The work known as Physiologus is a collection of tales taken from various sources. The stories, which are usually very short, describe the supposed characteristics of real and imaginary animals, precious stones, plants, and unusual places. Originally Physiologus was compiled in Greek, probably in the second century A.D. Some time in the early fifth century it was translated into Ethiopic, Classical Armenian, Syriac, and Latin — and, subsequently, from Latin into all the major languages of Europe. Elements of some of these tales are known from the works of much earlier writers, such as Herodotus and Aristotle. Others probably were written by Church Fathers (or at least attributed to them). ... The present English translation omits the morals. This circumstance arose from my initial interest in the stories, which was solely for their Classical Armenian vocabulary. At the time, I translated only a few of the tales, never intending to publish them. Years later, rereading the translation, I was struck by the delightful strangeness of the stories minus their protective garments, and thus the present edition was born. My interest is in the animals themselves—just the naked animals, if I may put it that way. As for the morals, quite a few did not seem to fit the tales, and even amounted to distractions, at least to this reader. Nonetheless, without a doubt, these morals — apt or not — are what saved Physiologus and got this unusual text copied repeatedly by monks in the Middle Ages. ... The present translation was made from the Classical Armenian text published by N. Marr in Sborniki pritch Vardana [Collections of Fables by Vardan], vol. 3 (Saint Petersburg, 1894), pp. 131-175. - [Author]

Language: English