Chapter 35 of 87 · 1006 words · ~5 min read

chapter 61

, pp. 654-5.

[829] Budge, _Egyptian Magic_, 1899, pp. 152-6; Masʿudi, _Les Prairies d’Or._ ed. B. de Maynard and Pavet de Courteille, 1861, II, 425ff.

[830] Budge (1899), pp. 95-6.

[831] CLM 2574b, bombyc. 13th century, fol. 69v. Although Steele (1920) p. lviii, says, “No Latin manuscript is known in which there is a figure of the horn, with the exception of that in Holkam Hall, in the borders of which an entirely fanciful instrument is depicted (reproduced in plate 151 of the Roxburghe Club publication of 1914). There are drawings in MSS C and D of the Eastern Arabic text, of entirely different shape.”

[832] Steele (1920), p. 151.

[833] Cap. 5.

[834] Very similar is the story in the Gilgamesh epic, a work “far more ancient than Genesis,” of a serpent stealing a life-giving plant from Gilgamesh while he was bathing in a well or brook. The plant, which had been revealed to Gilgamesh by the deified Utnapishtim, “had the miraculous power of renewing youth and bore the name, ‘the old man becomes young.’” Sir James Frazer (1918), I, 50-51, follows Rabbi Julian Morgenstern (“On Gilgamesh Epic, XI, 274-320,” in _Zeitschrift f. Assyriologie_, XXIX, 1915, p. 284ff.) in connecting this incident with the serpent and the tree of life in the Biblical account of the fall of man, and gives further examples from primitive folk-lore of other jealous animals, such as the dog, frog, duck, and lizard, perverting divine gifts or good tidings to man to their own profit.

[835] Sloane 2030, fols. 125-26; Additional 15236, fols. 154-60; BN, 7420A (14th century) #16.

[836] Richard Förster, _De Aristotelis quae feruntur physiognomonicis recensendis, Kiliae_, 1882; _De translat. latin. physiognom., Kiliae_, 1884; _Scriptores Physiognomici, Lipsiae_, 1893-1894.

[837] Cotton Julius D-viii, fol. 126ff.; Harleian 3969; Egerton 847; Sloane 2030, fol. 95-103; Additional 15236, fol. 160 (in abbreviated form); Sloane 3281, fols. 19-23; Sloane 3584; Egerton 2852, fol. 115v, _et seq._

[838] There is a manuscript copy of a commentary on it of the fourteenth century at Erfurt, Amplon. Quarto 186. See Schum’s catalogue for MSS of the _Physiognomia_ itself in the Amplonian collection.

[839] R. Förster, _De Aristotelis quae feruntur secreta secretorum Commentatio_, Kiliae, 1888; _Handschriften und Ausgaben des pseudo-aristotelischen Secretum secretorum_, in _Centralblatt f. Bibliothekwesen_, VI (1889), 1-22, 57-76. And see Steele (1920).

[840] M. Gaster, in his “Introduction to a Hebrew version of the Secret of Secrets,” in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ (1908,

## part 2), pp. 1065-84; for the Hebrew text and an English translation,

_Ibid._ (1907), pp. 879-913 and (1908, part 1), pp. 111-62.

[841] Ed. Robert Steele, EETS, LXVI, London, 1894. Volume LXXIV contains three earlier English versions. There are numerous MSS of it in Italian in the Riccardian and Palatini collections at Florence.

[842] _De Somno et vigilia_, I, ii, 7.

[843] Tanner 116, 13th century; Corpus Christi 149, 15th century. Recently edited by Robert Steele, 1920, as Fasc. V of his _Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi_.

[844] There are considerable discrepancies between the different early printed editions, which differ in length, order of arrangement, tables of contents, and number of chapters. And in the same edition the chapter headings given in the course of the text may not agree with those in the table of contents, which as a rule, even in the MSS, does not fully cover the subject-matter of the text. The different printers have probably used different manuscripts for their editions rather than made any new additions of their own. The following editions are those to which references will be made in the following pages.

An edition printed at Cologne about 1480, which I examined at the Harvard University Library, divides the text into only thirty chapters and seems imperfect.

An edition of about 1485, which I examined at the British Museum, where it was numbered IA.10756, has 74 chapters, and the headings of its 25th and 30th chapters, for instance, agree with those of the 11th and 13th chapters in the Harvard copy.

A third edition of Paris, 1520, has no numbered chapters and contains passages not found in the two earlier editions.

As a check upon these printed texts I have examined the three following MSS, two of the 13th, and one of the 14th, century. Of these Egerton 2676 corresponds fairly closely throughout to the edition numbered IA.10756 in the British Museum.

Egerton 2676, 13th century, fols. 3-52.

BN 6584, 13th century, fols. 1r-32v.

Bodleian 67, 14th century, fols. 1-53v, is much like the preceding MS.

[845] BN 6584, fol. 1v, “De prologo cuiusdam doctoris in commendatione aristotelis.” See also Digby 228, 14th century, fol. 27, where a scribe has written in the upper margin, “In isto libello primo ponitur prologus, deinde tabula contentorum in libro, deinde prologus cuiusdam doctoris in commendacionem Aristotilis, deinde prologus Iohannis qui transtulit librum istum....” In Egerton 2676, fol. 6r, “Deus omnipotens custodiat regem....”

[846] Steele (1920), p. xi.

[847] Steinschneider (1905), p. 42, it is true, says, “Ob Joh. selbst das ganze Secretum übersetzt habe, ist noch nicht ermittelt”; but the following passage, cited by Giacosa (1901), p. 386, from Bibl. Angelica Rome, Cod. 1481, 12th century, fols. 144-146v, indicates that he translated only the medical part.

“Cum de utilitate corporis olim tractarim et a me quasi essem medicus vestra nobilitas quereret ut brevem libellum et de observatione diete et de continentia cordis in qualibus se debent contineri qui sanitatem corporis cupiunt servare accidit ut dum cogitarem vestre iussioni obedire huius rei exempliar aristotelis philosophi Alexandro dictum repente in mente occurreret quod excerpi de libro qui arabice vocatur ciralacerar id est secretum secretorum que fecit fieri predictus Aristotelis philosophus Alexandro regi magno de dispositione regni in quo continentur multa regibus utilia....”

Steele (1920) pp. xvii-xviii, gives the same passage, worded and spelled a little differently, from another MS, Addit. 26770.

[848] Ed. H. Souchier, _Denkmäler provenzal. Lit. u. Sprache_, Halle, 1883, I, 473 _et seq._

[849] Thirteenth century MSS of Philip’s translation are numerous: I have not noted a 12th century one.

[850] See above,