Averroes' Middle Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics: A Textual Note

Abstract

F. Lasinio's editio princeps of Averroes' talkis on Aristotle's Poetics gives, as the reading of the fourteenth-century Arabic codex unicus, a hemistich by al-Mutanabbi: likull imrin min dahrihi ma ta'awildd;l which, with no mention of possible textual variants, Gabrieli translates thus: A ogni uomo tocca del suo tempo cio cui egli si e avvezzo.2 A. Badaw!'s note ad hoc, in his 1953 reprint of Lasinio's edition, appends, from another source, a second hemistich: wa'addt Saif al-Daula al-tatn ft 'udd.3 That this second hemistich was originally a part of the Arabic manuscript tradition, however, finds strong confirmation in the reading of Hermannus Alemannus' thirteenth-century verbatim Latin translation: suave est omni homini quod assuevit tota vita sua; et assueta est Sceiphi Adaulati lancea perfodere inimicos.4 FRANK BOGGESS