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...at times, when all the air was clear and the sun was in the east, they would look out and descry far off in the west a city white-shining on a distant shore, and a great harbour and a tower. For in those days the Númenóreans were far-sighted; yet even so it was only the keenest eyes among them that could see this vision, from the Meneltarma, maybe, or from some tall ship that lay off their western coast as far as it was lawful for them to go.
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Aliquoque dormitat bonum Homerus? By interjecting the Meneltarma - and the ship off shore can be interpreted the same way - it almost appears Tolkien was forgetting that the world was flat and thinking in terms of a round-world horizon. On a flat world elevation wouldn't make any difference, not if nothing intervenes but ocean.
This impression is reinforced in that the passage originated with the first draft of the Drowning of Anadune (circa 1945-6), which appears, not definitively but suggestively, to have been a Round-World text. At least there is the passage (§ 31, HME IX p. 347)
"For with subtle arguments Sauron gainsaid all that the Avalai had taught. And he bade them think that the world was not a closed circle; and that there lay therein many lands yet for their winning..." Nor, in DAI, do we have the passage from the Downfall in which Eru globed the world, simply that the great chasm opened and Aman was removed from reach.
09-20-2019, 10:40 AM
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