Rise and live again!

I would have loved to write a new blog entry for every episode of Moon Knight, but reality had other ideas in mind. Unfortunately, the last few weeks have been a bit crazy. Now the finale will be airing in just a couple hours, and I, alas, have only written one post. But there has been plenty of Egyptian to comment on, so let's get to it.

Now, I mentioned in that last post that I was inspired to try and read the scarab on Moon Knight by Erik Voss (of New Rockstars)’s attempt to decode it. But, as it turns out he had already gotten me kind of intrigued and curious about what the Egyptian would be like on this show before that video: back in mid-March, a good two weeks before the first episode premiered, Voss had scrutinized a blurry freeze frame from the latest trailer, in an attempt to decipher the tiny glyphs on the leg of Moon Knight’s costume. Eventually we got a better look, from Moon Knight's character poster.

Two weeks later the first episode aired. In addition to the scarab, there were two hieroglyphic texts that caught my eye in the closing credits. One of them was this fragmentary stone inscription. Immediately I could catch the words ḫfˤ “fist” and ỉˤḥ “moon,” and this set off alarms: this was not random gibberish! It appeared to be a text actually related to the subject of the show!

As it turns out, the two inscriptions are one and the same! Now, the stone inscription is broken and fragmentary, and I have yet to see a shot of Moon Knight’s costume that shows the entire text (it looks like it may be written in four columns, two on each leg—or, actually, if you look at the semi-accurate reproduction on this action figure, it seems clearer that the outer two columns are this text, and the inner two are something else). However, if you look through the merchandise available for the show, you will see that the full inscription is written out in full on a couple of them, such as this poster, or this replica of Moon Knight's crescent (as well as a replica of The Scarab. Note that unlike the Rocklove replica, this version has the correct inscription. Does the crescent likewise contain the correct inscription? Well, that is a topic for another post).

Now, there are a number of oddities in how this is written, and in how it is phrased. So it took me longer to translate than it should have. But, in fact, many diehard fans already knew what it said! The answer had been published back in March, in the Moon Knight Production brief, p. 12:

Moon Knight’s costume features an armored chest piece that is distinctive to his foes, as it is embedded with Khonshu’s name in hieroglyphs along with a full moon that is centered along the Crescent Blade. Knee pads are built into Moon Knight’s pants, along with hieroglyphs along his thighs that have Khonshu’s Oath inscribed: “Rise and Live Again as My Fist of Vengeance. My Moon Knight.” The suit is finalized with custom-painted boots.

(Ironically this appears to have come out the day before the New Rockstars video, but I think Mr. Voss can be forgiven for not having caught that in time for his commentary!)

The Oath Of Khonshu

Here is the full hieroglyphic text. For the sake of convenience, I have written it out horizontally:

Ḥnw ỉḫr ˤnḫ (w)ḏɜ s(nb) ˤn m=ỉ ḫfˤ ḫpš=ỉ Ỉˤḥ Mrynɜ.
“Rise and Live Again as My Fist of Vengeance. My Moon Knight.”

Lets go through this piece by piece:

• Ḥnw– the verb ḥn normally means “to hasten.” While that seems like a strange way to describe a resurrection from the dead (though, compare the senses of English “quicken,” which can also mean “resurrect”), nevertheless it is not exactly out of place here either.
  
  However, I notice that the TLA lists as a separate lemma ḥnw (written exactly as it is here) which is defined in German (in the original wording of Erman & Grapow’s Wörterbuch) as “[Verb (vom Aufkommen des Windes)],” and in English as “(rising (?) (of the wind)).” So it is at least possible that the translator had this in mind.
  
  Of course, the more obvious word for “rise“ would be ˤḥˤ, which happens to be the same root Dr. Potter suggested for “knight.” And one of the meanings for this verb, according to the TLA, is eine Manifestation eines Gottes sein... which is damn close to “to be an avatar!”
• ỉḫr “and, then.”
• ˤnḫ (w)ḏɜ s(nb) literally “live, prosper, be healthy.” This formula is de rigueur after the name of a king, and certain other contexts. I think the translator couldn't resist the chance to use it here. This is perfectly fine, and kind of cool even, but I would be strongly temted to use the expression 𓄙𓋹 wḥm ˤnḫ.
• ˤn “again,” from the verb ˤnn “to return; turn back”—when all we could see was the 𓂽 determiner, Dr. Potter's guess was precisely this word!
• m=ỉ here things go a bit awry. 𓅓 m is a preposition meaning any number of things, including “of; from; in; as,” and the suffix =ỉ should mean that the object of the preposition is “me” (though normally when m has a pronominal suffix like this, it is written 𓇋𓅓 ỉm). But that makes no sense at all: it would have to mean something like “live, prosper, be healthy again from me,” I guess? Clearly the intention is that m means “as,” and =ỉ means “my,” but this is atrocious grammar.
  
  My initial suspicion was that something got garbled here... either the 𓀀-sign was added to the wrong word (it really should go after ḫfˤ and maryn), or the Late Egyptian posessive article 𓅮𓄿𓇌 pɜy was supposed to go here (because pɜy=ỉ is a legitimate way to say “my” in late Egyptian). But see the Analysis section below for a more likely explanation.
• ḫfˤ “fist,” is pretty straightforward.
• ḫpš– the basic meaning of this word is “foreleg (as in, of a quadrupedal animal);" but it has a number of other meanings, such as “stong arm, strength; Ursa Major;” or “khopesh.” I don't know whether it can also mean “vengeance,” but, I guess it would not surprise me.
• =ỉ “my.” The only eccentricity is that it modifies ḫpš, which I doubt was the intent.
• Ỉˤḥ “Moon.” Straightforward, but see below.
• Mryn (or, in Hoch's system, ma=ra=ya=na) “maryannu” that is, the elite class of bronze-age warriors who fought from charriots. Given that maryannu were a form of nobility on the basis of their specific military training, above the common infantry... this is actually a pretty decent way to translate “knight.” And, in fact, that is precisely how the TLA glosses it.
  
  A problem, though, is that Ỉˤḥ Maryn should mean not "Moon Knight" but "Knight Moon" (that is, “the moon of the knight”). There IS a solution that suggests itself though: honorific transposition. In a compound word or name, the name of a deity is often written first, even if grammaticlly it goes at the end. So, for instance, King Tut's name, Nb-Ḫpr.w-Rˤ Tw.t-ˤnḫ-Ỉmn is actually written Rˤ-Ḫpr.w-nb Ỉmn-tw.t-ˤnḫ, with the names of the deities Ra and Amun written first even though they go at the ends of the names.
  
  Was this "Honorific Transposition" done deliberately? Difficult to say, but I will note that merchandizing for the show features this phrase in numerous places—it is, afterall, Egyptian for Moon Knight!—and most of the merchandise does in fact write it Mryn ỉˤḥ, untransposed. But, against this theory, see below.

So, the full translation is something like:

“Quicken and live, prosper, be healthy again <as My> Fist of my Might, Moon Knight.”

Analysis

As I mentioned, there are numerous oddities in the Egyptian here, and as I was researching this, it struck me: the most likely explanation here is that someone just used an English-to-Egyptian dictionary, very possibly the online TLA, and carefully copied down their choice for each word, one by one, in the order they occur in English. Most of the oddities in this inscription can be explained that way:

• why does it say m=ỉ ḫfˤ “from me fist” instead of m ḫfˤ=ỉ “as my fist?”
  
  Because if you look up “as,” “my,” and “fist” in the dictionary, you will get 𓅓 m, 𓀀 =ỉ and 𓐍𓆑𓂝𓂬 ḫfˤ repectively.
• Likewise, for ḫpš=ỉ, Ỉˤḥ Mryn “... my might, Knight Moon” instead of ḫpš, Mryn=ỉ-Ỉˤḥ “... might, my Moon Knight.”

So even if my “honorific transposition” explanation given above does work, it would appear to be a retcon of an error made in production.

Conclusion

How do I feel about this overall? Well, it's not good Egyptian, but it comes surprisingly close. Few shows would have put in even that much effort. So I am willing to give them a pass. At least it's not just ciphered.

What do I mean by “ciphered?” Is there any of this “ciphering” in Moon Knight? Well, I had intended to end this post with a brief discussion of that, but time has slipped away from me. This will have to wait for another entry. While I do wish I had gotten all of these entries (there will be at least two more) done before the finale... well, it's nice to get this stuff out at all.

So, until then, enjoy the finale!