Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicle 5 (1909) - Page 23

a Spanish queen, Theophina or Tharasia. The tract, as we know it, consists of an introduction, which incorporates the greater part of the prologue of Yuhanna ibn al-Batrik (p. 39) and the treatises on the regimen of health and on natural heat from the Western form. A text of it was printed by Hermann Suchier in his Monuments of Provençal Literature and Language, Halle, 1883, pp. 472-80, from eight manuscripts in the British Museum, to illustrate a Provençal verse poem of the first half of the thirteenth century, pp. 201-13, which, except lines 313-76, is founded upon it.

Johannes Hispalensis Also known as John of Seville, a prolific translator of the 12th century who bridged the gap between Arabic science and Latin scholarship. (called Avendeath) was a Jewish translator in Toledo (1135-53) who worked for Dominic Gundisalvi, the Archdeacon there. A list of his translations is printed by Steinschneider, Jewish Translators of the Middle Ages, p. 981.

A possible Tharasia was daughter of Alphonso VI, king of Leon and Castile. She was wife of Henry, Count of Burgundy, and mother of the first king of Portugal (1112-28). She died November 1, 1130 (Art of Verifying, Paris, 1818, vii. 2). No Theophina can be found, though this form of the name has the best manuscript authority.

This version had a great success : many translations of it in Italian, German, and the Romance languages are described.

In the best manuscripts, for example Additional 26770 in the British Museum, the translation is headed by the following lines and preface:

The prince of physicians sends this small work to King Alexander,

so that, preserved by its principles and the proposed method,

he might not have need of a physician.

I send this to you so that you may live securely in the same order,

lest you distribute your wealth in vain to physicians,

for there is no need for man-slayers. original Latin: "homicidis." This is a common medieval satirical trope suggesting that incompetent doctors kill their patients.

The Letter of Aristotle directed to the great King Alexander concerning the preservation of the human body, which John of Seville discovered and sent to Theophina, Queen of the Spains.

To the Lady T., Queen of the Spaniards, John of Seville gives greeting. Since we were once discussing the usefulness of the body, and your nobility asked of me, as if I were a physician, to make a brief little book on the observance of diet or on the restraint of the body—that is, how those who desire to preserve the health of the body ought to conduct themselves—it happened that while I was considering obeying your command, a copy of this matter issued by Aristotle the philosopher to Alexander suddenly occurred to my mind, which I have transcribed