concept
"Духовная любовь" (spiritual love) pun
spiritual love pun
also: духовная любовь, spiritual love
An entry in Chekhov's "A Glossary for Young Ladies" deriving \emph{духовная любовь} ("spiritual love," ordinarily the lofty phrase for platonic or religious love) from \emph{дух}/\emph{духи}, punning on spraying oneself with \emph{духи} (perfume/scent) and summoning \emph{духов} (spirits, via fashionable seances) -- both sharing the root \emph{дух} (spirit).
Reading notes
- A Glossary for Young Ladies §7 spiritual love
The Russian pun turns on \emph{дух}/\emph{духи}: \emph{прыскаться духами} ("to spray oneself with perfume/scent") and \emph{вызывать духов} ("to summon spirits," i.e. via seances, a fashionable Victorian-era pastime) both derive from \emph{дух} (spirit), producing \emph{духовная любовь} -- ordinarily the lofty phrase for "spiritual love" in the religious or platonic sense, here deflated into perfume-wearing and parlor seances. English "spiritual" preserves the double meaning well enough (spirits as in ghosts, and scent bottles are sometimes still called "spirits" in period English, e.g. "spirits of lavender"), though the perfume sense is fainter in translation than in the Russian.