Translation: 薔薇の花 by Angelo

Hello everyone. This is a lyric translation I did last winter, for part of a big final project in my Japanese-English translation seminar. Along with the lyrics, I also wrote translator’s notes explaining the choices I made. If you’re interested, you can find them at the bottom. If not, I hope you’ll enjoy the lyrics themselves!

Song: Roses (Japanese title: 薔薇の花)
Artist: Angelo

Official Japanese lyrics
Buy or listen to a sample

Prohibited symptom; torn-at chest; irrepressible impulse

It brushed past my mind in a flash of lightning: an accidental discharge of violent emotion

What are you praying for, still down on your knees?

It echoes in the dark beyond: the toll of a ruthless bell

Courtship behavior; exchanging saliva; universal instinct

Abruptly peeled-off mask; Awakening with a hint of the beast

Who are you clinging to, still down on your knees?

Unable to see salvation in your crimson-dyed consciousness…

If this unending rain blocks your path, the two of us will get wet and give up on turning back

Roses that are too much to hold with both hands

For the sake of this day that we’ll soon come to forget, let’s leave it at farewell

If your pounding heart beats against your chest,

Put your love into this reality you’ll want to avert your eyes from, and blossom with pride

If this unending rain misleads you, keep your eyes closed and give your body up

Roses that are too much to hold with both hands

For the sake of the tomorrow where we’ll realize our desires, let’s leave it at farewell

If your pounding heart beats against your chest,

Put your love into this reality that constantly frightened you, and blossom with pride

Translator's Notes

One of the most powerful aspects of this song is the complete change in tone between the verses and the chorus. In the verses, the words are formal, and there is a cold, almost hostile tone. In addition, the verses are made almost entirely of incomplete phrases (i.e. sentences not ending in a verb), giving them a very choppy feeling. However, the choruses bring an actual relationship to the forefront, rather than the detached instinct discussed in the verses. There are roses, heartbeats, and farewells, words with obvious romantic connotations. Creating this tone properly by looking carefully at the connotations of each word was one of my main focuses in this translation.

As far as issues on the word level, verbs modifying nouns presented quite a challenge. One clause in particular was the biggest challenge of the entire song: “掻き毟る胸” (Line 1). Read it Japanese, it conveys a very powerful image, of someone trying to rip an emotion right out of one’s chest. However, this was very difficult to convey when the “tearing” had to be in the form of an adjective modifying “chest;” to translate it in another way would cause the line to lose the choppy abbreviated feeling it originally had. I eventually came to the conclusion that “torn-at chest” kept the form while conveying the emotion, although it makes for awkward English. Throughout most of the song, I chose to translate focusing on the emotion the words conveyed, rather than making them into smooth English.