[Illustration]
[Illustration]
"TO THE PURE ALL THINGS ARE PURE."
(Puris omnia para)
—_Arab Proverb._
"Niuna corrotta mente intese mai sanamente parole."
—"_Decameron_"—_conclusion_.
"Erubuit, posuitque meum Lucretia librum
Sed coram Bruto. Brute! recede, leget."
—_Martial._
"Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escripre,
Pour ce que rire est le propre des hommes."
—RABELAIS.
"The pleasure we derive from perusing the Thousand-and-One Stories makes
us regret that we possess only a comparatively small part of these truly
enchanting fictions."
—CRICHTON'S "_History of Arabia_."
[Illustration]
_A PLAIN AND LITERAL TRANSLATION OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS.
NOW ENTITULED_
_THE BOOK OF THE_
=Thousand Nights and a Night=
_WITH INTRODUCTION EXPLANATORY NOTES ON THE
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF MOSLEM MEN AND A
TERMINAL ESSAY UPON THE HISTORY OF THE
NIGHTS_
VOLUME I.
BY
RICHARD F. BURTON
[Illustration]
PRINTED BY THE BURTON CLUB FOR PRIVATE
SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
Shammar Edition
Limited to one thousand numbered sets, of which this is
Number _547_
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
=Inscribed to the Memory=
OF
MY LAMENTED FRIEND
=John Frederick Steinhaeuser,=
(CIVIL SURGEON, ADEN)
WHO
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY AGO
ASSISTED ME IN THIS TRANSLATION.
THE TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD.
This work, laborious as it may appear, has been to me a labour of love,
an unfailing source of solace and satisfaction. During my long years of
official banishment to the luxuriant and deadly deserts of Western
Africa, and to the dull and dreary half-clearings of South America, it
proved itself a charm, a talisman against ennui and despondency.
Impossible even to open the pages without a vision starting into view;
without drawing a picture from the pinacothek of the brain; without
reviving a host of memories and reminiscences which are not the common
property of travellers, however widely they may have travelled. From my
dull and commonplace and "respectable" surroundings, the Jinn bore me at
once to the land of my predilection, Arabia, a region so familiar to my
mind that even at first sight, it seemed a reminiscence of some by-gone
metempsychic life in the distant Past. Again I stood under the
diaphanous skies, in air glorious as æther, whose every breath raises
men's spirits like sparkling wine. Once more I saw the evening star
hanging like a solitaire from the pure front of the western firmament;
and the after-glow transfiguring and transforming, as by magic, the
homely and rugged features of the scene into a fairy-land lit with a
light which never shines on other soils or seas. Then would appear the
woollen tents, low and black, of the true Badawin, mere dots in the
boundless waste of lion-tawny clays and gazelle-brown gravels, and the
camp-fire dotting like a glow-worm the village centre. Presently,
sweetened by distance, would be heard the wild weird song of lads and
lasses, driving or rather pelting, through the gloaming their sheep and
goats; and the measured chant of the spearsmen gravely stalking behind
their charge, the camels; mingled with the bleating of the flocks and
the bellowing of the humpy herds; while the rere-mouse flitted overhead
with his tiny shriek, and the rave of the jackal resounded through
deepening glooms, and—most musical of music—the palm-trees answered the
whispers of the night-breeze with the softest tones of falling water.
And then a shift of scene. The Shaykhs and "white-beards" of the tribe
gravely take their places, sitting with outspread skirts like hillocks
on the plain, as the Arabs say, around the camp-fire, whilst I reward
their hospitality and secure its continuance by reading or reciting a
few pages of their favourite tales. The women and children stand
motionless as silhouettes outside the ring; and all are breathless with
attention; they seem to drink in the words with eyes and mouths as well
as with ears. The most fantastic flights of fancy, the wildest
improbabilities, the most impossible of impossibilities, appear to them
utterly natural, mere matters of every-day occurrence. They enter
thoroughly into each phase of feeling touched upon by the author: they
take a personal pride in the chivalrous nature and knightly prowess of
Taj al-Mulúk; they are touched with tenderness by the self-sacrificing
love of Azízah; their mouths water as they hear of heaps of untold gold
given away in largesse like clay; they chuckle with delight every time a
Kázi or a Fakír—a judge or a reverend—is scurvily entreated by some
Pantagruelist of the Wilderness; and, despite their normal solemnity and
impassibility, all roar with laughter, sometimes rolling upon the ground
till the reader's gravity is sorely tried, at the tales of the garrulous
Barber and of Ali and the Kurdish Sharper. To this magnetising mood the
sole exception is when a Badawi of superior accomplishments, who
sometimes says his prayers, ejaculates a startling "Astaghfaru'llah"—I
pray Allah's pardon!—for listening, not to Carlyle's "downright lies,"
but to light mention of the sex whose name is never heard amongst the
nobility of the Desert.
Nor was it only in Arabia that the immortal Nights did me such notable
service: I found the wildlings of Somali-land equally amenable to its
discipline; no one was deaf to the charm and the two women-cooks of my
caravan, on its way to Harar, were incontinently dubbed by my men
"Shahrazad" and "Dinazad."
It may be permitted me also to note that this translation is a natural
outcome of my Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah. Arriving at Aden in
the (so-called) winter of 1852, I put up with my old and dear friend,
Steinhaeuser, to whose memory this volume is inscribed; and, when
talking over Arabia and the Arabs, we at once came to the same
conclusion that, while the name of this wondrous treasury of Moslem
folk-lore is familiar to almost every English child, no general reader
is aware of the valuables it contains, nor indeed will the door open to
any but Arabists. Before parting we agreed to "collaborate" and produce
a full, complete, unvarnished, uncastrated copy of the great original,
my friend taking the prose and I the metrical part; and we corresponded
upon the subject for years. But whilst I was in the Brazil, Steinhaeuser
died suddenly of apoplexy at Berne in Switzerland and, after the fashion
of Anglo-India, his valuable MSS. left at Aden were dispersed, and very
little of his labours came into my hands.
Thus I was left alone to my work, which progressed fitfully amid a host
of obstructions. At length, in the spring of 1879, the tedious process
of copying began and the book commenced to take finished form. But,
during the winter of 1881-82, I saw in the literary journals a notice of
a new version by Mr. John Payne, well known to scholars for his prowess
in English verse, especially for his translation of "The Poems of Master
Francis Villon, of Paris." Being then engaged on an expedition to the
Gold Coast (for gold), which seemed likely to cover some months, I wrote
to the "Athenæum" (Nov. 13, 1881) and to Mr. Payne, who was wholly
unconscious that we were engaged on the same work, and freely offered
him precedence and possession of the field till no longer wanted. He
accepted my offer as frankly, and his priority entailed another delay
lasting till the spring of 1885. These details will partly account for
the lateness of my appearing, but there is yet another cause.
Professional ambition suggested that literary labours, unpopular with
the vulgar and the half-educated, are not likely to help a man up the
ladder of promotion. But common sense presently suggested to me that,
professionally speaking, I was not a success; and, at the same time,
that I had no cause to be ashamed of my failure. In our day, when we
live under a despotism of the lower "middle-class" Philister who can
pardon anything but superiority, the prizes of competitive services are
monopolised by certain "pets" of the _Médiocratie_, and prime favourites
of that jealous and potent majority—the Mediocrities who know "no
nonsense about merit." It is hard for an outsider to realise how perfect
is the monopoly of commonplace, and to comprehend how fatal a
stumbling-stone that man sets in the way of his own advancement who
dares to think for himself, or who knows more or who does more than the
mob of gentlemen-employés who know very little and who do even less.
Yet, however behindhand I may be, there is still ample room and verge
for an English version of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments."
Our century of translations, popular and vernacular, from (Professor
Antoine) Galland's delightful abbreviation and adaptation (A.D. 1704),
in no wise represent the eastern original. The best and latest, the Rev.
Mr. Foster's, which is diffuse and verbose, and Mr. G. Moir Bussey's,
which is a re-correction, abound in gallicisms of style and idiom; and
one and all degrade a chef-d'œuvre of the highest anthropological and
ethnographical interest and importance to a mere fairy-book, a nice
present for little boys.
After nearly a century had elapsed, Dr. Jonathan Scott (LL.D. H.E.I.C.'s
S., Persian Secretary to the G. G. Bengal; Oriental Professor, etc.,
etc.), printed his "Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters, translated from the
Arabic and Persian," (Cadell and Davies, London, A.D. 1800); and
followed in 1811 with an edition of "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments"
from the MS. of Edward Wortley Montague (in 6 vols., small 8vo, London:
Longmans, etc.). This work he (and he only) describes as "Carefully
revised and occasionally corrected from the Arabic." The reading public
did not wholly reject it, sundry texts were founded upon the Scott
version and it has been imperfectly reprinted (4 vols., 8vo, Nimmo and
Bain, London, 1883). But most men, little recking what a small portion
of the original they were reading, satisfied themselves with the
Anglo-French epitome and metaphrase. At length in 1838, Mr. Henry
Torrens, B.A., Irishman, lawyer ("of the Inner Temple") and Bengal
Civilian, took a step in the right direction; and began to translate,
"The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night," (1 vol., 8vo, Calcutta:
W. Thacker and Co.) from the Arabic of the Ægyptian (!) MS. edited by
Mr. (afterwards Sir) William H. Macnaghten. The attempt, or rather the
intention, was highly creditable; the copy was carefully moulded upon
the model and offered the best example of the _verbatim et literatim_
style. But the plucky author knew little of Arabic, and least of what is
most wanted, the dialect of Egypt and Syria. His prose is so
conscientious as to offer up spirit at the shrine of letter; and his
verse, always whimsical, has at times a manner of Hibernian whoop which
is comical when it should be pathetic. Lastly he printed only one volume
of a series which completed would have contained nine or ten.
That amiable and devoted Arabist, the late Edward William Lane does not
score a success in his "New Translation of the Tales of a Thousand and
One Nights" (London: Charles Knight and Co., MDCCCXXXIX.) of which there
have been four English editions, besides American, two edited by E. S.
Poole. He chose the abbreviating Bulak Edition; and, of its two hundred
tales, he has omitted about half and by far the more characteristic
half: the work was intended for "the drawing-room table;" and,
consequently, the workman was compelled to avoid the "objectionable" and
aught "approaching to licentiousness." He converts the Arabian Nights
into the Arabian Chapters, arbitrarily changing the division and, worse
still, he converts some chapters into notes. He renders poetry by prose
and apologises for not omitting it altogether: he neglects assonance and
he is at once too Oriental and not Oriental enough. He had small store
of Arabic at the time—Lane of the Nights is not Lane of the
Dictionary—and his pages are disfigured by many childish mistakes. Worst
of all, the three handsome volumes are rendered unreadable as Sale's
Koran by their anglicised Latin, their sesquipedalian un-English words,
and the stiff and stilted style of half a century ago when our prose
was, perhaps, the worst in Europe. Their cargo of Moslem learning was
most valuable to the student, but utterly out of place for readers of
"The Nights;" re-published, as these notes have been separately (London,
Chatto, 1883), they are an ethnological text-book.
Mr. John Payne has printed, for the Villon Society and for private
circulation only, the first and sole complete translation of the great
compendium, "comprising about four times as much matter as that of
Galland, and three times as much as that of any other translator;" and
I cannot but feel proud that he has honoured me with the dedication of
"The Book of The Thousand Nights and One Night." His version is most
readable: his English, with a sub-flavour of the Mabinogionic
archaicism, is admirable; and his style gives life and light to the
nine volumes whose matter is frequently heavy enough. He succeeds
admirably in the most difficult passages and he often hits upon choice
and special terms and the exact vernacular equivalent of the foreign
word, so happily and so picturesquely that all future translators must
perforce use the same expression under pain of falling far short. But
the learned and versatile author bound himself to issue only five
hundred copies, and "not to reproduce the work in its complete and
uncastrated form." Consequently his excellent version is caviaire to
the general—practically unprocurable.
And here I hasten to confess that ample use has been made of the three
versions above noted, the whole being blended by a _callida junctura_
into a homogeneous mass. But in the presence of so many predecessors a
writer is bound to show some _raison d'être_ for making a fresh attempt
and this I proceed to do with due reserve.
Briefly, the object of this version is to show what "The Thousand Nights
and a Night" really is. Not, however, for reasons to be more fully
stated in the terminal Essay, by straining _verbum reddere verbo_, but
by writing as the Arab would have written in English. On this point I am
all with Saint Jerome (Pref. in Jobum) "Vel verbum e verbo, vel sensum e
sensu, vel ex utroque commixtum, et medie temperatum genus
translationis." My work claims to be a faithful copy of the great
Eastern Saga-book, by preserving intact, not only the spirit, but even
the _mécanique_, the manner and the matter. Hence, however prosy and
long-drawn out be the formula, it retains the scheme of the Nights
because they are a prime feature in the original. The Ráwí or reciter,
to whose wits the task of supplying details is left, well knows their
value: the openings carefully repeat the names of the _dramatis personæ_
and thus fix them in the hearer's memory. Without the Nights no Arabian
Nights! Moreover it is necessary to retain the whole apparatus: nothing
more ill-advised than Dr. Jonathan Scott's strange device of garnishing
The Nights with fancy head-pieces and tail-pieces or the splitting-up of
Galland's narrative by merely prefixing "Nuit," etc., ending moreover,
with the ccxxxiv^{th} Night: yet this has been done, apparently with the
consent of the great Arabist Sylvestre de Sacy (Paris, Ernest Bourdin).
Moreover, holding that the translator's glory is to add something to his
native tongue, while avoiding the hideous hag-like nakedness of Torrens
and the bald literalism of Lane, I have carefully Englished the
picturesque turns and novel expressions of the original in all their
outlandishness; for instance, when the dust-cloud raised by a tramping
host is described as "walling the horizon." Hence peculiar attention has
been paid to the tropes and figures which the Arabic language often
packs into a single term; and I have never hesitated to coin a word when
wanted, such as "she snorted and snarked," fully to represent the
original. These, like many in Rabelais, are mere barbarisms unless
generally adopted; in which case they become civilised and common
currency.
Despite objections manifold and manifest, I have preserved the balance
of sentences and the prose rhyme and rhythm which Easterns look upon as
mere music. This "Saj'a," or cadence of the cooing dove, has in Arabic
its special duties. It adds a sparkle to description and a point to
proverb, epigram and dialogue; it corresponds with our "artful
alliteration" (which in places I have substituted for it) and,
generally, it defines the boundaries between the classical and the
popular styles which jostle each other in The Nights. If at times it
appear strained and forced, after the wont of rhymed prose, the scholar
will observe that, despite the immense copiousness of assonants and
consonants in Arabic, the strain is often put upon it intentionally,
like the _Rims cars_ of Dante and the Troubadours. This rhymed prose may
be "un-English" and unpleasant, even irritating to the British ear;
still I look upon it as a _sine quâ non_ for a complete reproduction of
the original. In the terminal Essay I shall revert to the subject.
On the other hand when treating the versicle portion, which may
represent a total of ten thousand lines, I have not always bound myself
by the metrical bonds of the Arabic, which are artificial in the
extreme, and which in English can be made bearable only by a _tour de
force_. I allude especially to the monorhyme, _Rim continuat_ or _tirade
monorime_, whose monotonous simplicity was preferred by the Troubadours
for threnodies. It may serve well for three or four couplets but, when
it extends, as in the Ghazal-canzon, to eighteen, and in the Kasidah,
elegy or ode, to more, it must either satisfy itself with banal
rhyme-words, when the assonants should as a rule be expressive and
emphatic; or, it must display an ingenuity, a smell of the oil, which
assuredly does not add to the reader's pleasure. It can perhaps be done
and it should be done; but for me the task has no attractions: I can
fence better in shoes than in sabots. Finally I print the couplets in
Arab form separating the hemistichs by asterisks.
And now to consider one matter of special importance in the book—its
_turpiloquium_. This stumbling-block is of two kinds, completely
distinct. One is the simple, naïve and child-like indecency which, from
Tangiers to Japan, occurs throughout general conversation of high and
low in the present day. It uses, like the holy books of the Hebrews,
expressions "plainly descriptive of natural situations;" and it treats
in an unconventionally free and naked manner of subjects and matters
which are usually, by common consent, left undescribed. As Sir William
Jones observed long ago, "that anything natural can be offensively
obscene never seems to have occurred to the Indians or to their
legislators; a singularity (?) pervading their writings and
conversation, but no proof of moral depravity." Another justly observes,
_Les peuples primitifs n'y entendent pas malice: ils appellent les
choses par leurs noms et ne trouvent pas condamnable ce qui est
naturel._ And they are prying as children. For instance the European
novelist marries off his hero and heroine and leaves them to consummate
marriage in privacy; even Tom Jones has the decency to bolt the door.
But the Eastern story-teller, especially this unknown "prose
Shakespeare," must usher you, with a flourish, into the bridal chamber
and narrate to you, with infinite gusto, everything he sees and hears.
Again we must remember that grossness and indecency, in fact _les
turpitudes_, are matters of time and place; what is offensive in England
is not so in Egypt; what scandalises us now would have been a tame joke
_tempore Elisæ_. Withal The Nights will not be found in this matter
coarser than many passages of Shakspeare, Sterne, and Swift, and their
uncleanness rarely attains the perfection of Alcofribas Nasier, "divin
maître et atroce cochon." The other element is absolute obscenity,
sometimes, but not always, tempered by wit, humour and drollery; here we
have an exaggeration of Petronius Arbiter, the handiwork of writers
whose ancestry, the most religious and the most debauched of mankind,
practised every abomination before the shrine of the Canopic Gods.
In accordance with my purpose of reproducing the Nights, not _virginibus
puerisque_, but in as perfect a picture as my powers permit, I have
carefully sought out the English equivalent of every Arabic word,
however low it may be or "shocking" to ears polite; preserving, on the
other hand, all possible delicacy where the indecency is not
intentional; and, as a friend advises me to state, not exaggerating the
vulgarities and the indecencies which, indeed, can hardly be
exaggerated. For the coarseness and crassness are but the shades of a
picture which would otherwise be all lights. The general tone of The
Nights is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour often
rises to the boiling-point of fanaticism. The pathos is sweet, deep and
genuine; tender, simple and true, utterly unlike much of our modern
tinsel. Its life, strong, splendid and multitudinous, is everywhere
flavoured with that unaffected pessimism and constitutional melancholy
which strike deepest root under the brightest skies and which sigh in
the face of heaven:—
Vita quid est hominis? Viridis floriscula mortis;
Sole Oriente oriens, sole cadente cadens.
Poetical justice is administered by the literary Kází with exemplary
impartiality and severity; "denouncing evil doers and eulogising deeds
admirably achieved." The morale is sound and healthy; and at times we
descry, through the voluptuous and libertine picture, vistas of a
transcendental morality, the morality of Socrates in Plato. Subtle
corruption and covert licentiousness are utterly absent; we find more
real "vice" in many a short French roman, say La Dame aux Camelias, and
in not a few English novels of our day than in the thousands of pages of
the Arab. Here we have nothing of that most immodest modern modesty
which sees covert implication where nothing is implied, and "improper"
allusion, when propriety is not outraged; nor do we meet with the
Nineteenth Century refinement; innocence of the word not of the thought;
morality of the tongue not of the heart, and the sincere homage paid to
virtue in guise of perfect hypocrisy. It is, indeed, this unique
contrast of a quaint element, childish crudities and nursery indecencies
and "vain and amatorious" phrase jostling the finest and highest views
of life and character, shown in the kaleidoscopic shiftings of the
marvellous picture with many a "rich truth in a tale's pretence";
pointed by a rough dry humour which compares well with "wut;" the
alternations of strength and weakness, of pathos and bathos, of the
boldest poetry (the diction of Job) and the baldest prose (the Egyptian
of to-day); the contact of religion and morality with the orgies of
African Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter—at times taking away the reader's
breath—and, finally, the whole dominated everywhere by that marvellous
Oriental fancy, wherein the spiritual and the supernatural are as common
as the material and the natural; it is this contrast, I say, which forms
the chiefest charm of The Nights, which gives it the most striking
originality and which makes it a perfect expositor of the medieval
Moslem mind.
Explanatory notes did not enter into Mr. Payne's plan. They do with
mine: I can hardly imagine The Nights being read to any profit by men of
the West without commentary. My annotations avoid only one subject,
parallels of European folk-lore and fabliaux which, however interesting,
would overswell the bulk of a book whose speciality is anthropology. The
accidents of my life, it may be said without undue presumption, my long
dealings with Arabs and other Mahommedans, and my familiarity not only
with their idiom but with their turn of thought, and with that racial
individuality which baffles description, have given me certain
advantages over the average student, however deeply he may have studied.
These volumes, moreover, afford me a long-sought opportunity of noticing
practices and customs which interest all mankind and which "Society"
will not hear mentioned. Grote, the historian, and Thackeray, the
novelist, both lamented that the _bégueulerie_ of their countrymen
condemned them to keep silence where publicity was required; and that
they could not even claim the partial licence of a Fielding and a
Smollett. Hence a score of years ago I lent my best help to the late Dr.
James Hunt in founding the Anthropological Society, whose presidential
chair I first occupied (pp. 2-4 Anthropologia; London, Balliere, vol.
i., No. 1, 1873). My motive was to supply travellers with an organ which
would rescue their observations from the outer darkness of manuscript,
and print their curious information on social and sexual matters out of
place in the popular book intended for the Nipptisch and indeed better
kept from public view. But, hardly had we begun when "Respectability,"
that whited sepulchre full of all uncleanness, rose up against us.
"Propriety" cried us down with her brazen blatant voice, and the
weak-kneed brethren fell away. Yet the organ was much wanted and is
wanted still. All now known barbarous tribes in Inner Africa, America
and Australia, whose instincts have not been overlaid by reason, have a
ceremony which they call "making men." As soon as the boy shows proofs
of puberty, he and his coevals are taken in hand by the mediciner and
the Fetisheer; and, under priestly tuition, they spend months in the
"bush," enduring hardships and tortures which impress the memory till
they have mastered the "theorick and practick" of social and sexual
relations. Amongst the civilised this fruit of the knowledge-tree must
be bought at the price of the bitterest experience, and the consequences
of ignorance are peculiarly cruel. Here, then, I find at last an
opportunity of noticing in explanatory notes many details of the text
which would escape the reader's observation, and I am confident that
they will form a repertory of Eastern knowledge in its esoteric phase.
The student who adds the notes of Lane ("Arabian Society," etc., before
quoted) to mine will know as much of the Moslem East and more than many
Europeans who have spent half their lives in Orient lands. For facility
of reference an index of anthropological notes is appended to each
volume.
The reader will kindly bear with the following technical details.
Steinhaeuser and I began and ended our work with the first Bulak
("Bul.") Edition printed at the port of Cairo in A.H. 1251=A.D. 1835.
But when preparing my MSS. for print I found the text incomplete, many
of the stories being given in epitome and not a few ruthlessly mutilated
with head or feet wanting. Like most Eastern scribes the Editor could
not refrain from "improvements," which only debased the book; and his
sole title to excuse is that the second Bulak Edition (4 vols. A.H.
1279=A.D. 1863), despite its being "revised and corrected by Sheik
Mahommed Qotch Al-Adewi," is even worse; and the same may be said of the
Cairo Edit. (4 vols. A.H. 1297=A.D. 1881). The Calcutta ("Calc.")
Edition, with ten lines of Persian preface by the Editor, Ahmed
al-Shirwani (A.D. 1814), was cut short at the end of the first two
hundred Nights, and thus made room for Sir William Hay Macnaghten's
Edition (4 vols, royal 4to) of 1839-42. This ("Mac."), as by far the
least corrupt and the most complete, has been assumed for my basis with
occasional reference to the Breslau Edition ("Bres.") wretchedly edited
from a hideous Egyptian MS. by Dr. Maximilian Habicht (1825-43). The
Bayrut Text "Alif-Leila we Leila" (4 vols. gt. 8vo, Beirut. 1881-83) is
a melancholy specimen of The Nights taken entirely from the Bulak
Edition by one Khalil Sarkis and converted to Christianity; beginning
without Bismillah, continued with scrupulous castration and ending in
ennui and disappointment. I have not used this missionary production.
As regards the transliteration of Arabic words I deliberately reject the
artful and complicated system, ugly and clumsy withal, affected by
scientific modern Orientalists. Nor is my sympathy with their prime
object, namely to fit the Roman alphabet for supplanting all others.
Those who learn languages, and many do so, by the eye as well as by the
ear, well know the advantages of a special character to distinguish, for
instance, Syriac from Arabic, Gujrati from Marathi. Again this Roman
hand bewitched may have its use in purely scientific and literary works;
but it would be wholly out of place in one whose purpose is that of the
novel, to amuse rather than to instruct. Moreover the devices perplex
the simple and teach nothing to the learned. Either the reader knows
Arabic, in which case Greek letters, italics and "upper case,"
diacritical points and similar typographic oddities are, as a rule with
some exceptions, unnecessary; or he does not know Arabic, when none of
these expedients will be of the least use to him. Indeed it is a matter
of secondary consideration what system we prefer, provided that we
mostly adhere to one and the same, for the sake of a consistency which
saves confusion to the reader. I have especially avoided that of Mr.
Lane, adopted by Mr. Payne for special reasons against which it was vain
to protest: it represents the debased brogue of Egypt or rather of
Cairo; and such a word as Kemer (ez-Zeman) would be utterly
unpronounceable to a Badawi. Nor have I followed the practice of my
learned friend, Reverend G. P. Badger, in mixing bars and acute accents;
the former unpleasantly remind man of those hateful dactyls and
spondees, and the latter should, in my humble opinion, be applied to
long vowels which in Arabic double, or should double, the length of the
shorts. Dr. Badger uses the acute symbol to denote accent or stress of
voice; but such appoggio is unknown to those who speak with purest
articulation; for instance whilst the European pronounces Mus-cat´, and
the Arab villager Mas´-kat; the Children of the Waste, "on whose tongues
Allah descended," articulate Mas-kat. I have therefore followed the
simple system adopted in my "Pilgrimage," and have accented Arabic words
only when first used, thinking it unnecessary to preserve throughout
what is an eyesore to the reader and a distress to the printer. In the
main I follow "Johnson on Richardson," a work known to every
Anglo-Orientalist as the old and trusty companion of his studies early
and late; but even here I have made sundry deviations for reasons which
will be explained in the terminal Essay. As words are the embodiment of
ideas and writing is of words, so the word is the spoken word; and we
should write it as pronounced. Strictly speaking, the _e_-sound and the
_o_-sound (viz. the Italian _o_-sound not the English which is peculiar
to us and unknown to any other tongue) are not found in Arabic, except
when the figure Imálah obliges: hence they are called "Yá al-Majhúl" and
"Waw al-Majhúl" the unknown y (í) and u. But in all tongues
vowel-sounds, the flesh which clothes the bones (consonants) of
language, are affected by the consonants which precede and more
especially which follow them, hardening and softening the articulation;
and deeper sounds accompany certain letters as the sád (ص) compared with
the sín (س). None save a defective ear would hold, as Lane does,
"Maulid" (=birth-festival) "more properly pronounced 'Molid.'" Yet I
prefer Khokh (peach) and Jokh (broad-cloth) to Khukh and Jukh; Ohod
(mount) to Uhud; Obayd (a little slave) to Ubayd; and Hosayn (a fortlet,
not the P. N. Al-Husayn) to Husayn. As for the short _e_ in such words
as "Memlúk" for "Mamlúk" (a white slave), "Eshe" for "Asha" (supper),
and "Yemen" for "Al-Yaman," I consider it a flat Egyptianism,
insufferable to an ear which admires the Badawi pronunciation. Yet I
prefer "Shelebi" (a dandy) from the Turkish Chelebi, to "Shalabi;"
"Zebdani" (the Syrian village) to "Zabdani," and "Fes and Miknes" (by
the figure Imálah) to "Fás and Miknás," our "Fez and Mequinez."
With respect to proper names and untranslated Arabic words I have
rejected all system in favour of common sense. When a term is
incorporated in our tongue, I refuse to follow the purist and mortify
the reader by startling innovation. For instance, Aleppo, Cairo and
Bassorah are preferred to Halab, Kahirah and Al-Basrah; when a word is
half-naturalised, like Alcoran or Koran, Bashaw or Pasha, which the
French write Pacha; and Mahomet or Mohammed (for Muhammad), the modern
form is adopted because the more familiar. But I see no advantage in
retaining, simply because they are the mistakes of a past generation,
such words as "Roc" (for Rukh), Khalif (a pretentious blunder for
Khalífah and better written Caliph) and "genie" (=Jinn) a mere Gallic
corruption not so terrible, however, as "a Bedouin" (=Badawi). As little
too would I follow Mr. Lane in foisting upon the public such Arabisms as
"Khuff" (a riding-boot), "Mikra'ah" (a palm-rod) and a host of others
for which we have good English equivalents. On the other hand I would
use, but use sparingly, certain Arabic exclamations, as "Bismillah" (=in
the name of Allah!) and "Inshallah" (=if Allah please!), which have
special applications and which have been made familiar to English ears
by the genius of Fraser and Morier.
I here end these desultory but necessary details to address the reader
in a few final words. He will not think lightly of my work when I repeat
to him that with the aid of my annotations supplementing Lane's, the
student will readily and pleasantly learn more of the Moslem's manners
and customs, laws and religion than is known to the average Orientalist;
and, if my labours induce him to attack the text of The Nights he will
become master of much more Arabic than the ordinary Arab owns. This book
is indeed a legacy which I bequeath to my fellow-countrymen in their
hour of need. Over devotion to Hindu, and especially to Sanskrit
literature, has led them astray from those (so-called) "Semitic"
studies, which are the more requisite for us as they teach us to deal
successfully with a race more powerful than any pagans—the Moslem.
Apparently England is ever forgetting that she is at present the
greatest Mohammedan empire in the world. Of late years she has
systematically neglected Arabism and, indeed, actively discouraged it in
examinations for the Indian Civil Service, where it is incomparably more
valuable than Greek and Latin. Hence, when suddenly compelled to assume
the reins of government in Moslem lands, as Afghanistan in times past
and Egypt at present, she fails after a fashion which scandalises her
few (very few) friends; and her crass ignorance concerning the Oriental
peoples which should most interest her, exposes her to the contempt of
Europe as well as of the Eastern world. When the regretable raids of
1883-84, culminating in the miserable affairs of Tokar, Teb and Tamasi,
were made upon the gallant Sudani Negroids, the Bisharin outlying
Sawakin, who were battling for the holy cause of liberty and religion
and for escape from Turkish task-masters and Egyptian tax-gatherers, not
an English official in camp, after the death of the gallant and lamented
Major Morice, was capable of speaking Arabic. Now Moslems are not to be
ruled by raw youths who should be at school and college instead of
holding positions of trust and emolument. He who would deal with them
successfully must be, firstly, honest and truthful and, secondly,
familiar with and favourably inclined to their manners and customs if
not to their law and religion. We may, perhaps, find it hard to restore
to England those pristine virtues, that tone and temper, which made her
what she is; but at any rate we (myself and a host of others) can offer
her the means of dispelling her ignorance concerning the Eastern races
with whom she is continually in contact.
In conclusion I must not forget to notice that the Arabic ornamentations
of these volumes were designed by my excellent friend Yacoub Artin
Pasha, of the Ministry of Instruction, Cairo, with the aid of the
well-known writing-artist, Shaykh Mohammed Muunis the Cairene. My name,
Al-Hajj Abdullah (=the Pilgrim Abdallah) was written by an English
calligrapher, the lamented Professor Palmer who found a premature death
almost within sight of Suez.
RICHARD F. BURTON.
WANDERERS' CLUB, _August 15, 1885_.
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
STORY OF KING SHAHRYAR AND HIS BROTHER 2
_a._ TALE OF THE BULL AND THE ASS 16
(_Lane, vol. I._, 1-16.)
1. TALE OF THE TRADER AND THE JINNI 24
(_Chapt. I. Story of the Merchant and the Jinnee: p. 43._)
_a._ THE FIRST SHAYKH'S STORY 27
(_Story of the First Sheykh and the Gazelle: p. 48._)
_b._ THE SECOND SHAYKH'S STORY 32
(_Story of the Second Sheykh and the two Black Hounds: p. 52._)
_c._ THE THIRD SHAYKH'S STORY 36
(_Story of the Third Sheykh and the Mule: p. 56._)
2. THE FISHERMAN AND THE JINNI 38
(_Chapt. II. Story of the Fisherman: p. 78._)
_a._ TALE OF THE WAZIR AND THE SAGE DUBAN 45
(_Story of King Yoonan and the Sage Dooban: p. 84._)
_ab._ STORY OF KING SINDIBAD AND HIS FALCON 50
_ac._ TALE OF THE HUSBAND AND THE PARROT 52
(_Story of the Husband and the Parrot: p. 89._)
_ad._ TALE OF THE PRINCE AND THE OGRESS 54
(_Story of the Envious Wezeer and the Prince and the Ghoolah:
p. 91._)
_b._ TALE OF THE ENSORCELLED PRINCE 69
(_Story of the Young King of the Black Islands: p. 106._)
3. THE PORTER AND THE THREE LADIES OF BAGHDAD 82
(_Chapt. III. Story of the Porter and the Ladies of Baghdad,
and of the three Royal Mendicants, etc.: p. 136._)
_a._ THE FIRST KALANDAR'S TALE 104
(_Story of the First Royal Mendicant: p. 150._)
_b._ THE SECOND KALANDAR'S TALE 113
(_Story of the Second Royal Mendicant: p. 157._)
_ba._ TALE OF THE ENVIER AND THE ENVIED 123
(_Story of the Envier and the Envied: p. 166._)
_c._ THE THIRD KALANDAR'S TALE 139
(_Story of the Third Royal Mendicant: p. 178._)
_d._ THE ELDEST LADY'S TALE 162
_e._ TALE OF THE PORTRESS 173
CONCLUSION OF THE STORY OF THE PORTER AND THREE LADIES 184
4. TALE OF THE THREE APPLES 186
(_Chapt. IV. Story of the Three Apples, etc.: p. 250._)
5. TALE OF NUR AL-DIN ALI AND HIS SON BADR AL-DIN HASAN 195
(_Story of Noor ed-Deen and his Son, and of Shems ed-Deen and
his Daughter: p. 253._)
6. THE HUNCHBACK'S TALE 255
(_Chapt. V. Story of the Humpback: p. 238._)
_a._ THE NAZARENE BROKER'S STORY 262
(_Story told by the Christian Broker: p. 334._)
_b._ THE REEVE'S TALE 278
(_Story told by the Sultan's Steward: p. 348._)
_c._ TALE OF THE JEWISH DOCTOR 288
(_Story told by the Jewish Physician: p. 359._)
_d._ TALE OF THE TAILOR 300
(_Story told by the Tailor: p. 368._)
_e._ THE BARBER'S TALE OF HIMSELF 317
(_The Barber's Story of Himself: p. 383._)
_ea._ THE BARBER'S TALE OF HIS FIRST BROTHER 319
(_The Barber's Story of His First Brother: p. 385._)
_eb._ THE BARBER'S TALE OF HIS SECOND BROTHER 324
(_The Barber's Story of His Second Brother: p. 389._)
_ec._ THE BARBER'S TALE OF HIS THIRD BROTHER 328
(_The Barber's Story of His Third Brother: p. 392_)
_ed._ THE BARBER'S TALE OF HIS FOURTH BROTHER 331
(_The Barber's Story of His Fourth Brother: p. 396._)
_ee._ THE BARBER'S TALE OF HIS FIFTH BROTHER 335
(_The Barber's Story of His Fifth Brother: p. 400._)
_ef._ THE BARBER'S TALE OF HIS SIXTH BROTHER 343
(_The Barber's Story of His Sixth Brother._)
THE END OF THE TAILOR'S TALE 348
THE BOOK OF THE
THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT.
(_ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH._)
In the Name of Allah,
the Compassionating, the Compassionate!
_PRAISE BE TO ALLAH ✿ THE BENEFICENT KING ✿ THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE
✿ LORD OF THE THREE WORLDS ✿ WHO SET UP THE FIRMAMENT WITHOUT PILLARS
IN ITS STEAD ✿ AND WHO STRETCHED OUT THE EARTH EVEN AS A BED ✿ AND
GRACE, AND PRAYER-BLESSING BE UPON OUR LORD MOHAMMED ✿ LORD OF
APOSTOLIC MEN ✿ AND UPON HIS FAMILY AND COMPANION-TRAIN ✿ PRAYER AND
BLESSINGS ENDURING AND GRACE WHICH UNTO THE DAY OF DOOM SHALL REMAIN ✿
AMEN! ✿ O THOU OF THE THREE WORLDS SOVEREIGN!_
* * * * *