Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-6192846-20141209211951/@comment-146.113.75.124-20150608152928

This is a minor thing, and I'm not sure how it's come up in the book yet (it might just be wordplay in the song), but I was talking to my Japanese teacher and it seems that 眠り姫 (nemuri hime) is how the Japanese language translated the name "Sleeping Beauty" (as in, that's what Sleeping Beauty is to them.) 眠らせ姫 (nemurase hime) is meant to be a subversion on this, turning the verb qualifier into the causative form.

This is a problem for me and I was wondering if I could get some opinions on it. 眠らせ姫 has already been established as "the princess who brought sleep/the sleep princess" (although the meaning is closer to "princess who makes you sleep"). It is supposed to be a bit of wordplay on 眠り姫, "the sleeping princess". With all this in mind, which would be the best way to translate 眠り姫? The too literal "Sleeping Princess" to play off of "Princess Who Brought Sleep"? Or the actual meaning, "Sleeping Beauty", which sacrifices the wordplay but keeps in the cultural reference?