The Silmarillion p. 240: ‘[Ulmo] bade him depart, and abandon the fair and mighty city that he had built, and go down Sirion to the sea’ – and at the mouths of Sirion Ylmir will not only aid them in the building of a fleet but will himself guide them over the ocean. But if Turgon will accept Ylmir’s counsel, and prepare for war, then Tuor is to go to Hithlum with Gnomes from Gondolin and ‘draw Men once more into alliance with the Elves, for “without Men the Elves shall not prevail against the Orcs and Balrogs”.’ Of this strange bidding there is no trace in the Tale; nor is it said there that Ulmo knew of Meglin, and knew that this treachery would bring about the end of Gondolin at no distant time. These features are absent also from The Silmarillion; Ulmo does indeed foresee the ruin of the city, but his foreseeing is not represented as being so precise: ‘Thus it may come to pass that the curse of the Noldor shall find thee too ere the end, and treason awake within thy walls. Then they shall be in peril of fire’ (p. 126).