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‘advice’ and would justify Trevisa’s explanation, it is still surprising to see Trevisa devote his
longest intervention to such a tangential example and not to the more central part of the treatise:
[Text] First, al þyng þat is immutable and may not change is out of oure consaile. For we taken
consaille for to be reweled in oure dedes and nedes and for to voide euel and for to haue good. Þan
þynges þat may not ben voided and þynges þat may not be changed falleþ not vnder counsaille.
Þerfore, iii Ethicorum, it is iseid þat of euere lastynge þynges and of þynges þat may not change
no man axe þe consaille, for no man axeþ consaille of þe dyameter þat may not be imeete by þe
costa noþer of oþer things þat may not change. Trevisa: for þe menyng herof it is to wetynge þat in
quadrate liche long and brood ben foure lynes liche longe. And þe foure sides þerof and eche of
thilke foure side lynes is icleped costa. And a lyne idrawe in lengþe fro þe oo cornere of þe
quadrate to anoþer corner in þe oþer side is icleped dyameter, and þat diameter is lenger þan costa.
And it may not be knowe in nombrarie in what proporcioun þe dyameter is longere þan costa. 372
costa
costa
costa
This is one of the clearest places, in all of his oeuvre, where we can rightly question the didactic
clarity of Trevisa’s asides and as a result the stylistic directness of his translations. For even as
Trevisa explains the technical terms “costa” and “dyameter,” his text fails to tell us what these
mean in respect to Giles’s argument: he does not tell us how advice can or cannot be directed
towards necessary objects, and he does not tell us why this relationship is unchanging. Trevisa’s
gloss may even need its own commentary particularly as it uses other possibly foreign
mathematical terms to his vernacular audience, like “proporcioun,” “quadrate,” and “nombraire,”
to explain this mathematical concept. Further, if this aside does not mean to teach geometry but
merely explain an abstract point, it seems like a superfluous way of explaining Giles’s passing
reference to geometry particularly when there are other tactics for medieval translators to quickly
372 John Trevisa, The Governance of Kings and Princes: John Trevisa’s Middle English Translation of the De
Regimine Principum of Aegidius Romanus, eds. David Fowler, Charles Briggs, Paul Remley (New York: Garland,
1997) 352.
223
costa