Stephen Bruce has been a reader and sometime commenter at the Hattery for over a decade; a couple of years ago he wrote me that my post on Veltman’s novel Странник [The Wanderer] inspired him to do a translation, and he now informs me that it is scheduled for publication next year from Northwestern University Press. As I told him, I am wildly excited about the news, and I will of course promote the translation vigorously when it appears. He had some questions he thought the assembled Hattery might be able to help with, and I reproduce them below:
1. Chapter XXX: “держитесь за перилы! не глядите вниз, иначе голова закружится, и вы, избави бог, отправитесь к источнику сил, как говорит г. Сочинитель Метамеханики.”
I assume this is a self-reference, but I may have missed something. My note: Metamechanics: apparently an invention of the author, who in the short story “Erotida” says metamechanics is concerned with “the laws of spiritual movements in nature.”
2. Chapter XLVII: “Как тиринтиец, я лопнул со смеха, когда увидел, как две водовозные клячи…”
I translate this as “Tirynthian” and at one point came up with these two possibilities: “Possibly Hercules, from Tiryns; but perhaps instead one of the Tarentines who laughed at the dress of the Roman ambassadors.”
3. Chapter XCI: “по границе бывшей Турецкой империи, или все равно, по бывшей границе Турецкой империи. Перестановка слов ничего не значит; впрочем, Кромвель и запятой воспользовался…”
Perhaps I am missing something in the reference to Cromwell. Here’s my current note: “Cromwell. . .: possibly alluding to a story in Geoffrey le Baker’s chronicles (c. 1356) about a message sent to the keepers of the castle where King Edward II was imprisoned: “Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est.” Depending on where the punctuation is placed, it can mean either “Do not fear to kill Edward—it is good” or “Do not kill Edward—it is good to fear.” Oliver Cromwell was involved in the execution of a different king, Charles I, in 1649.”
4. Chapter XCVIII: “Туда, как в Керамин… мудрецы мои! сбираетесь вы судить и рядить, пить и плясать.”
Akutin [the not-always-reliable annotator of the Soviet edition] has Keram, but the first edition has Keramin. My note: “perhaps Ceramicus, a district of northwest Athens, or Abel-keramim or “plain of the vineyards,” ancient town in what is now Jordan (mentioned in Judges 11:33).” But am I missing anything?
5. Chapter CCXXII: “Но натуральный термин..”
I assume that the “lunar disease” here is menstruation (?), but I don’t know what “natural term” the medic is referring to.
The full context of the line in 5 (the Wanderer is discussing a squadron of Amazons with a doctor):
Я вышел из своего шатра, невольно взглянул на шатер Царь-Девицы, с золотой маковкой… сердце затрепетало желанием битвы, и я вскричал:
Лейб-Амазонский эскадрон
Построить близ моей палатки!Дежурный
Нельзя-с, большая часть больны.Я
Как!.. чем?Медик
От действия луны…Я
Вот кстати лунные припадки!
Но должно им скорей помочь,
Мы выступаем в эту ночь!Медик
Есть способ легкий, хоть старинный:
Поить водою розмаринной;
Но натуральный термин…Я
Ох, с амазонками беда!
Не подражать бы им Минерве!
Но мы оставим их в резерве —
Походный с нами гошпиталь.
Однако ж это очень жаль!..
Без них мне скучно!..
Any help will be deeply appreciated by both the learned translator and your humble blogger.
For #3 I have googled up a blog post by Prof. Arnold Zwicky about Oliver Cromwell, Edward I (not II …), and comma usage. It’s interesting but I don’t think it helps explain Veltman. https://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/03/18/edward-i-as-oliver-cromwell/
Of course Oliver is not the only Кромвель who ever existed. See https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C_(%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F)
Wow, there were indeed a lot of them!
“Lunar disease” could be lunacy, madness or seizures provoked by the full moon. It’s månesyke in Norwegian, no doubt from German Mondsucht, and Russian calques German too.
About a third of those people are wife, sons, daughters, uncle etc of the Lord Pro.
Term as in semester, or a phrase, or the term of your natural life? (Not that I have anything useful to add, I’m merely curious).
I also thought of the idea that sleeping in moonlight makes you mad.
Is the rosemary water so-called Hungary water? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary_water
Good for headache, toothache and ringing ears, wikipedia says, but you might be able to find a more relevant ailment.
Re Cromwell, was the sentence “King Charles I walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off.” known in his (V’s) time? Missing a semicolon, but maybe V thought a comma would do.
I suspect that to a Russian reader the comma story would almost surely allude to (some variant of) the famous phrase казнить нельзя помиловать – basically a Russian-localized version of the Edward II message, AFAIK variously attributed to assorted 18th century Russian rulers. I’m not aware of a Cromwell attribution but I’m not exactly familiar with the sources from Veltman’s time.
[EDIT: apparently the now-popular Russian phrase is not attested at all before the 20th century. I guess it could also be a mistaken direct reference to the Edward II message…]
As for the Tyrinthian, as far as I can tell from the Google results, the exact form тиринтиец occurs in 1) Veltman, 2) references to Heracles/Hercules. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t Hercules.
One particular long-shot option sent me to Ovid’s Metamorphoses book IX line 66, where Hercules is both called the Tyrinthian and laughs in the same scene; I don’t think I can rule out a reference to this specific line, though if so it would be a strange one.
An excellent find! I’m pretty sure Veltman would have been familiar with Ovid.
I suppose the expression натуральный термин means something like, there is nothing you can do really, because the onset and the end of the “disease” are defined by nature.
I assumed that натуральный термин must have been an euphemism for something because it didn’t seem to rhyme with anything (and was missing a syllable), but I’ve looked up the original edition and (just as I suspected) the following answer actually starts with a Да which naturally completes the line. (Is that actually missing in the edition you’re quoting?)
[EDIT: I checked, and indeed the ending of that line is missing in modern editions.]
Given this emendation/correction, the euphemism theory becomes less plausible, and I’m inclined to agree with Alexey: it’s probably a “natural term” in the timing sense.
As for the disease, I agree that it’s probably lunacy (in whatever sense – the specific word припадки would make me think of epilepsy, but I don’t know if that word was used more generically in Veltman’s time), but given the context it could be menstruation, I think. Not sure.
If I may stretch my non-existing Russian to its limits…The context is amazons planning an attack. “Oh, right, moonly attacks. But the relief must come fast We’ll act tonight.”
Moonlit attacks, fits of madness, epileptic seizures, monthly qualms. I think the multi-layered ambiguity between archaic meanings is intended, even what the poem is centered around, so the question is how to preserve (or recreate) those layers in English.
Thanks to all the commenters so far, and if anyone else has any ideas, keep them coming!
I’m now inclined to agree that lunacy in a broad sense is more likely. January First-of-May, you were right to want to check the first edition. Unfortunately there are some omissions in Akutin’s edition, though I think I have caught all of them in my translation.
Термин in modern Russian only means a word or phrase, but some historical dictionaries list it with the “period” meaning as in English (usually срок in Russian).
And I think that Ovid verse you found nails it, not only because Veltman loved obscure references, but also because Ovid occupies a prominent role in the book, in a dialogue between him and Augustus. Both Veltman and Pushkin were fascinated by the figure of Ovid, who was exiled to the same region of Moldavia/Bessarabia where they ended up (Pushkin’s so-called “southern exile”).
ТЕРМИНЪ , съ Лат . толкуется срокъ уреченный (Termin, from Latin, means “predetermined time period”) from a 1816 glossary of Russian Church terminology (citing a 1756 edict against the heresy of the Quakers!).
https://www.google.com/books/edition/T%EF%B8%A0%EF%B8%A1Serkovny%C4%AD_slovar%CA%B9_S_V/gsYaAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%D0%A2%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8A&pg=PA167&printsec=frontcover
The whole passage about the Moon and “termin” leaves no doubts that the Amazons were out of commission because of the menstrual periods (traditionally called месяца, “months” but literally Moon-crescents), and, while the Medic could alleviate some symptoms by rosemary water, there was nothing to be done about the naturally predetermined duration of the periods.
The Cromwell Road that the Natural History Museum is on is apparently named after Thomas Cromwell, son of the Lord Pro, but that doesn’t seem to be known for sure.
No, he wasn’t. He was exiled to Tomis (in modern Romania). Bessarabia/Moldavia was never part of the Roman Empire It seems 18th/19th century Russians had a problem with ancient geography — ancient Odessus was far away from modern Odesa.
In case you were wondering why Hercules laughed: rule 34.
…no, not that one. The one from the Evil Overlord list.
I see that Evil Overlords refuse to split even passive infinitives (Rule 9).
Dmitry, a good point in favor of my first interpretation. And here is теримн with a temporal meaning as late as 1864, in Leskov’s No Way Out (Некуда): “[Лиза] определила, что настоящие ее дни есть приготовительный термин ко вступлению в жизнь с настоящими представителями бескорыстного человечества.”
Ulr, you’re right. I was misremembering and thinking of the historical principality of Moldavia, now split between Moldova and Romania. But Tomis (Constanța) is in the historical region of Dobrugea/Dobruja. Veltman himself thought Tomi(s) was the Mankalya (Mangalia) of his day, farther down the coast:
Pushkin, I imagine, was not as concerned with geographic accuracy in his self-identification with Ovid.