Chinese Rock Song Translation FIR: 《千年之恋》

[思考题]

Chinese Rock Song Translation, FIR: 《千年之恋》 - Love for an eternity

For an online recording of the song click &cat=0&gate=1&ct=134217728&tn=baidumt,%C7%A7%C4%EA%D6%AE%C1%B5++&si=%C7%A7%C4%EA%D6%AE%C1%B5;;fir;;0;;0&lm=-1&mtid=3&d=9&size=3145728&attr=0,0&titlekey=346963311,3281973693&mtype=1"]HERE

This inspiring song tells of how love can transcend time.

竹林的灯火.................Till the day the forests burn,

到过的沙漠.................And all that is left is desert,

七色的国度.................When the kingdoms have fallen,

不断飘逸风中................And an eternity has passed.

有一种神秘.................There remains one mystery,

灰色的漩涡.................A strong whirlpool,

将我卷入了.................Pulling me in,

迷雾中....................Mesmerising me.

看不清的双手...............I was unsure if we were meant to be,

一朵花传来.................But now it is apparent,

谁经过的温柔...............It was true love.

穿越千年的伤痛..............I’ve suffered an eternity of pain,

只为求一个结果..............All for love,

你留下的轮廓指引我...........I fell head over heels,

黑夜中不寂寞................Never to be lonely again.

穿越千年的哀愁...............I’ve suffered an eternity of sorrow,

是你在尽头等我...............You are waiting for me,

最美丽的感动................The beauty of love,

会值得　用一生守候............To be happy for the rest of our lives.

=====================================================================================================================================================

While I encourage any questions, 'quires and qualms, my hope is that rather than simple criticism, we instead make constructive suggestions with specific examples.

My initial words are not the end all, but rather the instigation of further creation.

=====================================================================================================================================================

[phyrex]

Thanks a lot for that, it's a good song!

I'm a bit puzzled by your translation though. For instance, how do you get from the Chinese to the English in this paragraph:

看不清的双手...............I was unsure if we were meant to be,

一朵花传来.................But now it is apparent,

谁经过的温柔...............It was true love.

I understand the words of the Chinese, but not the meaning, but it's still not apparent to me how you get from the words to the meaning..?

[思考题]

Thank you phyrex for you question, in response my translation process for this song had two steps; first was explaining the lyric in Chinese with my Chinese tutor, and then translating the song into English. Metaphores are constantly used in this song so instead of literally translating the songs metaphore I attempted to translate the metaphores' meaning.

Below is how the lyric was explained to me in Chinese:

看不清的双手................我没看清楚一千年前的爱情

一朵花传来..................现在我看清楚

谁经过的温柔................我们的真正爱

This is how I interpreted the songs metaphores:

In the first line 双手 is a metaphore for 爱情

In the second line 一朵花 is a metaphore for realisation,

And in the thrid line 温柔 is a description of true love.

Metaphores are tricky to translate, sometimes there are suitable English translations, for example: 樱桃小口 can easily be literally translated as Cherry lips, but 葡萄的眼睛 if literally translated as Grape eyes, loses the implication of beauty in the metaphore, I would need to translated as 'eyes as big as grapes'. 弯月眉毛 is even more difficult, as in English we do not use the moon as metaphore for attractive eyebrows. Even translating 'eyebrows are curved like the moon' still sounds halting. My point is, I couldn't find a suitable English metaphore, but I am open to suggestions.