Notwithstanding the discovery, as above set out, of three of the
doubtful tales, Zeyn Alasnam, Aladdin and The Sleeper Awakened, in two
MSS. (one at least undoubtedly authentic) of the Thousand Nights and
One Night, I am more than ever of opinion that none of the eleven
"interpolated" stories properly belongs to the original work, that is to
say, to the collection as first put into definite form somewhere about
the fourteenth century. [19] "The Sleeper Awakened" was identified by
the late Mr. Lane as a historical anecdote given by the historian El
Ishaki, who wrote in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, and
the frequent mention of coffee in both MSS. of Aladdin justifies us in
attributing the composition of the story to (at earliest) the sixteenth
century, whilst the modern vulgarisms in which they abound point to a
still later date. Zeyn Alasnam (in the Sebbagh MS. at least) is
written in a much purer and more scholarly style than Aladdin, but
its pre-existence in El Ferej bad esh Shiddeh (even if we treat as
apocryphal Petis de la Croix's account of the Hezar o Yek Roz) is
sufficient, in the absence of contrary evidence, to justify us in
refusing to consider it as belonging to the Thousand Nights and One
Night proper. As shown by Galland's own experience, complete copies
of the genuine work were rarely to be met with, collections of "silly
stories" (as the Oriental savant, who inclines to regard nothing in the
way of literature save theology, grammar and poetry, would style them),
being generally considered by the Arab bibliographer undeserving of
record or preservation, and the fragmentary copies which existed were
mostly in the hands of professional story-tellers, who were extremely
unwilling to part with them, looking upon them as their stock in trade,
and were in the habit of incorporating with the genuine text all kinds
of stories and anecdotes from other sources, to fill the place of the
missing portions of the original work. This process of addition
and incorporation, which has been in progress ever since the first
collection of the Nights into one distinct work and is doubtless still
going on in Oriental countries, (especially such as are least in contact
with European influence,) may account for the heterogeneous character
of the various modern MSS. of the Nights and for the immense difference
which exists between the several texts, as well in actual contents as in
the details and diction of such stories as are common to all. The Tunis
MS. of the 1001 Nights (which is preserved in the Breslau University
Library and which formed the principal foundation of Habicht's Edition
of the Arabic text) affords a striking example of this process, which we
are here enabled to see in mid-operation, the greater part of the tales
of which it consists having not yet been adapted to the framework of
the Nights. It is dated A.H. 1144 (A.D. 1732) and of the ten volumes of
which it consists, i, ii (Nights I--CCL) and x (Nights DCCCLXXXV-MI) are
alone divided into Nights, the division of the remaining seven volumes
(i.e. iii--ix, containing, inter alia, the Story of the Sleeper
Awakened) being the work of the German editor. It is my belief,
therefore, that the three "interpolated" tales identified as forming
part of the Baghdad MS. of 1703 are comparatively modern stories added
to the genuine text by Rawis (story-tellers) or professional writers
employed by them, and I see no reason to doubt that we shall yet
discover the Arabic text of the remaining eight, either in Hanna's
version (as written down for Galland) or in some as yet unexamined MS.
of the Nights or other work of like character.