There’s a quote in “Anna Karenina” that’s in German, and Tolstoy doesn’t bother to translate. I tried running it through Babelfish, with no luck. Anybody know what this means in English?:
“Himmlisch ist’s, wenn ich bezwungen
Meine irdische Begier;
Aber doch wenn’s nicht gelungen,
Hatt’ich auch recht hübsh Plaisir”
Here are the parts I know, translated with all the grace of a spastic rhino:
It is heavenly, when I overcome
My earthly desires
But, certainly, when it is not felicitious
I also have really nice (pleasure?)
I don’t think Plaisir is a standard German word. http://www.dict.leo.org didn’t have an entry for it, anyway. I think it was probably chosen because it rhymes with Begier and would be recognized by German-speaker who were familiar with other languages.
It is probably not an accident that plaisir, in French, can carry a sexual connotation.
I copied the text over to Babelfish on the net and hit translate from German to English…I don’t think it works quite as well as they hoped:
Himmlisch ist’s, if I defeated my terrestrial Begier; But nevertheless wenn’s not successfully, Hatt’ich also quite huebsh Plaisir
I did the same thing, Tomcat, and got the same response. That’s why I’m posting here (please read my original post).
tomndeb–very interesting point, considering the context of the quote (Stepan and Levin are discussin the pros and cons of cheating on one’s wife).
Yeah, Tomcat you’ve underscored the limitations of Babelfish, but you’ve also helped me clean up my translation somewhat:
It is heavenly, when I overcome
My earthly desires
But nevertheless, when I'm not successful,
It can also be quite pleasurable.
Well, it’s a little better anyway.
That’s spot on Boris.
Boris gave a perfect literal translation. In effect, it means:
“When I manage to stay faithful to my wife, I feel pretty good about that. But when I’m UNfaithful to my wife… well, THAT feels pretty good, too!”