P R E F A C E by H. J. Drossaart Lulofs In his stimulating book, The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries (Cambridge 1954, p. 133 f.) R. R. Bolgar has eloquently worded a truth that tends to be forgotten: "The Humanists of the Renaissance were to like describing themselves as pigmies perched on the shoulders of giants; and so indeed they were. Only, from the point of view of cultural history, the precursors whose massive strength supported their showy eminence were not the ancients they so respected, but Irnerius and Bartolo, Constantine the African and Michael Scot, Abelard and St. Thomas Aquinas." The list, in which lawyers (Irnerius and Bartolo) are vying with translators (Constantine and Michael Scot), a theologian and a philosopher, could be expanded ad libitum, and yet none of them was chosen at random. As far as Michael Scot is concerned, he was an imposing authority on astronomy as well as on astrology and magic, but his long lasting influence in the realms of Aristotelian zoology and the A verroistic branch of Aristotelianism has certainly been of no less importance. In the course of the twelfth century two major Latin translations of Aristotle's zoological works came to light. The first of them, made from the Arabic by Michael Scot, was completed in ca. 1220, 1 and less than half a century later William of Moerbeke presented a second version directly made from the Greek (completed in 1260 ?). 2 The Arabic translation used by Michael Scot, that was to all appearances wrongly attributed to Ya~ya ibn al-Bi!riq, is divided into nineteen books (maqi.dilt), corresponding to the division of the Greek text : Historia animalium i - x De partibus animalium xi - xiv De generatione animalium xv - xix. The whole series is entitled fi !aba'i' 1-~ayawan (On the Natures of Animals), and the books are simply numbered from i to xix, while subtitles of the separate treatises (HA, PA, GA) are lacking. Moreover, the absence of the two small opuscules De motu and De progressu animalium is conspicuous, and indeed, apart from a casual reference by A verroes to De motu, they appear to have been unknown in the Orient. A verroes noticed the absence of an Arabic translation of the treatise in question and referred to a compendium of De motu by Nicolaus, 3 which in its turn has not come down to us. In any case, the reference is hardly relevant in the present connexion, since Nicolaus' extracts belong to a widely different tradition. Aafke M.I. van Oppenraaij and H.J. Drossaart Lulofs - 9789004451865 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 11:24:50PM via free access VIII LIBRI DE ANIMALffiUS XV -XIX Michael Scot has closely followed the arrangement of the Arabic version, for just like the exemplar his translation counts nineteen Libri de animalibus , and subtitles are likewise lacking, though in some MSS they are added in the margin (mostly in a different hand, as e.g. in the Goteborg MS). It seems reasonable to suppose that this arrangement, which is a marked feature of nearly all the MSS of the Scotian corpus zoologicum, has induced the composers of its Graeco-Latin counterpart to adopt the same order; but the new Moerbekian corpus was expanded with De motu and De progressu, nearly always placed between the Historia and De partibus. At present, it cannot be decided whether this corpus zoologicum Graeco-Latinum was arranged by Moerbeke himself, but in my opinion this is not likely, since he appears to have translated the different treatises at different times. 4 Generally speaking, it is difficult to find other connecting links between the two corpora. For, though there are several indications that Moerbeke was in the habit of submitting previous translations to a close scrutiny, and revised not a few of them for a new edition, he did so only in those cases where his predecessor had followed the method of word-for-word rendering. We may, therefore, assume that he did not seriously consider certain free translations, such as Aristippus' licentious Graeco-Latin rendering of Meteorologica iv, notorious for its uninhibited variability, 5 and so it is to be expected a fortiori that he distanced himself from Latin versions made from an Arabic intermediary, even when the renderings were strictly verbatim, such as those made by Gerardus of Cremona. For indeed, given the grammatical and syntactical differences between Indo-European and Semitic languages in general, and between Greek and Arabic in particular, word-for-word translations would emphasize rather than attenuate the fundamental dissimilarity. As far as Arabic is concerned, the disorienting features of the grammar, for instance of the verbal system, and the unyielding rules of a rigid syntax precluded the possibility of making a literal translation from any European language, let alone from the intricate prose of Greek philosophers. Besides, an irrepressible volubility - the verbositas arabica - considerably added to the alienation. There is, however, a brighter side to the picture. The Arabic translator has done his best to clear up the complexity of the lengthy periods of the Greek original by substituting coordination for subordination, and in doing so he has often succeeded in dissolving difficult sentence structures. At the time of translating De animalibus, Scot certainly had no Greek at all, 6 so he did not have any means of comparing his renderings with the original text. However, though he had to cope with the obscurities of the Arabic intermediary, he executed his task with remarkable acumen. For granting that it occasionally happens that a sentence does not run properly or does not land anywhere, and though he frequently offers distorted and Aafke M.I. van Oppenraaij and H.J. Drossaart Lulofs - 9789004451865 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 11:24:50PM via free access PREFACE IX absurd transliterations of Arabic names, 7 he goes his way with seigneurial confidence, and while he adheres rather strictly to the Arabic, he performs the miracle of writing a prose that is easy flowing and even has a charm of its own. In general, he follows the Arabic closely indeed, 8 but there are certain restrictions. Just like his contemporary, Alfred of Sareshel, he was well aware of the Arabs' bent for prolixity and used to omit what in many cases he rightly regarded as superfluous padding. It may certainly be said that, as a result of such simplifications, his renderings gained in perspicuity. From the point of view of philological accuracy this procedure has been censured by Freudenthal - the one scholar in the 19th century who thoroughly studied Scot's translation of Averroes long commentary on the Metaphysics. 9 M. Bouyges SJ, however, who has edited this work in Arabic, and has collated the same Latin translation/0 gives a more balanced judgment: on the one hand, he is inclined to agree with Freudenthal's unfavourable opinion (not always, and of course not in the numerous cases where Freudenthal was misled by misprints in the edition he had used), on the other, he recognizes Scot's intimate knowledge of Arabic, emphasizing the fact that in several cases Scot's translation had enabled him (Bouyges) to find the true reading, as against the Arabic codex unicus and the Hebrew version. He takes exception, however (always from the point of view of textual criticism), to the ease with which Scot leaves out words and parts of phrases that he considered superfluous, or that for some reason or another did not agree with him, and he pointedly characterizes Scot's manner with the words: "Resumer, supprimer font partie de sa methode."" It should be borne in mind, however, that in curtailing Averroes' prose, Scot took something away from a text originally written in Arabic, whereas from an Arabic text translated from the Greek he merely removed additions and circumlocutions that in many cases were not legitimate, but reflected the whims of the Arabic translator. Notwithstanding the innuendos of the baleful Roger Bacon, Michael Scot's De animalibus was among the principal sources of Albertus Magnus' remarkable De animalibus 12 and also of the relevant parts of Thomas of Cantimpre's De natura rerum. His translation was even occasionally used by St. Thomas Aquinas, before Moerbeke's version appeared. 13 But apart from that, his florid rendering may have had a certain appeal to the medieval mind that can easily be understood. For Scot had succeeded in transposing the crudities of a clumsy Arabic translation into lively prose, and the readers were no doubt willing to take occasional flaws into the bargain. Those of us who are acquainted with the mistakes that are found in the MSS of the period, crammed as they are with compendia of every possible kind, and all of them liable to be misread or misinterpreted, will readily believe that the contemporary user was not unduly alarmed when Aafke M.I. van Oppenraaij and H.J. Drossaart Lulofs - 9789004451865 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 11:24:50PM via free access X LIBRI DE ANIMALIBUS XV -XIX he stumbled on a false or abstruse reading. And as to the enigmatic transliterations of names of animals, plants, persons and countries, they may not even have been recognized as corruptions, but were treated with the respect due to the incomprehensible, regarded as next of kin to the Marvellous. Albertus Magnus is a case in point. In denouncing the so-called Questiones Nicolai peripatetici as a forgery, he was to remark: "Foul statements are found in that book which is called Questions of Nicolaus the peripatetic. I have been wont to say that Nicolaus did not make that book, but Michael Scot, who in truth did not know natures nor well understood the works of Aristotle" (transl.