103. With Cameron at Venice, August 1881.
Burton had for several years been acquainted with the African traveller
V. Lovett Cameron, [338] and in August 1881 they met accidentally
at Venice. A geographical conference was being held in the city and
representatives from all nations were assembled; but, naturally, the
first geographer of the day, Captain Burton, was not invited either to
speak or even to be present. On the morning of the conference, Burton,
Mrs. Burton and Cameron gave themselves the treat of going over to the
Lido for bathing and breakfast; and being in puckish mood, the two men,
notwithstanding the great crowd of pleasure seekers, took off their
shoes and stockings, turned up their trousers, and made sand castles.
"Look, nurse," bawled Burton to his wife, "see what Cammy and I have
done!" "If you please, nursey," whined Cameron, "Dick's snatched away
my spade." At that moment Lord Aberdeen, President of the Royal
Geographical Society, and a party of grave antiquaries and geographers,
mostly run to nose, spectacles, and forehead, arrived on the scene;
with the result of infinite laughter, in which Burton and Cameron joined
heartily; and henceforward Mrs. Burton answered to no name but "Nursey."
Burton, however, was justly indignant on account of his not having been
invited to the conference, and his revenge took the shape of a pungent
squib which he wrote on his card and left in the Congress Room. Next
day, while Burton and Cameron were strolling in front of St. Mark's, a
Portuguese gentleman came up and saluted them. To Burton's delight it
was his old friend Da Cunha, the Camoens enthusiast; and then ensued a
long argument, conducted in Portuguese, concerning Burton's rendering of
one of Camoens' sonnets, Burton in the end convincing his friend of its
correctness. Having parted from Da Cunha, they ran against an Egyptian
officer who had just visited Mecca and brought back a series of
photographs. The conversation this time was conducted in Arabic, and
Burton explained to the Egyptian the meaning of much of the ritual of
the pilgrimage. "As a cicerone," says Cameron, "Burton was invaluable.
His inexhaustible stock of historical and legendary lore furnished
him with something to relate about even the meanest and commonest
buildings." [339] There were trips about the green canals in a long
black gondola on the day and night of the regatta, when the Grand Canal
and St. Mark's were illuminated, all of which Burton enjoyed thoroughly,
for round him had gathered the elite of Venice, and his brilliant
personality, as usual, dazzled and dominated all who listened to him.
104. John Payne, November 1881.
We now come to that absorbing period of Burton's life which is connected
principally with The Arabian Nights. Amazing as the statement may seem,
we feel ourselves compelled to say at once, though regretfully, that
Burton's own account of the history of the translation, given in his
Translator's Foreword to the Arabian Nights, and Lady Burton's account,
given in her life of her husband, do not tally with the facts as
revealed in his letters. In matters relating to his own history Burton
often spoke with amazing recklessness, [340] and perhaps he considered
he was justified in stating that his translation of The Arabian Nights
was well advanced by November 1881, seeing that it had for thirty years
intermittently occupied his thoughts. As regards Lady Burton, no doubt,
of some of the facts presently to be given, she was unaware. But she
was one who easily deceived herself. Whatever she wished, she was apt
to believe. The actual facts compiled from existing documentary
evidence--including Burton's own letters--will now be revealed for the
first time; and it will be found, as is generally the case, that the
unembroidered truth is more interesting than the romance. The story is
strangely paralleled by that of the writing of The Kasidah; or in other
words it recalls traits that were eminently characteristic of Burton.
As early as 1854, as we have seen, Burton and Steinhauser had planned a
translation of The Arabian Nights, Steinhauser was to furnish the prose,
Burton the poetry. They corresponded on the subject, but made only
trifling progress. Steinhauser died in 1866, his manuscripts were
scattered, and Burton never heard of them again. Absolutely nothing more
was done, for Burton was occupied with other matters--travelling all
over the world and writing piles of voluminous books on other subjects.
Still, he had hoards of Eastern manuscripts, and notes of his own on
Eastern manners and customs, which had for years been accumulating
and an even greater mass of curious information had been stored in his
brain. Again and again he had promised himself to proceed, but something
every time hindered.
In November 1881, Burton, who was then at Trieste, noticed a paragraph
in The Athenaeum [341] to the effect that Mr. John Payne, the well-known
author of The Masque of Shadows and of a famous rendering of The Poems
of Francois Villon, was about to issue a Translation of The Book of the
Thousand Nights and one Nights. Burton, who was an enthusiastic admirer
of the Villon and who, moreover, had not relinquished his own scheme,
though it had lain so long quiescent, wrote at once to The Athenaeum a
letter which appeared on 26th November 1881. He said: "Many years ago,
in collaboration with my old and lamented friend, Dr. F. Steinhauser,
of the Bombay Army, I began to translate the whole [342] of The Thousand
Nights and a Night. The book, mutilated in Europe to a collection of
fairy tales, and miscalled the Arabian Nights, is unique as a study of
anthropology. It is a marvellous picture of Oriental life; its shiftings
are those of the kaleidoscope. Its alternation of pathos and bathos--of
the boldest poetry (the diction of Job) with the baldest prose (the
Egyptian of to-day) and finally, its contrast of the highest and purest
morality with the orgies of Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter, take
away the reader's breath. I determined to render every word with the
literalism of Urquhart's Rabelais, and to save the publisher trouble by
printing my translation at Brussels.
"Not non omnia possumus. Although a host of friends has been eager to
subscribe, my work is still unfinished, nor could it be finished without
a year's hard labour. I rejoice, therefore, to see that Mr. John
Payne, under the Villon Society, has addressed himself to a realistic
translation without 'abridgments or suppressions.' I have only to wish
him success, and to express a hope that he is resolved verbum reddere
verbo, without deference to any prejudice which would prevent his being
perfectly truthful to the original. I want to see that the book has fair
play; and if it is not treated as it deserves, I shall still have to
print my own version. [343] 'Villon,' however, makes me hope for the
best."
In this letter Burton oddly enough speaks of his own work as "still
unfinished." This was quite true, seeing that it was not even begun,
unless two or three pages which he once showed to Mr. Watts-Dunton,
[344] and the pigeon-holing of notes be regarded as a commencement.
Still, the announcement of Mr. Payne's edition--the first volume of
which was actually in the press--must have caused him a pang; and the
sincere good wishes for his rival's success testify to the nobility,
unselfishness and magnanimity of his character.
Mr. Payne, supposing from his letter that Burton had made considerable
progress with his translation, wrote on November 28th to Burton, and,
using the words Tantus labor non sit cassus, suggested collaboration.
Thus commenced one of the most interesting friendships in the annals of
literature. Before relating the story, however, it will be helpful to
set down some particulars of the career of Mr. Payne. John Payne was
born in 1842 of a Devonshire family, descended from that breezy old
sea-dog, Sir John Hawkins. Mr. Payne, indeed, resembles Hawkins in
appearance. He is an Elizabethan transferred bodily into the 19th and
20th centuries, his ruff lost in transit. Yet he not infrequently has a
ruff even--a live one, for it is no uncommon event to see his favourite
Angora leap on to his shoulders and coil himself half round his master's
neck, looking not unlike a lady's boa--and its name, Parthenopaeus, is
long enough even for that. For years Mr. Payne followed the law, and
with success, but his heart was with the Muses and the odorous East.
From a boy he had loved and studied the old English, Scotch and Welsh
writers, with the result that all his productions have a mediaeval
aroma. The Faerie Queene, Chaucer and his successors--the Scottish
poets of the 15th and 16th Centuries, The Morte d'Arthur, the authorised
version of the Bible and North's Plutarch have always lain at his
elbow. Then, too, with Dante, Shakespeare and Heine's poems he is
supersaturated; but the authorised version of the Bible has had more
influence on him than any other book, and he has so loved and studied
it from boyhood that he had assimilated its processes and learned the
secrets of the interior mechanism of its style. It is not surprising
that his first publication should have been a book of poetry. The merits
of The Masque of Shadows and other Poems were acknowledged on all sides.
It was seen that the art of ballad writing--which Goethe calls the most
difficult of arts--was not, as some averred, a forgotten one. The Masque
of Shadows itself is melodious and vivid from the first line to the
end, but the captain jewel is the necromantic and thrilling Rime of
Redemption--the story of a woman who erred and of a man who prayed and
wrestled with God in prayer for her, and ultimately wrung her salvation
by self-sacrifice from Divine Justice. Here and there are passages that
we could have wished modified, but surely such a terrific fantasy was
never before penned! It is as harrowing as The Ancient Mariner, and
appeals to one more forcibly than Coleridge's "Rime," because it seems
actual truth. Other volumes, containing impassioned ballads, lyrics,
narrative poems and sonnets, came from Mr. Payne's pen. His poems have
the rush and bound of a Scotch waterfall. This is explained by the fact
that they are written in moments of physical and mental exaltation.
Only a mind in a quasi-delirious state, to be likened to that of the
pythoness on the tripod, could have evolved the Rime of Redemption [345]
or Thorgerda [346]. No subject comes amiss to him. His chemic power
turns everything to gold. "He sees everything," as Mr. Watts-Dunton
once said to the writer--"through the gauze of poetry." His love for
beautiful words and phrases leads him to express his thoughts in the
choicest language. He puts his costliest wine in myrrhine vases; he
builds his temple with the lordliest cedars. Mr. Payne does not write
for the multitude, but few poets of the day have a more devoted band of
admirers. Some readers will express a preference for The Building of the
Dream, [347] others for Lautrec [348] or Salvestra [349], and others
for the dazzling and mellifluous Prelude to Hafiz. Mr. A. C. Swinburne
eulogised the "exquisite and clear cut Intaglios." [350] D. G. Rossetti
revelled in the Sonnets; Theodore de Banville, "roi des rimes," in the
Songs of Life and Death, whose beauties blend like the tints in jewels.
[351]
Mr. Payne first took up the work of a translator in 1878, his earliest
achievement in the new province being his admirable rendering of Villon,
in which he gives the music of the thief poet, and all his humour,
and this reminds us that Mr. Payne, unlike most poets, is a skilled
musician. Of his life, indeed, music, in its most advanced and
audacious manifestations had always been as much an essential a part as
literature, hence the wonderful melodic effects of the more remarkable
of his poems. Already an excellent Arabic scholar, he had as early as
1875 resolved upon a translation of The Arabian Nights, and he commenced
the task in earnest on 5th February 1877. He worked with exhausting
sedulity and expended upon it all the gifts in his power, with the
result that his work has taken its places as a classic. The price was
nine guineas. Imagining that the demand for so expensive a work
would not be large, Mr. Payne, unfortunately, limited himself to the
publication of only 500 copies. The demand exceeded 2,000, so 1,500
persons were disappointed.
It was at this moment that Mr. Payne became acquainted with Burton. Mr.
Payne admired Burton as a traveller, an explorer, and a linguist, and
recognised the fact that no man had a more intimate knowledge of the
manners and customs of the East; and Burton on his part paid high
tribute to Mr. Payne's gifts as a translator and a poet. [352]
105. To the Gold Coast, 25th November 1881-20th May 1882.
When Mr. Payne's letter reached Trieste, Burton had just started off,
with Commander Verney Lovett Cameron, on an expedition to the Gold
Coast. In his Fernando Po period he had, as we have seen, been deeply
interested in the gold digging and gold washing industries, [353] had
himself, indeed, to use his own words, "discovered several gold mines
on that coast." For years his mind had turned wistfully towards those
regions, and at last, early in 1881, he was able to enter into an
arrangement with a private speculator concerning the supposed mines.
He and Cameron were to have all their expenses paid, and certain shares
upon the formulation of the company. The travellers left Trieste on
November 18th, being accompanied as far as Fiume by Mrs. Burton and
Lisa, who on the 25th returned to Trieste; and on December 17th they
reached Lisbon, whither Mr. Payne's letter followed them. Burton, who
replied cordially, said "In April, at the latest, I hope to have the
pleasure of shaking hands with you in London, and then we will talk over
the 1,000 Nights and a Night. At present it is useless to say anything
more than this--I shall be most happy to collaborate with you.....
Do you know the Rev. G. Percy Badger (of the Dictionary)? If not, you
should make his acquaintance, as he is familiar with the Persian and
to a certain extent with the Egyptian terms of the Nights. He is very
obliging and ready to assist Arabists [354]..... I am an immense admirer
of your Villon."
Writing to Burton early in the year Payne observed that as his first
volume was in type, apparently it should at once go to press, but that
he would be pleased to submit subsequent volumes to Burton. Terms were
also suggested.
Burton's reply, addressed Axim, Gold Coast, and received by Mr. Payne,
20th March, 1882, runs as follows: "I received your welcome letter by
the steamer of yesterday, and to-morrow morning my companion Cameron and
I again proceed to the 'bush.' Of course you must go to press at once.
I deeply regret it, but on arriving in England my time will be so
completely taken up by the Gold Coast that I shall not have a moment's
leisure. It would be a useless expense to keep up the type. Your terms
about the royalty," he said, "are more than liberal. I cannot accept
them, however, except for value received, and it remains to be seen
what time is at my disposal. I am working out a scheme for Chinese
immigration to the West African coast, and this may take me next winter
to China. I can only say that I shall be most happy to render you any
assistance in my power; at the same time I must warn you that I am a
rolling stone. If I cannot find time you must apply in the matter of the
introductory essay to the Rev. Percy Badger, Professor Robertson Smith
(Glasgow) and Professor Palmer (Trinity, Cambridge). I have booked your
private address and have now only to reciprocate your good wishes."
On April 18th Mrs. Burton and Lisa set out for England in order to
rejoin Burton--Lisa, as usual, without any headgear--a condition of
affairs which in every church they entered caused friction with the
officials. When this began Mrs. Burton would explain the position; and
the officials, when they came to find that nothing they could say or do
make the slightest difference to Lisa, invariably expressed themselves
satisfied with the explanation.
Burton and Cameron reached Liverpool on May 20th, and were able to
report both "that there was plenty of gold, and that the mines could
easily be worked." The expedition, however, was unproductive of all
anticipated results and no profit accrued to Burton. Indeed it was
Iceland and Midian over again. "I ought," he says in one of his letters
to Payne, "to go down to history as the man who rediscovered one
Gold Country and rehabilitated a second, and yet lost heavily by the
discoveries." [355]