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Rh East, and in the 6th century he was translated into Syriac by Sergius cf Resaina. The Syrians acted as interpreters of Greek learning to the Arabs, and during the 8th and 9th centuries chiefly through the staff of translators organized at Bagdad by Honein ibn Ishak-the works of Plato and Aristotle, as well as those of Hippocrates and Galen, were translated into Arabic. These translations are of capital importance in the history of European thought. Many of them were introduced into Spain by the Arabs, and were rendered-in some cases through the intermediary of a Castilian-speaking Jew-into Latin at the college of translators founded in 1130 (or shortly afterwards) at Toledo by Raymund, archbishop of that city. Circulating widely throughout western Europe, these Latin translations supplied the learned with a third- or fourth-hand knowledge of Greek philosophy. When Albertus Magnus, St Thomas Aquinas, or any other early light of the schools refers to Aristotle, it must be borne in mind that he often had no more exact acquaintance with the text which he expounds or confutes than could be gathered from an indirect Latin version of an Arabic rendering of a Syriac translation of a Greek original. This accounts for many misunderstandings and errors which would otherwise be incomprehensible. Among the earliest European translators who made their way to Toledo were Adelard of Bath, who rendered an Arabic version of Euclid into Latin; the Englishman known as Robert de Retines, afterwards archdeacon of Pamplona, the first translator of the Koran, which he did into Latin in 1141-1143 by order of Peter the Venerable; and Gerard of Cremona, who, towards the end of the 12th century, was responsible for over seventy translations from the Arabic, including Ptolemy's Almagest and many of Aristotle's treatises, as well as works by Galen, Hippocrates and Avicenna. Early in the 13th century Michael Scot, who had begun his Arabic studies at Palermo, visited Toledo and (perhaps with the help of the Jew Andreas, if we are to believe the statement of Hermann the German, repeated by Roger Bacon) translated into Latin various works of Aristotle, Avicenna, and-more especially -Averroes. These Latin translations by Michael Scot introduced Averroes to the notice of Western scholars, and the fact that they were used at the universities of Paris and Bologna gave the first impetus to the vogue of Averroistic doctrine which lasted from the time of St Thomas Aquinas to the rise of Martin Luther. At Toledo, between 1240 and 1256, Hermann the German translated into Latin the commentaries of Averroes on Aristotle's Ethics, together with abridgments of the Poetic and the Rhetoric made respectively by Averroes and Alfarabi. But, at the very period of Hermann the German's residence at Toledo, a more satisfactory method of translation was begun. Within half a century of the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 a visit to Spain was no longer indispensable for a would-be translator of Greek philosophical treatises. The original texts slowly became more available, and a Latin translation of Aristotle's Ethics seems to have been made from the Greek by order of Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, between 1240*-1244. Towards the end of the century the indefatigable William of Moerbeke (near Ghent)-mentioned as “ William the Fleming” by Roger Bacon-produced, amongst numerous other Latin renderings from the Greek, versions of Aristotle's Rhetoric and Politics which have commended themselves to more exact scholars of the modern German type. The Latin renderings from the Arabic were current till a much later date; but it was henceforth accepted, at least in principle, that translations of the Greek classics should be made direct from the original text.

Meanwhile the work of translating foreign productions into the local vernacular had been begun in the north and west of Europe. Towards' the end of the 9th century an illustrious English translator appeared in the person of King Alfred, who rendered St Gregory the Great's Cura pastorates into West Saxon “sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense.” Alfred is also regarded, though with less certainty, as the translator of Bede's Historia ecctesiastica and the Historia adversus pagartos of Orosius. The version of St Gregory's treatise is the most literal of the three; omissions are frequent in the renderings of Bede and Orosius, and in all the diction is disfigured by latinisms. A larger conception of a translator's function is noticeable in Alfred's version of Boetius's De corisolatiorie philosophiae, a famous Neoplatonic treatise which was the delight of the middle ages, and was translated later into German by Notker Labeo, into French by Jean de Meung, and twice again into English by Chaucer and by Queen Elizabeth respectively. In translating Boetius, Alfred deals more freely with his author, interpolates passages not to be found in the extant texts of the original, and yet succeeds in giving an adequate interpretation which is also an excellent specimen of English prose. If the alliterative verses found in one manuscript of Alfred's translation are accepted as his work, it is clear that he had no poetic faculty; but he has the credit of opening up a new path, of bringing England into contact with European thought, and of stimulating such writers as Werferth, bishop of Worcester -the translator of St Gregory's Dialogues-to proceed on the same line. Some forty years earlier John Scotus (Erigena) had won celebrity as a translator by his Latin renderings of works ascribed to the mysterious 5th century Neoplatonist who passes under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. Towards the close of Alfred's reign some countrymen of Erigena bettered his example by producing Irish versions of Hippocrates and Galen at St Gallen. St Gallen became a centre of translation, and there, at the beginning of the 11th century, Notker Labeo presided over a committee of interpreters who issued German renderings of certain treatises by Aristotle, Terence's Aiidria and Virgil's Eclogites. Far greater literary importance attaches to Syrttipas, the title given by Michael Andreopulos to a collection of ancient Oriental tales which he translated from an intermediate Syriac version into Greek at the request of the Armenian duke of Melitene about the end of the 11th century. These stories were re translated into French verse and (by Jean de Haute-Seille) into Latin during the course of the 12th century under the respective titles of the Sept sages de Rome and Dotopathos; they were utilized in the Ceiito riovette antiche, in the Libro dei sette savj, and in the Decamerone, and were finally absorbed by every literature in Europe. Immense popularity was won by the Liber gestorum Bartaam et Josaphat, a Latin translation made in the 11th or 12th century from the Greek, and recast in many European languages during the 13th century. The book is in fact a legendary life of Buddha adapted to the purposes of Christianity by a monk; but it was accepted as an historical record, the undiscerning credulity of the faithful informally canonized Barlaam and josaphat, and ultimately compelled the Latin Church to include these two fictitious beings as saints in the Martyrologium rormanum. This is perhaps the most curious result attained by any translation. The interest in Eastern apologies and moralizing stories, which was early shown in Marie de France's translation of Aesopic fables, was further demonstrated by the Castilian translations of Kalilah and Dimriah and Siiidibad made about the middle of the 13th century, by (or at the command of) Alphonso the Learned and his brother the Infante Fadrique respectively.

The enthusiasm for these Oriental stories was communicated to the rest of Europe by John of Capua's Directoriitm humartae vitae (1270), a Latin translation of Katilah arid Dirrtrtah; but, in the meanwhile, as the younger European literature's grew in power and variety, the field of translation necessarily widened to such an extent that detailed description becomes impossible. Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britainniae, which purports to be a free version of an unnamed Breton book, is the source of the Arthurian legends which reappeared transformed in elaborate French Versions, and were transmitted to the rest of Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries. During this period of French literary supremacy instances of bilingual faculty are not wanting in the form of translations: shortly after the middle of the 13th century Brunetto Latini translated passages of Cicero into Italian, and selections from Sallust into French. A hundred years later there are unmistakable indications that the middle ages are departing, that the French suzerainty over literature is at an end, and that the advent of