An Enquiry into the Life and Legend of Michael Scot. J. Wood Brown
in cognitione naturalium animalium, agrestium et marinorum, et in illo est conjunctionis animalium modus et modus generationis illorum cum coitu, cum partitione membrorum interiorum et apparentium, et cum meditatione comparationum eorum, et actionum eorum, et juvamentorum et nocumentorum eorum, et qualiter venantur, et in quibus locis sunt, et quomodo moventur de loco ad locum propter dispositionem presentis aetatis, aestatis et hiemis, et unde est vita cuiuslibet eorum, scilicet modorum avium, et luporum, et piscium maris et qui ambulant in eo.’ It seems tolerably certain that the substance of this prologue came from the Arabic original, which must have commenced with the ascription of praise to God so commonly employed by Mohammedans: ‘Bi-smilláhi-r-rahhmáni-r-rahheém’ (In the Name of God, the Compassionate; the Merciful).[83] The clumsiness of the Latin, which here, as in the body of the work, seems to labour heavily in the track of a foreign text,[84] adds force to this assumption. The hand of Scot is seen, however, where the name of our Saviour has been substituted for that of Allah, and also in the closing words, which ring with a strong reminiscence of the eighth Psalm. The churchman betrays himself here as in not a few other places which might be quoted from his different writings.
By far the most interesting matter, however, which offers itself for our consideration here, lies in the comparison we are now to make between this book and a former work of Scot, the De Physionomia. This comparison, which has never before been attempted, will throw light on both these texts, but has a special value as it affords the means of dating, at least approximately, the composition of Scot’s version of the De Animalibus ad Caesarem.
We have already remarked that the last two chapters of the first book of the Physionomia suggest that in compiling them the author had before him an Arabic treatise on Natural History. A natural conjecture leads us further to suppose that this may have been the original from which he translated the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, and this idea becomes a certainty when we pursue the comparison a little more closely. Take for example this curious passage from the Physionomia (Book I. chap, ii.): ‘Incipiunt pili paulatim oriri in pectine unitas quorum dicitur femur … item sibi vox mutatur.’ Its obscurity disappears when we confront it with the corresponding words in the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, and thus discover what was no doubt the original source from which Scot derived it: ‘Incipiunt pili oriri in pectore Kameon alkaratoki, et in isto tempore mutatur vox eius.’[85] There is no need to extend the comparison any further than this significant passage. Doubt may arise regarding the depth and accuracy of Scot’s knowledge of the Arabic tongue, the nature of the text that lay before him, or the reason he may have had for retaining foreign words in the one version which he translated in the other; but surely this may be regarded as now clearly established, that some part of the first book of the Physionomia was derived by compilation from the same text which appeared in a Latin dress as the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, and that this source was an Arabic one.
This point settled, it becomes possible to establish another. One of the copies of the De Animalibus ad Caesarem[86] has the following colophon: ‘Completus est liber Aristotelis de animalibus, translatus a magistro michaele in tollecto de arabico in latinum.’ Now if the version was made in Toledo, it was probably posterior in date to the Physionomia. This indeed is no more than might have been asserted on the ground of common likelihood; for, when a compilation and a complete version of one of the sources from which it was derived are both found passing under the name of the same author, it is but natural to suppose that the first was made before the other, and that in the interval the author had conceived the idea of producing in a fuller form a work he had already partially published.
Resuming then the results we have reached, it appears that Scot had met with this Arabic commentary on the Natural History of Aristotle while he was still in Sicily, and had made extracts from it for his Physionomia. Coming to Spain he probably carried the manuscript with him, and as his version of the De Animalibus ad Caesarem seems to have been the first complete translation he made from the Arabic, and to have been published shortly after he came to the Castiles, he may possibly have begun work upon it even before his arrival there. On every account, there being no positive evidence to the contrary, we may conjecture that the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, like the Physionomia, belongs to the year 1209. If the latter work appeared at Palermo in time for the royal marriage, which took place in spring, the former may well have been completed and published towards the end of the same year, when Scot had no doubt been already some time settled in Toledo.
The second form in which Michael Scot produced his work upon the Natural History of Aristotle was that of a version called the Abbreviatio Avicennae. The full title as it appears in the printed copy[87] is: ‘Avicenna de Animalibus per Magistrum Michaelem Scotum de Arabico in Latinum translatus.’ Like the De Animalibus ad Caesarem it consists of nineteen books, thus comprehending the three Aristotelic treatises in one work.
The name of Ibn Sina or Avicenna, the author of the Arabic original, is significant, as it enables us to connect in a remarkable way the present labours of Scot’s pen with those which had in a past age proceeded from the school of translators at Toledo, and to place the Abbreviatio in its true relation with the system of versions which had been published there nearly a century before. We have already remarked that Don Raymon directed the attention of his translators to Avicenna as the best representative, both of Aristotle himself and of the Arabian wisdom which had gathered about his writings. A manuscript of great interest preserved in the library of the Vatican[88] shows what the labours of Gundisalvus, Avendeath, and their coadjutors had been, and how far they had proceeded in the task of making this author accessible to Latin students. From it we learn that the Logic, the Physics, the De Cœlo et Mundo, the Metaphysics; the De Anima, called also Liber sextus de Naturalibus; and the De generatione Lapidum of Avicenna, had come from the school of Toledo during the twelfth century in a Latin dress. The last-named treatise was apparently a comment on the Meteora of Aristotle, and the whole belonged to that Kitab Alchefâ, which was called by the Latins the Assephae, Asschiphe or Liber Sufficientiae. This collection was said to form but the first and most common of the three bodies of philosophy composed by Avicenna. It represented the teaching of Aristotle and the Peripatetics, while the second expounded the system of Avicenna himself, and the third contained the more esoteric and occult doctrines of natural philosophy.[89] Of these the first alone had reached the Western schools.
It is plain then that until Michael Scot took the work in hand Toledo had not completed the Latin version of Avicenna by translating that part of the Alchefâ which concerned the Natural History of Animals. The Abbreviatio Avicennae thus came to supply the defect and to crown the labours of the ancient college of translators. This place of honour is actually given to it in the Vatican manuscript just referred to, where it follows the De generatione Lapidum, and forms the fitting close of that remarkable series and volume. Thus, while the De Animalibus ad Caesarem connects itself with the Physionomia, and with Scot’s past life in Sicily, the Abbreviatio Avicennae joins him closely and in a very remarkable way with the whole tradition of the Toledo school, of which, by this translation, he at once became not the least distinguished member.
FROM M.S. FONDO VATICANO 4428, p. 158, recto
The authority of this manuscript, now perhaps for the first time appealed to, is sufficient not only to determine the relation of Scot’s work to that of the earlier Toledan school, but even, by a most fortunate circumstance, enables us to feel sure of the exact date when the translation of the Abbreviatio was made. For the colophon to the Vatican manuscript, brief as it is, contains in one line a fact of the utmost interest and importance to all students of the life of Scot. It is as follows: ‘Explicit anno Domini mºcºcºx.’[90] The researches of Jourdain had the merit of making public two colophons from the manuscripts of Paris, containing the date of another and later work of Scot,[91] but since the days of that savant no further addition of this valuable kind has been made to our knowledge of the philosopher’s life. The date just cited from the Vatican copy of the Abbreviatio shows, however, that further inquiry in this direction need not be abandoned as useless. We now know accurately the time when this version was completed, and find the date to be such as accords exactly with our idea that Scot must have quitted Sicily soon after