Meaning of すべき subeki

[letslearn]

In the following verse I was wondering if my translation is right.

鳥を聞く. (I)Hear the birds.
歓迎すべき音. It should be a welcoming sound.
鴬張りを渡る. As I cross the nightingale floor.

よろしくお願いします

 

[Morphling]

Meaning of すべき subeki

The feeling I got is it means 'can' or 'worthy of' a welcome rather than should.

可し can mean a few things. I believe it is a conjugation of 可し which can mean a lot of things and not べき as in 'should'.

 

[letslearn]

So would 歓迎す be the root form of 歓迎する to welcome. I looked up 可しand has lots of meanings like you said. It can be ,can ,should not mustn't etc. I take it depends what verb you use eg negative or positive. Is that form usually written hirigana?

Also I have seen 歓迎すべき as meaning just plain welcome.

 

[Toritoribe]

In the following verse I was wondering if my translation is right.

鳥を聞く. (I)Hear the birds.
歓迎すべき音. It should be a welcoming sound.
鴬張りを渡る. As I cross the nightingale floor.

よろしくお願いします

What is the sourse of your quote? Where did you find it?

 

[letslearn]

It comes from a book.
Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, Book 1) ~ Lian Hearn

 

[Morphling]

Meaning of すべき subeki

可し can be very subtle and yes it can be left out. The sentence can be translated as 'a sound that is to be welcomed' but it has subtle meaning of 'worthy of'.

Also べし is a direct placeholder for 可, you'll see more meaning in 漢和辞典 than a regular dictionary. 'Worthy of' is described below although not sure if you can reverse engineer the meaning.

I'm sure there is some history behind it but する verbs joins べき・べし as す and not し. It's irregular.

 

[letslearn]

It's a difficult nuance to understand.

As the subject is a Ninja crossing the nightingale floor.
It might be that he humbly appreciates that he is worthy of the security measures taken.

Or maybe I'm looking to much into it. You can't always interpret directly.

 

[Toritoribe]

It comes from a book.
Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, Book 1) ~ Lian Hearn

That's exactly what I got from google search. It's a poorly-made mock haiku. (To tell the truth, I thought those were just three sentences/phrases unrelated each other at first.) べき is interpreted that the ninja SHOULD be delighted with the sound in that clause, which is no doubt not the author intended. I have to say it's worthless to interpret nonsense gibberish.

 

[letslearn]

That's exactly what I got from google search. It's a poorly-made mock haiku. (To tell the truth, I thought those were just three sentences/phrases unrelated each other at first.) べき is interpreted that the ninja SHOULD be delighted with the sound in that clause, which is no doubt the author intended. I have to say it's worthless to interpret nonsense gibberish.

Thanks I won't waste more time on it, but I am curious, why do you think that the ninja would be delighted with the sound?

 

[Toritoribe]

Just because べき means so (in other words, the author misused べき.)

 

[letslearn]

Thanks guys!