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Indian fables: original Dutch edition, from the library of the Duke of Arenberg

HEYNS, Zacharias.
Voorbeelsels der oude wyse, handelende van trouw, ontrouw, list, haet, gheswindicheyt, ende alle andere menschelijcke gheneghentheden. Wit d'Indische sprake, in d'Arabische, Hebreische ende Latijnsche overgheset, ende nu in de Duytsche vertaelt, verçiert met vele rijm-spreucken, ende figueren.

With woodcut printer's device on title, and 101 woodcuts in text, many composed from blocks cut in small parts and joined together in order to get the correct illustration for the fable text, including 9 woodcuts decorated by ornamental borders at either side.

Amsterdam & Zwolle, Broer Jansz. for Zacharias Heyns (in Zwolle), 1623. Sm. 8vo. 19th-century calf, spine ribbed with brown morocco title label, sides blind-stamped with triple fillets in a geometrical pattern decorated with small stamps of animal emblems and with the coat of arms of Arenberg in centre on both sides, green painted edges. With woodcut printer's device on title, and 101 woodcuts in text, many composed from blocks cut in small parts and joined together in order to get the correct illustration for the fable text, including 9 woodcuts decorated by ornamental borders at either side. 8, 125, (3) lvs.

Extremely rare first Dutch edition of the Bidpai fables, translated and published by Zacharias Heyns at Zwolle, but - as is mentioned in the colophon at the end - the book was printed at Amsterdam by Broer Jansz., who also published the book with his own Amsterdam imprint.
The Bidpai fables were the only fables popular in early European literature not based on the classical fable tradition but on the famous ancient Indian fables of the 'Pantchatantra'. They added new elements to the huge stock of European fables, a most important genre in early literature as well as in education.
The 'Bidpai Fables' were originally written in Sanskrit by Bidpai, a Brahmin gymnosophist, or Indian wise-man, to teach the ruler of the Indian empire. In order not to offend the future emperor, Bidpai taught the prince in the form of fables, in which the malign fox and the noble lion are the main protagonists. The fox of course stood for the ministers or other powerful noblemen, wanting to undermine the powers of the emperor, represented by the lion. Already in the sixth century the fables found their way to Persia in the translation by the physician Berozias in the official Pahlavi language, and from Persia, through translations in Arabic to Europe where the fables could function as a 'Fürstenspiegel'. Greek and Latin versions, were the first European translations. Siméon Seth made a Greek version from the Arabic already in the eleventh century, whereas a Latin version Directorium Humanae Vitae alias parabole antiquorum sapientium, made by Johannes de Capua after a Hebrew text by rabbi Yô-el's from an Arabic translation, dates from the 12th or 13th century. The Directorium was first printed in ca. 1480.
In Germany the Bidpai fables were translated in the vernacular by Anton von Pforr, which translation forms the basis for the translations in the other European languages. This German translation was first published in Urach in 1480-1. The fables were first published in English in 1570 in the translation by Lord North.

In the Netherlands they were very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. After the present 'editio princeps' of the first translation by Zacharias Heyns, modelled on the German translation by Pforr, the Fables were republished numerous times in the 17th century, and in a new translation by Johannes Duikerius published all through the 18th century. Probably Heyns has made use of the Pforr translation in the then most recent edition, published by Nicolaes Bassee in Frankfurt in 1592.
Zacharias Heyns (1566-1638), the translator of the first Dutch text, was a refugee from Antwerp and an important early 17th-century poet, engraver and publisher, first at Amsterdam, later at Zwolle. The dedication by Zacharias Heyns to young Philibert Olger is printed in a civilité type, suggesting the book to be educational. On the verso of the title there is a laudatory poem by the famous Bartjens, author of the well-known early Dutch arithmetical schoolbook, also living at Zwolle, followed by a preface in verse by Zacharias Heyns, a conversation about the book between 'wise men': Syrach, Salomon, Seneca, Jeronimus, Tullius, Gregorius, Cassiodorus and Aristoteles, a more extensive preface on the contents of the book, and a short exposition of its origin, ascribed to Berosius who presented it to the Persian King Anastres. All these texts are printed in different type.
The book itself is divided into 17 chapters and printed in Gothic type, with some verses and proverbs in between printed in Roman. The book is very richly and most attractively illustrated with woodcuts, probably taken from the stock of the printer Broer Jansz. at Amsterdam. He has done his best to get the illustrations right for the fables and examples, even cutting his woodcuts into smaller units making up the right pictures by joining different parts together. There is for example a separate piece with a crowned lion, also one with a crowned lion accompanied by a lioness, which are used here in various pictures and which probably are fragments from older blocks of a popular 'Reynard' series. There are also complete woodcuts illustrating an animal fable apparently taken from a popular Aesop edition; but some others were obviously especially made for the present fable book. A few of the complete but smaller woodcuts are filled up at both sides with arabesque woodcut borders. The book is illustrated with 101 illustrations, most charmingly illustrating the text: 24 from complete blocks, 44 composed of two, 31 of three and 2 of even four fragments.
The present edition is very rare, there are only three copies in Dutch institutional libraries: the University libraries of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Leyden.

Good copy, from the Library of the duke of Arenberg, with the bookplate of "Lionheart": = W. Löwenhardt.- (Binding sl. rubbed, spine sl. dam.; few stains and minimal defects).

Bibl. Belg. III, H 67; cf. Landwehr, Emblems & Fable Books F 223 (Amsterdam imprint); Muller 391 (idem); Sale Cat. Coll. M. Buisman 549 (idem; incomplete copy); Waller 717 (Amst. ed. of 1634); Muller 392 (Amst. ed. of 1652); Scheepers I, 384 (Amst. ed. of 1740, translated by Joh. Duikerius); Bodemann, Das iIllustrierte Fabelbuch II, 20.1-4 (16th-century German ed.); Gruys, in: Accord C.R[eedijk]. (1986), nr. 135; Meeus, Zacharias Heyns (1990), II, pp. 260-8, nr. 2.1.15.

Related Subjects: 17th Century Armorial Bindings Bindings Dutch Fable Books India Provenance Schoolbooks Woodcuts

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