Can anyone render this passage from Lorenzo Valla's original Latin translation of Herodotus into modern text?
Upvote:6
Aegyptios autem, qua p(er)suasum habent ignem animatam beluam esse, et o(mn)ia quae nascuntur (nanciscitur) de uorare (devorare): et post(quam) deuorando (devorando) fuerit expleta, una cum ipsa re deuorata (devorata) emori.
Text in brackets is compared to better known versions (Svikert 1820) of the text or abbreviations expanded.
The "p" in "psuasum" has an understroke making it "persuasum"; the "postque" near the start of the 3d line is definitely "postquam": the "q" has both an understroke making it a "qu", and an overstroke indicating "am". – kimchi lover
The text uses long s ſ and a historic form of & for et. Diacritics seem to abbreviate prefixes and suffixes. At times the text seems to use a different source or is just corrupted.
Especially the differences between Svikert nanciscitur nancīscī, nancīscor, nactus sum (verb, cons. conj.) nanciscitur: 3. Ps. Sg. Pres. Ind. (deponens) seems weird compared to Valla nascuntur nāscī, nāscor, nātus sum (verb, cons. conj.) nascuntur: 3. Ps. Pl. Pres. Ind. (deponens).
For those reading along here but not 'fluent' in Latin, the passage is originally Greek and reads in English something like:
III. 16:
When they were weary of doing this (for the body, being embalmed, remained whole and was not dissolved), Cambyses commanded to burn it, a sacrilegious command; for the Persians hold fire to be a god; therefore neither nation deems it right to burn the dead, the Persians for the reason assigned, as they say it is wrong to give the dead corpse of a man to a god; while the Egyptians believe fire to be a living beast that devours all that it catches, and when sated with its meal dies with the end of that whereon it feeds. Now it is by no means their custom to give the dead to beasts; and this is why they embalm the corpse, that it may not lie and be eaten of worms. (p23)
–– Herodotus with and English translation of Alfred Denis Godley, in Four Volumes, Volume II, Books III and IV, London: William Heineman's, New York: GP Putnams's Sons, MCMXXVIII
While in a critical edition of the sources it would read like:
Πέρσαι γαρ θεὸν νομίζουσι εἶναι πῦρ. τὸ ὦν κατακαίειν γε τοὺς νεκροὺς οὐδαμῶς ἐν νόμω οὐδετέροισί ἐστί, Πέρσῃσι μέν, διόπερ εἴρηται, θεῷ οὐ δίκαιον εἶναι λέγοντες νέμειν νεκρὸν άνθρώπον • Αἰγνπτίοισι δὲ νενόμισται πῦρ θηρίον εἶναι ἔμψυχον, πάντα δὲ αὐτὸ κατεσθίειν, τά περ ἂν λάβῃ, πλησθὲν δε αὐτὸ τῆς βορῆς συναποθνήσκειν τῷ κατεσθιομένῳ. (p263–264)
–– Herodoti Historiae, Volumen 1, Libros I–IV Continens, Edidit Haiim B. Rosen, Bibliotheca Scriptorvm Graecorvm Et Romanorvm Tevbneriana, BSB B. G. Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft: Leipzig, 1987.
(p247)
–– Herodoti: "Historiae", Recognovit Brevique Adnotatione Critica Instruxit N G Wilson, Collegii Lincolnensis Apvd Oxonienses Socivs, Tomus Prior, Libros I–IV Continens, Scrptorium Classicorum Bilbiotheca Oxonisensis, Oxonii E Typographeo Clarendoniano, Oxford University Press: Oxford New York, 2015.
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