"GL5" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol10)

who know very well that such an 'astronomy' is delusory.
As he stated it, this may seem to be an argument of the most
doubtful nature, raising indeed the question, why is the myth of the
Two Trees (which so far as record goes he never showed any intention
to abandon) more acceptable than that of the creation of the Sun and
the Moon from the last fruit and flower of the Trees as they died? Or
indeed, if this is true, how can it be acceptable that the Evening Star is
the Silmaril cut by Beren from Morgoth's crown?
It is at any rate clear, for he stated it unambiguously enough, that he
had come to believe that the art of the 'Sub-creator' cannot, or should
not attempt to, extend to the 'mythical' revelation of a conception of
the shape of the Earth and the origin of the lights of heaven that runs
counter to the known physical truths of his own days: 'You cannot do
this any more'. And this opinion is rendered more complex and
difficult of discussion by the rise in importance of the Eldarin
'loremasters' of Aman, whose intellectual attainments and knowledge
must preclude any idea that a 'false' astronomy could have prevailed
among them. It seems to me that he was devising - from within it - a
fearful weapon against his own creation.
In this brief text he wrote scornfully of 'the astronomically absurd
business of the making of the Sun and Moon'. I think it possible that it
was the actual nature of this myth that led him finally to abandon it. It
is in conception beautiful, and not absurd; but it is exceedingly
'primitive'. Of the original 'Tale of the Sun and Moon' in The Book of
Lost Tales I wrote (1.201):
As a result of this fullness and intensity of description, the origin
of the Sun and Moon in the last fruit and last flower of the Trees has
less of mystery than in the succinct and beautiful language of The
Silmarillion; but also much is said here to emphasize the great size
of the 'Fruit of Noon', and the increase in the heat and brilliance of
the Sunship after its launching, so that the reflection rises less readily
that if the Sun that brilliantly illumines the whole Earth was but one
fruit of Laurelin then Valinor must have been painfully bright and
hot in the days of the Trees. In the early story the last outpourings of
life from the dying Trees are utterly strange and 'enormous', those
of Laurelin portentous, even ominous; the Sun is astoundingly

bright and hot even to the Valar, who are awestruck and disquieted
by what has been done (the Gods knew 'that they had done a greater
thing than they at first knew'); and the anger and distress of certain
of the Valar at the burning light of the Sun enforces the feeling that
in the last fruit of Laurelin a terrible and unforeseen power has been
released.
As the Quenta Silmarillion evolved and changed the myth had been
diminished in the scale and energy of its presentation; indeed in the
final form of the chapter, and in the Annals of Aman, the description
of the actual origin of the Sun and Moon is reduced to a few lines.
Yet even as hope failed and her song faltered, behold! Telperion
bore at last upon a leafless bough one great flower of silver, and
Laurelin a single fruit of gold.