Ruritsubame Blues, Ice scene - translation

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Katinka
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Ruritsubame Blues, Ice scene - translation

English, then Japanese. Feel free to point out any weirdness (English being my second language and all).

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N: What?

K: Let’s give you some first aid, for starters.

K: Does it hurt? Maybe you should go to the hospital…

N: It’s like a sunburn, not a big deal. Will go away in a few days. I’m lucky my hair didn’t burn.

K: You’re so bad at protecting yourself – although you can protect others. Be still. When I’m done, go back. That’s it, you can go now.

N: Why? Am I useless?

K: It all reminded me of when you got poisoned. Your Yamaguchi body, its dead face… I won’t be able to sleep. That’s it, go. Didn’t you hear what I said? With you, I can’t… What is this?

N: Protecting you is the purpose of my existence. If you take it from me, I won’t have reason to keep being reborn. It’s like killing me – why won’t you understand this already!

K: So, if I disappear, you won’t have reason to live? Stop that. Stop pushing your reason to live onto other people.

N: I hate it when you do this, take away people’s refuges…

K: Refuge? So that’s what it was, after all? Your loyalty.

N: You think I will always just stand there and take it? You’re wrong. I’ll show you how it feels when someone pours cold water over your heart.

K: Stop it.

N: When you’re mocking me, what are you trying to protect? Please tell me.

N: Oh, I like this view.

K: That’s enough. Who do you think you are?

N: You said to me once that you don’t mind if one day that’s me who’s giving you orders.

K: If this is something you can achieve.

N: You will regret this.

K: Looser dog barking. And it’s all bark, no bite.

N: Let’s try, shall we? Revolution – that is, I think, what you and I need.

K: Subduing someone by force and feeling like you’ve won? What a cheap revolution.

N: You look like that’s already happened…

K: And what are you going to do then? After you’ve put me to the guillotine, where will you go? To the first class world you so dream of? Go ahead, measure yourself against truly talented people and despair, finding out how shallow and insignificant you are.

*pushing and strangling ensues*

K: Alright, enough. It’s late, stay over.

 

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N:どうしました?

K:とりあえず手当だ。

K: 痛むか? 病院に行ったほうが…

N: 日焼け程度のやけどです。数日で収まります。髪が燃えなくてよかった。

K: 自分の防護は下手なんだ、お前は。人は守れるのに。じっとしてろ。手当が済んだら、帰れ。もういい。

N:どう言う事ですか?私は役立たずですか?

K: お前が毒ガスにやられた時の事を思い出した。山口の縮体の死に顔を… 眠れなくなる。もういいから、帰れ。聞こえなかったか?お前がいると… なんだ?

N: あなたを守る事は私の存在意義そのものです。それを取り上げられたら、私は換生をする意味を失います。私を殺すも同然と言う事に、はやく気付いて貰えませんか?

K: 俺がいなくなれば、お前の存在意義もなくなると言うわけか?やめろ。そうやって人に生きる理由を押し付けるのは。

N: あなたは本当に時々憎らしいくらい人の逃げ場を奪いますね。

K: 逃げ場?所詮逃げ場なんだろう。お前の忠誠心なんて。

N: 私がいつも言われっぱなしでいると思ったら大間違いです。自分の言葉がどれだけ人の心に冷や水をかけるか、少しは思い知るといいんです。

K:よせ。

N: 私をあざける事で何を守ろうと言うんですか?教えて下さい。

N: いい眺めだ。

K: 思い上がるのもいい加減にしろ。

N: いつかあなたは言いましたよね。私が命じる側になってもいいと。

K: やれるものならな。

N: 後悔しますよ。

K: 負け犬の遠吠えだ。口ばっかりだ。

N: 試して見ますか? 私たちに必要なのは、革命かもしれませんよ。

K: 人を征服して勝った気になれるなら、安い革命だな。

N: そうされたように見える。

K: それでどうするんだ?俺をギロチンに掛けて、お前はどこに行く?お前が望んだ一流の世界か?才能溢れる人間どものなかでせいぜい自分の薄っぺらさに絶望でもすればいいさ。

K:もういい。晩いから、今日は泊まって行け。

 

labingi
Thanks for the translation!

Thank you for this, and thanks for including the Japanese, which I want to peruse at greater length. I saw your Tumblr post of the Japanese text a while ago and tried to piece together some of it with the help of Rikaichan, but in most lines the grammar/idioms were too much for me. (I will give it to Rikaichan, though, it translates some idioms in toto.)

Reading your translation, this scene is so utterly Kagetora and Naoe! It makes me feel like it didn't quite come off in the performance, but I will need to sit down and see it again with a clearer idea of what they're actually saying. (I like the "revolution" theme, which seems to have passed off as a recurring metaphor by the timeline of the main novels, but it reminds me of how similar Naoe is to Ivan Karamazov in a lot of his intellectual traits. He's got a real "revolt" thing going on.)

labingi
Translation Posted on the Translation Communities

I've posted your translation link to both the LJ and DW translation communities:

http://mirage-trans.dreamwidth.org/profile

http://mirage-trans.livejournal.com/profile

It's under "Other Translation," though if interest in the plays takes off enough, they might be worth their own section.

Katinka
Katinka's picture
Thank you.

Thank you. I wish I could do more - as it is, Russian translation takes up most of my spare time. Hopefully other people will join in. It is an awful amount of work, so there should be multiple translators :) 

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labingi
I totally agree

Yep, it's my hope that eventually we can generate enough interest/community again to get maybe 4-5 translators back into doing English translations, which is what we had at about the peak of interest--and it got most of the first half translated. Good for you for doing Russian! That doubtless makes a lot of Russian fans very happy, and I know it's a lot of work.

(I once took a quixotic shot at translating from the Russian, but since I haven't studied Russian worth anything, I got nowhere. It was volume 10? (11?), and Takaya, Naoe, and Kotarou were on the beach. I never got them off the beach. The grammar was actually not too hard, except that I never studied enough to figure out Russian participial constructions--at all--total mystery.)

Katinka
Katinka's picture
It's easier to learn Japanese :)

I think it's easier to learn Japanese than Russian :) And then you'll be able to read it all :)

(If you have some basic Japanese, it's not hard to start reading Kuwabara. Her writing is rather simplistic most of the time. You'll have to push your way through some mirage-specific vocabulary, but after a couple of volumes you'll get all the words down, because she repeats them over and over :) 

 

 

 

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