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Passages of the Dead

Quotations from the Necronomicon and other Books of the Damned

Last updated März 11, 2005

Welcome to Passages of the Dead, a collection of passages and contents of the Necronomicon and other Books of the Damned as found within the stories of the Cthulhu Mythos. If you know of a passage of bit of contents that belongs on this page, let me know by using the form below. I'll post the material and give you credit on the page for the submission. Please, if you do submit an addition, I need the entire passage, the author, and the story the material was presented in.

The Necronomicon

t is verily known by few, but is nevertheless no 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 other's. 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 separately or in a temporary reunion. But in every instance, after the action hath been completed, the body lapseth into its former state.

(The Return of the Sorcerer, Clark Ashton Smith)
Contributed by Boyd Pearson, The Eldritch Dark
(Thanks to rayjay@iastate.edu for clarifying that this bit of text came from the Necronomicon according to CAS. Jim)

h'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

(In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.)

(NOTE: Though this statement was never actually described as listed in the dread Necronomicon, its widespread usage the world over indicates that it is probably located in some tome which describes worship for great Cthulhu. Since the Necronomicon is the main codice of the mythos, it is listed here as a portion of that work.)

(The Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft)

or 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 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.

(The Dunwich Horror, H.P. Lovecraft)

egotium perambulans in tenebris. . . .

(NOTE: This incantation was memorized by Dr. Henry Armitage to assist in his battle against the Dunwich Horror. The incantation, according to the story, has one of two probable origins — the first and most likely is the Necronomicon, and the second is Remigius' Daemonolatreia. Since the Necronomicon dealt specifically with the threat at hand, it is listed here.)

(The Dunwich Horror, H.P. Lovecraft)

'gai, n'gha'ghaa, bugg-shoggog, y'hah;
Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth. . . .

(The Dunwich Horror, H.P. Lovecraft)

he 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.

(The Festival, H.P. Lovecraft)

hat is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

(The Nameless City, The Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft)

nd 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.

(Through the Gate of the Silver Key, H.P. Lovecraft)

any and multiform are the dim horrors of Earth, infesting her ways from the prime. They sleep beneath the unturned stone they rise with the tree from its roots they move beneath the sea and in subterranean places they dwell in the inmost adyta they emerge betimes from the shutten sepulcher 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.

(The Nameless Offspring, Clark Ashton Smith)
Contributed by Boyd Pearson, The Eldritch Dark

ternal is the Pow'r of Evil, and Infinite in its contagion! The Great Cthulhu yet hath sway o'er the minds and spirits of Men, yea, even tho' He lieth chained and ensorcelled, bound in the fetters of The Elder Sign, His malignant and loathly Mind spreadeth the dark seeds of Madness and Corruption into dreams and Nightmares of sleeping men.

(Dreams from R'lyeh: A Sonnet Cycle, Lin Carter)
Contributed by Christian Matzke

NOTE: This passage comes from The Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred, III, 17 the Translation of Dr. John Dee, circa A.D. 1585

Miscellaneous Passages

The following passages have not been attributed to any one tome, but are integral to the structure of the Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft's world.

friend and companion of night, though who rejoices in the baying of dogs and spilt blood, who wanderest in the midst of shades among tombs, who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals, Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon, look favourably on our sacrifices!

(NOTE: The above passage was found by Detective Malone in a dance-hall church in Red Hook, a district of New York City. The original inscription was in Greek and was located above the pulpit of the church.)

(The Horror at Red Hook, H.P. Lovecraft)

EL . HELOYM . SOTHER . EMMANVEL . SABAOTH . AGLA . TETRAGRAMMATON . AGYROS . OTHEOS . ISCHYROS . ATHANATOS . IEHOVA . VA . ADONAI . SADAY . HOMOVSION . MESSIAS . ESCHEREHEYE.

(NOTE: The above motto was found by Detective Malone in the Parker Place flat of Robert Suydam, scrawled in red in what was primarily determined as Hebraised Hellenistic Greek.)

(The Horror at Red Hook, H.P. Lovecraft)

ut great Mnomquah came not down to this Earth but chose for the place of his abiding the Black Lake of Ubboth which lieth deep in the impenetrable glooms of Nug-yaa beneath the Moon's crust but, as for Groth-golka, that brother of Mnomquah, He descended to this Earth in the regions circumambient to the Austral Pole, where to this day He abideth the passage of the ages beneath the black cone of Mount Antarktos, aye, and all the hideous host of Shantaks that serve Him in His prisonment, they and there sire, Quumyagga, that is the first among the minions of Groth-golka, and that dwelleth either in the nighted chasms beneath black Antarktos or in the less inaccessible of the peaks of frightful Leng where also did great Ithaqua, the Walker Upon the Wind, take for His earth-place the icy Arctic barrens, and mighty Chaugnar Faugn dwelleth thereabouts as well, and fearsome Aphoom Zhah, who haunteth the black bowels of Yaanek, the ice-mountain at the Boreal Pole, and all they that serve Him, even the Ylidheem, the Cold Ones, and their master, Rlim Shaikorth--

(The Fishers From Outside, Lin Carter)
Contributed by Christian Matzke

NOTE: This passage is said to be from the seventh chapter of Part III a cosmological treatise called "Papyrus of the Dark Wisdom."