Rand al'Thor
Rand al'Thor is a song from the Season 3 soundtrack of The Wheel of Time television series.
Lyrics
Verse 1
Old Tongue
saidin, saidin
Official English
Saidin, saidin,
Don't lose yourself,
The taint is too
Drawn from the well
You did not choose this
But fate chose you.
Literal Translation
saidin, saidin
must not you forsake
(the) taint from
(the) well (is) pulled/drawn
(this was) your non-choice
fate chose you
Notes
Asa'jakeesh is joined with an apostrophe. This typically indicates either a composite term or a contraction. The contraction here may be something like "baid'asa jakeesh asa", a more fully literal rendering of "you forsake yourself" (one could also write nin'baid or ninto baid for "yourself"; baid'asa is closer to ba'asa for "your heart", which itself is a contraction of balt asa. We also have nin'balt, which means the same thing). Alternatively, it could be a more poetic rendering of "must not you forsake", as in "(you) must not forsake you". Either way, one would expect that asa'jakeesh is something like an idiomatic term meaning "forsake yourself" or "lose yourself".
Ninto tipakatide is a rather strange construction on the face of it. Tipakati means "selection"; here it is negated with -de. So with "this is" or "this was" left implicit, it reduces "you didn't choose this" to "your unchoice".
Tipak'asa maranya is trickier to figure out. Maranya, fate, is clear, but tipak'asa does not cleanly fit the expected grammar. If tipak is the verb form of tipakati, one would expect asa tipak maranya. It makes little sense to have asa as the subject of tipak, so this appears again to be some kind of idiomatic construction or composite. The simplest explanation is that it is a contraction of tipakati asa, "choice (of) you", i.e. "Fate (made a) choice of you".
Verse 2
Old Tongue
aman, aman
culieb ninto
ninto tipakatide
tipak'asa maranya
Official English
Dragon, dragon
Look to the past,
And what you are,
Is clear at last,
You did not choose this
But fate chose you.
Literal Translation
dragon, dragon
look (to the) past
(and) your past
(is) clear now
(this was) your non-choice
fate chose you
Notes
Gougl culieb, culieb ninto udiya waji is poetically rendered in the official English as "look to the past, and what you are is clear at last". This suggests that "culieb ninto" in Old Tongue has an idiomatic meaning close to "what you are", not merely "your past", in this context. The "what you are" here refers to Rand's role as the Dragon, not merely the fact that he is the Dragon. This makes particular sense within the context of the Wheel of Time, since the Pattern repeats across turnings of the Wheel, and so "your role (in the Pattern)" and "your past" are functionally pointing to the same thing. "Your past" here may mean "your entire past throughout the turnings of the Wheel", not just Lews Therin Telamon.
Chorus
Old Tongue
aman thamel
Official English
Bring the dawn,
Young Dragon
Champion of Light,
Bound to the Wheel
Literal Translation
bring (the) dawn
young dragon
representative (of the) light
bound to (the) Wheel
Notes
No additional notes for this section.