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Bidding Information
Lot #    5482
Auction End Date    9/16/2003 10:34:00 AM (mm/dd/yyyy)
          
Title Information
Title (English)    Mishlie She'ulim
Title (Hebrew)    משלי שועלים
Author    [First Ed.] R. Berechiah b. Natronai Ha'Nakdan
City    Prague
Publisher    University Press
Publication Date    1661
          
Collection Information
Independent Item    This listing is an independent item not part of any collection
          
Description Information
Physical
Description		    First edition of translation. [18], 435 (mispaginated), [1] p., 8 vo., 155:91 mm., light browning, crisp sharp margins. A very good copy bound in contemporary vellum (taken from a contemporary music book).
          
Detailed
Description		    Fables translated mostly from the French fable collection Ysopet by Marie de France (c. 1170), and also from the lost Latin translation of Aesop, Romulus, as well as from other collections of Oriental origin. Berechiah writes in his preface: "These fables are well-known to all mankind and are in books by people of all languages, but my faith differs from theirs." The preface contains an appraisal in rhyming puns of the low moral state of English Jewry as seen through Berechiah's eyes: "The wicked are saved, the righteous groan, the bitter are sweetened, the evil rise, while the great are cast down, and prayer is tasteless, glory is folly, and the sacrifice is wicked." He concludes, "I would prefer toil and a dry crust to sharing my lot with them." Mishlei Shu'alim has appeared in 18 editions, most of them, including the first (Mantua 1557–59), being incomplete. Berechiah has been identified with Krespia or Crispia (Heb. vhypSyrc, hypSyrc, aypSrc) the grammarian, one of whose fables (Fable 119) was included in Mishlei Shu'alim, but this identification is unfounded. Berechiah's son, Elijah, who lived in "the city of Radom" (Darom, i.e., Dreux) was a copyist and grammarian. In those of his texts which have survived he expresses his feeling of honor at his father's respected position and refers to him as "the tanna and pedant."

R. Berechiah b. Natronai Ha'Nakdan (end of 12th–13th century), fabulist, translator, thinker, copyist, and grammarian. Berechiah lived in Normandy and at a certain period also in England. His title ha-Nakdan testifies to the fact that he punctuated Hebrew books. He also knew foreign languages and translated and adapted several books into Hebrew, including Quaestiones Naturales by Adelard of Bath, a popular 12th-century book on natural sciences. Berechiah entitled it Dodi ve-Nekhdi or Ha-She'elot (ed. by H. Gollancz, 1920). His collections of ethical treatises Sefer ha-Hibbur and Sefer ha-Mazref (ed. by Gollancz, The Ethical Treatises of Berachyah, son of Rabbi Natronai Ha-Nakdan, 1902) summarized the opinions expressed in R. Saadiah Gaon's Emunot ve-De'ot (of which Berechiah used the old, unprinted translation in Hebrew), as well as the opinions of other geonim. In these essays he invented several Hebrew terms for philosophical concepts. He also wrote Ko'ah Avanim (unpublished), a translation-adaption of a Latin book about the magical powers in stones
          
Paragraph 2    ... המועתקים מלשון עברי ללשון רומי על ידי המעתיק מלכיאור הנאל מחבורת יהושוע.עברית ולאטינית, עמוד מול עמוד. קדם שער מצוייר. דף 29: שיר עברי, מאת [ompiegne]C [udovius de]L, הוא המומר Ludovius Compiegne de Weil. השיר, בשבח המתרגם ותרגומו, פותח: חזיתי איש מהיר במלאכתו נותן מדע למבין ולפתאים מערמתו. סימן: חיים לודאיקוש.
          
Reference
Description		    Vinograd, Prague 443; CD-EPI 0114634; EJ
        
Associated Images
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Listing Classification
Period
17th Century:    Checked
  
Location
Other:    Bohemia
  
Subject
Parody:    Checked
  
Characteristic
Bindings:    Checked
First Editions:    Checked
Language:    Hebrew, Latin
  
Manuscript Type
  
Kind of Judaica