GENERATION OF ANIMALS 



French translation of G.A. and notes. In two 

 volumes. Paris, 1887. 

 7. Arthur Piatt. In the Oxford series of translations 

 of Aristotle. Vol. V contains Piatt's translation 

 of G.A., >vith notes. Oxford, IQIO. 



The Translation 



In translating G.A. I have followed two main Principles 

 principles, with the aim of presenting Aristotle as °ati1"^ 

 faithfully as possible to the EngUsh reader : 



(1) I have attempted to translate G.A. into EngUsh, 

 and therefore I have not felt obhged to write in 

 Aristotelian, or even in Greek, idiom. Hence, for ex- 

 ample, I have not uniformly translated yap by " for," 

 Kat by " and," or Se by " but " : unfortunately, 

 it is still necessary to point out, even to learned 

 reviewers, that there is a better way than that of 

 " stock " translations ; and a translator is not auto- 

 matically a traitor if he sometimes omits yap — as the 

 most idiomatic way of translating it, 



(2) Technical terms, on the other hand, must 

 whenever possible be uniformly represented by an 

 invariable term in the English. Sometimes this rule 

 must be broken, either (a) because the original term 

 has a variety of meanings (e.g., Svrapii), sometimes 

 (6) because there is no English word which will do 

 (e.g., crvvurTavaL). I have avoided modernizing Aris- 

 totle's terms, so as to avoid misleading any modern 



with P. A. The same suggestion, unknown to him, had been 

 made by Weise (p. xxix) in 1843. Saint-Hilaire thinks that 

 its inclusion with G.A. dates from the time of Andronicus of 

 Rhodes, head of the Peripatetic School at Rome, who edited 

 Aristotle's works from the mss. belonging to Apellicon's 

 library brought to Rome by Sulla in 84 b.c. 



