[Eric]

The short answer, Mirabell, is that I don't know. I am the one-eyed man becoming king in the country of the blind. The only person who could, with much justification, usurp my throne on this website, as far as I can see, is Iiris, who was actually schooled in Finland, and will therefore know the Finnish language vastly better than I do.

So I do not know whether Hurskas kurjuus has any Biblical or other literary connotations or references (e.g. Leino, Kivi, etc.). The only thing I can say is that the word hurskas has a whiff of hypocrisy or naïveté, according to the dictionary.

This whole debate over one word is typical of the work of a literary translator who should, in an ideal world, get everything right.