Abstract

Recent investigation brought to light that Burgundio of Pisa achieved the first Latin translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics before 1150. This profect was a very arduous one and did not turn out equally successful. Apparently Burgundio set to work without previous searching for an adequate Latin terminology; so he couldn't preserve his translation from some darkness and ambiguity. Very often a cluster of somewhat synonymous Greek terms has been translated by a single Latin word; on the other hand one Greek term has regulary been rendered by the same stereotyped Latin equivalent, as if semantic fields in Greek and Latin were fairly coex- tensive. F. Bossier comments upon Bugundio's rendering of four important Greek terms aretê vs. dunamis, spoudaios, sôphrôn and boulêton