Why is “Now I Am Become Death” phrased so awkwardly in English? - eviltoast

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?

  • lightsecond@programming.devOP
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    1 year ago

    to be is an irregular verb that takes the forms am, are, and is in the present tense. to become is a different verb which has the forms become, and becomes.