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So, I found a band called 凛{りん}として時雨{しぐれ}, and I would translate that name like "cold as the seasonal rain", but I don't know if that would be to much of a literal translation or if it has another meaning that I'm ignoring.
I would appreciate the help.
It makes little sense by itself. This phrasing (ab)uses artistic license to a great degree, so I doubt I can bring up a nearly literal translation that conveys the nuance.
Grammatically explained, the first part 凛として is "being dignified/frigid" (凛 is literally like "cold and contracted", and figuratively refers to "unapproachable stylishness"), an adverbial or continuative phrase, that requires another predicate either way. The second part 時雨 is "drizzle or shower in late autumn", a noun, obviously not a predicate. That's why this phrase is ungrammatical.
However, there is a poetic technique often employed in haiku, that cuts off the main predicate and places a noun phrase right beside it.
湖や渺々として鳰一つ（正岡子規）
lit. the lake, being so vast and boundless, and one grebe生も死も累々として寒卵（岩岡中正）
lit. With both the life and the death laid in heaps, the winter eggs
In these haiku, what the last nouns have to do with the rest is grammatically unspecified, because what should conclude the sentence is omitted. The composition is merely a device to achieve rhetorical effect of superimposing a scene to another, so the completeness of sentence is out of scope. The name 凛として時雨 is probably devised with those things in mind (時雨 is a traditional seasonal keyword 季語 in haiku, too).
It doesn't make sense as a phrase but 凛として translates to "in a cool manner" and 時雨 means what it is, respectively.
「凛」 is another word for ‘cold’ in japanese. 「として」 being a way of binding sentences and compare: «X as Y»
時雨 is a combination of the kanji for time 「時」and rain 「雨」 I’m not sure what word these two kanji’s together make, but I’ve looked it up and it translates into drizzle or shower in late autumn/early winter.
Drizzle, being light rain in small drops - seems like it could make sense, but still, I’m not sure how the combination of time and rain can make drizzle.
In other words: shower (as in rain shower) in late autumn/early winter - sounds more accurate. We know it’s towards cold times and it makes sense that the word cold is used for comparison.
We know that many things in japanese, can’t be translated into an english word. Another example of this is 「口寂しい」(kuchisabishii) which directly translates into «mouth lonely» and it’s used as an expression for when you eat, because your mouth is lonely. In japanese it’s a word, but in english it turns into a sentence.
「時雨」is the same, and can’t be translated into a direct word in english, and therefore becomes a sentence. I guess the kanji combinations doesn’t always make sense for us who aren’t japanese, but still - time and rain can clearly give a hint that it’s about rain at a spesific time.
The translation of 「凛として時雨」might be «cold as the shower in late autumn». Or more gramatically correct; «cold as the late autumn rain».
Hope it helps!
