From the Tree to the Labyrinth: Historical Studies on the Sign and Interpretation
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Finally, we have a total misunderstanding apropos of 1451b 1–14, where Aristotle opposes poetry to history, in the sense that poetry narrates possible actions, either probable or necessary, but always general, while the historian expounds real but particular events. Here Averroes radically misinterprets: he says that the poet speaks of existing and possible matters and that he often speaks about general things, while “the one who invents parables and stories” (in other words, those who for Aristotle were the historians) feign false things, inventing individuals who do not exist and finding names for them (Butterworth 1986: 83–84). Hermann translates “poete vere ponunt nomina rebus existentibus, et fortassis loquuntur in universalibus” (“the poets on the other hand use names for existing [viz. individual] things, and sometimes they also speak in general terms”) (p. 52) and, transforming the historian into a fictor (in other words, a narrator of fables), he says that he “fingit individua quae penitus non habent existentiam in re, et ponitur eis nomina” (“he invents individuals who do not exist at all in reality, and gives them names”).
Averroes seems sensitive to the thematics of metaphor, as he brings it up right away at the start of his commentary (Butterworth 1986: 60–61), whereas Aristotle himself has nothing to say about it and confines himself to discussing imitation. For Averroes, poetic compositions are imitative when they compare one thing to another, and he gives the example of cases in which one thing is described “as if” it were another (speaking of these “particles of comparison,” Hermann will use the term “sinkategoremata similitudinis” (“the syncategorematic terms of the comparison”) (p. 42);11 but he also cites cases of “substitution,” a generic procedure of which metaphor and metonymy are subspecies. Apropos of metaphor Averroes speaks immediately of analogy, that is, of a four-term relationship. In this same context he makes an affirmation typical of Arabic philosophy, which will come to have a notable influence on Latin thought, namely, that poetics belongs to the art of logic.12
In another context, not found in Aristotle, Averroes, discussing sense-perceptible things represented by means of other equally sense-perceptible things, seems to be alluding to metaphors, since he speaks of the knowledge produced by the names of constellations like Cancer (in the sense of “crab”). He appears to be saying that these juxtapositions generate uncertainty (at least they are introduced by expressions of uncertainty) and therefore some kind of cognitive effort, while comparisons that do not generate uncertainty are less interesting (p. 97). Hermann translates: “Quedem earum sunt ut fiat representatio rerum sensibilium per res sensibiles quarum natura sit ut quasi in dubio ponant aspectorem, et estimare faciant eum presentes esse res ipsas” (“Among them is for the representation of sense-perceptible things to be made by means of sense-perceptible things, such that anyone who looks at them becomes uncertain and fancies that they are indeed those things”) (p. 59). Here we could be getting close to a cognitive notion of tropes. But a little earlier Averroes has declared that these imitative pictures must conform to commonly used formulas in a clear fashion, so as not to create difficulties. The doubt is resolved when we realize that he is commenting on 1454b 19–21, where ways of making the recognition or agnition more interesting are analyzed, and therefore the uncertainty is due to the recognizability of characteristic signs or tokens (Aristotle is talking about scars, necklaces, etc.). Perhaps it is because Averroes is not thinking of coups de théâtre that he treats the matter with some hesitancy (otherwise he would never have introduced the Cancer example), and Hermann follows him with the same hesitant confusion.
Metaphor also seems to crop up apropos of 1455a 4–6. Aristotle is concerned with agnition through syllogism, as when, in Aeschylus’s Libation Bearers (Choephoroi), Electra argues that someone identical to herself has arrived, but nobody is identical to her except Orestes. Averroes interprets this to mean that what is being spoken of is an individual who is like another individual because of a similar constitution or temperament (p. 104). Hermann is drawn by this discourse on similarity to speak of metaphorica assimilatio (“metaphorical comparison”) (p. 60), which is quite evidently a misreading.
We do come to metaphor apropos of 1457b et seq. A noun, as Aristotle says, can be “ordinary” or “rare” or “metaphorical” or “ornamental” (along with other categories less interesting from our point of view). Averroes (Butterworth 1986: 121–122) accepts this distinction, as does Hermann (p. 67), who defines metaphor as primarium, intromissum aliunde, transumptum, or facticium (“original, introduced from elsewhere, taken over from an extrinsic usage, or artificial”). Similarly observed is the Aristotelian distinction between metaphors from genus to species and vice versa, from species to species, or by analogy, and even the example of old age as the evening of life is preserved.
Averroes however (as well as his translator) follows the letter of Aristotle: it is certainly useful to use unusual words if one wishes to strike the reader’s imagination, but one must not exaggerate, so as not to fall into riddles. As for the passage in 1459a 8, in which Aristotle introduces the knowledge of the related concept (with the verb theorein), Averroes does not seem to grasp the suggestion and confines himself to saying that “when the similarity in the substitution is very strong, it makes both the imitation and the understanding more excellent” (Butterworth 1986: 134). Hermann translates “quando enim commutatio vehementis fuerit assimilationis, inducet bonitatem imaginationis et comprehensionem complectiorem rei representatae simul” (“when indeed the reciprocal opposition is that of a very strong similarity, it leads to both the good quality of the imagery and a more comprehensive understanding of the thing it represents”) (p. 71). All this is certainly much weaker than it was in Aristotle’s text.
Overall, it is difficult to say what effect Averroes’s commentary might have had on the imagination of the Latins, since what they were confronted with were metaphors taken from Arabic poetry inadequately translated by Hermann. They certainly must have sounded odd to the ears of the Latin reader, and they might therefore have suggested an invitation to be daring. And what can we say of the effect that might have been produced by metaphors such as “Iam sol inclinatur et nondum perfecisti, et subdivisus in horizonte est quasi oculus strabi vel lusci” (“Now the sun is declining but has not completely set, it appears split on the horizon like the eye of a squinter or a person with one eye”) or “Non est denigratus oculos antimonio pulvere, ut nigros habent oculos a natura” (“Someone who has blackened their eyes with kohl is not like someone who has black eyes by nature”) (pp. 59–60)?
In fact we have only to consult the few medieval commentaries devoted to Averroes’s treatise, prior at least to the use made of it by Giles of Rome (Egidius Romanus). These texts are reproduced by Dahan (1980: 193–239) and represent a series of glosses on the Translatio Hermanni, a Quaestio in Poetriam and the Expositio super Poetriam of Bartholomew of Bruges. They consist of fairly pedestrian summaries of Averroes’s text, which add nothing useful either to the comprehension of Aristotle or that of Averroes. At most, in the first glosses, where Hermann speaks of translatio and transumptio as two species of concambium, two examples (taken perhaps from Boethius’s De consolatione) are adduced, “sicut enim se habet liberalis ad pecuniam, sic mare ad aquas” (“just as a liberal person handles money, so does the sea its waters”) and “sicut mare arenis siccis aquas ministrat, sic liberalis egentibus pecuniam” (“just as the sea pours its waters on the dry sands, so liberal persons hand out money to those in need”), which appear to be two instances of transumptio.
2.3. The Poetics: William of Moerbeke’s Translation
Compared with the commentary of Averroes/Hermann, Moerbeke’s translation strikes us as considerably more faithful to Aristotle, though at times it too falls victim to misleading Greek manuscripts.13 When in 1457b 32 Aristotle says that a shield could be called a “a wineless wine bowl” (aoinon), Moerbeke reads oinou and translates “puta si scutum dicat ‘fyalam’ non Martis sed vini,” “as if you were to call the shield, n
ot the cup of Mars but a wine cup”) (p. 27).
Faced with the riddle of the dry suction cup, and following the reading he found in his manuscript, he translates “virilem rubicundum ut est ignitum super virum adherentem” (“a manly red like something fiery sticking to a man”) (p. 28). But he translates “seminans deo conditam flammam” (“sowing the god-created flame”), as well as other citations, correctly.
Tragodia and komodia are translated correctly (albeit with a simple calque). But let us not forget how obscure these terms could appear to a man of the Middle Ages: according to William of Saint-Thierry (Commentarius in Canticum canticorum, PL 180), a comedy is a story that, though it may contain elegiac passages that speak of the pains of love, ends happily; for Honorius of Autun (De animae exilio et patria, PL 172), tragedies are poems that deal with war, such as Lucan’s Pharsalia, while comedies, like the works of Terence, sing of weddings. Dante too refers to his work as a Commedia not because it is a theatrical work but because it has a very happy ending. Hugh of Saint Victor (Didascalicon II, 27, PL 176) says that the art of performance gets the name of “theatrical” art from the word “theater,” a place where the ancient peoples gathered for amusement, and in theaters dramatic events were recited aloud, with readings of poems or representations involving actors and masks. In the Poetria of John of Garland (Johannes de Garlandia), we find a classification of literary genres in which tragedy is defined as “carmen quod incipit a gaudio et terminat in luctu” (“a poem that begins in rejoicing and ends in lamentation”), while comedy is “carmen jocosum incipiens a tristitia et terminans in gaudium” (“a light-hearted poem beginning in sadness and ending in rejoicing”) (cf. De Bruyne, Études II, iii, 3). One of the few texts in which an idea of classical tragedy can be identified (based, however, on hearsay) is the Ars versificatoria of Matthew of Vendôme (II, 5, in Faral 1924), where among the arts tragedy is cited “inter ceteras clamitans boatu” (“shouting various loud cries in the midst of the group”), which (citing Horace, Ars Poet. 97) “projicit ampullas et sexquipedalia verba” (“spews forth bombast and sesquipedalian words”) and, continues Matthew, “pedibus innitens coturnatis, rigida superficie, minaci supercilio, assuetae ferocitatis multifarium intonat conjecturam” (“relying on buskin feet, an inflexible appearance, and a menacing brow, thunders forth a multitude of warnings, all with her customary ferocity”). Not much to go on as a clue to Aristotle’s concept of tragedy, but enough to recognize what ancient theatrical actions were like, seeing that the theater the Middle Ages had in mind evoked the antics of minstrels and histriones, along with the sacred mystery play.
Accordingly, in Moerbeke’s translation (pp. 9–10), mimesis is rendered as imitatio, pity and fear with misericordia and timor, pathos with passio; the six parts of tragedy become fabula, mores, locutio, ratiocinatio, visus, and melodie; it is understood that opsis has to do with the mimic action of the hypocrita or actor; peripetie and anagnorisees (idest recognitiones) are mentioned; and the distinction between the poet and the historian is clear. The oppositions between a clear and a pedestrian style are faithfully presented, though glotta is translated as lingua, making the nature of the barbarism somewhat less than transparent. Moerbeke translates 1457b 6 et seq., where metaphor is defined, in an acceptable manner.
In the crucial 1459a, 8, where Aristotle says that “to use metaphor well implies an ability to see the likenesses in things,” and he uses in this context the verb theorein, Moerbeke translates “nam bene metaphorizare est simile considerare” (“for to coin good metaphors is to consider likeness”) (p. 29). Perhaps the verb considerare has a weaker connotation than the Greek word, but it points in any case to the universe of knowledge.
To sum up, the Latin reader could have acquired a reasonable idea of Aristotle’s text from Moerbeke, but with nothing that underscored with particular energy the cognitive aspect of metaphor’s implications.
2.4. Aristotle’s Rhetoric: Hermann the German’s Translation
In section 2.1 we recalled that three translations of the Rhetoric had appeared: one from the Arabic by Hermann the German, an anonymous Translatio Vetus, and, between 1269 and 1270, the version of William of Moerbeke, from the Greek. For a long time the received wisdom concerning Hermann’s Rhetoric was imprecise. The title, Averroes in Rhetoricam, led some scholars to conclude that it was a translation of Averroes’s Middle Commentary. Then, because of the existence of other manuscripts that bore the title Didascalia in Rhetoricam Aristotelis ex glosa Alpharabi (whereas al-Farabi’s commentary was incomplete from the start), it was believed that Hermann’s text was based solely on Arabic sources. Only quite recently (Bogges 1971) was it determined that Hermann had translated the text of Aristotle from the Arabic, inserting passages from Averroes’s commentary and from Avicenna’s Shifa when the manuscripts at his disposal were lacunary (but invariably making the insertion explicit). In his translation of al-Farabi’s glosses, Hermann explicitly claims to have translated Aristotle’s Rhetoric from Arabic to Latin, and he repeats the claim in the prologue to his translation of the Rhetoric.
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.
2.5. The Rhetoric: Translatio Vetus (V) and William of Moerbeke’s Translation (M)
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 metapho
r 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.