I feel your pain.

You seem to be happy with the quality of the translation itself, and with the rest of the scholarly stuff. Perhaps the person doing the annotating was not the translator, but an underling who was not properly supervised?

Re Clemenceau, I misunderstood your sentence at first. Indeed the name does not have an accent aigu, even though it is pronounced as if it had one. About the cedilla, my impression is that English speakers tend to either ignore it altogether, or err on the side of safety by putting it where it is not needed.

Finally, I was struck by your use of the word "plethora" in what I take to be its original sense of 'surfeit, excess' - everyone seems to be using it now to mean just 'plenty', which I find very irritating.

Finally, I was struck by your use of the word "plethora" in what I take to be its original sense of 'surfeit, excess' - everyone seems to be using it now to mean just 'plenty', which I find very irritating.

Isn't "plenty" the original sense in Greek?

In Greek, yes, but we're talking about English. The first senses in the OED are:

1. Med. Originally: overabundance of one or more humours, esp. blood; an instance of this. In later use: excessive volume of blood (hypervolaemia or, now rarely, polycythaemia) or excessive fullness of blood vessels (now esp. as seen on x-rays); an instance of this.

2. fig. An unhealthy or damaging plenitude or excess of something; a state of surfeit or glut. Obs.

3. Usu. with of. Originally in pejorative sense: an excessive supply, an overabundance; an undesirably large quantity.

By the time you get to "Subsequently, and more usually, in neutral or favourable sense: a very large amount, quantity, or variety," you're in the twentieth century.

Hmmm, interesting. Marullo's translation got a favorable review at SEEJ; another translation of his was favorably reviewed at Slavic Review. I guess this is just to show the limit of these reviews - not everybody has your extensive knowledge. But I would not be too worried and mistrustful in this case.

On a side note, a very famous and senior scholar I know mispronounces Hamartolos as Harmatolos. Metathesis at work... It drives me up the wall.

Interesting.

I note that once again the !§&*%$& four humors are to blame for a loan.

You seem to be happy with the quality of the translation itself

I am not in the least. See my latest comment in this thread.

Marullo's translation got a favorable review at SEEJ

Must have been a colleague sucking up to him, or somebody who didn't bother to do a serious comparison. We're not talking about an occasional glitch, which can happen to anyone; we're talking about serious blunders, too often to forgive.

or somebody who didn't bother to do a serious comparison
I am afraid so. There are two kinds of reviews, I noticed. There is the reviewer who knows his/her stuff and ruthlessly points out errors big and small; then there is the reviewer who rephrases the author's introduction, spices it up with some praise, and sends it off. Makes me wonder which type of review I really want for a book I might write. The first, I think - despite the pain!

But it would be nice to have it balanced out with one or two of the second!