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E. A. Parina
A MIDDLE WELSH TRANSLATION OF FLORES DIETARUM*
В статье рассматривается средневековый валлийский медицинский текст, состоящий из двух частей: Y Pedwar Gwlybwr (Четыре жидкости) и Rhinweddau Bwydydd (Свойства продуктов). Подробно рассматриваются версии в нескольких рукописях: Oxford Rawlinson MS. B 467, Cardiff MS. 3.242 (Hafod 16) и Oxford Jesus College MS. 22. В работе предполагается, что изучаемый валлийский текст является достаточно близким оригиналу переводом диетического трактата Flores dietarum, созданного в Салерно в XI веке.
Ключевые слова: средневековая медицина, гуморальная теория, валлийская переводная литература, Салерно, Floresdietarum.
As noted by Morfydd Owen, the leading authority on Middle Welsh medicine «Medieval European medical learning and literature flowed in two streams, both deriving ultimately from classical sources» (Owen 1975/6: 227). The one stream was the literature that stayed in Western Europe, mostly translated from Greek into Latin in the sixth century. Short treatises on «urine, pulse, fever, diets, prognostic, blood-letting and pharmacology» (ibid.) belonged to this tradition, on the other hand more theoretical notions, like the teaching on the four humours were part of the encyclopedic writings by such authors as Isidore of Seville (Etymologia, Liber IV De medicina) and Bede (De temporibu sratione, Cap. 35). «The second stream of literature was that which developed after the recovery of Greek texts from Arabic sources in the eleventh century, due to the work of Constantine the African and the growth of important centres like Salerno» (ibid.). Welsh collections of medical texts contain examples of both types of texts.
Such collections of medical texts were either part of encyclopedic information copied for cultured laymen (cf. a selection of texts on medical matters in the Oxford Jesus College MS. 111 (Red Book of Hergest), (c. 1375-c. 1425) and the illustrated NLW MS. 3026 (Mostyn 88) (1480s)) (Owen 2006: 1285), or were gathered in
* The research was made possible by the support of Alexander von Humboldt foundation.
«small neat books of the same size and style as the law manuscripts» (Owen 1975: 227), e.g. Oxford Rawlinson MS. B 467, Cardiff MS. 3.242 (Hafod 16) (both c.1375-c.1425) or Oxford Jesus College MS. 22 (late 15th c.). The style of the latter manuscripts suggests that they were used by practicing physicians.
The practical orientation of this genre makes the finding of the originals in case of translations extremely problematic. In her comprehensive study of a uroscopic tract Ansoddau'r Trwnc Diana Luft acknowledges that «It is most likely a translation of one of a number of texts of its kind, although its exact source has yet to be determined» (Luft 2011: 56) and refers to the work of Pahta and Teevitsainen (1999) on the difficulties of identifying Latin sources for their Middle English Medical Texts corpus. Several reasons for this difficulty include the understudied Latin medieval tradition on the one hand and on the other hand the fluidness of the texts, due to the willingness of compilers of the new manuscripts to change their material, adding their own experience or excerpts from other texts.
It is therefore a particular luck that a source for one Middle Welsh text can be identified to a high degree of certainty. According to the rubrication of the Welsh Prose 1300-1425 project, we are dealing with two texts. One is called Y Pedwar Gwlybwr (The Four Humours) and is found in two of abovementioned manuscripts Oxford Rawlinson MS. B 467 (p. 1r: 1-2v: 10) and Cardiff MS. 3.242 (Hafod 16) (p. 71: 10-73: 24), the other is labelled as Rhinweddau Bwydydd (Virtues of Foods) and is found in Oxford Rawlinson MS. B 467 (p. 2v: 10-15r: 4) and Cardiff MS. 3.242 (Hafod 16) (p. 11: 1-14: 15 and p. 73: 25-81: 2, edited by Ida Jones (1955: 58-64; 1958: 78-97).
I could also identify the same texts in a slightly later manuscript, not transcribed for the Welsh Prose 1300-1425 project, Oxford Jesus College MS. 22. The text on the four humours is found there on p. 103: 5-113: 6, the Virtues of Foods text on p. 113: 7-119: 14 and p. 66: 1- 97)1.
All the three earlier manuscripts present certain problems with the text flow. Hafod 16 must be bound incorrectly (Morfydd Owen, p. c.), which is obvious from the sequence of parts of our text (FD 1-
1 Ida Jones refers in her edition to later manuscripts NLW MS. Peniarth 120, NLW MS. Peniarth 250 and NLW MS. Llanstephan 182 (the manuscripts I could not consult yet). The same text is also found in A Welsh Leech Book or Llyfr o Feddyginiaeth (Lewis 1914: 82-92), an edition of a 16th c. manuscript (see Owen 2006:1286).
702) are found on pages 71-80, page 80 ends in the middle of the sentence and its second part is found on p. 11 (see Jones 1955: 58, 1958: 97), where FD sections 70-90 proceed to page 14. Rawlinson B 467 has several problems. The first page as we have it now starts in the middle of a sentence of the Four Humours text, the beginning is missing. Furthermore a more intricate problem is found. In the Welsh Prose 1300-1425 TEI Header the beginning of the manuscript
15v Fragment of an unidentified medical text Rawl B467 hand A
The first «5v» is a misprint, to be read as «5r», on these pages the text flows closely to the Latin original. The Latin original, Hafod 16 and Jesus 22 variants enable us to understand what the right sequence would be. Page 5r ends in the middle of a sentence (FD 31), a note is added at the bottom margin "kymer yr ymyl h6nt yr dryded talen" 'take the other side of the third page'. On 5v a new text section begins (FD 40), but it is technically impossible to miss out folios between recto and verso of the same folio. The text from 5v continues to 7r (FD 40-44, a sentence on cresses found only in Ostermuth 1919: 28 and missing in Cantalupo 1992, FD 51, 54, 52 (in such sequence)). On 7v-8r Latin sections 31-39 are found, on 8v the text starts from FD 54 on mushrooms and continues then with no intermission to 15v, where it ends with a translation of FD 89 on "feet, ears and lips". The following scenario for this jumble could be suggested. The scribe wrote the text to 5r and then continued erroneously, having turned two blank pages, at 7v. He understood his error at some point, wrote 7v and 8r full and then continued filling in four blank pages in the middle. When he was at the end of 7r, he continued at the next blank page, 8v. This probably could not have
2 FD - Flores dietarum, Cantalupo 1992, numbers refer to sections in the edition.
3 http://www.rhyddiaithganoloesol.caerdydd.ac.uk/en/tei-header.php7ms =Raw l467, consulted 27 April 2015
is described as following3:
1r-2v Y Pedwar Gwlybwr 2v-5v Rhinweddau Bwydydd
Rawl B467 hand A Rawl B467 hand A
A number of folia are missing here 5v-7r Rhinweddau Bwydydd
A number of folia are missing here 7v-15v Rhinweddau Bwydydd
Rawl B467 hand A
Rawl B467 hand A
happened with compiling a large elaborated commissioned volume of the Red Book of Hergest type, but since Rawlinson B 467 is a kind of practitioners book, the described suggestion can explain the strange sequence.
In Oxford Jesus MS 22 the text's beginning is found on page 103, virtues of grains follow immediately and the text proceeds to turnips (FD 27) on p. 119. The sections starting with herbs (beginning with opium, FD 51) and further till the end of the treatise (meat, dairies and several beverages, till FD 106) is situated in the manuscript before the prologue and the first part, on the pages 67 to 89. There are minor differences between the versions in the three manuscripts, to be discussed elsewhere.
The right sequence of sections can be reconstructed above all with the help of the Latin source. It is a heterogenic text, consisting of a short introduction on the four humours and followed by description of qualities of different foods, called Flores dietarum. According to Marilyn Nicoud, the particular importance of this late 12th century text is that it manifests the rebirth of dietetics in European Middle Ages (Nicoud 2007: 36). The text has been edited twice, a critical edition was prepared by Hermann Johannes Ostermuth (1919) on the basis of manuscripts found in Germany and East Europe, 1992 Pietro Cantalupo published a version from a single Madrid codex containing the works of Constantine the African. Ostermuth (1919: 57) suggested that the attribution of the treatise to Johannes de Sancto Paulo (12th-early 13th c.), found in B. A. V. Pal. lat. 1304 (13th c.), could be right. This Benedictine monk who has studied in Salerno is known for his medical works of more practical rather than theoretical nature and could have composed this text sometimes between 1160 and 1170 (Nicoud 2007: 45).
This text is an abridgement of a text translated by Constantine the African (fl. 1077, d. by 1098-1097) (Green 2005, a detailed account in Veit 2003: 32-60), Dietae universales at particulares. Constantine the African, who worked in the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, was instrumental in bringing the medical teaching available in the East back to Europe, translating to Latin both Hippocrates and Galen, as well as many of the Arabic authors, who he left unnamed, leaving but one name - that of the author of Dietae universales at particulares, as well as Liber febrium and Liber urinarum, Isaac Israeli (called also Isaac Judaeus, in Arabic Ishaq
ibn Sulayman al-Isra'ili, late 9th-early 10th c., Kairouan, see Veit 2003: 22-35).
The compiler of Dieta particulares et universales abridged his source in a drastic way (in the 16th century edition the text takes 146 pages in two columns (Isaac 1515: xi-clvi), whereas a critical edition of Flores dietarum by Ostermuth with variants from different manuscripts takes 38 pages (Ostermuth 1919: 13-51)). The compiler of the text both shortens theoretical passages, as well as adapts his text to Salernitan reality of the 12th- 13th centuries in omitting such meats as lion's, camel's or bear's (Cantalupo 1992: 9-10). The Welsh translator follows his source much more truthfully. Apart from the prologue where the teaching on the four humours (as found in Hafod 16 and Jesus 22, in Rawl B 467 the beginning is missing) is more detailed than the version we have in all edited manuscripts of Flores dietarum (the source of this longer version remains to be studied), the Welsh text corresponds the Latin source very closely, as can be shown on the example of one sentence: (1)
Rawl B 467 1v: Y sanguis a 6na dyn yn da y e6yllys ac ynvul
Blood makes a man well disposed
Cantalupo 1992: 16: Sanguis facithominem bonivoti, simplicem,
ac yn hyna6s ac y[n]araf ac yn lla6en ac yn vchel y vryt ac yn gyfla6n. and kindly and gentle and cheerful, exalted in his mind and perfect.
modestum, blandum, ylarem, summum et plenum.
The same literalness of translation is observed throughout the text. However the translator does the same domestication work as the compiler of Flores Dietarum did in the 12th century Salerno. He abridges the section on wheat and wheat bread and leaves out several plants and herbs.
On another level lentils turn to peas, which are more usual to Wales: (2)
Lentes f(rigide) sunt in 11° gra(du), s(icce) in 111°, propter hoc melancolicum sanguinem generant (Cantalupo 1992: 26). Pys, oer ynt yn yr eil rad a sych yn y dryded; gwaet drwc a vagant (Hafod 16, p. 75).
'Peas are cold in the second degree and dry in the third; they foster bad blood'. (Jones 1958: 87)
And small nuts in combination with figs which are supposed to be effective for the bite of a scorpion turn to an antedote against the bite of an adder.
(3)
Si cum ficu[bu]s manducentur valent contra morsus scorpionum
(Cantalupo 1992: 38) . O bwyteir gyt a ffigys da ynt rac brath neidyr (Hafod 16, p. 79) . If eaten with figs they are good for the bite of an adder
(Jones 1958: 95).
Thus the translator and further scribes produce a text that could be practically used in the 14th-15th century Wales.
Although medical texts of Medieval Wales are closely connected with the Meddygon Myddfai family, situated in South Wales and surrounded by legends and fairy-tales in the later period, in the words of Morfydd Owen «any fairy involved in their transmission was surely the kind who might have been listed by Stith Thompson as 'a fairy who speaks Latin'» (Owen 1975: 221). The discussion of a dietetic treatise and its Latin origins shows clearly once again that «Wales, and particularly its south-eastern areas, was included into the orbit of continental intellectual life» (Falileyev 2006: xlviii, on the multiculturalism in Wales see also Фалилеев 2004). A further work on such translated texts will bring new insights both on the transmission of culture in Europe as well as techniques of translation in Middle Welsh.
References
Фалилеев 2004 - Фалилеев А. И. Круг чтения в условиях многоязычия: Уэльс в конце XIV века // Новое литературное обозрение. 2004. № 68. С. 242-251. Cantalupo 1992 - Cantalupo P. Un trattatello medioevale salernitano sull' alimentazione: il De flore dietarum. Acciaroli.1992. http://www.liberliber.it/mediateca/libri/c/cantalupo/un_trattatello_medi oevale_salernitano_sull_alimentazione_etc/pdf/un_tra_p.pdf. Falileyev 2006 - Falileyev A. Welsh Walter of Henley. Dublin: School of Celtic Studies Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (Medieval and modern Welsh series, 12). 2006. Green 2005 - Green M. H. Constantine the African // T. F. Glick, S. J. Livesey & F. Wallis (eds.). Medieval science, technology, and medicine. An encyclopedia. New York: Routledge (Routledge encyclopedias of the Middle Ages, 11). 2005. P. 145-147. Isaac 1515 - Isaac Israeli. Omnia operaYsaac. Lyon, 1515. Jones 1955 - Jones I. B. Hafod 16 (A Mediaeval Welsh Medical Treatise) // Études Celtiques.VII (1). 1955. P. 46-75.
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Études Celtiques.VIII (1). 1958. P. 66-97. Lewis 1914 - Lewis T. A Welsh leech book. Or Llyfr o Feddyginiaeth, faithfully reproduced from the original manuscript. Liverpool: D. S. Hughes, 1914.
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E. A. Parina. A Middle Welsh translation of Flores dietarum
The article deals with a medieval medical Welsh text, consisting of two parts, Y Pedwar Gwlybwr (The Four Humours) and Rhinweddau Bwydydd (Virtues of Foods). It is found in several manuscripts, the versions in Oxford Rawlinson MS. B 467, Cardiff MS. 3.242 (Hafod 16) and Oxford Jesus College MS. 22 are discussed. A Latin source is proposed, a tract Flores dietarum, composed in Salerno in the 2nd half of the 12th c. The Welsh text follows its Latin original closely and allows studying techniques of translation in medieval Wales. While the existence of Salernitan texts in the Welsh medical tradition has been already demonstrated earlier, this text is another witness of Wales being a part of intellectual life of Europe in the 14th century.
Keywords: medieval medicine, four humours, Welsh translational literature, Salerno, Flores dietarum
