From the Tree to the Labyrinth (20 page)

We shall consider later the problems that this extremely arduous translation, of whose insufficiencies the translator himself was fully aware, posed for the Latin reader. Furthermore, we know of only two complete manuscripts and one fragmentary one, which leads us us conclude that it had a very limited circulation.
¹⁴

An example of the translator’s embarrassment is provided by the notion of
ta asteia.
At the end of
chapter 10
Hermann decides to skip portions of the text of Aristotle that he is unable to translate, and he goes on to comment: “Plura talia exempla ad idem facientia, quia greca sapiebant sententiam non multum usitatam latinis, dimissa sunt, et subsequitur quasi conclusio auctoris” (“Many like examples of the same import have been omitted for they smacked of the Greek idiom not much used by the Latins, and the author’s conclusions as it were follow immediately after”). To say nothing of the fact that in one manuscript (Toledo, cf. Marmo 1992: 32 n. 8) in chapter 11 we find: “Ideoque pulchre dicit Astisius in suis transsumptionibus quasi ante oculos statuende ea que transumendo loquitur” (“And this is why Astisius expresses himself so well in his transumptions that almost place what he is talking about by transference before your very eyes”). Where the form
Astisius
suggests that the Arabic original had interpreted
asteia
as a proper name, and that Hermann had gone along with this interpretation.

With reference to the key points of Aristotle’s text listed in
section 2.1
, let us now examine the solutions provided by V and M.
¹⁵

1404b 3. That what is “foreign” is delectable and
thaumaston
(i.e., exciting wonder) is clear enough both in V (“mirabiles enim absentium, delectabile autem mirabile est” [“for those who are admirable are different, but what is admirable is delightful”]) and in M (“admiratores enim advenarum sunt, delectabile autem quod mirabile est” [“for those who admire are strangers, but what is admirable is delightful”]).

1405a 9. V says that “manifestum et delectabile et externum habet maxime metaphora, et assumere non est ipsam ad alio” (“metaphor has most especially evidence, delight and strangeness, and it cannot be received from someone else”). M translates “evidentiam et delectationem et extraneitatem habet maxime metaphora, et accipere ipsam non est ab alio” (“metaphor has most especially distinctness, delight and strangeness, and it cannot be taken from someone else”). Both let it be understood that good metaphors are not made by merely imitating those already codified.

1405a 9. Verbs like
phainesthai
and
skopein
are rendered in V with
videri
and
intueri
and by M with
apparire
and
intendere.
They are in other words
verba cognoscendi.

1405a 10. V does not get the quip about pirates calling themselves purveyors and translates “et latrones se ipsos depredatores vocant” (“and pirates call themselves predators”). M on the other hand speaks appropriately of
acquisitores.

1405b 13. The idea that metaphor puts matters before our eyes is properly understood (“in faciendo rem coram oculis” in V and “in faciendo rem pre oculis” in M). Similarly, all subsequent translations of the same expression are correct.

1406b 4. The translators are embarrassed, and not without reason, by the distinction between
metaphora
and
eikon.
V first translates
eikon
as
conveniens,
producing the obscure expression “est autem et conveniens metaphora” (“moreover a metaphor is also befitting”), but right afterward he translates the same term with
ymagines.
M translates it as
assimilatio.
In both translations, however, the context makes it clear that what is involved is a simile (for both, Achilles “ut leone fremit” or “fremuit” [“roars like a lion”]).

1410b 10 et seq. We come now to the definitions of
ta asteia
(“witty and popular sayings”). V renders the term with
solatiosa
and M conserves
asteia.
Especially in the latter case, we can only suppose that the medieval reader had no idea what they were talking about (see, in Marmo 1992, the misunderstandings that ensue in Giles of Rome’s commentary). One might have expected the concept to be clarified by the plentiful examples supplied by Aristotle, but unfortunately the translation of these pithy sayings is unsatisfactory. Many of Aristotle’s examples are completely skipped. In V the triremes like “parti-colored mills” become “milonas curvas,” and in M “molares varios.” Sisyphus’s stone that rolls ruthlessly down to the plain becomes in V “lapis … inverecundus ad eum qui est inverecundus” (“a stone … shameless to him who is shameless”) and in M “lapis … qui inverecundus ad facile verecundabilem.” (“a stone … that is shameless to someone who is easily contemptible”). The spear-point that speeds eagerly through the warrior’s breast is not translated in V, while in M it appears as the inexplicable “gibbosa falerizantia.” In V the metaphor of stubble for old age becomes the incomprehensible “quando enim dicit senectutem bonam, facit doctrinam et cognitionem propter genus” (“for when he says that old age is good, he teaches and imparts knowledge to us through the genus”), while M translates more appropriately “quando enim dixit senectutem calamum fecit disciplinam et notitiam per genus” (“when he called old age a stalk, he taught and delivered a notion through its genus”). In 1412a 5, Archytas’s metaphor on the similarity between an arbitrator and an altar (both a refuge for someone who has suffered an injustice) in V becomes “sicut Archites dixit idem esse propter hanc et altare” (“just as Archytas said that there was no difference
because of this
”), perhaps because his manuscript, instead of “diaiteten” [
=
arbitrator], read “dia tauten”); M on the other hand is not guilty of the same error. We may well wonder how much intellectual stimulation a medieval reader might have felt in the face of such obscure pseudo-inventions that often come across as insipid or meaningless.

Curiously, in the same passage, both translators accurately render the conceptual aspect. In V good enthymemes “faciunt nobis doctrinam expeditam” (“they teach us expeditiously”), and in this connection mention is made of “cognitio” (which is Aristotle’s
gnosis
or “knowing”). M says that good enthymemes “faciunt nos addiscere celeriter” (“make us learn quickly”) and that “cum hoc quod dicuntur notitia fit” (“which are understood the moment they are stated”). Similarly, it is clear, though elliptically expressed, that metaphor must make us see the thing in action and that, like philosophy, it must make us “inspicere” (a good translation of
theorein
, “to contemplate or consider”) a resemblance “a propriis et non manifestis” (“proper to the object, yet not obvious”) (V), while M speaks less forcefully, but with clarity, of a witty saying that makes us “bene considerare similitudinem in multibus distantibus” (“consider carefully similarity in many disparate things”). When V finds himself faced (in 1412a 17) with the term “epiphaneia” he boldly transliterates it as “epyphania” (while M does not grasp the meaning of apparition and revelation and says “in superficie,” [“on the surface”]).

Correctly rendered is the passage in 1412a, in which Aristotle says that, when confronted with a witty juxtaposition, the surprised reader recognizes that he had not seen things as they were and had been mistaken (even though, immediately following, V, after attempting to translate Stesichorus’s apophthegm of the grasshoppers that will sing to themselves from the ground, skips a short passage on riddles and translates the notion of “novel expressions” with “inania”). M on the other hand translates the passage on riddles (which are able to say new things [“nova dicere”]) and gets across the idea of the unexpected word (“inopinatum”) and the paradox it produces.

To sum up, the two versions might have given some inkling of Aristotle’s position, but it is doubtful whether the meaning of the technical terms was immediately evident, and the translations of the examples were certainly of no help in understanding the definitions any better.

The scant attention the Middle Ages paid to these two translations can be explained in a number of ways. In the first place, up until the twelfth century, rhetoric had belonged to the
trivium,
but poetics was not included. Thus, observes Dahan (1980), poetics is ignored by Alan of Lille (in his
Anticlaudianus
), Honorius of Autun, Hugh of Saint Victor, Robert Grosseteste (in his
De artibus liberalibus
), John of Dacia (in his
De divisione scientiae
), and many others.

Around the twelfth century, another division of the sciences becomes prevalent, one Stoic in origin, according to which philosophy is subdivided into logic, ethics, and physics, and at this point both poetics and rhetoric were considered part of logic. The idea is already present in Augustine, but see Isidore of Seville’s definition in
Etymologiae
II, 24, 3: “Philosophiae species tripartita est: una naturalis, quae graece physica appellatur …; altera moralis, quae graece ethica dicitur …; tertia rationalis, quae graece vocabulo logica appellatur” (“There are three kinds of philosophy: one natural [
naturalis
], which in Greek is ‘physics’ [
physica
] …; a second moral [
moralis
], which is called ‘ethics’ [
ethica
] in Greek …; a third rational [
rationalis
], which is named with the Greek term ‘logic’ [
logica
].”)
¹⁶

Later in the twelfth century, through the agency of Gundisalvo, the Arabic classification, in which poetics and rhetoric are seen as an integral part of Aristotle’s
Organon
(see, for instance, Avicenna’s
Shifa
and the
De scientiis
of al-Farabi), becomes established in the West. It was in fact as an aid to students of logic that Hermann presented his translation: “suscipiant igitur, si placet, et huius editionis Poetriae translationem viri studiosi, et gaudeant se cum hac adeptos logici negotii Aristotilis complementum (“May then learned men, should it be deemed desirable, take up also the translation of this edition of the
Poetria
and rejoice to achieve with it a completion of the logical works of Aristotle”).

Though he did not know Aristotle’s
Rhetoric,
Albertus Magnus considers rhetoric a logical discipline (see, for instance,
Liber de praedicabilibus
I, 4); and in the
Liber Primis Posteriorum Analyticorum
he includes poetics under logic (cf. Dahan and Rosier-Catach 1998: 77, as well as Marmo 1990: 159–163).
¹⁷

As parts of logic, poetics and rhetoric were understood to be persuasive discourses that could be used for political and moral ends, and it is in fact Gundisalvo who defines poetics as forming part of civil science, which is in its turn part of eloquence, whose purpose is to delight and instruct both in science and proper behavior.

The thinker who crystallizes the Arabic position (rhetoric and poetics as part of logic, and their moral and civic orientation) is Roger Bacon (cf. Rosier-Catach 1998). Bacon, inspired by Gerard of Cremona’s translation of al-Farabi’s
De scientiis,
is intent, in his
Moralis Philosophia
(the seventh part of his
Opus Majus
), on establishing a method for convincing the infidel of the superiority of Christianity, and he finds it in rhetorical and poetic discourse. He is seeking a “sermo potens ad inclinandum mentem” (“speech with the power to persuade the mind”); and language (he affirms in
Opus Majus
III) is more effective than any war. If dialectical and demonstrative arguments could move the speculative mind, poetics and rhetoric can move the practical intellect (
Opus Majus
III).

Poetic argument has nothing to do with truth or falsehood. Poetics is the study of ways of moving the listener emotionally by means of a magniloquent style, and the greatest example of poetic discourse is provided by the Holy Scriptures. In the
Moralis Philosophia
imitation
(similitudo)
is seen as the way of comparing, for instance, virtue to light and sin to things that are hideous.

It is Bacon again, in his
Communia Matematica,
who will state that poetic argument uses fine discourses so that the soul may be overcome by the love of virtue and learn to hate vice. To this end ornaments such as meter and rhythm can be useful, as is the case in the texts of Scripture.
¹⁸

Independently of Bacon, the idea that poetics and rhetoric are part of logic and are concerned with moral and civil knowledge made more and more headway among those who approached the first translations of Aristotle. It is understandable, then, that the thinkers who debated such problems were not especially interested in the semiotics of
elocutio,
and hence in the technical study of metaphors, but focused their attention more on methods of argumentation.

Thomas demonstrates his familiarity with these translations (except, of course, Moerbeke’s translation of the
Poetics
), but, in his commentary on
Posterior Analytics
I, he sees logic as judicative
(Prior and Posterior Analytics),
sophistic
(Sophistical Refutations)
and inventive (
Topics, Rhetoric,
and
Poetics
). Hence, “poetae est inducere ad aliquod virtuosum per aliquam decentem representationem” (“the poet’s task is to lead us to something virtuous by some excellent description”).