foxghost

一約既定，萬山無阻。我答應過你，即便永世負重逆行，吾往矣。

A vow is set in stone
Ten thousand mountains can’t stand in my way
I made you a promise
Even if my burden is heavy and I walk an eternity alone
I would never go back on our agreement
– Shen Wei

So much poetic license under cut

It’s really just “A vow is set” and “in stone” is totally my addition. 負重逆行 is more like “carry a heavy burden and go in the wrong direction” but it implies alone — or at least that’s my read because 負重前行 is the phrase it’s modified from, and that’s “walking ahead with a heavy burden.” Walking alone is what Shen Wei does.

I love how most fanvids i watched has agreed on what to do with the last three(actually 2, the third is a particle) words, which is to turn it into 8 words, and completely different from what it says.

*breathes*

吾往矣 reads “I” / “move towards any direction” / archaic ending sentence particle. It literally reads “I go.” It means “I will keep advancing bravely ahead” but while it sounds nice (actually “我答應過你” is definitely modern and _way_ casual, like finding “I said I would” in the middle of that. It’s an odd mix, who wrote this script?????) in Chinese, in English it does not follow. “I will forge bravely ahead” in Chinese is too boastful. And in the Mengzi it implied “I would not change my mind on what I first intended,” so … that’s how we all ended up tacitly with “I would never go back on our agreement.”

(Sometimes chinese gives you “I go” and you’re supposed to make it sound nice from 國文 knowledge.)