In the Appendix of the present work will be found abstracts of Bengalí and Kashmírí oral variants of this Tale, the frame of which was evidently suggested by that of the Book of Sindibád, of which the numerous European versions are commonly known under the title of the _History of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome_, where a young prince is falsely accused, as Joseph was by the wife of Potiphar, and his father the king orders him to be put to death; but he alternately reprieves and condemns him during seven days, in consequence of his Seven Vazírs, day after day, and the Lady, night after night, relating to the king stories of the wickedness of women and of the depravity of men, till at length the innocence of the prince is proved, and the wanton, treacherous lady is duly punished.—The leading tale of the Turkish _History of the Forty Vazírs_ (which has been completely translated into English by Mr. E.J.W. Gibb; London: Mr. George Redway) is on the same plan, though the stories related by the Vazírs and the Lady are almost all different.
To the sporadic part of the great Sindibád family of romances belongs also the Persian work entitled _Bakhtyár Náma_, in which a stranger youth becomes the king’s favourite and is raised to a position of great honour and dignity, which excites the envy of the king’s Ten Vazírs, who cause him to be accused of violating the royal haram, and the young man is reprieved from day to day through his relating eloquently stories showing the lamentable consequences of precipitation, and he is ultimately found to be guiltless, and, moreover, to be the king’s own son, whom he and his queen had abandoned in a desert when newly born, as they were flying for their lives.—Another group of tales pertaining to the same cycle is found in the Breslau printed Arabic text of the _Alf Layla wa Layla_ (Thousand and One Nights), under the title of “King Shah Bakht and his Vazír Er-Rahwan,” where the king is induced by the machinations of some of his courtiers to believe that his favourite minister Er-Rahwan should slay him within twenty-eight days; and the Vazír, being condemned to death, obtains a respite by relating to the king each night an interesting story until the supposed fatal period is past, when the king is convinced of his fidelity.[5]