"GL1" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol05)

arose blowing from the gap, and they sped East and came at length
to the shores of Middle-earth in the days of ruin.
$10. There they became lords and kings of Men, and some
were evil and some were of good will. But all alike were filled with
desire of long life upon earth, and the thought of Death was heavy
upon them; and their feet were turned east but their hearts were
westward. And they built mightier houses for their dead than for
their living, and endowed their buried kings with unavailing
treasure. For their wise men hoped ever to discover the secret of
prolonging life and maybe the recalling of it. But it is said that the
span of their lives, which had of old been greater than that of lesser
races, dwindled slowly, and they achieved only the art of pre-
serving uncorrupt for many ages the dead flesh of men. Wherefore

the kingdoms upon the west shores of the Old World became a
place of tombs, and filled with ghosts. And in the fantasy of their
hearts, and the confusion of legends half-forgotten concerning
that which had been, they made for their thought a land of shades,
filled with the wraiths of the things of mortal earth. And many
deemed this land was in the West, and ruled by the Gods, and
in shadow the dead, bearing the shadows of their possessions,
should come there, who could no more find the true West in the
body. For which reason in after days many of their descendants,
or men taught by them, buried their dead in ships and set them in
pomp upon the sea by the west coasts of the Old World.
$11. )u$

round. And many abandoned the Gods, and put them out of their
legends, and even out of their dreams. But Men of Middle-earth
looked on them with wonder and great fear, and took them to be
gods; and many were content that this should be so.
$13. But not all the hearts of the Numenoreans were crooked;
and the lore of the old days descending from the Fathers of Men,
and the Elf-friends, and those instructed by Fionwe, was pre-
served among some. And they knew that the fate of Men was not
bounded by the round path of the world, nor destined for the
straight path. For the round is crooked and has no end but no
escape; and the straight is true, but has an end within the world,
and that is the fate of the Elves. But the fate of Men, they said, is
neither round nor ended, and is not within the world. And they
remembered from whence the ruin came, and the cutting off of
Men from their just portion of the straight path; and they avoided
the shadow of Morgoth according to their power, and hated Thu.
And they assailed his temples and their servants, and there were
wars of allegiance among the mighty of this world, of which only
the echoes remain.
$14. But there remains still a legend of Beleriand: for that land
in the West of the Old World, although changed and broken, held
still in ancient days to the name it had in the days of the Gnomes.
And it is said that Amroth was King of Beleriand; and he took