M. Zotenberg has, with great judgment, taken as his standard for
publication the text of Aladdin given by the Sebbagh MS., inasmuch as
the Shawish MS. (besides being, as appears from the extracts given. [20]
far inferior both in style and general correctness,) is shown by the
editor to be full of modern European phrases and turns of speech and
to present so many suspicious peculiarities that it would be difficult,
having regard, moreover, to the doubtful character and reputation of the
Syrian monkish adventurer who styled himself Dom Denis Chavis, to resist
the conviction that his MS. was a forgery, i.e. professedly a copy of a
genuine Arabic text, but in reality only a translation or paraphrase in
that language of Galland's version,--were it not that the Baghdad MS.
(dated before the commencement, in 1704, of Galland's publication
and transcribed by a man--Mikhail Sebbagh--whose reputation, as a
collaborator of Silvestre de Sacy and other distinguished Orientalists,
is a sufficient voucher for the authenticity of the copy in the
Bibliotheque Nationale,) contains a text essentially identical with that
of Shawish. Moreover, it is evident, from a comparison with Galland's
rendering and making allowance for the latter's system of translation,
that the Arabic version of Aladdin given him by Hanna must either
have been derived from the Baghdad text or from some other practically
identical source, and it is therefore probable that Shawish, having
apparently been employed to make up the missing portion of Galland's
Arabic text and not having the Hanna MS. at his command, had (with
the execrable taste and want of literary morality which distinguished
Cazotte's monkish coadjutor) endeavoured to bring his available text
up to what he considered the requisite standard by modernizing and
Gallicizing its wording and (in particular) introducing numerous
European phrases and turns of speech in imitation of the French
translator. The whole question is, of course, as yet a matter of more
or less probable hypothesis, and so it must remain until further
discoveries and especially until the reappearance of Galland's missing
text, which I am convinced must exist in some shape or other and cannot
much longer, in the face of the revived interest awakened in the matter
and the systematic process of investigation now likely to be employed,
elude research.
M. Zotenberg's publication having been confined to the text of Aladdin,
I have to thank my friend Sir R. F. Burton for the loan of his MS. copy
of Zeyn Alasnam, (the Arabic text of which still remains unpublished) as
transcribed by M. Houdas from the Sebbagh MS.