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75
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L19

iSTtlDYOFTiteltnu*'

WITH A ''°'''l,.„„v£ TO TlliJ

f^IfE-^EVEN SAGES

^joisi

USll VERSIONS

A DISSERTATION

PR-iSENTED TO THE BOARD OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES

OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OP PHILOSOPHY

KILLIS CAMI'BELl
"iiumiLV VKi^iw m wtui i^u at the joonh HoruiNa tt

BAI.TIUOUK

t ytmttms Larudaok Aawcutio>i
ISOtl

A STUDY OF THE ROMANCE OF THE SEVEN SAGES
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MIDDLE

ENGLISH VERSIONS

. '■■I

J 1

A DISSERTATION

PRESENTED TO THE BOARD OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES

OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

'r\.

KILLI8 CAMPBELL

FORMERLY FELLOW IN ENGLISH AT THE JOHNS HOPHINS UNIVERSITY

_^ I

BALTIMORE

The Modern Language Association of America

1898

>*« .

* ,,/'/|«wir.i, Vol. XIV, No. l.J

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAOB.

A Word of Introduction, --- 1

I. The Earlier History of the Romance, ..... 3

I (a). The Romance in the Orient, ..... 3

I (6). Transmission of the Romance to the Occident, - - 12

I (e). The Romance in France and Italy, .... 20

1. The Dohpathos, 21

2. The Sept Sages de Borne, 24

n. The Romance in England, - • 35

II (a), the Middle English Versions, 37

1. Description of the Manuscripts, - - - 37

2. Interrelation of the Middle English Versions, 43

3. Authorship of the Middle English Versions, - 84

4. Source of the Middle English Versions, - - 87
n (6). Sixteenth Century and Chap-book Versions, - - 91

Appendix, 94

A STUDY OF THE KOMANCE OF THE SEVEN

SAGES WITH SPECIAL KEFEKENCE TO

THE MIDDLE ENGLISH VERSIONS.

A Word of Introduction.

The main object of this study has been to investigate
thoroughly the relations of the Middle English versions of
the Seven Sages of Rome,

As preliminary to this investigation, a review of the history
of the romance in the several stages through which it has
passed before reaching English has been made. This survey,
a recapitulation of the results which modern scholarship has
attained in the study of the romance, has been made im-
partially, and with a view to set forth the most approved
views that have been held rather than to advance any new
theories of my own. Where these views are conflicting, as is
particularly the case with respect to the eastern versions, I
have endeavored to sift truth from error, though here
naturally some difficulty has been encountered. It is only
on the question of transmission of the romance that a view
differing from that of the best authorities has been taken.

The chapter on the French and the Italian versions has been
based in large part on the work of Gaston Paris, whose Deux

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

Midactiotie has superseded all previous contributions, repre-
senting as it does the moat recent and the best i-esults that have
been attained in this branch of the study of the romance.
Additions which have been made consist largely in informa-
tion as to a number of manuscripts wJiich were unknown to
Paris, or which have since been found.

The second and major part of the study has been devoted
to the Seven Sages in English. Here I have been preceded
by Petras and Buchner, the one dealing mainly with the
Middle English group, the other especially with the relations
of the Wynkyn de Worde and Rolland versions. The
dissertations of these two scholars are the only real contri-
butions which have been made to the study of the English
versions. It is therefore not surprising that many of the
current theories with regard to thrae versions are shown on
closer examination to be erroneous. The most far-reaching
of these misconceptions ia, I believe, that which regards the
Wright version as independent of all other English versions.
My investigations lead me to the conviction that at least seven
of the eight Middle English manuscripts are related to each
other through a common Middle English original,

I regret that I have been foi-ced to forego consideration of
one of the Middle English versions, — the Asloan, I was
denied access to this manuscript by its owner. Lord Talbot
de Malahide, and learned of the existence of a transcript of it
in the University Library at Edinburgh when it was too late
to avail myself of it. Prof. Varnhagen believes it to have
had an immediate basis on some Old French manuscript;
there are reasonable grounds for doubting this belief, however,
and I am unwilling to subscribe to it until a further comparison
with the remaining Middle English versions haa been made.

This study leaves undone the most interesting, if not the
most valuable part of the work I had planned, — a comparative
study of the stories themselves ; for not even the stories of
the Bidpai collection have enjoyed a wider vogue than those
of the Seven Sages. The task of tracing these in their travels

THE SEVEN SAGES. 3

f and of collecting their analogues will be attempted \a a future
[ publication, wheu it is hoped that an edition of one or more
f of the uapubliBhed Middle Englisli manuscripts may also be
I attempted.

I. The Eaeuee History op the Romance.
I (a). The Homanee in the Onent.

It ia universally held to-day that the great collection of
popular stories known in the West as the Seven Sages of Rome,
in the East as the Book of Sindibad, is of Indian origin. ^
This was well established by Deslongchamps already in 1838,
in his Esaai eur Us Fables iTidiennes' and has never since been
Beriously brought in question. The Indiaa original, however,
has not yet been discovered, nor ia it probable that it ever will
be; and it even admits of very considerable doubt whether
the romance ever existed in India in a form very near to that
in which it is first found.

All attempts, too, to show a kinship between the romanoe
and some surviving Sanskrit 8tory have proved in large part
futile. Benfey first pointed out the analogy between the
introduction to the Panlckaiantra and the framework of
the Sindibad' but he very justly concluded that the Pantaha-
ianira was indebted to the Sindibad rather than the Sindibad
to the Panichalantra. In a later publication,* he called atten-
tion to the similarity between the Sindibad and the l^nd
of Kunala and Asoka, and Caaael has boldly assumed this
legend to be the ultimate basis of the romance.'

The story of Kunala is widely known in Sanskrit litera-
'. Asoka, a famous Indian king, had, after the death of
first wife, married one of the latter's attendants. The

' Published at Paris, t83S, in coojimctioD with Lerou de lAacfi edi-
on of ibe Sept Saga dt Rome.
'FanUhatantra, Leipzig, 1359, t. § 8; also SISangtt AiiaL, ni, p. 1B8£

U ml Oeddmi, in, p. 177 f.

'^amdbad, BerliB, ISeS, pp. 10 f., 62.

4 KILLIB CAMPBELL.

new queen had been rejected previous to this by Kunala,
the son of Asoka by another wife, and bore in consequence the
greatest hatred toward him. The prince is sent by Asoka to
one of the provinces to put down a rebellion, where he wins
great distinction for himself. In the meantime the king is
stricken with a fatal disease, and determines to recall the
young prince and place him on the throne. The queen,
realizing what this would mean to her, offers to cure the king
provided he grant her one favor. Having been restored to
health through her agency, the king agrees to grant her what-
ever she may desire. She asks to be permitted to exercise
supreme authority for seven days, during which time, at her
instigation, the prince's beautiful eyes ^ are put out. Kunala
subsequently presents himself before his father in the guise
of a lute-player, and is recognized. The queen is burned in
expiation of her crime.^

Such in brief outline is the legend, which, if it is indeed
the ultimate origin of the Sindibdd, at least does not suggest
, an obvious relation to it.
^ Abundant proof of a Sanskrit origin of the Sindibddy how-
ever, is had in the nature or content of its stories and, in
particular, of its framework, which is distinctly Buddhistic.
Cassel has treated this aspect of the problem at great length.^
He would concede as the result of his investigations that some
of the many varying stories were not found in the hypotheti-
cal original, and that no one of the extant versions faithfully
represents this original. Nor is it strange that this should be
the case, for it would be a very miracle had the collection
remained intact throughout a possible half-dozen redactions.
It is, accordingly, impossible to determine which of the stories
were in the original, or which not; this, for the present at
least, must remain largely a matter of conjecture. Still, this

^ Cf. Mischle Sindbad, p. 10.

• For further details of this legend, see Burnouf, Introduction oi Vhhtoire
du Bvddhisme indien, Paris, 1844, pp. 144 f., 406.
' MischU Sindbad, ^. S2 {.

THE SEVEIT fiAGES.

mucb may be accepted as established, that some of the original
Btories, the ethical purpose, and many of the general charac-
teristics of the Indian prototype have been preserved.

The Eastern group comprises a Hebrew, a Syriac, a Gi^eeb,
an Old Spanish, two closely related and a thiixi somewhat
anomalous Persian, and three cognate Arabic versions. All
these differ more or less from each other, but, as compared
with the Western group, with which tiiey have in common
only four stories and the fi-amework, they distinctly stand
apart and make up a separate group. There are many
important details in which the two groups differ, but the
most marked features which characterize the Eastern group
are, first, that each sage fells tjoo tales as against one each in /
the western versions' — a feature which was probably not
in the Sanski-it original; and, secondly, in contradistinction to
the entire western group with the exception of the Dolopntkos,
that the prince has only one instructor, the philosopher Sindi-
bad. This illustrious teacher is the central figure of all
verBiona in the East, where by general cooaent the romance
is called after him the Book of Sindibad.^

The origin of the name SintUbdd is in dispute. Benfey
traces it back to *Siddkapall,^ Teza to *Sid<lhapala;* Cassel,
on the contrary, helds that the word was coined first after
leaving India, and is neither SiddhapaM nor Siddkapcda, but
*Sindubadhjdja := Indian teacher.'

The name of the prince has not been preserved, but the
king is named in each one of the representative eastern texts.
Id the Syriac and the Greek he is called Kurus; in the Old

' This is the case in all eastern versions save the Seven Yaire and the
version of Nachshebi: in Che former some sages tell one, some tvro stories;
in the latter each sage lella only one.

* Prof. Rhys Davids in his work on the Jdtakai {Biiddhiit Birth Storia,
£oBton, 1880, vol, i, pp. zli, xciv) seems to have confounded this romance
with the story of Sinbad ike Sailor of the Arabian Ni^hti. The two are in
no way related.

'Fa-ntchaianlra, I, g 5 (p. 23).

'It Lihro dei Sale Saty, ed. D'Ancona, Pisa, 1864, p. 5

' MiscMc Sindbad, p. 66.

KILLI8 CAMPBELL

SpaDish, jI^cos, which may be considered a variant of Kurus
(Al-Ctittis), since the Spanish holds very closely with the
Greek and Syriac, and goes back to the same original. The
Hebrew version, on the other hand, calls the king Pai Pur,
or, as Benfey has snggested, Kai (king) Pur, and Cassel
would identify this Pur with the Indian king Porus, ruler
of India at the time of the Alexandrian invasion, and third
before King Asoka of the Kunfila story. Porns, Caasel
maintains, is a substitution for the less famous Asoka of the
original — a transference of the Asoka tradition to Porua.^
The Kurus of the Greek and Syriac he would explain in like
manner as a similar transference, after leaving India, from
Porus, or Asoka, to the far-famed Cyrus of the Persians.*

The route of transmission from India westward is very
generally assumed to have been through Pahlavi into Arabic.'
There seems to be little evidence, however, of the existence of
a Pahlavi version, unless the current tradition to that eSect,
or the fact that the Kalila via Dimna had such an inter-
mediate stage, be reprded as such. Hence Cassel takes a
radically different view from that generally held, maintaining
that the lost Arabic text goes back not to a Pahlavi but to
a Syriac version, which, in its turn, goes back to the San-
skrit, — the collection, then, having been transmitted westward
through the agency of the Manicheans in the third or fourth
century of our era.* The Hebrew and the lost Arabic versions
he conceives to be coordinate redactions of this early Syriac
version, finding support of this theory, so far as it concerns
the Hebrew text, in the Syriac influence which the language
of the latter exhibits. At the same time, although he thus
claims for the Hebrew version the greatest antiquity of any
text which has been preserved, Cassel admits that, in addition
to the Syriao influence, the Hebrew text also contains traces
of a Greek influence (as, for instance, in the names of the

'Jiii, pp. 63, 212. '/iti;., p, 61.

'So Comperetti, Noldeke, Clouston, and others.
*Mwi!kU iHiMttod, pp. 61, 310.

THE SKVEJf SAGES.

sages),^ which is of itself sufficiently indicative of the lack of
conclusive proof of bis thesis.'

The Arabic text, unlike the early Syriac, is in no way
hypothetical, but the evidence that it ODce existed, even as
late as the thirteenth century,* is conclusive. Its influence
haa been very wide, and, until Cassel, it has been generally
assumed to be the source, either mediate or immediate, of the
entire Eastern group. The Syriac Sindban and the Old
Spanish version are believed to be its closest representatives-
Its author, according to the testimony of the introduction to
the Syntipas, was a certain Musa, and its date has been con-
jecturally placed by Noldeke * and others in the eighth century.

Only ten versions belonging to the Eastern type have sur-
vived. These are the Hebrew Miachle Sindbad, the Syriao
Smdian, the Greek Synlipas, the Persian Sindtbdd-nameh and
its source, the text of As-8amarquandi, the Old Spanish lAbro
de los Engannos, the three Arabic versions of the S&iefii Fmrs,
and the eighth night of the TuH-ndvieh of Nachshebl."

The relative age of these is not definitely knowD. Early
scholars as a rule held that the Hebrew version antedated all
others ; but this view was summarily rejected by Comparetti *
and his followers, who claimed greatest antiquity for the
Syntipas, a distinction of which it was robbed by Rodiger's
discovery of the Syriac version. The Nachshebi vei-aion has
also been held to be the oldest,' and Clouston in recent years

'These are, accordiag io Cafsel (p. 219 f.), SindibaJ, Hippocrates, Apu-
leios, Luciao, Arislotle, Pindar, and Homer,

'MitchU Sindbad, pp. 222, 310.

^The Old Spanish veraion was made from il in l'J53.

*Iu his review of BaethgeD'a edition of [he Sindhan in ZeilachH/t d, d,
Morg. QailUehafl, zxxni, p. 513.

'AU these, witli the exception of the text of As-Samarqaandi, have been
rendered acccBaible either in the- original or in IransJationa, and in most
ises in both.

'Comparelii, Book afSmdUtdd,f, 53 f. Citation is made from the English
translation by Coote. for the Folk Lore Soey^ London, 1882. The original
Bictrche appeared at Milan in 1869.

' firockhaua for exiunple.

KTT. T.TB CAMPBELL.

has contended for the Sindibud-ndmeh as representing most
closely the hypothetical original/ The result of the latest
investigation, as has been seen, is to return to the view of
early scholars, which gives to the Hebrew text first place both
as regards dat« and fidelity to the lost original. Such is
Casael's conclusion, which, although somewhat revolutionary,
is arrived at by argument which at least serves to invalidate
Comparetti's assumption that the Hebrew text stands for a
late and very free version of the romance. It ia hardly l^iti-
mate to conclude, from the circumstance that the Migchle
Sindbad stands apart from the remaining members of the
Eastern group, that it is, on that account, less faithful to
the original tradition. Nor is Comparetti's argument for the
identification of the Joel to whom the work is attributed by
Kossi and the British Museum manuscript, with the Joel
who is reported to have translated the Kalila wa Dimna into
Hebrew, and the consequent establishment of a thirteenth
centm-y date for this version, any more valid.^ At the same
time, it is to be regretted that Casse! has attained no definite
resulta as to chronology.'

The Mischle Siiidbad* contains twenty stories, three of
which, Absalom, The Disgiiised Youth-, and The Humpbacks
(amniores), appear in no other version of the Eastei'n group.
Its first three stories come in the same order as in the Syriac,
Greek, and Old Spanish versions. Other agreements which
are evident on reference to a comparative table serve appar-
ently to hold these four texts together;' this, however, ia
probably rather due to a more faithful preservation of the

' Clonston, Book o/Sindibdd [Glasgow], 1884, p. l f.

' Comparetti, Book o/Sindib^ p. 53 f. 'MUtkU Siadbad, p. 310.

'The Hebrew text has undergone the following editions: Sengelman
(with Germiui tronBlation), Halle, 1S42; Carmoly (with French traosla-
tion), Paris, 1849; and Caasel (German translation and copious notes),
Berlin, 1S88.

' For the moat complete comparative table, see Landau, Qatlkn des Drka-
meron, 2d ed., Stuttgart, 1884; aee also Cnssel, p. 382 f., and Comparetti,

THE SEVEN SAQE8,

ultimate original on the part of these than to any very close
relationship with the Hebrew, and comparison will show not
only that these tliree have much in coraraoo which doea
not appear in the Hebrew, but also that the latter has many
features (the naming of the sages, ior example) which are
peculiarly its own. Additional importance attaches to the
Hebrew test from the fact that it probably bears a closer
relation to the Western group than any other known eastern
version.^

The Syriac Sindban was discovci-ed by Rodiger in 1866,
and was published with a German translation by Baethgen in
1879.' The text is unfortunately fragmentary, especially at
the end. Although at first doubted by Comparetti, it has
been satisfactorily shown by NiJldeke to be the Syriac basis
of the Syntipas, alluded to in the prologue of the latter.' The
immediate original of the Sindban must then be the last
Arabic text of Musa. Noldeke believes it to belong to the
tenth century.

The Greek Synlipas is, in interest and inipoi-tanee, second
only to the Hebrew text. As compared with its Syriac origi-
nal, it is much more full and ornate, — an almost unfailing
characteristic of a later text. Its author was, as the prologue
establishes, a certain Michael Andreopulos and the translation
was made at the commaud of one Gabriel fiekaivvfLo^. Com-
paretti would identify this Gabriel with Duke Gabriel of
Melifene, and thus establish the date of the work as the
second half of the eleventh century ; * but this, while a gain
in a measure, is little more than a happy suggestion. Far
less probability has Cassel's proposition that the reference is
to the angel Gabriel." The text was first published by

'See the next chapter on "The Transmission of the Romance to the
Occident."

' Baethgen, Sindban, oder die Siebnt Wiiten Meitler, Leipzig, 1879. An
English translation bj U. GoUancz appeared in Folk Lort, via, p. 99 t,
June, ISQT.

'ZeilMhr. d. d. Morg. OtteUKhafl, xtxsn, p. 513 f.

' Book of Sindihad, p. 67. • MatJUe Sindbad, \). 3S8.

KILL:s CAMPBELL.

Boissonacle, and has been lately critically edited by Eberhard.'
A modern Greek adaptation of the older test is of little value
in a comparative study of the romance,'

The Libra de, las Engannon, like the Syriac text, was not
known until late in the century. It is, according to its pro-
logue, a translation from the Arabic, made in the year 1'253.
The test ih complete, but very c^orrupt. Its closest affinities
are with the Greek and Syriac versions, with both of which it
exhibits intimate agreement in content and order of stories. It
seems to have had no influence at all on modem Spanish litera-
ture. Tlie first edition of the text appeared In Comparetti'a
Riae)-che, in 1869j a second edition, with an admirable Eng-
lish translation appended, appeared in the English edition of
this book in 1882.^

The Persian Sindibdd-numeh* dates from the year 1375.
It purports to be based on a Persian prose text which goes
back to the Arabic. Clouston first suggested that this origi-
nal was the text of As-Samarquandi, which was known in the
early part of the century, but which had subsequently been
lost sight of. By the rediscovery of a manuscript of this
version in 1891, he has been enabled to establish this conjec-
ture as a fact." The As-Samarquandi test agrees closely with
the Sindibad-namek in content, the only important difference
being the substitution on the part of the latter of one or two
extraneous stories for those it found in its original. The
agreement in order of stories is close throughout. The date
of the prose test fells late in the twelfth century. It differs
considerably from the rest of the Eastern group, but is nearer

' Eberhard, Fabulm iiomaiimifa Grteci, etc., i (Teubner), Leipzig, 1872.

'For the Syntipai in later literature, see Murko, " Die Geschichte v. d.
Bieben Weiaen b. d. Slayen," Wierier Akad. Siteaiijst., PIi. Hist. CI., cssn,
No.x,p.4f.

'Book of Sindibad, pp. 7S-164.

*Thia text has not yet been edited. An abstTBct of it was given by
Falconer in the Aiiaiic Journal, kxiv, p. 169 f. and xxsvi, pp. 4 f., 99 f. ;
a. complete translation into Slngllsh appears in Clouston's Book of Sindibad.

Mlteiootm for Sept. 12, 1891, p. 355.

THE SEVEN aAOES.

to the Syriac, Greek and Spanish versioDS than to the Hebrew.
There appears to be no evidence to support Clouston's suggea-
tion that it represents the Sanskrit prototype more faithfully
than any other known version ; neither is Modi's contention
for a close relation with the story of Kaus, Sonddbeh, and
Siavash^ by any means convincing; but the tradition which
makes its origin in the Arabic test is doubtless well founded.

Under the head of tlie Sewn Vezirs fall thi-ee versions which
have been introduced into the frame of the Arabian Nights.
These are the texts of Habicht and Scott, and the Boulaq^
edition.^ They are of late composition, and of comparatively
slight value for the present purpose.

The text contained in the eighth night of Nachshebi* is
one of the most interesting of the Eastern group, and baa
given rise to much speculation. It differs considerably from
all other related versions, having but six stories, only five
of which appear elsewhere in the Eastern group. All five of
these in the fuller vei-sions are second vezir's tales, and as
they were also found originally in the Sukasaptati (though
not connected as with Nachshehi), it has been conjectured by
Comparetti that they were first introduced into the Sindibdd
after leaving India, and that Nacbshebi, observing this, again
inserted them in his free translation of the TuR-nameh, and
practically in the same form iu which he found them in the
Sindibdd.* Comparetti would further identify the collection
before and after this addition with the 'Greater' and 'Lesser'
Sindibdd referred to by the tenth century Mohammed Ibn el
Warrak. A radically different theory has been advanced by
Noldeke, who maintains that the ' Greater ' Sindibdd has been
lost,* As for the version of the Sindibdd whence Nachshebl

' Modi, Dnnte and Virqf and Oardk and Kaas, Bombay, 1 892.

'1001 Niijhts, BrBBlau, 1840, it, pp. 102-172; Scott, Tnia, AneedoUg and
jMttrs, Shrewsbury, 1800, p. 38 f. ; 1001 Nightt, Boulaq, 1863, lu, pp. 75-124.

'Brockhaus, Nach»hAVs S. W. Jtfl, Leipzig, 1845; translnwd by Tezs,
lyAncona ed. of SelU Savj., p. xxiTll f.

*Sook a/SindibSd, p. 37 f.

'ZrffwAr. d. d. Morg. OemlUcha/l, xxxiii, p. 621 f.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

drew, both Comparetti and Noldeke concur in the belief that
it was the text ou which tlie 8indibdd~^iameh was based, or
that of As-Samai'quandi. The date of the Nachahebi version
is late, as its author died in 1329.

Besides the ten versions cataloguetJ above, the existence of
certain others which have been lost is proved by sundry refer-
ences from oriental writers. A Persian text is attributed to
Azraki by Daulat Shah, and there are several references from
the ninth and tenth centuries to works which do not seem to
be identical witli anything which has been preserved. The
best-known of these, probably, is Masudi's (943) statement
that in the reign of Kurush " lived es-Sondbad, who is the
author of the book of the seven vezirs, the teacher and boy,
and the wife of the king. This is the book which bears the
name KUab-ea-Sindbad." ' A still earlier reference is that of
Al-Yaqubi (880). Both of these may refer to the Arabic
text of Musa, though this is by no means certain. Most
perplexing of all is the reference, already mentioned, to a
'Greater' and a * Lesser' Book of Sindibdd.

Doubtless many more versions have been lost than this
would indicate ; but since nearly a thii-d of the known texts
have been revealed only within the last generation, it may be
hoped that the near future has in store many revelations
which will materially serve to dispel the mist which now
surrounds almost the entire question of relations in the East.

I (6). TVansmission of the Romance to Vie Occident.

Tlie Greek Sipitipas and the Old Spanish Lihro de los
Etigaimos are the only representatives of the Eastern group
■which have arisen on European territory. Neither one of
these, however, can be considered a connecting link in the
chain of transmission ; nor can, in fact, with all certainty,
any one member of the Eastern group claim this distinction.

' Masudi, Mcadoicn of Oold, translaled by Sprecger, Loodon, 1841, p. 176.
Mnsudi was not well acquainted with the romance, as follows from the fact
thai be attributes its authorship to Sindibud.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

The question of transmiaaion is, and must doubtless always
remain, very much ehronded in darkness. The two groups,
having in common only four stories and the framework, and
having in these, also, many radical differences, cannot be
thought of as connected through free or literal translation,
nor by intermediate redactions; the only valid explanation
of the enormous gap existing between them must repose in
the assumption of a basis for the westeru origioal in popular '
tradition. This alone can explain the difference between the
two groups.

But this assumption should not carry with it (as with
Comparetti apparently; I. c, p. 2) the further assumption
that, since the medium of transmission was oral, all possi-
bility of ever determining the specific original of the Western
group is thereby done away with. Tliis need not follow at
all. The oral tradition on which the western parent version
had its basis, must itself have had some basis, and this cannot
have been the entire Eastern group, nor with any d^ree of
probability any two of its members ; it was some one member
of the Eastern group. Accordingly it is legitimate to endeavor
to determine which one of the Eastern versions is the origi-
nal, or the closest representative of the original, of the Western
group.

Modem scholars in general have refrained from any investi-
gation of this stage of the history of the romance. With a
single exception, the only judgments upon the problem date
from the earlier part of the century. Daeier, Keller, Deslong-
ch amps, Wright, D'Aucona, and others put forth claims for one
or another of the Eastern group (some for the Greek, others
for the Hebrew), as the original of the western type. But
all these claims were unsustained by any evidence adduced,
and were in every case scarcely more than conjectures. The
modem scholar who alone has put himself on record here is
Landau;^ and he is, at the same time the only one of the

' MnrcnB Laodna, Qutlkn dta Dekameran, 2d ed., Stntlgart, 1884.

KILLJ8 CAMPBELL.

whole number who has made a serious effort to sustain his
position. At the basis of Landau'a work, however, lies the
assuQiption that the Latin prose Hlstoria Septan Sapieiitum
(H) 13 the parent vereion of the Western group, — an assump-
tion which is entirely gratuitous, for surely Gaston Paris has
succeeded iu demonstrating that H is not the original western
text ; while the majority of Landau's ai^umenta therefore hold
also in a comparison of the oldest tests with the Eastern
group, it is in view of this fundamental misconception on his
part that he has in reality proved nothing more than that the
fourteenth century Hisloria is nearer the Hebrew than to any
other eastern version.

With the proof of the unoriginality of S, the question
as to the nearness of the various sub-types of the western
group to the parent version has been left open. The oldest
text preserved is the Dolopathos; hut this is a nniqne version,
and, as will be shown in the next chapter, cannot with the
I: probability be looked upon as the western original,
though it is assuredly connected in some way with the pre-
vailing type of the Western group, the Seven Sages of Rome,
Next to the Dolapalkos the Seaki Cbeli {S) and Keller (A'^
texts have been treated as the oldest by the latest and best
authorities ; to these, in view of its prime importance and the
uncertainty as to its relations, we should like to add the type
A*} No proof of the priority of any one of these has yet been
brought forward; moreover, the earliest dating proposed for
any of them is the first half of the thirteenth century. We
may begin, then, with the assumption that the immediate
parent version of the Western group has been lost. At the
\ time, since the Dolopathos^ which dates from the last
quarter of the twelfth century, is evidently based on some
version of the prevailing western type, we may assume for

' The Old French veraions A, G, D ol Paris (Deux Redactuna) have been
"starred" throughout io order to avoid oonfuBion with the Middle English
(M, E.) veraions J, QH.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

this lost original a. date not later than the middle of the
twelfth century,

A twelfth century origiual having been assumed for the
Western group, the lAbro de los Engaimos (xiii cent.), the
Sindihad-nameh (xrv cent,), aud the Seven Vezirs {very late)
may be eliminated from the investigation ; likewise the unique
text of Nachshebi for reasons that are obvious. There remain
the Misohte Sindbad, the Sindban, and the SytUipas, no one
of which can be dated later than the eleventh century, if
we accept Cassel's view as to the comparative antiquity of
the Hebrew text. Further, since the western original of the
Western group has been lost, comparison can be made with
the latter only on the basis of the constant elements appearing
in its most ancient versions, — S, K, A.* Accordingly, the
comparison must be instituted between tlie Hebrew, Syriac,
and Greek versions, on the one band, and 8, K, A* on the
other.

The framework of the romance has undergone a radical
change in the course of its transmission westward. There is
no longer mention of a philosopher Sindibad, but the seven
sages of Rome become the central figures, and play the double
r6le of instructors and defenders of the prince. Simdry other
characteristic features of the Eastern group, such as the prince's
early stupidity, the multiplicity of the king's wives, etc., have
been lost; but the most far-reaching change consists in the
curtailment of stories, each sage telling only one story in
the Western group as against the prevailing number of two
in the Eastern,

In these variations the Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac versions
present essential agreement; but there are several features in
which these three texts do not agree, and it is significant here
that where the Western group preserves auy of these features,
it is always in agreement with the Hebrew, and in no single
instance with the Greek or the Syriac.

KILUS CAMPBELL.

The following features peculiar to the Hebrew text as
compared with the rest of the Eastern group reappear in the
oldest western versionB : ^

(1). The seven sages are not referred to simply as such,
but are mentioned fjy name^ (Landau, p. 48).

(2). They vie in their efForts to secure the office of instructor
of the prince' {Landau, p. 48).

(3). These sages, and not the vezirs or counsellors of the
king as with the rest of the Eastern group, relate the stories
which preserve the prince's life ' (Landau, p. 48).

The mode of punishment of the guilty queen offers nothing
determining. The eastern texts have little in common here

'All tbese Eeveral bits of argument adduced here and on tbe follomog
pages, with tbe eiceptioo of those under the story avis, have been advanced
by Landau (pp. 47- 50) ; in addition lo these, owing to his false bypotheeU
of the originality of ZT, Ltindau has lunde use of two other features in which
/f agrees with the Hebrew text versus the remainder of the Eastern gronp,
but which must be cancelled, since they are also peculiar to H. These are
(1) the diflgnUed-yonth incident of -H, which Landau (p. 43 f.))ncUae3 to trace
back to the seventeenth stOry of the MisMe Sindhad, and (2) amafores, the
twelfth fitory of tbe HUloria, which is ulUmalely the same as the Hebrew
Btoryof Vae HTi-aehbaela I.M. S 18; tee B&iier, Lea B'abliavx, Paris, 1893, p.
201 f.). Neither of these appears in any other western version, whence
the only legitimate inference that they were not in the lost western original,
but are late incorporations on the part of Jf into the frame of the collection.

'This, a characterisiic feature of the Western group, appears in all
westora texts save those (as S) which have been abridged. The names
of the sages in the Mixhie Sindbad are Sindibad, Hippocrates, Apuleius,
Lucian, Aristotle, Pindar, and Homer (Casset, p. 253) ; in the Western
group, Baacillos, Ancilles, Malquidras, Lentulus, Caton, Jesse, and Meros.
For variants of these, see Landau, Qaellen dee DelcamtTon, p. 60 n.

' In the Hebrew (see Cassel, p. 2-55 f, ) one proposes to instruct him in
five years, another in two years, a third in one year, — -and finally Sindibad
offers to make him wisest of all men in sis months. The term of years
proposed by the sages in tbe western versions varies from seven to one.

'Carmoly (p. ti5) states expressly that these were the king's counsellors,
and not tbe sages, who, he says, were now in hiding to avoid the king's
anger; but, as Landau (p. 48) points out, the sage Aristotle is referred to
by name at the end of the thinl story an having saved the prince's life by
his stories on tbe preceding day (Cassel, p. 267); accordingly, although
there is a alight confusion, it is evident that Carmoly is in error.

THE SEVEN SAGES,

beyond the bare outline. In the Greek and As-Samarquandl
texts, the woman is condemned to wander through the streets
on an ass, with her head shaved and her face soiled, and with
two oriera proclaiming her shame. In the Hebrew text, she
is, at the prince's request, pardoned unconditionally. The
Syriac text is fragmentary here. Of the western feature of
condemning the queen to die the death prepared for the
prince, there seems to be no hint in the eastern versions.

A comparison of the four stories (canis, aper, avis, and
wnescalctts) common to the two main groups also shows many
variations, but here, too, where the Misohk Sindbad difFers
from the Syntipae and other versions of the Eastern group, it
will be seen to accord in several particulars with the Western
group.

(1). Oanig. The story cani^, the only one found in all
versions of the Sefven Sages, both eastern and western, exhibits
in the earliest western versions no noteworthy variations from
the prevailing type of the story in the East, In the ^ndihad-
ndmeh it is a w^sel or ichneumon which attacks the sleeping
child ; in all other versions it is a snake. The child is left in
charge of nurses in the western versions, a feature entirely
foreign to the Eastern group. The derivative types, Dolo-
■paihos and Hisioria, introduce a bird {Dolap., a goshawk;
S, a falcon) which wakes the child on the snake's approach.
This and several other additions, especially to the Dolopathos,
are not found in the types 8, K, and A*, a circumstance which
well warrants the inference that they were not in the western
parent version.

(2). Aper. This story, like eanis, has been subjected to
considerable alteration in the course of transmission, — e, g., in
the East, the boar comes to his death as the result of holding
up his head in the expectation of more fruit {the sinews drying
up) ; in the West, he is slain by the shepherd, who, descending
the tree until in reach of him, " claws " him on the back until
he falls asleep, and then dispatches him with his knife. But

KILUS CAMPBELL,

the special value in the collation of this story lies io the fact
that the Hebrew test coincides with the West«m group in
having a man chased up the tree, while in the remaining eastern
versions it is a monkey who thus flees from the boar. This
coincidence, first notefl by DesIongchamj^B (I. c, p, 110 n.),
is one of the most striking agreements of lie Hebrew text with
the Western group.

(3). Seae«ixilGUt. A comparisoQ of the various versions of
seTtescahus reveals no eastern motive reproduced in the West
which is not common to the entire Eastern group. The
western version of the story agrees iu general outline with
the eastern, but is distinguished from it by the introduction
of even more objectionable details than those which characterize
its oriental original. The western texts vary in the method
of punishing the seneschal: in S he is hanged; in K, A*,
and the prevailing sub-groups, he is banished by the king on
pain of death in case he return. In the East the bathmau
(= seneschal) dies by his own hand.

(4). Avia, The essential features of this famous story have
been preserved remarkably intact thoughout all versions.
There are, however, two features which occur in the East
only in the Misckle Sindbad which have been preserved in
the western tests. These are (1) that the wife goes on the
kouse-top in order to sprinkle water over the bird's cage, and
(2) that she is aided and abetted in her efforts to deceive the
bird by her maid. Of the first of tliese we have in no other
eastern version any hint ; likewise, for the second, there is no
real suggestion in any of the Eastern group besides the Misehle
Svn^ad, for, although there is mention elsewhere of the maid,

og been suspected of informing on her mis-
the rfile assigned her in the Hebrew and

it is only as havi
tress, and never
the western versi

' The argumenls made bj Laadau under avu are not valid. That tlie
bird speakfi Hebrew us well as Latin, is not true of any of the oldest
western yeraions, but appears to be peculiar to H; while the argument
from the killing of the bird in H and the Hebrew teit is altogether in-

THE 8EVEN SAGES.

To recapitulate then, the features peculiar to the Hebrew
and the oldest western texts are as follows ;

(1). The seven sages are mentioned by name.

(2). Tiiere is a rivalry between the sages in their efforts to
secure the tntelage of the prince.

(3). The sages, not the king's counsellors, defend the prince.

(4). In aper, the adventure happens not to an ape, but to a
man,

(5). In avis, (a) the deception is practised on the bird
through an opening in the house-top, and (b) the maid appears
as an assistant of the faithless wife.

A comparison with the Syntipas fails to bring out any
feature exclusively common to it and the Western group.
The same holds for the Syriac and later versions. The
question is then narrowed down to the significance of the
agreements between the Hebrew and the western tests. Are
they only accidental, or have they a real significance? Cer-
tainly they do not prove a direct relationship between the
Hebrew and any western version, as Deslongchamps and
Landau have maintained ; nor are they sufficient to justify
the thought of a connection of the Eastern and Western groups
through intermediate literary stages ; indeed, they yield no
oonolusive proof of anything with regard to the problem of
relationship. Nevertheless, they are in a measure significant ;
though some of them are in all probability accidental, yet it
does not seem possible that all of them can be mere coinci-
dences. They justify, at least, the negative conclusion that
neither the Syviipas (nor the Sindbav) wa.s the eastern original
whence sprang the tradition which culminated in the parent
veraion of the Western group. And while they do not prove
the Hebrew text to represent this eastern original, they-
do, nevertheless, establish this as a probability, with the
only other alternative in the supposition that the eastern
original of the Western group has been lost.

valid, since the lame feature ifl found in all eastern versions s
S^nh'ptw, and would be in any case of little value tor the purpose ti
Landau would put it, since it is a simple and natural variation,

ve tbe

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

I (c). The Romance in France and Italy,

Between the eastern and western types of the Seven Sages,
as has been seen, there is a very wide difference. Four of the
original stories and the main outline of the eastern framework
have been preserved in the western versions, but, as Comparetti
has aptly said, " there is no eastern version which differs so
much from the others as the whole Western group differs from
the Eastern, whether it be in the form of the fundamental
story or in the tales which are inserted in it." In explanation
of this wide difference a basis has been assumed for the Western
group in oral accounts.

Where these oral accounts first took literary form has not
been, and probably never will be, satisfactorily determined.
Some have maintained an origin on Latin territory; but the
probabilities favor a French origin, though it is more than
possible that the parent version was written in the Latin

The oldest form, apparently. Under which the weSt*m type
has come down to us is the Dolopathos. There can be little
doubt, however, that the more widely known Sept Sages de
Rome, of which there survive many manuscripts dating from
a period but a little later than that of the earliest version of
the Dolopathos, preserves more nearly the form and contents
of the western parent version. And it is under this form that
the romance has acquired its marvellous popularity in France,
whence it has penetrated into nearly every other country of
Europe,

With regard to the relationship of these two forms or groups
under which the romance apjiears in the West, early scholars
were very much in error. For a long time it was believed
that the poetical version of the Dolopathos found its source in
the Latin prose Historia Septan Saplentum -f^ again, it was
always assumed as fundamental that the Hiatoria antedated

' The most widely known of all

THE SEVEN SAGES.

and was the ultimate western original of the entire Western
group, — these two misconceptions pervaded the entire litera-
ture on the romance during the first half of this century. The
error of the first was first shown by Montaiglon in 1856,' and
its utter absurdity was conclusively proved a few years later
by Oesterley's discovery of the Dolopathos of Johannes, from
which Herbert had made his poem.* The second was current
even until the appearance of Gaston Paria's D^ix RSdaciiotia'
in 1S76, in which the comparatively recent date of the Hie-
toria, and its immediate dependence on A*, has been placed
beyond question.

1 . The DotopaihoK, — The DolopcUhos exists in two versions,
the Latin prose of Johannes de AltaSilvaaud theOld French
poem of Herbert. The latter is pi-eserved, so far as is known,
in but three manuscripts;' of the former, there are known,
besides the original manuscript discovered by Oesterley, three
late copies pointed out by Mussafia,' an Innsbruck,* and
a British Museum MS.'

'Id the preface to his edition of the Herbert versioD: Li Romam de
Dolopathoe, ed. Bmaet and Montaiglon, Paris, 1866.

'Tills manuscript was discovered bj Ocsterle7in 1ST3, and was published
bj bim in the same year: Juhanaia de Alia Sitva Di^opaJios . . . ., Strasbnrg.
See reviewB by Paris, Romania, u, p. 481 f. ; by Studetnund, Z.f. d. A., xvn,
p. 415 f. and xviii, p. 221 f. ; and by Kohler, Jahrb. f. ram. u. engl Lil.,
xm, p. 323 f. Several manuacripta discovered by Mussalia ( Wiener Akad.
SUoiag^., Ph. HiaL CI., Ktvill, p. 246 f., 1864) prior to this, and at first
EQpposed to be original, were soon shown to be fifteenth century copies
of the older manoscript.

•Published in the Soe. d. Ane. Ttxtafr. for 1876. For the Hiooria, see
pp. xxviii-xuu.

< See Paris in JComanio, ii, p. 503. A. leaf of a fourteenth century UB. of
the Herbert version has been lately acquired by the Bibtioth^ue Natioimle
—Naat. Aeq.fr. 934, No. 6 (BuHelm de la Soe. d. Anc. Tateifr., for 1896, p.
71 f.). See also Haupfs AUd. Bldlter, i, p. 119 f., for a German version of
BJx stories of the Dolopalhoi.

^See Wiener Akad. SitaingiA., Ph. Hiat. CI., XLViii, p. 246 f.

'Also brought to light by Oesterley,

' Usually overlooked ; see Ward, Catologae of Bomaneei, London, 1893, u,
p. 228 f.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

Johannes de Alta Silva, the author of the Latin original,
was a Cistercian monii of the monastery of Haute Seille. His
work bears the title Dolopalkos, slve Opusaiium de rege et
iepiem Sapientibus. It was dedicated to Bishop Bertrand of
Metz, who had jurisdiction over the monaatery of Haute Seille
from 1184 (when it was transferred from the see of Toul to
the see of Metz) to 1212, during which period, since Johannes
would naturally dedicate to his own bishop, we may safely
place the composition of his work. Paris favors a dating
between 1207 and 1212 {Romania, u, p. 501).

The Old French poem of Herbert was made from the Latin
prose text of Johannes toward the end of the first quarter of
the thirteenth century (Montaiglon, 1223-1226 ; Paris, before
1223).

This type of the romance differs from all other western
types in having only one instructor for the prince. For this
reason it has been conjectured that it was founded on some
oriental original, but there is no real evidence in support of
this. In the suppression of the queen's stories, a feature in
which it agrees with the Nachshebx version, equally as little
indication of an immediate eastern original is to be found.

The Dolopatkoe has only one story (eania) in common with
the Eastern group, and inasmuch as this, together with three
other of its stories {gaza, puieus, and inctusa), is also found in
the Sept Sages de Rome, it is reasonably certain that the monk
Johannes was acquainted with some version of the latter type.^
There is only one alternative supposition, viz. that both types
grew up independently of each other and almost contempo-
raneously, the one drawing only one story from the traditions
brought from the East, while the other drew this and three
others in addition, — with the further coincidence that both
receive, as the result oi' like influence and environment, three
stori^ {gaza, pvieua, and induBa) in common which were not

' See Comparetti to the contrary ; Vergil in iA« Middle Agea, translated by
Benecke, London, 1895, p. 234 f.

THE SEVEN SAQES.

in the eastern framework. That such was the case is, to say
the least, very improbable.

But, in any case, the prose Dohpathos was made not from
written, but from oral sources. This is expressly stated by
its author — who says he wrote n<m ut vUa, sed ut audita— and
is borne out by the introduction of the Lohengrin story, which
appears here for the first time,' as well as by the variations to
which both framework and stories have been subjected.

The poetical version of Herbert is based directly on the
Latin prose version of Johannes. It contains many details
and several important episodes which do not appear in the
text discovered by Oesterley, chief among which additions are
(1) the story indusa, which has been fused with puteus in
the poem, and (2) a very interesting episode with which gaza
has been supplemented. Gaston Paris' thinks that these were
contained in Herbert's original, which he believes to have
been an enlarged copy of the first draft of the work as seen
in the Oesterley manuscript ; but whether they are to be thus
explained, or are to be attributed to the independence of the
poet, has not yet been definitely settled.

The Herbert version is very long, containing nearly 13,000
lines. In both length and style it stands in striking contrast
to the Keller metrical version of the Sepl Sages de Rome (JC)'
which, although it has nearly twice as many stories, has only
5,060 lines. The Dolopathos has an introduction of about
4,800 lines where K has but 68.

The king in this branch of the Western group bears the
name Dolopathos, and rules over the island of Sicily. The
prince is called Lueinius. Before his birth it is predicted that
he will become very wise, but will undergo many hardships,
and will ultimately become a worshipper of the true God.

' See Todd, La Witgsance du Oheoolier au Cygne, Introdnction, p, m f., in
Prihliealiima of the Mod. Lang. Asmu ofAmtriea., vol. iv, 188B. See also Paries
leview Id Royamaa, xiE, p. 314 f.

' Romania, It, p. 500.

' See the dissertation of Ehrel, Der Vrrfaaer dt» Ronum da Stpl Sages and
HtrbtTt, Heidelberg, 1886.

KILLIS CAMPBELL,

The prince's instruction begins when lie has reached the age
of seven. He is sent to Rome, and put under the care of the
poet Vergil, whose figure is supreme thrpughout the romance,
and gives to it one of its strongest claims ujion our interest.'
The sages, who ai-e, owing to Vergil's prominence, placed
somewhat in the background, come up as in the other western
versions, one each day and in a most mysterious fashion, —
always just in time to save the prince's life. The prince
relates no story at all, but Vergil tells the eighth and last.
The order of stories ia as follows : (1) cants (Dog and Snake),
{2) gaza (King's Treasury), (3) senes [Best Friend), (4) credilor
(the Pound of Flesh episode of the Merchant of Fejiice),^ (5)
nduaefilius (Widow's Son), (6) latronis filius (Master- Thief),
(7) cygni eqiies (the fabled origin of Gfodfrey de Bouillon), (8)
indusa-puteus (ISoo Dreams and Husband Shut Oui)?

2. The Sept Sages de Rome, — The Sept Sages de Rome, in
contradistinction to the Dolopaihos, comprises a very large
number of more or less closely related versions. Probably
one hundred manuscripts of its type are already known, and
many others, we may be sure, remain to be revealed by further
research. The immediate source whence these have sprung
has not come down to us. The date, too, of the parent ver-
sion is uncertain, but, in view of its influence on the Dolopaihos
and the comparatively large number of thirteenth century ver-
sions, it must be placed as early as 1150, and it may fall in a
time considerably anterior to this.

The normal number of stories in this branch is fifteen; of
these the queen relates seven, the seven sages one each, and

'SeeComparetti, Vtrgiiin the MidniU Agts, p. 232 f.

'Ward, Gatatogux of Boraanca, ii, p. 122, makes the slight oversight of
BSBerting that the caaket-epLsode of the Merchant of Vcaict ie also intro-
duced iota the Dolopalhoe,

^Tliese Btories have had a wide currency, and, in several instances, a
most interesting history. For the fullest collections of analogues to them,
Bee the editions of Montaiglon-Brunet and Oesterley, and the appendix \a
the latler'a edition of the Oesia Bonutnoruin.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

the prince the fifteenth. The scene of action is prevailingly
Bome, though in two instanceB — K and D — it is Constanti-
nople.' The emperor's name is Diocletian.'

The interrelation of the various sub-types into which the
Sept Sages fells has been the subject of almost continuous
investigation for more than half a century. The first serious
attempt at an orderly classification was made by Goedeke in
1866 (Orient und Occident, ni, p. 402 f.). He was followed
two years later by Mussafia,' in a study which possesses great
merit, and which served very much to clear the way for sub-
sequent investigation. But it is to Gaston Paris above all
that credit is due here for bringing order out of chaos. The
Preface to his Deux RBtlaciions is by far the roost significant
contribution to the study of the Seven Sages which has yet
been made, and leaves but the one regret that he has not
extended his investigations so as to include the problems of
the origin and propagation of the romance. It goes without
saying that the excellence of Paris's work has been recognized
on all sides, and that his coDclusions have been almost uoi-
versally adopted.

Paris classifies in five sub-groups, as follows:

1. S. The Scala Coeli abridgment published by Goedeke.

2. K. The well known metrical version of Keller.

3. H. The very large group, of which the Historia is the
type.

4. 7. The Veraio Itaiica.

5. French prose versions (other than H), including A*,
L, D* ( V), and M.

1. S. The first of these, the test contained in the Soala
Coeli, a compilation of the early fourteenth century by the
Dominican Johannes Junior, is a Latin prose abridgment of a
lost Liber de Septem Sapieidibua. For the latter, Goedeke

' This is only partly true of D; see Paris, Don: Efdaelionx, p. 1.

'There are several eitceptiona to this: in £~ he is called Vespasian ; in
D*, Marcomecis, son of Priam (1); in S, PontianuB,— the name Diocletian
being transferred to the prince.

' WiewT Akad. SiUungib., Ph. Hisl. CI., Lvn, p. 37 f.

So KILIJS CAMPBELL.

(who has published the text according to the Scala Coeli in
Orient u. Occident, m, p. 402 f.) eonjeeturea a date in the first
half of the thirteenth century. An extract in the Sitmma
Reurealorum (xv cent.), which agrees very closely with S, has
been pointed out by Mussafia (Wiener Akad. SUzungsb., Ph,
Hist. CI., Lvii, p. 83 f ).

S differs materially from H, and is almost as &.T from K
and D*. It Btands nearest to X, having in common with it
the two stories JUia and noverca in the place of Roma and
inclusa of the remaining types. The agreement with D*, in
that the queen is defended on the last day by a champion, is
doubtless a mere coincidence (Paris, i. o., p. viii). Its only
influence seems to have been that exercised on L. For
Goedeke's claim that it is the closest extant representative
of the western original no sustaining argument has yet been
brought forward.'

2. H. The type of the second group is the well-known
Historia Seplem Sapientum Romae, Buchner' enumerates six-
teen manuscripts in which the Historia haa been preserved.
Its first edition appeared at Cologne in 1472, and the bibli-
ographers report many of subsequent date. The latest edi-
tion, and only nineteenth century reprint, is that of Buchner.^
An Old French ti-auslation, printed at Geneva in 1492, has
recently been republished by Paris as the second text of
his Deux Reactions (pp. 55-205). The Historia Calumnia
Novercali (Antwerp, 1496) differs from it mainly in the
omission of all Christian features.

The Histoiia is by far the most widely known of all
western versions, having had equally as great a vogue in
some other European countries — Germany for instance — as in
France. In English the Wynkyn de Woi-de text (to which .

' Ward, Catalogiie if Rontaneei, n, p. 200, orroneoualy atales that Paris
upholds Ooedeke here.

' Ertanger BeUrage tur cnytiteken Philologic, v, p. 1. Of these six were
first pointed out by Paris, I. e., p. sssix, — eight hy Varnhagen, Eine Hal.
Protavenion d. Sid>en Weuen, p. xv.

'Erbmg. Beilr,, v, pp. 7-BO. An Innsbruck MS. which dates from 1342.

THE SHYEN SAGES.

the many English chap-book versions owe their origin), the
Copland, and the Roiland versions found in it their ultimate
original. With the Germans the Historia type is practically
the only one which has found acceptance, and the number of
versions, either in Latin or German, which are contained in
their libraries is very large.' It is under this form, also, that
the romance has acquired its popularity in other Germanic
and in the Slavonic laoguages.^

The history of opinion with regard to this type of the
romance possesses much interest. Until quite recently, as has
been seen, H was supposed to be the oldest member of the
Western group. Goedeke, in 1866, was the first to break
with this tradition, but without showing why. Paulin Paris
followed in 1869, throwing the question open.' Comparetti,
also, in the same year, expressed the opinion that H was far
from repPKienting the western original.* The matter was not
satisfactorily cleared up until the appearance of Gaston Paris's
book in 1876. The results of Paria's investigation (I. c, p.
XXVIII f.) are to entirely dethrone H from the position which
had been traditionally accorded it, and to establish for it a
date in the first half of the fourteenth century, and an im-
mediate basis on type A*.^

The distinguishing features of H, aside from its slight
difference from A* in the order of stories, are the introduction

' For the first general diacnssion of the romance in Germany, see the
preface to Keller's Li. Ronvme dot Sept Saga, Tubingen, 1837. A more
comprehensive discnEBion of the German yereions accompsnies his edition
of the Hans von Biihel metrical verKion, DifKiedaivas LeJien (Quedlinhnrg,
1841).

'Keller enumemtes veraiona, either in manUBcript or in print, in Dutch,
WeUh, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Hungarian, Russian, and Arme-
nian; see the prefaces to his two editions cited above. See, also, Murko,
"Die Geachichte v. d. Sieben Weisen b. d. Staven" in WimtrAkad. Sit-
TOTigsfi., Ph. Hist. CI., cixn, 1890, and " Beitr. zur Teitgesch. d. H. S. S."
in ZdUetiT.f, vergl. Lii.-ge>eh., pp. 1-34, 18S2.

• Bmioph. FVanpiis, iv, p. 69 f. ' Booh of Sindibad, p. 47.

'It ia hard to see how Landau, Qacilen da Dekanteron, 2d ed., p. 51 f.,
and a, few others, can still persist in their adherence to the old view.

KIIJJ8 CAMPBELL.

of the atoriea amaiores and amid {the latter appended to
vaiidnium), the fusion of seneaciUcua and Roma, and its
unusual mass of detailB.

3. K. The Old French metrical version, ZA Romans des
Sept Sages, was published by Keller, at Tiibmgen, in 1836.
Of this version there exists only one complete manuscript, to
which its editor gives a date in the late thirteenth century.
A fragment of a metrical text agi-eeing closely with it in
content, but differing slightly in order of stories, is preserved
in M8. 620 of the Library of Chartres.^ An edition of this
has been promised by Paris,

K has the same stories as D* and A*, but in a different
order. The agreement in oixler, as also in incident, is, as a
rule, closest with D* ; in the stories vidua, Roma, induaa, and
vaiicinium, however, K exhibits a very close, at times even
verbal, agreement with A*. In esplanation of this, the possi-
bility of an influence ofKoaA* is precluded by the iaet that
the former is of earlier date ; hence it is necessary to posit for
A* aod ^a common source, designated by Paris as F.

4. I. The Versio Italiea was fii-st so styled by Mussafia in
his study of the Italian versionn, in Jahrb.f. rom. u. eiiglisdie
Lit., IV, p. 166 f , 1862. This group consists of six versions,
three of which are in Latin. One of the latter has been
brought to light only within the last few years ;^ one was
published by Mussafia { Wimer Akarl. Sitzungsb., Ph. Hist.
Ci., LVii, p. 94 f.) in 1868, and is well known; and the third
is the British Museum MS. Addl. 15685.* Of the Italian
versions one is in verse,* but of late date, — Rajna in his
description {Romania, vii, pp. 22 f , 369 f ; x, p. 1 f ) plac-

'See Paris, i. e., p. iii n,, and Paul Meyer in the Bulletin d. L Soc. dei
Ane. recto fran^it, 1894, p. 40 f. The order of Btories here is— (miamino,
Bxma, anti, eapienUe, vidva, Virgilius, indtua, vaticinium. For the order in
JTand other veriions, see the comparative table, p. 35.

' Bj Murko ; see Bomania, xx, p. 373.

* Ward, Oilaloffue of Ramaiuxe, n, p. 207 f. Hitherto onnoticed in ihia

* Edited by Rnjaa, Sloria di Stefano, Bologna, 1

THE SEVEN 8AOES,

ing it between 1440 and 1480. The two remaining Italian
versions early underwent publication, one in 1832 by Delia
Lucia,' the other by Cappelli in 18S5.'

The order of stories in / ia materially different from that
in any other group or version. The queen in this group,
instead of relating the first story, follows in each instance the
sage, thus reversing the order, — 2 becoming 1, 4-3, and so
on. In consequence of this innovation, the number of stories
is reduced to fourteen, the seventh being crowded out.'

In the absence of the Jilia-naverca and amatores-amiei
features, I groups itself with K, D*, and A*: Its closest
agreement in incident is with A*, in which recent scholars
believe it to have had its source.'

The modern Italian Brasto, which at one time was placed
by itself as representing a free adaptation of the romance,
and as bearing a somewhat similar relation to the remaining
Italian versions as the Dolopaihos to the prevailing French
type, is now universally acknowledged to be an offspring of
the VfTsio Italica. The Erasto has been very popular in its
own country, and has been translated into other languages.
The first edition of it appeared at Venice in 1 542, the last in
1841. An English translation was made by Frances Kirkman
in 1674.

5. French Prose Redactions. The number of French prose
redactions is very large. Paris already in 1876 knew of nine-
teen manuscripts in Paris, besides the four in Brussels, and
one in the Cambridge University Library. A number of
others have been since pointed out.*

' DellH Luda, NavtUaa-titifa aa-illa ntl bium tec. d. liiufoa, Venice, 1332.

' Csppelli, li libra dei leUc aavi di Roma, Bologna, 1866.

'It is interesting to note here that Iheetorytbua discarded is atnegcalcus, —
a fealare in nhich (he Viraio lialica has anticipated one of the English
Teraiona— Cambridgo Ff, ii, 3S {F).

' See. for the most recent opinion, Rajna in fiomonio, vri, p. 389 f.

* These are mentioned under the discUBsion of the various groups Into
which they fall.

30 KILLIB CAMPBELL.

(1), Paris classifies under the sub-groups D* (T^, L, A*,
and M. Of these M — the Male Marastre — is of little interest
other than as sliowing the immense popularity of the romance
in the thirteenth century. Only three manuscripts of it have
80 far been brought to light. In all these the emperor is
Diocletian and the prince, Fiseus ; Marcus, son of Cato,
is given prominence; and, a feature which distinguishes this
sharply from all other groups, six new stories are substituted
for a corresponding number of those in the prevailing types.
The original of M is believed to have been made on a very
mutilated manuscript of the^*-type. The new stories, which
are of a much lower order than those they displace, are proba-
bly the invention of the author.'

(2). With AT may be associated the numerous ' continuations ' '
of the Seflpt Sages in French, of which the most important is
the Marques de Rome. This type originated in Picardy in the
thirteenth century. A version of it has been recently pub-
lished by Alton {Li Romans de Marques de Rome, Tiibingen,
]889). In the introduction to this edition, the editor states
that the romance was certainly not written later than 1277,
and probably even forty years earlier (Alton, p. xiv). It
seems to have met with cousiderabJe popularity, as Alton
describes ten manuscripts which still survive. It doubtless
had its ultimate basis in A* — Alton thinks with M as an
intervening stage, but Paris [Romania, xix, p. 493) denies
this, maintaining that M is posterior to the Marques.

(3). D*. The Version DirlmSe, a unique prose manuscript
published by Paris as the first text of his Deitx Ridadiona
(pp. 1-56), is thus called on account of the numerous instances
of rime still discernible in the text, and which prove beyond
doubt a metrical original.*

'See Paris, i. «., p. xxill f.

' For these coropare P. Paris, Les MSS.Jranfaie de la Biil. dv, Boi, Paris,
1836, I, p. 109 f. More accessible in LeroDz de Lincj, I. e., p. x f.
* This WM first shown by Paris, Deux Sidaetiont, p. v f.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

D* agrees more cloaely with K than with any other known
version. It cannot have been baaed on K, however, aa Paris
has shown, but the two doubtless flow from a common source,
which Paris designates as V. From this V, also, the Chartres
manuscript was in all probability made {Paris, I, c, p. x.)

(4). There remain the two families L and A*. The first
of these comprises all versions of the type of the first Leroux
de Lincy print,' in which the order of stories is arbor, canis,
aper, medicos, gaza, putmia, aenesaa/cue, taitamina, Virgilius,
aim, sapientes, noverca., Jilia, Only six manuscripts (four
strictly according to L, and two slightly influenced by J*)
were known to Paris (I. c, p. 10 f.). To these must be added
the Catalan version in oitava rivia, edited by Mussafia ( Wiener
Akad. DmhcAr., xxv, p. ]86f., 1876), and five Old French
prose manuscripts, partly fragmentary, enumerated by Paul
Meyer in Bulletin de la 8oa, dea Anc. TexUa Jr. for 1894,
p. 38 f.=

In its employment of the 3tories_/t/ia and noveroa, L at once
groups itself with S. This, however, is not the only feature
which the two types have in common, A general comjiarison
with the rest of the Western group serves to show that (if we
may except A* for the time being) S is also nearest to L in
motive (Paris, I. c, p. xii). In order of stories, too, S and
X fall together, the only difiereuces being the reversal on the
part of L of tentamina and puteus, and the suppression of
vidua and vatidnium. Paris has therefore concluded that L
was made on a manuscript of 8 which was mutilated toward
the end, and that the scribe has in consequence had to trust to
his memory for his last stories (/, c, p, xiii).

' Leroui de Lincy, Romans dea Sept Sai/es, PariH, 1838, pp. 1-76.

' Meyer does not expreas hiniaelf definitely aa to the class of but one of
these — the Chartres Ma., which he groups with L. He implies, however,
in his statemeoC that the Bib. NaL fragment (p. 39, n. 2) i>elongs to A*,
that all the rest belong to L. Neverthelesa, hia notices leave the impres-
sion that some of these manuscripts (possibly all except the two just
mentioned) have not been h&ndled, and that a part of them may yet be
found to belong to the larger group 4*.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

(5). A*, the largest and most important of all French
groups, has been reserved for the last place. To this family
pertain, besides its immediate members, the groups Ma^-quea,
M, I, and H; it ia, then, the original, either directly or indi-
rectly, of four-fifths of the manuscripts and printa of the
romance which survive. It is not only the ultimate source
of all Italian versions, — whether direct, as with the D'Ancona
edition, or indirect through /, but it is also, through H, the
parent of almost all the manifold versions of the Sepi Sages
outside of Romance. And, what is of prime interest and
imporfaoce to the English student, it was some manuscript
of this group which furnished the immediate original of the
Middle English versions.

Under group A* Paris includes all manuscripts of the type
of the Italian version published by D'Ancona.' He enumer-
ates in his preface {p. xvi f), in addition to the Italian
version whence the group is named, fourteen manuscripts
in Old French,^ several of which date from the thirteenth
century, Four other manuscripts, pointed out since the
appearance of Paris's work (Brit. Mus. Harl. 3860 [xiv cent.],
St. Jno. Bapt. Coll., Oxf., 102 [xiv cent.],^ Cambr. Uuivy.
Liby. Gg, 6, 28,' and a fragment in the Bib. Nat.-Nouv.
Acq. fr. 1263 [xill ceut.])," increase the number of French
versions to eighteen. To this family, also, belongs the British
Museum Italian prose version published by Varnhagen.^

The text oi A*'' falls into two parts, — the first eleven
stories (-d,*) being textualjy very close to L, while the last
four (^a*), as Paris has shown, agree very closely with K,

' 11 Libra dei SttU Sai^ di Roma, Piaa, 1864.

'One of tlieae is Chn manuscript 2137 of the Bib. N&t,, published in part
by Leroui de Line)', pp. 79-110,

'For these two, cf. Vanihagen,2./. cOTii. Pi., I, p. 555f. See also for the
first, Ward, i. e., II, p. 199 f.

'Bomania, XV, p. 348.

' Delisle, jtfSS. (a(. cl Jr. (youtia aaz Fonda, etc, Paris, 1891, i, p. 259.

'Ei/ae Ilal. Proaaiienion der Siebm Weiaen, Berlin, 1S81.

' Bj this ia meant the secoud Lerouz de Lincj redaction. Other versions
of thifl type, as, t. g., sta. 8849 (new No, 189), are not so close to L,

THE SEVEN SAGES.

The composite nature of the text Paris explains as due to the
fact tliat the scribe primarily employed a fragment of i con-
taining only eleven tales, and that K, or its source, V, has
been used for the remaining four tales,' And this seems to be
borne out by internal evidence ; for A^* not only falls in with
Ks.fi regards incident, but, as in the case of D*, there is often
even a textual agreement in which entire lines that appear
in K are reproduced,' Yet, as already observed, this metrical
original of -4a* cannot have been K, since there are a number
of ^1*-Dianuscript8 which antedate tlie latter, especially if we
may accept Keller, who despite his maintenance of the priority
oi K, ventured a date no earlier than 1284, or later in all
probability than the composition of the English parent text.
Moreover, a comparison of A^ with K and D* will show
that each of the latter possesses features in common with A*
which are not found in the other. The original of J,* must
therefore be sought in some other version than K, — probably,
as Paris assumes, in V?

' DtMX MSdaelions, p. XVlll.

'Ibid,, p. X!S, for H citation of parallel paBsages from J i* and X". Almost
BB Qoteworlh? agreement will be found in name of the renisining stories.

" But con this be final '! Is it Dot possible, however improbable it ma;
seem, that the mamiscripts of A* which, have survived were ultimately
baaed on a metrical leit which preserved the J*-order of storiee (or, at
least, was nearer the /l*-order than the K-, 0*- or Z)*-order), and which was
closely related with V'! la this case, of coarse, L (the first eleven stories),
would have to be explained as based on A* (rather than the reverse, m
with Paris), and At* as representing a prosing of a portion of the metrical
A*, to which K has very nearly approached. Against tbia view would
be the strong evidence submitted by Paris. In favor of it, however, are
the considerations (1) that this would better account for the popularity
of the A*-tjpe during the first half of the thirteenth century ; (2) that the
Middle English versions both favor a metrical original and were based on
a text nearer to ff in many details than is the De Lincy print of A* ; (3)
that to base A* on i., and consequently, as Paris maintains, ultimately on
<Si is to connect it with a different line of tradition from that which it
seems to follow (of certain tertual agreements with .E" which-!*, t exhibit:
p. 16; "comrae il fist au cheualierde son Ienreier"=^£' 1141-2: "Comme
il fist an cheualier, £i atort ocdst son leurier;" p. 39 : " II apela son senes-
chal "^.fflSOS; "LorsapielBsonseaeBcbsli" p. 40 : " Voa gerrei auec le

KILUS CAMPBELL.

E£sum6. Looked at externally the Western group falls
into two main sub-groups, the Dofopathos and the Sept Sages
de Rome. The Dolopathos, however, did not develop from
the Eastern group independently, but must have had an
ultimate basis (doubtless through an oral medium) on some
version of the larger group.

The Sept Sages de Rome, as regards order and content of
stories, also falls into two groups, — one represeuted by S and
L, the other by K, J)*, C*, { V), and A* and its variants, /,
a, M, and Marques. Peculiar to the former group {S, L) are
the etories jllia and noverca, to the latter the stories Roma
and inclusa.

Which of these groups represents most faithfully the lost
western original is, at the present stage of our knowledge,
impossible to determine, but the fact that the Dolopathos of
Herbert contains the story indusa seems to point to the
priority of the K-, D*-, j4*-group.^

With respect to the separate sub-groups, i may have been
based on A* and ^S", though the view of Paris, that it had its
basis in 8 alone, carries with it greater probability. Either
explanation leaves the origin of 8 unexplained. K, D*, C* go
back to the same lost metrical original, V. A* is probably to
be explained with Paris as having its source in L and V, though
this, as yet, has been by no means established. It is not
improbable that a metrical vereion of^* existed ataorae time.

roi"=K 1531 : "Anoeques le roi vous girols;" p. 50: "Qui me ferra, je
trerai jil"=^3e38: "Ki me ferm, je trairaiia"); (4) that we may still
find in J.*, what appear to be reflectiona of a versified original; lhaB,p. 15 r
"Cela que je mout amoie et en qui je me fioie; " p. 23 ; "Li snngliers vint
vers I'alier, si commenfa a mengier," and " qaant 11 vlt le sanglier. si s'en
volt aler;" p. 33; "Quant elea virent lor pere trainer, si commenoiBrent
(a brSre et) A, crier; " p. 50 r "Sire, il ot en ceate vile un clerc qui ot noo
Vergile." When all this is said, however, the case is by no means strong,
and we woald not presume to inaist on this theory as presenting the proba-
bility, by any meane, which attaches to the view set forth by Paris; it is
merely suggested as an alternnle possibility, which has not yet been dis-
posed of.

'See also, Paris, Bomania, iv, p. 128, for the additional evidence in
support of this view drawn from the story Boma.

THE SEVEN BAGEB.

Table of Stories in the Weatem Versions?

J."

X-

Ihl.^,<M€A

arbor

-J

aper

eenesc.

seneac.

aper

arbor

aper

oania

medicua

medicuB

medicua

medicus

puteua

medicua

gaza

aper

gaza

aper

gaza

puteoB

puleuB

puteos

puteuB

tentam.

sencscBlcus

Hapieot.

sapient.

filiua

VirgiL

creditor

Virgiliua

VirgU.

Roma.

Koma.

Virgil.

incluaa

nutril

avia

meilicus

An tenor

vid.— fil.

eapient.

sapient.

gttza

gaza

aen.— Rom.

spuriuB

Tidaa

vidua

amatorea

vidua

cardamum

lawo.— fil.

Roraa

fill a

iilia

Virgil.

incluaa

Virgil.

indusa
Tatioinium

noverca
Vttlicin.

inclusa
vaUcin.

incluaa
vatic. +

vidua
vat.— amioi.

vaticin.

incluaa

cjg.-ey-
incl.— put.

II. The Rom.4nce in England.

The enormous popularity of the Seven Sages in French
found but a faint reflection in early English. So far, only
eight .Middle English versions have been brought to Iipht,i-
and as at least seven of these go back to the same lost origi-
nal, it appears that the romance did not at first take a very
firm root in English soil. Nor has it in more recent times
acquired the popularity in England that it enjoyed in other
conntries of Europe; for, besides the numerous chap-book
versions, all which are of a low order of excellence, there
have survived only two versions belonging to the Modern
English period.

Yet, despite this comparatively small popularity of the
romance in England, it is very evident that the English

'The order of the fragmentary Old French metrical version C* ia as
ibllowa r^Ienfamtnu, Bona, avis, sapientee, vidua, Virgiliaa, induaa, mlidnium.
In the Vamhagen Italian prose veraion, pttltui haa been supplanted by a
new story, which V. calls ma^ator. All the Middle Engliah versions aave
F (for which see p. 62 of this study) follow the ^"-order. The later Eng-
lish versions belong to group H.

36 KILUS CAJdPBELL.

versions have not received attention commensurate with their
importaDce. Indeed, there is no department of the study of
the Seven Sages, much neglected though all have unfortu-
nately been, which has been more neglected than the English.
"Weber, the first in the field, offered with his edition of the
Auchinleck text practically no introduction at all.^ Likewise
Wright, in the essay which accompanied the Cambridge text
(Dd, I, 17), while he presented an abstract of the Hisloria,
confined the discussion of bis own text, singularly enough, to
less than two pages.^ Besides these, Ellis in his Specimens,^
Clouston in his Book of Sindibad' and Gomme in the preface
to his reprint of the Wynkyn de Worde edition ' have sub-
mitted analyses of the Weber, Wright, and Wynkyn de Worde
editions respectively, and sundry others have made incidental
references ; but there has so far appeared only one detailed
and serious investigation of the problems which the English
versions present — the dissertation Vdter die mittdenf/Iischen
Fassungen der Sage von den steben weisen Mdstem, Breslau,
1885, by Paul Petras. This scholar, in dealing with Ihe
source and inter-eonnection of the English versions, has
arrived at some very gratifying results, but his work leaves
much to be desired. Three of the eight Middle English
versions have escaped notice at his hands, as also, for some
unaccountable reason, the well-known edition of Wynkyn de
Worde, — and a good half of his conclusions may be overthrown
by a more thorough investigation. In view, then, of this
manifest neglect of the English versions another detailed
study of them — especially of the relations of the Middle

' JWeineoi ilomoTiMs, Edinburgh, 1810, i, p. iv and ni, pp. 1-163.

' The Stxea Saga, Percy Spciety PublicationB, toI. xvi, p. ijcvin, Loodon,
1846; also iii'Wa.rion'& HUtory of English Poetry, ed. Hallitt, London, 1871,
I, p. 305 f.

'i^>ecimm» of Early English Metrical Bomaneet, London, 1811, Iil, pp.
1-101.

' Book of SindUdd [Glasgow], 1884, p. 327 f.

<• The Hislory of Ike Seven Wiee Maita-i of Home, published for the Villon
Society, London, 1885.

THE SEVEN 3AGE8.

EDglish manuscripts — will not, it is believed, be deemed
untimely.

II (a). The Middle English Vermons.

The Middle English group comprises eight known versions,
in as many different manuscripts. All these are in verse,
and in the octosyllabic or four-stressed couplet.

They are as follows: Auchinleck (^4), Arundel 140 {Ar),
Egerton 1995 {E), Balliol College 354 (_B), Cambridge Ff,
u, 38 (F), Cotton Galba E, ix (O), Cambridge Dd, i, 17 {D),

1. Description of the Mamiseripts,

A, — The Auchinleck M8. of the Advocate's Library, Edin-
burgh, denoted throughout as A. For a general description
of this mauuacript, see Kolbing, Englieche StudUn, vn, p.
185 f. The text of the Seven Sages occupies if. 85a-99d,
and is fragmentary at both beginning and end, only 2646
lines remaining. It has been published by Weber, Metrical
Momances, Edinburgh, 1810, iir, pp. 1-153, where it com-
prises lines 135-2779, the Cotton ms. (C) having been used for
the remainder. For a collation of this edition with the manu-
script, see Kolbing, Englische Studien, vi, p. 443 f. Copious
extracta with an analysis may be found in Ellis's Specimens,
Loudon, 1811, in, pp. 1—101. With regard to date of com-
position there is no internal evidence other than linguistic;
since, however, the Auchinleck MS. dates from about 1330,
the composition of A must fall before that time." The form

' I have haoAled and made transcripts of all these manuscripts save tlwse
irbioh bare been printed and the Asloan. Five of them (A, B, C, F, and
D) bare been studied either in whole or in part by Fetraa, and the Asloan
MS. waa also known to bim through Laing'a very incomplete description of
il in the preface to bis edition of the Bolknd text, p. xii. Of the Arundel
and Balliol manuscripts Petras was apparently unatrare.

' Cf. Morehscli, M. E. Oriaimatik, HaJle, 1896, p. xr, and Brand] in PouTs
Ommtriis, ii, 1, p. 635.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

hardly jiistifiea a dating earlier than 1300. In text and
metre A is, as a rale, very good, though in both there are
occasional imperfections and corruptions.' The dialect is
Kentish, though not of the strict type.'

Ar. — MS. Arundel 140 of the British Museum, — cited as
Ar. Paper, dating from the first half of the fifteenth century.
For general description, see Ward, Catalogue of Romances, ii,
p. 224. This text occupies ff. 152— 165b, and is fragmentary,
beginning with the conclusion of nper (3) and ending with
the 21st line nf vatidnium (15); 2565 lines remain. It is
very much faded, and in many cases illegible, especially at
the end of the b- aud at the beginning of the c-cohirans. With
regard to initial capitalization, it is very irregular. A line
has been lost after 1, 618 ; after 1. 919 an extra line has been
introduced with no corresponding rime. The text is metri-
cally very poor, and many final e's have to be inserted in
order to secure the required four stresses; there are also a
number of imperfect rimes (such as yspede: saue, 243-4)
and other textual irregularities ; nevertheless, Ar, as ia shown
below, ia the clo.sest representative of the lost M. E. original.
The dialect is Kentish.* The test has not been published.

' There are man; emendations which lie on the BUrface and which ore
BnaUined b; the closely related versionB ^r, E, etc Some of these are:
(1) for sehild. 1016 read jcAuW(e)— cf. -F 1487, Ar, B, E\ (2) for tieUh 1031
read m/fo or BeAe— cf. ^r 91, etc.; (3) for Wi o/ 2050 read W V—cf- ■'^ 2082,
etc.; (4) for (o-deiue 2417 read ffo deiue— of. B 2509, etc. i (5) after He 2657,
ioaett ^ou5(— cf. At 1782, etc

'A. 8. y is regularly represeoled by the e-sound, though this may not
always he graphic Of the 27 determining rimes, 22, or SI per cent.,
have the e-coloring. There is nothing in other developments to contradict
this result. The only Northern forms in the rime are a pres. pari, in
-and, l!l7T-8, and two instances of the third pers. sing, of the present tense
in 8,615-6 and 937-S.

' To the deyelopment of A. S. y (stable or nnslable. long or short) into i,
there is only one certain exception : uifne; ■!/»«, 6Ql'-2. Elsewhere we find
only the e-quality; cf. iiede: Ayde, 383-4; ifel: ifcirl, 601-2; gardyner ; Jyr,
863-4, 872-3; also 862-3, 939-40, 979-80, 1433-4, 1515-6, 1636-6, 1641-2,
1683-4, 1761-2, 1847-8, 2059-60. The additional rime-evidence is alto-
gether coafirmatoiy of a Boudiern scribe: A. S. a > 6 uneiceptionally, the

THE SEVEN SAGES.

E.— MS. Egerton 1995 of the British Museum,' — cited

throughout aa S. Ff. 3-54b. Paper, dating from the fif-
teenth century, — probably the second half.' Written in single
columns, with initials in red. Very regular as r^ards capital-
ization. Complete, containing 3588 lines, and bearing the
title Seven Sages of Rome, with the colophon Explidunt Septem.
Sapientes, Before the first story, arbor, stands the simple
rubric, " He[re] begynnythe the fyrste tale of the Emperasse ; "
before nine others, there is substituted for this a couplet indi-
cating the contents of the story which follows, as e. g., cania
(695-6) :

' Hera begynnythe tha tale of a knyght
That cylde hjB grehoimde witA onryghL'

The stories avis, vidua, Roma, incljisa, and vatidnium have
nothing corresponding to this. The dialect is Kentish, though
less strongly marked than in Ar.^ No edition of ^has yet
appeared. An extract, including 11. 2251-2358, accompanies
the monograph of Petra'?, "Anhang," p. 54 f.

B.— MS. No. 354 of Balliol College Library, Oxford,—
denoted as B.* Ff. 18a-54b. Paper, belonging to the early

pres. part, (eicept bidand .- biynd, 1689-90) ends in -Ttg, the verb is Southern
(Have eryBn: men*, 2556-7, \¥here we have a Midland form), the post part,
preserves, as a rule, the prefix, and rejects (in the case of the strong veA)
the ending, etc. Within the line, however, there are occauonal Northern
forma, particularly of the pres. pact., as baland, 158S, 1591, 1595, brifiumd,
1922 ; but these are by no means the rule, the Southern form being in
general preserved as well within the line as in the rime.

* For a general description of this manuscript, see Ward's Oatalogue, u,
p. 218 f

•See the siith article; "Gregory Skinner's Chronicle of the Mayors of
London, ending in 1469," ff. 113-122b.

'The usual development of A. S. y ia e, or the e-qnality, — see the limeB
of 11. 245-6, 577-8, 783-4, 84.5-6, 1323-4, 1645-6. 1799-1800, 1821-1822;
but oocasionally y,^c{. kyrme; lipme {O.N. linna), 1317-8 and Ktfnne; tyne,
1635-6. The evidence is othenrise strongly indicative of a Southern scribe,
though a few Northern forma are borne out by the rime; cf. hondsa: stondyt
{3d sing.), 439-40, also kynge: yonge, 93-1, and yongc: coanyngc, 3581-2.

*The existence of this version of the Seven Saga was first pointed out by
Tamhagen, in bia Eine Ilal. Protav. d. Sitben Ifnien, Berlin, 18SI,p.3(i;
see in the same connection his review of Fetraa, Eag. Stud., x, p. 279 f.

KTLLEJ CAMPBELL.

sixteenth century.' In single columns; irregnlar in capitali-
zation. Described in Coxe's Oatalogua, r, p. 110, aa in the
hand of John Hyde. The text is complete, containing 3708
lines. The first rubric, which contains the title, reads as
follows : " Here begynneth ]ie praioges of the vn. sagis or
vn. wise mastere which were named as here-aftei- fFollowing."
Each story has a heading or title, as e. g,, arbor: "The
empTesse tale off the pynote tree." At the end of the text
stands the colophon : " Thus endith of the vn. sages of Rome,
which was drawen owt of crownycles and owt of wrytyng of
old men, and many a notable tale is tber-in, aa ys befibre
sayde. Quod Richard Hill." This manuscript contains very
few abbreviations, and the language is much modernized. In
line 1761 : "On the ffiill suche as fell to a old man by his
wif," we have two lines in one. The rime is, if anything,
slightly better than in A, Ar, and E, but is, nevertheless,
occasionally imperfect, cf. visage ; noyse, 459-60 ; assonance,
as in all other related M. E. texts, abounds ; often four lines
rime together, and occasionally sis, cf. 2583-8. The dialect
is Southern.' No edition of the text has yet appeared, but
the E. E. T. S. has for some time been advertising the entire
manuscript as needing editing.

P.— MS. Ff, II, 38 (formerly marked More 690) of the
Cambridge University Library, — denoted as F^ Ff. 134a—
156d. Paper, dating from about the middle of the fifteenth
century. Written in double columns of about 40 II. to the
column. Handwriting uniform ; irregular as to capitaliza-
tion, though most lines begin with a capital. The beginnings
of stories indicated merely by lar^e initial capitals in red.

'Cf. Art. 31, "Memoranda of Richard Hill," and Art. 98, "Kames of
Mayors (of London)."

'Southern forma are austained by the rime almost without eioeplion.
A. S. ^ is reprebented by both y and e, in about equal proportion ; the rimes
in e ure probably to be explained, however, as reminiecences of a Kentish
original.

^ Cf. HalliweU, Thomtan Bomanetx, Camden Society, vol. xxi, p. xxxTi f.,
and the Cambridge Univ. Lib, Catalogue of uss^ u, p, 403,

THE SEVEN SAGEB,

The text is fragmentary; ff. 141 and 144 (or less than 400
11.) have been lost, and fol. 135 is in a mutilated condition;^
2555 11. remain. Criteria for determining the dialect are not
abundant, as the manuscript is late and the forma are some-
what mixed ; but the bulk of the evidence favors a Southern
dialect.^ The text has not been edited, although, in view
of its uniqueness, it is not uninteresting, and in its last four
stories is of considerable value. Extracts are given by Halii-
well, Thornton Romances, p, xLiii f., Wright, The Seven Sagee,
p. Lxx f., and Petraa, I. c, p. 60 f.

C— MS. Cotton Gaiba E, ix, of the British Museum,—
denoted as C Ff, 25b-48b. Vellum; in double columns, with
initials in blue and red, and in a very plain hand of the first
third of the fifteenth century. Complete, in 4328 11. Bearing
the title pe Proees of pe Seuyn Sages. Each prolog and each
story marked off by rubrics : in the ease of the former, such
as " Here bigins (>e fyrst proees " (called " prolong " after the
fourth story), with the latter, "Here bygins pe first tale of
J>e whyfe," etc., the number being given in each JDstance,
and, in the case of the masters' stories, their names also.
The dialect is Northern, Both text and metre are very
pure;* the rime, especially, stands in marked contrast to the
Southern versions, being almost free of assonance aud the im-

> The Cambridge Catalogue fails to 9pecif7 the leaves which ha^e been loat.
Petraa (p. 8) and others go to the other eitreme in asserting that the text
is verj incomplete.

*A- S. a > D, and the forma of the verb, with the eiception of the strong
paat part., where -en is the uaaal ending, are Southern, The scribe, how-
ever, probably belonged rather to the middle or western South than to
Kent, or its neighborhood; cf. the riraes in y where the u-quality prevails:
tymit;kynnti,&\S-4; tB!/Ue.-psae,mb-G; Ajm; iytino, 871-2; 1M8-B, 1636-7,
etc. The rimes bedd: hydd, 200-1, and lumde: saute, 1890-1, are probably
to be traced to the Kentish original.

*Cf. Ward'a Oulalogue, ii, p. 213 f,, for a general description of this manu-

*There are very few veiaes that are too short [among these are 84, 443,
811, 1868, 1901, 1918, 2973), and almost none that are too full (ef. 843).
Among the few inexact rimes are sages ; meseagc, 355-6; brend: muenf, 2321-
2; htmrnoae, 2842-3.

KIX.IJS CA31FBEI.L.

perfections in which the latter abound. No complete edition
of C has 80 far appeared; but lines 1-134 and 3108-4328
are printed in Weber, Jfrfr. Bom., in, pp. 1 f. and 108 f.,
where this fext has been employed to supplement A. The
Btory avis, comprising lines 2411—2548, appears in the "An-
hang " to Pctras'a monograph, p. 56 f.'

D.— MS. Dd, I, 17 of the Cambridge University Library,
—cited as D.^ Ff. 64a, col. 1 — 63a, col. 3. Parchment ; in
treble columns; appears to beloog to the end of the fourteenth
century.* Textually very imperfect, and plainly the work of
a careless scribe. Thirteen lines have apparently been lost, —
after 1312, 1417, 1696, 1719, 2094, 2293, 2695, 2840, 2960,
S057, 31 34, 3365, 3395. Irregularities in rime are numerous,
but in most cases easily emended.* The dialect is southeast
Midland, with an intermixture of Northern forms.' The
text lias been edited by Wright (Percy Society for 1845, vol.
XVI, pp. 1—118), For a collation of this edition with the
manuscript, see Kolbing in Englische Studien, vi, p. 448 f.
An analysis of the romance on the basis of this text appears
in Clouaton's Book of Smd'ibad, p. 327 f.

Ab, — MS. Asloan, in the possession of Lord Talbot de
Malahide, Malahide Castle, Ireland, — denoted hy As. For a
general description of the manuscript (quoted from Chalmers),

'An edition of thia mnnuscript bj the lamented Dr, Robert Morris waa
anuoDnced hy the E. E. T. S. many jeara ago ; and an editor nas advertised
for for some time after Dr. Morris's death, but in the recent iEsues of the
publications this advertisement no longer appears. It is the purpose of
the present writer lo prepare a, critical edition of this text within the ni

•For n general description of this manuscript, see the Cambridge Cola-
UigUB, I, p. 16 f.; Skeiit, PMimliom o/ E. E. T. S., vol. xxsyiii, p. xsm f.;
ftsd Halliwell, Manmeripl Barities of Oambridge, p. 3.

'Morsbach, for some unknown reason, would place it earlier, "1300?";
Bee liis M. E. Ommmatik, p. 9.

'Lines 837'9 mnj be explained as a triplet, bot it is better to suppose
that n verso iuie been lost. A more probable example of the triplet la
M. E. ia found in ^,915-7.

'See Skeat, K E. T. 8., vol. iiXTiii, p. xxv, and Brandl, in PauFi
Orundrisa, li, 1, p. 636.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

flee Schipper's Poems of Dmibar,'VieDoa, 1891, Pt. 1, p. 5 f.^
The text of the Seven Sages occupies ff. 167-209, and bears
the title The Buke of the aevt/ne Sagis. According to Laing ' the
text is incotuplete, extending to only about 2800 lines, and the
twelfth and thirteenth stories are wanting entirely. It begins,

' Syne geid till heajn and sa do we
Sayis all Amen for cherite.'

Its dialect is Scottish.* A complete transcript, made by D.
Laing in 1826, exists in the University Library, Edinburgh.
An edition, long ago promised by Varnhageu, is expected to
appear shortly in the Scottish Text Society Publiaaiions.

2, Interrelatimi of the Middle English Versions.

With regard to the relationship of the Middle English
versions there has been a variety of opinions, and, as in the
case of the French versions, there has existed no little ignor-
ance and error. The general tendency has been to consider
any and all versions of the M. E. period indepeudent trans-
lations from the French. This has been nowhere better
demonstrated than in Petras's dissertation, where it has been
boldly maintained that at least four of the M. E. versions
{A, C, F, D) are unrelated save through a common foreign
original. And while others have been more conservative
than Petras, the prevailing opinion seems to have been that a
majority at least of the M. E. group are independent of each
other. It will be one of the results of this study, however, it
IB believed, to show that seven of the eight M. E. versions

'A further degcription, together with an extract containipg the story avU,
lias recently appeared in Englitche Sludien (xxv, p. 321 f.), through the
kindness of Prof. VarahBgen.

'The Sam Saga in SeoUaK Mtire (RoUand), Edinbargh, 1837, p. xii.

'Chalinere Bays of it: "Evidently written by a Scoliah verevfier in the
leign of Jamea IV, as a number of Seotisli terms occur, which would not
have been introduced by a Scotiah transcriber of an English work."

EILLIS CAMPBELL.

are ultimately related through a common M. E, parent ver-
sion {x), and it is lield not improbable that the eighth (As)
is also thus related to x.

All the M, E. versions, however, do not represent the same
line of tradition. One of the texts, D, as later shown, is a
development from x, independent of the rest of the M. E.
group, and Varnhagen holds that As was made directly from
the Old French. The remaining versions fall together into
one connected group, all related through a common original
{y)i which goes back to x, but which was not identical with
it. This group will be designated as Y.

The close relationship of the tests which constitute this
group Y is confirmed by evidence from all sides, but it can be
□o more effectively illustrated than by a comparative table of
lines. For this purpose a Hne-for-line comparison of the
section which the five most important texts of this group [A,
Ar, E, B, C) have in common has been made, the comparison
being restricted to identical lines and similar rimes, with the
following results : '

(1)

.d = 1816 11.

■noaiu.

IdmL 11. Sim

At.
B...
B..
0...

-1916
.„1843
..ISM

..2067

234 7
125 6
154

{2) At

= 1916 11.

A.-
E...
B..
C...

..1816

..1843

-lesi

..2067

234

169 7
137 i
19 i

(3)£=

= 1843 11.

A...
At..
B...
C.

..1816
..1916
..1931
..2067

125 6
169

(4)

= 1931 11.

IbMi/L

davL II. i

A..
Ar
E..
C.

.1816
.1910
.1843
..2067

154
137

83
13

(5)

= 2067 11

A..

At
E..
B..

..1813
.1916
..1843
..1931

26
19
11
.13

352
' Ad illuBtratioD of the method hj which these figares have heen urived
at may be found in the appendix to this study. F, owing to special featoree
which are discuBsed below, ia excluded fiom this comparison.
'Petcas, p. 11, finda A and C, the entire tests being compared, to have
aimilar rimes.

^^^^^^^H THE SEVEN SAOGS. 45 ^H

But this GomparisoD, while valuable as far as it goes, serves ^^H
only to show a connection between the texts compared; it ^H
does not suffice to show the nature of this connection. ^H

Accordingly, in addition to this, a comparison of motive or ^^M
1 incident — as a safer basis fur classification — has been made ^H

1 for the entire Middle English group ; and it is by means of ^M
1 this, in the main, that our results as to the interrelation of the ^M

1 M. E. versions have been reached. The limits of this publi- ^M

1 cation, however, preclude the submitting this except in part, ^^H
so that only the tabulation for the story vidua {Matron of ^H
Ephesua) appears here. ^H

(1) A cerbtiD knight had a j
wife. {A, Ar, B, D state
that he waa a. sheriff.)

1 Ar

Loheniinne." ^^H

(2) They loved each other .^
eieeedingly. {Ar only
relates that he loved her.
In F, he will not permit
her C» go half a mile
from him, "neither to
^^ church nor to cheplng.")

i{Ar)

^^H (3) A new sharp knife is

I Ar

^^M

^^B (4) While playing with this,

B ■" """ ""{fj-,

1 (C, in the fingerTT in '
the hand; D is silent
as to part, f adds that
the wife wna paring a
pear.)

1 Ar

pouce." ^^^1

(5) For dole be dies on the j
morrow. (F adda that
he a^ks for a prieat be-
fore be dies.)

(6) This was great foUy.

1 Ar

^^H

IflT.T.TB CAMPBEIii.

(7) He was richjj buried

state tbal this occun
after a masg. D iddt
that the place of burial
was outeide the city,
since there were objec-
tions to his being buried
within the cit;.)

) The wife refnses to leave

(10) Tbey suggest that she
joung, and maj TDarrr
again, and beget chil-

EOgges-

(11) She rejects their cugKEs-
tioDs,iisEuring theiD that
she will die on his grave.
They are sorry.

(13) Also, a fire. (iJ, Bbe
makes the fire herself.
An addition of D is
that she sends for ber
clothes.)

(14) Her friends leave het

(16) On the same day thcee
thieves have been taken.
(B, on a day before; B,
silent; i^' one thief.)

(19) They were knights who A At
had wasted the country,
and had been hanged ai
soon aa caplared.

TBE SEVEN SAOE6.

(17) A certain koi^ht wj
goard the bodies for the
first night. (A adds that
he waa to watch for three
nights,)

(18) Becoming cold, he spies
the fire in the "chnrch-
haw,'' goes thither, and
Suds the lady.

(19) He asks to be let in.

(20) She refuses his request.
In A nhe swears by St.
(John,— in Ar, E, B, by
"St. Anstyn.")

(21) He MBures her that he
will do her no harm,
and that be is a knight.

(In

(22) Bhe lets him :
warms by the fii
D there is no i
of ihe wife's refusing
to permit the knight

(23) He sees her making
dole, and tells her she
is foolish to
ehe may yet
knight. She replfes that
he was so kind that she
may not love any othe
(D adds that she begii
to love him when al
finds him to be a knight;
and that be lies with
her.)

□nlv to tind one of tb
bodies stolen. {A, At, I
-E^ he rides on aftml.)

ftlier — la
preraifire

A* (K 3763,
"JesDiGe-
rart le fil
Guion;"
also K* 37.)

BTT.I.TR CAVPBELIm

(26) He fean he will loee hia
adTanoemait if onabte
to recover the bod;.

1 marry her, (
£^ she propoees only ihat
he be her "lemiui,"^
be suggests matriiDoii;.
In C, she asks if he has
a wife.)

(30) Thisbeingsgreedlo, she
advises that they dig up
the body of her hosbaad,
which is done.

(32) The lady pDte a rope
roand the neck of iii«
corpse. {£, the koighi

■) The knight tecatis thit,
the thief hsd a wound '
his head, and fear.'i t)i
the "jgnile may be p(
oeiveiP' unless the ht
l»iDd have asimilaron ,
this the wife advises bini
to malie with bis ev

o do it.

B B

E S

[S)

J» (the order
of 28-7 re-
French.)
FDA* (cf. K,

F A*

THE SEVEN BAGEa.

(38) 8iie )imit«s villi all her
strength " amid the
brayn." ( In D, she
wounda him with
knife.)

(40) He remembers that the A
thief B fore-teeth had
been broken out. (D,
F, in agreement vith
A*, K, have Iwo teeth |

but ei

i D* 3

(41) She propOBesthat hedis- ,
figure her huitband in like
manner, hut he refuses,

(42) She does it herself with A
a Btone. (In A, Ar, E,
B, F, she knocks out i "
his teeth ; in D, ouly In

F inserts here anoth
disfiguration — the loss of
two fingerB. In D, the
hodj is not hung up till
after the mutilation.)

(43) The wife stales that she A
has now won bis love,
which he denies, adding
that he would marry her
for no treasure, lest she
serve him m she has
served her lord.

(44) The sage wishes Diode- ^
tian such fortune if he ''
not respite the prince

.(45) He asks that judgm

i^ui 111 If eiuui
this, and I

KILLB CAMPBELL.

(47) Tlie emperor goes \
his bower ; the empre
" loors " oo him. (A, At
add that his "sergeants
make solnce" with him.)

C F D \A'

(4S) The empress is silent till /
the morrow.

(50) When she asks if he has A
heard the "geate," etc.,
why men made a fiail q/
fom} {Ar, " How Rome
was in great dread." "
likewise makes no □
tionof the feast of foi

A. — A is naturally the most valuable of all Middle Eng-
lish verBiODS, since it its found in the oldest manuscript which
has come down to us, and doubtless iu many respects best
preserves the original. In view of its age cue would at least
hope to find iu it either the parent English text or the closest
representative of it, but a close collation with the remaining
manuscripta shows that it is neither the one nor the other.
It is not even a link in any one of the chains of development.
This is established by the fact that A often abridges where all
the other texts of Fare true to the French.'

There are, however, some features in which A appears to
reflect the original more feithfully than any other member
of its group. Thus, we find in A 666, "Deu vous doint
bonjour" = i 15, "Diex voa doint bon jor," where none
_ approximate A save B 652, "And sayde, deux vous garde
I bonjour;" or, in .4 743, "The levedi stod inpount toui-nis"^

' For the origin of this feature, see Pbtis, Romania, rv, 128.

i not seem to be confined to our leit, but appears
also in other poema of the Auchinleck H9., as has been alread]' observed
bj Kolbing ; cf. his Arliovr and Merlin, IV, p. CLiiT, and his BevU (^ ffata-
(oun, E. E. T. 8., Ei. Bet., i.kv, p. xu.

THE SEVEN SAGEB.

Ln, "surleponttorneiz," where C reads "on a vice," and^,
B, "in the castle on high." And there are sundry details of
the original which A reproduces in common with only one
other text; but these are easily explained by the circumstance
oi A's closer proximity in time to the parent text, in conse-
quence of which it has suffered less from the ravages of time, or
at the hand of the modernizer, than have some of the later texts.

The abridgments of the original which characterize j1 fall
chiefly in the conclusions of certain stories. In fact it is a
noticeable feature — due probably to the desire to avoid repeti-
tion — that it is almost entirely in the 'epilogaciouns' (as some
of the i?-texts name them) that A has made any serious altera-
tioDS, while there is a very marked agreement, and only
occasional freedom, exhibited in the body of its stories.

This tendency to abridge is manifest throughout the ^-text.
It is moat violent, however, in the stories aper, gaza, Vvrgiliua,
and avis. Chief among the passages in other versions which
find nothing corresponding in A, are the following : (1) aper,
At, 1-20 = E 949-968 = B 933-948 = C 1041-1058 =
L, p. 25 ; (2) Virgilim, Ar 1280-1288 = E 2204-2212 = B
2244-2252 = C 2370-2376 = L, p. 55 ; (3) avis, Ar 1433-
1446 = E 2367-2372 = B 2401-2414 = L, p. 59.

There is, in addition to these, in the conclusion of yaza, a
fourth passage which A abridges radically, and which, since it
is a comparatively close paraphrase of the Old French, may
be cited here as giving a graphic illustration of this pecu-
liarity of ^, and, at the same time, as showing once for all
its unoriginality, and its subordinate importance in settling
the question of the interrelation of the English versions.
This pas,sage-is, in Ar, II. 456—479 ; the corresponding lines
are, in E 1401-1426, B 1393-1420, and C 1472-1490. Cita-
tion is made from Ar as best representing the lost text Y.

Ar 456 ' Loude l>ei gonne on hjm to crje, L 34. ' Cba8cun H escria :

And saide, lentjlyon kjl« Vj mnstry, Ha! mestre, or pnnseE de

Heipe Jjy disciple at H3 nede. vostre deciple.'

)3e master a-ljst 1^ of his Btede, . . . ' et descent de son

KILLI8 CAMPBELL.

', . . et e'ea TJent devant
I'emper^ur, si le 9iilue : . .
Li emperSres respoDt hq
salu qui li a dit: Ja dex
ne vos beneie.'

'Avoil fet meflaires Lan-

tulea, pourcoi dites Toa ce?

' Ge le voE dirai, fait I!

baillie mon £1 i sprendre
et h, eodoctriner, et la pre-
miere doctrine que li avex
faite, si est que vos li avea
la parole toke; I'sutreqoi
vealt prendre ma fame &
force. Mes ja Dez ue vos
en doint joir; et bien aa-
chiez que lanloat comme

apres, et seroiz deetniit

460 And grete !« Emperouron his kne.

Unnel« wold he hyin see.

pe Emperour gaide, hou fals man,

Be hjm l>at aJ men-kynde wan,

)»u art fekeU and fatonr,
465 Losenger and eke traytour.

A, why syr leue lord ?

Bo nas I neuer, aaue hy word.

Syr, iiy gentyll wyue lale ub her,

And witA goddea helpe we schull ui

470 I gow toke ray N>n to loke

And for to tech hym on boke,
And )>ou first bygan to tech,
By-nome hU tong and his spech.
And lan^t hym sith with mor etryf,

475 Ffor U> nyme forth my wyf.
seschuU write t>eir-of noust;
Bot when he is to det« broujt,
I Echull dampne l>e and t>y feren

479 To drnwe and hooge by Jie awyren,'

As against this^ has only the following lines (1387-92)!

'And th' emperour wel sone he fond:

He gret him faire, ich undersWtid. (^ Ar 460)

Th' emperour aaide, ao God me spede, (= Ar 462)

Trailour, the scbal be quit thi medel

For Qii sones tuislerntng,

Ye schulle habbe evil ending!'

Other less important omissioDs occur in the conclusions to
aper audpiUeua: apei — the people invoke the master to help
his disciple (L 25, C 1064, E, B); puteua — the empress
threatens, on learning of the respite of the prince, to leave on
the morrow. Ar 624-5, "And saide scho wold away at
morowe. Nai dame, he saide, jef God it wyll. . . ," ^L 38,
"je m'en irai le matin, Non ferois, dame . . . . se dieux
plest." The same incident is omitted in the jl-text of avis;
of. i 59, ^r 1440-1.

In the body of the stories, as already observed, this tendency
is not nearly so marked. There is in fact no significant

THE SEVES SAGES. 53

feature of the stories of the original which has been preserved
in any other English version that does not appear also in A,
The nearest approaches to such are the following, both from
the story Roma: (1) An old wise man {^= A* 86, " un home
viel et ancien. . . .") makes the proposition that the city be put
in charge of seven sages, a bit of detail which is omitted by no
other English version ; (2) after these sages have kept the
city for a month, the food supply is exhausted ; cf. Ar, E, B,
C, ^, and A* 86, "vitaille failli a eeuls." Id addition to
these there are certain other minor details in which one or
more of the related English versions preserve the French
more closely. For example, in medtous (A 1149), Ypocras
pierces the ton in 1000 places, as against Ar (208), E, B, F,
which agree with L 28, -c- brockes. Likewise in Virgiliua,
A (1977-8) translates the O. F. "arc de coivre et une sajete,
bien entesse" {L 50) as "arblast .... and quarel taisand,"
while the remaining members of group Frender more literally
how and arrow; in aapieniea, C, Ar, E, B have the masters
ask Merlin his name, in agreement with L 60, " et li demand-
Srent commant il avoit a non," where A abridges ; to which
add that A makes no mention of the divine service at the
burial of the husband in vidua, where E, B, C, fall in with
A* 80, and that in the same story, A (2fil8) has the knight
come to the gallows to watch (hree nights, while Ar, E, B, C
fall together in their adherence to the French — A" 81, " la
premiere unit," and we have the sum of A's noteworthy
variations within the body of its stories-
Additions in A are even less numerous. An occasional
extra couplet (so far as the evidence of the remaining English
versions goes) now and then crops out, as e. g., 645-8, and we
also find here and there additional details, such as (1) in Vw-
giiiua, where the poor, in addition to warming themselves at
the magician's wonderful fire, are represented as also prepar-
ing their food by it {A 1973); and as (2) in sapienies, Herod
is described as the richest man in Christendom {A 2340), —
neither of which appears in any other text, whether English

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

or Romance. But such additioaa are very few in number,
and, in any case, too iDsiguificant to play a prominent part la
solving the problem in baud. They are, nevertbeleas, con-
firmatory of the evidence already adduced, with which they
unite in demonstrating conclusively the uuoriginality o{ A,

We have, then, in A a secondary development from the
lost y. It cannot have beeu based on any manuscript of which
any other text of Y is a close transcript, since it preserves
the original in some places more faithfully than any other
M. E. text. On the other hand, it cannot have been the
source nf any of the known M. E, manuscripts, since all these
preserve features of the French which A omits.

At, — Nearest to A stands the fragmentary text from MS.
Arundel 140, This version, while most important as repre-
senting in all probability the lost y more closely than any
other known text, has been singularly neglected by former
investigators. Petras makes no mention of it, whence we
draw the inference that he was unacquainted with it. And
apparently the only notice which has been accorded it, beyond
Varnhagen's several references to it,' is that of Ward in his
Catalogue of Romances (ir, p. 224 f.). From a comparison
of the introductory lines of ^»' with the corresponding jMissages
in A, E, C, Ward observed that its affinities seemed closest
with E; and this indeed holds for the conclusions of several
of the stories (Ward deals with a conclusion ; cf. our parallel-
ling of lines for medicua, in Appendix), where A has been seen
to be often free, and where Ar, in consequence, frequently
agrees more closely with any other text than with A. It does
not hold, however, as regards the stories themselves, where
E yields the first place to A.

Except in these conclusions, Ar agrees with A very closely.
Their intimate relation is evident at once from our line-for-
line statistics on p. 44. Of the 1916 lines of the Ar-aection
(==A \&\&), 234 are identical with lines in A, and there are

' First referred to in his Eint IlaL Proiaversum d. Sid>m Weittn, p. Xi,
and later in his review of Petras, Eng, Slwi., x, p. 27S.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

722 similar rimes. Next cornea i^ (1843 11.) with 169 iden-
tical lines and 746 similar rimee, — a slightly larger percentage
of rimes than for A, and an apparent discrepancj, which is,
however, easily reconciled by the fact of A's characteristic
curtailments; B (1931 11.) has 137 lines identical with Ar
and 646 like rimes, and G, which comes last, has only 19 lines
identical and 413 similar rimes.

But the closer relationship of Ar to A develops conclusively
only from a comparison of details. Here, while a careful colla-
tion of ^r with all other members of 1^ reveals no noteworthy
bit of detail in common with any other single text when con-
trasted with A, there are several interesting and significant
agreements of Ar with A against the rest of Y. Among these
are the following; (1) A 1462, "Ich wille bicome wod and
wilde," which is identical with Ar 552; in JE 1498, the
empress (who is speaking here) seeks to slay herself (cf. L 36,
"seroie-je morte"), (2) A 1580, "And he com als a
leopard " ;= Ar 668, " pane cam he rynnyng as a lyvarde."
(3) A 1588, "Bihot€ hem pans an handfolle" = ^r 676,
" Behote heme pens a pours full." (4) A 2396, "Al to loude
thou spak thi latin"^4r 1518, "To loude |>ou spake \ty
latyn." (5) A 2744, " Withe riche baudekines i-spredde" =
Ar 1868, " Willi rich cIo]je8 all byspred." None of these
verses have anything corresponding in any other English text.
Doubtless some of them are only accidental, but such cannot
be the case with all. Their evidence is well supported by
such further agreements as in geneseaicus, where A and Ar
unite in retaining the twenly marks of the original, other
M. E. texts varying, or as in vidua where these two agree in
that the wife is cut in the womb, while E, B preserve the
French — in the thwmb {A* 80, d police), C states that the
wounded part is a finger, E the hand, and D is indefinite.
Of these agreements there can be only one explanation, namely
in the assumption of a connection between the two texts.
What the nature of tbis relation is, however, can be best

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

determined after a collection of corresponding data for the
other manuscripts.

In comparing the remaining texts with Ar, one is at once
struck with the remarkable agreement of B, E wilh A, Ar.
These four versions have a number of features in common
which do not survive in C, F, or D, Thus fl) in gaza, the
son stabs himself in the thigh (= L 33, en la cmisae), where
C> ^are free, the one reading ckeJce, the other honde. (2) In
eeneecalcus, the king falls sick " by God's vengeance " {not in
L ; also omitted by C, D, — F omitting the entire story). (3)
Again in the same story, the king offers twenty raarks or
pounds for a lady to lie with (^ L 40, xx mars), where C
reads ten pounds, and D simply " gold and silver." And this
is still more apparent in a line-for-line collation, as is suffi-
ciently demonstrated in the Appendix.

At the same time, also, one cannot but remark certain
occasional agreements of Ar with E, B in opposition to A, For
instance, (1) the king in seneacalcus, with the former, has
great delight in women, where A on tlie contrary, in agree-
ment with the O. F., as also with C, D, describes him as
disdaining women above all things (i 39, " II desdaingnoit
fame seur toutes riens "). And (2) in sapientee, the sages in
Ar, E, B ask respite for sewen days, where A, C give four-
teen days,F 12, L 4-8, and K15. Likewise (3) the servants
of the king in sapienles dig under his bed " four feet or five "
in Ar, E, B, while A makes no mention of the distance, but
says ten or twelve men dig ; so L 62, xx homes. To which
is to be added (4) the agreement of Ar, E, B in having the
husband in vidua [Ar 1756) swear by St. Austyne; — by
<S(. Johain in A (2630). Nevertheless, these are not of such a
nature as to contradict the classification of Ar with A, but
merely indicate that in such cases, Ar best preserving the
original, independence has been asserted by the poet of ^4.

But in view of these and of ^'s frequent abridgments, we
cannot look for the basis of Ar in A, nor — as it is hardly
necessary to add, after the citation of textual agreements with

THE SEVEN SAGES.

A — in E or B, — and Btill less, for even more obvious reasons,
ia C or F. The marked agreement of Ar with A, however,
begets the assumption of a development of the former, parallel
with the latter, from a common source r, through which
they both go back to y.

Certain agreements of Ar with E against all other versions
including A (treated more at length under E) are not alto-
gether easy to reconcile, but owing to Ar'a nearness to other
texts — A in particular — as against E, it is impossible to con-
sider Ar as derived from it ; we are led rather to the converse
assumption, of a partial connection, or contamination, of E
with Ar, or, in more likelihood, with the latter's immediate

That Ar so far as it goes, best preserves the lost M. E.
original is borne out on all sides : (1) by its close agreement
with the texts A and E, which otherwise best reproduce this
source; (2) by the fact that J^ in the last four stories (in
which we should expect a close adherence to its original) is
closer to it than to any other text; and (3) that while A,
especially, and E, B, in a less degree, often add or omit lines,
Ar almost never adds, and in only rare cases abridges.'

However, that no manuscript which has survived was based
on Ar follows from its occasional freedom, as e. g., (1) its
rimes to 171-2, 227-8, 463-4, etc., which are parallelled by
no other text, and (2) in Roma the names of JvMua and July,
— where all other texts better preserve the Genua (Janus) and
Jtmuary of the French.

E. — With the exception of Ar, the Egerton MS. would be
of most value in preparing a normalized text, since it next
beat preserves the original, and especially since it is complete.

The value of E is considerably impaired, however, by the
fact that its author — or more probably its scribe — has made
an unusual number of textual abridgments, — as a rule for

'Tbeonlj addition in the first 1900 11. is 1871-2;
' When day bygane to sprynge,
And )>e foules mery to eyage.'

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

Bingle couplets only, yet id a few cases for a half-dozen or
more lines. Some of these are the following: (1) after 996
= A 991-2,(2) 1024 = ^ 1019-20, (3) 1216 = A 1211-2,
(4) 14fX) = ^ 1385-6, (6) 1500=^ 1465-6, (6) 1530=A
1500-1,(7)1558=^ 1529-30,(8) 1578=^ 1549-50,(9)
1646= A 1616-6, (10) 1652=^ 1623-4, (11) 1662=^
1633-4, (12) 1784= J 1749-50, etc., and, most radical of
all, (13) after 2472 =:^ 2424 t, where ten lines have been
lost.' In consequence of this, E is somewhat shorter than
either of the other complete texts, B and C. For the 2564
lines of the Arundel fragment, it has only 2365 ; and this
number in reality sliould be reduced 18 lines, since the couplets
with which E heads nine of its stories, and which have been
included in this numbering, did not belong to the original, it
is safe to assume, and should not, for purposes of comparison,
be regarded as part of the text.

But beyond these slight abridgments, the author of E has,
in the handling of his original, exhibited almost no independ-
ence. One looks in vain for such abridgments aa characterize
A, as also for significant additions such as are found in F and
C Excepting such occasional freedom as the assigning to
the incident in Roma the date of the first of January, and the
changing of the barber in tentamina into a borowe — a scribal
error, doubtless — we shall find scarcely one other feature ex-
clusively peculiar to E, until we have reached almost the end
of the poem, when the poet for once appears to assert his inde-
pendence, and we have in consequence the very interesting
addition that —

' whenne that his fadyr dede was,

He leCe make u nobjlle pi as,

'The additioDB are less numerauB. Among those which are jiHrallelled
bjno more than one other text, or are peculiar to E.axe (1) 98S-7 (after
A B74), (2) 1015-6 (a. A 1012), (3) 1245-6 (a. A 1238), (4) 1021-2= J
1591-2, (5) 1693-6 (a. A 1664), (6) 1761-2 (a. A 1726), (7) 1809-10 (a. A
1780), (8) 2097-2103 (a. A 2068), (9) 2291-4 {a. A 2246J, and (10) 234B-
61 (a. A 2298).

THE SEVEN SA(iE8.

And a fayre abbeje he lete begyane,
And VII. Bchoce inonkyB brought thereyo,
And eujr more lo rede and sjnge
For hys fadyr witA-owte lesynge.' {3561-6)

All other important variations in E are repeated in some
one or more of the related M. E. versions. The agreement
here is closest with B and Ar. Its near relation to the latter
has already heen shown, and it has been pointed out that
there are features in which the two are alone ; and there are
also cases in which the two are alone in textual abridg-
ments: e. g. Ar 227-8 ^E 1\7 1-2. It has also been seen
under Ar, that £ in several instances falls in with E, Ar, as
against A, C, F.

It remains to point out some of the motives common to
E, B versus the remaining texts of Y. The most important
of these are the following : (I) arbor — lords and ladies begin
to weep when they see the prince led forth to be hanged;
(2) arbor — Bancyllas assures the emperor that the prince
will recover his speech; (3) sapieidcs — both urait the detail
of A, Ar, C that Merlin declines the offer of money made
by the man whose dream he has interpreted ; (4) mdua —
the wife is cut in the thumb, where other texts have vari-
onsly womb, finger, and hand ; as also (5) vidua — the knight's
disregarding the widow's suggestion that he knock out her
husband's teetli ; (6) Roma — the sage who makes the propo-
sition for saving Rome is called Junyus {^A, C, F, Gemes ; Ar,
Jvliua; D, Gynevcr). In several of these, to wit 3, 4, 6, it will
be observed, E, B are truest to the French.

Such evidence as this precludes the thought of a basis of E
in Ar, but in view of the agreements between the two already
noted, and, especially, of the fact that there is a greater num-
ber of .Ar-lines than of B-lines identical with E's (cf. p. 44),
it does not seem improbable — though I am unable to prove it —
thattheauthorof .E has known and been partly influenced by Ar.

On the other hand there is abundant evidence of an all but
immediate connection between B and E: (1) in the agree-
ments iu details just cited, and (2) in the textual omissions

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

aod additions which the two have exclusivelj iu cotnmon.
Thus, of the thirteen ^omissions collected above, six {1, 7,
9, 10, 11, 12) are also in B; and of the ten additions cited in
the footnote (p. 68), tliree (1, 8, 9} are common to B, — or a
total of 9 out of '23 — a remarkable showing when it is borne
in mind that in ten of these cases E is alone, agreeing in only
one case (abridgments — 9) with any other text than B.

Despite these, however, E cannot have been based on B,
since it preserves in agreement with other texts — notably
Ar — features of the original which B omits.

In the next section it will be shown, also, that B was not
based on E, and it will be further demonstrated that the two
are related through a common source.

B. — The Balliol text, like E, is complete and of late com-
position. The analogy between the two does not stop here,
however; there are many things which bind them together,
not only when looked at externally, but also from an interior
point of view. One of the most striking phenomena which
they have iu coramon, and which one canuot but remark in
comparing them with Ar and the remaining F-texts, is the
tendency to reverse the order of words, or to substitute
synonymous or analogous expressions, — in consequence of
which the identity of the line and often the rime is destroyed.
This is equally as prominent in £ as in E, if not more ao.
In B especially, the change of epithet often flows, one feels,
from a desire to modernize, rather than from a conscious
effort, as might be supposed, to conceal the source.

In some other respects, however, B and E are very unlike.
For instance, while it is characteristic of £ to drop out one
or more couplets for every column, B is exceptionally free
from such slight curtailments, while its additional couplets
are comparatively numerous.' Moreover, while E is at first

'In the first 1000 lioee of the part selected for a line- Tor-line comparison
(^ B 93S-1951), B has 16 couplets which do not appear in any other
manuscript, ond which were accordingly, in large part in all probability,
its own additions. E, on the contrary, has only 4, or one-fourth as many
{1015-6, 1245-6 and 1693-6).

THE SEVEN SAGES.

close to the original — more so by far in the first thousand
lines than auywhere else — and becomes more and more free, B
exhibits just the reverse tendency, and we find it in the last
third of the poem textually almost as close to the original
as is E,

As r^ards incident, B is usually more free than any
one of the texts so far treated. Its chief variations — in the
nature of additions largely — are the following : (1) aper —
the herd fills both arms and sleeves (later laps) with the haws;

A, E, laps = L 23, girona; 0, D, hood. (2) medieus — the ille-
gitimate father of the sick prince, called in the remaining
members of F either the earl oi the king of Naveme (=L 27,
U qaens de Namur) is not named. (3) puteus — besides the
feature peculiar to Y, viz. that the burgess would only marry
some one from a distance, B adds that he also would marry
no poor woman, — with the additional information that he
already had had two wives. The feature of A, E, Ar, that
he made a covenant with the bride's father, does not appear in

B. (4) sintsealciis — while in the reraainiog texts the steward
is banished, in B he is put to death — and by pouring molten
silver and lead down his throat. This incident, which consti-
tutes the most violent freedom of B, is apparently borrowed
from Virgilius, where Crassus dies a similar death. The
punishment in either case is fitted to the crime. (5) tenta-
mina — the wife wishes to love the parish prifst, where A, Ar,
E, F, C have simply priest ^ i, provoire (but see D" 27,
Measire Guillauvie le chappelain de la parroise). ( 6) sapientes —
they meet with the old man after two days; other texts not
definite as to time. (7) Roma — the town is put in charge of
tv)o wise men ; in other texts it is «etieji. (8) inclusa — the
knight has travelled only one month before he comes into
the land of his lady ; according to other M. E. versions it is
three months {K, D*, A* 89, trois semaines; but cf. Varn-
hageu's Ital. Prosaversion, p. 36, Ire megt. (9) ineluaa — the
wife's ring had been given her as a New Year's gift, — an
invention of B,

KILLI8 CAJIPBELL.

But while B has thus many features peculiar to itself, it
possesses very few exclusively peculiar to itself and any one
other text, — a circumstance which renders the problem of ita
relations somewhat difficult of solutiou. We may resort,
however, to the verse-omissions or additions, and it is signifi-
cant here that the evidence from motive -comparison (submitted
already under E) which pointed to a relation with E, receives
very strong confirmation. In almost every instance in which
B agrees in an addition or omission with only one other text,
this text is E, Thus, in the first thousand lines of the con-
stant element in Y (= B 934 f.), there is a total of ten such
variations, of which nine are in agreement with E — the tenth
being with C, an agreement which can only be explained as a
coincidence or, at least, as signifying nothing. The agreements
with E, however, cannot well be accidental. They offer strong
confutation of the evidence of the line-collation (p. 44), which
seems to indicate a closer relationship with A or Ar.

That B was not based on either of the latter — A, Ar —
follows from the fact that it preserves certain features of the
original (cf, 3, 4, 5 of motive-agreements of E, B, p. 59) which
they have either lost or altered.

And that both B and E go back to y independently of each
other is rendered improbable in the highest degree by their
agreements in omissions and additions. We are forced then to
the a.ssumption of the existence at some time of a manuscript —
denoted by s — which served as the common source of B
avdE.

P. — There is no one of the M. E. texts of the Seven Sages
which has been more imperfectly reported than that contained
in the Cambridge Univei-sity M8. Ff, ii, 38. Wright as early
as 1845 was acquainted with this version, and printed in the
introduction (p. Lxx) to his edition of D the opening lines,
but vouchsafed no further description of the text than that it
presented many different readings from A and was much
mutilated. And Petras, on the basis of this description, and
with the aid of about 190 lines of the text, has inclined to the

THE SEVEN BAQES.

view that F is nearer to C than to any other M. E. versioD.^
Neither Wright nor Petras, however, has made reference to
the description of Halliwell in his Thornton Romances (Cam-
den Society PublicatiooH, XXX, p. xui f.), and both were
evidently ignorant of it.

The description of Halliwell is the most reliable which has
up to this time appeared ; yet in one or two instances it, too,
ie inaccurate. For example, the thirteenth story of F has
been overlooked entirely; again it implies that there in only
one new story introduced into this version, — the one which
he prints on p. XLiii f. In reality there is a second story in
F which is peculiar to it, — the ninth story, to which Halliwell
gives the name The Squyei- and his Bwowe. This tale is
complete and runs as follows :

' Hjt was a aqojer of lhy» conlre,
1116 And full welbeloujd WHS he.

Yn deJya of arrays and jn juBtjng [145 b.]

He bare hym beate yn hya begynnyng.

So hyl befelle he had a BjHtiir aone,

That for ajluyr he had nome,
1120 He was put yo preson etrong,

And Bchulde be dampned, and he hong.

The aquyer faste thedur can gon,

And askyd theai atrythe anon

What liyng he had borne a-way;
1125 And they answerjd, and can say,

He had stolen ajluyr grete plente ;

Therfore hangyd acbulde he bee.

The aquyer hym jiroford, perniafaj',

To be hya borowe tyll a cerlen day,
1130 For to amende that be myadede,

Anon ihey toke hym yn thnt atede,

And baiinde hym faate fote and honde

And caste hym yn-to preson atronge.

They let hj8 coajn go a-way
U3S To qnyte hym be a cerlen day.

Grete ]iathes then a^ he,

And men he alewe grele plente.

Moche he stale and bare a-way,

And Btroyed the contre nyght and day.

'See hie dissertaUon, p. 31. Cf. also Yam h age n, in bU review of
Englwdie Slvdim, X, p. 281 f.

EILLIS CAUFBELL.

1140 Bot upon )<e Bqayer hight he Dothjng

That he yn preson lefte Ijetig,

So that tyme csme as j JDW aij-,

But for the eqiiyer came do pa;e.

He wai hanged on a galowe tree.
1145 For hjm was dole and greie pyte,

When the noble aquyer was alon, [145 c.]

For hjm morned many oon.

That odur rohbjd and stale inoche tyng,

And sethyD was hangyd at hjs endyng.
1160 Thai schall be-tyHe of )>e, syr Enip«rour,

And or thy aone, so gret of honour.'

Otherwise Halliwell's description is characterized by the
strieteat accuracy, and leaves no room for the assumption,
apparently made by Petras, of an identity in the order of
stories between F and the remaining M. E. versions,

The correct order of stories in F is as follows : (I) arbor,
(2) pvieitB, (3) aper, (4) tentamina, (5) gaza (end of), (6) vidua,
(7) Riotous Soil (beginning of), (8) canis {end of), (9) Squyer
and Borowe, (10) avis, [II) sapientes, (\2)medicus, (13).Ro7no,
(14) indusa, and (15) valicinium. Eight stories then (1, 3, 5,
10, 11, 13, 14, 15) retain their usual order. The two new
stories, 7 and 9, supplant senescalcus and YirgUius, taking their
respective order. For the remaining five stories, 2 changes
place with 8, 4 with 12, 6 with 2, 8 with 4, and 12 with 6.
For this order there is no parallel either in other English or
in foreign versions, and there can be little doubt that it was
original with the ii^-redactor.

In content, also, F is very unique. In some cases the orig-
inal story has been altered almost beyond recognition. This
alteration consists largely in textual abridgments, but it is also
very evident in the many new incidents that have been intro-
duced.

The introduction, in contradistinction to the stories of the
first part, is but slightly abridged. It exhibits several more
or less interesting variations, but the only one of any signifi-
cance is the assigning to the king's steward the distinction

THE SEVEN SAGES.

(accorded the king's retinue in the other texts) of making the
petition which saves the prince's life the first day,

'Tlien come fartlie the ateiraTd,
And Bejile, Bjrr, thjs was not forward,
When that j helde the thy londe.
When ii. kjng«a bade l>e batell wM wrong-,
And then t«u swere be heuen kyng
Thou Bchuldeat neuer watne me myn aakjng.
Geue me thy sonea Ijfe to-daj,
Yentyll Empfrour, y the pray,
And let hym to-morowe be at t>j wylle,
Whethar >ou wylt hym saue or spylle.
I graunt the, eeyde the Empwour,
To geue hym lyfe be seynl Bauyour.' (S80-391)

Arbor is very much abridged, the story proper comprising
only twenty lines. There is no mention of the burgess's going
away from home, nor of the trimming away of the branches
of the old tree.

Of canis only a short fragment is left, for which compare
Halliwell, Thornton Romances, p. XLiv.

Aper has to do with a " swynherde " who has lost a " boor,"
and who

* durete not go home to hya mete

For drede hya mayBtyrs wolde hym bele,'

but climbs a tree, and is making a repaat of acoms when the
wild-boar of the forest comes up.

Medicos is one of the last four stories, — hence agrees faith-
fully with its original.

Only the conclusion of gaza has been preserved.

Pideus has undergone radical alteration; (1) The curfew
of the original is omitted. Instead of it there is a law in
Rome that whosoever shall be found away from home at
night with any woman other than his wife shall be stoned
to death on the morrow. (2) The lover here is a "squire of
great renown," (3) The burgess uses a rope in trying to get
his wife from the well. (4) He has already had two wives
before his marriage with the one who figures here. This

66 SILLIS CAMPBELL.

feature has been transplanted from the introduction to tenta-
mina, where it properly belongs.

Senescalcua and Virgtlius do not appear in F.

Tentamina is characterized by the addition of a fourth trial,
the killing of the knight's hawk. Other features are (1) the
assigning to the wife the office of the gardener in the first
trial (she fells the tree, and sets "dokys and nettuls" in its
stead), (2) the omission of mention of the church as the meet-
ing-place of mother and daughter, and (3) the transference to
puteus of the ' two-wives '-feature.

Avis, though textnally free, contains no unusual details
other than (1) that the lover is a priest, and (2) that the wife
is killed by the enraged husband.

In sapientes, however, there are several striking variations:
(1) The sages build a " horde-house " just above the city gate,
which renders the emperor blind whenever he tries to pass it
in going out of the city. (2) There is no mention of Merlin's
first dream -interpretation, a feature in which J^ agrees with
D, — an agreement, however, which can only be accidental
since i^ contains the search fur and meeting of the sages with
Merlin, which we find no hint of in D.

Ftdua has the following peculiar features: (1) The husband
willneverlethiswifegoahalf-itiilefromhim, "neither to church
nor to cheping." (2) The wife is paring a, pear when she cuts
herself. (3) There is mention of only one thief, and he is not
alluded to as a knight. (4) A "pyke and spade" are used in
digging up the corpse. (5) In addition to the mutilations
usually recorded, F adds a fourth, — the cutting off of two
fingers which the knight claimed that the thief had lost.

The last three stories, Roma, indusa, aud valicinium, offer
essential agreement in detail with the other texts of K

The variations of F are thus seen to be very numerous.
Yet, significant though many of them are, they tell only half
the story. The whole truth is revealed only when it is con-
sidered that along with these, and partly consec^uent upon

THE SEVEN SAQES.

them, the length of the poem has been reduced by about
one-third, or to little more thaii 2500 lines.

And what ia most noteworthy about this abridgment is
that it is not carried through the entire text, but extends only
through the eleventh story. Up to the conclusion of this
story the greatest freedom prevails, old incidenta are rejected
and new ones introduced at will, and, again resorting to
figures for forcible illustration, the text is reduced from a
normal 2500 lines to scarcely more than 1000,' In the
remaining four stories, however, there is, as has been seen,
dose agreement with the remaining texts of Y.

How to account for this wholesale mutilation to which F
has subjected its original ia not an easy problem. One would
think of a. basis for the first part in oral accounts, but this is
rendered extremely improbable by the fact that throughout
this part there is frequent agreement of rimes, and not unusual
identity of lines, with other M. E. versions. Or again, there
is a possibility that F was made from some very fragmentary
manuscript, but there is do substantial basis for this supposi-
tion, and the changed order of storiea is distinctly against it.
The most probable view, by far, seems to be that the poet had
before him a complete manuscript, which, for some reason,
possibly to conceal his source, he has for the first eleven stories
arbitrarily altered ; and that beginning with the twelfth story,
having grown tired of his task, he has for the remaining stories
reproduced his original with fidelity.

With the acceptance of this explanation, the problem of F'b
relationship is rendered comparatively simple ; for, if the
variations of the first part are attributable to the poet, this
part is of little value for purposes of comparison, and we are
accordingly restricted to the last part as the basis for any
investigation.

For this part there ia comparatively close textual agreement
with E, B, C, Ar, and A (the last two uufortunately frag-
mentary here in part). No single important detail and a very

' For the corretponding pitrt, E has 2593 lines, lud B, 2658.

KILLIS CAMPBEIi.

email pei'centage of the rimes have been changed, while lines
identical with one or more of the other texts are numerous.
The agreement is closest with Ar as a rule, with E next in
order ; thus, for the 845 lines (F 1440-2286) which the three
texts have in common, only 53 lines of F are identical with
lines in F, while the corresponding figure for Ar ia 116,
Again, for this section Ar has agreement with F in 26 couplets
which do not appear in _E(J'1476~7, 1490-1, 169.^5 [B, A},
1714-5, 1726-31, 1738-9, 1754-5, 1774-7, 1790-1, etc).
But despite this affinity with Ar, i^ cannot have been based
on it, for in one case (i^2280-l)^r lacks a couplet which both
Eaad ^have preserved, and in other cases, it has made inde-
pendent additions (ef. Ar 1896-7, 2374-7, 2384-5). This
slight evidence is everywhere well supported : on the one
hand we find B, though much farther removed than F or Ar,
nearest F (cf. B 1096 = F 1578) ; again A will be found to
be nearest (cf. ^ 997=J^1464,A 1016 = i^l487, ^ 1048
= _F1518, ^ 1088-9 = J?" 1553-4); while in other instances
several will agree as against Ar (cf. A 2762 =B 2848 =-f
1679, and A 2751 ^ F 2762 -= B 283.3 ^ F 1662).

In the face of this otherwise contradictory evidence, it is
impossible to find the source of i*' in any one known manuscript.
At the same time there is nothing to indicate a partial basis
on any two of them, since some exclusive agreements with
each of the other closely related texts are found. On the
contrary, the evidence from all sides combines to show tliat F
goes back to y independently of any other known manuscript.

O. — Petras, although he showed a close agreement of C
with A — 52 lines identical and 1296 with similar rimes —
classed it apart from A, and as only related with it through
a common O. F. source.^ His owa figures, however, ae
Varnhagen has already pointed out, justiiy quit« another
conclusion ; for it is inconceivable that two independent trans-
lations from a foreign source should have 52 out of about
2500 lines identical, or 1300 with like rimes. The rather are
'See his disaertation, p. 21.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

we to conclude that C \a ultimately based on the ultimate
common original of A, Ar, E, B, F, and belongs with them
to group Y.

Of all M. E. texts C ia the fullest and, from a literary
point of view, the moat perfect. At the same time it is, with
the exception of F, the freest of the texts which comprise Y,
This freedom, however, does not consist in the changed order
of stories nor the wholesale mutilation of text which charac-
terize F; nor is it violent or spasmodic. It flows from
an independence or individuality of a much higher type, which
neither eliminates old motives nor introduces new ones of a
startling nature, but which contents itself, on the one hand,
with a slight variation of the episode (generally in the nature
of additions), on the other, with the enlargement and embellish-
ment of the often more or less lifeless langui^e of its original, —
in both cases with the purpose of heightening the poetic effect.
So that, while we see in ^ the most important of the M. E.
texts from an historical viewpoint, in Ar the most faithful
representative of the lost y, we have in C preeminently the
most perfect poem, holding, as it does, in language, style, and
metre, the first place in the early English group.

As regards fidelity to the original, as already suggested, G
does not occupy a very high rank. Its variations, however,
consist rather in ampliflcatiou than in invention, as is well
illustrated by the fact that, while 600 additional lines have
been interwoven into the text, there are only the following
noteworthy variations of incident: (1) The step-mother in
bringing about the prince's downfall seeks counsel and assist-
ance from a witch (297). (2) In arbor, the tree with which
the story deals is a pineapple-tret ; A, E, B, F read pynnote-
tree, and D, apple-tree. (3) The queen in medictis states that
it has been twelve years since the Earl of Naverne had visited
her (11 67); other texta indefinile. (4) The patient in the same
Btory is advised to "Ete beresfless anrf drink |>e bro" (1184),
A, Ar, E, B, "beef's flesh with the broth" (E, "with the
blood ") ; X 27, char de hue/. (6) There is mention of only

KILLIS CAMPBELL,

two clerks mgaza, where the remainiag English and the French
texts have semen, five of whom are stationed away from the city
(1319). (6) In the same story the father alone goes into the
tower Creesent, while in the other texts both father and son
go (1340). (7) In tentamina, the history of each of the two
deceased wives is related separately ; in other texts it is simply
stated that the husband had survived two wives (1879). (8)
In the same story, also, it will be noted that only the right
arm of the wife is bled. (9) In F(V^i/iu«, the two brothers them-
selves fill the two " forcers" ; elsewhere theKing has them filled.
Other variations here are the changed order of incident in
burying the treasure, and the omission of the name of the
Emperor (Crassus). (10) There is, in avis, no mention of a
maid as assisting the faithless wife. (11) The lord of the
castle in inchisa is playing chess when the knight rides up
(3294). (1 2) The son in vatidnium learns of the whereabouts
of his fether through a vision (4135).

We may judge from this enumeration how faithfully C has
reproduced the Bubject-matter of the original. It has altered
very few details, and none radically, while no single significant
feature, either from the body or from the end of its stories,
has been omitted ; at the same time, only an occasional bit of
detail has been added, — a remarkable showing, indeed, when
the laT^e increase in the number of lines is considered.

But there is more specific evidence of C's fidelity to its
original. There are certain details in which it appears to give
a more faithful reflex of the Old French than any other M. E.
text. Thus, in aper, the boar on reaching the tree finds
"hawea ferly fone" (987); cf. L 23, "s'il se merveille mult
durement de ce qu'il ne pot autretant trover des aliea comme
il soloit faire devant." According to other M. E, versions the
boar finds no haws at all. Another illustration may be had
from inclusa, where C (3264) preserves the Hongrie of the
French {A* 89) as the land into which the knight finally
comes in search of his lady; M. E. variants arePfe(ye in Ar,
and Poyk m E, F, and D.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

And there are also instances in which C is in agreement with
only one other text in its preservation of the French : (1) With
A in its rendering blanche leuriere {K 2604 ; L 45, only leu-
nfe-e) by gray bitch, where Ar, E, B render greylumjid, F
simply hound. (2) With i^'in giving, in Roma, the informa-
tion as to the origin of the word January at the beginning of
the Janiis-episode ; other M. E. versions, where they preserve
this detail, depart from the O. F, order in placing it at the
conclusion of the story.

It is to these facts in the main that we have to resort to
determine C's immediate relations ; for the theory of a direct
translation from the O. F, can no longer be defended in the
faoe of the evidence from a comparison of rimes, etc. From
this comparison it is evident that C is nearly related to the
other versions of group Y. That it cannot have been based on
any one of them, however, follows from its agreements (just
cited) with the French where the remaining M. E. texts are
free. And this also derives confirmation from the features
which it has esclueively in common with only one M, E. ver-
sion and the O. F., for neither of the two M. E. versions in
point here (-4 and F) can possibly have been its original.

We have, accordingly, to assume for G an independent basis
in the lost text y. Whether one or more maanscripta inter-
vene between C and y cannot be determined so long as they
are not forthcoming; in any case there seems nothing to sup-
port Varnhagen's proposition {Eng. Stud., x, p. 280) of a
" miindliche Ueberlieferungsstufe " between the two.

D. — Version D, as compared with the texts so far con-
sidered, is unique, and cannot be classed with them in group
Y. Though it is written in the same metre as the remaining
M. E. versions, and while it preserves, also, the ji-order of
stories, it differs from each and every text of Kmuch more
radically than any one of these differs from any other. And
so great has this difference seemed that scholars have been
□nanimous in assuming forZ) an immediate basis in the Old
French, The thought of a near kinship with any other M. E.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

version appears never to have been entertained. Wright's
testimony is to the effect that "The two English metrical
versions (by which be meant ^ and D) are altogether different
compositions ; but .... were evidently translated from the
same original. . , ." * And the views of Petras (p. 44 f.) and
others are of like import. Scholars without exception seem
to have blindly accepted Wright's view, with no effort what-
ever to test its validity.

That \V' right's assumption is unwarranted, however, may
be demonstrated, it is believed, beyond question. And it
will be the purpose of the following pages to make good this
assertion. With this end in view, we may first bring together
the chief variations in incident which D exhibits.

The introduction of D contains no significant alteration
of the original. A unique feature is the naming of the queen
Helie (variant Elye, 22-3) where the French is silent, but
where Y has the name MUicent (or Ilacent), In not giving a
name to the prince it falls in with the French ; other M, E.
tests call him Floreidine. There is a slight enlargement in
the account of the meeting of the father and son, in which
we have possibly a more faithful preservation of the French
than in Y. Other slight variations are the additional nature-
touch in having the queen ask to see the prince " In a myry
momyng of May" (261), and the requiring the sages to
come to court within three days after the receipt of the royal
message (312).

Arbor preserves all the essential motives of the French.
A slight abridgment is the omission of mention of the knight's
going away for the sake of " chafl^re " {A, E, B, C, L),

Oanie, on the other hand, contains a number of interesting
variations : (1) The infant has only two nurses ; in A, E, B, C,
K,L, there are three, — cf. i 17, "Li enfes avoit -m- norricea."
(2) D also fails to catalogue the duties of the nurses, which is
otherwise a constant feature in both English and French (cf,
Y, K, L 17). (3) A third curtailment is the complaint of the

' See the preface to his edition of the D-teit, Percy Soc, xvi, p. i.xTin.

THE SEVEN SAOE8.

knight against women when he finds his child alive, (4) A
very original addition is that the knight drowna himself for
sorrow in a fiscke-pole in his garden (883) ; L 21 and Y have
him go OD a pilgrimage by way of atonement.

Aper exhibits comparative agreement with Y, except in the
conclusion wliich has been much abridged.

The tale medkua is very much condensed. The tou-motif
is cancelled altogether (L 28 f., A 1142 f.), and there are
numerous less im[«)rtant omissions i e. g. (1) mention by name
of the Earl of Navern {Y,L 27, " li quens de Namur ") ; (2)
the cure of the invalid (F", "beef's flesh," etc, ; i 27, "char
de buef"); (3) specific allusion to the prince as an avetrol
(L 27, avoUres, — so Y, except F, C read korcopp). A single
addition is that the queen of Hungary is accompanied by ten
or twelve maids (1082).

Gaza. Omissions are (1) the names of both emperor and
tower (Octavian and Oressent, respectively, in A, A?; IE, B, G,
L 30), aud (2) the warden's finding the headless body, and his
endeavor to identify the same, — a feature which ia preserved
and worked out io detail in all other related versions (of. L
32 f,, A 1319-48).

Puims. (1) No mention of the Roman law until late in
the narrative (1413 f,); in other versions it appears at the
beginning of the story {Y, L 36). (2) This law is not alluded
to at all as ctvrfew (cf, L 36, coevrefeu). (3) The wife makes
no threat of drowning herself in the well (Y,L 37), (4) The
husband's excuse for being out thus late is that he thought he
heard a spangel, which he had " mysde al thys seven-nyght "
(1448-9).

SeneBcalcus, (1) Much abridgment of the scene between
the seneschal and his wife on the former's announcing his
infamous purpose. (2) Abridgment also of the early morning
scene, notably the dialogue between the king and his seneschal.
(3) An omitted detail ia the bestowing the wife on a rich earl,
which is found in Y, but which seems not to have been ia
the Old French,

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

Tentamina variations are (1) the wife herself contrives the
" tentamina." In all the related versions, they are proposed
by the mother. (2) A brother of the sage assists in the blood-
letting. OmissionB are (1) mention of the sage's having sur-
vived two wives (cf. L 43 and all M. E. versions except F),
and (2) the wife's third visit to her mother, and the implied
r6le of the parish-priest of the original and the remaining
M. E. versions.

Virffiliwi. (1) A striking and altogether unwarranted alter-
ation is the substitution of Merlin for Vergil (1880). (2)
Allied with this is the very radical variation — probably the
most radical of all in D — in the omission of the entire first
episode, the incident of the mirror-pillars alone being preserved.
Other less strikiug variations are (3) the two cofers of gold
are buried, not as in the remaining M. E. versions, at the gates
of the city, but in "lyttyl pyttys twaye" (1926); (4) the
emperor is not asked to divide half with the brothers, nor does
he accompany the latter to their place of digging, but sends
one of his men with them (1932 f., 1956) ; (6) the brothers set
fire to the foundation of the pillar before going to their inn,
and even visit the emperor to bid farewell before taking final
leave of the city; (6) instead of pouring molten gold down the
emperor's throat, a hall of gold is ground to powder and bis
eyes, nose, and throat are filled with it (20G7-71).

Avis. Instead of the pie of other texts we have a popynjay
(2145), and (2) instead of the moid, a boy as the wife's assist-
ant. (3) Only the boy goes on the house-top. (4) He breaks
great blown bladders in imitation of thunder. (5) There is
no mention of the husband's discovery of the wife's deception.

Sapientea. Important omissions are the search for, and find-
ing of, the child Merlin and the incident, dependent thereon,
of the interpretation of the dream.

Vidua. (1) An interesting invention is the husband's bnrial
"withouten the toun at a chapel" (2484), since, in view of
the manner in which he met his death, "In kyrke^arde men
wolde hym nout delve " (2482) ; -4* 80, simply au moustier, (2)

THE SEVEN SAGES,

The wife herself kindles the fire and makes her bed beside the
grave (2502 f.), having first sent after her clothes (2500), (3)
The knight is permitted to enter immediately im knocking;
in other texts, he has to repeat his knocking and petitions.
(4) The wife does not, as in other texts, propose matrimony
to the knight.

Roma. (1) There are three heathen kings instead of seven
as in the original (2649). (2) The page is not named till
towards the end of the story, when he is called Gynever (2730) ;
cf. A* 86, Genua; A, B, C, F, Gemes; E, B, Jmyua; Ar.
Julius.

Inclusa. This story presents remarkable agreement with
Y, the chief and only important variation being the temporary
omission of the knight's explanation of the reason for his flight
from his native land in that he had slain there another knight.
This excuse is employed later in the story, but originates with
the lady (2961).

Vaticinium. (1) The father also has the power of inter-
preting the language of birda (3138). (2) The name of the
father is omitted {A* 101, A' 4919, Girart leJUs Thierri; B,
C, F, Jerrard Noryea aone; E, Bamarde Nirryaahe), and there
is othetwise much condensation of the narrative.

Such are some of the variations of D. And these are doubt-
less what led Wright to his classification of this version. But
since all these variations are peculiar to D they can in no way
be held to confirm Wright's view. They are in fact of no
value whatever in determining D's relations, except in so far
as they put one on guard against laying too much stress on
any agreements which D may be found to have exclusively in
common with any particular group or version.

Wright's theory, however, does seem to derive some sup-
port from another quarter, namely that D, in a number of
instances, preserves the Old French more faithfully than any
other M. E. version.' These are as follows: (1) In sencacalcits,
the king rules in Apulia (so L 39) ; in F, he rules over both
' Wright, however, has not adduced any of this evidence.

KILLI8 CAMPBELL.

Apulia and Calabria. (2) In sapientes, after all the sages
have been slain and the cauldron has become clear, Merlin and
Herod ride out of the city by way of testing results ; the king,
on reaching the gate, regains his sight (D 2409 f, L 63).
Other M. E. texts omit this feature. A less significant agree-
ment of _D with the Old French in the same story is that the
king remains blind from the time he goes outside the city
gates, where F represents him as being blind only when with-
out the city, and as always recovering hia sight on his return.
(3) B 2803, A* 89 have the knight in indusa travel three
weeks in a fruitless search for the lady of his dream. Ar, E,
C, i''have him travel three months, — B, one month} (4) In
vatidnium, the father and the son, at the beginning of the
story, are on their way to visit a hermit on an island in the
sea (3141 f.). This feature is suppressed in the remaining M.
E, versions, but appears in all the important O. F. versions;
A* 98, " por aler il -i- reclus qui eatoit senr -i- rochier," and
^4693— 4, "Naiant en vont a un renelus, ki en un rochier ses-
toit mis." (5) Iq the same story (3327), the city to which
the father comes in his poverty, is, in agreement with A* 101,
Plede (cf. also j^4918, "Ales moi tost an plaseis," — which
Godefroy identifies with plais&eis ^ cldture). The dty is not
named in Y.

Of these agreements two (the 2d and 4th) are very signifi-
cant, and serve at least to show that D was not based on the
common original (y) of the six versions so far treated. They
do not prove, however, that D goes back to the French unre-
lated with these, for there still remains the possibility of a
connection of D with y through a common M. E. original (x),
which y does not for these features faithfully reproduce. Yet
it must be granted that this explanation would seem to
have little in its favor could not some agreements of D
with certain members of Fas against the French be shown.

t published by Varnhagen BBrees hera with tte

THE SirV'EN SAGES.

Among theae agreements are: (1) with A Bad C, in canie,
in that the knight cats out the dog's rygge-boon (D 859) ; m
the French, he cuts off his head {L 20, " si li cope la teste ") ;
(2) in aTper, with 0, in that the herd fills hia hood with haws
\d 945), A, E, B, L, his laps; (3) in Virffiliua, with the entire
group Y, in that there are only two brothers who bring about
the overthrow of the image (D 1899) ; L 51, on the contrary,
"•HI. bachelers"; (4) in vidua, with F, A* 84, in that the
wife is called on to knock out only two of her husband's teeth
(Z> 2592); according to A, At, E, B, C, all are knocked out;
Bee also D* 39, iovleB les dens ; (5) in inelusa, (a) with the
entire group Y, in the substitution of Hungary for the Mon-
bergier of A* 89, K, as the laud whence the knight conies {D
2787), (b) with E, F in the substitution of Poyle for the
illogical Hungary of the French {A* 89, K) as the land into
which the knight finally comes {D 2805), and (c) with F in
the additional detail, that the earl had been warre<I against
for two years {D 2849).

But here it is possible that theae agreements were accidental.
Furthermore, inasmuch as the ultimate O. F. original of the
M. E. versions has in al) probability been lost,' it may be
argued that those features in which D and other M, E.
versions are in accord aa contrasted with the Old French may
have been just those in which their common original varied
from the known O. F. manuscripts. Hence no final conclu-
sion may he had from this quarter.

There remains the evidence of phraseolf^y and of rime, and
it is in this that we have a final proof of the error of Wright's
assumption.

The following are some of the parallel passages revealed by
a comparison of A and E with D.' Others might be cited,
but these Tvill suffice for the purpose.

' .See the section devoted to a atiidy of the source of the M. E. Tereiona.
'Where A is fragmeatary, E has been selected in prefereoce to Ar, aitice
■r is also largely fragmentary.

1 78 KILLIB CAMPBELL. ^^^^^^H

r D.

^^B

Sum tyme |>ere was an Emperonre, ^^M

^^ A ram o! swjth mikil hanur.

That ladde hys iyfe wilh moche ^H

honowre. ^^M

Hi/s Tuaae vxa Diodician. ^^H

(3-5) H

1 Uppon his Bone that was bo bolde.

The chylde wax to 'Tii- yere oide. ^^M

r And was bot sevene wjntur olde.

Wyae of apeche ande dedys boide. ^M

(13-14)

(15-16) H

The emperour for-th(^ht sore

Hj8 ffadyr was olde and ganne to ^H

1 Tha the child ware setle lo lore.

hoore, ^H

Eia Bone thoo he eette to lore. ^H

(15-18)

(19-20) H

Wbilk of thajm he myght talie

To liem he thought his Bone lake ^^|

HjH eone a wyes man ta make.

Forto knowe the letters blacke. ^H

(23-24)

(23^24) H

1 The thirde a leoe man was.

The -iii- mayster was a lyght man. ^M

(49)

■

And waa callid Lentulua.

His name was callyd lentylloUB. ^H

Hee aayed to the emperour thus.

He Bayde a-non to the kyng. ^^|

(51-2)

(54-6} ^1

And er ther paese thre and fyve,

Uppon payne of lemys and Iyfe, ^^M

1 Tf he have wjt and hia on lyve,

I bhalle teche h;m in yerya -y: ^H

(56-6)

(5^0) H

' And inred man he was,

The -iiii' mayster a rednusn was. ^^1

And waa callid Maladaa.

Men hym caliyd Malqoydraa. ^H

1 (61-2)

(61-62) ^H

The sevent mayiater auswerd thus.

The -vii' mayster hette Maxioua, ^M

And was hoten MarciuB.

A ryght wyse man and a yertuous. ^H

(91-2)

(99-100) ^H

' Erermore wil he wooke,

Whan maiiUr him Ul, anolher Mm ^H

When on Inwfo, anothir looke.

He was ever upon hie bok. ^H

f (159-60)

(139-90) ^1

BjGtod, maiflter, I am noght dronkan,

Other ich am of wine dronke, ^H

L Yf the rofe hie nouEt aonken.

Other the firmament is i-Bonke. ^M

(209-10)

1 Hym byfel a barde caea.

Ac Bone hem fil a feili cae. ^^|

(222)

(222) ■

And to have anothir wyf,

Yelibbethanaiengelif: ^1

1 For to Jedde with thy lif.

Te eholde take a gentil wif. ^H

(231-2)

(227-3) H

^^^^B THE SETEK BA.GSS. T9 ^^H

^^^^^^^^Mtonk

Hit is thi tone, and thin alt;

A ■»!? child, iod a hir.

^^^^^ESS<{K«E«n«n^ mya.

For Ihi <ODe 1 tel mine.

■ 2hRMl«lfa.dMlliy^

Aiie uri oil li-u dofl line.

F (asT-70)

(2S3-l,2S9-90)

■ 3to«vl.<q^it.«illa.,

^^^ -FbrnditlutluswQodiren:

Heieisnowaferlicas:

^^^^^ Tliai^im uke mainel bodc

0«m9eU«e*]berapon:

^^^H WhUhnbaHodoB,

How tbu we nisi best don.

^^V The dilde aniwad ther be Mood,

Than s^de Ibe Khild, Saoni hil.

^^^^ " I wyk gyf son aonDsd goad ;

Ich you right wil coDDSpil,

This seren daies I n'el nort ipeke;

I Thmtlnegrf DO>i>nrar«;

Kowt a word of mi mowht breke;

I (360-S, 368-71)

(371^)

1 Itcbalnnclhjljfmdaje.

I schal tbe wamtti o dai.

1 (381)

(S89)

1 Thos they were at on alle.

With this word, thai beo alle

^^^^ And wenten Bgajen into the halle.

^^^ (3SS-9)

(401-2)

^^^^H By bym that made sone mnd mone.

I swere bi soooe and hi mone

With me ne hadde be never to done.

^^H (464-5)

(451-2)

^^H "KysiDe,yfthyw7llebee.

Ke» me, leman, and loue me,

^^H Alle mj lyfe hys 1«^ od the."

And I Ihi s^et »!I i-be.

^^V (474^)

(467-8)

■ Oaiid to him a comeotonr.

r (509)

(498)

I Ako mole bylide the

Ase wel mot hit like the

^^^^ A« dyde the fyne sppnl-lre.

Als dede the pinnote Ire.

^^M (5S2-3)

(543-4)

Than seide mauler Bancillaa,

^^^^^1 "A I sire emperour, slu 1 "

Sire, that were now a sori caa.

^^H (SSg-9)

(683-4)

^^H ADd hir clothe, al to-reot,

Th' emperonr saide, I fond hire to-

^^H Afie the thef wold Mr have ibeDl.

rent:

Hire her, and hire face i-«chent;

^^B (700-1)

(689-90)

^^^^^H Tbil knave keat hym fruyt y-Dowe,

He test the bor doun hawea anowe

^^^^H And clam B-doaae fra boagh to bofbe.

And com hiroielf doun bi a bowe.

^^H (972-4)

(921-2)

^^^^H Aitd rent bya wombe with the knyf,

The herd thon. with bis long kni/

^^^^H And bynam the bore bjg lyl.

Biraft the bor nt hU llr.

^^^H (9S2-3}

(933-4)

^^^^^H "A 1 ure," quod majBter Ancilles,

Than saide mai«ter Ancilles,

^^^^^H " G!od almighty send us pees ! "

For aod«a lote, aire, bold thi pea.

^^H (lOlS-9)

(977-8)

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

That 58 bytyde swilk a cas On the lalle swich a cas

Ab bytjde Ypocraa, Ala fll oo Ypocras the gode clerk,

That slow hjB cosyn vithouten gjlt. Tbat alow hU neveu with fnla werk.
(1026-8) (90i-6)

With my tordefor to play, WUh mi lovtrdfor to plai ;

An d love mix bytwen UB twej. And so he dede, ronai a, dai.

(1100-1) (1083-4)

OppoD a day thay went to pleye, So bifel upon a dai

He and hys cosyn ihaj Iwey. He and his neveu yede U) plai.

(1118-9) (llia-4)

And mad hym njry, and spendid And heren bit horn wel on hast,

faste, And maden hem large whiles hit
Al the wylle that hit wolde laste. last.

He that lokyd the treaour, Acaorewe aros that
Gome a day into the (onr.

(1295-8)
And kattilkht gird of min kevid,

(1299)
But thou me in lets, ich wille telle,
Ich nille me dreachen in the welle.

(H63-4)
Have womman to pleie arij^ht,
Yif ye wil be hoi aplight.

(1677-8)
Ich moate have som other lovel
Nai, dowter, for God ahovel

(1753-4)
Who might that yraage fel adoun,
He wolde him j If his w

(1220-3)
Bot hiat^ieh amyt af tny hede.

(1255)
Byfore the dore, as I gow telle,
Thare was a mykyl deppe welle.

(1381-2)
To do thy wyl by a-night,
Yf I schal helle the aryght.

(1546-7)
Now be alakys to lygge above ;
1 wyl have another love.

(1688-7)
Br the mjrronr be broght a-doune,
And than gyf na oure warrysoun.

(1806-7)
And Bayed, we wyte, eire emperour,
About this cite gret tresour.

(1932^) {2049-50)

And dolryn a Iftyl withinne the And ther thai doluen in thegrondej

gniiinde, A riche forcer ther thai founds.

And the trasonr was sone founde.

(1952-3) (2079-80)

The ton sayed, sire emperour. Than eaide the elder to the emperonr,

Undir the pyler that berys merour, Undertheymagethathaltthemirour.

(2002-3) (2091-2)

Gladlich, sayed scho, Bletheliche, sire, bo mot ich the,

The bettyr jf hyt wylle bee. Bo that ye wolde the belter be.

(2287-8). (2337-8)

And hadde seven clerkya wyse, He hadde with him seveo wise.

(2293) (2313)

^^^^H THE SEVES SAGES. 81 ^^M

^^^^H WIio so anoT cwevene hy iifght,

That who that mette a gweven anight, ^^|

^^^^H monte «rhen the daj was brvghL

He sdiolde come amorewe, aplighL ^^M

^^H (2296-7)

(2^9-50) ^H

The emperour him ladde anon, ^^M

^^^^P InU) the chambvr Ihi; gonne gone;

^^^H (2339-40)

(24-53-4) ^M

^^^H ffyivxua tnyght, a ridic tehyrete,

Sire, he saide, Ihou might Die leue, ^^H

^^^^1 That iras lot hys wyf to greve.

Hiiama knight, a rieht leherreut, ^H

^^^H He sate a dave b; hjs »vf.

So, on a dai, bim and his wif ^H

^^H And in bys honde belde a knyf.

Was i-yooen a newe knif; ^H

^^H

(2563-4, 25«9-70) ^H

^^^^H Bot sayed for non vrorldlya wjne

Tho teaedi eaide, for no wenne, ^^M

^^^^H Schalde no man pane bom a-twyne.

Sche ne wolde nener wende thenne. ^^M

^^^H

(25S1--2) H

^^^^^H In hyr hooDd scho took a sloon,

Than wU ich, she saide, and lok a ^H

^^^H And knockyd out t»a teth anoon 1

Bton, ^H

And Bmot hem ont enerichon. ^^M

^^H

(2713-4) ^H

^^1

^^^H Made to fle nith hya boste

And made more Doyee and boste ^^H

^^^^^1 Thre kyngys and hare hoste.

Xhenne wolde a kyng and hys hoste. ^^M

^^H (2732-3)

(2812-3) ^M

^^^^P The knjgbl [hat met tbat Bweven at

And BOO there come rydyng thya ^^M

^^^ nyght

r Of that lady was so bright, . . .

That bad Booght the lady bryghte. ^^M

1 Byght a Ijtjl fram the loiire

He lokyd uppe into the toiire, ^^H

h Tbsre wsa the lady of honour,

And eay that Udy bg white as fiowre; ^H

^^^■^ Asdate thewyndowthelady hesee.

And anon, as he byr say, ^^M

^^H (2822-3, 2S26~7, 2831)

(2914^) ^M

^^^^^ He bytoke aodyr bya bond.

And toke hym hys goodys in-to hya ^^M

^^^^^ A-nd made hym itymtrde of al hyt londt.

^^M

^^^^H Oppon a day be went to playe.

And made hym ilywarde oayr oUe Ayi ^^H

^^^^H Undir the tour he made hys naye.

lande. ^H

So oppon a day, will nioche bonoure, ^^M

The knyght come playnge by the ^^M

^^^H (2S69-72)

(2944-7) ^M

^^^^1 Lenand to the mykyi tonre,

To make a chambyr byfore the toure ^H

^^^^1 To do in hys tresoar.

That may ben for my honoure. ^^M

^^^^1 Thotow a q weynlyae he Ihout to wyne

Thenne thought he uppon sum qaent ^H

^^^H The lady that waa loke there-inne.

gyune ^H

Howe be myght to that lady wynne, ^^1

^^^B (2895-8)

(2962-3, 296a-9) ^M

^ J

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

OppoQ ft da; atjlle as Btoou
Be Bent eft^r masoiu anoon.

(2«01-2)
And Bale stille and mnde hjm glade,
Altd thus bjs wyf made hym made.

(3021-2)
Into Flecie when he was comen,
Ner hytfadir hys in was nome.
To mele when he was redy to gon.
After hjB fadir he sent i

(3336-9)

The knvght toke workemen a-uon,
Aud made a chamber of Ijine and

(2966-7)
And bade hjm ete and be glnd,
And euyr he «at as he were mad.

(3U0-1)
Amorowe the kyng ihedyr came,
And wilh hytfadyr hys in he name.
He and hjH barony s euerycbone
Wente to mele vith hym a-non.

(3473-6)

It is impossible to account for these agreements as mere
coincidences, or as flowing from a translation from the same
O. F. source. Some of them may indeed be, and doubtless
are, due to the often stereotyped style, or the fondness for like
epithets or collocations which characterize the M. E. romance ;
but all of them cannot be so explained. They warrant this
assumption alone, that D and y are related either through
the derivation of one from the other, or through a common
M. E, original.

And inasmuch as D cannot have been based on y or on any of
the texts which have developed from it, since in all the latter
some of the O, F. features are lacking which are preserved in
D,—oT, conversely, y on D, in view of the very many inde-
pendent variations of the latter where y is faithful to the
French, we can only conclude that both y and D go back to
the same lost M. E. version x.

We may accordingly sum up our results as to D as follows :

(1) it is remarkably free, and exbibita many unique variations;

(2) it does not represent an independent translation from the
Fi-ench, but is connected with at least six other M. E. versions
through a common M. E. source ; (3) this source was not the
same as the more immediate common original of these six
versions (y), but was a version one or more stages nearer the
Old French.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

As. — The Asloan version is at present inaccessible in the
original manuscript,' and, as only about 200 lines of it have
been printed,' any discussion of its relations must be very
unsatisfactory. We may be permitted, however, to bring to-
gether the few facts which are known about it, and to draw
from these such conclusious as their evidence may justify.

From the descriptions which have appeared, it is established
that As, so far as it is not fragmentary, preserves the usual
M. E, order of stories, but that beyond this it is, in many respects,
extremely free. The names of the sages are much garbled,
and they vary in the introductory enumeration from their
form in the stories themselves. They are, moreover, in no
case close to those of any version now in print, or to those of
the remaining M. E. manuscripts.

Avis, too, the story which has been printed, exhibits very
radical variation from other versions, both textually and as
regards incident. There are apparent no significant agree-
ments in rime or phraseology with any other M. E. version,
while two uew epiaodes,' well-knowu in other collections, but
otherwise foreign to the Seven Sages, are woven info the narra-
tive. And there are other variations, besides, such as the intro-
duction of the wife's mother as a go-between, and mention of
the bui^ess's name — first AniiabiU, later Balan.

But none of these serves to shed any light on the question
of relationship. All the new features of As, as compared with
the remaining M. E. versions and the accessible Romance ver-
sions, are peculiar to it, and hence afford no grounds for deter-
mining its connections.

' As ttlread.y stated in my " Word of Introdnction " (p. 2), Lord Talbot ds
Malahide declined to permit my coaaoltiag tbii m&nuscrjpt. Bis reasona
for doing bo are, I rniderstaild, the aame Bg those given by certain other
poBseaaors of valnable M. E, niHiiuBcriptB, for which I beg to refer to Dr.
FnmiTJill, Ttmporary Fref. to tin Siz-Texi Ed., Chaucer Soc., 1868, Ft. I, p. 6.

'In a eootribntion by Prof. Varnhagen (Englitche Slttdien, xiv, p.
321 f.), who will edit the leit for the Scottish Text Society.

•See Enylitche Sliidicn, XXV, p. 322.

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

Prof. Varnhageu claims that As was made directly from
some O. F. version,' and the lack of textual agreement between
it and other M, E. versions in the story avis may seem to offer
some support to this view, — but by no means necessarily, since
it is evident that the author of As worked very independently.*
And that the evidence offered by Varnhagen in support of his
claim, viz., the agreement in order of stories with the O. F.
j4*-type, is not adequate, he himself, I believe, will concede
on reconsideration.

3, Authorship of the Middle English Versions.

It has been assumed in the preceding chapter that the Eng-
lish original {x) of the seven M, E. manuscripts A, Ar, E, B, F,
C, and D, has l)eeu lost. It remains to inquire when, where,
and by whom this original was made. For this purpose we
unfortunately have almost no data at all, and can only resort
to indirections to find directions out.

(1) For the determining the date of x the Auchinleck MS,
{A) is of first importance. This manuscript dates from around
the year 1330 ; this, then, must be the superior limit for the
dating of y. And since, as has been shown, A was not derived
directly from y, but rests in all probability on a lost manuscript
r, which may have been based on y directly or through an inter-
vening manuscript, and since, moreover, it is highly credible
that A had already been composed some time before the Auch-
inleck copy was made, it is not probable that the date of y
would fall later than the beginning of the fourteenth century.

And inasmuch, now, as y cannot have been this parent vei-sion,
since D, though closely akin to it, was neither based immedi-
ately on it nor on any of its derivatives, but was connected with
it through a common source, which source we may assume lo
be either identical with, or based directly on, the translation

' Ibid., xsv, p. 322.

' F offers even more radical varialioa from other M. E. veraiouB in eome
of its BlorieB thai) does As in ai>t<.

TBi: ^:rEX sag^

fioa tbe Frendk, it is neoeasur to kss^ to Me [Hrent v«i^
■CB a date be&n d>e yea 1300. The yMr 1275 woaM, it
a bc&rad, npRB^ a GODBCrradve ooigcBtim.

(2) Available nuternl for tfajfrmiaiiig Ac place of transla-
tioB of tidi parent text iascnevliat more salisbctoiy. Oftbe
entire gimp of sev^ versons wludt have been shown to be
baaed on z, onir one is in tbe Nortbero dia]«ct, and tbis ( C)
is of cmnpaiativdy Ute dtae. One other (i>) brfoogs to the
soath-east Midland, wbile the rest (-4, Jr, E,B,F) beloug to
tbe Soath, — a &ct whi<^ well justifies ihe assumption that x
was also Sootheni. Fiirthenuore, inasmuch as three of thrae
▼OBions (A, Ar, E) possess ouu-bed Kentidi features, and two
otfaera [B, F) show a Kend^ infiueoce, but less marked, we
seem Justified in a farther restriction to the tadrrn South —
Kent or its neighborhood — as the home of the pai^it text. It
is further confirmatory of this view that jnst those versions
(Ar, E) which are most faithful to x are most distinctly
Kentish.*

(3) But while we are thus justified in indulging ia conject-
ore as to the time and place of composition of x, in tbe mat-
ter of itB anthorship we have no grounds for such an indulgence.
The nature of the subject might establish a slight probability
in favor of lay authorship, but not at all necessarily ; and the
same is true of the reference to priests, in tenlamirw. and avis,
as adulterate lovers, — especially siuce in the only story in
which it is a constant feature (tentomtna), it was also iu (be
Old French ; so that, in respect to this aide of the jiroblem
in hand, we have, for the present at least, aud probably for all
time, to content us with absolute ignorance.

With regard to the authorship of the texts which have been
preserved, we are equally at a loss for definite information.

An ingenious and praiseworthy effort has been made by Dr.
Kolbiug to demonstrate a community of authorship for the
A-text and the Auchinleok texts of the Arthur and Merlin,

'The dialect ofD — Bouthenal Midlind — also offers Biip[jort W lliis viovf.

B8 KILLIB CAMPBELL.

Kyng AlUaunder, and Richard Coer de Xiom/' but without
iDeaning to discredit his coDclusions in general, it is necessary,
we regret to say, to reject them in so far as they concern the
Seven 8age». Kolbing's ai^uraent ia made on the basis of
features (rime, lauguage, etc.) exclusively, or almost exclu-
sively, peculiar to these poems. The only part of his argu-
ment which holds is that which concerns the expletives cert
and vair. These appear only in the jl-text, being either orig-
inal with it, or, if in y, having been displaced in the remaining
texts by other rimes. On the other hand, of the 18 rimes
which Kolbing cites* (one of which, 2803—4, batatUe: mer-
vaUe, should be cancelled, since it is taken from C), a com-
parison with the remaining members of Fshows 12 to reapi)ear
in the corresponding lines in Ar, 9 in E, etc. The evidence
to which Kolbing attaches most importance, that of certain
textual agreements between Arthur and Merlin (1201 f.) and
A (2389 f.),' is liliewise not valid, as is manifest from the
following parallel comparison of these passages wither and
E, Compare

' Herlin in te atrete )>o plejd, ' On a dai )>ai com Rr Merlin pleid,

And on of hie felawei him trujd.' And on of his felawes him tndd.'

(A. M. 1201-2). [A 2389-80).

with

' Bo t>ei come t>eir )* child played, 'Thenne come they thorowe h»ppe
Andanof hisfelaweBhjmbjtrayed.' there he playde,

One of his felowys hym myBsayde.'
(,Ar 1511-2). (E 2437-3).

Compare further, as against his citation of

'Foule schrewe fram oub go I ' 'And cleped him schrewe faderles.'

' piya haat ysejd to loude t>i roun.' 'Al to loude l>i)U apuk fi latiD.'

pat hat" me sougt al Hs ger.' ' pat han me sought al fram Rcme.'
(A. M. 1204, 18, 20). {A 2392, 6, 8).

MrfAtir B-itd Merlin, Leipzig, 1890, p. ls f.

THE SEVEN SAOES. 87

the following from Ar and Ei

'And clepjd bym schrewe foderlese.' 'And calde the chjlde fadjrlea.'

' To loude (>0Q spake iif latyn.'

' tMt haue me sonst fro gret Borne.' ' That have rought me fro Borne.'

{At 1514, 18, 20). {E 2440, 0).

From these it is evident that any inference as to A^B author-
ship made on this basis will apply equally as well to Ar and
E. Accordingly the parallels pointed out by Kolbing must
either be explained as accidental, or as traceable either to an
inBuence of Arthur and Merlin on the source of A, Ar, and E,
or, conversely, of some one of these on the Arthur and Merlin,

4, Source of the Middle English Versions.

The question of the ultimate source of the M. E. versions
has, to all intents and purposes, been settled by Petras.' We
need only present here his general argument and his conclu-
eion, inserting where deemed exjiedient additional proofs, and
adding here and there details which he has omitted.

But first of all it ift necessary to state that such expressions
(which Petras [p. 32] inclines to accept as evidence) aa A 2771,
'So seigh |je rime" (to which add 7^*1690, 'as sey)' pe ryme')
proves nothing, for by a like reasoning we might, on tlie basis
of Ar 1906, ' as it sai]j in latyn,' prove a Latin source for the
M. E. versions. It is not on such formulae that the pre-
sumption in favor of a metrical original of the lost M. E.
original must repose; this must rather rest on the fact that

' See hiB dissertalion, p. 31 f. Ouf investig&tioQ muaC difier from hie,
howerer, iu that we are concerned only with the source of the parent ver-
doD, X {Ai being disrefarded], while Petras has assumed each of four ver-
sions {A, 0, ^, D) to be independent translationa from the French, Since,
however, he begins with the aaaumption that the same O. F, version was
the source of all these, his atgnment is essentially the same as ours.

'References to source in the M. E. versions are nomeroua: A 317, 1245,
2786, 2770; Ar 1900, 190«, 2206, 2261, 2442; £1253,2779,2784,3446;
B 295, 123a ; F 928, 1633, 1690, 1973 ; C 623, 1324 ; D 1385, 1520, 2690,

KILLIS CAMPBELL,

this original (a;) was itself in verse, and, hence probably made
from a metrical text, — and that this does not permit of any
definite conclusion it is hardly necessary to add.

It is not improbable, however, that this original of x was,
like itself, composed of octosyllabic couplets, and it is needless
to state that it was in the French language.

There exist three O, F. metrical versions, — the Dolopatkos,
the Keller text (K), and the fragmentary version C*. The
first of these, the Dohpathos, must, for obvious reasons, play
no part in this investigation. The unique version i>* should,
however, since it represents a prosing of a lost metrical ver-
sion, receive equal attention with -ffand C*.'

The only one of this group which has ever been proposed
as a possible source of the M. E. versions is K; but a com-
parison of the two types as regards order of stories* reveals a
considerable difference between them, only ten stories (1, 2, 4,
6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15) having the same position in each,
Snch a comparison, however, while bearing with it much
weight, can in no wise be accepted as determining, as it would
be quite natural for the redactor, or even the translator, to
change about the stories at will, either with artistic purpose or
with a view to making his source less apparent. Hence the
safest test of relationship should be from the consideration of
content, rather than of order of stories. And it is on this basis
that Petras's comparison has been made. The Cotton-Auchin-
leck {C-A), or Weber, text he finds to contain only 4fiO lines
which could be possible translations from the Keller test.*
And since the latter contains over 5000 lines, it is not probable
that even numerous intermediate redactions could have made
such a difference. Besides this, there are many variations in
incident, all which unite in making it extremely improbable
that K was used by the English translator.

' For the Dalopalh

France and haly."

' For the order of stories in I
oar companitiTe table od pa
See p. 33 of bis diaaertatioo.

K, O* and D*, see the chapter on "The Romance
ariooa Bub-tfpea of the Weatem group,

THE SEVEN SAGES,

The iragmentary text C*, though difFeriog somewhat from
Km order of stories, seems, nevertheless, to be much nearer
to it than it is to the Eoglish.

The prose version D", representiog & lost metrical version
V, exhibits still less agreement with the M. E. type, and
possesses many unique features. In the content of its stories,
however, it is comparatively close to K, so that in denying
the claims for it, the legitimacy of any claim for Z>* is also
denied.

K, C*, and i>* having been eliminated from the problem, it
is necessary to conclude that the O. F. original, if metrical,
has been lost. It remains to show whether or not the M, E.
parent test was based on any of the prose texts which have
come down to us, or, at least, which one of them nearest
approximates the lost original.

The most widely known of the prose versions, the Historia,
must be ruled out at once, since Paris has shown that the
earliest date which can be given it is around the year 1330,
or some time after the composition of the derivative M. E.
version A. Other circumstances, such as the order of stories,
the introduction of avuitorea, and the amicus-legead, as well
as the fusion of Homa and senesealcus, together with its many
modern touches, all unite in invalidating any claim ibr H.

The Seala Coeli (S) also exhibits many features at variance
with the M. E. type, and its two new stories,_^Mi and noverca,
are sufficient to exclude it from the list of possibilities.

Likewise the first Lerous de Lincy (L) version, although
it agrees very closely with the Middle English versions for
the first eleven stories, caiiuot be considered their source,
since it also contains the stories ^ia aud noverca.

Nor to the Veraio Ifalica does there attach any more proba-
bility, its distinguishing feature — the reversal of the order
of stories — finding no parallel even in French,

There remains group A*, or the family represented by the
second text of the Leroux de Lincy edition. A presumption
in favor of some member of this family is at once established

KILLIS CAMPBELL,

in the fact that it has the same order of stories as the M. E.
group. This circumstance has led Paris and others to see in
this group the source of the M. E. texts, but no explicit claim
has been made as to which one of the ^'-manuscripts served
as this original, though Petras has made a detailed investiga-
tion with a view to arriviug at some definite conclusion.^

The results which Petras reaches,^ however, are wholly
negative. He shows in the first place that ms. 6849 [new
No. 189] of the BibIioth6que Nationale, which EIHb had
su^iested as the probable source of the M, E. versions, is not
even a possible source, but belongs to group L. He next
endeavors to show that the Leroux de Lincy text of A* (the
only one of the O. F. manuscripts of this type yet published)
is not as close to the M. E, versions as are some of the
unpublished manuscripts belonging to this family. Among
the latter, he finds the MS. 4096, Laval. 13, to be nearest
to the M, E. versions; thus, by way of illustration, where i,
A* call the seventh sage Merons, this manuscript names him
MeGmmSy which approximates the M. E. Maxencim much
more closely. Despite this fact, however, he is not willing to
concede that this text was the source of the M. E. group, but
maintains that the latter had its basis in a lost manuscript
which is connected with the former through a common lost
Bource.

And in this conclusion Petras is probably correct, — and
assuredly so as regards the Leroux de Lincy text, as is estab-
lished by certain features, which are not in A*, but which the
M. E. texts have in common with Kand other O. F. versions.
A few of these are the following : (1) in i&niamina, A, C read
graif bitch = K 2604, blanche leuriere; L {A* 45), only une
leurih~e; (2) in Vtrgilius, L (A* 51) has lost the feature of
Vergil's casting images also for the east and west gates of
Rome, which has been preserved in K 3960 f. and the M. E.
group; (3) in vaiicinium, the child, when discovered alone on
the island, has had nothing to eat for /our days in E, S, C,

' Petras, p. 37 f. *lbid., p. 44.

THE SEVEN SAGES. 81

and ir4725 ; A* 99 and D*, only three days. These suffice
to indicate the result which would follow from a detailed
oomparison.

In view of this conclusiou, the problem of the source of the
M. £. parent text must, so far as a specific source is cod-
cemed, remain for the present unsolved. Examination of <iU
^^-manuscripts will doubtless bring us nearer to the truth,
and, it is hoped, settle the questiou.

II (6.) Sixteenth Centurt/ and Chap-book VersioTis.

Under this head fall the WjTikyn de Worde version and
the many chap-books founded on it, the lost Copland text, and
the Holland metrical versiou, — all which fall together into cue
distinct group apart from the M. E. group.

1. The Wynkyn de Worde text is in prose. Its date is not
definitely known ; in the British Museum catalogue it is
entered as 1520, though Hazlitt (Handbook, p. 660) gives it
a dating fifteen years earlier. Only one copy of the Original
text has been preserved, and that is imperfect. A reprint
made by Gomme for the Villon Society (1885) makes the text
accessible.^

This version seems to have been the first prose version made
in English, and, as already noted, it can in no way be related
with the M. E. metrical versions which antedate it. In length
alone the contrast is sufficiently striking to justify a serious
doubt as to any immeiliate relationship between them, the
prose version comprising 180 pages in Gomme's edition. It
is based on some member of the HUloria family — probably a
Latin ' rather than an O, F. text. As a translation of H it

TAe Eietory of the S. W. M, of Borne, London, 1885. A few pages misaiag
from the Wjakyn de Worde text are supplied from a chap-book version
printed in 1671.

' Oracsse enumerates a half-dot«a or more prints between 14S3 and 149S,
any one of which maj have served as the basis of this version.

KILLI3 CAMPBELL.

is comparatively close, though it abridges at times, and also
makes occasional iudependeDt additions.'

2, The Wynkyn de Worde edition served as the basis of a
second prose edition, attributed to the printer Copland, which
has been lost. The superscription to this edition, which alone
has been preserved, agrees almost word for word with that
of the Wyniiyn de Worde edition, and it is more than
probalile, as Buchner suggests,' that it is only a repriut of it.
The date of the Copland text is variously placed between 1548
and 1561.

3. The Rolland version is a very long poem written in
heroic couplets, and in the Scottish dialect. The original edi-
tion bears the date 1578, but Laing has shown it to be probable
that its composition dates from the year 1560. It seems to
have been very popular in its day, undergoing at least five
editions {1590, 1592, 1599, 1606, 1620) in little more than
half a century after its first publication, A modern reprint
was edited by Laing for the Bannatyne Club in 1837.

Sundry conjectures as to the source which Rolland employed
have been made. Laing maintained that he used either the
Copland print, or some O. F, or Latin taxt of H. Petras,
who did not know of the Wynkyn de Worde version, and who
makes the Rolland version his "Redaction C," investigated
the question at some length,* and concluded in favor of the
O. F, translation of H ss Rolland's original.* But that
neither of these views is correct, and that the Rolland text
was the rather based on the Wynkyn de Worde version, has
been conclusively proved by Buchner in his dissertation in the
Drlanger Beitrage, V, p. 93 f. This he established by show-
ing that where there are differences between the three versions —
^(either Latin or French), the Wynkyn de Worde, and the
Rolland — the last two are in almost every instance in accord

'Bee Buchner, Erlang. BtUr.
'Erlang. Beilr., v,
' The second text

p. 95.

'See hU diaBertation, p. 47 f.
Dttix Bidaetum. Its date ia 1402.

THE SEVEN 8A6EB. 93

with eadi other. A large namber of textual pimdleb be-
tween the two 1^ngli.«A versions are cited in farther soppoct
of this.

(4) The "Rnglish diap-book versicHis merit hot little atten-
tion. They have been nmnerotis, hot of poor qnalitj, the
latar versions especially having detmorated firom the original.
In some of these, new stories have been introdooed, and in
almost all of them the old stories have been abridged — in
some of them, so as to be scarcelj more than cfHtomes of their
prototypes. That they were very pc^mlar fi>r a loi^ time,
howerer, is indicated by the £Eict that the Britidi Moseom
alone contains at least twelve various prints, one of which
pnrpmiB to have reached its twenty-fifth edition. Another
was published at Boston in 1794, — the most leoent at War-
rington in 1815.

All veroons of the diap-bo^ g^Nip contain the distinctive
features of J31 They doubtless go back to the Wynkyn de
Worde, or to the Copland, text.

In addition to the four verrions or groups already d€»cribed,
there is eYideoee that there once exisud another sixteenth cen-
tury versi<Hi, whidb, like the Copland text, has not survived.
This is a dramadc version, bearing the title Th/e Saxn Wue
JLuuUrn of Bz/me^ wbkh is meotif/oiid in Heni^we's Diary* as
havii^ beien made by Dekker, Chettle, Ha^gbton, and Day,
and as havii^ l^een acted at I»odon in March, Iddd-IQOO.
'So later nfAusfi fX iXa pr«i«K!Otation has been pointed out, bow-
ever, and it vi a]u>$pab^ yx'^iaX^ft thm the work was lost
without undet^goin^ i^ihiifoitUm/

^ £1 OAtkr, fyjfi^m, 7W/, ^. 1^, )^. IM «W/ Um J^rmmMe Wwk$

*TU: *«uv«uw«>^ ^A ih^ j*«* k^U^ iteft^fm tA^MA iJ«^/ ioctttie fteCer-

wmo/arym V/ h. ^IW k^U^ iji^i^^Utt ^/UU^if* m^^nX ntcnAmm id ikm

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

APPENDIX.

[CoDUining the Btorj mediem according to Ar (1-228), i
of the correBpondiDg lines in A, E, B, C, .

ith B tabni&don

Hys comaundement )»ei dide be-lyve.
]>aue wex \ieif moehci stry ve
Be-tuen kynge and baroD,
ffor ]te Empwowr wold sole his son,
5 ]»e Empcrou?' hym nold save.

He lete a-iione to spoile |'at knaue,
And with scourges hya body swynge ;
To foul dethe thei wold bym brynge.
A-none after that, god it wote,*

10 He bade hem to hange hym fote bote.
With scourges jjei dide hym swynge,
To foull de]ie jiei wold bym brynge,
He was lade for{?e with-oute pite
liorouj-oute all [lat fai? cite ;

16 ]>ei? be-gan a rewfull cry
Of many gentyll lady.
All J>e folke oute of Rome
A-jeyne pat gentyll child come.
Waleway, ]>ei saide, vaith wronge

20 Schali ]>i8 child nowe be honge.
Ryjt a-mydward pat ilke pres
Come rydynge Masilles,
And be sawe pat rewfull cas;
Hys second master foraope he was

25 Hya acole? to heipe and to rede
All pe folke to hym pei bede ;
A-none to court be gan ryde,
And viiih pe Empecoitr in reson oblde
fiPonde to let pe Empecowr wronge

30 pat hia son be noujt an-hange.

'Thie line ia repeated after I, 12, bot is erased.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

Swyfie fast fro jie foike he rode, —

His palfray a-none to pe paleys glode:

]>o come he by-fo? ]>e 'Emperour,

And grete hym fai? v/ith hoEOwr,

J>e emperour by hym sty II stode,

And by-helde hym with stcren mode

he saide to hym, " master, jjou haue

Jie cora of god for techyng of ]m knaue,

je haue by-iiorae my sone his spech ;

]>& devyll of hell I |'e be-tech,

Thyn felows and ]>o\i be my swye? !

je echull haue lytyli hye?."

" O Syr Emperour, kuyjt of prys,

In dedes ]jou achold be wa? and wyse.

It is no wysdome no lyuys hale

To by-!eue no womans tale.

Mo? to harme pane to note

A womans bolt ia son schote,

ffor jef ]joii sclest hym, I be-sech

On ]>i heued fall Jiat ilke wrech

Jiat fell on Ypocras, |>e good clerk,

J»at Bclewe his scole? Jjorouj fals werk."

" Maste*-, I pray ]>e, tell j^at caa

Of ])at clerke Ypocras."

" Sy?, pis tale is noujt lyte ;

ffor jef pou wyllt jef py son respyt,

A-for to-morowe day lyjt,

I wyll pe tell a-none ryjt,

A-jenst pe lawe, with grete wowe,

How Ypocras his nefew sclowe."

" I jeue liym respyt," said pe Empfl'our,

And saide auone witA-oute soiou?,

Mon Bchold a-jeyne feeche his son.

And put hym in-to prison.

pe chyld was broujt oute of pe ton

Wt't/i well grete procession.

96 XILLIS CAMPBELL.

)?o he cam to )?at hall,

He a-loutede J?e barons all ;

And in to prison y-put he was.
70 Now tell we forJ?e of Ypocras.

iy?," saide Mazillas, "paramour,

Ypocras was a clerke of grete honnour ;

Of lechcraft was none his pe?

Neuer jit in J?is londe he?.
75 He hade with hym his nefewe

J7at he schold leren of his vertue.

He saw J?at child comyng of lo?,

J?at he nold tech hym no mo? ;

ffor he t'oujt, and saide also,
80 J?at he in lo? wold to-fo? hym go.

J?e childe perseuyd full well, I-wis,

And hid it full wele in hert his.

His nefys herte he gan a-spye, 152c.

When he couj^e all J?e mastrye.
85 Ypocras gins understonde,

J^orouj werkes of J^e childes honde,

]7at he cou)?e all his mastrye.

He ba? to hym grete envye.

Sy by-fell apon a J^ynge,
90 Of hongre J^at ilke kynge,

Hade seke a son gente ;

To Ypocras a messenge? sente,

]7at he schold come his son to hele,

And haue he schold of gold full a male,
95 Ipocras wend ne myjt ;

He clepyd his nefewe anone ryjt.

And bade hym wende to J?at londe,

To nyme J^at chylde under honde ;

And whane he hade so i-do,
100 He schold come ajeyne hym to.

]>e child was set on a palfray,

And rode hym forJ?e on his way.

THE SEVEN SAGES. 97

J?o he to J?e kynge came

]>e kynge hym by ye honde name,
105 And lade hym to )?e seke childe.

Ihesus cryst to us be mylde !

J?at jonge man sawe J?e childes payne,

He tastes his armes and his veyne ;

He asked an urynall, as I wene,
110 And schewed J^at uryn kenge and qwen,

Of ye childe all god it wyt,

And saide it was mys-by-get.

He gan J^e qwene on side drawe,

And saide, " dame, a-knawe,
115 What man ha)7e by-gete J^is childe?"

"Bel amy," scho sayde, "art J^ou wylde?

Who schold bot ye kynge ? "

" Dame, say you for no )?ynge.

He was neue? of kyngges streen."
120 " Lat," scho saide, " soch wordes ben ; —

Or I schall do ye bete so,

}?at J70u schalt neuer ryde no? go."

" Dame," he saide, " with soch tale,

yy childe schall neue? be hale.
125 Tell me, dame, all )?at cas,

How ye childe by-gete was."

" Bel amy, saist you so ? "

"Series, dame," he saide, "no." 152d.

He schoke his hede upon ye qwene,
130 And saide, " j'ouj you do me to-scleyne.

May I noujt do J?y childe bote,

Bot je me tell hede and rote.

Of what man he was be-geten."

" No man," scho saide, " may it weten ;
135 ffor jef my counseill we? un-hele,

I schold be sclowe with ryjt skyll."

" Dame," he saide, " so mot I the.

No man schall it wyt for me."

98 KILLIS CAMPBELL.

" Syr/' scho saide^ " it so by-fell,
140 )?i8 o)?er day in Auerell,

)?e kynge of nauerne come to yis }?ede,

On fai? hors and in rich wede,

With my lord for to play,

And so he dide many a day.
145 I gan hym son in herte to loue,

Ouer all }>ynge so god aboue ;

So )?at for grete drewrye,

I late ye kynge be me lye ;

So it was on me by-gete :
150 Sy?, late no man )?at i-wete/'

" Nay, madame, for so}?e, i-wys,

Bot for }?at childe was gete a-mys.

He mot both drynke and ete

Contrarious drynke and contrarious mete,
155 ffresch beef and drynke }?e bro}?e/^

He jaf a-none }?e child forsoj^e.

)?e childe was heled fai? and wele.

ye kynge hym jaf many jewell,

A wer hors i-charged with sWuer and gold,
160 A Is moch as he nyme wold.

He dide hym for}?e a-none ryjt,

And come home in )?at nyjt.

ye master hym asked jef he we? sond

" ja si?," he saide, " be seynt Symond ! ^^
165 yo asked he, "what was his medecyne?"

He saide, " fresch beef good and fyne ^^

" )?an was he a nauetroll."

" you saist so|>e, be my poll ! ''

" O," quod Ypocras, " be goddes dome I
170 you art by-come a good grome.^'

yo by-gan Ypocras to ]?ench

To sole his nefewe witA some wrench,

)?ei?-afte?, ye yride day, 153a.

With his nefew he went to play.

THE SEVEN SAGES.

99 1

^V 175

Yu-to a faif grene gardyu ;

Vei? wex raauy an erbe fyn.

Ve childe sawe an erbe on f>e groiinde,

|vat was mypy of raochell raonde ;

He tokc it and schewed to Ypocras,

^M 180

Eot he saide a bettej- J-er? was ;
For he wold J^at child be-cach.
He stoupyd soch on to rech.
]>o fyle Ypocraa mth a knyf,
He nome bia nefewe of his lyf.

^M 186

He dide hym bury unkonnynglych,
A8 he had dyed sodeynlych,
And afie?-warde, swy]>e jerne,
He dide his bokes all to-bryne.
God of heuen, ]ie hy^e kyuge,

^M 190

pat \a oue?-8ea? of all ^yage,
Sende Ypocras for his tresou,
ye foul rankkeland menyaon.
Ypocraa wyst wele, for hia quede,
Vat he schold son be dede ;

^M 195

Bot for no Vynge l>at he coupe pynch
pe raenyson he no my^t quench.
A nempty ton he dide forpe fett,
And full of clene water he it pyt,
Also full tope moupe;

^M 200

ffor he wold it we? coupe,

And dide after sende mochel! and lyte,

Nejboura hym lo byayte.

He saide to-fore hem euerchon

pat pe dep was liym apon,

^1 205

All wi't/t ryjt and nou^t wttA wou3e,
ffbr his nefewe pat he sclowje,
pat treson he gan hym reherce.
On pe tone a C. holes he gan perce.
Wlien pe holes we? mad so fell,

^1 210

He dide hem stope .wi'tA dosell,

100 KILLI8 CAMPBELL.

And saide to hem once or tweye,

" je sehall see of my mastrye/'

He smered ]?e dosells all a-boute^

And made heme after-ward drawen oute.
215 A dro}?e }?ei?-of oute ne came;

)?a?-of merveiled many man.

Ypocras saide, " water y can stope,

)?at it ne may une}?es drope; 153b.

But y ne may stope my menyson.
220 All it IS for )?at foul treson,

}?at y my nefewe sclewe vylengly,

ffor he was wyse? man }?ane y.

I no? no man unde? eon

jeue me helpe ne can, —
225 Bot my nefewe o-lyue we?.

Ryjt it is )?at y mys-fai?.

To soffre wo it is skyll

ffor y sclouj my lyuys hele.'^

Table of Corresponding Lines.^

Ar A E B C F

949 933 1041

950 934 1042

951 1043

952 1044

5 953 (1045)

954 (1046)

955 (1047)

956 (1048)

(957) (1436)

10 (958) (1438)

959 (1051)

^An identical line is indicated by an asterisk (*), an omission by a dash

( ), an addition by brackets ([]), a corresponding but not similar line

by leaders ( ), and altered rimes by parentheses ().

THE SEVEN SAGES. 101

At A E B OF

960 (1052)

961 942 1054

962 941 1053

15 963 943 1057

964 944 1058

965 945

966 946

967 947

20 968 948

963 969 949 1069

964 970 950 1060

966 972 952 1062 1440

966 971 951 1061 1441

26 974

973

(967) 976 967* (1065)

(968) 975 968

977 959

30 978 960

979 (961)

980 (962)

969 981 963 1067 (1442)

970 982 964 1068 (1443)
35 (971) 983 965 (1069) (1444)

(972) 984 966 (1070) (1445)

(973) 985 967 1071 (1446)

(974) 986 968 1072 (1447)
[87-88] [69-70] [48-49]

(975) 989* 971 1460

40 990 972 1461*

991 (973) (1073) (1452)

(976) 992 (974) (1074) (1453)

(977) 993 975 1454*

(978) 994 976 1455*

[79-88]

102

KIU^IB CAMPBELL.

989

990

992

991

(993)

(994)

995

996

997

998

999

1000

1001

1002

1003

1004*

1005

1006

1007*

1008

1009

1010

995
996

997
998
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010

1011
1012

1014*
1013
1015*
1016

1017
1018

1011
1012
1013
1014
1017
1018
1019*
1020
(1021)
(1022)

1023
1024

B C F

(977) 1456

(978) 1457

1459*

1458

979 1460

980 (1085) 1461

981 (1086) 1462

982 (1087) 1463

983 (1088) 1464

984 1465

985 (1466)

986 (1091) (1467)

(987) 1468

(988) 1469

1470

(1093) 1471

989 (1094) 1472*

990 1473

(991) 1095 1474

(992) 1096 1475

993 1476

994 1477

995 1478

996* ..;... 1479

997 1480*

998 1481

999 1101 1482
1000* 1102 1483
1001* (1103) 1484*
1002 (1104) 1485
1003* 1105 1486

1004 1106 1487
[1107-8]

1005 1109 1488
1006* 1110 1489*

THE SEVEN SAGES. 103

(1019)

(1007)

(1111)

(1490)

(1020)

(1008)

(1112)

(1491)

1021

1025

1009

(1113)

1492

1022

1026

1010

(1114)

1493

1023

1027

1011

1116

1494

1024

1028

1012

1115

1495

1025

1029

1013

1496

1026

1030

1014*

1497

1027

1031

1015*

1498*

1028

1032

1016

1499

1029

1033

1017

1117

1500

1030

1034

1018

1118

1501

1031

1035

1019

(1119)

1502*

1032

1036

1020

(1120)

1503

1033

(1037)

1021*

1121

1504*

1034

(1038)

1022

1122

1605

1035

1039

(1023)

(1123)

1606

1036

1040

(1024)

(1124)

1507

1037*

1041

1025

1125

1508*

1038

1042

1026

1126

1609

J039*

1043*

1027*

1610*

100

1040

1044

1028

1611

1041*

1045

1029*

1129

1612*

(1042)

1046

1030

1130

1513

(1043)

1047

1031

(1131)

1614

1044

1048*

1032

(1132)

1615*

105

1045

1049*

1033*

1133

1616*

1046

1050

1034

1134

1617

1047

1051

(1035)

1135

1519

1048

1052

(1036)

1136

1518

1049

1053

1037

(1137)

1620

110

1050

1054

1038

(1138)

1621

1051

1055

1039

(1622)

1052

1056

1040

(1623)

[41-42]

104

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

115

120

126

130

135

140

145

1053
1054
1055*

1057
1058
1059

(1041)

(1042)

1043

1056

1060

1044

1057

1061

1045

1058

1062

1046

1059*

1063

1047

1060*

1064

1048

1061*

1065

1049

1062*

1066

1050

1063
1064
1065

(1067)

(1068)

1069

1051
1052
1053*

1066*

1070*

1054*

1067

1071

1068

1072*

1069

1073*

1070

1074

1071

1075

1055

1072

1076

1056

1073*

1077

1057*

1074

1078

1058

1075
1076
1077*

(1079)

(1080)

1081

[59-60]

(1061)

(1062)

1063

1078

1082

1064

1079

1083

1065

1080

1084

1066

1081

1085

1067

1082

1086

1068

1083*

1087

1069*

1084*

1088

1070

1085

1089

1071

1086

1090

1072

(il

143)

(11

144)

<1]

145)

(11

146)

L47

L48

149

150

151

152*

(li

153)

(11

154)

L55

L56

L57

L58

159

^ J

160

(11

161)

(11

162)

(11

163)

(11

164)

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

(1524)

(1525)

(1526)

(1527)

1528

1529

1530

1531

1532

1533*

1534

1535

1536

1537

1538*

1539

(1540)

(1541)

(1542)

(1543)

1544

1545

(1546)

(1547)

1548*

1549

1550

1551

THE SEVEN SA.GES.

105

150

155

160

165

170

175

1087

1091

1073

1175

1562

1088

1092

1074

1176

1663

1089

1093

1075

1177

1554

1090

1094*

1076

1178

1555
[56-59]

1091

1095

1077

(1179)

1560

1092

1096

1078

(1180)

1561

1093*

1097

1079*

1181

1662*

1094

1098*

1080

1182

1563*

1095

(1099)

1081

1183

1564

1096

(1100)

1082

1184
[85-90]

1565

1097

1101

1083

1191

1566

1098

1102

1084

1192

1567

1099

1103

1086

1193

1568

1100*

1104

1086

1194

1569

1101

(1106)

(1087)

(1195)

1570

1102

(1106)

(1088)

(1196)

1571

1103

1107

1089

(1197)

(1572)

1104*

1108*

1090

(1198)

(1573)

1105

1109

1091

1199

1674

1106

1110

1092

1200

1576

1107

1111*

1093*

(1201)

(1576)

1108

1112

1094

(1202)

(1577)

1109

1113*

1095

1203

1578

1110

1114

1096

1204

1679

(1111)

(1115)

(1097)

(1205)

(1580)

(1112)

(1116)

(1098)

(1206)

(1581)

1113

1117

1099

1207

1682

1114

1118

1100*

1208

1683

1115

1119*

1101

(1209)

1584*

1116

1120

1102

(1210)

1586

1117

1121

1103

(1211)

(1686)

1118

1122

1104

(1212)

(1687)

1119

1123

1106

1213

1688

106

KILLIS CAMPBELL.

At A E B

180 1120 1124 1106

1121 1125 1107

1122 1126 1108

1123 1127 1109

1124 1128 1110
185 1125 1129 1111

1126 1130 1112

1127 (1131)

1128 (1132)

1129 1133 1113
190 1130 1134 1114

1131 1135* 1115*

1132 1136 1116

1133 1137 1117
1134* 1138* 1118

195 1135 1139 1119

1136 1140* 1120
[cf. 1142]

1143 (1141) 1121

1144 (1142) 1122

1145 1143 1123
200 1146 1144 1124

1137 1145 (1125)

1138 1146 (1126)

1139 1147* 1127

1140 1148 1128
205 1141 1149 (1129)

1142* 1150 (1130)
[cf. 1136]

1147 1151 1131

1148 1152 1132

1149 1153 1133
210 1150 1154 1134

1155* 1135*

1214

(1215)

(1216)

[17-20]

(1221)

(1222)

1223

1224

1225

1226

1227

1228

(1229)

(1230)

1231

1232

[33-34]

1235

1236

1589

(1590)

(1591)

[92-93]

1594

1595

1596

1597

(1598)

(1599)

1600

1601

1602*

1603

(1237)
(1238)
1239
1240
(1241)
(1242)

1243
1244

1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
(1612)
(1613)

1614
1615
1616
1617

THE SEVEN SAGES. 107

215

220

225

E
1166

B
1136

1161

1157

1137*

1246

1618*

1162

1168

1138

1246

1619

1163

1169*

1139

1247

1620

1154

1160

1140*

1248

1621

1155

1161

1141

(1249)

1622

1166

1162

1142

(1250)

1623

1157

1163

1143

1251

1624*

1158

1164

1144

1252

1625

[59-60]

[53-64]

1161

1166

1146

1255

1626

1162*

1166

1146

1256

1627

1163*

1167

1147

1628

1164

1168

1148

1629

1165*

1169

1149*

1257

1630

1166

1170
(1172)
(1171)

1150

1258

1631

This partial table will serve to illustrate the correspondences
between the various members of group Y. The array of
figures may look repellent, but I have preferred to submit
the tabulation for an entire story rather than to give only a
part of it, or to resort to any printer's devices to compress it,
and thereby incur the risk of impairing its value.

KiLLis Campbell.

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