坂道 || Hill Path

坂道
sakamichi
Hill Path

Vocals: mineko
Lyrics: aoma
Arranged by: 平茸 (Hiratake)
Album: URBANIZEDSTEREO [Official site]
Circle: Aftergrow
Event: C83
Original theme: Izanagi Object [イザナギオブジェクト]

Requested by: sul

Did I ever mention how much I love this album? It’s hard to believe that it’s 2016, and it came out 4 years ago.

Also, the lyrics hit me right in the heart. Poor Merry…

歌詞

痛いほど冷えた指先を絡め
歩く冬の路を

風に揺らされた貴女の黒髪
靡いて頬を叩いている

モノクロ映画のような世界で
（私ひとりきり　佇んで）
薄氷の上に立つ私　風が舞う

崩れ落ちた未来
欠片拾い集め続けて
貴女と下る長い坂
転がり落ちるように

貴女のその瞼を下ろした
お願い、振り向かないでね、と

「私を見ないで」なんて
「私だけを見て」なんて

矛盾した気持ち　抱えて彷徨う

知られてしまえば貴女は
私を赦せなくなるでしょう

教えてあげたい
貴女が触れている掌を
信じては駄目、と

はらはら舞い落ちる　冷たい
（空の欠片たち　剥れてく）
私の手に降り積もってゆく　羽根のように

目を閉じ線を引いて見せた
それを越えるなら、と
戸惑う貴女に示す指先は震えていた

こんなに醜い気持ちなのに
どうして振り向いてしまうの

「愛して」なんて言えない
「赦して」なんて言わない

それでもいいからそばに居させて

私が殺した淡い夢を
貴女はあとどれだけ生むの？

泡のように生まれては
泡のように消えてゆく

零れた涙は、静かに流れて……

Romanisation

itai hodo hieta yubisaki wo karame
aruku fuyu no michi wo

kaze ni yurasareta anata no kurokami
nabiite hoo wo tataite iru

monokuro eiga no you na sekai de
(watashi hitori kiri tatazunde)
hakuhyou no ue ni tatsu watashi kaze ga mau

kuzure ochita mirai
kakera hiroi atsume tsudzukete
anata to kudaru nagai saka
korogari ochiru you ni

anata no sono mabuta wo oroshita
onegai, furimukanai de ne, to

“watashi wo minaide” nante
“watashi dake wo mite” nante

mujun shita kimochi kakaete samayou

shirarete shimaeba anata wa
watashi wo yurusenaku naru deshou

oshiete agetai
anata ga furete iru sore wo
shinjite wa dame, to

hara hara mai ochiru tsumetai
(sora no kakera-tachi mukureteku)
watashi no te ni furitsumotte yuku hane no you ni

me wo toji sen wo hiite miseta
sore wo koeru nara, to
tomadou anata ni shimesu yubisaki wa furuete ita

konna ni minikui kimochi nanoni
doushite furimuite shimau no

“aishite” nante ienai
“yurushite” nante iwanai

sore demo ii kara soba ni isasete

watashi ga koroshita awai yume wo
anata wa ato dore dake umu no?

awa no you ni umarete wa
awa no you ni kiete yuku

koboreta namida wa, shizuka ni nagarete…

Translation

We entwine our fingers, so cold they hurt
And we walk upon the winter road.

The wind makes your black hair waver.
It flutters and hits your cheek.

In a world like a black-and-white film,
(I am all alone. I stand still.)
I stand upon thin ice. The wind dances.

Continuing to gather pieces
Of the future, which crumbled away.
I walk down the long hill with you
As if tumbling down.

You lowered your eyelids.
“I’m begging you, don’t look back!”

“Don’t look at me.” Hah…
“Look only at me.” Hah…

I wander, embracing my contradictory feelings.

If you found out…
I suppose you wouldn’t be able to tolerate me anymore.

I want to tell you
That you mustn’t believe in my palms
Which you touch…

They flutter down. They are cold…
(The sky fragments come off.)
They pile upon my hands like feathers.

I closed my eyes and drew a line,
Saying “If you cross over it…”
My fingers shook whilst pointing it out. You were at a loss.

Though these feelings are so ugly,
Why did I end up looking back?

I can’t say “I love you.”
I won’t say “forgive me.”

I don’t care, so let me be by your side.

I killed those faint dreams.
How many more will you produce?

They are born like bubbles,
And they fade away like bubbles.

My overflowing tears flow silently…

Posted

20 May 2016

Translations, 歌詞

Releska

Tags:

Aftergrow, C83, URBANIZEDSTEREO

Comments

5 responses to “坂道 || Hill Path”

Maia Kasoya (@Zaiaku605)

23 December 2018

On a video of this song that uses your translation in the annotations, there’s a comment that makes some corrections, or rather different interpretations of a few lines. Seeing your notice to inform you about alterations to your translation, I thought you might want to judge these interpretations for yourself?

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1. releska
  
  23 December 2018
  
  Thanks for letting me know about that! There are some points there that are worthy of further discussion, so I’ll lay them out here:
  
  -お願い、振り向かないでね、と
  The commenter translates this as ‘Please, don’t look at me right now.’ This is a valid interpretation, but it involves grasping for context that isn’t necessarily there in the text. 振り向かない literally means ‘don’t look back’ (the physical action of turning your head to look backwards). You could say it to someone who’s leaving you – “Forget about me. Move on with your life.” The narrator didn’t do this, as revealed later in the song (どうして振り向いてしまうの), which in my opinion supports a less literal interpretation of “don’t look back.”
  
  貴女が触れている掌を
  信じては駄目、と
  The commenter translates this as ‘But I still want to tell you that the hand you are holding isn’t worth trusting.’ The decision of which one to go with is stylistic. However, there’s no ‘still’ in the first part of this sentence. Furthermore, “isn’t worth trusting” implies that the narrator doesn’t think they’re worthy of trust. The original text doesn’t contain this nuance – the narrator says “you mustn’t believe…” like a warning. Like they know something the listener doesn’t.
  
  目を閉じ線を引いて見せた
  それを越えるなら、と
  The commenter translates this as ‘When you open your eyelids, I show you, [If we cross over there…]’. The commenter suggests that ‘me o tojisen’ (目を閉じ線) is a word that means eyelids. This is incorrect. Furthermore, 線を引く (sen o hiku) is a set phrase that means ‘to draw a line.’ I have not seen any examples of 引く being used to mean ‘open.’
  
  The commenter is right to note that some parts feel stilted – if I had another look at this track today, I’d definitely change some parts to flow a bit better!
  
  Howewer, my personal translation approach, which is constantly evolving, is to stick closely to the cues given in the original text, and then make alterations to better suit the target audience. That makes it difficult for me to personally accept these alterations, but does not discount their validity in a separate translation.
  
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  1. Maia Kasoya (@Zaiaku605)
    
    24 December 2018
    
    Hmm, this is interesting to learn. So the commenter’s interpretations want to make the translation flow better in English, at the cost of taking into consideration the context of the song or the semantics of certain words, whereas your translation understands both and stays as close to the original meaning as possible. I think it must be difficult to convey the original meaning and create a perfectly flowing translation as well, given the nature of the Japanese language, or so I’ve seen.
    
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    1. releska
      
      24 December 2018
      
      It’s definitely difficult – that’s why I appreciate hearing different interpretations, since I can learn a lot from them. Japanese is particularly difficult because a lot is revealed by what isn’t said in the lyrics.
      
      I’ve been reading some translation books to increase my knowledge and I found an old translation-related saying: “a faithful translation is not beautiful, and a beautiful translation is not faithful.” How you deal with that contradict changes how you translate songs, and the best part is that both approaches are perfectly valid!
      
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13 November 2016

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