My Dear General,
To whom with more pleasure or propriety can I inscribe this
volume than to my preceptor of past times; my dear old friend,
whose deep study and vast experience of such light literature as
The Nights made me so often resort to him for good counsel and
right direction? Accept this little token of gratitude, and
believe me, with the best of wishes and the kindest of memories,
Ever your sincere and attached
Richard F. Burton.
London, July 15, 1886.
"To the pure all things are pure"
(Puris omnia pura)
—Arab Proverb.
"Niuna corrotta mente intese mai sanamente parole."
—"Decameron" —conclusion.
"Erubuit, posuitque meum Lucretia librum
sed coram Bruto. Brute! recede, leget."
—Martial.
"Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escripre,
Pour ce que rire est le propre des hommes."
—Rabelais.
"The pleasure we derive from perusing the Thousand-and-One
Stories makes us regret that we possess only a comparatively
small part of these truly enchanting fictions."
—Crichton's "History of Arabia."
Contents of the Eleventh Volume.
1. The Sleeper and the Waker
Story of the Larrikin and the Cook
2. The Caliph Omar Bin Abd Al-Aziz and the Poets
3. Al-Hajjaj and the Three Young Men
4. Harun Al-Rashid and the Woman of the Barmecides
5. The Ten Wazirs; or the History of King Azadbakht and His Son
a. Of the Uselessness of Endeavour Against Persistent Ill
Fortune
aa. Story of the Merchant Who Lost His Luck
b. Of Looking To the Ends of Affairs
bb. Tale of the Merchant and His Sons
c. Of the Advantages of Patience
cc. Story of Abu Sabir
d. Of the Ill Effects of Impatience
dd. Story of Prince Bihzad
e. Of the Issues of Good and Evil Actions
ee. Story of King Dadbin and His Wazirs
f. Of Trust in Allah
ff. Story of King Bakhtzaman
g. Of Clemency
gg. Story of King Bihkard
h. Of Envy and Malice
hh. Story of Aylan Shah and Abu Tammam
i. Of Destiny or That Which Is Written On the Forehead
ii. Story of King Ibrahim and His Son
j. Of the Appointed Term, Which, if it be Advanced, May
Not Be Deferred, and if it be Deferred, May Not Be
Advanced
jj. Story of King Sulayman Shah and His Niece
k. Of the Speedy Relief of Allah
kk. Story of the Prisoner and How Allah Gave Him
Relief
6. Ja'afar Bin Yahya and Abd Al-Malik Bin Salih the Abbaside
7. Al-Rashid and the Barmecides
8. Ibn Al-Sammak and Al-Rashid
9. Al-Maamum and Zubaydah
10. Al-Nu'uman and the Arab of the Banu Tay
11. Firuz and His Wife
12. King Shah Bakht and his Wazir Al-Rahwan
a. Tale of the Man of Khorasan, His Son and His Tutor
b. Tale of the Singer and the Druggist
c. Tale of the King Who Kenned the Quintessence of Things
d. Tale of the Richard Who Married His Beautiful Daughter
to the Poor Old Man
e. Tale of the Sage and His Three Sons
f. Tale of the Prince who Fell in Love With the Picture
g. Tale of the Fuller and His Wife and the Trooper
h. Tale of the Merchant, The Crone, and the King
i. Tale of the Simpleton Husband
j. Tale of the Unjust King and the Tither
ja. Story of David and Solomon
k. Tale of the Robber and the Woman
l. Tale of the Three Men and Our Lord Isa
la. The Disciple's Story
m. Tale of the Dethroned Ruler Whose Reign and Wealth Were
Restored to Him
n. Talk of the Man Whose Caution Slew Him
o. Tale of the Man Who Was Lavish of His House and His
Provision to One Whom He Knew Not
p. Tale of the Melancholist and the Sharper
q. Tale of Khalbas and his Wife and the Learned Man
r. Tale of the Devotee Accused of Lewdness
s. Tale of the Hireling and the Girl
t. Tale of the Weaver Who Became a Leach by Order of His
Wife
u. Tale of the Two Sharpers Who Each Cozened His Compeer
v. Tale of the Sharpers With the Shroff and the Ass
w. Tale of the Chear and the Merchants
wa. Story of the Falcon and the Locust
x. Tale of the King and His Chamberlain's Wife
xa. Story of the Crone and the Draper's Wife
y. Tale of the Ugly Man and His Beautifule Wife
z. Tale of the King Who Lost Kingdom and Wife and Wealth
and Allah Restored Them to Him
aa. Tale of Salim the Youth of Khorasan and Salma, His
Sister
bb. Tale of the King of Hind and His Wazir
Shahrazad and Shahryar
The Translator's Foreword.
After offering my cordial thanks to friends and subscribers who
have honoured "The Thousand Nights and a Night" (Kama Shastra
Society) with their patronage and approbation, I would inform
them that my "Anthropological Notes" are by no means exhausted,
and that I can produce a complete work only by means of a
somewhat extensive Supplement. I therefore propose to print (not
publish), for private circulation only, five volumes, bearing
title—
Supplemental Nights
to the book of
The Thousand Nights and a Night
This volume and its successor (Nos. i. and ii.) contain Mr. John
Payne's Tales from the Arabic; his three tomes being included in
my two. The stories are taken from the Breslau Edition where
they are distributed among the volumes between Nos. iv and xii.,
and from the Calcutta fragment of 1814. I can say little for the
style of the story-stuff contained in this Breslau text, which
has been edited with phenomenal incuriousness. Many parts are
hopelessly corrupted, whilst at present we have no means of
amending the commissions and of supplying the omissions by
comparison with other manuscripts. The Arabic is not only
faulty, but dry and jejune, comparing badly with that of the
"Thousand Nights and a Night," as it appears in the Macnaghten
and the abridged Bulak Texts. Sundry of the tales are futile;
the majority has little to recommend it, and not a few require a
diviner rather than a translator. Yet they are valuable to
students as showing the different sources and the heterogeneous
materials from and of which the great Saga-book has been
compounded. Some are, moreover, striking and novel, especially
parts of the series entitled King Shah Bakht and his Wazir Al-
Rahwan (pp. 191-355). Interesting also is the Tale of the "Ten
Wazirs" (pp. 55-155), marking the transition of the Persian
Bakhtiyár-Námeh into Arabic. In this text also and in this only
is found Galland's popular tale "Abou-Hassan; or, the Sleeper
Awakened," which I have entitled "The Sleeper and the Waker."
In the ten volumes of "The Nights" proper, I mostly avoided
parallels of folk-lore and fabliaux which, however interesting
and valuable to scholars, would have over-swollen the bulk of a
work especially devoted to Anthropology. In the "Supplementals,"
however, it is otherwise; and, as Mr. W.A. Clouston, the
"Storiologist," has obligingly agreed to collaborate with me, I
shall pay marked attention to this subject, which will thus form
another raison d'être for the additional volumes.