Paul of Aegina's (fl. c. 630) Pragmateia is the only extant Greek medical text from antiquity that discusses the extraction of arrows and small missiles.Footnote 1 In his book on surgery, Paul details how to extract arrows according to their properties and the parts of the body which they have wounded (6.88). He prefaces his instructions by describing how arrows differ in their material, figure, size, number, mode, and power.Footnote 2 Paul's account of arrow varieties appears to reflect the environment of his medical practice, seventh-century Alexandria,Footnote 3 for he refers to Egyptian arrow types when listing the material composition and sizes of different arrows.Footnote 4
Paul's comments on arrow sizes are of particular interest, because they seem to suggest that he has knowledge of the local Egyptian language. He identifies an arrow that is one finger in length:
μεγέθει δέ, καθ’ ὃ τὰ μέν εἰϲιν μεγάλα ἄχρι τριῶν τὸ μῆκοϲ δακτύλων, τὰ δὲ μικρὰ ὅϲον δακτύλου, ἃ δὴ καὶ μυωτὰ καλοῦϲιν κατ' Αἴγυπτον, τὰ δὲ τούτων μεταξύ.
With regard to size, [they are different] inasmuch as some are as big as three fingers in length, and some are as small as one finger – they call these myotá in Egypt – and some are in between these [sizes]. (6.88.2/II.130.10–12)
J.L. Heiberg, the editor of Paul's text for Corpus Medicorum Graecorum, reads μυωτά as the name of this diminutive arrow, but notes in his critical apparatus that his manuscripts also give μυιατά and μυιτά as variant spellings.Footnote 5 Regardless of the reading, the word remains untranslatable.Footnote 6 It appears that there was no equivalent word in the Coptic Egyptian of seventh-century Alexandria.Footnote 7
In Ibn Sīnā's (980–1037) Canon of Medicine (Qānūn fī ṭ-ṭibb), however, there is evidence that Paul's Greek text should read μύωπα (‘fly’) instead of μυωτά. In Book 4, fann four, instruction two, chapter ten of his medical encyclopaedia, Ibn Sīnā records Paul's directions for extracting arrows. While Ibn Sīnā does not mention Paul's name explicitly, the chapter is a near verbatim Arabic translation of the Greek original. Thus, Ibn Sīnā seems to have followed closely both the content and language of Ḥunayn ibn ʾIshāq's (d. c. 873) Arabic translation of the Pragmaetia.Footnote 8 The Canon's chapter describes the size of different arrow types as follows:
ويكون له طرف قدر ثلاثة أصابع وبعضها قدر إصبع ويسمى ذبابية.Footnote 9
[Some arrows] have a tip which measures three fingers [in length] and some measure a finger [in length] and they are called ‘flies’ (ḏubābīya). (4.4.2.10/230.15–16)
Ibn Sīnā's passage differs from the corresponding Greek text in two respects: it omits ‘in Egypt’ (κατ' Αἴγυπτον) and reads ‘flies’ (ḏubābīya) for μυωτά. The omission of κατ' Αἴγυπτον in the Arabic is probably due to the fact that Ibn Sīnā, or perhaps Ḥunayn, did not wish the list of arrow types to appear specific to Egypt, since both were writing for readers outside this particular milieu.Footnote 10
While the New Delhi edition of the Canon reads ḏunbāniya as the name of Paul's diminutive arrow, a note in the critical apparatus gives ḏubābīya as a textual variant.Footnote 11Ḏubābīya appears to be the better reading for, according to M. Ullmann, Ḥunayn and his associates used the word ḏubāb to translate the Greek μύωψ (‘fly’).Footnote 12 Since μυωτά is emended easily to μύωπα, Ibn Sīnā's text must have read ḏubābīya instead of ḏanbāniya. Conversely, the Canon's description of arrow types also witnesses that Ḥunayn must have had a Greek manuscript in hand which read μύωπα for μυωτά. Therefore, the account in the Pragmateia does not admit any evidence that Paul was familiar with the local Egyptian language, but rather that he was familiar with the various local arrow types and their nicknames. Moreover, this passage from Paul's text attests to an undocumented use of μύωψ as an arrow type.
