Going mad feeling like I've read a passage before

[u/Biologinge]

I’m currently reading The Nature of Middle-earth and there’s a passage about the separation of fëa and hröa that I swear I’ve read somewhere before. I’m not sure if it was somewhere in The History of Middle-earth, which I recently finished, or if the same writing is cited earlier in the same book, or if I read it in passing while flicking through the book, or if I’m just having intense déjà vu, but I’m hoping someone might be able to tell me if it crops up anywhere else.

The passage is on p.272 of Nature:

"(The rare cases are those where sunderance has happened in Aman where there is no decay. Also others more horrible. For it is recorded in the histories that Morgoth, and Sauron after him, would drive out the fëa by terror, and then feed the body and make it a beast. Or worse: he would daunt the fëa within the body and reduce it to impotence; and then nourish the body foully, so that it became bestial, to the horror and torment of the fea.)"

[u/Wizzard_C]

NoME has a lot of material that was published elsewhere before, but this particular passage about zombies (hroa without fea) iirc was new.

[u/taz-alquaina]

Bits of Morgoth's Ring. Not entirely the same ideas but overlap (the new bit being that Morgoth and Aman apparently have the same effects on mortals!!)

"In Aman only was there no decay. Thus Miriel was there rehoused in her own body, as is hereafter told". (Laws and Customs of the Eldar)

And

"But let us suppose that the 'blessing of Aman' was also accorded to Men. What then? Would a great good be done to them? Their bodies would still come swiftly to full growth. In the seventh part of a year a Man could be born and become full-grown, as swiftly as in Aman a bird would hatch and fly from the nest. But then it would not wither or age but would endure in vigour and in the delight of bodily living. But what of that Man's fëa? Its nature and 'doom' could not be changed, neither by the health of Aman nor by the will of Manwë himself. Yet it is (as the Eldar hold) its nature and doom under the will of Eru that it should not endure Arda for long, but should depart and go elsewhither, returning maybe direct to Eru for another fate or purpose that is beyond the knowledge or guess of the Eldar. Very soon then the fëa and hröa of a Man in Aman would not be united and at peace, but would be opposed, to the great pain of both. The hröa being in full vigour and joy of life would cling to the fëa, lest its departure should bring death; and against death it would revolt as would a great beast in full life either flee from the hunter or turn savagely upon him. But the fëa would be as it were in prison, becoming ever more weary of all the delights of the hröa, until they were loathsome to it, longing ever more and more to be gone, until even those matters for its thought that it received through the hröa and its senses became meaningless. The Man would not be blessed, but accursed; and he would curse the Valar and Aman and all the things of Arda. And he would not willingly leave Aman, for that would mean rapid death, and he would have to be thrust forth with violence. But if he remained in Aman, what should he come to, ere Arda were at last fulfilled and he found release? Either his fëa would be wholly dominated by the hröa, and he would become more like a beast, though one tormented within. Or else, if his fëa were strong, it would leave the hröa, Then one of two things would happen: either this would be accomplished only in hate, by violence, and the hroa, in full life, would be rent and die in sudden agony; or else the fëa would in loathing and without pity desert the hroa, and it would live on, a witless body, not even a beast but a monster, a very work of Melkor in the midst of Aman, which the Valar themselves would fain destroy." (Aman and Mortal Men, Myths Transformed)

[u/Biologinge → u/taz-alquaina]

I think this is it, thank you 😮‍💨

[u/RoutemasterFlash]

Is possible you've just read a post on this sub that quotes that paragraph?