[Sound Online] 月輝希譚

[Aku no Hikari]

Hi! ^^

I'm transliterating this song, and I got a few problems.

First, the title. I'm not exactly sure how to read (and transliterate) this "word". 月輝希譚... From the first look, seems like four, or three separate words: "Tsuki Kagayaki Mare(or Gi?)-Hanashi" (or -banashi?). Also, what's the best way of translating this title? "The 'Rare Tale' of Moonshine", but "Rare" doesn't make a lot of sense... Among the meanings of 希, there's "few" and "phenomenal", so it would make sense to put it as "Moonshine Fairytale"... or using a more suitable word than "fairytale" (sorry, my vocab sucks) -- Maybe "Moonshine Legend". And this reduces it into two words, so it might be read as (something along the lines of) "Gekki Gitan". But I'm not sure which Kanji readings to choose.

Second, this song makes use of a verb form (or expression) consisting of the stem + し, and I don't know what it means. (し is the stem of する? That wouldn't make a lot of sense. And it's not the same し as in 「彼女がいるし」, as it's both grammatically and semantically wrong.) I think it might be some kind of a continuous form, except with a nuance, as it sort of makes more sense in the context.

The song also has a few figuratives, and I underlined them all, along with every instance of the し form, and a few other words I need to verify the readings and/or meanings thereof. I need help understanding some parts below, as I'm going to translate it later. And any feedback is appreciated. ^^


月夜に浮かびし雲の　朧な姿を纏い
烟れる空の向こう　悼む　君を思う
水面に鎮めし玻璃の輝き絶え間なく
嗚呼、心を欺くばかり　惑いただ一人夜を仰ぐ

tsukiyo ni ukabishi kumo no oborona sugata o matoi
kemureru sora no mukou itamu kimi o omou
minamo ni shizumeshi hari no kagayaki taemanaku
aa, kokoro o azamuku bakari tomadoi tada hitori yoru o aogu

たとえ久遠の時を生きても
恋し焦がれる彼の地よ

tatoe kuon no toki o ikite mo
koi shi kogareru kanochi yo

果てることなき　八意込めし我が望み
いつか還らん　あえかなるあの月よ　haa

hateru koto naki yagokoro komeshi waga nozomi
itsuka kaeran aekanaru ano tsuki yo (haaaa)

What does 八意 mean? And what does (I assume) 八心 mean?
Also, what does あえかなる mean?

翳りし日も変わらず　ただ咲む花のように
霞の棚引く様は　無垢にあり続ける空しさよ

kagerishi hi mo kawarazu tada emu hana no you ni
kasumi no hanabiku sama wa muku ni ari tsudzukeru munashisa yo

The only verb for えむ is 笑む. But then again, since she's singing in this Chinese style and I know I misheard many syllables, there's a chance it's not even えむ. Though it's rather slim, methinks.

And I'm not sure I'm piecing it together right here...

千代に八千代にただ在りましょう
彼の地に苔の生すまで

chiyo ni yachiyo ni tada arimashou
kanochi ni koke no musu made

浅き夢見し　遥か過ぎ去りし思い出
照らすは心　艶やかに染め上げる

asaki yumemishi haruka sugisarishi omoide
terasu wa kokoro adeyaka ni someageru

What is "to finish dyeing" symbolic for?

And strictly speaking, is following a plain verb by は grammatically correct? And does it mean exactly the same thing as verb+のは？

我は迷い子　物言わぬ月へ
思い馳せ　舞い踊る宵先
君の面影　僅かに残して　不死の山へ紡ぐ
悼む　君を思う　いつかあの場所へ

waga wa mayoigo mono iwanu tsuki e
omoi hase maiodoru yoi saki
kimi no omokage wazuka ni nokoshite fushi no yama e tsumugu
itamu kimi o omou itsuka ano basho e

I know this is a stupid question, but is 先 here a word on its own or is it a part of 宵先?
And what does 思い馳せ mean?
Actually, the whole stanza doesn't compute...

今、永き夜を超えて語られる御伽話
絶えず煌めく　あえかなるあの月よ
儚く遠い　誘う古の輝き
照らすは心　忘れ去られた想い

ima, nagaki yoru o koete katarareru monogatari
taezu kirameku aekanaru ano tsuki yo
hakanaku tooi sasou inishie no kagayaki
terasu wa kokoro wasuresarareta omoi

流るるように　輝くように

nagaruru you ni kagayaku you ni

About ながるる, I've seen it more than once written and sung this way. What's the difference between 流れる and 流るる?

恋し焦がれる　遥か彼の地よ
思い馳せよう　還るその時まで

koi shi kogareru haruka kanochi yo
omoi haseyou kaeru sono toki made

About here... Is there a good way to phrase the vocative in this case? Doesn't sound good this way:

Oh far place for which I have passion and yearn,
Let's "drive our feelings" until the moment you come back

Thanks in advance. ^^

[AzureDark]

Whenever you find a 4-kanji word best bet is to turn them all in on-yomi. Your guess is indeed the right one, 'gekkigidan', applying dakuten rules.

(masu-stem)+shi is archaic for er... maybe Buggy knows (he has studied formally a lot more than I did). Besides that there are a lot of archaic forms (-n in 還らん, -ruru instead of -reru) and nouns in here... I'd think twice about attempting this.

Other notes:
Also, what does あえかなる mean?
Fleeting/weak/soft

千代に八千代にただ在りましょう
彼の地に苔の生すまで
is related to Kimigayo, the Japanese national anthem.

浅き夢見し　
is an often-used line in Iroha-uta, the A to Z song of kana.

And strictly speaking, is following a plain verb by は grammatically correct?
It puts the verb as the whole subject, though you'd usually change it into a noun form or a -te.

I know this is a stupid question, but is 先 here a word on its own or is it a part of 宵先?
Depends on your convention. If you join compound nouns that are not usually compounded normally (in English we'd use hyphens), join, if not don't.

And what does 思い馳せ mean?
Recall.

Is there a good way to phrase the vocative in this case?
At certain times, the vocation form would only be done by one's own. It's kind of like er... self-motivation or, when used in a question, self-reflection.

[animeyay]

Azure took care of over half what what you asked, so I'll see what I can do. I'll skip those that I don't think you should have any problem with.
(And for once, I can put that classical Japanese class I took into use, yay!)



し is an archaic suffix that denotes either the perfect tense or the perfect progressive tense, and in modern Japanese can be safely replaced with either た/だ or ている/でいる.

So for example, the first line of the song 月夜に浮かびし雲 can be modified into 月夜に浮かんだ雲, "the clouds floating on a moonlit night".

Now you should know what to do with the other し out there.



玻璃(はり) = glass. Yea ガラス is the normal way to say it in modern Japanese, but 玻璃 is an older way. I'm kinda cheating here since I know Chinese and the Chinese word for "glass" is 玻璃, hehehe.



八意(やごころ) is an obscure word that means "boundless wisdom" or something like that, but in this context it probably refers to "countless thoughts" or "painful longing".



As Azure pointed out, are you okay with the ん in 還らん? I'll skip the boring explanation and tell you that its modern equivalent is 還ろう or 還りたい, since you didn't really ask for help on this one.



咲む(えむ) = to blossom brilliantly or grandly, almost as if the flowers are smiling at you. It's a personification here. Again, I'm cheating cause it's a very often used figure of speech in Chinese, too. =) And if you REALLY want to get classical, its reading would be ゑむ instead of えむ, but let's not dive too deeply into archaic kana spelling...



浅き夢見し

Yea, it's a line from the Iroha poem. Classical Japanese didn't use dakuten at all, but the し there is not the same perfect tense し, but actually a じ, a suffix that roughly translates into "let me not / lest me".



遥か過ぎ去りし思い出
照らすは心　艶やかに染め上げる

Classical Japanese does some really weird things; は can directly follow verbs, and を can mean "although".

"The long gone memories
shine on my heart, and dye it vividly."

is a rough idea of what these two lines mean.



流(なが)る is the classical counterpart of the modern 流れる.

If you're curious: modern Japanese verbs only have consonant-stem verbs (godan), vowel-stem verbs (ichidan), and the irregular ones. Well, classical Japanese verbs have a lot more categories. 流る falls into the shimo-nidan verb group, and it conjugates as follows:

Negative (未然形, mizenkei): 流れ || e.g. 流れず。 (It doesn't flow.)
Connecting (連用形, ren'yōkei): 流れ || e.g. 流れけり。(It flowed.)
Dictionary form (終止形, shūshikei): 流る || e.g. 流るべし。 (It must flow.)
Nominal connecting (連体形, rentaikei): 流るる || e.g. 流るる川 (a flowing river)
Perfect (已然形, izenkei): 流るれ || e.g. 流るれば… (Because/When it flows...)
Imperative (命令形, meireikei): 流れよ || e.g. 流れよ！ (Flow now!)

Kinda scary how much I still remember... O.O
Anyway, in modern Japanese, "It flows." and "a flowing river" both use the same form "流れる". But in classical Japanese, a noun-modifying verb must use a different form, the nominal connecting form. This is why most people find classical Japanese a pain to learn.

[Aku no Hikari]

Thank you both very much! ^^

I know very little about classic Japanese. ^^; I was thinking 還らん a negative (like 還らぬ).

I submitted the translit, but the translation needs more... like Azure calls it, "delving"... as it seems to have many references and meanings. I'm no expert to say this, but it seems like a worthy piece of poem that shouldn't be ruined with a primitive translation. So I'll procrastinate take more time to dig inside it (I definitely won't submit a 1-day translation), and post a draft here whenever I'm done.


I'll skip the boring explanation
BORING EXPLANATIONBut but but...

This is... JAPANESE!! The explanation is never boring! D=


If you're curiousAs a matter of fact, I am. Thanks for talking about classical verbs (although the conjugations made my head a splode).

I'd like to learn more about classic Japanese. Is there a good website you can recommend me? (including sites in Japanese. I can read... or work my way through if there are obstacles.)

If not, any particular books or e-books? I don't think we have classic Japanese lessons where I live...

[animeyay]

Oh glad to help. Since you seemed so thirsty for knowledge =P I guess I can tell you about the ん there before I go to bed for the day. I was afraid I would bore you with too much lecturing, but it turned out you were a studious student. XD


First thing, very important: classical Japanese did NOT have ん/ン. MU and N shared む/ム, and were pronounced either complementarily or interchangeably. Anyway, む is a very common suffix that expresses wish or intention, and it follows the negative form (mizenkei) of verbs:

行かむ/行かん = I shall go! / Allow me to go!
還らむ/還らん = I shall return! / Let me return!

This usage is very very RARE.

By the way, the use of ぬ/ん for negation comes from a completely different suffix, ず, a negation suffix. ぬ is the nominal connecting form (rentaikei) of ず. You should be familiar with this one already since ず is still used in modern Japanese, albeit ancient-sounding, for negation.


The hardest part about learning classical Japanese is to get how it works differently from modern Japanese. (Well, duh, lol.) You first need to get familiar with all the forms and conjugations, and how they can be combined, stacked up, and multi-conjugated. Once you get through all the grammar, it's simply a matter of learning how each suffix (助動詞) functions, and it's mostly memorization from that point on.

I'm sure a simple search on google will give you lots of resources. If you want to know the terms in Japanese, here are some very common ones to get you started:

classical Japanese = 文語(ぶんご)
verb = 動詞(どうし)
suffix (auxiliary verbs) = 助動詞(じょどうし)
conjugation = 活用(かつよう)

But I really wouldn't recommend just sitting down and going through pages and pages of lecture, (UNLESS you really enjoy that, then by all means go for it, like spending a few hours reading through this website (http://www.classical-japanese.net/Grammar/index.html).) Practice is your best friend for anything and everything. If you can work your way through this song, then you'll be surprised how much you have learned by the end. (Of course, you need to learn the basics, and I suppose that website is a good start.) So yeah, feel free to post your preliminary work here, and I'm sure having a discussion with someone other than your computer would prove more helpful, haha.


Wow, never had I thought that one day I would actually get to teach someone else classical Japanese. My sensei would be proud. =D

[Aku no Hikari]

Thanks a lot! I'm sure this will be very helpful. =D