I was reading an obituary from the 1870s on the National Library of Wales website (as you do, right?). I was able to understand most of it, but there was one thing that I can’t quite work out - “Rhaid Marw”, on its own as a sentence. Any literal translation I come up with seems odd. What does it mean?
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I’m not entirely certain, but given the context of being in an obituary it could possibly be a contraction of the phrase “Rhaid marw i fyw”, which comes from the bible.
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Thank you. The sentence before talked about her faith and the one after was a bible quote, so it seems reasonable. How would you translate “Rhaid marw i fyw”?
“One must die to live” / “It is necessary to die in order to live” so in the biblical context, “one must die to live again (with God)”.
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Siarons answer is a good one.
if Rhaid marw is truly on its own and no shortening …
“Rhaid marw” on its own means " a necessity to die"…and simply accepts human mortality
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