SEVEN WISE MASTERS. A collection of stories of Oriental origin and of wide currency in Europe in the :Middle Ages. Although the details vary, the general framework is the same in all the recensions. and is as follows: A king has his son by a former marriage reared by seven sages far from the Court. When the prince reaches manhood, his father summons him home, but a period of danger for the youth is foretold by the stars. To avert the peril, he is bidden by his teacher, with out the King's knowledge, to keep silence for seven days. During this time his stepmother accuses him before the King in revenge for his refusal to return her proffered love. The Prince is sen tenced to die. His death is delayed, however, by the seven sages. each of whom tells a story to the King of the craft of women and the danger of hasty judgment. while the Queen endeavors to offset this story by another, and urges immediate execution. This continues for seven days. At the end of this time the Prince breaks his silence, and proves his innocence. whereupon the Queen is put to death. The original of the collection is un known. An analogue exists, however, in the Sanskrit ukasaptati (q.v.), and, with a different theme, in the INalopalicavimgati (q.v). In the Arabian Nights there is an almost exact parallel in the collection entitled The Malice of Women (nights 578-606). The course of the story-cycle
is an interesting one. It wa, translated appar ently from Sanskrit into Pahlavi, thence into Arabic, from which it came into Spanish, Hebrew, and Syriac, being translated from the latter lan guage into Greek by Andreopulos. It reached the Occident apparently about the twelfth century. In 1184 or 1185 the monk Johannes de Alta Silva the modern Haut-Seille, near Nancy ) made a version entitled bolopathos, sire Histuria de Reqe et Septem Sapicntibus (edited by Oesterley, Strassburg, 1873). On this Dolopathos Herbert based his poetic version. Li Romans de Do/opathos, in the thirteenth century (edited by Brunet and Montaiglon, Paris, 1856), and closely related to this is the Old French Roman des sept sages (ed ited by Keller, Tfibing,en, 1836), based on a Latin recension now lost. A third Latin version, the Historia Septem Sapientium (edited from a man uscript of 1342 by Buchner, Erlangen, 1889), was the best known of all, and served as a basis for numerous translations in German, Dutch, French, Spanish, and English. passing from English into Armenian, Bohemian, Polish, and Russian. From a fourth Latin text (edited by Mussafia, Vienna, 1868) were derived two Italian versions.