The History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome

Edited by G. L. Gomme, F.S.A. and H. B. Wheatley, F.S.A.
First Series.
II.
THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN WISE MASTERS OF ROME.
PRINTED FROM THE EDITION OF WYNKYN DE WORDE, 1520, AND EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION,
GEORGE LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A.
LONDON: Printed for the Villon Society.
1885.
The history of the Seven Wise Masters forms an important epoch in the history of European popular stories, because it affords the most remarkable evidence of the literary descent and origin of stories, as distinct from a traditional descent. Professor Comparetti in his Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad , published by the Folk-Lore Society, Mr. Clouston in his Bakhtyar Nama and in his Book of Sindibad , two privately printed books, and Mr. Wright in his Sevyn Sages , printed by the Percy Society in 1846, have practically exhausted the literary history of this famous collection of stories. Shortly summarised from these three sources the main facts are these. There was an ancient original Indian book of stories which became so popular that it was copied frequently, and thus handed down from one generation to another. From this book two separate groups of texts have descended. To the first belong all the texts in the Eastern languages; to the other belong the Dolopathos , the Historia Septem Sapientum , the Erasto , and other numerous texts of the various European literatures of the Middle Ages. With the Eastern group of texts we have now nothing to do beyond saying that Professor Comparetti has restored, in the scholarly book above mentioned, the form of the original text for the guidance of the modern student. The Western group of texts has a history of its own quite apart from its Eastern origin. It has kept the original framework, but it has varied the setting; and this variation will be found of great interest to the student of popular tradition. Before, however, we come to this part of the subject, let us see the kind of work with which we are dealing. The framework of the romance is as follows: A young prince, falsely accused by the wife of the king, his father, of having attempted to offer her violence, is defended by seven sages, who relate a series of stories to show the deceits of women, the queen at the same time urging the death of the accused prince by the example of stories told by herself. This system of story-telling is practically the same as that adopted in the Arabian Nights . Boccaccio adopted this plan in his Decameron ; Chaucer adopted it in his Canterbury Tales .