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The Ancestor of the Arabic Translation of the De Generatione Animalium of Aristotle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
The Arabic translation of the De Gen. Anim., made at the beginning of the ninth century by Yahyā ibn al-Bitrīq from a Syriac version, contains seven long omissions, noted by Drossaart Lulofs in his edition. Six of these represent approximately 110 letters or a multiple thereof in the Greek: 728b33–729a2 (226, or 224 with Z), 761a9–25 (658, or 661 with Z), 762a6–8 (112, or 106 with Z), 762b34–763a2 (107, or 101 with Z), 768a18–20 (110) and 781a7–12 (225, or 223 with Z). The seventh omission (787b22–788b30) is too long to be useful, as the scope for accidental errors is too great.
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1977
References
1 For counting purposes I have included iota subscript as one letter, and since in both books where these omissions occur, A and Γ, the Arabic text is close to that of manuscript Z (Oxon. Corp. Christi 108), I have given the figures for Z's readings as well as Lulofs's printed text where these differ.
2 It has however been pointed out to me that a column of only ten or eleven lines is improbably short. That is true, and I have failed to find a relevant parallel, but the variation in column length in the material we have is very great and there were clearly no hard-and-fast rules about it. It seems to depend on the space available, and one could imagine, for instance, that someone reusing a tattered roll might trim it down and then write short columns.
3 Further evidence of the effect of papyrus ancestors on the manuscript tradition is given by Lulofs in his preface, p. xviii.