Translations are always a problem. The big blue I think is generally a reference to the sea, but it could be the sky. Zeus features in the legend.
The imagery in symphonic metal picked for the songs is always going to be derivative, of fantasy, and of each other, and of the native surroundings of each band.
Nightwish has the strange "christianity transplant" which shows up in a lot of medieval european culture where christianity has been superimposed on the native culture by conquest, inquisition and missionaries.
The imagery here I can't be sure that this has that in it, except maybe the last line. I can see the God=Zeus parallel, the whole origin of our modern concept of god is very twisted (Latin Deus actually is Zeus)
Where fantasy legends come from is harder to pin down even than religious ones. The Greek legend of Anesidora's Urn is usually cited as the origin of Pandora's Box, but really, no one knows for sure, it could be just another permutation of an older legend.
Anyway, Pandora's box is the one picked here for the song. I agree with the Peter Pan image, but then again, consider the etymology of the name Peter Pan. Speaking of christian-fantasy hybrids. (Not in a Narnia way.)
And I don't think that Nightwish is subtly trying to sell us on Jesus through fantasy, but just a hand down of the collective past to the present. Like their language.
Where these images come from to me is not as important as what they are saying. Poet and the Pendulum, for instance, is not a song about Edgar Allan Poe.
Overall, I love the imagery. I love the music also. I'd like to hear it in the original Suomi. I just have a handful of tracks untranslated.
Translations are always a problem. The big blue I think is generally a reference to the sea, but it could be the sky. Zeus features in the legend.
The imagery in symphonic metal picked for the songs is always going to be derivative, of fantasy, and of each other, and of the native surroundings of each band.
Nightwish has the strange "christianity transplant" which shows up in a lot of medieval european culture where christianity has been superimposed on the native culture by conquest, inquisition and missionaries.
The imagery here I can't be sure that this has that in it, except maybe the last line. I can see the God=Zeus parallel, the whole origin of our modern concept of god is very twisted (Latin Deus actually is Zeus)
Where fantasy legends come from is harder to pin down even than religious ones. The Greek legend of Anesidora's Urn is usually cited as the origin of Pandora's Box, but really, no one knows for sure, it could be just another permutation of an older legend.
Anyway, Pandora's box is the one picked here for the song. I agree with the Peter Pan image, but then again, consider the etymology of the name Peter Pan. Speaking of christian-fantasy hybrids. (Not in a Narnia way.)
And I don't think that Nightwish is subtly trying to sell us on Jesus through fantasy, but just a hand down of the collective past to the present. Like their language.
Where these images come from to me is not as important as what they are saying. Poet and the Pendulum, for instance, is not a song about Edgar Allan Poe.
Overall, I love the imagery. I love the music also. I'd like to hear it in the original Suomi. I just have a handful of tracks untranslated.
:)