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As part of my studies, I started to translate lyrics of songs I enjoy. It was going well until I bumped with this phrase.

止まらない胸の歪を消しておくれよ

I'm think it translates somewhat to: "Late to erase the distortion of the unstoppable chest"

Since Japanese a null subject language, the subject can be omitted and asserted from the context right? On this phrase, there no indication whatsoever who is talking or who is listening. I'd like know the subject of this phrase and why is so.

Here is the lyric of the current song

止まらない胸の歪を消しておくれよ
アメジスト
すれ違ってく心
君と僕の狭間で揺れる カケラ

空っぽに堕ちてゆく夜を
救っておくれよ アメジスト
すれ違ってく 君と僕の
染まる黒い闇を 透明な光で

Thanks for your time :)

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1 Answer 1

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It's probably not "late to erase the distortion of the unstoppable chest" :-)

  1. It's 止まらない, not 止まれない.
  2. I think it's the 歪 which is 止まらない. In other words, 止まらない modifies the phrase 胸の歪.
  3. 〜ておくれよ is probably 〜てくれよ with the honorific お- added to くれる.

Here we have an imperative form of 〜てくれる, so it seems the speaker is asking the listener to do something for them. So the listener is the (implicit) subject of 消す, but with 〜てくれる there's no reason to put it explicitly into the sentence.

I think that in both requests, the speaker is talking to Amethyst:

  1. 止まらない胸の歪を消しておくれよ アメジスト
  2. 救っておくれよ アメジスト

I can't come up with a literal translation that sounds right to me, so I'm going to try a relatively free translation, replacing 歪 with "pain" and 消す with "take away":

Take away this endless pain in my heart, Amethyst

Amethyst is the listener, referred to elsewhere in the song as 君.

This translation isn't perfect—maybe someone could comment if they can think of a way to improve it, particularly how to express 胸の歪. "Pain" isn't quite right for 歪, but I don't think the literal "distortion" is totally appropriate, either. Some dictionaries give "stress" or "strain" as possible choices for the more psychological meaning, like in 心の歪.

But in any case, I think this should get you a little closer to the author's intended meaning :-)

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  • It does help me, thanks for the kind reply. 歪 as Pain does feel more appropriated than distortion. You're right. As for 胸 being Heart too.
    – André
    Jun 3, 2014 at 11:40

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