Elizabeth A.
Fisher (eaf@gwu.edu)
Professor of Classics
George Washington
University
Selected
publications
Michael Psellos on Symeon the Metaphrast
and on the Miracle at Blachaernae: Annotated Translations with Introductions (Online Monograph, Center for Hellenic
Studies, 2014)
http://chs.harvard.edu/wa/pageR?tn=ArticleWrapper&bdc=12&mn=5478
Michael Psellos on the Usual Miracle at
Blachernae, the Law, and Neoplatonism
Byzantine Religious Culture. Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary
Talbot edd.
Denis Sullivan, Elizabeth Fisher and Stratis Papaioannou (Leiden: Brill 2012)
187-204
Psellos Oration
on the Miracle that Occurred at the Church of the Blachernae (Blachernai)
is frequently cited in discussion of a famous icon now lost. Psellos description of the icon and of
the ritual surrounding its weekly display occupies only a small portion of the
text however, which focuses upon a protracted legal case evidently notorious in
its time. After numerous suits and
counter suits, the Constantinopolitan monastery Tou Kalliou and the general Leo
Mandalos agreed to settle their property dispute by designating the Virgin
through her miraculous icon a special judge in a special court. Claiming encouragement from Michael VII
Doukas, Psellos cites Scriptural and Neoplatonic sources as well as relevant
passages from the Basilics to compile
a text he terms a hypomnema or
official court memorandum, thus demonstrating his philosophical and legal
justification for an innovative process that Psellos hopes will serve as a
paradigm for resolving disputes deadlocked under ordinary legal procedures.
Arabs,
Latins and Persians Bearing Gifts: Greek Translations of Astrolabe Treatises
ca. 1300
Byzantine and
Modern Greek Studies 36 (2012) 161-77.
Although translation of foreign literature was rare in Byzantium, ca. 1300 three Greek translations of treatises on using the astrolabe appeared, two from Latin and one from Persian or Arabic. All three are assessed in terms of Greek style and significance for Byzantine culture; the Islamic treatise translated by Shams al-Din al-Bukhari includes a translators preface, edited in full and translated into English here for the first time. In the preface, Shams describes a deluxe astrolabe sent to Andronikos II with the treatise in hopes, it is argued, of some personal benefit in return.
Manuel
Holobolos and the Role of Bilinguals in Relations Between the West and
Byzantium
Knotenpunkt
Byzanz. Miscellanea Mediaevalia, ed. Andreas Speer,
Miscellanea Mediaevalia
36 (New York and Berlin: de Gruyter 2012) 210-22
A member
of the Latin translation section of the Byzantine imperial chancery under
Michael VIII Palaiologos (1259-82), Manuel Holobolos translated from Latin into
Greek two rhetorical works of Boethius and the ps.-Aristotelian text De plantis. It is argued here that in his
translators preface to De plantis
Holobolos contrasts literal vs. free translation strategies in terms resembling
the famous remarks of Boethius in the Second Preface to his commentary on the Isagoge of Porphyry (Greek and Latin
texts and translations provided here).
When Holobolos translated into Greek Boethius De topicis differentiis and De
hypotheticis syllogismis, he put into practice the fully annotated literal
translation style recommended by Boethius.
Ovids
Metempsychosis: The Greek East
Ovid in
the Middle Ages, ed.
Frank Coulson, James Clark and Kathryn McKinley (New York: Cambridge University Press 2011) 26-47
Ovidian influence on Greek
poetry in late antiquity is a hotly contested subject. In the early Byzantine
period however John the Lydian (C6) and the chronicler John of Antioch (early
C7) clearly knew Ovids Fasti and Metamorphoses. The Metamorphoses,
Heroides, and amatory poems became a part of Greek literature in the 13th
century through the elegant prose translations of the scholarly monk Maximos
Planoudes.
Alexios of Byzantium and the Apocalypse of
Daniel: A Tale of Kings, Wars and Translators
Bizans ve evre Kltrler / Byzantium
and the Surrounding Cultures
(Festschrift in honor of S.Yildiz tken) ed. Sema Doğan and Mine Kadiroğlu (Istanbul 2010) 177-85
Alexios
of Byzantium returned from Arab captivity in the mid-13th century
with a text purporting to forecast politically significant events from natural
phenomena; Alexios translated this text from Arabic into Greek and provided a
translators preface (Greek text and translation provided here) discussing the
complex history of the text as evidence of its importance for Byzantine
military success and explaining that Moabias (Muawiya, Muawiyah) obtained it
in 7th-century raids near Constantinople and had it translated into
Arabic.
Preprint
version (please cite from the published version): Alexios
Monks,
Monasteries and the Latin Language in Constantinople
Change in the Byzantine World in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, edd.
Ayla dekan, Engin Akyrek, and Nevra Necipoğlu (Vehbi Ko Foundation 2010), 390-95
The presence of western traders
in Constantinople from the 10th century required Latin churches in
the city and attracted monastic houses; during the Latin occupation these
western institutions proliferated.
Franciscan and Dominican houses and their libraries remained under
Palaiologan rule, attracting Greeks who learned Latin: the Franciscan John Parastron, the
Dominican Simon of Constantinople, and the Greek monks Sophonias, Manuel
Holobolos, and Maximos Planoudes.
Planoudes
De trinitate, the Art of Translation, and the Beholders Share
Orthodox Readings of Augustine, edd. George
Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou (Crestwood NY: St.Vladimirs Press
2008) 41-61.
Maximos Planoudes translation of
Augustines De trinitate served the
Unionist agenda of Michael VIII Palaiologos and probably dates from ca. 1280. Although the imperial ambassador John
Parastron, the Dominican Simon of Constantinople, the court rhetor Manuel
Holobolos, and Ogerius Boccanera, Protonotarius of the imperial chancery, were
all qualified for the task of translating De
trinitate into Greek, the young chancery scholar Manuel Planoudes received
the delicate assignment and implemented contemporary chancery practices in his
translation, eventually coming to regret his involvement in theological
controversy. His Greek De trinitate was influential in 14th
- and 15th-century Byzantium, however. Gregory Palamas, John Cantacuzene, and
Prochoros Kydones used it, and Demetrios Kydones, Cardinal Bessarion, Gennadios
II Scholarios, and an anonymous 14th-century Dominican of Pera critically
evaluated the translation and Planoudes as a translator (Greek and Latin texts
and translations provided here).
Manuel Holobolos, Alfred of Sareshal, and the
Anonymous Greek Translator of ps.- Aristotles De Plantis
Classica et Mediaevalia 57 (2006) 189-211.
This paper
supports the suggestion that Manuel Holobolos is the anonymous scholar who
retro-translated into Greek the Latin text of ps.-Aristotles De plantis, a work lost in Greek during
antiquity. Holobolos scholarly
career, his stated practices as a translator from Latin to Greek, his
associations with western scholars in 13th-century Constantinople,
and his unabashed chauvinism towards western culture correspond to the
translators profile that emerges from the preface to the Greek De plantis. The preface is analyzed here (both
English translation and Greek text provided), including a vivid sketch of an
unexpected encounter between Greek translator and the anonymous western
benefactor who gave him the Latin text of De
plantis. The translator had
exceptional information about the transmission of Aristotles original text
from Greek into Arabic and about the career of its Latin translator Alfred of
Sareshal.
Planoudes Technique and Competence
as a Translator of Ovids Metamorphoses
Byzantinoslavica 62 (2004) 143-160.
Vat. Regin. Gr.
132 is the master copy of the Greek translation of Ovids Metamorphoses by Maximos Planoudes, who not only supervised the
compilation of the manuscript but also corrected it throughout and copied nearly
100 folia himself. This autograph
portion of the text includes a passage (Met.
I. 700-713) that defeated the translators initial efforts despite his attempts
to correct his mistakes. Planoudes
later returned to this problematic section and inserted a new, corrected
version in the lower margin of the folium.
Analysis of a similar and successful portion of the translation (Met. I. 543-57) establishes the
characteristics of Planoudes translation style; evaluation of his errors in
translating Met. I. 700-713 reveals
the aspects of Latin grammar and syntax that initially defeated him and
illustrates the strategy that he devised to correct his own errors.
Planoudes, Holobolos, and the Motivation
for Translation
Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 43 (2002/3)
77–104
Manuel Holobolos preface to his
translation of Boethius short rhetorical treatises De topicis differentiis and De
hypotheticis syllogismis (here translated into English) illuminates the
differing efforts of Holobolos and Maximos Planoudes in translating Latin
literary materials into Greek and reveals the wider cultural agenda of
Planoudes, Holobolos junior colleague in the early Palaeologan chancery at
Constantinople. Planoudes left no
prefaces to his translations but selected literary works appealing to his
rhetorically sophisticated contemporaries.
Holobolos in contrast provided translations of practical rhetorical
works in a spirit of cultural chauvinism.
PDF here:
http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/view/1811/3011