Ιnterpretations to Tetrastichae sententiae by Gregory the Theologian in Anthologion (1660): Text and its Greek source

Abstract

The article examines the work of Arseniy Grek, a corrector of the Moscow Printing Yard (Pechatniy dvor), on the translation of interpretations to the poetic sententiae by Gregory the Theologian; these verses and comments to them were published in 1660 as part of the Moscow collection Anthologion. These scholias are written on the margins of the manuscript to the poems of Gregory the Theologian do not find analogues among the known interpretations. A comparative analysis of the translations of verses and commentaries allowed us to draw a conclusion about the creative approach of Arseniy Grek. The article describes the principles of processing by Arseniy Grek of the source text and the main stylistic and linguistic features of his translation. This is the dissemination of the text by Christian exegesis and biblical quotations and reminiscences, the introduction of new semantic nuances, the use of vocabulary borrowed from Church Slavonic translations, a deviation from the syntactic constructions of the modern Greek source. It is concluded that the technique of translating Gregory the Theologian’s poems and interpretations to them depends not only on the translator’s knowledge of the source language, but also on the literary form (poetry and prose) and on the authority of the original. The texts of modern Grek interpretations and their arrangements by Arseniy Grek are published in the Appendix.