Like the moon which spins the meaning of grief ¹
Exists a person good at living while being hurt
Even though I know it would be certain death for us
At your side, the path would open
Waxing moon,
Light up the way to the world to come
A dawn that bloomed in profusion,
far off into the distance, comes undone,
gently reddens; ²
I’ll protect you from the transparent grief again
Even if I would get hurt
A swallowtail butterfly that simply detests destiny
Will fly unaffected by the meaning of serenity
The waning moon
Ties together farewells and encounters
Within the radiance
My heart is held captive and can’t move,
in a darkness that seems like ripples on water;
Your hand is again,
like the moon which bloomed in the heavens,
which illuminated and called out to me
Ah, already, the words I want to hear
Have, into the mountainedge moon, ³
Disappeared
Before the morning sun rises
These thoughts seem like they would fade away
If, somehow,
I couldn’t put them into words
A dawn that bloomed in profusion,
far off into the distance, comes undone,
gently reddens; ²
I’ll protect you from the transparent grief again
Even if I would get hurt
The moon, not to vanish, waxed and waned, illuminated—
Two flowers without a name that bloom and wither away
In a poem that has been called fate
.
NOTES / INTERPRETATION:
oo1. The word used here refers specifically to the spinning of wool into yarn.
oo2. The verb to redden in this line is one that is used mainly to point out the change in colour that occurs in autumn leaves; so while I translated it to reddens, you should keep in mind that in Japanese the colour being referred to runs the gamut from brown, to golden yellow, to burnt orange, to deep red.
oo3. The title in original Japanese, izayoi (十六夜) refers to a very specific phase of the moon: that of the moon on it’s 16th day, or rather, the day after a harvest moon. There is no English equivalent for this (believe me, I spent several very fun, yet fruitless hours researching). For that reason, I decided to create an English equivalent especially for this song — an idiomatic phrase to match the one in Japanese. The word izayoi was used in a poem that appeared in an 8th century Japanese poetry anthology to describe a moon that was partially hidden by the edge of a mountain. Though at the time the word would have been read isayohi. From there, I came up with the English equivalent, mountainedge moon. That choice of words was extra fitting considering that Saga might have composed this piece as a follow up to the beautiful 2005 ballad mugen no hana (無限の花). Saga’s music and Show’s lyrics in this song are so pretty, they deserved a special title.
アリス九號. ★ ALICE NINE.
十六夜 ★ izayoi
Medley (2021)
Lyrics by 将/Shou
Music by 沙我/Saga
Original text translated from Japanese.
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Translation also on the Alice9Lives Archive.