Help with translation/understanding - 放たれた

I’m trying to understand a piece of grammar used in the lyrics to a song. The song is 七つの罪と罰 (Nanatsu no Tsumi to Batsu) and I’m looking at these lines specifically:

呪われた双子から 放たれた悪意の器
いかなる物語を 描くのか

Specifically, I’d like to know a little more about the conjugation of the verbs 呪われた and 放たれた. I’m having a hard time finding information about what it means or how it is used. Is this passive and past tense conjugation … or something else entirely?

The English translation has these lines as:

“The vessels of malice that were unleashed from the cursed twins
What sort of story do they paint?”

But I do not know how accurately it was translated.

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Correct, so the passive form of 放つ is conjugated by changing the last character as you would if you’re putting it in the negative ない (i.e. changing it to the “a” equivalent of つ → た) but then adding れる instead of ない

  • + れる → 放たれる

Verbs in passive form are considered regular る verbs then, so the last る is simply replaced by た when conjugating to past tense

  • 放たれ → 放たれた

The passive gives us information about what’s being done to the (passive) subject, so the vessel of malice that “was unleashed”

Same conjugation goes for 呪う, passive + past conjugation:

  • + れる → 呪われ → 呪われた

So “the twins who were cursed” → cursed twins


Edit to add:

Here are some sites where you can read up on the passive to get a better idea of how it’s used and conjugates:

Guide to Japanese
Maggie Sensei

Verbs in passive forms can modify nouns/noun phrases just like other verbs, so in your examples 放たれた modifies 悪意の器, and 呪われた modifies 双子

Hope that helps! :crabigator:

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You sir/ma’am have a great taste in music :ok_hand:

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