Currently reading the Bungo Stray Dogs light novel 太宰治の入社試験 and I have encountered the following sentence.
しかし、幾ら理想が輝かしかろうと、その実現に至る道が杳々として遠く見えざれば、輝きはイミテーションに等しく、理想は寝言に等しい。
I feel like I’ve managed to somewhat parse this together and have come up with this.
However, no matter how appealing an idea, when viewed from a distance the road to making it a reality is just imitation, and ideals themselves are just gibberish.
The parts that are confusing me are かろうと、杳々 and 見えざれば.
Online I have found that かろう is just another form of だろう.
For 杳々 I have found a few definitions that say it has to do with either darkness or something faintly in the distance which the second definition seems to fit.
However, I can’t seem to find anything for 見えざれば besides the term 見えざる手 in my dictionary which claims it means ‘invisible hand’. But given the context this doesn’t seem to fit.
Does anyone know what this means?
Also if there are any mistakes in my translation then corrections are appreciated.
4 comments
見えざる is a literary way of saying 見えない.
ば is just good old potential form.
見えざれば “if it isn’t visible”.
Check the literary form -ざる
見えざる = 見えない
ざれば = なければ
見えざれば = 見えなければ – if not visible
I have no idea either so I asked..Bing, here its answer:
>The word ‘見えざれば’ is a conjugation of the verb ‘見える’ which means ‘to be seen’ or ‘to be visible’. The conjugation ‘見えざれば’ is an archaic form of the negative conditional, meaning ‘if it is not seen’ or ‘if it is not visible’. In the context of the sentence you provided, it means that if the path to realizing the ideal seems dark and distant, then its brilliance is equivalent to imitation and the ideal is equivalent to sleep talk. Is there anything else you would like to know? 😊
with the idea it just a ‘ば’ form, I did a quick search and found this: [https://www.weblio.jp/content/見えざる](https://www.weblio.jp/content/見えざる)
So the meaning of it is just ‘to be invisible’ (‘見えざる手’ – invisible hand) or ‘not to be seen’. Here’s the full translation of the sentence by Bing:
>However, no matter how brilliant the ideal may be, if the path to its realization seems dark and distant, its brilliance is equivalent to imitation, and the ideal is equivalent to sleep talk.
ずいぶんとまた難しい文章読んでますね。現代文に変換すれば次のようになります。
しかし、幾ら理想が輝かしいものに見えたとしても、その実現に至る道がぼんやりとしたままで明確に見えないのであれば、その輝きはイミテーションに等しく、理想は寝言に等しい。
[杳々](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E6%9D%B3%E6%9D%B3/) ・・・ ［形動タリ］暗くはっきりしないさま。また、遠くかすかなさま
見えざれば ・・・ 見える＋ざる＋ば＝見えないのであれば