Repository path: workshop/translations/kalila-fanza/collation.md · rendered 2026-09-09
Page metadata (front matter)
| type | note |
|---|---|
| id | kalila-fanza-collation |
| status | frozen |
| created | 2026-08-21 |
| updated | 2026-08-21 |
| links | workshop/translations/kalila-fanza/R39-v1/translation.md, workshop/translations/kalila-fanza/source-wikisource-fanza.txt, workshop/translations/kalila-fanza/witness2-amiriyya-1937.txt, workshop/translations/kalila-fanza/copy-text-adopted.txt, workshop/translations/kalila-qird/collation.md |
Copy-text and collation — «باب ابن الملك والطائر فنزة»
1. The witnesses
| witness | provenance | state | |
|---|---|---|---|
| copy-text | Arabic Wikisource, كليلة ودمنة/باب ابن الملك والطائر فنزة |
no edition statement; unvocalised; modern orthography | 1,262 words of body text before adoption; clean typography, fourteen corruptions and three losses (§3) |
| witness 2 | Arabic Wikisource, صفحة:كليلة ودمنة.pdf/255–/263 |
Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Amīriyya (Būlāq) 1937, printed pp. ٢٥٣–٢٦١ | fully vocalised; optical recognition damaged; pagequality level="1" — not proofread |
The same pair of witnesses as the five earlier chapters. Witness 2's chapter page
(كليلة ودمنة (الأميرية، 1937)/باب ابن الملك والطائر فترة) is a bare transclusion and returns
nothing; the text was taken from the nine صفحة: pages, whose range was read off the edition's own
table of contents at صفحة:كليلة ودمنة.pdf/2 (فنزة at printed p. ٢٥٣, next chapter at ٢٦٢;
pagelist offset +2).
Both witnesses are damaged and neither dominates. Witness 2's recognition damage is heavy and systematic — it cannot read the bird's own name, printing فترة for فنزة almost throughout, including in the chapter title of its table of contents. The copy-text's damage is in the words: fourteen readings that do not construe. Where witness 2 is legible it is the better text, and this collation adopts from it at seventeen places, three of which are losses in the copy-text.
2. Sentence numbering
Sentence division follows the copy-text's punctuation, corrected against witness 2's at the four
places where the copy-text runs two sentences together ([27]/[28], [33]/[34], [42]/[43],
[73]/[74]). Eighty-one sentences, [1]–[81] in copy-text-adopted.txt. Every citation on
the translation page and in the figure inventory uses these numbers.
As at «باب القرد والغيلم», [n] on this chapter is not commensurable with [n] on any other,
and no count that pools sentence numbers across chapters is valid.
Body length after adoption: 1,284 words in 81 sentences.
3. The collation
Read whole, both witnesses, sentence by sentence.
3.1 Three substantive losses in the copy-text, restored from witness 2
| # | sent | copy-text | witness 2 (adopted) | what it costs the copy-text |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [2] |
«كان يقال له بريدون، وكان له فرخ وكان هذا الطائر وفرخه» | «كَانَ يُقَالُ لَهُ بَرِيدُونَ ، وَكَانَ لَهُ طَائِرٌ يُقَالُ لَهُ فَنْزَةُ ، وَكَانَ لَهُ فَرْخٌ» | the bird is never introduced and never named. In the copy-text the king has a chick and no bird; this bird in the next clause has no antecedent, and Fanza first appears eight sentences later as a name nobody has been given. Seven words |
| 2 | [54] |
«فلا نؤاخذ بما به القدر» | «فَلَا نُؤَاخَذُ بِمَا أَتَانَا بِهِ الْقَدَرُ» | the clause does not construe without a verb; what destiny has brought us |
| 3 | [75] |
«وآنسنه في غربة»; «وأكسبنه المعاش الإخوان» | «وَآنَسْنَهُ فِي كُلِّ غُرْبَةٍ»; «وَأَكْسَبْنَهُ المَعَاشَ وَالْإِخْوَانَ» | the fourth of the five virtues' four promises loses its coordination and reads as one noun modifying another |
3.2 Fourteen corruptions in the copy-text, corrected from witness 2
Each is a place where the copy-text does not construe or does not make sense, and witness 2 is legible.
| sent | copy-text | adopted | note |
|---|---|---|---|
[15] |
«فجزع أشد الفزع» | «فَفَزِعَ أَشَدَّ الْجَزَعِ» | the two roots are transposed; witness 2's is the idiom |
[26] |
«وأما إذا كنا نحن بدأناك» | «وَأَمَّا إِذْ كُنَّا» | since we began it, not if |
[43] |
«ما لم سجد حطباً» | «مَا لَمْ يَجِدْ حَطَبًا» | |
[45] |
«فإذا وج علة» | «فَإِذَا وَجَدَ عِلَّةً» | |
[44] |
«فليس ينفك القد» | «فَلَيْسَ يَنْفَكُّ الحَقْدُ» | |
[48] |
«ولا أزل في خوف» | «وَلَا أَزَالُ فِي خَوْفٍ» | |
[55] |
«ولمنه يجمع» → [56] |
«وَلَكِنَّهُ يَجْمَعُ» | |
[58] |
«وأنت تريد أن تشتفي بقتلي، وتخلني عن نفسي» | «وَتَخْتِلَنِي عَنْ نَفْسِي» | witness 2 prints تكتلني; the root is ختل, to beguile — you mean to beguile me out of my own life. The copy-text's تخلني (leave me alone) reverses the sense of the king's intent in the middle of the bird's accusation |
[61] |
«عالم بما نفسك» | «عَالِمٌ بِمَا فِي نَفْسِكَ» | |
[63] |
«حتى لا بذكر منه شيئاً» | «حَتَّى لَا يَذْكُرَ» | |
[68] |
«أن يسك الطريق المخوف» | «أَنْ يَسْلُكَ الطَّرِيقَ» | |
[71] |
«فهو أعدى الحزم لنفسه من عدوه» | «فَهُوَ أَعْدَى لِنَفْسِهِ مِنْ عَدُوِّهِ» | الحزم is caught from the preceding clause and makes the sentence ungrammatical |
[74] |
«أصبت فيه مت يغنيني» | «أَصَبْتُ فِيهِ مَا يُغْنِينِي» | |
[78] |
«وشر البلاد بلاد بلا خصب فيها ولا أمن» | «وَشَرُّ الْبِلَادِ بِلَادٌ لَا خِصْبَ فِيهَا وَلَا أَمْنَ» | the copy-text's بلا leaves ولا أمن stranded |
Also silently normalised: [24] «من عنكم» → «مِنْ عِنْدِكُمْ»; [37] «يكون قي أوضع» → «فِي»; [80] «وثم ودع» → «ثُمَّ وَدَّعَ»; [51] «يصيب أحد ألا بقضاء» → «إِلَّا بِقَضَاءٍ»; [10] «ولا يحبون أحد» → «أَحَدًا»; [35] «ما وتر به» pointed «وُتِرَ». These are orthography, not variants.
3.3 Damage in witness 2 that carries no variant, and where the copy-text was kept
Witness 2's recognition damage is transparent at every one of these and the copy-text's reading is
retained: فترة for فنزة passim; «لَا حَيَّةَ هُمْ» for «لا حِمَى لهم» [10]; «فَلَا رُدَّ»
for «فلا وُدَّ» [11]; «الْبَسِيرَ» for «اليسير» [12]; «وَتَبَ» for «وثب» [14]; «الأَعْرِ» for
«الذعر» [22]; «وتَرَ مَظْلُوبٌ» for «وتر مطلوب» [18]; «الصَّغَائِنَ» for «الضغائن» [33];
«إِمَانَةِ» for «إماتة» [34]; «مَكْرُمَةً وَنَفَرًا» for «مكرمة وفخراً» [41]; «الخَمْرِ المَكنُونِ»
for «الجمر المكنون» [43]; «تَغْبِيرًا» for «تغييراً» [62]; «مُحَبَتِكَ» for «صحبتك» [62];
«الحَارِمَ» for «الحازم» and «تَوَلَّى الخَاوِفِ» for «توقي المخاوف» [55]; «النَّجَاتِ» for
«النكبات» [78]; «لَا يَشِقُ» for «لا يثق» [73].
One place where the two witnesses give real alternatives and the copy-text was kept. [43]
«إذا لم يجد محركاً» (copy-text, a mover) against witness 2's «تحركًا» (a stirring). Both
construe; the copy-text's is the harder and better reading against «ما لم يجد حطباً» in the same
sentence, where the fuel is likewise something the fire finds. Recorded because it is a choice,
not a correction.
3.4 Two glosses the 1937 edition prints, and they are worth having
Witness 2 footnotes two words this chapter turns on, and the notes are the editor's, not this project's:
- التِّرات
[1]— «جمع تِرَة وهي الثأر»: the plural of tira, blood-vengeance. The chapter's frame question is about people with a blood-debt between them, not merely about enemies. - الموتور
[20]— «من قُتل له قتيل فلم يُدرك بدمه»: one whose kinsman has been killed and whose blood-claim has not been satisfied. The word carries the unpaid claim inside it, and no single English word does; see the translator's log.