# The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night/Appendix II

Appendix II
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, AND THEIR IMITATIONS, WITH A TABLE SHOWING THE CONTENTS OF THE PRINCIPAL EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS OF THE NIGHTS.
By W. F. KIRBY
The European editions of the Thousand and One Nights, even excluding the hundreds of popular editions which have nothing specially noticeable about them, are very numerous; and the following Notes must, I am fully aware, be incomplete, though they will, perhaps, be found useful to persons interested in the subject. Although I believe that editions of most of the English, French, and German versions of any importance have passed through my hands, I have not had an opportunity of comparing many in other languages, some of which at least may be independent editions, not derived from Galland. The imitations and adaptations of The Nights are, perhaps, more numerous than the editions of The Nights themselves, if we exclude mere reprints of Galland; and many of them are even more difficult of access.
In the following Notes, I have sometimes referred to tales by their numbers in the Table.
Galland's Ms. and Translation.
The first MS. of The Nights known in Europe was brought to Paris by Galland at the close of the 17th century; and his translation was published in Paris, in twelve small volumes, under the title of "Les Mille et une Nuit: Contes Arabes, traduits en Francois par M. Galland." These volumes appeared at intervals between 1704 and 1717. Galland himself died in 1715, and it is uncertain how far he was responsible for the latter part of the work. Only the first six of the twelve vols. are divided into Nights, vol. 6 completing the story of Camaralzaman, and ending with Night 234. The Voyages of Sindbad are not found in Galland's MS., though he has intercalated them as Nights 69-90 between Nos. 3 and 4. It should be mentioned, however, that in some texts (Bresl., for instance) No. 133 is placed much earlier in the series than in others.
The stories in Galland's last six vols. may be divided into two classes, viz., those known to occur in genuine texts of The Nights, and those which do not. To the first category belong Nos. 7, 8, 59, 153 and 170; and some even of these are not found in Galland's own MS., but were derived by him from other sources. The remaining tales (Nos. 191-198) do not really belong to The Nights; and, strange to say, although they are certainly genuine Oriental tales, the actual originals have never been found. I am inclined to think that Galland may, perhaps, have written and adapted them from his recollection of stories which he himself heard related during his own residence in the East, especially as most of these tales appear to be derived rather from Persian or Turkish than from Arabian sources.
The following Preface appeared in vol. 9 which I translate from Talander's German edition, as the original is not before me:
"The two stories with which the eighth volume concludes do not properly belong to the Thousand and One Nights. They were added and printed without the previous knowledge of the translator, who had not the slightest idea of the trick that had been played upon him until the eighth volume was actually on sale. The reader must not, therefore, be surprised that the story of the Sleeper Awakened, which commences vol. 9, is written as if Scheherazade had related it immediately after the story of Ganem, which forms the greater part of vol. 8. Care will be taken to omit these two stories in a new edition, as not belonging to the work."
It is, perhaps, not to be wondered at that when the new edition was actually published, subsequently to Galland's death, the condemned stories were retained, and the preface withdrawn; though No. 170 still reads as if it followed No. 8.
The information I have been able to collect respecting the disputed tales is very slight. I once saw a MS. advertised in an auction catalogue (I think that of the library of the late Prof. H. H. Wilson) as containing two of Galland's doubtful tales, but which they were was not stated. The fourth and last volume of the MS. used by Galland is lost; but it is almost certain that it did not contain any of these tales (compare Payne, ix. 265 note).
The story of Zeyn Alasnam (No. 191) is derived from the same source as that of the Fourth Durwesh, in the well-known Hindustani reading-book, the Bagh o Bahar. If it is based upon this, Galland has greatly altered and improved it, and has given it the whole colouring of a European moral fairy tale.
The story of Ali Baba (No. 195) is, I have been told, a Chinese tale. It occurs under the title of the Two Brothers and the Forty-nine Dragons in Geldart's Modern Greek Tales. It has also been stated that the late Prof. Palmer met with a very similar story among the Arabs of Sinai (Payne, ix. 266).
The story of Sidi Nouman (No 194b) may have been based partly upon the Third Shaykh's Story (No. 1c), which Galland omits. The feast of the Ghools is, I believe, Greek or Turkish, rather than Arabic, in character, as vampires, personified plague, and similar horrors are much commoner in the folk-lore of the former peoples.
Many incidents of the doubtful, as well as of the genuine tales, are common in European folk-lore (versions of Nos. 2 and 198, for instance, occur in Grimm's Kinder und Hausmaerchen), and some of the doubtful tales have their analogues in Scott's MS., as will be noticed in due course.
I have not seen Galland's original edition in 12 vols.; but the Stadt-Bibliothek of Frankfort-on-Main contains a copy, published at La Haye, in 12 vols. (with frontispieces), made up of two or more editions, as follows:--
Vol. i. (ed. 6) 1729; vols. ii. iii. iv. (ed. 5) 1729; vols. v. vi. viii. (ed. 5) 1728; vol. vii. (ed. 6) 1731; vols. ix. to xi, (ed. not noted) 1730; and vol. xii. (ed. not noted) 1731.
The discrepancies in the dates of the various volumes look (as Mr. Clouston has suggested) as if separate volumes were reprinted as required, independently of the others. This might account for vols. v. vi. and viii. of the fifth edition having been apparently reprinted before vols. ii. iii. and iv.
The oldest French version in the British Museum consists of the first eight vols., published at La Haye, and likewise made up of different editions, as follows:--
i. (ed. 5) 1714; ii. iii. iv. (ed. 4) 1714; v. vi. (ed. 5) 1728; vii. (ed. 5) 1719; viii. ("suivant la copie imprimee a Paris") 1714.
Most French editions (old and new) contain Galland's Dedication, "A Madame la Marquise d'O., Dame du Palais de Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne," followed by an "Avertissement." In addition to these, the La Haye copies have Fontenelle's Approbation prefixed to several volumes, but in slightly different words, and bearing different dates. December 27th, 1703 (vol. i.); April 14th, 1704 (vol. vi.); and October 4th, 1705 (vol. vii.). This is according to the British Museum copy; I did not examine the Frankfort copy with reference to the Approbation. The Approbation is translated in full in the old English version as follows: "I have read, by Order of my Lord Chancellor, this Manuscript, wherein I find nothing that ought to hinder its being Printed. And I am of opinion that the Publick will be very well pleased with the Perusal of these Oriental Stories. Paris, 27th December, 1705 [apparently a misprint for 1703] (Signed) FONTENELLE."
In the Paris edition of 1726 (vide infra), Galland says in his Dedication, "Il a fallu le faire venir de Syrie, et mettre en Francois, le premier volume que voici, de quatre seulement qui m'ont ete envoyez." So, also, in a Paris edition (in eight vols. 12mo) of 1832; but in the La Haye issue of 1714, we read not "quatre" but "six" volumes. The old German edition of Talander (vide infra) does not contain Galland's Dedication (Epitre) or Avertissement.
The earliest French editions were generally in 12 vols., or six; I possess a copy of a six-volume edition, published at Paris in 1726. It may be the second, as the title-page designates it as "nouvelle edition, corrigee."
Galland's work was speedily translated into various European languages, and even now forms the original of all the numerous popular editions. The earliest English editions were in six volumes, corresponding to the first six of Galland, and ending with the story of Camaralzaman; nor was it till nearly the end of the 18th century that the remaining half of the work was translated into English. The date of appearance of the first edition is unknown to bibliographers; Lowndes quotes an edition of 1724 as the oldest; but the British Museum contains a set of six vols., made up of portions of the second, third and fourth editions, as follows:--
Vols. i. ii. (ed. 4) 1713; vols. iii. iv. (ed. 2) 1712; and vols. v. vi. (ed. 3) 1715.
Here likewise the separate volumes seem to have been reprinted independently of each other; and it is not unlikely that the English translation may have closely followed the French publication, being issued volume by volume, as the French appeared, as far as vol. vi. The title-page of this old edition is very quaint:
"Arabian Nights Entertainments, consisting of One thousand and one Stories, told by the Sultaness of the Indies to divert the Sultan from the Execution of a Bloody Vow he had made, to marry a Lady every day, and have her head cut off next Morning, to avenge himself for the Disloyalty of the first Sultaness, also containing a better account of the Customs, Manners and Religion of the Eastern Nations, viz., Tartars, Persians and Indians, than is to be met with in any Author hitherto published. Translated into French from the Arabian MSS. by Mr. Galland of the Royal Academy, and now done into English. Printed for Andrew Bell at the Cross Keys and Bible, in Cornhill."
The British Museum has an edition in 4to published in 1772, in farthing numbers, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It extends to 79 numbers, forming five volumes.
The various editions of the Old English version appear to be rare, and the set in the British Museum is very poor. The oldest edition which I have seen containing the latter half of Galland's version is called the 14th edition, and was published in London in four volumes, in 1778. Curiously enough, the "13th edition," also containing the conclusion, was published at Edinburgh in three volumes in 1780. Perhaps it is a reprint of a London edition published before that of 1778. The Scotch appear to have been fond of The Nights, as there are many Scotch editions both of The Nights and the imitations.
Revised or annotated editions by Piguenit (4 vols., London, 1792) and Gough (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1798) may deserve a passing notice.
A new translation of Galland, by Rev. E. Forster, in five vols. 4to, with engravings from pictures by Robert Smirke, R.A., appeared in 1802, and now commands a higher price than any other edition of Galland. A new edition in 8vo appeared in 1810. Most of the recent popular English versions are based either upon Forster's or Scott's.
Another translation from Galland, by G. S. Beaumont (four vols. 8vo), appeared in 1811. (Lowndes writes Wiliam Beaumont.)
Among the various popular editions of later date we may mention an edition in two vols., 8vo, published at Liverpool (1813), and containing Cazotte's Continuation; an edition published by Griffin and Co., in 1866, to which Beckford's "Vathek" is appended; an edition "arranged for the perusal of youthful readers," by the Hon. Mrs. Sugden (Whittaker & Co., 1863); and "Five Favourite Tales from The Arabian Nights in words of one syllable, by A. & E. Warner" (Lewis, 1871).
Some of the English editions of Galland aim at originality by arranging the tales in a different order. The cheap edition published by Dicks in 1868 is one instance.
An English version of Galland was published at Lucknow, in four vols., 8vo, in 1880.
I should, perhaps, mention that I have not noticed De Sacy's "Mille et une Nuit," because it is simply a new edition of Galland; and I have not seen either Destain's French edition (mentioned by Sir R. F. Burton), nor Cardonne's Continuation (mentioned in Cabinet des Fees, xxxvii. p. 83). As Cardonne died in 1784, his Continuation, if genuine, would be the earliest of all.
The oldest German version, by Talander, seems to have appeared in volumes, as the French was issued; and these volumes were certainly reprinted when required, without indication of separate editions, but in slightly varied style, and with alteration of date. The old German version is said to be rarer than the French. It is in twelve parts--some, however, being double. The set before me is clearly made up of different reprints, and the first title-page is as follows: "Die Tausend und eine Nacht, worinnen seltzame Arabische Historien und wunderbare Begebenheiten, benebst artigen Liebes-Intriguen, auch Sitten und Gewohnheiten der Morgenlaender, auf sehr anmuthige Weise, erzehlet werden; Erstlich vom Hru. Galland, der Koenigl. Academie Mitgliede aus der Arabischen Sprache in die Franzoesische und aus selbiger anitzo ins Deutsche uebersetzt: Erster und Anderer Theil. Mit der Vorrede Herru Talanders. Leipzig Verlegts Moritz Georg Weidmann Sr. Konigl. Maj. in Hohlen und Churfuerstl. Durchl. zu Sachsen Buchhaendler, Anno 1730." Talander's Preface relates chiefly to the importance of the work as illustrative of Arabian manners and customs, &c. It is dated from "Liegnitz, den 7 Sept., Anno 1710," which fixes the approximate date of publication of the first part of this translation. Vols. i. and ii. of my set (double vol. with frontispiece) are dated 1730, and have Talander's preface; vols. iii. and iv. (divided, but consecutively paged, and with only one title-page and frontispiece and reprint of Talander's preface) are dated 1719; vols. v. and vi. (same remarks, except that Talander's preface is here dated 1717) are dated 1737; vol. vii. (no frontispiece; preface dated 1710) is dated 1721; vol. viii (no frontispiece nor preface, nor does Talander's name appear on the title-page) is dated 1729; vols. ix. and x. (divided, but consecutively paged, and with only one title-page and frontispiece; Talander's name and preface do not appear, but Galland's preface to vol. ix., already mentioned, is prefixed) are dated 1731; and vols. xi. and xii. (same remarks, but no preface) are dated 1732.
Galland's notes are translated, but not his preface and dedication.
There is a later German translation (6 vols. 8vo, Bremen, 1781- 1785) by J. H. Voss, the author of the standard German translation of Homer.
The British Museum has just acquired a Portuguese translation of Galland, in 4 volumes: "As Mil e uma Noites, Contos Arabes," published by Ernesto Chardron, Editor, Porto e Braga, 1881.
There are two editions of a modern Greek work in the British Museum (1792 and 1804), published at Venice in three small volumes. The first volume contains Galland (Nos. 1-6 of the table) and vols. ii. and iii. chiefly contain the Thousand and One Days. It is, apparently, translated from some Italian work.
Several editions in Italian (Mille ed una Notte) have appeared at Naples and Milan; they are said by Sir R. F. Burton to be mere reprints of Galland.
There are, also, several in Dutch, one of which, by C. Van der Post, in 3 vols. 8vo, published at Utrecht in 1848, purports, I believe, to be a translation from the Arabic, and has been reprinted several times. The Dutch editions are usually entitled, "Arabische Vertellinge." A Danish edition appeared at Copenhagen in 1818, under the title of "Prindsesses Schehezerade. Fortaellinger eller de saakatle Tusende og een Nat. Udgivna paa Dansk vid Heelegaan." Another, by Rasmassen, was commenced in 1824; and a third Danish work, probably founded on the Thousand and One Nights, and published in 1816, bears the title, "Digt og Eventyr fra Osterland, af arabiska og persischen utrykta kilder."
I have seen none of these Italian, Dutch or Danish editions; but there is little doubt that most, if not all, are derived from Galland's work.
The following is the title of a Javanese version, derived from one of the Dutch editions, and published at Leyden in 1865, "Eenige Vertellingen uit de Arabisch duizend en een Nacht. Naar de Nederduitsche vertaling in het Javaansch vertaald, door Winter-Roorda."
Mr. A. G. Ellis has shown me an edition of Galland's Aladdin (No. 193) in Malay, by M. Van der Lawan (?) printed in Batavia, A.D. 1869.
We shall speak elsewhere of the Cabinet des Fees; but the last four volumes of this great collection (38 to 41), published at Geneva from 1788 to 1793, contain a work entitled, "Les Veillees du Sultan Schahriar avec la Sultane Scheherazade; histoires incroyables, amusantes et morales, traduites de l'arabe par M. Cazotte et D. Chavis. Faisant suite aux Mille et une Nuits." Some copies bear the abridged title of "La suite des Mille et une Nuits. Contes Arabes, traduits par Dom Chavis et M. Cazotte."
This collection of tales was pronounced to be spurious by many critics, and even has been styled "a bare-faced forgery" by a writer in the Edinburgh Review of July, 1886. It is, however, certain that the greater part, if not all, of these tales are founded on genuine Eastern sources, though very few have any real claim to be regarded as actually part of the Thousand and One Nights.
Translations of the originals of most of these tales have been published by Caussin de Perceval and Gauttier; and a comparison clearly shows the great extent to which Chavis and Cazotte have altered, amplified and (in a literary sense) improved their materials.
It is rather surprising that no recent edition of this work seems to have been issued, perhaps owing to the persistent doubts cast upon its authenticity, only a few of the tales, and those not the best, having appeared in different collections. My friend, Mr. A. G. Ellis, himself an Oriental scholar, has remarked to me that he considers these tales as good as the old "Arabian Nights"; and I quite agree with him that Chavis and Cazotte's Continuation is well worthy of re-publication in its entirety.
The following are the principal tales comprised in this collection, those included in our Table from later authors being indicated.
1. The Robber Caliph, or the Adventures of Haroun Alraschid with the Princess of Persia, and the beautiful Zutulbe. (No. 246.)
2. The Power of Destiny, being the History of the Journey of Giafar to Damas, containing the Adventures of Chelih and his Family. (No. 280.)
3. History of Halechalbe and the Unknown Lady. (No. 204c.)
4. Story of Xailoun the Idiot.
5. The Adventures of Simoustapha and the Princess Ilsetilsone. (No. 247.)
6. History of Alibengiad, Sultan of Herak, and of the False Birds of Paradise.
7. History of Sinkarib and his Two Viziers. (No. 249.)
8. History of the Family of the Schebandad of Surat.
9. Story of Bohetzad and his Ten Viziers. (No. 174.)
10. Story of Habib and Dorathil-Goase. (No. 251.)
11. History of the Maugraby, or the Magician.
Of these, Nos. 4, 6, 8 and 11 only are not positively known in the original. No. 11 is interesting, as it is the seed from which Southey's "Thalaba the Destroyer" was derived.
On the word Maugraby, which means simply Moor, Cazotte has the following curious note: "Ce mot signifie barbare, barbaresque plus proprement. On jure encore par lui en Provence, en Languedoc, et en Gascogne Maugraby; ou ailleurs en France Meugrebleu."
The Domdaniel, where Zatanai held his court with Maugraby and his pupilmagicians, is described as being under the sea near Tunis. In Weil's story of Joodar and Mahmood (No. 201) the Magician Mahmood is always called the Moor of Tunis.
No. 3 (=our No. 204c) contains the additional incident of the door opened only once a year which occurs in our No. 9a, aa.
Moore probably took the name Namouna from Cazotte's No. 5, in which it occurs. In the same story we find a curious name of a Jinniyah, Setelpedour. Can it be a corruption of Sitt El Budoor?
For further remarks on Cazotte's Continuation, compare Russell's History of Aleppo, i. p. 385; and Russell and Scott, Ouseley's Oriental Collections, i. pp. 246, 247; ii. p. 25; and the "Gentleman's Magazine" for February, 1779.
An English version under the title "Arabian Tales, or a Continuation of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments," translated by Robert Heron, was published in Edinburgh in 1792 in 4 vols., and in London in 1794 in 3 vols. It was reprinted in Weber's "Tales of the East" (Edinburgh, 1812); and, as already mentioned, is included in an edition of the Arabian Nights published in Liverpool in 1813.
A German translation forms vols. 5 to 8 of the "Blaue Bibliothek," published in Gotha in 1790 and 1791; and the British Museum possesses vols. 3 and 4 of a Russian edition, published at Moscow in 1794 and 1795, which is erroneously entered in the catalogue as the Arabian Nights in Russian.
Respecting the work of Chavis and Cazotte, Sir R. F. Burton remarks, "Dom Dennis Chavis was a Syrian priest of the order of Saint Bazil, who was invited to Paris by the learned minister, Baron Arteuil, and he was assisted by M. Cazotte, a French author, then well known, but wholly ignorant of Arabic. These tales are evidently derived from native sources; the story of Bohetzad (King Bakhtiyar) and his Ten Wazirs is taken bodily from the Bres. Edit. [not so; but the original Arabic had long been known in the French libraries]. As regards the style and treatment, it is sufficient to say that the authors out-Gallanded Galland, while Heron exaggerates every fault of his original."
The first enlarged edition of Galland in French was published by Caussin de Perceval, at Paris, in 9 vols., 8vo (1806). In addition to Galland's version, he added four tales (Nos. 21a, 22, 32 and 37), with which he had been furnished by Von Hammer. He also added a series of tales, derived from MSS. in the Parisian libraries, most of which correspond to those of Cazotte.
The most important of the later French editions was published by E. Gauttier in 7 vols. in 1822; it contains much new matter. At the end, the editor gives a list of all the tales which he includes, with arguments. He has rather oddly distributed his material so as to make only 568 nights. The full contents are given in our Table; the following points require more special notice. Vol. i. Gauttier omits the Third Shaykh's story (No. 1c) on account of its indecency, although it is really no worse than any other story in The Nights. In the story of the Fisherman, he has fallen into a very curious series of errors. He has misunderstood King Yunan's reference to King Sindbad (Burton i. p. 50) to refer to the Book of Sindibad (No. 135); and has confounded it with the story of the Forty Vazirs, which he says exists in Arabic as well as in Turkish. Of this latter, therefore, he gives an imperfect version, embedded in the story of King Yunan (No. 2a). Here it may be observed that another imperfect French version of the Forty Vazirs had previously been published by Petis de la Croix under the title of Turkish Tales. A complete German version by Dr. Walter F. A. Behrnauer was published at Leipzig in 1851, and an English version by Mr. E. J. W. Gibb has appeared while these sheets are passing through the press.
Vol. ii. After No. 6 Gauttier places versions of Nos. 32 and 184 by Langles. The Mock Caliph is here called Aly-Chah. The other three tales given by Caussin de Perceval from Von Hammer's MSS. are omitted by Gauttier. Vol. v. (after No. 198) concludes with two additional tales (Nos. 207h and 218) from Scott's version. But the titles are changed, No. 207h being called the Story of the Young Prince and the Green Bird, and No. 218 the Story of Mahmood, although there is another story of Mahmood in vol. 1. (==No. 135m) included as part of the Forty Vazirs.
Vol. vi. includes the Ten Vazirs (No. 174), derived, however, not from the Arabic, but from the Persian Bakhtyar Nameh. Three of the subordinate tales in the Arabic version are wanting in Gauttier's, and another is transferred to his vol. vii., but he includes one, the King and Queen of Abyssinia (No. 252), which appears to be wanting in the Arabic. The remainder of the volume contains tales from Scott's version, the title of Mazin of Khorassaun (No. 215) being altered to the Story of Azem and the Queen of the Genii.
Vol. vii. contains a series of tales of which different versions of six only (Nos. 30, 174, 246, 248, 249 and 250) were previously published. Though these have no claim to be considered part of The Nights, they are of sufficient interest to receive a passing mention, especially as Gauttier's edition seems not to have been consulted by any later writer on The Nights, except Habicht, who based his own edition mainly upon it. Those peculiar to Gauttier's edition are therefore briefly noticed.
Princess Ameny (No. 253)--A princess who leaves home disguised as a man, and delivers another princess from a black slave. The episode (253b) is a story of enchantment similar to Nos. 1a-c.
Aly Djohary (No. 254)--Story of a young man's expedition in search of a magical remedy.
The Princes of Cochin China (No. 255)--The princes travel in search of their sister who is married to a Jinni, who is under the curse of Solomon. The second succeeds in breaking the spell, and thus rescues both his brother, his sister, and the Jinni by killing a bird to which the destiny of the last is attached. (This incident is common in fiction; we find it in the genuine Nights in Nos. 154a and 201.)
The Wife with Two Husbands (No. 256)--A well-known Eastern story; it may be found in Wells' "Mehemet the Kurd," pp. 121-127, taken from the Forty Vazirs. Compare Gibbs, the 24th Vazir's Story, pp. 257-266.
The Favourite (No. 257)--One of the ordinary tales of a man smuggled into a royal harem in a chest (compare Nos. 6b and 166).
Zoussouf and the Indian Merchant (No. 258)--Story of a ruined man travelling to regain his fortune.
Prince Benazir (No. 258)--Story of a Prince promised at his birth, and afterwards given up by his parents to an evil Jinni, whom he ultimately destroys. (Such promises, especially, as here, in cases of difficult labour, are extremely common in folk-tales; the idea probably originated in the dedication of a child to the Gods.) Gauttier thinks that this story may have suggested that of Maugraby to Cazotte; but it appears to me rather doubtful whether it is quite elaborate enough for Cazotte to have used it in this manner.
Selim, Sultan of Egypt (No. 261)--This and its subordinate tales chiefly relate to unfaithful wives; that of Adileh (No. 261b) is curious; she is restored to life by Jesus (whom Gauttier, from motives of religious delicacy, turns into a Jinni!) to console her disconsolate husband, and immediately betrays the latter. These tales are apparently from the Forty Vazirs; cf. Gibbs, the 10th Vazir's Story, pp. 122-129 (= our No. 261) and the Sixth Vazir's Story, pp. 32-84 (= No. 261b.)
The bulk of the tales in Gauttier's vol. vii. are derived from posthumous MSS. of M. Langles, and several have never been published in English. Gauttier's version of Heycar (No. 248) was contributed by M. Agoub.
The best-known modern German version (Tausend und Eine Nacht, Arabische Erzahlungen, Deutsch von Max. Habicht, Fr. H. von der Hagen und Carl Schall. Breslau, 15 vols. 12mo) is mainly based upon Gauttier's edition, but with extensive additions, chiefly derived from the Breslau text. An important feature of this version is that it includes translations of the prefaces of the various editions used by the editors, and therefore supplies a good deal of information not always easily accessible elsewhere. There are often brief notes at the end of the volumes.
The fifth edition of Habicht's version is before me, dated 1840; but the preface to vol. i. is dated 1824, which may be taken to represent the approximate date of its first publication. The following points in the various vols. may be specially noticed:--
Vol. i. commences with the preface of the German editor, setting forth the object and scope of his edition; and the prefaces of Gauttier and Galland follow. No. 1c, omitted by Gauttier, is inserted in its place. Vols. ii. and iii. (No. 133), notes, chiefly from Langles, are appended to the Voyages of Sindbad; and the destinations of the first six are given as follows:--
I. Voyage to Sumatra. IV. Voyage to the Sunda Islands. II. Voyage to Ceylon. V. Voyage to the Sunda Islands. III. Voyage to Selahath. VI. Voyage to Zeilan.
Vol. v. contains an unimportant notice from Galland, with additional remarks by the German editors, respecting the division of the work into Nights.
Vol. vi. contains another unimportant preface respecting Nos. 191 and 192.
Vol. x. Here the preface is of more importance, relating to the contents of the volume, and especially to the Ten Vazirs (No. 174).
Vol. xi. contains tales from Scott. The preface contains a full account of his MSS., and the tales published in his vol. vi. This preface is taken partly from Ouseley's Oriental Collections, and partly from Scott's own preface.
Vol. xii. contains tales from Gauttier, vol. vii. The preface gives the full contents of Clarke's and Von Hammer's MSS.
Vol. xiii. includes Caussin de Perceval's Preface, the remaining tales from Gauttier's vol. vii. (ending with Night 568), and four tales from Caussin which Gauttier omits (Nos. 21a, 22, 37 and 202).
Vols. xiv. and xv. (extending from Night 884 to Night 1001) consist of tales from the Breslau edition, to which a short preface, signed by Dr. Max. Habicht, is prefixed. The first of these tales is a fragment of the important Romance of Seyf Zul Yesn (so often referred to by Lane), which seems to have been mixed with Habicht's MS. of The Nights by mistake. (Compare Payne, Tales, iii. 243.)
In this fragment we have several incidents resembling The Nights; there is a statue which sounds an alarm when an enemy enters a city (cf. Nos. 59 and 137); Seyf himself is converted to the faith of Abraham, and enters a city where a book written by Japhet is preserved. The text of this story has lately been published; and Sir R. F. Burton informs me that he thinks he has seen a complete version in some European language; but I have not succeeded in obtaining any particulars concerning it.
On account of the interest and importance of the work, I append to this section an English version of the fragment translated into German by Habicht. (From the extreme simplicity of the style, which I have preserved, I suspect that the translation is considerably abridged.)
There is an Icelandic version of The Nights (pusund og ein Nott. Arabiskar Soegur. Kaupmannahoefn, 1857, 4 vols. roy. 8vo), which contains Galland's tales, and a selection of others, distributed into 1001 Nights, and apparently taken chiefly from Gauttier, but with the addition of two or three which seem to be borrowed from Lane (Nos. 9a, 163, 165, &c.). It is possibly derived immediately from some Danish edition.
There is one popular English version which may fairly be called a composite edition; but it is not based upon Gauttier. This is the "Select Library Edition. Arabian Nights' Entertainments, selected and revised for general use. To which are added other specimens of Eastern Romance. London: James Burns, 1847. 2 vols."
It contains the following tales from The Nights: Nos. 134, 3, 133, 162, 1, 2, 155, 191, 193, 192, 194, 194a, 194c, 21, 198, 170, 6.
No. 134 is called the City of Silence, instead of the City of Brass, and is certainly based partly upon Lane. In No. 155, Manar Al Sana is called Nur Al Nissa. One story, "The Wicked Dervise," is taken from Dow's "Persian Tales of Inatulla;" another "The Enchanters, or the Story of Misnar," is taken from the "Tales of the Genii." Four other tales, "Jalaladdeen of Bagdad," "The two Talismans," "The Story of Haschem," and "Jussof, the Merchant of Balsora," clearly German imitations, are said to be translated from the German of Grimm, and there are two others, "Abdullah and Balsora," and "The King and his Servant," the origin of which I do not recognise, although I think I have read the last before.
Grimm's story of Haschem concludes with the hero's promotion to the post of Grand Vizier to Haroun Al-Rashid, in consequence of the desire of the aged "Giafar" to end his days in peaceful retirement! The principal incident in Jalaladdeen, is that of the Old Woman in the Chest, borrowed from the wellknown story of the Merchant Abudah in the "Tales of the Genii," and it is thus an imitation of an imitation,
In very ancient times, long before the age of Mohammed, there lived a King of Yemen, named Zul Yezn. He was a Himyarite of the race of Fubbaa (Tabba') and had large armies and a great capital. His Minister was named Yottreb (Yathrab == Medinat), and was well skilled in the knowledge of the ancients. He once had a vision in which the name of the Prophet was revealed to him, with the announcement of his mission in later times; and he was also informed that he would be the last of the Prophets. In consequence of this vision he believed in the Prophet before his advent; but he concealed his faith. One day the King held a review of his troops, and was delighted with their number and handsome appearance. He said to the Wazir, "Is there any person on earth whose power can compare with mine?" "O yes," answered the Wazir, "there is King Baal-Beg, whose troops fill the deserts and the cultivated lands, the plains and the valleys." "I must make war upon him, then," exclaimed the King, "and destroy his power." He immediately ordered the army to prepare to march, and after a few days the drums and trumpets were heard. The King and his Wazir set forth in magnificent array, and after a rapid march, they arrived before the holy city Medina, which may God keep in high renown! The Wazir then said to the King, "Here is the holy house of God, and the place of great ceremonies. No one should enter here who is not perfectly pure, and with head and feet bare. Pass around it with your companions, according to the custom of the Arabs." The King was so pleased with the place that he determined to destroy it, to carry the stones to his own country, and to rebuild it there, that the Arabs might come to him on pilgrimage, a nd that he might thus exalt himself above all Kings. He pondered over this plan all night, but next morning he found his body fearfully swollen. He immediately sent for his Wazir, and lamented over his misfortune. "This is a judgment sent upon you," replied the Wazir, "by the Lord of this house. If you alter your intention of destroying the temple, you will be healed at once." The King gave up his project, and soon found himself cured. Soon afterwards he said to himself, "This misfortune happened to me at night, and left me next day of its own accord; but I will certainly destroy the house." But next morning his face was so covered with open ulcers that he could no longer be recognised. The Wazir then approached him and said, "O King, renounce your intention, for it would be rebellion against the Lord of Heaven and Earth, who can destroy every one who opposes him." When the King heard this, he reflected awhile and said, "What would you wish me to do?" The Wazir replied, "Cover the house with carpets from Yemen." The King resolved to do this, and when night came he retired to rest. He then saw an apparition which ordered him not to march further into the country of King Baal-Beg, but to turn towards Abyssinia and Nigritia, adding, "Remain there, and choose it as thy residence, and assuredly one of thy race will arise through whom the threat of Noah shall be fulfilled." When the King awoke next morning he related this to the Wazir, who advised him to use his own judgment about it. The King immediately gave orders to march. The army set forth, and after ten days they arrived at a country the soil of which seemed to consist of chalk, for it appeared quite white. The Wazir Yottreb then went to the King and requested his permission to found a city here for his people. "Why so?" asked the King. "Because," replied the Wazir, "this will one day be the place of Refuge of the Prophet Mohammed, who will be sent at the end of time." The King then gave his consent, and Yottreb immediately summoned architects and surveyors, who dug out the ground, and reared the walls, and erected beautiful palaces. They did not desist from the work until the Wazir ordered a number of his people to remove to this city with their families. This was done, and their posterity inhabit the city to this day. He then gave them a scroll, and said, "He who comes to you as a fugitive to this house will be the ruler of this city." He then called the city Yottreb after his own name, and the scroll descended from father to son till the Apostle of God arrived as a fugitive from Mecca, when the inhabitants went out to meet him, and presented him with it. They afterwards became his auxiliaries and were known as the Ansar. But we must now return to King Zul Yezn. He marched several days toward Abyssinia, and at last arrived in a beautiful and fertile country where he informed his Wazir that he would like to build a city for his subjects. He gave the necessary orders, which were diligently executed; canals were dug and the surrounding country cultivated; and the city was named Medinat El-Hamra, the Red. At last the news reached the King of Abyssinia, whose name was Saif Ar-Raad (Thunder-sword), and whose capital was called Medinat ad-Durr (the Rich in Houses). Part of this city was built on solid land and the other was built in the sea. This prince could bring an army of 600,000 men into the field, and his authority extended to the extremity of the then known world. When he was informed of the invasion of Zul Yezn, he summoned his two Wazirs, who were named Sikra Divas and Ar-Ryf. The latter was well versed in ancient books, in which he had discovered that God would one day send a Prophet who would be the last of the series. He believed this himself, but concealed it from the Abyssinians, who were still worshippers of Saturn. When the Wazirs came before the King, he said to them,"See how the Arabs are advancing against us; I must fight them." Sikra Divas opposed this design, fearing lest the threat of Noah should be fulfilled. "I would rather advise you," said he, "to make the King a present and to send with it the most beautiful maiden in your palace. But give her poison secretly, and instruct her to poison the King when she is alone with him. If he is once dead, his army will retire without a battle." The King adopted this advice, and prepared rich presents, and summoned a beautiful girl, whose artfulness and malice were well known. Her name was Kamrya (Moonlight). The King said to her, "I have resolved to send you as a present, for a secret object. I will give you poison, and when you are alone with the Prince to whom I will send you, drop it into his cup, and let him take it. As soon as he is dead, his army will leave us in peace." "Very well, my master," replied the girl, "I will accomplish your wish." He then sent her with the other presents and a letter to the city of Zul Yezn. But the Wazir Ar-Ryf had scarcely left the King's presence when he wrote a letter, and commanded a slave to carry it to Zul Yezn. "If you can give it to him before the arrival of the slave- girl," added he, "I will give you your freedom." The slave made all possible haste to the Arab King, but yet the presents arrived before him. A chamberlain went to the King and informed him that a messenger had arrived at the gate with presents from the King of Abyssinia, and requested permission to enter. Zul Yezn immediately ordered that he should be admitted, and the presents and the maiden were at once delivered to him. When he saw her, he was astonished at her beauty, and was greatly delighted. He immediately ordered her to be conveyed to his palace, and was very soon overcome with love for her. He was just about to dissolve the assembly to visit Kamrya, when the Wazir Yottreb detained him, saying, "Delay a while, O King, for I fear there is some treachery hidden behind this present. The Abyssinians hate the Arabs exceedingly, but are unwilling to make war with them, lest the threat of Noah should be fulfilled. It happened one day that Noah was sleeping when intoxicated with wine, and the wind uncovered him. His son Ham laughed, and did not cover him; but his other son Seth (sic) came forward, and covered him up. When Noah awoke, he exclaimed to Ham, 'May God blacken thy face!' But to Seth he said, 'May God make the posterity of thy brother the servants of thine until the day of Resurrection!' This is the threat which they dread as the posterity of Ham." While the King was still conversing with his Wazir, the Chamberlain announced the arrival of a messenger with a letter. He was immediately admitted, and delivered the letter, which was read by the Wazir Yottreb. Ar-Ryf had written, "Be on your guard against Kamrya, O King, for she hath poison with her, and is ordered to kill you when she is alone with you." The King now began loudly to praise the acuteness of his Wazir, and went immediately to Kamrya with his drawn sword. When he entered, she rose and kissed the ground, but he exclaimed, "You have come here to poison me!" She was confounded, and took out the poison, and handed it to the King, full of artifice, and thinking, "If I tell him the truth, he will have a better opinion of me, and if he confides in me, I can kill him in some other manner than with this poison." It fell out as she expected, for the King loved her, gave her authority over his palace and his female slaves, and found himself very happy in her possession. But she herself found her life so pleasant that, although King Ar-Raad frequently sent to ask her why she had not fulfilled her commission, she always answered, "Wait a little; I am seeking an opportunity, for the King is very suspicious." Some time passed over, and at length she became pregnant. Six months afterwards Zul Yezn fell ill; and as his sickness increased, he assembled the chief men of his Court, informed them of the condition of Kamrya, and after commending her to their protection, he ordered that if she bore a son, he should succeed him. They promised to fulfil his commands, and a few days afterwards Zul Yezn died. Kamrya now governed the country, till she brought forth a son. He was a child of uncommon beauty, and had a small mole on his cheek. When she saw the child she envied him, and said to herself, "What, shall he take away the kingdom from me? No, it shall never be;" and from this time forward she determined to put him to death. After forty days, the people requested to see their King. She showed him to them, and seated him on the throne of the kingdom, whereupon they did homage to him, and then dispersed. His mother took him back into the Palace, but her envy increased so much that she had already grasped a sword to kill him, when her nurse entered and asked what she was going to do. "I am about to kill him," answered she. "Have you not reflected," said the nurse, "that if you kill him the people will revolt, and may kill you also?" "Let me kill him," persisted she, "for even should they kill me, too, I should at least be released from my envy." "Do not act thus," warned the nurse, "or you may repent it, when repentance cannot help you." "It must be done," said Kamrya. "Nay, then," said the nurse, "if it cannot be avoided, let him at least be cast into the desert, and if he lives, so much the better for him; but if he dies, you are rid of him for ever." She followed this advice and set out on the way at night time with the child, and halted at a distance of four days' journey, when she sat down under a tree in the desert. She took him on her lap, and suckled him once more, and then laid him on a bed, putting a purse under his head, containing a thousand gold pieces and many jewels. "Whoever finds him," said she, "may use the money to bring him up;" and thus she left him.
It happened by the gracious decree of God, that hunters who were chasing gazelles surprised a female with a fawn; the former took to flight, and the hunters carried off the little one. When the mother returned from the pasture, and found her fawn gone, she traversed the desert in all directions in search of it, and at length the crying of the deserted child attracted her. She lay down by the child, and the child sucked her. The gazelle left him again to go to graze, but always returned to the little one when she was satisfied. This went on till it pleased God that she should fall into the net of a hunter. But she became enraged, tore the net, and fled. The hunter pursued her, and overtook her when she reached the child, and was about to give him suck. But the arrival of the hunter compelled the gazelle to take to flight, and the child began to cry, because he was not yet satisfied. The hunter was astonished at the sight, and when he lifted the child up, he saw the purse under his head, and a string of jewels round his neck. He immediately took the child with him, and went to a town belonging to an Abyssinian king named Afrakh, who was a dependent of King Saif Ar-Raad. He handed over the child to him, saying that he had found it in the lair of a gazelle. When the King took the child into his care, it smiled at him, and God awakened a feeling of love towards him in the King's heart; and he then noticed the mole on his cheek. But when his Wazir Sikar Diun, the brother of Sikar Divas, who was Wazir to King Saif Ar-Raad, entered and saw the child, God filled his heart with hate towards him. "Do not believe what this man told you," he said, when the King told him the wonderful story of the discovery, "it can only be the child of a mother who has come by it wrongly, and has abandoned it in the desert, and it would be better to kill it." "I cannot easily consent to this," said the King. But he had hardly spoken, when the palace was filled with sounds of rejoicing, and he was informed that his wife had just been safely delivered of a child. On this news he took the boy on his arm, and went to his wife, and found that the new-born child was a girl, and that she had a red mole on her cheek. He wondered when he saw this, and said to Sikar Diun, "See how beautiful they are!" But when the Wazir saw it, he slapped his face, and cast his cap on the ground, exclaiming, "Should these two moles unite, I prophesy the downfall of Abyssinia, for they presage a great calamity. It would be better to kill either the boy or your daughter." "I will kill neither of them," replied the King, "for they have been guilty of no crime." He immediately provided nurses for the two children, naming his daughter Shama (Mole) and the boy Wakhs[FN#471] El Fellat (Lonely one, or Desert); and he reared them in separate apartments, that they might not see each other. When they were ten years old, Wakhs El Fellat grew very strong, and soon became a practised horseman, and surpassed all his companions in this accomplishment, and in feats of arms. But when he was fifteen, he was so superior to all others, that Sikar Diun threatened the King that he would warn King Saif Ar-Raad that he was nurturing his enemy in his house, if he did not immediately banish him from the country; and this threat caused King Afrakh great alarm. It happened that he had a general, who was called Gharag El Shaker (Tree-splitter), because he was accustomed to hurl his javelin at trees, and thus to cleave them asunder. He had a fortress three days' journey from the town; and the King said to him, "Take Wakhs El Fellat to your castle, and never let him return to this neighbourhood." He added privately, "Look well after him and preserve him from all injury, and have him instructed in all accomplishments." The general withdrew, and took the boy with him to his castle, and instructed him thoroughly in all accomplishments and sciences. One day he said to him, "One warlike exercise is still unknown to you." "What is that?" said Wakhs El Fellat. "Come and see for yourself," replied he. The general then took him to a place where several trees were growing, which were so thick that a man could not embrace the trunk. He then took his javelin, hurled it at one of them, and split the trunk. Wakhs El Fellat then asked for the javelin, and performed the same feat, to the astonishment of his instructor. "Woe to thee!" exclaimed he, "for I perceive that you are the man through whom the threat of Noah will be fulfilled against us. Fly, and never let yourself be seen again in our country, or I will kill you." Wakhs El Fellat then left the town, not knowing where to go. He subsisted for three days on the plants of the earth, and at last he arrived at a town encircled by high walls, the gates of which were closed. The inhabitants were clothed in black, and uttered cries of lamentation. In the foreground he saw a bridal tent, and a tent of mourning. This was the city of King Afrakh who had reared him, and the cause of the mourning of the inhabitants was as follows. Sikar Diun was very angry that the King had refused to follow his advice, and put the boy to death, and had left the town to visit one of his friends, who was a magician, to whom he related the whole story. "What do you propose to do now?" asked the magician. "I will attempt to bring about a separation between him and his daughter," said the Wazir. "I will assist you," was the answer of the magician. He immediately made the necessary preparations, and summoned an evil Jinni named Mukhtatif (Ravisher) who inquired, "What do you require of me?" "Go quickly to the city of King Afrakh, and contrive that the inhabitants shall leave it." In that age men had intercourse with the more powerful Jinn, and each attained their ends by means of the other. The Jinn did not withdraw themselves till after the advent of the Prophet. The magician continued, "When the inhabitants have left the city, they will ask you what you want. Then say, 'Bring me out Shama, the daughter of your King, adorned with all her jewels, and I will come to-morrow and carry her away. But if you refuse, I will destroy your city, and destroy you all together.'" When Mukhtatif heard the words of this priest of magic, he did as he was commanded, and rushed to the city. When Sikar Diun saw this, he returned to King Afrakh to see what would happen; but he had scarcely arrived when the voice of Mukhtatif resounded above the city. The inhabitants went to the King, and said, "You have heard what is commanded, and if you do not yield willingly, you will be obliged to do so by force." The King then went weeping to the mother of the Princess, and informed her of the calamity. She could scarcely contain herself for despair, and all in the palace wept at parting from the Princess. Meantime Shama was richly attired, torn from her parents, and hurried to the bridal tent before the town, to he carried away by the evil Jinni. The inhabitants were all assembled on the walls of the city, weeping. It was just at this moment that Wakhs El Fellat arrived from the desert, and entered the tent to see what was going on. When King Afrakh, who was also on the wall, saw him, he cried out to him, but he did not listen, and dismounted, fastened his horse to a tent-stake, and entered. Here he beheld a maiden of extraordinary beauty and perfection, but she was weeping. While he was completely bewildered by her beauty, she was no less struck by his appearance. "Who art thou?" said the maiden to him. "Tell me rather who art thou?" returned he. "I am Shama, the daughter of King Afrakh." "Thou art Shama?" he exclaimed, "and I am Wakhs El Fellat, who was reared by thy father." When they were thus acquainted, they sat down together to talk over their affairs, and she took this opportunity of telling him what had passed with the Jinni, and how he was coming to carry her away. "O, you shall see how I will deal with him," answered he, but at this moment the evil Jinni approached, and his wings darkened the sun. The inhabitants uttered a terrible cry, and the Jinni darted upon the tent, and was about to raise it when he saw a man there, talking to the daughter of the King. "Woe to thee, O son of earth," he exclaimed, "what authority have you to sit by my betrothed?" When Wakhs El Fellat saw the terrible form of the Jinni, a shudder came over him, and he cried to God for aid. He immediately drew his sword, and struck at the Jinni, who had just extended his right hand to seize him, and the blow was so violent that it struck off the hand. "What, you would kill me?" exclaimed Mukhtatif, and he took up his hand, put it under his arm, and flew away. Upon this there was a loud cry of joy from the walls of the city. The gates were thrown open, and King Afrakh approached, companied by a crowd of people with musical instruments, playing joyful music; and Wakhs El Fellat was invested with robes of honour; but when Sikar Diun saw it it was gall to him. The King prepared an apartment expressly for Wakhs El Fellat, and while Shama returned to her palace, he gave a great feast in honour of her deliverance from the fiend. After seven days had passed, Shama went to Wakhs El Fellat, and said to him, "Ask me of my father tomorrow, for you have rescued me, and he will not be able to refuse you." He consented very willingly, and went to the King early next morning. The King gave him a very favourable reception, and seated him with him on the throne; but Wakhs El Fellat had not courage to prefer his suit, and left him after a short interview. He had not long returned to his own room, when Shama entered, saluted him, and asked, "Why did you not demand me?" "I was too bashful," he replied. "Lay this feeling aside," returned she, "and demand me." "Well, I will certainly do so to-morrow," answered he. Thereupon she left him, and returned to her own apartment. Early next morning Wakhs El Fellat went again to the King, who gave him a friendly reception, and made him sit with him. But he was still unable to prefer his suit, and returned to his own room. Soon after Shama came to him and said, "How long is this bashfulness to last? Take courage, and if not, request some one else to speak for you." She then left him, and next morning he repeated his visit to the King. "What is your request?" asked the latter. "I am come as a suitor," said Wakhs El Fellat, "and ask the hand of your noble daughter Shama." When Sikar Diun heard this, he slapped his face. "What is the matter with you?" asked the King. "This is what I have foreseen," answered he, "for if these two moles unite, the destruction of Abyssinia is accomplished." "How can I refuse him?" replied the King, "when he has just delivered her from the fiend." "Tell him," answered Sikar Diun, "that you must consult with your Wazir." The King then turned to Wakhs El Fellat, and said, "My son, your request is granted as far as I am concerned, but I leave my Wazir to arrange it with you, so you must consult him about it." Wakhs El Fellat immediately turned to the Wazir, and repeated his request to him. Sikar Diun answered him in a friendly manner. "The affair is as good as arranged, no one else is suited for the King's daughter, but you know that the daughters of the Kings require a dowry." "Ask what you please," returned Wakhs El Fellat. "We do not ask you for money or money's worth," said the Wazir, "but for the head of a man named Sudun, the Ethiopian." "Where can I find him?" said the prince. The Wazir replied, "He is said to dwell in the fortress of Reg, three days' journey from here." "But what if I fail to bring the head of Sudun?" asked he. "But you will have it," returned the Wazir; and after this understanding the audience ceased, and each returned to his dwelling.
Now this Sudun had built his fortress on the summit of a high hill. It was very secure, and he defended it with the edge of the sword. It was his usual resort, from whence he sallied forth on plundering expeditions, and rendered the roads unsafe. At length the news of him reached King Saif Ar-Raad, who sent against him three thousand men, but he routed and destroyed them all. Upon this, the King sent a larger number against him, who experienced the same fate. He then despatched a third army, upon which Sudun fortified himself afresh, and reared the walls of his fortress so high that an eagle could scarcely pass them. We will now return to Shama, who went to Wakhs El Fellat, and reproached him with the conditions he had agreed to, and added, "It would be better for you to leave this place, and take me with you, and we will put ourselves under the protection of some powerful king." "God forbid," replied he, "that I should take you with me in so dishonourable a manner." As he still positively refused to consent, she grew angry, and left him. Wakhs El Fellat lay down to rest, but he could not sleep. So he rose up, mounted his horse, and rode away at midnight; and in the morning he met a horseman who stationed himself in his path, but who was so completely armed that his face was concealed. When Wakhs El Fellat saw him, he cried to him, "Who are you, and where are you going?" But instead of replying, he pressed upon him, and aimed a blow which Wakhs El Fellat successfully parried. A fight then commenced between them, which lasted till nearly evening. At last the difference in their strength became perceptible, and Wakhs El Fellat struck his adversary so violent a blow with his javelin that his horse fell to the ground. He then dismounted, and was about to slay him, when the horseman cried to him, "Do not kill me, O brave warrior, or you will repent when repentance will no more avail you." "Tell me who you are?" returned Wakhs El Fellat. "I am Shama, the daughter of King Afrakh," replied the horseman. "Why have you acted thus?" asked he. "I wished to try whether you would be able to hold your own against Sudun's people," she replied. "I have tried you now, and found you so valiant that I fear no longer on your account. Take me with you, O hero." "God forbid that I should do so," he returned; "what would Sikar Diun and the others say? They would say that if Shama had not been with him, he would never have been able to prevail against Sudun." She then raised her eyes to heaven, and said, "O God, permit him to fall into some danger from which I alone may deliver him!" Upon this Wakhs El Fellat pursued his journey, without giving any attention to her words. On the third day he arrived at the valley where the fortress of Sudun was situated, when he began to work his way along behind the trees; and towards evening he arrived at the fortress itself, which he found to be surrounded with a moat; and the gates were closed. He was still undecided what course to take, when he heard the sound of an approaching caravan; and he hid himself in the fosse of the fortress to watch it. He then saw that it was driven forward by a large body of men, and that the merchants were bound on their mules. When they arrived at the castle, they knocked at the gate; and when the troop entered, Wakhs El Fellat entered with them; and they unloaded the goods and bound the prisoners without noticing him. When the armed men had finished their work, they ascended to the castle, but he remained below. After a time, he wished to follow them, but when he trod on the first step, it gave way under him, and a dagger flew out, which struck him in the groin. Upon this his eyes filled with tears, and he already looked upon his destruction as certain, when a form came towards him from the entrance of the castle, to deliver him; and as it drew nearer, he perceived that it was Shama. He was filled with astonishment, and cried out, "God has heard your prayer! How did you come here?" "I followed your traces," she replied, "till you entered the castle, when I imitated your example, and mingled with the troops. I have now saved your life, although you have refused to take me with you; but if you wish to advance further, do not neglect to try whether each step is fixed, with the point of your sword." He now again began to ascend, feeling the way before him, and Shama followed, till they arrived at the last stair, when they saw that the staircase ended in a revolving wheel. "Spring higher," advised Shama, "for I see a javelin which magic art has placed here." They sprang over it, and pursued their way till they reached a large anteroom, lighted by a high cupola. They stopped here awhile, and examined everything carefully. At last they approached the door of a room, and on looking through the crevices, they saw about a hundred armed negroes, among whom was a black slave who looked as savage as a lion. The room was lighted by wax candles, placed on gold and silver candlesticks. At this moment, the black said, "Slaves, what have you done with the prisoners belonging to the caravan?" "We have chained them in the prison below, and left them in the safest place," was the reply. But he continued, "If one of them was carelessly bound, he might be able to release himself and the others, and to gain possession of the stairs. Let one of you therefore go down, examine them carefully, and tighten their bonds." One of them therefore came out, and the two strangers hid themselves in the anteroom. When he had passed them, Wakhs El Fellat stepped forward and pierced him through with his sword; Shama dragged his body aside, and they both remained quiet for a time. But as the slave remained away from his companions too long, Sudun exclaimed, "Go and see why he does not return, for I have been in great alarm ever since we entered the castle to- day." A second then rose and took his sword, and as he came into the anteroom, Wakhs El Fellat clove him in twain at one blow and Shama dragged his body also on one side. They again waited quietly for a time, when Sudun said, "It seems as if hunters are watching our slaves, and are killing them one after another." A third then hastened out, and Wakhs El Fellat struck him such a blow that he fell dead to the ground, and Shama dragged him also away. But as he likewise remained absent so long, Sudun himself stood up and all the others with him, and he said, "Did I not warn and caution you? There is a singing in my ears, and my heart trembles, for there must be people here who are watching our men." He himself now came out, and the others followed him with lights and holding their hands on their swords, when one of the foremost suddenly stopped. "Why do you not advance!" cried the others. "How shall I go forward," said he, "when he who has slain our friends stands before us." This answer was repeated to Sudun when he called on them in a voice of thunder to advance. When he heard this, he forced his way through them till he perceived Wakhs El Fellat. "Who are you, Satan?" cried he, "and who brought you here?" "I came here," replied he, "to cut off your head, and destroy your memory." "Have you any blood-feud against me?" asked Sudun, "or any offence to revenge upon me?" "I have no enmity against you in my heart," said Wakhs El Fellat, "and you have never injured me; but I have asked Shama in marriage of her father, and he has demanded of me your head as a condition. Be on your guard, that you may not say I acted foully towards you." "Madman," cried Sudun, "I challenge you to a duel. Will you fight inside or outside the fortress?" "I leave that to you," returned Wakhs El Fellat. "Well, then, await me here," was the reply. Sudun then went in, clothed himself in gilded armour, girt on a saw-like sword, and came out holding a shining club in his hand. He was so enraged that he knew not what to say, and at once attacked Wakhs El Fellat, who threw himself on his adversary like a raging lion, and they fought together like hungry wolves; but both despaired of victory. The swords spake a hard language on the shields, and each of the combatants wished that he had never been born. When this desperate fight had lasted a long time, Shama was greatly troubled lest Sudun should prove victorious. So she seized a dagger and struck at Sudun, wounding the nerves of his hand, so that he dropped his sword, while she exclaimed to Wakhs El Fellat, "Make an end of him." "No," replied Wakhs El Fellat, "I will make him my prisoner, for he is a brave and valiant man." "With whom are you speaking?" asked Sudun. "With Shama," answered he. "What," said Sudun, "did she come with you?" "Yes," replied he. "Then let her come before me." She came forward, and Sudun said, "Is the world too narrow for your father that he could demand nothing as your dowry but my head?" "This was his desire," answered she. Wakhs El Fellat then said, "Take your sword and defend yourself, for I will not fight with you, now that it has fallen out of your hand." But Sudun replied , "I will not fight with you, for I am wounded, so take my head, and go in peace with your bride." He then sat down and bowed his head. "If you speak truly," said Wakhs El Fellat, "separate yourself from your people." "Why so?" "Because I fear lest they may surround me, and compel me to fight with them, and there is no need for me to shed their blood." Sudun then left the castle, bowed his head, and said, "Finish your work." But Wakhs El Fellat said, "If you speak truth, come with me across the fosse of the castle into the open ground." He did so, carefully barring the castle behind him, and said, "Now take my head."
When the slaves saw this, they mounted the walls, and wept and lamented. But Shama cried out, "Take his head, and let us hasten our return before morning dawns." "What," said Wakhs El Fellat, "should I kill so brave a man in so treacherous a manner, when he is so noble and magnanimous?" He then went up to Sudun, kissed his head, and said, "Rise up, O warrior of the age, for you and your companions are safe from me." They now all embraced each other, and made an offensive and defensive compact. "Take me with you alive, O brave man," said Sudun, "and hand me over to the King as his daughter's dowry. If he consents, well; but if not, take my head, and woo your wife." "God forbid," said Wakhs El Fellat, "that I should act thus after your magnanimity. Rather return to the castle, and assure your companions of your safety." All this passed under the eyes of the other armed men. They rejoiced at the knightly conduct of both , and now came down, fell at the feet of Sudun and embraced him. They then did the same to Wakhs El Fellat, whose hands they kissed and loaded him with praises. After this, they all returned to the castle, and agreed to set out presently. They took with them whatever treasures there were, and Wakhs El Fellat commanded them to release the prisoners and restore them their goods. They now all mounted their horses and journeyed to the country of King Afrakh, greatly rejoiced at the mutual love of the warriors. When they approached the town, Shama parted from them, that nothing should be known of her absence in the company. During this time, King Afrakh and Sikar Diun had amused themselves with hunting, jesting, and sporting, and sent out scouts daily to look for Wakhs El Fellat. "What can have become of him?" said the King once to Sikar Diun. "Sudun has certainly killed him," replied the latter, "and you will never see him again." While they were thus talking, they observed a great cloud of dust, and as it drew nearer, they could see the armed men more distinctly. The company was led by a black knight, by whose side rode a younger white horseman. When the King saw this, he exclaimed, "Wakhs El Fellat has returned, in company with Sudun and his host." "Wait a little," replied Sikar Dian, "till we are certain of it." But when they drew nearer, and they could doubt no longer, Sikar Diun mounted his horse and fled, accompanied by the King and his followers, till they reached the town, and barred the gates. They then watched from the walls, to see what would happen. When they saw that the strangers dismounted and pitched tents, the King thought it was a good sign. He therefore ordered the town to be decorated, and the gates to be opened, and rode out, attended by a considerable escort, and approached the tents. The other party now mounted their horses to go to meet them. When they approached each other, King Afrakh was about to dismount, but Wakhs El Fellat would not allow it, and the King embraced him, and congratulated him on his safety. He then saluted Sudun also, but the latter did not return his salutation. He invited him to enter the town, but he declined, as did Wakhs El Fellat likewise, who did not wish to part from his companions. The King returned accompanied only by his own people, and prepared the best reception for the new-comers. On the following morning the King held a general council, at which Sikar Diun appeared greatly depressed. "Did I not warn you beforehand," said he to the King, "what you now see for yourself of this evil-doer? Did we not send him to bring the head of Sudun, and he returns with him safe and sound, and on the best of terms, while our hearts are oppressed with anxiety?" "You may be right," replied the King, "but what are we to do now?"
This conversation was interrupted by a tumult caused by the arrival of Wakhs El Fellat and Sudun, who came to pay their respects to the King. The King invited them to sit down, but Sudun remained standing, and when he asked him again, he replied, "You craven, was the world too narrow for you that you desired my head as your daughter's dowry?" "Sit down," said the King, "for I know that you are angry." "How can I sit down," returned Sudun, "when you have ordered my death?" "God forbid that I should act so unjustly," said the King; "it was Sikar Diun." "What," said he, "do you accuse me of such an action in my presence?" "Did you not make this condition with Wakhs El Fellat," said the King, "and send him on his errand?" Sikar Diun then turned to Sudun, and said, "Sit down, brave warrior, for we only did so from love to you, that we might be able to make a treaty with you, and that you might join our company." After this answer, Sudun concealed his anger, and sat down. Refreshments were now brought in, and after partaking of them, Wakhs El Fellat and Sudun returned to their tents. Several days passed in this manner, and at length Sudun said to Wakhs El Fellat, "O my master, it is time for you to demand Shama in marriage, now you have won her with the edge of the sword. You have fulfilled their conditions long since by bringing them my head, but you have made no further progress at present. Ask for her once more, and if they will not give her up, I will fall upon them with the sword, and we will carry Shama off, and then lay waste the city." "I will demand her as my wife again to-morrow," replied the other. When he went to the palace next day, he found the King and all the court assembled. When they saw him, they all rose from their seats, and when they sat down again, he alone remained standing. "Why do you not sit down," said the King, "for all your wishes are now fulfilled?" "I have still to ask for Shama," he replied. "You know," returned the King, "that ever since her birth I have allowed Sikar Diun to make all arrangements for her." He now turned to Sikar Diun, who replied in a friendly tone, "She is yours, for you have fulfilled the conditions, and you have only now to give her ornaments." "What kind of ornaments?" asked he. "Instead of ornaments," replied the traitor, "we desire to receive a book containing the history of the Nile. If you bring it us, she is wholly yours, but if not, there is no marriage to be thought of." "Where is it to be found?" "I cannot tell you myself." "Well, then," returned Wakhs El Fellat, "if I do not bring you the book, Shama is lost to me; all present are witnesses to this." He went out with these words, pushing his way through the crowded assembly, and Sudun behind him, till they reached their tents. "Why did you promise that," said Sudun, "let us rather overcome them with the sword, and take Shama from them." "Not so," replied Wakhs El Fellat, "I will only possess her honourably." "And yet you do not even know how to find the book," said Sudun; "rather listen to my advice, retire to my fortress, and leave me in their power." "I would never act thus," said Wakhs El Fellat, "though I should suffer death." After these and similar speeches, supper was brought in, and each retired to his sleeping apartment. But Wakhs El Fellat had scarcely entered his room when Shama came in. "What have you done," said she, "and what engagement have you undertaken? How can you fulfil this condition? Do you not see that their only object is to destroy you, or at least to get rid of you? I have come to warn you again, and I say to you once more, take me with you to Sudun's castle, where we can live at peace, and do not act as they tell you." "I will carry out my engagement," he replied; "I will not possess you like a coward, even though I should be cut to pieces with swords." Upon this, Shama was angry and left him, while he lay down to rest, but could not sleep. He therefore rose up, saddled and mounted his horse and rode away, without knowing where, abandoning himself wholly to the will of God. He wandered about thus for several days, until he reached a lonely tower. He knocked at the door, and a voice answered, "Welcome, O thou who hast separated thyself from thy companions; enter without fear, O brave Saif, son of Zul Yezn." When he pushed the door it opened, and his eyes beheld a noble and venerable old man, from whose appearance it was at once obvious that he busied himself with the strictest life and fear of God. "Welcome," cried he again; "if you had travelled from east to West you would have found no one who could show you how to obtain the book you seek as well as I can, for I have dwelt here awaiting your arrival for sixty years." "But that was before I was born," said Wakhs El Fellat to himself. He then asked aloud, "By what name did you address me just now?" "O Saif," answered the old man, "that is your true name, for you are a sword (Saif) to the Abyssinians; but whom do you worship?" "O my master," was the reply, "the Abyssinians worship Saturn (Sukhal) but I am in perplexity, and know not whom to worship." "My son," replied the old man, "worship Him who has reared the heavens over us without pillars, and who has rested the earth on water; the only and eternal God, the Lord who is only and alone to be reverenced. I worship Him and none other beside him, for I follow the religion of Abraham." "What is your name?" asked Wakhs El Fellat. "I am called Shaikh Gyat." "What declaration must I make," he asked the old man, "to embrace your religion?" "Say 'There is no God but God, and Abraham is the Friend of God.' If you make this profession, you will be numbered among the believers." He at once repeated the formula, and Shaikh Gyat was much pleased, and devoted the night to teaching him the history of Abraham and his religion, and the forms of worship. Towards morning he said, "O my son, whenever you advance to battle, say, 'God is great, grant me victory, O God, and destroy the infidels,' and help will be near you. Now pursue your journey, but leave your horse here until your return. Enter the valley before you, under the protection of God, and after three days you will meet some one who will aid you." Wakhs El Fellat set out on that road, and after three days he met a horseman who saluted him, and exclaimed, "Welcome, Saif Zul Yezn, for you bring happiness to this neighbourhood." Saif returned his salutation, and asked, "How do you know me, and how do you know my name?" "I am not a brave or renowned warrior," was the answer, "but one of the maidens of this country and my mother taught me your name." "What is your name and that of your mother?" "My mother's name is Alka," answered she, "and I am called Taka." When he heard this he was greatly rejoiced, for he remembered that Shaikh Gyat had said to him, "O thou, whose destiny will be decided by Alka and Taka." "O noble virgin," said he, "where is your mother, Alka?" "Look round," she replied; and he saw a very large and lofty city at some distance. "Know," said she, "that 360 experienced philosophers dwell in that city. My mother Alka is their superior, and directs all their affairs and actions. She knew that you would come to this neighbourhood in search of a book concerning the Nile, which was written by Japhet, the son of Noah, and she wishes you to attain your end by her means. She also informed me of your coming, and promised me to you, saying, 'You shall have no other husband but him.' We expected you to- day, and she sent me to meet you, adding, 'Warn him not to enter the town by daylight, or it will be his destruction.' Wait here, therefore, till nightfall, and only approach the city after dark. Turn to the right along the wall, and stand still when you reach the third tower, where we will await you. As soon as we see you we will throw you a rope; bind it round your waist, and we will draw you up. The rest will be easy." "But why need you give yourselves all this trouble?" said Saif Zul Yezn. "Know," replied she, "that the inhabitants of this city have been informed of your approaching arrival by their books, and are aware that you are about to carry away their book, which they hold in superstitious reverence. On the first day of each month they repair to the building where it is preserved; and they adore it and seek counsel from it respecting their affairs. They have also a king whose name is Kamrun. When they knew that you were coming for the book they constructed a talisman against you. They have made a copper statue, and fixed a brazen horn in its hand, and have stationed it at the gate of the city. If you enter, the statue will sound the horn, and it will only do so upon your arrival. They would then seize you and put you to death. On this account we desire to baffle their wisdom by drawing you up to the walls of the city at another place." "May God reward you a thousandfold," replied he; "but go now, and announce my arrival to your mother." She went away, and he approached the city in the darkness of night, and turned towards the third tower on the right, where he found Alka and Taka. When they recognised him, they immediately threw him the rope, which he fastened about him. When he was drawn up, they descended from the wall, and were about to proceed to Alka's house, when the talisman suddenly acted, and the statue blew the horn loudly. "Hasten to our house," cried Alka; and they succeeded in reaching it safely and barred the doors, when the noise increased. The whole population of the city rose up, and the streets were filled. "What is this disturbance about?" asked Saif. "This is all due," replied Alka, "to the alarm sounded by the statue, because you have entered the town. There will be a great meeting held to-morrow, where all the wise men will assemble, to attempt to discover the whereabouts of the intruder; but by God's help, I will guide them wrong, and confuse their counsels. Go to our neighbour the fisherman," added she to her daughter, "and see what he has caught." She went, and brought news that he had taken a large fish, of the size of a man. "Take this piece of gold," said her mother, "and bring us the fish;" and when she did so, she told her to clean it, which was done. Food was then brought in, and they ate and talked. The night passed quietly, but on the following morning Alka ordered Saif Zul Yezn to undress, and to hide in the skin of the fish. She put her mouth to the mouth of the fish, and took a long rope, which she fastened under Saif's armpits. She then let him down into a deep well, and fastened him there, saying, "Remain here, till I come back." She then left him, and went to the great hall of the King, where the divan was already assembled, and the King had taken his seat on the throne. All rose up when she entered, and when she had seated herself, the King said to her, "O mother, did you not hear the blast of the horn yesterday, and why did you not come out with us?" "I did hear it," she replied, "but I did not heed it." "But you know," said he, "that the sound can only be heard upon the arrival of the stranger who desires to take the book." "I know it, O King; but permit me to choose forty men from among those assembled here." She did so, and selected ten from among the forty again. She then said to them, "Take a Trakhtramml (sandboard on which the Arabs practise geomancy and notation) and look and search." They did so, but had scarcely finished when they looked at each other in amazement. They destroyed their calculation, and began a second, and confused this, too, and began a third, upon which they became quite confounded. "What are you doing there?" asked the King at last. "You go on working and obliterating your work; what have you discovered?" "O King," replied they, "we find that the stranger has entered the town, but not by any gate. He appears to have passed in between Heaven and earth, like a bird. After this, a fish swallowed him, and carried him down into some dark water." "Are you fools?" asked the King angrily; and turning to Alka, continued, "Have you ever seen a man flying between Heaven and earth, and afterwards swallowed by a fish, which descends with him into dark water?" "O King," replied she, "I always forbid the wise men to eat heavy food, for it disturbs their understanding and weakens their penetration; but they will not heed me." At this the King was angry, and immediately drove them from the hall. But Alka said, "It will be plain to-morrow what has happened." She left the hall, and when she reached home, she drew Saif Zul Yezn out of the well, and he dressed himself again. They sat down, and Alka said, "I have succeeded in confounding their deliberations to- day! and there will be a great assembly to-morrow, when I must hide you in a still more out-of-the-way place." After this they supped, and went to rest. Next morning Alka called her daughter, and said, "Bring me the gazelle." When it was brought her, she said, "Bring me the wings of an eagle." Taka gave them to her, and she bound them on the back of the gazelle. She then took a pair of compasses, which she fixed in the ceiling of the room. She next took two other pairs of compasses, which she fixed in the ceiling of the room. She next took two other pairs of compasses, and tied one between the fore feet, and the other between the hind feet of the gazelle. She then tied a rope to the compasses in the roof, and the two ends to the other pairs. But she made Saif Zul Yezn lie down in such a position that his head was between the feet of the gazelle. She then said to him, "Remain here till I come back"; and went to the King, with whom she found a very numerous assemblage of the wise men. As soon as she entered, the King made her sit beside him on the throne. "O my mother Alka," he said, "I could not close an eye last night from anxiety concerning yesterday's events." "Have you no wise men," returned she, "who eat the bread of the divan?" She then turned to them, saying, "Select the wisest among you!" and they chose the wisest among them. She ordered them to take the sandboard again, but they became so confused that they were obliged to begin again three times from the beginning. "What do you discover?" said the King angrily. "O our master," replied they, "he whom we seek has been carried away by a beast of the desert, which is flying with him between Heaven and earth." "How is this?" said the King to Alka; "have you ever seen anything like it?" He seized his sword in a rage, and three fled, and he killed four of the others. When Alka went home, she released Saif, and told him what had happened. Next morning Alka took the gazelle, and slaughtered it in a copper kettle. She then took a golden mortar, and reversed it over it, and said to Saif Zul Yezn, "Sit on this mortar till I come back." She then went to the divan, and chose out six wise men, who again took the sandboard, and began again three times over in confusion. "Alas," said the King, in anger, "What misfortune do you perceive?" "O our master," they exclaimed in consternation, "our understanding is confused, for we see him sitting on a golden mountain, which is in the midst of a sea of blood, surrounded by a copper wall." The King was enraged, and broke up the assembly, saying, "O Alka, I will now depend on you alone." "To-morrow I will attempt to show you the stranger," she replied. When she came home, she related to Saif what had happened, and said, "I shall know by to-morrow what to tell the King to engage his attention, and prevent him from pursuing you." Next morning she found Taka speaking to Saif Zul Yezn alone; and she asked her, "What does he wish?" "Mother," replied Taka, "he wishes to go to the King's palace, to see him and the divan." "What you wish shall be done," said she to Saif, "but you must not speak." He assented to the condition, and she dressed him as her attendant, gave him a sandboard, and went with him to the King, who said to her, "I could not sleep at all last night, for thinking of the stranger for whom we are seeking." "Now that the affair is in my hands," returned she, "you will find me a sufficient protection against him." She immediately ordered Saif to give her the sandboard. She took it, and when she had made her calculations, she said joyfully to the King, "O my lord, I can give you the welcome news of the flight of the stranger, owing to his dread of you and your revenge." When the King heard this, he rent his clothes, slapped his face, and said, "He would not have departed, without having taken the book." "I cannot see if he has taken anything," replied she. "This is the first of the month," said the King, "come and let us see if it is missing." He then went with a large company to the building where the book was kept. Alka turned away from the King for a moment to say to Saif, "Do not enter with us, for if you enter, the case will open of itself, and the book will fall into your hands. This would at once betray you, and you would be seized and put to death, and all my labour would have been in vain." She then left him, and rejoined the King. When they reached the building, the doors were opened, and when the King entered, they found the book. They immediately paid it the customary honours, and protracted this species of worship, while Saif stood at the door, debating with himself whether to enter or not. At last his impatience overcame him, and he entered, and at the same instant the casket was broken to pieces, and the book fell out. The King then ordered all to stand up, and the book rolled to Saif Zul Yezn. Upon this all drew their swords, and rushed upon him. Saif drew his sword also, and cried "God is great!" as Shaikh Gyat had taught him. He continued to fight and defend himself, and struggled to reach the door. The entire town arose in tumult to pursue him, when he stumbled over a dead body, and was seized. "Let me not see his face," cried the King, "but throw him into the mine." This mine was eighty yards deep, and had not been opened for sixty years. It was closed by a heavy leaden cover, which they replaced, after they had loaded him with chains, and thrown him in. Saif sat there in the darkness, greatly troubled, and lamenting his condition to Him who never sleeps. Suddenly, a side wall of the mine opened, and a figure came forth which approached and called him by his name. "Who are you?" asked Saif. "I am a woman named Akissa, and inhabit the mountain where the Nile rises. We are a nation who hold the faith of Abraham. A very pious man lives below us in a beautiful palace. But an evil Jinni named Mukhtatif lived near us also, who loved me, and demanded me in marriage of my father. He consented from fear, but I was unwilling to marry an evil being who was a worshipper of fire. 'How can you promise me in marriage to an infidel?' said I to my father. 'I shall thereby escape his malice myself,' replied he. I went out and wept, and complained to the pious man about the affair. 'Do you know who will kill him?' said he to me, and I answered, 'No.' 'I will direct you to him who has cut off his hand,' said he. 'His name is Saif Zul Yezn, and he is now in the city of King Kamrun, in the mine.' Thereupon he brought me to you, and I come as you see me, to guide you to my country, that you may kill Mukhtatif, and free the earth from his wickedness." She then moved him, and shook him, and all his chains fell off. She lifted him on her shoulders, and carried him to the palace of the Shaikh, who was named Abbas Salam. Here he heard a voice crying, "Enter, Saif Zul Yezn." He did so, and found a grave and venerable old man, who gave him a very friendly reception, saying, "Wait till to-morrow, when Akissa will come to guide you to the castle of Mukhtatif." He remained with him for the night, and when Akissa arrived next morning, the old man told her to hasten, that the world might be soon rid of the monster. They then left this venerable man, and when they had walked awhile, Akissa said to Saif, "Look before you." He did so, and perceived a black mass at some distance. "This is the castle of the evil- doer," said she, "but I cannot advance a step further than this." Saif therefore pursued his way alone, and when he came near the castle, he walked round it to look for the entrance. As he was noticing the extraordinary height of the castle, which was founded on the earth, but appeared to overtop the clouds, he saw a window open, and several people looked out, who pointed at him with their fingers, exclaiming, "That is he, that is he!" They threw him a rope, which they directed him to bind round him. They drew him up by it, when he found himself in the presence of three hundred and sixty damsels, who saluted him by his name.
(Here Habicht's fragment ends.)
In 1800, Jonathan Scott, LL.D., published a volume of "Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters, translated from the Arabic and Persian," based upon a fragmentary MS., procured by J. Anderson in Bengal, which included the commencement of the work (Nos. 1-3) in 29 Nights; two tales not divided into Nights (Nos. 264 and 135) and No. 21.
Scott's work includes these two new tales (since republished by Kirby and Clouston), with the addition of various anecedotes, &c., derived from other sources. The "Story of the Labourer and the Chair" has points of resemblance to that of "Malek and the Princess Chirine" (Shirin?) in the Thousand and One Days; and also to that of "Tuhfet El Culoub" (No. 183a) in the Breslau Edition. The additional tales in this MS. and vol. of translations are marked "A" under Scott in our Tables. Scott published the following specimens (text and translation) in Ouseley's Oriental Collections (1797 and following years) No. 135m (i. pp. 245-257) and Introduction (ii. pp. 160-172; 228- 257). The contents are fully given in Ouseley, vol. ii. pp. 34, 35.
Scott afterwards acquired an approximately complete MS. in 7 vols., written in 1764 which was brought from Turkey by E. Wortley Montague. Scott published a table of contents (Ouseley, ii. pp. 25-34), in which, however, the titles of some few of the shorter tales, which he afterwards translated from it, are omitted, while the titles of others are differently translated. Thus "Greece" of the Table becomes "Yemen" in the translation; and "labourer" becomes "sharper." As a specimen, he subsequently printed the text and translation of No. 145 (Ouseley, ii. pp. 349-367).
This MS., which differs very much from all others known, is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
In 1811, Scott published an edition of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, in 6 vols., vol. 1 containing a long introduction, and vol. 6, including a series of new tales from the Oxford MS. (There is a small paper edition; and also a large paper edition, the latter with frontispieces, and an Appendix including a table of the tales contained in the MS.) It had originally been Scott's intention to retranslate the MS.; but he appears to have found it beyond his powers. He therefore contented himself with re-editing Galland, altering little except the spelling of the names, and saying that Galland's version is in the main so correct that it would be useless repetition to go over the work afresh. Although he says that he found many of the tales both immoral and puerile, he translated most of those near the beginning, and omitted much more (including several harmless and interesting tales, such as No. 152) towards the end of his MS. than near the beginning. The greater part of Scott's additional tales, published in vol. 6, are included in the composite French and German editions of Gauttier and Habicht; but, except Nos. 208, 209, and 215, republished in my "New Arabian Nights," they have not been reprinted in England, being omitted in all the many popular versions which are professedly based upon Scott, even in the edition in 4 vols., published in 1882, which reprints Scott's Preface.
The edition of 1882 was published about the same time as one of the latest reissues of Lane's Thousand and One Nights; and the Saturday Review of Nov. 4, 1882 (p. 609), published an article on the Arabian Nights, containing the following amusing passage: "Then Jonathan Scott, LL.D. Oxon, assures the world that he intended to retranslate the tales given by Galland; but he found Galland so adequate on the whole that he gave up the idea, and now reprints Galland, with etchings by M. Lalauze, giving a French view of Arab life. Why Jonathan Scott, LL.D., should have thought to better Galland, while Mr. Lane's version is in existence, and has just been reprinted, it is impossible to say."
The most interesting of Scott's additional tales, with reference to ordinary editions of The Nights, are as follows:--
No. 204b is a variant of No. 37.
No. 204c is a variant of 3e, in which the wife, instead of the husband, acts the part of a jealous tyrant. (Compare Cazotte's story of Halechalbe.)
No. 204e. Here we have a reference to the Nesnas, which only appears once in the ordinary versions of The Nights (No. 132b; Burton, v., p. 333).
No. 206b. is a variant of No. 156.
No. 207c. This relates to a bird similar to that in the Jealous Sisters (No. 198), and includes a variant of 3ba.
No. 207h. Another story of enchanted birds. The prince who seeks them encounters an "Oone" under similar circumstances to those under which Princess Parizade (No. 198) encounters the old durwesh. The description is hardly that of a Marid, with which I imagine the Ons are wrongly identified.
No. 208 contains the nucleus of the famous story of Aladdin (No. 193).
No. 209 is similar to No. 162; but we have again the well incident of No. 3ba, and the exposure of the children as in No. 198.
No. 215. Very similar to Hasan of Bassorah (No. 155). As Sir R. F. Burton (vol. viii., p. 60, note) has called in question my identification of the Islands of WakWak with the Aru Islands near New Guinea, I will quote here the passages from Mr. A. R. Wallace's Malay Archipelago (chap. 31) on which I based it:--"The trees frequented by the birds are very lofty. . . . . One day I got under a tree where a number of the Great Paradise birds were assembled, but they were high up in the thickest of the foliage, and flying and jumping about so continually that I could get no good view of them. . . . . Their voice is most extraordinary. At early morn, before the sun has risen, we hear a loud cry of 'Wawk--wawk--wawk, w k--w k--w k,' which resounds through the forest, changing its direction continually. This is the Great Bird of Paradise going to seek his breakfast. . . . . The birds had now commenced what the people here call 'sacaleli,' or dancing-parties, in certain trees in the forest, which are not fruit-trees as I at first imagined, but which have an immense head of spreading branches and large but scattered leaves, giving a clear space for the birds to play and exhibit their plumes. On one of these trees a dozen or twenty full-plumaged male birds assemble together, raise up their wings, stretch out their necks, and elevate their exquisite plumes, keeping them in a continual vibration. Between whiles they fly across from branch to branch in great excitement, so that the whole tree is filled with waving plumes in every variety of attitude and motion."
No. 216bc appears to be nearly the same as No. 42.
No. 225 is a variant of No. 135q.
The only approximately complete original German translation is "Tausend und eine Nacht. Arabische Erzaehlungen. Zum Erstenmale aus dem Urtexte vollstaendig und treu uebersetzt von Dr. Gustav Weil," four vols., Stuttgart. The first edition was in roy. 8vo, and was published at Stuttgart and Pforzheim in 1839-1842; the last volume I have not seen; it is wanting in the copy in the British Museum. This edition is divided into Nights, and includes No. 25b. In the later editions, which are in small square 8vo, but profusely illustrated, like the larger one, this story is omitted (except No. 135m, which the French editors include with it), though Galland's doubtful stories are retained; and there is no division into Nights. The work has been reprinted several times, and the edition quoted in our Table is described as "Zweiter Abdruck der dritten vollstandig umgearbeiteten, mit Anmerkungen und mit einer Einleitung versehenen Auflage" (1872).
Weil has not stated from what sources he drew his work, except that No. 201 is taken from a MS. in the Ducal Library at Gotha. This is unfortunate, as his version of the great transformation scene in No. 3b (Burton, vol. i., pp. 134, 135), agrees more closely with Galland than with any other original version. In other passages, as when speaking of the punishment of Aziz (No. 9a, aa), Weil seems to have borrowed an expression from Lane, who writes "a cruel wound;" Weil saying "a severe (schwere) wound."
Whereas Weil gives the only German version known to me of No. 9 (though considerably abridged) he omits many tales contained in Zinserling and Habicht, but whether because his own work was already too bulky, or because his original MSS. did not contain them, I do not know; probably the first supposition is correct, for in any case it was open to him to have translated them from the printed texts, to which he refers in his Preface.
Two important stories (Nos. 200 and 201) are not found in any other version; but as they are translated in my "New Arabian Nights," I need not discuss them here. I will, however, quote a passage from the story of Judar and Mahmood, which I omitted because it is not required by the context, and because I thought it a little out of place in a book published in a juvenile series. It is interesting from its analogy to the story of Semele.
When King Kashuk (a Jinni) is about to marry the daughter of King Shamkoor, we read (New Arabian Nights, p. 182), "Shamkoor immediately summoned my father, and said, 'Take my daughter, for you have won her heart.' He immediately provided an outfit for his daughter, and when it was completed, my father and his bride rode away on horseback, while the trousseau of the Princess followed on three hundred camels." The passage proceeds (the narrator being Daruma, the offspring of the marriage), "When my father had returned home, and was desirous of celebrating his marriage Kandarin (his Wazir) said to him, 'Your wife will be destroyed if you touch her, for you are created of fire, and she is created of earth, which the fire devours. You will then bewail her death when it is too late. To-morrow,' continued he, 'I will bring you an ointment with which you must rub both her and yourself; and you may then live long and happily together.' On the following day he brought him a white ointment, and my father anointed himself and his bride with it, and consummated his marriage without danger."
I may add that this is the only omission of the smallest consequence in my rendering of either story.
I have heard from more than one source that a complete German translation of The Nights was published, and suppressed; but I have not been able to discover the name of the author, the date, or any other particulars relating to the subject.
Several complete copies of The Nights were obtained by Europeans about the close of the last or the beginning of the present century; and one of these (in 4 vols.) fell into the bands of the great German Orientalist, Joseph von Hammer. This MS. agrees closely with the printed Bul. and Mac. texts, as well as with Dr. Clarke's MS., though the names of the tales sometimes vary a little. One story, "The two Wazirs," given in Von Hammer's list as inedited, no doubt by an oversight, is evidently No. 7, which bears a similar title in Torrens. One title, "Al Kavi," a story which Von Hammer says was published in "Mag. Encycl.," and in English (probably by Scott in Ouseley's Oriental Collections, vide antea p. 491) puzzled me for some time; but from its position, and the title I think I have identified it as No. 145, and have entered it as such. No. 9a in this as well as in several other MSS., bears the title of the Two Lovers, or of the Lover and the Beloved.
Von Hammer made a French translation of the unpublished tales, which he lent to Caussin de Perceval, who extracted from it four tales only (Nos. 21a, 22, 32 and 37), and only acknowledged his obligations in a general way to a distinguished Orientalist, whose name he pointedly suppressed. Von Hammer, naturally indignant, reclaimed his MS., and had it translated into German by Zinserling. He then sent the French MS. to De Sacy, in whose hands it remained for some time, although he does not appear to have made any use of it, when it was despatched to England for publication; but the courier lost it on the journey, and it was never recovered.
Zinserling's translation was published under the title, "Der Tausend und einen Nacht noch nicht uebersetzte Maehrchen, Erzaehlungen und Anekdoten, zum erstenmale aus dem Arabischen in's Franzoesische uebersetzt von Joseph von Hammer, und aus dem Franzoesischen in's Deutsche von Aug. E. Zinserling, Professor." (3 vols., Stuttgart and Tuebingen, 1823.) The introductory matter is of considerable importance, and includes notices of 12 different MSS., and a list of contents of Von Hammer's MS. The tales begin with No. 23, Nos. 9-19 being omitted, because Von Hammer was informed that they were about to be published in France. (This possibly refers to Asselan Riche's "Scharkan," published in 1829.) The tales and anecdotes in this edition follow the order of The Nights. No. 163 is incomplete, Zinserling giving only the commencement; and two other tales (Nos. 132b and 168) are related in such a confused manner as to be unintelligible, the former from transposition (perhaps in the sheets of the original MS.) and the latter from errors and omissions. On the other hand, some of the tales (No. 137 for instance) are comparatively full and accurate.
A selection from the longer tales was published in English in 3 vols. in 1826, under the title of "New Arabian Nights Entertainments, selected from the original Oriental MS. by Jos. von Hammer, and now first translated into English by the Rev. George Lamb." I have only to remark that No. 132b is here detached from its connection with No. 132, and is given an independent existence.
A complete French re-translation of Zinserling's work, also in 3 vols., by G. S. Trebutien (Contes inedits des Mille et une Nuits), was published in Paris in 1828; but in this edition the long tales are placed first, and all the anecdotes are placed together last.
The various MSS. mentioned by Von Hammer are as follows:--
specially noticed as occurring in it.) This seems to be the same as a MS. subsequently mentioned by Von Hammer as consulted by Habicht.
6ee for his grammar.
These are noticed by Sir R. F. Burton in his "Foreword" (vol. i., pp. x-xii.) and consequently can be passed over with a brief mention here.
Torrens' edition (vol. 1) extends to the end of Night 50 (Burton, ii., p. 118).
Lane's translation originally appeared in monthly half-crown parts, from 1839 to 1841. It is obvious that he felt himself terribly restricted in space; for the third volume, although much thicker than the others, is not only almost destitute of notes towards the end, but the author is compelled to grasp at every excuse to omit tales, even excluding No. 168, which he himself considered "one of the most entertaining tales in the work" (chap. xxix., note 12), on account of its resemblance to Nos. 1b and 3d. Part of the matter in Lane's own earlier notes is apparently derived from No. 132a, which he probably did not at first intend to omit. Sir R. F. Burton has taken 5 vols. to cover the same ground which Lane has squeezed into his vol. 3. But it is only fair to Lane to remark that in such cases the publisher is usually far more to blame than the author.
In 1847 appeared a popular edition of Lane, entitled, "The Thousand and One Nights, or the Arabian Nights Entertainments, translated and arranged for family reading, with explanatory notes. Second edition." Here Galland's old spelling is restored, and the "explanatory notes," ostentatiously mentioned on the title page, are entirely omitted. This edition was in 3 vols. I have seen a copy dated 1850; and think I have heard of an issue in 1 vol.; and there is an American reprint in 2 vols. The English issue was ultimately withdrawn from circulation in consequence of Lane's protests. (Mr. S. L. Poole's Life of E. W. Lane, p. 95.) It contains the woodcut of the Flying Couch, which is wanting in the later editions of the genuine work; but not Galland's doubtful tales, as Poole asserts.
Several editions of the original work, edited by Messrs. E. S. and S. L. Poole, have appeared at intervals from 1859 to 1882. They differ little from the original edition except in their slightly smaller size.
The short tales included in Lane's notes were published separately as one of Knight's Weekly Volumes, in 1845, under the title of "Arabian Tales and Anecdotes, being a selection from the notes to the new translation of the Thousand and One Nights, by E. W. Lane, Esq."
Finally, in 1883, Mr. Stanley Lane Poole published a classified and arranged edition of Lane's notes under the title of "Arabian Society in the Middle Ages."
Mr. John Payne's version of the Mac. edition was issued in 9 vols. by the Villon Society to subscribers only. It appeared from 1882 to 1884, and only 500 copies were printed. Judging from the original prospectus, it seems to have been the author's intention to have completed the work in 8 vols., and to have devoted vol. 9 to Galland's doubtful tales; but as they are omitted, he must have found that the work ran to a greater length than he had anticipated, and that space failed him. He published some preliminary papers on the Nights in the New Quarterly Magazine for January and April, 1879.
Mr. Payne subsequently issued "Tales from the Arabic of the Breslau and Calcutta (1814-18) editions of the Thousand Nights and One Night, not occurring in the other printed texts of the work." (Three vols., London, 1884.) Of this work, issued, like the other, by the Villon Society, to subscribers only, 750 copies were printed, besides 50 on large paper. The third volume includes indices of all the tales in the four principal printed texts.
Finally we have Sir R. F. Burton's translation now in its entirety before his subscribers. It is restricted to 1,000 copies. (Why not 1,001?) The five supplementary vols. are to include tales wanting in the Mac. edition, but found in other texts (printed and MS.), while Lady Burton's popular edition will allow of the free circulation of Sir R. F. Burton's work among all classes of the reading public.
There are many volumes of selections derived from Galland, but these hardly require mention; the following may be noticed as derived from other sources:
1. Caliphs and Sultans, being tales omitted in the usual editions of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Re-written and re-arranged by Sylvanus Hanley, F. L. S., etc., London, 1868; 2nd edition 1870.
Consists of portions of tales chiefly selected from Scott, Lamb, Chavis and Cazotte, Trebutien and Lane; much abridged, and frequently strung together, as follows:--
Nos. 246, 41, 32 (including Nos. 111, 21a, and 89); 9a (including 9aa [which Hanley seems, by the way, to have borrowed from some version which I do not recognise], 22 and 248); 155, 156, 136, 162; Xailoun the Silly (from Cazotte); 132 and 132a; and 169 (including 134 and 135x).
2. Ilam-en-Nas. Historical tales and anecdotes of the time of the early Kalifahs. Translated from the Arabic and annotated by Mrs. Godfrey Clerk, author of "The Antipodes, and Round the World." London, 1873.
Many of these anecdotes, as is candidly admitted by the authoress in her Preface, are found with variations in the Nights, though not translated by her from this source.
3. The New Arabian Nights. Select tales not included by Galland or Lane. By W. F. Kirby, London, 1882.
Includes the following tales, slightly abridged, from Weil and Scott: Nos. 200, 201, 264, 215, 209, and 208.
Two editions have appeared in England, besides reprints in America and Australia.
Mr. W. A. Clouston (in litt.) calls attention to the version of this story by Addison in the "Spectator," No. 535, Nov. 13, 1712, after Galland. There is good reason to suppose that this is subsequent to the first English edition, which, however, Addison does not mention. There is also an English version in Faris' little Arabic Grammar (London, 1856), and likewise in Richardson's Arabic Grammar. The latter author extracted it from a MS. belonging to Sir W. Jones.
There are two Paris editions of the "Histoire de Chems-Eddine et de NourEddine," edited by Prof. Cherbonneau. The first (1852) contains text and notes, and the second (1869) includes text, vocabulary and translations.
An edition by Kasimiraki of "Enis' el-Djelis, ou histoire de la belle Persane," appeared in Paris in 1867. It includes text, translation and notes.
There is a French abridgment of this story entitled, "Scharkan, Conte Arabe, suivi de quelques anecdotes orientales; traduit par M. Asselan Riche, Membre de la Societe Asiatique de Paris" (Paris and Marseilles, 12mo, 1829, pp. 240). The seven anecdotes appended are as follows: (1) the well-known story of Omar's prisoner and the glass of water; (2) Elhedjadj and a young Arab; (3)=our No. 140; (4) Anecdote of Elhedjadj and a story-teller; (5)=our No. 86; (6) King Bahman and the Moubed's parable of the Owls; (7)=our No. 145.
This is the proper place to call attention to a work specially relating to this story, "Remarks on the Arabian Nights Entertainments; in which the origin of Sindbad's Voyages and other Oriental Fictions is particularly described. By Richard Hole, LL.D." (London, 1797, pp. iv. 259.)
It is an old book, but may still be consulted with advantage.
There are two important critical editions of No. 133, one in French and one in German.
1. Les Voyages de Sind-bad le marin et la ruse des Femmes. Contes arabes. Traduction litterale, accompagnee du Texte et des Notes. Par L. Langles (Paris, 1814).
The second story is our No. 184.
2. Die beiden Sindbad oder Reiseabenteuer Sindbads des Seefabrers. Nach einer zum ersten Male in Europa bedruckten Aegyptischen Handschrift unmittelbar und wortlich treu aus den Arabischen uebersetzt und mit erklaerenden Anmerkungen, nebst zwei sprachlichen Beilagen zum Gebrauch fuer abgehende Orientalisten herausgegeben von J. G. H. Reinsch (Breslau, 1826).
The literature of this cluster of tales would require a volume in itself, and I cannot do better than refer to Mr. W. A. Clouston's "Book of Sindibad" (8vo, Glasgow, 1884) for further information. This book, though privately printed and limited to 300 copies, is not uncommon.
An edition of this story, entitled "Histoire de Djouder le Pecheur," edited by Prof. Houdas, was published in the Bibliotheque Algerienne, at Algiers, in 1865. It includes text and vocabulary.
This collection of tales has also been frequently reprinted separately. It is the Arabic version of the Persian Bakhtyar Nameh, of which Mr. Clouston issued a privately-printed edition in 1883.
The following versions have come under my notice:--
1. Nouveaux Contes Arabes, ou Supplement aux Mille et une Nuits suivies de Melanges de Litterature orientale et de lettres, par l'Abbe * * * (Paris, 1788, pp. 425).
This work consists chiefly of a series of tales selected and adapted from the Ten Vazirs. "Written in Europe by a European, and its interest is found in the Terminal Essay, on the Mythologia Aesopica" (Burton in litt.).
2. Historien om de ti Vezirer og hoorledes det gik dem med Kong Azad Bachts Soen, oversat af Arabisk ved R. Rask (8vo, Kobenhavn, 1829).
3. Habicht, x. p. vi., refers to the following:--Historia decem Vezirorum et filii regis Azad-Bacht insertis XIII. aliis narrationibus, in usum tironum Cahirensem, edid. G. Knoes, Goettingen, 1807, 8vo.
He also states that Knoes published the commencement in 1805, in his "Disquisitio de fide Herodoti, quo perhibet Phoenices Africam navibus circumvectos esse cum recentiorum super hac re sententiis excussis.--Adnexurn est specimen sermonis Arabici vulgaris s. initium historiae filii regis Azad-Bacht e Codice inedito."
4. Contes Arabes. Histoire des dix Vizirs (Bakhtyar Nameh) Traduite et annotee par Rene Basset, Professeur A l'ecole superieure des lettres d'Algerie. Paris, 1883.
Chavis and Cazotte (antea pp. 471, 472) included a version of the Ten Vazirs in their work; and others are referred to in our Table of Tales.
Subsequently to the publication of Gauttier's edition of The Nights, Agoub republished his translation under the title of "Le sage Heycar, conte Arabe" (Paris, 1824).
A few tales published by Scott in Ouseley's Oriental Collections have already been noticed (antea, pp. 434, 435).
1. Les Mille et Un Jours. Contes Persanes.
"In imitation of the Arabian Nights, was composed a Persian collection entitled 'Hazar Yek Ruz or the Thousand and One Days,' of which Petis de la Croix published a French rendering [in 1710], which was done into English [by Dr. King, and published in 2 vols. (with the Turkish Tales=Forty Vezirs) as early as 1714; and subsequently] by Ambrose Phillips" (in 1738) (Clouston, in litt). Here, and occasionally elsewhere, I have quoted from some MSS. notes on The Nights by Mr. W. A. Clouston, which Sir R. F. Burton kindly permitted me to inspect. Mr. Clouston then quotes Cazotte's Preface (not in my edition of the Thousand and One Days), according to which the book was written by the celebrated Dervis Mocles (Mukhlis), chief of the Sofis (Sufis?) of lspahan, founded upon certain Indian comedies. Petis de la Croix was on friendly terms with Mukhlis, who allowed him to take a copy of his work in 1675, during his residence in Ispahan. (I find these statements confirmed in the Cabinet des Fees, xxxvii. pp. 266, 274, 278, and in Weber's "Tales of the East," i. pp. xxxvi., xxxxii.)
The framework of the story is the same as Nos. 9a and 152: a Princess, who conceives an aversion to men from dreaming of the self-devotion of a doe, and the indifference and selfishness of a stag. Mr. Clouston refers to Nakhshabi's Tuti Nama (No. 33 of Kaderi's abridgment, and 39 of India Office MS. 2,573 whence he thinks it probable that Mukhlis may have taken the tale.) But the tale itself is repeated over and over again in many Arabic, Persian, and Turkish collections; in fact, there are few of commoner occurrence.
The tales are told by the nurse in order to overcome the aversion of the Princess to men. They are as follows:
Introduction and Conclusion: Story of the Princess of Cashmir. 1. Story of Aboulcassem Bafry. 2. Story of King Ruzvanchad and the Princess Cheheristani.
3. Story of Couloufe and the Beautiful Dilara. 4. Story of Prince Calaf and the Princess of China.
5. Story of King Bedreddin-Lolo, and his Vazir Atalmulk,
6. Story of the Two Brother Genii, Adis and Dahy. 7. Story of Nasiraddole, King of Moussel, of Abderrahman,
8. Story of Repsima=No. 181r.
This work has many times been reprinted in France, where it holds a place only second to The Nights.
Sir R. F. Burton remarks, concerning the Persian and Turkish Tales of Petis de la Crois (the latter of which form part of the Forty Vazirs, No. 251), "Both are weak and servile imitations of Galland by an Orientalist who knew nothing of the East. In one passage in the story of Fadlallah, we read of 'Le Sacrifice du Mont Arafate,' which seems to have become a fixture in the European brain. I found the work easy writing and exceedingly hard reading."
The following tales require a passing notice:--
1. Story of Aboulcassem Bafry.--A story of concealed treasure; it has also some resemblance to No. 31.
2. Ruzvanchad and Cheheristani.--Cheheristani is a jinniyah, who is pursued by the King, under the form of a white doe; marries him, and becomes the mother of Balkis, the Queen of Sheba. She exacts a promise from him never to rebuke her for any of her actions: he breaks it, and she leaves him for a time.
2a. The Young King of Thibet.--Two imposters obtain magic rings by which they can assume the shapes of other persons.
2a, b. The Vazir Cavercha.--This is one of Scott's stories (No. 223 of our Table). It goes back at least as far as the Ring of Polycrates. It is the 8th Vezir's Story in Mr. Gibbs' Forty Vezirs (pp. 200-205).
4. Prince Calaf.--This story is well known, and is sometimes played as a comedy. The Princess Turandot puts riddles to her suitors, and beheads them if they fail to answer.
5b. Story of Prince Seyj-el-Molouk.--This story is perhaps an older version than that which appears in The Nights (No. 154a). It is placed long after the time of Solomon; Saad is devoured by ants (Weber (ii. p. 426) has substituted wild beasts!); and when Seyf enters the palace of Malika (=Daulet Khatoon), the jinni surprises them, and is overpowered by Seyf's ring. He then informs him of the death of Saad; and that Bedy al-Jernal was one of the mistresses of Solomon; and has also long been dead.
5b. Malek and Chirine.--Resembles No. 264; Malek passes himself off as the Prophet Mohammed; burns his box (not chair) with fireworks on his weddingday, and is thus prevented from ever returning to the Princess.
5f. Adventures of Aboulfawaris.--Romantic travels, resembling Nos. 132a and 133.
2. Antar.--This is the most famous of the Badawi romances. It resembles No. 137 in several particulars, but is destitute of supernaturalism. An English abridgment in 4 vols. was published in 1820; and the substance of vol. 1 had appeared, as a fragment, in the previous year, under the title of "Antar, a Bedoueen Romance translated from the Arabic by Terrick Hamilton, Esq., Oriental Secretary to the British Embassy at Constantinople." I have also seen vol. 1 of a French translation, published about 1862, and extending to the death of Shas.
Lane (Modern Egyptians, ch. 21-23) describes several other Arab romances, which have not yet been translated; viz. Aboo-Zeyd; Ez- Zahir, and Delhemeh.
3. GLAIVE-DES-COURONNES (Seif el-Tidjan) Roman traduit de l'Arabe. Par M. le Dr. Perron (Paris, 1862).
A romantic story of Arab chivalry, less overloaded with supernaturalism than No. 137; but more supernatural than Antar. The hero marries (among other wives) two jinniyahs of the posterity of Iblis. In ch. 21 we have an account of a magical city much resembling the City of Brass (No. 134) and defended by similar talismans.
4. MEHEMET THE KURD, and other tales, from Eastern sources, by Charles Wells, Turkish Prizeman of King's College, London, and Member of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1865).
The first story, taken from an Arabic MS., is a narrative of a handsome simpleminded man, with whom Princesses fall in love, and who is raised to a mighty throne by their enchantments. Some of the early incidents are not unlike those in the well-known German story of Lucky Hans (Hans im Glueck). In one place there is an enchanted garden, where Princesses disport themselves in feather- dresses (as in No. 155, &c.), and where magic apples grow. (Note that apples are always held in extraordinary estimation in The Nights, cf. Nos. 4 and 264.) Among the shorter stories we find No. 251h; a version of Nos. 9a and 152 (probably that referred to by Mr. Clouston as in the Tuti Nama); a story "The Prince Tailor," resembling No. 251; No. 256, and one or two other tales not connected with The Nights. (Most of Wells' shorter tales are evidently taken from the Forty Vezirs.)
5. RECUEIL DES CONTES POPULAIRES de la Kabylie du Djardjara, recueillis et traduits par J. Riviere (Paris, 1882). I have not seen this book; but it can hardly fail to illustrate The Nights.
6. THE STORY OF JEWAD, Romance by 'Ali 'Aziz Efendi the Cretan. Translated from the Turkish by E. J. W. Gibb, M.R.A.S., &c. (Glasgow, 1884).
A modern Turkish work, written in A. H. 1211 (1796-97). It contains the following tales:--
1. The Story of Eb -'Ali-Sin ;. 2. The Story of Monia Em n. 3. The Story of Ferah-N z, the daughter of the King of China.
4. The Story told by Jew d to Iklilu'l Mulk.
5. The Story of Qara Khan.
The following deserve notice from our present point of view:--
The Story of Jewad.--Here we have magical illusions, as in Nos. 247 and 251a. Such narratives are common in the East; Lane (Nights, ch. i., note 15) is inclined to attribute such illusions to the influence of drugs; but the narratives seem rather to point to so-called electro-biology, or the Scotch Glamour (such influences, as is notorious, acting far more strongly upon Orientals than upon Europeans).
2. The Story of Monia Em n corresponds to the Story of Naerdan and Guzulbec, in Caylus' Oriental Tales. A story of magical illusions.
3. The Story of Ferah N z.--Here again we have a variant of Nos. 9a and 152.
3a. Khoja 'Abdu-ltab.--This is a version of the Story of Aboulcassem in the Thousand and One Days.
4a. Sh b r and Hum .--The commencement of this story might have suggested to Southey the adventures of Thalaba and Oneida in the Gardens of Aloadin; the remainder appears to be taken from the Story of the young King of Thibet, in the Thousand and One Days.
5. Qara Khan.--The principal part of this story is borrowed from the First Voyage of Aboulfawaris in the Thousand and One Days; it has some resemblance to the story of the Mountain of Loadstone in No. 3c.
7. FRUeCHTE DES ASIATISCHEN GEIST, von A. T. Hartmann. 2 vols., 12mo (Muenster) 1803. A collection of anecdotes, &c., from various Eastern sources, Arabic, Indian, &c. I think it not impossible that this may be the work referred to by Von Hammer in the preface to Zinserling's "1001 Nacht" (p. xxvii. note) as "Asiatische Perleuschnur von Hartmann." At least I have not yet met with any work to which the scanty indication would apply better.
8. TUTI-NAMA. I could hardly pass over the famous Persian and Turkish "Parrot-Book" quite without notice; but its tales have rarely any direct connection with those in The Nights, and I have not attempted to go into its very extensive bibliography.
DR. CLARKE'S M.S.
Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke has given an account of an important MS. nearly agreeing with Bul. and Mac., which he purchased in Egypt, in his "Travels in various countries of Europe, Asia and Africa." Part ii. Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Section i. (1812) App. iii., pp. 701-704. Unfortunately, this MS. was afterwards so damaged by water during a shipwreck that it was rendered totally illegible. The list of tales (as will be seen by the numbers in brackets, which correspond to our Table, as far as the identifications are safe) will show the approximate contents of the MS., but the list (which is translated into German by Habicht in the preface to his vol. 12) was evidently compiled carelessly by a person nearly ignorant of Arabic, perhaps with the aid of an interpreter, Maltese, or other, and seems to abound with the most absurd mistakes. The full text of Clarke's App. iii. is as follows: "List of One Hundred and Seventy-two Tales, contained in a manuscript copy of the 'Alif Lila va Lilin,' or 'Arabian Nights,' as it was procured by the Author in Egypt."
N.B.--The Arabic words mentioned in this list are given as they appeared to be pronounced in English characters, and of course, therefore, adapted to English pronunciation.
The number of tales amounts to 172, but one tale is supposed to occupy many nights in the recital, so that the whole number is divided into "One Thousand and One Nights." It rarely happens that any two copies of the Alif Lila va Lilin resemble each other. This title is bestowed upon any collection of Eastern tales divided into the same number of parts. The compilation depends upon the taste, the caprice, and the opportunities of the scribe, or the commands of his employer. Certain popular stories are common to almost all copies of the Arabian Nights, but almost every collection contains some tales which are not found in every other. Much depends upon the locality of the scribe. The popular stories of Egypt will be found to differ materially from those of Constantinople. A nephew of the late Wortley Montague, living in Rosetta, had a copy of the Arabian Nights, and upon comparing the two manuscripts it appeared that out of the 172 tales here enumerated only 37 were found in his manuscript. In order to mark, therefore, the stories which were common to the two manuscripts, an asterisk has been prefixed to the thirty-seven tales which appeared in both copies.
The success of Galland's work led to the appearance of numerous works more or less resembling it, chiefly in England and France. Similar imitations, though now less numerous, have continued to appear down to the present day.
The most important of the older works of this class were published in French in the "Cabinet des Fees" (Amsterdam and Geneva, 1785-1793; 41 vols.); in English in "Tales of the East: comprising the most popular Romances of Oriental origin, and the best imitations by European authors, with new translations and additional tales never before published, to which is prefixed an introductory dissertation, containing an account of each work and of its author or translator. By Henry Weber, Esq." (Edinburgh, 1812, 3 vols.); and in German in "Tausand und ein Tag. Morgenlaendische Erzaehlungen aus dem Persisch, Turkisch und Arabisch, nach Petis de la Croix, Galland, Cardonne, Chavis und Cazotte, dem Grafen Caylus, und Anderer. Uebersetzt von F. H. von der Hagen" (Prenzlau, 1827-1837, 11 vols.). In the "Cabinet des Fees" I find a reference to an older collection of tales (partly Oriental) called the "Bibliotheque des Fees et des Genies," by the Abbe de la Porte, which I have not seen, but which is, in part, incorporated in the "Cabinet." It formed only 2 vols. 12mo, and was published in 1765.
The examination of these tales is difficult, for they comprise several classes, not always clearly defined:--
1. Satires on The Nights themselves (e.g. the Tales of the
2. Satires in an Oriental garb (e.g. Beckford's Vathek). 3. Moral tales in an Oriental garb (e.g. Mrs. Sheridan's
4. Fantastic tales with nothing Oriental about them but the
5. Imitations pure and simple (e.g. G. Meredith's Shaving of
6. Imitations more or less founded on genuine Oriental sources
7. Genuine Oriental Tales (e.g. Mille et une Jours, translated
Most of the tales belonging to Class 7 and some of those belonging to Class 6 have been treated of in previous sections. The remaining tales and imitations will generally need only a very brief notice; sometimes only the title and the indication of the class to which they belong. We will begin with an enumeration of the Oriental contents of the Cabinet des Fees, adding W. i., ii. and iii. to show which are included in Weber's "Tales of the East":--
7-11. 1001 Nuits (W. 1). 12, 13. Les Aventures d'Abdalla (W. iii). 14, 15. 1001 Jours (Persian tales, W. ii.). 16. Histoire de la
16. Les Voyages de Zulma dans le pays des Fees. 17, 18. Contes de Bidpai. 19. Contes Chinois, on les Aventures merveilleuses du Mandarin
22, 23. Les Sultanes de Guzerath, ou les Songes des hommes eveilles. Contes Moguls (W. iii.). 25. Nouveaux Contes Orientaux, par le Comte de Caylus (W. ii.). 29, 30. Les Contes des Genies (W. iii.). 30. Les Aventures de Zelouide et d'Amanzarifdine. 30. Contes Indiens par M. de Moncrif. 33. Nourjahad (W. ii.). 34. Contes de M. Pajon. 38-41. Les Veillees du Sultan Schahriar, &c. (Chavis and Cazotte; cf. antea, p. 419; W. i. ii.).
(Weber also includes, in his vol. ii. Nos. 21a, 22, 32 and 37, after Caussin de Perceval.)
12, 13. The Adventures of Abdallah, the Son of Hanif (Class 5 or 6).
Originally published in 1713; attributed to M. de Bignon, a young Abbe. A series of romantic travels, in which Eastern and Western fiction is mixed; for instance, we have the story of the Nose- tree, which so far as I know has nothing Oriental about it.
16. The Voyages of Zulma in Fairy Land (Class 4).
European fairy tales, with nothing Oriental about them but the names of persons and places. The work is unfinished.
17, 18. The Tales of Bidpai (translated by Galland) are Indian,
19-23. Chinese, Tartarian and Mogul Tales (Class 6).
Published in 1723, and later by Thomas Simon Gueulette.
Concerning these tales, Mr. Clouston remarks (in litt.): "Much of the groundwork of these clever imitations of the Arabian Nights has been, directly or indirectly, derived from Eastern sources; for instance, in the so-called Tartar tales, the adventures of the Young Calender find parallels, (1) in the well-known Bidpai tale of the Brahman, the Sharpers and the Goat (Kalila and Dimna, Panchatantra, Hitopadesa, &c.) and (2) in the worldwide story of the Farmer who outwitted the Six Men (Indian Antiquary, vol. 3) of which there are many versions current in Europe, such as the Norse tale of Big Peter and Little Peter, the Danish tale of Great Claus and Little Claus; the German tale (Grimm) of the Little Farmer; the Irish tale of Little Fairly (Samuel Lover's collection of Irish Fairy Legends and Stories); four Gaelic versions in Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands; a Kaba'il version in Riviere's French collection (Contes populaires Kabylies); Uncle Capriano in Crane's recently published Italian Popular Tales; and a Latin mediaeval version (written probably in the I **1th century) in which the hero is called 'Unibos,' because he had only one cow."
25. Oriental Tales (Class 6).
Mr. Clouston observes, "Appeared in 1749,[FN#472] and on the title page are said to have been translated from MSS. in the Royal French Library. The stories are, however, largely the composition of De Caylus himself, and those elements of them which are traceable to Asiatic sources have been considerably Frenchified."
Nevertheless they are not without interest, and are nearly all of obviously Oriental origin. One of the stories is a fantastic account of the Birth of Mahomet, including romantic travels largely borrowed from No. 132a. Another story is a version of that of the Seven Sleepers. Other noteworthy tales are the story of the Dervish Abounader, which resembles Nos. 193 and 216d; and the story of Naerdan and Guzulbec, which is a tale of magical illusions similar to that of Monia Emin, in the Turkish story of Jewad.
The Count de Caylus was the author of various European as well as Oriental fairy tales. Of his Oriental collection, Sir R. F. Burton remarks:--"The stories are not Eastern but Western fairy tales proper, with kings and queens, giants and dwarfs, and fairies, good and bad. 'Barbets' act as body guard and army. Written in good old style, and free language, such as, for instance, son petenlaire, with here and there a touch of salt humour, as in Rosanie 'Charmante reine (car on n'a jamais parle autrement a une reine, quel que laide qu'elle ait ete).'"
29, 30. Tales of the Genii (Class 3).
Written in the middle of the last century by Rev. James Ridley, but purporting to be translated from the Persian of Horam, the son of Asmar, by Sir Charles Morell.
These tales have been reprinted many times; but it is very doubtful if they are based on any genuine Oriental sources. The amount of Oriental colouring may be guessed from the story of Urad, who having consented to become the bride of a Sultan on condition that he should dismiss all his concubines, and make her his sole queen (like Harald Harfagr on his marriage with Ragnhilda), is presented to his loving subjects as their Sultana!
32. Adventures of Zeloide and Amanzarifdine. Indian Tales, by M.
33. Nourjahad, by Mrs. Sheridan (Class 3).
An unworthy favourite is reformed by a course of practical moral lessons conveyed by the Sultan through supposed supernatural agencies. Mr. Clouston regards it as "one of the very best of the imitations of Eastern fiction. The plot is ingeniously conceived and well wrought out, and the interest never flags throughout."
34. Pajon's Oriental Tales (Class 5). These demand no special
In addition to the above, the following Oriental works are mentioned in the Cabinet des Fees, but not reprinted:
vols. 1770.)
chevalier de Duclos.
Fauques) 1752.
Graffigny.
Malfontaine (Mercure, 1773).
persan, par Mme. Mouet.
Mme. de Mortemar.
Poupeliniere (1761).
(1760).
Roi, 2 vols. 12mo (1749).
This is the same as the Count de Caylus' Oriental Tales. Sir R. F. Burton has received the following memorandum, respecting a copy of an earlier edition of the same work: "Contes Orientaux, tires des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque du Roy de France, ornes de figures en taille douce. A la Haye, 1743, 2 vols. 12mo, polished calf gilt, gilt edges, arms in gilt on the sides.
"The Preface says, 'M. Petit et M. Galland n'ont en aucune connaissance des manuscrits dont cet ouvrage est tire.'
"The Tales are from the MSS. and translations sent by those despatched by the French Ministers to Constantinople to learn Arabic, &c., and so become fit to act as Dragomans and Interpreters to the French Embassy."
There is a copy of this work in the British Museum; it proves, as I expected, to be the series of tales subsequently attributed to the Count de Caylus.
In addition to the above, the following, of which I can only give the names, are mentioned in the Cabinet des Fees, but not reprinted:--
The remaining imitations, &c., known to me I shall place roughly in chronological order, premising that I fear the list must be very incomplete, and that I have met with very few except in English and French.
1. Zadig, ou la Destinee, par Voltaire[FN#473] probably partakes of classes 2 and 6; said to be partly based on Gueulette's "Soirees Bretonnes," published in 1712. The latter is included in Cabinet des Fees, Vol. 32.
2. Vathek, an Arabian Tale, by William Beckford. I include this book here because it was written and first published in French. Its popularity was once very great, and it contains some effective passages, though it belongs to Class 2, and is rather a parody than an imitation of Oriental fiction. The Caliph Vathek, after committing many crimes at the instance of his mother, the witch Carathis, in order to propitiate Eblis, finally starts on an expedition to Istakar. On the way, he seduces Nouronihar, the beautiful daughter of the Emir Fakreddin, and carries her with him to the Palace of Eblis, where they am condemned to wander eternally, with their hearts surrounded with flames.
This idea (which is certainly not Oriental, so far as I know) took the fancy of Byron, who was a great admirer of Vathek, and he has mixed it with genuine Oriental features in a powerful passage in the Giaour, beginning:
How errors relative to Eastern matters are perpetuated is illustrated by the fact that I have seen these lines quoted in some modern philosophical work as descriptive of the hell in which the Mohammedans believe!
Southey, in Thalaba, b. 1., speaks of the Sarsar, "the Icy Wind of Death," an expression which he probably borrowed from Vathek.
3. The Count of Hamilton's Fairy Tales. Written shortly after
4. Les Mille et un Fadaises, par Cazotte. Class 1. I have not
5. La Mille et deuxieme Nuit, par Theophilus Gautier (Paris,
1. The Vision of Mirza (Addison in the "Spectator"). Class 3.
2. The Story of Amurath. Class 3. I do not know the author. I read it in a juvenile book published about the end of last century, entitled the Pleasing Instructor.
3. The Persian Tales of Inatulla of Delhi. Published in 1768, by Colonel Alexander Dow at Edinburgh. A French translation appeared at Amsterdam in two vols. and in Paris in one vol. (1769). Class 6. Chiefly founded on a wellknown Persian work, of which a more correct, though still incomplete, version was published in 3 vols. by Jonathan Scott in 1799, under the title of Bahar Danush, or Garden of Knowledge.
5. Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson. Class 3. Too well known to need
6. Almoran and Hamet, by Dr. Hawksworth. Class 3. Very popular at the beginning of the present century, but now forgotten.
7. Oriental Fairy Tales (London, 1853). Class 4. A series of very pretty fairy tales, by an anonymous author, in which the scene is laid in the East (especially Egypt).
8. The Shaving of Shagpat, by George Meredith (London, 1855). Class 5. I prefer this to most other imitations of an Oriental tale.
9. The Thousand and One Humbugs. Classes 1 and 2. Published in "Household Words," vol. xi. (1855) pp. 265-267, 289-292, 313-316. Parodies on Nos. 1, 195, 6d, and 6e,f.
10. Eastern Tales, by many story-tellers. Compiled and edited from ancient and modern authors by Mrs. Valentine, author of "Sea Fights and Land Battles," &c. (Chandos Classics.)
In her preface, the authoress states that the tales "are gathered from both ancient and modern French, Italian and English sources."
Contains 14 tales, some genuine, others imitations, One, "Alischar and Smaragdine," is a genuine story of The Nights (No. 41 of our Table), and is probably taken from Trebutien. Three tales, "Jalaladeen," "Haschem," and "Jussuf," are Grimm's imitations, taken probably from the composite English edition of 1847, and with the same illustrations. "The Seven Sleepers" and the "Four Talismans" are from the Count de Caylus' tales; "Halechalbe" and "Bohetzad" (our No. 174) are from Chavis and Cazotte; "The Enchanters" and "Urad" are from the "Tales of the Genii"; and "The Pantofles" is the well-known story of the miser Casem and his slippers, but I know not where it first appeared. The remaining three tales are unknown to me, and as I have seen no volume of Italian Oriental tales, some, no doubt, are derived from the Italian sources of which the authoress spoke. They are the following: "The Prince and the Lions," "The City of the Demons" (a Jewish story purporting to have been written in England) and "Sadik Beg."
11. New Arabian Nights, by R. L. Stevenson (London, 1882).
12. More New Arabian Nights. The Dynamiter. By R. L. Stevenson
Of these tales, Sir R. F. Burton observes, "The only visible connection with the old Nights is in the habit of seeking adventures under a disguise. The method is to make the main idea possible and the details extravagant. In another 'New Arabian Nights,' the joint production of MM. Brookfield, Besant and Pollock, the reverse treatment is affected, the leading idea being grotesque and impossible, and the details accurate and lifelike."
It is quite possible that there are many imitations in German, but I have not met with them. I can only mention one or two tales by Hauff (the Caliph turned Stork, and the Adventures of Said); a story called "Ali and Gulhindi," by what author I do not now remember; and some imitations said to be by Grimm, already mentioned in reference to the English composite edition of 1847. They are all European fairy tales, in an Eastern dress.
Among books specially interesting to the student of The Nights, I may mention Weil's "Biblische Legenden der Muselmaenner, aus arabischen Quellen zusammengetragen, und mit juedischen Sagen verglichen" (Frankfort-on-Main, 1845). An anonymous English translation appeared in 1846 under the title of "The Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud," and it also formed one of the sources from which the Rev. S. Baring-Gould compiled his "Legends of Old Testament Characters" (2 vols., 1871). The late Prof. Palmer's "Life of Haroun Al-Raschid" (London, 1881), is not much more than a brief popular sketch. The references to The Nights in English and other European literatures are innumerable; but I cannot refrain from quoting Mark Twain's identification of Henry the Eighth with Shahryar (Huckleberry Finn, chap. xxiii).
"My, you ought to have seen old Henry the Eighth when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. "Fetch up Nell Gwynn," he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, "Chop off her head." And they chop it off. "Fetch up Jane Shore," he says; and up she comes. Next morning, "Chop off her head." And they chop it off. "Ring up Fair Rosamun." Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, "Chop off her head." And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night, and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book--which was a good name, and stated the case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them, and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry, he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he do it--give notice?--give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbour overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his style--he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do?--ask him to show up? No--drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. Spose people left money laying around where he was--what did he do? He collared it. Spose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didnt set down there and see that he done it--what did he do? He always done the other thing. Spose he opened his mouth--what then? If he didnt shut it up powerful quick, he'd lose a lie, every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was."
COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE TALES IN THE PRINCIPAL
10. Lamb. 11. Trebutien. 12. Bul. text. 13. Lane. 14. Bres. text. 15. Habicht. 16. Weil. 17. Mac. text. 18. Torrens. 19. Payne. 20. Payne's Tales from the Arabic (marked I. II. III.) 21. Calc. 22. Burton.
As nearly all editions of The Nights are in several volumes, the volumes are indicated throughout, except in the case of some of the texts. Only those tales in No. 5, not included in No. 4, are here indicated in the same column. All tales which there is good reason to believe do not belong to the genuine Nights are marked with an asterisk.
The blank column may be used to enter the contents of some other edition.
* 191. History of Prince Zeyn Alasnam . . . . . | 8 | 5 | 4 |...| 4 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...| 6 | 3 |...|...|...|...|...|...
* 192. History of Codadad and his Brothers . . . | 8 | 5 | 4 |...| 4 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...| 6 | 3 |...|...|...|...|...|...
"194. Adventures of the Caliph Harun Al-Rashid . . | 10| 6 | 5 |...| 5 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...| 8 | 3 |...|...|...|...|...|...
* 195. Story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves . . | 11| 6 | 5 |...| 5 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...| 9 | 3 |...|...|...|...|...|...
* 196. Story of Ali Cogia, a Merchant of Baghdad . . | 11| 7 | 5 |...| 5 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...| 9 | 3 |...|...|...|...|...|...
* 197. Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peri Banou . | 12| 7 | 5 |...| 5 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...| 9 | 3 |...|...|...|...|...|...
* 198. Story of the Sisters who envied their younger
* 246. New Adventures of the Caliph Harun Al-Rashid . |...| 8 | 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|12 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 247. The Physician and the young Purveyor of Bagdad . |...| 8 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|13 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 248. The Wise Heycar . . . . . . . . |...| 8 | 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|13 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 249. Attaf the Generous . . . . . . . . |...| 9 | 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|13 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 250. Prince Habib and Dorrat-al-Gawas . . . . |...| 9 | 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|12 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 251. The Forty Wazirs . . . . . . . . |...|...| 1 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...| 1 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 252. Story of the King and Queen of Abyssinia . . |...|...| 6 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|10 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 253. Story of Princes Amina . . . . . . . |...|...| 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|12 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 254. Story of Ali Johari . . . . . . . |...|...| 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|12 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 255. Story of the two Princes of Cochin China . . |...|...| 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|12 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 256. Story of the two Husbands . . . . . . |...|...| 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|12 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 257. Story of Yusuf and the Indian Merchant . . . |...|...| 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|12 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 258. Story of Prince Benazir . . . . . . |...|...| 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|12 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
* 259. Story of Selim, Sultan of Egypt . . . . |...|...| 7 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|...|13 |...|...|...|...|...|...|...
N.B.--In using this Table, some allowance must be made for differences in the titles of many of the tales in different editions. For the contents of the printed text, I have followed the lists in Mr. Payne's "Tales from the Arabic," vol. iii.
And here I end this long volume with repeating in other words and other tongue what was said in "L'Envoi":--
After which I have only to make my bow and to say
[FN#1] Arab. "Zarabin" (pl. of zarbun), lit. slaves' shoes or sandals (see vol. iii. p. 336) the chaussure worn by Mamelukes. Here the word is used in its modern sense of stout shoes or walking boots.
[FN#2] The popular word means goodness, etc.
[FN#3] Dozy translates "'Urrah"=Une Megere: Lane terms it a "vulgar word signifying a wicked, mischievous shrew." But it is the fem. form of 'Urr=dung; not a bad name for a daughter of Billingsgate.
[FN#4] i.e. black like the book of her actions which would be shown to her on Doomsday.
[FN#5] The "Kunafah" (vermicelli-cake) is a favourite dish of wheaten flour, worked somewhat finer than our vermicelli, fried with samn (butter melted and clarified) and sweetened with honey or sugar. See vol. v. 300.
[FN#6] i.e. Will send us aid. The Shrew's rejoinder is highly impious in Moslem opinion.
[FN#7] Arab. Asal Katr; "a fine kind of black honey, treacle" says Lane; but it is afterwards called cane-honey ('Asal Kasab). I have never heard it applied to "the syrup which exudes from ripe dates, when hung up."
[FN#8] Arab. "'Aysh," lit.=that on which man lives: "Khubz" being the more popular term. "Hubz and Joobn" is well known at Malta.
[FN#9] Insinuating that he had better make peace with his wife by knowing her carnally. It suggests the story of the Irishman who brought over to the holy Catholic Church three several Protestant wives, but failed with the fourth on account of the decline of his "Convarter."
[FN#10] Arab. "Asal Kasab," i.e. Sugar, possibly made from sorgho-stalks Holcus sorghum of which I made syrup in Central Africa.
[FN#11] For this unpleasant euphemy see vol. iv. 215.
[FN#12] This is a true picture of the leniency with which women were treated in the Kazi's court at Cairo; and the effect was simply deplorable. I have noted that matters have grown even worse since the English occupation, for history repeats herself; and the same was the case in Afghanistan and in Sind. We govern too much in these matters, which should be directed not changed, and too little in other things, especially in exacting respect for the conquerors from the conquered.
[FN#13] Arab. "Bab al-'Ali"=the high gate or Sublime Porte; here used of the Chief Kazi's court: the phrase is a descendant of the Coptic "Per-ao" whence "Pharaoh."
[FN#14] "Abu Tabak," in Cairene slang, is an officer who arrests by order of the Kazi and means "Father of whipping" (=tabaka, a low word for beating, thrashing, whopping) because he does his duty with all possible violence in terrorem.
[FN#15] Bab al-Nasr the Eastern or Desert Gate: see vol. vi. 234.
[FN#16] This is a mosque outside the great gate built by Al-Malik al-'Adil Tuman Bey in A.H. 906 (=1501). The date is not worthy of much remark for these names are often inserted by the scribe--for which see Terminal Essay.
[FN#17] Arab. "'Amir" lit.=one who inhabiteth, a peopler; here used in technical sense. As has been seen, ruins and impure places such as privies and Hammam-baths are the favourite homes of the Jinn. The fire-drake in the text was summoned by the Cobbler's exclamation and even Marids at times do a kindly action.
[FN#18] The style is modern Cairene jargon.
[FN#19] Purses or gold pieces see vol. ix. 313.
[FN#20] i.e. I am a Cairene.
[FN#21] Arab. "Darb al-Ahmar," a street still existing near to and outside the noble Bab Zuwaylah, for which see vol. i. 269.
[FN#22] Arab. "'Attar," perfume-seller and druggist; the word is connected with our "Ottar" ('Atr).
[FN#23] Arab. "Mudarris" lit.=one who gives lessons or lectures (dars) and pop. applied to a professor in a collegiate mosque like Al-Azhar of Cairo.
[FN#24] This thoroughly dramatic scene is told with a charming naivete. No wonder that The Nights has been made the basis of a national theatre amongst the Turks.
[FN#25] Arab. "Taysh" lit.=vertigo, swimming of head.
[FN#26] Here Trebutien (iii. 265) reads "la ville de Khaitan (so the Mac. Edit. iv. 708) capital du royaume de Sohatan." Ikhtiyan Lane suggests to be fictitious: Khatan is a district of Tartary east of Kashgar, so called by Sadik al-Isfahani p. 24.
[FN#27] This is a true picture of the tact and savoir faire of the Cairenes. It was a study to see how, under the late Khedive they managed to take precedence of Europeans who found themselves in the background before they knew it. For instance, every Bey, whose degree is that of a Colonel was made an "Excellency" and ranked accordingly at Court whilst his father, some poor Fellah, was ploughing the ground. Tanfik Pasha began his ill-omened rule by always placing natives close to him in the place of honour, addressing them first and otherwise snubbing Europeans who, when English, were often too obtuse to notice the petty insults lavished upon them.
[FN#28] Arab. "Kathir" (pron. Katir)=much: here used in its slang sense, "no end."
[FN#29] i.e. "May the Lord soon make thee able to repay me; but meanwhile I give it to thee for thy own free use."
[FN#30] Punning upon his name. Much might be written upon the significance of names as ominous of good and evil; but the subject is far too extensive for a footnote.
[FN#31] Lane translates "Anisa-kum" by "he hath delighted you by his arrival"; Mr. Payne "I commend him to you."
[FN#32] Arab. "Faturat,"=light food for the early breakfast of which the "Fatirah"-cake was a favourite item. See vol. i. 300.
[FN#33] A dark red dye (Lane).
[FN#34] Arab. "Jadid," see vol. viii. 121.
[FN#35] Both the texts read thus, but the reading has little sense. Ma'aruf probably would say, "I fear that my loads will be long coming."
[FN#36] One of the many formulas of polite refusal.
[FN#37] Each bazar, in a large city like Damascus, has its tall and heavy wooden doors which are locked every evening and opened in the morning by the Ghafir or guard. The "silver key," however, always lets one in.
[FN#38] Arab. "Wa la Kabbata hamiyah," a Cairene vulgarism meaning, "There came nothing to profit him nor to rid the people of him."
[FN#39] Arab. "Kammir," i.e. brown it before the fire, toast it.
[FN#40] It is insinuated that he had lied till he himself believed the lie to be truth--not an uncommon process, I may remark.
[FN#41] Arab. "Rijal"=the Men, equivalent to the Walis, Saints or Santons; with perhaps an allusion to the Rijal al-Ghayb, the Invisible Controls concerning whom I have quoted Herklots in vol. ii. 211.
[FN#42] A saying attributed to Al-Hariri (Lane). It is good enough to be his: the Persians say, "Cut not down the tree thou plantedst," and the idea is universal throughout the East.
[FN#43] A quotation from Al-Hariri (Ass. of the Badawin). Ash'ab (ob. A.H. 54), a Medinite servant of Caliph Osman, was proverbial for greed and sanguine, Micawber-like expectation of "windfalls." The Scholiast Al-Sharishi (of Xeres) describes him in Theophrastic style. He never saw a man put hand to pocket without expecting a present, or a funeral go by without hoping for a legacy, or a bridal procession without preparing his own house, hoping they might bring the bride to him by mistake. * * * When asked if he knew aught greedier than himself he said "Yes; a sheep I once kept upon my terrace-roof seeing a rainbow mistook it for a rope of hay and jumping to seize it broke its neck!" Hence "Ash'ab's sheep" became a by-word (Preston tells the tale in full, p. 288).
[FN#44] i.e. "Show a miser money and hold him back, if you can."
[FN#45] He wants L40,000 to begin with.
[FN#46] i.e. Arab. "Sabihat al-'urs" the morning after the wedding. See vol. i. 269.
[FN#47] Another sign of modern composition as in Kamar al-Zaman II.
[FN#48] Arab. "Al-Jink" (from Turk.) are boys and youths mostly Jews, Armenians, Greeks and Turks, who dress in woman's dress with long hair braided. Lane (M. E. chapts. xix. and xxv.) gives same account of the customs of the "Gink" (as the Egyptians call them) but cannot enter into details concerning these catamites. Respectable Moslems often employ them to dance at festivals in preference to the Ghawazi-women, a freak of Mohammedan decorum. When they grow old they often preserve their costume, and a glance at them makes a European's blood run cold.
[FN#49] Lane translates this, "May Allah and the Rijal retaliate upon thy temple!"
[FN#50] Arab. "Ya aba 'l-lithamayn," addressed to his member. Lathm the root means kissing or breaking; so he would say, "O thou who canst take her maidenhead whilst my tongue does away with the virginity of her mouth." "He breached the citadel" (which is usually square) "in its four corners" signifying that he utterly broke it down.
[FN#51] A mystery to the Author of Proverbs (xxx. 18-19),
There be three things which are too wondrous for me, The way of an eagle in the air; The way of a snake upon a rock; And the way of a man with a maid.
[FN#52] Several women have described the pain to me as much resembling the drawing of a tooth.
[FN#53] As we should say, "play fast and loose."
[FN#54] Arab. "Nahi-ka" lit.=thy prohibition but idiomatically used=let it suffice thee!
[FN#55] A character-sketch like that of Princess Dunya makes ample amends for a book full of abuse of women. And yet the superficial say that none of the characters have much personal individuality.
[FN#56] This is indeed one of the touches of nature which makes all the world kin.
[FN#57] As we are in Tartary "Arabs" here means plundering nomades, like the Persian "Iliyat" and other shepherd races.
[FN#58] The very cruelty of love which hates nothing so much as a rejected lover. The Princess, be it noted, is not supposed to be merely romancing, but speaking with the second sight, the clairvoyance, of perfect affection. Men seem to know very little upon this subject, though every one has at times been more or less startled by the abnormal introvision and divination of things hidden which are the property and prerogative of perfect love.
[FN#59] The name of the Princess meaning "The World," not unusual amongst Moslem women.
[FN#60] Another pun upon his name, "Ma'aruf."
[FN#61] Arab. "Naka," the mound of pure sand which delights the eye of the Badawi leaving a town. See vol. i. 217, for the lines and explanation in Night cmlxiv. vol. ix. p. 250.
[FN#62] Euphemistic: "I will soon fetch thee food." To say this bluntly might have brought misfortune.
[FN#63] Arab. "Kafr"=a village in Egypt and Syria e.g. Capernaum (Kafr Nahum).
[FN#64] He has all the bonhomie of the Cairene and will do a kindness whenever he can.
[FN#65] i.e. the Father of Prosperities: pron. Aboosa'adat; as in the Tale of Hasan of Bassorah.
[FN#66] Koran lxxxix. "The Daybreak" which also mentions Thamud and Pharaoh.
[FN#67] In Egypt the cheapest and poorest of food, never seen at a hotel table d'hote.
[FN#68] The beautiful girls who guard ensorcelled hoards: See vol. vi. 109.
[FN#69] Arab. "Asakir," the ornaments of litters, which are either plain balls of metal or tapering cones based on crescents or on balls and crescents. See in Lane (M. E. chapt. xxiv.) the sketch of the Mahmal.
[FN#70] Arab. "Amm"=father's brother, courteously used for "father-in-law," which suggests having slept with his daughter, and which is indecent in writing. Thus by a pleasant fiction the husband represents himself as having married his first cousin.
[FN#71] i.e. a calamity to the enemy: see vol. ii. 87 and passim.
[FN#72] Both texts read "Asad" (lion) and Lane accepts it: there is no reason to change it for "Hasid" (Envier), the Lion being the Sultan of the Beasts and the most majestic.
[FN#73] The Cairene knew his fellow Cairene and was not to be taken in by him.
[FN#74] Arab. "Hizam": Lane reads "Khizam"=a nose-ring for which see appendix to Lane's M. E. The untrained European eye dislikes these decorations and there is certainly no beauty in the hoops which Hindu women insert through the nostrils, camel-fashion, as if to receive the cord-acting bridle. But a drop-pearl hanging to the septum is at least as pretty as the heavy pendants by which some European women lengthen their ears.
[FN#75] Arab. "Shamta," one of the many names of wine, the "speckled" alluding to the bubbles which dance upon the freshly filled cup.
[FN#76] i.e. in the cask. These "merry quips" strongly suggest the dismal toasts of our not remote ancestors.
[FN#77] Arab. "A'laj" plur. of "'Ilj" and rendered by Lane "the stout foreign infidels." The next line alludes to the cupbearer who was generally a slave and a non-Moslem.
[FN#78] As if it were a bride. See vol. vii. 198. The stars of Jauza (Gemini) are the cupbearer's eyes.
[FN#79] i.e. light-coloured wine.
[FN#80] The usual homage to youth and beauty.
[FN#81] Alluding to the cup.
[FN#82] Here Abu Nowas whose name always ushers in some abomination alluded to the "Ghulamiyah" or girl dressed like boy to act cupbearer. Civilisation has everywhere the same devices and the Bordels of London and Paris do not ignore the "she-boy," who often opens the door.
[FN#83] Abdallah ibn al-Mu'tazz, son of Al-Mu'tazz bi 'llah, the 13th Abbaside, and great-great-grandson of Harun al-Rashid. He was one of the most renowned poets of the third century (A.H.) and died A.D. 908, strangled by the partisans of his nephew Al-Muktadir bi 'llah, 18th Abbaside.
[FN#84] Jazirat ibn Omar, an island and town on the Tigris north of Mosul. "Some versions of the poem, from which these verses are quoted, substitute El-Mutireh, a village near Samara (a town on the Tigris, 60 miles north of Baghdad), for El-Jezireh, i.e. Jeziret ibn Omar." (Payne.)
[FN#85] The Convent of Abdun on the east bank of the Tigris opposite the Jezirah was so called from a statesman who caused it to be built. For a variant of these lines see Ibn Khallikan, vol. ii. 42; here we miss "the shady groves of Al-Matirah."
[FN#86] Arab. "Ghurrah" the white blaze on a horse's brow. In Ibn Khallikan the bird is the lark.
[FN#87] Arab. "Tay'i"=thirsty used with Jay'i=hungry.
[FN#88] Lit. "Kohl'd with Ghunj" for which we have no better word than "coquetry." But see vol. v. 80. It corresponds with the Latin crissare for women and cevere for men.
[FN#89] i.e. gold-coloured wine, as the Vino d'Oro.
[FN#90] Compare the charming song of Abu Mijan translated from the German of Dr. Weil in Bohn's Edit. of Ockley (p. 149),
When the Death-angel cometh mine eyes to close, Dig my grave 'mid the vines on the hill's fair side; For though deep in earth may my bones repose, The juice of the grape shall their food provide. Ah, bury me not in a barren land, Or Death will appear to me dread and drear! While fearless I'll wait what he hath in hand I An the scent of the vineyard my spirit cheer.
The glorious old drinker!
[FN#91] Arab. "Rub'a al-Kharab" in Ibn al-Wardi Central Africa south of the Nile-sources, one of the richest regions in the world. Here it prob. alludes to the Rub'a al-Khali or Great Arabian Desert: for which see Night dclxxvi. In rhetoric it is opposed to the "Rub'a Maskun," or populated fourth of the world, the rest being held to be ocean.
[FN#92] This is the noble resignation of the Moslem. What a dialogue there would have been in a European book between man and devil!
[FN#93] Arab. "Al-'iddah" the period of four months and ten days which must elapse before she could legally marry again. But this was a palpable wile: she was not sure of her husband's death and he had not divorced her; so that although a "grass widow," a "Strohwitwe" as the Germans say, she could not wed again either with or without interval.
[FN#94] Here the silence is of cowardice and the passage is a fling at the "timeserving" of the Olema, a favourite theme, like "banging the bishops" amongst certain Westerns.
[FN#95] Arab. "Umm al-raas," the poll, crown of the head, here the place where a calamity coming down from heaven would first alight.
[FN#96] From Al-Hariri (Lane): the lines are excellent.
[FN#97] When the charming Princess is so ready at the voie de faits, the reader will understand how common is such energetic action among women of lower degree. The "fair sex" in Egypt has a horrible way of murdering men, especially husbands, by tying them down and tearing out the testicles. See Lane M. E. chapt. xiii.
[FN#98] Arab. "Sijn al-Ghazab," the dungeons appropriated to the worst of criminals where they suffer penalties far worse than hanging or guillotining.
[FN#99] According to some modern Moslems Munkar and Nakir visit the graves of Infidels (non-Moslems) and Bashshir and Mubashshir ("Givers of glad tidings") those of Mohammedans. Petis de la Croix (Les Mille et un Jours vol. iii. 258) speaks of the "Zoubanya," black angels who torture the damned under their chief Dabilah.
[FN#100] Very simple and pathetic is this short sketch of the noble-minded Princess's death.
[FN#101] In sign of dismissal (vol. iv. 62) I have noted that "throwing the kerchief" is not an Eastern practice: the idea probably arose from the Oriental practice of sending presents in richly embroidered napkins and kerchiefs.
[FN#102] Curious to say both Lane and Payne omit this passage which appears in both texts (Mac. and Bul.). The object is evidently to prepare the reader for the ending by reverting to the beginning of the tale; and its prolixity has its effect as in the old Romances of Chivalry from Amadis of Ghaul to the Seven Champions of Christendom. If it provoke impatience, it also heightens expectation; "it is like the long elm-avenues of our forefathers; we wish ourselves at the end; but we know that at the end there is something great."
[FN#103] Arab. "ala malakay bayti 'l-rahah;" on the two slabs at whose union are the round hole and longitudinal slit. See vol. i. 221.
[FN#104] Here the exclamation wards off the Evil Eye from the Sword and the wearer: Mr. Payne notes, "The old English exclamation 'Cock's 'ill!' (i.e., God's will, thus corrupted for the purpose of evading the statute of 3 Jac. i. against profane swearing) exactly corresponds to the Arabic"--with a difference, I add.
[FN#105] Arab. "Mustahakk"=deserving (Lane) or worth (Payne) the cutting.
[FN#106] Arab. "Mashhad" the same as "Shahid"=the upright stones at the head and foot of the grave. Lane mistranslates, "Made for her a funeral procession."
[FN#107] These lines have occurred before. I quote Lane.
[FN#108] There is nothing strange in such sudden elevations amongst Moslems and even in Europe we still see them occasionally. The family in the East, however humble, is a model and miniature of the state, and learning is not always necessary to wisdom.
[FN#109] Arab. "Farid" which may also mean "union-pearl."
[FN#110] Trebutien (iii. 497) cannot deny himself the pleasure of a French touch making the King reply, "C'est assez; qu'on lui coupe la tete, car ces dernieres histoires surtout m'ont cause un ennui mortel." This reading is found in some of the MSS.
[FN#111] After this I borrow from the Bresl. Edit. inserting passages from the Mac. Edit.
[FN#112] i.e. whom he intended to marry with regal ceremony.
[FN#113] The use of coloured powders in sign of holiday-making is not obsolete in India. See Herklots for the use of "Huldee" (Haldi) or turmeric-powder, pp. 64-65.
[FN#114] Many Moslem families insist upon this before giving their girls in marriage, and the practice is still popular amongst many Mediterranean peoples.
[FN#115] i.e. Sumatran.
[FN#116] i.e. Alexander, according to the Arabs; see vol. v. 252.
[FN#117] These lines are in vol. i. 217.
[FN#118] I repeat the lines from vol. i. 218.
[FN#119] All these coquetries require as much inventiveness as a cotillon; the text alludes to fastening the bride's tresses across her mouth giving her the semblance of beard and mustachios.
[FN#120] Repeated from vol. i. 218.
[FN#121] Repeated from vol. i. 218.
[FN#122] See vol. i. 219.
[FN#123] Arab. Sawad=the blackness of the hair.
[FN#124] Because Easterns build, but never repair.
[FN#125]i.e. God only knows if it be true or not.
[FN#126] Ouseley's Orient. Collect. I, vii.
[FN#127] This three-fold distribution occurred to me many years ago and when far beyond reach of literary authorities, I was, therefore, much pleased to find the subjoined three-fold classification with minor details made by Baron von Hammer- Purgstall (Preface to Contes Inedits etc. of G. S. Trebutien, Paris, mdcccxxviii.) (1) The older stories which serve as a base to the collection, such as the Ten Wazirs ("Malice of Women") and Voyages of Sindbad (?) which may date from the days of Mahommed. These are distributed into two sub-classes; (a) the marvellous and purely imaginative (e.g. Jamasp and the Serpent Queen) and (b) the realistic mixed with instructive fables and moral instances. (2) The stories and anecdotes peculiarly Arab, relating to the Caliphs and especially to Al- Rashid; and (3) The tales of Egyptian provenance, which mostly date from the times of the puissant "Aaron the Orthodox." Mr. John Payne (Villon Translation vol. ix. pp. 367-73) distributes the stories roughly under five chief heads as follows: (1) Histories or long Romances, as King Omar bin Al-Nu'man (2) Anecdotes or short stories dealing with historical personages and with incidents and adventures belonging to the every-day life of the period to which they refer: e.g. those concerning Al-Rashid and Hatim of Tayy. (3) Romances and romantic fictions comprising three different kinds of tales; (a) purely romantic and supernatural; (b) fictions and nouvelles with or without a basis and background of historical fact and (c) Contes fantastiques. (4) Fables and Apologues; and (5) Tales proper, as that of Tawaddud.
[FN#128] Journal Asiatique (Paris, Dondoy-Dupre, 1826) "Sur l'origine des Mille et une Nuits."
[FN#129] Baron von Hammer-Purgstall's chateau is near Styrian Graz, and, when I last saw his library, it had been left as it was at his death.
[FN#130] At least, in Trebutien's Preface, pp. xxx.-xxxi., reprinted from the Journ. Asiat. August, 1839: for corrections see De Sacy's "Memoire." p. 39.
[FN#131] Vol. iv. pp. 89-90, Paris mdccclxv. Trebutien quotes, chapt. lii. (for lxviii.), one of Von Hammer's manifold inaccuracies.
[FN#132] Alluding to Iram the Many-columned, etc.
[FN#133] In Trebutien "Siha," for which the Editor of the Journ. Asiat. and De Sacy rightly read "Sabil-ha."
[FN#134] For this some MSS. have "Fahlawiyah" = Pehlevi
[FN#135] i.e. Lower Roman, Grecian, of Asia Minor, etc., the word is still applied throughout Marocco, Algiers and Northern Africa to Europeans in general.
[FN#136] De Sacy (Dissertation prefixed to the Bourdin Edition) notices the "thousand and one," and in his Memoire "a thousand:" Von Hammer's MS. reads a thousand, and the French translation a thousand and one. Evidently no stress can be laid upon the numerals.
[FN#137] These names are noticed in my vol. i. 14, and vol. ii. 3. According to De Sacy some MSS. read "History of the Wazir and his Daughters."
[FN#138] Lane (iii. 735) has Wizreh or Wardeh which guide us to Wird Khan, the hero of the tale. Von Hammer's MS. prefers Djilkand (Jilkand), whence probably the Isegil or Isegild of Langles (1814), and the Tseqyl of De Sacy (1833). The mention of "Simas" (Lane's Shemmas) identifies it with "King Jali'ad of Hind," etc. (Night dcccxcix.) Writing in A.D. 961 Hamzah Isfahani couples with the libri Sindbad and Schimas, the libri Baruc and Barsinas, four nouvelles out of nearly seventy. See also Al- Makri'zi's Khitat or Topography (ii. 485) for a notice of the Thousand or Thousand and one Nights.
[FN#139] alluding to the "Seven Wazirs" alias "The Malice of Women" (Night dlxxviii.), which Von Hammer and many others have carelessly confounded with Sindbad the Seaman We find that two tales once separate have now been incorporated with The Nights, and this suggests the manner of its composition by accretion.
[FN#140] Arabised by a most "elegant" stylist, Abdullah ibn al- Mukaffa (the shrivelled), a Persian Guebre named Roz-bih (Day good), who islamised and was barbarously put to death in A.H. 158 (= 775) by command of the Caliph al-Mansur (Al-Siyuti p. 277). "He also translated from Pehlevi the book entitled Sekiseran, containing the annals of Isfandiyar, the death of Rustam, and other episodes of old Persic history," says Al-Mas'udi chapt. xxi. See also Ibn Khallikan (1, 43) who dates the murder in A.H. 142 (= 759-60).
[FN#141] "Notice sur Le Schah-namah de Firdoussi," a posthumous publication of M. de Wallenbourg, Vienna, 1810, by M. A. de Bianchi. In sect. iii. I shall quote another passage of Al- Mas'udi (viii. 175) in which I find a distinct allusion to the "Gaboriaudetective tales" of The Nights.
[FN#142] Here Von Hammer shows his customary inexactitude. As we learn from Ibn Khallikan (Fr. Tr. I. 630), the author's name was Abu al-Faraj Mohammed ibn Is'hak pop. known as Ibn Ali Ya'kub al- Warrak, the bibliographe, librarian, copyist. It was published (vol. i Leipzig, 1871) under the editorship of G. Fluegel, J. Roediger, and A. Mueller.
[FN#143] See also the Journ. Asiat., August, 1839, and Lane iii. 736-37
[FN#144] Called "Afsanah" by Al-Mas'udi, both words having the same sense = tale story, parable, "facetiae." Moslem fanaticism renders it by the Arab "Khurafah" = silly fables, and in Hindostan it = a jest: "Bat-ki bat, khurafat-ki khurafat" (a word for a word, a joke for a joke).
[FN#145] Al-Mas'udi (chapt. xxi.) makes this a name of the Mother of Queen Humai or Humayah, for whom see below.
[FN#146] The preface of a copy of the Shah-nameh (by Firdausi, ob. A.D. 1021), collated in A.H. 829 by command of Bayisunghur Bahadur Khan (Atkinson p. x.), informs us that the Hazar Afsanah was composed for or by Queen Humai whose name is Arabised to Humayah This Persian Marguerite de Navarre was daughter and wife to (Ardashir) Bahman, sixth Kayanian and surnamed Diraz-dast (Artaxerxes Longimanus), Abu Sasan from his son, the Eponymus of the Sassanides who followed the Kayanians when these were extinguished by Alexander of Macedon. Humai succeeded her husband as seventh Queen, reigned thirty-two years and left the crown to her son Dara or Darab 1st = Darius Codomanus. She is better known to Europe (through Herodotus) as Parysatis = Peri-zadeh or the Fairy-born.
[FN#147] i.e. If Allah allow me to say sooth.
[FN#148] i.e. of silly anecdotes: here speaks the good Moslem!
[FN#149] No. 622 Sept. 29, '39, a review of Torrens which appeared shortly after Lane's vol. i. The author quotes from a MS. in the British Museum, No. 7334 fol. 136.
[FN#150] There are many Spaniards of this name: Mr. Payne (ix. 302) proposes Abu Ja'afar ibn Abd al-Hakk al-Khazraji, author of a History of the Caliphs about the middle of the twelfth century.
[FN#151] The well-known Rauzah or Garden-island, of old Al- Sana'ah (Al-Mas'udi chapt. xxxi.) which is more than once noticed in The Nights. The name of the pavilion Al-Haudaj = a camel- litter, was probably intended to flatter the Badawi girl.
[FN#152] He was the Seventh Fatimite Caliph of Egypt: regn. A.H. 495-524 (= 1101 1129).
[FN#153] Suggesting a private pleasaunce in Al-Rauzah which has ever been and is still a succession of gardens.
[FN#154] The writer in The Athenaeum calls him Ibn Miyvah, and adds that the Badawiyah wrote to her cousin certain verses complaining of her thraldom, which the youth answered abusing the Caliph. Al-Amir found the correspondence and ordered Ibn Miyah's tongue to be cut out, but he saved himself by a timely flight.
[FN#155] In Night dccclxxxv. we have the passage "He was a wily thief: none could avail against his craft as he were Abu Mohammed Al-Battal": the word etymologically means The Bad; but see infra.
[FN#156] Amongst other losses which Orientals have sustained by the death of Rogers Bey, I may mention his proposed translation of Al-Makrizi's great topographical work.
[FN#157] The name appears only in a later passage.
[FN#158] Mr. Payne notes (viii. 137) "apparently some famous brigand of the time" (of Charlemagne). But the title may signify The Brave, and the tale may be much older.
[FN#159] In his "Memoire sur l'origine du Recueil des Contes intitule Les Mille et une Nuits" (Mem. d'Hist. et de Litter. Orientale, extrait des tomes ix., et x. des Memoires de l'Inst. Royal Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1833). He read the Memoir before the Royal Academy on July 31, 1829. Also in his Dissertation "Sur les Mille et une Nuits" (pp. i. viii.) prefixed to the Bourdin Edit. When first the Arabist in Europe landed at Alexandria he could not exchange a word with the people the same is told of Golius the lexicographer at Tunis.
[FN#160] Lane, Nights ii. 218.
[FN#161] This origin had been advocated a decade of years before by Shaykh Ahmad al-Shirawani; Editor of the Calc. text (1814-18): his Persian preface opines that the author was an Arabic speaking Syrian who designedly wrote in a modern and conversational style, none of the purest withal, in order to instruct non-Arabists. Here we find the genus "Professor" pure and simple.
[FN#162] Such an assertion makes us enquire, Did De Sacy ever read through The Nights in Arabic?
[FN#163] Dr. Jonathan Scott's "translation" vi. 283.
[FN#164] For a note on this world-wide Tale see vol. i. 52.
[FN#165] In the annotated translation by Mr. I. G. N. Keith- Falconer, Cambridge University Press. I regret to see the wretched production called the "Fables of Pilpay" in the "Chandos Classics" (London, F. Warne). The words are so mutilated that few will recognize them, e.g. Carchenas for Kar-shinas, Chaschmanah for Chashmey-e-Mah (Fountain of the Moon), etc.
[FN#166] Article Arabia in Encyclop. Brit., 9th Edit., p. 263, colt 2. I do not quite understand Mr. Palgrave, but presume that his "other version" is the Bresl. Edit., the MS. of which was brought from Tunis; see its Vorwort (vol. i. p. 3).
[FN#167] There are three distinct notes according to De Sacy (Mem., p. 50). The first (in MS. 1508) says "This blessed book was read by the weak slave, etc. Wahabah son of Rizkallah the Katib (secretary, scribe) of Tarabulus al-Sham (Syrian Tripoli), who prayeth long life for its owner (li maliki-h). This tenth day of the month First Rabi'a A.H. 955 (= 1548)." A similar note by the same Wahabah occurs at the end of vol. ii. (MS. 1507) dated A.H. 973 (= 1565) and a third (MS. 1506) is undated. Evidcntly M. Caussin has given undue weight to such evidence. For further information see "Tales of the East" to which is prefixed an Introductory Dissertation (vol. i. pp. 24-26, note) by Henry Webber, Esq., Edinburgh, 1812, in 3 vols.
[FN#168] "Notice sur les douze manuscrits connus des Milles et une Nuits, qui existent en Europe." Von Hammer in Trebutien, Notice, vol. i.
[FN#169] Printed from the MS. of Major Turner Macan, Editor of the Shahnamah: he bought it from the heirs of Mr. Salt, the historic Consul-General of England in Egypt and after Macan's death it became the property of the now extinct Allens, then of Leadenhall Street (Torrens, Preface, i.). I have vainly enquired about what became of it.
[FN#170] The short paper by "P. R." in the Gentleman's Magazine (Feb. 19th, 1799, vol. lxix. p. 61) tells us that MSS. of The Nights were scarce at Aleppo and that he found only two vols. (280 Nights) which he had great difficulty in obtaining leave to copy. He also noticed (in 1771) a MS., said to be complete, in the Vatican and another in the "King's Library" (Bibliotheque Nationale), Paris.
[FN#171] Aleppo has been happy in finding such monographers as Russell and Maundrell while poor Damascus fell into the hands of Mr. Missionary Porter, and suffered accordingly.
[FN#172] Vol. vi. Appendix, p.452.
[FN#173] The numbers, however, vary with the Editions of Galland: some end the formula with Night cxcvii; others with the ccxxxvi.
    I adopt that of the De Sacy Edition.
[FN#174] Contes Persans, suivis des Contes Turcs. Paris; Bechet Aine, 1826.
[FN#175] In the old translation we have "eighteen hundred years since the prophet Solomon died," (B.C. 975) = A.D. 825.
[FN#176] Meaning the era of the Seleucides. Dr. Jonathan Scott shows (vol. ii. 324) that A.H. 653 and A.D. 1255 would correspond with 1557 of that epoch; so that the scribe has here made a little mistake of 5,763 years. Ex uno disce.
[FN#177] The Saturday Review (Jan. 2nd '86) writes, "Captain Burton has fallen into a mistake by not distinguishing between the names of the by no means identical Caliphs Al-Muntasir and Al-Mustansir." Quite true: it was an ugly confusion of the melancholy madman and parricide with one of the best and wisest of the Caliphs. I can explain (not extenuate) my mistake only by a misprint in Al-Siyuti (p. 554).
[FN#178] In the Galland MS. and the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 253), we find the Barber saying that the Caliph (Al-Mustansir) was at that time (yaumaizin) in Baghdad, and this has been held to imply that the Caliphate had fallen. But such conjecture is evidently based upon insufficient grounds.
[FN#179] De Sacy makes the "Kalandar" order originate in A.D. 1150, but the Shaykh Sharif bu Ali Kalandar died in A.D. 1323-24. In Sind the first Kalandar, Osman-i-Marwandi surnamed Lal Shahbaz, the Red Goshawk, from one of his miracles, died and was buried at Sehwan in A D. 1274: see my "History of Sindh" chapt. viii. for details. The dates therefore run wild.
[FN#180] In this same tale H. H. Wilson observes that the title of Sultan of Egypt was not assumed before the middle of the xiith century.
[FN#181] Popularly called Vidyanagar of the Narsingha.
[FN#182] Time-measurers are of very ancient date. The Greeks had clepsydrae and the Romans gnomons, portable and ring-shaped, besides large standing town-dials as at Aquileja and San Sabba near Trieste. The "Saracens" were the perfecters of the clepsydra: Bosseret (p. 16) and the Chronicon Turense (Beckmann ii. 340 et seq.) describe the water-clock sent by Al-Rashid to Karl the Great as a kind of "cockoo-clock." Twelve doors in the dial opened successively and little balls dropping on brazen bells told the hour: at noon a dozen mounted knights paraded the face and closed the portals. Trithonius mentions an horologium presented in A.D. 1232 by Al-Malik al-Kamil the Ayyubite Soldan to the Emperor Frederick II: like the Strasbourg and Padua clocks it struck the hours, told the day, month and year, showed the phases of the moon, and registered the position of the sun and the planets. Towards the end of the fifteenth century Gaspar Visconti mentions in a sonnet the watch proper (certi orologii piccioli e portativi); and the "animated eggs" of Nurembourg became famous. The earliest English watch (Sir Ashton Lever's) dates from 1541: and in 1544 the portable chronometer became common in France.
[FN#183] An illustrated History of Arms and Armour etc. (p. 59); London: Bell and Sons, 1877. The best edition is the Guide des Amateurs d'Armes, Paris: Renouard, 1879.
[FN#184] Chapt. iv. Dr. Gustav Oppert "On the Weapons etc. of the Ancient Hindus;" London: Truebner and Co., 1880. :
[FN#185] I have given other details on this subject in pp. 631- 637 of "Camoens, his Life and his Lusiads."
[FN#186] The morbi venerei amongst the Romans are obscure because "whilst the satirists deride them the physicians are silent." Celsus, however, names (De obscenarum partium vitiis, lib. xviii.) inflammatio coleorum (swelled testicle), tubercula glandem (warts on the glans penis), cancri carbunculi (chancre or shanker) and a few others. The rubigo is noticed as a lues venerea by Servius in Virg. Georg.
[FN#187] According to David Forbes, the Peruvians believed that syphilis arose from connection of man and alpaca; and an old law forbade bachelors to keep these animals in the house. Francks explains by the introduction of syphilis wooden figures found in the Chinchas guano; these represented men with a cord round the neck or a serpent devouring the genitals.
[FN#188] They appeared before the gates of Paris in the summer of 1427, not "about July, 1422": in Eastern Europe, however, they date from a much earlier epoch. Sir J. Gilbert's famous picture has one grand fault, the men walk and the women ride: in real life the reverse would be the case.
[FN#189] Rabelais ii. c. 30.
[FN#190] I may be allowed to note that syphilis does not confine itself to man: a charger infected with it was pointed out to me at Baroda by my late friend, Dr. Arnott (18th Regiment, Bombay N.I.) and Tangier showed me some noticeable cases of this hippic syphilis, which has been studied in Hungary. Eastern peoples have a practice of "passing on" venereal and other diseases, and transmission is supposed to cure the patient; for instance a virgin heals (and catches) gonorrhoea. Syphilis varies greatly with climate. In Persia it is said to be propagated without contact: in Abyssinia it is often fatal and in Egypt it is readily cured by sand baths and sulphur-unguents. Lastly in lands like Unyamwezi, where mercurials are wholly unknown, I never saw caries of the nasal or facial bones.
[FN#191] For another account of the transplanter and the casuistical questions to which coffee gave rise, see my "First Footsteps in East Africa" (p. 76).
[FN#192] The first mention of coffee proper (not of Kahwah or old wine in vol. ii. 260) is in Night cdxxvi. vol. v. 169, where the coffee-maker is called Kahwahjiyyah, a mongrel term showing the modern date of the passage in Ali the Cairene. As the work advances notices become thicker, e.g. in Night dccclxvi. where Ali Nur al-Din and the Frank King's daughter seems to be a modernisation of the story "Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat" (vol. iv. 29); and in Abu Kir and Abu Sir (Nights cmxxx. and cmxxxvi.) where coffee is drunk with sherbet after present fashion. The use culminates in Kamar al-Zaman II. where it is mentioned six times (Nights cmlxvi. cmlxx. cmlxxi. twice; cmlxxiv. and cmlxxvii.), as being drunk after the dawn-breakfast and following the meal as a matter of course. The last notices are in Abdullah bin Fazil, Nights cmlxxviii. and cmlxxix.
[FN#193] It has been suggested that Japanese tobacco is an indigenous growth and sundry modern travellers in China contend that the potato and the maize, both white and yellow, have there been cultivated from time immemorial.
[FN#194] For these see my "City of the Saints," p. 136.
[FN#195] Lit. meaning smoke: hence the Arabic "Dukhan," with the same signification.
[FN#196] Unhappily the book is known only by name: for years I have vainly troubled friends and correspondents to hunt for a copy. Yet I am sanguine enough to think that some day we shall succeed: Mr. Sidney Churchill, of Teheran, is ever on the look-out.
[FN#197] In Section 3 I shall suggest that this tale also is mentioned by Al-Mas'udi.
[FN#198] I have extracted it from many books, especially from Hoeffer's Biographie Generale, Paris, Firmin Didot, mdccclvii.; Biographie Universelle, Paris, Didot, 1816, etc. etc. All are taken from the work of M. de Boze, his "Bozzy."
[FN#199] As learning a language is an affair of pure memory, almost without other exercise of the mental faculties, it should be assisted by the ear and the tongue as well as the eyes. I would invariably make pupils talk, during lessons, Latin and Greek, no matter how badly at first; but unfortunately I should have to begin with teaching the pedants who, as a class, are far more unwilling and unready to learn than are those they teach.
[FN#200] The late Dean Stanley was notably trapped by the wily Greek who had only political purposes in view. In religions as a rule the minimum of difference breeds the maximum of disputation, dislike and disgust.
[FN#201] See in Trebutien (Avertissement iii.) how Baron von Hammer escaped drowning by the blessing of The Nights.
[FN#202] He signs his name to the Discours pour servir de Preface.
[FN#203] I need not trouble the reader with their titles, which fill up nearly a column and a half in M. Hoeffer. His collection of maxims from Arabic, Persian and Turkish authors appeared in English in 1695.
[FN#204] Galland's version was published in 1704-1717 in 12 vols. 12mo., (Hoeffer's Biographie; Grasse's Tresor de Livres rares and Encyclop. Britannica, ixth Edit.)
[FN#205] See also Leigh Hunt "The Book of the Thousand Nights and one Night," etc., etc. London and Westminster Review Art. iii., No. 1xiv. mentioned in Lane, iii., 746.
[FN#206] Edition of 1856 vol. xv.
[FN#207] To France England also owes her first translation of the Koran, a poor and mean version by Andrew Ross of that made from the Arabic (No. iv.) by Andre du Reyer, Consul de France for Egypt. It kept the field till ousted in 1734 by the learned lawyer George Sale whose conscientious work, including Preliminary Discourse and Notes (4to London), brought him the ill-fame of having "turned Turk."
[FN#208] Catalogue of Printed Books, 1884, p. 159, col. i. I am ashamed to state this default in the British Museum, concerning which Englishmen are apt to boast and which so carefully mulcts modern authors in unpaid copies. But it is only a slight specimen of the sad state of art and literature in England, neglected equally by Conservatives, Liberals and Radicals. What has been done for the endowment of research? What is our equivalent for the Prix de Rome? Since the death of Dr. Birch, who can fairly deal with a Demotic papyrus? Contrast the Societe Anthropologique and its palace and professors in Paris with our "Institute" au second in a corner of Hanover Square and its skulls in the cellar!
[FN#209] Art. vii. pp. 139-168, "On the Arabian Nights and translators, Weil, Torrens and Lane (vol. i.) with the Essai of A. Loisseleur Deslongchamps." The Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xxiv., Oct. 1839-Jan. 1840. London, Black and Armstrong, 1840.
[FN#210] Introduction to his Collection "Tales of the East," 3 vols. Edinburgh, 1812. He was the first to point out the resemblance between the introductory adventures of Shahryar and Shah Zaman and those of Astolfo and Giacondo in the Orlando Furioso (Canto xxviii.). M. E. Leveque in Les Mythes et les Legendes de l'Inde et la Perse (Paris, 1880) gives French versions of the Arabian and Italian narratives, side by side in p. 543 ff. (Clouston).
[FN#211] Notitiae Codicis MI. Noctium. Dr. Pusey studied Arabic to familiarise himself with Hebrew, and was very different from his predecessor at Oxford in my day, who, when applied to for instruction in Arabic, refused to lecture except to a class.
[FN#212] This nephew was the author of "Recueil des Rits et Ceremonies des Pilgrimages de La Mecque," etc. etc. Paris and Amsterdam, 1754, in 12mo.
[FN#213] The concluding part did not appear, I have said, till 1717: his "Comes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpai et de Lokman," were first printed in 1724, 2 vols. in 12mo. Hence, I presume, Lowndes' mistake.
[FN#214] M. Caussin (de Perceval), Professeur of Arabic at the Imperial Library, who edited Galland in 1806, tells us that he found there only two MSS., both imperfect. The first (Galland's) is in three small vols. 4to. each of about pp. 140. The stories are more detailed and the style, more correct than that of other MS., is hardly intelligible to many Arabs, whence he presumes that it contains the original (an early?) text which has been altered and vitiated. The date is supposed to be circa A.D. 1600. The second Parisian copy is a single folio of some 800 pages, and is divided into 29 sections and cmv. Nights, the last two sections being reversed. The MS. is very imperfect, the 12th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 20th, 21st-23rd, 25th and 27th parts are wanting; the sections which follow the 17th contain sundry stories repeated, there are anecdotes from Bidpai, the Ten Wazirs and other popular works, and lacunae everywhere abound.
[FN#215] Mr. Payne (ix. 264) makes eleven, including the Histoire du Dormeur eveille = The Sleeper and the Waker, which he afterwards translated from the Bresl. Edit. in his "Tales from the Arabic" (vol. i. 5, etc.)
[FN#216] Mr. E. J. W. Gibb informs me that he has come upon this tale in a Turkish storybook, the same from which he drew his "Jewad."
[FN#217] A litterateur lately assured me that Nos. ix. and x. have been found in the Bibliotheque Nationale (du Roi) Paris; but two friends were kind enough to enquire and ascertained that it was a mistake. Such Persianisms as Codadad (Khudadad), Baba Cogia (Khwajah) and Peri (fairy) suggest a Persic MS.
[FN#218] Vol. vi. 212. "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments (London: Longmans, 1811) by Jonathan Scott, with the Collection of New Tales from the Wortley Montagu MS. in the Bodleian." I regret to see that Messieurs Nimmo in reprinting Scott have omitted his sixth Volume.
[FN#219] Dr. Scott who uses Fitnah (iv. 42) makes it worse by adding "Alcolom (Al-Kulub?) signifying Ravisher of Hearts" and his names for the six slave-girls (vol. iv. 37) such as "Zohorob Bostan" (Zahr al-Bustan), which Galland rightly renders by "Fleur du Jardin," serve only to heap blunder upon blunder. Indeed the Anglo-French translations are below criticism: it would be waste of time to notice them. The characteristic is a servile suit paid to the original e.g. rendering hair "accomode en boucles" by "hair festooned in buckles" (Night ccxiv.), and Ile d'Ebene (Jazirat al-Abnus, Night xliii.) by "the Isle of Ebene." A certain surly old litterateur tells me that he prefers these wretched versions to Mr. Payne's. Padrone! as the Italians say: I cannot envy his taste or his temper.
[FN#220] De Sacy (Memoire p. 52) notes that in some MSS., the Sultan, ennuye by the last tales of Shahrazad, proposes to put her to death, when she produces her three children and all ends merrily without marriage-bells. Von Hammer prefers this version as the more dramatic, the Frenchman rejects it on account of the difficulties of the accouchements. Here he strains at the gnat-- a common process.
[FN#221] See Journ. Asiatique, iii. serie, vol. viii., Paris, 1839.
[FN#222] "Tausend und Eine Nacht: Arabische Erzaehlungen. Zum ersten mal aus einer Tunisischen Handschrift ergaenzt und vollstandig uebersetzt," Von Max Habicht, F. H. von der Hagen und Karl Schatte (the offenders?).
[FN#223] Dr. Habicht informs us (Vorwort iii., vol. ix. 7) that he obtained his MS. with other valuable works from Tunis, through a personal acquaintance, a learned Arab, Herr M. Annagar (Mohammed Al-Najjar?) and was aided by Baron de Sacy, Langles and other savants in filling up the lacunae by means of sundry MSS. The editing was a prodigy of negligence: the corrigenda (of which brief lists are given) would fill a volume; and, as before noticed, the indices of the first four tomes were printed in the fifth, as if the necessity of a list of tales had just struck the dense editor. After Habicht's death in 1839 his work was completed in four vols. (ix.-xii.) by the well-known Prof. H. J. Fleischer who had shown some tartness in his "Dissertatio Critica de Glossis Habichtianis." He carefully imitated all the shortcomings of his predecessor and even omitted the Verzeichniss etc., the Varianten and the Glossary of Arabic words not found in Golius, which formed the only useful part of the first eight volumes.
[FN#224] Die in Tausend und Eine Nacht noch nicht uebersetzten Naechte, Erzaehlungen und Anekdoten, zum erstenmal aus dem Arabischen in das Franzoesische uebersetzt von J. von Hammer, und aus dem Franzoesischen in das Deutsche von A. E. Zinserling, Professor, Stuttgart und Tubingen, 1823. Drei Bde. 80 . Trebutien's, therefore, is the translation of a translation of a translation.
[FN#225] Tausend und Eine Nacht Arabische Erzaehlungen. Zum erstenmale aus dem Urtexte vollstaendig und treu uebersetze von Dr. Gustav Weil. He began his work on return from Egypt in 1836 and completed his first version of the Arabische Meisterwerk in 1838-42 (3 vols. roy. oct.). I have the Zweiter Abdruck der dritten (2d reprint of 3d) in 4 vols. 8vo., Stuttgart, 1872. It has more than a hundred woodcuts.
[FN#226] My learned friend Dr. Wilhelm Storck, to whose admirable translations of Camoens I have often borne witness, notes that this Vorhalle, or Porch to the first edition, a rhetorical introduction addressed to the general public, is held in Germany to be valueless and that it was noticed only for the Bemerkung concerning the offensive passages which Professor Weil had toned down in his translation. In the Vorwort of the succeeding editions (Stuttgart) it is wholly omitted.
[FN#227] The most popular are now "Mille ed una notte. Novelle Arabe." Napoli, 1867, 8vo illustrated, 4 francs; and "Mille ed une notte. Novelle Arabe, versione italiana nuovamente emendata e corredata di note"; 4 vols. in 32 (dateless) Milano, 8vo, 4 francs.
[FN#228] These are; (l) by M. Caussin (de Perceval), Paris, 1806, 9 vols. 8vo. (2) Edouard Gauttier, Paris, 1822-24: 7 vols. 12mo; (3) M. Destain, Paris, 1823-25, 6 vols. 8vo, and (4) Baron de Sacy, Paris. 1838 (?) 3 vols. large 8vo, illustrated (and vilely illustrated).
[FN#229] The number of fables and anecdotes varies in the different texts, but may be assumed to be upwards of four hundred, about half of which were translated by Lane.
[FN#230] I have noticed these points more fully in the beginning of chapt. iii. "The Book of the Sword."
[FN#231] A notable instance of Roman superficiality, incuriousness and ignorance. Every old Egyptian city had its idols (images of metal, stone or wood), in which the Deity became incarnate as in the Catholic host; besides its own symbolic animal used as a Kiblah or prayer-direction (Jerusalem or Meccah), the visible means of fixing and concentrating the thoughts of the vulgar, like the crystal of the hypnotist or the disk of the electro-biologist. And goddess Diana was in no way better than goddess Pasht. For the true view of idolatry see Koran xxxix. 4. I am deeply grateful to Mr. P. le Page Renouf (Soc. of Biblic. Archaeology, April 6, 1886) for identifying the Manibogh, Michabo or Great Hare of the American indigenes with Osiris Unnefer ("Hare God"). These are the lines upon which investigation should run. And of late years there is a notable improvement of tone in treating of symbolism or idolatry: the Lingam and the Yoni are now described as "mystical representations, and perhaps the best possible impersonal representatives of the abstract expressions paternity and maternity" (Prof. Monier Williams in "Folk-lore Record" vol. iii. part i. p. 118).
[FN#232] See Jotham's fable of the Trees and King Bramble (Judges lxi. 8) and Nathan's parable of the Poor Man and his little ewe Lamb (2 Sam. ix. 1).
[FN#233] Herodotus (ii. c. 134) notes that "AEsop the fable-writer ( ) was one of her (Rhodopis) fellow slaves". Aristophanes (Vespae, 1446) refers to his murder by the Delphians and his fable beginning, "Once upon a time there was a fight;" while the Scholiast finds an allusion to The Serpent and the Crab in Pax 1084; and others in Vespae 1401, and Aves 651.
[FN#234] There are three distinct Lokmans who are carefully confounded in Sale (Koran chapt. xxxi.) and in Smith's Dict. of Biography etc. art. AEsopus. The first or eldest Lokman, entitled Al-Hakim (the Sage) and the hero of the Koranic chapter which bears his name, was son of Ba'ura of the Children of Azar, sister's son of Job or son of Job's maternal aunt; he witnessed David's miracles of mail-making and when the tribe of 'Ad was destroyed, he became King of the country. The second, also called the Sage, was a slave, an Abyssinian negro, sold to the Israelites during the reign of David or Solomon, synchronous with the Persian Kay Kaus and Kay Khusrau, also Pythagoras the Greek (!) His physique is alluded to in the saying, "Thou resemblest Lokman (in black ugliness) but not in wisdom" (Ibn Khallikan i. 145). This negro or negroid, after a godly and edifying life, left a volume of "Amsal," proverbs and exempla (not fables or apologues); and Easterns still say, "One should not pretend to teach Lokman"--in Persian, "Hikmat ba Lokman amokhtan." Three of his apothegms dwell in the public memory: "The heart and the tongue are the best and worst parts of the human body." "I learned wisdom from the blind who make sure of things by touching them" (as did St. Thomas); and when he ate the colocynth offered by his owner, "I have received from thee so many a sweet that 'twould be surprising if I refused this one bitter." He was buried (says the Tarikh Muntakhab) at Ramlah in Judaea, with the seventy Prophets stoned in one day by the Jews. The youngest Lokman "of the vultures" was a prince of the tribe of Ad who lived 3,500 years, the age of seven vultures (Tabari). He could dig a well with his nails; hence the saying, "Stronger than Lokman" (A. P. i. 701); and he loved the arrow-game, hence, "More gambling than Lokman" (ibid. ii. 938). "More voracious than Lokman" (ibid i. 134) alludes to his eating one camel for breakfast and another for supper. His wife Barakish also appears in proverb, e.g. "Camel us and camel thyself" (ibid. i. 295) i.e. give us camel flesh to eat, said when her son by a former husband brought her a fine joint which she and her husband relished. Also, "Barakish hath sinned against her kin" (ibid. ii. 89). More of this in Chenery's Al-Hariri p. 422; but the three Lokmans are there reduced to two.
[FN#235] I have noticed them in vol. ii. 47-49. "To the Gold Coast for Gold."
[FN#236] I can hardly accept the dictum that the Katha Sarit Sagara, of which more presently, is the "earliest representation of the first collection."
[FN#237] The Pehlevi version of the days of King Anushirwan (A.D. 531-72) became the Humayun-nameh ("August Book") turned into Persian for Bahram Shah the Ghaznavite: the Hitopadesa ("Friendship-boon") of Prakrit, avowedly compiled from the "Panchatantra," became the Hindu Panchopakhyan, the Hindostani Akhlak-i-Hindi ("Moralities of Ind") and in Persia and Turkey the Anvar-i-Suhayli ("Lights of Canopus"). Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac writers entitle their version Kalilah wa Damnah, or Kalilaj wa Damnaj, from the name of the two jackal-heroes, and Europe knows the recueil as the Fables of Pilpay or Bidpay (Bidya-pati, Lord of learning?) a learned Brahman reported to have been Premier at the Court of the Indian King Dabishlim.
[FN#238] Diet. Philosoph. S. V. Apocrypha.
[FN#239] The older Arab writers, I repeat, do not ascribe fables or beast-apologues to Lokman; they record only "dictes" and proverbial sayings.
[FN#240] Professor Taylor Lewis: Preface to Pilpay.
[FN#241] In the Katha Sarit Sagara the beast-apologues are more numerous, but they can be reduced to two great nuclei; the first in chapter lx. (Lib. x.) and the second in the same book chapters lxii-lxv. Here too they are mixed up with anecdotes and acroamata after the fashion of The Nights, suggesting great antiquity for this style of composition.
[FN#242] Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. 266 et seq. The fabliau is interesting in more ways than one. Anepu the elder (Potiphar) understands the language of cattle, an idea ever cropping up in Folk-lore; and Bata (Joseph), his "little brother," who becomes a "panther of the South (Nubia) for rage" at the wife's impudique proposal, takes the form of a bull-- metamorphosis full blown. It is not, as some have called it, the "oldest book in the world;" that name was given by M. Chabas to a MS. of Proverbs, dating from B.C. 2200. See also the "Story of Saneha," a novel earlier than the popular date of Moses, in the Contes Populaires of Egypt.
[FN#243] The fox and the jackal are confounded by the Arabic dialects not by the Persian, whose "Rubah" can never be mistaken for "Shaghal." "Sa'lab" among the Semites is locally applied to either beast and we can distinguish the two only by the fox being solitary and rapacious, and the jackal gregarious and a carrion-eater. In all Hindu tales the jackal seems to be an awkward substitute for the Grecian and classical fox, the Giddar or Kola (Cants aureus) being by no means sly and wily as the Lomri (Vulpes vulgaris). This is remarked by Weber (Indische Studien) and Prof. Benfey's retort about "King Nobel" the lion is by no means to the point. See Katha Sarit Sagara, ii. 28.
I may add that in Northern Africa jackal's gall, like jackal's grape (Solanum nigrum = black nightshade), ass's milk and melted camel-hump, is used aphrodisiacally as an unguent by both sexes. See. p. 239, etc., of Le Jardin parfume du Cheikh Nefzaoui, of whom more presently.
[FN#244] Rambler, No. lxvii.
[FN#245] Some years ago I was asked by my old landlady if ever in the course of my travels I had come across Captain Gulliver.
[FN#246] In "The Adventurer" quoted by Mr. Heron, "Translator's Preface to the Arabian Tales of Chaves and Cazotte."
[FN#247] "Life in a Levantine Family" chapt. xi. Since the able author found his "family" firmly believing in The Nights, much has been changed in Alexandria; but the faith in Jinn and Ifrit, ghost and vampire is lively as ever.
[FN#248] The name dates from the second century A. H. or before A. D. 815.
[FN#249] Dabistan i. 231 etc.
[FN#250] Because Si = thirty and Murgh = bird. In McClenachan's Addendum to Mackay's Encyclopaeedia of Freemasonry we find the following definition: "Simorgh. A monstrous griffin, guardian of the Persian mysteries."
[FN#251] For a poor and inadequate description of the festivals commemorating this "Architect of the Gods" see vol. iii. 177, "View of the History etc. of the Hindus" by the learned Dr. Ward, who could see in them only the "low and sordid nature of idolatry." But we can hardly expect better things from a missionary in 1822, when no one took the trouble to understand what "idolatry" means.
[FN#252] Rawlinson (ii. 491) on Herod. iii. c. 102. Nearchus saw the skins of these formicae Indicae, by some rationalists explained as "jackals," whose stature corresponds with the text, and by others as "pengolens" or ant-eaters (manis pentedactyla). The learned Sanskritist, H. H. Wilson, quotes the name Pippilika = ant-gold, given by the people of Little Thibet to the precious dust thrown up in the emmet heaps.
[FN#253] A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July, '86), of whom more presently, suggests that The Nights assumed essentially their present shape during the general revival of letters, arts and requirements which accompanied the Kurdish and Tartar irruptions into the Nile Valley, a golden age which embraced the whole of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and ended with the Ottoman Conquest in A. D. 1527.
[FN#254] Let us humbly hope not again to hear of the golden prime of
a mispronunciation which suggests only a rasher of bacon. Why will not poets mind their quantities, in lieu of stultifying their lines by childish ignorance? What can be more painful than Byron's
died?"
[FN#255] See De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe (Paris, 1826), vol. i.
[FN#256] See Le Jardin Parfume du Cheikh Nefzaoui Manuel d'Erotologie Arabe Traduction revue et corrigee Edition privee, imprime a deux cent.-vingt exemplaires, par Isidore Liseux et ses Amis, Paris, 1866. The editor has forgotten to note that the celebrated Sidi Mohammed copied some of the tales from The Nights and borrowed others (I am assured by a friend) from Tunisian MSS. of the same work. The book has not been fairly edited: the notes abound in mistakes, the volume lacks an index, &c., &c. Since this was written the Jardin Parfume has been twice translated into English as "The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui, a Manual of Arabian Erotology (sixteenth century). Revised and corrected translation, Cosmopoli: mdccclxxxvi.: for the Kama Shastra Society of London and Benares and for private circulation only." A rival version will be brought out by a bookseller whose Committee, as he calls it, appears to be the model of literary pirates, robbing the author as boldly and as openly as if they picked his pocket before his face.
[FN#257] Translated by a well-known Turkish scholar, Mr. E. J. W. Gibb (Glasgow, Wilson and McCormick, 1884).
[FN#258] D'Herbelot (s. v. "Asmai"): I am reproached by a dabbler in Orientalism for using this admirable writer who shows more knowledge in one page than my critic does in a whole volume.
[FN#259] For specimens see Al-Siyuti, pp. 301 and 304, and the Shaykh al Nafzawi, pp. 134-35
[FN#260] The word "nakh" (to make a camel kneel) is explained in vol. ii. 139.
[FN#261] The present of the famous horologium-clepsydra-cuckoo clock, the dog Becerillo and the elephant Abu Lubabah sent by Harun to Charlemagne is not mentioned by Eastern authorities and consequently no reference to it will be found in my late friend Professor Palmer's little volume "Haroun Alraschid," London, Marcus Ward, 1881. We have allusions to many presents, the clock and elephant, tent and linen hangings, silken dresses, perfumes, and candelabra of auricalch brought by the Legati (Abdalla Georgius Abba et Felix) of Aaron Amiralmumminim Regis Persarum who entered the Port of Pisa (A. D. 801) in (vol. v. 178) Recueil des Histor. des Gaules et de la France, etc., par Dom Martin Bouquet, Paris, mdccxliv. The author also quotes the lines:--
[FN#262] Many have remarked that the actual date of the decease is unknown.
[FN#263] See Al-Siyuti (p. 305) and Dr. Jonathan Scott's "Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters," (p. 296).
[FN#264] I have given (vol. i. 188) the vulgar derivation of the name; and D'Herbelot (s. v. Barmakian) quotes some Persian lines alluding to the "supping up." Al-Mas'udi's account of the family's early history is unfortunately lost. This Khalid succeeded Abu Salamah, first entitled Wazir under Al-Saffah (Ibn Khallikan i. 468).
[FN#265] For his poetry see Ibn Khallikan iv. 103.
[FN#266] Their flatterers compared them with the four elements.
[FN#267] Al-Mas'udi, chapt. cxii.
[FN#268] Ibn Khallikan (i. 310) says the eunuch Abu Hashim Masrur, the Sworder of Vengeance, who is so pleasantly associated with Ja'afar in many nightly disguises; but the Eunuch survived the Caliph. Fakhr al-Din (p. 27) adds that Masrur was an enemy of Ja'afar; and gives further details concerning the execution.
[FN#269] Bresl. Edit., Night dlxvii. vol. vii. pp. 258-260; translated in the Mr. Payne's "Tales from the Arabic," vol. i. 189 and headed "Al-Rashid and the Barmecides." It is far less lively and dramatic than the account of the same event given by Al-Mas'udi, chapt. cxii., by Ibn Khallikan and by Fakhr al-Din.
[FN#270] Al-Mas'udi, chapt. cxi.
[FN#271] See Dr. Jonathan Scott's extracts from Major Ouseley's "Tarikh-i-Barmaki."
[FN#272] Al-Mas'udi, chapt. cxii. For the liberties Ja'afar took see Ibn Khallikan, i. 303.
[FN#273] Ibid. chapt. xxiv. In vol. ii. 29 of The Nights, I find signs of Ja'afar's suspected heresy. For Al-Rashid's hatred of the Zindiks see Al-Siyuti, pp. 292, 301; and as regards the religious troubles ibid. p. 362 and passim.
[FN#274] Biogr. Dict. i. 309.
[FN#275] This accomplished princess had a practice that suggests the Dame aux Camelias.
[FN#276] i. e. Perdition to your fathers, Allah's curse on your ancestors.
[FN#277] See vol. iv. 159, "Ja'afar and the Bean-seller;" where the great Wazir is said to have been "crucified;" and vol. iv. pp. 179, 181. Also Roebuck's Persian Proverbs, i. 2, 346, "This also is through the munificence of the Barmecides."
[FN#278] I especially allude to my friend Mr. Payne's admirably written account of it in his concluding Essay (vol. ix.). From his views of the Great Caliph and the Lady Zubaydah I must differ in every point except the destruction of the Barmecides.
[FN#279] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. 261-62.
[FN#280] Mr. Grattan Geary, in a work previously noticed, informs us (i. 212) "The Sitt al-Zobeide, or the Lady Zobeide, was so named from the great Zobeide tribe of Arabs occupying the country East and West of the Euphrates near the Hindi'ah Canal; she was the daughter of a powerful Sheik of that Tribe." Can this explain the "Kasim"?
[FN#281] Vol. viii. 296.
[FN#282] Burckhardt, "Travels in Arabia" vol. i. 185.
[FN#283] The reverse has been remarked by more than one writer; and contemporary French opinion seems to be that Victor Hugo's influence on French prose, was on the whole, not beneficial.
[FN#284] Mr. W. S. Clouston, the "Storiologist," who is preparing a work to be entitled "Popular Tales and Fictions; their Migrations and Transformations," informs me the first to adapt this witty anecdote was Jacques de Vitry, the crusading bishop of Accon (Acre) who died at Rome in 1240, after setting the example of "Exempla" or instances in his sermons. He had probably heard it in Syria, and he changed the day-dreamers into a Milkmaid and her Milk-pail to suit his "flock." It then appears as an "Exemplum" in the Liber de Donis or de Septem Donis (or De Dono Timoris from Fear the first gift) of Stephanus de Borbone, the Dominican, ob. Lyons, 1261: it treated of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah xi. 2 and 3), Timor, Pietas, Scientia, Fortitudo, Consilium, Intellectus et Sapientia; and was plentifully garnished with narratives for the use of preachers.
[FN#285] The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register (new series, vol. xxx. Sept.-Dec. 1830, London, Allens, 1839); p. 69 Review of the Arabian Nights, the Mac. Edit. vol. i., and H. Torrens.
[FN#286] As a household edition of the "Arabian Nights" is now being prepared, the curious reader will have an opportunity of verifying this statement.
[FN#287] It has been pointed out to me that in vol. ii. p. 285, line 18 "Zahr Shah" is a mistake for Sulayman Shah.
[FN#288] I have lately found these lovers at Schloss Sternstein near Cilli in Styria, the property of my excellent colleague, Mr. Consul Faber, dating from A. D. 1300 when Jobst of Reichenegg and Agnes of Sternstein were aided and abetted by a Capuchin of Seikkloster.
[FN#289] In page 226 Dr. Steingass sensibly proposes altering the last hemistich (lines 11-12) to
[FN#290] Omitted by Lane for some reason unaccountable as usual. A correspondent sends me his version of the lines which occur in The Nights (vol. v. 106 and 107):--
[FN#291] A rhyming Romance by Henry of Waldeck (flor. A. D. 1160) with a Latin poem on the same subject by Odo and a prose version still popular in Germany. (Lane's Nights iii. 81; and Weber's "Northern Romances.")
[FN#292] e. g. 'Ajaib al-Hind (= Marvels of Ind) ninth century, translated by J. Marcel Devic, Paris, 1878; and about the same date the Two Mohammedan Travellers, translated by Renaudot. In the eleventh century we have the famous Sayyid al-ldrisi, in the thirteenth the 'Ajaib al-Makhlukat of Al-Kazwini and in the fourteenth the Kharidat al-Ajaib of Ibn Al-Wardi. Lane (in loco) traces most of Sindbad to the two latter sources.
[FN#293] So Hector France proposed to name his admirably realistic volume "Sous le Burnous" (Paris, Charpentier, 1886).
[FN#294] I mean in European literature, not in Arabic where it is a lieu commun. See three several forms of it in one page (505) of Ibn Kallikan, vol. iii.
[FN#295] My attention has been called to the resemblance between the half-lie and Job (i. 13- 19).
[FN#296] Boccaccio (ob. Dec. 2, 1375), may easily have heard of The Thousand Nights and a Night or of its archetype the Hazar Afsanah. He was followed by the Piacevoli Notti of Giovan Francisco Straparola (A. D. 1550), translated into almost all European languages but English: the original Italian is now rare. Then came the Heptameron ou Histoire des amans fortunez of Marguerite d'Angouleme, Reyne de Navarre and only sister of Francis I. She died in 1549 before the days were finished: in 1558 Pierre Boaistuan published the Histoire des amans fortunez and in 1559 Claude Guiget the "Heptameron." Next is the Hexameron of A. de Torquemada, Rouen, 1610; and, lastly, the Pentamerone or El Cunto de li Cunte of Giambattista Basile (Naples 1637), known by the meagre abstract of J. E. Taylor and the caricatures of George Cruikshank (London 1847-50). I propose to translate this Pentamerone direct from the Neapolitan and have already finished half the work.
[FN#297] Translated and well annotated by Prof. Tawney, who, however, affects asterisks and has considerably bowdlerised sundry of the tales, e. g. the Monkey who picked out the Wedge (vol. ii. 28). This tale, by the by, is found in the Khirad Afroz (i. 128) and in the Anwar-i-Suhayli (chapt. i.) and gave rise to the Persian proverb, "What has a monkey to do with carpentering?" It is curious to compare the Hindu with the Arabic work whose resemblances are as remarkable as their differences, while even more notable is their correspondence in impressioning the reader. The Thaumaturgy of both is the same: the Indian is profuse in demonology and witchcraft; in transformation and restoration; in monsters as wind-men, fire-men and water-men, in air-going elephants and flying horses (i. 541-43); in the wishing cow, divine goats and laughing fishes (i. 24); and in the speciosa miracula of magic weapons. He delights in fearful battles (i. 400) fought with the same weapons as the Moslem and rewards his heroes with a "turband of honour" (i. 266) in lieu of a robe. There is a quaint family likeness arising from similar stages and states of society: the city is adorned for gladness, men carry money in a robe-corner and exclaim "Ha! good!" (for "Good, by Allah!"), lovers die with exemplary facility, the "soft-sided" ladies drink spirits (i. 61) and princesses get drunk (i. 476); whilst the Eunuch, the Hetaira and the bawd (Kuttini) play the same preponderating parts as in The Nights. Our Brahman is strong in love-making; he complains of the pains of separation in this phenomenal universe; he revels in youth, "twin-brother to mirth," and beauty which has illuminating powers; he foully reviles old age and he alternately praises and abuses the sex, concerning which more presently. He delights in truisms, the fashion of contemporary Europe (see Palmerin of England chapt. vii), such as "It is the fashion of the heart to receive pleasure from those things which ought to give it," etc. etc. What is there the wise cannot understand? and so forth. He is liberal in trite reflections and frigid conceits (i. 19, 55, 97, 103, 107, in fact everywhere); and his puns run through whole lines; this in fine Sanskrit style is inevitable. Yet some of his expressions are admirably terse and telling, e. g. Ascending the swing of Doubt: Bound together (lovers) by the leash of gazing: Two babes looking like Misery and Poverty: Old Age seized me by the chin: (A lake) first assay of the Creator's skill: (A vow) difficult as standing on a sword-edge: My vital spirits boiled with the fire of woe: Transparent as a good man's heart: There was a certain convent full of fools: Dazed with scripture-reading: The stones could not help laughing at him: The Moon kissed the laughing forehead of the East: She was like a wave of the Sea of Love's insolence (ii. 127), a wave of the Sea of Beauty tossed up by the breeze of Youth: The King played dice, he loved slave-girls, he told lies, he sat up o' nights, he waxed wroth without reason, he took wealth wrongously, he despised the good and honoured the bad (i. 562); with many choice bits of the same kind. Like the Arab the Indian is profuse in personification; but the doctrine of pre-existence, of incarnation and emanation and an excessive spiritualism ever aiming at the infinite, makes his imagery run mad. Thus we have Immoral Conduct embodied; the God of Death; Science; the Svarga-heaven; Evening; Untimeliness, and the Earth-bride, while the Ace and Deuce of dice are turned into a brace of Demons. There is also that grotesqueness which the French detect even in Shakespeare, e. g. She drank in his ambrosial form with thirsty eyes like partridges (i. 476) and it often results from the comparison of incompatibles, e. g. a row of birds likened to a garden of nymphs; and from forced allegories, the favourite figure of contemporary Europe. Again, the rhetorical Hindu style differs greatly from the sobriety, directness and simplicity of the Arab, whose motto is Brevity combined with precision, except where the latter falls into "fine writing." And, finally, there is a something in the atmosphere of these Tales which is unfamiliar to the West and which makes them, as more than one has remarked to me, very hard reading.
[FN#298] The Introduction (i. 1-5) leads to the Curse of Pushpadanta and Malyavan who live on Earth as Vararuchi and Gunadhya and this runs through lib. i. Lib. ii. begins with the Story of Udayana to whom we must be truly grateful as our only guide: he and his son Naravahanadatta fill up the rest and end with lib. xviii. Thus the want of the clew or plot compels a division into books, which begin for instance with "We worship the elephantine proboscis of Ganesha" (lib. x. i.) a reverend and awful object to a Hindu but to Englishmen mainly suggesting the "Zoo." The "Bismillah" of The Nights is much more satisfactory.
[FN#299] See pp. 5-6 Avertissement des Editeurs, Le Cabinet des Fees, vol. xxxviii: Geneva 1788. Galland's Edit. of mdccxxvi ends with Night ccxxxiv and the English translations with ccxxxvi and cxcvii. See retro p. 82.
[FN#300] There is a shade of difference in the words; the former is also used for Reciters of Traditions--a serious subject. But in the case of Hammad surnamed Al-Rawiyah (the Rhapsode) attached to the Court of Al-Walid, it means simply a conteur. So the Greeks had Homeristae = reciters of Homer, as opposed to the Homeridae or School of Homer.
[FN#302] Vol. i, Preface p. v. He notes that Mr. Dallaway describes the same scene at Constantinople where the Story-teller was used, like the modern "Organs of Government" in newspaper shape, for "reconciling the people to any recent measure of the Sultan and Vizier." There are women Rawiyahs for the Harems and some have become famous like the Mother of Hasan al-Basri (Ibn Khall. i, 370).
[FN#302] Hence the Persian proverb, "Baki-e-dastan farda = the rest of the tale to-morrow," said to askers of silly questions.
[FN#303] The scene is excellently described in, "Morocco: Its People and Places," by Edmondo de Amicis (London: Cassell, 1882), a most refreshing volume after the enforced platitudes and commonplaces of English travellers.
[FN#304] It began, however, in Persia, where the celebrated Darwaysh Mukhlis, Chief Sofi of Isfahan in the xviith century, translated into Persian tales certain Hindu plays of which a MS. entitled Alfaraga Badal-Schidda (Al-faraj ba'd al-shiddah = Joy after annoy) exists in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. But to give an original air to his work, he entitled it "Hazar o yek Ruz" = Thousand and One Days, and in 1675 he allowed his friend Petis de la Croix, who happened to be at Isfahan, to copy it. Le Sage (of Gil Blas) is said to have converted many of the tales of Mukhlis into comic operas, which were performed at the Theatre Italien. I still hope to see The Nights at the Lyceum.
[FN#305] This author, however, when hazarding a change of style which is, I think, regretable, has shown abundant art by filling up the frequent deficiencies of the text after the fashion of Baron McGuckin de Slane in Ibn Khallikan. As regards the tout ensemble of his work, a noble piece of English, my opinion will ever be that expressed in my Foreword. A carping critic has remarked that the translator, "as may be seen in every page, is no Arabic scholar." If I be a judge, the reverse is the case: the brilliant and beautiful version thus traduced is almost entirely free from the blemishes and carelessness which disfigure Lane's, and thus it is far more faithful to the original. But it is no secret that on the staff of that journal the translator of Villon has sundry enemies, vrais diables enjuppones, who take every opportunity of girding at him because he does not belong to the clique and because he does good work when theirs is mostly sham. The sole fault I find with Mr. Payne is that his severe grace of style treats an unclassical work as a classic, when the romantic and irregular would have been a more appropriate garb. But this is a mere matter of private judgment.
[FN#306] Here I offer a few, but very few, instances from the Breslau text, which is the greatest sinner in this respect. Mas. for fem., vol. i. p. 9, and three times in seven pages, Ahna and nahna for nahnu (iv. 370, 372); Ana ba-ashtari = I will buy (iii. 109): and Ana 'Amil = I will do (v. 367). Alayki for Alayki (i. 18), Anti for Anti (iii. 66) and generally long i for short . 'Ammal (from 'amala = he did) tahlam = certainly thou dreamest, and 'Ammalin yaakulu = they were about to eat (ix. 315): Aywa for Ay wa'llahi = yes, by Allah (passim). Bita' = belonging to, e.g. Sara bita'k = it is become thine (ix. 352) and Mata' with the same sense (iii. 80). Da 'l-khurj = this saddle-bag (ix. 336) and Di (for hazah) = this woman (iii. 79) or this time (ii. 162). Fayn as raha fayn = whither is he gone? (iv. 323). Kama badri = he rose early (ix. 318): Kaman = also, a word known to every European (ii. 43): Katt = never (ii. 172): Kawam (pronounced 'awam) = fast, at once (iv. 385) and Rih asif kawi (pron. 'awi) = a wind, strong very. Laysh, e.g. bi tasalni laysh (ix. 324) = why do you ask me? a favourite form for li ayya shayyin: so Mafish = ma fihi shayyun (there is no thing) in which Herr Landberg (p. 425) makes "Sha, le present de pouvoir." Min ajali = for my sake; and Li ajal al-taudi'a = for the sake of taking leave (Mac. Edit. i. 384). Rijal nautiyah = men sailors when the latter word would suffice: Shuwayh (dim. of shayy) = a small thing, a little (iv. 309) like Moyyah (dim. of Ma) a little water: Wadduni = they carried me (ii. 172) and lastly the abominable Wahid gharib = one (for a) stranger. These few must suffice: the tale of Judar and his brethren, which in style is mostly Egyptian, will supply a number of others. It must not, however, be supposed, as many have done, that vulgar and colloquial Arabic is of modern date: we find it in the first century of Al-Islam, as is proved by the tale of Al-Hajjaj and Al-Shabi (Ibn Khallikan, ii. 6). The former asked "Kam ataa-k?' (= how much is thy pay?) to which the latter answered, "Alfayn!" (= two thousand!). "Tut," cried the Governor, "Kam atau-ka?" to which the poet replied as correctly and classically, "Alfani."
[FN#307] In Russian folk-songs a young girl is often compared with this tree e.g.--
[FN#308] So in Hector France ("La vache enragee") "Le sourcil en accent circonflexe et l'oeil en point d'interrogation."
[FN#309] In Persian "Ab-i-ru" in India pronounced Abru.
FN#310] For further praises of his poetry and eloquence see the extracts from Fakhr al-Din of Rayy (an annalist of the xivth century A.D.) in De Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe, vol. i.
[FN#311] After this had been written I received "Babylonian, das reichste Land in der Vorzeit und das lohnendste Kolonisationsfeld fuer die Gegenwart," by my learned friend Dr. Aloys Sprenger, Heidelberg, 1886.
[FN#312] The first school for Arabic literature was opened by Ibn Abbas, who lectured to multitudes in a valley near Meccah; this rude beginning was followed by public teaching in the great Mosque of Damascus. For the rise of the "Madrasah," Academy or College' see Introduct. to Ibn Khallikan pp. xxvii-xxxii.
[FN#313] When Ibn Abbad the Sahib (Wazir) was invited to visit one of the Samanides, he refused, one reason being that he would require 400 camels to carry only his books.
[FN#314] This "Salmagondis" by Francois Beroalde de Verville was afterwards worked by Tabarin , the pseudo-Bruscambille d'Aubigne and Sorel.
[FN#315] I prefer this derivation to Strutt's adopted by the popular, "mumm is said to be derived from the Danish word mumme, or momme in Dutch (Germ. = larva), and signifies disguise in a mask, hence a mummer." In the Promptorium Parvulorum we have "Mummynge, mussacio, vel mussatus": it was a pantomime in dumb show, e.g. "I mumme in a mummynge;" "Let us go mumme (mummer) to nyghte in women's apparayle." "Mask" and "Mascarade," for persona, larva or vizard, also derive, I have noticed, from an Arabic word--Maskharah.
[FN#316] The Pre-Adamite doctrine has been preached with but scant success in Christendom. Peyrere, a French Calvinist, published (A.D. 1655) his "Praadamitae, sive exercitatio supra versibus 12, 13, 14, cap. v. Epist. Paul. ad Romanos," contending that Adam was called the first man because with him the law began. It brewed a storm of wrath and the author was fortunate to escape with only imprisonment.
[FN#317] According to Socrates the verdict was followed by a free fight of the Bishop-voters over the word "consubstantiality."
[FN#318] Servetus burnt (in A.D. 1553 for publishing his Arian tractate) by Calvin, whom half-educated Roman Catholics in England firmly believe to have been a pederast. This arose I suppose, from his meddling with Rabelais who, in return for the good joke Rabie laesus, presented a better anagram, "Jan (a pimp or cuckold) Cul" (Calvinus).
[FN#319] There is no more immoral work than the "Old Testament." Its deity is an ancient Hebrew of the worst type, who condones, permits or commands every sin in the Decalogue to a Jewish patriarch, qua patriarch. He orders Abraham to murder his son and allows Jacob to swindle his brother; Moses to slaughter an Egyptian and the Jews to plunder and spoil a whole people, after inflicting upon them a series of plagues which would be the height of atrocity if the tale were true. The nations of Canaan are then extirpated. Ehud, for treacherously disembowelling King Eglon, is made judge over Israel. Jael is blessed above women (Joshua v. 24) for vilely murdering a sleeping guest; the horrid deeds of Judith and Esther are made examples to mankind; and David, after an adultery and a homicide which deserved ignominious death, is suffered to massacre a host of his enemies, cutting some in two with saws and axes and putting others into brick-kilns. For obscenity and impurity we have the tales of Onan and Tamar, Lot and his daughters, Amnon and his fair sister (2 Sam. xiii.), Absalom and his father's concubines, the "wife of whoredoms" of Hosea and, capping all, the Song of Solomon. For the horrors forbidden to the Jews who, therefore, must have practiced them, see Levit. viii. 24, xi. 5, xvii. 7, xviii. 7, 9, 10, 12, 15, 17, 21, 23, and xx. 3. For mere filth what can be fouler than 1st Kings xviii. 27; Tobias ii. 11; Esther xiv. 2, Eccl. xxii. 2; Isaiah xxxvi. 12, Jeremiah iv. 5, and (Ezekiel iv. 12-15), where the Lord changes human ordure into "Cow-chips!" Ce qui excuse Dieu, said Henri Beyle, c'est qu'il n'existe pas,--I add, as man has made him.
[FN#320] It was the same in England before the "Reformation," and in France where, during our days, a returned priesthood collected in a few years "Peter-pence" to the tune of five hundred millions of francs. And these men wonder at being turned out!
[FN#321] Deutsch on the Talmud: Quarterly Review, 1867.
[FN#322] Evidently. Its cosmogony is a myth read literally: its history is, for the most part, a highly immoral distortion, and its ethics are those of the Talmudic Hebrews. It has done good work in its time; but now it shows only decay and decrepitude in the place of vigour and progress. It is dying hard, but it is dying of the slow poison of science.
[FN#323] These Hebrew Stoics would justly charge the Founder of Christianity with preaching a more popular and practical doctrine, but a degradation from their own far higher and more ideal standard.
[FN#324] Dr. Theodore Christlieb ("Modern Doubt and Christian Belief," Edinburgh: Clark 1874) can even now write:--"So then the 'full age' to which humanity is at present supposed to have attained, consists in man's doing good purely for goodness sake! Who sees not the hollowness of this bombastic talk. That man has yet to be born whose practice will be regulated by this insipid theory (dieser grauen theorie). What is the idea of goodness per se? * * * The abstract idea of goodness is not an effectual motive for well-doing" (p. 104). My only comment is c'est ignolile! His Reverence acts the part of Satan in Holy Writ, "Does Job serve God for naught?" Compare this selfish, irreligious, and immoral view with Philo Judaeus (On the Allegory of the Sacred Laws, cap. 1viii.), to measure the extent of the fall from Pharisaism to Christianity. And the latter is still infected with the "bribe-and-threat doctrine:" I once immensely scandalised a Consular Chaplain by quoting the noble belief of the ancients, and it was some days before he could recover mental equanimity. The degradation is now inbred.
[FN#325] Of the doctrine of the Fall the heretic Marcion wrote: "The Deity must either be deficient in goodness if he willed, in prescience if he did not foresee, or in power if he did not prevent it."
[FN#326] In his charming book, "India Revisited."
[FN#327] This is the answer to those who contend with much truth that the moderns are by no means superior to the ancients of Europe: they look at the results of only 3000 years instead of 30,000 or 300,000.
[FN#328] As a maxim the saying is attributed to the Duc de Levis, but it is much older.
[FN#329] There are a few, but only a few, frightful exceptions to this rule, especially in the case of Khalid bin Walid, the Sword of Allah, and his ferocious friend, Darar ibn al-Azwar. But their cruel excesses were loudly blamed by the Moslems, and Caliph Omar only obeyed the popular voice in superseding the fierce and furious Khalid by the mild and merciful Abu Obaydah.
[FN#330] This too when St. Paul sends the Christian slave Onesimus back to his unbelieving (?) master, Philemon; which in Al-Islam would have created a scandal.
[FN#331] This too when the Founder of Christianity talks of "Eating and drinking at his table!" (Luke xxn. 29.) My notes have often touched upon this inveterate prejudice the result, like the soul-less woman of Al-Islam, of ad captandum, pious fraud. "No soul knoweth what joy of the eyes is reserved for the good in recompense for their works" (Koran xxxn. 17) is surely as "spiritual" as St. Paul (I Cor. ii., 9). Some lies, however are very long-lived, especially those begotten by self interest.
[FN#332] I have elsewhere noted its strict conservatism which, however, it shares with all Eastern faiths in the East. But progress, not quietism, is the principle which governs humanity and it is favoured by events of most different nature. In Egypt the rule of Mohammed Ali the Great and in Syria the Massacre of Damascus (1860) have greatly modified the constitution of Al- Islam throughout the nearer East.
[FN#333] Chapt. viii. "Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia;" London, Macmillan, 1865.
[FN#334] The Soc. Jesu has, I believe, a traditional conviction that converts of Israelitic blood bring only misfortune to the Order.
[FN#335] I especially allude to an able but most superficial book, the "Ten Great Religions" by James F. Clarke (Boston, Osgood, 1876), which caricatures and exaggerates the false portraiture of Mr. Palgrave. The writer's admission that, "Something is always gained by learning what the believers in a system have to say in its behalf," clearly shows us the man we have to deal with and the "depths of his self-consciousness."
[FN#336] But how could the Arabist write such hideous grammar as "La Il h illa All h" for "La ilaha (accus.) ill' Allah"?
[FN#337] p. 996 "Muhammad" in vol. iii. Dictionary of Christian Biography. See also the Illustration of the Mohammedan Creed, etc., from Al-Ghazali introduced (pp. 72-77) into Bell and Sons' "History of the Saracens" by Simon Ockley, B.D. (London, 1878). I regret some Orientalist did not correct the proofs: everybody will not detect "Al-Lauh al-Mahfuz" (the Guarded Tablet) in "Allauh ho'hnehphoud" (p. 171); and this but a pinch out of a camel-load.
[FN#338] The word should have been Arianism. This "heresy" of the early Christians was much aided by the "Discipline of the Secret," supposed to be of apostolic origin, which concealed from neophytes, catechumens and penitents all the higher mysteries, like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Metastoicheiosis (transubstantiation), the Real Presence, the Eucharist and the Seven Sacraments; when Arnobius could ask, Quid Deo cum vino est? and when Justin, fearing the charge of Polytheism, could expressly declare the inferior nature of the Son to the Father. Hence the creed was appropriately called Symbol i.e., Sign of the Secret. This "mental reservation" lasted till the Edict of Toleration, issued by Constantine in the fourth century, held Christianity secure when divulging her "mysteries"; and it allowed Arianism to become the popular creed.
[FN#339] The Gnostics played rather a fantastic role in Christianity with their Demiurge, their AEonogony, their AEons by syzygies or couples, their Maio and Sabscho and their beatified bride of Jesus, Sophia Achamoth, and some of them descended to absolute absurdities, e.g., the Tascodrugitae and the Pattalorhinchitae who during prayers placed their fingers upon their noses or in their mouths, &c., reading Psalm cxli. 3.
[FN#340] "Kitab al-'Unwan fi Makaid al-Niswan" = The Book of the Beginnings on the Wiles of Womankind (Lane i. 38).
[FN#341] This person was one of the Amsal or Exampla of the Arabs. For her first thirty years she whored; during the next three decades she pimped for friend and foe, and, during the last third of her life, when bed-ridden by age and infirmities, she had a buckgoat and a nanny tied up in her room and solaced herself by contemplating their amorous conflicts.
[FN#342] And modern Moslem feeling upon the subject has apparently undergone a change. Ashraf Khan, the Afghan poet, sings,
Since I, the parted one, have come the secrets of the world to
Women in hosts therein I find, but few (and very few) of men.
And the Osmanli proverb is, "Of ten men nine are women!"
[FN#343] His Persian paper "On the Vindication of the Liberties of the Asiatic Women" was translated and printed in the Asiatic Annual Register for 1801 (pp. 100-107); it is quoted by Dr. Jon. Scott (Introd. vol. i. p. xxxiv. et seq.) and by a host of writers. He also wrote a book of Travels translated by Prof. Charles Stewart in 1810 and re-issued (3 vols. 8vo.) in 1814.
[FN#344] The beginning of which I date from the Hijrah, lit.= the separation, popularly "The Flight." Stating the case broadly, it has become the practice of modern writers to look upon Mohammed as an honest enthusiast at Meccah and an unscrupulous despot at Al- Medinah, a view which appears to me eminently unsound and unfair. In a private station the Meccan Prophet was famed as a good citizen, teste his title Al-Amin =The Trusty. But when driven from his home by the pagan faction, he became de facto as de jure a king: nay, a royal pontiff; and the preacher was merged in the Conqueror of his foes and the Commander of the Faithful. His rule, like that of all Eastern rulers, was stained with blood; but, assuming as true all the crimes and cruelties with which Christians charge him and which Moslems confess, they were mere blots upon a glorious and enthusiastic life, ending in a most exemplary death, compared with the tissue of horrors and havock which the Law and the Prophets attribute to Moses, to Joshua, to Samuel and to the patriarchs and prophets by express command of Jehovah.
[FN#345] It was not, however, incestuous: the scandal came from its ignoring the Arab "pundonor."
[FN#346] The "opportunism" of Mohammed has been made a matter of obloquy by many who have not reflected and discovered that time-serving is the very essence of "Revelation." Says the Rev. W. Smith ("Pentateuch," chaps. xiii.), "As the journey (Exodus) proceeds, so laws originate from the accidents of the way," and he applies this to successive decrees (Numbers xxvi. 32-36; xxvii. 8-11 and xxxvi. 1-9), holding it indirect internal evidence of Mosaic authorship (?). Another tone, however, is used in the case of Al-Islam. "And now, that he might not stand in awe of his wives any longer, down comes a revelation," says Ockley in his bluff and homely style, which admits such phrases as, "the imposter has the impudence to say." But why, in common honesty, refuse to the Koran the concessions freely made to the Torah? It is a mere petitio principii to argue that the latter is "inspired" while the former is not, moreover, although we may be called upon to believe things beyond Reason, it is hardly fair to require our belief in things contrary to Reason.
[FN#347] This is noticed in my wife's volume on The Inner Life of Syria, chaps. xii. vol. i. 155.
[FN#348] Mirza preceding the name means Mister and following it Prince. Addison's "Vision of Mirza" (Spectator, No. 159) is therefore "The Vision of Mister."
[FN#349] And women. The course of instruction lasts from a few days to a year and the period of puberty is feted by magical rites and often by some form of mutilation. It is described by Waitz, Reclus and Schoolcraft, Pachue-Loecksa, Collins, Dawson, Thomas, Brough Smyth, Reverends Bulmer and Taplin, Carlo Wilhelmi, Wood, A. W. Howitt, C. Z. Muhas (Mem. de la Soc. Anthrop. Allemande, 1882, p. 265) and by Professor Mantegazza (chaps. i.) for whom see infra.
[FN#350] Similarly certain Australian tribes act scenes of rape and pederasty saying to the young, If you do this you will be killed.
[FN#351] "Bah," is the popular term for the amatory appetite: hence such works are called Kutub al-Bah, lit. = Books of Lust.
[FN#352] I can make nothing of this title nor can those whom I have consulted: my only explanation is that they may be fanciful names proper.
[FN#353] Amongst the Greeks we find erotic specialists (1) Aristides of the Libri Milesii; (2) Astyanassa, the follower of Helen who wrote on androgvnisation; (3) Cyrene, the artist of amatory Tabellae or ex-votos offered to Priapus; (4) Elephantis, the poetess who wrote on Varia concubitus genera; (5) Evemerus, whose Sacra Historia, preserved in a fragment of Q. Eunius, was collected by Hieronymus Columnar (6) Hemitheon of the Sybaritic books, (7) Musaeus, the Iyrist; (8) Niko, the Samian girl; (9) Philaenis, the poetess of Amatory Pleasures, in Athen. viii. 13, attributed to Polycrates the Sophist; (10) Protagorides, Amatory Conversations; (11) Sotades, the Mantinaean who, says Suidas, wrote the poem "Cinaedica"; (12) Sphodrias the Cynic, his Art of Love; and (13) Trepsicles, Amatory Pleasures. Amongst the Romans we have Aedituus, Annianus (in Ausonius), Anser, Bassus Eubius, Helvius Cinna, Laevius (of Io and the Erotopaegnion), Memmius, Cicero (to Cerellia), Pliny the Younger, Sabellus (de modo coeundi); Sisenna, the pathic Poet and translator of Milesian Fables and Sulpitia, the modest erotist. For these see the Dictionnaire Erotique of Blondeau pp. ix. and x. (Paris, Liseux, 1885).
[FN#354] It has been translated from the Sanskrit and annotated by A.F.F. and B.F.R. Reprint Cosmopoli: mdccclxxxv.: for the Kama Shastra Society, London and Benares, and for private circulation only. The first print has been exhausted and a reprint will presently appear.
[FN#355] The local press has often proposed to abate this nuisance of erotic publication which is most debasing to public morals already perverted enough. But the "Empire of Opinion" cares very little for such matters and, in the matter of the "native press," generally seems to seek only a quiet life. In England if erotic literature were not forbidden by law, few would care to sell or to buy it, and only the legal pains and penalties keep up the phenomenally high prices.
[FN#356] The Spectator (No. 119) complains of an "infamous piece of good breeding," because "men of the town, and particularly those who have been polished in France, make use of the most coarse and uncivilised words in our language and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear."
[FN#357] See the Novelle of Bandello the Bishop (Tome 1, Paris, Liseux, 1879, small in 18) where the dying fisherman replies to his confessor, "Oh! Oh! your reverence, to amuse myself with boys was natural to me as for a man to eat and drink; yet you asked me if I sinned against nature!" Amongst the wiser ancients sinning contra naturam was not marrying and begetting children.
[FN#358] Avis au Lecteur "L'Amour dans l'Humanite," par P. Mantegazza, traduit par Emilien Chesneau, Paris, Fetscherin et Chuit, 1886.
[FN#359] See "H. B." (Henry Beyle, French Consul at Civita Vecchia) par un des Quarante H. B." (Prosper Merimee), Elutheropolis, An mdccclxiv. De l'Imposture du Nazareen.
[FN#360] This detail especially excited the veteran's curiosity. The reason proved to be that the scrotum of the unmutilated boy could be used as a kind of bridle for directing the movements of the animal. I find nothing of the kind mentioned in the Sotadical literature of Greece and Rome; although the same cause might be expected everywhere to the same effect. But in Mirabeau (Kadhesch) a grand seigneur moderne, when his valet-de-chambre de confiance proposes to provide him with women instead of boys, exclaims, "Des femmes! eh! c'est comme si tu me servais un gigot sans manche." See also infra for "Le poids du tisserand."
[FN#361] See Falconry in the Valley of the Indus, London, John Van Voorst, 1852.
[FN#362] Submitted to Government on Dec. 3', '47, and March 2, '48, they were printed in "Selections from the Records of the Government of India." Bombay. New Series. No. xvii. Part 2, 1855. These are (1) Notes on the Population of Sind, etc., and (2) Brief Notes on the Modes of Intoxication, etc., written in collaboration with my late friend Assistant-Surgeon John E. Stocks, whose early death was a sore loss to scientific botany.
[FN#363] Glycon the Courtesan in Athen. xiii. 84 declares that "boys are handsome only when they resemble women," and so the Learned Lady in The Nights (vol. v. 160) declares "Boys are likened to girls because folks say, Yonder boy is like a girl." For the superior physical beauty of the human male compared with the female, see The Nights, vol. iv. 15; and the boy's voice before it breaks excels that of any diva.
[FN#364] "Mascula," from the priapiscus, the over-development of clitoris (the veretrum muliebre, in Arabic Abu Tartur, habens cristam), which enabled her to play the man. Sappho (nat. B.C. 612) has been retoillee like Mary Stuart, La Brinvilliers, Marie Antoinette and a host of feminine names which have a savour not of sanctity. Maximus of Tyre (Dissert. xxiv.) declares that the Eros of Sappho was Socratic and that Gyrinna and Atthis were as Alcibiades and Chermides to Socrates: Ovid who could consult documents now lost, takes the same view in the Letter of Sappho to Phaon and in Tristia ii. 265.
Suidas supports Ovid. Longinus eulogises the (a term applied only to carnal love) of the far-famed Ode to Atthis:--
By its love symptoms, suggesting that possession is the sole cure for passion, Erasistratus discovered the love of Antiochus for Stratonice. Mure (Hist. of Greek Literature, 1850) speaks of the Ode to Aphrodite (Frag. 1) as "one in which the whole volume of Greek literature offers the most powerful concentration into one brilliant focus of the modes in which amatory concupiscence can display itself." But Bernhardy, Bode, Richter, K. O. Mueller and esp. Welcker have made Sappho a model of purity, much like some of our dull wits who have converted Shakespeare, that most debauched genius, into a good British bourgeois.
[FN#365] The Arabic Sabhakah, the Tractatrix or Subigitatrix who has been noticed in vol. iv. 134. Hence to Lesbianise ( ) and tribassare ( ); the former applied to the love of woman for woman and the latter to its mecanique: this is either natural, as friction of the labia and insertion of the clitoris when unusually developed, or artificial by means of the fascinum, the artificial penis (the Persian "Mayajang"); the patte de chat, the banana-fruit and a multitude of other succedanea. As this feminine perversion is only glanced at in The Nights I need hardly enlarge upon the subject.
[FN#366] Plato (Symp.) is probably mystical when he accounts for such passions by there being in the beginning three species of humanity, men, women and men-women or androgynes. When the latter were destroyed by Zeus for rebellion, the two others were individually divided into equal parts. Hence each division seeks its other half in the same sex, the primitive man prefers men and the primitive woman women. C'est beau, but--is it true? The idea was probably derived from Egypt which supplied the Hebrews with androgynic humanity, and thence it passed to extreme India, where Shiva as Ardhanari was male on one side and female on the other side of the body, combining paternal and maternal qualities and functions. The first creation of humans (Gen. i. 27) was hermaphrodite (=Hermes and Venus), masculum et foeminam creavit eos--male and female created He them--on the sixth day, with the command to increase and multiply (ibid. v. 28), while Eve the woman was created subsequently. Meanwhile, say certain Talmudists, Adam carnally copulated with all races of animals. See L'Anandryne in Mirabeau's Erotika Biblion, where Antoinette Bourgnon laments the undoubling which disfigured the work of God, producing monsters incapable of independent self-reproduction like the vegetable kingdom.
[FN#367] De la Femme, Paris, 1827.
[FN#368] Die Lustseuche des Alterthum's, Halle, 1839.
[FN#369] See his exhaustive article on (Grecian) "Paederastie" in the Allgemeine Encyclopaedie of Ersch and Gruber, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1837. He carefully traces it through the several states, Dorians, AEolians, Ionians, the Attic cities and those of Asia Minor. For these details I must refer my readers to M. Meier; a full account of these would fill a volume not the section of an essay.
[FN#370] Against which see Henri Estienne, Apologie pour Herodote, a society satire of xvith century, lately reprinted by Liseux.
[FN#371] In Sparta the lover was called or x and the beloved as in Thessaly or x.
[FN#372] The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. Zeus, who became Jupiter, was an ancient king, according to the Cretans, who were entitled liars because they showed his burial-place. From a deified ancestor he would become a local god, like the Hebrew Jehovah as opposed to Chemosh of Moab; the name would gain amplitude by long time and distant travel, and the old island chieftain would end in becoming the Demiurgus. Ganymede (who possibly gave rise to the old Lat. "Catamitus") was probably some fair Phrygian boy ("son of Tros") who in process of time became a symbol of the wise man seized by the eagle (perspicacity) to be raised amongst the Immortals; and the chaste myth simply signified that only the prudent are loved by the gods. But it rotted with age as do all things human. For the Pederastia of the Gods see Bayle under Chrysippe.
[FN#373] See Dissertation sur les idees morales des Grecs et sur les dangers de lire Platon. Par M. Aude, Bibliophile, Rouen, Lemonnyer, 1879. This is the pseudonym of the late Octave Delepierre, who published with Gay, but not the Editio Princeps--which, if I remember rightly, contains much more matter.
[FN#374] The phrase of J. Matthias Gesner, Comm. Reg. Soc. Gottingen i. 1-32. It was founded upon Erasmus' "Sancte Socrate, ore pro nobis," and the article was translated by M. Alcide Bonmaire, Paris, Liseux, 1877.
[FN#375] The subject has employed many a pen, e.g.,Alcibiade Fanciullo a Scola, D. P. A. (supposed to be Pietro Aretino--ad captandum?), Oranges, par Juann Wart, 1652: small square 8vo of pp. 102, including 3 preliminary pp. and at end an unpaged leaf with 4 sonnets, almost Venetian, by V. M. There is a re-impression of the same date, a small 12mo of longer format, pp. 124 with pp. 2 for sonnets: in 1862 the Imprimerie Racon printed 102 copies in 8vo of pp. iv.-108, and in 1863 it was condemned by the police as a liber spurcissimus atque execrandus de criminis sodomici laude et arte. This work produced "Alcibiade Enfant a l'ecole," traduit pour la premiere fois de l'Italien de Ferrante Pallavicini, Amsterdam, chez l'Ancien Pierre Marteau, mdccclxvi. Pallavicini (nat. 1618), who wrote against Rome, was beheaded, aet. 26 (March 5, 1644), at Avignon in 1644 by the vengeance of the Barberini: he was a bel esprit deregle, nourri d'etudes antiques and a Memb. of the Acad. Degl' Incogniti. His peculiarities are shown by his "Opere Scelte," 2 vols. 12mo, Villafranca, mdclxiii.; these do not include Alcibiade Fanciullo, a dialogue between Philotimus and Alcibiades which seems to be a mere skit at the Jesuits and their Peche philosophique. Then came the "Dissertation sur l'Alcibiade fanciullo a scola," traduit de l'Italien de Giambattista Baseggio et accompagnee de notes et d'une post-face par un bibliophile francais (M. Gustave Brunet, Librarian of Bordeaux), Paris. J. Gay, 1861--an octavo of pp. 78 (paged), 254 copies. The. same Baseggio printed in 1850 his Disquisizioni (23 copies) and claims for F. Pallavicini the authorship of Alcibiades which the Manuel du Libraire wrongly attributes to M. Girol. Adda in 1859. I have heard of but not seen the "Amator fornaceus, amator ineptus" (Palladii, 1633) supposed by some to be the origin of Alcibiade Fanciullo; but most critics consider it a poor and insipid production.
[FN#376] The word is from numbness, torpor, narcotism: the flowers, being loved by the infernal gods, were offered to the Furies. Narcissus and Hippolytus are often assumed as types of morose voluptas, masturbation and clitorisation for nymphomania: certain mediaeval writers found in the former a type of the Saviour, and 'Mirabeau a representation of the androgynous or first Adam: to me Narcissus suggests the Hindu Vishnu absorbed in the contemplation of his own perfections.
[FN#377] The verse of Ovid is parallel'd by the song of Al-Zahir al-Jazari (Ibn Khall. iii. 720).
[FN#378] The venerable society of prostitutes contained three chief classes. The first and lowest were the Dicteriads, so called from Diete (Crete), who imitated Pasiphae, wife of Minos, in preferring a bull to a husband; above them was the middle class, the Aleutridae, who were the Almahs or professional musicians, and the aristocracy was represented by the Hetairai, whose wit and learning enabled them to adorn more than one page of Grecian history. The grave Solon, who had studied in Egypt, established a vast Dicterion (Philemon in his Delphica), or bordel whose proceeds swelled the revenue of the Republic.
[FN#379] This and Saint Paul (Romans i. 27) suggested to Caravaggio his picture of St. Rosario (in the museum of the Grand Duke of Tuscany), showing a circle of thirty men turpiter ligati.
[FN#380] Properly speaking, "Medicus" is the third or ring finger, as shown by the old Chiromantist verses,
[FN#381] So Seneca uses digito scalpit caput. The modern Italian does the same by inserting the thumb-tip between the index and medius to suggest the clitoris.
[FN#382] What can be wittier than the now trite Tale of the Ephesian Matron, whose dry humour is worthy of The Nights? No wonder that it has made the grand tour of the world. It is found in the neo-Phaedrus, the tales of Musaeus and in the Septem Sapientes as the "Widow which was comforted." As the "Fabliau de la Femme qui se fist putain sur la fosse de son Mari," it tempted Brantome and La Fontaine; and Abel Remusat shows in his Contes Chinois that it is well known to the Middle Kingdom. Mr. Walter K. Kelly remarks, that the most singular place for such a tale is the "Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying" by Jeremy Taylor, who introduces it into his chapt. v.--"Of the Contingencies of Death and Treating our Dead." But in those days divines were not mealy-mouthed.
[FN#383] Glossarium eroticum linguae Latinae, sive theogoniae, legum et morum nuptialium apud Romanos explanatio nova, auctore P. P. (Parisiis, Dondey-Dupre, 1826, in 8vo). P. P. is supposed to be Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues, an engineer who made a plan of Bordeaux and who annotated the Erotica Biblion. Gay writes, "On s'est servi pour cet ouvrage des travaux inedits de M. Ie Baron de Schonen, etc. Quant au Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues qu'on designait comme l'auteur de ce savant volume, son existence n'est pas bien averee, et quelques bibliographes persistent a penser que ce nom cache la collaboration du Baron de Schonen et d'Eloi Johanneau." Other glossicists as Blondeau and Forberg have been printed by Liseux, Paris.
[FN#384] This magnificent country, which the petty jealousies of Europe condemn, like the glorious regions about Constantinople, to mere barbarism, is tenanted by three Moslem races. The Berbers, who call themselves Tamazight (plur. of Amazigh), are the Gaetulian indigenes speaking an Africo-Semitic tongue (see Essai de Grammaire Kabyle, etc., par A. Hanoteau, Paris, Benjamin Duprat). The Arabs, descended from the conquerors in our eighth century, are mostly nomads and camel-breeders. Third and last are the Moors proper, the race dwelling in towns, a mixed breed originally Arabian but modified by six centuries of Spanish residence and showing by thickness of feature and a parchment-coloured skin, resembling the American Octaroon's, a negro innervation of old date. The latter are well described in "Morocco and the Moors," etc. (Sampson Low and Co., 1876), by my late friend Dr. Arthur Leared, whose work I should like to see reprinted.
[FN#385] Thus somewhat agreeing with one of the multitudinous modern theories that the Pentapolis was destroyed by discharges of meteoric stones during a tremendous thunderstorm. Possible, but where are the stones?
[FN#386] To this Iranian domination I attribute the use of many Persic words which are not yet obsolete in Egypt. "Bakhshish," for instance, is not intelligible in the Moslem regions west of the Nile-Valley, and for a present the Moors say Hadiyah, regalo or favor.
[FN#387] Arnobius and Tertullian, with the arrogance of their caste and its miserable ignorance of that symbolism which often concealed from vulgar eyes the most precious mysteries, used to taunt the heathen for praying to deities whose sex they ignored "Consuistis in precibus 'Seu tu Deus seu tu Dea,' dicere!" These men would know everything; they made God the merest work of man's brains and armed him with a despotism of omnipotence which rendered their creation truly dreadful.
[FN#388] Gallus lit. = a cock, in pornologic parlance is a capon, a castrato.
[FN#389] The texts justifying or enjoining castration are Matt. xviii. 8-9; Mark ix. 43-47; Luke xxiii. 29 and Col. iii. 5. St. Paul preached (1 Corin. vii. 29) that a man should live with his wife as if he had none. The Abelian heretics of Africa abstained from women because Abel died virginal. Origen mutilated himself after interpreting too rigorously Matt. xix. 12, and was duly excommunicated. But his disciple, the Arab Valerius founded (A.D. 250) the castrated sect called Valerians who, persecuted and dispersed by the Emperors Constantine and Justinian, became the spiritual fathers of the modern Skopzis. These eunuchs first appeared in Russia at the end of the xith century, when two Greeks, John and Jephrem, were metropolitans of Kiew: the former was brought thither in A.D. 1089 by Princess Anna Wassewolodowna and is called by the chronicles Nawje or the Corpse. But in the early part of the last century (1715-1733) a sect arose in the circle of Uglitseh and in Moscow, at first called Clisti or flagellants, which developed into the modern Skopzi. For this extensive subject see De Stein (Zeitschrift fuer Ethn. Berlin, 1875) and Mantegazza, chaps. vi.
[FN#390] See the marvellously absurd description of the glorious "Dead Sea" in the Purchas v. 84.
[FN#391] Jehovah here is made to play an evil part by destroying men instead of teaching them better. But, "Nous faisons les Dieux a notre image et nous portons dans le ciel ce que nous voyons sur la terre." The idea of Yahweh, or Yah, is palpably Egyptian, the Ankh or ever-living One: the etymon, however, was learned at Babylon and is still found amongst the cuneiforms.
[FN#392] The name still survives in the Shajarat al-Ashara, a clump of trees near the village Al-Ghajar (of the Gypsies?) at the foot of Hermon.
[FN#393] I am not quite sure that Astarte is not primarily the planet Venus; but I can hardly doubt that Prof. Max Mueller and Sir G. Cox are mistaken in bringing from India Aphrodite the Dawn and her attendants, the Charites identified with the Vedic Harits. Of Ishtar in Accadia, however, Roscher seems to have proved that she is distinctly the Moon sinking into Amenti (the west, the Underworld) in search of her lost spouse Izdubar, the Sun-god. This again is pure Egyptianism.
[FN#394] In this classical land of Venus the worship of Ishtar-Ashtaroth is by no means obsolete. The Metawali heretics, a people of Persian descent and Shiite tenets, and the peasantry of "Bilad B'sharrah," which I would derive from Bayt Ashirah, still pilgrimage to the ruins and address their vows to the Sayyidat al-Kabirah, the Great Lady. Orthodox Moslems accuse them of abominable orgies and point to the lamps and rags which they suspend to a tree entitled Shajarat al-Sitt--the Lady's tree--an Acacia Albida which, according to some travellers, is found only here and at Sayda (Sidon) where an avenue exists. The people of Kasrawan, a Christian province in the Libanus, inhabited by a peculiarly prurient race, also hold high festival under the far-famed Cedars, and their women sacrifice to Venus like the Kadashah of the Phoenicians. This survival of old superstition is unknown to missionary "Handbooks," but amply deserves the study of the anthropologist.
[FN#395] Some commentators understand "the tabernacles sacred to the reproductive powers of women;" and the Rabbis declare that the emblem was the figure of a setting hen.
[FN#396] Dog" is applied by the older Jews to the Sodomite and the Catamite, and thus they understand the "price of a dog" which could not be brought into the Temple (Deut. xxiii. 18). I have noticed it in one of the derivations of cinaedus and can only remark that it is a vile libel upon the canine tribe.
[FN#397] Her name was Maachah and her title, according to some, "King's mother": she founded the sect of Communists who rejected marriage and made adultery and incest part of worship in their splendid temple. Such were the Basilians and the Carpocratians followed in the xith century by Tranchelin, whose sectarians, the Turlupins, long infested Savoy.
[FN#398] A noted exception is Vienna, remarkable for the enormous development of the virginal bosoni, which soon becomes pendulent.
[FN#399] Gen. xxxviii. 2-11. Amongst the classics Mercury taught the "Art of le Thalaba" to his son Pan who wandered about the mountains distraught with love for the Nymph Echo and Pan passed it on to the pastors. See Thalaba in Mirabeau.
[FN#400] The reader of The Nights has remarked how often the "he" in Arabic poetry denotes a "she"; but the Arab, when uncontaminated by travel, ignores pederasty, and the Arab poet is a Badawi.
[FN#401] So Mohammed addressed his girl-wife Ayishah in the masculine.
[FN#402] So amongst the Romans we have the Iatroliptae, youths or girls who wiped the gymnast's perspiring body with swan-down, a practice renewed by the professors of "Massage"; Unctores who applied perfumes and essences; Fricatrices and Tractatrices or shampooers; Dropacistae, corn-cutters; Alipilarii who plucked the hair, etc., etc., etc.
[FN#403] It is a parody on the well-known song (Roebuck i. sect. 2, No. 1602):
The goldsmith knows the worth of gold, jewellers worth of
The worth of rose Bulbul can tell and Kambar's worth his lord,
[FN#404] For "Sindi" Roebuck (Oriental Proverbs Part i. p. 99) has Kunbu (Kumboh) a Panjabi peasant, and others vary the saying ad libitum. See vol. vi. 156.
[FN#405] See "Sind Revisited" i. 133-35.
[FN#406] They must not be confounded with the grelots lascifs, the little bells of gold or silver set by the people of Pegu in the prepuce-skin, and described by Nicolo de Conti who however refused to undergo the operation.
[FN#407] Relation des decouvertes faites par Colomb, etc., p. 137: Bologna 1875; also Vespucci's letter in Ramusio (i. 131) and Paro's Recherches philosophiques sur les Americains.
[FN#408] See Mantegazza loc. cit. who borrows from the These de Paris of Dr. Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, "Frictiones per coitum productae magnum mucosae membranae vaginalis turgorem, ac simul hujus cuniculi coarctationem tam maritis salacibus quaeritatam afferunt."
[FN#409] Fascinus is the Priapus-god to whom the Vestal Virgins of Rome, professed tribades, sacrificed, also the neck-charm in phallus-shape. Fascinum is the male member.
[FN#410] Captain Grose (Lexicon Balatronicum) explains merkin as "counterfeit hair for women's privy parts. See Bailey's Dict." The Bailey of 1764, an "improved edition," does not contain the word which is now generally applied to a cunnus succedaneus.
[FN#411] I have noticed this phenomenal cannibalism in my notes to Mr. Albert Tootle's excellent translation of "The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse:" London, Hakluyt Society, mdccclxxiv.
[FN#412] The Ostreiras or shell mounds of the Brazil, sometimes 200 feet high, are described by me in Anthropologia No. i. Oct. 1873.
[FN#413] The Native Races of the Pacific States of South America, by Herbert Howe Bancroft, London, Longmans, 1875.
[FN#414] All Peruvian historians mention these giants, who were probably the large-limbed Gribs (Caraibes) of the Brazil: they will be noticed in page 211.
[FN#415] This sounds much like a pious fraud of the missionaries, a Europeo-American version of the Sodom legend.
[FN#416] Les Races Aryennes du Perou, Paris, Franck, 1871.
[FN#417] O Brazil e os Brazileiros, Santos, 1862.
[FN#418] Aethiopia Orientalis, Purchas ii. 1558.
[FN#419] Purchas iii. 243.
[FN#420] For a literal translation see 1re Serie de la Curiosite Litteraire et Bibliographique, Paris, Liseux, 1880.
[FN#421] His best-known works are (1) Praktisches Handbuch der Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1860; and (2) Klinische Novellen zur Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1863.
[FN#422] The same author printed another imitation of Petronius Arbiter, the "Larissa" story of Theophile Viand. His cousin, the Sevigne, highly approved of it. See Bayle's objections to Rabutin's delicacy and excuses for Petronius' grossness in his "Eclaircissement sur les obscenites" (Appendice au Dictionnaire Antique).
[FN#423] The Boulgrin of Rabelais, which Urquhart renders Ingle for Boulgre, an "indorser," derived from the Bulgarus or Bulgarian, who gave to Italy the term bugiardo--liar. Bougre and Bougrerie date (Littre) from the xiiith century. I cannot, however, but think that the trivial term gained strength in the xvith, when the manners of the Bugres or indigenous Brazilians were studied by Huguenot refugees in La France Antartique and several of these savages found their way to Europe. A grand Fete in Rouen on the entrance of Henri II. and Dame Katherine de Medicis (June 16, 1564) showed, as part of the pageant, three hundred men (including fifty "Bugres" or Tupis) with parroquets and other birds and beasts of the newly explored regions. The procession is given in the four-folding woodcut "Figure des Bresiliens" in Jean de Prest's Edition of 1551.
[FN#424] Erotika Biblion, chaps. Kadesch (pp. 93 et seq.), Edition de Bruxelles, with notes by the Chevalier P. Pierrugues of Bordeaux, before noticed.
[FN#425] Called Chevaliers de Paille because the sign was a straw in the mouth, a la Palmerston.
[FN#426] I have noticed that the eunuch in Sind was as meanly paid and have given the reason.
[FN#427] Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (by Pisanus Fraxi) 4to, p. Ix. and 593. London. Privately printed, mdccclxxix.
[FN#428] A friend learned in these matters supplies me with the following list of famous pederasts. Those who marvel at the wide diffusion of such erotic perversion, and its being affected by so many celebrities, will bear in mind that the greatest men have been some of the worst: Alexander of Macedon, Julius Caesar and Napoleon Buonaparte held themselves high above the moral law which obliges common-place humanity. All three are charged with the Vice. Of Kings we have Henri iii., Louis xiii. and xviii., Frederick ii. Of Prussia Peter the Great, William ii. of Holland and Charles ii. and iii. of Parma. We find also Shakespeare (i., xv., Edit. Francois Hugo) and Moliere, Theodorus Beza, Lully (the Composer), D'Assoucy, Count Zintzendorff, the Grand Conde, Marquis de Villette, Pierre Louis Farnese, Duc de la Valliere, De Soleinne, Count D'Avaray, Saint Megrin, D'Epernon, Admiral de la Susse La Roche-Pouchin Rochfort S. Louis, Henne (the Spiritualist), Comte Horace de Viel Castel, Lerminin, Fievee, Theodore Leclerc, Archi-Chancellier Cambaceres, Marquis de Custine, Sainte-Beuve and Count D'Orsay. For others refer to the three volumes of Pisanus Fraxi, Index Librorum Prohibitorum (London, 1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (before alluded to) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum, London, 1885. The indices will supply the names.
[FN#429] 0f this peculiar character Ibn Khallikan remarks (ii. 43), "There were four poets whose works clearly contraried their character. Abu al-Atahiyah wrote pious poems himself being an atheist; Abu Hukayma's verses proved his impotence, yet he was more salacious than a he-goat, Mohammed ibn Hazim praised contentment, yet he was greedier than a dog, and Abu Nowas hymned the joys of sodomy, yet he was more passionate for women than a baboon."
[FN#430] A virulently and unjustly abusive critique never yet injured its object: in fact it is generally the greatest favour an author's unfriends can bestow upon him. But to notice a popular Review books which have been printed and not published is hardly in accordance with the established courtesies of literature. At the end of my work I propose to write a paper "The Reviewer Reviewed" which will, amongst other things, explain the motif of the writer of the critique and the editor of the Edinburgh.
[FN#431] 1 For detailed examples and specimens see p. 10 of Gladwin's "Dissertations on Rhetoric," etd., Calcutta, 1801.
[FN#432] For instance: I, M. | take thee N. | to my wedded wife, | to have and to hold, | from this day forward, | for better for worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose style. In that delightful old French the Saj'a frequently appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books: e.g. Lea Romant de la Rose, ou tout lart damours est enclose.
[FN#433] See Gladwin loc. cit. p. 8: it also is = alliteration (Ibn Khall. ii., 316).
[FN#434] He called himself "Nabiyun ummi" = illiterate prophet; but only his most ignorant followers believe that he was unable to read and write. His last words, accepted by all traditionists, were "Aatini dawata wa kalam" (bring me ink-case and pen); upon which the Shi'ah or Persian sectaries base, not without probability, a theory that Mohammed intended to write down the name of Ali as his Caliph or successor when Omar, suspecting the intention, exclaimed, "The Prophet is delirious; have we not the Koran?" thus impiously preventing the precaution. However that may be, the legend proves that Mohammed could read and write even when not "under inspiration." The vulgar idea would arise from a pious intent to add miracle to the miraculous style of the Koran.
[FN#435] I cannot but vehemently suspect that this legend was taken from much older traditions. We have Jubal the semi-mythical who, "by the different falls of his hammer on the anvil, discovered by the ear the first rude music that pleased the antediluvian fathers." Then came Pythagoras, of whom Macrobius (lib. ii ) relates how this Graeco-Egyptian philosopher, passing by a smithy, observed that the sounds were grave or acute according to the weights of the hammers; and he ascertained by experiment that such was the case when different weights were hung by strings of the same size. The next discovery was that two strings of the same substance and tension, the one being double the length of the other, gave the diapason-interval, or an eighth; and the same was effected from two strings of similar length and size, the one having four times the tension of the other. Belonging to the same cycle of invention-anecdotes are Galileo's discovery of the pendulum by the lustre of the Pisan Duomo; and the kettle-lid, the falling apple and the copper hook which inspired Watt, Newton and Galvani.
[FN#436] To what an absurd point this has been carried we may learn from Ibn Khallikan (i. 114). A poet addressing a single individual does not say "My friend!" or "My friends!" but "My two friends!" (in the dual) because a Badawi required a pair of companions, one to tend the sheep and the other to pasture the camels.
[FN#437] For further details concerning the Sabab, Watad and Fasilah, see at the end of this Essay the learned remarks of Dr. Steingass.
[FN#438] e.g., the Mu'allakats of "Amriolkais," Tarafah and Zuhayr compared by Mr. Lyall (Introduction to Translations) with the metre of Abt Vogler, e.g.,
[FN#439] e.g., the Poem of Hareth which often echoes the hexameter
[FN#440] Gladwin, p. 80.
[FN#441] Gladwin (p. 77) gives only eight, omitting F ' l which he or his author probably considers the Muzahaf, imperfect or apocoped form of F ' l n, as M f ' l of M f ' l n. For the infinite complications of Arabic prosody the Khafif (soft breathing) and Sahih (hard breathing); the Sadr and Aruz (first and last feet), the Ibtida and Zarb (last foot of every line); the Hashw (cushion-stuffing) or body part of verse, the 'Amud al-Kasidah or Al-Musammat (the strong) and other details I must refer readers to such specialists as Freytag and Sam. Clarke (Prosodia Arabica), and to Dr. Steingass's notes infra.
[FN#442] The Hebrew grammarians of the Middle Ages wisely copied their Arab cousins by turning Fa'la into Pael and so forth.
[FN#443] Mr. Lyall, whose "Ancient Arabic Poetry" (Williams and Norgate, 1885) I reviewed in The Academy of Oct. 3, '85, did the absolute reverse of what is required: he preserved the metre and sacrificed the rhyme even when it naturally suggested itself. For instance in the last four lines of No. xii. what would be easier than to write,
Ah sweet and soft wi' thee her ways: bethink thee well! The day
When some one favoured as thyself shall find her fair and fain
And if she swear that parting ne'er shall break her word of
When did rose-tinted finger-tip with pacts and pledges e'er
[FN#444] See p. 439 Grammatik des Arabischen Vulgaer Dialekts von AEgyptian, by Dr. Wilhelm Spitta Bey, Leipzig, 1880. In pp. 489-493 he gives specimens of eleven Mawawil varying in length from four to fifteen lines. The assonance mostly attempts monorhyme: in two tetrastichs it is aa + ba, and it does not disdain alternates, ab + ab + ab.
[FN#445] Al-Siyuti, p. 235, from Ibn Khallikan. Our knowledge of oldest Arab verse is drawn chiefly from the Katab al-Aghani (Song-book) of Abu al-Faraj the Isfahani who flourished A.H. 284-356 (= 897- 967): it was printed at the Bulak Press in 1868.
[FN#446] See Lyall loc. cit. p. 97.
[FN#447] His Diwan has been published with a French translation, par R. Boucher, Paris, Labitte, 1870.
[FN#448] I find also minor quotations from the Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Askari (of Sarra man raa) ob. A.D. 868; Ibn Makula (murdered in A.D. 862?), Ibn Durayd (ob. A.D. 933) Al-Zahr the Poet (ob. A.D. 963); Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi (ob. A.D. 989), Kabus ibn Wushmaghir (murdered in A.D. 1012-13); Ibn Nabatah the Poet (ob. A.D. 1015), Ibn al-Sa'ati (ob. A.D. 1028); Ibn Zaydun al-Andalusi who died at Hums (Emessa, the Arab name for Seville) in A.D. 1071; Al-Mu'tasim ibn Sumadih (ob. A.D. 1091), Al-Murtaza ibn al-Shahrozuri the Sufi (ob. A.D. 1117); Ibn Sara al-Shantarani (of Santarem) who sang of Hind and died A.D. 1123; Ibn al-Khazin (ob. A.D. 1124), Ibn Kalakis (ob. A D. 1172) Ibn al-Ta'wizi (ob. A.D. 1188); Ibn Zabadah (ob. A.D. 1198), Baha al-Din Zuhayr (ob A.D. 1249); Muwaffak al-Din Muzaffar (ob. A.D. 1266) and sundry others. Notices of Al-Utayyah (vol. i. 11), of Ibn al-Sumam (vol. i. 87) and of Ibn Sahib al-Ishbili, of Seville (vol. i. 100), are deficient. The most notable point in Arabic verse is its savage satire, the language of excited "destructiveness" which characterises the Badawi: he is "keen for satire as a thirsty man for water:" and half his poetry seems to consist of foul innuendo, of lampoons, and of gross personal abuse.
[FN#449] If the letter preceding Waw or Ya is moved by Fathah, they produce the diphthongs au (aw), pronounced like ou in "bout'" and se, pronounced as i in "bite."
[FN#450] For the explanation of this name and those of the following terms, see Terminal Essay, p. 225.
[FN#451] This Fasilah is more accurately called sughra, the smaller one, there is another Fasilah kubra, the greater, consisting of four moved letters followed by a quiescent, or of a Sabab sakil followed by a Watad majmu'. But it occurs only as a variation of a normal foot, not as an integral element in its composition, and consequently no mention of it was needed in the text.
[FN#452] It is important to keep in mind that the seemingly identical feet 10 and 6, 7 and 3, are distinguished by the relative positions of the constituting elements in either pair. For as it will be seen that Sabab and Watad are subject to different kinds of alterations it is evident that the effect of such alterations upon a foot will vary, if Sabab and Watad occupy different places with regard to each other.
[FN#453] i.e. vertical to the circumference.
[FN#454] This would be a Fasilah kubra spoken of in the note p. 239.
[FN#455] In pause that is at the end of a line, a short vowel counts either as long or is dropped according to the exigencies of the metre. In the Hashw the u or i of the pronominal affix for the third person sing., masc., and the final u of the enlarged pronominal plural forms, humu and kumu, may be either short or long, according to the same exigencies. The end-vowel of the pronoun of the first person ana, I, is generally read short, although it is written with Alif.
[FN#456] On p. 236 the word akamu, as read by itself, was identified with the foot Fa'ulun. Here it must be read together with the following syllable as "akamulwaj," which is Mafa'ilun.
[FN#457] Prof. Palmer, p. 328 of his Grammar, identifies this form of the Wafir, when every Mufa' alatum of the Hashw has become Mafa'ilun, with the second form of the Rajaz It should be Hazaj. Professor Palmer was misled, it seems, by an evident misprint in one of his authorities, the Muhit al-Dairah by Dr. Van Dayk, p. 52.
[FN#458] Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac 134b "The Merchant's Wife and the Parrot."
[FN#459] This will be found translated in my "Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night," vol. vii. p. 307, as an Appendix to the Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac version of the story, from which it differs in detail.
[FN#460] Called "Bekhit" in Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac Editions.
[FN#461] Yehya ben Khalid (Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac),
[FN#462] "Shar" (Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac).
[FN#463] "Jelyaad" (Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac.)
[FN#464] Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac, No. 63. See my "Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night," vol. iv., p. 211.
[FN#465] Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac, "Jaafar the Barmecide."
[FN#466] Calcutta (1839-42) and Boulac, "The Thief turned Merchant and the other Thief," No. 88.
[FN#467] This story will be found translated in my "Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night," vol. v., p. 345.
[FN#468] After this I introduce the Tale of the Husband and the Parrot.
[FN#469] The Bulak Edition omits this story altogether.
[FN#470] After this I introduce How Abu Hasan brake wind.
[FN#471] Probably Wakksh al-Falak=Feral of the Wild.
[FN#472] This is the date of the Paris edition. There was an earlier edition published at La Haye in 1743.
[FN#473] There are two other Oriental romances by Voltaire; viz., Babouc, and the Princess of Babylon.