Sinuhe 2011

[Rob A.]

Paskahousu might come from Swedish skitstövel, although stövel is a boot rather than pants.

Maybe the !"#¤% had fallen from the pants to the boots when Swedes saw the fleeing soldiers during the Thirty Years war

Well, that was certainly a possibility...the Swedes had a lot of trouble keeping order in their army which was a rather mercenary one.... A big part of the reason for the scale of the destruction.... That was the era of the Hakkapeliitta.

[Aside: I was surprised to read recently that the Swedes were even as far south as the Hohenlohe area....just north of Stuttgart.... That was a Protestant area right on the edge of Catholic areas so it was quite a mess for the peasants who would be taxed... "Kriegsteuer"... and otherwise imposed on by both sides, depending on the flow of the battles.... The folk memory of the Thirty Years War was retained for centuries afterwards.... Bett Kinder Bett, Morgen kommt der Schwed, Morgen kommt der Oxenstern.... ]

[Rob A.]

Several more paragraphs....

1. Mutta niin on ollut myös ennen. Myös paimenkuninkaiden aikana makasi loistokatoksen varjossa mies, joka oli viettänyt yönsä savilattialla. Myös silloin vieraat tulivat ja löivät lasten päät murskaksi talojen kynnyksiin ja sitoivat orjiksi vaimot, jotka olivat pukeutuneet kuninkaalliseen pellavaan. Silloinkin miehet, jotka olivat rakentaneet itselleen hautoja lännen vuoriin, lyötiin hengiltä ja heidän ruumiinsa viskattiin virtaan.

...“But so it has also been before. Also during the Shepherd’s King’s time in the shadow of a luxury shelter laid a man who had spend his night on a clay floor. Also then strangers beat to pieces children’s heads on the stoops of houses and bound as slaves the women, who were dressed in royal linen. Then men, who had built for themselves tombs in the mountains of the west, were beaten to death and their bodies were thrown into the river.”

a. loistokatto ...I had a bit of trouble getting a good sense of this word.... "luxury shelter"???
b. löivät....Well, believe it or not...this word drove me crazy....until I figured out it is from the verb, lyödä... ... I then recalled that feature of Finnish noun inflection known as "vowel shortening"...

http://www.stanford.edu/~laurik/fsmbook ... ction.html

c. lyötiin hengiltä..."beat from life/breath/spirit"... This is an interesting idiom ...and seems to be commonly used in newspapers....

Any comments on the rest this paragraph??

2. Ei siis ole tapahtunut mitään uutta silmieni nähden, vaan mikä on ennen tapahtunut, on tapahtuva myös vastaisuudessa. Niinkuin ihminen ei muuttunut ennen, niin hän ei ole muuttuva vastaisuudessakaan. Ne, jotka tulevat jälkeeni, ovat samoja, jotka elivät ennen minua. Miten he siis voisivat ymmärtää minun viisauteni? Miksi toivoisin heidän lukevan minun sanani?

...“Therefore, nothing new has happened that I see (with) my own eyes, but that which has happened before, will also be happening in the future. As man has not changed before, so he will not change in the future. Those, who will come after me, will be the same, as those who lived before me. How could they understand my wisdom? Why would I hope that they will read my words?”

I didn't find anything too difficult, though I'm not sure about the following:

a. silmieni nähden.... Have I got the right sense of this? It seems to be in the present tense while the main clause is in the past tense. I know the rules for subordinate clauses are a little different in Finnish than English....maybe I need to review that again....
b. Niinkuin...wiktionary says this is a common misspelling of niin kuin... Is it??
c. vastaisuudessakaan...what would be a good translation for this word? ...the kaan suffix implies negation of some sort.

3. Mutta minä Sinuhe, kirjoitan tämän itseni tähden, koska tieto kalvaa sydäntäni lipeän kaltaisena ja kaiken iloini olen menettänyt elämästä. Maanpakolaisuuteni kolmantena vuonna minä tämän kirjani aloitan, itäisen meren rannalla, mistä laivat purjehtivat Puntin maahan, lähellä erämaata, lähellä vuoria, joista kuninkaat muinoin louhivat kiviä kuviaan varten. Kirjoitan tämän, koska viini maistuu karvaalta kurkussani. Kirjoitan tämän, koska olen kadottanut halun iloita naisten kanssa eikä puutarha ja lammikko kaloineen enää ilahduta silmiäni. Kylminä öinä talven aikaan lämmittää musta tyttö vuoteeni, mutta minulla ei ole iloa hänestä. Olen karkottanut laulajat luotani ja kielisoittimien ja huilujen äänet ärsyttävät korviani. Siksi kirjoitan tämän, minä, Sinuhe, joka en tee mitään rikkaudella ja kultaisilla maljoilla, myrhalla, mustalla puulla, ja norsunluulla.

...“But I, Sinuhe, am writing this for my own sake, because the knowledge gnaws at my heart like to lye and all my joys have left from life. During the third year of my exile I am starting this book of mine, on the coast of the eastern sea, from where boats sail to the Land of Punt, near the desert, near the mountains, from which kings of long ago quarried for the use of the stones for images. I am writing this, because wine tastes bitter in my throat. I am writing this, because I have lost the desire to be happy with women nor do a garden or pond along with its fishes any longer delight my eyes. At the time of the cold winter nights, a black girl warms my bed, But I have no pleasure from her. I have driven away the singers from me and the sounds of stringed instruments and flutes annoy my ears. That’s why I write this, I, Sinuhe, who make nothing of riches and golden goblets, of myrrh, of black wood (ebony??) and of ivory.

a. Maanpakolaisuuteni...does this mean, "my exile..."??
b. kolmantena...I think this is in the essive case and literally means, "during the third.."??
c. louhivat kiviä kuviaan varten...I had some trouble with this phrase.....The idea here is that rocks are being quarried for use in making statues.
d. lammikko kaloineen......."a small pond along with its fishes..."....I think this is in the instructive case??
e. en tee mitään....this seems to mean..."I make nothing..."???
f. musta puu....is this another word for "ebony" ...eebenpuu, or does it just mean "black wood"??

[AldenG]

I'll take paragraph 1.

The word you're looking for is loisto+katos, the latter being not quite the same thing as katto. It is a covering (in the sense of roof), an open shelter IOW, and in the context, I interpret it as a luxurious canopy like you could imagine seeing Elizabeth Taylor under in an Egypt epic. Silks and chiffons blowing in the breeze and all that, though I guess those may have come a bit later than Sheperd Kings. Did Ran have something like that, too?

The rest is quibbles.

I've read paimenkuninkaiden as Shepherd Kings', but on reflection I'm not sure that's a substantive difference. Nor even certain that it's a correct interpretation. Mustalaiskuningas, The Gypsy King, is still the gypsies' king as much he is a gypsy king, and I guess mustalaisten kuningas would inevitably become mustalaiskuningas.

Your translation of vaimot as women is the first time I recall noticing the similarity in the words (not that my recall is all that great) and wondered if it's as non-coincidental as one would imagine. I've read this as a reference to royal wives being turned into slaves.

Good job on lyö/n löi/n, and be alert also to luo/n loi/n and all the others like syö söi, suo soi, tuo toi, and so on.

[jahasjahas]

Paimenkuninkaiden is definitely plural, so the shepherd kings'. My knowledge of Egyptian history is non-existent, so I've no idea who they were or what they're traditionally called in English.

c. lyötiin hengiltä..."beat from life/breath/spirit"... This is an interesting idiom ...and seems to be commonly used in newspapers....

I'd simply say "slay". Also, when crushing the heads of children earlier, the hitting/beating part isn't that important either.

a. silmieni nähden.... Have I got the right sense of this? It seems to be in the present tense while the main clause is in the past tense. I know the rules for subordinate clauses are a little different in Finnish than English....maybe I need to review that again....

I don't see anything related to the present tense here. Silmieni nähden is a bit poetic (like lots of things in Sinuhe). "There has been nothing new for my eyes to see"? "My eyes have seen nothing new" might sound better.

Related: "Älä käytä tuollaista kieltä lasten kuullen." = "Don't use such language in front of the kids."

(I'm skipping things here, since it's late and you got it mostly right.)

e. en tee mitään....this seems to mean..."I make nothing..."???

En tee mitään X:llä = I have no use for X.

f. musta puu....is this another word for "ebony" ...eebenpuu, or does it just mean "black wood"??

I don't think I've ever heard it used for ebony, but that's what it clearly means here.

[Rob A.]

Thanks

Paimenkuninkaiden is definitely plural, so the shepherd kings'. My knowledge of Egyptian history is non-existent, so I've no idea who they were or what they're traditionally called in English.

I don't know much about ancient Egypt either...other than "Anthony and Cleopatra"...but according to wikipedia the time of the "Shepherd Kings", or "Hyksos", would have been between about 2,000BC and 1,000BC...it was a period of foreign invasion, foreign rulers, and I guess a lot of unrest and violence...

Your translation of vaimot as women is the first time I recall noticing the similarity in the words (not that my recall is all that great) and wondered if it's as non-coincidental as one would imagine. I've read this as a reference to royal wives being turned into slaves.

Well...I guess you saw more there than I actually did....I meant to translate, vaimot, as "wives"....but somehow the word, "women", stuck in my mind ... I see now that it is an archaic word for "women"....however, I certainly can't offer any opinion as to whether or not the author would have intended that use...

Good job on lyö/n löi/n, and be alert also to luo/n loi/n and all the others like syö söi, suo soi, tuo toi, and so on.

Thanks...these things still throw me off a bit sometimes....though I had no trouble catching öinä....the essive plural form for yö... These small words can sometimes "shapeshift" so dramatically they can be almost unrecognizable to us non-native speakers....

[AldenG]

Paimenkuninkaiden is definitely plural, so the shepherd kings'. My knowledge of Egyptian history is non-existent, so I've no idea who they were or what they're traditionally called in English.

Hmm, good point. I was distinguishing between Shepherds' Kings' (paimenten kuninkaiden) and Shepherd Kings' (paimenkuninkaiden), both plural, and didn't notice Rob had actually written Shepherd's King's. And I also sort of concluded you wouldn't say Shepherds' Kings' in either language, regardless of which was intended -- if there was even any difference between them at all. At least you wouldn't use it in a name like that, though you might talk about certain particular shepherds' kings' something-or-other.

silmieni nähden.... Have I got the right sense of this?

If it helps to get more word-for-word, then silmieni nähden is "[in/with] my eyes' seeing" and lasten kuullen is "[in/with] children's hearing." So -en is yet another kind of "ing" ending, as though there weren't enough with -va and -ma and -minen and what-have-you.

Two common constructs with it are
_____n _____en (as here)
and also
______ _____en (with nominative instead of genitive) -- Poliisiautot ajoivat sireenit ulvoen (with sirens "howling").

It's not trivial to learn to use this -en correctly (to choose between it and other "ing" forms) but fortunately it is very easy to learn to recognize and understand it once you've dealt with a few instances. It's the 2nd infinitive instructive form, but I looked that up just for you. It's so simple and so common that it doesn't seem to need a name most of the time.

You got the meaning of kaloineen right, but it is called the comitative or associative case. That one I can always remember because of con, comme, commiserate, etc. (It'd be funny if the word comitative comes from something else entirely.)

Instructive (aka instrumental) would be kaloin and I can't think of any reasonable way to use that. But if you'll settle for jaloin, it occurs in phrases like paljain jaloin and kuivin jaloin, with bare feet or dry feet. It's not a case you can go around applying to words at random, unlike most of the other cases.

[Rob A.]

Paimenkuninkaiden is definitely plural, so the shepherd kings'. My knowledge of Egyptian history is non-existent, so I've no idea who they were or what they're traditionally called in English.

Hmm, good point. I was distinguishing between Shepherds' Kings' (paimenten kuninkaiden) and Shepherd Kings' (paimenkuninkaiden), both plural, and didn't notice Rob had actually written Shepherd's King's. And I also sort of concluded you wouldn't say Shepherds' Kings' in either language, regardless of which was intended -- if there was even any difference between them at all. At least you wouldn't use it in a name like that, though you might talk about certain particular shepherds' kings' something-or-other.

A bit of carelessness on my part...I was getting a bit tired going through this and didn't proofread it properly. I think I intended "Shepherd Kings' "....and I see from wikipedia there were a number of these guys over about a 1000-year period, more or less....

silmieni nähden.... Have I got the right sense of this?

If it helps to get more word-for-word, then silmieni nähden is "[in/with] my eyes' seeing" and lasten kuullen is "[in/with] children's hearing." So -en is yet another kind of "ing" ending, as though there weren't enough with -va and -ma and -minen and what-have-you.

Two common constructs with it are
_____n _____en (as here)
and also
______ _____en (with nominative instead of genitive) -- Poliisiautot ajoivat sireenit ulvoen (with sirens "howling").

It's not trivial to learn to use this -en correctly (to choose between it and other "ing" forms) but fortunately it is very easy to learn to recognize and understand it once you've dealt with a few instances. It's the 2nd infinitive instructive form, but I looked that up just for you. It's so simple and so common that it doesn't seem to need a name most of the time.

Thanks... the 2nd infinitive ...only inflects with -ssa and -en

You got the meaning of kaloineen right, but it is called the comitative or associative case. That one I can always remember because of con, comme, commiserate, etc. (It'd be funny if the word comitative comes from something else entirely.)

Another slip-up...I meant the comitative...the case that is only plural and always has a possessive suffix.... But, believe it or not, I'm starting...just starting, mind you... , to give up this "grammar crutch" of using the case names .... I'm actually starting to "just know" what the ending should be, or what the ending I'm reading is...

[AldenG]

Glad you mentioned those outside sources on Shepherd Kings. So it appears they were not shepherds and perhaps not even kings, that the term was instead an ancient translation error describing warlike invaders and dominators of Egypt. And their katokset might have been opulent indeed.

One paragraph refers to 480,000 of them, meaning that there would have been more kings than gods in Egypt at that time, if they were actually kings.

[Rip]

c. vastaisuudessakaan...what would be a good translation for this word? ...the kaan suffix implies negation of some sort.

ei [..] vastaisuudessakaan = not in the future either

[jahasjahas]

c. vastaisuudessakaan...what would be a good translation for this word? ...the kaan suffix implies negation of some sort.

ei [..] vastaisuudessakaan = not in the future either

Additionally: "Ole vastaisuudessa varovaisempi." = Be more careful from now on / Be more careful in the future. "Kiinan junien nopeuksia rajoitetaan vastaisuuden varalle." = The speed limit of Chinese trains will be lowered (to avoid things like this). For synonyms, vastedes = vastaisuudessa, vastaisen varalle = vastaisuuden varalle.

Vastaisuudessa seems to refer to (a possibly quite immediate) future with the viewpoint of "things happening now" vs. "(the same?) things happening later", so you can't use it as a simple replacement for tulevaisuudessa. "Vastaisuudessa meillä on lentävä auto" would mean more or less "We'll bring our flying car from now on." in a suitable context.

[Rob A.]

c. vastaisuudessakaan...what would be a good translation for this word? ...the kaan suffix implies negation of some sort.

ei [..] vastaisuudessakaan = not in the future either

Additionally: "Ole vastaisuudessa varovaisempi." = Be more careful from now on / Be more careful in the future. "Kiinan junien nopeuksia rajoitetaan vastaisuuden varalle." = The speed limit of Chinese trains will be lowered (to avoid things like this). For synonyms, vastedes = vastaisuudessa, vastaisen varalle = vastaisuuden varalle.

Vastaisuudessa seems to refer to (a possibly quite immediate) future with the viewpoint of "things happening now" vs. "(the same?) things happening later", so you can't use it as a simple replacement for tulevaisuudessa. "Vastaisuudessa meillä on lentävä auto" would mean more or less "We'll bring our flying car from now on." in a suitable context.

Nice explanation....so vastaisuus carries the sense of "from now on" ....and tulevaisuus a sort of more general sense of the future???

I see wiktionary offers up this compound word for the "immediate future"...lähitulevaisuus....which seems to support what you have said.

In English using the definite article, "the", seems to make the distinction between the "immediate future" and "the future". in a more general sense.... Eg.... "In future, come early..." implies from "now on"...."In the future, people will come early."....kind of means at some point, though maybe not right away..... Though it all does get a bit fuzzy and anything but consistent....I suppose in the end, context is the important factor.....

[Rob A.]

I'm having a fair bit more trouble with the next few paragraphs.... I'll ask a quick question though:

...merkitä kuninkaiden luetteloon vanhempansa ylhäisiksi. I'm having trouble understanding why vanhemmat changes to vanhempansa. Or maybe I am just forgetting one of the rules of consonant gradation when a possessive suffix is added??

And now I understand what the "lie" is... It's a specific lie... the pharoah is a "pretender"...I wonder if this is historically correct, or if Waltari is using a novelist's "licence"????

[AldenG]

I'm having trouble understanding why vanhemmat changes to vanhempansa. Or maybe I am just forgetting one of the rules of consonant gradation when a possessive suffix is added??

Since I can't locate the exact point of your confusion, I'll say all this: I assume you got that vanhempansa means his parents (in accusative), so yes, it is the possessive suffix, and yes, that's more or less "why" the mm changes back to mp. (Of course that's not the only form in which the mp persists.)

[jahasjahas]

...merkitä kuninkaiden luetteloon vanhempansa ylhäisiksi. I'm having trouble understanding why vanhemmat changes to vanhempansa. Or maybe I am just forgetting one of the rules of consonant gradation when a possessive suffix is added??

To add more context, Rob's fighting with "joka on antanut ... merkitä kuninkaiden luetteloon vanhempanasa ylhäisiksi."

"joka on antanut merkitä vanhempansa ylhäisiksi kuninkaiden luetteloon." would be a more common word order.

"Who has had his parents added as nobles to the list of kings."

[Rob A.]

I'm having trouble understanding why vanhemmat changes to vanhempansa. Or maybe I am just forgetting one of the rules of consonant gradation when a possessive suffix is added??

Since I can't locate the exact point of your confusion, I'll say all this: I assume you got that vanhempansa means his parents (in accusative), so yes, it is the possessive suffix, and yes, that's more or less "why" the mm changes back to mp. (Of course that's not the only form in which the mp persists.)

I kind of remembered there is a "rule" about what happens when a possessive suffix is added to a noun that would be affected by consonant gradation....anyway the basic idea is that a possessive ending does not invoke consonant gradation where it might otherwise apply.

http://www.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Paper ... rticle.pdf

....see around page 150 of the article or search using "possessive"

The article has this interesting example:

kadumme/katumme....two words with very different meanings....and another interesting thing to remember is that with nominative forms the plural is "masked" by the possessive ending...it's the same as the singular... Hard to remember all this sometimes ...