Kebra Nagast

Kebra Nagast — Budge — Section 21

edition of the Ethiopic text edited from the best MSS., with a German translation, which the Royal Bavarian Academy made arrangements to publish. After much unavoidable delay this work appeared in 1909, and is entitled Kebra Nagast. Die Herrlichkeit der Konige (Ab- handlungen der Koniglich Bayerischen Akademie , Band XXIII , Abth. 1, Munich, 1909 [Band LXXVII of the Denkschriften ]). The text is prefaced by a learned in¬ troduction, which was greatly appreciated by Orienta¬ lists to whom the edition was specially addressed. The chief authority for the Ethiopic text in Bezold’s edition is the now famous manuscript which was sent as a gift to Louis Philippe by Sahla (or Sahlu) Dengel, King of Ethiopia, who died early in 1 8 5 5 . According to Zoten- berg \Catalogue des manuscrits Ethiopiens , p. 6) this manuscript must belong to the thirteenth century ; if this be so it is probably the oldest Ethiopic manuscript in existence. Though there seems to be no really good reason for assigning this very early date to the manu¬ script, there can be no doubt as to its being the oldest known Codex of the Kebra Nagast, and therefore Bezold was fully justified in making its text the base of his edition of that work. I have collated the greater part of the British Museum Codex, Oriental 818, with his printed text, and though the variants are numerous they are not of great importance, in fact, as is the case in several other Codices of the Kebra Nagast, they are due chiefly to the haste or carelessness or fatigue of the scribe. As Bezold’s text represents the Kebra Nagast in the form that the Ethiopian priests and scribes have considered authoritative, I have made the English trans¬ lation which is printed in the following pages from it. Unfortunately, none of the Codices of the Kebra Nagast gives us any definite information about the compiler of the work — for it certainly is a compilation — or the time when he wrote, or the circumstances under XXIX Introduction