A Tribe Chief's Deathbed

Excerpt from the writings of Black Marsh's Sap-Speaker, Te-Ix, recorded during one of his journeys a couple of days after a tribe chief's passing, translated into the common tongue by Balinus Florian, field researcher of the Imperial Library. The Speaker has disclosed that, upon death, an Argonian's mind and memories are passed on to the spirit of the Hist, to become part of their ever-lasting bond, and that some tribes have the Sap-Speaker commune with the Hist and transcribe the chief's final thoughts as per tradition. It is a great honor to be allowed to examine such texts.

"Eyes grow dim. Smells die down. The ground in my feet is cold. Beckoning in my head.

I sit on roots. They embrace-warm I.

I Oldfeeble. They Oldstrong. The people gather-round, I know every face.

Nest fades-to-dark. The Root remains, I follow. The Root connects-to-I, through the Root I see the all.

[UNTRANSLATABLE]

I see time beneathwater and heart beneathrock. I see power abovestars and blood withindark. I see the cousin of the Root and the Exact-Egg-Cracking. A trunk that sleeps and a hunter that gathers. The Trunk forgets and the Hunter sets motion. From the Trunk sprout the Root that digs beneathmarsh. From the hunt, the all is harmed, and the harm reshapes-the-land.

[UNTRANSLATABLE]

I am and the Root am I. Not in the eyes of the Hunter's Masu. Not in the gilded tail of the all. Not in the lumps of fire and cold. But in the trees that reach for the sky.

In death I am one with the Root. Through its waters my time lingers. Through its sap I am reborn."

Translator's note: if the grammar in this transcript bears on vicious, and if the choice of words strikes you as meaningless, I must confess I myself do not understand most of what I've written. However (and I can't stress this enough), I would renounce my own right to live before wording it any differently. As anyone who's had the privilege of spending a prolonged period of time with the many tribes of Black Marsh would agree, in the Jel tongue, the structure of words is as (perhaps even more) meaningful than the words themselves.