Month: June 2013

In the Book of Sindibad / Seven Sages of Rome corpus, a king nearly kills his son in response to a false accusation of rape.  The framing narrative in this literature has the king’s sages and the king’s wife offering competing fables to urge, respectively, the king to spare his son or kill his son.  After the king learns the truth that the accusation of rape was false and does not kill his son, the king asks who would have been to blame if he had killed his son.  In an Old Spanish text of the Book of Sindibad, written in 1253, the question “who would have been to blame?” prompts a dispute among the sages.  The winning position avoids answering the question of personal blame.

The dispute is a direct response to the king’s question about blame.  The king asks his sages:

who would have been to blame had I executed my son?  Would the blame have been mine?  My son’s?  My wife’s?  The teacher’s? [1]

One sage declares execution would have been the son’s teacher’s fault for failing in his professional responsibilities.  Another sage responds to the first: “It is not as you say.”  The second sage declares the fault would have been the king’s “because he ordered his son put to death on the word of a woman, when he did not know if her story was true or false.”  A third sage objects: “It is not as you say.”  The third sage declares that the woman is to blame for lying to the king about rape.  A fourth sage contradicts the third, saying that the woman is not to blame.  It is the son’s fault.  The woman accused him of rape because he is “handsome and well-made” and refused her sexual advance.  Moreover, since the woman had tried to entice the son with an offer to help kill his father and place the son on the throne, the woman had to get the son executed to ensure that she was not executed for attempted treason.  The woman thus acted in self-defense and is not to blame. The fault for the son being executed for being falsely accused of rape would have been the son’s.

Blaming the son for him being falsely accused of rape ends the first analytical disputation and leads into the son telling a fable.  After the fourth sage reasoned that the fault would not be the woman’s but the son’s, another sage declares:

It is not as you say, for the greatest of all wisdom lies in speaking.

Hearing the son speak had made clear the truth about the false accusation of rape and had saved the king from killing his son.  Yet the wisdom of speaking is more abstract than that particular case.  In response to the sage’s claim about the wisdom of speaking, the son tells a fable about the death of many persons:

They say that a man prepared a feast and invited his guests and his friends, and dispatched his maidservant to the market for milk for them to drink.  Now she purchased it and was carrying it home on her head.  Above her a falcon flew.  It was carrying in its claws a serpent which it squeezed so tightly that the venom ran out of it and fell into the milk.  They drank the milk and all of them died from it.  Now the tell me whose fault it was that all of those people perished? [2]

One sage reasons that the host was at fault for his guests’ deaths.  A second sage contradicts him, reasoning that the falcon was to blame.  A third sage responds to the second, “It is not as you say,” and reasons that the serpent is to blame.  A fourth sage contradicts the third and gives reasons for blaming the maidservant.  Another sage, the son’s teacher, says that all of those four sages are wrong, and he explains their errors.  The king turns to his son to explain who is to blame.  The son declares:

None of these was to blame, for the hour in which each was to die was at hand.

The king acclaims his son’s wisdom.  His son’s teacher declares of the son, “No one is wiser than he.”  The other sages do not disagree.[3]  The winning position is the wisdom of recognizing fate.

This highly structured, relatively elaborate dispute about blame seems to be a distinctive feature of the Old Spanish text of the Book of Sindibad.  Scholarly disputation was central to Jewish rabbinical and Latin scholastic practice.[4]  In thirteenth-century Spain and France, Jews were being summoned to dispute with Christians about theological questions.  In the Old Spanish text of the Book of Sindibad, the competing fables and stories of the sages and the king’s wife failed to convince the king definitely of the right course of action.  To determine subsequently who would have been to blame if the king had executed his son, the king’s sages engaged in principle-based moral reasoning.  That reasoning also failed. The son regaining his natural voice prompts the king to recognize definitively his wife’s false accusation of rape against the son.  The son’s acclaimed analysis of blame denies attribution of blame and asserts fate.  The winning arguments aren’t arguments, but affirmations of nature.

Perhaps more truthful understanding of human nature can help to address the systemic social problem of false accusations of rape.

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• scholarly reasoning and the burden of manliness
• little public concern about men’s deaths
• the hidden history of matriarchy

Notes:

[1] El libro de los engaños e asayamientos de las mugeres, trans. Keller (1956) p. 42.  All the subsequent quotes are from id., pp. 42-4.

[2] I’ve changed the translation’s term “kite” to “falcon” for ease of understanding.  This tale apparently goes back to ancient India.  It appears in ancient Sanskrit texts.  Clouston (1884) pp. 99-101.

[3] In response to the king asking the sages whether anyone is wiser than his son, “They replied that no one should speak evil of what seems good.”  That’s diplomatically vague and professionally shrewd.

[4] Disputation about sensational questions was a central feature of intellectual competition in the Roman Empire.  The Hebrew version of the Book of Sindibad (Mishle Sendebar) doesn’t include the dispute about blame.  It does, however, refer to the question of blame.  Regarding the woman who falsely accused him of rape after he rejected her sexual advance and her proposal of treason, the king’s son declares:

Let her not be condemned to die, for every man fights for his life.  And now I will ask of the King and his counselors to pardon her sin, and not to execute her.

Trans. Epstein (1967) p. 295. Other versions of the Book of Sindibad include brief, unstructured discussions of alternate parties at fault if the king had killed his son.  Some also include the subsequent story of the maidservant.  See, e.g., Persian version of Mohammad ‘Ali Zahiri Samarqandi, Sendbad-name, written about 1161-1164, trans. Clouston (1884) pp. 48-9, and Arabic version, “Story of the Seven Viziers,” 1001 Nights, nights 602-3 (Macnaghten / Calcutta II edition), trans. Lyons (2008) v. 2, pp. 602-3.

References:

Clouston, William Alexander. 1884. The book of Sindibad, or the Story of the king, his son, the damsel and the seven vazirs: from the Persian and Arabic. Privately printed.

Epstein, Morris. 1967. Tales of Sendebar. An edition and translation of the Hebrew version of the Seven sages, based on unpublished manuscripts. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

Keller, John Esten, ed. and trans. 1956. The book of the wiles of women. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Lyons, Malcolm C. 2008. The Arabian nights: tales of 1001 nights. vols. 1-3. London: Penguin.

In versions of the Book of Sindibad extant from Spain to Persia about a millennium ago, sages instruct the king with stories of scholars who sought to compile the wiles of women.  Scholars of the wiles of women remained unmarried, and perhaps never even looked at women.  One seated himself upon an ash heap and ate nothing but barley as he copied many books about the wiles of women.  Another worked for forty years compiling women’s lies, excuses, tricks, and contrivances.  The resulting books filled chests that had to be carried upon a camel and were too big to fit into a house.  These scholars became weak and sick with the burden of their scholarly labor.[1]

Women showed these scholars that their wearisome scholarly labors were foolish.  One woman considered such a scholar to be a “booby and a simpleton”:

“I firmly believe,” she told him, “that no women in the world will ever deceive you, nor will one ever be the equal of those books you have composed.”  But in her heart she said: “Be as wise as you may, for I shall make you see this stupidity of yours under which you labor.”

{ E dixo: “Bien creo verdaderamente que nunca mujer del mundo te pueda engañar nin es a emparejar con aquestos libros que as adobado.” E dixo ella en su coraçón: “Sea agora cuan sabidor quisiere, que yo le faré conoscer el su poco seso, en que anda engañado. ¡Yo só aquella que lo sabré fazer!” }[2]

The woman told the scholar that her husband was a tired, old man.  She propositioned the scholar:

She began to hug and to kiss him and he arose and got into the bed in order to lie with her.  Then she screamed a tremendous scream.  And her husband came, his men with him.  Then the man dropped like a corpse from fear.

Said she to her husband, “Hey, you brought me a man to feed and as soon as he started eating the food he choked and he could not swallow a thing on account of his illness.  So I screamed as loud as I could because I was afraid he would die. [3]

The husband believed the wife, and no harm came to the scholar.

After this personal, shocking experience of a woman’s double deception, the scholar learned his lesson.  In various versions of the story, he burned his books or washed them out.  He acknowledged, “I have labored in vain.”[4]  In one version, the pain and stress of this new knowledge caused the scholar’s death.[5]  Another version has a happy ending:

He discontinued the investigation of woman’s evil-craft, returned to his native land, and married a wife. [6]

Whether the story ends with the scholar’s death or his marriage, the message is clear: compiling the wiles of women is futile.

Men are inferior to women in guile.  Many men today don’t know (or refuse to acknowledge) their inferiority in guile.  Moreover, some women today, taking the game to a higher level, stridently denounce any claim that men are inferior in guile.  The reality of life is common sense.  Men and women should give more credit to the wiles of women.

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• paternity ignorance in genetic age proves men’s inferiority in guile
• matriarchy for millennia: the untold story
• French Revolution’s principle of paternity choice quickly suppressed

Notes:

[1] In the Book of Sindibad / Seven Sages of Rome corpus, the story is known as Ingenia.  Ingenia occurs only in the eastern Book of Sindibad tradition. Story details above are aggregated from different story versions:  Hebrew versions, Mishle Sendebar, trans. Epstein (1967) pp. 275-283; an Old Spanish version, El libro de los engaños e asayamientos de las mugeres, dated 1253, story 18, trans. Keller (1956) pp. 39-41; a Persian version, text of Mohammad ‘Ali Zahiri Samarqandi, Sendbad-name, written about 1161-1164, story entitled “Story of the Man who compiled a Book on the Wiles of Women,” trans. Clouston (1884) pp. 45-8; and a Greek version, Michael Andreopulos, Syntipas, dated late 11th century,  trans. Clouston (1884) pp. 95-7.  Redondo (2011) argues that Syntipas is not a translation into Greek, but an original Greek text in the style of the second-century Greek of Pausanius.

[2] The book of the wiles and deceptions of women {El libro de los engaños e asayamientos de las mugeres}, story 18, “The Tale of the Young Man Who Did Not Wish to Marry Until He Had Learned All the Evils of Women {Enxemplo del mancebo que non quería casar fasta que sopiese las maldades de las mujeres},” Old Spanish text from Orazi (2006), English translation from Keller (1956) p. 40. With an elaborate rhetorical figure of impossibility (adynaton {ἀδύνατον}), a medieval Latin poem indicated the impossibility of compiling the wiles of women:

Even if a thousand men come, all are likewise deceived,
and just as many women are found to deceive them.
Indeed, all the stars could be counted,
and the tiny ant could equal the elephant,
and more easily the lion be overcome by a grub,
and the flame-spewing dragon be bloodied by a fly,
and a bear be well-chained by a spider’s web,
before all the deceits of women could be enumerated.

{ Mille licet veniant, sic omnes decipiuntur,
et quae decipiant quam plures inveniuntur.
Ante quidem possent omnes stellae numerari,
et formica brevis elephantis aequiperari,
et levius poterit leo vermiculo superari,
et draco flammivomens musca poterit sanguinari,
ursus et araneae filo bene concatenari
quam possint fraudes mulierum dinumerari. }

Against women {Contra mulieres} vv. 20-7, Latin text and English translation (modified) from Hexter, Pfuntner & Haynes (2020), pp. 334-5. This Latin work of men’s sexed protest has survived in only one manuscript: Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica, MS Vat. lat. 1602. This manuscript was written late in the fourteenth century. Id. p. 434. Adynata are associated with “the world upsidedown” topos. See my post on conservative medieval women in Cligès.

[3] Hebrew version (Mishle Sendebar), trans. by Epstein (1967) pp. 281, 283 (modified insubstantially). False accusations of rape have been a motif in world literature throughout history.

[4] Id. p. 283. An Italian work of men’s sexed protest probably from the middle of the thirteenth century summarized:

And a Roman traveled for seven years throughout kingdoms,
writing down the artifices and wiles of women,
until a peasant woman ingeniously tricked him
and made him burn his books in a large fire of wood.

{ Et un Roman set’ani cercando andà li regni,
scrivendo de le femene le art e li ençegni
e poi una vilana lo schernì com ençegni,
ch’arder li fe’ li libri en grand fogo de legni. }

Stanza 38 (vv. 149-52) of Proverbs that discuss the nature of women {Proverbia que dicuntur super natura feminarum}, Old Italian text of Gianfranco Contini via Bonghi & Mangieri (2003), my English translation, benefiting from the modern Italian translation of id.

[5] Persian version (Sendbad-name), trans. Clouston (1884) p. 47.

[6] Greek version (Syntipas), trans. Clouston (1884) p. 97.

[image] Alexandre Bida, The Woman in the “Song of Songs,” chalk, c. 1886, U.S. National Gallery of Art, Joseph F. McCrindle Collection 2009.70-41.

References:

Bonghi, Giuseppe, and Cono A. Mangieri, trans. (Italian) with notes. 2003. Proverbia que dicuntur super natura feminarum. Biblioteca dei Classici Italiani. Online. Alternate source.

Clouston, William Alexander. 1884. The book of Sindibad, or the Story of the king, his son, the damsel and the seven vazirs: from the Persian and Arabic. Privately printed.

Epstein, Morris. 1967. Tales of Sendebar. An edition and translation of the Hebrew version of the Seven sages, based on unpublished manuscripts. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

Hexter, Ralph J., Laura Pfuntner, and Justin Haynes, ed. and trans. 2020. Appendix Ovidiana: Latin poems ascribed to Ovid in the Middle Ages. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, 62. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Keller, John Esten, ed. and trans. 1956. The book of the wiles of women. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Orazi, Verónica. 2006. Sendebar: Libro de los engaños de las mujeres. Barcelona: Crítica.

Redondo, Jordi. 2011.  “Is Really Syntipas a Translation?  The Case of The Faithful Dog.” Graeco-Latina Brunensia 16:1, pp. 49-59.

In ancient Greek tradition, seven sages were renowned for their wisdom.  By the time of Plato about 2400 years ago, seven sages of Greece were recognized in Greek tradition.  The seven sages lived about 2700 to 2500 years ago.  They predated what is now considered the golden age of ancient Greek literature and philosophy.

Just as the set of lists of the top-10 U.S. law schools encompass far more than ten law schools, the seven sages of Greece in ancient discussion encompassed at least twenty-three sages.  The sage lists typically include Thales, Pittacus, Bias, and Solon, while common additional names were Chilon, Cleobulus, and Periander. A wide variety of other names alternated on ancient lists of the seven sages of Greece.

Few of the seven sages of Greece have significant surviving wisdom.  Little is known about most of them.  Archaic obscurity seems to have been an ancient requirement for joining the elite group of seven sages.

The archaic obscurity of the seven sages of Greece persisted in Latin writings in the late Roman Empire.  Ausonius, writing in Latin about 1650 years ago, gave a fairly typical list for the seven sages of Greece: Solon, Chilon, Cleobulus, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Periander.[1]  Augustine, writing about 1600 years ago, produced the same list.[2]  In the late Roman Empire, Homer, Aristotle, Plato, and Hippocrates were honored ancient Greek thinkers.  These thinkers appear on neither Ausonius’s nor Augustine’s list of the seven sages of Greece.[3]

Seven sages appear in a widely dispersed, highly popular tale collection now known as the Book of Sindibad / Seven Sages of Rome.  The frame narrative for the tale collection concern a king planning to have his son killed in response to the king’s wife falsely accusing the son of rape.  Versions that emerged in Eurasia east of Rome, called the Book of Sindibad, in almost all cases don’t name the sages.[4]  The western branch came to be known as the Seven Sages of Rome.  Many of these versions name the seven sages.  The usual names of the sages are Bancillas, Ancilles or Anxille, Lentulus, Malquidras or Malquidrac, Cato, Jesse, and Maxencius or Merous.[5]  Among these sages only Cato is now known.  Cato is not Cato the Elder or Cato the Younger, but the third or fourth century author of the Distichs of Cato.[6]  That work was an enormously popular schoolbook of Latin wisdom in medieval Europe.  Giants of Roman Latin literature, e.g. Horace, Virgil, and Cicero, never appear among the seven sages of Rome.

Obscurity seems to be central to popular understanding of wisdom.

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• mosaic of seven sages from 1st-century Pompeii
• absurd, meaningless texts highly valued
• disparate material in the Syriac Book of Medicines

Notes:

[1] Ausonius, “The Masque of the Seven Sages,” trans. from Latin in Evelyn-White (1919) vol. 1, pp. 311-29.

[2] Augustine, The City of God, Bk. 18, Ch. 25.

[3] A Greek Christian text from perhaps the time of Augustine (“On the Temple, Schools, and Theatres in Athens”) provides a more innovative list of the seven sages of Greece.  It lists the sages as Titon, Bias, Solon, Cheilon, Thucydides, Menander, and Plato.  Bias, Solon, and Cheilon (Chilon) are among the usual seven sages of Greece.  Titon may have meant Titan, which was a name Homer used for the Sun God.  A Christian writer identifying Titan as a Greek sage is bizarre.  Thucydides, Menander, and Plato are ancient Greeks — a historian, a playwright, and a philosopher — widely read and studied right up to the present.  Such eminent Greek thinkers don’t appear in other lists of the seven sages of Greece.

[4] The Hebrew version is an exception in naming the seven sages.  It sets the story in India and names the sages Sendebar, Ipokras, Apulin, Lukman, Aristalin, Hind, and Amami.  Epstein (1967) pp. 55, 370-1.  Among these names can perhaps be recognized Hippocrates, Apuleius, Aristotle, and Pindar.  Apuleius is a second-century Latin comic writer; the other apparently recognizable sages are still-revered ancient Greeks.  None of these recognized sages belongs in India.

[5] Campbell (1907) p. xxii.  In surviving manuscripts, “numerous more or less radical variations in the spelling of these names” occur.  Id. ft. 3.  The spelling variations further indicate that the sages were not well-known.

[6] Id. p. 152.

[image] Anselm Kiefer, The Book, 1979-85, Hirshhorn Gallery, 85.27.

References:

Campbell, Killis. 1907. The seven sages of Rome. Boston: Ginn & Company.

Epstein, Morris. 1967. Tales of Sendebar = [Mishle Sendebar]. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

Evelyn-White, Hugh G., ed. and trans. 1919. Decimus Magnus Ausonius.  Ausonius. London: W. Heinemann.