Feb 1, 2023 23:39
1 yr ago
24 viewers *
Japanese term

一角

Japanese to English Art/Literary Cinema, Film, TV, Drama
Dear ProZ members,

I don't understand the meaning of 一角 in the following sentence. In a cartoon the main characters meet Titania, the fairy queen.

彼女は妖精たちの女王。ブリテンの夜の一角を統べる者。
(She's the fairy queen. The one who rules over ??? of the night in Great Britain.)

The only interpretation that comes to my mind is "part of the night(s)", but it doesn't seem to make sense in the context.

Any hints?

Thank you so much!
Proposed translations (English)
3 +2 swathe

Discussion

Riccardo91 (asker) Feb 4, 2023:
It's read as いっかく. It could be that later in the story these other kings/queens will show up, but nothing is known at the moment. It's a plausible hypothesis, though.

Thank you!
Port City Feb 4, 2023:
Whether you read 一角 as いっかく or ひとすみ, it refers to a portion/part/courner of what comes before it, i.e., ブリテンの夜. Isn't it possible that there are other queens/kings that rule the other parts of the night in Britain? At least the sentence implies so.

Proposed translations

+2
2 days 17 hrs
Selected

swathe

She's the fairy queen, and rules over her own swathe of the night in Britain.

I was reading up on the show to help you with this question, and I have my doubts regarding the other answer, and I agree with Port City about the meaning of 一角. I have confirmed with another native that it pretty solidly refers to a portion/part/corner. I'm posting this answer to give you more to work with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titania_(A_Midsummer_Night's_D...

The character Titania is originally from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's dream. Your answer might be in the play for all we know. I wish I had the time to read Shakespeare to help you get to the bottom of this right now, but I can't.

https://ancientmagusbride.fandom.com/wiki/Titania

In this show, she is also referred to as the moon of Tír na nÓg. I found something interesting in the wikipedia entry that might be worth considering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tír_na_nÓg

From the article:

In Irish mythology Tír na nÓg (Irish pronunciation: [ˌtʲiːɾʲ n̪ˠə ˈn̪ˠoːɡ]; "Land of the Young") or Tír na hÓige ("Land of Youth") is one of the names for the Celtic Otherworld, or perhaps for a part of it.

So, there are two takeaways here. She is called the moon of Tir na nog. Tir na nog is not the whole of Britain, but actually the Celtic Otherworld, or, perhaps, part of it.

There is a whole lot of stuff online about Tir na nog, so it would be worth it to look into that some more. You might find some really great ideas to make your translation more authentic while you're at it.

If I think of anything else or get more time to look into this I'll add more information later.

I hope this helps. Good luck with the translation.


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Note added at 3 days 5 hrs (2023-02-05 04:53:08 GMT)
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Yes, I also watched the little introduction Spriggan gave where he called her 夜の主.

It just seems incredibly odd to include 一角 in the sentence when they just could have just left it out and said 夜を統べる.

I'm going to look more into it later, but there are other examples of characters described in the same way. We might be able to find out what is really meant by this phrase if we can compare a few of them. Here is a link to one to start.

https://twitter.com/last_period/status/803841250680045573

I don't know anything about the IP in this twitter post, but in this example, it clearly seems to mean that アンセム家 rules over part of a world or realm called the ブラッドレルム.

I'll see what else I can come up with later.
Note from asker:
You've been very kind, thank you so much. I did similar researches myself and had the same doubts. It's to be said that in the same episode she is defined as "the mistress of the night" (夜の主) by the same character who says the topic sentence, and she herself says that "Every being of the night, including she and you (the main characters), are my adorable little children". Judging from these two sentences it would seem that she rules over the whole night, not just a part of it, but again if 一角 doesn't mean "a part" here I really wouldn't know how to translate it. There could be a deep reason known only by the author, or something else I am not considering. It's really difficult.
Peer comment(s):

agree David Gibney
2 hrs
Thank you.
agree Port City : Brilliant!
1 day 13 hrs
Thank you.
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you for everything!"
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