Gaps in the Translators' Knowledge

Abstract

 The editor of an Arabic translation from the Greek sometimes encounters difficulties when the original is no longer extant and the translator has failed to understand certain passages fully. This is the case with geographical or astronomical terms in Galen's commentary on Hippocrates' Airs, waters and places. Here the astronomer Ptolemy is explained as being "the king of Egypt", and the translator himself is to be blamed for the faux pas, not a later copyist.