Arabic Version A (The Seven Viziers)
The narrative titled Kitāb al-Sindbād, or الوزراء السبعة [Al-Wuzarāʾ al-sabʿa, The Seven Viziers] is redacted as part of the One Hundred and One and One Thousand and One Nights tale collections, but was also transmitted independently of those larger frame narratives. This iteration of the Seven Viziers narrative, usually referred to in scholarship as Arabic Version A, is most closely related to the version found in the One Hundred and One Nights (A101), but also exhibits some distinct differences. For example, A101 usually inserts the story Elephantus at the start of the text, which is not found in Arabic Version A. The following stories are then the same for the two versions up to the 15th (Version A) or 16th (Version A101) story, Simia, after which their patterns diverge, and each ends with four or five unique stories (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 edited 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
Recorded Secondary Versions
Connected Manuscripts
Language & Composition
Modern Scholarship & 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 – The Weeping Dog | 11 | ||
| Aper – The Boar and the Fruit | 12 | ||
| Canis – The Faithful Dog | 13 | ||
| Pallium | 14 | ||
| Simia | 15 | ||
| Turtures | 16 | ||
| Elephantinus | 17 | ||
| Ingenia 1 – The Trick: The Wiles of Women Collection | 18 | ||
| Puer 3 annorum | 19 | ||
| Puer 5 annorum | 20 |