Translation question

[Robert Chandler]

I would summarize the sense of the entire passage as follows: 'Virtue is its
own justification.  Inventing false stories in justification of virtue is
damaging.'

R.




> 18 Jan 07
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> A colleague in Moscow who is translating Samuel Butler into Russian has
> posed a question which I cannot answer (even the English in unclear to
> me).  Could anyone lend a helping hand?
> 
>> I hope, you wouldn't mind my bothering you about a difficult passage from
>> Samuel Butler, which I'm at a loss how to translate, and none of the
>> professional translators whom I asked was able to offer me a satisfactory
>> variant. So, your assistance as a native speaker and also Russian-speaking
>> literature scholar would be of an immense value to me.
>> 
>> Here's the passage:
>> 
>> "There is no casting of swine's meat before men worse than that which would
>> flatter virtue as though her true origin were not good enough for her, but
>> she must have a lineage, deduced as it were by spiritual heralds, from some
>> stock with which she has nothing to do." (Samuel Butler. The Way of All
>> Flesh. Chap. XIX (Par. 5))
>> 
>> I would appreciate very much any ideas regarding the translation or at least
>> explanation of the first part of the phrase prior to the first comma.
>> Definitely, there's a biblical allusion here ("cast pearls before swine"),
>> but what it MEANS in this context or how it is related to the rest of it, I'm
>> at my wits' end.
>> 
> Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
> 
> Regards to the list,
> 
> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
> 
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