Senes

From The Seven Sages of Rome

The Old Man

In a kingdom (Rome) in which anyone who reaches the age of seventy is killed, a young man hides his aging father in his basement, and tells everyone that he has died. His old father passes on his wisdom to his son in secret, and guided by his advice, the young man soon becomes a known as a judicious, thoughtful man and a respected public official. However, his enemies conspire against him, and believing these detractors, the emperor sets him a series of impossible tests. First, he must appear before the court neither naked nor clothed; on his father's advice, the young man dresses himself in a net, and thus meets the requirements. Next, the emperor asks the young man to appear before the court with his worst enemy, and with his best friend. The man asks for a month's grace, and demands that if he should fulfill this requirement, the emperor will end the senecidal law; the emperor agrees. Following his father's advice again, the young man kills a pig, puts it in a sack, and tells his wife that he has killed a man; together they bury the body in the garden. Shortly thereafter, on some slight pretense, he argues with his wife and beats her. She immediately turns him in for murder, and the man is arrested. From jail, he explains that this was a trick, the body is exhumed, and he is released. On the appointed day, the young man visits the emperor accompanied by his dog and his wife, and explains that the dog is his best friend - even after being beaten, if returns when he calls it. His wife, on the other hand, is his worst enemy, who turns on him at the slightest provocation, he says. The young man then reveals that he did all this on the advice of his aged father - and the emperor agrees to abolish the senescidal law.

Note

Nishimura notes relevant motif index entries, analogues, and references:

Motifs and Types: TMI H971: Task performed with the help of an old person; H1065: Task: bringing best friend, worst enemy, best servant, greatest pleasure-giver; J151.1, ATU 981: Wisdom of hidden old man saves kingdom; K2213.4: Betrayal of husband’s secret by his wife; S140.1: Abandonment of the aged; ATU 921B: Best friend, worst enemy. See also ATU 875: The clever farmgirl.

Analogues:

  • Stories about a task given a son who hid the old man: Scala Coeli, 283 ‘La sagesse des conseillers âgés prouvée à un jeune roi’; Yoshino Hidemasa Setsuwa Shu, 7 ‘The old man and the task’.
  • Stories about a country that has lost (or kills) its elders: Kengu-kyo (Wise and Foolish Sutra), 7.37; Zo Hozo-kyo, 1.4 and 2.14; Makura no Soshi [Pillow Book], 244 ‘Myojin no Ari-toshi’; Konjaku Monogatari-shu, 5.32 ‘The country that sends people who are more than seventy to other countries’; Folklore ordos, No. 56 ‘Le fils pieux’; Sasaki Kizen, Hear Me Storybook, 135; Koda Rohan, Indo no Kowa; Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, 28 ‘Type Index’, 410A ‘Ubasute Yama', 823 and 824; Takeda Seicho, Nihon Densetsu Shu, pp.101-103, 'Ubasuteyma Densetsu in Nagano‘; Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 442 ‘Saltz sol man mit Muleßelmilch besprengen‘. See also Ailianos, Varia Historia, 3.37 ‘Law concerning the aged of Island Keos'; Strabon, Geographica, 10.5.6; and Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, 8.13. The stories that do not include the tasks but only the legend of abandoning of old people are Yamato Monogatari, 156; Konjaku Monogatari-shu, 30.9 ‘Shinano no Obasute Yama’ and Fukazawa Shichiro’s Narayama-bushi Ko.
  • Versions of the narrative related to the country where Ahiqar or Aesop reportedly disappeared: Syriac version of the Story of Ahiqar the Wise; Geschichte von Heikâr dem Weisen, p. 18 and following; The Life of Aesop, 105 and following; Esopo no Fabulas, ‘The Life of Aesop’, p. 41; and Isoho Monogatari, vol.1, 19 ‘Emperor Nethanabo’s Suspicion’.
  • Stories that focus only on various issues include: Seventy Tales of a Parrot, Textus ornatior 58, Textus simplicior 48; Gesta Romanorum, 124 ‘Der kluge Ritter’; Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, 423 ‘Einer bracht sein grösten Feind’; ‘Die kluge Bauerntochter’, KHM 94 in Grimm’s Fairy Tales; Afanasjew, Russische Volksmärchen, 330 ‘Das königliche Findelkind’; Iki-shima Mukashibanashi-shu, 72 ‘Tales of dumping the old people’ and 73-74 ‘Another tales of dumping the old people’; ‘Difficult Tales’ in Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, 28, ‘Type Index’ 815-822, 825-827.


Additional Bibliography: Chauvin VIII 244. Tanaka Otoya, Drunken Flower Collection, pp. 108-112. Nakatsukasa Tetsuo, The World of Aesop’s Fables, pp. 74-77. Nihon Mukashibanashi Tsukan, ‘Kenkyu-hen 2’, 410A, 815-827.

Critical Literature
Nishimura (2001)Clouston (1884)Perry (1959)Campbell (1907)Gilleland (1981)
Senes appears in the following versions and secondary versions
Senes is narrated in the following occurrences
Narrator Pages
Third Master Dolopathos, French Dolopathos, Latin Dolopathos
Senes appears in the following manuscripts
This inset story appears in no manuscripts of the database