Le Roman des sept sages de Rome: édition bilingue des deux rédactions en vers français par Mary B. Speer (review)

This edition of the two extant verse redactions of the twelfth-century Roman des sept sages is an expanded and updated version of Mary B. Speer’s earlier edition (Lexington: French Forum, 1989; see FS, 46 (1992), 53–54). This new edition is based on two manuscripts of the romance: K for Paris BnF, MS fr. 1553, and C for Chartres, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 620. C was destroyed during the Second World War but a photocopy survived, which H. A. Smith used for the edition published in the Romanic Review (3 (1912), 1–67). In this new edition, manuscripts K and C are edited separately and compared in the introductory summary and in notes; the relation between the two manuscripts is discussed in the Introduction and the annotation. This edition also adds a French translation on pages facing the Old French texts. The Introduction to the romance includes most of the sections that were in the 1989 edition, in a revised form: the romance’s place in the Seven Sages tradition; a description of the manuscripts and a list of earlier editions along with their filiation and controls; a study of the language of each manuscript as well as of their separate styles and versifications; dating; the establishment of the text; a careful summary of the plot and the exemplary tales as sub-plots in this debate romance. The plot is based on tales that support the claim of the king’s wife that his son by an earlier marriage tried to seduce her, and the counter-argument by the Seven Sages that she is guilty of the infidelity. Two entirely new sections include: a discussion of the earliest versions of this romance and their widespread influence in verse and prose in at least twelve different languages and the French verse romance’s status as a roman de clergie. There is also discussion of the inserted narrative examples as nouvelles as well as of their enchassement in the debate about the fate of the king’s son and of their cyclic potential that was realized in the thirteenthcentury prose cycle in French on the Seven Sages. These are possible future areas of investigation for those interested in exploring the medieval nouvelle and the evolution of narrative modes. A careful plot summary is based on the two manuscripts of the verse versions that survive. An appendix contains all rejected readings. Evidence from verse versions of the thirteenth-century prose cycle and of the Dolopathos, attributed to an otherwise unknown Herbert, are used when appropriate. More editions of the rather neglected Seven Sages prose manuscripts would establish the narrative potential of the legend’s modest beginnings, which can be seen in these two manuscripts. The bibliography has been updated. This new edition of the verse redactions of the Roman des sept sages is a reliable addition to Seven Sages scholarship.