Of Mice and Men: Representation of Asceticism in the Eugenian Recension of Stephanites and Ichnelates

Kalila wa Dimna (in Greek: Stephanites and Ichnelates) is a mirror of princes that enjoyed great success across Eurasia throughout the Middle Ages. Originating in India between the fourth and sixth centuries, the text was translated and expanded in Persian and Arabic before reaching the Greek-speaking world through the translations of Symeon Seth (eleventh century) and Eugenios of Palermo, a trilingual intellectual active in Norman Sicily in the second half of the twelfth century. This paper will examine the representation of asceticism in the Eugenian Recension of Stephanites and Ichnelates, focusing on the specific role of ascetics in narratives involving human-animal relations. I will analyze two stories, taken from the third and fourth books, which feature ascetics and mice as protagonists. These stories, as I will argue, form a diptych in which humans and animals are encouraged to cross the boundaries between their respective worlds. Specific translation choices in the Eugenian Recension significantly altered the meaning of the relationship between animals and ascetics, marking notable differences both from the Arabic models and from Symeon Seth’s earlier translation. By drawing on examples from other stories in the corpus, I will show that ascetics play a unique role as mediators not only between humans and animals but also between other types of characters. The relationship between ascetics and animals offers a valuable entry point to explore the contrasting worldviews underlying the Aesopic fable tradition and the Indian-Persian-Arabic narrative tradition. Finally, I will connect the representation of asceticism in Stephanites and Ichnelates to the thematization of asceticism in the iambic poems of Eugenios himself, shedding light on the broader cultural and intellectual context of Norman Sicily.