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The Nicomachean Ethics in Arabic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

The most exciting experience I had during my visit to Morocco in the winter of 1951–52a visit made possible by the generosity of the Eockefeller Trust was the discovery, in the famous Qarawūyūn Library in Fez, of a manuscript containing one half, the second half, of an Arabic translation of the Nicomachean Ethics.The shortness of my stay in that ancient and fascinating Moorish city, and the disabling indisposition that befell me there, made it impossible for me to do more at the time than take note of the existence of this precious codex; but later the authorities of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines in Rabat, to whom I am infinitely obliged, procured for me a microfilm of the manuscript. It is now my high privilege to publish this preliminary note, in anticipation, I hope, of a full edition later on.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1955

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References

page 2 note 1 Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea.Oxford, 1890. The passage occurs on pp. 178–181.

page 2 note 2 The Works of Aristotle.Vol. IX. Oxford, 1925.

page 2 note 3 The Ethics of Aristotle.London (Allen and Unwin), 1953.

page 3 note 1 MScf

page 3 note 2 The translator appears to have understood as meaning , cf. Eth. N. VI 8: . Ross translates ‘ in the political form of friendship ’, supplying . But Thomson renders ‘ in the relations between citizen and citizen’.

page 3 note 3 The translator thus, as always, translates the emphatic , so making a point that is lost in the modern translations.

page 3 note 4 It would have been more correct to render by or perhaps , see Lane 1 1734.

page 3 note 5 Perhaps we should read for , since is rendered by .

page 4 note 6 Note this coinage for rendering

page 4 note 7 , generally translated ‘ perhaps ’ (Ross), ‘ it might be of course ’ (Thomson). The translator is slavishly literal.

page 4 note 8 followed by which the copyist perhaps understood as , but the emendation is required by .

page 4 note 9 The translator appears to have read (as Bekker conjectured) for , cf. below where renders

page 4 note 10 The translator, or the copyist, has missed .

page 4 note 11 MS.which is perhaps (though less aptly) to be read as .

page 4 note 12 MS..

page 4 note 13 There is no justification for this in the original; it perhaps derives from a gloss.

page 4 note 14 MS.

page 4 note 15 There is a lacuna here; presumably corresponds with , and we then require to add . The phrase has evidently dropped out, and to complete the sense we need to read the whole passage somewhat thus:

page 4 note 16 The translator has not recognized as a quotation from Hesiod.

page 5 note 17 MS.cf.

page 5 note 18 The translator evidently read with all the codd., and not as Bywater (following Bonitz) and the modern translators (of. Boss ‘ for the sake of the other party ’) read.

page 5 note 19 The translator has understood as referring to and not (as do the modern interpreters) to

page 5 note 20 This is the imperfect paraphrase of . The Arabic text is in any case corrupt; it should perhaps read; but the translator has missed the point that is to be understood as the subject of the clause, or perhaps he misreadbut the translator has missed the point that is to be understood as the subject of the clause, or perhaps he misread .

page 5 note 21 The masculine termination of (which qualifies ) has deceived the translator into inaccuracy.

page 5 note 22 We should read cf.

page 5 note 23 So the translator understands , as against the modern interpreters, ‘ with a view to a return ’ (Ross), ‘ may not have this disinterested character’ (Thomson).

page 5 note 24 MS.cf.

page 5 note 25 A misrendering of taking . in the sense of ‘ choose ’ (which it frequently has) rather than ‘ take for oneself’. The immediately following passage seems to be corrupt; there is one too many, and hangs in the air and perhaps requires to be connected with

page 5 note 26 This is not quite the sense of ‘ in some places’ (Ross), ‘ in some communities ’ (Thomson).

page 5 note 27 The translator has apparently read , and this has thrown him out in his construing of the whole passage. is a poor literal rendering of and the rest of the sentence is little better translated.

page 6 note 28 This is a faulty version of and is equally poor for

page 6 note 29 MS

page 6 note 30 MScf

page 6 note 31 MS.cf

page 6 note 32 We should presumably read

page 6 note 33 This concluding sentence has been completely misunderstood; the force of is entirely lost.