Kreutzer translation problem

[R. M. Cleminson]

I think it's quite certain that the Maudes are right: the old man (who represents the "traditional values" of early 19th-century Russia) is saying that adultery is not permissible for either men or women, but that the consequences for the family are less grave in the man's case as not introducing illegitimate children into it.  It is less clear why in this context he describes the woman as утлый сосуд, "a frail vessel" (or in older Russian "a leaky vessel", but surely not by the time Tolstoy was writing; does anyone know?).  It immediately calls to mind I Peter iii 7, where the wife is described as the weaker vessel, though the old man's concept of this is radically different from the Apostle's, who says that she should be honoured as such by her husband ("Οἱ ἄνδρες ... ὡς ἀσθενεστέρῳ σκεύει τῳ γυναικείῳ ἀπονέμοντες τιμὴν"), and in no Slavonic translation is ἀσθενέστερος rendered as утлый (nor should it be), but always correctly as немощнѣишїи.  (One might note en passant that the literal translation сосудъ appears only in the mid fourteenth century, earlier translators having preferred to render σκεῦος interpretatively as чясть "part" or вещь "nature".)  The idea would thus be more or less universally familiar (though one should also remember that the image of the human being as a vessel is used in Scripture of both sexes), even if it might be understood in very different ways.  What really worries me, however, is жено, which ought to be a vocative but clearly isn't. Can anyone offer an explanation for this form?

----- Pôvodná správa -----
Od: "Michael R. Katz" <mkatz at MIDDLEBURY.EDU>
Komu: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Odoslané: utorok, 28. august 2012 1:29:06
Predmet: [SEELANGS] Kreutzer translation problem

	Dear Colleagues:
>>
>> I am puzzling over one phrase in Chapter 1 of Tolstoy's Kreutzer
>>Sonata. 

>>Here's the lead up in English and the quote in Russian.
>>It's the second clause I don't get:
>>
>> “That’s the way you men think,” the lady said, not yielding and
>> glancing at us. “You’ve given yourselves freedom, but you want to
>> lock women up in a tower. Then I suppose you permit yourselves
>> everything.”

>> "Позволения никто не дает, а только что от мужчины в доме ничего не
>> прибудет, а женщина-жено — утлый сосуд —," продолжал внушать купец.
>>
>> The Maudes says "but a man doesn't bring offspring into the
>> home."

>> David McDuff says: "it's just that home profits nothing from a
>> man's endeavors."

>> Pevear and Volokhonsky say: 'it's only that a man doesn't bring
>> additions to the household."
>>
>> Does anyone have an idea for what he is talking about?
>>
>>	Michael Katz
		Middlebury College
>

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