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?

    • johnnyc@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 year ago

      Because that’s grammatically correct by today’s standards. “Become” would typically be in the context of “have become” instead of “am become” these days.

    • fidodo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Nobody would bat an eye if it was “have become” or “am becoming” either. I don’t know when it changed but I think it’s just a small change in how the word is used in modern vs old English.