The Metrical Psalms´ Metaphrasis of Manuel Philes

Manuel Philes is one of the most prolific authors of the Byzantine Middle Ages. At the end of the 13th century and in the early decades of the 14th century, he worked as an author on commission the imperial household in Constantinople, the aristocracy, and the high clergy. He authored many different poems, totalling around 25,000 verses. Among his works is a very long poem composed of almost 3,600 fifteen-syllable lines. This work is a metaphrase (reworking) of the biblical Psalms, likely intended to make the original text more understandable to a 14th- century audience. Philes did not consider his metaphrase merely a translation to another stylistic level but also a new edition of the Psalms. Since the work has not been fully preserved (with some Psalms missing) and there are duplicate versions of individual Psalms, it can be assumed that Philes was unable or unwilling to complete it. The work is preserved in one main manuscript witness. This book is the first complete edition of the text, as in the past only a few parts were published. The Greek-Byzantine metaphrase text is presented in the book synoptically, i.e. it is accompanied by the original biblical text, allowing readers to better understand Philes reworking technique. Extensive introductory texts describe the phenomena of the metaphrase in great detail, employing methods from philology, textual criticism, and linguistics. This helps to identify when and how often Philes altered the syntactic structure, not only to fit the Psalms into the fifteen-syllable meter but also to make the original more comprehensible to 14th- century users. The introduction also thoroughly examines Philes use of tenses (aorist, perfect, pluperfect, etc.), as well as orthographic phenomena and puns. Extensive appendices at the end of the book include, among other things, a register of the altered elements, meticulously listing the replacement of each word of the biblical Psalms with a word from Philes. Thus, the book makes an important contribution to the study of metaphrases in the Byzantine era and beyond.