作曲/Music：茍音 (Gou Yin)
作詞/Lyrics：賀小桐 (He Xiao Tong)
演唱/Vocal：姚貝娜 (Bella Yao)
江上白衣凌云
残花浅酒片时清
The white robe rippled over water, subdued grandeur of clouds overhead
Tattered petals and thin wine accompanied a moment’s clarity
御龙乘风而行
旧梦朱璃碧宇
火连营
The dragon rode winds
Of forgone dreams; crimson glass, jade-green eaves
Burning tents of our men bleeds
八卦阵中迷途香消命殒
三分晋 红颜薄命
Losing oneself in the labyrinth, perished like a fallen star
Three kingdoms alas united in one, yet heavens decreed to have beauty marred
狼烟烽火满旗
赤壁幽窗冷雨 望不尽
Signaling smoke between banners rose
Endless cold rain struck curtains low
御龙顺水而行
横波水没七军 青子衿
The dragon rode waves
Where seven armies gave; in memories your blue-collared robe had stayed
谁将 浮名牵系
一品千金 英雄泪满襟
痴心与谁寄 妾身无缘旧命
Who hung to vain promises of fame
And a valiant shot at glory and gold; tears dampened the hero’s clothes
Who’d I send this longing heart to; destiny wrought parting with my life of old
折戟沉沙秋水溟
繁花落尽君辞去
青灯怨语一枕清霜冷如冰
Broken polearms sunken in sand, muddied waters of autumn’s land
The last flower shed, you bade your farewell then
Wistful words by a forlorn light; frosted pillows cold as ice
长坂坡上草木腥
沧江一梦镜花影
马蹄铃 缃帙瓶 硝烟定 天命
Meadowy slopes reeked blood and flesh
While dreams pass like rivers rush, like flowers of the mirror’s end
Ringing of hooves, bound books and scrolls; of our fate, the smokes of war shall set in stone
***
Footnotes:
1. There are lots of references to the stories/history during the period of the Three Kingdoms:
(c) 八卦阵中迷途 (Lost in the BaGua formation/maze/labyrinth) – events happened after battle of Xiaoting/YiLing, where Lu Xun’s armies were trapped by ZhuGe Liang’s maze according to The Romance of Three Kingdom. This is likely fictitious, involving sorcery and all that jazz. Though, the historical ZheGe Liang was good at army formations.
(e) 青子衿 – a phrase quoted from Cao Cao’s poem 短歌行, though it too was coined from an older literary source. Translation of the original poem: https://wenku.baidu.com/view/a0002408763231126edb11cb.html
- on another note, 青 used to mean "blue" in ancient sources, but "green" in modern use.
2. 红颜薄命 – original meaning goes along the lines of “fair ladies often suffer tragic fates”.
Commentary
Whew. This one took me quite a while. I love the music and the Three Kingdom references. Couldn't get tired of it. The lyrics are vague, and their meaning hard to translate in whole, so I injected some of my own interpretations (also for a better flow of the lyric translations).
The clips in the video is from a TV drama series “Nirvana in Fire”. I think the editing work is excellent for bringing out the epic feel of this song.
*I own nothing but the translations.
Thanks for your hard work with the translations! I thought you had stopped translating but pleasantly surprised to find this update.
ReplyDeleteHi 艾米, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm doing this as a little hobby nowadays, so the updates will not be very regular (other commitments get in the way unfortunately). I thought I'll just put these out there and see what it's worth. Thanks for your kind words! :>
ReplyDeleteHi, thank you so much for taking the time to translate this song and provide some extra context!!
ReplyDeleteEver since I first heard the song years ago (through that same Nirvana in Fire mv haha) I've fallen in love.
I love how poetic it is, how the sounds of words are evocative, and sparse in words but holding so much meaning. I remember coming across other translations (and even badly attempting myself with online translators :') ) but there was always an awkwardness interpreting the - as you said - vagueness, and balancing out the historical/classical references.
I really really like what you did here! Beautifully poetic and providing enough links to bring each lyric together.
Thank you so much Tsuyiume! Your comment really made my day. I sense that you’re also quite passionate about language! One big reason I did these translations is to experiment with language and see if I can capture the aesthetics of one language and recreate it in another, so when you specifically highlighted the poetic aspects of it, it means a lot to me.
DeleteThis was actually quite an experimental piece I tried at the time, and fortunately it turned out in a way that wasn't too bad. (Though if I have to nitpick, I later found out that the word "御" probably leaned more towards "control/drive/tame" in this context, so the title is more like "A Song of Dragon Taming" or (pardon if this translation is clunky). But since I don’t really feel like changing it, I’ll just let this be. :P
I’m sure your translation isn’t as bad as you think it is. We tend to be our own worst critic. To be fair, many times when I try to make it poetic in English, I’m sacrificing a substantial amount of accuracy. Translations of these types of songs by others, though some seem awkward, tend to have greater fidelity to the original text. This particular piece just happens to allow room for me to play around with it.
Anyway, thank you once again, and stay awesome!