マチゲリータ (Machigerita) - 絲 (Ito)

Singer ・ Lyrics ・ Music: Machigerita

The comment to the Niconico video was:

放送で暇つぶしに作ってたものをもったいないので動画にしました。歌がくっそ下手ですね、思いつきで作るんじゃなかった。

I wrote this as a way to kill some time during a broadcast and, because I thought it was a shame to just leave it at that, I made a video out of it. The song is very badly done... I didn't give it my all when creating it.

歌詞 (Japanese Lyrics)　・　Romaji　・　Translation




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絲
歌：マチゲリータ

底無しの沼で泳いでいる魚。
逆さまで滲む
暗闇で咽び泣けど。

いち、に、さん、し、ご、ろく
しち、はち、きゅう、じゅう

数え唄が止まない
一段ずつ登る所から
転げ落ちた

蜘蛛の糸に群がるのは亡骸。
闇に濡れてもなお求め続ける。
天道を－－。


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Ito
Song: Machigerita

Sokonashi no numa de oyoideiru sakana.
Sakasama de nijimu
kurayami de musabinakedo.

Ichi, ni ,san, shi, go, roku
Shichi, hachi, kyuu, juu

Kazoe uta ga yamanai
Ichidan zutsu noboru tokoro kara
Koroge ochita.

Kumo no ito ni muragaru no wa nakigara.
Yami ni nurete mo nao motome tsudzukeru.
Tendou wo--.


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Thread
Song: Machigerita

Fish swiming in a bottomless pond.
Upside down, sobbing
in the oozing darkness.

One, two, three, four, five, six
Seven, eight, nine, ten

The counting song doesn't stop
They fell down
after climbing up step by step

Hanging from the spider's thread are corpses.
Even when drenched in darkness, they continue to desire it even more.
---The celestial path


Notes:

• The last lines especially give me the impression they are references to the very famous short story "Kumo no Ito" (蜘蛛の絲), by Akutagawa Ryuunosuke (芥川龍之介). In this story, the Buddha takes pity on a man who is stuck in hell for being a thief in his previous life. Lowering a spider's thread, the man is allowed to climb up to "paradise". However, the man notices that below him, more people are climbing the thread with him and he fears that their combined weight will break the thread, which will result in him falling back into hell as well. However, his desire for the others to fall so he alone can reach "paradise" is the cause for the thread breaking.

1. The kanji used for "ito", 絲, is a little outdated, the modern variant being 糸. The meaning is still basically the same.
2. "Sakasama" means "upside down", "reversed". In context it seems the translation of "deep down" fits more closely, though. I've seen it used like that a couple of times as well...
3. "Nakigara", literally "dead shells", has a connotation of "empty shells", as one might expect from something passing away, only leaving the outer shell.
4. "Motometsudzukeru", here translated as "desire", means something along the lines of "continuing to seek it/demand it/want it"
5. "Tendou" is also a term referring to Buddhism, meaning the deva realm (svarga). The deva realm is the highest of the six (or five, if you follow Theravada tradition) realms, and is the highest level of existence in which one can be reborn.