The Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers

Perhaps the first book ever printed in England (by William Caxton on November 18, 1477), The Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers compiles lore collected from biblical, classical, and legendary philosophers, who present a series of proverbs to a receptive audience. Each sage is introduced with a biographical story before offering his wisdom. Written in the 1450s, this Middle English prose compendium emerged during a flourishing of wisdom literature in the second half of the fifteenth century. Its ultimate source was Egyptian emir Abu’l Wefa Mubeschschir ben Fatik’s eleventh-century Arabic Mokhtar el-hikam wa-mahasin al-kalim (Compendium of Maxims and Aphorisms), which traveled across many lands and languages; the most immediate source for our English version was Guillaume de Tignonville’s French Les Dits Moraulx des Philosophes. While other English adaptations are more famous—namely those by Stephen Scrope and Anthony Woodville—this anonymous adaptation provides readers with the most accurate and idiomatic English translation, according to John Sutton.