Photo illustration © 2012 Jason Colavito. All rights reserved.
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THE BOOK OF THE ARAB
The Necronomicon was an eighth-century Arabic work by
the historian conventionally called Abdul Alhazred (more properly
Abdullah Alhazred, or perhaps Abd-al-Hazred) of Damascus (d. 738). His work, however, does not survive. It was lost sometime prior to the sixteenth century, but it was not forgotten.
While popular attempts at reconstructing the ancient text (such as Simon’s Necronomicon) are obvious modern hoaxes, a few genuinely medieval fragments have been preserved in later works. After the loss of the Necronomicon many summaries, called epitomes, circulated. Most contained nothing more than a fragment of the original text woven into other, unrelated grimoires or magical texts. The anonymous author of the Necronomicon epitome (sometimes attributed to physician Richard Brookes), published in 1774, was an admirable scholar. He (or she) revised a generally accurate 1709 epitome and added to it the majority of the fragments listed in the inventory of genuine fragments collected by Mythos scholar Robert M. Price in his "Critical Commentary on the Necronomicon" (1988). This epitome is the source for most modern editions of the Necronomicon fragments. For convenience, the following Necronomicon fragments follow Price's verse numbering system; however, I disagree with Price on the authenticity of some fragments, especially fragment 1, the supposed opening verses, which are not reproduced here. |
Fragment 2
Translation from various sources.
6 That is not dead which can eternal lie,
7 And with strange aeons even death may die.
7 And with strange aeons even death may die.
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Notes
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Fragment 2 presents itself as a passage that explicitly discusses Cthulhu and his myth, which is rather shocking considering the strong oral tradition that knowledge of Cthulhu is esoteric. I reject the explicit discussion of Cthulhu’s attributes and powers as genuine and believe only the following two lines appended to the fragment are genuinely ancient:
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Fragment 3
Translated from a fragment of the Latin edition of 1228 by Henry Armitage (1928)
1 Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earth’s masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone.
2 The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. 3 Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.
4Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. 5 Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. 6 He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. 7 He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.
8 By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; 9 and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man’s truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them.
10 They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. 11 The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. 12 They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. 13 Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? 14 The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraven, but who hath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? 15 Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. 16 Iä! Shub-Niggurath!
17 As a foulness shall ye know Them. 18 Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; 19 and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. 20 Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. 21 Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. 22 After summer is winter, and after winter summer. 23 They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.
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Notes |
Interpolated verses were added by followers of the Elder Gods (sometime after the Latin translation of 1228 quoted above) and published in the Derleth recension of the Necronomicon fragments along with much other apocryphal material. This version has many textual variants from the preceding verses, representing a highly corrupt transmission of the original text. It appears to represent a new (and poor) translation from the Greek by someone following the Elder Gods theology and wishing to “revise” the text in agreement with this new theological movement, co-opting the original Old Ones as the Elder Gods. Thus, the original passage, talking of Cthulhu and the Old Ones instead becomes a cult myth of Cthulhu against the Elder Gods, under the name of the Old Ones.
To do this, notably, in verse 6 “again” has been replaced with “in time to come until the Cycle is complete,” and in verse 12 “they raise up the waves” has been added to emphasize the role of the Elder Gods in smiting Cthulhu by pushing him under the sea. The final set of interpolated verses, following directly after 3.23, are as follows: |
24 And at their coming again none shall dispute them and all shall be subject to them. 25 Those who know of the gates shall be impelled to open the way for Them and shall serve Them as They desire, 26 but those who open the way unwittingly shall know life but a brief while thereafter.
Fragment 5
Translated by Randolph Carter as Swami Chandraputra, unpublished Autobiography (c. 1933)
1 And while there are those who have dared to seek glimpses beyond the Veil, and to accept HIM as a Guide, 2 they would have been more prudent had they avoided commerce with HIM; for it is written in the Book of Thoth how terrific is the price of a single glimpse.
3 Nor may those who pass ever return, for in the Vastnesses transcending our world are Shapes of darkness that seize and bind.
4 The Affair that shambleth about in the night, the Evil that defieth the Elder Sign, the Herd that stand watch at the secret portal each tomb is known to have, and that thrive on that which groweth out of the tenants within — 5 all these Blacknesses are lesser than HE Who guardeth the Gateway; HE Who will guide the rash one beyond all the worlds into the Abyss of unnamable Devourers.
6 For HE is ’UMR AT-TAWIL, the Most Ancient One, which the scribe rendereth as THE PROLONGED OF LIFE.
3 Nor may those who pass ever return, for in the Vastnesses transcending our world are Shapes of darkness that seize and bind.
4 The Affair that shambleth about in the night, the Evil that defieth the Elder Sign, the Herd that stand watch at the secret portal each tomb is known to have, and that thrive on that which groweth out of the tenants within — 5 all these Blacknesses are lesser than HE Who guardeth the Gateway; HE Who will guide the rash one beyond all the worlds into the Abyss of unnamable Devourers.
6 For HE is ’UMR AT-TAWIL, the Most Ancient One, which the scribe rendereth as THE PROLONGED OF LIFE.
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Notes |
After adopting the persona of Swami Chandraputra, the twentieth century occult mystic Randolph Carter led a Theosophy-influenced Cthulhu cult in the southern United States. This passage is translated in a series of texts telling the supposed adventures of Randolph Carter intended as part of a fantastic, semi-fictional biography of the mystic that was never completed.
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Fragment 7
Translated by Henry Chaldane (1932)
1 Many and multiform are the dim horrors of Earth, infesting her ways from the prime.
2 They sleep beneath the unturned stone; they rise with the tree from its roots; they move beneath the sea and in subterranean places; they dwell in the inmost adyta; 3 they emerge betimes from the shutten sepulcher of haughty bronze and the low grave that is sealed with clay.
4 There be some that are long known to man, and others as yet unknown that abide the terrible latter days of their revealing.
5 Those which are the most dreadful and the loathliest of all are haply still to be declared.
6 But among those that have revealed themselves aforetime and have made manifest their veritable presence, there is one which may not openly be named for its exceeding foulness. 7 It is that spawn which the hidden dweller in the vaults has begotten upon mortality.
2 They sleep beneath the unturned stone; they rise with the tree from its roots; they move beneath the sea and in subterranean places; they dwell in the inmost adyta; 3 they emerge betimes from the shutten sepulcher of haughty bronze and the low grave that is sealed with clay.
4 There be some that are long known to man, and others as yet unknown that abide the terrible latter days of their revealing.
5 Those which are the most dreadful and the loathliest of all are haply still to be declared.
6 But among those that have revealed themselves aforetime and have made manifest their veritable presence, there is one which may not openly be named for its exceeding foulness. 7 It is that spawn which the hidden dweller in the vaults has begotten upon mortality.
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Notes |
The authenticity of this passage has sometimes been questioned on account of its relative late discovery in the 1930s and the lack of a clear line of transmission from the original work. However, while I concur that the lines are problematic, since they differ tangibly in style from other fragments, I am reasonably confident that the redactor has paraphrased an authentic piece of the Necronomicon given the similarity to Fragment 8.
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Fragment 8
Translator unknown (1923)
1 The nethermost caverns are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific.
2 Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head.
3 Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. 4 For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, 5 and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it.
6 Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.
2 Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head.
3 Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. 4 For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, 5 and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it.
6 Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.
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Notes |
Although this fragment is undoubtedly genuine, having been translated directly from a parchment fragment of the Latin translation of the Necronomicon, the text as received is clearly garbled. Nowhere is this clearer than in the citation of the nonsense Arabic name "Ibn Schacabao," which combines the Arabic word "ibn" (son of) with a garbled word that Robert M. Price has suggested might originally have been mushacab (the Dweller) or an Arabic transliteration of shakhab, the Hebrew word for bestiality.
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Fragment 9
Translated from the Arabic by Noel Evans-Ogden (1931)
1 It is verily known by few, but is nevertheless no attestable fact, that the will of a dead sorcerer hath power upon his own body and can raise it up from the tomb and perform therewith whatever action was unfulfilled in life.
2 And such resurrections are invariably for the doing of malevolent deeds and for the detriment of others.
3 Most readily can the corpse be animated if all its members have remained intact; 4 and yet there are cases in which the excelling will of the wizard hath reared up from death the sundered pieces of a body hewn in many fragments, 5 and hath caused them to serve his end, either separately or in a temporary reunion.
6 But in every instance, after the action hath been completed, the body lapseth into its former state.
2 And such resurrections are invariably for the doing of malevolent deeds and for the detriment of others.
3 Most readily can the corpse be animated if all its members have remained intact; 4 and yet there are cases in which the excelling will of the wizard hath reared up from death the sundered pieces of a body hewn in many fragments, 5 and hath caused them to serve his end, either separately or in a temporary reunion.
6 But in every instance, after the action hath been completed, the body lapseth into its former state.
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Notes |
Despite the seemingly contradictory material, this section is quite clearly part of the same passage as fragments 7 and 8. The contradiction may be resolved when noting that fragment 9 discusses the survival of the corpse, while 8:3 states that a destroyed corpse (cremation) renders the soul harmless. 8:4 confirms 9:1 that the soul of the sorcerer remains with the body so long as the corpse exists in some form. However, in the earlier fragments it is not clear that the resurrection is temporary.
As Price demonstrated in 1982, the attestation formula in verse one indicates that Alhazred was here quoting another source, probably the prophet Hali. As a result, without the intervening text, it is difficult to say how Alhazred originally viewed fragments 7-9 as fitting together. |
Fragment 11
Translator unknown (c. 1650)
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Notes |
The following fragment is entirely apocryphal and appears only in the Derleth recension of the Necronomicon fragments. The text is known only from a seventeenth century English text that preserved the false fragment along with some other medieval and early modern forgeries. Nevertheless, this text is the basis for the myth that Cthulhu was “punished” by the Elder Gods. In the forgeries, this passage follows Fragment 3, but most sources suggest a lacuna between the two, with unknown material intervening.
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1 ’Twas done then as it had been promis’d aforetime, that He was tak’n by Those Whom He Defy’d, and thrust into ye Neth’rmost Deeps und’r ye Sea, 2 and placed within ye barnacl’d Tower that is said to rise amidst ye great ruin that is ye Sunken City (R’lyeh), and seal’d within by ye Elder Sign, 3 and, rag’d at Those who had imprison’d Him, He furth’r incurr’d Their anger, 4 and they, descend’g upon him for ye second time, did impose upon Him ye semblance of Death, but left Him dream’g in that place under ye great waters, 5 and return’d to that place from whence they had come, Namely, Glyu-Vho, which is among ye stars, 6 and looketh upon Earth from ye time when ye leaves fall to that time when ye ploughman becomes habit’d once again to his fields.
7 And there shall He lie dream’g forever, in His House at R’lyeh, 8 toward which at once all His minions swam and strove against all manner of obstacles, and arrang’d themselves to wait for His awaken’g powerless to touch ye Elder Sign and fearful of its great pow’r 9 know’g that ye Cycle returneth, and He shall be freed to embrace ye Earth again and make of it His Kingdom and defy ye Elder Gods anew. 10 And to His brothers it happen’d likewise, that They were tak’n by Those Whom They Defy’d and hurl’d into banishment, 11 Him Who Is Not to Be Nam’d be’g sent into Outermost space, beyond ye Stars 12 and with ye others likewise, until ye Earth was free of Them, 13 and Those Who Came in ye shape of Towers of Fire, return’d whence They had come, and were seen no more, and on all Earth then peace came 14 and was unbrok’n while Their minions gather’d and sought means and ways with which to free ye Old Ones, 15 and waited while man came to pry into secret, forbidd’n places and open ye gate.
Bibliographic Notes:
Fragment 2: Lovecraft, "Nameless City" and "Call of Cthulhu." Fragment 3: Lovecraft, "Dunwich Horror" and August Derleth, The Lurker at the Threshold. Fragment 5: Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key." Fragment 7: Clark Ashton Smith, "The Nameless Offspring." Fragment 8: Lovecraft, "The Festival." Fragment 9: Smith, "The Return of the Sorcerer." Fragment 11: Derleth and Lovercraft, The Lurker at the Threshold.
Fragment 2: Lovecraft, "Nameless City" and "Call of Cthulhu." Fragment 3: Lovecraft, "Dunwich Horror" and August Derleth, The Lurker at the Threshold. Fragment 5: Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key." Fragment 7: Clark Ashton Smith, "The Nameless Offspring." Fragment 8: Lovecraft, "The Festival." Fragment 9: Smith, "The Return of the Sorcerer." Fragment 11: Derleth and Lovercraft, The Lurker at the Threshold.
Note to the humor impaired: Cthulhu in World Mythology is a work of fiction and in no way advocates for the actual reality of Great Cthulhu or the Old Ones. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.
