Origins
The race of Men is the second race of beings created by the One God, Ilúvatar. Because they awoke at the start of the Years of the Sun, while the Elves awoke at the start of the First Age during the Years of the Trees, they are called the Afterborn by the Elves.
Men bear the Gift of Men, mortality. Elves are immortal, in the sense that they do not perceivably age, and even if their bodies are slain, their spirits remain bound to the world, going to the Halls of Mandos, where they are later re-embodied; a cycle that will perpetuate for them until the world ends. Elves are thus tied to the world for as long as it lasts. When Men die, they are released from Arda and its bounds and depart to a world unknown even to the Valar.
Read more about this topic: Man (Middle-earth)
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)