What is the meaning of 死せる?

Question

I am trying to translate the song 紅蓮の弓矢 from 進撃の巨人.

According to multiple websites the lyrics are as follows: 家畜の安寧 虚偽の繁栄 死せる餓狼の「自由」を!

However, I can't make sense of 死せる. The wordstem of 死ぬ is "Shin". Therefore this can't be a conjugation or it would include the "n".

My 10ten reader plugin is suggesting that せる might be 迫る. That would mean "To be imminent" or "To draw near".

So could it be "the freedom of a starving wolf, close to death"?

Answer 1

死せる is an archaic/literary equivalent of 死んでいる. 死せる餓狼 is a literary way of saying 死んでいる餓狼 or "dead starving wolf".

To break it down:

• 死す: An archaic variant of modern 死ぬ. It's still in use in bookish/literary expressions including something like this.
• 死せ: The irrealis (未然) form of 死す.
• 死せり: 死せ + り, where り is an archaic auxiliary for the continuation of state (∼ modern ている).
• 死せる: The attributive (連体) form of 死せり.

You may see 死す also in a few other conjugated forms, including 死して (∼ 死んで) and 死せず (∼ 死なない(で)). For example, see this.

Similar use of る in modern Japanese include:

• 生ける屍 (∼ 生きている屍) living dead
• 彷徨える, 狂える, 眠れる, etc. See: Difference between 「彷徨う」 and 「彷徨える」、「狂う」 and 「狂える」 etc
• 持てる as in 持てる者, 持てる力, etc. See: What does 持てる mean in this sentence?

迫る has nothing to do with this.