Translation queries: Ipatyevskaya letopis, 1184

[Ralph Cleminson]

Aha!  I can't open the link below, but I can read "vasilii-tati6ev" in
the URL, which gives the clue to the origin of the non-Hypatian
material, namely V. N. Tatiščev's "История российская".  Notoriously,
this contains a lot of material that is not to be found in the primary
sources, and the question is whether he found it in documents that were
still available to him, working in the 18th century, but are no longer
extant, or whether he made it up.

It appears that the creator of the document that this link is supposed
to lead to also had difficulty with his sources. The "самострельные
туги" are evidently a corruption of the "лоуци тоузи
самострѣлнии" of the chronicle,
which in Modern Russian would be "луки тугие самострельные", and are the
antecedent of the pronoun, which should therefore be сими.

The only way out of the translation difficulty, therefore, is to consult
an actual copy of Tatiščev's history (not some garbled internet
version), and cite what he says -- with the usual caveat regarding
"Tatiščev's material".

Incidentally, à propos of the original post, "Part of my confusion here
lies in the use of a bow, which should not be able to propel a liquid." 
Indeed: the chronicle does not say that it could.  It says that Končak
had a man who could shoot "living fire" AND he had ballistae, if that is
what they were.  (Experts on mediaeval warfare may care to offer an
opinion.)


>>> "Paul B. Gallagher" <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM> 02/07/10 5:53 PM
>>>


I did find another modern translation that had a somewhat different 
version of this excerpt:

<http://bookz.ru/authors/vasilii-tati6ev/istoria-_527/page-37-istoria-_527.html>

6693 (1185). Война половцев. Кончак кн. Стреляние огнем. Самострелы 
великие. Хорол р. Коварство половцев. Половцы побеждены. Безбожный и 
свирепый Кончак, князь половецкий, собрав войско великое, пошел на 
пределы русские, желая все города попленить и разорить, имея с собою 
мужа, умеющего стрелять огнем и зажигать грады, у коего были 
самострельные туги столь великие, что едва 8 человек могли натягивать, и

каждый укреплен был на возу великом. Сим мог бросать каменья в средину 
града  подъем человеку и для метания огня имел приспособление особое, 
небольшое, но весьма хитро сделанное.

Here I'm at a loss to understand the word "туги," but even if I could, I

would still have to wait for the author's correction. I assume "сим" is 
a typo for "сам" = "тот, он" and not for "сий," but I would render all 
of these simply as "he" so it doesn't matter.

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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