The Slavonic Translation of the Dioptra

This project represents the necessary continuation of the ASF-project "The Dioptra of Philippos Monotropos" (EP18245), running from 2005 until October 2008. In the first project the Greek and Slavonic tradition of the Dioptra have been examined, the foundations for the editions been laid, and the editions partly prepared. Concerning the Slavonic part, the following tasks have been executed so far (May 08): (1) First, a final list of the 209 extant manuscripts of the full translation of the Dioptra was composed, and the sources described in detail (codicology, palaeography, textology, remarks on the language); (2) the earliest, completely preserved testimony in the archetype`s Middle-Bulgarian redaction (codex Leopolitanus) was selected as the main source of the edition, and the remaining parts of this testimony were transcribed, (3) then a stemma was drawn up on the basis of sample collations of the books I, IV and parts of book II, and the text of the nearest Greek branch (Y3) reconstructed for comparison; (4) editing principles have been developed, which allow the reconstruction of the archetype, on the one hand, and preserve the text of the main source, on the other; i.e., wrong readings of Leop, sorted out through comparison with independent Slavonic testimonies and the Greek text, are marked in the edition, while being replaced in the apparatus by the original readings from other sources. (5) Finally, those parts of the text have been prepared for edition which had been used for the textological work, including the Programmata (introductory letters and author`s address to his readers): (a) main text, (b) apparatus criticus, (c) commentary, (d) translation into German. By its end, the first project will result in two major publications: one, containing the descriptions of the manuscripts, their affiliation, and the edition of book I including the Programmata, together with the apparatus criticus, the commentary and the German translation; the other - the PhD-thesis of J. Fuchsbauer -, containing the edition of book IV, and the analysis of the translation technique. The topic of the second project, to be applied for now, consists in the continuation and conclusion of the edition of the full Slavonic translation of the Dioptra on the basis of the material and the methods prepared during the first project. Apart from that, the text of the Dioptra, and its remarkable lexical items (app. 70,000 word-forms), will be disclosed for further research with the aid of V. A. Baranov`s information retrieval system "Manuscript". As a result, an internet edition of the whole text and a word list, forming the basis of a bilingual glossary, will be worked out.

The Dioptra, composed in 1095 by a Byzantine monk named Philippos (later "Monotropos"), is a didactic poem of five books, written in over 7000 "political" verses, interspersed with extensive prose passages. The comparatively short, separate book entitled Klauthmoi (Placheve in Slavonic) precedes the others in the original Greek version as well as in the Slavonic translation, but follows them in the revised recension which goes back to 1097. It represents a mourning poem in which a contrite monk urges his soul to penitence by visualising death, the hereafter, the Last Judgement, and the ensuing agony of the sinners and the joy of the righteous. The other four books are composed as a dialogue between the flesh and the soul, in which, contrary to expectation, the latter interrogates the former. The questions, many of which again oriented to the afterlife and connected with the demand for penitence, revolve around religious topics such as the Coming of the Antichrist and the Resurrection of the Dead. In its explanations the flesh quotes extensively from the Holy Scripture and numerous church fathers. In addition, elements from traditional natural philosophy and psychology are included. In particular, the theory of the four "humours", the bodily fluids blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile, which correspond to the four elements and are supposed to determine a man's character, is elaborated extensively. Thus, the Dioptra forms a compendium of the theological and philosophical thought of its time. Presumably, it is this incorporation of wide-ranging (pseudo-)secular knowledge into a religious construct which, together with its attractive presentation as a versified conversation, accounts for the wide dissemination of the Greek Dioptra, which is attested in appr. 80 manuscripts. The Slavonic translation, which was in all likelyhood produced in one of the Middle Bulgarian literary centres around the middle of the 14th century, became even more popular, as is demonstrated by ca. 200 witnesses containing either the complete poem or extracts such as the Klauthmoi. The main goal of the research project was to make its Slavonic version accessible to the scientific public in a critical edition. The first volume, published in 2013, contains the transmission of the Slavonic and relevant part of the Greek Dioptra, with an extensive description and filiation of the witnesses, and then the Slavonic text of the extant prefaces (Programmata), the Klauthmoi, and the additions by two East Slavic monks from Constantinople. Juxtaposed to the Slavonic version is the parallel text of the closest Greek version. The edition is complemented by a critical apparatus, a linguistic commentary, and a German translation. Far advanced is the work over the two following volumes of the edition, to which in due time a Slavonic-Greek and Greek-Slavonic glossary will be added.