Strange use of はてる


I was translating this song (lyrics here: <http://vocadb.net/S/87131>) and I
came across these lines. I'm mostly having trouble with the last one.

嘆きの堕天使 我が邪気眼（め）に

預言書（アーモス） 孵（かえ）し

羽輝（はてる）聖霊 喘ぐ音 目覚めよ

"(Hearing) the cries of fallen angels, the prophecies of Amos (this is a book
in the bible, by the way) are hatched in my (evil) eyes. The holy spirit
rises(?) with a harsh sound. Wake up!" is what I got from it. I'm at a loss
for はてる - it's pronounced that way in the song, but I couldn't find a meaning
that made sense, contextually. But I found out that 羽輝 is a name that means
wing, so perhaps it could mean that the spirit is flying/rising? I think that
may be a bit far-fetched, though, considering its pronunciation. So how would
はてる be translated in this case?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you!




As naruto has already said, the 羽輝 kanji almost certainly have nothing to do
with the actual pronunciation or meaning of the word はてる here - they're just
being used as creative ateji. (羽 can be pronounced は and 輝 can be pronounced
てる, but neither would usually be used for the word はてる, so these were probably
just chosen as a kind of wordplay, because the kanji looked poetically
appropriate to the subject of a holy spirit).

As for the actual meaning of はてる, this is the verb 果てる, which has the basic
meaning of "reaching an end". It's used to refer to a few different things.
One possible interpretation is sexual - 果てる is commonly used to mean "reach a
sexual climax", which would fit with the following phrase using 喘ぐ
(panting/moaning), which is also commonly used in sexual contexts.
Alternatively, 果てる can also refer to someone dying, which could also feasibly
fit with the moaning sounds of 喘ぐ.

It's not very clear which interpretation is intended here, since the lyrics
are so poetic and abstract, but I'd perhaps lean towards the death angle - the
surrounding lyrics seem to perhaps be talking about the hatching/awakening of
a "fallen angel", so perhaps the intended image is of a holy spirit dying and
being reborn into something evil. But it's difficult to say for sure.




羽輝 is not a common word. It may work as a rare person name, but obviously it's
not used as a proper noun here.

I may be wrong, but it can be a creative ateji for
[果てる](http://jisho.org/word/%E6%9E%9C%E3%81%A6%E3%82%8B) ("to be exhausted")
used to intensify the chunibyo-like atmosphere of the song. This reminded me
of [this question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/15138/5010).

