a note in a Hebrew imitation, preserved in the British Museum, that he was at all events a principal character; “Sandabar iste erat princeps sapientum Brachmanorum Indiae, et magnam habet partem in tota hac historia." This Hebrew version is the oldest form in which the work is now extant. It was translated into that language, as we are informed in a Latin note on the manuscript, by Rabbi Joel, from the original Indian, through the medium of the Arabic or Persian.1

In point of antiquity, the second version of the parables, is that which appeared in Greek, under the title of Syntipas, of which many MSS. are still extant. Some of these profess to be translated from the Persian, and others from the Syriac language, so that the real original of the Greek translation cannot be precisely ascertained.

The next appearance was in Latin, a work which is only known through the French metrical version of it, entitled Dolopatos. This was the first modern shape it assumed, after having passed through all the ancient languages. Dolopatos was brought to light by Fauchet, who, in his account of the early French poets, ascribes it to Hebers, or Herbers, an ecclesiastic who lived during the reign of Lewis IX., as he informs us that it was written for the instruction of that monarch's son, Philip, afterwards called Philip the Hardy. Of this version there is a MS. copy in the national library at Paris.

1 Ellis's "Early Metrical Romances,” vol. iii. See also Comparetti, Ricerche intorno al libro di Sindibad, Milano, 1869. At the end of Landau's "Quellen des Decamerone" will be found a tabular statement of the stories as found in various adaptations of the Seven Wise Masters.

Comparetti shows the Greek version of the work to have been written towards the close of the eleventh century. There are grounds for beheving that this Greek translation was made from the Syrian. See Sindban, Oder die Sieben Weisen Meister Syrisch und Deutsch von F. Baethgen, Leipzig, 1879. The reader may be referred also to an analytical account of the Sindibâd-nâhmeh, by F. Falconer, in the Asiatic Journal, 1841, vol. 35, p. 169, and vol. 36, pp. 4, etc., and 99, etc.; to Benfey's Introduction to " Panchatantra ;" and to A. Mussafia's "Ueber die Quelle des französischen Dolopathos," Vienna, 1865. For a discussion of the matter see article in Romania, ii. p. 481.

* It seems to be now ascertained that Dolopathos was composed by John, a monk of Hauteseille (Alta Silva) ALbey, in Lorraine, in the

In the same library there is preserved another French MS., by an anonymous author, which was written soon after that of Hebers, but differs from it essentially, both in the frame and in the stories introduced. This work gave rise to many subsequent imitations in French prose, and to the English metrical romance, entitled the Process of the Seven Sages, which is preserved among the MSS. of the Cotton library, and of which an account has been given by Mr. Ellis, who supposes it to have been written about the year

1330.

Not long after the invention of printing, the Latin Historia Septem Sapientum, a different version from that on which the Dolopatos of Hebers is founded, was printed at Cologne, and translations of it soon appeared in almost all the languages of Europe. It was published in English prose, under the title of the Seven Wise Masters, about the middle of the sixteenth century. and in Scotch metre by John Rolland, of Dalkeith, about the same period.

The last European translation belongs to the Italians. and was first printed at Mantua, in 1546, under the title of Erastus. It is very different from the Greek original, and was translated, with the alterations it had received, into French, under the title Histoire Pitoyable du Prince Erastus, 1565, and the History of Prince Erastus, etc., was also printed in English in 1674.

This romance, through most of its transmigrations, exhibits the story of a king who places his son under the charge of one or more philosophers. After the period of tuition is completed, the wise men, when about to re-conduct their pupil to his father, discover by their skill, that his life will be endangered unless he preserve a strict silence for a certain time. The prince being cautioned on this subject, the monarch is enraged at the obstinate taciturnity of his son. At length one of his queens undertakes to discover the cause of this silence, but, during an interview with the prince, seizes the opportunity of attempting to

thirteenth century, and was subsequently versified by Hebert, Ueber die Quelle des alfranzösischen Dolopathos, Wien, 1865; Beiträge zür Litteratur der Sieben Weisen Meister, Wien, 1878. The Latin text edited by Oesterley, Strasburg, 1875.

seduce him to her embraces. Forgetting the injunctions of his preceptors, the youth reproaches her for her conduct, but then becomes mute as before. She, in revenge, accuses him to her husband, of the offence of which she had herself been guilty. The king resolves on the execution of his son, but the philosophers endeavour to dissuade him from this rash act, by each relating one or more stories, illustrative of the risks of inconsiderate punishment, which are answered by an equal number on the part of her majesty.

Such is the outline of the frame, but the stories are often different in the versions. Indeed, there is but one tale in the modern Erastus, which occurs in the Greek Syntipas. The characters, too, in the frames, are always different; thus, in the Greek version, Cyrus is the king, and Syntipas the tutor. In Dolopatos, a Sicilian monarch of that name is the king; the young prince is called Lucinien, and Virgil is the philosopher to whose care he is entrusted. Vespasian, son of Mathusalem, is the emperor in the coeval French version, and the wise men are Cato, Jesse, Lentulus, etc. The author of the English metrical romance has substituted Diocletian as the emperor, and Florentin as the son. Diocletian is preserved in the Italian copies, but the prince's name is changed into Erastus. In some of the eastern versions, the days, in place of seven, have been multiplied into forty; and in this form the story of the Wise Masters became the origin of the Tur' ish tales, published in France, under the title of L'Histoire de la Sultane de Perse et des quarante Visirs.1

Few works are more interesting and curious than the Seven Wise Masters, in illustrating the genealogy of fiction, or its rapid and almost unaccountable transition from one

An English edition by E. J. W. Gibb, 1886. As far as may be inferred from the selection of tales translated into French by Petis de La Croix, and entitled, Histoire de la Sultane de Perse et des Visirs, and from the stories subsequently translated by M. Ed. Gautier, and inserted in the first volume of his edition of the Mille et Une Nuits, Paris, 1822. the author has borrowed little more than the framework of his narrative and a few tales from Sendabad; the other stories were probably borrowed by the Arab or Turkish compiler from older sources. Loiseleur Des

country to another.' The leading incident of a disappointed woman, accusing the object of her passion of attempting the crime she had herself meditated, is as old as the story of Joseph, and may thence be traced through the fables of mythology to the Italian novelists. In the Arabian Nights Entertainments, the Husband and Peacock is the same with the Magpie of the Wise Masters. The story of the Father murdered by his son was originally told by Herodotus [ii. 121] of the architect and his son who broke into the treasury of the king of Egypt, and has been imitated in many Italian tales. [See infra, Ser Giovanni, ix. 1.] The Widow who was comforted, is the Ephesian matron of Petronius Arbiter, and the Two dreams corresponds exactly with the plot of the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, the Fabliau Le Chevalier à la Trappe, (Le Grand, 3, 156,) a tale in the fourth part of Massuccio (No. 40); and the story Du Vieux Calender in Gueulette's "Contes Tartares." a Finally, the Knight and his Greyhound resembles the celebrated Welsh tradition concerning Llewellyn the Great and his greyhound Gellert the only difference is that in the former production the dog preserves his master's child by killing a serpent, while, according to the Welsh tradition, it is a wolf he destroys. In both, the parents seeing the faithful animal

2

1 Landau suggests the following genealogy of the work:

Which, in its turn, is derived from a Greek Comedy entitled 'Aλálwv. (See Act. ii. Sc. i. v. 8.)-LIEB.

3 Quart d'heure, 101, etc. See also Keller, Romans des 7 sages, p. ccxxvii., etc., and Diokl. Leben. p. 61, etc Sercambi, nov. 13, Dolo. patos, Loiseleur Deslongchamps' "Essai sur les Fables Ind." ii. 144, etc.

covered with blood, believe that he has torn the child to pieces, and sacrifice him to their resentment.'

Next to the Seven Wise Masters may be mentioned the tales of Petrus Alphonsus, a converted Jew, who was godson to Alphonsus Ĩ., king of Arragon, and was baptized in the beginning of the twelfth century. These stories are professedly borrowed from Arabian fabulists, They are upwards of thirty in number, and consist of examples intended to illustrate the admonitions of a father to a son. The work was written in Latin, and was entitled Alphonsus de Clericali Disciplina. But the Latin copy only supplies twenty-six stories. The remainder are to be found in two metrical French versions, one entitled Proverbes de Peres Anforse; and the other Le Romaunz de Peres Aunfour, comment il aprist et chastia son fils belement.2

A few of these stories are precisely in the style of gallantry, painted by the Italian novelists. Thus the eighth tale is that of a vine-dresser, who wounds one of his eyes while working in his vineyard. Meanwhile his wife was occupied with her gallant. On the husband's return, she contrives her lover's escape by kissing her spouse on the other eye. Of this story, as we shall afterwards find, there is a close imitation in the 16th of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, the sixth of the tales of the queen of Navarre, and the twenty-third of the first part of Bandello. The ninth story of Petrus Alphonsus is that of an artful old woman, who conceals her daughter's gallant from the husband, by spreading a sheet before his eyes, in such a manner as to give the lover an opportunity of escaping unseen: this is the 122nd chapter of the Gesta Romanorum, and is also to be found in

1 See Keller, Romans, p. clxxviii., Doni, Trattato diversi de Sendabar Indiano, Venez. 1552, Tratt 4.

2 First published by Barbazan, in 1760, under their old title, Le castoiement (où instructions) d'un père à son fils.

Ct. also Gesta Romanorum, No. 122, Malaspini, No. 44, Arcadia in Brenta, etc., of Ginesio Gavardo Vacalario, Bologna, 1673. Giorno 3, p. 129, etc. Contes du Sieur d'Ouville, t. 2, p. 215. Giuseppe Orologi's "Varii Successi," published with Borromeo's "Notizie," where, as in the sixth story of the Queen of Navarre, and after her in Etienne's "Apologie pour Herodote," c. 15, 24, the husband is a retainer of Charles, Duke d'Alençon, and the second novel of Sabadino degli Arienti.