The part of the Aristotelic writings to which Michael Scot first turned his attention would seem to have been the history of animals. This, in the Greek text, consisted of three distinct treatises: first the De Historiis Animalium in ten books; next the De Partibus Animalium in four books; and lastly, the De Generatione Animalium in five books. The Arabian scholars, however, who paid great attention to this part of natural philosophy and made many curious observations in it, were accustomed to group these three treatises under the general title De Animalibus, and to number their books or chapters consecutively from one to nineteen, probably for convenience in referring to them. As Scot’s work consisted of a translation from Arabic texts it naturally followed the form which had been sanctioned by the use and wont of the eastern commentators.
At least two versions of the De Animalibus appeared from the pen of Scot. These have sometimes been confounded with each other, but are really quite distinct, representing the labours of two different Arabian commentators on the text of Aristotle. We may best commence by examining that of which least is known, the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, as it is commonly called, and this the rather that there is good reason to suppose it represents the first Arabian work on Natural History which came into Scot’s hands.
Nothing is known certainly regarding the author of this commentary. Jourdain and Steinschneider conclude with reason that the text must have been an Arabic and not a Hebrew one, as Camus[81] and Wüstenfeld[82] contend. No one, however, has hitherto ventured any suggestion throwing light on the personality of the writer. The colophon to the copy of Scot’s version in the Bibliotheca Angelica of Rome contains the word Alphagiri, which would seem to stand for the proper name Al Faquir. But in all probability, as we shall presently show, this may be merely the name of the Spanish Jew who aided Michael Scot in the work of translation.
The expression ‘secundum extractionem Michaelis Scoti,’ which is used in the same colophon, would seem to indicate that this version, voluminous as it is, was no more than a compend of the original. The title of the manuscript too: ‘Incipit flos primi libri Aristotelis de Animalibus’ agrees curiously with this, and with the word Abbreviatio (Avicennae), used to describe Scot’s second version of the De Animalibus of which we are presently to speak. Are we then to suppose that in each case the translator exercised his faculty of selection, and that the form of these compends was due, not to Avicenna, nor to the unknown author of the text called in Scot’s version the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, but to Scot himself? The expressions just cited would seem to open the way for such a conclusion.
The contents of the De Animalibus ad Caesarem may be inferred from the Prologue which is as follows: ‘In Nomine Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Omnipotentis Misericordis et Pii, translatio tractatus primi libri quem composuit Aristoteles in cognitione naturalium animalium, agrestium et marinorum, et in illo est conjunctionis animalium modus et modus generationis illorum cum coitu, cum partitione membrorum interiorum et apparentium, et cum meditatione comparationum eorum, et actionum eorum, et juvamentorum et nocumentorum eorum, et qualiter venantur, et in quibus locis sunt, et quomodo moventur de loco ad locum propter dispositionem presentis aetatis, aestatis et hiemis, et unde est vita cuiuslibet eorum, scilicet modorum avium, et luporum, et piscium maris et qui ambulant in eo.’ It seems tolerably certain that the substance of this prologue came from the Arabic original, which must have commenced with the ascription of praise to God so commonly employed by Mohammedans: ‘Bi-smilláhi-r-rahhmáni-r-rahheém’ (In the Name of God, the Compassionate; the Merciful).[83] The clumsiness of the Latin, which here, as in the body of the work, seems to labour heavily in the track of a foreign text,[84] adds force to this assumption. The hand of Scot is seen, however, where the name of our Saviour has been substituted for that of Allah, and also in the closing words, which ring with a strong reminiscence of the eighth Psalm. The churchman betrays himself here as in not a few other places which might be quoted from his different writings.
By far the most interesting matter, however, which offers itself for our consideration here, lies in the comparison we are now to make between this book and a former work of Scot, the De Physionomia. This comparison, which has never before been attempted, will throw light on both these texts, but has a special value as it affords the means of dating, at least approximately, the composition of Scot’s version of the De Animalibus ad Caesarem.
We have already remarked that the last two chapters of the first book of the Physionomia suggest that in compiling them the author had before him an Arabic treatise on Natural History. A natural conjecture leads us further to suppose that this may have been the original from which he translated the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, and this idea becomes a certainty when we pursue the comparison a little more closely. Take for example this curious passage from the Physionomia (Book I. chap, ii.): ‘Incipiunt pili paulatim oriri in pectine unitas quorum dicitur femur … item sibi vox mutatur.’ Its obscurity disappears when we confront it with the corresponding words in the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, and thus discover what was no doubt the original source from which Scot derived it: ‘Incipiunt pili oriri in pectore Kameon alkaratoki, et in isto tempore mutatur vox eius.’[85] There is no need to extend the comparison any further than this significant passage. Doubt may arise regarding the depth and accuracy of Scot’s knowledge of the Arabic tongue, the nature of the text that lay before him, or the reason he may have had for retaining foreign words in the one version which he translated in the other; but surely this may be regarded as now clearly established, that some part of the first book of the Physionomia was derived by compilation from the same text which appeared in a Latin dress as the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, and that this source was an Arabic one.
This point settled, it becomes possible to establish another. One of the copies of the De Animalibus ad Caesarem[86] has the following colophon: ‘Completus est liber Aristotelis de animalibus, translatus a magistro michaele in tollecto de arabico in latinum.’ Now if the version was made in Toledo, it was probably posterior in date to the Physionomia. This indeed is no more than might have been asserted on the ground of common likelihood; for, when a compilation and a complete version of one of the sources from which it was derived are both found passing under the name of the same author, it is but natural to suppose that the first was made before the other, and that in the interval the author had conceived the idea of producing in a fuller form a work he had already partially published.
Resuming then the results we have reached, it appears that Scot had met with this Arabic commentary on the Natural History of Aristotle while he was still in Sicily, and had made extracts from it for his Physionomia. Coming to Spain he probably carried the manuscript with him, and as his version of the De Animalibus ad Caesarem seems to have been the first complete translation he made from the Arabic, and to have been published shortly after he came to the Castiles, he may possibly have begun work upon it even before his arrival there. On every account, there being no positive evidence to the contrary, we may conjecture that the De Animalibus ad Caesarem, like the Physionomia, belongs to the year 1209. If the latter work appeared at Palermo in time for the royal marriage, which took place in spring, the former may well have been completed and published towards the end of the same year, when Scot had no doubt been already some time settled in Toledo.