Epstein Mishle Sendebar

"Mishle Sendebar": New Light on the Transmission of Folklore from East to West
Author(s): Morris Epstein

Source: Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 27 (1958), pp. 1-
17
Published by: American Academy for Jewish Research
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3622494
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MISHLE SENDEBAR: NEW LIGHT ON THE
TRANSMISSION OF FOLKLORE FROM EAST
TO WEST
By MORRIS EPSTEIN
Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University
This variation of an age-old formula opens once

magic casements on the world of folklore, and specif
Mishle Sendebar, the Hebrew version of an enormous
medieval romance collectively known as the Seven Sag
The Seven Sages is a collection of narratives within
work-narrative. It belongs to the class of works whic
the Arabian Nights, the Panchatantra, the Decameron
fessio Amantis, and the Canterbury Tales.' The roman
origin in the East and was subsequently transmitted w
undergoing radical changes in its travels.
* In those days there was a King in the land of India whose nam
and he was beloved by the inhabitants of India for he was a mi
valor and very generous; a sage, and an upholder of justice.
eighty wives and each of them used to lie with him one week. W
came of the worthiest and the wisest of them all, she made a fe
princes and his servants, and she invited the King to the banque
and to rejoice with her and with his princes.
I Indeed the indebtedness of Chaucer and Gower to one or another of the
Western versions of the Seven Sages has long been admitted. Chaucer's
main borrowing would seem to be that of certain details of the Manciple's
Tale; for Gower's debt, which is a greater one, see Lewis Thorpe, "A Source
of the Confessio Amantis," MLR, XLIII (1948), 175-181.
1
2 EPSTEIN [21
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Fol. 289r, MS. Heb. d. 11, Bodleian Library, Oxford University.

The opening of Mishle Sendebar in one of the unpublished MSS on
which the new edition is based. (Reduced; actual size= 22 x 1512 cm.)
[3] MISHLE SENDEBAR: TRANSMISSION OF FOLKLORE 3
There are thus two main branches of the Seven Sages - the
Eastern group and the Western. The Eastern branch is known
collectively as the Book of Sindibad;2 the Western typical form
is known as the Seven Sages of Rome. The primary reason for
this change is that in the West there is no longer mention of a
philosopher called Sindibad, the important roles being played
instead by the seven sages of Rome.
In the Book of Sindibad, or Eastern form, we have eight extant
versions: Syriac, Greek, Hebrew, Old Spanish, Arabic, and three
in Persian. There is a much larger number of Western versions.
In Europe, at least forty different versions have been preserved in
over two hundred MSS and nearly two hundred and fifty
editions.3
The story in the East runs somewhat as follows: A king with
many wives but no children is finally blessed with a refractory
son who dislikes to study. He turns his son over to the sage
Sindibad who undertakes to complete the prince's education in
six months or forfeit both life and property. The terminal date
approaches. Then, a horoscope reading tells Sindibad that the
prince's life is in danger if he does not maintain silence for one
week. The king, grief-stricken by his son's silence, allows one of
his royal wives to entreat him to speak. In the privacy of her
chamber, he rejects her amorous advances. In classic fashion,
she cries "rape" and the prince is sentenced to death. At this
point, seven of the king's advisers each tells one or two stories
2 The origin of the name "Sindibad" is in dispute. See Killis Campbell,

"A Study of the Romance of the Seven Sages with Special Reference to the
Middle English Versions," PMLA, XIV (1899), 5. T. Benfey, Pantschatantra,
[sic] I (Leipzig, 1899), 13, suspects the origin of Sindibad to be the Sanskrit
"Siddhapati," but fails to account phonologically for the Persian form "Sind-
bad." George T. Artola, in "Sindibad in Medieval Spanish," MLN, LXXI
(no. 1, January, 1956), 40, proceeding from the fact that the Sanskrit word
"Siddha" designates a mythological semi-divine being or any sage or prophet
(Siddhapati = a compound form meaning "chief of sages"), feels that "Siddha"
of the title was misunderstood by the Pahlavi translator and confused with
Sindhu (the country around the Indus River which, to the Persians, was
India), to give an alternate form *Sindupati. In any case, there is no relation
between Sindibad and Sinbad the Sailor of the Arabian Nights.
3 Killis Campbell, The Seven Sages of Rome (Boston, 1907), p. xvii.
4 EPSTEIN [14
dealing with the wiles
warning of the evil tha
Execution is thus del
prince speaks and the
from version to vers
shaven and she is led
heralds proclaim her
Engan~os she is burned
is she allowed to go f
version of the Golden Rule.
These, then, are the outlines of the Eastern form of this anti-
feminist romance. Generally, they apply as well to the Western
form, except that there the king's son acquires his wisdom unde
the guidance of seven sages of Rome.
The Seven Sages has attracted the attention of scholars for the
past century and a half. Despite their efforts, however, the hear
of the mystery --the precise birthplace and the specifics o
transmission - remains unplucked. Chiefly, this is because the
parent version of the Seven Sages has never been discovered.
As early as 1807, J. G6rres stated that the birthplace of the
romance was India.4 This view was upheld by Loiseleur-
Deslongchamps,s by Benfey, and by N6ldeke,6 among others.
It was Benfey who first pointed to the similarity between the
introduction to the Panchatantra and the framework of the
Book of Sindibad.
The view supporting Indian origin has not gone unchallenged.
There are no Indian stories in which seeds of the Book of Sindibad
may clearly be distinguished. Indeed, a new and radical solution
is today being formulated by Ben E. Perry of the University of
Illinois, who claims that the Book of Sindibad was in a sense
invented on the basis of the Greek story of not later than
200 C. E., of Secundus, a Greek silence-observing philosopher.
And since the Sindibad shows the influence of the Panchatantra,
4 J. G6rres, Die Teutschen Volksbiicher (Heidelberg, 1907), p. 154.

s A. L. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, Essai sur les Fables Indiennes (Paris,
1838), p. 3 f. and p. 80 f.
6 Benfey, op. cit., 38 f., and MWlanges Asiatiques, III (1859), 188 f. Th.
N6ldeke, ZDMG, XXXIII (1879), 513 f.
THE BOOK OF SINDIBAD: EASTERN BRANCH OF THIE SEVEN SAGES
Tentative Chart of Affiliated MSS
*Sanskrit? (ca. 500 B.C.E.)
*ur-Hebrew text? (ca. 300-100 B.C.E.)
*Pahlavi? (ca. 570-650)
*Arabic of Musa I. *Hebrew text?

(late 8th c.) e (7th-8th c.)
I \ ''
Syriac Sindban I \
(ca. 10th c.) I
I \
I *Dari
(Persian:
949) Hebrew Mishle
Sendebar (12th c.)
Greek Syntipas
(end of 11th c.) 0
3 1
Old Span- Arabic Seven

ish Libro ezirs in Vezirs in
(1253) 1001 Nights
Persian prose of (14t
As-Samarquandi
(late 12th c.)
Persian prose of Persian verse

Nachshebi: Sindibad-nameh
Eighth Night of (1375)
Tuti-nameh
(ca. 1300)
6 EPSTEIN [6]
Professor Perry
570 C. E., when t
and 651, the ye
Persian literary a
Now, we have va
eighth or ninth
indeed exist, the
known, though i
As complex as is
more baffling is t
difference separ
the framework as within the stories. Individual stories vary
from one Eastern member to another. But, as a group, they have
only four (out of twenty-odd) stories and the framework in
common with the Western group. Thus, the essential differences
between the two groups are as follows: the Western form makes
no mention of Sindibad; the sages tell only one story instead of
two (or more) in the East; and just four of the original stories
(Canis, Aper, Senescalcus, and Avis9) reappear in the Western
versions.
This gap has been ascribed to the vagaries of oral transmission.
But who did the transmitting? Gaston Paris held that the
Byzantine empire served as the bridge.Io Killis Campbell
settled for a Crusader upon whom the "Buddhistic flavor made
a strong appeal.""I
I submit that the intermediary was Hebrew translated into
Latin, as was indeed the case with the great Bidpai cycle; and
7 The foregoing is based on a paper by Professor Perry read at the April 1956
meeting of the American Oriental Society. He is now preparing a monograph
on the subject.
8 In Masudi. See Alois Sprenger, translator, El-Masudi's Historical Ency-
clopedia Entitled Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems (London, 1841), p. 175.
9 The Latin names are not in the manuscripts. They were first given to the
stories by Goedeke, Orient und Occident, III (1866), 423, and have been in
general use since.
0o Gaston Paris, La Litterature Frangaise au Moyen Age, 5th ed. (Paris,
1914), p. 87. (Paris had died in 1903, but the statement appears as early as the
2nd ed.)
" Seven Sages, p. xvii.
that the agents of transmission were the Radanites, those far-

wandering merchants of the ninth century; and finally, that the
genesis of the Hebrew version extends back further than anyone
has hitherto suspected.
Now, the Hebrew has long been acknowledged the most
important of the eight Eastern versions. For the Hebrew text
alone contains features which distinguish the Western versions
from the Eastern. For example, in the Western versions and in
Mishle Sendebar (but in no other Eastern version) the sages are
mentioned by name; there is a rivalry between the sages to
secure the task of instructing the prince, and so on. These
similarities were noted over half a century ago by Landau.'1 Yet
the Hebrew version, Mishle Sendebar, appears to have been not
only the most important, but the most misinterpreted.
It was never edited from MSS earlier than the printed edition.
It was never translated into English. Modern scholars, in dealing
with the Hebrew, have relied upon the nineteenth-century
German translation by Cassel.'3 Cassel used the error-laden
second printed edition (Venice, 1544), and added gratuitous
emendations and hypotheses. To the extent that Cassel's work
is unreliable, subsequent scholarship on the whole of the Seven
Sages, insofar as it deals with the Hebrew, is weakened in value.
Thus, there can be no doubt that a new edition, along with a
reliable translation, has been urgently needed. To this task the
writer addressed himself. As the search for MSS widened, the
project became increasingly exciting and fruitful. Correspond-
ence turned up unknown MSS, and the first finding-list of Mishle
Sendebar took form. MSS in the Bodleian Library, of much
earlier date than the first printed edition, far better in their
readings, and containing stories never before attributed to the
Hebrew, became the foundation of a new edition.14
12 Marcus Landau, Die Quellen des Dekameron, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1884),
p. 47 f.
13 D. Paulus Cassel, Mischle Sindbad, Berlin, 1888, reprinted 1891.
14 Presented as a doctoral dissertation in the Department of English,
Graduate School of Arts and Science, New York University, June, 1957, under
the title Mishle Sendebar: An Edition and Translation of the Hebrew Version
of the "Seven Sages" Based on Unpublished Manuscripts.
8 EPSTEIN [81
There are eightee

one complete an
schneider collect
America.
Of printed editions, the most important is the rare first edi-
tion,'s published at Constantinople in 1516, of which a partial
copy is to be found in the Seminary Library.
Translations have been made into German by Sengelmann,
1842; by Cassel in his edition; into French by Carmoly, 1849, and
into Arabic, in Hebrew characters, Livorno, 1868.16 These are
modern translations. There is also a late fourteenth-, early
fifteenth-century translation into Latin, published by Hilka in
1912.~7
Most of the MSS are very revealing, and are described in the
preface to the new edition. The present paper will mention only
briefly those never before discussed by critics and those two which
form a second, new recension of Mishle Sendebar.
The MS in Leningrad's is described only in a handwritten
card file compiled by Hermann Strack. Thus, while the Strack-
Harkavy catalogue of Biblical MSS is well-known, we learn for
the first time of the existence of some form of catalogue of the
non-Biblical MSS in the Saltykov-Schedrin Library in Leningrad.
The Budapest MS,'9 kindly photographed for the writer by
Professor Alexander Scheiber of the Jewish Theological Seminary
of Budapest, is a very unusual one. The major portion of this
fifteenth-century MS is devoted to Petah D'varei, the grammatical
treatise often attributed to Rabbi David Kimchi. On the top,
bottom, and outer margins of almost every page are written a
variety of works, including Mishle Sendebar.
's In Divre ha- Yamim shel Moshe Rabbenu, Constantinople, 1516.

16 Heinrich Sengelmann, Das Buch von den Sieben Weisen Meistern, Halle,
1842; Cassel, op. cit.; Eliakim Carmoly, Les Paraboles de Sendabar, Paris,
1849; in Maase Shaashuim, Livorno, 1868.
'7 Alfons Hilka, "Historia Septem Sapientum ...," Sammlung Mittel-
lateinischer Texte, IV, Heidelberg, 1912.
18 MS. Judaica I, No. 272, Firkovitch Collection, Saltykov-Schedrin Public
Library, Leningrad.
19 MS. Budapest 59, Jewish Theological Seminary of Budapest.
The Hebrew Union College MS,2o also hitherto undescribed, is

an early nineteenth-century copy of the printed text, and hence
of very little intrinsic value.
The Vatican MS,21 unmentioned by Steinschneider or any
other scholar, but listed in Cassuto and in the Assemani cata-
logue, is chiefly distinguished by its overall embellishment and
inflation of text. There is no evidence that these embellishments
represent an earlier form, and the conservative view must be
that they are the work of a notably talented copyist. Possibly,
judging by the clean and unblemished state of the MS, he was
one of the corps of copyists periodically employed by the Vatican
to enrich its store of works in Hebrew. In any case, the Vatican
MS is, from a literary viewpoint, the most interesting MS of
Mishle Sendebar and deserves further study and a translation
of its own.
But of all the MSS of Mishle Sendebar, the two most important
are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.22 No one but Moses Gaster,
in an essay of 1936, 3 noted that they form a second recension of
Mishle Sendebar, and Gaster unfortunately died before he could
make much of his insight.
Of these two MSS, one is dated in the thirteenth or possibly
in the twelfth century, while the other was completed in 1325.
It is apparent that these two MSS, which I shall call the Oxford
Group, derive from one common parent, while all the other
MSS derive from another. The Oxford Group contains three
stories - Ingenia, Fur et Luna, and Jusjurandum - never before
considered as being within the Mishle Sendebar canon and never
before published. One of these stories (Ingenia) is found in other
Eastern versions of the Seven Sages.
By presenting an edition based on the Oxford Group, the new
edition will offer twenty-four tales and will thus become the
first to offer all the stories found in the several MSS and printed
texts of Mishle Sendebar. In the process it will of course invali-
20 MS. Grossman No. 598, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.

21 MS. Vatican 100.3, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Vatican.
22 These are in MS. Bodl. or. 135 and MS. Heb. d. 11.
23 Moses Gaster, "Mishle Sendebar," in V'Zot L' Yehudah (Tel Aviv, 19
pp. 7-39.
10 EPSTEIN [10]
date every compar

Comparetti, Hilka,
Now, what do we
In 1316, Kalonym
Baale Hayyim. Dis
the reading habits
"Let no one think that this book is of the same kind as Kalilah
and Dimnah or Mishle Sendebar, Heaven forbid! The purpose of
this book is to render consolation and moral lessons!"25
A somewhat earlier reference is by Abraham Bedersi in a
letter of 1295 to a friend in Narbonne.26
But these references do not tell us the ultimate date and source
of Mishle Sendebar. Nor does it help to assume an Indian origin,
for as the late Professor Ginzberg remarked, Indian folklore
(for example, the judgment of Solomon) sometimes shows the
influence of Jewish lore.27
The possibility is that Mishle Sendebar, like many other
"books of delight" which appeared in Hebrew in the twelfth
century, was translated from Arabic. As is well known, mutual
influence was great. Professor Goitein has pointed to similarities
between Talmudic and Midrashic folklore on the one hand, and
in the literature of the Hadith and Arabic religious legend on the
other.28 Many Jewish stories entered Arabic literature. Some
forty-five of the four hundred-odd stories in the Arabian Nights
are Jewish. 9 Basset refers again and again to Jewish stories and
24 Landau, Cassel, and Hilka, op. cit.; Domenico Comparetti, Researches

Respecting the Book of Sindibad (a tr. by H. C. Coote of Comparetti's Ricerche
Intorno al Libro de Sindibad, Milan, 1869), Folklore Society, London, 1882,
IX; Michael Schmidt, Neue Beitraige zur Geschichte der Sieben Weisen Meister,
Cologne, 1928.
2s Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, Iggeret Baale Hayyim (Mantua, 1557),
sig. 1, p. 1. (Several subsequent editions have appeared, the most recent ed.
by I. Toporovsky, Jerusalem, 1949.)
26 See N. S. Doniach, "Abraham Bedersi's Purim Letter to David Kaslari,"
JQR, XXIII, N. S. (1932), 65-66.
27 Louis Ginzberg, On Jewish Law and Lore (Philadelphia, 1955), p. 64.
28 S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs (N. Y., 1955), esp. the chapter "Folk-
Literature and Art."
29 Cf. Joseph Jacobs, "Arabian Nights," Jewish Encyclopedia, II (N. Y.,
1902), 45.
Jewish parallels.30 Although an early Arabic version may have

existed, it does not follow of necessity that Mishle Sendebar was
translated from that language.
Further, there is circumstantial evidence that Mishle Sendebar
was known at a considerably earlier date than the thirteenth
century. The Kalilah and Dimnah is mentioned in a responsum
by Hai Gaon in the tenth century.3' In the Hebrew version of
the Kalilah, the philosopher is known as Sendebar.32 (In the
Arabic, he is called Bidpai.) It is an almost inevitable conclusion
that the translator of the Hebrew Kalilah had Mishle Sendebar
to refer to. "Sendebar" must be anterior because it appears i
similar form in all versions of the Book of Sindibad. The name
"Sendebar" in the Hebrew Kalilah was transmitted via John of
Capua's translation into Latin (ca. 1265) to all of Europe. Thus,
Mishle Sendebar must have been known at an earlier date, and
may very well represent the oldest known Eastern text.
The three new stories in the Oxford Group are helpful for three
chief reasons. First, collectively they bind Mishle Sendebar
closer to the Eastern group by introducing a tale (Ingenia)
which appears in several of the other Eastern versions, but which
has never heretofore been suspected of being present in Mishle
Sendebar. Second, they show a relationship with Western litera
ture by offering a motif - the ambiguous oath - widely known
in world literature; and third, they provide additional evidence
that Mishle Sendebar is older than has until now been thought
possible.
The second point can be illustrated briefly. It centers about
the story Jusjurandum. (Since this tale appears in no other
version of the Seven Sages, I have provided it with a Latin
title, in the interest of uniformity.)
30 Rend Basset, Mille et Un Contes, Recits, et Legendes Arabes, Paris, 1924-

1926. See esp. III (Legendes Religieuses), passim, with its long lists of Arabic
works into which Jewish legends have passed.
3' Cf. J. Derenbourg, ed., Directorium Vitae Humanae [by John of Capua]
(Paris, 1887), p. viii; B. M. Levin, ed., Ozar ha-Geonim (Jerusalem, 1938),
Succah, p. 31; and Carmoly, Paraboles, pp. 13-14.
32 Cf. J. Derenbourg, Deux Versions Hibraiques du Livre de Kalilah et
Dimnah, Paris, 1881.
12 EPSTEIN [12]
The story Jusjur

suspects her of in
touched her. On
signal, she slips a
finally takes state
who helped her ge
This story is, of c
of the Tristan romance.
In the Tristan, Iseult is called upon to prove her innocence

either by undergoing an ordeal by fire or by taking a public
oath that she has shown favor to none but King Mark.
Haughtily, she agrees to these terms. On her way to the
place where the ceremony is to be enacted, she is carried
across a stream by Tristan disguised as a beggar and, at his
request, kisses him in reward for his service. When called
upon to take her oath before the judges and assembled
court, the Queen can truthfully swear that with the excep-
tion of the beggar whom she has just publicly kissed, no
other man than the King can boast of having received any
special mark of her favor.
The ambiguous oath used as a subtle means for a guilty person

to save himself from perjury is naturally much older than the
Tristan.33 It is even found in Talmudic literature, although there
it has no relation to adultery:34
A man left money with Bar Temalian, who afterwards

denied having received it. When asked to take an oath,
he put the money in a stick which he gave to the owner to
33 Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, Folklore Fellows Com-

munications (105-106, 108-112), 1932-1936, lists it under K 1513 as The
Wife's Equivocal Oath: "a husband insists that his wife take an oath that no
one but himself has been intimate with her. The paramour masks himself as
an ass-driver. She hires an ass from him, falls down and lets him pick her up.
She then swears that no one has touched her except her husband and the
ass-driver." For further lit., see: Aarne-Thompson, Types of the Folk-Tale,
Type 1418; Basset, op. cit., II, 4; Johannes Pauli, Schimpf und Ernst, ed.
Johannes Bolte (Berlin, 1924), No. 206; and esp. Johann J. Meyer, Isoldes
Gottesurteil in Seiner Erotische Beziehung, Berlin, 1914.
34 Moses Gaster, Exempla of the Rabbis (London, 1924), No. 121a (p. 82),
with parallels and sources on p. 210.
[131 MISHLE SENDEBAR: TRANSMISSION OF FOLKLORE 13
keep for him, while he swore that he had returned the

money. The stick dropped out of the hand of the man who
was holding it and the money fell out.
The ambiguous oath is also connected with the famous

"Mouth of Truth" (La Bocca Della Verita) legend associated
with Virgil in the Middle Ages.35 Virgil's legendary trials with
women included the invention of several contrivances designed
to regulate the conduct of women. One of these was the bocca
della verita, so constructed that it bit off the fingers of an adul-
teress when she placed them in its mouth and swore a false oath.
This admirable contraption was circumvented by the wiles of
womankind when the Empress of Rome planned an equivocal
oath to baffle the engine. She arranged with her lover that he
should dress as a lunatic and embrace her as she proceeded to the
test. Then she swore that the only man who had been as close
to her as the emperor was this madman. The oath was of course
true and the triumphant empress withdrew her fingers un-
harmed. (The emperor, incidentally, first became aware of his
wife's infidelity when a horn grew from his forehead.)
In any case, here is a story in Mishle Sendebar which appears
in no other version of the Eastern group, nor in any version of
Mishle Sendebar outside of the Oxford Group. At first glance,
it does not appear to belong in Mishle Sendebar at all, and the
easy solution is to say, as Faral did about Hilka's Latin transla-
tion of Mishle Sendebar, that here is a late Hebrew story influ-
enced by the West. But this simple exit is blocked by the
knowledge that Jusjurandum appears in none of the Western
versions; by the fact that the Oxford Group of Mishle Sendebar
is too early to have been influenced by Western romances (nor
does it exhibit such influence in any other of its stories); by the
realization that the story in essence was well-known in early
Jewish literature; by the great probability that the story is of
Eastern origin; and by the possibility that the tale may have
appeared in other lost, Eastern versions and makes its only re-
appearance in Mishle Sendebar.
Finally, since Mishle Sendebar is so closely associated with
3s Cf. John W. Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, Cambridge, Mass., 1924.
14 EPSTEIN [14]
Western literature
offers the oldest
Tristan.
In the light of this research, it appears that the study of the
relationship between the Eastern and Western branches of the
Seven Sages must henceforth begin with Mishle Sendebar, for
the Hebrew appears to have existed much earlier than anyone
has suspected and to have acted as the agent of transmission to
the West.
1) For one thing, there are two stories about Absalom and
David present in Mishle Sendebar and in no other version. The
translator probably found these in his non-Hebraic source, for
the stories speak of the "Torah of the Jews," an unlikely turn of
phrase for a Jew in the Middle Ages to use. If so, then the author
of the non-Hebraic source very likely found them in an even
earlier, lost Hebrew version.
2) Gaston Paris' transmission theory is weakened because in

neither Deux Rgdactions du Roman des Sept Sages nor in La
Litt"rature Frangaise au Moyen Age does he even mention
Mishle Sendebar.
3) Benfey's theory of Indian origins has been seriously chal-

lenged36 and the Mongols, who he believed disseminated India's
literary tradition, have been disqualified as carrier by Cosquin.37
Nor can the Crusaders be the transmitters, for the Seven Sages
was known in the West before the Crusades.
4) An exciting prospect is suggested by our experience with the

Sirach and the Fons Vitae, where in one case a Hebrew original
36 Doubt about the Indian source of the Book of Sindibad has been expressed
by B. Carra de Vaux, Encyclopedia of Islam, IV (Leyden, 1934), 435. Cf. also
Gonzalez Palencia, Versiones Castellanes del "Sendebar" (Madrid, 1946),
p. vii. Professor Ben E. Perry's views have been noted above. However,
George Artola of Johns Hopkins, who believes the source is Indian, promises
to dispel any doubts in an article in progress. See MLN, LXXI (January,
1956), 41.
37 Emmanuel Cosquin, "Les Mongols et Leur Prdtendu R81e dans la Trans-
mission des Contes Indiens vers l'Occident Europeen," pp. 497-612, in his
work, Ltudes Folkloriques, Paris, 1922.
was not even suspected until the mid-nineteenth century and in

the other, a suspected Hebrew original was only discovered two
thousand years after its composition. This prospect is encouraged
by the striking parallel between Mishle Sendebar and the Book of
Esther. No one has ever pointed to the similarities: the king and
his seven counselors, the death sentence of the queen, the
proclamation of fasting, the sending of letters to one hundred and
twenty-seven provinces, the feast for princes and servants, the
turns of the maidens to come before the king. Not only are there
parallel plot lines, but the very language and idiom appear to be
borrowed from Esther. And these resemblances of incident, all
in the framework, are of course to be found in the other Eastern
versions as well.
5) Finally, while it is undoubtedly true that the Book of

Sindibad was altered to suit the cultural climates of the peoples
who adopted it, the compatibility of Hebrew with Mishle
Sendebar is especially marked. At the very end of Mishle
Sendebar, the king says to Sendebar:
"Ask whatever you wish."
And Sendebar replied: "I request of you only what is
hateful to you do not to your neighbor, and love your people
as yourself."
It is not only the wording of this double aphorism that is

particularly Hebraic; its placement testifies to the appropriate-
ness of the phrase in the Hebrew version. For it also appears in
the Spanish and in tenth-century Syriac, but in these it is a
condition (cendubete (or Sindban) makes for assuming the role
of teacher to the prince.
In Sindban, for example, the sage, at the outset of the book,
requests two things:
"When this tuition is completed, thou shalt give me what

I shall ask of thee and immediately thereafter, whatsoever
thou dost not wish that a man do unto thee, do thou not
unto another."38
38 Sindban, tr. Hermann Gollancz, Folklore Society, VIII (London, 1897),

101.
16 EPSTEIN [16]
In this setting, the

In the Greek, the a
in a moral dialogue
"schwerlich in der U
The aphorism also
Libro de los Engaio
towards the close of
in the Hebrew, the ki
book."4o He thus im
saying should logic
author of Mishle Se
clearly does not belo
framework.
Cassel muddies matters by saying that the reply of Sendebar
has little relation to the question put to him, but "der hebriische
Autor wollte darin eine stille Bemerkung ffir sich und sein Volk
machen."4, To say this is to assume without question that the
Greek, Syriac, and Spanish are derived directly from the Hebrew,
thoughtlessly copying a special, Jewish-oriented thought. Else
how should it appear in the other three Eastern versions?4"
One tiny additional piece fits well into the puzzle. The
Spanish version closes with an interesting rhetorical figure.
"And the wise man said that even if the earth were paper, the
sea ink, and its fishes pens, they could not write all the wicked-
ness of women."43
Irving Linn of Yeshiva University has traced this phrase
through the literature of East and West and has gathered evi-
dence to show that it entered Western European literature
through the A kdamut.44
And since the Libro de los Engafios - the Spanish version of the
39 Moritz Steinschneider, Die Hebrdischen Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters ...

(Berlin, 1893), p. 892.
40 Comparetti, op. cit., p. 14.
41 Cassel, op. cit., p. 306.
42 The phrase, incidentally, also appears in the Hebrew Kalilah and in
John of Capua's Latin tr. of the Hebrew Kalilah, the Directorium, indicating
a still stronger tie with Hebraic sources.
43 Comparetti, op. cit., p. 164.
44 Irving Linn, "If All the Sky Were Parchment," PMLA, LIII (1938),
951-971.
Book of Sindibad --was translated from the Arabic, and the

phrase traveled through the Talmud to Mohammed, here is
another instance - and happily, within the Seven Sages frame-
work - in which the Jews could have served as agents in
transmitting tradition from East to West.
I submit then, that the Book of Sindibad may be - in the form

in which we have it - Hebraic in origin. Absorbed into the
Persian stream of literature, it may have appeared in Pahlavi in
the sixth or seventh century of our era. It had by then, possibly,
passed into Oriental Jewish tradition, whence it was translated
into Arabic and embraced by the Arab world, as indeed the Torah
was by the Koran. Cloaked in Arab garb, it made its way from
one spellbound audience to another, until it reached the West.
Perhaps it arrived on a return voyage of the wide-ranging
Radanites, the Jewish merchantmen who forged trade links in
the ninth century by every available route between France and
China, and the first Europeans, according to Louis Rabinowitz,
to establish direct contact between East and West.4s
It may thus have arrived as an indigenous Arab work. In this
form it reached the medieval Jewish community, thirsting for
books, for information, for the new science and new philosophy.
Now it was retranslated and refurbished with its old adorn-
ments - an easy chore, because it had all been there before.
The Jews welcomed it as a marvellous ingathering of adven-
ture, fable, and morality. And it is fascinating to realize that
was only shortly after the beginning of Hebrew typesetting th
Mishle Sendebar was printed. Published by Samuel ibn Nahmias
in the month of Heshvan, 1516, it was undoubtedly the fir
Hebrew romance ever set in type.
Long before 1516, however, Mishle Sendebar had already begu
its journey to the West. Through Latin translation and ora
transmission, it percolated into European literature. The tre
to the Occident altered the romance considerably, but it re
tained its power to captivate an audience. Nor can it truly b
said that this quality has yet entirely been dissipated.
45 Louis Rabinowitz, Jewish Merchant Adventurers (London, 1948), p. 193

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"Mishle Sendebar": New Light on the Transmission of Folklore from East to West

Author(s): Morris Epstein

This variation of an age-old formula opens once

wto vvawp tu**w*.p h P2 V40

* -y;f *L'1r Welv

'-u* q" c*4 p-t }p f t#% wh . *

Fol. 289r, MS. Heb. d. 11, Bodleian Library, Oxford University.

2 The origin of the name "Sindibad" is in dispute. See Killis Campbell,

4 J. G6rres, Die Teutschen Volksbiicher (Heidelberg, 1907), p. 154.

THE BOOK OF SINDIBAD: EASTERN BRANCH OF THIE SEVEN SAGES

Tentative Chart of Affiliated MSS

*Sanskrit? (ca. 500 B.C.E.)

*ur-Hebrew text? (ca. 300-100 B.C.E.)

*Pahlavi? (ca. 570-650)

*Arabic of Musa I. *Hebrew text?

Old Span- Arabic Seven

Persian prose of Persian verse

that the agents of transmission were the Radanites, those far-

There are eightee

's In Divre ha- Yamim shel Moshe Rabbenu, Constantinople, 1516.

The Hebrew Union College MS,2o also hitherto undescribed, is

20 MS. Grossman No. 598, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati.

date every compar

24 Landau, Cassel, and Hilka, op. cit.; Domenico Comparetti, Researches

Jewish parallels.30 Although an early Arabic version may have

30 Rend Basset, Mille et Un Contes, Recits, et Legendes Arabes, Paris, 1924-

The story Jusjur

In the Tristan, Iseult is called upon to prove her innocence

The ambiguous oath used as a subtle means for a guilty person

A man left money with Bar Temalian, who afterwards

33 Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, Folklore Fellows Com-

keep for him, while he swore that he had returned the

The ambiguous oath is also connected with the famous

3s Cf. John W. Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, Cambridge, Mass., 1924.

2) Gaston Paris' transmission theory is weakened because in

3) Benfey's theory of Indian origins has been seriously chal-

4) An exciting prospect is suggested by our experience with the

was not even suspected until the mid-nineteenth century and in

5) Finally, while it is undoubtedly true that the Book of

It is not only the wording of this double aphorism that is

"When this tuition is completed, thou shalt give me what

38 Sindban, tr. Hermann Gollancz, Folklore Society, VIII (London, 1897),

In this setting, the

39 Moritz Steinschneider, Die Hebrdischen Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters ...

Book of Sindibad --was translated from the Arabic, and the

I submit then, that the Book of Sindibad may be - in the form

45 Louis Rabinowitz, Jewish Merchant Adventurers (London, 1948), p. 193

S-ar putea să vă placă și

'-u* q" c4 p-t }p f t#% wh .

Arabic of Musa I. Hebrew text?