"Pushkin is untranslatable because of his (surface) simplicity: if you translate literally, it sounds like nothing, and if you gussy it up, it sounds gussied-up."

Beyond translation problems, poets of that type are even hard for non-native speakers to read and appreciate, because so much of the power of their poems comes from an implied comparison between the perfection and simplicity of their poems, and the near-perfection and slight excessiveness of poems by other poets who are "almost" as good. I've had better luck with Rilke than with Heine, and with Gongora than with Machado, even though the latter member of each pair is actually much more congenial to me.

A possible English translation of the Russian word Might be the colloquial "mess around [with]" or "mess with". The specific meanings "whip" and "scutch" aren't actual, but something like "Today he has to spend the afternoon messing the hemp" would be a workable idiom if anyone actually used it.

LH, I don't think you have reached proper "hair pulling" stage.

Here, look what googling "трепать куделю" brought me. Are you there yet?

Actually, the process is quite simple, I had a chance to see it in starover's village in Udmurtia when my college friend invited me for a holiday. Women use this crude wooden tool to beat up piece of raw linen fiber (now, what's the English word for THAT?), dirty dust flies everywhere, and they even manage to sing, with their mouths covered with kerchiefs!

In your last example you seem not to notice another mistransaltion: Скрипеть is not "to scratch", but "to creak". You assumed physical waste: pen scratching the paper renders it unusable. But original phrase is not that literal; it just means diligent work, laborous writing that doesn't bring any meaningful results.

You're right, I was so fixated on the other problems that one slipped right by me -- I've changed my literal translation accordingly. And thanks for the links, especially the picture of the tool -- it's always helpful to have mental images to go with the words!

why did Greek theta give Russian t here rather than f?)
The answer might be quite interesting, but requires research. Originally, the Cyrillic letter fita was borrowed from Greek and corresponded to the Theta, but it's unclear if it ever had a sibillant quality in Slavic; thus correspondence was most likely graphic, not phonological, since the earliest period. This correspondence was meaningless for texts not translated from Greek. Kloto is obviously a later borrowing, I would suspect via a translation of Greek mythology done in Petrovian times, but done from what language? And hereby lies the answer, I suspect. Same rendition of theta as t occurs in other mythological names, e.g. Tanatos not Fanatos.

Hat, please change that to fricative. What was I thinking? :(

Instinctively, I take "трепать" for "mess up with the thread, perhaps pluck at it, fluffing it up." Scutching precedes spinning (not immediately though as I understand); Clotho should have yarn ready for spinning (already scutched) at her disposal. The Parcae spin, measure and cut off the thread; one of them must keep nervously or playfully messing with the thread so there's a risk it'll tear, which causes the poet some discomfort.

Technologically, лен мнут, треплют, чешут, that much is true.

In the Shmakov epitaph, треплешь парк probably compares the gone man's spirit to the wind blowing through the trees as if tousling their hair.

Many thanks, Alexei!

How did you translate углекислый вздох? I hope you realize that no dogs were sent into space (to the stars???)in 1977. The last such dog was sent in 1966 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belka_and_Strelka). It is a very curious anachronism, given how many Soviets would immediately recognize it. I suspect that Brodsky wrote the poem or part of the poem in mid 1960s and then adapted it. Quite possibly, the original poem referred to his excile from Leningrad; only later was it reworked into the emigrant's lament. Its rythm and structure are also more typical for early Brodsky. Just a guess.

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J P Maher