Skyscript Astrology Forum

If anyone on this forum happens to have Pingree's edition of Vettius Valens handy, I should be very grateful for help with a quotation. In 3.3, Kroll ed. p. 139, there is this line: ????????? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ????????. Does it read the same in Pingree, and on which page is it? Many thanks in advance!

Alas, I do not have the Pingree, just the Kroll like yourself. This phrase is basically "The destroyers/murderers are Kronos, Ares, Helios, and the Moon being brought out to appearance/in its phases"?

GR wrote:Alas, I do not have the Pingree, just the Kroll like yourself. This phrase is basically "The destroyers/murderers are Kronos, Ares, Helios, and the Moon being brought out to appearance/in its phases"?

Yes (but why translate only one out of four planet names?). I had to return Pingree's edition to my library only a few weeks ago...

Oh, I should have typed Selene

Actually, it's going to be the custom in the new Schmidt translations to leave the planetary names in Greek. It'll probably be judged as one of his idiosyncrasies, but I do think it is an interesting exercise.

GR wrote:Actually, it's going to be the custom in the new Schmidt translations to leave the planetary names in Greek. It'll probably be judged as one of his idiosyncrasies, but I do think it is an interesting exercise.

I thought that already was his custom? It is idiosyncratic all right, and pretty irritating, though perhaps not as bad as all his 'pivots', 'post-ascensions' and such. It reminds me not a little of all the Indian translations of Sanskrit texts which go: 'If Kuja and Shani are in a kendra or trikona from Lagna but aspected by Guru...' etc. Speaking as a translator, I ask myself: if you have to learn a new lingo in order to read a translation, is it really a translation in the first place?

Hi,


Vettius Valens Pingree edition
Book 3, Chapter 3, line 106:
????????? ?? ???? ??????, ????, ?????, ?????? ??? ????? ?????????

sasha_i wrote:Vettius Valens Pingree edition
Book 3, Chapter 3, line 106:
????????? ?? ???? ??????, ????, ?????, ?????? ??? ????? ?????????

Wonderful! What page is that? Thanks!

Sorry I don't know the page. I have the text from TLG and it has only book, chapter and line reference.

Martin Gansten wrote:It is idiosyncratic all right, and pretty irritating, though perhaps not as bad as all his 'pivots', 'post-ascensions' and such.

Why though? Those are close to the literal meanings, and he is very big on sticking to those. But also, I can't say I find it to be a big deal at all, it's easy for me to see "pivot"=="angle" and get on with it.

Martin Gansten wrote: It reminds me not a little of all the Indian translations of Sanskrit texts which go: 'If Kuja and Shani are in a kendra or trikona from Lagna but aspected by Guru...'

Wow, I half understood that, gotta start reading trashy novels or something.

Martin Gansten wrote: if you have to learn a new lingo in order to read a translation, is it really a translation in the first place?

It's not in Greek, is it? Then why be upset? For myself, I do feel there is more then a little truth in the statement that "Translation is censorship", though I can't for the life of me remember the source. Was it Victor Hugo?

I agree with Martin.
No one is upset, but there are things that improve a translation, and others that hinder it. "Traductore traitore", so the translator should keep a distance from the work he is translating.

Smith thinks that "image" is a word that is most close to the one that the greeks used for zoidia. Good for him! But the word that zoidia should be translated to is still "sign". Why? Because is the word that every astrologer in the world uses! We will not change because of it.

I believe a little footnote would be more than enough "The word sign is not exactly what the greeks would meant. I suggest the word "image" is more closely to what they meant. But I will tranlate the word as sign that is commonly used to avoid any confusion"

Of course there is an exception to this: do the word "image" makes our astrology is anyway better or more sophisticated? If it does, I never found any evidence of it on public records, it may be a private knowledge.

The same thing with translating Aries as the Ram. If there is any improvement, with all honesty, I can?t catch it. It may be useful for students of Schmidt to recognize themselves as a group, and it may have some face value as a form of status. But to say that there is a huge improvement to say Selene instead of Moon, image instead of sign, oikodespotes instead of ruler, water pourer instead of aquarius, seems to me more like marketing than a translation choice.

Unless of course, as I said, this choices really improve our understanding of astrology concepts and techniques. But I haven?t see any evidence of this untill now.

GR wrote:It's not in Greek, is it? Then why be upset?

Not upset, just mildly annoyed. Much more than a necessary amount is in Greek, and a great deal more is in a private jargon invented by the translator (disregarding an existing, well-established technical terminology). Jargon is always annoying, and in this case it requires continuous mental re-translation, which slows down the reading process.

There are different ways of being true to an original text. If we take a piece of elegant, literate Greek/Sanskrit/etc and make it into clumsy, unintelligible English (with half the important terms left untranslated) in the name of literalism, are we being true to the author's intentions?

For myself, I do feel there is more then a little truth in the statement that "Translation is censorship", though I can't for the life of me remember the source. Was it Victor Hugo?

No idea -- but if it was, I'll bet you he didn't say it in English!

yuzuru wrote:I agree with Martin.
No one is upset, but there are things that improve a translation, and others that hinder it. "Traductore traitore", so the translator should keep a distance from the work he is translating.

I guess I'm not seeing the hindrance, but also that Schmidt isn't the kind of person that would keep distance from his translation work either. Honestly I think the pretense of 'objectivity' is much more illusory and prone to error, but that is a whole other subject.

yuzuru wrote: Smith thinks that "image" is a word that is most close to the one that the greeks used for zoidia. Good for him! But the word that zoidia should be translated to is still "sign". Why? Because is the word that every astrologer in the world uses! We will not change because of it.

True, I don't think that will change, anymore then Schmidt cares that it change or not, hell, I would have maybe preferred icon, or painted figure, as those are more literal meanings. His argument and example would be, no one in English would say that a statue of George Washington is a sign of Washington, but the Greek-speakers would. The Latin, signum, is much closer to the Greek ??????, but as astrology has drifted away from the classical world, the words, and their attendant meanings have also drifted away from their origins. So in order to go back to them as a solid (as humanly possible ) foundation, he sticks to these literalisms (whether in actuality or at least in meaning as he understands them).

yuzuru wrote: I believe a little footnote would be more than enough "The word sign is not exactly what the greeks would meant. I suggest the word "image" is more closely to what they meant. But I will tranlate the word as sign that is commonly used to avoid any confusion"

Yeah but is there really any confusion? Again, I'm not seeing any problem here other then an aesthetic one.

yuzuru wrote: Of course there is an exception to this: do the word "image" makes our astrology is anyway better or more sophisticated? If it does, I never found any evidence of it on public records, it may be a private knowledge.

The one advantage I can think of is that it disengages you from your previous astrological experience. Why would this be good? Because it is only a fantasy to assert a continuous astrological Tradition(TM by John Frawley) The various practitioners and writers through the centuries are rarely on the same page with each other, even over brief periods of time like the Medieval and Renaissance European eras; much less so over the near 2 millennia that separates us from Valens and the like, and even farther still from his predecessors like "Nechepso" and "Petosiris". So, in going back and adopting a disassociative stance from previous learning, one can look at what the Hellenistic-era writers are doing without jumbling it together from other, even contradictory sources.

yuzuru wrote: Unless of course, as I said, this choices really improve our understanding of astrology concepts and techniques. But I haven?t see any evidence of this untill now.

Well that would depend, I would think, on how much you?ve seen.