The ''Seven Wise Masters'' (also called the ''Seven Sages'' or ''Seven Wise Men'') is a cycle of stories of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

, Persian or

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

origins.

Frame Narrative

The

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

sends his son, the young Prince, to be educated away from the court in the seven liberal arts by Seven Wise Masters. On his return to court, his stepmother, the empress, attempts to seduce him. To avert danger he is bound over to a week's silence by Sindibad, leader of the Seven Wise Masters. During this time, the empress accuses him to her husband, and seeks to bring about his death by seven stories which she relates to the emperor; but her narrative is each time confuted by the Seven Wise Masters led by Sindibad. Finally the prince's lips are unsealed, the truth exposed, and the wicked empress is executed. The frame narrative served as the flexible way to transmit tales to other listeners.

Origins

The cycle of stories, which appears in many European languages, is of Eastern origin. An analogous collection occurs in

, attributed to the Indian philosopher Syntipas in the first century BC, though the Indian original is unknown. Other suggested origins are Persian (since the earliest surviving texts are in Persian) and

(a culture with similar tales, such as that of the biblical Joseph).

The Eastern Version

The Eastern version of the narrative, known as ''The Book of Sindibâd'' ( or The Book of Seven Viziers), is presumed to have originated from a lost 8th century Arabic source by a writer known as Musa. and may be found in Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Hebrew, and Old Spanish.

Syriac

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

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. 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.

Greek: ''Syntipas''

The Byzantine version of the text.

Old 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''

The Western Tradition

Hundreds of surviving European texts are known. These normally contain fifteen tales, one for each sage, seven from the stepmother, and one from the prince; though the framework is preserved, only four of the commonest European tales are also found in the Eastern version.

Dolopathos

Travelling from the east by way of

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, Persian, Syriac and Greek, the work was translated from Greek into

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

in the 12th century by Jean de Hauteseille (Joannes de Alta Silva), a monk of the abbey of Haute-Seille near Toul, with the title of (ed. Hermann Österley, Strassburg, 1873). This was translated into French about 1210 by a trouvère named Herbers as .

The Seven Sages of Rome

Another French version, , was based on a different Latin original. The German, English, French and Spanish

chapbook A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 1 ...

s of the cycle are generally based on a Latin original differing from these. Three metrical romances probably based on the French, and dating from the 14th century, exist in English. The most important of these is ''The Sevyn Sages'' by John Rolland of Dalkeith edited for the Bannatyne Club (Edinburgh, 1837).

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. The oldest known German version of the ''Seven Sages'', ''Dyopcletianus Leben'' by Hans von Bühel, dates back to 1412, 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. 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.

Literary legacy

The collection later supplied tales that circulated in both oral and written traditions.

Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio ( , ; ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian people, Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so ...

used many of them for his famous work, the '' Decameron''. The Latin romance was frequently printed in the 15th century, and Wynkyn de Worde printed an English version about 1515. See: *

Gaston Paris Bruno Paulin Gaston Paris (; 9 August 1839 – 5 March 1903) was a French literary historian, philologist, and scholar specialized in Romance studies and medieval French literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, ...

, (Paris, Société des anciens textes français, 1876) * Georg Büchner, (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). The ''Seven Sages Society'', founded in 1975, maintains a perpetual scholarly bibliography, with annual updates in its on-line and printed (free of charge) newsletter.

Stories

The tale collection has been thought to contain the origins of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther tale type ATU 671, " The Three Languages". 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.Frazer, James G. "The Language of Animals". In: ''Archaeological Review''. Vol. I. No. 2. April, 1888. D. Nutt. 1888. pp. 81-91

References

Sources

*Irwin, Bonnie D. "The Seven Sages," in ''Madieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Beliefs, and Customs,'' Carl Lindahl, John McNamara and John Lindow, eds. Oxford University Press, 2002. *{{EB1911, wstitle=Seven Wise Masters, The, volume=24, page=715, date=1911a * Runte, Hans R., J. Keith Wikeley and Anthony J. Farrell, ''The Seven Sages of Rome and the Book of Sindbad: An Analytical Bibliography'', New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1984 (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities).