three years to serve as Consul at Trieste before he is entitled to a
retiring pension, and it is a grievance with the friends and admirers of
“the Arabian Knight” that the government does not do a generous
thing—that is, “retire” and pension him at once. There is no doubt that
the prospects of a prolonged life would be strengthened if he could
retire from the Consulate and fix his own dwelling place. And his
literary career is by no means at an end. The third volume of “The
Supplemental Nights” is to-day in the hands of the subscribers. Like all
its predecessors, it contains a characteristic dedication. Thus: “To
Henry Edward John, Lord Stanley of Alderly, this the most innocent
volume of _The Nights_ is inscribed by his old companion, the Author.”
It would appear from the Foreword that Sir Richard Burton has had some
difficulty with his work. He has reckoned without his host. He says:
“The peculiar proceedings of the curators, Bodleian Library, Oxford, of
which full particulars will be given in due time, have dislocated the
order of my volumes. The prospectus had promised that Tome III. should
contain detached extracts from the MS. known as the Wortley-Montague,
and that No. IV. and part of No. V. should comprise a reproduction of
the ten Tales (or eleven, including ‘The Princess of Daryabar’), which
have so long generally been attributed to Professor Galland.
Circumstances, however, wholly beyond my control, have now compelled me
to devote the whole of this volume to the Frenchman’s stories.” What has
happened? Has Sir Richard Burton’s Devils (I use the word in its legal
sense) been refused permission to translate? His vials of wrath will be
filled to overflowing if that sort of opposition accumulates. Already we
are promised a reckoning with the _Edinburgh Review_. Well may the
translator of _The Nights_ be spared to deal out his “smashing blow”
with characteristic vigour. He is like the late Charles Reade in this—he
is never so entertaining, to the onlooker, as when he goes tooth and
nail for an antagonist. The reader has no cause to complain of the
dislocation of the author’s plans. Two of the most famous of the
supplemental tales are given in the volume in question making it
uncommonly bulky and investing it with special interest. The account of
how the originals of these came into his possession is remarkable, but
it is too long for citation. The two tales to which I refer are
“Alaeddin, or the Wonderful Lamp,” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”
More disillusion. It is no longer Aladdin, but Alaeddin. It is not “Open
sesame,” but “Open O simsin” and “Shut, O simsin” in the Forty Thieves.
I dare say there are many other departures from the text of the stories
which we have known from our childhood. In Sir Richard Burton’s version
“Alaeddin” opens in this wise: “There dwelt in a city of the cities of
China a man which was a tailor, withal a pauper, and he had one son,
Alaeddin, hight. Now, this boy had been from his babyhood a
ne’er-do-well, a scapegrace; and when he had reached his tenth year,”
&c. “The Forty Thieves” opens differently. “In days of yore and in times
long gone before there dwelt in a certain town of Persia two brothers,
one named Kásim and the other Alí Bábá, who at their father’s demise had
divided the little wealth he had left to them with equitable division,
and had lost no time in wasting and spending it all.”
ACADEMY, _December 11th, 1886_.
Knowing his profound Oriental scholarship, and amazing gift of tongues,
and the vast range of his reading, one could not have doubted that Sir
Richard Burton’s translation would be a noteworthy performance; but
none, I imagine, were prepared for the fine force and old-world flavour
of the style which he has forged for himself on this occasion, or for
the extraordinary richness, variety, and quaintness of his vocabulary.
Not only has he with characteristic masterfulness pressed into his
service any and every word, English or foreign, current or obsolete,
that suited his fancy or answered to the need of the moment, but he has
not scrupled to coin the lacking epithet when wanted. Thus, the
ape-prince is “ensorcelled;” a merchant who sells perfumes and drugs is
“a perfumer-cum-druggist;” an aged man “long o’ beard,” is an “oldster;”
two warriors “fall to derring-do of cut and thrust;” the Jinniyah of
Bassora flies “firmamentwise;” Prince Ajib goes to sea with a fleet of
“ten keel;” our old acquaintance the Hunchbacked Groom is a “Gobbo” and
an “accursed carle;” one of the ladies of Baghdad wears a “mantilla;”
Ja’afar the prudent minister of Harun al-Rashid, hesitates not to
propose in good Scottish dialect that “each and every one of us gang his
own gait;” and the porter refuses to “stump it” till he has heard the
stories of the three “monoculars,” better known as the three one-eyed
Kalendars, who were sons of kings. These are but a few examples taken
hastily and at random; but they serve to show the curious mosaic-work of
the style. “Ensorcelled,” englished from the French, is certainly ben
trovato; “derring-do” is pure Spenserian; “keel” in the sense of ships,
though surviving at Newcastle-on-Tyne as the name of a carrying boat,
has scarcely been in literary use since the days of Verstagen and
Surrey; “Gobbo” is Italian, and the porter’s refusal has a distinct
Transatlantic flavour.
LINCOLN GAZETTE, _December 18th, 1886_.
Few people know anything of the trouble and the travelling which Sir
Richard Burton has undertaken in the accomplishment of his tremendous
task. He has ransacked all the libraries of the east and west, and has
often undertaken a roving but idle quest in the hope of throwing clearer
light on a single disputed passage. His profound acquaintance with
Oriental languages and literature is shown at every turn, and,
preserving the romantic colouring of the original in a poetic rhythm of
expression, he has cast his finished version in a form which is
singularly picturesque. While he has wisely discarded the affected
purisms under which inferior scholars love to shelter their
incompetency, he does not disfigure his pages with gratuitous accents,
and he manfully indulges our fond reminiscences of old friends by
calling the Caliph the Caliph. Nor is it any fault of his that we miss
some of our favourites from his edition, such as Cogia Hassan of the
matchless diamonds and Aladdin of the marvellous lamp; for we believe
that they were spurious, though wonderfully attractive, and either
sprung or took new shape in the fertile fancy of that accomplished and
brilliant Frenchman, M. Galland. * * * Still another speciality in this
most complete of all Translations is the versical portion, amounting to
10,000 lines. The Arab folk break into verse, “drop into poetry,” on
every occasion. When overcome by their feelings they weep and recite
verses, or they swoon first and on recovery pour forth couplets or poems
of many lines. Sometimes they improvise, or they quote their own Moores,
Tennysons, and Shelleys. The young Prince looks at the headsman who is
ordered to slay him. “I wept,” he says, “with exceeding weeping until I
made him weep with me, and looking at him I began to recite these
couplets.” The sentimental stories are profusely sprinkled with verse;
one of the charming peculiarities of this form of utterance is its
inconsequence, the verses welling up from the depths of a despairing
breast, often having little or no relation to the circumstances of the
moment. Mr. Lane gives a prose paraphrase of a portion of the poems, but
he omits verses right and left. We quote a brief specimen from Lane and
the same from Burton, and the reader will judge between them.
(_Lane._)
“We tread the steps appointed for us; and the man whose steps are
appointed must tread them. He whose death is decreed to take place in
one land will not die in any land but that.”
(_Burton._)
“Bear my body, bear my soul wheresoever you may fare,
And where you pitch the camp let my body buried lie.
Cry my name above my grave, and an answer shall return.
The meaning of my bones responsive to your cry.”
The _Nights_ without verses are like the day without sunshine. They are
a most important part of the work. They illustrate character and
manners, and the allusions, often remote and strange, require
explanation, which is supplied in the shape of informing foot-notes to
the pages. As a characteristic example of super-sentimental
exaggeration, take the hospitable welcome of a lady, long hidden under
ground, whose solitude is suddenly broken by the arrival of a fair
Prince.
“O youth, what sayest thou to wine?” and I answered, “Do as thou wilt.”
Whereupon she went to a cupboard and took out a sealed flask of right
old wine and set off the table with flowers and scented herbs and began
to sing these lines:—
“Had we known of thy coming we fain had dispread The cores of our hearts
on the balls of our eyes;
Our cheeks as a carpet to greet thee had thrown, And our eyelids had
strown for thy feet to betread.”
If Sir Richard Burton has taken incredible pains with his “cooing
cadence” and his verses, and imparted to them their true eastern colour,
his personages, his array of characters, his sultans, his wazirs,
princes, merchants, soldiers, slaves, his princesses, concubines,
houris, slave-girls, and old women, are simply alive and exhale the
living East—they are real as any creatures in Lincoln—to use Mr.
Swinburne’s simile in his Sonnet on this translation of the _Arabian
Nights_.
WEEKLY DISPATCH, _November 14th, 1887_.
The curators of the Bodleian Library are determined to save morality
from Sir Richard Burton, so they have refused to let him see a
manuscript of _The Arabian Nights_, which he asked them to send to the
India Office. Sir Richard has produced some queer tales in his
translations of Eastern fables; but as he gave a distinct promise to the
curators that nothing that transgressed propriety should be reproduced,
their behaviour seems rather shabby. Lady Burton is publishing an
expurgated edition of her husband’s work for “household reading”; but no
doubt the Bodleian curators will forbid their daughters to look at it.
THE GAZETTE, _Saturday, December 18th, 1886_.
The most widely circulated translations of the _Nights_, the countless
editions, many of them illustrated, give no idea whatever of the true
East, and are mere burlesques of Galland’s French version. If only
parents could distinguish between the genuine and the spurious, these
unsatisfactory imitations would cease to be acceptable, and children in
the nursery would be allowed to drink from the real fountain. It would
be quite as easy, and far better for the juveniles, to follow the story
of an Ensorcelled Prince, of a Magic Horse, or a Bottled Jinni, where
the colour is all true, as it is to swallow make-believe attempts of
Eastern imagery. But a better time is coming for children, and for
children of a greater growth. To know the _Arabian Nights_ in all their
perfection, in all their gorgeous setting, in all their bewildered
variety, and in all their truth, we must look to the latest translator.
For the last fifty years it is Lane’s version that has held the field,
and many people, not knowing there could be anything better, accepted
him as final. But, like the Horseman of Brass on the Horse of Brass in
the Sea of Peril, the time has come for dethronement, and Lane must
yield to a scholar of wider research, to an Orientalist who, during one
part of his career, lived as a veritable Moslem, and was
indistinguishable from other Moslems. Lane’s idea was to give but a
portion of the _Nights_, to please himself and his printer and publisher
as to what should be selected, what omitted. If a story resembled
another story, he rejected it on the score that it might prove
wearisome. For instance, he leaves out “Nur al-Din and Miriam the Girdle
Girl!”—despite its great historical interest as connected with
Charlemagne and his daughter—because it bears a family likeness to “Ali
Shar and Zamurrud;” and because he himself felt unsympathetic he
altogether discards the lively story of “Masrur and Zayn al-Mawásif,” a
tale full of poetical merits with lute scenes nowhere excelled, and with
the most beautiful of all the many gardens in the _Nights_. He passes
over the truly Rabelaisian tale of “Ali the Persian and his marvellous
Carpet Bag;” he omits the chivalric story of “King Omar bin al-Nu’uman
and his Sons”—like cutting “Ivanhoe” out of “Waverley” novels—and for
fear of ruffling susceptibilities he suppresses “The Rogueries of
Dalilah” and “Mercury Ali of Cairo,” most characteristic of stories,
full of fun, frisk and frolic and devilry, opening up new ideas of
Eastern human nature. These are but indications of Lane’s arbitrary
method, and people have submitted because quite unconscious they have
been defrauded, and that treasures have been withheld. At length,
however, they have the entire and perfect chrysolite. Sir Richard Burton
does not pick and choose.
Various novelties distinguish the Burton edition. To begin with, a
strict account is kept of the separate nights, and the interest of the
opening drama is sustained throughout. On each individual Night of the
whole Thousand and One we learn exactly the amount and quality of
incident related. The dramatic idea which binds the whole sheaf of
stories together is kept artistically in view. It is a peculiarity of
the stories that so many of them are told when the speaker is on the
edge of doom—hardly the moment for collected oration—and the story saves
the story-teller’s life. The mighty Ifrit who cuts off the hands and
feet of his lady with four strokes, and then sends her head flying,
because he thinks she has betrayed him, is diverted from instant
vengeance on the suspected lover by the prospect of a story.
SCOTCH NEWS, _Glasgow, December 23rd, 1886_.
The first issue of Sir Richard Burton’s _Arabian Nights_, limited to one
thousand copies, was quickly absorbed by scholars and linguists. It
would have been a subject of regret had so remarkable a work remained
comparatively unknown. * * * English versions of the _Arabian Nights_
have hitherto chiefly represented them as charming fairy tales. It
remained to Sir R. Burton to fully accentuate their wider meaning. In
the translator’s words, their “pathos is sweet, deep and genuine,
tender, simple and true.”
The morale is sound and healthy, and at times we descry vistas of a
transcendental morality, the morality of Socrates in Plato.
MORNING ADVERTISER, _December 25th, 1886_.
Replete with poetry, and expressed in the graceful, fluent language of
the Orientals, this rendering by a master scholar is a real boon, and
may be taken as a typical specimen of the perfection to be obtained in
translation by the power of an author’s research and enthusiasm.
THE LITERARY WORLD, _January 7th, 1887_.
_THE REAL ARABIAN NIGHTS._
To many familiar from childhood with “The Arabian Nights
Entertainments,” it has come as a shock to be told that the great work,
in its true form, is nevertheless still to them a sealed book; yet it
would seem that the appearance of Sir Richard Burton’s translation, but
a few months ago, for the first time put within the reach of the English
public anything like a faithful reproduction of the original. Even this
can hardly be said to be given to the public. Only a thousand copies
were published, and those at a price that would have been prohibitory to
the majority, if the issue had been unlimited. Another obstacle to the
general enjoyment of Sir Richard Burton’s translation was, undoubtedly,
the too faithful rendering of certain passages, specimens of “an
exaggerated mode of expressing thought” peculiar to Orientalists.
Numbers of English readers, to whom even the incomplete and bald
versions hitherto common amongst us have afforded many a delightful
hour, on hearing of the Burton edition have felt themselves almost
mocked as they listened to its glowing praises, and were told at the
same time that it was for ever beyond their reach. Some would, perhaps,
rather have never heard of it, and have been left in happy ignorance of
anything better than they already had.
Now, however, all such lovers of the famous Oriental tales have
consolation offered them. Lady Burton, deeply sympathising with their
disappointment, and anxious, too, that her husband’s great labour, “a
deep well of reading and knowledge,” should not be wasted upon a few
only, has come forward with an edition of her own which, while
preserving the beauty and value of the larger work, will be more
accessible to general readers, and, moreover, fitted for family use. The
aim she has had in view in editing has been to make as few omissions as
possible, consistent with the latter requirement, on which point Lady
Burton observes: “I guarantee that no mother shall regret her girl’s
reading this _Arabian Nights_.” We may say at once that, having
carefully read a considerable portion of this first volume, we think her
guarantee quite made good. Of the original 3,215 pages 215 only have
been omitted. The translator’s “Foreword” tells how the work came to be
taken up, its system, and the conditions under which it was carried out,
and its relation to other translations. Here is Sir R. Button’s own
account of
THE OBJECT OF THIS VERSION.
“Briefly, the object of this version is to show what ‘The Thousand
Nights and a Night’ really is. Not, however, by straining _verbum
reddere verbo_, but by writing as the Arab would have written in
English. 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 of 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. 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, as when the dust-cloud raised by a tramping host is described
as ‘walling the horizon.’”
Although occasionally, perhaps, the formulæ may be a little too
“long-drawn out,” and some expressions too “outlandish” for the
enjoyment of all, the reading is extremely easy and pleasant. There is
in it a charming movement and rhythm altogether absent in the popular
translations. Indeed, speaking of the translation as a whole, it is, as
compared with Scott’s or Lane’s, especially the former, as a poem to a
paraphrase. The very fulness of detail, far from wearying, so fills in
the pictures before the mind that one is inclined to linger over them
with delight. To justly compare the several translations one must place
whole stories side by side. For this there is no space here; but perhaps
the comparison of a few brief extracts with Lane’s well-known
translation will serve to convey some idea of the greater beauty of Sir
R. Burton’s. Dr. Scott’s version differs so widely from either, and is
so extremely scanty, that verbal comparison with it is almost
impossible. An idea of the scantiness may be formed from the fact that
the matter comprised in the tenth night, according to Burton and Lane,
extends in Scott from the thirty-first night to the thirty-sixth. The
following passages are from the “Story of the Porter and the Three
Ladies of Baghdad”:—
_Lane._—“If of love we complain, what shall we say? Or consuming through
desire, how can we escape?
Or if he send a messenger to interpret for us, he cannot convey the
lover’s complaint.
Or if we would be patient, short were our existence after the loss of
those we love.
Naught remaineth to us but grief and mourning, and tears streaming down
our cheeks.
O you who are absent from my sight, but constantly dwelling within my
heart,
Have you kept your faith to an impassioned lover who while time endureth
will never change?
Or, in absence, have you forgotten that lover who, on your account is
wasting away?
When the Day of Judgment shall bring us together I will beg of our Lord
a protracted trial.”
_Burton._—“If we ’plain of absence what shall we say? Or if pain afflict
us where wend our way?
An I hire a truckman to tell my tale, The lover’s plaint is not told for
pay:
If I put on patience, a lover’s life after loss of love will not last a
day:
Naught is left me now but regret, repine; And tears flooding cheeks for
ever and aye:
O thou who the babes of these eyes hast fled, Thou art homed in heart
that shall never stray;
Would heaven I wot hast thou kept our pact, Long as streams shall flow,
to have firmest say?
Or hast forgotten the weeping slave Whom groans afflict and whom griefs
waylay?
Ah, when severance ends, and we side by side Rest, I’ll blame thy
rigours and chide thy pride!”
_Lane._—“Then, winking to the Khaleefeh, he said, ‘There remaineth but
an hour; and to-morrow we will bring them before thee, and thou shalt
ask them their story.’ But the Khaleefeh refused to do so, and said, ‘I
have not patience to wait so long for their history.’—Words followed
words, and at last they said, ‘Who shall put the question to them?’—and
one answered, ‘The Porter.’”
_Burton._—“Then he winked at the Caliph and whispered to him, ‘There is
but one hour of darkness left and I can bring them before thee
to-morrow, when thou canst freely question them all concerning their
story.’ But the Caliph raised his head haughtily, and cried out at him
in wrath, saying, ‘I have no patience left for my longing to hear of
them; let the Kalendars question them forthright.’ Quoth Ja’afar, ‘This
is not my counsel.’ Then words ran high and talk answered talk; and they
disputed as to who should first put the question, but at last all fixed
upon the Porter.”
_Lane._—“How good is it to pardon one able to resist! and how much more
so one who is helpless!
For the sake of the friendship that subsisted between us, destroy not
one for the crime of another!”
_Burton._—“How fair is ruth the strong man deigns not smother! And
fairest fair when shown to weakest brother:
By love’s own holy tie between us twain, Let one not suffer for the sin
of other.”
Here are four other examples of the difference of language between the
two translations:—
_Lane._—“A damsel of tall stature, high-bosomed, fair and beautiful, and
of elegant form, with a forehead like the bright new moon, eyes like
those of gazelles, eyebrows like the new moon of Ramadân, cheeks
resembling anemones, and a mouth like the seal of Suléyman, her
countenance like the full moon in its splendour, and the forms of her
bosom resembled two pomegranates of equal size.”
_Burton._—“A lady of tall figure, some five feet high; a model of beauty
and loveliness, brilliance, and symmetry, and perfect grace. Her
forehead was flower-white; her cheeks like the anemone, ruddy bright;
her eyes were those of the wild heifer or the gazelle, with eyebrows
like the crescent moon, which ends Sha’aban and begins Ramuzán; her
mouth was the ring of Sulayman; her lips coral-red; her teeth like a
line of string pearls, or of camomile petals; and her throat recalled
the antelope’s. In fine, she was like her of whom the poet said,” &c.
_Lane._—“Was greatly surprised.”
_Burton._—“Marvelled with exceeding wonder.”
_Lane._—“Touched the chords with the ends of her fingers.”
_Burton._—“Swept the strings with her finger-tips.”
_Lane._—“We heard the sounds of drums and trumpets, warriors galloped
about, and the air was filled with dust raised by the horses’ hoofs.”
_Burton._—“We heard the tom-toming of the kettle-drum and the tantara of
trumpets, and clash of cymbals; and the rattling of warmen’s lances; and
the clamours of assailants, and the clanking of bits, and the neighing
of steeds; while the world was canopied with dense dust and sand-clouds
raised by the horses’ hoofs.”
As we said before, however, for a fair comparison we must refer our
readers to the works themselves. Those who will take the pains to read
Burton’s side by side with any of the received translations, will, we
have no question, recognise its vast superiority in every way. On the
question of fulness it is enough to say that if the remaining volumes
are of the same size as the first, Burton’s contains more than half as
much again as Lane’s.
We must not omit to mention the explanatory notes. “I can hardly imagine
the _Nights_ being read to any profit by men of the West without
commentary,” says Sir Richard Burton. “My annotations avoid only one
subject, the parallels of European folk-lore and fabliaux which, however
interesting, would overswell the bulk of a book whose speciality is
anthropology.” “The scholar who adds to mine the notes of Lane, will
know as much of the Moslem East, and more than many Europeans who have
spent half their lives in Orient lands. Such, at least, is my belief.”
The notes are brief enough not to be passed over, and are conveniently
placed at foot of the page.
Referring briefly to the _matter_ of the _Arabian Nights_, we cannot do
better than quote the words of Sir R. Burton again:—
“THE MATTER OF THE ‘NIGHTS.’
“The general tone 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 Kazi with exemplary
impartiality and severity, ‘denouncing evil-doers and eulogising deeds
admirably achieved.’ The _morale_ is sound and healthy, and at times we
descry vistas of transcendental morality—the morality of Socrates in
Plato. It is, indeed, this unique contrast of a quaint element, childish
crudities, 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 boldest prose (the Egyptian of to-day), 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 the 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 mediæval Moslem mind.”
At the present the first volume only of the work has reached us. We
shall give our readers early notice of the appearance of the remaining
five.
QUEEN, _January 27th, 1887_.