Uhg- A terrible thought

[tar-ancalime]

Those more knowledgeable than I about the details of the legendarium have cleared up the issue of whether or not Morgoth COULD have impregnated Luthien.

But I think that the actual event is rather beside the point. For me, the power of these passages is in the imaginings of Morgoth: the fact that he could even envision such a thing echoes Yeats and raises the specter of another Dark Lord to come (and in fact, there was a certain red-eyed lunatic of the Second and Third Ages who filled that role rather well, even if he did not actually issue from Morgoth's loins).

(The Yeats passage I'm thinking of)

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Morgoth's lust foreshadows the coming to power of Sauron, regardless of the physical limitations on a Morgoth-Luthien pairing.

And by the way, while we're on the subject of loins, it seems to me obvious that any corporeal being would come pre-loaded with all necessary equipment. Our genitals are not "extra" or "after-market," and neither are they superfluous to our lives. True, Tolkien did not waste time discussing them, but that doesn't erase them from existence. Do you doubt, for comparison's sake, that Bilbo had tonsils or an Adam's apple?