The Seven Wise Masters (also called the Seven Sages or Seven Wise Men) is a cycle of stories of Sanskrit, Persian or Hebrew origins.
The Sultan 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. [1]
The frame narrative served as the flexible way to transmit tales to other listeners.
The cycle of stories, which appears in many European languages, is of Eastern origin. [1] An analogous collection occurs in Sanskrit, attributed to the Indian philosopher Syntipas in the first century BC, [2] though the Indian original is unknown. Other suggested origins are Persian (since the earliest surviving texts are in Persian) and Hebrew (a culture with similar tales, such as that of the biblical Joseph).
The Eastern version of the narrative, known as The Book of Sindibâd (Sindbād-nāmah or The Book of Seven Viziers), [3] is presumed to have originated from a lost 8th century Arabic source by a writer known as Musa. [4] and may be found in Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Hebrew, and Old Spanish.
The Syriac Sindban is one of the oldest extant versions of the narrative.
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. [4] One of the prose texts, by Nakhshabi, is the eighth night in his Tutinama story-cycle.
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.
The Byzantine version of the text.
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.
Hundreds of surviving European texts are known. [5] 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. [6]
Travelling from the east by way of Arabic, Persian, Syriac and Greek, the work was translated from Greek into Latin 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 Dolopathos (ed. Hermann Österley, Strassburg, 1873). This was translated into French about 1210 by a trouvère named Herbers as Li romans de Dolopathos.
Another French version, Roman des sept sages , was based on a different Latin original. [1]
The German, English, French and Spanish chapbooks 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). [1]
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. [7] The oldest known German version of the Seven Sages, Dyopcletianus Leben by Hans von Bühel, dates back to 1412, [8] 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. [9] 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. [10]
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:
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. [11]
The tale collection has been thought to contain the origins of the Aarne–Thompson–Uther tale type ATU 671, "The Three Languages". [12] 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. [13]
Barlaam and Josaphat, also known as Bilawhar and Budhasaf, are Christian saints. Their life story was based on the life of the Gautama Buddha, who historically lived several centuries before Jesus. Their story tells of the conversion of Josaphat to Christianity. According to the legend, an Indian king persecuted the Christian Church in his realm. After astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, the king imprisoned the young prince Josaphat, who nevertheless met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. After much tribulation the young prince's father accepted the Christian faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam.
The Panchatantra is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in Sanskrit verse and prose, arranged within a frame story. The surviving work is dated to about 200 BCE, but the fables are likely much more ancient. The text's author is unknown, but it has been attributed to Vishnu Sharma in some recensions and Vasubhaga in others, both of which may be fictitious pen names. It is likely a Hindu text, and based on older oral traditions with "animal fables that are as old as we are able to imagine".
According to the medieval poet Jean Bodel, the Matter of Rome is the literary cycle of Greek and Roman mythology, together with episodes from the history of classical antiquity, focusing on military heroes like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Bodel's division of literary cycles also included the Matter of France and the Matter of Britain. The Matter of Rome includes the Matter of Troy, consisting of romances and other texts based on the Trojan War and its legacy, including the adventures of Aeneas.
The Syriac Infancy Gospel, also known as the Arabic Infancy Gospel, is a New Testament apocryphal writing concerning the infancy of Jesus. It may have been compiled as early as the sixth century, and was partly based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of James, and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, though much of it is also based on oral tradition. The only two surviving manuscripts date from 1299 AD and the 15th/16th century in Arabic. They were copied in the area of northern Iraq and show influence from the Quran.
The story of Dhu al-Qarnayn is mentioned in Surah al-Kahf of the Quran. It has long been recognised in modern scholarship that the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn has strong similarities with the Syriac Legend of Alexander the Great. According to this legend, Alexander travelled to the ends of the world then built a wall in the Caucasus mountains to keep Gog and Magog out of civilized lands.
Syntipas is the purported author of the Seven Wise Masters, a cycle of stories of Indian and Persian origin popular in medieval literature. He first appears in Arabic renditions as an Indian philosopher who lived around 100 BC.
The story of the Knight of the Swan, or Swan Knight, is a medieval tale about a mysterious rescuer who comes in a swan-drawn boat to defend a damsel, his only condition being that he must never be asked his name.
The Alexander Romance, once described as "antiquity's most successful novel", is an account of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. The Romance describes Alexander the Great from his birth, to his succession of the throne of Macedon, his conquests including that of the Persian Empire, and finally his death. Although constructed around an historical core, the romance is mostly fantastical, including many miraculous tales and encounters with mythical creatures such as sirens or centaurs. In this context, the term Romance refers not to the meaning of the word in modern times but in the Old French sense of a novel or roman, a "lengthy prose narrative of a complex and fictional character".
Partonopeus de Blois is a long poem in the chivalric romance genre written in Old French in the 1170s or 1180s. Its author is unknown, but some scholarly studies indicate Denis Pyramus.
Aphrahat, venerated as SaintAphrahat the Persian, was a third-century Syriac Christian author of Iranian descent from the Sasanian Empire, who composed a series of twenty-three expositions or homilies on points of Christian doctrine and practice. All his known works, the Demonstrations, come from later on in his life. He was an ascetic and celibate, and was almost definitely a son of the covenant. He may have been a bishop, and later Syriac tradition places him at the head of Mar Mattai Monastery near Mosul in what is now northern Iraq. He was a near contemporary to the slightly younger Ephrem the Syrian, but the latter lived within the sphere of the Roman Empire. Called the Persian Sage, Aphrahat witnessed to the concerns of the early church beyond the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire.
Yusuf and Zulaikha is a title given to many tellings in the Muslim world of the story of the relationship between the prophet Yusuf and Potiphar's wife. Developed primarily from the account in Sura 12 of the Qur'an, a distinct story of Yusuf and Zulaikha seems to have developed in Persia around the tenth century CE. According to Agnès Kefeli, "in the biblical and Qur’anic interpretations of Joseph's story, Potiphar's wife bears all the blame for sin and disappears quickly from the narrative". But "in Turkic and Persian literatures, Joseph and Zulaykha do, ultimately, become sexually united, in parallel to their noncorporeal mystical union". The story of Yusuf and Zulaikha is subsequently found in many languages, such as Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Turkish, Punjabi and Urdu. Its most famous version was written in the Persian language by Jami (1414–1492), in his Haft Awrang.
Aesop is an almost certainly legendary Greek fabulist and storyteller, said to have lived c. 620–564 BCE, and credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Many of the tales associated with him are characterized by anthropomorphic animal characters.
The vast conquests of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great quickly inspired the formation and diffusion of legendary material about his deity, journeys, and tales. These appeared shortly after his death, and some may have already begun forming during his lifetime. Common themes and symbols, among legends about Alexander include the Gates of Alexander, the Horns of Alexander, and the Gordian Knot.
The Story of Aḥiqar, also known as the Words of Aḥiqar, is a story first attested in Imperial Aramaic from the fifth century BCE on papyri from Elephantine, Egypt, that circulated widely in the Middle and the Near East. It has been characterised as "one of the earliest 'international books' of world literature".
Les mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français, published in 12 volumes between 1704 and 1717, was the first European version of The Thousand and One Nights tales.
The Syriac Alexander Legend, is a Syriac legendary account of the exploits of Alexander the Great composed in the sixth or seventh century. For the first time in this text, the motifs of Alexander's gate, an apocalyptic incursion, and the barbarian tribes of Gog and Magog are fused into a single narrative. The Legend would go on to influence Syriac literature about Alexander, like in the Song of Alexander. It would also exert a strong influence on subsequent apocalyptic literature, like the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius composed in the late seventh century. In Quranic studies, the representation of Alexander in the Legend is also seen as closely related to the Quranic figure named Dhu al-Qarnayn.
The Book of the Wiles of Women is a medieval collection of stories, translated from Arabic into Spanish in 1253.
Alexander the Great was a king of ancient Greece and Macedon who forged one of the largest empires in world history. Soon after his death, a body of legend began to accumulate about his life and exploits. With the Greek Alexander Romance and its translation into numerous languages including Armenian, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Ethiopic, and more, an entire genre of literature was dedicated to the exploits of Alexander in both Christian and Muslim realms. Alexander was also the one most frequently identified with Dhu al-Qarnayn, a figure that appears in Surah Al-Kahf in the Quran, the holy text of Islam, which greatly expanded the attention paid to him in the traditions of the Muslim world.
The eleventh-century Shahnameh of Ferdowsi preserves the earliest version of the Alexander Romance in the Persian language, following closely the text in its Syriac translation. The Romance genre functioned to preserve and describe the legends and exploits of Alexander the Great. Although the Shahnameh is a much larger text and contains legends of many other rulers of Greater Iran, three consecutive sections of it cover Alexander, amounting to ~2,500 verses. Furthermore, the sections about Alexander act as a bridge between the narratives of the kings before and after him, representing a transition from a realm of mythological kings and exploits to the historical kings of the Sasanian Empire.
