Syrian Dews
The recent translations of the complete Arabic Picatrix by Hashem Attalah
and Geylan Holmquest (published by Ouroboros
Press) have come in for quite a bit of, admittedly deserved, criticism
due to the translators' lack of knowledge in the domain of Arabic philosophical
and astrological terminology. This is unfortunate since Picatrix is by-and-large
an astrological textbook filled with complex instructions for electing the correct
times to make talismans and call upon celestial powers. However, the translation
does pick up in the less specialist parts, such as those dealing with
invocation of planetary spirits and their ritual requirements. It is a worthy achievement
on Attalah and Holmquest's part, but it's a real shame that there weren't another
couple of other heads involved in this to compare their work with the masterful
1962 German translation by Ritter
and Plessner, which would have resolved a number of the ambiguous renderings and also to bring the translators' rather awkward and literal rendering of the text into something more easily digestible.
This said, it stands as the only English version of the Arabic Picatrix
on the market.
As an aside, Warnock and Greer are working on a translation of the Latin Picatrix, a tome that had pride of place on the bookshelves of many a Renaissance astrologer, although it does unfortunately omit rather a lot of material present in the Arabic original (the Latin having come via a Spanish translation commissioned by Alfonso X). However, I've been thoroughly impressed by their efforts on the first two books which are an amazingly clear and lucid rendering of what is at first a rather forbidding work of technical astrology.
To return to Ouroboros' translation, I noticed one particularly intriguing passage while reading Book III, chapter 11:
Azeem the Indian was another famous wise man that had made this pond on the entrance of Nubah city with black marble that had water that never decreases or changes and it stayed at the same level. Some think that was possible because of the humidity in the air. But the people of this town they knew that the water stayed in the same level because of the spiritual powers and the charm that Azeem made for them and no matter how much they drank of it the water never decreased. This Indian wise man had made this pond for the people because they were too far away from the Nile and too close to the salty water. […] The way it works is that the sun vaporizes the water and with the spiritual power this pond captures this water vapour that is in the air and turns it into water that keeps the level in the pond always the same with no changes. (pp.151-2)
This particular passage jumped out at me since it seems to describe one of my favourite subjects: the dew pond. The earliest written record of dew-pond construction that Philip Hesleton, a former Ley Hunter editor, was able to find is dated to 1687, although records of Saxon dew-ponds go back to the 9th century. However, it is interesting to see that the knowledge of the dew pond was also current in 10th century Syria, presumably referenced in the Nabatean Agriculture of Ibn Wahshiyah, to which the Picatrix owes a considerable debt. I know little about medieval agriculture on the African continent, but it would surprise me if such technologies were not in use, considering the proposed prehistoric roots that European writers have attributed to dew ponds.
I note that Ouroboros will shortly be producing a brand new edition of Ibn Wahshiyah's tract on Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphics: a perennial favourite of mine, preserving many alleged antedeluvian writing systems, and an interesting take on Egyptian hieroglyphs. It will be a pleasure to have a new edition of this underrated work on the shelf; I also think that this may have been influential on archetypal (though rather late) Renaissance man Athanasius Kircher's own conception of Egyptology.
As an aside, Warnock and Greer are working on a translation of the Latin Picatrix, a tome that had pride of place on the bookshelves of many a Renaissance astrologer, although it does unfortunately omit rather a lot of material present in the Arabic original (the Latin having come via a Spanish translation commissioned by Alfonso X). However, I've been thoroughly impressed by their efforts on the first two books which are an amazingly clear and lucid rendering of what is at first a rather forbidding work of technical astrology.
To return to Ouroboros' translation, I noticed one particularly intriguing passage while reading Book III, chapter 11:
Azeem the Indian was another famous wise man that had made this pond on the entrance of Nubah city with black marble that had water that never decreases or changes and it stayed at the same level. Some think that was possible because of the humidity in the air. But the people of this town they knew that the water stayed in the same level because of the spiritual powers and the charm that Azeem made for them and no matter how much they drank of it the water never decreased. This Indian wise man had made this pond for the people because they were too far away from the Nile and too close to the salty water. […] The way it works is that the sun vaporizes the water and with the spiritual power this pond captures this water vapour that is in the air and turns it into water that keeps the level in the pond always the same with no changes. (pp.151-2)
This particular passage jumped out at me since it seems to describe one of my favourite subjects: the dew pond. The earliest written record of dew-pond construction that Philip Hesleton, a former Ley Hunter editor, was able to find is dated to 1687, although records of Saxon dew-ponds go back to the 9th century. However, it is interesting to see that the knowledge of the dew pond was also current in 10th century Syria, presumably referenced in the Nabatean Agriculture of Ibn Wahshiyah, to which the Picatrix owes a considerable debt. I know little about medieval agriculture on the African continent, but it would surprise me if such technologies were not in use, considering the proposed prehistoric roots that European writers have attributed to dew ponds.
I note that Ouroboros will shortly be producing a brand new edition of Ibn Wahshiyah's tract on Ancient Alphabets and Hieroglyphics: a perennial favourite of mine, preserving many alleged antedeluvian writing systems, and an interesting take on Egyptian hieroglyphs. It will be a pleasure to have a new edition of this underrated work on the shelf; I also think that this may have been influential on archetypal (though rather late) Renaissance man Athanasius Kircher's own conception of Egyptology.