tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Dec 18 22:59:41 1997
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Re: {-Daq} & non-physical places
On Thu, 18 Dec 1997, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
|>On Mon, 15 Dec 1997, TPO wrote:
|>|while Voragh was listing examples of canon -Daq he quoted:
|>|> 'Iw bIQtIqDaq jIjaH
|>|> I travel the River of Blood. TKW
|>|sure it's canon, but I read this as:
|>| I go to the river of blood
|>|To me [I travel the river of blood] is a very different concept than [I go
|>|to the river of blood]. [...] I would have used [leng]
|
|I thought the canon WAS "leng".
As I mentioned later in this thread (behind on your email Mark?), the line
exist in two versions:
'Iw bIQtIqDaq jIjaH
I travel the River of Blood. TKW
'Iw bIQtIqDaq bIlengjaj
May you travel the River of Blood. PK
We heard the first originally in "The Icarus Factor" when Wesley arranged a
holodeck {nentay cha'DIch} for Worf, who seems never to have had one when
he was a boy being raised among humans. I believe Worf utters this right
before passing through the rows of painstik-wielding holo-warriors -- in
effect, stepping into the "river of blood." The second seems to be a wish
for the {lupwI'} to successfully begin his journey of honor along the
"river of blood": possibly refering to his/her new career as a Klingon
warrior. The line may also go back to Kahless (who else?), who killed evil
Molor dead as the River Skral "ran crimson red" with the tyrant's blood.
This event is reflected also in the idiom(s):
Doq bIQtIq (bIQ).
The river (water) is red.
meaning something momentous has happened (TKW: 123). All in all, {'Iw
bIQtIq} is a vivid image which resonates on many levels for Klingons.
Or... Okrand just forgot how he translated it the first time.
Voragh