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So I've been reading Tsukihime the past few weeks and I found this sentence.

君の理論はわからんな。それでは命題たる永遠には程遠いぞ、蛇よ。

The fan translations says:

I do not understand your reasoning. That is far from the thesis of eternity, serpent.

There are this 2 guys, one of them is serpent, who are discussing about eternal life.

I do not understand how come they translated this way.

Can someone help?

Splikie
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  • Related: http://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/1017/, http://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/2194/, http://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/13699/ – senshin Oct 02 '15 at 20:28

2 Answers2

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I think the original Japanese is not correct. It tried to use a difficult word, and the meaning was not precise.

命題 means propositions in philosophy or in mathematics. In mathematics, a proposition is a statement which is less important than a theorem. And, you write "命題 2.5 (Prop. 2.5)" just before proving it. So, some people use this word as "What you are just going to prove (seek) with all your effort."

たる is basically old である.

Over all, the direct translation is "Eternity, the thing to be sought."

Keita ODA
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  • These two pages also say this usage is wrong. They hint that this mistake happens because they look like 課題 or 問題. http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E8%87%B3%E4%B8%8A%E5%91%BD%E9%A1%8C http://www.excite.co.jp/News/column_g/20140713/Postseven_265324.html – Keita ODA Oct 16 '15 at 22:10
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君の理論：your reasoning

・・・はわからんな：do not understand ...

命題たる："命題たる" can be paraphrased by "命題である". "たる" is a 「助動詞」. Its infinitive is "たり".

Another translation of "命題たる永遠" is "eternity which we discuss [debate]" or "eternity of our debate".

Maeatsu
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    Would you care to finish the sentence starting with ["たり" means]? –  Oct 03 '15 at 07:03
  • @Maetsu Since 先生である人 means a person who is a teacher. 命題である永遠 Wouldn't than this mean: Eternity of the thesis – Splikie Oct 03 '15 at 11:58