We continue our dive into music from Castlevania with "Prayer" from Symphony of the Night. This music plays during the opening menu and profile creation. Similar to "Epitaph" in that "Prayer" is a much slower and more thoughtful song than a lot of the other songs in the game, something that will carry through the rest of the series as it delves deeper into what is now known as Metroidvania (or Search Action games in Japan).
Something that I'd always wondered was what the lyrics were to this song and if they in fact meant anything or if they were just liturgical in origin. From what I found out, the music is originally composed by Michiru Yamane, although who's to say what influences she took from religious hymns and if there were any specific songs that she drew upon. The words on the other hand seem to have a more battled history as, more often than not, you are likely to come across a completely wrong reading/hearing of what is being said as evidenced in this Reddit thread from three years ago, and only recently and presumably accurately updated only seven months and 12 days ago. I agree with /u/atom_jiro that the lyrics are:
Auri largo (Perfectly Pure)/Auri Marie largo (Almighty pure Mary)/Auri largo (Perfectly Pure)/O'largo auri largo (Almighty perfectly pure)
Now, I'm no scholar in Latin, so again, I'm going to side with /u/atom_jiro with not only their translation but also their interpretation of Latin. I did like that they didn't try to make a direct comparison to how it relates to either Alucard, Richter, or any other of the overarching stories in either Rondo of Blood or Symphony of the Night, and left it up to the player to make their own interpretations.
And that's what we'll do here too.
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