German Boethius commentary

Pacifica

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There are different ways of being the same.
Sure, but your post doesn't make it clear which means which. :D

Is one of them "the same" = "unchanged" and the other "the same" = "the one already mentioned"? Or maybe one is "the same" = "really the same person/thing" and the other "the same" = "another person/thing, but identical"?
 
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Or maybe one is "the same" = "really the same person/thing" and the other "the same" = "another person/thing, but identical"?

Yes!
If I read a book, give the book to you and then you read the book, we will have read the same book. In German: Wir haben dasselbe Buch gelesen.

If you and I both decide to get a copy of the Oxford edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses and then we both read the book each of us has ordered individually, we will also have read the same book. But in German: Wir haben das gleiche Buch gelesen.

'Selbiges' means 'the aforementioned thing'. "Ich habe mir ein Buch gekauft und selbiges auch gelesen" = "I have a bought a book and read said book / the book I've just mentioned".

That's why the German text is a faulty translation of the Greek, actually (to the extent that it is misleading and wrong).
 

Pacifica

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I see. I was unsure about this when I wrote in German about a German construction being "almost the same" as the corresponding French one, and I may have misused "dieselbe" then.
 
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I see. I was unsure about this when I wrote in German about a German construction being "almost the same" as the corresponding French one, and I may have misused "dieselbe" then.

It's fine, no German ever observes this distinction. I just happen to know that it is there (unlike most people, actually), but even I do it "wrong" sometimes ... apart from that, there are some more abstract things (like a "construction") where the distinction seems a bit more blurry. You can usually just use "derselbe" and "der gleiche" like synonyms.
 

Callaina

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Who wrote that commentary, btw.?

Willy Theiler. You'd think from the name that his German would be decent, but perhaps it isn't actually his first language (though I have no clue, then, why he would write in it)?
 
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Willy Theiler. You'd think from the name that his German would be decent, but perhaps it isn't actually his first language (though I have no clue, then, why he would write in it)?

He is from Switzerland (and taught in Königsberg and Bern), so he probably was a native speaker.
 

Pacifica

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(though I have no clue, then, why he would write in it)?
Why, indeed, would anyone want to write in another language than their mother tongue, especially when that foreign language isn't even English! How irresponsible.
 

Callaina

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I'm having some trouble with the next sentence as well (immediately following the one regarding the "revolution of the same and the similar", above):

Da ist zuletzt an die einzige Stelle, an der im Timaeus (90 c/d) genauer die ἀναγέννησιϛ erscheint, erinnert: Der Mensch, die himmlische Pflanze, soll sich nach den verwandten Bewegungen des Alls richten.


That is [i.e. this aforementioned "salvation of the soul"], at the particular star, at which in Timaeus (90 c/d) "regeneration" particularly appears, it [the soul] finally remembers: Man, the "heavenly plant" (ref. to Timaeus 90b) should regulate himself according to the related motions of the Universe.
 

Callaina

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Oops. Stelle, not Latin stella. I knew I was going to make that error sooner or later. Sigh.
 

Callaina

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So, trying this again:

Da ist zuletzt an die einzige Stelle, an der im Timaeus (90 c/d) genauer die ἀναγέννησιϛ erscheint, erinnert: Der Mensch, die himmlische Pflanze, soll sich nach den verwandten Bewegungen des Alls richten.

Thus it is finally mentioned at the single place, in which in the Timaeus "regeneration" particularly appears: Man, the "heavenly plant" (ref. to Timaeus 90b) should regulate himself according to the related motions of the Universe.
 

Callaina

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Oops. Stelle, not Latin stella. I knew I was going to make that error sooner or later. Sigh.

It doesn't help that the Timaeus has so many references to stars. :(
 
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The "Da" is a bit like an existential Da from what I gather (because I see no clear reference to the sentences before)... I suppose it can be taken as a 'thus'. an die is accusative:

Thus, finally mention is made of the only locus/text passage, in which the anagennesis appears in greater detail in Timaeus (90 c/d).
(or: finally, the only text passage is called to mind in which...).

Nach etwas richten: to act in accordance with something, to comply with something, to conform to something
Man, the heavenly plant, should conform to the related movements/motions of the universe.

I suppose the motions are related because man is a heavenly plant ... but I don't know much about Plato.
 

Callaina

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Am finished working through the relevant part of the Theiler commentary! Hooray!!!! :clapping:
 
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