Song Lyrics in FFXIV: Compilation, Discussion, and Interpretation

[Zryl]

Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains of Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarmony
(Sophia's Theme chants? :X)

The chanting is "cintamani", pretty sure that is the stone she is also holding.

[Mysteltain]

Damn, Rocl, you certainly put in some work with Rise! I'll try to get something written up for A11 and more for A12 to compare with yours.

So, after going through everyone's interpretations this is the current set of lyrics for the song. I'll update the first post with this set, although feel free to post any corrections you think it may need. Personally, I'm not really feeling that "An eminent form..." is correct, but the swell in the music makes it difficult to make out.

Chains of harmony...

The song of the shifting sea,
The kiss of the salt-sweet breeze,
The warmth of her silken dress,
Stained in red...

Her memory, fading fast,
Her mother sits, eyes downcast.
An eminent form in hand,
Farewells unsaid...

Now once a certainty, lost in grief.
A daughter's desperate cries, unheard pleas.
Forsaken ancient rite, on her knees.
A prayer passes from her lips,
Into her soul the Goddess whispers:

“A heartbeat without harmony
is rhythm without time.
The heart seeketh equilibrium;
With balance, fill your world with calm.
So sing this broken melody,
Let balance shelter thee.
One must start believing:
An empty heart divides the sea
An empty heart divides the sea.”

Chains of harmony...

Surprisingly, I feel that the last verse is the least interesting of the entire song. The story about the daughter and her mother I find to be much more interesting because the lyrics, quite vividly, paint a picture of them. Was it the daughter who summoned Sophia, and if so, what became of her mother? In the fight, Sophia refers to the head as her daughter, and the statue of Sophia that Goldsmiths can craft also says:

A statuette depicting the Meracydian goddess, Sophia. (Barbelo statuette suspiciously missing.)

Upon doing a tiny bit of research, Barbelo is an emanation of God in the Gnostic view of the universe, specifically the first female emanation and therefore the closest to perfection (ie. God). Looking a bit further into Gnosticism, at least in the context of what pertains to Sophia's fight, Demiurges are the artisans and maintainers of the physical universe. Those titles given to her adds make sense, as they are her soldiers who would maintain her perfect society, as even though she is their Goddess she exists in the spiritual world, wholly separate from the material/physical world. While a bit on-the-nose as far as their roles in this Meracydian society, it does keep the theme going.

So, what does this mean for who the mother and daughter figures are in the song? Well, it's a bit of a toss-up. Was the daughter the first person to summon Sophia during the Allagan invasion, and she somehow became a part of the primal afterwards? Or did the daughter pull a sort of Shiva-type of summoning, where her mother took the form of Sophia, and then she became the head floating beneath her (the daughter's name being Barbelo)? I may be overthinking this, but it seems that there's much more going on behind-the-scenes with Sophia than quite a few of the other Primals and Eikons we have in the game.

(Not on the same topic, but here's my guess at A11's lyrics):

Exponential Entropy
Forward and back,
And then forward and back,
And then go forward and back,
Ever one foot forward!

Transcendental!
I...un...leash...the...
Exponential!
En...tro...py..!

Forward and back,
And then forward and back,
And then go forward and back,
Ever one foot forward!

Run out of time! (Begin ignition!)
Run out of time! (Lead a new nation!)
Run out of time! (Triangulation!)
Time out of time!(No destination!)

Run out of time! (Begin ignition!)
Run out of time! (Lead a new nation!)
Run out of time! (Predestination!)
Time out of time! (No destination!)

Falling back right into the system of
Falling back on all that's erased
When fighting back right out of this system
Means falling back right into this space.

Yes, falling back right in with the system
Who'll see you falling back to the end
When falling back is better than simply
Falling back into pieces again!

[Rocl]

Ah good you started discussing Sophia, I had just started throwing things at the wall myself!

Sophia spoilers, be ye warned:

I definitely feel like the chanting is "Cintamani" instead of 'chains of harmony,' and "eminent form" might be 'tormented form'? I don't feel like "An empty heart divides the sea" is right either--but I have no alternative to offer. I'm also not a fan of "One must start believing;" but 'One must' is definitely true, I think.

Like Mysteltain, the mother-daughter dynamic is most interesting, doubly so we seem to have two deiforms from but one Primal. I'm going to piggy-back on the current trend of theories with the English eikon being a deified object as opposed to idealized things here, but it's necessary to draw a key distinction.

Cintamani, the namesake of one of Sophia's attacks, is apparently a wish-fulfilling jewel much like an Eastern analogue of the philosopher's stone, if my thirty seconds on wikipedia is even half right. The first few lines paint us an image that almost immediately turns dark, I feel. A red warm dress screams bloodied to me, so there is a wounded woman in a dress; given mothers and daughters are typically women--not that men can't wear dresses. Her memory fades, a tormented form, desperate pleas, farewells unheard-- one of them is dying. Rather, one of the pair is dead in a silken dress before proper goodbyes are said. Giving us Barbelo as the name of a "mother" figure is helpful as well, but we're then lead to believe the head beneath the heels is actually the daughter (Sophia speaks to her 'daughter' and Barbelo disappears to perform an attack).

Forsaken rites, prayers, a whisper and then a Goddess speaks to a soul--quote a poetic description of Tempering. Like her Meracydian brother Bahamut, could Sophia be the ideal of a lost loved one? This is... complicated and probably wrong, but bear with me. Bahamut, Shiva, et al. are the ideal of the person--Tiamat herself knows the primal to not be her brother on sight twisted by her rage as he was and Hraesvelgr chastises Ysale for being so foolish as to believe she had brought back his Elezen lover. So then, what makes Sophia an Eikon?

Well, Barbelo is a floating head. Where's her body? Yes, yes, I know "Nomura didn't draw it!" Could it not be as simple as a decapitation? That would certainly stain a dress red and torment a form, for sure. Somewhat comically, when Barbelo attacks, she rears back and there's this sort of appendage that flits about I think is quite like a tongue. I don't think this strengthens my case any, but I couldn't resist mentioning.

Zantetsuken, the deification of a sword. Sephirot, the deification of a tree. Sophia, the deification of a loved one's head. Please god don't tie this to Edda, but holy hells if that misguided relationship isn't at least somewhat similar. This distinction would draw her eikon and not Primal, as this forsaken ancient rite did not literally produce the idea of the woman she wanted but perhaps she wanted something as simple as the eyes to open one last time.

This thread of revivification ties in well with Cintamani and the actual fact the "zombie" status exists in the fight. What does she say when someone dies during the Demiurges again... "Death will offer no release"? I'll have to pay more attention next time.

The final and most damning evidence I have for my own theory is has precious little to do with balance or equilibrium and the like. There's also the fact this would be the song about a summoner rather than the devoted thralls. "Sin must be balanced with suffering," hearkens back to a very archaic idea of justice for me, and so I posit the Goddess is seeking to exact justice in some way for the murder of her beloved. Mayhap her beloved was killed as a consequence of some archaic justice? Decapitation as acapital punishment is certainly not unheard of.

What most of this lacks is Allag though. Did Allag kill the beloved woman? Or perhaps, more likely I feel, we are placing too much on the idea that Sephirot and Sophia are "new" gods in the Third Astral Era. It's possible I'm forgetting some key detail somewhere, but could it not be that these gods are not new, but simply the first summonings? Faith in the Twelve has survived at least four Astral Eras. What we know of the Sixth Astral Era, there were some thousand odd years before the first rumblings of summonings amongst the Beast Tribes, but surely they still had these Gods? Mayhap the mother-daughter initial summoning and eikonification of severed head happened some years past and over the ages the wrongness of justice mutated into the balance we find in Meracydia's Sophia-- but the actual execution is removed from their Allag problem. So, we have a beloved family member crying out over the twisted remains of their kin crying out with a stone and prayers and something answers her; bringing together he beloved family as one being and folding over herself. The aetherial shade which answered Sophia is the Goddess, and the 3 consciousness intermingling gives us what we see.

Anyways, my train of thought has left me far behind again and so I'll just leave this for you to mull, I guess.

Damn, Rocl, you certainly put in some work with Rise!

I have the great luxury to be able to squirrel XIV away behind windows while working and I just happened to leave Rise on repeat on my Orchestrion and I just happened to find my fingers typing what I thought I heard and I just happened to do this because once I saw "A to the L to the E-X ANDER" in your post I couldn't help but feel a self-serving need to find out just what the Goblins were saying about the name I share with their primal.

[gobugobu]

I hear "Chains of harmony" in a text of Equilibrium with "Cintamani" in Japan.
So song and I whom a goddess persuades to a person wishing that I want you to grant a wish interpret it.

[gcastiel]

So, after going through everyone's interpretations this is the current set of lyrics for the song. I'll update the first post with this set, although feel free to post any corrections you think it may need. Personally, I'm not really feeling that "An eminent form..." is correct, but the swell in the music makes it difficult to make out.

Hey guys I wanna add my two cents for the sophia lyrics.

"An eminent form in hand"
From what i hear is "A tormented form in hand."

For "Forsaken ancient rite, on her knees" I'm hearing "Forsake an ancient trade, on her knees."

And finally, the one that made me write the post....
"So sing this broken melody
let balance shelter thee.
One must start believing"
Okay i hear many different things for these three lines but this set makes the most sense. The one i will argue about is the final line here though. I can clearly hear "One last step on" and what sounds like "With you."

[Annana]

Ah good you started discussing Sophia, I had just started throwing things at the wall myself!

Justice and Vengeance are two sides of the same coin, which is touched upon in the DRK quest line.

And if we take into account the words of a certain masked boy and his journal in the Rising Stones, Sophia had supporters inside of Allag that were to free her while she was in the heart of the Allagan Empire, thus allowing her to wreak havoc on them from within... The sins of Allag must be balanced by suffering, indeed.

[MissFortune]

For me:

Chase Haaaaaaar Mooooooo Nyyyyyy
Chase Haaaaaaar Mooooooo Nyyyyyy
Chase Haaaaaaar Mooooooo Nyyyyyy
Chase Haaaaaaar Mooooooo Nyyyyyy

The song of the shifting sea, the kiss of the salt-sweet breeze,
The warmth of her silken dress, stained in red,
Her memory fading fast, her mother sits eyes downcast,
A tormented form in hand, farewells unsaid,

Not once a certainty, lost in grief,
A daughter's desperate cries, unheard pleas,
Forsaken Ancient Rite, on her knees,
A prayer passes from her lips, into her soul the Goddess whispers,

A heartbeat without harmony
is music without time,
The heart seeketh equilibrium,
May balance fill your world with calm,
So sing this broken melody,
Let my wings shelter thee,
One must start by believing,
An empty heart the light will see!
An empty heart the light will see!

[Fevelle]

I just want to add that the Sophic Lanner description has a quote that probably solves one of the verses:

"A heartbeat without harmony
is moonlight without dark"

[Frederick22]

I gotta think that the events that the lyrics of sophia are saing, happened long before the allagans's invasion

But what I really have being thinking. Is there something similar at all on the lyrics of Sophia and Sephirot?
Maybe that could the thing that difference an Eikon from a Primal

[Ametrine]

I gotta think that the events that the lyrics of sophia are saing, happened long before the allagans's invasion

But what I really have being thinking. Is there something similar at all on the lyrics of Sophia and Sephirot?
Maybe that could the thing that difference an Eikon from a Primal

The similarity I can see is that both songs relate their relationship to a follower on a personal level.

Sephirot is appealing to the listener to follow him, while Sophia's is telling a story of a child appealing to her and her response. Both are, in different ways, pitching themselves as gods.

This differs from previous primals wherein their songs are either from the view of the worshippers, the god itself showboating (...Ravana), or have no lyrics at all.

Really, it may be coincidence, but the Eikons both have the same message of "you're life will be better if you choose to follow me," verses the fear, anguish, and raw bloodlust of the others.