The Seven Sages of Rome is a MIDDLE ENGLISH verse
ROMANCE that exists in several versions, ranging
from roughly 2,500 lines to about 4,300 lines. The
earliest known version was written in Kent in the
early 14th century, but that text is based on a
French text from about 1150 called Les Sept Sages
de Rome. That French source is itself derived from
a long and complex tradition going back, through
either Latin sources derived from Byzantine or
Hebrew traditions, or through Spanish sources
derived from Arabic, to an Eastern source called
the Book of Sindbad. A Syrian version of the Book
of Sindbad from the 10th century is extant, and it
is possible that this parent text dates back to the
fifth century, and may have originated in India.
Like The CANTERBURY TALES or the THOUSAND
AND ONE NIGHTS, The Seven Sages of Rome is
structured as a frame narrative, in which 15 stories
are integrated effectively with the frame tale.
The story opens as Diocletian, emperor of Rome,
sends his son to be educated by seven sages. The
young man’s stepmother is jealous of his influence
with the emperor, and fearful that he will
succeed his father in the imperial office, and she
determines to have the boy executed. She attempts
to seduce the boy and, failing that, goes to
Diocletian and accuses the son of attempting to
rape her. The young man does not defend himself
but remains completely silent, and the stepmother
takes advantage of this silence by telling
the emperor a story each night for seven nights.
All of her stories illustrate the danger of sons displacing
their fathers. The emperor reacts to each
of her tales by condemning his son to death, but
every morning is persuaded by one of the seven
sages to spare the boy’s life, as each of them tells
him a tale illustrating the lying ways of women.
Ultimately the boy is able to speak for himself,
and tells the truth about his stepmother’s actions,
forcing her to confess the truth. In the end, the
empress is burnt.
The complex relationships between the Middle
English Seven Sages of Rome and the huge
number of variants in other medieval languages
have been of most interest to scholars. There are
some 40 different versions of the Seven Sages
story, and about 100 different tales distributed
within the frames of the different versions. The
most common English-language version is from a
tradition called Version A, and there are also
French, Italian, Swedish, and Welsh renderings of
this version. This complex background and the
skillful interweaving of frame text and framed
narrative make the English Seven Sages of Rome
far more than simply just another antifeminist
medieval text.
Bibliography
Runte, Hans R., J. Keith Wikeley, and Anthony J. Farrell,
eds. The Seven Sages of Rome and The Book of
Sindbad: An Analytical Bibliography. New York:
Garland, 1984.
The Seven Sages of Rome (Southern Version). Edited by
Karl Brunner. EETS, o.s. 191. London: Published
for the Early English Text Society by Oxford University
Press, 1933.