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[EienOfDark]

Hello, I'm not sure if anyone remembers me. I got scared away when the site swtiched ownership (?), but I noticed that at least some of the old people stayed behind, and that made me feel better.

My questions are,

彼に殺して欲しかった

how would you translate this? It's completely throwing me, and I think its because of に

secondly

手に入らぬ物有りはせぬ

what does せぬ mean here? I would assume its in negative form but otherwise I can't make heads or tails of it

[AzureDark]

You don't have to change post page's encoding to post in JP anymore...

[bluepenguin]

Wouldn't 彼に殺して欲しかった be "I wanted to be killed by him?" Of course, without context I can't say whether that makes sense at all, but given that sentence alone that's how I'd interpret it.

[EienOfDark]

Wouldn't 彼に殺して欲しかった be "I wanted to be killed by him?" Of course, without context I can't say whether that makes sense at all, but given that sentence alone that's how I'd interpret it.

That makes very much sense in context, and was the only way I could think to interpret it, but since my Japanese isn't very good I wanted a second (or more) opinion. I'm not familiar with all the uses of に.

[Datenshi]

Wouldn't 彼に殺して欲しかった be "I wanted to be killed by him?" Of course, without context I can't say whether that makes sense at all, but given that sentence alone that's how I'd interpret it.
I'm going to second that.


手に入らぬ物有りはせぬ

what does せぬ mean here? I would assume its in negative form but otherwise I can't make heads or tails of it

「せぬ」 is an outdated way of saying 「しない」. So,
手に入らぬ物有りはしない -> Nothing exists that can't be acquired (that I can't get).

[EienOfDark]

「せぬ」 is an outdated way of saying 「しない」. So,
手に入らぬ物有りはしない -> Nothing exists that can't be acquired (that I can't get).

Okay, I understand most of it now, but how does しない make sense in that sentence? Is it an idiom of sorts?

[Datenshi]

Okay, I understand most of it now, but how does しない make sense in that sentence? Is it an idiom of sorts?
It's easier to think of it like that, yes. It's an unusual example grammatically, but the reasoning behind it is something like this:

有る -> "exist"
~しない -> "isn't/doesn't" X

有りはしない -> "doesn't exist"

Another place you'll find ～しない used like this is in 「分かりはしない」 (don't/can't understand).

[Yiuel]

Okay, I understand most of it now, but how does しない make sense in that sentence? Is it an idiom of sorts?

It is a common way to place some emphasis on the verb.

Remember the difference between :

彼がりんごを食べた。
彼はりんごを食べた。

Well, you can pretty much do the same with verbs, especially with the negative form. (We see it a lot with the negative copula ではない→じゃない) And the way to do that is to take the infinitive form, stick the topic marker to it, and then use the pro-verb する.

手に入らぬ物有らぬ
手に入らぬ物有りはせぬ

So, in the first sentence, you are only stating the fact. In the second, you are insisting on the fact there is nothing that exist that you cannot obtain.