Compiled by Dan Clore from sundry sources
Fake title page of the Dee edition
from the Hay-Wilson-Turner-Langford Necronomicon
From "The Nameless City" (1921); also, "The Call of Cthulhu" (1926):
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
Translation of unknown provenance.
From "The Festival" (1923):
The nethermost caverns are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. 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. 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, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.
Translated from the awkward Low Latin of Olaus Wormius' forbidden translation by a patient at St. Mary's Hospital in Arkham while recovering from a "psychosis".
From "The Dunwich Horror" (1928):
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. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. 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. 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; 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. They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? 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? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They rule again.
Mentally translated by Dr. Henry Armitage, looking over the shoulder of Wilbur Whateley in the Library of Miskatonic University, from the Latin version of Olaus Wormius, as printed in Spain in the seventeenth century.
From "The Dunwich Horror" (1928):
N'gai, n'gha'ghaa, bugg-shoggog, y'hah;
Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth [....]
Fragment of an incantation as recited by Wilbur Whateley and as recalled by Henry Armitage; language unknown.
Cf. this pair of formulae from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927):
|
Y'AI 'NG'NGAH, |
|
OGTHROD AI'F |
From Selected Letters III (1929):
******************************************************************
Some things are just too horrible to write, even for a mad Arab....
From "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1932-33; with E. Hoffmann Price):
And while there are those who have dared to seek glimpses beyond the Veil, and to accept HIM as a Guide, 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. Nor may those who pass ever return, for in the Vastnesses transcending our world are Shapes of darkness that seize and bind. 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 -- 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. For HE is 'UMR AT-TAWIL, the Most Ancient One, which the scribe rendereth as THE PROLONGED OF LIFE.
Translation of unknown provenance.
In E. Hoffman's Price's original draft of this story, which was produced under the title "The Lord of Illusion", this quotation runs as follows:
And while there are those who have had the temerity to seek glimpses of beyond the Veil, and to accept HIM as a guide, they would be more prudent to avoid commerce with HIM; for it is written in the Book of Thoth how terrific is the price of but one glimpse; and none who pass may return, for they will be firmly bound by those who lurk in the vastnesses that transcend our world. The terrors of the night, and the evils of creation, and those that stand watch at the secret exit that it is known each grave has, and thrive on that which grows out of the tenants thereof; these are lesser powers than he who guards the Gateway, and offers to guide the unwary into the realm beyond this world and all its unnamed and unnameable Devourers. For HE is 'UMR AT-TAWIL, which signifieth, THE MOST ANCIENT ONE, which the scribe hath rendered as THE PROLONGED OF LIFE.
From Letters to Henry Kuttner (1936):
"the volume that cannot be" (perhaps the Book of Iod.)
IX, 21 -- p. 598 of the black-letter German copy (in Latin) in the Miskatonic University Library. Translation of unknown provenance.
From "The Space Eaters" (1928):
The cross is not a passive agent. It protects the pure of heart, and it has often appeared in the air above our sabbats, confusing and dispersing the powers of Darkness.
From the English translation of John Dee.
The mention of the cross, as well as the anachronistic reference to mediaeval-renaissance witches' sabbaths, marks this passage as a later, Christian, interpolation.
From "A Fragment" (?date):
It must not be thought that the powers capable of greatest wickedness appear to us in the form of repellent familiars, and other, closely related demons. They do not. Small, visible demons are merely the effluvia which those vast forms of destructiveness have left in Their wake -- skin scrapings and even more tenuous shreds of evil that attach themselves to the living like leeches from some great slain leviathan of the deep that has wreaked havoc on a hundred coastal cities before plunging to its death with a thousand hurled harpoons quivering in its flesh.For the mightiest powers there can be no death and the hurled harpoons inflict, at most, surface injuries which heal quickly. I have said before and I shall say again until my tardily earned wisdom is accepted by my brethren as fact--in confronting that which has always been and always will be a master of magic can know only self-reproach and despair if he mistakes a temporary victory for one that he can never hope permanently to win.
Paragraphs Seven and Eight -- Page 30, Book Three, of the John Dee translation. Slightly modernized.
From "The Nameless Offspring" (1931):
Many and multiform are the dim horrors of Earth, infesting her ways from the prime. They sleep beneath the unturned stone; they rise from the tree with its root; they move beneath the sea and in subterranean places; they dwell in the inmost adyta; they emerge betimes [sic; see note below] from the shutten sepulchre of haughty bronze and the low grave that is sealed with clay. There be some that are long known to man, and others as yet unknown that abide the terrible latter days of their revealing. Those which are the most dreadful and the loathliest of all are haply still to be declared. 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. It is that spawn which the hidden dweller in the vaults has begotten upon mortality.
Translation of unknown provenance.
Smith has been criticized for the apparent inaccuracy of the use of the word "betimes", which normally means in good time, early, soon, etc. However, "betimes" can also mean "from time to time", as this quotation from Charles Maturin's classic Gothic romance Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale demonstrates:
When his honour sat in the kitchen in winter, to save a fire in his own room, he could never bear the talk of the old women that came in to light their pipes betimes, (from time to time).
A letter from Smith to Lovecraft gives an earlier version of this quotation:
Manifold and multiform are the horrors that infest the visible ways and the ways unseen. They sleep beneath the unturned stone; they rise with the tree from its root; they move beneath the sea and in subterranean places; they dwell unchallenged in the inmost adyta; they emerge betimes from the shutten sepulcher of haughty bronze and the low grave that is sealed with earth. There be some that are long known to man, and others as yet unknown that abide the terrible future days of their revealing. Those which are the most dreadful and the loathliest of all, are haply still to be declared. 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. It is that spawn which the hidden dweller in the vaults has begotten upon mortality.
From "The Return of the Sorcerer" (1931):
It is verily known by few, but is nevertheless an 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. And such resurrections are invariably for the doing of malevolent deeds and for the detriment of others. Most readily can the corpse be animated if all its members have remained intact; 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, and hath caused them to serve his end, either seperately or in a temporary reunion. But in every instance, after the action hath been completed, the body lapseth into its former state.
Translated from the Arabic by a certain Mr. Ogden from a manuscript in a private collector's possession; the passage is wholly omitted in the Latin of Olaus Wormius.
From "The Fane of the Black Pharaoh" (1937):
[....] the Place of the Blind Apes where Nephren-Ka bindeth up the threads of truth [....]
Translation of unknown provenance.
From "The Salem Horror" (1937):
Men knew him as the Dweller in Darkness, that brother of the Old Ones called Nyogtha, the Thing that should not be. He can be summoned to Earth's surface through certain secret caverns and fissures, and sorcerers have seen him in Syria and below the black tower of Leng; from the Thang Grotto of Tartary he has come ravening to bring terror and destruction among the pavilions of the great Khan. Only by the looped cross, by the Vach-Viraj incantation and by the Tikkoun elixir may he be driven back to the nighted caverns of hidden foulness where he dwelleth.
Translation of unknown provenance. Transcribed from a copy in the Kester Library.
The anachronistic reference to the great Khan (Jenghiz Khan), marks this passage as a later interpolation.
From "The Terrible Parchment" (1937):
Chant out the spell and give me life again.
Many minds and many wishes give substance to the worship of Cthulhu.
From The Lurker at the Threshold (1945):
Never is it to be thought that man is either oldest or last of the Masters of Earth; nay, nor that the great'r part of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces known to us, but between them, They walk calm and primal, of no dimensions, and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate, for Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future -- what has been, what is, what will be, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through in time to come until the Cycle is complete. He knows why no one can behold Them as They walk. Sometimes men can know Them near by Their smell, which is strange to the nostrils, and like unto a creature of great age; but of Their semblance no man can know, save seldom in features of those They have begotten on mankind, which are awful to behold, and thrice awful are Those who sired them; yet of those Offspring there are divers kinds, in likeness greatly differing from man's truest image and fairest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them. They walk unseen, They walk foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at Their Seasons, which are in the blood and differ from the seasons of men. The winds gibber with Their voices; the Earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest. They raise up the waves. They crush the city -- yet not forest or ocean or city beholds the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste knows them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraven, but who has seen the deep frozen city of the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. As a foulness shall They be known to the race of man. Their hands are at the throats of men forever, from beginning of known time to end of time known, yet none sees Them; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where once They ruled; soon They shall rule again where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer.They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again, and at Their coming again none shall dispute Them and all shall be subject to Them. Those who know of the gates shall be impelled to open the way for Them and shall serve Them as They desire, but those who open the way unwitting shall know but a brief while thereafter.
'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, 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, and, rag'g at Those who had imprison'd Him, He furth'r incurr'd Their anger, 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, and return'd to that place from whence they had come, Namely, Glyu-Vho, which is among ye stars, 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. And there shall He lie dream'g forever, in His House at R'lyeh, 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 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. And to His brothers it happen'd likewise, that They were tak'n by Those Whom They Defy'd and hurl'd into banishment, Him Who Is Not to Be Nam'd be'g sent into Outermost space, beyond ye Stars and with ye others likewise, until ye Earth was free of Them, 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 was unbrok'n while Their minions gather'd and sought means and ways with which to free ye Old Ones, and waited while man came to pry into secret, forbidd'n places and open ye gate.
Concern'g ye Old Ones, 'tis writ, they wait ev'r at ye Gate, & ye Gate is all places and all times, for They know noth'g of time or place but are in all time & in all place togeth'r without appear'g to be, & there are those amongst Them which can assume divers shapes & Features & any Giv'n Shape & any giv'n Face & ye Gates are for Them ev'rywhere, but ye 1st. was that which I caus'd to be op'd, Namely, in Irem, ye City of Pillars, ye city under ye desert, but wher'r men sett up ye Stones and sayeth thrice ye forbidden Words, they shall cause there a Gate to be establish'd & shall wait upon Them Who Come through ye gate, ev'n as Dholes, & ye Abom. Mi-Go, & ye Tcho-Tcho peop., & ye Deep Ones, & ye Gugs, & ye Gaunts of ye Night & ye Shoggoths, & ye Voormis, & ye Shantaks which guard Kadath in ye Cold Waste & ye Plateau Leng. All are alike ye Children of ye Elder Gods, but ye Great Race of Yith & ye Gt. Old Ones fail'g to agree, one with another, & boath with ye Elder Gods, separat'd, leav'g ye Great Old Ones in possession of ye Earth, while ye Great Race, return'g from Yith took up Their Abode forward in Time in Earth-Land not yet known to those who walk ye Earth today, & there wait till there shall come again ye winds & ye Voices which drove Them forth before & That which Walketh on ye Winds over ye Earth & in ye spaces that are among ye Stars For'r.
Then shal They return & on this great Return'g shal ye Great Cthulhu be fre'd from R'lyeh beneath ye Sea & Him Who Is Not to Be Nam'd shal come from His City which is Carcosa near ye Lake of Hali, & Shub-Niggurath shal come forth & multiply in his Hideousness, & Nyarlathotep shal carry ye word, to all the Gr. Old Ones & their Minions, & Cthugha shal lay His Hand upon all that oppose Him & Destroy, & ye blind idiot, ye noxious Azathoth shal arise from ye middle of ye World where all is Chaos & Destruction where He hath bubbl'd & blasphem'd at Ye centre which is of All Things, which is to say infinity, & Yog-Sothoth, who is ye All-in-One & One-in-All, shal bring his globes, & Ithaqua shal walk again, & from ye black-litt'n caverns within ye Earth shal come Tsathoggua, & togeth'r shal take possession of Earth and all things that live upon it, & shal prepare to do battle with ye Elder Gods when ye Lord of ye Great Abyss is apprised of their return'g & shal come with His Brothers to disperse ye Evill.
From The Lurker at the Threshold (1945):
... be they visible or invisible, to them it maketh no difference, for they feel them, & give voice.
From The Lurker at the Threshold (1945):
Ubbo-Sathla is that unforgotten [sic: "unbegotten"?] source whence came those daring to oppose the Elder Gods who ruled from Betelgeuze; the Great Old Ones who fought against the Elder Gods; and these Old Ones were instructed by Azathoth, who is the blind, idiot god, and by Yog-Sothoth, who is the All-in-One and One-in-All, and upon whom are no strictures of time or space, and whose aspects on earth are 'Umr At-Tawil and the Ancient Ones. The Great Old Ones dream forever of that coming time when they shall once more rule Earth and all that Universe of which it is a part.... Great Cthulhu shall rise from R'lyeh; Hastur, who is Him Who Is Not to Be Named, shall come again from the dark star which is near Aldebaran in the Hyades; Nyarlathotep shall howl forever in darkness where he abideth; Shub-Niggurath, who is the Black Goat With a Thousand Young, shall spawn and spawn again, and shall have dominion over all the wood nymphs, satyrs, leprechauns, and the Little People; Lloigor, Zhar, and Ithaqua shall ride the spaces among the stars and shall ennoble those who are their followers, who are the Tcho-Tcho; Cthugha shall encompass his dominion from Fomalhaut; Tsathoggua shall come from N'kai.... They wait forever at the Gates, for the time draws near, the hour is soon at hand, while the Elder Gods sleep, dreaming, unknowing there are those who know the spells put upon the Great Old Ones by the Elder Gods, and shall learn how to break them, as already they can command the followers waiting beyond the doors from Outside.
Armor against witches and daemons, against the Deep Ones, the Dholes, the Voormis, the Tcho-Tcho, the Abominable Mi-Go, the Shoggoths, the Ghasts, the Valusians and all such peoples and beings who serve the Great Old Ones and their Spawn lies within the five-pointed star carven of grey stone from ancient Mnar, which is less strong against the Great Old Ones themselves. The possessor of the stone shall find himself able to command all beings which creep, swim, crawl, walk, or fly even to the source from which there is no returning. In Yhe as in great R'lyeh, in Y'ha-nthlei as in Yoth, in Yuggoth as in Zothique, in N'kai as in K'n-yan, in Kadath in the Cold Waste as at the Lake of Hali, in Carcosa as in Ib, it shall have power; yet, even as stars wane and grow cold, even as stars die and the spaces between stars grow more wide, so wanes the power of all things -- of the five-pointed star-stone as of the spells put upon the Great Old Ones by the benign Elder Gods, and there cometh a time as once was a time, when it shall be shown that:
That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange eons even death may die.
From The Trail of Cthulhu (1943-62):
For within the five-pointed star carven of grey stone from ancient Mnar lies armor against witches and daemons, against the Deep Ones, the Dholes, the Voormis, the Tcho-Tcho, the Abominable Mi-Go, the Shoggoths, the Valusians and all such peoples and beings who serve the Great Old Ones and their Spawn, but it is less potent against the Great Old Ones themselves. He who hath the five-pointed stone shall find himself able to command all beings who creep, swim, crawl, walk, or fly even to the source from which there is no returning.
In the land of Yhe as in great R'lyeh, in Y'ha-nthlei as in Yoth, in Yuggoth as in Zothique, in N'kai as in K'n-yan, in Kadath-in-the-Cold-Waste, as in the Lake of Hali, in Carcosa as in Ib, it shall have power; but even as the stars wane and grow cold, as the suns die, and the spaces between the stars grow more great, so wanes the power of all things -- of the five-pointed star-stone as of the spells put upon the Great Old Ones by the benign Elder Gods, and there shall come a time as once there was a time, and it shall be shown that:
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange eons even death may die.
Translated from page 177 of the Latin translation of Olaus Wormius, copy residing at Miskatonic University Library.
From The Trail of Cthulhu (1943-62):
Whosoever speaketh of Cthulhu shall remember that he but seemeth dead; he sleeps, and yet he does not sleep; he has died, and yet he is not dead; asleep and dead though he is, he shall rise again. Again, it should be shown that:
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange eons even death may die.Great Cthulhu shall rise from R'lyeh, Hastur the Unspeakable shall return from the dark star which is in the Hyades near Aldebaran, the red eye of the bull, Nyarlathotep shall howl forever in the darkness where he abideth, Shub-Niggurath shall spawn its thousand young, and they shall spawn in turn and take dominion over all wood nymphs, satyrs, leprechauns, and the Little People, Lloigor, Zhar, and Ithaqua shall ride the spaces among the stars....
He who hath the five-pointed stone shall find himself able to command all beings which creep, swim, crawl, walk, or fly even to the source from which there is no returning....
Fragments from a translation of unknown provenance.
From "The Howler in the Dark" (1957):
There are Ways in which the Mind of a man is like unto an Eye, in that it can be used as a Lens to focus the Powers that exist in the Spaces between the Worlds. Indeed, the Mind of any Man can be used, when severed from the confining ties of the Flesh and put into a state of Trance, as a Weapon of great Power. To the sorcerer who brings such a Mind under his Control, nothing is impossible, for he will be able to see into the farthest Lands of the World by means of that Mind's Eye, and shall be able to inflict upon his Enemies a Vengeance of such Type as will leave no slightest Mark, but shall cause them to expire with Fear and great Terrors.
From the autograph manuscript of Dr. John Dee's translation.
From "Demons of Cthulhu" (1959):
A Warning To Those Who Peruse This Book.
Title of opening section.
[....] Lightest of all are the slumbers of Narrathoth, who may be awakened by the veriest novice in the art. Narrathoth lies drowsing beyond the Great Gate, hideous in form, servant to the sleeping Old Ones who wait for their day once more to dawn. But Narrathoth may be summoned from his blasphemous dreams and forced to serve. One who achieves control over him has access to the wealth of the world; but great care must be exercised, for fear of Narrathoth's wrath, for even he shares the might of the Old Ones, and pity be upon him who summons him and loses control.
Narrathoth is called by simple incantations. The blood of a male cat is needed, and the undergarment of a woman and [....]
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Narrathoth! Narrathoth! Narrathoth!
End of the invocation from the summoning ritual of Narrathoth, found on page 638.
I have called you by your True Name, Old One, and I command you to do my bidding.
Binding formula from the ritual to summon Narrathoth.
Version of unknown provenance, according to the title page: "Translated from the Latin version of Olaus Wormius as printed in Spain in the seventeenth century."
From "The Church in High Street" (1964);
The tomb-herd confer no benefits upon their worshippers. Their powers are few, for they can but disparage space in small regions and make tangible that which cometh forth from the dead in other dimensions. They have power wherever the chants of Yog-Sothoth have been cried out at their seasons, and can draw to them those who will open their gates in the charnel-houses. They have no substance in this dimension, but enter earthly tenants to feed through them while they await the time when the stars become fixed and the gate of infinite sides opens to free That Which Claws at the Barrier.
Copy in the British Museum; presumably, the Latin translation of Olaus Wormius.
From "The Horror from the Bridge" (1964):
As in the days of the seas' covering all the earth, when Cthulhu walked in power across the world and others flew in the gulfs of space, so in certain places of the earth shall be found a great race which came from Outside and lived in cities and worshipped in dark fanes in the depths. Their cities remain under the land, but rarely do They come up from Their subterranean places. They have been sealed in certain locations by the seal of the Elder Gods, but They may be released by words not known to many. What made its home in water shall be released by water, and when Glyu'uho is rightly placed, the words shall cause a flood to rise and remove at last the seal of those from Glyu'uho.
Copy in the British Museum; presumably, the Latin translation of Olaus Wormius.
From "The Plain of Sound" (1964):
Verily do we know little of the other universes beyond the gate which YOG-SOTHOTH guards. Of those which come through the gate and make their habitation in this world none can tell; although Ibn Schacabao tells of the beings which crawl from the Gulf of S'glhuo that they may be known by Their sound. In that Gulf the very worlds are of sound, and matter is known but as an odor; and the notes of our pipes in this world may create beauty or bring forth abominations in S'glhuo. For the barrier between haply grows thin, and when sourceless sounds occur we may justly look to the denizens of S'glhuo. They can do little harm to those of Earth, and fear only that shape which a certain sound may form in Their universe.
Translation of unknown provenance.
From "The Mine on Yuggoth" (1964):
The lizard-crustaceans arrive on Earth through their towers.
As Azathoth rules now as he did in his bivalvular shape, his name subdues all, from the incubi which haunt Tond to the servants of Y'golonac. Few can resist the power of the name Azathoth, and even the haunters of the blackest night of Yuggoth cannot battle the power of N-------, his other name.
[....] at those times of the year the lizard-crustaceans are glad of the lightlessness of Yuggoth.
Copy in the British Museum; presumably, the Latin translation of Olaus Wormius. The "other name" of Azathoth is not given in the Necronomicon.
From "Preface to the Necronomicon" (1966):
I, Abdul Al-Hazred, say this to you:
The Elder Gods have put the damned
To sleep. And they that tamper with the seals
And wake the sleepers, too, are damned.
And I say further, herein lies those spells
To break the seals that hold in thrall
Cthulhu and his ebon horde. For I
Have spent my life to learn them all.
So, fool, the darkness is pent up in space:
The gates to Hell are closed. You
Meddle at your own expense: When you call
They will wake and answer you.
This is my gift to mankind -- here are the keys.
Find your own locks; be glad.
I, Abdul Al-Hazred say this to you:
I, who tampered, and am mad.
Translation of unknown provenance.
From The Philosopher's Stone (1969):
The book of the black name, containing the history of that which came before men. The great old ones were both one and many. They were not separate souls like men, yet they were separate wills. Some say they came from the stars; some say that they were the soul of the earth when it was formed from a cloud. For all life comes from the beyond, where there is no consciousness. Life needed a mirror, therefore it invaded the world of matter. There it became its own enemy, because they [bodies? -- note in original] possess form. The great old ones wanted to avoid form; therefore they rejected the heavy material of the body. But then they lost the power to act. Therefore they needed servants.
Quoted by a thirteenth-century monk called Martin the Gardener, in a commentary on the Necronomicon itself.
The phrase "The book of the black name" is apparently a very poor attempt at a translation of the title Necronomicon, confusing the Greek nekros, dead, with the Latin niger, black.
From the Quine translation of the Necronomicon ("1972"):
YOG-SOTHOTH knows the gate. YOG-SOTHOTH is the gate. YOG-SOTHOTH is the keeper and guardian of the gate. YOG-SOTHOTH knows where the Old Ones broke through of old and where they shall come again. Past, present, future ... all are one in YOG-SOTHOTH.
That is not dead which has the capacity to eternally lie,
And when the strange (things/aeons) arrive death itself may cease to be.
Think not the Great Old Ones are all of darkness. The fire of Azathoth is all brightness and heat as it devours. The globes of Yog-Sothoth shimmer with the stellar blaze.
Note: the purported translation by Antonius Quine apparently does not exist. The quotations above were derived from various newsposts on UseNet; if anyone has information as to their true source, please contact me: [email protected].
From The Burrowers Beneath (1974):
Ye Power in ye Five-Pointed Star
Armor against Witches & Daemons, Against ye Deep Ones, ye Dools, ye Voormais, ye Tacho-Tacho, ye Mi-Go, ye Shoggaoths, ye Ghasts, ye Valusians, & all such Peoples & Beings that serve ye Great Olde Ones & ye Spawn of Them, lies within ye Five-Pointed Star carven of gray Stone from ancient Mnar; which is less strong against ye Great Olde Ones Themselves. Ye Possessor of ye Stone shall find himself able to command all Beings which creep, swim, crawl, walk, or fly even to ye Source from which there is no returning. In Yhe as in Great R'lyeh, in Y'ha-nthlei as in Yoth, in Yuggoth as in Zothique, in N'kai as in Naa-Hk & K'n-yan, in Carcosa as in G'harne, in ye twin Cities of Ib and Lh-yib, in Kadath in ye Cold Waste as at ye Lake of Hali, it shall have Power; yet even as Stars wane & grow cold, even as Suns die & ye Spaces between Stars grow more wide, so wanes ye Power of all things -- of ye Five-Pointed Star-Stone as of ye Spells put upon ye Great Olde Ones by ye benign Elder Gods, & that Time shall come as once was a Time, when it shall be known:
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange Aeons even Death may die.
From Joachim Feery's Notes on the Necronomicon.
(The Vach-Viraj Incantation)
Ya na kadishtu nilgh'ri stell'bsna Nyogtha,
K'yarnak phlegethor l'ebumna syha'h n'ghft,
Ya hai kadishtu ep r'luh-eeh Nyogtha eeh,
S'uhn-ngh athg li'hee orr'e syha'h.
From Joachim Feery's Notes on the Necronomicon.
[....] Sunken G'lohee, in the Isles of Mist [....]
Translation of unknown provenance.
(Reference is to G'll-ho.)
Many & multiform are ye dim horrors of Earth, infesting her ways from ye very prime. They sleep beneath ye unturned stone; they rise with ye tree from its root; they move beneath ye sea, & in subterranean places they dwell in ye inmost adyta. Some there are long known to man, & others as yet unknown, abiding ye terrible latter days of their revealing. Those which are ye most dreadful & ye loathliest of all are haply still to be declared.
From Joachim Feery's Notes on the Necronomicon.
From The Transition of Titus Crow (1975):
'Tis a veritable & attestable Fact, that between certain related Persons there exists a Bond more powerful than the strongest Ties of Flesh and Family, whereby one such Person may be aware of all the Trials & Pleasures of the other, yea, even to experiencing the Pains or Passions of one far distant; & further, there are those whose skills in such Matters are aided by forbidden Knowledge of Intercourse through dark Magic with Spirits & Beings of outside Spheres. Of the latter: I have sought them out, both Men & Women, & upon Examination have in all Cases discovered them to be Users of Divination, Observors of Times, Enchanters, Witches, Charmers, or Necromancers. All claimed to work their Wonders through Intercourse with dead & departed Spirits, but I fear that often such Spirits were evil Angels, the Messengers of the Dark One & yet more ancient Evils. Indeed, among them were some whose Powers were prodigious, who might at will inhabit the Body of another even at a great Distance & against the Will & often unbeknown to the Sufferer of such Outrage.
Moreover, I have dreamed it that of the aforementioned most ancient of Evils, there is One which slumbers in Deeps unsounded so nearly Immortal that Life & Death are one to Him. Being ultimately corrupt, He fears Death's Corruption not, but when true Death draws nigh will prepare Himself until, fleeing His ancient Flesh, His Spirit will plumb Times-to-come & there cleave unto Flesh of His Flesh, & all the Sins of this Great Father shall be visited upon His Child's Child. I have dreamed it, & my Dreams have been His Dreams who is the greatest Dreamer of all....
Translation of unknown provenance; from the rarest Al Azif of all.
From "Aunt Hester" (1977):
'Tis a veritable & attestable Fact, that between certain related Persons there exists a Bond more powerful than the strongest Ties of Flesh and Family, whereby one such Person may be aware of all the Trials & Pleasures of the other, yea, even to experiencing the Pains or Passions of one far distant; & further, there are those whose skills in such Matters are aided by forbidden Knowledge of Intercourse through dark Magic with Spirits & Beings of outside Spheres. Of the latter: I have sought them out, both Men & Women, & upon Examination have in all Cases discovered them to be Users of Divination, Observors of Times, Enchanters, Witches, Charmers, or Necromancers. All claimed to work their Wonders through Intercourse with dead & departed Spirits, but I fear that often such Spirits were evil Angels, the Messengers of the Dark One & yet more ancient Evils. Indeed, among them were some whose Powers were prodigious, who might at will inhabit the Body of another even at a great Distance & against the Will & often unbeknown to the Sufferer of such Outrage. Yea, & I discovered how one might, be he an Adept & his familiar Spirits powerful enough, control the Wanderings or Migration of his Essence into all manner of Beings & Persons -- even from beyond the Grave of Sod or the Door of the Stone Sepulcher.
From Joachim Feery's Notes on the Necronomicon.
From the Illuminatus! trilogy (1975):
Onlie those who have eaten a certain alkaloid herb, whose name it were wise not to disclose to the unilluminated, maye in the fleshe see a Shoggothe.
English translation of John Dee, copy residing in Miskatonic University Library.
From the Illuminatus! trilogy (1975):
They ruled once where man rules now, summer. Where man rules now, after summer is winter. They shall rule again, and after winter.
Olaus Wormius' Latin translation, 1472 Lyons edition with its numerous misprints and errors. Translation into English of unknown provenance.
From the Illuminatus! trilogy (1975):
Past, present, future: all are one in Yog-Sothoth.
Translation of unknown provenance.
From the Illuminatus! trilogy (1975):
Their hand is at your throat but you see them not. They walk serene and unsuspected, not in the spaces we know, but between them.
Translation of unknown provenance.
From the Illuminatus! trilogy (1975):
Kadath in the cold waste hath known him [i.e., Yog-Sothoth].
Translation of unknown provenance. "Known" in the Biblical sense....
From Satan's Mistress (1978):
Call not upon Yog-Sothoth until ye be certaine that ye Bones be compleat and culled of forraine contamination. For it hath been known in antient Tymes that ye Bones of a Man mingled with ye Bones of a Beare or Lyon, or even with ye Offaile of a lowly Coney or Porpentine, hath produced for a hapless Necromancer not a Ressurection of that which was, but a Creation of Abomination that should not be.
He who would be a Master of the Runes and possessor of Life eternaille must consecrate to Crom Cruach on Lammas Night ye Flesh of an infant newborn and eat thereof. Nor is the consecration to be made by those faint of heart or doubting in their souls, for Crom Cruach knows all, Crom Cruach sees all, Crom Cruach is all. Iä! Crom Cruach!
From the English translation of Dr. John Dee, London edition of 1589.
From Satan's Seductress (1980):
Whenas Aldebaran riseth to the Sixth House, and agreeth in all ways with ye Conjunctions of Phutatorius as shall hereinafter be inscribed, then that is no Door which openeth on its Rising, but a Gate to ye Outside, through which All may pass but None may return save a Master of ye Runes, or ye Host of Ekron.
From the English translation of Dr. John Dee, London edition of 1589.
From "The Sect of the Idiot" (1988):
The primal chaos, Lord of all ... the blind idiot god -- Azathoth.
Translation of unknown provenance.
From "The Adder" (1989):
Wisely did ibn Mushacab say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For the spirit of the devil-indentured hastes not from his charnel clay, but feeds and instructs the very worm that gnaws. Then an awful life from corruption springs and feeds again the appointed scavengers upon the earth. Great holes are dug hidden where are the open pores of the earth, and things have learned to walk that ought to crawl.
[....] they dwell in the inmost adyta [....]
[....] Yog-Sothoth knows the gate [....]
[....] in the Gulf the worlds themselves are made of sounds [....]
[....] the dim horrors of Earth [....]
[....] iä iä iä, Shub-Niggurath! [....]
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 thereof: All these Blacknesses are lesser than He Who guardeth the Gateway [....]
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
From a handwritten copy of Al Azif in the original Arabic, translating itself into English, little by little.
From White Darkness (1993):
Even as the Great Ones may return from their resting slumber, so the adept may, by use of the Ashes of Noah, and essential Saltes, call his fellow man back from the great beyond.
Translated by Dr. Who as he reads from an unknown edition in the eocene language (a reference to a pre-human reptilian race slumbering in cites beneath the earth and sea). The edition is described as "unexpurgated" and contains "all of Roerich's original illustrations".
From "The Plague Jar" (1994):
[....] concerning Irem, the City of Pillars, I spake of the Elder Days and of the four nations that had ruled this land of old, Thamood of the north, and Ad of the south, and Tasm, and Jadis; and I spake of many-columned Irem and of Shaddad the Accursed who had raised up its walls around an Elder central obelisk and who did build therein an Thousand pillars to Those better left unnamed.
Translation of unknown provenance.
From Résumé with Monsters (1995):
Na'ghimgor thdid lym.
Myn th'x barsoom lu'gndar.
In'path gix mth'nabor.
In'path nox vel'dekk.
Yig sudeth M'cylorum.
M'xxlit kraddath Soggoth im'betnk.
Nog s'dath blexmed!
Version unknown. Banishing spell against the Old Ones; translation approximately as follows:
You will leave this spot, which spot denies the logic of your coming and going, and you will take, in the Name of the Nameless One, all your minions and their devices with you. And even the uttering of your name will be lost to this world until Time has eaten its Own Head.
From "The Soul of the Devil-Bought" (1996):
The nethermost caverns are not
for the fathoming of living eyes;
it is written in the Scroll of Thoth
how terrible is the price of a single glimpse,
for that the marvels thereof
are strange and awful.
Nor may those who pass ever return,
for in that transcendent Vastness
lurk Shapes of darkness
that seize and bind.
Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live
new and oddly bodied,
and the wakeful mind
that is held by no head.
Wisely did Ibn Mushachab bless the tomb
where no wizard hath lain.
Happy the town by night
whose wizards are all ashes!
But woe to that place
whose folk omit to burn the poisoner
and the enchanter at the stake.
I tell you, it will go easier for Sodom
and Gomorrah than for that town.
For it is rumored of old
that the soul of the devil-bought
hastes not from his charnel clay,
but fats and instructs the gnawing worm;
till out of corruption horrid life springs,
and the dull scavengers of earth
wax crafty to vex it
and swell monstrous to plague it.
Great holes are digged in secret,
where earth's pores once sufficed
and things have learnt to walk
that once did crawl:
The Affair that shambleth about in the night,
the Evil that defieth the Elder Sign,
the Herd that do stand watch
at the secret portal of every tomb,
and feast unwholesomely therein.
All these Blacknesses
slither but seldom from the moist
and fetid burrows of their loathsome lair.
Less shall ye fear them than
Him That Guardeth the Gateway;
that guideth the dead beyond all worlds
into the Abyss of Unnamable Devourers.
For he is that Ubb,
the worm that dieth not.
These are the words of al-Hazrat,
Imam of al-Illah.
The wise shall head them.
Price presents a novel source for this alleged quotation. Dr. Anton Zarnak explains:
To put it perhaps over-simply for the moment, I have concluded that the Al-Azif and the Necronomicon are not in fact one and the same. The former was the work of an eighth-century Yemenite demonologist, Abd al-Hazrat. The more notorious Necronomicon, while it incorporates various bits and pieces of lore filched from the older Azif, is substantially a new work, a series of mediumistic revelations made to Dr. John Dee while he gazed into his scrying crystal.
Not to criticize too heavily, but Dr. Dee did not himself perform the scrying with his shew-stone, as he got too poor results. Instead, he acted as scribe while others, such as the infamous Edward Kelley or Dee's son Arthur, did the actual scrying.
Once he had transcribed the visionary material, he stood aghast at the character of it. Suspecting demonic inspiration for the larger part of it, he tried to disguise its true origin by fathering the work on the obscure Arab al-Hazrat. It was a day when Christians commonly believed their Saracen rivals to worship idols and monsters such as Termagant and Iblis, so the attribution seemed natural. Dr. Dee dared not simply destroy the blasphemous text outright for fear of what vengeance might be wrought upon him by whatever alien influences had imparted the revelations to him. Afterward he petitioned his God for the gift of the tongue of angels, that spoken by the antediluvian revealer Enoch, that henceforth he might receive the oracles of God without admixture.
What I have just read you comes from the original work of al-Hazrat. I do not care to say how it came into my hands.
Have any further information on the quotations here, or know of others that should be included?
Please inform me: [email protected].
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