Hatrið mun sigra (Hate Will Prevail) - translation/commentary

This song has an official English translation. The music video has official subtitles. However, this translation is fairly loose; it’s written as if they were writing new English lyrics communicating the same ideas, rather than translating the original lyrics exactly. That’s a sensible way to go about translating lyrics - you can aim for preserving things like meter and rhyme while getting the point across. However, for fans of the band, it’s fun to also know exactly what the original lyrics say!

I know I’m not the first person to do this, but as usual, I will be including some notes and commentary, and I hope you’ll find them interesting/illuminating.

If you’d like to see other Hatari material transcribed/translated, feel free to drop an ask in my askbox!
Icelandic lyrics

MATTHÍAS:

Hö!

Svallið var hömlulaust

Þynnkan er endalaus

Lífið er tilgangslaust

Tómið heimtir alla


Hatrið mun sigra

Gleðin tekur enda

Enda er hún blekking,

svikul tálsýn


KLEMENS:

Allt sem ég sá

Runnu niður tár

Allt sem ég gaf,

eitt sinn gaf

Ég gaf þér allt


MATTHÍAS:

Alhliða blekkingar

Einhliða refsingar

Auðtrúa aumingjar!

Flóttinn tekur enda

Tómið heimtir alla


Hatrið mun sigra,

Evrópa hrynja

Vefur lyga

Rísið úr öskunni,

sameinuð sem eitt


KLEMENS:

Allt sem ég sá

Runnu niður tár

Allt sem ég gaf,

eitt sinn gaf

Ég gaf þér allt


Allt sem ég sá

Runnu niður tár

Allt sem ég gaf,

eitt sinn gaf

Ég gaf þér allt


Ég gaf þér allt

Ég gaf þér allt


MATTHÍAS:

Hatrið mun sigra,

ástin deyja


KLEMENS:

Ég gaf þér allt


MATTHÍAS:

Hatrið mun sigra

Gleðin tekur enda


KLEMENS:

Ég gaf þér allt


MATTHÍAS:

Enda er hún blekking

Svikul tálsýn


Hatrið mun sigra


English translation

MATTHÍAS:

Huh!

The debauchery was unconstrained

The hangover is endless

Life is pointless

The void will swallow everyone


Hate will prevail

Happiness will end

After all, it’s a deception,

a treacherous illusion


KLEMENS:

Everything I saw

Tears ran down

Everything I gave,

once gave

I gave you everything


MATTHÍAS:

Universal deception

Unilateral punishments

Gullible wimps!

Escape will be curtailed

The void will swallow everyone


Hate will prevail,

Europe crumble

A web of lies

Rise from the ashes,

united as one


KLEMENS:

Everything I saw

Tears ran down

Everything I gave,

once gave

I gave you everything


Everything I saw

Tears ran down

Everything I gave,

once gave

I gave you everything


I gave you everything

I gave you everything


MATTHÍAS:

Hate will prevail,

love will die


KLEMENS:

I gave you everything


MATTHÍAS:

Hate will prevail

Happiness will end


KLEMENS:

I gave you everything


MATTHÍAS:

After all, it’s a deception,

a treacherous illusion


Hate will prevail!


Translation notes

So “Escape will be curtailed” is an interesting one. The Icelandic line is “Flóttinn tekur enda”, or “The fleeing will end”. What I at least get out of that line as written in Icelandic is not that you’ll be stopped from escaping, but that you’ll no longer have to flee. The first time I heard the song, I actually interpreted it as being about, like, fascists and authoritarians being able to be out in the open again. But the official translation of “Escape will be curtailed” is presumably what they actually meant by it, and that really makes more sense, so I’m just going with that translation.

The official translation, I think, sort of tries to connect the ideas a bit more, where the original lyrics are largely just a series of stark individual statements or images throughout. The official translations for Spillingardans and Klefi/Samed do this too. I kind of think the original is stronger and contributes to the mercilessly impersonal feel of Matthías’s part. (Matthías tends to have two kinds of lyrics in Hatari songs: either these sorts of brief stark exclamations, or long extremely articulate sentences.)

Obviously, this song is about the rise of fascism and hate in Europe (and around the world), while Klemens gently weeps over the horror of what he’s seeing. I find Matthías’s exact role in the song here kind of interesting, though. In the music video, he’s clearly playing the fascist leader, with a rally and everything, so when he commands us to Rise from the ashes, united as one!, it makes it sound pretty sinister - when I first listened to the song, I interpreted what he was getting at as “Europe will crumble [because of those migrants and refugees etc], but we [fascists] must rise from the ashes and unite”. But the lyrics may make more sense if Matthías is instead really playing the sort of character that he plays in, say, Spillingardans - the person who just sees what’s happening and lays it bare, who in this song gets a rare moment of actually proposing some hopeful action: “Europe will crumble [because of the fascism], but we [everyone else] must rise from the ashes and unite”.

Either way, remember to love before hate prevails, everyone. You don’t want to make Klemens cry. I would not say no to more Klemens covered with blood in future Hatari videos though
