Seven Wise Masters

For other uses, see Seven Sages (disambiguation).

The Seven Wise Masters (also called the Seven Sages or Seven Wise Men) is a frame narrative with multiple embedded stories, known across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa from the ninth century onwards. It is one of the most widely transmitted tales of premodernity, translated and adapted into at least 32 languages, with each version considerably different from the others.

Emperor Pontianus, his son Diocletian and the seven wise masters (Cod pal. germ 149 at Heidelberg)

Plot

A king or emperor sends his son, the young prince, to be educated away from the court by seven wise masters. On his return to court, the prince is bound to a week's silence to avert danger foreseen in his horoscope. His stepmother attempts to seduce him but is rejected. The woman accuses the son of attempted rape and seeks to bring about his death. The seven sages each tell a story in his defence, and in many versions the woman reciprocates with her own stories. Finally the prince's lips are unsealed, the truth exposed, and the wicked woman is either pardoned or executed.^[1]

Transmission

The transmission of the narrative falls into two main branches: the older branch consists of versions often referred to collectively as the Book of Sindbad, contains a distinctive series of embedded tales. The plot is usually set at a royal court whose king has several wives or sexual partners, and whose most prominent sage is known as Sindbad, Sindibad, Sendebar, Syntipas or similar.^[1] The younger branch is usually known as the Seven Sages of Rome, Dolopathos or Diocletian and contains its own relatively consistent series of embedded tales. It is normally set at the court of the Emperor of Rome, who remarries after the death of his son's mother.

The Book of Sindbad

The earliest existing version of the Book of Sindbad that can be relatively secured dated is the Greek Book of Syntipas the Philosopher, composed by Michael Andreopoulos in Anatolia in the late eleventh century. Andreopoulos plausibly claims to have worked from a Syriac translation, which was itself based on an Arabic translation by one Musa, of a Persian text.^[2] All these older texts are lost, but there are surviving versions from the twelfth century onwards in Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Hebrew, and Spanish. No traces of a Sanskrit version have been found.

Syriac: Sindban

The Syriac Sindban is one of the oldest extant versions of the narrative.

Greek: Syntipas

The Byzantine version of the text.

Persian: Sindibad-nameh

There are three versions in Persian, including one in verse, and two in prose, dating from the late twelfth century to the late fourteenth century.^[2] One of the prose texts, by Nakhshabi, is the eighth night in his Tutinama story-cycle.

Arabic: The Book of the Seven Vizirs

While the surviving versions of the Seven Vizirs are dated later than many of the other texts in the Eastern tradition, earlier versions are presumed to have existed.

Spanish: Sendebar, or Libro de los Engaños

While there are version of the narrative in Old Spanish that adhere to the narrative patterns found in the Western or European traditions, Libro de Los Engaños is part of the Eastern tradition.

Hebrew: Mischle Sendebar משלי סנדבר

The Seven Sages of Rome/ Dolopathos/ Diocletian

Dolopathos

The first surviving adaptation of the Book of Sindbad into the substantially different context of the Roman Imperial Court at the beginning of the Common Era is the Latin Dolopathos sive Rege et Septem Sapientibus, written sometime between 1184 and 1212 by Jean de Hauteseille (Johannes de Alta Silva), a monk of the Cistercian abbey of Haute-Seille near Toul. It contains only stories by the seven masters, and the empress does not tell her own stories. This was translated into French around 1210 by a trouvère named Herbers under the title Li romans de Dolopathos.

Latin: Dolopathos by Johannes de Alta Silva

French: Dolopathos by Herbert

German: Dolopathos

The Seven Sages of Rome

The most widely translated and adapted version of the Seven Sages/Book of Sindbad story matter was the Latin Historia Septem Sapientum (Story of the Seven Sages), composed by an unknown author most likely in Alsace some time between 1325 and 1342. It is itself translated from the French version known in scholarship as 'A'.^[1]

French: Sept Sages de Rome

Latin: Historia septem sapientum

German: Sieben weise Meister

The German adaptions of the Seven Sages tradition can be divided into several verse and prose versions, most of which follow the Latin Historia but sometimes change the order or selection of the embedded tales.^[3] The oldest known German version of the Seven Sages, Dyocletianus Leben by Hans von Bühel, dates back to 1412,^[4] whereas most of the surviving textual witnesses are from the 16th to the 18th century and often embedded into German adaptions of the Gesta Romanorum.^[5] Literary scholars have repeatedly emphasized the popularity of the Sieben weise Meister in the late Middle Ages and early modern period in contrast to its marginalization in modern literary historiography.^[6]

English: The Sevyn Sages

The Middle English metrical versions of the Seven Sages were probably based on the French prose Version A. There are eight extant manuscripts containing the medieval English Seven Sages, with the oldest - the Auchinleck Manuscript, held by the National Library of Scotland - dating from the early 14th century.^[2] Scholarship agrees that these represent three distinct redactions - the Northern, Southern, and Midlands versions.^[7][8] In addition to manuscripts, there are several different print versions, beginning with an early 16th century print by Wynkyn de Worde.

Czech: Kronika sedmi mudrců

Whilst the story was reproduced in Czech versions of the Gesta Romanorum, the oldest known print of the stories alone dates from 1502, translated and printed by Mikuláš Bakalář, a Bohemian printer who trained in Krakow. It is unclear whether the adaptation stems from the Latin Historia itself or a previous German translation. However, the text was popular and reprinted regularly. The Czech adaptation is notable for five tales which do not appear in other versions.^[9]

Danish

Dutch

Hungarian

Icelandic

Polish: Poncjan (Historja o siedmiu mędrcach)

The Polish adaptations of the Seven Sages are believed to originate from a lost print by Jan z Koszyczek, from 1528-32. His source text is unclear, however literary scholars agree that the story is related to the Historia text.^[9] It was well-received in Poland and underwent regular reprints in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.^[10] The Polish editions are believed to be the basis for Russian versions.^[9]

Scots

There is one Older Scots manuscript version of the text, found in the Asloan Manuscript in the National Library of Scotland. This text, The Buke of the Sevyne Sagis, is largely similar in structure to the medieval English versions of the narrative; it derives largely from the French prose Version A, but also exhibits influence of Version H, the Latin Historia Septem Sapientum.^[11] There were also several early modern prints of the narrative published in Scotland. One of the most important of these is The Sevyn Sages by John Rolland of Dalkeith edited for the Bannatyne Club (Edinburgh, 1837).^[1]

Spanish

Gaelic

Literary legacy

The collection later supplied tales that circulated in both oral and written traditions. Giovanni Boccaccio used many of them for his famous work, the Decameron.^{[citation needed]}

The Latin romance was frequently printed in the 15th century, and Wynkyn de Worde printed an English version about 1515. See:

• Gaston Paris, Deux rédactions du "Roman des sept sages de Rome" (Paris, Société des anciens textes français, 1876)
• Georg Büchner, Historia septem sapientium (Erlangen, 1889)
• Killis Campbell, A Study of the Romance of the Seven Sages with special reference to the middle English versions (Baltimore, 1898)
• Domenico Comparetti, Researches respecting the Book of Sindibdd (Folk-Lore Soc., 1882).^[1]

The Seven Sages Society, founded in 1975, maintained a perpetual scholarly bibliography, with annual updates in its on-line and printed (free of charge) newsletter.^[12]

The Seven Sage of Rome Database aims to catalogue manuscripts, prints, and secondary scholarship surrounding the story.^[13]

Stories

The tale collection has been thought to contain the origins of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther tale type ATU 671, "The Three Languages".^[14] The story tells of a commoner boy who can understand the language of animals, which converse among themselves that the boy will lord over their mother and father in the future. His parents expel him for such affront. After a series of adventures, the boy becomes a king or pope and returns to his family's house. His parents serve him with a water and a towel and he reveals his identity.^[15]

See also

• The Book of the Wiles of Women, 13th-century Spanish version of the tales
• Tutinama, another collection of Indian stories about women