Repository path: workshop/translations/kalila-ibn-urs/collation.md · rendered 2026-09-09
Page metadata (front matter)
| type | note |
|---|---|
| id | kalila-ibn-urs-collation |
| status | frozen |
| created | 2026-08-16 |
| updated | 2026-08-16 |
| links | workshop/translations/kalila-ibn-urs/R36-v1/translation.md, workshop/translations/kalila-ibn-urs/source-wikisource-ibn-urs.txt, workshop/translations/kalila-ibn-urs/witness2-amiriyya-1937.txt, workshop/translations/kalila-ibn-urs/copy-text-adopted.txt, workshop/translations/kalila-nasik/collation.md |
Copy-text and collation — «باب الناسك وابن عرس»
1. The witnesses
| witness | provenance | state | |
|---|---|---|---|
| copy-text | Arabic Wikisource, كليلة ودمنة/الناسك وابن عرس |
no edition statement; unvocalised; modern orthography | 558 words of body; clean typography but several outright corruptions (see §3.1) |
| witness 2 | Arabic Wikisource, كليلة ودمنة (الأميرية، 1937)/باب الناسك وابن عرس |
Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Amīriyya (Būlāq) 1937, index كليلة ودمنة.pdf, pp. 242–246, page images present |
vocalised; optical recognition damaged in the same profile as the two neighbouring chapters (ث→ن, ج→ح/خ, ب↔ج dotting, stray marginal digits) |
Same pair of witnesses as ../kalila-nasik/collation.md and ../kalila-saih/collation.md. Witness 2
is not reachable through the extracts API for this chapter — the chapter page is a bare
transclusion of صفحة:كليلة ودمنة.pdf/242–246 and returns an empty extract; the text was taken
from the five صفحة: pages and cut at the chapter headings. Recorded because the two earlier
chapters were fetched a different way and a future session will otherwise conclude the witness is
missing.
The direction of damage is the opposite of the earlier two chapters, and it matters. There, the
copy-text was clean and witness 2 supplied one correction. Here the copy-text is the damaged
witness: it drops a clause, drops two particles, and carries three plain typographic ruins
(وا متلأفمه, ولم يتو فيه, ليني). Eleven substantive adoptions are made, all from witness 2.
2. Sentence numbering
The copy-text carries no numbering. Sentences are cut at ., ؟ and !. The raw split yields two
empty units, artefacts of the ellipsis the copy-text prints at the end of the snake's death; they are
discarded, giving 19 sentences, numbered [1]–[19] in copy-text-adopted.txt. Every citation
on the translation page and in the figure inventory uses these numbers.
3. The collation
Read whole, both witnesses, in Arabic.
3.1 Substantive adoptions from witness 2 — eleven
| # | sent | copy-text | witness 2 | adopted | why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [8] |
وكيف ذلك؟ | وَكَيْفَ كَانَ ذلكَ؟ | وكيف كان ذلك؟ | The book's fixed request-for-a-fable formula, as at [4] in this chapter and throughout «كليلة ودمنة». The copy-text's short form is unique here. |
| 2 | [9] |
ولا تلبث قليلاً حتى | وَلَا تَلْبَثُ إِلَّا قَلِيلًا حَتَّى | ولا تلبث إلا قليلاً | Without إلا the clause asserts the opposite of what it means: it will not be long before… requires the exception particle. |
| 3 | [9] |
إذا ولت أولادها | إِذَا وَلَدَتْ أَوْلَادُهَا | إذا ولدت أولادها | ولت is not a verb this clause can take; the arithmetic of the daydream needs the second generation to breed. |
| 4 | [9] |
مائة من البقر، وأشتري أرضاً | مِائَةٌ مِنَ الْبَقَرِ، بِكُلِّ أَرْبَعَةِ أَعْنُزٍ ثَوْرًا أَوْ بَقَرَةً، وَأَشْتَرِى أَرْضًا | the clause restored | A whole clause is missing from the copy-text, and it is the one that carries the exchange rate the hermit's sum depends on — four goats to a head of cattle. Its loss is invisible in the copy-text because the sentence still parses. |
| 5 | [9] |
فلا يأتي على خمس سنين ألا وقد أصبت | إِلَّا وَقَدْ أَصَبْتُ | إلا | Orthographic; the copy-text writes the exception particle as the interjection. |
| 6 | [9] |
وأشار إلى الجرة | وَأَشَارَ بِيَدِهِ إِلَى الحَرَّةِ | وأشار بيده إلى الجرة | The gesture is the point of the fable — the raised hand, not the staff, is what breaks the jar. |
| 7 | [9] |
وأشتري إماء وعبيد | إِمَاءً وَعَبِيدًا | عبيداً | Case; the copy-text drops the accusative. |
| 8 | [12] |
ثم قطعها وا متلأفمه من دمها | ثُمَّ قَطَّعَهَا وَامْتَلَا فَمُهُ مِنْ دَمِهَا | وامتلأ فمه من دمها | The copy-text's string is not Arabic; word division has collapsed. |
| 9 | [14] |
ولم يتو فيه | وَلَمْ يَتَرَوَّ فِيهِ | ولم يتروَّ فيه | تروَّى — to take time over a thing — is the chapter's own moral vocabulary (روية at [2]). The copy-text's form does not exist. |
| 10 | [14] |
ولكن عجل أبن عرس وضربه بعكازه كانت | وَلَكِنْ عَجَلَ عَلَى ابْنِ عِرْسٍ وَضَرَبَهُ بِعُكَازَةٍ كَانَتْ | عجل على ابن عرس … بعكازة كانت | Two repairs in one clause: عجل takes على with a person, and the copy-text's masculine عكاز cannot govern the feminine كانت that follows it. |
| 11 | [17] |
ليني لم أرزق | لَيْتَنِي لَمْ أُرْزَقْ | ليتني | Typographic ruin of the optative. |
3.2 Where the copy-text is right and witness 2 is damaged
Not adopted, listed so the collation can be checked: دنسليم for دبشليم [1]; متنبنا for
متثبتاً [3]; حرجان for جرجان [5]; فمكما for فمكثا [5]; محمد الله for فحمد
الله [5]; ما يعملك for ما يحملك [6]; الحرة for الجرة throughout [9]; أعنر for
أعنز [9]; أستأخر for أستأجر and السيران for الثيران [9]; نمس سنين for خمس
سنين [9]; لكل لا تعجل for لكي لا تعجل [9]; ابتك for ابنك [11]; الناسل for
الناسك [13]; ملونا / مدعور for ملوثاً / مذعور [14]; أغراضا for أغراضه [19].
3.3 One crux left undecided, and the rendering hedges it
[12] من بعض أحجار البيت. The copy-text reads أحجار, stones; witness 2 reads أبحار,
which is not a possible word here. Both are one dot away from أجحار, burrows, holes — the
reading the sense wants and the reading the standard printed texts of this chapter carry. Neither
witness this project can reach prints it. The copy-text reading is retained rather than emended
from memory, and the English ("out of the stonework of the house") is chosen to be true under both
readings: a snake coming out from among the stones of a wall is coming out of a hole in it. Recorded
here because a reader collating a third witness should see the emendation was declined, not missed.
3.4 Not a variant
Witness 2 sets [5] as كان بأرض جرجان against the copy-text's بأرض جرجان, and [14] as
بغير ما ظنّ against بغير ما يظن. Both are readable in both witnesses and neither changes the
English; the copy-text stands.
4. What the collation cost and what it bought
One clause of the source — the exchange rate of goats to cattle — is present in this rendering and absent from the only text a reader arriving at this chapter through a web search will find. That is the second time in three chapters of «كليلة ودمنة» that collation against the Amīriyya printing has changed what the English says, and the first time it has changed what the English contains.