Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/63

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INTRODUCTION

M. Trannoy's edition, with a translation into French vis-à-vis, Bude, 1925, was preluded by five pamphlets on the text, containing a liberal number of emendations.[1] Some of these have been adopted in the Budé edition, others he has later relinquished overtly, or has tacitly abandoned. The apparatus criticus follows Schenkl's report of the manuscripts closely, and contains in consequence some inaccuracies. A few emendations by M. Mondry Beaudouin are recorded. M. A. Puech's preface is brilliant, and there follows an interesting introduction on the Stoic doctrine and the manuscript evidence by M. Trannoy. The character of the Loeb series did not allow Mr. Haines to indulge in a full apparatus criticus. He has a few emendations, and an independent and exact translation into English. There are valuable historical notes and a good index to the subject-matter.


IX. Translations

The Meditations have been more often translated than edited. Wickham Legg[2] has printed a list of texts and translations down to 1908. He says: 'Translations into Latin, English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and the Norse languages are extant. But besides these we have versions into Czech, Polish, and Russian, and even into Persian.' He gives a list of thirty-six such translators, and adds: 'we have amongst his editors a Roman prelate like Cardinal Francis Barberini; a non-juring bishop like Jeremy Collier; a prosperous Dean like Dr. George Stanhope; seventeenth century scholars like Meric Casaubon and Gataker, with Dacier and his wife; a mere theologian like Grabe; a lieutenant des chasses like de Joly; a time-server like Thomas Rousseau; and we may contrast amongst editors a visionary like the younger Capel Lofft

  1. Hypothèses critiques sur les Pensées de Marc-Aurèle, i-v, 1920–2, A. I. Trannoy.
  2. J. Wickham Legg, A Bibliography of the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus 1908, reprinted 1910.
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