君の元へ飛んでゆけ - imperative or optative?


This is the context.

> Yura yura to yuganda sora e  
>  **Kimi no moto e tonde yuke**  
>  Konna ni mo chikaku ni kanjiteru  
>  Futatsu no omoi
>
> ゆらゆらと歪んだ空へ  
>  **君の元へ飛んでゆけ**  
>  こんなにも近くに感じてる  
>  ふたつの想い

This is my try:

> Through the warped and wobbling sky  
>  **may I fly to you/if only I could fly to you**  
>  I feel so close  
>  the feelings of us (our feelings)

I don't know how to translate this imperative (命令形). There is a second person
pronoun, "君の", so it can't be a simple imperative, where the speaker orders a
second person to do something (fly to you/fly to yourself!). The speaker
doesn't order himself to do something (in this case he/she would say "fly to
him/her!"). Has it an optative meaning? "May I fly to you! If only I could fly
to you! Let me fly to you!"

Is, in general, 命令形 used also as optative, in Japanese?




It is **_optative_** in meaning even though it grammatically takes the
imperative form. This usage is quite common in song lyrics and other fictional
writings in Japanese.

At least in the Japanese-speaking mind, a person's [想]{おも}い ("feeling(s)",
"thought(s)", etc.) has no will and it cannot fly away ([飛]{と}んでゆく) to
someone; therefore, you do not order your 想い to perform actions that only
humans and animals can.

(How this works in other languages, I have no idea and I do not claim to
know.)

How you "translate" the optative, however, is another matter altogether. It
could be translated just like the imperative if that made sense and/or sounded
natural in the target language just as long as you understand that it is
considered optative in the original Japanese.

Other examples of optative phrases:

「[風]{かぜ}よ、[吹]{ふ}け！」,「[星]{ほし}よ、[輝]{かがや}け！」,「[雨]{あめ}よ、[降]{ふ}れ！」, etc.




It is **_optative_** in meaning even though it grammatically takes the
imperative form. This usage is quite common in song lyrics and other fictional
writings in Japanese.

At least in the Japanese-speaking mind, a person's [想]{おも}い ("feeling(s)",
"thought(s)", etc.) has no will and it cannot fly away ([飛]{と}んでゆく) to
someone; therefore, you do not order your 想い to perform actions that only
humans and animals can.

(How this works in other languages, I have no idea and I do not claim to
know.)

How you "translate" the optative, however, is another matter altogether. It
could be translated just like the imperative if that made sense and/or sounded
natural in the target language just as long as you understand that it is
considered optative in the original Japanese.

Other examples of optative phrases:

「[風]{かぜ}よ、[吹]{ふ}け！」,「[星]{ほし}よ、[輝]{かがや}け！」,「[雨]{あめ}よ、[降]{ふ}れ！」, etc.

