133
ON TARRYING THE
ACCIDENTS OF AGE
(De retardatione accidentium senectutis)
Carol A. Everest and M. Teresa Tavormina
Authorship
In the introduction to the standard edition of the De retardatione acciden-tium senectutis, Edward Withington comments on the intellectual insufi -ciencies of this work, attributed to the thirteenth-century Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon:
We must admit that the Epistle and treatises on old age are a grievous disappointment as coming from one so great in other departments. They show want of originality, and close dependence on authorities he might have known were at best second hand, a simple faith in the marvellous power of remedies, most of which had been used for cen-turies with no remarkable results, and sometimes a pretence of secret knowledge which reminds us painfully of the alchemic quacks and mystics of a later age.1
Recent investigations of authorship provide a plausible explanation for the disparity between this work and Bacon’s other scientii c treatises. Although Little and Withington accept the authenticity of Bacon’s authorship with few reservations, more current scholarship argues convincingly against the
1 Little and Withington 1928 (henceforth LW), xlii. In LW, the text, textual notes,
possibility. Theodore Crowley’s published dissertation (1950) questions the likelihood of Baconian provenance. His work is endorsed and expanded by Agostino Paravicini Bagliani (1987, with Steven Williams; 1991a), whose researches trace the De retardatione to one “dominus Castri goet,” writing in the early thirteenth century.
The case for Bacon’s authorship appears to rest on attributions in some of the manuscripts containing the tract2 and on internal references between Bacon’s Opus maius and the De retardatione. Crowley, and later Paravicini Bagliani and Stevens, indicate that the earliest manuscript ascribing the De retardatione to Bacon dates from the late fourteenth century, and that the tract is not generally attributed to Bacon until the i fteenth century, mainly in English manuscripts (Crowley 1950, 23–24; Paravicini Bagliani 1991a, 297–99). In addition, the apparent reference within the De retardatione to the Opus maius seems to be a later addition, and the citations of the De retar-datione within the Opus maius all suggest that the author was unknown to Bacon. The treatise claims that the author was persuaded to share his medi-cal knowledge of old age by two learned men, one of whom can be identii ed with the Parisian philosopher Philip the Chancellor. But Philip died in 1236 when Bacon was only twenty-two years old; it seems unlikely, or at least ques-tionable, that the young Englishman would have been asked to undertake a work of the magnitude of the De retardatione so early in his career, no mat-ter how precocious he may have been(Crowley 1950, 23). The discussions advanced by Crowley and the additional material provided by Paravicini Bagliani and Stevens leave little doubt that the author of the De retardatione was someone other than Roger Bacon, and that Bacon knew of this work when he composed the Opus maius and compiled his edition of the Secretum secretorum (Crowley 1950, 24; Paravicini Bagliani and Stevens 1987).
Content
The Liber (or Epistola) de retardatione accidentium senectutis — the Book (or Let-ter) on Delaying the Symptoms of Old Age — purports to deliver exactly what its title indicates: it is a treatise on maintaining vigor and prolonging life. Unlike the Baconian extracts on longevity edited by Tavormina in chapter 9, this work does not mention the perfection of the pre-lapsarian state,
focus-2 Little lists seventeen manuscripts of the De retardatione, including the Middle
ing instead on methods of maintaining the good health of youth and of slowing the advance of old age. Rigorous adherence to a restorative regimen can produce a signii cant degree of rejuvenation both in body and mind; although more difi cult to obtain, knowledge of the hidden (occult) secrets of the ancients can further lengthen life and vitality. As its goal is “to defende from the accidentis of age and of old men” (lines 30–31) the text is devoted to medical and dietary suggestions, none of them particularly new, on restor-ing and replenishrestor-ing the vital spirits and l uids of the elderly body.
More efi cacious in renewing youth, according to the wisdom of the ancients, are various remedies passed down “with word hid,” so that they should not fall into the hands of “vnfeithful and vntriew men that were vnworthy” (line 307–308, 318). The treatise delineates a varying number of occult remedies for the ills of old age and for the prolongation of life, notably in chapters 1 and 6, which speak of seven hidden things, discussed in more detail in the section on Occult Medicines below.
That being said, however, the majority of the work concerns methods of restoring innate heat and natural moisture to the aging body. This pre-scription is not original to the writer. Medieval medical theory, inherited from the Greeks and Romans and expanded by Islamic physicians and phi-losophers, held that decline in the animal body originates in a depletion of its allotment of vital (or innate) heat and sustaining moisture. Concurrent with the creation of life itself, these two qualities diminish from conception onwards, until in old age, the body’s fatty moisture which feeds the i re of life is consumed and the i re is itself extinguished. The treatise repeats the well-known metaphor of the burning lamp to explain this process:
But to the resolucioun of natural humydite fallith of ij causes. The i rst cause is the ayre compassyng, whiche drieth the matier, and the heete in man whiche is wiþthyn to that helpith; forwhi she is cause of quenchyng hirsilf, for that he hath consumed his matier, as fuyre of the lampe quenchith whan his oile consumyth. (lines 177–181; see also Explanatory Note 15)
Until optimum age, placed usually between forty and i fty years,3 the vital i re burns in the heart, fueled by natural fatty moisture augmented and conserved by diet and lifestyle. At the prime of life, the healthy male body comes as close as possible in this world to the perfect balance of heat and moisture. In the years of decline, however, the life-i re grows weaker, nourished by ever dwindling supplies of moisture. The body becomes
3 The treatise places the peak of maturity at forty-i ve to i fty years: “after that
cooler, causing insufi cient digestion, which in turn decreases heat-sus-taining fatty moisture and increases cold, harmful moisture in the form of phlegm. A cycle is thereby established wherein weaker heat leads to damag-ing moisture which then leads to even weaker heat. Cooled digestion also results in a reduced blood supply, contributing to, among other undesirable things, a diminution of sexual vigor.4 The entire spectrum of physiologi-cal changes caused by this degeneration in heat, moisture, and blood are the accidents — the preventable signs — of old age. Medieval medical theory holds that these accidents could be inhibited by replenishing the heat and moisture lost to the process of aging.5 Building on the understanding that restoration leads to a healthy digestion, which stimulates the production of benei cial moisture and plentiful blood, the De retardatione accidentium senec-tutis devotes most of its attention to methods, both common and arcane, which assist the augmentation of bodily heat and moisture.
Like most of the manuscripts described in Little’s edition, the Middle English translation is divided into a Proheme which addresses the reader followed by eleven chapters dealing with the causes of aging and with meth-ods by which to impede them (the De retardatione proper). Following these eleven chapters in the “English group” of De retardatione manuscripts (see Textual Afi liations section below) are three short tracts, on the general regimen for old people; on baths, medicinal oils, exercise, and bloodletting for the old; and recipes for medicines to aid mental function. The Trin-ity translation breaks these supplemental tracts down further, giving sep-arate headings for the sections on food, drink, baths, anointing, exercise, bloodletting, and recipes (which it calls medicine occultate), but appears to see them as part of the De retardatione as a whole: the explicit on folio 28r, after the “De medicinis occultatis” section, reads “Here endith the treatice of Frere Rogier Bacon of the rule of helth and accidentis of age.”
Much of the advice in the treatise is commonplace, taken from Greek and Arab authors. The Greek sources are usually quoted indirectly ( tes-tante Avicenna, testes-tante Isaac), whereas Arab writers are usually quoted “hon-estly and accurately” (LW xxxiii). “Aristotelian” quotations derive largely from the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum. Indeed, Withington dem-onstrates that authentic references to Aristotelian writings comprise a mere i ve per cent of the total number of quotations while the Secretum secretorum accounts fortwelve per cent. Almost i fty per cent of the citations belong to
4 The same humoral theory underlies the physiology in Ibn al-Jazz¯ar’s treatise on male
sexuality, translated by Constantine the African as the Liber de coitu, the source in turn of the Middle English Liber creatoris in TCC R.14.52 (ed. Matheson, chap. 8 below).
5 For general discussions of medieval medical theories of aging, see Hall 1971; Niebyl
Avicenna, while extracts from the other Arab writers Rhazes, Haly Abbas, and Haly ibn Ridw¯an represent about twenty-i ve per cent. Isaac Israeli (or Judaeus), his pupil Ahmad ibn al-Jazz¯ar, and John Mesue (Damascenus) are responsible for the remainder (LW xxxiv).
The De retardatione is logically ordered, for the most part, although many observations are repeated in various chapters. The i rst two chap-ters deal with the physical and psychological symptoms of old age and the causes thereof. The problem being identii ed, the next nine chapters sug-gest strategies for combating the deleterious effects of aging. Methods of restoring natural moisture occupy chapters 3 and 4, one focusing on food and drink and the other on external restoratives. Chapter 5 considers the same subject from a negative position, identifying foods and conditions which hasten the aging process.
Chapters 6 through 9 are devoted to the maintenance of humoral bal-ance, the augmentation of innate heat, and the reinforcement of essential bodily spirits. In these sections, the author relies on established medical explanations of life processes. His simple advice bases itself on counteracting those conditions which accelerate the discomforts of the elderly. For exam-ple, unbalanced humours, especially cold, moist phlegm leading to melan-choly, are endemic to older individuals. This physiological inequity is allevi-ated by foods and practices exhibiting opposite qualities: cold and moist is treated with hot and dry, cold and dry with hot and moist, and so on.
Although the aged are afl icted with what appears to be plentiful mois-ture, far from being benei cial, their phlegm does not serve useful pur-poses, being manufactured in an inefi cient, cooled digestive system. This extraneous or superi cial moisture must therefore be regulated by sub-stances to warm the stomach and restore good concoction of food. Differ-ent kinds of medicines and foods have differDiffer-ent therapeutic effects on the physiology of the elderly: to purge phlegm and take away white hairs, for example, chapter 6 recommends a number of vegetable- and mineral-based medicines, including a more detailed discussion of the occult medicines already listed in chapter 1 (see the Occult Medicines section below) and the use of hot oils to restore hair to its youthful tints; chapter 7 focuses on the restoration and strengthening of natural heat, especially through prox-imity to a healthy young person and the consumption of suitably tempered wine. Chapter 8 is devoted to medicines based on viper’s l esh, said to be of particular value in restoring the physical and mental faculties; chapter 9 discusses the unguents to be used in the morning massages recommended by many regimens for the aged, a practice said to ease movement and stim-ulate the virtus animalis from which all other bodily virtues arise.
or salves for the skin. Chapter 11 promotes the De retardatione by laying out ways in which its pharmacological method goes beyond more traditional regimens for the elderly, while still acknowledging the complementarity of the two approaches. As noted earlier, the treatise is often followed by sev-eral supplemental tracts on geriatric regimen and on further recipes for anti-aging medicines, items which the Middle English version treats as parts of a single, more or less unii ed text.
Occult Medicines
As Withington observes (LW xlii), most of the advice in this treatise con-cerning the preservation of youth is banal and obvious, however cloaked it may be in obscure rhetoric. The overall regimen for the elderly resembles very closely what is considered today a healthy lifestyle. The physical body is comforted and reinforced by nutritious food that does not tax the diges-tion, moderate exercise, and relaxing massages and baths. The enjoyment of beauty in nature, song, and human pulchritude contribute to a positive and cheerful outlook, nurturing a mental and spiritual contentment. None of this information is original or exciting, even in the medical texts avail-able in the thirteenth century.
What creates the aura of secrecy in the text is the obfuscation of simple substances through metaphors and allusions. Early in the text (lines 307– 313), the author lists seven “hidden” medicines, reputed to have miraculous effects in prolonging youth and repairing the ravages of age. That which “lith in the bowels of th’erth” is simply gold, a “cordial” or heart medica-tion, as Chaucer observes a century and a half later (General Prologue 443). Because gold is a noble metal, it has afi nity with the most noble organ of the body: the heart. It therefore can be given to elderly patients in order to strengthen cardiac function.6 Even today, gold is administered as a medica-tion to suppress inl ammamedica-tion in such diseases as rheumatoid arthritis.
6 John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum
rec-ommends using gold i lings or gold powder in food and drink to combat leprosy and, with the addition of borage and the “bone” or cartilage from a stag’s heart, to help “a ens swonyng and a ens cardeakle passioun.” Thin gold plates, heated red hot and quenched in wine, render the wine efi cacious against ailments of the spleen and other illnesses due to excess melancholy (On the Properties of Things
Another material “swymmyth in the see.” Either ambergris or pearls may be indicated here (LW xxxix–xl),7 although the recipes provided in chapter 11 refer to amber, probably understood as ambergris (it is described as an aromatic substance, lines 2015–2016). Known to the Arabs as “anbar,” ambergris was originally called “amber” in the West (OED, s.vv. amber, ambergris), where true amber (yellow amber or Prussian amber) and ambergris (‘grey amber’) were thought to have the same or similar origins. The linguistic similarity was supported by the observations that both were fragrant, rare, costly, somewhat similar in appearance and found cast up on seashores. The putative efi cacy of ambergris in medieval medical recipes for delaying the effects of old age probably stems from contentions in Arab writings that the substance is benei cial to both heart and brain.8
The medicine which “creepith vpon the ground” is the highly-regarded viper’s l esh, which originally seems to have been thought to have proper-ties neutralizing snake bite. Its inclusion in the occulta likely occurs because of the pervasive mythology surrounding serpents, and because of the fact that snakes regularly renew themselves through shedding their old skin. The potent medicine known as “theriac” or “treacle” (see MED, s.vv. tiriacle n., tiriake n. and adj., triacle n.; OED, s.vv. theriac sb., theriacle sb., treacle sb.), which originally contained both the l esh and venom of poisonous snakes in addition to honey, was viewed as a sovereign remedy for poisons of vari-ous sources, from snake and animal bites to ingested substances, infections in wounds, or pestilence.9
7 The De retardatione mentions pearls later in its i rst chapter (line 352 in the ME
text). When Roger Bacon draws on the De retardatione for the ingredients of the elixir, in “The Bodies of Adam and Eve,” he distinguishes between the thing “that swymmyth in the see” (pearls) and the thing “that is cast out of the see” (glossed by Bacon as “ambra, whiche is sperma cete or sperme of the whale” or ambergris): ed. Tavormina, chap. 9, lines 531–532, 540–541 below. Richard Browne, the seven-teenth-century translator of the De retardatione, glosses the substance from the sea as coral (1683, 21).
8 Ambergris would be used in the centuries following the De retardatione as the
central ingredient of poma ambrae, balls of ambergris and other substances whose odor was believed to ward off plague (Riddle 1964); thus, John of Burgundy rec-ommends the use of a pomum ambre in the De epidemia plague treatise whose trans-lation appears later in TCC R.14.52 (ed. Matheson, chap. 12, line 115 below).
9 On the classical, medieval, and early modern preparation and use of various
The plant that “thriveth in the air,” or rosemary, taken internally, stimu-lates a weak heart and defends against dropsy. It is also reputed to lighten depression and to comfort the nerves. Used externally, it alleviates the symptoms of gout. Since the plant was considered to be hot and dry in quality, it was a natural ingredient in medicines aimed at counteracting the cold and excessive moisture of old age. A medieval wonder drug, it makes an appearance in recipes dealing with a variety of complaints, from scaly skin to heart problems.10 The substance which originates in the mine (mynieres, Lat. minera ‘a mine, ore; i g. source [of something valuable]’) of the “noble” beast is probably human blood, although human warmth or breath may also be implied. From the tale of Abishag and the elderly King David in biblical narrative (Vulgate 3 Kings 1:1–4; AV 1 Kings 1:1–4) to the myth of the Fisher King cured by the blood of a pure virgin, the therapeu-tic properties of human warmth/breath/blood were legendary. Because in the medieval system of humors, blood rules in the body, it stands to reason that infusion of new blood could cure or revitalize an aging or ailing phys-iology. It is signii cant that although the translator alludes to the “noble animal” in his summary of efi cacious substances, it never appears in the recipes themselves. Presumably, its power sufi ced to work on its own; the infrequency and obscurity of references to this ingredient of human ori-gin may also rel ect some anxiety over the ethics or scandal of using human blood or encouraging extra-marital physical intimacy (see LW xl–xli and Textual Afi liations section below).11
The material culled from “bestis of long lif” consists of cartilage some-times found in a stag’s heart. According to a story in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder (8.50), stags identii ed as belonging to Alexander the
10 The medicinal, cosmetic, and magical virtues of rosemary were powerful enough
to warrant the composition of individual treatises on the plant, both in Latin and several European vernaculars, including English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, and Catalan; see Zimmermann 1980, Fery-Hue 1997, and Explanatory Note 136.
11 On the primacy of human blood in alchemical procedures discussed by Roger
Bacon in several of his works, see Newman 1995, 79–99. Newman argues con-vincingly that Bacon’s ideas on using blood as the essential element of the elixir vitae were derived from the pseudo-Avicennan treatise De anima in arte alkimia and then inl uenced his interpretation of a passage in the pseudo-Aristotelian Secreta secretorum. When Bacon encountered the De retardatione, which he cites directly in the “Corpora Adae et Evae” extract from the Opus minus and Opus maius (ed. Tavormina, chap. 9 below), he might have interpreted its references to the minera nobilis animalis ‘the mine [or ore] of the noble animal’ as another authority recom-mending the use of blood in the elixir. The “Corpora Adae et Evae” includes the
minera nobilis animalis in its list of occult medicines taken from the De retardatione
Great were found living a century later. From this legend grew a belief that stags were particularly long-lived creatures. Medical theory, which assumed assimilation of properties from ingested materials, had but a short step from this legend to the supposition that the cartilage found in a stag’s heart could facilitate longevity (see Explanatory Notes 101, 224).12
The plant of India, erroneously translated as the plant which is “planted in the day,” is lignum aloes, considered to be a safe and warming purgative for the sedentary, phlegmatic constitution of the elderly.13 Elimination of superl uous bodily humors, especially phlegm, i gures large in regimens for the aged, yet purges are frequently harsh and debilitating. The aloe plant facilitated the necessary evacuation of poisonous l uids without put-ting undue stress on an aging physiology.14
Translation Strategies
In their detailed analysis of the translation strategies employed in two later texts in the Trinity manuscript (chap. 5 above), Päivi Pahta and María José Carrillo Linares point out that translations of medical texts in the Middle Ages “form a two-level continuum on the scale from literal to free transla-tion” (98). Like the De spermate and De humana natura discussed by Pahta and Carrillo Linares, On Tarrying the Accidents of Age falls decidedly on the side of literalism, to the extent that the meaning of the material is often obscured by its i delity to Latin syntax. Even gibberish sections in the Latin are rendered as faithfully as possible. This i delity is compromised, how-ever, by two very important failings of the translator: he is not a secure Latinist, and he appears to be ignorant of the complexities and some of the more technical terms of medical theory. Thus, in addition to the usual
12 One of the l yleaves to the Trinity manuscript contains a note in a later hand
describ-ing “How Long Nine Manner of Thdescrib-ings Shall Live,” in which the lifespan of a hart (the red deer stag) is calculated as 244 years; see Headnote to chap. 9, 339 below.
13 Like rosemary, lignum aloes was considered to be hot and dry, hence a suitable
antidote to the excessive cold and moisture of old age. One of the most common secondary ingredients of the “amber apples” mentioned in n. 8 above was lignum aloes; see Riddle 1964, 113.
14 In addition to discussing the De retardatione’s occulta in the “Corporae Adae et
errors attributable to the scribal history of the translator’s exemplar or to the mechanical quality of the translation, the text abounds in passages that corrupt or negate the meaning of its Latin source.
For detailed examples of the translator’s negotiation of his original, we refer readers to the Language Notes in the edition below. Among his more interesting habits and errors, we would highlight the following:
1. Characteristic translations of particular words: licet = “liefully”; cutis = “nayle” (!); ut = “as” (in almost all contexts, whether idiomatic English or not).
2. Unfamiliarity with medical or physiological terms and names: (eu)chimus/(eu)chimia ‘good moisture/juices in foods’ rendered by forms of chewen (94, 198, etc.); muscillago ‘mucus’ translated as “mersh-malow” (508, 515); spica celtica ‘Celtic spikenard’ as “hevenly eeris” (1205); Plinius ‘Pliny,’ possibly encountered in an abbreviated form, as “philosophre” (as if philosophus; 741, 748) and “many” (as if plurimi; 1233).
3. Analytical translation (sometimes with faulty analysis) of prei xed Latin words: consistere = ‘(evene) withstonde’ (40, etc.); superi ciei = “vpon the sight” (as if super + faciei; 116); planta Indie ‘plant of India, lignum aloes’ = “planted in the day” (1139, etc.); investigandam ‘to be examined, investigated’ = “in steppyng” (as if in + *vestigians; 629); confert = “evene berith” (947); subiacet = “wndirlith” (954); incorpora ‘combine, incorporate’ = “in the bodies” (2066).
4. Doublet translations that may suggest uncertainty about the sense of a word: iudicandum = “to shewe or deme” (as if unsure whether the Latin word was indicandum or iudicandum; 8); nutrientium = “norissh-ynges or norices” (206); ab = “from of or of that” (456–457); tremori = “tremelyng dreede” (as if combining tremor and timor; 948); neruos = “nerves and synewes” (1146–1147). Doublets (occasionally triplets) that offer less and more familiar equivalents to Latin words also occur, as elsewhere in Middle English translation practice (cf. Pahta and Carrillo Linares, chap. 5, 104 above): investigatio = “investiga-cioun or goyng in” (46); euacuationibus = “evacuaciouns, voidynges, or vomytes” (96–97); illiniatur = “illynied or smered” (1559–1560). 5. Errors that appear to arise from misinterpreted abbreviations; many
6. Misinterpretation of grammatical endings, notably i nal -o and -io on nominative singular forms of abstract feminine nouns, read as if indicating a masculine/neuter dative, and translated with preposi-tional phrases beginning with “to the . . . ”: e.g., restauracio = “to the restauracioun” (93), and so on throughout (e.g., 95–96, 163, and 177). We have not found examples of the misinterpretation of nominative forms in -is or dative singular forms in -i as genitive singular forms like those reported by Pahta and Carrillo Linares (chap. 5, 111–12 above), though such forms may occur here and there in the text.
In at least a couple of instances, it appears that the translator was able to learn and correct errors as he progressed through the text, though he generally did not return to correct earlier mistakes. Thus, in chapter 3, the translator misreads forms of corruptio as if they were forms of corpus, -oris, translating the Latin word as Middle English “body”; after several such errors, however, he begins translating correctly with corrupcioun.15 Through most of the De retardatione translation, the translator repeats his errone-ous rendering of nominative singular nouns ending in -o/-io as if they were dative singular forms, translated “to the . . . .” Similar errors occur in sub-sequent translations in the i rst 104 folios of TCC R.14.52, but appear to decline in frequency.16 If the same person translated all the unique works on fols. 1–104, as Pahta and Carrillo Linares have persuasively argued above, then the decrease in errors suggests that practice helped him improve, though not perfect, his output.
A pair of related phenomena in the De retardatione text may cast fur-ther light on the translator’s procedure and his relation to the Hammond
15 See Language Notes to lines 645, 750, and 809. Before his series of
mistransla-tions of corruptio in chap. 3 of the De retardatione, the translator had handled the word successfully once (in line 332), followed by a case of wavering between the translations ‘corruption’ and ‘body’ near the end of chap. 2 (line 645), so the mis-translations at the beginning of chapter 3 cannot be attributed to simple igno-rance of the Latin noun. Since the word corpus occurs much more frequently in the
De retardatione than the word corruptio, the translator may have leapt to the more familiar but erroneous word through his inattentiveness to the overall sense of the text (evident in his verbum a verbo literalism), possibly exacerbated by similarities between the shapes of the Latin words or their abbreviations.
16 See, for example, the mistranslations of nominative -o and -io nouns in lines 172–
173, 342–343, and 359–361 (pulmo, altitudo, animatio) and the correct rendering of such nouns in lines 255, 268, 283, 449, and 515–517 (ambulatio, transumptio, obliuio,
scribe. At several points, the scribe leaves blank spaces in his text (see Tex-tual Notes to lines 933, 1050, 1154, 1186, 1513, 1558, 1857). These blanks could mean that he was unable to make out the word to be copied, but since several of the missing words could have posed translation difi culties or did in fact pose such difi culties elsewhere in the text, they may rel ect gaps left by the translator and carried over by the scribe.17 Several other words and phrases have been written in compressed script, as if to i t in a space origi-nally left blank but not quite large enough: wele chewed (94), chewyng (198), chewed and (239); to stopped (934); plente of heris aboute priues (946–947); brennyng or hote (1414). The i rst three examples of this compressed writing (rel ecting the i rst three occurrences of the technical Latin word euchimia in the text) may have originally been left blank until the translator settled on forms of the verb chewen as his best guess for euchimia. For the scribe to know how to i ll in those blanks, however, he must have been working with the translator or had access to the Latin original in order to know that the blanks corresponded to the word later rendered as chewed, chewyng, and so on. For the other examples, see the relevant Textual and Language Notes.
Even more interesting is the word farmacie/farmacy (lines 873 and 877), which appears to have been inserted into spaces originally left blank but slightly too small for a seven- or eight-character word. Further along in the text, however, we i nd a blank where the Latin text again has farmacia (line 1050); and i nally we i nd farmacia being translated as farynacioun(s), writ-ten at the scribe’s normal size and spacing (lines 1917, 1925).18 One scenario
17 The gaps and their source text are as follows:
line 933: approx. 15-character space; Latin cardiacis et tremori cordis et timorosis et
‘for people with heart disease and for heart tremor and for the timorous’ (a few lines later, timorosos is translated with the nonsense word cynorose; a line or two further on, tremori is translated as tremelynge dreede, suggesting uncertainty between tremor and timor).
line 1050: approx. 5-character space; Lat. farmacia. See discussion below.
line 1154: 6- to 7-character space; Lat. coctum ‘cooked, concocted (physiologically).’ line 1186: 3- to 4-character space; Lat. nigello ‘nigella sativa, black cumin.’ line 1513: 6- to 7-character space; Lat. chimum ‘moisture, juice.’
line 1558: 4- to 5-character space; Lat. grossum simile ‘something similarly thick.’ line 1857: 2- to 3-character space; Latin amido ‘crushed hulled wheat, grits’ (a
culi-nary term that might have been unfamiliar to the translator).
18 The word farynacioun is also used to translate Latin farmacia in the “De XII
that might explain these facts would be if the translator had left spaces for the unfamiliar word when he i rst encountered it and then made a (faulty) decision about how to translate it later in the text, followed by the scribe copying the blank spaces and then consulting with the translator, or at least with the translator’s exemplar, to see how to i ll in those spaces and making a different (this time correct) decision about the English word to use. On the other hand, if the scribe were himself the translator, then one would need to assume — another admittedly reasonable scenario — that on return-ing to i ll in these spaces, he realized what the word should be but did not remember the blank at line 1050 or his erroneous translations in lines 1917 and 1925. In any case, it again seems clear, as in the case of the euchimia translations above, that the scribe had sufi ciently ready access to the Latin original, whether directly or indirectly, that he could i ll in a number of spaces he originally left blank, compressing his script when necessary to accommodate words longer than the allotted space.
Marginal Annotations
The Middle English On Tarrying the Accidents of Age was annotated by at least i ve writers. The i rst layer of annotation, nearly 150 notes written by the Hammond scribe himself, consists almost entirely of authorities cited in the text or Latin tags from the source text. In the edition that follows, these notes are enclosed in angle brackets and included in the text. Two annotations by the main scribe fall outside the normal catego-ries of authorities or Latin tags from the source (unless they were mar-ginal notes already occurring in the Latin exemplar): quomodo arator . . . & currentem (fol. 13r) and the English gloss Aire (fol. 11v). These marginal notes by the Hammond scribe are usually decorated with paraphs in alter-nating red and rose ink.
that the hand bears some resemblance to, though probably not identity with, that of John Vale as preserved in holograph documents reproduced by Kekewich et al. (1995, frontispiece and illustrations 3, 8, 9, and 11); Pahta notes similarities between this hand and that responsible for texts on folios 255r–256v (chap. 1, 11 above).
The remaining marginalia are recorded in the Textual Notes of our edition. The most active annotator after the main scribe is the writer some-times called the “principal annotator” of the manuscript, annotations in whose hand can be found throughout the manuscript, probably written over some period of time in the late i fteenth to early sixteenth century. This annotator is also responsible for many of the additions made on folios left blank by the main scribe (see Mooney 1995, 55–63, items 14–16, 23–25, 28–30, 45, 49, 61; Pahta, chap. 1, 11–12 above; Green and Mooney, chap. 11, 478–79 below, where he is labeled the “principal annotator” or “annotator 1”). He is responsible for approximately i fty notes in our text, in a some-what sprawling or careless script; the initial caps in his notes are often high-lighted with yellow wash similar to that found on capitals in the text proper. The notes focus on particular ailments or symptoms of old age, therapies, and medicinal substances mentioned in the text, and occasionally use the stylized Nota symbol drawn as a capital N with legs of different lengths, a double horizontal cross-stroke (similar to a capital H), and sometimes a sus-pension mark above the letter.
Textual Afi liations of the
Accidents of Age
The following analysis of the relation of the Accidents of Age and its direct Latin source to the larger textual tradition of the Latin text is based pri-marily on the information about that text in A. G. Little’s 1928 edition. The conclusions drawn from that information are necessarily provisional, given the limitations of the edition in light of recent discoveries about the author-ship of the text and the existence of a substantial number of manuscripts unknown to Little, many of them showing different — and apparently ear-lier — developmental stages of the text and the suite of treatises that often accompany it (Paravicini Bagliani 1991a, 305–12).
Fortunately, the Trinity translation of the text clearly belongs to the manuscript tradition, of English origin, in which the De retardatione is attrib-uted to Roger Bacon and is followed by a series of other gerontological and medical treatises, some by the De retardatione author (on internal evi-dence) and some by Bacon himself, always in the same order. Although Little did not collate all of the manuscripts in this tradition, his apparatus does include most of them, and basing the analysis that follows on his edi-tion should allow a reasonable degree of coni dence in the relaedi-tionships suggested by that apparatus.19
Little identii es two major versions of the De retardatione, a shorter ver-sion represented by two manuscripts (PV, possibly the earlier form of the text; see Paravicini Bagliani 1991a, 298, 310), and a longer version found in his base text (B = Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 438) and i ve other collated manuscripts (EOSCanM).20 The longer version can be bro-ken down further into two families, SCanM and BEO (plus Ch, a direct descendant of E that Little generally does not collate). SCanM and its sub-sets do not contain a number of short to medium-length passages found in BEO; whether those passages are omissions from a text antecedent to SCanM as Little thought (LW xix–xx), or additions to an ancestor of the BEO family is not yet clear.21
19 For a full listing of manuscripts and early printed editions, see Paravicini
Bagliani 1991a, 292–302; for more detailed descriptions of the manuscripts col-lated by Little, see LW viii–xxi.
20 For identii cation of the individual manuscripts represented by these sigla, see
the Editorial Practice section below.
21 Paravicini Bagliani describes the SCanM group as “tre manoscritti importanti”;
T should probably be afi liated primarily with the BEO family, as it agrees with BEO in containing most of the material omitted in the PV and SCanM groups. Not surprisingly, there are numerous small variations between Little’s critical text and the Latin exemplar that can be inferred from the Middle English translation. Many of these discrepancies can be paralleled in the variants recorded in Little’s textual apparatus or explained by way of commonplace scribal errors (see the Language and Explanatory Notes to the edition below), though those parallels do not sug-gest any direct ancestry for the Latin manuscript used by the Trinity trans-lator. However, there are some omitted passages in T that coincide with PV omissions or SCanM omissions and that appear to be more signii cant than simple coincidental scribal error.22
The most interesting of these omissions — using the word without prej-udice to the question of whether the gaps represent lost material or mate-rial added later in the tradition — are a passage in Little’s edition that is generally read as a reference to Bacon’s Scientia experimentalis (i.e., the Opus maius, part 6) and three passages on the mysterious ingredient lapis quadra-tus nobilis animalis or ‘four-sided stone of the noble animal.’Crowley (1950, 24), followed by Paravicini Bagliani (1991a, 290), suggests that the passage cross-referencing Bacon’s work (LW 54/13–20; omitted in PV, SCanM, and T) is a later interpolation to the original text. The passages on the lapis qua-dratus (LW 58/2–4, 24–27 and 60/2–18, all in chapter 7; omitted in PV and T) are generally thought to refer, albeit cryptically, to the medicinal use of human blood or to the rejuvenating effects of intimate contact with a healthy young person of a perfectly tempered complexion. As such, if they were part of the original De retardatione, they might have been seen by later copyists as overly esoteric or of dubious moral quality and thus in need of excision. On the other hand, given that they are absent from the very early manuscript P (which also contains an attribution to the “dominus castri g[o]et” now credited with the authorship of the De retardatione), it seems at least as likely that they were added to the original text by someone with interests in the more arcane aspects of longevity therapeutics. In either case, the fact that T usually follows Little’s BEO group but agrees with PV
22 Over eighty passages in Little’s text do not occur in PV, some of them longer
and/or SCanM on certain substantive omissions may indicate that the Trin-ity translation, despite its faults, will need to be taken into account in the full critical edition of the De retardatione called for by Paravicini Bagliani (1991a, 322).
Editorial Practice
In addition to the general editorial practices described in the Preface to this volume, we use double angle brackets in the text to indicate marginal annotations by a second hand, written before the red and rose paraphs were added to the marginal notes. The relatively few marginalia in other hands are recorded in the Textual Notes.
The Middle English text is collated against Little’s edition of the De retardatione (cited as L), with selected variants from his textual apparatus, with the following sigla (dates based on Paravicini Bagliani 1991a, 284–85, and for E, on Getz 1992b, 143 n. 15):
B = Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 438 (s. xv. init.; Little’s base text)
E = Oxford, Bodleian Library, e Musaeo MS 155 (s. xv. med.)23 O = Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley MS 211 (s. xv ex.)
S = Oxford, Bodleian Library, Arch. Selden. MS B.35 (s. xv, though Little and Crowley take it as s. xiv ex.; some variants from S given below are taken directly from a microi lm of the manuscript)
Can = Oxford, Bodleian Library, Can. Misc. MS 334 (s. xv ex.)
M = Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS I 210 inf. (s. xv ex.)
P = Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 6978 (s. xiv init.)
V = Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. MS 4091 (s. xv)
Ch = Manchester, Chetham’s Library, MS 11366 (s. xv; a direct descen-dant of E)
23E was copied in the i fteenth century at least partly by John Cokkys, an Oxford
150
ACCIDENTS OF AGE
(De retardatione accidentium senectutis)
[fol. 1r]
The treatice of Freere Rogier Bacon of th’order of Menours of tarieng and withdrawyng the accidentis of age and of elder men
[Prohemium]
Lord of the world, whiche of the most noblest stokk hast take the spryng and the bigynnyng: higheste God to whos goodenes and holynes al thynges wonne and opteyned doeth com by. I thynk and have thought of many werkis evene pleasaunt to thy highnes.1 I have stied on high and I have founde an hard thyng but often fallible to shewe or deme. I have serchid th’entrails and bowels of th’erth: and ther have I founde the vanite and losse of tyme. Fortvne hath brought me in a meane for the litilnes of my soule and in hym I have founde iij doctrynes necessarie wrappid to a prynce, long tyme to lordship and to reigne. <Quare vna docet discernere equum ab iniquo> Wherof oon techith to discern evene from vnevene, iust from vniust, and his right to euery man rightwisly to doo. And this conservith natural men in goode state and pees, as to their lord thei bien nat aduersarie but alwey thei hym serven and with al their herte thei hym loven. <Alia docet sanum in sanitatem> Another techith to yield helth into helth and of sike folk to yield helth. And he fyndeth it and is founde but vnpari te medicynes in bookis. And ther-for the operacioun of their folowers, ther-for the defaute of þat doctryne 5
10
15
20
2. elder men: Lsenii ‘advanced old age, the debility of age.’ The mistranslation of seni-um as a form of senex ‘old man’ (usually, as here, mistaken for the genitive plural senum) occurs throughout the ME text.
12. wrappid: Lvolenti ‘(a prince) wishing,’ read as voluti ‘turned, rolled.’
15. as:L ut ‘so that.’ The translator regularly glosses ut with the word as, no matter what its sense and syntactic function in the Latin original. See Pahta and Carrillo Linares, chap. 5, 110 above.
18. yield (1): Lregere ‘to rule,’ read as reddere.
1–2. The treatice . . . of elder men] in display script
29. I shal steppe: Linvestigabo ‘I shall investigate, delve into.’ The translator renders the word in terms of its etymology (tracking after something, following the vestigia), at some cost to the English sense. See his doublet investigacioun or goyng in in line 46 below, which may suggest that he felt the word investigacioun needed further glossing.
40. to withstonde tyme: Ltempore consistendi ‘in the time of standing fi rm, in the prime of life’; forms of consistere ‘to stand fi rm’ are regularly translated by forms of (evene) withstonde throughout the text, often in contexts referring to the prime of life.
43. til: Ldonec ‘as long as, while, until’ (and so elsewhere in the text).
46. garnysshed: L minuuntur ‘(are) diminished,’ possibly misread, by confusion of min-ims, as muniuntur ‘are fortifi ed, are furnished.’
and derk vndirstandyng hid, thei han bien wont oftentymes to erre.
<Tercia est difi cilior & obscurior> The thrid is harder and derker, of the whiche a litel cometh bi vs. For the Caldeys and the Grekis had but a litel or forwhy it com nat to hem but was buried of auncient persones. And of this entencioun I intende to compowne and make to yowr high-nes a litil word acustumed, as that the hiest God conserve and kepe yow in yowr bodily strengthis in þe chamber of sapience, vnto the terme natural whiche he hath sette and put in his power.
<Et in eo sermone investigabo> And in that word I shal steppe the doctryne the whiche man techith in tyme to be made to defende from the accidentis of age and of old men, and th’oldman from th’accidentis and decrepite of age if thei comen bifore the tyme. And if thei all comen sum part which vttirly he techith all to remoeve; and whiche what tyme thei oughten to come, techith withouten any hurt þo thyng-es bi the space of tyme to tarie and withdrawe. <Nam quedam ex hijs diminuunt microcosmium> Forwhy sum of thiese thynges mynusen and lassen the lasse world from his fairnes and beaute, sum from mannes labours and operaciouns, wherfor neither to hymsilf nor to non other he may no lengger pari te and so his terme and end hastith. And nat only the accidentis [fol. 1v] of age comen to withstonde tyme but of age to elder men fallen al day. And so thei leven and leefen that of necli-gence of rule and ignoraunce of their owne propre thynges that nature to theym diligently hath ministred. Forwhi til a man evyn withstandith without accidentis of age and of eldyng, neither beaute ne fairnes, wit nor vndirstandy[ng], nor lil y vertues or strength into that body shuln be garnysshed. And that this investigacioun or goyng in is possible in tyme to withstande (whiche is the stacioun of beaute and of fairnes), sapient wise men to folow this han shewed to vs ij weyes. <Avicen in suo prohemio> Wherof on is bi the rule of helth, as Avicen in his pro-heme of rule there saith: The craft to kepe helth of ij thynges yevyng to 25
30
35
40
45
50
56–58. if to the prohibicioun . . . and broken: Lscilicet a prohibitione recentis [var. penitusSCanM] putrefactionis et defensione humiditatis ne cito dissoluatur ‘namely, by the prohibition of new corruption and the protection of natural moisture so that it is not too soon diffused.’ Reading scilicet as si disrupts both syntax and sense. See lines 1705– 1709 below for a slightly improved translation.
77. fl eyng: L decorationis ‘decoration, ornament,’ read as decoriatio ‘fl aying, skinning’ (an error that recurs elsewhere in the text).
man suerte, &c.2 Another is the propirtees of sum medicynes whiche of auncient men bien hid. <Diascorides / Haly> Of the whiche Dias-corides spekith, witnessyng Haly vpon rule,3 seiþ aboute th’end: It is possible that ther bien sum medicynes whiche forbeden a man from the swiftnes of age and cold and drynes of membris, so as the lif of man be lengthed, if to the prohibicioun vttirly of putrefaccioun or putre-i eng and to the defensputre-ioun of humputre-idputre-ite and moputre-isture be nat to soone dissolved and broken. Also it is saide: Of hem whiche liven long, vsen medicynes to whom the lif of hem is lengthed, of whos knowlache com nat to the Grekis.4
<Plinius / August> And in the booke of Plinius and of mulso it is red that the Lord August asked suche on whiche long tyme lived how and in what maner the strengthis of the bodye so long tyme had kept and conserved. It is aunswerd to hym: I have put oile withoutfurth and mulso withynfurth.5 And this worde hath an hid or derk interpreta-cioun. Whan he saith “oile withoutfurþ,” is to vndirstonde like as it sowneth, as to the exposicioun is withynfurth in the chapitre of thiese thynges whiche exciten and awaken qwikly vertu and strength.6 Whan he saith “mulso withynfurth,” vndirstande thow bi mulso a thyng tem-perat, forwhi mulso is made of hony and water, of whiche he makith temperat thynges or to more neere tomperaunce. “Withynfurth” ther-for he saith, ther-forwhy nutrymentis or norisshyng thynges and rule and medicynes of old men oughten to be temperat, hoote, and moiste.
<Obolay> And the sone of a prince Oboaly7 saith in the secunde partie of his booke that the vse of sum serpentis l essh prolongith lif and com-fortith vertu and strength and conservith and kepith wit and yowth.
Also he saith in the 4 canon in fen of decoracioun or l eyng that if Ʒ i rede alcalies bien drunke, doeth awey white heeris and in their place makith blac heeris ageyn to growe.8 And wite ye, diere prince, I have founde philosophers and other sapient and wise persones of this intencioun spekyng so, [fol. 2r] lightly to passe ouer, nor I have nat founde from hem taken of this intencioun ought to be bi al neces-55
60
65
70
75
80
62. Lord] foll. by ask canc.
sarie. <Et rimatus fui> And I have bien in serche of al þe writynges of Latyners or Latyn men. And I have vndirstonde bi the interpretaciouns of sum of the Arabiens and Grekes many writynges of sapient men as of this maner sumwhat I myght fynd; and to repaire of this intencioun to speke metrikly, as sapient men in the craft transumpt or vptaken han bien wont or acustom. And therfor of this maner doctryne specialy I have writen ageyn vnto yowre highnesse.
But oo thyng is to be noted, diere prince, that sum medicynes ther bien whiche restoren natural humydite and moisture whiche daily bien resolved. Other ther bien the whiche consumen and wasten vnnaturaly the humydites. Forwhi to the restauracioun of goode humydites bien nat made but of nutritives and norisshyng metis, and namly wele chewed, after the philosophre and of the whiche compound medicynes. But to the consumpcioun of superl ue humydites made withe evacuaciouns, voidynges, or vomytes, and medicynes consumyng the natural humydite. Other ther bien whiche natural heete eni ebled of dissolucioun, of nat-ural humydite, and of augmentyng and cokyng of straunge medicynes comforten and restoren. Other medicynes þer bien whiche comforten bodies. Other ther bien whiche clothen the naile l ayn and taken awey that þat is wont often tyme to come of accidens.
85
90
95
100
94. wele chewed] characters written in compressed script, with -wed written slightly above line, as if text originally had a blank space i lled in later.See Language Note to this line and Textual Note to line 239 below.
86. repaire: L repperi ‘I have found,’ read as reparare ‘to repair.’
87. metrikly: L metaphorice ‘metaphorically’ (perhaps easier to mistake for metrice ‘metrically’ if abbreviated in the translator’s exemplar).
93. to the restauracioun: L restauratio ‘restoration’ (nom.sg.). An example of the trans-lator’s tendency to translate words ending in -o as datives requiring the English preposi-tion ‘to,’ even when they are in fact nominative singular forms of abstract nouns ending in -io. For other examples, see lines 95–96 (to the consumpcioun), 163 (to the hast),177 (to the resolucioun), etc.
94. wele chewed: L euchimiis, ‘good juices, good moisture in foods.’ This technical word and the related chimus ‘(alimentary) juice, moisture’ were evidently unknown to the translator, who renders them with forms of the verb chewen throughout the text.
99. straunge: L extranee ‘extraneous, excess, of external origin’ (and so throughout; here modifying humiditatis in Lat.). Cf. MED, s.v. straunge (adj.), 3e.
<Postquam sic est oportet nos investigare> After þat so is, it bihovith vs subtily to go and fynde what and whiche auncient and old men han hid and the causes of age and of agyng and of their accidentis, whiche whansumeuer tyme sum tyme forsoth bien wont to falle. But age and of old men accidentis to com of febilnes of natural heete, and the febilnes of natural heete comyth of dissolucioun of natural humydite and aug-mentyng of straunge medicynes.9<Et michi corde est inquirere> And to myn herte it is to inquire what natural humydite resolut restoren, and restored succeden; and what innatural humydite hasten to come and whiche whan thei comen purgen and consumen. And natural humydite defensed and dissolutes restored and estraunges defensed from the augment, consumpt, purged: than is it neede that natural heete be comforted and the vertu and strength relieved whiche was of the for-saide incomodites eni ebled. And so moche vpon the sight of the naile to roughnes and of hurt after the impediment, that is age accident, be taried and withdrawen. And this is the wey bi the whiche a man defended from accidentis of age and of eldyng, ne come nat bifore the tyme, and after that, to live tarien. And bi this, yowth shal be conserved and hasti age shal be taried, bi the vertu of the high God above.
Note that here we han red of the rule of helth of age and [fol. 2v]
of elder men, that the auctor hath sette and put a necessary rule of this epistil. Wherfor but helth be reserved in old men, the passions of age mown nat bien taried nor mynused nor made easy. Thiese aforsaide of the rule of this epistel bien nat made but to the preseruacioun of holsum rule and of the helth of elder men to sage men taken, forwhi the rule of helth is the bigynnyng and the accomplisshment of this epistel.10 105
110
115
120
125
111. succeden] written over erasure L sincerant ‘purify’ innatural] written as two words (‘vnnatural’ is the usual form) L innaturalem
125. aforsaide] a (end of line) aforsaide
116–117. so moche vpon the sight of the naile to roughnes: L tandem superfi ciei cutis corrugatio ‘nevertheless, the roughness of the surface of the skin.’ Several errors are vis-ible here: cutis read as ‘nail’; nom.sg. corrugatio taken as a dative; tandem read as tan-tum ‘so much’; and the faulty analysis of superfi ciei as super + faciei as ‘upon the ap-pearance.’
117. after: L sensus ‘of sensation, sense,’read as secundum.
120. to live: L venire ‘to come,’read as viuere ‘to live.’ The sense of the original is “And this is the way by which man is defended from the accidents of old age and advanced old age, so that they may not come before their (natural) time, and after that (time), that they may be slowed from coming.”
[Capitula]
[1.] Of causis of age and of thiese thynges whiche meeten thoo causes
[2.] Of the accidentis of age and of old men and the causis and signes of the hurtis of a mannez witte
[3.] Of metis and drynkes whiche natural humydite that euery day resolvith convenient restoren, inwardly hole that nat anon be resolvid
[4.] Of thiese thynges whiche tarien natural humydite to be resolved and restored
[5.] Of metis and thynges whiche principaly the accidentis of age and of old men hasten to come
[6.] Of thiese thynges whiche voiden and consumen the humour bryngyng in accidencis of age and of old men and taken awey and steynen white heris comyng
[7.] Of thiese thynges whiche natural heete eni ebled of natural cours nature and the resoluciouns of kyndly nature of straunge augmentyng comforten and restoren
[9.] Of thiese thynges whiche exciten lil y vertu and strength and com-forten bodies and the mocioun or moevyng alighten
[8.] Of thiese thynges whiche vertues strengthis and wittis repairen and comforten and yowth conserven and strengthis restoren
[10.] Of thiese thynges whiche inducen and bryngen nail beaute and fairnes of yowth and clennes and ruddynes and the whiche takith awey the roughnes of nail
[11.] Of thiese thynges whiche helpen and hurten the wyt and the imagynacioun of reason and mynde
[fol. 3r]
[Capitulum Primum. De causis senectutis]
To the worldis age, men agen: nat for the age of the world, after the multiplicacioun of men livyng and the ayre theim infectyng, whiche compassith vs, and the necligence of rule and the ignoraunce of the 130
135
140
145
150
155
134. hole] over erasure
145–148. The chapter headings for chapters 8 and 9 of the Latin original are switched in the ME translation of this table of contents (they are correctly ordered in L). The ac-tual order of these chapters in the text is correct.
155. To the worldis age men agen] in display script
propirtes of thoo thynges whiche asken the defaute of rule.11 Of whos infeccioun, necligence, and ignoraunce, natural heete after tyme to be withstand bigynnyth to mynushe; and of his dymunyssioun and dis-temperaunce the more it hastith. Of whos debilite and i ebilnes acci-dentis of age comen, whiche in tyme to be withstande may nat12 be take awey. And after that to the hast of hem may be taried, as his ravis-shyng cours — whiche was in man from the tyme of withstandyng to his age, and from age to elder age, and from that age to the age of decrepite — nat hastith. Forwhi the cercle or compas of age rennyth more on a day from age vnto elder age than he doeth fro yowth vnto age in iij daies, and more from th’eldest age to decrepite age than from age to elder age. Whiche debilite, i eblenes, and distemperaunce of nat-ural heete is made in ij maners: bi resolucioun of natnat-urall humydite and augmentyng of straunge medycyne.13<Avicen in primo canone de
complexionibus> Vnkyndly heete in humydite beyng natural and from augmentyng of straunge humydite quenchith, whiche comyth of i eble dieute of nature, as Avicen seith in his i rst canon of complexiouns.14 Causes of resolucioun of natural humydite and of straunge augment-yng (bi whiche natural heete is eni ebled) ther bien many, as in this chapitre I shal declare. But to the resolucioun of natural humydite fall-ith of ij causes. The i rst cause is the ayre compassyng, whiche drieth the matier, and the heete in man whiche is wiþthyn to that helpith; for-whi she is cause of quenchyng hirsilf, for that he hath consumed his matier, as fuyre of the lampe quenchith whan his oile consumyth.15
<Avicen in capitulo de complexionibus> The secunde cause is labour comyng of mociouns of bodies and beastis,16 whiche bien thynges nec-essary in this lif and defaute of nature to resiste þem all alwey, as Avicen saith in the chapitre of complexiouns of þe kyndes of age.17 Mocioun or movyng of bestis bien accidentis of the soule. Mociouns of bodies bien saide whan bodies moeven and alteren and chaungen from causes nec-cessary evil mesured. But of augmentyng of straunge humydites and 160
165
170
175
180
185
161. i ebilnes] e (1) written over letter l or b
163–164. ravisshyng: L rapidus, perhaps read as raptans ‘carrying off, abducting.’
172. Vnkyndly: L innatus ‘inborn, innate,’ probably read as an abbreviated form of in-naturalis.
173–174. of fi eble dieute of nature: Lex debilitate digerendi ‘from the weakness of di-gestion’ (digerendi read as debendi?).
183–184. whiche bien thynges . . . þem all alwey:According to Little, the Latin origi-nal of this passage seems corrupt (LW 9n.), though the English does follow Little’s base text and its Avicennan original word for word.
of straunge humours that natural heete is eni ebled, that is doon of ij maners: of vse of metis and of thynges generatif vnnatural or vnkyndly humydite, and namly l eaume. And whiche they bien I shal sey withyn-furth. Anoþer maner is made of indigestioun, of the whiche gendrith vnnatural humydite [fol. 3v] and putrii ed humours. <Galienus in Pen-tagne & Avicen in 4 canone> Forwhi digestioun is the roote of naturall generacioun and of natural humydite, whiche whan it is goode, goode, whan it is evil, evil gendrith humydite,18 as techith Galien in Pentagne and Avicen in his iiij canon of thynges whiche tarien and withdrawen ballidnes.19 Forwhy of chewyng evil digested gendrith an evil humour. <Avicen in capitulo de complexionibus> But nat that nat only l eaw-me is cald a straunge humydite, forwhi al straunge humours putrii ed, as saith Avicen in the chapitre of complexiouns of ages.20 But straunge l eawme is to al straunge humours worst, fforwhi he helpith to extinct and qwenche heete natural in ij maners: oon to strangle and to another qualite to meete.<Haly in capitulo de juvamentis> And this Haly saith, in the chapitre of iuvamentis or helpyng thynges, of solucioun of the wombe.21 But this humydite gendrith of errour of norisshynges or norices and of necligence of diete and of distemp[er]aunce of bodies.22
Also, and bi this dissolucioun of natural humydite and straunge augmentaciouns agith a man. <Aristotolus in epistola ad Alexandrynum>
Þe whiche into age makith and doeth in ij maners, as Aristotil saith in his Epistel to Alexaunder: Oo manere of natural cours of nature, and doeth whan tyme comyth a litel and successivily and after tyme evene to withstande, after that natural heete bigynnyth to mynush of necessite, and that tyme bigynneth after xlv or l yeere generaly. Another maner agith a man in many necessitees and cursed chargis.23 And this bi the 190
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198. chewyng] -yng written in compressed script
214. or] r written over f
198. Forwhy of chewyng . . . evil humour: The text here is incomplete; in the Latin De retardatione, thesentence goes on to the following clause: etiam ex cibis, qui naturaliter generant malum humorem, bene digestis, bonus humor aliquando generatur ‘and from foods which naturally produce an evil humour, if well digested, a good humour can sometimes be generated.’
200. forwhi al straunge humours putrifi ed: Lsed omnis humor extraneus putridus ‘but every extraneous putrid humour (is so called).’
203–204. oon to strangle and to another qualite to meete: Lvno modo suffocan-do, et altero qualitati obviando ‘one way is by suffocating it, and the other by working against its qualities.’ Avicenna, Canon 1.1.3.3 (fol. 6rb–va). On the translator’s handling of the verb obviare, see Language Notes to lines 243 and 670 below.
wey of dissolucioun of natural humydite, and so don. Forwhy long charge and shrewd accidentis dissoluen and drien natural humydite, whiche is þe foode and nurisshyng of natural heete. Humydite dried and dissolut, natural heete i eblith and keelith; in so moche i eblid and keelid that the vertu digestif failith and therfor meetis abiden vndi-gested. Of whos indigestioun natural humyd[i]te drieth and straunge humydites augmentith, and so the membris lakkyng norisshyng bien keelid, dried, and consumed.24<Isaac in libro febrium> Forwhy thei bien nat norisshed as thei oughten, as Isaac techith in the Booke of Feveres, the chapitre of ptisi.25
But he askith what is this humydite and in what place, and of what heete natural is he norisshed, and what is his foode and fostryng.
<Isaac in libro febrium & in capitulo ethicorum> This humydite is in the holownes of the herte and in his veynes and in arterijs, as Isaac in the Booke of Feveres, in the chapitre of etikes.26 Furthermore in membris bien humydites and of dyuers spices and kyndes, of whiche bien humydites redy to norisshyng to moiste in the joynctures. Of theym therfor that is ageyn-sette in the veynes and of theym is that that is [fol. 4r] ageyn-sette in the membris as dewe, <Avicen in 4 canone> so as Avicen in the 4 canon of ethikes.27 And haply sum sapient persones vndirstonden that al thiese humydites bien the foode of natural heete, and namly þo whiche bien in the herte, arterijs, and his veynes. And the humydite whiche is in the herte and in arterijs and his veynes restorith whan it dissolvith bi mete and drynke wel chewed, and clarii eth bi medicynes taken bi the mowth, and humydites of membris bi medicynes withyn-furth, as invncciouns, oynementes, and bathis, &c.
After that we see the causis of age, it is to be seen what causis theym meeten. Of their meetyng sapient men han taken ij doctrynes: wherof that oon is science of rule and that other is science of propirtes of whiche sum thynges whiche auncient persones han hidde.28<Avicen in
principio sue sanitatis> And how be it made or don bi rule techith Avi-220
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245
221. humydite] i written over e?
239. chewed and] cheweand, written in compressed script, with d (1) ins. above ea.
See Textual Note to line 94 above.
242. After] marg. in small later hand: cap. 2
233. ageyn-sette: L repositum ‘replaced, put, restored.’
240–241. withynfurth: Lextrinsecas ‘from outside, external.’ Here and below (line 345), the translator appears to confuse intrinsecus and extrinsecus. See also emended lines 1546 and 1550.
cen in the bigynnyng of his helth, seyeng of the i rst: Craft to kepe helþ of ij thynges yevith man suerte, that is to say, vttirly to forbede putre-facciouns, and defence of humydite ne be nat to soone dissolved.29 Whiche defence be made bi certeyn rule of restauracioun that be made in the place of his body that he hath resolved, after the quantite pos-sible and bi rule forbedyng diminucioun of causes to hast of makyng drynes, except causis whiche make drynes to be diew.30 And that be do bi rule kepyng from gendryng of putrefaccioun. And this rule defend-ith men in tyme of evene wi[th]standyng, that is, age of beaute and fairnes, whiche is from xxx yeere vnto xl yeere. And this rule defend-ith a man.
And another doctryne is whiche defendith the body to alter with the vse of sum medicynes whiche auncient persones han hid. But thiese doctrynes into meetyng of causes of age accorden nat in hemself, but oon is the bigynnyng, another is th’end; oon bigynnyth, another fuli l-lith the defaute of another. Eueriche forsoth bi hymsilf bryngith grete help. But bi oon only th’entent of auncient persones is nat fuli lled, but bi cognicioun and knowlache of either. And of theym our entencioun shal be complete and fuli lled. Forwhi doctryne of rule comaundith to mete the causes of age with mesure vj kyndes of necessarie causes, whiche conserven the body and chaungen.31 And so thiese causes bien completiefs32 of helþ and ini rmyte. Forwhy whan they bien mynistred in eueriche qualite and quantite and parties, the vse of hem — after that it bihovith — conserven helth. And whan thei bien nat mynistred after that it bihovith, but passen over, in that maken sikenessis to falle whan it perseuerith and abidith the goyng ouer and multiplieth. Gadre [fol. 4v]<Collige in Teigno Galienis cum exposicio[ne] Haly> this in the Teigne of Galien, with the exposicioun of Haly, ther wher he treatith of the rule of helth.33 But to the mesure of thiese causes to make complete to the ful he may nat, so that he excede no further or aboute. Forwhi sapi-ent men perceiven more to be don than may be brou t in deede. For-250
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255. withstandyng] wistandyng 274. Haly] H written over G
275–276. But to the mesure . . . further or aboute: LSed mensuratio harum causarum complete fi eri non potest, ita quod non excedat ultra vel citra ‘But it is not possible for a balance of these causes to be completely achieved, without some excess or defi cit.’
