Quote:
Originally Posted by Roman
Uh yeah a big oops there. I noticed that too when I came back to this. Maybe I shouldn't work on it late at night after all.
And yeah, what you think I know French? Those guys answer half of it for me.
And thanks a lot Ben, all the help I can get.  
Edit: oh boy, I think I just found a whole book explaining the meaning of "génie du lieu" : http://books.google.com/books?id=8Mh...ieu%22&f=false
I think it's going to be a rather vague translation if I come up with anything. |
I think you are looking too much into it.
On all the virgin skins of Eden
Fly away the doves of Eden
Who whisper au génie du lieu*2
Their farewells
*2 The phrase, I believe, reflects the genie [person] who spoke the above line. How to translate that perphaps:
Who whispers [the] génie/guardian of the place. 
Etymology and definitions
The Majlis al Jinn cave in Oman, literally "Meeting place of the Jinn".Jinn is the plural for jini which is derived from the Arabic root JaNaA and means to hide or be hidden. Other words derived from this root are Majnoon, jonnon, and janeen; the first to call someone whose intellect is hidden meaning crazy, jonnon meaning craziness, and the third --janeen-- means a baby inside a mother's womb, hence janeen or hidden. The word genie derives from Latin genius, which meant a sort of tutelary or guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at their birth.
English borrowed the French descendent of this word, génie; its earliest written attestation in English, in 1655, is a plural spelled genyes. The French translators of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights used génie as a translation of jinnī because it was similar to the Arabic word in sound and in meaning. This use was also adopted in English and has since become dominant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie