The first MS. commences precisely where the third volume of Galland's
MS. ends, to wit, (see my Terminal essay, p. 265, note1) with the 281st
Night, in the middle of the story of Camaralzaman [4] and contains,
(inter alia) besides the continuation of this latter (which ends
with Night CCCXXIX), the stories of the Sleeper Awakened (Nights
CCCXXX-CCCC), Ganem (Nights CCCCXXVIII-CCCCLXX1V), Zeyn Alasnam (Nights
CCCCLXXV-CCCCXCI), Aladdin (Nights CCCCXCII-DLXIX) and three others
not found in Galland's version. The MS. ends in the middle of the 631st
night with the well-known Story of King Bekhtzad (Azadbekht) and his son
or the Ten Viziers, (which will be found translated in my "Tales from
the Arabic," Vol. I. pp. 61 et seq.) and contains, immediately after
Night CCCCXXVII and before the story of Ganem, a note in Arabic, of
which the following is a translation:
"The fourth volume of the wonders and marvels of the stories of the
Thousand Nights and One Night was finished by the hand of the humblest
of His' servants in the habit of a minister of religion (Kahin, lit.
a diviner, Cohen), the [Christian] priest Dionysius Shawish, a scion
(selil) of the College of the Romans (Greeks, Europeans or Franks, er
Roum), by name St. Athanasius, in Rome the Greatest [5] (or Greater, utsma,
fem. of aatsem, qu re Constantinople?) on the seven-and-twentieth of the
month Shubat (February) of the year one thousand seven hundred fourscore
and seven, [he being] then teacher of the Arabic tongue in the Library
of the Sultan, King of France, at Paris the Greatest."
From this somewhat incoherent note we may assume that the MS. was
written in the course of the year 1787 by the notorious Syrian
ecclesiastic Dom Denis Chavis, the accomplice of Cazotte in the
extraordinary literary atrocity shortly afterward perpetrated by the
latter under the name of a sequel or continuation of the Thousand and
One Nights [6] (v. Cabinet des Fees, vols. xxxviii--xli), [7] and in all
probability (cf. the mention in the above note of the first part, i.e.
Nights CCLXXXI-CCCCXXVII, as the fourth volume) to supply the place of
Galland's missing fourth volume for the Bibliotheque Royale; but there.
is nothing, except a general similarity of style and the occurrence
in the former of the rest of Camaralzaman and (though not in the same
order) of four of the tales supposed to have been contained in the
latter, to show that Dom Chavis made his copy from a text identical
with that used by the French savant. In the notes to his edition of the
Arabic text of Aladdin, M. Zotenberg gives a number of extracts from
this MS., from which it appears that it is written in a very vulgar
modern Syrian style and abounds in grammatical errors, inconsistencies
and incoherences of every description, to say nothing of the fact that
the Syrian ecclesiastic seems, with the characteristic want of taste
and presumption which might be expected from the joint-author of "Les
Veillees Persanes," to have, to a considerable extent, garbled the
original text by the introduction of modern European phrases and turns
of speech a la Galland. For the rest, the MS. contains no note or other
indication, on which we can found any opinion as to the source from
which the transcriber (or arranger) drew his materials; but it can
hardly be doubted, from internal evidence, that he had the command of
some genuine text of the Nights, similar to, if not identical with,
that of Galland, which he probably "arranged" to suit his own (and his
century's) distorted ideas of literary fitness. The discovery of the
interpolated tales contained in this MS. (which has thus presumably lain
unnoticed for a whole century, under, as one may say, the very noses of
the many students of Arabic literature who would have rejoiced in such a
find) has, by a curious freak of fortune, been delayed until our own day
in consequence of a singular mistake made by a former conservator of
the Paris Bibliotheque, the well-known Orientalist, M. Reinaud, who, in
drawing up the Catalogue of the Arabic MSS. in the collection described
(or rather misdescribed) it under the following heading:
"Supplement Arabe 1716. Thousand and One Nights, 3rd and 4th parts. This
volume begins with Night CCLXXXII and ends with Night DCXXXI. A copy in
the handwriting of Chavis. It is from this copy and in accordance with
the instructions (d'apres la indications) of this Syrian monk that
Cazotte composed (redigea) the Sequel to the Thousand and One Nights,
Cabinet des Fees, xxxvii et xl (should be tt. xxxviii-xli)."
It is of course evident that M. Reinaud had never read the MS. in
question nor that numbered 1723 in the Supplement Arabe, or he would at
once have recognized that the latter, though not in the handwriting of
the Syrian ecclesiastic, was that which served for the production of the
"Sequel" in question; but, superficial as was the mistake, it sufficed
to prevent the examination by students of the MS. No. 1716 and so
retarded the discovery of the Arabic originals of Aladdin and its
fellows till the acquisition (some two years ago) by the Bibliotheque
Nationale of another (and complete) MS. of the Thousand and One Nights,
which appears to have belonged to the celebrated Orientalist M. Caussin
de Perceval, although the latter could not have been acquainted with it
at the time (1806) he published his well-known edition and continuation
of Galland's translation, in the eighth and ninth volumes of which, by
the by, he gives a correct version of the tales so fearfully garbled by
Chavis and Cazotte in their so-called translation as well nigh to defy
recognition and to cause Orientalists in general to deny the possibility
of their having been derived from an Oriental source until the discovery
of the actual Arabic originals so barbarously maltreated [8]
This MS. is in the handwriting of of Sebbagh, the well-known Syrian
collaborator of Silvestre de Sacy, and is supposed to have been copied
by him at Paris between the years 1805 and 1810 for some European
Orientalist (probably de Perceval himself) from a Baghdad MS. of the
early part of the 18th century, of which it professes to be an exact
reproduction, as appears from a terminal note, of which the following is
a translation:
"And the finishing of it was in the first tenth (decade) of Jumada the
Latter [in the] year one thousand one hundred and fifteen of the Hegira
(October, 1703) in the handwriting of the neediest of the faithful [9]
unto God [10] the Most High, Ahmed ibn Mohammed et Teradi, in the city
of Baghdad, and he the Shafiy by sect and the Mosuli by birth and the
Baghdadi by sojourn, and indeed he wrote it for himself and set upon it
his seal, and God bless and keep our lord Mohammed and his companions!
Kebikej [11] (ter)."
This MS. contains the three "interpolated" tales aforesaid, i.e.
the Sleeper Awakened (Nights CCCXXXVII-LXXXVI), Zeyn Alasnam (Nights
CCCCXCVII-DXIII) and Aladdin (Nights DXIV-XCI), the last two bearing
traces of a Syrian origin, especially Aladdin, which is written in a
much commoner and looser style than Zeyn Alasnam. The two tales are
evidently the work of different authors, Zeyn Alasnam being incomparably
superior in style and correctness to Aladdin, which is defaced by all
kinds of vulgarisms and solecisms and seems, moreover, to have been less
correctly copied than the other. Nevertheless, the Sebbagh text is in
every respect preferable to that of Shawish (which appears to abound
in faults and errors of every kind, general and particular,) and M.
Zotenberg has, therefore, exercised a wise discretion in selecting the
former for publication.