Thank you for your thorough analysis! The Dutch translation I'm using (there are about 6 or 7 translations I believe) is from 1956 and has 'Joost-weet-wat' for Tsar Gorokh, meaning 'the devil may know' – only 'the devil' has been replaced by 'Joost', which is a way to avoid saying 'the devil' out loud (it's an old word, short for 'dejos', which derives from the Portuguese 'deus'). The most recent Dutch translation has 'fretting'.
Anyway, I'm impressed by Dostojevski's skill in pulling us very quickly into this horrible and oppressing atmosphere where anything could happen.
Thanks for sharing the Dutch, Elfie. I've just got another translation, this one by Jessie Coulson, and she has translated it as 'fantastic nonsense'. It's such a fascinating project to be comparing all these versions!
Great article! It's very interesting to read about the comparison of translations. For me, the closest translation of Tsar Pea is by Katz – “once-upon-a-time”, where the emphasis is on something that happened long ago, in better times. Tsar Gorokh was like a saying — "so long ago, during Tsar Gorokh's reign," meaning we don't even remember exactly when, but it was in some good old times.
Thank you for your thorough analysis! The Dutch translation I'm using (there are about 6 or 7 translations I believe) is from 1956 and has 'Joost-weet-wat' for Tsar Gorokh, meaning 'the devil may know' – only 'the devil' has been replaced by 'Joost', which is a way to avoid saying 'the devil' out loud (it's an old word, short for 'dejos', which derives from the Portuguese 'deus'). The most recent Dutch translation has 'fretting'.
Anyway, I'm impressed by Dostojevski's skill in pulling us very quickly into this horrible and oppressing atmosphere where anything could happen.
Thanks for sharing the Dutch, Elfie. I've just got another translation, this one by Jessie Coulson, and she has translated it as 'fantastic nonsense'. It's such a fascinating project to be comparing all these versions!
Great article! It's very interesting to read about the comparison of translations. For me, the closest translation of Tsar Pea is by Katz – “once-upon-a-time”, where the emphasis is on something that happened long ago, in better times. Tsar Gorokh was like a saying — "so long ago, during Tsar Gorokh's reign," meaning we don't even remember exactly when, but it was in some good old times.