[Ads-l] Request help with Russian in Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky

[Wilson Gray]

Looks perfectly okay, to me, both the original and the literary, i.e.
non-literal, interpretations.
Isn't Виктор/Viktor a native-speaker of Russian? See what he has to say.

On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 10:42 AM ADSGarson O'Toole <
adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:

> If you can read Russian and you would like to help me to verify a
> quotation in "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoyevsky then please read
> onward.
>
> Here is a citation for a quotation in an 1885 edition of Братья
> Карамазовы (Brothers Karamazov) followed by a link and the target
> text. The text appears in the left column of the Google Books page
> image about 27 lines down.
>
> [ref] 1885, Title: Братья Карамазовы (Brothers Karamazov), Series:
> Полное собраніе сочиненій Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Complete collection of
> Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky), Volume 6, Quote Page 175, Column 1,
> Publisher: Тип. А. С. Суворина. (Google Books Full View) [/ref]
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=KcZCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA175&
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> Въ этомъ Ты былъ правъ. Ибо тайна бытія человѣческаго не въ томъ,
> чтобы только жить, а въ томъ, для чего жить.
> [End excerpt]
>
> My question: Is the above text accurate?
>
> This citation appears in the following recent QI article:
> The Mystery of Human Existence Lies Not In Just Staying Alive, But In
> Finding Something To Live For
> https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/09/11/alive/
>
> Bonus question: Are the two translations in the QI article reasonably
> accurate?
>
> Translation 1: This is something about which You were right. For the
> mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in
> finding something to live for.
>
> Translation 2: In that Thou wast right. For the secret of man’s being
> is not only to live but to have something to live for.
>
> Thanks for your help
> Garson
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org