3Aprilапреля · 3-е апреля
Когда мы умираем, то может быть только одно из двух: или то, что я считаю собою, перейдет в другое отдельное существо, или я перестану быть отдельным существом и сольюсь с богом. То или другое — в обоих случаях будет хорошо.
When we die, only one of two things can happen: either what I consider myself will pass into another separate being, or I will cease to be a separate being and will merge with God. One or the other — in either case it will be good.
1. Если жизнь есть сон, а смерть — пробуждение, то тогда то, что я вижу себя отдельным от всего существом, есть сновидение.
1. If life is a sleep and death an awakening, then the fact that I see myself as a being separate from all else is a dream.
From Parerga und Paralipomena II, ch. X · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changedSchopenhauer’s “die Persönlichkeit, das Individuum,” the personality, the individual, which belongs to the dreaming consciousness, becomes “the fact that I see myself as a being separate from all else,” and his reason that death therefore appears as annihilation is left out.
What Tolstoy read · Julius Frauenstädt, Arthur Schopenhauer: Lichtstrahlen aus seinen WerkenDas Leben kann allerdings angeſehen werden als ein Traum, und der Tod als das Erwachen. Dann aber gehört die Perſönlichkeit, das Individuum, dem träumenden und nicht dem wachen Bewußtſeyn an; weshalb denn jenem der Tod ſich als Vernichtung darſtellt.
Source text: archive.orgOriginal · German… werden als ein Traum, und der Tod als das Erwachen.
… und nicht dem wachen Bewußtſeyn an; weshalb denn jenem der …
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · Путь жизниЕсли жизнь есть сон, а смерть — пробуждение, то то, что я вижу себя отделенным от всего существом, есть сновидение, от которого я надеюсь пробудиться, умирая.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Parerga und Paralipomena II, ch. X (Zur Lehre von der Unzerstörbarkeit unseres wahren Wesens durch den Tod), § 140, as excerpted in Frauenstädt, Lichtstrahlen aus seinen Werken (1862 ed.; Tolstoy had the 1891 ed.), Parerga II, 2nd ed. (Frauenstädt, Berlin 1862), § 140, p. 289; Lichtstrahlen (1862), p. 101, citing "P. II, 232".
A free version, as «По Шопенгауэру» says, of the passage Lichtstrahlen excerpts from Parerga II, § 140: “Life can indeed be regarded as a dream, and death as the awakening. But then the personality, the individual, belongs to the dreaming and not to the waking consciousness; which is why to the former death presents itself as annihilation.” Tolstoy keeps the first sentence as a condition («Если жизнь есть сон, а смерть — пробуждение») and turns the second into «то, что я вижу себя отдельным от всего существом, есть сновидение» (that I see myself as a being separate from everything is the dream): Schopenhauer's “personality, the individual” becomes the sight of oneself as separate from everything, and his point that death therefore looks like annihilation is left out. Tolstoy printed the same sentence in «На каждый день» (29 February, no. 3) and, in «Путь жизни» (the tolstoy block), with an added close: «от которого я надеюсь пробудиться, умирая» (from which I hope to awaken in dying). The Parerga scan's OCR is broken around the passage, so it is excerpted in two clean pieces; Lichtstrahlen gives it whole. No public-domain English of § 140 was found among the saved translations (Dircks gives only the dialogue that follows).
Translation note. «Сон» means both “sleep” and “dream”; “dream” here renders «сновидение».
2. Смерть есть разрушение того тела, посредством которого я воспринимал мир, каким он представляется в этой жизни; это разрушение того стекла, через которое я смотрел. О том, будет ли оно заменено другим, или то, что смотрело через окно, сольется со всем — мы не можем знать.
2. Death is the destruction of the body through which I perceived the world as it appears in this life; it is the destruction of the glass through which I looked. Whether it will be replaced by another, or whether what looked through the window will merge with everything, we cannot know.
3. Известный предел жизни должен существовать, и так же, как плоды деревьев и земли, так же, как времена года, всё должно начинаться, продолжаться и проходить. Мудрые люди охотно подчиняются этому порядку.
3. There must be a certain limit to life, and just like the fruits of trees and of the earth, just like the seasons of the year, everything must begin, continue, and pass away. Wise people willingly submit to this order.
From Cato Maior de Senectute · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changedRamage’s English, which Tolstoy follows, already expands Cicero; Tolstoy reads its “seasons” as “the seasons of the year,” a third comparison, and has wise people submit “to this order.”
What Tolstoy read · Beautiful Thoughts from Latin AuthorsIt was absolutely necessaiy that some term, …
… as it is with the fruits of trees, and of the earth, seasons should be allowed for their …
… and at last to drop. This wise men wdl submit to, …
Source text: archive.orgOriginal · LatinSed tamen necesse fuit esse aliquid extremum et, tamquam in arborum bacis terraeque fructibus maturitate tempestiva quasi vietum et caducum, quod ferundum est molliter sapienti.
Source text: thelatinlibrary.comIn English · E. S. Shuckburgh, 1900But after all some "last" was inevitable, just as to the berries of a tree and the fruits of the earth there comes in the fulness of time a period of decay and fall.
A wise man will not make a grievance of this.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Cato Maior de Senectute, § 5 (Senect. 2 in Ramage).
Tolstoy follows the English in Ramage, which expands Cicero. Cicero: "some last [act] there had to be", and, as with the berries of trees and the fruits of the earth, a ripeness when they wither and fall, "which the wise man must bear calmly" (quod ferundum est molliter sapienti). Ramage: "some term, some period should be set", and "as it is with the fruits of trees, and of the earth, seasons should be allowed for their springing, growing, ripening, and at last to drop. This wise men will submit to, and cheerfully bear" (the scan garbles "springing, growing, ripening" and reads "wdl" for "will"). Tolstoy's «всё должно начинаться, продолжаться и проходить» (all must begin, continue, and pass) is Ramage's four stages, and «Мудрые люди охотно подчиняются» (wise men willingly submit) is Ramage's "will submit to, and cheerfully bear". He reads Ramage's "seasons" as the seasons of the year and makes them a third comparison («так же, как времена года»), adds «этому порядку» (to this order), and leaves out the giants warring against the gods. The change from Cicero is mostly Ramage's; the seasons are Tolstoy's. Ramage is among Tolstoy's sources for Cicero in December and January.
4. На вопрос о том, буду ли я, я — отдельный от всего мира — жить после смерти, на этот вопрос есть только один ответ: если лучше, чтобы продолжалась отдельная жизнь после смерти, она будет продолжаться; если же не лучше, то она прекратится.
Всё, что я знаю о боге, заставляет меня верить в то, что то, что он сделал, — самое лучшее для нас.
4. To the question of whether I — I, separate from the whole world — will live after death, to this question there is only one answer: if it is better that a separate life should continue after death, it will continue; and if it is not better, it will cease.
All that I know of God makes me believe that what he has done is the very best for us.
From Immortality, in Letters and Social Aims · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changedEmerson’s close, that “if we saw the whole” we should see “that it was better so,” becomes a paragraph whose words are not in the essay, “All that I know of God makes me believe that what he has done is the very best for us,” and “conscious personal life” becomes “a separate life.” †
† An intermediate translation may have made this change.
After Emerson’s own wordsI think all sound minds rest on a certain preliminary conviction, namely, that if it be best that conscious personal life shall continue, it will continue; if not best, then it will not: and we, if we saw the whole, should of course see that it was better so.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Immortality, in Letters and Social Aims (1876), After the saying of Marcus Antoninus, 'It were well to die if there be gods, and sad to live if there be none'.
Signed 'after Emerson': one sentence retold. Its core is kept closely: 'if it be best that conscious personal life shall continue, it will continue; if not best, then it will not' becomes 'if it is better that the separate life continue after death, it will continue; if not better, it will cease' (отдельная жизнь, 'separate' for 'conscious personal'). Emerson's frame, 'I think all sound minds rest on a certain preliminary conviction', becomes the one answer to the question whether 'I, I separate from all the world,' will live after death. His close, 'and we, if we saw the whole, should of course see that it was better so', becomes a paragraph of its own, 'All that I know of God makes me believe that what he has done is the very best for us', whose words are not in the essay; the nearest is the same essay's 'All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen', the opening of 4-9.3. No printable. The Jubilee list names two Russian Emerson selections, Nakashidze's «Высшая душа» (Posrednik, 1902) and «О доверии к себе» (Posrednik, 1904), and two English ones, Garnett's Passages (1902) and Broadbent's An Emerson's Treasury (1903); none was found online, so whether a change is Tolstoy's or a translator's cannot be told.
5. Смерть так легко избавляет от всех затруднений и бедствий, что неверующие в бессмертие люди должны бы были желать ее. Люди же, верующие в бессмертие, ожидающие новой жизни, еще больше должны бы были желать ее. Если и те и другие не желают ее, то только потому, что при умирании люди страдают. Страдание удерживает людей от смерти.
5. Death so easily delivers us from all difficulties and calamities that people who do not believe in immortality ought to desire it. And people who believe in immortality and await a new life ought to desire it still more. If neither the one nor the other desires it, that is only because people suffer in dying. Suffering holds people back from death.
6. Никто не знает, что такое смерть, зло она или добро. А все люди боятся ее, как будто знают наверное, что она зло.
6. No one knows what death is, whether it is an evil or a good. Yet all people fear it, as though they knew for certain that it is an evil.
From Apology of Socrates · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changedSocrates’ suggestion that death “may not be the greatest good” becomes an open question, “whether it is an evil or a good,” and men who fear it as “the greatest evil” fear it as “an evil.”
Original · Ancient Greek… τὸ γάρ τοι θάνατον δεδιέναι, ὦ ἄνδρες, οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἐστὶν ἢ δοκεῖν σοφὸν εἶναι μὴ ὄντα· δοκεῖν γὰρ εἰδέναι ἐστὶν ἃ οὐκ οἶδεν.
… οἶδε μὲν γὰρ οὐδεὶς τὸν θάνατον οὐδʼ εἰ τυγχάνει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ πάντων μέγιστον ὂν τῶν ἀγαθῶν, δεδίασι δʼ ὡς εὖ εἰδότες ὅτι μέγιστον τῶν κακῶν ἐστι.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · Benjamin Jowett, 1871For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; …
… and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньНикто не знает, что такое смерть и не есть ли она величайшее для человека добро. И, однако, все ее страшатся, как бы в сознании, что она — величайшее зло.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Apology of Socrates, 29a–b.
A shortened form of Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), November 11: «Никто не знает, что такое смерть и не есть ли она величайшее для человека добро. И, однако, все ее страшатся, как бы в сознании, что она — величайшее зло». Socrates at his trial: no one knows death, nor whether it may not be the greatest of all goods for man, yet men fear it as if they knew well that it is the greatest of evils (οἶδε μὲν γὰρ οὐδεὶς τὸν θάνατον οὐδʼ εἰ τυγχάνει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ πάντων μέγιστον ὂν τῶν ἀγαθῶν). For the Circle Tolstoy dropped both superlatives: "whether it may not be the greatest good" becomes «зло она или добро» (whether it is evil or good), and "the greatest of evils" becomes «что она зло» (that it is evil). Plato's suggestion that death may be the greatest good becomes an open question.
7. Если человек и знает, что когда гремит гром, молния уже ударила и потому гром не может убить, он всегда все-таки пугается громового удара. То же и со смертью. Если мы и знаем, что телесная смерть разрушает только тело, но не жизнь духа, мы все-таки не можем не бояться ее. Но человек просвещенный, поборов в себе этот страх, памятует о том, что жизнь его не в теле, а в духе; непросвещенному же человеку кажется, что со смертью погибает всё, и он так боится ее и прячется от нее, как глупый человек прячется от громового удара, тогда как удар этот никак уже не может убить его.
7. Even when we know that when the thunder rolls the lightning has already struck, and so the thunder cannot kill, we are still always startled by the thunderclap. It is the same with death. Even if we know that bodily death destroys only the body and not the life of the spirit, we still cannot help fearing it. But enlightened people, having overcome this fear in themselves, keep in mind that their life is not in the body but in the spirit; while to the unenlightened it seems that with death everything perishes, and they so fear it and hide from it as the foolish hide from a thunderclap, when that clap can no longer kill them at all.
Надо жить так, чтобы не бояться смерти и не желать ее.
We must live so as neither to fear death nor to desire it.
Tolstoy TodayТолстой сегодня · tolstoytoday.org/april/3