This is an opening of Beinecke Hebrew MS Add. 103, formerly of Jews’ College London. It is a Hebrew-language life of Alexander the Great translated from a now-lost Arabic version. The colophon of the manuscript falsely attributes the Hebrew translation to Samuel ibn Tibbon, the Hebrew translator of many important works of Arabic philosophy, most notably Moses Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed. The translation was probably composed in the middle of the 12th century, a period when the roles of author and translator are becoming more well defined. And although (at least in broad strokes) the role of the translator was much more circumscribed and limited than that of the author, prestige would still accrete to a text by virtue of claiming for itself a famous translator.
(This is a text and a set of ideas that came out of my first book and that I’m just about ready to go back to in the interest of pursuing a line of inquiry — a comparative study of changes in attitudes toward the role of the author versus the translator — in both Semitic and Romance texts in this period. I’m hoping to start tackling it toward the end of this year. Suffice it to say, I’ve lots more to say about this topic, so maybe it’s just as well that I’m limited to a short post by virtue of being on my iPhone and mid-moving…)