The Translation of Cebes' Tabula in Codex Vaticanus Latinus 4037

aye Pk rae ® Su Cebetis Tabula. — Fıxcı Ch. E., The translation of Cebes’ Tabula in Codex Valicanus Latinus 4037 : TAPhA LNNNY 1954 79-87, | Cette traduction, qui n’a pas encore été utilisée par les éditeurs de la Tabula, apporte un témoignage précieux sur Ja fin originale de l'œuvre. CHAUNCEY E. FINCH SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY In preparing his critical edition of Cebes’ Tabula, published in 1893, K. Praechter, in addition to using all of the Greck manuscripts of the work known to exist, also consulted two Latin translations.! Of these the translation by Odaxius published at Bologna in 1497 proved to be of little value in establishing the Greek text. The second, however, is of considerably greater importance for textual purposes. It is a Latin translation made by Elichmann in 1640 from an Arabic paraphrase of the Greek original prepared in the ninth century. This work proved useful in correcting the Greek text in several places in which it has become corrupt in the Greek manuscripts; but its chief interest rests on the fact that at the end it contains more than a page of material not to be found in anv of the Greek manuscripts. At first some students of Cebes were inclined to doubt whether this additional material is actually a part of the original work ;? but in the more recent editions of the Tabula Elichmann's supplementary material is appended in Latin at the end of the Greek text as the last few lines of Chapter 41 and the whole of Chapters 42 and 43. The fact remains, however, that up to this.time no evidence has been forthcoming to establish this material] as a genuine part of the original work beyond its inclusion in a Latin translation of a somewhat free Arabic paraphrase. Codex Vaticanus Latinus 4037 (f.154r-f.162v) contains another Latin translation of the Tabula, as yet unused by editors of Cebes, which throws some light on this problem. The codex in question dates from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century and in its 242 folia contains a varied collection of items including translations, by several different translators, of works by Plato, Lucian, and other classical writers as well as many speeches and letters by later 1 Carolus Praechter, Cebetis Tabula (Leipzig 1893) iv. * Richard Parsons. Cebes' Tablet (Boston 1887) 7. 2 The author wishes to express his gratitude to the Directors of The Knights of Columbus Foundation for the Preservation of Historic Documents at the Vatican Library. Saint Louis University. for permission to make use of a microfilm copy of Vat. Lat. 4037 included among the holdings of the Foundation. tiloa dEoNu

V.—The Translation of Cebes’ Tabula in Codex Vaticanus Latinus 4037 CHAUNCEY E. FINCH SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY In preparing his critical edition of Cebes’ Tabula, published in 1893, K. Praechter, in addition to using all of the Greek manuscripts of the work known to exist, also consulted two Latin translations.! Of these the translation by Odaxius published at Bologna in 1497 proved to be of little value in establishing the Greek text. The second, however, is of considerably greater importance for textual purposes. It is a Latin translation made by Elichmann in 1640 from an Arabic paraphrase of the Greek original prepared in the ninth century. This work proved useful in correcting the Greek text in several places in which it has become corrupt in the Greek manuscripts; but its chief interest rests on the fact that at the end it contains more than a page of material not to be found in any of the Greek manuscripts. At first some students of Cebes were inclined to doubt whether this additional material is actually a part of the original work;? but in the more recent editions of the Tabula Elichmann’s supplementary material is appended in Latin at the end of the Greek text as the last few lines of Chapter 41 and the whole of Chapters 42 and 43. The fact remains, however, that up to this time no evidence has been forthcoming to establish this material as a genuine part of the original work beyond its inclusion in a Latin translation of a somewhat free Arabic paraphrase. Codex Vaticanus Latinus 4037 (f.154r-f.162v) contains another Latin translation of the Tabula, as yet unused by editors of Cebes, which throws some light on this problem. The codex in question dates from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century and in its 242 folia contains a varied collection of items including translations, by several different translators, of works by Plato, Lucian, and other classical writers as well as many speeches and letters by later 1 Carolus Praechter, Cebetis Tabula (Leipzig 1893) iv. 2 Richard Parsons, Cebes’ Tablet (Boston 1887) 7. 3 The author wishes to express his gratitude to the Directors of The Knights of Columbus Foundation for the Preservation of Historic Documents at the Vatican Library, Saint Louis University, for permission to make use of a microfilm copy of Vat. Lat. 4037 included among the holdings of the Foundation.

writers and a great variety of other matters. Some of the letters included are dated as late as 1488. Since the identity of the translator of Cebes’ Tabula is not indicated in the manuscript, this work will henceforth, for the sake of convenience, be referred to as the anonymous translation (Anon.). Praechter divides the later Greek manuscripts of the Tabula into four families, one of which is the CK(P) group‘ made up of Codex Parisinus Graecus 1774 (C), Codex Cors. ex Bibl. Nic. Rossii 292 (K), and Codex Vaticanus Palatinus Graecus 134 (P), all of which date from the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. Of these K, in the opinion of Praechter, is a direct copy of C, while P has the earlier portions of its text copied from C and corrected from K.5 One of the peculiar features of this family is that in all manuscripts except P, which took the final portions of its text from a manuscript of another family, the text breaks off at äyvorav (40.2.2) approximately 20 lines before the end of the Greek text recorded in most of the other manuscripts. The anonymous translation here under consideration was unquestionably made from some Greek manuscript belonging to the CK(P) family. Although some errors in interpretation do occur, consisting mainly in confusion of the roles of the interlocutors, aside from a long interpolation at 35.2.5 and a few minor interpolations elsewhere, the anonymous translator has on the whole provided a fairly accurate and, in most instances, quite literal translation of the Greek text found in the CK (P) group of manuscripts. In the vast majority of cases in which omissions occur in C, K, and P alike, or in the final portion of the text in C and K alone, these same omissions are to be found in Anon. Likewise, in most instances in which CKP (or CK for the final portion of the text) share readings which are at variance with the readings of other manuscripts, Anon. employs Latin words which are obviously translations of these readings. The following® are examples of omissions common to CKP and Anon. : &xeı 3.2.5 ; Néyeus 17.2.6 (originally omitted in all manuscripts of the CK(P) family, but added in C by a later hand); ér 26.1.2; odxére 26.3.5. In the later portion of the work, for which P's text 4 Praechter (above, note 1) vi. 5 Ibid. v. 6 The third numeral in the citations which follow is the line number calculated according to the line divisions in Praechter's text. This will doubtless vary slightly for other editions.

comes from some other source, the following words and phrases omitted in CK are omitted in Anon. also: mpös . . . &Meîv 33.4.4; oöv 34.1.1; abr® . . . ru 37.2.2-3; kakdv . . . Civ 37.3.1; adda TÔ THs réuvar 38.1.5; otk . . . kak@®s {ir 38.1.6-7; aioxporara 40.1.6. The following are typical examples of the instances in which Anon. slavishly follows readings peculiar to the CK(P) family. In each case the first reading cited is that adopted by Praechter: dvéreuro 1.1.4, evéxecro CKP, posita erat Anon. ; avip&v 12.3.1, avOpwrwy CKP, homines Anon.; doxodoa 18.2.1, ôokodou CKP, videntur Anon.; avayyeddovew 29.2.3, àvayyéAwouw CP and avayyeihwow K (with adoption of the subjunctive making the verb a part of the preceding purpose clause), nuntient Anon. (with the subjunctive here, too, making the verb a part of the preceding purpose clause) ; kai (before unre xaipev) 31.2.5, absent from all manuscripts except CK, rendered additque in Anon. ; ôiôwor 31.6.1, 664 CK, dederit (subjunctive) Anon.; dperayeAnros 32.2.2, äueraßAnros CK, inmutabile Anon.; xphowa 33.4.3, found only in B?W’CK, rendered utilia in Anon.; abroùs 33.6.3, found in this form only in CK, ipsos Anon.; ryv bwvijv eldévar, AkpıBeorepov yap av Te ouvmkauer 33.6.3—4, THY bwvijv Akpıßeorepov éxew av ru avvhkauev CK, vocem diligentiorem habere si quid perceperimus Anon.; ca robrous mapan\ncıa 36.1.4-5, rà Aoıma boa Tovrots mapar\ncıa CK, reliqua his similia Anon.; dôbvarov 37.1.1, dòbvarov yap CK, impossibile enim Anon.; karöv kai àyabdr 37.1.2, kai kakdv kal ayabov CK, et bonam et malam Anon.; roûro 37.1.2, oùrw CK, sic Anon.; 76 adro mpäyua 37.1.4, äua CK, simul Anon.; où kakóv 37.3.1-2, où kakóv éorw CK, non malum est Anon.;xaAös . . . kak@s 38.1.2, kakôs . . . kaAös CK, male . . . bene Anon.; ei 38.2.2, où CK, main verb imperative implying tu in Anon.; oùôè 39.3.4, mov ôè CM, mo K, ubi Anon. Although, in view of this evidence, it can be stated with certainty that the anonymous translation is based on some member of the CK(P) family, it seems equally certain that no one of the three extant members of that family could have been its source, since there are several instances in which it rejects inferior readings of CKP (or CK for later portions of the work) in favor of better readings found in other manuscripts. At 2.1.1, for instance, the reading oöv, which is found only in Codex Parisinus Graecus 858 (A) — the earliest and best manuscript of the Tabula — and is replaced by öe in all other Greek manuscripts, appears in Anon. as igitur. Other examples are the following: ’Avöpeia, Aukauoobvn 20.3.3, dvdpeta

kat Gwaoobvn CKP, fortitudo, temperantia (without connective) Anon.; duets 30.2.1, queîs CK, duets P (but with v written over an erasure), vos Anon.; vouifer 31.1.2, mıoreveıv CK, ducere Anon. ; airijs 31.2.4, &avrüs CK, illius Anon.; xwAveı 33.6.5 (reading of BDW), xwdvoe all other manuscripts, prohibet Anon. ; tr 35.5.6, omitted in CK, but added in margin of C (presumably after K was copied), vobis Anon. At 37.2.4 xaxdv is inserted before trapxe by CKM, but is not included in Anon. In some of these cases, to be sure, the translator may have restored the correct reading by conjecture, but it seems more probable that he used some lost member of the CK(P) family which was somewhat more accurate than any of the extant members of that family. In this connection, it is interesting to note that Anon. has in the following instances anticipated conjectures of modern scholars: map’ atrats 9.2.6 (Sauppeus), wap’ aùraîs A, map’ airas other manuscripts, secum Anon.; ris 31.1.3 (many editors), omitted in all manuscripts, quis Anon.; abroû 32.4.1 (Sauppeus), airs P, adroîs other manuscripts, wbi (which in context implies same meaning as aÿroÿ) Anon.; jv 33.6.3, av av Sauppeus, esset Anon. ; <BeArious> 33.6.5 (Praechter), omitted in all manuscripts, meliorem Anon.; rots fücı ka\@®s 37.3.2, Kai inserted before rots by Sauppeus, et bene viventibus Anon. In addition, the following is an instance in which a modern conjecture closely approximates in meaning a reading of Anon.: oúrw 26.3.5 (Schweighaüser), rovrovs W?, rodro other manuscripts, igitur Anon. Whether these readings in Anon. are based on readings in the Greek source or are to be considered as conjectures of the translator, it is, of course, impossible to say. It is likewise impossible to determine whether the following interpolation inserted at 35.2.5 after mapad\arrovow was a part of the Greek source or is the work of the translator: Iu<venis>: Quos mathematicos stultos intelligis? Se<nex>: Non esset breve admodum opus quales sint dicere. Tamen, ut rem breviter perstringam, paucis accipe: qui infinita serie numerorum eademque non necessaria in rebus haud laude dignis nimium opere ponunt; qui terre, maris, celique dimensionibus infinita prope modum mendacia quotidie cudunt, astra metiri conantes cum ipsi se ipsos quales sint in terris prorsus ignorent;? qui aurium pruritus secuti ac mollis sono vocis delectati virilem illam atque valentem animi beneformati harmoniam depravarunt, corruperunt, effeminarunt, idque non inscitia minus ex qua mala omnia 7 Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.7.5.

ferme oriuntur quam huius temporis infelicis ac miseri corruptis moribus; qui denique ventoso cerebro syderum planetarumque influxibus humane vite cursum referunt effectusque subiiciunt. (f. 161r) Like the other Latin translations of Cebes which have been studied, the anonymous translation provides little help in establishing the Greek text of the Tabula. In some instances, however, it does offer valuable aid in determining the readings of the CK(P) archetype. At 7.1.1, for example, most manuscripts read 6p& rovrovs. Although this is the reading of C too, robrovs represents a correction of some other reading. KP have 6p rodrov. Anon. has hoc quidem video. It seems probable, therefore, that the pronoun in the archetype of the CK(P) family was roîro. Since K and P, in this section of the work, were copied directly from C, the pronoun in C was doubtless originally roûrov, as in KP, which in turn could very easily be a corruption of rofro. A similar situation is seen in connection with the title of the Tabula. A mild controversy has existed among students of this work as to whether its author can be identified with the Theban Cebes who was a follower of Socrates. On linguistic grounds and various bits of internal evidence, most scholars are inclined to believe that the work in its present form is much too late to be ascribed to the Theban Cebes mentioned in the Dialogues of Plato. The adjective “Theban” is, to be sure, sometimes applied to the author of the Tabula, but little importance is attached to this fact by scholars, since the only Greek manuscript containing ‘‘Theban”’ in the actual title of the work is C, which is, of course, a very late copy. The anonymous translation, however, also has ‘‘Theban”’ in its title, which reads (f. 154r): ‘‘Dialogus ex Tabula Cebetis Thebani qui senem enarrantem habet et iuvenes studiosos interlocutores in principio et fine, sed in processu operis senem tantum et unicum habet iuvenem.’’ The presence of ‘‘Theban” in Anon. as well as C indicates that this adjective was probably in the title of the archetype of the CK(P) family. Although this establishes no proof as to the identity of Cebes, it does suggest that association of the author of the Tabula with Theban Cebes has a somewhat earlier place in the manuscript tradition than has previously been assumed to be the case. The greatest importance of the anonymous translation, however, 8 Parsons (above, note 2) 12-18,

consists in the evidence it provides with regard to the original ending of the Tabula. This translation, like most of the other members of the CK(P) family, omits those portions of the Greek text which follow é&yvoay (40.2.2). After translating the sentence ending with äyvorav, however, which is the final sentence of CK, the anonymous translator, without making any break in his text beyond the inclusion of a period, inserts the following words: Quod ut tandem vos assequamini, studiosi iuvenes, cunctis viribus contendite eo animo ac mente, ut nihil unquam virtute potius, nihil excellentius, nihil homine libero dignius, nihil denique beatius esse putetis. Valete. (f. 162v) There is nothing in the omitted portions of the Greek text which remotely resembles this passage. In the Latin supplement, however, found in Elichmann’s translation of the Arabic paraphrase, the last two sentences are: Itaque rerum usum, quem paulo ante vobis indicavi, toto vitae vestrae curriculo persequimini, ut ea quae vobis diximus infigantur animis vestris eaque re vobis accedat habitus. Si autem dubitaveritis de aliqua re, revertimini ad me, ut explicem vobis ea de re, quibus dubitatio a vobis discedat. The first of these two sentences, although different in wording, bears a considerable resemblance to the last sentence of Anon. in the general concept expressed. In each sentence the old man is represented as turning away from the single youth with whom he has been talking to make an appeal to all the youths to take seriously the lessons which have been presented. Furthermore, a careful analysis of the texts of the two sentences will show that the differences in wording and structure are less significant than might seem to be the case at first sight. The thought expressed in rerum usum, quem paulo ante vobis indicavi in Elichmann’s version is briefly, but adequately, covered by the single word quod in Anon. Elichmann’s expression, toto vitae vestrae curriculo, corresponds in significance fairly closely to cunctis viribus in Anon. In the case of the verbs in the two sentences, persequimini in the one and ut . assequamini . . . contendite in the other, the resemblance becomes even more striking both for the reason that in each case an imperative is used and because in each case a compound of sequor isemployed. Elichmann’s clause, ut ea quae vobis diximus infigantur animis vestris, may be regarded as a somewhat compressed version

of the same idea expressed in Anon. by eo animo ac mente, ut nihil unquam virtute potius, nihil excellentius, nihil homine libero dignius, nihil denique beatius esse putetis. The assumption that the differences between these two sentences are not too great to preclude the possibility of their coming from a common source hardly seems unreasonable when consideration is given to the differences which exist between Elichmann’s version and Anon. in the following passages for which the Greek text is available: 2.2.4-5 ex terra peregrina regionis Lacedaemoniorum Elichmann, oratione autem et opere pythagoream vitam quandam parmenideamque secutus Anon.; 10.1.2-3 Annon vides, inquit, ostiolum parvum in loco angusto et caliginoso? Elichmann, Videsne retro quandam ex ipsis veluti fenestram et locum angustum ac tenebrosum? Anon.; 28.2.4-6 recedere ab huiusmodi vita deliciarum plena in qua nos sumus Elichmann, vitam que in ipsis relicta est erumnose traducunt nec bonis iis fruuntur que apud eos habenter Anon.” In all of these instances, incidentally, Anon. follows the Greek text much more closely than does Elichmann’s translation. In attempting to account for the source of the last sentence in Anon., one must assume one or the other of two possibilities: either it is a sentence made up by the translator for the purpose of providing the work with a more suitable ending, or the translator had access to a Greek manuscript which contained a final sentence identical with, or at least closely resembling, the next to the last sentence of the manuscript on which the Arabic paraphrase was based. In this connection the wording of the title in Anon. quoted above is of some importance. It is stated in the title that the dialogue to follow is one which has an old man talking with several youths at the beginning and at the end, but with only one youth in the middle portions. This statement of the format of the work is not true of the Greek text as it stands in any one of the Greek manuscripts which have thus far been studied. It is, however, an entirely accurate description of the format of the dialogue as supplemented by the additional chapters found in the Arabic paraphrase, or, in the case of Anon., when the last sentence is included. If, therefore, it is to be argued that the last sentence of Anon. is a product of the inventiveness of the translator, then it is neces9 The passages from Elichmann’s translation here quoted are taken from the apparatus criticus of Praechter’s edition (above, note 1).

sary to assume, if the Latin supplement from the Arabic version may, for the sake of argument, be considered as genuine, first, that the translator guessed that the Greek text with which he was working was incomplete; second, that he correctly guessed that in the original work the old man turned away from the single youth to speak to all the youths present; and third, that he also correctly guessed that, when the old man did turn to all the youths at the end of the discussion, his final statement took the form of an appeal to them to follow the doctrines he had propounded. It would be necessary further to assume that the translator without the aid of a text was able to express this thought in a sentence which, in its grammatical structure and, to some extent, in its vocabulary, bears a remarkable resemblance to the corresponding sentence in an independent version of the work. Obviously it is highly improbable that any translator or scribe would be able to make so many correct guesses. Hence it seems much safer to assume that this translator had at his disposal a Greek manuscript which in some way had preserved the next to the last sentence of the original text. One can only conjecture how it happened that this one sentence was preserved. A possible explanation might be that the anonymous translator used the archetype of the CK (P) family (or a fairly accurate copy), which originally had contained the entire text of the Tabula, but in the course of time had lost the next to the last leaf containing the material from äyvorav (40.2.2) to the beginning of the next to the last sentence. In such a situation, the text of the last two sentences, being on the last leaf of the manuscript, might easily have become obliterated to such an extent that the anonymous translator (or the scribe who produced the copy with which he worked) would be completely unable to make out the last sentence and so would record the next to the last as if it were the final sentence. Under such circumstances it could also easily have happened that the obliteration of the last leaf continued to such an extent that when the copyist of C or his source attempted to copy the archetype, nothing on the last leaf could be read, with the result that the text in C ends with äyvouar. Doubtless other equally plausible explanations for the presence of this one sentence in the Greek source of Anon. could be offered. But, regardless of what explanation is accepted, if the assumption that this passage was a part of the Greek manuscript is warranted,

the existence of this last sentence in the anonymous translation is important in that it provides fresh evidence, independent of Elichmann’s translation, that the additional chapters contained in the Arabic paraphrase were originally a genuine part of the Greek text of the Tabula. Furthermore, in view of the fact that the translation of the Arabic version is somewhat free while Anon. is fairly literal, it is quite possible that this last sentence of the latter presents a much more accurate version of the ending of the Tabula than is to be found in the corresponding portion of Elichmann’s translation from the Arabic.