phewo phelui — from The Prophet

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet (1923) has counseled a century of readers in twenty-six short teachings, and it enters the public domain speaking freely. These are Phi's excerpts: three of the teachings (on love, on children, on giving), each transmuted with notes. The ground truth is the 1923 text itself, stored verbatim, and every unit cites the lines it stands against; each section says where its excerpt begins and ends, and the gap log names what stayed behind.

One transmutation happens before the first line, as it did for the Little Prince: the title. Gibran's Almustafa is called a prophet, but Phi has no offices and no anointings; it can only say what the man does: phewo, the sage, the one who has grown wise and speaks. So the shelf calls this text phewo phelui, the sage's words, and loses nothing the story needed: the people of Orphalese never wanted his title either. They wanted the words.

Each block below carries four lines: the Phi sentence, its word-by-word gloss, a back-translation into English, and Gibran's own wording, so a reader can see exactly what the transmutation kept and what it changed.

On love

The excerpt runs from "Love gives naught but itself" through the litany of love's desires that closes the teaching.

lothea li miso loa. lothea li lue miso pilu.
love RESTR REFL give. love RESTR ABL REFL take.
(Love gives only itself; love takes only from itself.)
gibran: "Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself."

lothea ma phelu. lothea se ma phelu.
love NEG hold. love PASS NEG hold.
(Love holds nothing, and is not held.)
gibran: "Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;"

lothea lothea heno.
love love satisfy.
(Love satisfies love.)
gibran: "For love is sufficient unto love."

lu thia lothea. no shola liona mua mia korua nai sholo ma haolu. no shola mia mua liona korua nai sholo haolu.
COND 2SG love. IMP QUOT.COMP live LOC 1SG heart be QUOT.COMP.CLOSE NEG speak. IMP QUOT.COMP 1SG LOC live heart be QUOT.COMP.CLOSE speak.
(When you love, do not say: "Life is in my heart." Say: "I am in the heart of Life.")
gibran: "When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”"

thia lothea po ma kulo.
2SG love POT NEG guide.
(You cannot guide love.)
gibran: "And think not you can direct the course of love,"

lu lothea mena thia henoi nai meno hekawi. lothea thia kulo.
COND love DECL.COMP 2SG ENOUGH be DECL.COMP.CLOSE find. love 2SG guide.
(If love finds that you are enough, love guides your course.)
gibran: "for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course."

lothea li mena miso pheno kelu meno pula.
love RESTR DECL.COMP REFL full become DECL.COMP.CLOSE wish.
(Love wishes only that it become full.)
gibran: "Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

whekai lu thia lothea nela lo pula phelu. su lo ha thia pula nai.
CONTR COND 2SG love COORD PL wish hold. OPT PL PROX 2SG wish be.
(But if you love, and hold desires, may these be your desires:)
gibran: "But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:"

su thia phea rena wei shero meliho thiku luphore kelu.
OPT 2SG AS REL DAT night sing small river become.
(May you become like a small river singing its song to the night.)
gibran: "To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night."

su thia ru moli kipona sano.
OPT 2SG INTS gentle pain know.
(May you know the pain of too much gentleness.)
gibran: "To know the pain of too much tenderness."

su thia lue miso lothea shelomui kipona howela.
OPT 2SG ABL REFL love understand pain receive.
(May you receive pain from your own understanding of love.)
gibran: "To be wounded by your own understanding of love;"

su thia lorika roe pula nela siora lepa.
OPT 2SG blood INS wish COORD joy fall.
(May your blood fall with willingness and with joy.)
gibran: "And to bleed willingly and joyfully."

su thia mua horathe roe wapile korua rihe. su thia lao we ta lothea philo liona whaline.
OPT 2SG LOC dawn INS wing heart rise. OPT 2SG BECAUSE ALSO one love day live thank.
(May you rise at dawn with a wing-heart, and thank Life for one more day of loving.)
gibran: "To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;"

su thia mua philo kesho therilu. su thia lothea whalo siora nulo remo.
OPT 2SG LOC day middle rest. OPT 2SG love large joy deep think.
(May you rest at the day's middle, and think deeply on love's great joy.)
gibran: "To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstacy;"

su thia mua howai roe woraka kau womu turema.
OPT 2SG LOC evening INS appreciate ALL home return.
(May you return home at evening with gratitude.)
gibran: "To return home at eventide with gratitude;"

su thia nulae. su mua thia korua wei rena thia lothea miona thorai nai. su nia thia phulae ta woraka meliho nai.
OPT 2SG sleep. OPT LOC 2SG heart DAT REL 2SG love person bless be. OPT ON 2SG mouth one appreciate sing be.
(Then may you sleep: a blessing in your heart for the one you love, and a song of thanks upon your lips.)
gibran: "And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips."

Notes: the restrictive li does Gibran's "naught but" twice over, fencing the giving and the taking to the self alone; miso, the reflexive, is both the gift and the source; and the possession verse is the passive se earning its place in literature: love does not hold, love is not held, the same verb turned once. lothea lothea heno is three words in the shape Phi loves best, subject, object, verb, and all three of them the same love. Gibran's God speaks here as liona, Life, this chapter's own word: a page earlier the teaching promises that love makes the lover "a fragment of Life's heart," so being in the heart of Life is where Gibran himself lands, and Phi simply goes there directly. "Worthy" is henoi: love finds that you are enough, the quantifier of sufficiency doing the judging without rank. English directs; Phi guides: the lexicon settled that distinction on principle, so kulo arrives pre-transmuted, guidance along a way rather than command of a course. The desires litany then runs whole on the optative su, the mood the Metta Sutta runs on, turning Gibran's infinitives into the blessings they always were: the brook kept as thiku luphore, the small river, its melting folded into the becoming; too much tenderness as ru moli kipona, great gentleness's own pain; the willing blood falling roe pula nela siora, with wish and with joy, love's cost self-offered and no violence anywhere in it; the winged heart carried as composition, wapile korua, the wing-heart, nouns modifying by position; noon as philo kesho, the day's middle, by the natural clock; and the prayer unnamed, as Phi keeps all rites unnamed, standing as thorai, a blessing in the heart, beside a song of thanks on the mouth.

On children

The excerpt is the teaching entire, from "Your children are not your children" to the bow that is stable.

lo thia lopia thia thena ma nai.
PL 2SG child 2SG thing NEG be.
(Your children are not your possessions.)
gibran: "Your children are not your children."

lo shia liona wei miso wilao lopia nai.
PL 3SG live DAT REFL long-for child be.
(They are the children of Life's longing for itself.)
gibran: "They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself."

lo shia thue thia shua. lo shia lue thia ma shua.
PL 3SG THROUGH 2SG come. PL 3SG ABL 2SG NEG come.
(They come through you, not from you.)
gibran: "They come through you but not from you,"

lo shia nua thia nai. thia lo shia ma phelu.
PL 3SG COM 2SG be. 2SG PL 3SG NEG hold.
(They are with you; you do not hold them.)
gibran: "And though they are with you yet they belong not to you."

thia wei lo shia lothea po loa. thia wei lo shia remo po ma loa.
2SG DAT PL 3SG love POT give. 2SG DAT PL 3SG think POT NEG give.
(You may give them your love. Your thoughts you cannot give them.)
gibran: "You may give them your love but not your thoughts,"

lo shia miso remo phelu.
PL 3SG REFL think hold.
(For they hold their own thoughts.)
gibran: "For they have their own thoughts."

thia lo shia weloni ka po menui. thia lo shia norea ka po ma menui.
2SG PL 3SG body CAUS POT dwell. 2SG PL 3SG soul CAUS POT NEG dwell.
(You may house their bodies; their souls you cannot house.)
gibran: "You may house their bodies but not their souls,"

lo shia norea mua wireo womu menui. thia ra po ma nai. we mua whemura thia ra po ma nai.
PL 3SG soul LOC future home dwell. 2SG DIST POT NEG be. ALSO LOC dream 2SG DIST POT NEG be.
(Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow. You cannot be there, not even in dreams.)
gibran: "For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams."

thia phea lo shia po kelu. no lo shia phea thia ka ma kelu.
2SG AS PL 3SG POT become. IMP PL 3SG AS 2SG CAUS NEG become.
(You may become like them; do not make them like you.)
gibran: "You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you."

liona ma turema. shia nua luera ma manolu.
live NEG return. 3SG COM past NEG stay.
(For life does not turn back, nor stay with yesterday.)
gibran: "For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."

thia shiro nai. lo thia lopia liona thinoe nai.
2SG tree be. PL 2SG child live seed be.
(You are the tree; your children are living seeds.)
gibran: "You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth."

howeli lo thinoe kau wireo kolua.
wind PL seed ALL future carry.
(The wind carries the seeds toward tomorrow.)
gibran: "The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far."

su thia mua howeli roe siora luwi kelu.
OPT 2SG LOC wind INS joy flexible become.
(May your bending in the wind be for gladness.)
gibran: "Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;"

liona rena wapi thinoe lothea. liona we rena mureo nai shiro lothea.
live REL fly seed love. live ALSO REL stable be tree love.
(Life loves the seed that flies, and Life also loves the tree that stands.)
gibran: "For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

Notes: two refusals shape the opening. Sons and daughters collapses into lo lopia (Phi's children have no genders to be sorted into, by settled ruling), and nothing is lost: Gibran's very point is that the sorting doesn't matter. And "not your children" becomes not your things, thia thena ma nai, because Phi's grammar refuses to let a fronted pronoun claim ownership in a predicate; the language pushed the line toward what Gibran meant rather than what he wrote. Life's longing is carried whole: liona wei miso wilao, Life's longing for itself, wilao the long-for verb's own noun, the possessor chain running exactly as deep as the English. The prepositions carry the theology, thue through, lue from, and belong is the canon's own example working in the wild: they belong not to you becomes you do not hold them. Housing is the causative of dwelling, ka menui, granted for bodies and refused for souls in one mirrored pair, and the striving verse keeps both halves: become like them if you can, and do not make them like you, the causative under the imperative's gentle no. The bow passage is the transmutation this text exists for. Gibran's most famous image is an armory (bow, arrow, archer), and Phi has no word for any of it, by its oldest refusal. But the image was never about archery; it is about a launching that is also a letting-go, an instrument that stays while what it loved goes far. Phi has owned that image since primer chapter eight: the household gives seeds to the earth. So the bow becomes the tree, the arrows become living seeds, the archer becomes the wind that carries them toward tomorrow; the bending in the Archer's hand becomes the tree's own bending in that wind, luwi kelu, blessed for gladness; and Gibran's closing mercy survives whole: Life loves the seed that flies, and also the tree that stands. mureo, stable: the bow's virtue, unchanged, in a form the language can bless.

On giving

The excerpt takes five moments from the teaching: the opening distinction, the season of giving, the joyful giver, and the floor the whole chapter rests on.

lu thia thena loa. thia thiku loa.
COND 2SG thing give. 2SG small give.
(When you give things, you give little.)
gibran: "You give but little when you give of your possessions."

lu thia miso loa. thia shewo loa.
COND 2SG REFL give. 2SG true give.
(When you give yourself, you truly give.)
gibran: "It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

theula rena thia phelu so se loa.
UNIV REL 2SG hold FUT PASS give.
(All that you hold will one day be given.)
gibran: "All you have shall some day be given;"

nosa. no loa. su loa thimu thia thimu nai. lumira thimu ma nai.
now. IMP give. OPT give time 2SG time be. descendant time NEG be.
(Now. Give, so the season of giving is yours, and not your heirs'.)
gibran: "Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors’."

lu miona siora loa. ha siora shia loamira nai.
COND person joy give. PROX joy 3SG gift be.
(When one gives with joy, that very joy is their gift.)
gibran: "There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward."

liona wei liona loa.
live DAT live give.
(For in truth, Life gives to Life.)
gibran: "For in truth it is life that gives unto life--"

thia mena miso loa miona nai meno remo. whekai thia li rena nila miona nai.
2SG DECL.COMP REFL give person be DECL.COMP.CLOSE think. CONTR 2SG RESTR REL see person be.
(You think yourself the giver; but you are only the one who watches.)
gibran: "while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness."

Notes: two conditions, mirrored, and the manner slot does the philosophy: thiku loa, to give small; shewo loa, to give truly; the whole distinction between property and self fits in the one word that changes. The first line of the season-verse is a headless relative under theula wearing future and passive together, canon's particle stack in its ruled order; then the journal's oldest gesture, a time-phrase set down alone: nosa. Now. The blessing that follows uses the event-noun rule to make giving its own season, loa thimu, the giving's time, and hands it to thia rather than lumira, the descendant, exactly as Gibran urges. English needs reward; Phi does not have one and does not want one: a reward is payment, and this economy runs on gifts. loamira, the gift with the giving folded inside it, says what Gibran meant more exactly than his own word. And the teaching's floor is the text's quietest pair: Life gives to Life, liona on both sides of wei; then the giver's ego dissolved in two strokes, the deeming named as thinking, mena miso loa miona nai meno remo, and the truth fenced with li: only the one-who-sees.

What the transmutation changed

Gap log: prophet → refused as office; the title describes instead: phewo phelui, the sage's words. God → liona, Life, the chapter's own divinity ("a fragment of Life's heart" is Gibran's phrase, one page earlier), in the heart-saying and in the archer's mercy alike. Sons and daughters → lo lopia, by the gendered-words refusal, which is also Gibran's point. Life's longing for itself → liona wei miso wilao, carried whole. Belong → phelu possession, per the clause-initial-pronouns ruling. Bow, arrow, archer → tree, living seeds, and the wind: the launching-and-letting-go rebuilt from the primer's own planting scene, the bending-for-gladness kept as the tree's own luwi kelu in the wind, and the bow's stability kept as mureo. Worthy → henoi, enough. Direct → kulo, guide, per the qualities-do-not-act adjudication. Reward → loamira, gift, because this economy has no wages. Winged heart → wapile korua, the wing-heart, composition by position. Melt → folded into becoming the brook, thiku luphore, the small river. Noon → philo kesho, the day's middle, by the natural clock. Prayer → thorai, a blessing, and praise → woraka meliho, a song of thanks: Phi keeps rites unnamed so every speaker may bring their own, and the baptism verse stayed behind for the same reason. The sword among love's pinions was not carried across; what love holds, in Phi, is tiso, the sharp, and that verse waits for a reader who needs it. The teachings are excerpted, not whole: On Love runs from its central verses through the desires litany; On Children is entire; On Giving takes five moments and leaves the well, the coffer, the myrtle, and the orchard for another day. New words coined: none.