robed with rays as though the sun from her had borrowed light:
She came before us wondrous clad in chemisette of green, ✿ As veilèd by
his leafy screen Pomegranate hides from sight:
And when he said, “How callest thou the fashion of thy dress?” ✿ She
answered us in pleasant way with double meaning dight,
“We call this garment _crève-cœur_; and rightly is it hight, ✿ For many
a heart wi’ this we brake and harried many a sprite.”
Then they displayed Shahrazad in the sixth and seventh dresses and clad
her in youth’s clothing, whereupon she came forward swaying from side to
side and coquettishly moving and indeed she ravished wits and hearts and
ensorcelled all eyes with her glances. She shook her sides and swayed
her haunches, then put her hair on sword-hilt and went up to King
Shahriyar, who embraced her as hospitable host embraceth guest, and
threatened her in her ear with the taking of the sword; and she was even
as saith of her the poet in these words:—
Were not the Murk[123] of gender male, ✿ Than feminines surpassing fair,
Tirewomen they had grudged the bride, ✿ Who made her beard and whiskers
wear!
Thus also they did with her sister Dunyazad, and when they had made an
end of the display the King bestowed robes of honour on all who were
present and sent the brides to their own apartments. Then Shahrazad went
in to King Shahriyar and Dunyazad to King Shah Zaman and each of them
solaced himself with the company of his beloved consort and the hearts
of the folk were comforted. When morning morrowed, the Wazir came in to
the two Kings and kissed ground before them; wherefore they thanked him
and were large of bounty to him. Presently they went forth and sat down
upon couches of Kingship, whilst all the Wazirs and Emirs and Grandees
and Lords of the land presented themselves and kissed ground. King
Shahriyar ordered them dresses of honour and largesse and they prayed
for the permanence and prosperity of the King and his brother. Then the
two Sovrans appointed their sire-in-law the Wazir to be Viceroy in
Samarcand and assigned him five of the Chief Emirs to accompany him,
charging them attend him and do him service. The Minister kissed the
ground and prayed that they might be vouchsafed length of life: then he
went in to his daughters, whilst the Eunuchs and Ushers walked before
him, and saluted them and farewelled them. They kissed his hands and
gave him joy of the Kingship and bestowed on him immense treasures;
after which he took leave of them and setting out, fared days and
nights, till he came near Samarcand, where the townspeople met him at a
distance of three marches and rejoiced in him with exceeding joy. So he
entered the city and they decorated the houses and it was a notable day.
He sat down on the throne of his kingship and the Wazirs did him homage
and the Grandees and Emirs of Samarcand and all prayed that he might be
vouchsafed justice and victory and length of continuance. So he bestowed
on them robes of honour and entreated them with distinction and they
made him Sultan over them. As soon as his father-in-law had departed for
Samarcand, King Shahriyah summoned the Grandees of his realm and made
them a stupendous banquet of all manner of delicious meats and exquisite
sweetmeats. He also bestowed on them robes of honour and guerdoned them
and divided the kingdoms between himself and his brother in their
presence, whereat the folk rejoiced. Then the two Kings abode, each
ruling a day in turn, and they were ever in harmony each with other
while on similar wise their wives continued in the love of Allah
Almighty and in thanksgiving to Him; and the peoples and the provinces
were at peace and the preachers prayed for them from the pulpits, and
their report was bruited abroad and the travellers bore tidings of them
to all lands. In due time King Shahriyah summoned chroniclers and
copyists and bade them write all that had betided him with his wife,
first and last; so they wrote this and named it “=The Stories of the
Thousand Nights and A Night=.” The book came to thirty volumes and these
the King laid up in his treasury. And the two brothers abode with their
wives in all pleasance and solace of life and its delights, for that
indeed Allah the Most High had changed their annoy into joy; and on this
wise they continued till there took them the Destroyer of delights and
the Severer of societies, the Desolator of dwelling-places and Garnerer
of grave-yards, and they were translated to the ruth of Almighty Allah;
their houses fell waste and their palaces lay in ruins[124] and the
Kings inherited their riches. Then there reigned after them a wise
ruler, who was just, keen-witted and accomplished and loved tales and
legends, especially those which chronicle the doings of Sovrans and
Sultans, and he found in the treasury these marvellous stories and
wondrous histories, contained in the thirty volumes aforesaid. So he
read in them a first book and a second and a third and so on to the last
of them, and each book astounded and delighted him more than that which
preceded it, till he came to the end of them. Then he admired whatso he
had read therein of description and discourse and rare traits and
anecdotes and moral instances and reminiscences and bade the folk copy
them and dispread them over all lands and climes; wherefore their report
was bruited abroad and the people named them “=The marvels and wonders
of the Thousand Nights and A Night=.” This is all that hath come down to
us of the origin of this book, and Allah is All-knowing.[125] So Glory
be to Him whom the shifts of Time waste not away, nor doth aught of
chance or change affect His sway: whom one case diverteth not from other
case and Who is sole in the attributes of perfect grace. And prayer and
peace be upon the Lord’s Pontiff and Chosen One among His creatures, our
lord MOHAMMED the Prince of mankind through whom we supplicate Him for a
goodly and a godly
FINIS.
-----
Footnote 109:
Arab. “Fárid” which may also mean “union-pearl.”
Footnote 110:
Trébutien (iii. 497) cannot deny himself the pleasure of a French
touch making the King reply, “C’est assez; qu’on lui coupe la tête,
car ces dernières histoires surtout m’ont causé un ennui mortel.” This
reading is found in some of the MSS.
Footnote 111:
After this I borrow from the Bresl. Edit. inserting passages from the
Mac. Edit.
Footnote 112:
_i.e._ whom he intended to marry with regal ceremony.
Footnote 113:
The use of coloured powders in sign of holiday-making is not obselete
in India. See Herklots for the use of “Huldee” (Haldí) or
turmeric-powder, pp. 64–65.
Footnote 114:
Many Moslem families insist upon this before giving their girls in
marriage, and the practice is still popular amongst many Mediterranean
peoples.
Footnote 115:
_i.e._ Sumatran.
Footnote 116:
_i.e._ Alexander, according to the Arabs; see vol. v. 252.
Footnote 117:
These lines are in vol i. 217.
Footnote 118:
I repeat the lines from vol. i. 218.
Footnote 119:
All these coquetries require as much inventiveness as a cotillon; the
text alludes to fastening the bride’s tresses across her mouth giving
her the semblance of beard and mustachios.
Footnote 120:
Repeated from vol. i. 218.
Footnote 121:
Repeated from vol. i. 218.
Footnote 122:
See vol. i. 219.
Footnote 123:
Arab. Sawád = the blackness of the hair.
Footnote 124:
Because Easterns build, but never repair.
Footnote 125:
_i.e._ God only knows if it be true or not.
[Illustration: وٱلسلام]
Terminal Essay.
PRELIMINARY.
The reader who has reached this terminal stage will hardly require my
assurance that he has seen the mediæval Arab at his best and, perhaps,
at his worst. In glancing over the myriad pictures of this panorama,
those who can discern the soul of goodness in things evil will note the
true nobility of the Moslem’s mind in the Moyen Age, and the cleanliness
of his life from cradle to grave. As a child he is devoted to his
parents, fond of his comrades and respectful to his “pastors and
masters,” even schoolmasters. As a lad he prepares for manhood with a
will and this training occupies him throughout youth-tide: he is a
gentleman in manners without awkwardness, vulgar astonishment or
mauvaise-honte. As a man he is high-spirited and energetic, always ready
to fight for his Sultan, his country and, especially, his Faith:
courteous and affable, rarely failing in temperance of mind and
self-respect, self-control and self-command: hospitable to the stranger,
attached to his fellow-citizens, submissive to superiors and kindly to
inferiors—if such classes exist: Eastern despotisms have arrived nearer
the idea of equality and fraternity than any republic yet invented. As a
friend he proves a model to the Damons and Pythiases: as a lover an
exemplar to Don Quijote without the noble old Caballero’s touch of
eccentricity. As a knight he is the mirror of chivalry, doing battle for
the weak and debelling the strong, while ever “defending the honour of
women.” As a husband his patriarchal position causes him to be loved and
fondly loved by more than one wife: as a father affection for his
children rules his life: he is domestic in the highest degree and he
finds few pleasures beyond the bosom of his family. Lastly, his death is
simple, path ethic and edifying as the life which led to it.
Considered in a higher phase, the mediæval Moslem mind displays, like
the ancient Egyptian, a most exalted moral idea, the deepest reverence
for all things connected with his religion and a sublime conception of
the Unity and Omnipotence of the Deity. Noteworthy too is a proud
resignation to the decrees of Fate and Fortune (Kazá wa Kadar), of
Destiny and Predestination—a feature which ennobles the low aspect of
Al-Islam even in these her days of comparative degeneration and local
decay. Hence his moderation in prosperity, his fortitude in adversity,
his dignity, his perfect self-dominance and, lastly, his lofty quietism
which sounds the true heroic ring. This again is softened and tempered
by a simple faith in the supremacy of Love over Fear, an unbounded
humanity and charity for the poor and helpless: an unconditional
forgiveness of the direst injuries (“which is the note of the noble”); a
generosity and liberality which at times seem impossible and an
enthusiasm for universal benevolence and beneficence which, exalting
kindly deeds done to man above every form of holiness, constitute the
root and base of Oriental, nay, of all, courtesy. And the whole is
crowned by pure trust and natural confidence in the progress and
perfectability of human nature, which he exalts instead of degrading;
this he holds to be the foundation-stone of society and indeed the very
purpose of its existence. His Pessimism resembles far more the optimism
which the so-called Books of Moses borrowed from the Ancient Copt than
the mournful and melancholy creed of the true Pessimist, as Solomon the
Hebrew, the Indian Buddhist and the esoteric European imitators of
Buddhism. He cannot but sigh when contemplating the sin and sorrow, the
pathos and bathos of the world; and feel the pity of it, with its shifts
and changes ending in nothingness, its scanty happiness and its copious
misery. But his melancholy is expressed in—
“A voice divinely sweet, a voice no less
Divinely sad.”
Nor does he mourn as they mourn who have no hope: he has an absolute
conviction in future compensation; and, meanwhile, his lively poetic
impulse, the poetry of ideas, not of formal verse, and his radiant
innate idealism breathe a soul into the merest matter of squalid
work-a-day life and awaken the sweetest harmonies of Nature epitomised
in Humanity.
Such was the Moslem at a time when “the dark clouds of ignorance and
superstition hung so thick on the intellectual horizon of Europe as to
exclude every ray of learning that darted from the East and when all
that was polite or elegant in literature was classed among the _Studia
Arabum_.”[126]
Nor is the shady side of the picture less notable. Our Arab at his worst
is a mere barbarian who has not forgotten the savage. He is a model
mixture of childishness and astuteness, of simplicity and cunning,
concealing levity of mind under solemnity of aspect. His stolid
instinctive conservatism grovels before the tyrant rule of routine,
despite that turbulent and licentious independence which ever suggests
revolt against the ruler: his mental torpidity, founded upon physical
indolence, renders immediate action and all manner of exertion
distasteful: his conscious weakness shows itself in overweening
arrogance and intolerance. His crass and self-satisfied ignorance makes
him glorify the most ignoble superstitions, while acts of revolting
savagery are the natural results of a malignant fanaticism and a furious
hatred of every creed beyond the pale of Al-Islam.
It must be confessed that these contrasts make a curious and interesting
tout ensemble.
§ I
THE ORIGIN OF THE NIGHTS.
A.—THE BIRTHPLACE.
Here occur the questions, Where and When was written and to Whom do we
owe a prose-poem which, like the dramatic epos of Herodotus, has no
equal?
I proceed to lay before the reader a procès-verbal of the sundry
pleadings already in court as concisely as is compatible with
intelligibility, furnishing him with references to original authorities
and warning him that a fully-detailed account would fill a volume. Even
my own reasons for decidedly taking one side and rejecting the other
must be stated briefly. And before entering upon this subject I would
distribute the prose-matter of our Recueil of Folk-lore under three
heads.
1. The Apologue or Beast-fable proper, a theme which may be of any
age, as it is found in the hieroglyphs and in the cuneiforms.
2. The Fairy-tale, as for brevity we may term the stories based upon
supernatural agency: this was a favourite with olden Persia; and
Mohammed, most austere and puritanical of the “Prophets,” strongly
objected to it because preferred by the more sensible of his
converts to the dry legends of the Talmud and the Koran, quite as
fabulous without the halo and glamour of fancy.
3. The Histories and historical anecdotes, analects, and acroamata,
in which the names, when not used anachronistically by the editor or
copier, give unerring data for the earliest date à quo and which, by
the mode of treatment, suggest the latest.
Each of these constituents will require further notice when the
subject-matter of the book is discussed. The metrical portion of The
Nights may also be divided into three categories, viz.:—
1. The oldest and classical poetry of the Arabs, _e.g._ the various
quotations from the “Suspended Poems.”
2. The mediæval, beginning with the laureates of Al-Rashid’s court,
such as Al-Asma’í and Abú Nowás; and ending with Al-Harírí A.H.
446–516 = 1030–1100.
3. The modern quotations and the _pièces de circonstance_ by the
editors or copyists of the Compilation.[127]
Upon the metrical portion also further notices must be offered at the
end of this Essay.
In considering the unde derivatur of The Nights we must carefully
separate subject-matter from language-manner. The neglect of such
essential difference has caused the remark, “It is not a little curious
that the origin of a work which has been known to Europe and has been
studied by many during nearly two centuries, should still be so
mysterious, and that students have failed in all attempts to detect the
secret.” Hence also the chief authorities at once branched off into two
directions. One held the work to be practically Persian: the other as
persistently declared it to be purely Arab.
Professor Galland, in his Epistle Dedicatory to the Marquise d’O,
daughter of his patron M. de Guillerague, showed his literary acumen and
unfailing sagacity by deriving The Nights from India viâ _Persia_; and
held that they had been reduced to their present shape by an _Auteur
Arabe inconnu_. This reference to India, also learnedly advocated by M:
Langlès, was inevitable in those days: it had not then been proved that
India owed all her literature to far older civilisations and even that
her alphabet the Nágari, erroneously called Devanágari, was derived
through Phœnicia and Himyar-land from Ancient Egypt. So Europe was
contented to compare The Nights with the Fables of Pilpay for upwards of
a century. At last the Pehlevi or old Iranian origin of the work found
an able and strenuous advocate in Baron von Hammer-Purgstall[128] who
worthily continued what Galland had begun: although a most inexact
writer, he was extensively read in Oriental history and poetry. His
contention was that the book is an Arabisation of the Persian Hazár
Afsánah or Thousand Tales and he proved his point.
Von Hammer began by summoning into Court the “Herodotus of the Arabs,
(Ali Abú al-Hasan) Al-Mas’údi who, in A.H. 333 (= 944) about one
generation before the founding of Cairo, published at Bassorah the first
edition of his far-famed Murúj al-Dahab wa Ma’ádin al-Jauhar, Meads of
Gold and Mines of Gems. The Styrian Orientalist[129] quotes with sundry
misprints[130] an ampler version of a passage in Chapter lxviii., which
is abbreviated in the French translation of M. C. Barbier de
Meynard.[131]
“And, indeed, many men well acquainted with their (Arab) histories[132]
opine that the stories above mentioned and other trifles were strung
together by men who commended themselves to the Kings by relating them,
and who found favour with their contemporaries by committing them to
memory and by reciting them. Of such fashion[133] is the fashion of the
books which have come down to us translated from the Persian
(Fárasiyah), the Indian (Hindíyah),[134] and the Græco-Roman
(Rúmíyah)[135]: we have noted the judgment which should be passed upon
compositions of this nature. _Such is the book entituled Hazár Afsánah
or The Thousand Tales, which word in Arabic signifies Khuráfah
(Facetiæ): it is known to the public under the name of The Book of a
Thousand Nights and a Night, (Kitab Alf Laylah wa Laylah)._[136] This is
an history of a King and his Wazir, the minister’s daughter and a
slave-girl (járiyah) who are named Shírzád (lion-born) and Dínár-zád
(ducat-born).[137] Such also is the Tale of Farzah,[138] (alii Firza),
and Simás, containing details concerning the Kings and Wazirs of Hind:
the Book of Al-Sindibád[139] and others of a similar stamp.”
Von Hammer adds, “quoting chapt. cxvi, of Al-Mas’údi that Al-Mansúr
(second Abbaside A.H. 136–158 = 754–775, and grandfather of Al-Rashíd)
caused many translations of Greek and Latin, Syriac and Persian
(Pehlevi) works to be made into Arabic, specifying the Kalílah wa
Damnah,”[140] the Fables of Bidpái (Pilpay), the Logic of Aristotle, the
Geography of Ptolemy and the Elements of Euclid. Hence he concludes
“L’original des Mille et une Nuits * * * selon toute vraisemblance, a
été traduit au temps du Khalife Mansur, c’est-à-dire trente ans avant le
règne du Khalife Haroun al-Raschid, qui, par la suite, devait lui-même
jouer un si grand rôle dans ces histoires.” He also notes that, about a
century after Al-Mas’udi had mentioned the Hazár Afsánah, it was
versified and probably remodelled by one “Rásti,” the Takhallus or nom
de plume of a bard at the Court of Mahmúd, the Ghaznevite Sultan who,
after a reign of thirty-three years, ob. A.D. 1030.[141]
Von Hammer some twelve years afterwards (Journ. Asiat. August, 1839)
brought forward, in his “Note sur l’origine Persane des Mille et une
Nuits,” a second and an even more important witness: this was the famous
Kitab al-Fihrist,[142] or Index List of (Arabic) works, written (in A.H.
387 = 987) by Mohammed bin Is’hák al-Nadím (cup-companion or equerry),
“popularly known as Ebou Yacoub el-Werrek.”[143] The following is an
extract (p. 304) from the Eighth Discourse which consists of three arts
(funún).[144] “The first section on the history of the confabulatores
nocturni (tellers of night tales) and the relaters of fanciful
adventures, together with the names of books treating upon such
subjects. Mohammed ibn Is’hák saith:—The first who indited themes of
imagination and made books of them, consigning these works to the
libraries, and who ordered some of them as though related by the tongues
of brute beasts, were the palæo-Persians (and the Kings of the First
Dynasty). The Ashkanian Kings of the Third Dynasty appended others to
them and they were augmented and amplified in the days of the
Sassanides” (the fourth and last royal house). “The Arabs also
translated them into Arabic, and the loquent and eloquent polished and
embellished them and wrote others resembling them. The first work of
such kind was entituled ‘The Book of Hazár Afsán,’ signifying Alf
Khuráfah, the argument whereof was as follows. A King of their Kings was
wont, when he wedded a woman and had lain one night with her, to slay
her on the next morning. Presently he espoused a damsel of the daughters
of the Kings, Shahrázád[145] hight, one endowed with intellect and
erudition and, whenas she lay with him, she fell to telling him tales of
fancy; moreover she used to connect the story at the end of the night
with that which might induce the King to preserve her alive and to ask
her of its ending on the next night until a thousand nights had passed
over her. Meanwhile he cohabited with her till she was blest by boon of
child of him, when she acquainted him with the device she had wrought
upon him; wherefore he admired her intelligence and inclined to her and
preserved her life. That King had also a Kahramánah (nurse and duenna,
not _entremetteuse_), hight Dínárzád (Dunyázád?), who aided the wife in
this (artifice). It is also said that this book was composed for (or,
by) Humái daughter of Bahman[146] and in it were included other matters.
Mohammed bin Is’hak adds:—And the truth is, Inshallah,[147] that the
first who solaced himself with hearing night-tales was Al-Iskandar (he
of Macedon) and he had a number of men who used to relate to him
imaginary stories and provoke him to laughter: he, however, designed not
therein merely to please himself, but that he might thereby become the
more cautious and alert. After him the Kings in like fashion made use of
the book entitled ‘Hazár Afsán.’ It containeth a thousand nights, but
less than two hundred night-stories, for a single history often occupied
several nights. I have seen it complete sundry times; and it is, in
truth, a corrupted book of cold tales.”[148]
A writer in _The Athenæum_,[149] objecting to Lane’s modern date for The
Nights, adduces evidence to prove the greater antiquity of the work.
(Abu al-Hasan) Ibn Sa’id (bin Musa al-Gharnáti = of Granada) born in
A.H. 615 = 1218 and ob. Tunis A.H. 685 = 1286, left his native city and
arrived at Cairo in A.H. 639 = 1241. This Spanish poet and historian
wrote Al-Muhallá bi al-Ash’ár (The Adorned with Verses), a Topography of
Egypt and Africa, which is apparently now lost. In this he quotes from
Al-Kurtubi, the Cordovan;[150] and he in his turn is quoted by the Arab
historian of Spain, Abú al-Abbás Ahmad bin Mohammed al-Makkári, in the
“Windwafts of Perfume from the Branches of Andalusia the Blooming”[151]
(A.D. 1628–29). Mr. Payne (x. 301) thus translates from Dr. Dozy’s
published text.