Azathoth is the ruler of the Outer Gods, and may be seen as a symbol for primordial chaos. The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath was the first fiction by H. P. Lovecraft to mention Azathoth: “[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.” Verse 22 of Lovecraft’s 1929 poetry cycle Fungi from Yuggoth is entitled “Azathoth” and consists of the following: “Out in the mindless void the daemon bore me, Past the bright clusters of dimensioned space, Till neither time nor matter stretched before me, But only Chaos, without form or place. Here the vast Lord of All in darkness muttered, Things he had dreamed but could not understand, While near him shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered, In idiot vortices that ray-streams fanned. They danced insanely to the high, thin whining, Of a cracked flute clutched in a monstrous paw, Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining, Gives each frail cosmos its eternal law. ‘I am His Messenger,’ the daemon said, As in contempt he struck his Master’s head.” The most common interpretation of this verse is that all of reality is merely Azathoth’s dream, much like Mana-Yood-Sushai in Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegana.
Appearance List “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” (unpublished, 1927), Verse 22 of “Fungi from Yuggoth” poem series in Weird Tales (from 1930) [hplovecraft.com], “The Whisperer in Darkness” in Weird Tales (Aug 1931), “The Dreams in the Witch House” in Weird Tales (Jul 1933), “The Thing on the Doorstep” in Weird Tales (Jan 1937), “The Haunter of the Dark” in Weird Tales (Dec 1936), “Azathoth” (poem fragment, Leaves, 1938)
Description Azathoth is the ruler of the Outer Gods, and may be seen as a symbol for primordial chaos. The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath was the first fiction by H. P. Lovecraft to mention Azathoth: “[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.” Verse 22 of Lovecraft’s 1929 poetry cycle Fungi from Yuggoth is entitled “Azathoth” and consists of the following: “Out in the mindless void the daemon bore me, Past the bright clusters of dimensioned space, Till neither time nor matter stretched before me, But only Chaos, without form or place. Here the vast Lord of All in darkness muttered, Things he had dreamed but could not understand, While near him shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered, In idiot vortices that ray-streams fanned. They danced insanely to the high, thin whining, Of a cracked flute clutched in a monstrous paw, Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining, Gives each frail cosmos its eternal law. ‘I am His Messenger,’ the daemon said, As in contempt he struck his Master’s head.” The most common interpretation of this verse is that all of reality is merely Azathoth’s dream, much like Mana-Yood-Sushai in Dunsany’s The Gods of Pegana.
