Agapius – three quarters done

I have now translated 75% of the 10th century Arabic Christian historian Agapius, from the French of A. A. Vasiliev.  Of course the translation has no scholarly value — more in the way of research notes.  But there are a considerable number of people who do not read French easily, if at all, and so to make this version has utility.  I hope also to trigger a “virtuous circle”: the existence of this translation may inspire someone to make an English translation direct from the published Arabic.  This in turn would lead someone to get an ultra-violet photograph of the Florence manuscript, fill the lacunae, and make a full scholarly critical edition and translation.

I’m typing this while scanning the page images of the remaining part; scan, turn page, scan, etc.  Each quarter is around 150 pages of the Patrologia Orientalis.  I’m working on a chunk of no more than 50 pages at a time.  Any more than that, and I get oppressed by the size of the task before me, and depressed.

So far I have done part 3, part 4 and part 1.  Now to begin part 2.

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