Page:Researches respecting the Book of Sindibad and Portuguese Folk-Tales.djvu/207

 Rh CHAPTER IV.

all the versions, that which best and to the greatest degree represents the original is the Syntipas, with the exception of the beginning, down to where the first education of the prince is told, in which other versions, as we have seen, abridge the original text less; through almost all the remainder the Syntipas finds a counterpart in one or more versions, and the comparison shows that it follows the original with greater fidelity than any other. The Syntipas is, therefore, the most remarkable of all the texts of the Sindibâd at present known, and it is worth our while to ascertain to what age it belongs. Though, however, even without a more minute collation of the various versions, one might easily perceive the importance which this version possesses, no one till now has endeavoured to fix the age of it in a positive manner. All that has seriously been said about it reduces itself to the following words, which Dacier wrote in the year 1780:—"A l'égard du temps auquel il faut rapporter la traduction grecque, si j'osais juger du style par celui des écrivains grecs du XIe siècle, je penserais qu'on peut lui assigner cette époque; mais l'expression est en général assez pure (!), la phrase paraîit etre d'un temps où la langue avait dégénéré. Quoi qu'il en soit, il est vraisemblable que ce roman fut apporté chez nous au