美しき過ち utsukushiki ayamachi Beautiful Mistakes
This is a philological study of the Japanese phrase 美しき過ち (utsukushiki ayamachi), beautiful mistakes. It is not a Japanese saying but a house rendering, made in 2010 for an English phrase out of a pop lyric, and it examines why the classical Japanese phrase preserves the English's own ambiguity between an error, a fault, and an affair.
Abstract
美しき過ち, utsukushiki ayamachi, is not a Japanese saying: no Japanese song, novel, film or drama carries the title, and it is the house's own rendering, made in February 2010 to carry an English phrase. The English beautiful mistake runs from an error one learns from, through a wrong decision, to an affair, and, in slang, an unplanned child; the Japanese noun 過ち covers the first three in one register, and the classical attributive 美しき lends it the poetic distance of a title. The rendering was chosen because the ambiguity of the English and the ambiguity of the Japanese overlap, which is what a good translation does.
Overview
The sense. Literary: a classical adjective form kept today for titles and poems, on a common noun. A mistake, a wrong or an affair that one holds as beautiful, which is the spread the English has too. 過ち, ayamachi, is the noun the phrase turns on. デジタル大辞泉 gives it four senses: 1 まちがい。失敗, a mistake, a failure, with the example 過ちを恐れず試みる, try without fearing mistakes; 2 犯してしまった罪。過失, a wrong one has committed; 3 男女間の不倫。不義, an affair; 4 an injury, classical [1]. デジタル大辞泉 also gives the Confucian line its own entry, 過ちては改むるに憚ること勿れ, 《「論語」学而から》過ちを犯したら、ためらわないで改めよ, when you err, do not hesitate to mend it [2]. So the one noun runs from the error one learns from, through the wrong one owns, to the affair, with the moral tinge that English mistake also carries when it is serious.
The words. 美しき, utsukushiki, is the classical attributive of 美しい, beautiful, the form a noun follows; modern Japanese keeps it for titles and poetry, and three film and drama titles of 1991 to 2005 use it [3]. Classical 美し meant lovely, dear, endearing before it meant beautiful, and the 枕草子's list of うつくしきもの, lovely things, begins with a child's face drawn on a melon [4].
The text in English. Mistake runs the same road. An error one learns from, the happy accident that turned out well; a wrong decision; a relationship one should not have had and cherishes, which is what the 2021 Maroon 5 song Beautiful Mistakes sings about [5]; and, in slang since 1957, an unplanned child [6]. Beautiful in front of it chooses none of them. The Japanese covers the first three in one noun of one register, and reaches the fourth only through the third. The alternatives each narrow it: 失敗 to failure, 罪 to sin, 過失 to negligence, 誤り toward the correctable error; and 間違い, the one noun broader than 過ち, is plain speech under a classical adjective [7]. JMdict glosses 過ち as fault; error; indiscretion; faux pas and 美しい as beautiful; pretty; lovely; sweet; pure [8]. There is no bilingual dictionary lineage for the phrase, because it was made from English. What a rendering back into English must keep is the ambiguity: beautiful mistakes, plural and unspecified, is exactly right, and anything that picks a sense, happy accidents, lovely sins, is a different phrase.
The historical record
2008, and 2009, and February 2010. The requests began in 2009, before the song that now owns the phrase. It is the house's own rendering, made in February 2010 by Master Takase for a customer who asked for the English phrase as a design, citing the P!nk song Crystal Ball (2008): I'm learning to be brave in my beautiful mistakes [9].
Today. In Japanese, 過ち alone is the serious word: the usage guides call it the somewhat formal cousin of 間違い, used for the fault that is judged by social or moral norms [10], and 一夜の過ち, one night's mistake, is a stock phrase for an affair [11]. 美しき in front of it gives the phrase the poetic distance of a title, and lets the reader bring their own case to it. A Japanese reader meeting the phrase cold can hear a beautiful sin, and can also hear the poem; which they hear first no dictionary settles. The Japanese idioms for the happy accident by itself are other phrases, 怪我の功名, a lucky break from a blunder, and 失敗は成功のもと, failure is the seed of success [12]. The rendering stands against 美しい間違い, 美しい誤り and 美しい過失 for the reason above: the English is ambiguous, the Japanese is ambiguous, and the ambiguities overlap, which is what a good translation does.
What is not a source. This is not a Japanese saying. No Japanese song, novel, film or drama carries the title, and a search of titles, lyrics, poetry, blogs and the full text of the 青空文庫 finds the exact phrase only in fan subtitles of the Maroon 5 song.
A reading
The characters are sound, the register is right, and the phrase does the one thing a translation of this English has to do: it holds the mistake, the wrong and the affair the reader brings to it.
References
- 「過ち」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/過ち
- 「過ちては改むるに憚ること勿れ」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/過ちては改むるに憚ること勿れ
- 「美しき諍い女」, Japanese Wikipedia. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/美しき諍い女
- 「美しい」, 精選版日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/美しい
- "Beautiful Mistakes", English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Mistakes
- "mistake, n.", Green's Dictionary of Slang. https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/niy33jq
- 「誤り」・「過失」・「間違い」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/誤り
- JMdict (EDRDG), 「過ち」・「美しい」, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/過ち
- "Crystal Ball", lyrics, azlyrics.com. https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/pink/crystalball.html
- eigobu.jp, 「過ち」の意味. https://eigobu.jp/magazine/ayamachi
- ザテレビジョン, program finder, 一夜の過ち. https://thetv.jp/program/finder/drama/?free=一夜の過ち
- 「怪我の功名」・「失敗は成功のもと」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/怪我の功名