Tarchon, thanks for all your assistance. You've been fantastic, I'm very grateful.
tarchon said:
It's possible that it got mangled in transcription, since portions of it make sense.
I think my transcription is accurate. I went over it as carefully as I could. There may be one or two minor slip ups, but nothing to cause the level of corruption you say is there. I've checked and all your examples are in the text.
The deliberate obscurity may be deliberate. The
Nine Doors is supposed to be an arcane text that only initiates who have studied that sort of stuff intensely would be able to interpret. The intention may be that you'd have to be intensely familiar with esoteric language to substitute some of what's there.
tarchon said:
What the hell - so to speak - is ".os.ta" supposed to mean? Some word that starts with one or more letters, contains "os" and may end in "ta," though the text feels free to leave off inflections at random with no notation, so really all we know is that this is some word that contains "os" and "ta"...
I get what you're saying. I thought I'd enter some of the other examples of interpreted code (from the woodcut captions, translated in Chapter 11). How correct is the latin given, and its translation into english?
I: Nem. perv.t qui n.n leg. cert.rit
I: Nemo pervenit qui non legitime certaverit
I: Only he who has fought according to the rules will succeed.
II: Claus. pat.t
II: Clausae patent
II: They open that which is closed.
III: Verb. d.sum c.s.t arcan.
III: Verbum dimissum custodiat arcanum
III: The lost word keeps the secret.
IIII: For. n.n omn. a.que
IIII: Fortuna non omnibus aeque
IIII: Fate is not the same for all.
V: Fr.st.a
V: Frustra
V: In vain.
VI: Dit.sco m.o.
VI: Ditesco mori
VI: I am enriched by death.
VII: Dis.s p.ti.r m.
VII: Discipulus potior magistro
VII: The disciple surpasses the master.
VIII: Vic. i.t Vir.
VIII: Victa iacet Virtus
VIII: Virtue lies defeated.
VIIII: N.nc sc.o ten.br. lux
VIIII: Nuco scio tenebris lux
VIIII: Now I know that from darkness comes light.
Thanks.