#gunki

pg 1 of a comic i made last weekend

"The style [of the classic war tale Heike monogatari] can thus range from the lofty register of Buddhist oratory performed at a mass to the emotional plangency conveyed in stock vernacular phrases like “koso aware nare” (how deeply moving) and colloquial onomatopoeia, as in “yoppite hyōdo hanatsu,” to convey the twang and thump of a bow releasing an arrow". (the emphasis is mine)

From just looking at the text of Heike monogatari (Kakuichi-bon edition), this ‘onomatopoeia’ indeed appears in the book, in three variant (archaic) spellings: よひいてひやうと放つ, よ引いてひやうと放つ, よ引てひやうと放つ. (These are the only appearances it makes, but we’ll get to that later).

Onomatopoeia in Japanese can be used to describe not only sounds, but also sensations and particular feelings. Onomatopoeia is, in fact, one of the core expressive tools of Japanese language. It is also a pain in the ass to translate, most of the times. (At least, when trying to translate into the three other languages that I somewhat know).

The thing is, onomatopoeia is relatively easy to distinguish in a block of text. It’s a single word, written in kana, and more often than not it consists of 2-3 repeating syllables, like wan-wan, fuwa-fuwa or doki-doki. I have never seen any onomatopoeia like the monstrosity DTB quotes in his article. At his point, thoroughly mystified, I started looking things up in a dictionary.

Seeing as “yoppite hyōdo hanatsu” has three words in it, and clearly some grammar as well, I’d say it’s a ‘colloquial phrase’, rather than a ‘colloquial onomatopoeia’. Surely, it stands for more than just the “twang and thump of a bow”, – although for all I know it could still double as a convoluted imitation of a sound. (Didn’t catch any mention of that during my little research spiral).

From a grammatic standpoint, our phrase consists of 2 verbs – indicating two successive actions, with the second verb preceded by – if you can believe this – an instance of onomatopoeia! The word hyōdo (ひやうと) is an onomatopoeia of a non-repetitive kind, that means “the whistling sound of a flying arrow”. The verb it’s connected to, hanatsu (放つ), means (among many other things) “to release [an arrow]”. As to the meaning of the verb yoppiku (能っ引く), it refers to the highly specific action of drawing a bow. From the prefix (能, a kanji meaning ‘ability’) I’d guess the literal meaning would be “to draw as tight as one is able”.

Curiously, though, because of the way the prefix is usually spelled in kana (よ引く), I’ve also seen a forum entry claiming that yoppiku means “to draw a bow well”. It sounds, you see, pretty much like the phrase yoku hiku (良く引く, 良し being the adjective ‘good’), after it’s shortened for convenience of speech. Some convincing folk etymology there!

All in all, I believe that the phrase “yoppite hyōdo hanatsu” translates to something like, “drawing [the bow] tight, [he] sent [the arrow] flying with a whizz”.

As to the matter of application, the by far most popular example of the phrase (in Heike monogatari) comes from the story of master archer Nasu-no Yōichi. He took up the challenge of shooting a folding fan positioned on an enemy ship, from where the army he belonged to stood on the shore. Calling on the power of his patron god, Yōichi has succeeded in his task, intimidating the enemy and earning praise from his general. Apart from this example – to the best of my knowledge – the phrase appears in the text of Heike monogatari only two more times. Incidentally, all three instances are limited to the 11th chapter of the book.