One Thousand and One Nights, page 1137
Mr. W. F. Thompson, in his translation of the “Ahlak-i-Jalaly,” from the Persian of FakÝr JßnÝ Muhammad (15th century), has the following note on the Jßm-i-Jßmshid and other magical mirrors: “JßmshÝd, the fourth of the Kaianian dynasty, the Soloman of the Persians. His cup was said to mirror the world, so that he could observe all that was passing elsewhere — a fiction of his own for state purposes, apparently, backed by the use of artificial mirrors. NizßmÝ tells that Alexander invented the steel mirror, by which he means, of course, that improved reflectors were used for telescopy in the days of Archimedes, but not early enough to have assisted JßmshÝd, who belongs to the fabulous and unchronicled age. In the romance of Beyjan and Manija, in the “Shah Nßma,” this mirror is used by the great Khosr· for the purpose of discovering the place of the hero’s imprisonment:
“The mirror in his hand revolving shook,
And earth’s whole surface glimmered in his look;
Nor less the secrets of the starry sphere,
The what, the when, the bow depicted clear,
From orbs celestial to the blade of grass,
All nature floated in the magic glass.”
416 We have been told this king had three daughters.
417 See in “Blackwood’s Magazine,” vol. iv., 1818, 1819, a translation, from the Danish of J. L. Rasmussen, of “An Historical and Geographical Essay on the trade and commerce of the Arabians and Persians with Russia and Scandinavia during the Middle Ages. — But learned Icelanders, while England was still semi-civilized, frequently made very long journeys into foreign lands: after performing the pilgrimage to Rome, they went to Syria, and some penetrated into Central Asia.
418 This, of course, is absurd, as each was equally interested in the business; but it seems to indicate a vague reminiscence of the adventures of the Princes in the story of The Envious Sisters.
419 There is a naivete about this that is particularly refreshing.
420 This recalls the fairy Meliora, in the romance of Partenopex de Blois. who “knew of ancient tales a countless store.”
421 In a Norwegian folk-tale the hero receives from a dwarf a magic ship that could enlarge itself so as to contain any number of men, yet could be earned m the pocket.
422 The Water of Life, the Water of Immortality, the Fountain of Youth — a favourite and wide-spread myth during the Middle Ages. In the romance of Sir Huon of Bordeaux the hero boldly encounters a griffin, and after a desperate fight, in which he is sorely wounded, slays the monster. Close at hand he discovers a clear fountain, at the bottom of which is a gravel of precious stones. “Then he dyde of his helme and dranke of the water his fyll, and he had no sooner dranke therof but incontynent he was hole of all his woundys.” Nothing more frequently occurs in folk tales than for the hero to be required to perform three difficult and dangerous tasks — sometimes impossible, without supernatural assistance.
423 “Say, will a courser of the Sun
All gently with a dray-horse run?”
424 Ting: assembly of notables — of udallers, &c. The term survives in our word hustings; and in Ding-wall — Ting-val; where tings were held.
425 The last of the old Dublin ballad-singers, who assumed the respectable name of Zozimus, and is said to have been the author of the ditties wherewith he charmed his street auditors, was wont to chant the legend of the Finding of Moses in a version which has at least the merit of originality:
“In Egypt’s land, upon the banks of Nile,
King Pharaoh’s daughter went to bathe in style;
She took her dip, then went unto the land,
And, to dry her royal pelt, she ran along the strand.
A bulrush tripped her, whereupon she saw
A smiling baby in a wad of straw;
She took it up, and said, in accents mild —
Tare an’ agurs, girls! which av yez owns this child?”
The Babylonian analogue, as translated by the Rev. Prof. A. H. Sayce, in the first vol. of the “Folk-Lore Journal” (1883), is as follows:
“Sargon, the mighty monarch, the King of AganÞ, am I. My mother was a princess; my father I knew not, my father’s brother loved the mountain-land. In the city of Azipiranu, which on the bank of the Euphrates lies, my mother, the princess, conceived me, in an inaccessible spot she brought me forth. She placed me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen the door of my ark she closed. She launched me on the river, which drowned me not. The river bore me along, to Akki, the irrigator, it brought me. Akki, the irrigator, in the tenderness of his heart, lifted me up. Akki, the irrigator, as his own child brought me up. Akki, the irrigator, as his gardener appointed me, and in my gardenership the goddess Istar loved me. For 45 years the kingdom I have ruled, and the black headed (Accadian) race have governed.”
426 This strange notion may have been derived from some Eastern source, since it occurs in Indian fictions; for example, in Dr. Rßjendralßla Mitra’s “Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepßl,” , we read that “there lived in the village of Vßsava a rich householder who had born unto him a son with a jewelled ring in his ear.” And in the “Mahßbhßrata” we are told of a king who had a son from whose body issued nothing but gold — the prototype of the gold-laying goose.
427 Connected with this romance is the tale of “The Six Swans,” in Grimm’s collection — see Mrs. Hunt’s English translation, vol. i. .
428 Mahb·b. a piece of gold, value about 10 francs, replaces the dinßr of old tales. Those in Egypt are all since the time of the Turks: 9, 7, or 6 1/2 frs. according to issue. — Note by Spitta Bey.
429 Here again we have the old superstition of “blood speaking to blood,” referred to by Sir Richard, ante, , note 1. It often occurs in Asiatic stories. Thus in the Persian “Bakhtyßr Nßma,” when the adopted son of the robber chief is brought with other captives, before the king (he is really the king’s own son, whom he and the queen abandoned in their flight through the desert), his majesty’s bowels strangely yearned towards the youth, and in the conclusion this is carried to absurdity: when Bakhtyßr is found to be the son of the royal pair, “the milk sprang from the breasts of the queen,” as she looked on him — albeit she must then have been long past child-bearing!
430 The enchanted pitcher does duty here for the witches’ broomstick and the fairies’ rush of European tales, but a similar conveyance is, I think, not unknown to Western folk-lore.
431 In a Norse story the hero on entering a forbidden room in a troll’s house finds a horse with a pan of burning coals under his nose and a measure of corn at his tail, and when he removes the coals and substitutes the corn, the horse becomes his friend and adviser.
432 M. Dozon does not think that Muslim customs allow of a man’s marrying three sisters at once; but we find the king does the same in the modern Arab version.
433 London: Macmillan and Co., ff.
434 This recalls the biblical legend of the widow’s cruse, which has its exact counterpart in Singhalese folk-lore.
435 This recalls the story of the herd-boy who cried “Wolf! wolf!”
436 Again the old notion of maternal and paternal instincts; but the children don’t often seem in folk-tales, to have a similar impulsive affection for their unknown parents.
437 Colotropis gigantea.
438 Rßkshashas and rßkshasÝs are male and female demons or ogres, in the Hind· mythology.
439 Literally, the king of birds, a fabulous species of horse remarkable for swiftness, which plays an important part in Tamil stories and romances.
440 Here we have a parallel to the biblical legend of the passage of the Israelites dryshod
441 Demons, ogres, trolls, giants, et hoc genus omne, never fail to discover the presence of human beings by their keen sense of smelling. “Fee, faw, fum! I smell the blood of a British man,” cries a giant when the renowned hero Jack is concealed in his castle. “Fum! fum! sento odor christianum,” exclaims an ogre in Italian folk tales. “Femme, je sens la viande fra¯che, la chair de chrÚtien!” says a giant to his wife in French stories.
442 In my popular “Tales and Fictions” a number of examples are cited of life depending on some extraneous object — vol. i. p-351.
443 In the Tamil story-book, the English translation of which is called “The Dravidian Nights’ Entertainments,” a wandering princess, finding the labour-pains coming upon her, takes shelter in the house of a dancing-woman, who says to the nurses, “If she gives birth to a daughter, it is well [because the woman could train her to follow her own profession’], but if a son, I do not want him; — close her eyes, remove him to a place where you can kill him, and throwing a bit of wood on the ground tell her she has given birth to it.” — I daresay that a story similar to the Bengali version exists among the Tamils.
444 It is to be hoped we shall soon have Sir Richard Burton’s promised complete English translation of this work, since one half is, I understand, already done.
Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents
SUPPLEMENTAL NIGHTS VOLUME IV.
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.
Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents
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
Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents
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 goűt, 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:?
Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents
Diruit, ćdificat, 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
Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents
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 “Ineptić Bodleianć.” 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.
Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents
TRIESTE, April 10th, 1888.
Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents
Story of the Sultan of Al-Yaman and His three Sons.1
There was erewhile in the land of Al-Yaman a man which was a Sultan and under him were three Kinglets whom he overruled. He had four children; to wit, three sons and a daughter: he also owned wealth and treasures greater than reed can pen or page may contain; as well as animals such as horses and camels, sheep and black cattle; and he was held in awe by all the sovrans. But when his reign had lasted for a length of time, Age2 brought with it ailments and infirmities and he became incapable of faring forth his Palace to the Divan, the hall of audience; whereupon he summoned his three sons to the presence and said to them, “As for me, ’tis my wish to divide among you all my substance ere I die, that ye may be equal in circumstance and live in accordance with whatso I shall command.” And they said, “Hearkening and obedience.” Then quoth the Sultan, “Let the eldest of you become sovereign after me: let the cadet succeed to my moneys and treasures3 and as for the youngest let him inherit my animals of every kind. Suffer none to transgress against other; but each aid each and assist his co-partner.” He then caused them to sign a bond and agreement to abide by his bequeathal; and, after delaying a while, he departed to the mercy of Allah. Thereupon his three sons got ready the funeral gear and whatever was suited to his estate for the mortuary obsequies such as cerements and other matters: they washed the corpse and enshrouded it and prayed over it: then, having committed it to the earth they returned to their palaces where the Wazirs and the Lords of the Land and the city-folk in their multitudes, high and low, rich and poor, flocked to condole with them on the loss of their father. And the news of his decease was soon bruited abroad in all the provinces; and deputations from each and every city came to offer condolence to the King’s sons. These ceremonies duly ended, the eldest Prince demanded that he should be seated as Sultan on the stead of his sire in accordance with the paternal will and testament; but he could not obtain it from his two brothers as both and each said, “I will become ruler in room of my father.” So enmity and disputes for the government now arose amongst them and it was not to be won by any; but at last quoth the eldest Prince, “Wend we and submit ourselves to the arbitration of a Sultan of the tributary sultans; and let him to whom he shall adjudge the realm take it and reign over it.” Quoth they “’Tis well!” and thereto agreed, as did also the Wazirs; and the three set out without suite seeking the capital of one of the subject Sovrans.??And Shahrázád4 was surprised by the dawn of day5 and fell silent and ceased to say her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyázád, “How sweet is thy story, O sister mine, and how enjoyable and delectable!” Quoth she, “And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming night, an the King suffer me to survive?” Now when it was the next night and that was
