Literary Collections

Claudius Aelianus’ De natura animalium treatise enjoyed great popularity until the Byzantine age due to its subject and the author’s reputation as a model for Atticist writers.

This volume contains the first critical edition of its scholia and glosses found in the mediaeval manuscripts, and of the rich exegetical commentary originally composed in the circle of Planudes and Moschopulus to accompany selections for textbooks in the Palaeologan age.

Playwriting in many forms flourished during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Shorter theatrical genres in particular offered playwrights opportunities for experimentation with both dramatic form and social critique. Despite their originality and wit, these short plays have been overshadowed by the lengthy masterpieces of the southern drama tradition.

A Topsy-Turvy World presents English translations of shorter sixteenth-to-eighteenth-century plays, spotlighting a lesser-known side of Chinese drama. Satirical and often earthy, these mostly one-act plays depict deceit, dissembling, reversed gender roles, and sudden upending of fortunes. With zest and humor, they portray henpecked husbands, supercilious and lustful monks, all-too-human sage kings, disgruntled officials, and overreaching young scholars. These plays provide a glimpse of Chinese daily life and mores even as they question or subvert the boundaries of social, moral, and political order.

Each translation is preceded by a short introduction that describes the play’s author, context, formal qualities, and textual history. A Topsy-Turvy World offers a new view of a significant period in the development of the Chinese theatrical tradition and provides insight into the role of drama as cultural critique.

Introducing the works of a major Chinese writer—liberal, cosmopolitan, and lyrically exotic—once banned but now embraced, and newly "discovered" in the West.

Xu Xu 徐訏 (1908-1980) was one of the most widely read Chinese authors of the 1930s to 1960s. His popular urban gothic tales, his exotic spy fiction, and his quasi-existentialist love stories full of nostalgia and melancholy offer today’s readers an unusual glimpse into China’s turbulent twentieth century.

These translations--spanning a period of some thirty years, from 1937 until 1965--bring to life some of Xu Xu’s most representative short fictions from prewar Shanghai and postwar Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The Afterword illustrates that Xu Xu’s idealistic tendencies in defiance of the politicization of art exemplify his affinity with European romanticism and link his work to a global literary modernity.

Two young gentry women meet by chance at a nunnery in Yangzhou, where they fall in love at first sight. After they exchange poetry and recognize each other’s literary talents, their emotional bond deepens. They conduct a mock wedding ceremony at the nunnery and hatch a plan to spend the rest of their lives together. Their schemes are stymied by a series of obstacles, but in the end the two women find an unlikely resolution—a ménage-à-trois marriage.

The Fragrant Companions is the most significant work of literature that portrays female same-sex love in the entire premodern Chinese tradition. Written in 1651 by Li Yu, one of the most inventive and irreverent literary figures of seventeenth-century China, this play is at once an unconventional romantic comedy, a barbed satire, and a sympathetic portrayal of love between women. It offers a sensitive portrait of the two women’s passion for each other, depicts their intellectual pursuits and resourcefulness, and celebrates their partial triumph over social convention. At the same time, Li caustically mocks the imperial examination system and deflates the idealized image of the male scholar.

The Fragrant Companions is both an indispensable source for students and scholars of gender and sexuality in premodern China and a compelling work of literature for all readers interested in China’s rich theatrical traditions.

Dung Kai-cheung’s A Catalog of Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On is a playful and imaginative glimpse into the consumerist dreamscape of late-nineties Hong Kong. First published in 1999, it comprises ninety-nine sketches of life just after the handover of the former British colony to China. Each of these stories in miniature begins from a piece of ephemera, usually consumer products or pop culture phenomena, and develops alternately comic and poignant snapshots of urban life.

Dung’s sketches center on once-trendy items that evoke the world at the turn of the millennium, such as Hello Kitty, Final Fantasy VIII, a Windows 98 disk, a clamshell mobile phone, Air Jordans, and cargo shorts. The protagonist of each piece, typically a young woman, is struck by an odd, even overriding obsession with an object or fad. Characters embark on brief dalliances or relationships lasting no longer than the fashions that sparked them. Dung blends vivid everyday details—Portuguese egg tarts, Japanese TV shows, the Hong Kong subway—with situations that are often fantastical or preposterous. This catalog of vanished products illuminates how people use objects to define and even invent their own selves. A major work from one of Hong Kong’s most gifted and original writers, Dung’s archaeology of the end of the twentieth century speaks to perennial questions about consumerism, nostalgia, and identity.

The Drunkard is one of the first full-length stream-of-consciousness novels written in Chinese. It has been called the Hong Kong Novel, and was first published in 1962 as a serial in a Hong Kong evening paper. As the unnamed Narrator, a writer at odds with a philistine world, sinks to his drunken nadir, his plight can be seen to represent that of a whole intelligentsia, a whole culture, degraded by the brutal forces of history: the Second Sino-Japanese War and the rampant capitalism of post-war Hong Kong.

The often surrealistic description of the Narrator’s inexorable descent through the seedy bars and night-clubs of Hong Kong, of his numerous encounters with dance-girls and his ever more desperate bouts of drinking, is counterpointed by a series of wide-ranging literary essays, analysing the Chinese classical tradition, the popular culture of China and the West, and the modernist movement in Western and Chinese literature.

The ambiance of Hong Kong in the early 1960s is graphically evoked in this powerful and poignant novel, which takes the reader to the very heart of Hong Kong. Hong Kong director Freddie Wong made a fine film version of the novel in 2004.

Amid the turmoil of the Ming-Qing dynastic transition in seventeenth-century China, some intellectuals sought refuge in romantic memories from what they perceived as cataclysmic events. This volume presents two memoirs by famous men of letters, Reminiscences of the Plum Shadows Convent by Mao Xiang (1611–93) and Miscellaneous Records of Plank Bridge by Yu Huai (1616–96), that recall times spent with courtesans. They evoke the courtesan world in the final decades of the Ming dynasty and the aftermath of its collapse.

Mao Xiang chronicles his relationship with the courtesan Dong Bai, who became his concubine two years before the Ming dynasty fell. His mournful remembrance of their life together, written shortly after her early death, includes harrowing descriptions of their wartime sufferings as well as idyllic depictions of romantic bliss. Yu Huai offers a group portrait of Nanjing courtesans, mixing personal memories with reported anecdotes. Writing fifty years after the fall of the Ming, he expresses a deep nostalgia for courtesan culture that bears the toll of individual loss and national calamity. Together, they shed light on the sensibilities of late Ming intellectuals: their recollections of refined pleasures and ruminations on the vagaries of memory coexist with political engagement and a belief in bearing witness. With an introduction and extensive annotations, Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge is a valuable source for the literature of remembrance, the representation of women, and the social role of intellectuals during a tumultuous period in Chinese history.

Like every major culture, Chinese has its set of keywords: pivotal terms of political, ethical, literary, and philosophical discourse. Tracing the origins, development, polysemy, and usages of keywords is one of the best ways to chart cultural and historical changes. This volume analyzes some of these keywords from different disciplinary and temporal perspectives, offering a new integrative study of their semantic richness, development trajectory, and distinct usages in Chinese culture.

The authors of the volume explore different keywords and focus on different periods and genres, ranging from philosophical and historical texts of the Warring States period (453–221 BCE) to late imperial (ca. 16th–18th centuries CE) literature and philosophy. They are guided by a similar set of questions: What elevates a mere word to the status of keyword? What sort of resonance and reverberations do we expect a keyword to have? How much does the semantic range of a keyword explain its significance? What kinds of arguments does it generate? What are the stories told to illustrate its meanings? What are political and intellectual implications of the keyword’s reevaluation? What does it mean to translate a keyword and map its meaning against other languages?

Throughout Chinese history, new ideas and new approaches often mean reinterpreting important words; rupture, continuities, and inflection points are inseparable from the linguistic history of specific terms. The premise of this book is that taking the long view and encompassing different disciplines yield new insights and unexpected connections. The authors, who come from the fields of history, philosophy, and literature, explore keywords in different genres and illuminate their multiple dimensions in various contexts. Moreover, despite their different temporal focus, they take into consideration the development of selected keywords from the Warring States to the late imperial period, sometimes adding excurses that extend to contemporary usage.

ESSENTIALS IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRE-QIN PHILOSOPHY

The Mingjia (School of Names) is a notional grouping of philosophers first recorded as such in the Shiji. Their identifying feature was a concern with linguistic issues particularly involving the correct use of names. The origin of this concern is taken to be Lunyu XIII.3. The group, as listed in the Han Shu, comprised seven men living between the sixth and third centuries BC. Only four of these men have extant writings attributed to them (Deng Xi, Yin Wen, Hui Shi and Gongsun Long) and in three of these there are issues of authenticity. Nevertheless, it is an important group for an understanding of the development of pre-Qin philosophy as the men themselves and the concepts they explored feature prominently in the writings of the other schools.

The present work contains four sections: (i) the extant writings of the four men; (ii) all significant references to them in other works up to the fourth century AD; (iii) other significant writing on the topics up to that time; and (iv) four appendices on specific issues concerning the school.

Nainai has lived in Shanghai for many years, and the time has come to find a wife for her adopted grandson. But when the bride she has chosen arrives from the countryside, it soon becomes clear that the orphaned girl has ideas of her own. Her name is Fu Ping, and the more she explores the residential lanes and courtyards behind Shanghai’s busy shopping streets, the less she wants to return to the country as a dutiful wife. As Fu Ping wavers over her future, she learns the city through the stories of the nannies, handymen, and garbage collectors whose labor is bringing life and bustle back to postwar Shanghai.

Fu Ping is a keenly observed portrait of the lives of lower-class women in Shanghai in the early years of the People’s Republic of China. Wang Anyi, one of contemporary China’s most acclaimed authors, explores the daily lives of migrants from rural areas and other people on the margins of urban life. In shifting perspectives rich in detail and psychological insight, she sketches their aspirations, their fears, and the subtle ties that bind them together. In Howard Goldblatt’s masterful translation, Fu Ping reveals Wang Anyi’s precise renderings of history, class, and the human heart.

Whampoa Military Academy was China's first modern military institution. For decades the "Spirit of Whampoa" was invoked as the highest praise to all Chinese soldiers who guarded their nation heroically. But of all the battles these soldiers have fought, the most challenging one was the civil war that resulted in the "great divide" of China in the mid-twentieth century. In 1949 the Communists exiled a million soldiers and their families to compounds in Taiwan and cut off communication with mainland China for forty years.

The Last of the Whampoa Breed tells the stories of the exiles written by their descendants, many of whom have become Taiwan's most important authors. The book is an important addition to the vastly underrepresented literature of Taiwan in translation and sheds light on the complex relationship between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China. Western readers will not at first recognize the experiences of these soldiers who were severed from a traditional past only to face unfulfilled promises and uncertain futures. Many of the exiles were doomed to live and die homeless and loveless. Yet these life stories reveal a magnanimous, natural dignity that has transcended prolonged mental suffering. "I Wanted to Go to War" describes the sadly ineffectual, even comic attempts to "recapture the mainland." The old soldier in "Tale of Two Strangers" asks to have his ashes scattered over both the land of his dreams and the island that has sheltered him for forty years.

Some of the stories recount efforts to make peace with life in Taiwan, as in "Valley of Hesitation," and the second generation's struggles to find a place in the native island society as in "The Vanishing Ball" and "In Remembrance of My Buddies from the Military Compound." Narrating the homeland remembered and the homeland in reality, the stories in this book affirm that "we shall not let history be burned to mere ashes."

The Spring and Autumn (Chunqiu) is a chronicle kept by the dukes of the state of Lu from 722 to 481 B.C.E. Luxuriant Gems of the "Spring and Autumn" (Chunqiu fanlu) follows the interpretations of the Gongyang Commentary, whose transmitters sought to explicate the special language of the Spring and Autumn. The work is often ascribed to the Han scholar and court official Dong Zhongshu, but, as this study reveals, the text is in fact a compendium of writings by a variety of authors spanning several generations. It depicts a utopian vision of a flourishing humanity that they believed to be Confucius's legacy to the world.

The Gongyang masters thought that Confucius had written the Spring and Autumn, employing subtle phrasing to indicate approval or disapproval of important events and personages. Luxuriant Gems therefore augments Confucian ethical and philosophical teachings with chapters on cosmology, statecraft, and other topics drawn from contemporary non-Confucian traditions. A major resource, this book features the first complete English-language translation of Luxuriant Gems, divided into eight thematic sections with introductions that address dating, authorship, authenticity, and the relationship between the Spring and Autumn and the Gongyang approach. Critically illuminating early Chinese philosophy, religion, literature, and politics, this book conveys the brilliance of intellectual life in the Han dynasty during the formative decades of the Chinese imperial state.

In this Ming-era novel, historical narrative, raucous humor, and the supernatural are interwoven to tell the tale of an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Song dynasty. A poor young girl meets an old woman who gives her a magic book that allows her to create rice and money. Her father, terrified that his daughter's demonic nature might be discovered, marries her off. Forced to flee, she and others with supernatural abilities find themselves in the midst of a grotesque version of a historical uprising, in which facts are intermingled with slapstick humor and wild fictions.

Attributed to the writer Luo Guanzhong, Quelling the Demons' Revolt is centered on the events of the rebellion led by Wang Ze in 1047–48. But it is a distorted, humorous version, in which Wang Ze's lieutenants show up as a comical peddler and a mysterious Daoist priest and a celebrated warrior appears despite having died many years earlier. Rather than fantastic adventures and supernatural marvels, the author points to human vanities and fixations as well as social injustice, warning of the vulnerability of any pursuit of order in a world plagued by demonic forces as well as mundane corruption. Although the story takes place long before the era in which it was written, ultimately Quelling the Demons' Revolt is the story of the Ming dynasty in Song masquerade, presciently warning of the dynasty's downfall. The novel is divided into chapters, but in many ways it is an arrangement of self-contained stories that draw on vernacular storytelling. This translation offers English-speaking readers a spirited example of social critique combined with caustic humor from the era of Luo Guanzhong.

This is an age of deception. Con men ply the roadways. Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three. Devious nuns entice young women into adultery. Sorcerers use charmed talismans for mind control and murder. A pair of dubious monks extorts money from a powerful official and then spends it on whoring. A rich student tries to bribe the chief examiner, only to hand his money to an imposter. A eunuch kidnaps boys and consumes their "essence" in an attempt to regrow his penis. These are just a few of the entertaining and surprising tales to be found in this seventeenth-century work, said to be the earliest Chinese collection of swindle stories.

The Book of Swindles, compiled by an obscure writer from southern China, presents a fascinating tableau of criminal ingenuity. The flourishing economy of the late Ming period created overnight fortunes for merchants—and gave rise to a host of smooth operators, charlatans, forgers, and imposters seeking to siphon off some of the new wealth. The Book of Swindles, which was ostensibly written as a manual for self-protection in this shifting and unstable world, also offers an expert guide to the art of deception. Each story comes with commentary by the author, Zhang Yingyu, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle. This volume, which contains annotated translations of just over half of the eighty-odd stories in Zhang's original collection, provides a wealth of detail on social life during the late Ming and offers words of warning for a world in peril.

Cornutus was a Roman philosopher who wrote this Greek compendium on the Greek gods in the first century A.D. He wanted to teach the basics of Stoic philosophy to an unknown Roman boy using this mythological work by etymologizing and allegorizing the gods’ names and epithets.

This is the first critical edition of the compendium since 1881.

This edition is published just a century after the precedent (C. Hosius 1914).
The improvements in the comprehension of the manuscript tradition and of the historical context made during this century find their embedding in the text, introduction and apparatus of Malaspina’s edition.

As the completion of the revival of De clementia in the last two decades, this edition is intended for all scholars of Seneca and of Roman political thought.

A new edition of the Aeneid requires not only a systematic and reliable assessment of the text, but also a satisfactory and, if possible, complete description of the manuscripts’ transmission.
Here, not only were the seven Late Antique codices studied anew, but the recensio was also extended by drawing on sources from the Carolingian Age only some of which were incorporated by earlier editors. To this end eight tesimonies which had never been studied previously were collated. As a result the reader has access to an apparatus criticus which is mainly dedicated to textual matters.

Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists (The Learned Banqueters) is a major Imperial period Greek text in and of itself, but also a source of thousands of fragments by hundreds of authors, many of whom would otherwise be entirely unknown to us. This is the first full new critical edition of the text since that of Georg Kaibel well over a hundred years ago. Kaibel’s text is outdated in many ways, including the fact that he undervalued the Epitome manuscripts, which he thought had no independent significance for the constitution of the text.

The new edition is based on a full collation of the manuscripts, including not just Venetus Marcianus 447 (A, the sole surviving witness to the complete text) and the various Epitome manuscripts, but also a number of 15th-century hybrid versions of Athenaeus already known in Kaibel’s time but ignored by him. Systematic review of the latter set of manuscripts, as well as of early editions also ignored by Kaibel, has allowed numerous conjectures to be reassigned, radically altering our sense of the Early Modern history of the text. A separate, parallel edition of the Epitome is also included.

This now becomes the standard text of the Deipnosophistae and a basic reference work.

Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists (The Learned Banqueters) is a major Imperial period Greek text in and of itself, but also a source of thousands of fragments by hundreds of authors, many of whom would otherwise be entirely unknown to us. This is the first full new critical edition of the text since that of Georg Kaibel well over a hundred years ago. Kaibel’s text is outdated in many ways, including the fact that he undervalued the Epitome manuscripts, which he thought had no independent significance for the constitution of the text.

The new edition is based on a full collation of the manuscripts, including not just Venetus Marcianus 447 (A, the sole surviving witness to the complete text) and the various Epitome manuscripts, but also a number of 15th-century hybrid versions of Athenaeus already known in Kaibel’s time but ignored by him. Systematic review of the latter set of manuscripts, as well as of early editions also ignored by Kaibel, has allowed numerous conjectures to be reassigned, radically altering our sense of the Early Modern history of the text. A separate, parallel edition of the Epitome is also included.

This now becomes the standard text of the Deipnosophistae and a basic reference work.

The edition will contain all the prose works of Theodore Metochites (XIV c.) contained in MS Vindobonensis phil. gr. 95. All the texts are rhetorical devoted to various subjects: except for the encomia for various saints, Metochites composed several treatises dealing with matters of secular education and some works refuting the works of his opponent, Nicephorus Choumnos. He also composed two orations for the emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos.

Notker III. Labeo oder der Deutsche, Lehrer im St. Galler Benediktinerstift († 1022), hat mehrere lateinische Schultexte, darunter auch die Consolatio Philosophiae (CPh) des Boethius ins Spätalthochdeutsche übersetzt und auch größtenteils in seiner Muttersprache erklärt (= Nb). Für seine Übertragung und Exegese hat er zahlreiche und verschiedenartige, vor allem lateinische Quellen benutzt. Mit diesem ersten der Parallelbände 1A, 2A und 3A zu den Nb-Textbänden 1, 2 und 3 unserer Ausgabe (ATB 94, 100, 101) lege ich interessierten Germanisten, Mediävisten und Liebhabern der CPh des Boethius die Resultate langjähriger Quellenforschungen in Gestalt eines Stellenkommentars (Notker latinus) zu Nb vor. Dieser Kommentar folgt wiederum dem Text von Nb, d.h. der Leithandschrift St. Gallen 825, nach Seiten und Zeilen. Vorher geht zunächst ein ausführliches Abkürzungs-, Siglen- und Literaturverzeichnis, dann folgt eine umfassende Einleitung, in der die Quellen und die Grundsätze dieses Kommentars vorgestellt und auch v.a. Entscheidungen zu Quellenfragen begründet und gelegentlich verteidigt werden.

Der eigentliche Text des Kommentars wird wiederum auf 3 Bände (parallel zu den Textbänden von Buch I/II, Buch III und Buch IV/V der CPh verteilt. Am Ende des 3. Bandes findet eine Reihe von Nachträgen und Berichtigungen zu Nb ihren Platz. Ein Band, der Nachträge und Berichtigungen zu den anderen Bänden unseres Notker-Unternehmens sowie einige Register und Hinweise auf wichtige neuere Notker-Forschung und Forschungsliteratur enthalten wird, ist geplant. Eine der Hauptleistungen Notkers ist die Kunst, mit der er den oft schwierigen und spröden CPh-Text in sein Spätalthochdeutsch übertragen hat. Bei der Quellensuche habe ich daher - weit mehr als meine Vorgänger - auf Nuancen und Feinheiten der Wiedergabe geachtet und auf fast alles, das dabei von Belang sein kann, hingewiesen. Auf diese Weise stellt dieser Notker latinus auch eine Fundgrube für die Lexikographie des Althochdeutschen sowie generell für die Lexikologie dar.

This is the first edition of ten Funeral Orations of Michael Psellos based on all the manuscripts preserving those works and accompanied by a full apparatus fontium and the necessary critical apparatus. Some of those texts had been published by the Greek scholar Konstantinos Sathas at the end of the XIX c. Those editions hardly correspond to the contemporary standards. The same applies to several more recent editions, prepared by P. Gautier, which also leave much to be desired.

The most important texts of our collection are the funeral orations for the patriarchs Michael Keroullarios, Konstantinos Leichoudes and John Xiphilinos, a personal friend of Michael Psellos. All the texts offer valuable details concerning Psellos’s early life; at the same time they constitute an important testimony to the survival of the Late Antique Rhetoric in XI c. Byzantium. They constitute a necessary supplement to Psellos’s more famous work, his Chronography, verifying and shedding a new light on the events narrated there.

Der Privatbesitz der kaiserlichen Familie (domus divina), der bisher vor allem auf der Grundlage epigraphischer und juristischer Testimonien erforscht worden ist, bildet ein Thema von wesentlicher Bedeutung für das Studium des byzantinischen Reiches. In diesem Rahmen stellen auch die Papyri eine wertvolle Quellengattung dar: Sie erweisen sich als fruchtbare Quelle für die Rekonstruktion bisher ungeklärter Aspekte der Verwaltung und der Ausweitung des kaiserlichen Besitzes in den einzelnen Provinzen des Reiches. Der Band präsentiert zum ersten Mal das vollständige papyrologische Dossier der domus divina. Darin erfasst sind sowohl schon bekannte Texte als auch unpublizierte und solche, deren Zugehörigkeit zum Dossier bisher nicht erkannt worden ist. Die Studie umfasst eine Analyse der Aufgaben und der Hierarchie der diversen lokalen Verwalterposten, den Versuch einer Ermittlung der einzelnen ägyptischen Ortschaften, die zur domus divina gehörten, sowie der Arbeiter auf ihren Gütern. Der Band schließt mit Indizes und Anhängen, unter denen sich die von T. M. Hickey verfasste Edition eines neuen Papyrus befindet.

The Praecepta Tonica by John of Alexandria (5th–6th cent. AD) ranks beside Pseudo-Arcadius’ epitome as one of the two most important surviving epitomes of Herodian’s monumental De Prosodia Catholica: it is a particularly rich depository of well-argued teaching on ancient Greek accentuation, and constitutes an indispensable tool for the reconstruction of Herodian’s work. However, despite its importance, it is available only in a seriously flawed edition prepared by Karl Wilhelm Dindorf in 1825.

This edition by Georgios Xenis offers an authoritative new critical text based on a thorough examination of not only the direct and indirect witnesses, but also of some special sources of evidence. These include authors such as Michael Syncellus and Theognostus who, although they did not use John himself, drew directly on John’s source, thereby providing parallel material that serves to fill gaps in John’s textual tradition. In addition, the critical text benefits from conjectural emendation, deriving either from the editor’s own activity or from his predecessors.

The division of the text into thematically coherent sections brings out its logical structure and renders it more readable, while the rich collection of parallel passages places it in its grammatical context. Exhaustive indices are provided at the end of the volume.

The edition will be an invaluable resource for those engaged in critical editions of Greek authors, and will be of interest to classicists and/or linguists working on Aelius Herodian, John of Alexandria, Greek accentuation, or Greek scholarship.

Aus Anlass der Wiedereröffnung der Dauerausstellung des Ägyptischen Museums und der Papyrussammlung Berlin im Neuen Museum erscheint ein Editionsband von literarischen Texten, mit dem die Editionsreihe „Berliner Klassiker Texte“ im Verlag de Gruyter fortgeführt wird. Der Band enthält Editionen bisher nicht publizierter literarischer Texte in griechischer und lateinischer Sprache, die verschiedenen Gattungen wie Epos, Komödie, Geschichtsschreibung, Rhetorik und Philosophie angehören. Es handelt sich teilweise um bekannte Autoren wie Homer, Thukydides und Isokrates, teilweise um nicht durch die mittelalterlichen Handschriften überlieferte Werke. Zu ihnen gesellen sich halbliterarische Texte aus Bereichen wie Astronomie, Magie und Medizin. Die etwa 30 Editionen stammen von ebenso vielen Papyrologen aus aller Welt und sind in deutscher, englischer, französischer und italienischer Sprache verfasst.

This authoritative new edition of the ancient scholia to Sophocles' Trachiniae is designed to replace the corresponding part of the Teubner text published in 1888. It is the first to rely on a complete scrutiny of the sources of the text and the conjectural activity of scholars, but is also characterised by a fresh methodological approach: the transmission of scholia is prone to creating different versions of basically the same material, and to making conflations of originally distinct entities; in the English preface these transmissional peculiarities guide the editor in establishing a methodology which is appropriate both for analysing the manuscript tradition and composing the critical text of the Trachiniae scholia. By applying this working tool, the editor is the first to restore the scholia to the Trachiniae in a textual state which is arguably the earliest we can recover, and is free of contradictions, unacceptable repetitions, and hybridisation or blending of elements from different versions. The critical text is accompanied by a detailed apparatus criticus, and is contextualised in its scholarly tradition by means of a rich collection of parallel passages. Extensive indices are provided at the end of the book.

The edition presents the previously unpublished theological and religious writings of Paracelsus (1493-1541) in eight volumes. After Luther and Melanchthon, Paracelsus was one of the most prolific Early High German writers, yet the Theologika were only partially accessible until today. The Zurich edition offers a reliable, critical edition of these writings, as well as word indices, introductions to the groups of works, etc. Paracelsus' non-medical writings comprise a first-class docu-ment of the intellectual history of the sixteenth century and are of great importance for language and literature historians, as well as for theologians and philosophers.

Laktanz verfasste die Diuinae institutiones während der Christenverfolgung unter Diokletian als apologetisch ausgerichtete Gesamtdarstellung des christlichen Glaubens für gebildete Leser. Im siebten und letzten Buch (De uita beata) belegt er zunächst die Endlichkeit der Welt und die Unsterblichkeit der Seele. Dann kommt er auf das Ende der Welt, das Gericht, die Tausendjährige Gottesherrschaft und die Vollendung der Welt zu sprechen. Bei der Überarbeitung des Werks fügt er einen dualistischen Zusatz über Funktion des Bösen in der Welt und eine rühmende Anrede an Kaiser Konstantin ein, deren Anspielungen die Datierung der Neuauflage ins Jahr 324 ermöglicht.

Der vorliegende umfassende Kommentar, der erste überhaupt, bietet eine Einleitung, unter anderem zum historischen Hintergrund und zu den Quellen (Johannesoffenbarung, Sibyllenorakel, Corpus Hermeticum, Hystaspesapokalypse, Cicero, Vergil usw.), den Text mit Übersetzung (die erste seit 1787) und Erläuterungen zu sprachlichen, textkritischen, motivgeschichtlichen und theologischen Fragen im Zusammenhang mit diesem einzigartigen Zeugnis frühchristlicher Eschatologie und apologetischer Auseinandersetzung mit der paganen Kultur.

Dieses Nachschlagewerk stellt ein Arbeitsinstrument dar, mit dessen Hilfe der Erforscher der byzantinischen Literatur aufgrund des ersten Verses Identität, Autorschaft und Ausgabeort eines Gedichts möglichst rasch feststellen kann. In alphabetischer Reihenfolge bietet es den jeweils ersten Vers von rund 20.000 byzantinischen Gedichten: profanen wie religiösen, edierten wie ungedruckten, in der Hoch- wie in der Volkssprache von Beginn des 4. bis zum Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts. Neben breit angelegten Kompositionen und Epigrammen werden auch Versinschriften aller Art, Monosticha, Notizen von Kopisten, Besitzern und Lesern von Handschriften, metrische Werk- und Kapitelüberschriften, Rand- und Schlussbemerkungen sowie metrische Scholien berücksichtigt. Jedem Anfangsvers werden alle nötigen Informationen über Verfasser, Sujet, Ausgabeort und Umfang eines Gedichts beigegeben. Den Band rundet ein Verzeichnis der zitierten byzantinischen Autoren ab.

Andreas Capellanus wrote De Amore, his famous Latin treatise on marriage, around 1186. Enhanced by theological, medical and legal wisdom, his book of the art of loving greatly influenced the literature of courtly love during the Middle Ages.

For the first time, this new edition contains E. Trojel's 1892 Latin text alongside a modern German translation. In addition, it contains explanatory notes on the sources and a language commentary to aid comprehension of particular passages and the difficulties of translation. A bibliography, a postscript setting the work in its literary context and numerous illustrations from medieval manuscripts round off this new edition.

In terms of the history of human thought and literature, this famous text is of great relevance to literary scholars, medievalists, historians, theologians and cultural historians, and serves as the basis for an understanding of courtly love poetry during the Middle Ages.

Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists (The Learned Banqueters) is a major Imperial period Greek text in and of itself, but also a source of thousands of fragments by hundreds of authors, many of whom would otherwise be entirely unknown to us. This is the first full new critical edition of the text since that of Georg Kaibel well over a hundred years ago. Kaibel’s text is outdated in many ways, including the fact that he undervalued the Epitome manuscripts, which he thought had no independent significance for the constitution of the text.

The new edition is based on a full collation of the manuscripts, including not just Venetus Marcianus 447 (A, the sole surviving witness to the complete text) and the various Epitome manuscripts, but also a number of 15th-century hybrid versions of Athenaeus already known in Kaibel’s time but ignored by him. Systematic review of the latter set of manuscripts, as well as of early editions also ignored by Kaibel, has allowed numerous conjectures to be reassigned, radically altering our sense of the Early Modern history of the text. A separate, parallel edition of the Epitome is also included.

This now becomes the standard text of the Deipnosophistae and a basic reference work.

Die vorliegende Neuausgabe des Andria-Kommentars des römischen Grammatikprofessors Aelius Donatus ersetzt Wessners Teubneriana von 1902: Basierend auf der erstmaligen vollständigen Sichtung und Erfassung der mittelalterlichen und humanistischen Handschriftentradition sowie der indirekten Überlieferung wird ein neuer kritischer Text des Terenzkommentars geboten. Prolegomena, ein Quellen- und Parallelenapparat sowie Indizes erschließen den für die antike und neuzeitliche Komödienexegese zentralen Text.     

Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists (The Learned Banqueters) is a major Imperial period Greek text in and of itself, but also a source of thousands of fragments by hundreds of authors, many of whom would otherwise be entirely unknown to us. This is the first full new critical edition of the text since that of Georg Kaibel well over a hundred years ago. Kaibel’s text is outdated in many ways, including the fact that he undervalued the Epitome manuscripts, which he thought had no independent significance for the constitution of the text.

The new edition is based on a full collation of the manuscripts, including not just Venetus Marcianus 447 (A, the sole surviving witness to the complete text) and the various Epitome manuscripts, but also a number of 15th-century hybrid versions of Athenaeus already known in Kaibel’s time but ignored by him. Systematic review of the latter set of manuscripts, as well as of early editions also ignored by Kaibel, has allowed numerous conjectures to be reassigned, radically altering our sense of the Early Modern history of the text. A separate, parallel edition of the Epitome is also included.

This now becomes the standard text of the Deipnosophistae and a basic reference work.

The purpose of this edition is to take up Buecheler’s admirable sylloge of Carmina Latina Epigraphica (1895-1926, 3 volumes). Since 1926 many new Latin metrical inscriptions and graffiti have been discovered, which greatly increased the number of epigraphic poetic texts previously known. These inscriptions have to be collected in order to be easily found, known and noticeable; the present sylloge aims at this outcome. An essential apparatus criticus with textual, historical, metrical, linguistic, and stylistic notes (approximately as in Buecheler’s edition) accompanies the edition of the texts. The texts are collected in three sections; the first and major section includes the carmina epigraphica whose metrical nature is undoubted, the second includes the commatica and the texts of dubious nature, the third one the aliena. In sections one and two the texts are arranged essentially according to the diatopic distribution and, inwards, to the chronological one. A concise preface focuses the most important questions in the field of the Latin metrical epigraphy. Many indexes conclude the work in two volumes, comprising about 1600 texts.

R. W. Sharples provides a new edition, with introduction and commentary in English, of the Greek text. The Mantissa is a collection of short discussions, transmitted as a supplement to the treatise On the Soul by the Aristotelian commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias (c.200 AD). The collection includes discussion of a range of topics, among them the nature of soul and intellect, theories of how seeing takes place, issues in ethics, and the nature of fate. The text is based upon a new collation of the principal manuscript, the ninth century Venetus Marcianus graecus 258, and the apparatus corrects Bruns' misreportings of the principal manuscript and of the others that he used. Account has also been taken of the medieval Arabic and Latin versions of some of the sections which circulated independently, notably On Intellect which had a substantial influence on medieval philosophy. The introduction is chiefly concerned with the manuscripts and the relation between them. The commentary is based on the notes to the editor's English translation of the work (London: Duckworth and Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004); however, the commentary also takes into account more recent work on the collection by various scholars.

The medicine of Aulus Cornelius Celsus (floruit first third of the first century AD) is not school reading and does not belong to any canon. Even medical historians find it difficult to read the work from beginning to end. But anyone studying the history of medicine in antiquity cannot avoid Celsus, even though the author presumably did not work professionally as a doctor himself. The eight books contain countless witty remarks and historical gems.

The present selection contains the proemia, the most important passages from the presentation of the theoretical and clinical subjects, the most original case descriptions and also the work's major contributions to terminology and ethics in medicine. Numerous original texts are presented for the discussion of the sources and reception in antiquity and the Middle Ages. The final section contains the fragments of the lost non-medical parts (agriculture, military affairs, rhetoric, philosophy) of the Opus Celsi.

In 1888 K. Schenkl published the first critical edition of Proba’s Cento. Schenkl knew about 25 manuscripts, only eleven of which are referred to in his apparatus. Since that time about 70 new manuscripts have been discovered; this volume provides a full description of the manuscript tradition in the praefatio and demonstrates that the tradition originates from a manuscript preserved near Aachen, probably at the court of Charles the Great.

From 2011 onwards the knowledge of the authors cited in the text has improved, producing a more precise view of the long doxography on the causes of diseases, a more reliable text of the known fragments of Herophilus, Erasistratus and Asclepiades of Bithynia, and a new fragment of Herophilus. A second edition of the text with French translation (2016) does not differ much from the text of Manetti (2011), but presents a new hypothesis about the motivations of the autograph text. The discussion progressed with numerous articles on the three Hellenistic authors and on the relationship of the Anonymous to his ‘ancient’ sources (Aristotle, Plato); two new editions of the fragments of Menecrates of Syracuse and Philistion of Locri, widely quoted in the doxography, appeared, as well as articles on the author’s personality, on the methods of abbreviation, and on the graphic signs; new proposals for integration and reading have concerned both the main text on the recto and the passages added on the verso of the roll by the same hand. This second edition takes into account all the corrections to the edition of 2011 and the various suggestions that have been presented later.

Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists (The Learned Banqueters) is a major Imperial period Greek text in and of itself, but also a source of thousands of fragments by hundreds of authors, many of whom would otherwise be entirely unknown to us. This is the first full new critical edition of the text since that of Georg Kaibel well over a hundred years ago. Kaibel’s text is outdated in many ways, including the fact that he undervalued the Epitome manuscripts, which he thought had no independent significance for the constitution of the text.

The new edition is based on a full collation of the manuscripts, including not just Venetus Marcianus 447 (A, the sole surviving witness to the complete text) and the various Epitome manuscripts, but also a number of 15th-century hybrid versions of Athenaeus already known in Kaibel’s time but ignored by him. Systematic review of the latter set of manuscripts, as well as of early editions also ignored by Kaibel, has allowed numerous conjectures to be reassigned, radically altering our sense of the Early Modern history of the text. A separate, parallel edition of the Epitome is also included.

This now becomes the standard text of the Deipnosophistae and a basic reference work.

Der Bedarf nach einer neuen kritischen Ausgabe der spätantiken, unter dem Namen des Plautus überlieferten Prosakomödie Aulularia sive Querolus besteht seit fast 50 Jahren, denn durch eine im Jahr 1976 neu gefundene Hamburger Handschrift hat sich die Überlieferungslage grundlegend geändert. Die vorliegende Neuedition hilft diesem Desiderat ab.

Der Text dieser Ausgabe basiert auf neuen Untersuchungen zur Überlieferungsgeschichte, die in einem neu entwickelten Stemma münden. Für die jetzt vorgelegte Edition wurden sämtliche Handschriften geprüft, die überlieferungsgeschichtlichen Erkenntnisse durchgehend berücksichtigt sowie die Konjekturalkritik seit der Erstausgabe konsequent einbezogen. Dadurch sowie durch mehrere hier erstmals präsentierte Konjekturen lässt sich eine Vielzahl an Verderbnissen, die dem Verständnis des Querolus bisher im Weg standen, identifizieren und oft sogar beheben. Dem Text ist neben dem kritischen Apparat ein Zitatenapparat beigegeben, der durch einen Index fontium erschlossen wird. Ein Index nominum et rerum erschließt den Text.

Die neue Teubneriana soll als Grundlage für die weitere philologische und historische Beschäftigung mit dieser einzigartigen spätantiken Komödie dienen.

Beim Traktat des bekannten alexandrinischen Gelehrten und Aristoteles-Kommentators Johannes Philoponos (6. Jh. n. Chr.) über das Astrolab handelt es sich um eine kleine, für die Wissenschaftsgeschichte aber sehr bedeutsame Schrift, da es die älteste erhaltene Beschreibung und Funktionsanleitung des später besonders im islamischen Bereich weit verbreiteten astronomischen Gerätes enthält. Die Schrift ist in der Philologie recht stiefmütterlich behandelt worden und war bis jetzt lediglich als Beitrag im ‚Rheinischen Museum‘ von 1839 zugänglich. Das Ziel des vorliegenden Büchleins besteht darin, den griechischen Text in einer neu redigierten, durch Berücksichtigung weiterer Handschriften gestützten Fassung vorzulegen und die Abhandlung mit einer deutschen Übersetzung und den nötigen Erläuterungen und Illustrationen einem weiteren Interessentenkreis zugänglich zu machen. Den griechischen Vorfahren der späteren kunstvollen islamischen und abendländischen Astrolabgeräten kennenzulernen, dürfte nicht nur den Fachmann interessieren.

Thema der Schrift Peri hermeneias (De interpretatione) ist der einfache Aussage- oder Behauptungssatz in seiner Eigenschaft, entweder wahr oder falsch zu sein. Die zu dieser Satzart gehörenden Sätze werden von Aristoteles zwar auch unter dem Aspekt ihres syntaktischen Aufbaus behandelt, hauptsächlich aber am Leitfaden der Frage nach ihrem Wahrheitswert und den zwischen ihnen bestehenden logischen Beziehungen untersucht. Als die Lehrschriften des Aristoteles im ersten vorchristlichen Jahrhundert aus dessen Nachlass herausgegeben und dabei in verschiedene Gruppen thematisch zusammengehörender Schriften gegliedert wurden, hat man Peri hermeneias daher einem Organon genannten Komplex von Schriften zugeordnet, die man als logische Abhandlungen einstufte.

Die hier vorgelegte kritische Edition der Schrift basiert, was die direkte Überlieferung des griechischen Textes durch die uns erhalten gebliebenen mittelalterlichen Handschriften betrifft, auf den sieben ältesten dieser Handschriften, zu denen auch der im Jahre 1975 entdeckte fragmentarische Codex Sinaiticus graecus M 138 aus dem 9./10. Jahrhundert gehört. Was die indirekte Überlieferung des Textes durch spätantike Übersetzungen und Kommentare anbelangt, wurden neben einer armenischen und zwei syrischen Übersetzungen die lateinische Übersetzung des Boethius und die griechischen Kommentare des Ammonios und des Stephanos sowie ein anonymer griechischer Kommentar ausgewertet. Das Ergebnis der Auswertung dieser Textzeugen wird in einem textkritischen Apparat dokumentiert, der im Gegensatz zu dem negativen Apparat der von L. Minio-Paluello besorgten Oxford-Ausgabe (1949, ²1956) positiv gestaltet ist. Eingeleitet wird die Ausgabe durch eine ausführliche Praefatio in lateinischer Sprache.

Phaedrus may be defined, in a certain sense, as one of the greatest glories of Latin literature, because he is the first known author in Greek and Roman culture who presents us with a collection of fables conceived as an autonomous work of poetry, destined to be read. Furthermore, Phaedrus inspired directly or indirectly an enormous part of European fables. Despite the importance of Phaedrus in the history of European culture, the critical editions of this poet in use today are philologically unsatisfactory: as a matter of fact, some of them are excessively conservative, others are marred by unnecessary textual conjectures. This new edition, which offers an extensive apparatus of fontes and testimonia, solves a number of philological problems and presents a sounder text than the ones established by previous editors; the critical apparatus is based on a fresh examination of the extant manuscripts and the indirect transmission, and on a careful evaluation of the philological studies which have appeared since Pithou’s editio princeps (1596).

A book which provides readers with a critical text of both the ecphrasis of the church of the Holy Apostles by Constantine of Rhodes and his satyrical poems was still needed. De Stefani and Strano offer a new edition of these texts, while correcting several corrupted passages. Particularly, the debts of Constantine with his avowed model in the description of the church of Holy Apostles, Paul the Silentiary, have been highlighted and the imitations of Constantine's poems by later Byzantine poets have been registered. In fact Constantine is the scribe (J) of Paul's poems in the famous Pal. Heid. gr. 23. De Stefani in his edition of Silentiary's text pointed out several imitations of Silentiary by Constantine. Further imitations of Silentiary's poem came out in course of the elaboration of this project and are recorded in the fontes. Constantine's poem is wordly quoted by Georgius Cedrenus. This new very important tool would help to better both the text we are editing and the quotations by Cedrenus listed in the fontes. Finally, the apparatus of the fontes will also mention the most patent imitations of the poem of Constantine by later Byzantine poets. The book will be a useful tool for all students of Byzantine literature.

Not much can be known about the life of Maximianus, who has been called "the last of the Roman poets," beyond what can be inferred from his poetry. He was most likely a native of Tuscany, probably lived until the middle of the sixth century, and, at an advanced age, went as a diplomat to the emperor's court at Constantinople.

A. M. Juster has translated the complete elegies of Maximianus faithfully but not literally, resulting in texts that work beautifully as poetry in English. Replicating the feel of the original Latin verse, he alternates iambic hexameter and pentameter in couplets and imitates Maximianus's pronounced internal rhyme, alliteration, and assonance. The first elegy is the longest and establishes the voice of the speaker: a querulous old man, full of the indignities of aging, which he contrasts with the vigor and prestige he enjoyed in his youth. The second elegy similarly focuses on the contrast between past happiness and present misery but, this time, for the specific experience of a long-term relationship. The third through fifth elegies depict episodes from the poet's amatory career at different stages of his life, from inexperienced youth to impotent old man. The last poem concludes with a desire for the release of death and, together with the first, form a coherent frame for the collection.

This comprehensive volume includes an introduction by renowned classicist Michael Roberts, a translation of the elegies with the Latin text on facing pages, the first English translation of an additional six poems attributed to Maximianus, an appendix of Latin and Middle English imitative verse that illustrates Maximianus's long reception in the Middle Ages, several related texts, and the first commentary in English on the poems since 1900. The imminence of death and the sadness of growing old that form the principal themes of the elegies signal not only the end of pagan culture and its joy in living but also the turn from a classical to a medieval sensibility in Late Antiquity.

This selection of religious biographies from the early centuries C.E. offers a delightful introduction to a literary genre that has played an essential part in Buddhist self-understanding for over two thousand years.
The Heavenly Exploits are “Buddhist Biographies from the Dívyavadána.” The worldly face of religious literature, these lively morality tales have inspired audiences across Asia for more than two millennia. This volume contains four of the thirty-eight Buddhist biographical stories in the ”Dívyávadana,” or Heavenly Exploits. Where religion meets the world, these tales present something for everyone.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

The fifth and most popular book of the Ramáyana of Valmíki, Súndara recounts the adventures of the monkey hero Hánuman leaping across the ocean to the island citadel of Lanka. Once there, he scours the city for the abducted Princess Sita. The poet vividly describes the opulence of the court of the demon king, Rávana, the beauty of his harem, and the hideous deformity of Sita's wardresses. After witnessing Sita’s stern rejection of Rávana's blandishments, Hánuman reveals himself to the princess, shows her Rama's signet ring as proof of identity, and offers to carry her back to Rama.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

The skies darken for the exiles, who have taken refuge in forest hermitages. First one demon, then another, attempts to harm or corrupt them. When these efforts fail, an army of demons is sent, and then a bigger one, but each time Rama again defeats them. Finally Rávana, the supreme lord of the demons, decides to cripple Rama by capturing Sita; he traps her, and carries her off under heavy guard to the island fortress of Lanka. Rama is distraught by grief, and searches everywhere without success.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

The king decides to abdicate in favor of Rama; but just as the celebrations reach their climax, a court intrigue forces Rama and Sita into fourteen years banishment; they dutifully accept their fate, and go off to the jungle. The other brothers refuse to benefit from his misfortune, which leaves nobody to run the city; eventually one of them is persuaded to act as regent, but only consents to do so on condition that he lives outside the city and acts in Rama’s name.
“Ayódhya” is Book Two of Valmíki’s national Indian epic, The Ramáyana. The young hero Rama sets out willingly from the capital with wife and brother for a fourteen-year banishment, which will entail great suffering and further difficult choices in the books ahead. Of the seven books of this great Sanskrit epic, "Ayódhya" is the most human, and it remains one of the best introductions to the social and political values of traditional India.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

“Slender lady, I came out with you to gather fruit. I got a pain in my head and fell asleep in your lap. Then I saw a terrible darkness and a mighty person. If you know, then tell me - was it my dream? Or was what I saw real?”
So speaks Satyavat, newly rescued from the god of death by Savitri, his faithful wife, at the heart of one of the best loved stories in Indian literature. This, and other well known narratives, including a version of Rama's story, bring the Forest Book of the great Sanskrit epic, the Maha·bhárata, to its compelling conclusion. Woven into the main narrative of the Pandavas’ exile, these disparate episodes indicate the range and poetic power of the Maha·bhárata as a whole—a power that has the potential to speak to common human concerns across cultures and centuries.
“The Forest” is Book Three of the Maha·bhárata, “The Great Book of India.” This final quarter of the account of the Pándavas’ twelve-year exile in the forest contains four stirring stories that are among the best known in Indian literature. From a hero overcoming great odds, to a virtuous wife who rescues her family, and Indra tricking Karna, and Yudhi·shthira’s victory in the verbal contest with the tree spirit, these stories speak to common human concerns across cultures and centuries.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

In one of the most famous passages in Maha·bhárata, Dur·yódhana, the heroic but flawed king of the Káuravas, meets his end when he is dishonorably defeated in battle by his arch-enemy, Bhima. Framing a fascinating account of the sacred sites along the river Sarásvati, the duel poignantly portrays the downfall of a once great hero in the face of a new order governed by Krishna, in which the warrior code is brushed aside in order to ensure the predestined triumph of the Pándavas.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

The great war of the Maha bharata is over. Or is it? This is a single extended family wracked in conflict. Both sides succumbed to treachery. Ashva tthaman, the young leader of the three survivors on the losing side, is incensed at his father’s murder. He returns after dark to the now sleeping encampment. The sacrifice of the unsuspecting champions, the "Dead of Night," ensues. The five sons of Pandu have escaped. After a final confrontation, a missile crisis, Ashva tthaman concedes defeat but redirects his missile into the wombs of the victors’ women. They miscarry, and cannot hope for more children. Now the survivors, victors and vanquished, must struggle to comprehend their loss. "The Women" of both sides are confronted by their men’s mangled corpses in a masterpiece of horror and pathos. But their potent curses must be curbed to usher in a new era. Maha bharata Books Ten and Eleven give voice to the vanquished, to the psychology of loss and the conflicting desires for understanding and revenge.

After Bhishma is cut down at the end of the previous book of the Maha·bhárata, the book which bears his name, Duryódhana selects Drona as leader of his forces. Drona accepts the honor with Bhishma's blessing, despite his ongoing personal conflicts as mentor to both the Pándava and Káurava heroes in their youth. The fighting rages on, with heavy losses on both sides. Furious and frustrated, Duryódhana accuses Drona of collaborating with the enemy, but he replies that as long as Árjuna is on the field, the Pándavas will remain invincible. When Árjuna is finally diverted from the main action of the battle, Yudhi·shthira entrusts Árjuna's son Abhimányu with the task of making a breach in the Káurava formation. Abhimányu rampages through Drona's army, but at last is cornered by several Káurava warriors and finally killed by Jayad·ratha.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

The Book of Shalya recounts in gory detail the final destruction of the Káurava army and the defeat of its leader, Dur·yódhana. In this first volume heroic duels and martial speeches abound as Shalya, the king of the Madras, is made general of the Káurava army, only to be slaughtered in his turn.
The Book of Shalya recounts in gory detail the final destruction of the Káurava army and the defeat of its leader, Duryódhana. In this first volume heroic duels and martial speeches abound as Shalya, the king of the Madras, is made general of the Káurava army, only to be slaughtered in his turn.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

“The Book of Karna” relates the events of the two dramatic days after the defeat of the great warriors and generals Bhishma and Drona, in which Karna, great hero and the eldest Pándava, leads the Káurava army into combat. This first volume of "Karna" depicts mighty battles in gory detail, sets the scene for Karna's tragic death, and includes a remarkable verbal duel between Karna and his reluctant charioteer Shalya, the king of the Madras, as they hurl abuse at each other before entering the fray.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

The Great Hall relates some of the most seminal events of the epic, culminating in the famous game of dice between the Pándavas and the Káuravas. The Pándavas, happily settled in Indra·prastha, enjoy one glorious success after another. Yudhi·shthira, after erecting the most magnificent hall on earth, decides to perform the Royal Consecration Sacrifice, which will raise his status to that of the world's greatest sovereign. His brothers travel far and wide and conquer all known kingdoms. Yet just when the Pándavas are beginning to seem invincible, Yudhi·shthira mysteriously gambles everything away in a fateful game of dice to his cousin Duryódhana.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

Volume Two of "Drona" begins in the aftermath of tragedy. As evening falls, Arjuna journeys wearily back to camp and is greeted by the ashen faces of his brothers. Before they speak, he guesses the worst. And the worst is right: his son Abhimanyu is dead. Arjuna is inconsolable. Insensible with rage, he vows to take revenge on the boy’s killers. He swears that if they are not dead before another day passes, he will set himself alight. The world seems to shudder at his words.

"The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance."
—Willis G. Regier, The Chronicle Review
"No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience."
—The Times Higher Education Supplement
"The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot. . . . Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes."
—New Criterion
"Published in the geek-chic format."
—BookForum
"Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs."
—Tricycle
”Now an ambitious new publishing project, the Clay Sanskrit Library brings together leading Sanskrit translators and scholars of Indology from around the world to celebrate in translating the beauty and range of classical Sanskrit literature. . . . Published as smart green hardbacks that are small enough to fit into a jeans pocket, the volumes are meant to satisfy both the scholar and the lay reader. Each volume has a transliteration of the original Sanskrit text on the left-hand page and an English translation on the right, as also a helpful introduction and notes. Alongside definitive translations of the great Indian epics — 30 or so volumes will be devoted to the Maha·bhárat itself — Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartri·hari, the pungent satire of Jayánta Bhatta and the roving narratives of Dandin, among others. All these writers belong properly not just to Indian literature, but to world literature.”
—LiveMint
”The Clay Sanskrit Library has recently set out to change the scene by making available well-translated dual-language (English and Sanskrit) editions of popular Sanskritic texts for the public.”
—Namarupa
The second volume of “Preparations for War” seals the fate of the Pándavas and Kurus. This book is the turning point of the entire Maha·bhárata. The failure of diplomacy ensures war is now inevitable, and with this realization come dramatic arguments, miracles and temptations. The Maha·bhárata explores timeless problems of humanity, and in this volume of “Preparations for War,” it explores the realities of human nature in times of conflict. The lust for power and bloodshed overwhelms all attempts at negotiation.Interwoven with these serious issues come beautiful accountsof divinities, magical realms and legendary marvels.

King Harsha, who reigned over the kingdom of Kanauj from 606 to 647 CE, composed two Sanskrit plays about the mythical figures of King Udayana, his queen, Vásava·datta, and two of his co-wives. The plays abound in mistaken identities, both political and erotic. The characters masquerade as one another and, occasionally, as themselves, and each play refers simultaneously to itself and to the other.

Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation

For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org