SUPPLEMENTAL
NIGHTS
To The Book Of The Thousand
And One Nights With Notes
Anthropological And
Explanatory
By
Richard F. Burton
VOLUME FOUR
Privately Printed By The Burton Club
To William H. Chandler, Esq,.
Pembroke College, Oxford.
My Dear Mr. Chandler,
As without your friendly and generous aid this volume could
never have seen the light, I cannot resist the temptation of
inscribing it to you-–and without permission, for your modesty
would have refused any such acknowledgment.
I am, ever,
Yours sincerely,
Richard F. Burton.
Trieste, March 10th, 1888.
Contents of the Fourteenth Volume.
1. Story of the Sultan of Al-Yaman and His Three Sons
2. Story of the Three Sharpers
a. The Sultan Who Fared Forth in the Habit of a Darwaysh
b. History of Mohammed, Sultan of Cairo
c. Story of the First Lunatic
d. Story of the Second Lunatic
e. Story of the Sage and the Scholar
f. The Night-Adventure of Sultan Mohammed of Cairo with
the Three Foolish
Schoolmasters
g. Story of the Broke-Back Schoolmaster
h. Story of the Split-Mouthed Schoolmaster
i. Story of the Limping Schoolmaster
j. Story of the Three Sisters and Their Mother the
Sultanah
3. History of the Kazi Who Bare a Babe
4. Tale of the Kazi and the Bhang-Eater
a. History of the Bhang-Eater and His Wife
b. How Drummer Abu Kasim Became a Kazi
c. Story of the Kazi and His Slipper
d. Tale of Mahmud the Persian and the Kurd Sharper
e. Tale of the Sultan and the Poor Man Who Brought To Him
Fruit
f. The Fruit-Seller's Tale
g. Tale of the Sultan and His Three Sons and the
Enchanting Bird
h. Adventure of the Fruit-Seller and the Concubine
i. Story of the King of Al-Yaman and His Three Sons and
the Enchanting Bird
j. History of the First Larrikin
k. History of the Second Larrikin
l. History of the Third Larrikin
m. Story of a Sultan of Al-Hind and His Son Mohammed
n. Tale of the Fisherman and His Son
o. Tale of the Third Larrikin Concerning Himself
5. History of Abu Niyyah and Abu Niyyatayn
Appendix A: - Ineptiæ Bodleianæ
Appendix B: - The Three Untranslated Tales in Mr. E. J. W. Gibb's
"Forty Vezirs"
The Translator's Foreword.
As my first and second volumes (Supplemental) were composed of
translated extracts from the Breslau Edition of The Nights, so
this tome and its successor (vols. iv. and v.) comprise my
version from the (Edward) Wortley Montague Codex immured in the
old Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Absence from England prevents for the present my offering a
satisfactory description of this widely known manuscript; but I
may safely promise that the hiatus shall be filled up in vol. v.,
which is now ready for the press.
The contents of the Wortley Montague text are not wholly
unfamiliar to Europe. In 1811 Jonathan Scott, LL.D. Oxon. (for
whom see my vols. i., ix. and x. 434), printed with Longmans and
Co. his "Arabian Nights Entertainments" in five substantial
volumes 8vo, and devoted a sixth and last to excerpts entitled
TALES
SELECTED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT COPY
OF THE
1001 NIGHTS
BROUGHT TO EUROPE BY EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGUE, ESQ.
Translated from the Arabic
BY JONATHAN SCOTT, LL.D.
Unfortunately for his readers Scott enrolled himself amongst the
acolytes of Professor Galland, a great and original genius in the
line Raconteur, and a practical Orientalist whose bright example
was destined to produce disastrous consequences. The Frenchman,
however unscrupulous he might have been about casting down and
building up in order to humour the dead level of Gallican bon
goût, could, as is shown by his "Aladdin," translate literatim
and verbatim when the story-stuff is of the right species and
acceptable to the average European taste. But, as generally
happens in such cases, his servile suite went far beyond their
master and model. Petis de la Croix ("Persian and Turkish
Tales"), Chavis and Cazotte ("New Arabian Nights"), Dow ("Ináyatu
llah") and Morell ("Tales of the Genii"), with others manifold
whose names are now all but forgotten, carried out the Gallandian
liberties to the extreme of licence and succeeded in producing a
branchlet of literature, the most vapid, frigid and insipid that
can be imagined by man,?a bastard Europeo-Oriental,
pseudo-Eastern world of Western marionettes garbed in the gear
which Asiatic are (or were) supposed to wear, with sentiments and
opinions, manners and morals to match; the whole utterly lacking
life, local colour, vraisemblance, human interest. From such
abortions, such monstrous births, libera nos, Domine!
And Scott out-gallanded Galland:?
Diruit, ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis.
It is hard to quote a line which he deigned textually to
translate. He not only commits felony on the original by
abstracting whole sentences and pages ad libitum, but he also
thrusts false goods into his author's pocket and patronises the
unfortunate Eastern story-teller by foisting upon him whatever
he, the "translator and traitor," deems needful. On this point no
more need be said: the curious reader has but to compare any one
of Scott's "translations" with the original or, for that matter,
with the present version.
I determined to do that for Scott which Lane had done partly and
imperfectly, and Payne had successfully and satisfactorily done
for Galland. But my first difficulty was about the text. It was
impossible to face without affright the prospect of working for
months amid the discomforts and the sanitary dangers of Oxford's
learned atmosphere and in her obsolete edifices the Bodleian and
the Radcliffe. Having ascertained, however, that in the so-called
"University" not a scholar could be found to read the text, I was
induced to apply for a loan?not to myself personally for I
should have shunned the responsibility?but in the shape of a
temporary transfer of the seven-volumed text, tome by tome, to
the charge of Dr. Rost, the excellent Librarian of the India
Office.
My hopes, however, were fated to be deferred. Learned bodies,
Curators and so forth, are ponderous to move and powerless to
change for
The trail of the slow-worm is over them all.
My official application was made on September 13th, 1886. The
tardiest steps were taken as if unwillingly and, when they could
no longer decently be deferred, they resulted in the curtest and
most categorical but not most courteous of refusals, under
circumstances of peculiar disfavour, on November 1st of the same
year. Here I shall say no more: the correspondence has been
relegated to Appendix A. My subscribers, however, will have no
reason to complain of these "Ineptiæ Bodleianæ." I had pledged
myself in case of a loan "not to translate Tales that might be
deemed offensive to propriety:" the Curators have kindly set me
free from that troublesome condition and I thank them therefor.
Meanwhile I had not been idle. Three visits to Oxford in
September and October had enabled me to reach the DIVth Night.
But the laborious days and inclement evenings, combined with the
unsanitary state of town and libraries?the Bodleian and the
Rotunda?brought on a serious attack of "lithiasis" as it is now
called, and prostrated me for two months, until it was time to
leave England en route for my post.
Under these circumstances my design threatened to end in failure.
As often befalls to men out of England, every move ventured by me
menaced only check-mate. I began by seeking a copyist at Oxford,
one who would imitate the text as an ignoramus might transcribe
music: an undergraduate volunteered for the task and after a few
days dropped it in dumb disgust. The attempt was presently
repeated by a friend with the unsatisfactory result that three
words out of four were legible. In London several Easterns were
described as able and willing for the work; but they also were
found wanting; one could not be trusted with the MS. and another
was marriage-mad. Photography was lastly proposed, but
considerations of cost seemed to render it unavailable. At last,
when matters were at the worst, the proverbial amendment
appeared. Mr. Chandler, whose energetic and conscientious
opposition to all "Bodleian loans," both of books and of
manuscripts, had mainly caused the passing of the prohibitory
statute, came forward in the most friendly and generous way: with
no small trouble to himself he superintended the "sun- pictures,"
each page of the original being reduced to half-size, and he
insisted upon the work being done wholly and solely at his own
expense. I know not how to express my gratitude.
The process was undertaken by Mr. Percy Notcutt, of Kingsbury and
Notcutt, 45, St. George's Place, Knightsbridge, and the four
hundred and odd pages were reproduced in most satisfactory style.
Being relegated to a port-town which never possessed even an
Arabic lexicon, I have found some difficulty with the Wortley
Montague MS. as it contains a variety of local words unknown to
the common dictionaries. But I have worked my best to surmount
the obstacle by consulting many correspondents, amongst whom may
be mentioned the name of my late lamented friend, the Reverend
George Percy Badger; and, finally, by submitting my proofs to the
corrections and additions of the lexicologist Dr. Steingass.
Appendix B will require no apology to the numerous admirers of
Mr. E. J. W. Gibb's honest and able work, "The History of the
Forty Vezirs" (London, Redway, MDCCCLXXXVI). The writer in a book
intended for the public was obliged to leave in their original
Turkish, and distinguished only by italics, three "facetious"
tales which, as usual, are some of the best in the book. These
have been translated for me and I offer them to my readers on
account of their curious analogies with many in The Nights.
Richard F. Burton.
TRIESTE, April 10th, 1888.