That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die

J

janelleb2

New Member
English
Hello and thank you for reading this thread. I am trying to translate the following into Arabic:

That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons even death may die

I would appreciate any help. The main thing I am looking for is what it would look like written in Arabic. I know that an exact translation will not be possible, but I need to get the same meaning across. I have tried to use online translation tools, but I think they are just slaughtering the phrases. Thank you so much for any assistance!

Janelle
 
    • Hello Janelle, and welcome to the forums.:)

    First a question, do you mean "... eternally lie?" As it is, it is not grammatical.

    Per that correction I have very tentatively translated it as:

    ليس ميتا الشيء الذي يستطيع الكذب إلى الأبد
    وبمرور الحقب حتى الموت قد يموت


    I am not a native speaker and not completely sure about my translation. You will want to wait for a native speaker for a definitive translation.
     
    "that can eternal lie" is ungrammatical in modern English, but it strikes me as something that might have been accepted in older literature, or at least as trying to give off that same poetic feel. This is a quote from Lovecraft, I think, so that explains the weird feel.
    but yes, it means essentially "eternally"

    isn't الكذب lie as in a falsehood? in which case I think you're misinterpreting the quote (or perhaps I am). I read it as meaning that it can lay there eternally... which interpretation do you desire, janelle?
     
    The original is apparently Arabic. See here
    The author of this claim gives the following transliteration but not the original Arabic:
    la mayyitan ma qadirun yatabaqa sarmadi
    fa itha yaji ash-shuthath al-mautu qad yantahi.

    and here, we find an Arabic text
    لا ميتاً ما قادراً يتبقى سرمدى فإذا يجئ الشذاذ الموت قد ينتهي
    Is it full of mistakes or am I missing something?
     
    Thank you everyone. Yes, this is from Lovecraft. I believe the meaning is "Eternally Lie". So do you all feel that the translation Djara found is the best match?

    I sure appreciate everyone's help on this. You are all so very kind.

    Are there any rules to how I can break the phrase up over a series of lines. I think I will need to have it 4 or 5 shorter lines. Such as:

    That is not dead
    which can eternal lie
    And with strange aeons
    even death may die

    Thanks again!
     
    Djara found what appears to be the original Arabic (written in 730 AD according to the link).

    It seems Lovecraft wrote his translation on 2 lines as you originally posted it. The Arabic has these two lines on just one line, separated by a long space, which is standard for Arabic poetry.
     
    djara said:
    The original is apparently Arabic. See here
    The author of this claim gives the following transliteration but not the original Arabic:
    la mayyitan ma qadirun yatabaqa sarmadi
    fa itha yaji ash-shuthath al-mautu qad yantahi.

    and here, we find an Arabic text
    لا ميتاً ما قادراً يتبقى سرمدى فإذا يجئ الشذاذ الموت قد ينتهي
    Is it full of mistakes or am I missing something?
    Click to expand...

    The translitration differs from the Arabic! قادر مرفوع بالأول ومنصوب بالثاني، فأيهما أصح؟
     
    Mahaodeh said:
    The translitration differs from the Arabic! قادر مرفوع بالأول ومنصوب بالثاني، فأيهما أصح؟
    Click to expand...

    Would I be ok to brake the phrase up as follows:
    قادر مرفوع
    بالأول ومنصوب
    بالثاني، فأيهما
    أصح؟

    Or does this completely change the meaning. Unfortunately I can't do the phrase in one continuous line. I need to brake it up into 4 smaller lines. What I think I would like to do is the following:

    That is not dead
    which can eternal lie,
    And with strange aeons
    even death may die

    Any ideas of how to correctly do this? Thanks again everyone for your help!
     
    You don't want to use what Mahaodeh wrote - that's not the poem, it's asking about a grammatical point!!

    You need to use what Djara said. I've split it below to match what you wanted:

    لا ميتاً​
    ما قادراً يتبقى سرمدى​
    فإذا يجئ الشذاذ​
    الموت قد ينتهي​
    It's not the traditional Arabic form, but I suppose it is OK if you must have it on 4 lines.

    There are still some areas of uncertainty regarding this Arabic version. I think it's quite likely that قادراً should be written قادر (to match the transliteration - a point Mahaodeh raised) and it might that سرمدى should be سرمدي

    Also, I guess you're aware of the black magic background to this poem.
     
    Ran across this thread google-searching for the same question. A few notes:

    1. This was NOT originally written in Arabic, in 730 or otherwise. It was originally written by H.P. Lovecraft, an early 20th century American horror writer who was NOT literate in Arabic. Within his fantasy mythos, however, it was fictitiously claimed to have been written by a mad Arab named Abdul Alhazred (grammatical mistakes his)--the concept of the "Mad Arab" and his horrific book the Necronomicon have become such a powerful meme within the horror genre that some people honestly don't realize that they were never real.

    2. The first line is definitively supposed to mean lie as in "to lie down". Here's a non-poetic rendering of the literal meaning of the first line:

    That (thing) is not dead which can eternal(ly) lie (in waiting)

    So, with that being said, anyone want to give it a shot? My Arabic is rusty at best, and would be better described as very bad, so I'm not competent to tackle something of this complexity.
     
    ليس ميتا ما كان يستطيع الانتظار أبدا
    وبمرور الحقب حتى الموت قد يفنى

    Maybe

    لا يموت من صبر إلى الأبد
    إذ بمرور الحقب يفنى الموت

    The second may seem a little different, but the second expresses the only understanding that makes sense to me although I'm not quite sure that this is what is meant by it.
     
    Aside from h.p. lovecraft this phrase has been used in the manga/anime Kaibutsu Oujo with the slight change of aeons to eons.
     
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