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I was translating this song (lyrics here: http://vocadb.net/S/87131) and I came across these lines. I'm mostly having trouble with the last one.

嘆きの堕天使　我が邪気眼（め）に

預言書（アーモス）　孵（かえ）し

羽輝（はてる）聖霊　喘ぐ音　目覚めよ

"(Hearing) the cries of fallen angels, the prophecies of Amos (this is a book in the bible, by the way) are hatched in my (evil) eyes. The holy spirit rises(?) with a harsh sound. Wake up!" is what I got from it. I'm at a loss for はてる - it's pronounced that way in the song, but I couldn't find a meaning that made sense, contextually. But I found out that 羽輝 is a name that means wing, so perhaps it could mean that the spirit is flying/rising? I think that may be a bit far-fetched, though, considering its pronunciation. So how would はてる be translated in this case?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you!

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As naruto has already said, the 羽輝 kanji almost certainly have nothing to do with the actual pronunciation or meaning of the word はてる here - they're just being used as creative ateji. (羽 can be pronounced は and 輝 can be pronounced てる, but neither would usually be used for the word はてる, so these were probably just chosen as a kind of wordplay, because the kanji looked poetically appropriate to the subject of a holy spirit).

As for the actual meaning of はてる, this is the verb 果てる, which has the basic meaning of "reaching an end". It's used to refer to a few different things. One possible interpretation is sexual - 果てる is commonly used to mean "reach a sexual climax", which would fit with the following phrase using 喘ぐ (panting/moaning), which is also commonly used in sexual contexts. Alternatively, 果てる can also refer to someone dying, which could also feasibly fit with the moaning sounds of 喘ぐ.

It's not very clear which interpretation is intended here, since the lyrics are so poetic and abstract, but I'd perhaps lean towards the death angle - the surrounding lyrics seem to perhaps be talking about the hatching/awakening of a "fallen angel", so perhaps the intended image is of a holy spirit dying and being reborn into something evil. But it's difficult to say for sure.

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  • Thanks for the answer! Considering it's the holy spirit, I'd also think it was the death angle. Though I have a question - do you think that 嘆きの堕天使 goes with 孵し ? Since you said 'the hatching/awakening of a "fallen angel." I thought it went with the prophecies, though that doesn't make as much sense.
    – Smoothie
    Oct 11, 2017 at 20:06
  • It's all so abstract and disconnected that I find it hard to say what's referring to what. As you say, treating the fallen angel as the object of 孵し doesn't make much sense grammatically - the most natural interpretation from a grammatical perspective would be that the fallen angel is the subject and the prophecy is the object, but a fallen angel hatching a prophecy doesn't make much sense to me <.< The concepts of "hatching" in 孵し and "awakening" in 目覚めよ seem semantically related so I'd assume they're both referring to the same thing, but who knows really...
    – Ben Roffey
    Oct 12, 2017 at 9:16
  • I'll probably just keep it as I had it, but with はてる replaced with the right word then. As for 孵し and 目覚めよreferring to the same thing, I suppose the awakening could be the occurring of the prophecies, which could also be happening. Or it could be the wakening of the fallen angels. I might just keep it more vague for accuracy's sake, then. Thank you for your help!
    – Smoothie
    Oct 18, 2017 at 20:19
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羽輝 is not a common word. It may work as a rare person name, but obviously it's not used as a proper noun here.

I may be wrong, but it can be a creative ateji for 果てる ("to be exhausted") used to intensify the chunibyo-like atmosphere of the song. This reminded me of this question.

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  • Thanks for the answer and the link! That helped clarifying some questions for me about why it was used.
    – Smoothie
    Oct 11, 2017 at 20:07

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