Translation Help/Feedback - 硝子の瞳 (シド)

[Aarri]

Hi all!

I just recently took the Japanese test and was accepted to be a contributor for AL, so I've been working on some songs I wanted to see translated, one of which is 硝子の瞳 by シド. My Japanese is fairly good, but there were still a few sections, namely the chorus, where I ran into trouble -- even my Japanese roommate had difficulty figuring it out, so we never came to a conclusion! Below is what I have so far; the parts I'd like assistance with are bolded, and the red words are bits I'm especially unsure about. Thank you in advance!

遠くから　君が　壊れる音　聞こえてた
I could hear the sound of you breaking from far away

水面に映ってる　黒　澄んだ空の　深さは
The depth of the clear black sky, reflected on the water’s surface
僕らの向かうべき　場所を　濁すように　覆う
Conceals the place we should return to, as if blurring it

戻れない日々　背負ったら　漕ぎ出そう　この夜へ
If you’re burdened with the days we can’t go back to, let’s begin rowing into this night

抱きしめた　君の　華奢な未来は
I held close your fragile future, which seemed
儚く　壊れそうで　綺麗さ
so fleeting and broken, yet beautiful
何もかも　投げ出したっていいから　守りたい
It’s fine to throw away everything, because I want to protect you

君が　抱え込んだ　眠れない夜の　理由を
The reason behind the sleepless nights you were carrying in your arms
優しく　取り除くことは　できないけど
Can’t be removed gently, however

怖くはないさ　さあ手を繋いだなら　一緒に　堕ちてみよう
There’s no fear here, so if we join hands, let’s fall and find out together

抱きしめた　君の　華奢な未来は
I held close your fragile future, which seemed
儚く　壊れそうで　綺麗さ
so fleeting and broken, yet beautiful
何もかも　投げ出したっていいから　守りたい
It’s fine to throw away everything, because I want to protect you

遠くから　君が　壊れる音
I could hear the sound of you breaking from far away
微かに　聞こえた　気がしたんだ
I noticed that I could hear it faintly
鳴りやまない　答えのない　痛みは　終わらせよう
I will end this incessantly ringing pain, which has no answer

抱きしめた　君の　華奢な未来は
I held close your fragile future, which seemed
儚く　壊れそうで　綺麗さ
so fleeting and broken, yet beautiful
何もかも　投げ出したっていいから　この手で守るから
It’s fine to throw away everything, because I will protect you with these hands

My main two issues are: what is the function of 綺麗さ in the sentence? My roommate and I debated for like half an hour whether it's a noun ending in sa, or the sa is a sentence-end emphasis particle. Second, what are the subjects of 抱きしめた and 守りたい? You can see my interpretation above, but I'm still not sure if the 抱きしめたこと is 未来, and likewise if the 守りたいこと is 君 or 君の未来。

Any help and feedback is greatly appreciated! <3

[EJTranslations]

As a native speaker, your roommate is far more of an expert than I am, but I've never seen 綺麗さ as a noun--it's more usually the i-adjectives that are turned into nouns that way. Not to say that songwriters never make up words and do grammatically weird things, but my assumption would absolutely be that it's an emphatic さ unless I had really good reason to believe otherwise.

I would also be inclined to take 抱きしめた as operating in a sort of adjectival way to modify 未来 here--so in a strictly literal way which you should never use when actually translating, it's like "your held-close(-by-me), fragile future was fleeting and broken, yet beautiful," which is all to say that I think your current translation is fine. I'm not sure whether the 守りたいこと is 君 or 君の未来, though; it definitely seems like it could go either way. If you hadn't asked about it specifically, though, your current translation of that line wouldn't have registered as possibly incorrect for me, so... there's that?

Also, this might not matter, since I don't know if you're planning on submitting the kanji as you have them here, but I notice the last repetition of the chorus adds "with these hands" in the English but there's no change in the Japanese. Did you miss out some words/have a copy-paste error?

[Haze~]

Hey there! Wow, looks like I've been gone for longer than I had planned (whoops?).

Anywho, this mainly looks great to me. I just have a few teeny-tiny suggestions:

>僕らの向かうべき　場所
>Conceals the place we should return to

I personally think 「向かうべき場所」in this context is literally more like, "the place we should be heading to" or even "destination", if you will (as opposed to 「帰る/戻るべき場所」).

>抱きしめた　君の　華奢な未来は
>儚く　壊れそうで　綺麗さ
>何もかも　投げ出したっていいから　守りたい

Regarding 抱きしめた and 綺麗さ --- I agree with bluepenguin.

As for 守りたい... it really could go either way. If I had to choose, though, I'd probably go with 未来 simply because that's what the singer had been talking about prior to this line, so it makes sense for it to still be the subject.

But if you wanna get creative, I think it'd be okay to include both due to the ambiguity (and maybe leave a footnote, too).

>怖くはないさ　さあ手を繋いだなら　一緒に　堕ちてみよう
>There’s no fear here, so if we join hands, let’s fall and find out together

I'm pretty sure this is one of those cases where the ～たら conditional isn't exactly "if", but more of a "once [something is done]...". And I see where "find out" is coming from, but it seems like a bit of over-interpretation to me in this particular case.

Here's my version: "...so once we join hands, let's try falling down together." Or, "... so let's join hands and try falling down together." or something along those lines.

>微かに　聞こえた　気がしたんだ
>I noticed that I could hear it faintly

I think you might have 気がする mixed up with 気付く:
"I felt like I could..."

Hope this helps!

[Aarri]

Thank you both for the suggestions! I appreciate it very much.
bluepenguin, you're absolutely right -- for some reason the kanji didn't copy when I pasted it in, but the last line is supposed to be この手で守るから。 I'm also inclined to agree about the さ bit - SID's lyricist generally uses quite a few sentence end emphasis particles, so it feels like it's in the same vein to me.
And Haze~, no worries! I much prefer longer, detailed replies because it helps me learn better! ^^
Thank you both again for the feedback! I feel much better about this now, lol.

[Raichu]

sorry i know this discussion is a little old, but AFAIK the -sa ending applies to both -i and -na adjectives. kireisa is a word and as you can see in this thesaurus entry (http://thesaurus.weblio.jp/content/%E7%B6%BA%E9%BA%97%E3%81%95) it is similar in meaning to utsukushisa.

NB That doesn't mean that that's what the lyrics mean here, though. It's hard to comment without hearing the song, but just on the lyrics above, kireisa as a noun doesn't make much sense to me.