Literary Text: Skovoroda, афоризми (aphorisms)

Григо́рій Сковорода́ (1722–1794) is the founding philosopher of the Ukrainian tradition — a wandering teacher, poet, and fabulist whose pithy sentences are still quoted on monuments, banknotes, and protest signs. He wrote in a deliberately archaic, Church-Slavonic-flavoured Ukrainian, but his most famous lines have been smoothed into modern standard spelling in popular use, and that is how Ukrainians meet them today. For a C1 learner, Skovoroda is the ideal bridge from textbook grammar to real philosophical prose: the vocabulary is abstract, the word order is marked for emphasis, and the copula keeps disappearing — yet every sentence is short enough to parse to the bone. We annotate three aphorisms, each a complete thought.

The text

1. Світ лови́в мене́, та не спійма́в.

2. Про люди́ну ма́ють сві́дчити серця́ та лю́дські на́хили, а не зо́внішність.

3. Не все те отру́та, що неприє́мне на смак.

1. The world hunted me, but did not catch me. 2. A person should be testified to by the heart and human inclinations, not by outward appearance. 3. Not everything that is unpleasant to the taste is poison.

Aphorism 1 is Skovoroda's self-composed epitaph — the line he asked to have carved on his grave, and the most famous sentence in Ukrainian philosophy. Aphorisms 2 and 3 distil his recurring teaching that truth lives inside, not on the surface. All are public-domain (Skovoroda died in 1794); the wording here is the modern-standard form in which they circulate. The translations are literal, to keep the grammar visible.

Line-by-line grammar

«Світ лови́в мене́, та не спійма́в» — aspect as the whole point

The epitaph is built on a single, beautiful aspect contrast. лови́в is the imperfective past of лови́ти ("to hunt, to try to catch") — an ongoing, repeated, attempted pursuit: the world kept reaching for him. спійма́в is the perfective past of спійма́ти ("to catch [and have caught]") — a single completed result. Negated, the perfective denies that the result was ever achieved: "but it did not [manage to] catch me." The genius of the line is that the imperfective лови́в admits the world tried hard, while не спійма́в slams the door on success. English cannot match this in two verbs; it has to add words ("kept hunting… never managed to catch"). та here is the adversative "but" (= але́), an older, more literary connector than але́. мене́ is the accusative of я ("me").

On why the same event needs two verbs, see Aspect in the Past and The Perfective Meaning.

«Про люди́ну ма́ють сві́дчити серця́ та лю́дські на́хили» — the modal ма́ти + marked word order

The verb is ма́ють сві́дчити — ма́ти ("to have") used as a modal of obligation/expectation: "ought to / are to testify." This ма́ти + infinitive construction is a refined, almost legalistic way of saying "should," common in elevated prose. The word order is marked for emphasis: the prepositional phrase Про люди́ну ("about a person," про + accusative) is fronted before the verb, and the real subjects — серця́ ("hearts") and на́хили ("inclinations") — follow the verb. Neutral order would be Серця́ та на́хили ма́ють сві́дчити про люди́ну; fronting Про люди́ну announces the topic ("as for judging a person…") before the predicate delivers the verdict.

On topic-fronting, see Topic and Focus; on про + accusative, see Accusative Prepositions.

«а не зо́внішність» — the contrastive а не and a dropped verb

The clause ends а не зо́внішність — "and not [the] outward appearance." Two things to notice. First, а не is the contrastive negator "not X but Y" (here in the order "Y, and not X"): а sets up an opposition, не cancels the wrong candidate. Second, the verb is gapped: сві́дчити is not repeated — Ukrainian freely drops a verb already supplied earlier in the sentence, so зо́внішність stands alone in the nominative, understood as "[should] not [testify]." This ellipsis is a hallmark of aphoristic compression.

«Не все те отру́та, що…» — the omitted copula and the relative що

Aphorism 3 shows Skovoroda's favourite move: a zero copula. The skeleton is Не все те — отру́та: "Not all that [is] poison." There is no є ("is") — in the present tense Ukrainian routinely omits the copula between two nominatives, and in gnomic, definition-like statements the gap is felt as elevated, almost biblical. The demonstrative те ("that [thing]") is then expanded by the relative clause що неприє́мне на смак ("which [is] unpleasant to the taste") — and inside that clause the copula is dropped again (неприє́мне, a short-form-feeling adjective, with no є). на смак is a fixed phrase, "to the taste / in flavour" (на + accusative).

On the missing "to be," see The Present of Бути; on gnomic statements, see Using the Present Tense; on що-clauses, see Relative Clauses.

A note on Skovoroda's own archaic forms

The aphorisms above circulate in modern spelling, but Skovoroda's manuscripts use 18th-century, Church-Slavonic-tinged forms that a C1 reader will meet in scholarly editions. His epitaph, for instance, is often printed as «Мір лови́в мене́, но не пійма́в» — with мір (older spelling of світ, "world") and но (the older adversative, now та/але́). Recognising these as archaic variants of familiar words is the real skill: мір → світ, но → але́, the prefix пій- → спій-. Treat them as historical, never as models for your own Ukrainian.

Glossary: archaic / philosophical → modern equivalents

Common Mistakes