Translation: myself
Lyrics: Kurosaki Mahiro
Music: Kujou Takemasa
Note: Be prepared for a long-ass discussion, necessary to the overall understanding. I highly recommend reading the discussion before footnotes.
雛奉 [Hinamatsuri]
Girl sacrifice
(see: discussion)
God's deviation upon the
village of outcasts (1) Transient worldly things are kaleidoscope
Kicking temari (2) Like a
kemari (3) Link (tie) your hands and...(4)
While the one that comes
as a bride Is [your] older sister
Nicely resembling that
white apparition Droops
Snake's (5) eyes Loitering endlessly at night
Wedding procession Shows off Demon eyeballs driven crazy
Pulling the string of life
of the crooked face For whose sake do you bloom in your finest
clothes
Lovely smiling face is Deceiving and peeling off [skin]
Unrested body kicked off
[their] red obebe (6) In the dance of night dolls
Amassing fear (7) is Poking one's arm
The meat jar looks like
pried open Being composed into tiny bits
On this early spring’s Clear day...
Let's light the lanterns Paper lanterns
Let's offer the flowers Flowers of the peach tree
Even if this weak nipple
is inexperienced It will be joyful to twist that button
Violating endlessly Sobbing
Presence of a cadaver Shows off The wonderful mourning
Holding a fragrant
peach-colored salt (8) For whose sake do you weep in your finest
clothes
Lovely smiling face is Deceiving and peeling off [skin]
Unrested body kicked off
[their] red obebe In the dance of night dolls
Rising fear is Poking
one's arm
The meat jar looks like
pried open Being composed into tiny bits
Piercing groaning The
throat Becomes deeply covered in moss Smacking one's lips in
hunger
Pushing to the left and
right while crawling inside the womb A python covered in purple
spots is piercing through the maidenhead
Evening Pleasure (9) Satisfying oneself Drooling animal
Frothing white eyes are
twisting in convulsions Myriads of maggots
Evening Pleasure Creased flowers of a peach tree
Double blossom of slippery
flowers reeking of blood Of red spider lilies (10)
Boiled to the foam In the evening
from a shadow picture
Shrilling scream is not audible Not
even a single letter
Frothing sacrifice that has been
offered Cracks to the touch
The one who brings out is charming you
bearing a fruit A jar with a weak child
Seven years-old girl Serving as
sacrificial animal
Footnotes:
- See: discussion
- Temari is a traditional hand-ball
- Kemari is a traditional foot-ball
- A reference to Japanese game Musunde, hiraite (link hands and open hands) performed mostly by little children. The word musubu can be considered an act of linking e.g. hands together as well as tying something, for instance with a rope
- See: discussion
- Obebe is a sort of a kimono worn by geishas or traditional Japanese dolls
- Mahiro used a word waira here which meaning is somehow unclear. Basically it is an archaism for (mostly) plural you or we, but it is also a variant of the word kowai, meaning scary. There is also a demon named Waira in Japanese mythology, who's meant to feast on impure people
- See: discussion
- Mahiro used a kanji 好 which solely stands for like or pleasure, but if we consider the compounds of the kanji which are 女 [onna] - woman and 子 [ko] - child, it can be translated as a woman and a child as well
- Red spider lilies (jp. Manjushage or Higanbana) mean to bloom in higan – the buddhist place of dead people's souls
Discussion:
The irony is that... Hinamatsuri as a festival... Is meant to be happy. However, this song is nowhere near being happy. Don't you get fooled by those joyful rhythms!
Briefly said, Hinamatsuri itself
is a holiday held in Japan on the beginning of March (3rd
of March or historically 3rd day of the third lunar
month), commonly known as Festival of dolls or Festival of girls.
It's also common to sing a song during the celebration:
Let's light the
lanterns paper lanterns
Let's offer the flowers
flowers of the peach tree
The accompaniment of
five people [playing on] flute and drums
Today is an enjoyable
Hinamatsuri
The doll Emperor and
the doll Empress
Both making the
straight face
While the one that
comes as a bride is the older sister
Nicely resembling a
court lady with a white face
The gilded folding
screen reflects the light
That is being
indistinctly swayed by the spring wind
Have you drunk a bit
of sweet white booze
Red-faced Minister
of the Right
Changing the kimono
and tying up the obi
Today as well I'll
appear in my finest clothes
On this early spring’s
clear day
Happier than anything
Hinamatsuri
[translation: myself]
Where
the doll Emperor (Odairi-sama) and the doll Empress
(Ohina-sama) are the reminiscence of the utmost hierarchy and
court life of the Heian period (794-1192). During the Hinamatsuri,
these dolls, dressed in their fancy, complex clothes, are a reminder
for young girls to grow up as glorious as the royal family. They also
provide a happy, prompt marriage to the girl, but dolls must be
burned right after the day of celebration.
The
festival in fact, origins from the Heian period (or even earlier, the
exact date is relatively obscure). It came from China, where the
holiday was meant to be a some sort of purification ritual to cleanse
sins of the diviners. It took place on the third lunar month, however
the date of actual doll festival has been set to the third day of
the third lunar month, because that day was believed to be the day of
the snake, where the snake was considered a symbol of evil (5).
Originally, people set afloat straw hina dolls on boats down to the
river to cast away impurities and bad luck along with those dolls.
Japan
itself, has a rich tradition of centuries worth of crafting dolls ,
but the Imperial Family dolls yield a deeper meaning. According to
Japanese mythology, the Imperial ruler is a descendant of Japanese
goddess of sun – Amaterasu, therefore displaying Imperial Family
dolls, brought one's family and girls of marriage closer to the Gods
and expressed one's loyalty and gratitude to the Imperial court in
general.
It is
also worth to mention that in the history of Japan, we can find
information showing off ancient Japanese tradition of performing
human sacrifices. Those sacrifices served formerly as offerings on
graves of former rulers. Nonetheless, that tradition was prohibited
by Emperor Suinin (ruling [according to chronicles] 29 BC - 70 AD) and human sacrifices were
replaced by haniwa dolls resembling inter alia humans and the
wealth of the deceased one such as animals, pots, houses etc.
Speaking of the sole title of the song, we should consider that it is not written as it meant to be (雛祭 [hinamatsuri]), but 雛奉, where the kanji 奉 [matsuri] means sacrifice. The sole kanji 雛 [hina] means doll or girl, therefore the entire title is a wordplay meaning girl sacrifice.
Lyrics take place possibly during the feudal era (somewhere between XVII century and XIX century), where people classified as impure (eta) were enclosed in special villages called buraku (1) . Hence, the song may be about those people who (traditionally) had no chance to be purified, however they still attempt to change their tragic fate and be closer to the Gods by desperately performing the original version of the doll festival, but the river doll offerings are replaced by prohibited human sacrifice. Here, those girls are compared to the salt which is widely used for exorcising and cleansing (8) purposes. Lyrics also show references to the actual Hinamatsuri as they contain exact or modified lines from the traditional Hinamatsuri song (look closely!).
Now you know, how to spend your everyday festivals - according to Kiryu!
Have fun.
wow,good to know all that
ReplyDeletekeep going with the kiryu translation =D