Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds — J. Robert Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer famously quoted this from The Bhagavad Geeta in the context of the nuclear bomb. The way this sentence is structured feels weird to me. “Now I am Death” or “Now I have become Death” sound much more natural in English to me.

Was he trying to simulate some formulation in Sanskrit that is not available in the English language?

  • Masterkraft0r@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    1 year ago

    I think he translated it himself. It’s an archaic text though, so translating it in modern english would also be weird probably.