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Language: ENG ELL EPO JBO TLH LAT

Choice. February 2004. Vol 41 No. 6.

An Entertaining tale of quadrupeds, tr. with commentary by Nick Nicholas and George Baloglou. Columbia, 2003. 557p. bibl index. ISBN 0-231-12760-X, $54.50; ISBN 0-231-12761-8 pbk, $27.50

Nicholas (linguistics, Univ. of Melbourne, and a contributor to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae project, Univ. of California, Irvine) and Baloglou (mathematics, SUNY Oswego) have here produced a thorough (perhaps too thorough) study (text and translation) of a 14th-century "popular" Byzantine poem concerning an assembly of herbivores and carnivores at the behest of King Lion. A long introduction (a good deal of which might better have been put into the commentary that accompanies the text) deals with such matters as the author of the tale, the date and place of composition, possible influences on the tale (Veneto-Cretan and Frankish, as well as Byzantine properly so called), parallels to it (e.g., the late Byzantine Book of Birds), and the satiric (and perhaps political) purposes of the poem. Reproduction of the drawings from the one illustrated manuscript of the tale are provided, along with textual notes, six appendixes, an extensive bibliography, and an index of Greek words from the text and of persons and subjects discussed in English throughout the volume. Clearly a labor of love, the book could have been more tightly edited to avoid frequent repetitions. Summing Up: Optional. Of interest only to professional Byzantinists and perhaps to students of vernacular medieval literature generally. -- C. J. Zabrowski, Gettysburg College.