these formicæ Indicæ, by some rationalists explained as “jackals,”
whose stature corresponds with the text, and by others as “pengolens”
or ant-eaters (_manis pentedactyla_). The learned Sanskritist, H. H.
Wilson, quotes the name Pippilika = ant-gold, given by the people of
Little Thibet to the precious dust thrown up in the emmet heaps.
Footnote 253:
A writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ (July, ’86), of whom more
presently, suggests that The Nights assumed essentially their present
shape during the general revival of letters, arts and requirements
which accompanied the Kurdish and Tartar irruptions into the Nile
Valley, a golden age which embraced the whole of the thirteenth,
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and ended with the Ottoman Conquest
in A.D. 1527.
Footnote 254:
Let us humbly hope not again to hear of the golden prime of
“The good (fellow?) Haroun Alrasch´id,”
a mispronunciation which suggests only a rasher of bacon. Why will not
poets mind their quantities, in lieu of stultifying their lines by
childish ignorance? What can be more painful than Byron’s
“They laid his dust in Ar´qua (for Arqua´) where he died?”
Footnote 255:
See De Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe (Paris, 1826), vol. i.
Footnote 256:
See Le Jardin Parfumé du Cheikh Nefzaoui Manuel d’Erotologie Arabe
Traduction revue et corrigée Edition privée, imprimé à deux
cent.-vingt exemplaires, par Isidore Liseux et ses Amis, Paris, 1866.
The editor has forgotten to note that the celebrated Sidi Mohammed
copied some of the tales from The Nights and borrowed others (I am
assured by a friend) from Tunisian MSS. of the same work. The book has
not been fairly edited: the notes abound in mistakes, the volume lacks
an index, &c., &c. Since this was written the Jardin Parfumé has been
twice translated into English as “The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh
Nefzaoui, a Manual of Arabian Erotology (sixteenth century). Revised
and corrected translation, Cosmopoli: mdccclxxxvi.: for the Kama
Shastra Society of London and Benares and for private circulation
only.” A rival version will be brought out by a bookseller whose
Committee, as he calls it, appears to be the model of literary
pirates, robbing the author as boldly and as openly as if they picked
his pocket before his face.
Footnote 257:
Translated by a well-known Turkish scholar, Mr. E. J. W. Gibb,
(Glasgow, Wilson and McCormick, 1884).
Footnote 258:
D’Herbelot (s. v. “Asmai”): I am reproached by a dabbler in
Orientalism for using this admirable writer who shows more knowledge
in one page than my critic does in a whole volume.
Footnote 259:
For specimens see Al-Siyutí, pp. 301 and 304; and the Shaykh al
Nafzawi, pp. 134–35.
Footnote 260:
The word “nakh” (to make a camel kneel) is explained in vol. ii. 139.
Footnote 261:
The present of the famous horologium-clepsydra-cuckoo clock, the dog
Becerillo and the elephant Abu Lubabah sent by Harun to Charlemagne is
not mentioned by Eastern authorities and consequently no reference to
it will be found in my late friend Professor Palmer’s little volume
“Haroun Alraschid,” London, Marcus Ward, 1881. We have allusions to
many presents, the clock and elephant, tent and linen hangings, silken
dresses, perfumes, and candelabra of auricalch brought by the Legati
(Abdalla, Georgius Abba et Felix) of Aaron Amiralmumminim Regis
Persarum who entered the Port of Pisa (A.D. 801) in (vol. v. 178)
Recueil des Histor. des Gaules et de la France, etc., par Dom Martin
Bouquet, Paris, mdccxliv. The author also quotes the lines:—
Persarum Princeps illi devinctus amore
Præcipuo fuerat, nomen habens Aaron.
Gratia cui Caroli præ cunctis Regibus atque
Illis Principibus tempora cara fuit.
Footnote 262:
Many have remarked that the actual date of the decease is unknown.
Footnote 263:
See Al-Siyuti (p. 305) and Dr. Jonathan Scott’s “Tales, Anecdotes, and
Letters,” (p. 296).
Footnote 264:
I have given (vol. i. 188) the vulgar derivation of the name; and
D’Herbelot (s.v. Barmakian) quotes some Persian lines alluding to the
“supping up.” Al-Mas’udi’s account of the family’s early history is
unfortunately lost. This Khálid succeeded Abu Salámah, first entitled
Wazir under Al-Saffah (Ibn Khallikan i. 468).
Footnote 265:
For his poetry see Ibn Khallikan iv. 103.
Footnote 266:
Their flatterers compared them with the four elements.
Footnote 267:
Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii.
Footnote 268:
Ibn Khallikan (i. 310) says the eunuch Abú Háshim Masrúr, the Sworder
of Vengeance, who is so pleasantly associated with Ja’afar in many
nightly disguises; but the Eunuch survived the Caliph. Fakhr al-Din
(p. 27) adds that Masrur was an enemy of Ja’afar; and gives further
details concerning the execution.
Footnote 269:
Bresl. Edit., Night dlxvii. vol. vii. pp. 258–260; translated in the
Mr. Payne’s “Tales from the Arabic,” vol. i. 189 and headed “Al-Rashid
and the Barmecides.” It is far less lively and dramatic than the
account of the same event given by Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii., by Ibn
Khallikan and by Fakhr al-Din.
Footnote 270:
Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxi.
Footnote 271:
See Dr. Jonathan Scott’s extracts from Major Ouseley’s
“Tarikh-i-Barmaki.”
Footnote 272:
Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii. For the liberties Ja’afar took see Ibn
Khallikan, i. 303.
Footnote 273:
Ibid. chapt. xxiv. In vol. ii. 29 of The Nights, I find signs of
Ja’afar’s suspected heresy. For Al-Rashid’s hatred of the Zindiks see
Al-Siyuti, pp. 292, 301; and as regards the religious troubles ibid.
p. 362 and passim.
Footnote 274:
Biogr. Dict. i. 309.
Footnote 275:
This accomplished princess had a practice that suggests the Dame aux
Camélias.
Footnote 276:
_i.e._ Perdition to your fathers, Allah’s curse on your ancestors.
Footnote 277:
See vol. iv. 159, “Ja’afar and the Beanseller;” where the great Wazir
is said to have been “crucified;” and vol. iv. pp. 179, 181. Also
Roebuck’s Persian Proverbs, i. 2, 346, “This also is through the
munificence of the Barmecides.”
Footnote 278:
I especially allude to my friend Mr. Payne’s admirably written account
of it in his concluding Essay (vol. ix.). From his views of the Great
Caliph and the Lady Zubaydah I must differ in every point except the
destruction of the Barmecides.
Footnote 279:
Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. 261–62.
Footnote 280:
Mr. Grattan Geary, in a work previously noticed, informs us (i. 212)
“The Sitt al-Zobeide, or the Lady Zobeide, was so named from the great
Zobeide tribe of Arabs occupying the country East and West of the
Euphrates near the Hindi’ah Canal; she was the daughter of a powerful
Sheik of that tribe.” Can this explain the “Kásim?”
Footnote 281:
Vol. viii. 296.
Footnote 282:
Burckhardt, “Travels in Arabia,” vol. i. 185.
Footnote 283:
The reverse has been remarked by more than one writer; and
contemporary French opinion seems to be that Victor Hugo’s influence
on French prose was, on the whole, not beneficial.
Footnote 284:
Mr. W. S. Clouston, the “Storiologist,” who is preparing a work to be
entitled “Popular Tales and Fictions; their Migrations and
Transformations,” informs me the first to adapt this witty anecdote
was Jacques de Vitry, the crusading bishop of Accon (Acre) who died at
Rome in 1240, after setting the example of “Exempla” or instances in
his sermons. He had probably heard it in Syria, and he changed the
day-dreamer into a Milkmaid and her Milk-pail to suit his “flock.” It
then appears as an “Exemplum” in the Liber de Donis or de Septem Donis
(or De Dono Timoris from Fear the first gift) of Stephanus de Borbone,
the Dominican, ob. Lyons, 1261: it treated of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit (Isaiah xi. 2 and 3), Timor, Pietas, Scientia, Fortitudo,
Consilium, Intellectus et Sapientia; and was plentifully garnished
with narratives for the use of preachers.
Footnote 285:
The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register (new series, vol. xxx.
Sept.-Dec. 1830, London, Allens, 1839); p. 69 Review of the Arabian
Nights, the Mac. Edit. vol. i., and H. Torrens.
Footnote 286:
As a household edition of the “Arabian Nights” is now being prepared,
the curious reader will have an opportunity of verifying this
statement.
Footnote 287:
It has been pointed out to me that in vol. ii. p. 285, line 18 “Zahr
Shah” is a mistake for Sulayman Shah.
Footnote 288:
I have lately found these lovers at Schloss Sternstein near Cilli in
Styria, the property of my excellent colleague, Mr. Consul Faber,
dating from A.D. 1300 when Jobst of Reichenegg and Agnes of Sternstein
were aided and abetted by a Capuchin of Seikkloster.
Footnote 289:
In page 226 Dr. Steingass sensibly proposes altering the last
hemistich (lines 11–12) to
At one time showing the Moon and Sun.
Footnote 290:
Omitted by Lane for some reason unaccountable as usual. A
correspondent sends me his version of the lines which occur in The
Nights (vol. v. 106 and 107):—
Behold the Pyramids and hear them teach
What they can tell of Future and of Past:
They would declare, had they the gift of speech,
The deeds that Time hath wrought from first to last.
* * * * *
My friends, and is there aught beneath the sky
Can with th’ Egyptian Pyramids compare?
In fear of them strong Time hath passèd by;
And everything dreads Time in earth and air.
Footnote 291:
A rhyming Romance by Henry of Waldeck (flor. A.D. 1160) with a Latin
poem on the same subject by Odo and a prose version still popular in
Germany. (Lane’s Nights iii. 81; and Weber’s “Northern Romances.”)
Footnote 292:
_e.g._ ’Ajáib al-Hind (= Marvels of Ind) ninth century, translated by
J. Marcel Devic, Paris, 1878; and about the same date the Two
Mohammedan Travellers, translated by Renaudot. In the eleventh century
we have the famous Sayyid al-Idrisi; in the thirteenth the ’Ajáib
al-Makhlúkát of Al-Kazwíni and in the fourteenth the Kharídat al-Ajáib
of Ibn Al-Wardi. Lane (in loco) traces most of Sindbad to the two
latter sources.
Footnote 293:
So Hector France proposed to name his admirably realistic volume “Sous
le Burnous” (Paris, Charpentier, 1886).
Footnote 294:
I mean in European literature, not in Arabic where it is a lieu
commun. See three several forms of it in one page (505) of Ibn
Kallikan, vol. iii.
Footnote 295:
My attention has been called to the resemblance between the half-lie
and Job (i. 13–19).
Footnote 296:
Boccaccio (ob. Dec. 2, 1375), may easily have heard of The Thousand
Nights and a Night or of its archetype the Hazár Afsánah. He was
followed by the Piacevoli Notti of Giovan Francisco Straparola (A.D.
1550), translated into almost all European languages but English: the
original Italian is now rare. Then came the Heptameron ou Histoire des
amans fortunez of Marguerite d’Angoulême, Reyne de Navarre and only
sister of Francis I. She died in 1549 before the days were finished:
in 1558 Pierre Boaistuan published the Histoire des amans fortunez and
in 1559 Claude Guiget the “Heptameron.” Next is the Hexameron of A. de
Torquemada, Rouen, 1610; and, lastly, the Pentamerone or El Cunto de
li Cunte of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1637), known by the meagre
abstract of J. E. Taylor and the caricatures of George Cruikshank
(London, 1847–50). I propose to translate this Pentamerone direct from
the Neapolitan and have already finished half the work.
Footnote 297:
Translated and well annotated by Prof. Tawney, who, however, affects
asterisks and has considerably bowdlerised sundry of the tales, _e.g._
the Monkey who picked out the Wedge (vol. ii. 28). This tale, by the
by, is found in the Khirad Afroz (i. 128) and in the Anwar-i-Suhayli
(chapt. i.) and gave rise to the Persian proverb, “What has a monkey
to do with carpentering?” It is curious to compare the Hindu with the
Arabic work whose resemblances are as remarkable as their differences,
while even more notable is their correspondence in impressionising the
reader. The Thaumaturgy of both is the same: the Indian is profuse in
demonology and witchcraft; in transformation and restoration; in
monsters as wind-men, fire-men and water-men; in air-going elephants
and flying horses (i. 541–43); in the wishing cow, divine goats and
laughing fishes (i. 24); and in the speciosa miracula of magic
weapons. He delights in fearful battles (i. 400) fought with the same
weapons as the Moslem and rewards his heroes with a “turband of
honour” (i. 266) in lieu of a robe. There is a quaint family likeness
arising from similar stages and states of society: the city is adorned
for gladness; men carry money in a robe-corner and exclaim “Ha! good!”
(for “Good, by Allah!”); lovers die with exemplary facility; the
“soft-sided” ladies drink spirits (i. 61) and princesses get drunk (i.
476); whilst the Eunuch, the Hetaira and the bawd (Kuttini) play the
same preponderating parts as in The Nights. Our Brahman is strong in
love-making; he complains of the pains of separation in this
phenomenal universe; he revels in youth, “twin-brother to mirth,” and
beauty which has illuminating powers; he foully reviles old age and he
alternately praises and abuses the sex, concerning which more
presently. He delights in truisms, the fashion of contemporary Europe
(see Palmerin of England chapt. vii), such as “It is the fashion of
the heart to receive pleasure from those things which ought to give
it,” etc. etc. What is there the wise cannot understand? and so forth.
He is liberal in trite reflections and frigid conceits (i. 19, 55, 97,
103, 107, in fact everywhere); and his puns run through whole lines:
this in fine Sanskrit style is inevitable. Yet some of his expressions
are admirably terse and telling, _e.g._ Ascending the swing of Doubt:
Bound together (lovers) by the leash of gazing: Two babes looking like
Misery and Poverty: Old Age seized me by the chin: (A lake) first
assay of the Creator’s skill: (A vow) difficult as standing on a
sword-edge: My vital spirits boiled with the fire of woe: Transparent
as a good man’s heart: There was a certain convent full of fools:
Dazed with scripture-reading: The stones could not help laughing at
him: The Moon kissed the laughing forehead of the East: She was like a
wave of the Sea of Love’s insolence (ii. 127), a wave of the Sea of
Beauty tossed up by the breeze of Youth: The King played dice, he
loved slave-girls, he told lies, he sat up o’ nights, he waxed wroth
without reason, he took wealth wrongously, he despised the good and
honoured the bad (i. 562); with many choice bits of the same kind.
Like the Arab the Indian is profuse in personification; but the
doctrine of preexistence, of incarnation and emanation and an
excessive spiritualism, ever aiming at the infinite, makes his imagery
run mad. Thus we have Immoral Conduct embodied; the God of Death;
Science; the Svarga-heaven; Evening; Untimeliness; and the
Earth-bride, while the Ace and Deuce of dice are turned into a brace
of Demons. There is also that grotesqueness which the French detect
even in Shakespeare, _e.g._ She drank in his ambrosial form with
thirsty eyes like partridges (i. 476) and it often results from the
comparison of incompatibles, _e.g._ a row of birds likened to a garden
of nymphs; and from forced allegories, the favourite figure of
contemporary Europe. Again, the rhetorical Hindu style differs greatly
from the sobriety, directness and simplicity of the Arab, whose motto
is Brevity combined with precision, except where the latter falls into
“fine writing.” And, finally, there is a something in the atmosphere
of these Tales which is unfamiliar to the West and which makes them,
as more than one has remarked to me, very hard reading.
Footnote 298:
The Introduction (i. 1–5) leads to the Curse of Pushpadanta and
Mályaván who live on Earth as Vararúchi and Gunádhya and this runs
through lib. i. Lib. ii. begins with the Story of Udáyana to whom we
must be truly grateful as our only guide: he and his son
Naraváhanadatta fill up the rest and end with lib. xviii. Thus the
want of the clew or plot compels a division into books, which begin
for instance with “We worship the elephantine proboscis of Ganesha”
(lib. x. 1), a reverend and awful object to a Hindu but to Englishmen
mainly suggesting the “Zoo.” The “Bismillah” of The Nights is much
more satisfactory.
Footnote 299:
See pp. 5–6 Avertissement des Éditeurs, Le Cabinet des Fées, vol.
xxxviii: Geneva, 1788. Galland’s Edit. of mdccxxvi ends with Night
ccxxxiv and the English translations with ccxxxvi and cxcvii. See
retro p. 82.
Footnote 300:
There is a shade of difference in the words; the former is also used
for Reciters of Traditions—a serious subject. But in the case of
Hammád surnamed Al-Ráwiyah (the Rhapsode) attached to the Court of
Al-Walíd, it means simply a conteur. So the Greeks had Homeristæ =
reciters of Homer, as opposed to the Homeridæ or School of Homer.
Footnote 301:
Vol. i. Preface p. v. He notes that Mr. Dallaway describes the same
scene at Constantinople, where the Story-teller was used, like the
modern “Organs of Government” in newspaper shape, for “reconciling the
people to any recent measure of the Sultan and Vizier.” There are
women Ráwiyahs for the Harems and some have become famous like the
Mother of Hasan al-Basri (Ibn Khall. i, 370).
Footnote 302:
Hence the Persian proverb, “Báki-e-dastán fardá” = the rest of the
tale to-morrow, said to askers of silly questions.
Footnote 303:
The scene is excellently described in “Morocco: Its People and
Places,” by Edmondo de Amicis (London: Cassell, 1882), a most
refreshing volume after the enforced platitudes and commonplaces of
English travellers.
Footnote 304:
It began, however, in Persia where the celebrated Darwaysh Mukhlis,
Chief Sofi of Isfahan in the xviith century, translated into Persian
tales certain Hindu plays of which a MS. entitled Alfaraga
Badal-Schidda (Al-faraj ba’d al-shiddah = Joy after annoy) exists in
the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. But to give an original air to his
work, he entitled it “Hazár o yek Ruz” = Thousand and One Days, and in
1675 he allowed his friend Petis de la Croix, who happened to be at
Isfahan, to copy it. Le Sage (of Gil Blas) is said to have converted
many of the tales of Mukhlis into comic operas, which were performed
at the Théâtre Italien. I still hope to see The Nights at the Lyceum.
Footnote 305:
This author, however, when hazarding a change of style which is, I
think, regretable, has shown abundant art by filling up the frequent
deficiencies of the text after the fashion of Baron McGuckin de Slane
in Ibn Khallikan. As regards the tout ensemble of his work, a noble
piece of English, my opinion will ever be that expressed in my
Foreword. A carping critic has remarked that the translator, “as may
be seen in every page, is no Arabic scholar.” If I be a judge, the
reverse is the case: the brilliant and beautiful version thus traduced
is almost entirely free from the blemishes and carelessness which
disfigure Lane’s, and thus it is far more faithful to the original.
But it is no secret that on the staff of that journal the translator
of Villon has sundry enemies, _vrais diables enjupponés_, who take
every opportunity of girding at him because he does not belong to the
clique and because he does good work when theirs is mostly sham. The
sole fault I find with Mr. Payne is that his severe grace of style
treats an unclassical work as a classic, when the romantic and
irregular would have been a more appropriate garb. But this is a mere
matter of private judgment.
Footnote 306:
Here I offer a few, but very few, instances from the Breslau text
which is the greatest sinner in this respect. Mas. for fem., vol. i.
p. 9, and three times in seven pages. Ahná and nahná for nahnú, (iv.
370, 372); Aná ba-ashtarí = I will buy (iii. 109): and Aná ’Ámíl = I
will do (v. 367). Alaykí for Alayki (i. 18), Antí for Anti (iii. 66)
and generally long í for short ĭ. ’Ammál (from ’amala = he did) tahlam
= certainly thou dreamest, and ’Ammálín yaakulú = they were about to
eat (ix. 315): Aywá for Ay wa’lláhí = yes, by Allah (passim). Bitá’ =
belonging to, _e.g._ Sára bitá’k = it is become thine (ix. 352) and
Matá’ with the same sense (iii. 80). Dá ’l-khurj = this saddle-bag
(ix. 336) and Dí (for hazah) = this woman (iii. 79) or this time (ii.
162). Fayn as ráha fayn = whither is he gone? (iv. 323): Kamá badri =
he rose early (ix. 318): Kamán = also, a word known to every European
(ii. 43): Katt = never (ii. 172): Kawám (pronounced ’awám) = fast, at
once (iv. 385) and Rih ásif kawí (pron. ’awí) = a wind, strong very.
Laysh, _e.g._ bi-tasalní laysh (ix. 324) = why do you ask me? a
favourite form for li ayya shayyin: so Máfish = má fihi shayyun (there
is no thing) in which Herr Landberg (p. 425) makes “Sha, le présent de
pouvoir.” Min ajalí = for my sake; and Li-ajal al-taudí’a = for the
sake of taking leave (Mac. Edit. i. 384). Rijál nautiyah = men sailors
when the latter word would suffice: Shuwayh (dim. of shayy) = a small
thing, a little (iv. 309) like Moyyah (dim. of Má) a little water:
Waddúni = they carried me (ii. 172) and lastly the abominable Wáhid
gharíb = one (for a) stranger. These few must suffice: the tale of
Judar and his brethren, which in style is mostly Egyptian, will supply
a number of others. It must not, however, be supposed, as many have
done, that vulgar and colloquial Arabic is of modern date: we find it
in the first century of Al-Islam, as is proved by the tale of
Al-Hajjáj and Al-Shabi (Ibn Khallikan, ii. 6). The former asked “Kam
ataa-k?” (= how much is thy pay?) to which the latter answered,
“Alfayn!” (= two thousand!). “Tut,” cried the Governor, “Kam atau-ka?”
to which the poet replied as correctly and classically, “Alfáni.”
Footnote 307:
In Russian folk-songs a young girl is often compared with this tree
_e.g._—
Ivooshka, ivooshka zelonaia moia
(O Willow, O green Willow mine!)
Footnote 308:
So in Hector France (“La vache enragée”) “Le sourcil en accent
circonflexe et l’œil en point d’interrogation.”
Footnote 309:
In Persian “Áb-i-rú” in India pronounced Ábrú.
Footnote 310:
For further praises of his poetry and eloquence see the extracts from
Fakhr al-Din of Rayy (an annalist of the xivth century A.D.) in De
Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe, vol i.
Footnote 311:
After this had been written I received “Babylonien, das reichste Land
in der Vorzeit und das lohnendste Kolonisationsfeld für die
Gegenwart,” by my learned friend Dr. Aloys Sprenger, Heidelberg, 1886.
Footnote 312:
The first school for Arabic literature was opened by Ibn Abbas who
lectured to multitudes in a valley near Meccah, this rude beginning
was followed by public teaching in the great Mosque of Damascus. For
the rise of the “Madrasah,” Academy or College, see Introduct. to Ibn
Khallikan pp. xxvii.-xxxii.
Footnote 313:
When Ibn Abbád the Sáhib (Wazir) was invited to visit one of the
Samanides, he refused, one reason being that he would require 400
camels to carry only his books.
Footnote 314:
This “Salmagondis” by Francois Beroalde de Verville was afterwards
worked by Tabarin, the pseudo-Bruscambille d’Aubigné and Sorel.
Footnote 315:
I prefer this derivation to Strutt’s adopted by the popular, “_mumm_
is said to be derived from the Danish word _mumme_, or _momme_ in
Dutch (Germ. = larva) and signifies disguise in a mask, hence a
mummer.” In the Promptorium Parvulorum we have “Mummynge, mussacio,
vel mussatus”: if was a pantomime in dumb show, _e.g._ “I mumme in a
mummynge;” “Let us go mumme (mummer) to nyghte in women’s apparayle.”
“Mask” and “Mascarade,” for persona, larva or vizard, also derive, I
have noticed, from an Arabic word—Maskharah.
Footnote 316:
The Pre-Adamite doctrine has been preached but with scant success in
Christendom. Peyrère, a French Calvinist, published (A.D. 1655) his
“Præadamitæ, sive exercitatio supra versibus 12, 13, 14, cap. v.
Epist. Paul. ad Romanos,” contending that Adam was called the first
man because with him the law began. It brewed a storm of wrath and the
author was fortunate to escape with only imprisonment.
Footnote 317:
According to Socrates the verdict was followed by a free fight of the
Bishop-voters over the word “consubstantiality.”
Footnote 318: