Arabic Version A (The Seven Viziers)
From The Seven Sages of Rome
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The narrative titled كتاب السندباد [Kitāb al-Sindbād, The Book of Sindbad], or الوزراء السبعة [Al-Wuzarāʾ al-sabʿa, The Seven Viziers] was transmitted independently as a stand-alone narrative, in addition to its redaction as part of the larger One Hundred and One and One Thousand and One Nights tale collections. This independent iteration of the Seven Viziers narrative, referred to in scholarship as the Arabic version A (e.g., Krönung, 2016), is most closely related to the version found in the One Hundred and One Nights (A101), but also exhibits some distinct differences. For example, the independent Version A does not include the story of the king and the elephant, Elephantus, often found at the start of the A101 text. Other than that, the embedded stories are then essentially the same for the two versions up to the 15th (Version A) or 16th (Version A101) story, Simia, after which their patterns diverge (see story order, below).
The different Arabic Version A manuscripts, listed here, also demonstrate some variation in the number and order of stories contained within them. For example, the earliest surviving independent Seven Viziers text - c. 1535, edited by Ateş in the appendix to his edition of Sindbad-name (1948), found in the Ali Paşa Library in Istanbul - contains the 21 stories listed below. Other later versions from the 18th century, including Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 3670 and Paris Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 3639 translated by Basset in 1903, include 24 stories instead. Notably, they include some stories - e.g. Curiositas, Imago, Capsa - that appear infrequently (if at all) elsewhere in the tradition.
Identification & General Information
Tradition & Lineage
Branch of the tradition
Recorded Secondary Versions
Connected Manuscripts
Language & Composition
Language of version
Date of Composition
700 - 850
Source for date of composition
Modern Scholarship & Editions
Modern research literature
Modern Editions
Pattern of Embedded Stories in This Version
| Has Short Title | Has Sequence Number | Has Narrator | Has Name Variation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leo | 1 | ||
| Avis – The Bird | 2 | ||
| Lavator | 3 | ||
| Panes | 4 | ||
| Gladius – The Drawn Sword | 5 | ||
| Striga – The Prince and the Ogress | 6 | ||
| Mel | 7 | ||
| Zuchara | 8 | ||
| Fons | 9 | ||
| Balneator | 10 | ||
| Canicula | 11 | ||
| Aper – The Boar and the Fruit | 12 | ||
| Canis – The Faithful Dog | 13 | ||
| Pallium | 14 | ||
| Simia | 15 | ||
| Turtures | 16 | ||
| Elephantinus | 17 | ||
| Ingenia | 18 | ||
| Puer 3 annorum | 19 | ||
| Puer 5 annorum | 20 |
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