Seven Sages of Rome, The

(ca. 1300–1325)

   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.