Chap-Books
and
Folk-Lore Tracts.

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,

BY

GEORGE LAURENCE GOMME, F.S.A.

LONDON:
Printed for the Villon Society.

1885.

The history of the Seven Wise Masters forms an important epoch inthe history of European popular stories, because it affords the mostremarkable evidence of the literary descent and origin of stories,as distinct from a traditional descent. Professor Comparetti inhis Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad, published by theFolk-Lore Society, Mr. Clouston in his Bakhtyar Nama and in hisBook of Sindibad, two privately printed books, and Mr. Wright in hisSevyn Sages, printed by the Percy Society in 1846, have practicallyexhausted 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 sopopular that it was copied frequently, and thus handed down from onegeneration to another. From this book two separate groups of texts havedescended. 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 Europeanliteratures of the Middle Ages. With the Eastern group of texts we havenow[Pg ii]nothing to do beyond saying that Professor Comparetti has restored, inthe scholarly book above mentioned, the form of the original text forthe guidance of the modern student. The Western group of texts has ahistory of its own quite apart from its Eastern origin. It has kept theoriginal framework, but it has varied the setting; and this variationwill be found of great interest to the student of popular tradition.Before, however, we come to this part of the subject, let us see thekind of work with which we are dealing. The framework of the romance isas follows: A young prince, falsely accused by the wife of the king,his father, of having attempted to offer her violence, is defendedby seven sages, who relate a series of stories to show the deceitsof women, the queen at the same time urging the death of the accusedprince by the example of stories told by herself. This system ofstory-telling is practically the same as that adopted in the ArabianNights. Boccaccio adopted this plan in his Decameron; Chauceradopted it in his Canterbury Tales.

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