It’s pretty hard to translate titles, so I avoided doing it, mostly. This is because titles often… sound bland or nonsensical when they’re translated into another language. So translators often get very liberal with the translations, or make up a title on their own.

Anyway, here are my attempts at translating the titles of the Saiunkoku novels and Gaidens. I’ve included both a literal and a liberal one.


はじまりの風は紅く
Literal: The Wind of the Beginning is Crimson
Liberal: The Crimson Wind of the Beginning; The First Wind is Crimson; It Begins with the Crimson Wind (Ruby’s translation)

黄金の約束
Literal: Golden Promise
Liberal: Eh, it’s fine

花は紫宮に咲く
Literal: Flowers Bloom in the Purple Palace
Liberal: Eh, I guess it’s okay.. I might change it to Violet because I think Purple Palace sounds kind of silly.

想いは遙かなる茶都へ
Literal: Thoughts of the Far-off Sa Capital
Liberal: I guess it’s not so bad; Sa Province on my mind? (no, this sounds dumb). To preserve the color naming, perhaps Sa should be left as brown.

漆黒の月の宴
Literal: Banquet of the Pitch-black Moon
Liberal: Banquet of the New Moon; Banquet of Ebon Moon (Or jet, raven, onyx; Onyx might be good)

欠けゆく白銀の砂時計
Literal: The Silver Sandglass Is Running Out
Liberal: The Sands of the Silver Hourglass are Flowing; Sand Running Out of a Silver Hourglass

心は藍よりも深く
Literal: A Heart Deeper than Indigo
Liberal: A Soul Deeper than Indigo

光降る碧の大地
Literal: Light Falls on the Green Land
Liberal: Light Descends Upon the Verdant Land

紅梅は夜に香る
Literal: The Crimson Plum is Fragrant at Night
Liberal: The Night Fragrance of the Crimson Plum; The Scent of the Crimson Plum at Night

緑風は刃のごとく
Literal: The Green Wind is Like a Blade
Liberal: A Green Wind as Keen as a Blade; (the green wind is literally early summer wind, but I felt we need to keep in the colors)

青嵐にゆれる月草
Literal: The Dayflower Trembles in the Blue Storm
Liberal: The “moon grass” is this plant. However, I think that as the author has gone through the trouble of using non-standard kanji for the plant, we should uh… be inaccurate and call it a Moonflower or Moongrass, as isn’t “Dayflower” kind of the opposite of “moongrass”?

白虹は天をめざす
Literal: The White Rainbow Shoots into the Sky
Liberal: The Moonbow Rises into the Heavens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rainbow: I had no idea these even existed… But I guess we should keep the “white” part to preserve the color theme)

黎明に琥珀はきらめく
Literal: Amber Glistens at Dawn
Liberal: Amber Gleams at Dawn (alt)

黒蝶は檻にとらわれる
Literal: The Black Butterfly Trapped in a Cage
Liberal: Eh, ain’t the above redundant? Black Butterfly Entrapped; the Captured Black Butterfly, Black Butterfly Caged

朱にまじわれば紅
Literal: Ugh, this is from a proverb. 朱にまじわれば赤くなる is the original. It means that one shall be influenced by one’s friends. So I guess I’ll agree with Ruby’s translation. Being Near Scarlet Makes One Crimson
Liberal: Touch Scarlet, Become Crimson? XD The Red Rubs Off On You

藍より出でて青
Literal: Blue Flows from Indigo
Liberal: Hey, guess what! It’s ANOTHER SAYING!! See here (if you can read Japanese). It essentially means: Blue that comes from indigo may be bluer than indigo. In other words, the student may surpass the master. Eh… I don’t know if this can be translated. “Blue may surpass Indigo?” But the meaning is still unclear. :/

隣の百合は白
Literal: The Lily Next Door is White
Liberal: The Lily is Whiter on the Other Side of the Fence. (Whee, finally a kotowaza/proverb that TRANSLATES). This comes from the kotowaza 隣りの芝は青い. Which translates into the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

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