を between nouns

[christofferkennetholsson7886]

I have been watching a lot of cardfight vanguard and i have been looking up the ride chants but there is one part of a chant that i don't understand: 闇を縦糸 there is an o (を) between two nouns, but isn't を suppose to be between an object and a verb.

Entire chant if it helps with understanding the context: 闇を縦糸、恐怖を横糸に紡ぎし竜よ。運命をたどり、あるべき姿に

[thegooseking]

christofferkennetholssonさん、

を is not always a direct object indicator. For verbs of motion を can mean 'through', 'across' or 'along' (or 'from' if the verb of motion is specifically a verb of departure). For verbs of emotion, を can indicate a cause of an emotion.

I would guess that を is used in the verb-of-motion sense in this case, even though 縦糸 is not a verb. 縦糸 refers to 'warp' in the weaving sense, and I did guess in another thread that weaving can be considered a verb of motion. So 闇を縦糸 would be "warp across the darkness", and 恐怖を横糸 would be "weft through the fear".

Then you come up to に, which indicates that these phrases are not supposed to behave like nouns, but like adverbs: they indicate how the spinning (紡ぎ) is done.

I think that's the case, anyway.

Hope that helps,
小狼

[community.japanese]

小狼さん、
どうもありがとうございます。

christofferkennetholsson7886　さん、

The sentence should be
闇を縦糸にして使って、恐怖を横糸にして使って糸を紡ぐ竜.

However, native Japanese speakers can find omitted parts and can understand the sentence.

As you know the sentence is an allusion.

闇を縦糸にして使って means “use darkness as the warp”.

恐怖を横糸にして使って means “use fear as the woof”

糸を紡ぐ竜 means “the dragon which spins thread”.

I hope it could be helpful.

Yuki　由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com