Waite chose the weaker text on purpose. A page earlier he describes the second Latin recension as shorter, clearer and less corrupt, yet "The longer recension has been" translated "because it seemed desirable to give the work" complete. Where the longer text could not be construed he substituted the other's reading, and he "has in most cases indicated the" switch, which means not in every case. A reader cannot always tell from this page which recension a sentence comes from. The footnoted variants are therefore not marginalia; they are often the better reading, and anyone quoting the Turba from this translation should read text and footnote together before resting an argument on either.
The Turba Philosophorum (complete) — trans. A. E. Waite (1896)
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The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
'THHE Turba Phihsophorum is indisputably the most ancient extant treatise on Alchemy in the Latin tongue, but it was not, so far as can be ascertained, originally written in Latin ; the compiler or editor, for in many respects it can scarcely be regarded as an original composition, wrote either in Hebrew or Arabic ; however, the work, not only at the present day, but seemingly during the six or seven centuries when it was quoted as an authority by all the alchemical adepts, has been familiar only in its Latin garb. It is not, of course, certain that the original is irretrievably lost, the Arabic and Syriac manuscripts treating of early chemistry are preserved in considerable numbers in the various libraries of Europe, and have only been imperfectly explored. Unfortunately, the present editor has neither the opportunity nor the qualifications for undertaking such a task.
There are two codices or recensions of Thi Turba Philosophorum, which differ considerably from^ one another. What is called in the following pages the second recension, is appreciably shorter, clearer, and, on the whole, the less corrupt of the two, but they are both ii. Preface.
in a bad state. The longer recension has been chosen for the text of the following translation, because it seemed desirable to give the work in its entirety. The variations of the second recension are appended usually in foot-notes, but where the reading of the text is so corrupt as to be quite untranslatable, the editor has occasionally substituted that of the alterjiatiye version, and has in most cases indicated the course pursued.
Monsieur Berthelot's invaluable text and translation of the Byzantine Alchemists has been largely made use of, to illustrate the striking analogies between the Greek Hermetic writers of the fourth century and the Turba. It is to this great scholar and scientist that we owe the discovery of these analogies, some of which are very clearly indicated in a chapter devoted to the subject, and forming part of his " Essai sur la Transmission de la Science Antique au Moyen Age." It follows from M. Berthelots researches, that Latin Alchemy, which has always been rightly referred to an Arabian source, connects with the Greek Alchemy which preceded Arabian Science, because the latter was itself derived from Greece. We are also enabled to identify, for the first time, and that with perfect certainty, those ancient sages, to whom all the Latin literature makes
Preface. iii.