The Three Princes of Serendip

The Three Princes of Serendip is the English version of the story Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo,[1] published by Michele Tramezzino in Venice in 1557. Tramezzino claimed to have heard the story from one Cristoforo Armeno, who had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian, adapting Book One of Amir Khusrau's Hasht-Bihisht[2] of 1302. The story first came to English via a French translation, and now exists in several out-of-print translations.[3][4][5] Serendip is the Classical Persian name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon).[5]

The story has become known in the English-speaking world as the source of the word serendipity, coined by Horace Walpole because of his recollection of the part of the "silly fairy tale" in which the three princes by "accidents and sagacity" discern the nature of a lost camel.[6] In a separate line of descent, the story was used by Voltaire in his 1747 Zadig, and through this contributed to both the evolution of detective fiction and the self-understanding of scientific method.

  1. ^  Italian Wikisource has original text related to this article: Peregrinaggio di tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo
  2. ^ See Ben-Amos, Dan; et al. (2006). Folktales of the Jews: Tales from Eastern Europe. Jewish Publication Society. p. 318. ISBN 0-8276-0830-6., accessible [1]
  3. ^ E.g. Remer, Theodore. G., ed. (1965). Serendipity and the Three Princes of Serendip; From the Peregrinaggio of 1557. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. LCCN 65--10112
  4. ^ Also e.g. Hodges, Elizabeth Jamison (1964). The Three Princes of Serendip. New York: Atheneum. OCLC 10195498.
  5. ^ a b "serendipity, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press. June 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
  6. ^ Yallop, C (2005). Macquarie Dictionary, Fourth Edition. Sydney, NSW, Australia: The Macquarie Library pty Ltd. p. 1290. ISBN 1876429143.