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 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
