Talk:Coils of Light/@comment-26261438-20150330212104/@comment-94.211.159.251-20151009193729

Hi there, I loved this song, so I translated the lyrics into my own language, which is Dutch. This is my opinion, my interpretation of the meaning of the word "begyved", and I think it's actually the correct one.

It could mean "to shackle", but I think a more probable explanation is that this word has a Dutch origin. English and Dutch are in fact very similar. "Begyved" sounds like the Dutch word "begeven", or in old Dutch "begeefd", and it does not mean "shackle" at all. It means "to come apart", "to break", "to fall apart", "to split up", and it's used to describe a thing coming apart, or being ruined, because of some force pressing down on it; either in a literal sense, or figuratively. We could say "het gebouw begeeft onder de druk", meaning "the building collapsed under the pressure". It does have other uses with different meanings, but this one really seems to apply to the lyrics here.

This makes perfect sense in the context of the sentence "Mind, by mem'ry, begyved", as well as the backstory for the Daimon character.

He has lived for so long that he has an enormous amount of memories, and his mind, or his sanity has come apart because of the weight of all those memories. Basically: he went crazy because he simply lived for too long, he suffered too much, his mind couldn't take it and he goes insane. Read the previous lines, it's all referring to his age and loss. I'm 99% sure that this is what that means. Mind (sanity) by mem'ry (because of all the memories) begyved (fallen apart).

The "be-" is typically used in Dutch verbs. "geven" means "to give", so here it's "to give way", or "to collapse", etc. See how similar our languages are? "Dead" is "dood", "murder" is "moord", "river" is "rivier", "to split" is "splijten", "beard" is "baard" (just some examples, I could go on and on). This is why English is so easy to learn for a Dutch speaker.

"Bearded" simply means "having a beard". "When thou pulledst this boy from the sand, didst thou see him bearded, with brand?" Meaning that he was just a child, not a man (so no beard yet), no scars or brands yet (still innocent and inexperienced).

"Eyne" actually sounds like it could have an Arabic origin (I'm half Moroccon). It's the exact same word for "eyes" in Arabic. Very interesting.

This is in fact an excellent poem, it has deep meaning and is very relevant to the story. I love it, it's one of my favorites.