The Brazier of Eibon and the Rite of the Black Flame

(A chapter from Abdul Alhazred’s Necronomicon,; translated by Luis G. Abbadie)

Thou shalt procure a brazier fashioned from black stone or clay, with three legs, sufficiently large to receive the offerings when it is convenient. On the day of the Sun, and in the hour of Venus, thou shalt inscribe on its side the Seal of Eibon, on one side, and the Elder Sign on the other. For the Seal of Eibon with its three arms will concentrate and disperse, for the benefit of your Operations, while N’tse-Ka’ambl, the Granter of the Elder Sign, is She who presideth over the Black Flame which thou shalt summon and manifest. This is the flame that forms the heart of the Pillar of Fire served by the long-bearded Priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah. This is also the Fire that burns in the heart of each Star, and projects the colours and shades which fill the sky with poison for the Great Old Ones, as well as those which strengthen and release Them.

This is what the great Magician and Necromancer Eibon, from the forgotten hyperborean realm of Mhu Thulan, testifies, and narrates in his Scriptures, of how on one occasion Eibon travelled through the southern provinces of Hyperborea, in the course of his searches for arcane knowledge; and in doing so, he decided to pay a visit to the Necromancer Vinnijar, of Camorba, from whom he hoped to obtain certain rare herbs peculiar to the region of Uthnor, which would prove useful for his sorcerous crafts. Vinnijar abode in a residence secluded from the city, between two crags on the other side of the forest of Ramooz, and Eibon, having arrived in Camorba shortly before dusk, set out thereto upon dawn the following day. Upon his arrival, he found some logs and a bucket abandoned before the front door, and surmised that he would have the opportunity to see his colleague reprimand the laziness of his servants. He had not seen Vinnijar for more than two decades, but well did he recall his great propensity to outbursts of anger, and his shortness of patience. Presently, Eibon knocked on the door, and found no one coming to greet him. He knocked harder, and the door swung open loosely. Surprised, Eibon entered the room, and found two other logs lying on the floor, in front of the fireplace in which the fire was reduced to nearly-extinguished embers. As though the servant who fed the fire, he reflected, had fled in so untimely a manner that he had at first forgotten to drop the wood he had just brought with him.

“Vinnijar!”, The sorcerer risked calling, but as he suspected already, he obtained no answer. Therefore, he ventured inside the dwelling, heading for the stairs. He suspected that the best place to find Vinnijar would be his laboratory, and it would probably be located on the upper floors, but otherwise, it might also be found in the basement.

Eibon went upstairs then, careful to make no noise, as he anticipated that he might encounter something extremely unpleasant, and possibly dangerous. And indeed, it took not long for him to see traces of blood and what could only be guts, scattered on some of the steps before reaching the next floor.

To his left, an open door revealed what he was looking for: the materials and implements of an alchemist cluttered a table, with a shelf full of scrolls beyond it. He approached cautiously, and as he looked in, he saw the edges of a Circle of the Artes laid out on the flagstones of the floor. When the sight became clearer, as he advanced, he noticed that in the perimeter of the Circle there were a dead censer, an open parchment, and more peculiarly, the remains of some already-eaten fruits. As he passed through the lab door, his gaze met that of wild-eyed Vinnijar.

The Necromancer sat, crouched, in the center of the Circle, his robe dishevelled, his hair tousled; and his fear and surprise-fraught eyes were framed by a haggard and pale face. Despite being in the Circle of the Artes, Vinnijar did not look as if he had been interrupted in the middle of some experiment at conjuring.

“Vinnijar!” Eibon saith upon seeing him, and looked around apprehensively. “What has happened here?”

The Necromancer looked around in panic and gestured to silence him.

“Speak not aloud, O Eibon!” he warned. “You could be heard!” Then, approaching the edge of the Circle, he muttered urgently, as if certain that time was short. “It awakens hope in my heart to see thee, my friend,” he saith; “May Tsathoggua let thy arrival announce my salvation, and not thy companionship in doom! Know thee that last night, I was preparing to conjure the Spirits of the Abyss and, after imparting the usual directions to my servants, I set out to carry out the Operation. Too late, I realized that young Rahli, the cook's teen-aged son, who despite my instructions tends to get distracted while I talk to his elders, must have picked up my Brazier from the ground, perhaps believing that it was not part of my instruments since my censer was also at its side. There has he put it, out of my reach!” He pointed to a shelf where, indeed, a Brazier with the Elder Sign inscribed was to be found. “All the rest was due to my own recklessness,” the Necromancer lamented; "when I found it not in my Circle, the need to use it escaped my mind, and the room has been left lacking the complete purification and warding required for the manifestation, without risk, of the Outer Forces!” Vinnijar shook his head in desolation. “That which I called, came in response; unrestrained, it attempted in vain to invade the perimeter of the Circle, and failing to do so, it left to prowl the house. I have heard the screams of horror from the servants, until silence fell. Then it came again, and it has spent the whole night tormenting me, mocking me, with the certainty that sooner or later, fatigue will prevent me from reinforcing the protective barriers, and it will be able to reach me.”

“In that case, ‘twill surely be well within my hands to succor thee,” Said Eibon in order to appease his anguish, otherwise he would not be able to answer certain questions that were of the essence. “But tell me, oh Vinnijar, what is That which thou hast invoked, and which now prowls in this house?”

At that moment they both heard footsteps of a peculiar rhythm coming down the corridor. Eibon glanced over his shoulder, but nothing showed still through the open door.

“Vinnijar! Quickly! What is it?”

“A Shadow from Arkand,” he said, causing Eibon to shudder, as the horror on his colleague's face told him that It had already come.

But what was found at the door was not a Demon of bestial form, nor a living shadow, but a woman, elderly and robust, her clothes soiled with blood. But her face, her eyes! They betrayed an aberrant Presence within what was clearly a corpse, since her open throat showed the marks of a large, bestial claw. Her eyes blazed with a demonic yellow gaze, and a grinning grimace distorted what must once have been a gentle face brimming with the shallow wisdom of the elderly country dwellers. And in her left hand she carried a long, thick stick, plucked from some shed.

“’Tis time to devour thy soul, Sorcerer,” said she, and then, looking at Eibon, she added: “How kind of thee to bring new food for my brethren!”

Eibon, who well knew, from the Pnakotic scriptures, what the Shadows of Arkand were, which are in the habit of seizing corpses and turning them into abominable Necrites or Deadites, those selfsame horrors which had ravaged Arkand at the latter days of a previous Cycle, replied nothing; he merely stepped back, without averting his gaze from that aberration, to stand behind the table cluttered with retorts and urns. The grinning Deadite watched him, finally turning her attention to the Necromancer who crouched within the Circle.

“But ‘tis time, first, to pay thy debt,” said the thing, and raised the stick as if it were a spear, ready to impale Vinnijar.

Eibon moved with swiftness and discretion, reaching across the table to take the Brazier. If it was empty, he would have no time to prepare it, and they would both be lost. But he found it filled with coal. Silently thanking Tsathoggua, he was about to use his tinderbox to ignite it, but he stopped. His gaze fell upon an urn marked with the symbol used by Hyperborean Alchemists to designate oil, and under it, the Seal of Ubbo-Sathla. Eibon grasped it, and poured it until it the coals were half-covered in it. The fire then ignited with great ease, crackling in an unexpectedly thunderous way. 

The Seal of Ubbo-Sathla

The Deadite looked at him in bewilderment. But the stick was no longer in her hand. Eibon caught a glimpse of his friend, the Necromancer Vinnijar, with the stick nailed into his abdomen and writhing in pain as he backed away from the Circle and leaned his back to the wall. But then the thick, warm scent of burned Oil invaded his lungs, choking him, causing his eyes to fill with tears. The Deadite let out a scream more like that of a vulture or winged dragon in agony than like a human cry. Eibon, unable to see her with clarity, turned away and approached Vinnijar, who was collapsing to the ground. Eibon put his hand on the shoulder of the dying Sorcerer as his still-stinging eyes searched for the Deadite: she crouched with her back to the brazier, covering her face as if the fumes were those of a mountain’s liquid fire, unceasingly screaming.

“Eibon…” the Necromancer managed to articulate, and life left his eyes. Eibon stood up and hurried across the room. As he passed the wriggling Deadite, she reacted and rose after him. But Eibon was quick enough to shut the door in the face of the abomination.

“Get thy share,” Eibon said in response to the shrieks and curses that accompanied the banging on the door. The Flame of N’tse-Ka’ambl was purifying the interior of the laboratory, turning it into a space whereat a Being of darkness like the One which animated the Deadite was not capable of surviving. Still, Eibon held his breath, fearing the thing might have enough presence of mind to recall the window and jump out; However, it did not. The banging slowed, the screams reduced to gasps, and finally there was silence.

Eibon then allowed himself to sigh in relief, and left. Let the peasants eventually discover the tragic scene, and let the pious Priests of Yhoundeh exorcise the site, claiming the fate of the Necromancer as a morality fable against the Sorcerous Arts and a triumph for their Goddess. ´Twas another, greater and elder, Goddess who had vanquished the horror this day; and another more mundane and bitter moral which was presented here: When carrying out thy Rites, never forget the unattended Fire, whether it be burning... or unignited.

Bear then in mind the experience of Eibon, that thou dost never forget the importance of the Black Flame upon thy Altar.

The Flame must be lit on coals sprinkled with Ubbo-Sathla’s Oil, which is prepared in the following way: Boil leaves of ivy, cypress and walnut in a base of tree oil, and unto the resulting mixture, once cold, add powdered sulfur and camphor. And when preparing it, make the Sign of Voor over it and say:

 

Ubbo-Sathla h’ftahas

 

In this manner, the source and substance of earthly life nourishes and feeds the Flame which in turn burns in its entrails and awakens the substance to life.

On the first occasion of its use, the Brazier must be duly consecrated with the Greater Consecration, and then the interior of the brazier anointed in Ubbo-Sathla’s Oil, which will no longer be necessary on subsequent occasions; then place coals inside, sprinkle them with oil, and kindle the Fire; while it burns, make the Elder Sign while spealing the words:

 

Granter of the Elder Sign

N’tse-Ka’ambl

Mistress of the Flame

N’tse-Ka’ambl

Shatterer of Worlds

N’tse-Ka’ambl

Queen of the Heavens and the Abyss

N’tse-Ka’ambl

Kindle here Thy Flame.

 

¡C’vo Ch’Isesa Xizo-Ati-Ni-Tho!

 

Thou who doth grant us protection

Grant me now Thy Black Flame

Thou whose shield nothing may pierce

Shield me in Thy heat

Thou who guardeth the Ancient Knowledge

Kindle in me the Flame of Wisdom

Thou who hath conquered Ganzir

Light my Path in light and in shadow,

Kindle here Thy Flame.

 

¡C’vo Ch’Isesa Xizo-Ati-Ni-Tho!

 

Uvhss-J’hon,

Radiant Blackness from Sharhah's entrails

Uvhss-J’hon,

Wall of Fire before the horrors of Yuggoth

Uvhss-J’hon,

Lighthouse of Justice in the Palaces of Glyu-Vho

Uvhss-J’hon,

Eternal Fire from the Sanctuary of N’tse-Ka’ambl

Kindle here Thy Flame.

 

¡C’vo Ch’Isesa Xizo-Ati-Ni-Tho!

 

In the Name of She Who conquered Ganzir,

By eris will and Her Word,

Uvhss-J’hon,

Black Flame rare and resplendent,

light up now this Circle of the Artes

May every Shadow boweth to Thy light.

Uvhss-J’hon,

Black Flame of Wonder,

Bless me with Thy protection.

N’tse-Ka’ambl,

Bless me in my Workings,

Kindle here Thy Flame!

 

¡C’vo Ch’Isesa Xizo-Ati-Ni-Tho!

 

In thy Rites, thou canst also feed the Fire with branches of willow.

 Thou canst also consecrate a bonfire to light the Black Fire upon it, although this is not common except when in Rites with numerous participants, as was done in the times of the early Chaldean; on the contrary, you can also summon the Black Flame by lighting a black candle. However, keep in mind that, when thou dost want to deliver an offering unto the flames, this is not possible with the candle’s small flame.

 Another way, the most powerful, to propitiate Those From Outside, is the Red Offering, which I shall presently speak of.

The previous narrative is a previously undisclosed chapter from Alhazred's opus, rendered from an incomplete Greek text and a severely damaged corresponding section in Wormius' latin version. We have recently had an unique opportunity to cross-check the narrative with the corresponding chapter of the Book of Eibon, thanks to the near-complete copy of Gaspar DuNord's XIIIth Century Livre d'Eibon found as part of the Brzobohatý Files curriently under research at Universidad Valencia of Montecruz, Mexico. 

It bears mentioning that I have favored professor Raymond Knowby's barbarism "Deadite" over the correct Greek term "Nekrite" mainly due to the former being a more familiar word for most readers. 

"The Rite of the Black Flame" has been rendered in careful accordance and cross-check with the works of Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., who was the original translator and researcher who undisclosed the mysteries of the Black Flame or Uvhss-J'hon, after his discovery of the Eibonic scripture "The Adoration of the Black Flame" (to be found in Chaosium's The Book of Eibon).

A long way back, I remember reading an article titled "Wicca 101" at the much-lamented website The Witches' Voice. In it, the author described a neophyte's hypothetical first ritual attempt, narrating how, after tracing the circle, the student might sit before their altar, relax, breathe deep... listen to the sounds of the night... and recall the coffee pot they left on the flame at the stove! Eibon, through Alhazred, suggests that this has been an age-old problem for witches and necromancers! 

The Much-Discussed Couplet

Alhazred's couplet handwritten by Cliff Burton from Metallica

The Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred's pseudobiblium, Al-Azif or Necronomicon, has been translated, mistranslated and falsified many times. I'll collect here various versions of his most famous couplet. I will be updating with other intriguing versions - I have the XIIIth-Century Spanish version somewhere, and I'd like to get the Greek version too. If you know of a good one, let me know!

The couplet is best known in the version used by H.P. lovecraft within his fiction, first published in his short story "The Nameless City" (1921):

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange Aeons even Death may die"

This was presumably translated from Olaus Wormius’ Latin version, or perhaps adapted from Dr. John Dee’s Old English. But let us go back in time and consider the possibility, proposed by various authors, that Abdul Alhazred merely translated himself a ritual text from some older source. Robert M. Price has suggested the possibility that it was originally rendered in Greek, either by some earlier author or Alhazred himself, due to the structure and characteristics of the verses; but we will discuss his thesis later on.

Within the pages of the Sussex Manuscript, also known as Cultus Maleficarum, its author, Baron Frederic I of England –which, as is well known by pseudobibliographers, is actually a garbled partial translation of the Necronomicon-, attributes the couplet to the mythical Atlantean poet Klarkash-Ton, chronicler of the Commoriom and Hyperborean Myth-Cycles. This is troublesome in many ways, particularly because it sets the source of the verses in a completely mythical time. Still, it does point the way toward finding a possible source used by Alhazred for his couplet: the Book of Eibon, a Greek book generally acknowledged as one of the main sources of the Necronomicon which purports to contain accounts and rituals from the ancient, pre-glacial country of Hyperborea, and is actually attributed to Eibon of Mhu Thulan, a magician said to have lived in this fabled land.

Consulting the fragmentary Book of Eibon, we find, in Book Four, Chapter 13, “Eibon’s Prophecy,” in which Eibon predicts the fall of the mythical country, which concludes with the following verses:

“…grim and dark Voormithadreth,

King of the high Eiglophian peaks, whence icy rills

Once flowed through caverns black where now the Old Ones lie,

Awaiting that new Day when even death may die”.

(Eibon, translated by Richard L. Tierney)

While Eibon is no less a mythical character then Klarkash-Ton, his book, its actual origins notwithstanding, is an actual document, one known to have been extensively drawn upon by the Mad Poet when writing the Kitab Al-Azif. Therefore, I submit that this may be what Baron Frederick I referred to when he misattributed the couplet to that other chronicler of Hyperborean mythos, Klarkash-Ton. The few surviving epistles and writings attributed to the Atlantean scribe quote Eibon frequently, therefore the Baron might have seen a then-existing fragment which quoted “Eibon’s Prophecy” and noticed the similitude to Alhazred’s quote. The structure of the verses is similar enough: something –the Old Ones in Eibon’s case; undefined in Alhazred’s- awaits the coming time -“that new Day” or the “strange Aeons”-when “even death may die.”

Alhazred’s couplet is noticeably complete in itself, and shows the greatness of his poetry, as he borrows certain elements and the closing phrase from Eibon and creates a short, powerful pair of verses of much wider and deeper meaning. Therefore, he can clearly be considered the true author of the couplet, even if the influence of Eibon is noticeable.

Let us now consider Alhazred’s own version of the verses.

Thanks to the author of the blog Alhazret we have two possible renderings of Alhazred’s original Arabic couplet:

لا ميتاً ما قادراً يتبقى سرمدى

فإذا يجئ الشذاذ الموت قد ينتهي

Or perhaps:

لا ميتاً ما قادر يتبقى سرمدي

فإذا يجئ الشذاذ الموت قد ينتهي

-Abdul Al-Hazred, Kitab Al-Azif (735) would be the source of one of these, the other probably belonging to one of the various unreliable copies circulated after the mad poet’s passing.

William Hamblin’s and Phileas P. Sadowsky’s famous article “Further Notes on the Necronomicon” has popularized an Arabic couplet purporting to be the original:

ما ميتا ما قارد يتبقي

سر مدي فانا يجي الشذاذ الموت

"La mayyitan ma qadirun yatabaqa sarmadhi

fa itha yaji Ash-Shuthath al-mautu qad yantahi"

It’s since become clear that the late professor Sadowsky was far from fluent  in Arabic, and this was probably a recent scribble of no historical importance whatsoever, as I’ve explained in my article Sadowsky's Couplet Re-Translated

Yet another Arabic variant was authored by Abdul Yásar, better known as Abdelésar, a stray disciple of Alhazred who pretended to be Alhazred himself at Al-Andalus, in the Spanish Peninsula, after the death of the poet, and liberally rewrote an incomplete copy of his book. Rafael llopis has authored a book on Abdelésar’s life and philosophy, El Novísimo Algazife, o Libro de las Postrimerías.

Here follows the couplet as found in the Aljavir Manuscript. This was a handwritten copy of Abdelésar’s version of the Kitab Al Azif, found around 1978 by the American pilot Nureddin Ellis at Aljavir, a village about 50 miles northeast from Toledo, which he flaunted before sensationalist occult magazines as “The Nureddin Ellis Necronomicon” and later sold to a collector from Madrid.

The above reads:

"No está muerto quien yace en la Casa de la Eternidad

pues cuando llegue el tiempo hasta la muerte morirá"

-Abdul Yasar/Abdelesar (Traducción de Rafael Llopis), "El novísimo Algazife o Libro de las Postrimerías" (c.740)

The verses vary enough to merit an English rendering:

That is not dead who lies at the House of Eternity

For when the time comes even death shall die

The reference to the House of Eternity makes sense when one considers that Abdelésar claimed to be the son of a pure-blooded Egyptian priestess and having authored Al-Azif as a concealed recreation of the religion of ancient Khem, so he included generous smatterings of Egyptian names and concepts in his handwritten copy. Llopis states that Abdelésar’s mother was a priestess of Ptah-Seker, and my personal studies of the Narratives of the Mad Poet have led me to identify her tentatively with the woman mentioned in the chapters translated by Robert C. Culp for E.O.D.A.P.A, where Alhazred says: “Read of the defilement of the temple of Ptah-Seker, Creator of Heaven and Earth. By corruption of the attendant virgins, I did gain entrance to the inner-most sanctuary”. Alhazred refers at various times to secret sects which preserve certain Egyptian rites –the brotherhood of necromancers, the keepers pf the temple of Ptah-Seker, the archives of Heru-khuti; his very servant and apprentice Martala was a devout of Bast. Nonetheless, let us not go astray considering the the reality and historicity of such survivals; what matters is that Al Burux of Játiva, biographer of Abdelésar, speaks of a surviving secret cult of Ptah-Sokar-Usir his parents raised him into; and when Alhazred refers to just such a cult, it is with contempt, claiming to have “corrupted” the “attendant virgins.” Is it too much to speculate that  Abdelésar could have been brother or child to one such priestess, or perhaps even their offspring?

(I believe this to have occurred before Alhazred’s well-known mutilation and castration, as described by Ibn Khallikan and Theodorus Philetas. While Donald Tyson’s excellent biographical novel Alhazred does not allow for this to have occurred, it must be kept n mind that he greatly condensed the most important periods in the poet’s life for the sake of narrative efficacy).

The following may be a rendering of the couplet, or then again, it may be derivative text altogether:

“Thou shalt conjure the dead, using the names of their evil gods. They shall come forth, for they are not dead, but lie eternal, unto the time when death is vanquished. And they will come forth when thou callest them by their gods.”

-Al Rashid of Sothis, The Book of Shades (ca. Xth Century), translated by Mrs. Ruzo.

This book was published by Elizabeth Ann St. George as possibly a part of the Necronomicon. While it may well be so –St. George never explained at length her reasons to believe so- this is a prose translation from an Arabic text which, while similar enough to be clearly influenced by Alhazred’s couplet, may or may not be a rendition from the original Arabic verses. Certainly, those transcribed above are both similar enough both between each other and to Al Rashid’s.

We are indebted to Deinolithos for discovering the Greek version of the couplet:

οὐκ ἔλαχον θανάτοιο μέρος κατακείμενοι αἰεί·

καινοτέρων ἐτέων καὶ θάνατος θάνεται.

(ouk elakhon thanatoio meros katakeimenoi aiei

kainoterōn eteōn kai thanatos thanetai.)

.Theodorus Philetas (ca. 950)

Deinolithos translates the verses as follows:

They have no share of death who always lie:

In stranger years to come, e'en death shall die.

Also, Denolithos makes the following comments:

“The verb thanetai, "will die," is quite unusual. This form occurs only once in all of Greek literature, in one of the Sibylline oracles where it's part of a prophecy. So the wording of the Greek couplet suggests it's making a prediction: death will die during the ‘stranger years.’

“Theodorus's choice of meter reflects the revival of interest in the elegiac couplet during the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. That he didn't quite attain to Classical standards of versification is understandable: he produced his translation under severe constraint, with continuous threat of persecution if he were discovered, and of madness if he were too successful in unlocking the book's secrets.”

What surprises me is the absence of the word αιώνες (aió̱nes) –the “strange Aeons” in both Lovecraft’s, Dr. John Dee’s and Baron Frederick I’s versions. Was then the term’s inclusion entirely the work of Dee? I had previously found a Latin version which included a latinization of the term, but it has since surfaced that it may have been a false rendering (see below).

The concept of Aeons, which has recently come to signify exclusively periods of time, had in the Middle Ages much more complex connotations, as Robert M. Price rightly observes in his monograph “A Critical Commentary on the Necronomicon”, perhaps derived from Jewish apocalypticism:

“there were to be two successive world ages (aions), the present one ruled by Satan, with the future Golden Age to be ruled by God. Eventually, the word aion may have come to be used derivatively to indicate not only the world age, but also the power who ruled it. The Gnostics may have picked up the term in this way. Alternatively, the term may have come from the lion-headed Iranian god of Time, called Aion.”

 Price goes on to describe the similarities between Alhazredic Daemonology and Gnosticism, concluding:

“In light of these parallels, it is hard to resist the conclusion that the religion of Alhazred was one of the lesser known branches of the Gnostic religion. The Old Ones were known in that context as Aions.”

Later on, when performing a directly analysis of the conceptual parallels within the structure of the couplet, Price suggests that it was “originally composed, not in Alhazred’s Arabic, but in Greek, where the words ‘eternal’ and ‘aeon’ are simply different forms of the word aion, or ‘age.’ English ‘eternal’ would then translate into the Greek phrase eis tous aionus, literally ‘unto the ages’, ‘always’ or ‘forever.’ This would, in classical fashion, allow a double meaning or pun, using Aion as both a period of time and a divine entity:

“According to this interpretation, to ‘lie eternal’ (meinai eis tous aionus) means not ‘to abide forever’ (as does Cthulhu in R’lyeh), but rather ‘to await the Aions’, i.e., the Old Ones.”

Of course, Price works speculatively here, without having access to Philetas’ text; still, his points are valid, and a great richness in significance is lost if we discard the word Aion or Aeon as a late English interpolation. The question may be set forth, though: could more than one version of the couplet be found within a single version of the book, be it Arabic, Greek or Latin? After all, not only the couplet is reiterated at various times throughout the Necronomicon corpus, deliberate variant versions might exist, displaying similar concepts through careful nuances that shift their meaning, and have been misconstrued by later translators as clumsy attempts to repeat the same verses. I invite readers to keep in mind this possibility as we continue to explore these variants.

There was a second, previously unknown,  Greek translation (not by Psellus, this is a common misconception popularized by the pseudonymously-named Justin Geoffry in recent years, although Psellus seems to have owned a copy); it was translated by Teofilatto o Pissarios, a Byzantine mystic who endeavored to re-translate the book from the original Arabic  for his Euchite cult after finding Philetas’ version incomplete and unreliable in various ways.

We have only Pietro Pizzari’s Italian translation of Teofilatto’s Greek, from the manuscript found in the Vatican Library:

"Non è morto ciò che in eterno può attendere.

Con il passare di strane ere anche la morte può morire"

-Teofilato o Pissarios (1070)

(That is not dead which in eternity may wait.

With the passing of strange eras even death may die)

Intriguingly enough, we find no mention of “aeons” in this version either; unfortunately, Pizzari does not reproduce the original Greek version.

This is a good moment to discuss the version of the couplet found in Necronomicon: Nuova edizione con sconvolgenti revelazioni e le Tavolette di Kutu (Dr. V. Carranza & Prof. Z. Shah, Fanucci, 1994). The version, rendered by the translator Sergio Basile, is all too close to Pizzari’s:

"Non è morto Ciò che in eterno può attendere.

E con il passare di strane ere anche la morte muore"

(That is not dead which in eternity may wait.

With the passing of strange eras even death dies)

While Carranza and Basile seem to have worked from a scanned copy of what appeared to be the original Kitab Al-Azif, composed of an Arab manuscript and various Greek sections of earlier origin, their rendering of the couplet is too modern, and probably attempts to be as close as possible to the Italian translation of Lovecraft’s version (it bears wondering whether that is also the case for Pizzari).

We also have two Latin versions of the couplet. Deinolithus offers a rendering found in a XVIIth-Century edition of Celsus Olaus Wormius the Elder’s translation of the Necronomicon:

“Illud non moritur quod polleat usque morari:

temporibus miris, Mors, potes ipsa mori”

-Olaus Wormius the Elder, "Necronomicon, vel De Normis Necium" (1228)

A literal translation would be:

That does not die which may linger for aye:

In strange times, Death, e'en you can pass away.

Deinolithus also has the following observations about this version:

“Notice that the Latin version addresses a personified Death in the second line. There's a play on the sound of the word for ‘death,’ mors: that which escapes death has the power to ‘linger,’ morari, continuously; in times that are ‘strange,’ miris, Death itself can die.

“The two words that end the first line, usque morari (‘linger continuously’), are a reminiscence of Vergil's Aeneid, book 6, line 487, where Aeneas wishes to linger in the underworld to speak with the ghosts of his dead countrymen (…) The Latin translator of the Necronomicon must have perceived a connection between the mad Arab's couplet, and Vergil's description of the realm of the dead.”

However, Dr. Arias, from Universidad Valencia de Montecruz, had previously given me the following transcription, found in Stéphane Gesbert’s monograph “Cthulhu Dark Ages” (Miskatonic Paramythology Journal Nº 7, Summer 2010):

"Mortuus non credite illud quin latet aeterno,

Quum per Saecula mira Mors etiam pereat"

-Celsus Olaus Wormius the Elder, (1228)

In my earlier compilation, which I posted on my Livejournal years ago, I transcribed a nearly identical couplet which read “per Aeones mira” instead of “per Saecula mira”; the dubious inflection makes me suspect that the document I copied it from –an old letter at the Universidad Valencia de Montecruz collections- was adulterated; however, the question does  come up again: at which point was the concept of “Aeons” brought into the couplet? Bewfore the mad poet’s times as suggested by Price, perhaps as a verse found in the collection of magickal papyri stolen from the library of Alexandria which, according to Dr. Andrés Venustiano Carranza, became the core of Alhazred’s opus? By Philetas’ or Teofilatto’s hand, in one of their Greek recensions?  As a barbarism on Olaus Wormius’ behalf?

Or did Dr. Dee draw from his extensive studies of the Gnostic writings?

"That 'tis not dead the which mayest for-everr lye,

& with ye advent of strange Aeons, even Death mayest die"

-Dr. John Dee, Necronomicon (1586)

Dee worked for many years in his obsessive translation of the Necronomicon, something which defies reason due to the decidedly un-Christian character of the book; he worked from a Latin copy, at least two fragmentary Greek texts, and possibly a few portions of an Arabic manuscript. Here, the polemical term is clearly present, and we approach the most familiar of all translations, the modern English version which became a staple of twentieth century weird fiction:

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,

And with strange Aeons even Death may die"

-H.P. Lovecraft, "The Nameless City" (1921)

It has surfaced that Lovecraft had access to both the corrupt Dee translation kept by the Freemasonic Egyptian Rite Boston Lodge and the Latin copy at Miskatonic University, and it is strongly rumored that his grandfather Whipple Phillips kept yet another Latin copy in his library. Stories of Lovecraft finding the Necronomicon at an Umyadi monastery in New York City are just as hard to prove or disprove.

The finest Spanish translation is owed to Lovecraftian scholar and definitive translator Francisco Torres Oliver, and there are two versions with one minor variation (the second lacks rhyme but is preferred by many, me included):

"Que no está muerto lo que puede yacer eternamente,

Y con los evos extraños puede morir aun la muerte"

or,

"Que no está muerto lo que puede yacer eternamente,

Y con los evos extraños aun la muerte puede morir"

-Francisco Torres Oliver, Relatos de los mitos de Cthulhu, Bruguera, c.1960)

But it is not the first time these verses have been rendered unto Spanish. It is known that the Necronomicon has been translated to this language several times:

The crusader José Luis de Ancona translated at León, Simancas, between 1274 and 1300 –as found out by researcher Inti Meza V.- an Arabic copy he found in Abisinia under the title Libro de lo que dizen los espíritus del desyerto (Book of What the Spirits of the Desert Speak); only one handwritten copy of this never printed version survives at the Simancas Historical Archive. Francisco Torres Oliver and Rafael Llopis were preparing an annotated edition slated for 1981, but it was cancelled due to the polemics when reputed author Joan Perucho was accused of plagiarizing parts of his book Botánica oculta o el falso Paracelso (Taver, Varcelona, 1969) from the Necronomicon.

Necronómicon ó el Libro de los Árabes (Necronomicon or the Book of the Arabs), printed by Miguel Plata (Toledo, 1647) is the translation mentioned in Lovecraft’s “History and Chronology of the Necronomicon;” it was produced by the philosopher Hugo Sempilio (Hugh Semple) from a Latin copy.

According to Joan C. Stanley in her Ex Libris Miskatonici, none other than Miguel de Cervantes authored another translation, also from the Arabic, titled Libro de los Nombres de los Perdidos (Book of the Names of the Lost) during his imprisonment in Algeria (1576-1579). For reasons I’ve been unable to ascertain, there appear to be existing copies of this version mistitled Libro de los Normos de los Perdidos, “Normos” being a nonexistent word in ancient or modern Spanish. I propose that at some point, copies of the book were printed or at least bound by a printer unfamiliar with Spanish.

Only recently a reference to yet another Spanish edition has come to my attention: Necronomicon, el libro de los nombres de los muertos (Necronomicon, the Book of the Names of the Dead), translated by a priest Pedro de Perreras and printed at León, ca. 1498.  Notice that León is the same place where the 1274-1300 translation was done, so it might well be an instance of misattribution. Still, I have as yet been unable to confirm the existence of this previously unknown edition.

I have yet to obtain any of these copies; if anybody has access to one of them, and would be so kind as to transcribe their version of the couplet, it goes without saying that many of us will no doubt be enormously thankful.

Here is, however, the version quoted by Martín Diaz in the extensive treatise he wrote, trying to correlate the contents of the Necronomicon to Mesoamerican indigenous traditions and geography, as transcribed by Mauricio-José Schwarz for the science journal Umbrales:

"Lo que muerto no está puede yacer eternamente.

Con las extrañas eras la muerte acaso muere"

-Martín Diaz, "Vera historia de los bolcanes de la Nueva España" (1710)

(What dead is not may eternal lie,

Wth the strange eras death mayhap dies)

A Russian translation has come up, part of a collection of translated fragments of the Necronomicon, of unknown authorship. Patricia Mason suggests these may be part of the personal notes of Rasputin which he is said to have lost, along with his Latin copy of the book, in 1908 when he disappeared for several weeks near the Podkamennaya Tunguska river in Siberia, when his belongings were stolen frm his lodgings in the meantime. Whatever the truth, here is the couplet:

то не мертво, что вечность охраняет,

смерть вместе с вечностью порою умирает.

to ne mertvo, chto vechnost' okhranyayet,

smert' vmeste s vechnost'yu poroyu umirayet.

As with the Arabic versions, I confess my knowledge of the language is too scarce to be able to make any further comment.

Lastly, we  have a couple of much stranger renditions.

“Mgw’ngh naflwgah shugg fhtagn,

Y’ai’ng’ngah y’haa g’kthun cfay’, wgah n’gh nagl”

This would be a R’lyehian language translation of the couplet, found in February 1998 by John L. Smith jotted down on the margins of the Miskatonic University’s copy of the Necronomicon. Whether the anonymous scribbler copied it from an earlier source or simply attempted a translation “on the spot” is impossible to tell.

The aforementioned Teofilato’s I Sette Libri dei Nomi dei Morti, detti anche il Necronomicon (The Seven Books of the Names of the Dead, also called the Necronomicon) offers us a very different version:

"Yi yibuly hy'm bji nwyb im hjcuj otlmuji rack'jo yijrr

A'yoyb kbm'ea uriy rukniu ijrj'ob yesov bll'ruc'oxii ljvij"

-Abd al-Azraq (Abdul Alhazred), in the "sacred language of R'lyeh" según Teofilato (1070)

 This language is very different from R'lyehian as found in Lovecraft or in Philip Marsh's essay R'lyehian as a toy language, yet they do share a few words while structure seems very different –actually, Teofilatto’s language appears to lack any structure whatsoever, and the chants, although accompanied by supposed translations, hardly ever reproduce the same words beyond a few consecutive verses at most, as if the language itself shifted in continuous transition as the text progresses. This is perhaps a hieratic or symbolic language and the other one, the Deep Ones' common tongue; if so, rather than a literal translation, the non-human language is meant as a cipher of some kind, containing further secrets that expend from the ordinary verses.

Lastly, I again request the aid of fellow researchers; if you know of other available variants of the couplet that deserve discussion, do not hesitate to contact me either here or through my Facebook page.

Bibliography:

ABBADIE, Luis G: El Necronómicon: un comentario. La otra orilla, 2000

     -Many Terrible and Conflicting Things

     -Sadowsky’s Couplet Re-Translated

ALHAZRET, comments on “Sadowsky’s Couplet Re-Translated” (q.v.) See his blog Alhazred in Cultural Context

CARRANZA, V., & SHAH, Z.: Necronomicon: Nuova edizione con sconvolgenti revelazioni e le Tavolette di Kutu. Fanucci, 1994

CULP, Robert C.: “Necronomicon”, in Robert M. Price (ed.)’s The Necronomicon: Selected Stories and Essays Concerning the Blasphemous Tome of the Mad Arab (Chaosium, 2002)

DEINOLITHUS: Latin version of the Necronomicondiscovered!

     The Necronomicon in English,Latin and Greek: A comparison

     Greek version of the Necronomiconalso discovered!

GESBERT, Stéphane: Cthulhu DarkAges. Chaosium, 2004

HAMBLIN, William: “Further Notes on the Necronomicon”, in Call ofCthulhu, Chaosium, 1994

LLOPIS, Rafael: El Novísimo Algazife, o Libro de las Postrimerías. Hiperión, 1980

PELTON, Fred L.: A Guide to the Cthulhu Cult. Armitage, 1998

PIZZARI, Pietro: Necronomicon: Magia nera in un manoscrittodella Biblioteca Vaticana. Atanor, 1993

PRICE, Robert M.: “A Critical Commentary on the Necronomicon”, in Robert M. Price (ed.)’s The Necronomicon:Selected Stories and Essays Concerning the Blasphemous Tome of the Mad Arab (Chaosium, 2002)

PUENTE LÓPEZ, Juan Luis: Mensajes escondidos en la catedralde León

SCHWARZ, Mauricio-José: “En la hora del volkán”, in Umbrales Nº 14, Feb. 1996

SMITH, John L. Lovecraftian Qabalah (website dead)

STANLEY, Joan C.: Ex Libris Miskatonici. Necronomicon Press, 1995

ST. GEORGE, E.A. (ed.): The Necronomicon, or the Book of Shades. Corvus, 2006

TIERNEY, Richard L.: “Hyperborea; or, Eibon’s Prophecy” in Robert M. Price (ed.) The Book of Eibon (Chaosium, 2006)

TYSON, Donald: Alhazred. Llewellyn, 2006

     -Necronomicon: The Wanderings ofAlhazred. Llewellyn, 2005

Also, thanks to Ryan Parker, the staff at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Mass. (USA), Universidad Valencia de Montecruz, Jalisco (México) and priest Atal from Ulthar at the temple of Elders.

“The Much-Discussed Couplet” Copyright © 2014 Luis G. Abbadie