Gift of Ilúvatar

The Gift of Ilúvatar, also known as the Gift of Men or DeathThe History of Middle-earth: The Peoples of Middle-earth, "Tal-Elmar", refers to a gift of Eru Ilúvatar to his Younger Children, which remains a source of some confusion for Tolkien enthusiasts. The concept includes both mortality, leading to death of old age, and free will. Below are two interpretations of the nature and extent of the Gift of Ilúvatar as articulated by Tolkien.
==Theological view==
The Gift of Ilúvatar was an act of the supreme being Ilúvatar that set the race of Men apart from the Elves. While the race of Elves would know the most bliss and contentment and would conceive more beauty than any others of the Children of Ilúvatar, it was decreed by this gift that Men would be the prime instruments of Ilúvatar within Arda.
Ilúvatar willed that the spirits/hearts of Men are not content within Arda, and find no rest therein, and therefore seek beyond the world and its confines. They are not bound to the Circles of the World, as the Elves and all other creatures of Arda are bound to the Earth. The spirits of Men truly leave the physical world, and do not return. Thus their fates are completely sundered from that of the Elves, who do not die until the world dies, unless slain by violence or ill chance, or by wearying at last due to the passage of centuries. But as the years grow long and Time wears, even the Valar will come to envy the Gift of Ilúvatar to the race of Men, that of liberation from the physical world, and the inevitability of loss and sorrows that must come with this existence within Arda.
Moreover, it is also a consequence of this true spiritual freedom of not being bound to either the ordinance of fate, or the confines of the World that the spirits of Men would not dwell long in Arda, and after what seemed a very short time to the immortal Elves, men would age, grow weary, and die.
However, a key aspect of this gift of living within Arda, for a short time, was a virtue instilled into mankind to be motivated to create destinies for themselves amidst the powers and chances of the world. They were able to shape their lives beyond the Music of the Ainur, which rules the fates of all other things in Arda. Men had the choice to live in tune with the themes of the Music that created Arda, to be indifferent to it, or live in defiance of it.
Ilúvatar understood that Men would not always use this gift of freedom in harmony with the world, and would stray often. But he knew that in their time, men would continue to order their lives within Arda and by their "operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and the smallest" (The Silmarillion). Thus Men would become the implements by which Ilúvatar's plans for Arda will be realized in the ages to come.
The Gift of Ilúvatar, as originally bequeathed, was not something that Men were to fear. Though they loved their lives within Arda, they relinquished their spirits gracefully, almost gladly, and seemed to pass into a peaceful sleep, never to wake again in this life. But their souls go to a place unknown to the wisest of Elves or even the Valar.
However, it is written that when the Second Music of the Ainur is played, after the Dagor Dagorath, the spirits of Men shall be included in this even greater theme, when all of the players will know and understand their part and its relation to the whole, and be tributary to its beauty and glory.
==Avoidance==
The shadow of the first Dark Lord brought with it a perversion of the original intent of the Gift of Ilúvatar, and brought fear out of hope, tainting the Gift. Men began to fear and despise it, and began to view it not as liberation, but as damnation. It brought about in the race of Men a kind of self-loathing and a denial of the basic nature of their being as the children of the All-Father Eru Ilúvatar. Instead they viewed themselves as flawed in some way and sought to resist this very intrinsic nature of their creation. The result of such actions brought about much anguish on the race of Men through the centuries of the history of Arda.
At least four characters in The Lord of the Rings are known examples of the dangers of either deliberately or unintentionally trying to avoid the Gift of Ilúvatar. Three of them, denying the Gift of Ilúvatar, are transformed into "monsters" by the sins that they have committed: all nine of the Nazgûl, the King of the Dead, and Sméagol. (Since Sméagol is a Hobbit-like creature, he is numbered among the Younger Children of Ilúvatar, and as such is entitled to the Gift of Ilúvatar.) The Nazgûl are made immortal, but also doomed, by the Nine Rings. The King of the Dead is transformed into a ghost or monster by the curse of Isildur, because he and his subjects broke an oath to fight against Sauron. Long after his natural death, he fulfills his oath, and is released from his condition by Aragorn. (This presumably also applies to the other Dead.) Sméagol is consumed by the One Ring; over the years, its influence transforms him from a Hobbit into the freakish Gollum.
Bilbo Baggins, like Sméagol, is a Hobbit rather than a Man, encountering Gollum in his cave and escaping with the Ring. Being a Hobbit of much better character than Sméagol, Bilbo better resists the negative effects of possessing the One Ring. He does not appear to age considerably, but has a sense of becoming "thin and stretched." Toward the end of his possession of the Ring, Bilbo begins to show some of the obsessive tendencies of Gollum — calling the Ring "my precious," and showing flashes of dark hostility when asked by Gandalf to give the Ring to his heir, Frodo. After the Ring's destruction, Bilbo's appearance begins to show signs of age and weariness.
Those Men with the greatest understanding treated death as the Gift it was originally intended to be, and when their time came, they gladly gave themselves up to it. We see this, for example, in the earlier Kings of Númenor, and Aragorn also accepted the Gift at the natural end of his life. For most Men, though, the Gift was tainted by Morgoth, and they came to fear it rather than embrace it. This fear reached its peak in the later years of Númenor, where even the long life given to the Númenóreans was not enough, and these Men did all they could to try to escape death altogether. In the end, this desperation led to Númenor's destruction when Ar-Pharazôn led a battle fleet to the Undying Lands, having been convinced by Sauron's lies that they held the key to the immortality of the Elves. This deception and treachery eventually saw the lifespans of Men return to more normal times. Even after millennia, the descendants of Númenor still possessed some extended lifespans beyond typical Men; these men became known as the Dúnedain.
==Translations==
Foreign Language 	Translated name
Afrikaans 	Geskenk van Ilúvatar
Albanian 	Dhurata e Ilúvatar
Amharic 	የኢሉቫታር ስጦታ
Arabic 	هدية إيلوفاتار
Armenian 	Իլուվատարի նվեր
Assamese 	ইলুভাটাৰৰ উপহাৰ
Asturian 	Regalu de Ilúvatar
Azerbaijani 	İlúvatarın Hədiyyəsi
Basque 	Ilúvatarren oparia
Belarusian Cyrillic	Падарунак Ілуватара
Bengali 	ইলুভাতারের উপহার
Bosnian 	Ilúvatarov dar
Bulgarian Cyrillic 	Подарък на Илуватар
Catalan 	Regal d'Ilúvatar
Chinese 	伊露维塔的礼物
Croatian 	Ilúvatarov dar
Czech 	Ilúvatarův dar
Danish 	Ilúvatars gave
Dari 	هدیه ایلوواتار
Dutch 	Geschenk van Ilúvatar
Esperanto 	Donaco de Ilúvatar
Estonian 	Ilúvatari kingitus
Faroese 	Gáva av Ilúvatar
Filipino 	Regalo ng Ilúvatar
Finnish 	Ilúvatarin lahja
French 	Don d'Ilúvatar
Frisian 	Jefte fan Ilúvatar (Western)
Friulian 	Regâl di Ilúvatar
Galician 	Don de Ilúvatar
Georgian 	ილუვატარის საჩუქარი
German 	Gabe von Ilúvatar (Gift of Ilúvatar)
Gabe der Menschen (Gift of Men)
Greek 	Δώρο του Ιλούβαταρ
Gujarati 	ઇલુવતારની ભેટ
Hebrew 	(Gift of Ilúvatar) מתנה של אילובאטאר
(Gift of Men) ה מתת של בני אדם
Hindi 	इलुवातार का उपहार
Hungarian 	Ilúvatar ajándéka
Icelandic 	Gjöf Ilúvatar
Indonesian 	Hadiah Ilúvatar
Irish Gaelic 	Bronntanas Ilúvatar
Italian 	Dono di Ilúvatar (Gift of Ilúvatar)
Fato degli Uomini (Fate of Men)
Japanese 	イルーヴァタールの贈り物
Kannada 	ಇಲುವತಾರ್‌ನ ಕೊಡುಗೆ
Kazakh 	Илйұватардың Сыйы (Cyrillic) Ïlyuvatardıñ Sıyı (Latin)
Korean 	일루바타르의 선물
Kyrgyz Cyrillic 	Илуватардын белеги
Latvian 	Ilūvatara dāvana
Lithuanian 	Ilúvataro dovana
Luxembourgish 	Geschenk vun Ilúvatar
Macedonian Cyrillic	Подарок на Илуватар
Malagasy 	Fanomezana an'i Ilúvatar
Malayalam 	ഇലുവത്താറിൻ്റെ സമ്മാനം
Malaysian 	Hadiah Ilúvatar
Maltese 	Rigal ta' Ilúvatar
Manx 	Gioot dy Ilúvatar
Marathi 	इलुवातारची भेट
Nepalese 	ईलुवतरको उपहार
Norwegian 	Gave av Ilúvatar
Occitan 	Don d'Ilúvatar
Persian 	هدیه ایلواتار
Polish 	Dar Ilúvatara
Portuguese 	Presente de Ilúvatar
Punjabi 	ਇਲੁਵਤਾਰ ਦਾ ਤੋਹਫ਼ਾ
Sardinian 	Regalu de Ilúvatar
Scottish Gaelic 	Tiodhlac Ilúvatar
Serbian 	Илуватаров дар (Cyrillic) Iluvatarov dar (Latin)
Sicilian 	Rigalu di Ilúvatar
Sinhalese 	ඉලුවටාර්ගේ තෑග්ග
Slovak 	Ilúvatarov dar
Slovenian 	Darilo Ilúvatarja
Somali 	Hadiyada Ilúvatar
Spanish 	Don de Ilúvatar (Gift of Ilúvatar)
Don de los Hombres (Gift of Men)
Sundanese 	Hadiah Ilúvatar
Swahili 	Zawadi ya Ilúvatar
Swedish 	Gåva av Ilúvatar
Tajik Cyrillic 	Тӯҳфаи Илюватар
Tamil 	இலுவதாரின் பரிசு
Tatar 	Ильватар бүләге
Telugu 	ఇలువతార్ బహుమతి
Thai 	ของขวัญจากอิลูวาทาร์
Turkish 	Ilúvatar'ın Hediyesi
Turkmen 	Ilúvataryň Sowgady
Ukrainian Cyrillic 	Подарунок Ілуватара
Urdu 	الوواتر کا تحفہ
Uzbek 	Илуватар Совғаси (Cyrillic) Iluvatar Sovg'asi (Latin)
Venetian 	Don de Ilúvatar
Vietnamese 	Món quà của Ilúvatar
Welsh 	Rhodd Ilúvatar
Yiddish 	טאַלאַנט פון ילווואַטאַר
==References==
Category:Concepts & principles
de:Gabe der Menschen
es:Don de los Hombres
it:Fato degli Uomini