The present is, I believe, the first complete translation of the
great Arabic compendium of romantic fiction that has been
attempted in any European language comprising about four times as
much matter as that of Galland and three times as much as that of
any other translator known to myself; and a short statement of
the sources from which it is derived may therefore be acceptable
to my readers. Three printed editions, more or less complete,
exist of the Arabic text of the Thousand and One Nights; namely,
those of Breslau, Boulac (Cairo) and Calcutta (1839), besides an
incomplete one, comprising the first two hundred nights only,
published at Calcutta in 1814. Of these, the first is horribly
corrupt and greatly inferior, both in style and completeness, to
the others, and the second (that of Boulac) is also, though in a
far less degree, incomplete, whole stories (as, for instance,
that of the Envier and the Envied in the present volume) being
omitted and hiatuses, varying in extent from a few lines to
several pages, being of frequent occurrence, whilst in addition
to these defects, the editor, a learned Egyptian, has played
havoc with the style of his original, in an ill-judged attempt to
improve it, producing a medley, more curious than edifying, of
classical and semi-modern diction and now and then, in his
unlucky zeal, completely disguising the pristine meaning of
certain passages. The third edition, that which we owe to Sir
William Macnaghten and which appears to have been printed from a
superior copy of the manuscript followed by the Egyptian editor,
is by far the most carefully printed and edited of the three and
offers, on the whole, the least corrupt and most comprehensive
text of the work. I have therefore adopted it as my standard or
basis of translation and have, to the best of my power, remedied
the defects (such as hiatuses, misprints, doubtful or corrupt
passages, etc.) which are of no infrequent occurrence even in
this, the best of the existing texts, by carefully collating it
with the editions of Boulac and Breslau (to say nothing of
occasional references to the earlier Calcutta edition of the
first two hundred nights), adopting from one and the other such
variants, additions and corrections as seemed to me best
calculated to improve the general effect and most homogeneous
with the general spirit of the work, and this so freely that the
present version may be said, in great part, to represent a
variorum text of the original, formed by a collation of the
different printed texts; and no proper estimate can, therefore,
be made of the fidelity of the translation, except by those who
are intimately acquainted with the whole of these latter. Even
with the help of the new lights gained by the laborious process
of collation and comparison above mentioned, the exact sense of
many passages must still remain doubtful, so corrupt are the
extant texts and so incomplete our knowledge, as incorporated in
dictionaries, etc, of the peculiar dialect, half classical and
half modern, in which the original work is written.
One special feature of the present version is the appearance,
for the first time, in English metrical shape, preserving the
external form and rhyme movement of the originals, of the
whole of the poetry with which the Arabic text is so freely
interspersed. This great body of verse, equivalent to at least
ten thousand twelve-syllable English lines, is of the most
unequal quality, varying from poetry worthy of the name to the
merest doggrel, and as I have, in pursuance of my original scheme,
elected to translate everything, good and bad (with a very few
exceptions in cases of manifest mistake or misapplication), I can
only hope that my readers will, in judging of my success, take
into consideration the enormous difficulties with which I have
had to contend and look with indulgence upon my efforts to render,
under unusually irksome conditions, the energy and beauty of the
original, where these qualities exist, and in their absence, to
keep my version from degenerating into absolute doggrel.
The present translation being intended as a purely literary
work produced with the sole object of supplying the general
body of cultivated readers with a fairly representative and
characteristic version of the most famous work of narrative
fiction in existence, I have deemed it advisable to depart, in
several particulars, from the various systems of transliteration
of Oriental proper names followed by modern scholars, as,
although doubtless admirably adapted to works having a scientific
or non-literary object, they rest mainly upon devices (such as
the use of apostrophes, accents, diacritical points and the
employment of both vowels and consonants in unusual groups and
senses) foreign to the genius of the English language and
calculated only to annoy the reader of a work of imagination. Of
these points of departure from established usage I need only
particularize some of the more important; the others will, in
general, be found to speak for themselves. One of the most salient
is the case of the short vowel fet-heh, which is usually written
[a breve], but which I have thought it better to render, as a
rule, by [e breve], as in "bed" (a sound practically equivalent
to that of a, as in "beggar," adopted by the late Mr. Lane to
represent this vowel), reserving the English a, as in "father,"
to represent the alif of prolongation or long Arabic a, since I
should else have no means of differentiating the latter from the
former, save by the use of accents or other clumsy expedients, at
once, to my mind, foreign to the purpose and vexatious to the
reader of a work of pure literature. In like manner, I have
eschewed the use of the letter q, as an equivalent for the dotted
or guttural kaf (choosing to run the risk of occasionally
misleading the reader as to the original Arabic form of a word
by leaving him in ignorance whether the k used is the dotted
or undotted one,--a point of no importance whatever to the
non-scientific public,--rather than employ an English letter in a
manner completely unwarranted by the construction of our
language, in which q has no power as a terminal or as moved by
any vowel other than u, followed by one of the four others) and
have supplied its place, where the dotted kaf occurs as a
terminal or as preceding a hard vowel, by the hard c, leaving k
to represent it (in common with the undotted kaf generally) in
those instances where it is followed by a soft vowel. For
similar reasons, I have not attempted to render the Arabic
quasi-consonant aïn, save by the English vowel corresponding to
that by which it is moved, preferring to leave the guttural
element of its sound (for which we have no approach to an
equivalent in English) unrepresented, rather than resort to the
barbarous and meaningless device of the apostrophe. Again, the
principle, in accordance with which I have rendered the proper
names of the original, is briefly (and subject to certain
variations on the ground of convenience and literary fitness) to
preserve unaltered such names as Tigris, Bassora, Cairo, Aleppo,
Damascus, etc., which are familiar to us otherwise than by the
Arabian Nights and to alter which, for the sake of mere
literality, were as gratuitous a piece of pedantry as to insist
upon writing Copenhagen Kjobenhavn, or Canton Kouang-tong, and to
transliterate the rest as nearly as may consist with a due regard
to artistic considerations. The use of untranslated Arabic words,
other than proper names, I have, as far as possible, avoided,
rendering them, with very few exceptions, by the best English
equivalents in my power, careful rather to give the general
sense, where capable of being conveyed by reasonable substitution
of idiom or otherwise, than to retain the strict letter at the
expense of the spirit; nor, on the other hand, have I thought it
necessary to alter the traditional manner of spelling certain
words which have become incorporated with our language, where
(as in the case of the words genie, houri, roe, khalif, vizier,
cadi, Bedouin, etc. etc.) the English equivalent is fairly
representative of the original Arabic.
I have to return my cordial thanks to Captain Richard F. Burton,
the well-known traveller and author, who has most kindly
undertaken to give me the benefit of his great practical
knowledge of the language and customs of the Arabs in revising
the manuscript of my translation for the press.
THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS
AND ONE NIGHT
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful! Praise be to
God, the Lord of the two worlds,[FN#1] and blessing and peace
upon the Prince of the Prophets, our lord and master Mohammed,
whom God bless and preserve with abiding and continuing peace and
blessing until the Day of the Faith! Of a verity, the doings of
the ancients become a lesson to those that follow after, so that
men look upon the admonitory events that have happened to others
and take warning, and come to the knowledge of what befell bygone
peoples and are restrained thereby. So glory be to Him who hath
appointed the things that have been done aforetime for an example
to those that come after! And of these admonitory instances are
the histories called the Thousand Nights and One Night, with all
their store of illustrious fables and relations.
It is recorded in the chronicles of the things that have been
done of time past that there lived once, in the olden days and in
bygone ages and times, a king of the kings of the sons of Sasan,
who reigned over the Islands[FN#2] of India and China and was
lord of armies and guards and servants and retainers. He had two
sons, an elder and a younger, who were both valiant cavaliers,
but the elder was a stouter horseman than the younger. When their
father died, he left his empire to his elder son, whose name was
Shehriyar, and he took the government and ruled his subjects
justly, so that the people of the country and of the empire loved
him well, whilst his brother Shahzeman became King of Samarcand
of Tartary. The two kings abode each in his own dominions, ruling
justly over their subjects and enjoying the utmost prosperity and
happiness, for the space of twenty years, at the end of which
time the elder king yearned after his brother and commanded his
Vizier to repair to the latter's court and bring him to his own
capital. The Vizier replied, "I hear and obey," and set out at
once and journeyed till he reached King Shahzeman's court in
safety, when he saluted him for his brother and informed him that
the latter yearned after him and desired that he would pay him a
visit, to which King Shahzeman consented gladly and made ready
for the journey and appointed his Vizier to rule the country in
his stead during his absence. Then he caused his tents and camels
and mules to be brought forth and encamped, with his guards and
attendants, without the city, in readiness to set out next
morning for his brother's kingdom. In the middle of the night,
it chanced that he bethought him of somewhat he had forgotten
in his palace; so he returned thither privily and entered his
apartments, where he found his wife asleep in his own bed, in the
arms of one of his black slaves. When he saw this, the world grew
black in his sight, and he said to himself, "If this is what
happens whilst I am yet under the city walls, what will be
the condition of this accursed woman during my absence at my
brother's court?" Then he drew his sword and smote the twain and
slew them and left them in the bed and returned presently to his
camp, without telling any one what had happened. Then he gave
orders for immediate departure and set out a'once and travelled
till he drew near his brother's capital when he despatched
vaunt-couriers to announce his approach. His brother came forth
to meet him and saluted him and rejoiced exceedingly and caused
the city to be decorated in his honour. Then he sat down with him
to converse and make merry; but King Shahzeman could not forget
the perfidy of his wife and grief grew on him more and more and
his colour changed and his body became weak. Shehriyar saw his
condition, but attributed it to his separation from his country
and his kingdom, so let him alone and asked no questions of him,
till one day he said to him, "O my brother, I see that thou art
grown weak of body and hast lost thy colour." And Shahzeman
answered, "O my brother, I have an internal wound," but did not
tell him about his wife. Said Shehriyar, "I wish thou wouldst
ride forth with me a-hunting; maybe it would lighten thy heart."
But Shahzeman refused; so his brother went out to hunt without
him. Now there were in King Shahzeman's apartments lattice-windows
overlooking his brother's garden, and as the former
was sitting looking on the garden, behold a gate of the
palace opened, and out came twenty damsels and twenty black
slaves, and among them his brother's wife, who was wonderfully
fair and beautiful. They all came up to a fountain, where the
girls and slaves took off their clothes and sat down together.
Then the queen called out, "O Mesoud!" And there came to her a
black slave, who embraced her and she him. Then he lay with her,
and on likewise did the other slaves with the girls. And they
ceased not from kissing and clipping and cricketing and carousing
until the day began to wane. When the King of Tartary saw this,
he said to himself, "By Allah, my mischance was lighter than
this!" And his grief and chagrin relaxed from him and he said,
"This is more grievous than what happened to me!" So he put away
his melancholy and ate and drank. Presently, his brother came
back from hunting and they saluted each other: and Shehriyar
looked at Shahzeman and saw that his colour had returned and his
face was rosy and he ate heartily, whereas before he ate but
little. So he said to him, "O my brother, when I last saw thee,
thou wast pale and wan, and now I see that the colour has
returned to thy face. Tell me how it is with thee." Quoth
Shahzeman, "I will tell thee what caused my loss of colour, but
excuse me from acquainting thee with the cause of its return to
me." Said Shehriyar, "Let me hear first what was the cause of thy
pallor and weakness." "Know then, O my brother," rejoined
Shahzeman, "that when thou sentest thy vizier to bid me to thee,
I made ready for the journey and had actually quitted my capital
city, when I remembered that I had left behind me a certain
jewel, that which I gave thee. So I returned to my palace, where
I found my wife asleep in my bed, in the arms of a black slave. I
slew them both and came to thee; and it was for brooding over
this affair, that I lost my colour and became weak. But forgive
me if I tell thee not the cause of my restoration to health."
When his brother heard this, he said to him, "I conjure thee by
Allah, tell me the reason of thy recovery!" So he told him all
that he had seen, and Shehriyar said, "I must see this with my
own eyes." "Then," replied Shahzeman, "feign to go forth to hunt
and hide thyself in my lodging and thou shalt see all this and
have ocular proof of the truth." So Shehriyar ordered his
attendants to prepare to set out at once; whereupon the troops
encamped without the city and he himself went forth with them and
sat in his pavilion, bidding his servants admit no one. Then he
disguised himself and returned secretly to King Shahzeman's
palace and sat with him at the lattice overlooking the garden,
until the damsels and their mistress came out with the slaves and
did as his brother had reported, till the call to afternoon
prayer. When King Shehriyar saw this, he was as one distraught
and said to his brother, "Arise, let us depart hence, for we have
no concern with kingship, and wander till we find one to whom the
like has happened as to us, else our death were better than
our life." Then they went out by a postern of the palace and
journeyed days and nights till they came to a tree standing in
the midst of a meadow, by a spring of water, on the shore of the
salt sea, and they drank of the stream and sat down by it to
rest. When the day was somewhat spent, behold, the sea became
troubled and there rose from it a black column that ascended to
the sky and made towards the meadow. When the princes saw this,
they were afraid and climbed up to the top of the tree, which was
a high one, that they might see what was the matter; and behold,
it was a genie of lofty stature, broad-browed and wide-cheated,
bearing on his head a coffer of glass with seven locks of steel.
He landed and sat down under the tree, where he set down the
coffer, and opening it, took out a smaller one. This also he
opened, and there came forth a damsel slender of form and
dazzlingly beautiful, as she were a shining sun, as says the poet
Uteyeh:
She shines out in the dusk, and lo! the day is here, And all the
trees flower forth with blossoms bright and clear,
The sun from out her brows arises, and the moon, When she unveils
her face, cloth hide for shame and fear.
All living things prostrate themselves before her feet, When she
unshrouds and all her hidden charms appear;
And when she flashes forth the lightnings of her glance, She
maketh eyes to rain, like showers, with many a tear.
When the genie saw her, he said to her, "O queen of noble ladies,
thou whom indeed I stole away on thy wedding night, I have a mind
to sleep awhile." And he laid his head on her knees and fell
asleep. Presently the lady raised her eyes to the tree and saw
the two kings among the branches; so she lifted the genie's head
from her lap and laid it on the ground, then rose and stood
beneath the tree and signed to them to descend, without heeding
the Afrit.[FN#3] They answered her, in the same manner, "God on
thee [FN#4] excuse us from this." But she rejoined by signs, as
who should say, "If you do not come down, I will wake the Afrit
on you, and he will kill you without mercy." So they were afraid
and came down to her, whereupon she came up to them and offered
them her favours, saying, "To it, both of you, and lustily; or I
will set the Afrit on you." So for fear of him, King Shehriyar
said to his brother Shahzeman, "O brother, do as she bids thee."
But he replied, "Not I; do thou have at her first." And they made
signs to each other to pass first, till she said, "Why do I see
you make signs to each other? An you come not forward and fall
to, I will rouse the Afrit on you." So for fear of the genie,
they lay with her one after the other, and when they had done,
she bade them arise, and took out of her bosom a purse containing
a necklace made of five hundred and seventy rings, and said to
them, "Know ye what these are?" They answered, "No." And she
said, "Every one of the owners of these rings has had to do with
me in despite of this Afrit. And now give me your rings, both of
you." So each of them took off a ring and gave it to her. And she
said to them, "Know that this genie carried me off on my wedding
night and laid me in a box and shut the box up in a glass chest,
on which he clapped seven strong locks and sank it to the bottom
of the roaring stormy sea, knowing not that nothing can hinder a
woman, when she desires aught, even as says one of the poets:
I rede thee put no Faith in womankind, Nor trust the oaths they
lavish all in vain:
For on the satisfaction of their lusts Depend alike their love
and their disdain.
They proffer lying love, but perfidy Is all indeed their garments
do contain.
Take warning, then, by Joseph's history, And how a woman sought
to do him bane;
And eke thy father Adam, by their fault To leave the groves of
Paradise was fain.
Or as another says:
Out on yon! blame confirms the blamed one in his way. My fault is
not so great indeed as you would say.
If I'm in love, forsooth, my case is but the same As that of
other men before me, many a day.
For great the wonder were if any man alive From women and their
wiles escape unharmed away!"
When the two kings heard this, they marvelled and said, "Allah!
Allah! There is no power and no virtue save in God the Most High,
the Supreme! We seek aid of God against the malice of women, for
indeed their craft is great!" Then she said to them, "Go your
ways." So they returned to the road, and Shehriyar said to
Shahzeman, "By Allah, O my brother, this Afrit's case is more
grievous than ours. For this is a genie and stole away his
mistress on her wedding night and clapped her in a chest, which
he locked with seven locks and sank in the midst of the sea,
thinking to guard her from that which was decreed by fate, yet
have we seen that she has lain with five hundred and seventy men
in his despite, and now with thee and me to boot. Verily, this is
a thing that never yet happened to any, and it should surely
console us. Let us therefore return to our kingdoms and resolve
never again to take a woman to wife; and as for me, I will show
thee what I will do." So they set out at once and presently came
to the camp outside Shehriyar's capital and, entering the royal
pavilion, sat down on their bed of estate. Then the chamberlains
and amirs and grandees came in to them and Shehriyar commanded
them to return to the city. So they returned to the city and
Shehriyar went up to his palace, where he summoned his Vizier and
bade him forthwith put his wife to death. The Vizier accordingly
took the queen and killed her, whilst Shehriyar, going into the
slave girls and concubines, drew his sword and slew them all.
Then he let bring others in their stead and took an oath that
every night he would go in to a maid and in the morning put her
to death, for that there was not one chaste woman on the face of
the earth. As for Shahzeman, he sought to return to his kingdom
at once; so his brother equipped him for the journey and he set
out and fared on till he came to his own dominions. Meanwhile,
King Shehriyar commanded his Vizier to bring him the bride of the
night, that he might go in to her; so he brought him one of the
daughters of the amirs and he went in to her, and on the morrow
he bade the Vizier cut off her head. The Vizier dared not disobey
the King's commandment, so he put her to death and brought him
another girl, of the daughters of the notables of the land. The
King went in to her also, and on the morrow he bade the Vizier
kill her; and he ceased not to do thus for three years, till the
land was stripped of marriageable girls, and all the women and
mothers and fathers wept and cried out against the King, cursing
him and complaining to the Creator of heaven and earth and
calling for succour upon Him who heareth prayer and answereth
those that cry to Him; and those that had daughters left fled
with them, till at last there remained not a single girl in the
city apt for marriage. One day the King ordered the Vizier to
bring him a maid as of wont; so the Vizier went out and made
search for a girl, but found not one and returned home troubled
and careful for fear of the king's anger. Now this Vizier had two
daughters, the elder called Shehrzad and the younger Dunyazad,
and the former had read many books and histories and chronicles
of ancient kings and stories of people of old time; it is said
indeed that she had collected a thousand books of chronicles of
past peoples and bygone kings and poets. Moreover, she had read
books of science and medicine; her memory was stored with verses
and stories and folk-lore and the sayings of kings and sages, and
she was wise, witty, prudent and well-bred. She said to her
father, "How comes it that I see thee troubled and oppressed with
care and anxiety? Quoth one of the poets:
'Tell him that is of care oppressed, That grief shall not endure
alway,
But even as gladness fleeteth by, So sorrow too shall pass
away.'"
When the Vizier heard his daughter's words, he told her his case,
and she said, "By Allah, O my father, marry me to this king, for
either I will be the means of the deliverance of the daughters of
the Muslims from slaughter or I will die and perish as others
have perished." "For God's sake," answered the Vizier, "do not
thus adventure thy life!" But she said, "It must be so."
Whereupon her father was wroth with her and said to her, "Fool
that thou art, dost thou not know that the ignorant man who
meddles in affairs falls into grievous peril, and that he who
looks not to the issue of his actions finds no friend in time of
evil fortune? As says the byword, 'I was sitting at my ease, but
my officiousness would not let me rest.' And I fear lest there
happen to thee what happened to the ox and the ass with the
husbandman." "And what happened to them?" asked she. Quoth the
Vizier, "Know, O my daughter, that