hich in his time had
acquired the capacity of treating even abstract subjects with lucidity.
May a later hand improve upon my translation!

Only those who attempt it can appreciate how difficult it is to make a
tolerable European translation even of an easily intelligible Arabic
text. A literal translation would be wooden. We have often to alter the
entire construction and to insert all manner of words foreign to the
Arabic to make the context clear. On the other hand the translator must
avoid employing the same expression in rapid succession, a procedure
which is common in Arabic even if we make allowance for the _figura
etymologica_ and the like.

[Sidenote: Ibn Qutaiba and Ibn Moqaffa.]

I only know two passages in this chapter which are quoted by Arabic
authors. Brockelmann informs me that no quotation from our chapter
occurs in the unpublished portion of the _Uyun_ of Ibn Qutaiba. Unless I
am mistaken the excerpts in this book from _Kalila wa Dimna_ are not
always correct. Ibn Qutaiba was concerned more with the sense than with
the phraseology of Ibn Moqaffa.

THE STATEMENT OF BURZOE THE PERSIAN PHYSICIAN IN CHIEF,

Who undertook to transcribe and translate this Indian Book (Kalila wa
Dimna).

[Sidenote: Autobiographical.]

My father belonged to the Warrior class, my mother came of an eminent
priestly family. One of the earliest boons which the Lord conferred on
me was that I was the most favourite child of my parents and that they
exerted themselves more for my education than for my brothers. So when I
was seven years old they sent me to a children's school.

[This was required to be mentioned in his case inasmuch as it could not
have been necessary or usual for a child of distinguished parentage in
early Persia to be educated in a public school.]

When I had learnt the ordinary writing I was thankful to my parents and
perceived something in knowledge.

[In spite of the wide divergence in the Arabic texts and translations
the sense of the original is clear. Note the reference to the difficult
nature of the Pehlevi syllabary. Only the Spanish version has a good
deal more about the schooling.]

[Sidenote: Appreciation of the healing art.]

And the first branch of science to which I felt inclination was
medicine. It had a great attraction for me because I recognised its
excellence and the more I acquired it the more I loved it and the more
earnestly I studied it. Now when I had progressed suffi