Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6) (part 3 of 3)

Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6) (part 3 of 3)

It is a marvel that these cadences have never been reproduced before. They have been faintly attempted by Eastwick, in his “Gulistan,” whilst Mr. Payne simply passed them over, rejected them as of no account. They fall in with Captain Burton’s plan of omitting nothing; of giving the Nights intact in the precise form in which they are enjoyed by the Oriental. Beside the verses so characteristic of exaggerated Arabic sentiment, and the rhymed cadences, let like precious stones into the gold of the prose, the proverbs embodying the proverbial wit and wisdom, are all rhymed as in the original Arabic. What Arabists think of this translation we may learn from a professed Arabist writing to this effect:—“I am free to confess, after many years study of Arabic, a comparison of your translation with the text has taught me more than many months of dry study,” whilst Englishmen who for years have lived in the East, are making the discovery that, after all, they have known little or nothing, and their education is only beginning with this version of the Arabian Nights. It is only knowledge that knows how to observe; and it is satisfactory to observe that Captain Burton’s amazing insight into Eastern peculiarities has been put to its best use in giving a true idea of the People of the Sun and a veritable version of their Book of Books. The labour expended on this edition has been enormous. The work could only have been completed by the most excessive and pertinacious application. All the same we are told it has been “a labour of love,” a task that has brought its own exceeding great reward. There is only one regret, the circulation is bound to be limited. We cannot help hoping, at some future time, a selection may be made from the ten volumes, and even as they now stand many of the stories could be read aloud. If the public cannot have the whole work, at least it might have a part, and not be shut out from a masterpiece unparalleled.

LYTTELTON TIMES, August 25th, 1886. THE NEW “ARABIAN NIGHTS.”

Sir Richard Burton’s version of the Thousand Nights and a Night, privately printed for the use of men and scholars, is now unobtainable. The edition sold off immediately, and the price has already reached twenty-six guineas. The best critics among the thousand purchasers say that the language is wonderful, the words graceful, the rendering of thought, as well as words, most accurate, and the poetry marvellous. The Oriental purchasers say that the language is wonderful, and they declare that they have learnt more orientalism in the volumes than by long years of study.

LAND AND WATER, September 4th, 1886.

Some time since I had occasion to speak out energetically about this same work, thinking that a book which, though running only to a small edition, might from its general interest excite the curiosity of those who saw copies of it, and that, within its luxurious covers, matters of prurient crudity might meet the prying eyes of those whom we would guard against such knowledge. * * * Of the vigorous and poetic English of Captain Burton’s translation, its freshness and virility, it is needless to speak.

UNITED SERVICE GAZETTE, September 11th.

There is a charm and fascination about Burton’s translation that enchains the reader. The Eastern beauties of expression are singularly attractive, and, under careful editing, we may rely on a rich feast of such gems of thought and poesies of imagination as only the resplendent Orient can produce.

COURT CIRCULAR, September 11th, 1886.

Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Arabian Nights is a work of marvellous erudition, and a perpetual delight to Arabic scholars and all who care to read these famous stories as accurately reproduced as possible. But they contain much that is not fit reading for women and for young people.

LONDON AND WESTMINSTER SPORTING LIFE, September 18th, 1886.

From a private note which I have received from Sir Richard Burton I judge that the supplementary volumes to the Thousand Nights and a Night will be of great and peculiar interest. Indeed the entire set will form a library of Oriental lore of unique value.

NOTTINGHAM JOURNAL, October 6th, 1886.

That Captain Burton’s work gives delight to the subscribers may be inferred from their encomiums. One writes, “I would give passages of it to the Board Schools”; another goes so far as to say, “It is like a new Bible for beauty of expression, and can you fancy a more wondrous gift than a second inspired Book?”

STAFFORDSHIRE SENTINEL, Hanley, October 13th.

Honi soit qui mal y pense. Are we not living in a too-squeamish age? First an expurgated edition of the Arabian Nights from the pen of Captain Burton, now a similar act of Vandalism to that book of our boyhood, Robinson Crusoe. What there was in the pages of the immortal work of Defoe, to which even the most susceptible could take exception, is one of those things known only to the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, to whom we are indebted for this last act of Bowdlerizing.

CIVIL SERVICE GAZETTE, November 2nd, 1886.

Whatever reason there may have been for limiting to the number of a thousand copies the original translation by Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, his literally correct, complete, and beautiful version of the Arabian Nights, The Thousand Nights and One Night tales—a work of prodigious erudition and mastery of Oriental language, literature, manners, and customs—we cannot but think it was a pity to have placed exclusively within the reach of the select, opulent, scholarly, and fastidious few that which would have been a delight and joy for ever to the less favoured of fortune—the countless millions. The “Arabian Nights Entertainments” even in the imperfect, garbled, second-hand version which has been current in England for a hundred and eighty years through the French paraphrase by Professor Galland, has been read by all classes, high and low, with admiration of the wonderful invention, marvellous adventures, oriental imagery, charming dramatic scenes, exquisite poetry, varied pictures of Eastern life and habits—with all which the collection abounds. Why, then, when a genuine translation, the work of many years, has been completed by a matchless Arab scholar, traveller, and linguist is perfected, should it be withheld from the multitude, and reserved for the delectation of the learned and the rich. We are of opinion that the Arabian Tales, which are so universally pleasing to the people, should not be withheld from them, as they would be practically if shut up in glass cases, among the éditions de luxe of connoisseurs.

FUN, November 2nd, 1886. NEW LEAVES.

Apart from the learning and labour so lavishly bestowed upon the original edition, there is ever a charm of seeming enchantment surrounding these wondrous stories, which age does not abate, nor time destroy—yet the truthfulness of this translation enriches and enhances them.

EASTERN DAILY PRESS, November 13th, 1886.

I think I should like to shake the curators of the Bodleian library. Last September Sir Richard Burton applied to them through Dr. Rost, the chief librarian at the India Office, for leave to have a MS. of the Arabian Nights transferred from the Bodleian to the India Office under the custody of Dr. Rost. The request was a perfectly regular and usual one, and in Sir Richard Burton’s case it was accompanied by a distinct promise that no “indelicate or immoral” tale should be translated. There was therefore no fear that the peculiar frankness which characterised Sir Richard’s renderings of previous tales would be repeated. A month—six weeks—passed without a reply from the curators, the fact being that they had met twice without being able to get the necessary quorum of three, and once again without doing anything at all. Then Sir Richard Burton got curt note informing him that at the fourth meeting the majority of the curators were unwilling to lend the MS. At the same meeting they allowed sundry MSS. to be sent to the India Office. Now this not only implies a gross neglect of duty, but it is a wanton insult to a man who, after all, is one of the most distinguished Orientalists of his day. Burton’s Arabian Nights, disfigured as they are by the indelicacy of the original, are a masterpiece of idiomatic translation; and as a purely literary work must rank very high indeed. Moreover, the shadow of an excuse for the curator’s conduct disappeared after Sir Richard’s pledge to keep within the lines of strict propriety. After all, learned men have a sad tendency to degenerate into meddling old women.

COUNTY GENTLEMAN, November 27th, 1887.

Sir Richard Burton’s work has been criticised in some quarters for a too obvious straining after the literal reproduction of the original. In our opinion, such a course deserves rather praise than censure. And, indeed, we would demur to the phrase “obvious straining” in connection with the great Orientalist and explorer’s wonderfully successful representation to English eyes and ears of both the meaning and the form of this marvellous mosaic of Eastern fancy and imagination. That certain words and phrases Sir Richard makes use of are unfamiliar to the British reader is perfectly true. But it must be remembered that they have been made the means of rendering intelligible unfamiliar modes of thought and feeling which are entirely beyond the reach of smug literary conventions and forms of expression. For ourselves, we can honestly say that these very outrages upon Philistine sensibility have been amongst the principal charms of this unequal and unrivalled translation—adding vastly to the vicissitudes and seeming fidelity of the work. The marvel to us has been rather—remarking the uniformly level execution of the whole—that so few verbal ingenuities of the kind referred to have been found necessary, and that so much of the translated prose is English undefiled, albeit of the vigorous and vertebrate order, and so much of the translated poetry has the ring of genuine English verse. We might, however, write pages in explanation of our view of the manner in which Sir Richard has discharged his task without approaching his definition of his work as “a faithful copy of the great Eastern Saga-book by preserving intact not only the spirit, but even the méchanique, the manner, and the matter.” Of the tales themselves, we can, of course, say nothing true that is new, or nothing new that is also true. No romances of intrigue and adventure, of wealth and poverty, of luxury and love, have had such universal acceptance, or received so much of that homage which is said to be the sincerest—the flattery of imitation. And this by means of the garbled and imperfect versions which have hitherto obtained currency in the Western world.

THE PHILADELPHIA, December 12th, 1887. ONCE MORE IN PRINT.

Sir Richard F. Burton is once more in print. * * * * He has some two or three years to serve as Consul at Trieste before he is entitled to a retiring pension, and it is a grievance with the friends and admirers of “the Arabian Knight” that the government does not do a generous thing—that is, “retire” and pension him at once. There is no doubt that the prospects of a prolonged life would be strengthened if he could retire from the Consulate and fix his own dwelling place. And his literary career is by no means at an end. The third volume of “The Supplemental Nights” is to-day in the hands of the subscribers. Like all its predecessors, it contains a characteristic dedication. Thus: “To Henry Edward John, Lord Stanley of Alderly, this the most innocent volume of The Nights is inscribed by his old companion, the Author.” It would appear from the Foreword that Sir Richard Burton has had some difficulty with his work. He has reckoned without his host. He says: “The peculiar proceedings of the curators, Bodleian Library, Oxford, of which full particulars will be given in due time, have dislocated the order of my volumes. The prospectus had promised that Tome III. should contain detached extracts from the MS. known as the Wortley-Montague, and that No. IV. and part of No. V. should comprise a reproduction of the ten Tales (or eleven, including ‘The Princess of Daryabar’), which have so long generally been attributed to Professor Galland. Circumstances, however, wholly beyond my control, have now compelled me to devote the whole of this volume to the Frenchman’s stories.” What has happened? Has Sir Richard Burton’s Devils (I use the word in its legal sense) been refused permission to translate? His vials of wrath will be filled to overflowing if that sort of opposition accumulates. Already we are promised a reckoning with the Edinburgh Review. Well may the translator of The Nights be spared to deal out his “smashing blow” with characteristic vigour. He is like the late Charles Reade in this—he is never so entertaining, to the onlooker, as when he goes tooth and nail for an antagonist. The reader has no cause to complain of the dislocation of the author’s plans. Two of the most famous of the supplemental tales are given in the volume in question making it uncommonly bulky and investing it with special interest. The account of how the originals of these came into his possession is remarkable, but it is too long for citation. The two tales to which I refer are “Alaeddin, or the Wonderful Lamp,” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” More disillusion. It is no longer Aladdin, but Alaeddin. It is not “Open sesame,” but “Open O simsin” and “Shut, O simsin” in the Forty Thieves. I dare say there are many other departures from the text of the stories which we have known from our childhood. In Sir Richard Burton’s version “Alaeddin” opens in this wise: “There dwelt in a city of the cities of China a man which was a tailor, withal a pauper, and he had one son, Alaeddin, hight. Now, this boy had been from his babyhood a ne’er-do-well, a scapegrace; and when he had reached his tenth year,” &c. “The Forty Thieves” opens differently. “In days of yore and in times long gone before there dwelt in a certain town of Persia two brothers, one named Kásim and the other Alí Bábá, who at their father’s demise had divided the little wealth he had left to them with equitable division, and had lost no time in wasting and spending it all.”

ACADEMY, December 11th, 1886.

Knowing his profound Oriental scholarship, and amazing gift of tongues, and the vast range of his reading, one could not have doubted that Sir Richard Burton’s translation would be a noteworthy performance; but none, I imagine, were prepared for the fine force and old-world flavour of the style which he has forged for himself on this occasion, or for the extraordinary richness, variety, and quaintness of his vocabulary. Not only has he with characteristic masterfulness pressed into his service any and every word, English or foreign, current or obsolete, that suited his fancy or answered to the need of the moment, but he has not scrupled to coin the lacking epithet when wanted. Thus, the ape-prince is “ensorcelled;” a merchant who sells perfumes and drugs is “a perfumer-cum-druggist;” an aged man “long o’ beard,” is an “oldster;” two warriors “fall to derring-do of cut and thrust;” the Jinniyah of Bassora flies “firmamentwise;” Prince Ajib goes to sea with a fleet of “ten keel;” our old acquaintance the Hunchbacked Groom is a “Gobbo” and an “accursed carle;” one of the ladies of Baghdad wears a “mantilla;” Ja’afar the prudent minister of Harun al-Rashid, hesitates not to propose in good Scottish dialect that “each and every one of us gang his own gait;” and the porter refuses to “stump it” till he has heard the stories of the three “monoculars,” better known as the three one-eyed Kalendars, who were sons of kings. These are but a few examples taken hastily and at random; but they serve to show the curious mosaic-work of the style. “Ensorcelled,” englished from the French, is certainly ben trovato; “derring-do” is pure Spenserian; “keel” in the sense of ships, though surviving at Newcastle-on-Tyne as the name of a carrying boat, has scarcely been in literary use since the days of Verstagen and Surrey; “Gobbo” is Italian, and the porter’s refusal has a distinct Transatlantic flavour.

LINCOLN GAZETTE, December 18th, 1886.

Few people know anything of the trouble and the travelling which Sir Richard Burton has undertaken in the accomplishment of his tremendous task. He has ransacked all the libraries of the east and west, and has often undertaken a roving but idle quest in the hope of throwing clearer light on a single disputed passage. His profound acquaintance with Oriental languages and literature is shown at every turn, and, preserving the romantic colouring of the original in a poetic rhythm of expression, he has cast his finished version in a form which is singularly picturesque. While he has wisely discarded the affected purisms under which inferior scholars love to shelter their incompetency, he does not disfigure his pages with gratuitous accents, and he manfully indulges our fond reminiscences of old friends by calling the Caliph the Caliph. Nor is it any fault of his that we miss some of our favourites from his edition, such as Cogia Hassan of the matchless diamonds and Aladdin of the marvellous lamp; for we believe that they were spurious, though wonderfully attractive, and either sprung or took new shape in the fertile fancy of that accomplished and brilliant Frenchman, M. Galland. * * * Still another speciality in this most complete of all Translations is the versical portion, amounting to 10,000 lines. The Arab folk break into verse, “drop into poetry,” on every occasion. When overcome by their feelings they weep and recite verses, or they swoon first and on recovery pour forth couplets or poems of many lines. Sometimes they improvise, or they quote their own Moores, Tennysons, and Shelleys. The young Prince looks at the headsman who is ordered to slay him. “I wept,” he says, “with exceeding weeping until I made him weep with me, and looking at him I began to recite these couplets.” The sentimental stories are profusely sprinkled with verse; one of the charming peculiarities of this form of utterance is its inconsequence, the verses welling up from the depths of a despairing breast, often having little or no relation to the circumstances of the moment. Mr. Lane gives a prose paraphrase of a portion of the poems, but he omits verses right and left. We quote a brief specimen from Lane and the same from Burton, and the reader will judge between them.

(Lane.)

“We tread the steps appointed for us; and the man whose steps are appointed must tread them. He whose death is decreed to take place in one land will not die in any land but that.”

(Burton.)

“Bear my body, bear my soul wheresoever you may fare, And where you pitch the camp let my body buried lie. Cry my name above my grave, and an answer shall return. The meaning of my bones responsive to your cry.”

The Nights without verses are like the day without sunshine. They are a most important part of the work. They illustrate character and manners, and the allusions, often remote and strange, require explanation, which is supplied in the shape of informing foot-notes to the pages. As a characteristic example of super-sentimental exaggeration, take the hospitable welcome of a lady, long hidden under ground, whose solitude is suddenly broken by the arrival of a fair Prince.

“O youth, what sayest thou to wine?” and I answered, “Do as thou wilt.” Whereupon she went to a cupboard and took out a sealed flask of right old wine and set off the table with flowers and scented herbs and began to sing these lines:—

“Had we known of thy coming we fain had dispread The cores of our hearts on the balls of our eyes; Our cheeks as a carpet to greet thee had thrown, And our eyelids had strown for thy feet to betread.”

If Sir Richard Burton has taken incredible pains with his “cooing cadence” and his verses, and imparted to them their true eastern colour, his personages, his array of characters, his sultans, his wazirs, princes, merchants, soldiers, slaves, his princesses, concubines, houris, slave-girls, and old women, are simply alive and exhale the living East—they are real as any creatures in Lincoln—to use Mr. Swinburne’s simile in his Sonnet on this translation of the Arabian Nights.

WEEKLY DISPATCH, November 14th, 1887.

The curators of the Bodleian Library are determined to save morality from Sir Richard Burton, so they have refused to let him see a manuscript of The Arabian Nights, which he asked them to send to the India Office. Sir Richard has produced some queer tales in his translations of Eastern fables; but as he gave a distinct promise to the curators that nothing that transgressed propriety should be reproduced, their behaviour seems rather shabby. Lady Burton is publishing an expurgated edition of her husband’s work for “household reading”; but no doubt the Bodleian curators will forbid their daughters to look at it.

THE GAZETTE, Saturday, December 18th, 1886.

The most widely circulated translations of the Nights, the countless editions, many of them illustrated, give no idea whatever of the true East, and are mere burlesques of Galland’s French version. If only parents could distinguish between the genuine and the spurious, these unsatisfactory imitations would cease to be acceptable, and children in the nursery would be allowed to drink from the real fountain. It would be quite as easy, and far better for the juveniles, to follow the story of an Ensorcelled Prince, of a Magic Horse, or a Bottled Jinni, where the colour is all true, as it is to swallow make-believe attempts of Eastern imagery. But a better time is coming for children, and for children of a greater growth. To know the Arabian Nights in all their perfection, in all their gorgeous setting, in all their bewildered variety, and in all their truth, we must look to the latest translator. For the last fifty years it is Lane’s version that has held the field, and many people, not knowing there could be anything better, accepted him as final. But, like the Horseman of Brass on the Horse of Brass in the Sea of Peril, the time has come for dethronement, and Lane must yield to a scholar of wider research, to an Orientalist who, during one part of his career, lived as a veritable Moslem, and was indistinguishable from other Moslems. Lane’s idea was to give but a portion of the Nights, to please himself and his printer and publisher as to what should be selected, what omitted. If a story resembled another story, he rejected it on the score that it might prove wearisome. For instance, he leaves out “Nur al-Din and Miriam the Girdle Girl!”—despite its great historical interest as connected with Charlemagne and his daughter—because it bears a family likeness to “Ali Shar and Zamurrud;” and because he himself felt unsympathetic he altogether discards the lively story of “Masrur and Zayn al-Mawásif,” a tale full of poetical merits with lute scenes nowhere excelled, and with the most beautiful of all the many gardens in the Nights. He passes over the truly Rabelaisian tale of “Ali the Persian and his marvellous Carpet Bag;” he omits the chivalric story of “King Omar bin al-Nu’uman and his Sons”—like cutting “Ivanhoe” out of “Waverley” novels—and for fear of ruffling susceptibilities he suppresses “The Rogueries of Dalilah” and “Mercury Ali of Cairo,” most characteristic of stories, full of fun, frisk and frolic and devilry, opening up new ideas of Eastern human nature. These are but indications of Lane’s arbitrary method, and people have submitted because quite unconscious they have been defrauded, and that treasures have been withheld. At length, however, they have the entire and perfect chrysolite. Sir Richard Burton does not pick and choose.

Various novelties distinguish the Burton edition. To begin with, a strict account is kept of the separate nights, and the interest of the opening drama is sustained throughout. On each individual Night of the whole Thousand and One we learn exactly the amount and quality of incident related. The dramatic idea which binds the whole sheaf of stories together is kept artistically in view. It is a peculiarity of the stories that so many of them are told when the speaker is on the edge of doom—hardly the moment for collected oration—and the story saves the story-teller’s life. The mighty Ifrit who cuts off the hands and feet of his lady with four strokes, and then sends her head flying, because he thinks she has betrayed him, is diverted from instant vengeance on the suspected lover by the prospect of a story.

SCOTCH NEWS, Glasgow, December 23rd, 1886.

The first issue of Sir Richard Burton’s Arabian Nights, limited to one thousand copies, was quickly absorbed by scholars and linguists. It would have been a subject of regret had so remarkable a work remained comparatively unknown. * * * English versions of the Arabian Nights have hitherto chiefly represented them as charming fairy tales. It remained to Sir R. Burton to fully accentuate their wider meaning. In the translator’s words, their “pathos is sweet, deep and genuine, tender, simple and true.”

The morale is sound and healthy, and at times we descry vistas of a transcendental morality, the morality of Socrates in Plato.

MORNING ADVERTISER, December 25th, 1886.

Replete with poetry, and expressed in the graceful, fluent language of the Orientals, this rendering by a master scholar is a real boon, and may be taken as a typical specimen of the perfection to be obtained in translation by the power of an author’s research and enthusiasm.

THE LITERARY WORLD, January 7th, 1887.

THE REAL ARABIAN NIGHTS.

To many familiar from childhood with “The Arabian Nights Entertainments,” it has come as a shock to be told that the great work, in its true form, is nevertheless still to them a sealed book; yet it would seem that the appearance of Sir Richard Burton’s translation, but a few months ago, for the first time put within the reach of the English public anything like a faithful reproduction of the original. Even this can hardly be said to be given to the public. Only a thousand copies were published, and those at a price that would have been prohibitory to the majority, if the issue had been unlimited. Another obstacle to the general enjoyment of Sir Richard Burton’s translation was, undoubtedly, the too faithful rendering of certain passages, specimens of “an exaggerated mode of expressing thought” peculiar to Orientalists.

Numbers of English readers, to whom even the incomplete and bald versions hitherto common amongst us have afforded many a delightful hour, on hearing of the Burton edition have felt themselves almost mocked as they listened to its glowing praises, and were told at the same time that it was for ever beyond their reach. Some would, perhaps, rather have never heard of it, and have been left in happy ignorance of anything better than they already had.

Now, however, all such lovers of the famous Oriental tales have consolation offered them. Lady Burton, deeply sympathising with their disappointment, and anxious, too, that her husband’s great labour, “a deep well of reading and knowledge,” should not be wasted upon a few only, has come forward with an edition of her own which, while preserving the beauty and value of the larger work, will be more accessible to general readers, and, moreover, fitted for family use. The aim she has had in view in editing has been to make as few omissions as possible, consistent with the latter requirement, on which point Lady Burton observes: “I guarantee that no mother shall regret her girl’s reading this Arabian Nights.” We may say at once that, having carefully read a considerable portion of this first volume, we think her guarantee quite made good. Of the original 3,215 pages 215 only have been omitted. The translator’s “Foreword” tells how the work came to be taken up, its system, and the conditions under which it was carried out, and its relation to other translations. Here is Sir R. Button’s own account of

THE OBJECT OF THIS VERSION.

“Briefly, the object of this version is to show what ‘The Thousand Nights and a Night’ really is. Not, however, by straining verbum reddere verbo, but by writing as the Arab would have written in English. My work claims to be a faithful copy of the great Eastern Saga Book, by preserving intact not only the spirit, but even the mécanique, the manner of the matter. Hence, however prosy and long-drawn out be the formula, it retains the scheme of The Nights, because they are a prime feature in the original. Moreover, holding that the translator’s glory is to add something to his native tongue, while avoiding the hideous, hag-like nakedness of Torrens and the bald literalism of Lane, I have carefully englished the picturesque turns and novel expressions of the original in all their outlandishness; for instance, as when the dust-cloud raised by a tramping host is described as ‘walling the horizon.’”

Although occasionally, perhaps, the formulæ may be a little too “long-drawn out,” and some expressions too “outlandish” for the enjoyment of all, the reading is extremely easy and pleasant. There is in it a charming movement and rhythm altogether absent in the popular translations. Indeed, speaking of the translation as a whole, it is, as compared with Scott’s or Lane’s, especially the former, as a poem to a paraphrase. The very fulness of detail, far from wearying, so fills in the pictures before the mind that one is inclined to linger over them with delight. To justly compare the several translations one must place whole stories side by side. For this there is no space here; but perhaps the comparison of a few brief extracts with Lane’s well-known translation will serve to convey some idea of the greater beauty of Sir R. Burton’s. Dr. Scott’s version differs so widely from either, and is so extremely scanty, that verbal comparison with it is almost impossible. An idea of the scantiness may be formed from the fact that the matter comprised in the tenth night, according to Burton and Lane, extends in Scott from the thirty-first night to the thirty-sixth. The following passages are from the “Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad”:—

Lane.—“If of love we complain, what shall we say? Or consuming through desire, how can we escape? Or if he send a messenger to interpret for us, he cannot convey the lover’s complaint. Or if we would be patient, short were our existence after the loss of those we love. Naught remaineth to us but grief and mourning, and tears streaming down our cheeks. O you who are absent from my sight, but constantly dwelling within my heart, Have you kept your faith to an impassioned lover who while time endureth will never change? Or, in absence, have you forgotten that lover who, on your account is wasting away? When the Day of Judgment shall bring us together I will beg of our Lord a protracted trial.”

Burton.—“If we ’plain of absence what shall we say? Or if pain afflict us where wend our way? An I hire a truckman to tell my tale, The lover’s plaint is not told for pay: If I put on patience, a lover’s life after loss of love will not last a day: Naught is left me now but regret, repine; And tears flooding cheeks for ever and aye: O thou who the babes of these eyes hast fled, Thou art homed in heart that shall never stray; Would heaven I wot hast thou kept our pact, Long as streams shall flow, to have firmest say? Or hast forgotten the weeping slave Whom groans afflict and whom griefs waylay? Ah, when severance ends, and we side by side Rest, I’ll blame thy rigours and chide thy pride!”

Lane.—“Then, winking to the Khaleefeh, he said, ‘There remaineth but an hour; and to-morrow we will bring them before thee, and thou shalt ask them their story.’ But the Khaleefeh refused to do so, and said, ‘I have not patience to wait so long for their history.’—Words followed words, and at last they said, ‘Who shall put the question to them?’—and one answered, ‘The Porter.’”

Burton.—“Then he winked at the Caliph and whispered to him, ‘There is but one hour of darkness left and I can bring them before thee to-morrow, when thou canst freely question them all concerning their story.’ But the Caliph raised his head haughtily, and cried out at him in wrath, saying, ‘I have no patience left for my longing to hear of them; let the Kalendars question them forthright.’ Quoth Ja’afar, ‘This is not my counsel.’ Then words ran high and talk answered talk; and they disputed as to who should first put the question, but at last all fixed upon the Porter.”

Lane.—“How good is it to pardon one able to resist! and how much more so one who is helpless! For the sake of the friendship that subsisted between us, destroy not one for the crime of another!”

Burton.—“How fair is ruth the strong man deigns not smother! And fairest fair when shown to weakest brother: By love’s own holy tie between us twain, Let one not suffer for the sin of other.” Here are four other examples of the difference of language between the two translations:—

Lane.—“A damsel of tall stature, high-bosomed, fair and beautiful, and of elegant form, with a forehead like the bright new moon, eyes like those of gazelles, eyebrows like the new moon of Ramadân, cheeks resembling anemones, and a mouth like the seal of Suléyman, her countenance like the full moon in its splendour, and the forms of her bosom resembled two pomegranates of equal size.”

Burton.—“A lady of tall figure, some five feet high; a model of beauty and loveliness, brilliance, and symmetry, and perfect grace. Her forehead was flower-white; her cheeks like the anemone, ruddy bright; her eyes were those of the wild heifer or the gazelle, with eyebrows like the crescent moon, which ends Sha’aban and begins Ramuzán; her mouth was the ring of Sulayman; her lips coral-red; her teeth like a line of string pearls, or of camomile petals; and her throat recalled the antelope’s. In fine, she was like her of whom the poet said,” &c.

Lane.—“Was greatly surprised.”

Burton.—“Marvelled with exceeding wonder.”

Lane.—“Touched the chords with the ends of her fingers.”

Burton.—“Swept the strings with her finger-tips.”

Lane.—“We heard the sounds of drums and trumpets, warriors galloped about, and the air was filled with dust raised by the horses’ hoofs.”

Burton.—“We heard the tom-toming of the kettle-drum and the tantara of trumpets, and clash of cymbals; and the rattling of warmen’s lances; and the clamours of assailants, and the clanking of bits, and the neighing of steeds; while the world was canopied with dense dust and sand-clouds raised by the horses’ hoofs.”

As we said before, however, for a fair comparison we must refer our readers to the works themselves. Those who will take the pains to read Burton’s side by side with any of the received translations, will, we have no question, recognise its vast superiority in every way. On the question of fulness it is enough to say that if the remaining volumes are of the same size as the first, Burton’s contains more than half as much again as Lane’s.

We must not omit to mention the explanatory notes. “I can hardly imagine the Nights being read to any profit by men of the West without commentary,” says Sir Richard Burton. “My annotations avoid only one subject, the parallels of European folk-lore and fabliaux which, however interesting, would overswell the bulk of a book whose speciality is anthropology.” “The scholar who adds to mine the notes of Lane, will know as much of the Moslem East, and more than many Europeans who have spent half their lives in Orient lands. Such, at least, is my belief.” The notes are brief enough not to be passed over, and are conveniently placed at foot of the page.

Referring briefly to the matter of the Arabian Nights, we cannot do better than quote the words of Sir R. Burton again:—

“THE MATTER OF THE ‘NIGHTS.’

“The general tone is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism. The pathos is sweet, deep, and genuine; tender, simple, and true; utterly unlike much of our modern tinsel. Its life, strong, splendid, and multitudinous, is everywhere flavoured with that unaffected pessimism and constitutional melancholy which strike deepest root under the brightest skies and which sigh in the face of heaven:

“Vita quid est hominis? Viridis floriscula mortis; Sole oriente oriens, sole cadente cadens.”

“Poetical justice is administered by the literary Kazi with exemplary impartiality and severity, ‘denouncing evil-doers and eulogising deeds admirably achieved.’ The morale is sound and healthy, and at times we descry vistas of transcendental morality—the morality of Socrates in Plato. It is, indeed, this unique contrast of a quaint element, childish crudities, jostling the finest and highest views of life and character, shown in the kaleidoscopic shiftings of the marvellous picture with many a ’rich truth in a tale’s pretence’; pointed by a rough, dry humour which compares well with ‘wut’; the alternations of strength and weakness, of pathos and bathos, of the boldest poetry (the diction of Job) and the boldest prose (the Egyptian of to-day), and, finally, the whole dominated everywhere by that marvellous Oriental fancy, wherein the spiritual and the supernatural are as common as the material and the natural; it is the contrast, I say, which forms the chiefest charm of The Nights, which gives it the most striking originality, and which makes it a perfect expositor of the mediæval Moslem mind.”

At the present the first volume only of the work has reached us. We shall give our readers early notice of the appearance of the remaining five.

QUEEN, January 27th, 1887.

As regards the text, the poetical portions are exhibited in a metrical form, and all divisions and breaks are carefully indicated. The foot-notes are both numerous and important, and they should by no means be lightly passed ever, giving, as they do, much valuable information, explanatory and illustrative, which the “home student” will profit by. This great effort will be extensively appreciated, and not a few will read and learn more than otherwise they would or could have done respecting those wonderful tribes and nations, among whom still linger so much of the lore which instructs as well as fascinates, not only themselves, but the children of the West. We have read considerable portions of this volume, and compared them with a popular English edition, and, without hesitation, we say that the style of this is far better, and the arrangement very much to be preferred. The colloquial terms and homely phrases, we presume, truly reflect the original, as do some other unusual forms of expression. Meanwhile, we regard the book with much satisfaction, and hope it will receive a hearty welcome from the well-instructed and inquiring reader who seeks wisdom as well as recreation.

COUNTY GENTLEMAN, February, 1887.

Several of the stories now issued are in the form of apalogues or fables, in which the inferior animals are the chief actors and interlocutors. Amongst these we may mention, the tales of the Water Fowl and the Tortoise, the Wolf and the Fox, the Mouse and the Ichneumon, the Cat and the Crow, the Hedgehog and the Wood Pigeons, and the Sparrow and the Peacock. There is, of course, here a suggestion or a reminiscence of Æsop, but the Arabian fabulists take a line of their own. There are striking differences between the two authors or sets of authors, both in the narrative form and in the ethical quality of the moral conveyed. And this difference may, we think, on examination, be traced to national idiosyncrasy and modes of thought. The fables of the Arabian Nights have less point and conciseness, and less of harmonious subservience of details to unity of effect and impression than those of great Ethiopian. On the other hand, they have greater perfection of literary form, far more splendid imagery, and in some instances more psychological subtlety in the somewhat long-drawn disquisitive, and, indeed, disputatious dialogues in which the chief characters indulge. For our own part, we have found this introduction of the lower animal element an interesting temporary departure from the comprehensive and elaborate, and, sooth to say, somewhat monotonous representations of men and their affairs which form the staple of these gorgeous productions of an ancient Oriental loom. In the story of the Wolf and the Fox we have an example of the justification of the lex talionis, which mingles somewhat curiously with the general exhortations to mercy and forgiveness, founded on the maxims of the Sacred Books. In our notice of the first volume we made some inadequate attempt to express our admiration of the virile beauty and force of Sir Richard Burton’s translation. Only captious critics will consider that he has strained a point in his use of obsolete words and phrases, or in his happy invention of new collocations. As these are invariably conceived and expressed in the spirit of the original Arabic, they present to our mind the aspect of beauties rather than blemishes, and indisputably add to the Oriental flavour of this fine translation. The notes are in themselves a liberal education in respect of Persian and Arabian manners and customs, old and new.

BAT, February 8th, 1887.

The most marvellous collection of stories in the world is for the first time placed before the English readers. Positively for the first time. Those who know the Arabian Nights, through the charming, but ludicrously unoriental, paraphrase of Galland, or through the solid, and perhaps slightly stolid, rendering of Lane, cannot be said to know the Arabian Nights at all. It would be indeed a thousand pities if such a book as Sir Richard has made were to be entirely tabooed to the world at large and to women. The matchless wealth of fancy of the Arabian Nights, the amazing wealth of knowledge which Sir Richard Burton has accumulated about it, the glowing virile prose in which these Eastern tales have been imbued with a new vitality, all these should be the possession, not of a poor thousand students and scholars, but of all the myriad readers of books who speak the English speech * * * Now, for the first time, all that enchanted Eastern world is open to everyone. Jean Paul Richter, most delightful of German writers, has dwelt, in his great essay on education, on the importance of Oriental fiction in the education of the young. It is easy to imagine the delight with which he would have welcomed the masterpieces of Oriental fancy which have now, for the first time, been placed within the reach of all who care to read.

The reader passes at once into the most exquisite world of fancy, where enchanted princesses, caliphs and mock caliphs, wizards, ghouls, jinns, barmecides, kalandars, sultans, slaves, mullahs, and dancing-girls jostle one another in a mad merry world of their own, by the yellow Nile or the yellow Tigris. All the life of the East—vivid, passionate, fantastic, poetic—lives in these entrancing pages, and the reader who knows them, and knows them well, knows more about oriental life and oriental thought than many who have passed half their lives in Cairo or Bagdad.

MORNING POST, February 14th, 1886.

In the volume under notice are comprised the tales from the 78th to the 275th night inclusive. They are remarkable for their originality and poetic sentiment, and the spirit of chivalry which animates the heroes. The tales of birds and beasts are fables containing a wholesome moral.

MORNING ADVERTISER, February 26th, 1887.

The poetic imagery of the Arabic masterpiece is presented in all its naive and native charm, almost as far as such a thing is possible, when we remember the immense gulf which sunders the ideas and tongues of the Orients from our own mental methods and modes of speech. The use of rhymed prose by the translator is most judicious, and enhances the impression produced by the Arabic simile and metaphor, as in the following, where Sulayman Shah prepares to send forth his Wazir to sue for the hand of the daughter of Zahr Shah:—“Then he hied to his own house and bade make ready presents befitting Kings, of precious stones and things of price, and other matters light of load but weighty of worth, besides Arab steeds and coats of mail, such as David made, and chests of treasure for which speech hath no measure.” Again we find the same use of rhyme in the Wazir’s mention to the celibate King of the charms of the Princess:—“Know, O King, it hath come to my knowledge that King Zahr Shah, Lord of the White Land, hath a daughter of surpassing loveliness, whose charms talk and tale fail to express. She hath not her equal in this age, for she is perfect in proportion and symmetry, blackeyed as if kohl-dyed and long-locked, wee of waist and full of form.” The couplets in which many of the characters after composing their minds unbind their tongues puts the resources of the Queen’s English to some strain. Here is a specimen of how the emissary of Sulayman Shah “displayed the oratory of Wazirs and saluted the King in the language of eloquence.” When it is remembered, however, that the Arabic verse is improvised, we can afford to be charitable to the not unsuccessful effort of the translator, who has no small difficulties to cope with. It runs as follows:—

He cometh robed and bending gracefully: O’er face and figure dews of grace sheds he: He charms: nor characts, spells, nor grammarye May fend the glances of those eyne from thee. O heart! th’ art not the sole that loveth him, So live with him while I desertion dree. There’s naught to joy mine eyes with joyous sound Save praise of King Zahr Shah in jubilee: A King! albeit thou leave thy life to win One look, that look were all sufficiency;

And if a pious prayer thou breathe for him, Shall join all faithful in such pious gree: Folk of his realm! If any shirk his right for other hoping, gross unfaith I see.

Still, though the English is a little quaint, and every period in the history of the language is laid under contribution to supply material of verbiage, this very circumstance heightens the effect upon the mind of the reader of the strange scenery, the bizarre situation, and the eccentricity—according to our notions—of the characters? * * * Men who as children have revelled in this narrative of wonders, and then accepted them with implicit and ingenuous trust, will return to it again to find light shed on the customs and manners of the East. The very instructive notes elucidate the text, and so the reader may, as he peruses, not only discover delight for his fancy, but gain information about the social life of lands which, though the Western world has varied and altered over and over again, have for ages remained in their main social features unchanged so much so as to lead many observers to regard them as unchangeable. Down at the bottom of all we read, however, the great truth that human nature is much the same all the world over, and in all ages, in its joys and griefs, its gratifications and its heartburnings.

ARMY AND NAVY GAZETTE, February 26th, 1887.

Sir Richard Burton was a bold man when he wrote, and the Kamashastra Society of Benares was a bold society when it printed his great translation of the Arabian Nights. Yet the boldness of both has been amply justified, for never before was the golden prime of the Caliphs of Baghdad, with all its Oriental colour, brought so vividly before the reading public. Nor could any demur be made justly to the book, as the issue of a private press, because of the indelicacy, not to say pruriency, that characterised it, since it is plainly inconsistent to judge the morals of one age by the standard of another, and this translation of “The Thousand Nights and a Night” was intended not only to make accessible the great work of Arabian fiction, but also to illustrate the social conditions of those for whom it was composed. It must be remembered, moreover, that in these days refinement has progressed so rapidly that the books even which delighted our grandmothers have become too indelicate for the family circle; and, if we go on in the same direction, it is certain that ere long Swinburne will be Bowdlerised, and fifty years hence who can say that the Laureate himself will escape? There could have been no more fitting translator for the Arabian Nights than Sir Richard Burton, who is as much at home in Eastern bazaars as the very disciples of the Prophet, who has himself made the pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and to Meccah, and who, as the result of a vast experience of all phases of Oriental life, has been able to enter into the very spirit of the wondrous Arab tales. In comparing his work with that of his best predecessors, in the translation, Mr. John Payne and Mr. E. W. Lane, becomes speedily apparent that the former was weak as a linguist, while the latter driven thereto by the necessity of making a book for the family circle, used his pruning-knife much too freely, and cut out some of the very best pieces—notably, the major part of the excellent story, which is of great length, of King Omar bin al-Nu’uman and his Sons, whereof he has preserved but two small episodes. Another great advantage which Sir Richard Burton possesses over other translators is his exquisite sense of the delicate beauty of Arabic poetry, which has enabled him to preserve in his graceful rendering of the many verses scattered through the stories, much of the character of Oriental assonance and rhythm. We take an example, almost at random, from the first volume:—

“Shall the beautiful hue of the Basil fail, Tho’ the beetle’s foot over the Basil crawl? And though spider and fly be its denizens, Shall disgrace attach to the royal hall? The cowrie, I ken, shall have currency, But the pearl’s clear drop,—shall its value fall?”

FUN, March 2nd, 1887.

We readily repeat our expression of the high estimation in which we hold the superiority of this translation over all others. Many stories are included which have hitherto been left untold.

BOOKSELLER, March 4th, 1887.

The progress of this charming work continues apace, in the appearance of a further volume going down to the “Five Hundred and Fifty-Seventh Night” of Shahrazad’s world-famous tales. Within the limits of the new instalment will be found several old favourites, such as Harun Al-Rashid and the Slave Girl, The Ebony (Flying) Horse, and The Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor. Sir Richard Burton’s notes which liberally accompany the text, are by no means the least entertaining portion of the book, leading, as they do, to many suggestive comparisons with Scriptural and mythological analogies, and to points of etymology as curious as they are instructive. The story of the “Death-Angel and the Rich King,” by the way, is so closely akin to the Parables of the Rich Fool and the Unjust Steward of the Gospels, that it is difficult to believe that they did not serve as the original of the Arabian counterpart.

ALLEN’S INDIAN MAIL, March 7th, 1887.

On reading the first volume again and again the reflection occurred, how little—how very little—the general public know, as to the tales of which the name is familiar in every circle of society. Still more does this fact force itself into notice in the second volume. Not a story do we meet which bears a name linked with the memoirs of youth or the recollections of early age. What is the explanation? Are all the tales, which for generation after generation, have played their part in the nursery, merely idle dreams of a fanciful edition of the Thousand and One Nights or are the well-known stories reserved for the last? We cannot say: but we avow with some trepidation, that we have not hitherto met with a single friendly face amongst the two hundred and fifty divisions as yet presented to the public.

If, however, we have expected against expectation for some landmark to show us the road whereon we are travelling, it must notwithstanding, be avowed that in the present continuation of the tales there is much to interest, and perhaps more to instruct. Apart from this, there is such vast array of wisdom contained in this storehouse of experience and knowledge that the world should be wise, and, therefore, happier in learning what dangers to avoid, what virtues to cultivate, what vices to eradicate. Then, too, as regards the notes by Sir Richard Burton. It would be impossible to exaggerate their worth, their depth, or the insight that they afford into the inner life of the Arabian natives, a life of which so little is known, though so much is talked—a life which has much to recommend it—albeit Exeter Hall is loud in its dispraise, and the advocates of women’s rights are passionate in denunciation thereof. Like all other nations the people of the East have their faults, but who are they which presume to cast the first stone?

LUNES, January 3rd, 1887.

Few people know anything of the trouble and the travelling which Sir Richard Burton has undertaken in the accomplishment of his tremendous task. He has ransacked all the libraries of the East and West, and has often undertaken a roving but idle quest in the hope of throwing clearer light on a single disputed passage. His profound acquaintance with Oriental languages and literature is shown at every turn, and, preserving the romantic colouring of the original in a poetic rhythm of expression, he has cast his finished version in a form which is singularly picturesque.

ALLEN’S INDIAN MAIL, January 17th, 1887.

The reason is not far to seek, since there never has been a really good translation of this most untranslateable of Oriental works. From such a sweeping assertion must be excluded the happy and successful effort of Mr. John Payne; but this latter work was printed for the Villon Society, and the issue being restricted to five hundred copies, while the author bound himself “not to reproduce the work in its complete form,” the version is and must ever be “caviare to the general.” Such being the case Sir Richard Burton bethought himself that he would employ his leisure hours in presenting to the public a trustworthy and withal picturesque translation of the Thousand and One Nights: and who more fitted for such task? * * * * We have no hesitation in pronouncing the present version of the Arabian Nights to be incontestably the best extant. Perfection is not given to mortals, but the tales now appear in as satisfactory a garb as is possible; and henceforth there will be no excuse should the English public fail to become familiar with a work which all should read—the time-honoured Thousand and One Nights.

LIVERPOOL MERCURY, March 26th, 1887.

We have read with mingled admiration and delight every line of Sir Richard Burton’s wonderful rendering of the world-famous but never till now adequately translated Thousand Nights and a Night. * * * * At the same time, in any literal reproduction of the ancient folk-stories of a race having different customs and modes of thought to our own there must necessarily be passages which are unsuited to modern English tastes. * * * The first writer who undertook to introduce the Nights to Europe was M. Galland, a Frenchman who made Arabic his study, and travelled not a little in the Eastern countries which border on the Mediterranean close upon two centuries ago. What he did, however, was not to translate the entire work, or even one-half of it, but to paraphrase certain selections from it, to add other stories of Eastern origin thereto, and to dress up the whole in a composite literary style which reflected the French tastes of the time far more accurately than those of the Arab tribes from whose romantic folk-lore he drew his inspiration. Other labourers in the same field—and there have been many—have but too faithfully followed upon the lines laid down by M. Galland. Until quite lately the best European paraphrase of the Nights was that of the late distinguished Orientalist, Lane; but even he took an abbreviated edition of the original as his standard, and, while omitting at least one-third of the stories which it contained, failed altogether to reproduce the distinctive characteristics of the remainder.

This being so, Captain Sir Richard Burton, in the interests of Oriental scholarship—which he rightly judges to be nowhere more important than among a people who have so vast an Eastern empire to govern and safeguard as we have—has for years past been engaged upon a literal translation of the Nights which should be worthy at once of the original sources from which it was taken and of his own hard-earned reputation. At the very time that he was putting the finishing touches to his work and preparing for publication, however, he learnt by accident that Mr. John Payne had undertaken for the Villon Society a precisely similar task. Upon that Sir Richard, with characteristic chivalry, stood aside, and allowed Mr. Payne to have the advantage of prior publication; we mean, of course, such publication as he himself contemplated and the Villon Society contents itself with—the issue, that is, of a strictly limited number of copies supplied to subscribers only. Of his rival’s translation Sir Richard Burton, with the enthusiasm of a true scholar, says, “It is most readable; his (Mr. Payne’s) English, with a sub-flavour of Mabinogionic archaism, is admirable, and his style gives life and light to the nine volumes whose matter is frequently heavy enough; he succeeds admirably in the most difficult passages, and he often hits upon choice and special terms and the exact vernacular equivalent of the foreign word, so happily and so picturesquely that all future translators must perforce use the same expression under pain of falling far short.” Nevertheless, though coming four or five years afterwards, Sir Richard’s own edition fairly takes the field, and is likely, we should say, to hold it permanently against all future comers. The notes alone carry it to a point of perfection hitherto unattained. It is the work of a man better qualified for the task than any other living being. On the one hand, we know of no one who is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit and soaked in the traditions of Arab life as the traveller who, disguised as an Arab, succeeded in making the pilgrimage to Mecca without detection; on the other, we know of no translator who has at his command such an amazing vocabulary of English words wherewith to reflect every shade of meaning, every turn of phrase, every subtile touch of literary colour in the language from which he translates. As illustrating his mastery of the secrets both of Arab life and of picturesque English, take the following passage from his “Foreword.” He is speaking of the solace and satisfaction which he derived from working upon his translation of the Nights during his long years of official banishment to the luxuriant and deadly deserts of Western Africa, and to the dull and dreary half-clearings of South America.

“From my commonplace and ‘respectable’ surroundings (he says) the Jinn bore me at once to the land of my predilection, Arabia—a region so familiar to my mind that even at first sight it seemed a reminiscence of some bygone metemphysic life in the distant past. Again I stood under the diaphanous skies in air glorious as ether, whose every breath raises men’s spirits like sparkling wine. Once more I saw the evening star hanging like a solitaire from the pure front of the western firmament; and the after-glow transfiguring and transforming, as if by magic, the homely and rugged features of the scene into a fairy-land, lit with a light which never shines on other soils or seas. Then would appear the woollen tents, low and black, of the true Bedawin, mere dots in the boundless waste of lion-tawny clays and gazelle-brown gravels, and the camp fire dotting like a glowworm the village centre. Presently, sweetened by distance, would be heard the wild weird song of lads and lasses, driving, or rather pelting, through the gloaming their sheep and goats; and the measured chant of the spearmen gravely stalking behind their charge, the camels; mingled with the bleating of the flocks and the bellowing of the humpy herds; while the reremouse flitted overhead with his tiny shriek, and the rave of the jackal resounded through deepening glooms, and—most musical of music—the palm-trees answered the whispers of the night-breeze with the softest tones of falling water. And then a shift of scene. The Shaykhs and ‘White-beards’ of the tribe gravely take their places, sitting with outspread skirts like hillocks on the plain, as the Arabs say, around the camp-fire, whilst I reward their hospitality and secure its continuance by reading or reciting a few pages of their favourite tales. The women and children stand motionless as silhouettes outside the ring, and all are breathless with attention; they seem to drink in the words with eyes and mouths as well as with ears. The most fantastic lights of fancy, the wildest improbabilities, the most impossible of impossibilities, appear to them utterly natural—mere matters of every-day occurrence. They enter thoroughly into each phase of feeling touched upon by the author; they take a personal pride in the chivalrous nature and knightly prowess of Taj al-Mulúk; they are touched with tenderness by the self-sacrificing love of Azizah; their mouths water as they hear of heaps of untold gold given away in largesse like clay; they chuckle with delight every time a Kázir or a Fakír—a judge or a reverend—is scurvily entreated by some Pantagruelist of the Wilderness; and, despite their normal solemnity and impassibility, all roar with laughter, sometimes rolling upon the ground till the reader’s gravity is sorely tried, at the tales of the garrulous Barber and of Ali and the Kurdish sharper.”

Clearly an Englishman who can thus hold an Arab encampment spell-bound by reciting to them their own folk-stories in their own tongue has at least one indisputable qualification for translating the famous collection of these stories embodied in the “Alf Laylah wa Laylah”—the “Thousand Nights and a Night.”

But this is not all. Sir Richard Burton has a literary conscience which craves to be satisfied, and an imitative faculty, supported by exhaustless wealth and ingenuity of expression, capable of satisfying it. Not content with giving us a faithful transcript both of the matter and of the informing spirit of the great Arabian Saga-book, he is careful to reproduce for us even its mechanism and its music—its peculiarities of structure, the balance of its sentences, the rhyme, the rhythm, the assonances, the cadences, the melody, the lilt, the very jingle of its language. How necessary all this is to the preservation of what may be termed the literary flavour of the original may be gathered from the first few lines upon which we light on turning to a page at random. A king sending gifts and a missive to another king by his wazir commands that functionary “to shorten his skirts and strain his strength and make all expedition in going and returning. ‘Hearkening and obedience!’ quoth the minister, who fell to making ready without stay, and packed up his loads and prepared all his requisites without delay. This occupied him three days, and on the dawn of the fourth he took leave of his king and marched right away, over desert and hill-way, stony waste and pleasant lea, without halting by night or day,” and so on—in which passage, as one sees, the recurrence of the same consonantal sounds, and of rhyming and nearly rhyming words at irregular distances gives a distinctive character to the style of the narrative. Many other passages might be quoted in illustration of similar tricks and subtleties of literary skill, which impart an additional charm to the book, if for no other reason, because they are racy of the soil from which it sprang, and give an air of greater vraisemblance to the translation. But the space at our disposal is well-nigh exhausted, and we are desirous of giving just one quotation from Sir Richard Burton’s “Foreword” as to the matter of the Nights.

“The general tone” (he writes) “is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional feeling often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism. The pathos is sweet, deep and genuine: tender, simple, and true; utterly unlike much of our modern tinsel. Its life, strong, splendid, and multitudinous, is everywhere flavoured with that unaffected pessimism and constitutional melancholy which strike deepest root under the brightest skies, and which sigh in the face of heaven. Poetical justice is administered by the literary Kázi with exemplary impartiality and severity, ‘denouncing evil-doers and eulogising deeds admirably achieved.’ The morale is sound and healthy, and at times we descry vistas of a transcendental morality, the morality of Socrates or Plato. It is, indeed, this unique contrast of a quaint element childish crudities, jostling the finest and highest views of life and character, shown in the kaleidoscopic shiftings of the marvellous picture with many a ‘rich truth in a tale’s pretence,’ pointed by a rough, dry humour which compares well with ‘wut;’ the alternatives of strength and weakness; of pathos and bathos; of boldest poetry (the diction of Job) and the baldest prose (the Egyptian of to-day); and, finally, the whole dominated everywhere by that marvellous Oriental fancy wherein the spiritual and the supernatural are as common as the material and the natural; it is this contrast, I say, which forms the chiefest charm of the Nights, which gives it the most striking originality, and which makes it a perfect expositor of the mediæval Moslem mind.”

THE ACADEMY, March 12th, 1887.

The second volume contains inter alia, the delightful story of Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess Badr ool Budoor, which loses none of its old charm as “The Tale of Kamar al-Zaman,” and gains incalculably by being translated into Sir Richard Burton’s rich, quaint, and picturesque English. The third volume brings another, and a still more familiar favourite, in the story of “Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman,” told with a force and vivacity which make it all seem as true as it seemed in the days of our credulous childhood. In both volumes we find a large number of minor tales which are not included in Lane’s edition; as, for instance, the stories of four chiefs of police, and a whole series of charming fables about beasts, and “other small game.” The long chivalric history of “King Omar bin al-Nu’uman and his sons, Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan” (also one of those omitted by Lane), is a distinct gain in a collection so complete and extensive as the present. As regards Sir Richard Burton’s dramatis personæ, treatment and style, we need only say that his foul fiends and ancient duennas are more variously hideous, his couplets more steeped in Oriental passion, his descriptive passages more elaborately rhythmic than ever; while the foot-notes are so interesting and full of information that one only regrets that they are so sparingly inserted.

MANCHESTER EXAMINER, March 16th, 1887.

Whatever differences of opinion there may be concerning the translator’s taste or judgment, all will agree that the work in its complete form is emphatically a student’s book—that in the mind of the general reading public it is an impossibility to reproduce the naïf simplicity with which the story-tellers of an earlier age and a warmer clime treated those incidents which a contemporary essayist has happily termed “the enclosed facts of life.” Concerning the original, it is not necessary to speak at length. The Arabian Nights is one of the great books of the world, and as a revelation of the outer and inner life of the Orient is quite unique, but it is only during quite recent years that the general reader has had any opportunity of knowing the full extent of its riches. True, English translations have been common enough for the last century, but they have been, for the most part taken, not immediately from the Arabic, but immediately through a French reproduction, often so garbled in substance, and in form as to convey nothing like a voracious impression of the original. Of late, however, serious study of Arabic has become more common among English scholars, and we have at least three translations—those of Mr. John Payne, of Mr. Lane, and of Sir Richard Burton—not one of which can be charged with doing injustice to the great classic. As a mere translations each will have its supporters, and it would be absurd for a critic who is unacquainted with Arabic to say that this or that is the best; but it may be urged on behalf of Sir Richard Burton that he is more than a mere translator, that he is an accomplished Orientalist, and that the best years of his life have been spent among the very scenes with which the ancient romancers deal. Then, too, his personal idiosyncrasy is such that he can enter easily, naturally, and without any strain into the life of which the stories are a crowded panorama, can breathe the spirit of the times and manners, and reproduce it in such wise that we can breathe it too. It is no exaggeration to say that he possesses unique qualifications for the task he has so laboriously and adequately performed.

COUNTY GENTLEMAN, March 19th, 1887.

Volume III. consists of no less than 83 tales, which bring down the marvellous sequence of stories invented in self-defence by “the liberator of her sex” to the 557th night. Of these tales, while many of the less familiar are full of beauty and suggestiveness, the last, relating the wonderful adventures of Sindbad the Seaman will be welcomed as an old and much-esteemed friend. The old friend, too, though he does not come to us with exactly a new face, offers to our charmed recognition a face much brightened and beautified, and decked with the goodly raiment of Sir Richard Burton’s inimitable translation. Many of the tales are very short, but some of the shortest are really the most delightful. Take, for example, the one recording the generous dealing of Yahya, son of Khalid, with a convicted forger, and the one referring to the Caliph Al-Maamun and the Strange Scholar. The directness and forceful simplicity of these brief narratives, which would merit a high place in any collection of succinct apologues of the virtues, as well as the almost Christianity of their teaching, cannot fail to impress any discerning reader. The note on page 58 to the first of these tales is one of similar commentaries throwing light upon Eastern customs and institutions. At the same time it marks the continuity of Oriental political ideas.

ARMY AND NAVY GAZETTE, March 27th, 1887.

This volume, bringing us down to the 557th night, and to the fifth voyage of Sindbad the Seaman, includes a large number of stories quite new to the reader, some of them brimful of humour, and others most interesting from many points of view, from which it would be easy to quote endless readable items. Harun al-Rashid, Al-Maamun, Isaac of Mosul, and Ja’afar the Barmecide figure here very often; but more amusement is to be derived from the doings of lesser people, as, for example, the sharp-witted vagabonds who generally escape the chastisement they deserve by some ingenious trick, such as the Oriental mind delights in. The story of Al-Maamun and the Pyramids of Egypt (omitted by Lane) illustrates the mediæval Arabic view of those monuments—viz., that they were rich treasure-houses, which it was desirable to plunder if possible; and there are other tales dealing with crusading times, and with the relations of Christians and Moslems. One great charm of these stories is their endless variety, which prevents them from ever becoming monotonous, and Sir Richard Burton’s English has a quaint and sometimes quite archaic cast which accords well with his subject. As we said, in speaking of the earlier volumes, this is by far the best translation of the Nights for general reading, and we are sure, in its present handsome form, it will find a place on most library shelves.

LIVERPOOL MERCURY, March 31st, 1887.

Then Sir Richard goes on to tell us all about the origin of the Nights, their birth-place, and their probable date; the means by which, and the strangely incomplete and inaccurate forms in which they found their way into Europe; the matter and the manner of the Nights, the social condition of Al-Islam which they disclose, and the peculiarities of the prose-rhyme and poetry in which they are written. The work—translation and commentary alike—is done throughout with the thoroughness which characterises everything Sir Richard Burton takes in hand; and, in the result, we have such a conspectus of Arab life, Arab thought, and Arab literature as could only have proceeded from the mind of one who years ago was so soaked in Arabian customs and traditions as to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, in the character of a good Moslem, without detection. A complete index to the tales and proper names, and a bibliography of all the principal editions of the Nights, fittingly round off a work which, as it can never be superseded, must inevitably take its place among the few achievements of human effort from which Time reverently withholds his destroying hand.

CHRISTIAN UNION, April, 1887.

Those who are at all conversant with the old productions of this work will readily discover the distinctive difference and characteristic features of Sir Richard F. Burton’s translation, that it excels in originality, style, and graphicness all other editions of the Arabian Nights. No one who has read the work will hesitate to accept. Regard it in whatever aspect we will, it is unique in its production, and will henceforth take the precedence of all other translations.

MORNING ADVERTISER, April 8th, 1887.

As pointed out in previous notices of this admirable work, it possesses many charms which have hitherto been lost to European readers by the manner in which the tales have been presented to them in the current versions of the narratives. Although these stories, among many other collections, have been in circulation for ages through the East, they have not yet been known in Europe for two hundred years. They were first introduced into Christendom, indeed, by means of the translation of Antoine Galland, a distinguished French Orientalist. They were, as a matter of course, everywhere hailed with delight, although, with perhaps rare exceptions, until the appearance of Lane’s edition, the many translations of the tales into European languages, merely gave the narratives themselves. The numerous and ample notes and philological comparisons, which are profusely scattered through it, and which serve to convey the exact meaning of important words in the text, are not only most interesting in themselves, but are often of indispensable necessity to the grasping of the point of the story. Several examples of this will again be found in the present volume. In some places the translator is completely at variance with Lane, who appears, in the instances cited, to have missed the point of the story, from a misapprehension of the true signification of an important word. A remarkable example of the extent to which the force of the narrative is seen to depend on the skill of the translator, occurs in the story of “the Illiterate, who sit up as a teacher,” in which it is remarked in a foot-note, that Lane appears to have mistaken for a girdle, a word which simply means the usual brazier for the charcoal which serves for a fire, and so to have missed the whole point of the tale. In this volume will also be seen several fine examples of the rhymed prose, which form one of the great beauties of the work. The translations of the many pieces of Eastern poetry which adorn the tales, are most elegant and felicitous. They are also most unique in their character. In many instances obsolete words have been introduced with wonderfully pleasing effect, and in other Saxon words and Saxon locutions in close relation with modern German, from their immediate connexion with the text, the notes are full of learning—geographical, philological, and antiquarian—which contains an immense body of useful knowledge on the matters to which they relate.

DAILY NEWS, April 28th, 1887.

The present volume contains not many of our old friends, like “Aladdin” and the “Forty Thieves,” but is rich in those Oriental stories of beasts, which often much resemble the romances of “Uncle Remus.” The tale of the Animals and the Son of Adam, if one remembers correctly, does come, with a difference, in “Uncle Remus.” As an example of the value and interest of the notes, may be cited the remarks on the “lucky signs,” which add to the value of horses. Mohammed disliked horses with white stockings on alternate hoofs. The tale of the Wolf and the Fox is again in Uncle Remus’s style. It is a very difficult thing to account for the migration of these stories. Even the bushmen have a version of vestigia nulla retrorsum, and Professor Hartt was told similar fables by the Indians of the Amazon. Huet, Bishop of Avranches, knew that such stories were current among the Hurons and Iroquois, whose hero, if not exactly Brer Rabbit, is usually Brer Hare. The Sawahílis, also, make an animal very like a rabbit take the best parts. Occasionally, the translation itself needs notes for some readers, who may ask what the Fox means when he sings of the Wolf that “garred me drain eisel and fell.” It will interest some mythologists to know that dawn, in Persian, is called by a name meaning “Wolf’s tail.” Prince Kamar al-Zaman is in this volume in all his glory, compared to which, that of Solomon was mere tinsel. Probably only Orientalists can properly estimate the labour and erudition of these Arabian Nights. The notes on the Diamond Valley, and the Roc, and other pleasant marvels are very instructive. The following note is curious. We say melanchólia, with the accent on the o: the Arabs say Malikhulíya, with the accent on the penultimate, and probably, or rather certainly, the Greeks from who we both borrowed the word did the same, as the Greek accent indicates. But how they read their own poetry, on this system, who can explain or understand?

SPECTATOR, April 2, 1887.

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

Sir Richard Burton has certainly conferred a great boon on the reading public, great and small, by this edition of The Arabian Nights. The Arabian Nights has hitherto been known to us chiefly as Aristotle is said to have been known to the Schoolmen, in a translation of a translation. The work of Galland, a Frenchman who was, according to Lane and Burton, not over well-skilled in Arabic, and who knew little of Arabic manners and customs, has hitherto, in various translations and adaptations, been the source of popular knowledge of The Arabian Nights. Lane’s own translation was a little too much like Sir Richard Burton’s magnum opus, in being too close to the original for modern manners or drawing room use. And, to tell the truth, it is also a trifle bald and dull. Moreover, it is disfigured to the ordinary eye, much like Grote’s Greece, by uncouth renderings of more or less familiar names. It is terrible, for instance, to see Aziz and Azizah rendered by Azeez and Azeezah, to find Sindbad converted into es-Sindhibad, and our old friend the Vizier turned into a Weezer; and to be encountered on every page by some terrible Arabic word for the meaning of which you have to refer to notes, those torments of the interested reader. Sir Richard Burton indeed, does not wholly spare our old friends. But Wazir for Vizier is better than Weezer; and while Lane converts Noureddin and the fair Persian into Noor ed-Deen and Enees-al-Jalees, Sir Richard Burton only goes so far as Nur al-Din and Anis al-Jalis. The most striking novelty in this translation is the preservation of the rhymed prose, a jingle of assonance running through the more lively passages, particularly where love or fighting are concerned. Thus, in the Second Kalendar’s tale, we have,—“Her figure measured five feet in height: her form was firm and upright: her cheek a very garden of delight: her colour lively bright: her face gleamed like dawn through curly tresses which gloomed like night;” and when Sharrkan, the Moslem cavalier fights the Franks, “they fell to fighting and to wheeling left and right, and necks were stretched out to see the sight, nor did they stint from strife and sword-play, and lunge of lance with main and might, till the day turned to night and darkness overwhelmed the light.” Taken in connection with the context, the effect, though strange and bizarre, is not unpleasing, and gives a sense of something outlandish which accords well with the subject. Another novelty is the translation into verse of the verses copiously scattered about the stories, which have hitherto been omitted or turned into prose. It must be admitted that these verses are rather boring. They are mostly of the ultra-sentimental and “high falutin’” order, with exaggerated sentiment and metaphors. Here is a sample:—

“Had we known of thy coming, we fain had dispread ✿ the cores of our hearts or the balls of our eyes: Our cheeks as a carpet to greet thee had thrown, ✿ and our eyelids had strown for thy feet to betread.”

Some of them, however, are pretty enough in feeling and expression. But the translator has invented a barbarous expedient for plaguing the reader, and preventing his taking them quickly, by placing an asterisk in the middle of each line to represent the couplets of the original. As he does not really retain the metres of the original, there is no valid excuse for thus disfiguring the page and trying the reader’s temper, and we sincerely hope that, if not for later volumes, at all events for later editions, he will abandon this excruciating invention.

With this exception, there is no doubt that this is the most readable as well as the most complete, or probably because it is the most complete, version of The Arabian Nights yet produced. In this first volume we have our old friends the Porter and the three Ladies of Baghdad, with the three Kalendars, the Hunchback, and the silent Barber. But one of the most striking of the stories has not appeared in any former edition,—the tale, namely, of King Omar bin al-Nu’uman and his sons. This is a Moslem chivalrous romance, with all the characteristics of a mediæval romance founded on the Crusades; but, of course, the facts are reversed. Instead of a Christian knight falling in love with a Moslem maiden, and slaughtering her kith and kin by thousands and defeating their treacherous attempts at murder by violence and stealth, by ambuscade and poison, the hero is a Moslem prince and knight, and the heroine is a Christian maiden, and the villains and villainesses are all Christians, and it is the Christians who are slaughtered in their thousands by his single arm. As in the Christian romances, too, the plot wanders off from episode to episode, and, it must be admitted, becomes insufferably tedious, for before the end the grandchildren of the original hero are become the principal personages of the tale. But the leading incident and the opening episode of Sharrkan and Abrizah are worthy to rank with the tales of Sigurd and Brynhild. In fact, it may be questioned whether there is any personage in mediæval romance who outshines the fair Amazonian Abrizah in purity and nobility of womanly character, or any more devoted and chivalrous lover than Sharrkan. But the story does not remain throughout at the same high level, and the fate of Aurora Leigh, which is inflicted on Abrizah by Sharrkan’s father (only darkly hinted at in this edition), and her death by the hands of a negro slave, and the horribly Eastern sufferings that befall Nuzhat al-Zaman, are worse than those which befell the heroines of Western tales of chivalry, bad as they often are. It would be interesting to know the origin of this story, which certainly strikes one as out of its place in the Thousand Nights and a Night; for though its adventures are many of them exaggerated and improbable, yet they are more casually connected, more coherent, and more natural and human and less inverted, than the weird and monstrous incidents of the true Arabian tales. Among these stand conspicuous the Third Kalendar’s tale, with its Loadstone Mountain and its man of brass, its castle plated with red gold, and the inevitable decree of blind Fate; the First Lady’s tale, with its city of stone men; and above all, the delightful tale of the Fisherman and the Ifreet,—the enchanted city with its King turned into marble from the waist downwards, and its citizens into white, red, blue, and yellow fishes that lift up their heads from the frying-pan and recite “verses in writing.” Assuredly the tales that used to charm one’s childhood have no less charm with the added anthropological interest which is lent them by Sir Richard Burton’s translation and notes.

COUNTY GENTLEMAN, May 14th, 1887.

The well-known and widely appreciated yarns of Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman are brought to a conclusion. The less familiar but most powerful and typically Oriental story “The City of Brass” follows and, though we are far from wishing to join the yelping pack already at Mr. Haggard’s heels, readers of this colossal conception will feel inclined to agree with Solomon that “there is nothing new under the sun.”

ARMY AND NAVY GAZETTE, May 14th, 1887.

The present volume brings us up to the 761st “night,” and, like its predecessors, contains a number of stories quite unknown to the general reader. It concludes the history of Sindbad, giving a variant rendering, from the Calcutta edition, of the seventh voyage, and contains a large number of stories concerning the “Craft and Malice of Women,” which are of the highest value as illustrations of social conditions, and it has besides, many tales to which it would be a pleasure to allude individually. * * * As a translation, it is unequalled in fidelity, and Sir Richard Burton’s familiarity with Oriental scenes has enabled him to preserve the greater part of the quaint flavour of the original.

LIVERPOOL MERCURY, August 24th, 1887.

We have already fully described this latest edition of the Arabian Nights and have spoken at large of its merits, both as a singularly faithful translation and a finished work of high literary art. It is the only rendering of The Nights which has any pretentions to literalness and completeness, and in this and all other respects is far away the best edition extant.

ARMY AND NAVY GAZETTE, August 27th, 1887.

Bringing us up to the 944th night, this volume includes the curious tale of the “Man of Upper Egypt and his Frankish Wife,” and others omitted by Lane. One of the most characteristic of these is that of “King Jali’ad of Hind and his Wazir Shimas,” which belongs to the oldest series in The Nights and has attached to it a number of animal and other fables, all very remarkable. Lane found the story “puerile,” and it is very true that from many points of view, it is so; but as an illustration of the ways of Arabian society and an example of a class of stories largely circulated amongst the Oriental peoples of that date, it cannot be overlooked, and if read in the proper appreciative spirit, it is by no means devoid of amusement. The style of the translation, as we have previously remarked, has a strange archaic charm, and the unusual locutions of which Sir Richard Burton is master, harmonize admirably with his subject, while the rhythmic portions, which he has reproduced with so much skill and diversify, render still more picturesque the whole.

MORNING ADVERTISER, October 12th, 1887.

Several of the stories comprised in this latter group are familiar under other forms in most parts of Europe, and there are few of them which do not embody the practical wisdom and the sound and generous moral precepts which are, as a rule, characteristic of the Arabian Nights. Taken in conjunction with the numerous and excellent notes which the translator has supplied, this version as we have before had occasion to observe, presents the exact sense of the original Arabic text, which the fanciful phraseology in which the narratives are expressed largely assists in realising, while lending an additional charm to the tales themselves. * * * In this volume are contained, among others, the stories of Hasan of Bassorah, of Khalifah the Fisherman of Baghdad, of Ali Nur Al-Din and Miriam the Girdle Girl, of the Man of Upper Egypt and his Frankish Wife, of the Ruined Man of Baghdad and his Slave-Girl, and the long series of tales, fables and allegories, in which the astrologers and other wise men variously interpret a dream which had disturbed the great King Jali’ad of Hind, and on which he had consulted them. Several of the stories comprised in this latter group are familiar under other forms in most parts of Europe, and there are few of them which do not embody the practical wisdom and the sound and generous moral precepts which are, as a rule, characteristic of the Arabian Nights. The volume contains also the interesting history of King Wird Khan, with his women and Wazirs. This monarch was weak and uxorious, and disregarding the sage counsels of Shimas, the chief of his Wazirs, pursued a profligate and effeminate career, as the result of which great troubles arose in his realm, and an extensive conspiracy was formed to get rid of him. Acting on the suggestion of his favourite wife, he caused his Wazirs, grandees, and notables to be put to death after the fashion of Eastern despots. The weakness to which his kingdom was thus reduced tempted aggression by a neighbouring king, and it was threatened with immediate invasion, rapine, and slaughter. From this strait he was delivered by the sagacity of a boy whom he had accidentally fallen in with in the course of a stroll he made incog. one evening through his capital whilst pondering over his desperate position. The stories introduced in the course of the history contain the counsel offered him in the successive stages of his difficulty, through which he is at length conducted in safety and then returns to a more rational course of life. Lane omits this story as being exceedingly puerile. That judgment will hardly be supported by the reader when he now reads it. It is one of the two oldest tales in the whole series of the Arabian Nights as is here pointed out, and at the same time very characteristic. Taken in conjunction with the numerous and excellent notes here supplied, this version, as we have before had occasion to observe, presents the exact sense of the original Arabic text, which the fanciful phraseology in which the narrative are expressed largely assists in realising, while lending an additional charm to the tales themselves.

GLASGOW EVENING TIMES, December 3, 1887.

The third of the five Supplemental volumes of Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Thousand Nights and a Night is in the hands of the subscribers this week. It is one of the most interesting, and (we have Sir Richard’s word for it) the most innocent of the series. It contains some of the best known of the Eastern tales, including “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” which did not find a place either in Sir Richard Burton’s translation of the Nights or in that of Mr. John Payne for the Villon Society, for the very good reason that they were then unknown except through the French translation of Galland, and were under suspicion of not being of Eastern origin at all. The doubts about Galland’s translations have, however, now been removed, for all his tales have been discovered in Hindustani, and some of them in Arabic under circumstances which preclude these versions from having been translated from that of the French writer. In his preface Sir Richard Burton tells the story in detail, but we need not follow him there. He has now had these old favourites translated afresh, and they form a fitting pendant to his work. He courts comparison of his translation with the long popular version of Galland by printing the English translation of the latter’s Aladdin along with his own. Sir Richard’s notes are, it may be expected, full of curious information.

ACADEMY, December 10, 1887.

THE KAMA SHASTRA SOCIETY.

Sir Richard F. Burton has just issued to his subscribers the third volume of his Supplemental Nights, the printing of which was delayed through his illness during the early part of the year. Sir Richard intends to pass the winter at Fiume, where the climate is less trying than at Trieste. He hopes to come to England in May, bringing with him the MS. of the fifth and last volume of the Supplemental Nights. The fourth volume is already in the hands of the printers to the Kama Shastra Society.

The third volume of the Supplemental Nights was originally intended to be the fourth; but the order has been altered on account of the difficulties which Sir Richard experienced in transcribing the Wortley-Montague MS. in the Bodleian, as narrated by himself in the Academy of November 13, 1886. Students, however, will not regret the change, in consideration of their delight at here finding for the first time the true Oriental version of “Aladdin,” which has hitherto only been known through Galland’s French. As Sir Richard announced in the Academy of January 22, 1887, an Arabic original of “Aladdin” and some other tales was quite recently purchased for the Bibliothèque Nationale by M. Hermann Zotenberg, who will shortly publish a full bibliographical description of his discovery. Meanwhile he has placed a copy of the MS. at Sir Richard’s disposal; and from this the translation of “Aladdin,” or rather, “Allaeddin,” has been made. “Ali Baba” is another of the most familiar of the Arabian Nights stories for which no Arabic original has yet been found. In order to produce a genuine Orientalised version of this, Sir Richard has had recourse to the following device. After much searching in vain among Persian and Turkish MSS., he at last found a Hindustani version containing the missing tales, which Mr. J. F. Blumhardt, of Cambridge, helped to English. He was thus enabled to escape from the plan he had originally contemplated—of turning Galland’s French into Arabic, and then translating that.

In addition to these welcome novelties, the volume is noticeable for its bulk, for Sir Richard generally gives his subscribers more than he promised. We have here the popular English form of Galland’s “Aladdin,” to compare with the version now first made from the original Arabic; and also an appendix of about 100 pages, contributed by Mr. W. A. Clouston, which describes in detail the variants and analogues of all the tales in the volume.

In the meantime, the Kama Shastra Society has begun a fresh undertaking—the production of a literal and unexpurgated translation of three famous Persian works:—(1) The Gulistân, or “Rose Garden,” of Sa’dí (A.D. 1258), which may be called not unfamiliar in incomplete versions; (2) the Nigaristân, or “Picture Gallery,” of Mu’in-uddín Jawini (A.D. 1334), which has never been translated into any Western language; and (3) the Behâristân, or “Abode of Spring,” of Jâmi (A.D. 1487), of which one chapter or “garden” was translated a few years ago by Mr. C. E. Wilson, under the title of Persian Wit and Humour (Chatto and Windus, 1883). For a popular account of these authors and their rank in Persian literature, we may refer our readers to a little volume published by Mr. Bernard Quaritch in the early part of the present year called Persian Portraits. Of the three translations which the Kama Shastra Society propose to issue to a very limited number of subscribers, the Behâristân of Jâmi—the latest in date but the greatest in reputation—is now ready. It forms a volume of less than 200 pages with a few notes.

MORNING POST, March 19, 1888.

As is well shown in this volume, there is as much in the manner of these tales as in the matter of them. If Oriental fiction delights our fancy by transferring us from the common places of our workaday life to realms and to communities fairer than any of which we have daily experience here, any aids from language by which the dominance of fascination may be maintained are clearly legitimate and useful. That the subject is worthy of a warm and ornate rendering such as has been bestowed upon it in these delightful volumes is made abundantly evident from a glance at the splendour of the Arabian Empire during the period covered by The Nights but particularly in the earlier portion of it.

ATHENÆUM, May 12, 1888.

Sir Richard Burton’s complete translation of the Arabian Nights may be considered the magnum opus of one who had already added much to his country’s literature by the record of his own personal travel and adventure. To render the original text of such a work as The Arabian Nights into a European language so as to make the reader apprehend the style and spirit of the Arabic is necessarily a task demanding exceptional qualifications; and success in so bold an attempt, were it but partial, would imply the exercise of more than Oriental scholarship. It could only be achieved by one who understood, in all shades and phases, the genius and imaginary, the ways and habits, the tastes and prejudices, the pathos and humour of both Western and Eastern peoples. Probably there is no Englishman living who could have ventured on the undertaking with better chances of success than Sir R. Burton.

LIVERPOOL DAILY POST, May 3, 1888.

The sale of Sir Richard Burton’s uncompromising translation of the Thousand and One Nights was so great that Sir Richard has undertaken to supply five supplementary volumes. The “copy” has just reached the publishers from Trieste, and the volumes will be disposed of on the same terms as the early ones—that is to say, by subscription. The price fixed is pretty high, but so overmastering is the purely literary curiosity in the matter that not only was the original edition sold to the last copy, but the book is now at a very considerable premium in the market. Sir Richard Burton proposes to himself to take a little rest, after which he will commence a work that cannot fail to equal in interest even the Arabian Nights, and will be much better adapted for appearance on the drawing-room table. Sir Richard is going to write his autobiography—a work that will cover one of the most remarkable careers of modern times. The efforts made in influential quarters to secure an adequate retiring pension for this gallant explorer and man of letters still prove unavailing, and he goes on with his dull, uncongenial work as Consul at Trieste—a place in which he has never enjoyed really good health.

THE COUNTY GENTLEMAN, October 17th, 1885.

How fearfully cold it is, to be sure! My overcoat is neither lined with rabbit skin nor tipped with astrachan, and I feel the bitter breeze. A friend of mine, who has subscribed to Captain Burton, tells me that if I carried a copy of the first volume of the new translation of the Arabian Nights in my breast-pocket I would find it very warm. I daresay he is right, but the copies published a month ago at a guinea have gone up in value to ten. I suppose the reports of a severe winter have sent the work to a premium. Or, may be, Mr. Stead’s review gives it enhanced value.

* * * * *

Burton’s new Arabian Nights is the book of the season. But, strange to say, it is not to be had at Mudie’s or at Smith’s. Only a thousand copies were issued, and these went to subscribers. And the owners of a copy of the first volume are already personages of importance. School-girls cry for the book, and the Social Purity people borrow it when they can. Inquisitive folk ask everybody if they have seen it, and wonder why there should be so much fuss made about it. Wags look knowing and give evasive answers, but the man who tells the truth sayeth in reply, “because it is the highest book ever printed in English.” The captain is not the only writer that has gone to the Thousand and One Nights.

* * * * *

Burton’s book makes one feel sorry for Rabelais and Stead. Indeed, Rabelais borrowed from the original, and Burton of immortal Melancholy, like his namesake the peripatetic captain, knew something of it. The new edition will be prized by a few students, perhaps, but its chief value in the eyes of many that hold copies of it will be its high qualities. A few of the volumes were to be had in Holywell-street, but these have all been bought up at big prices.

“Jehu Junior,” VANITY FAIR, October 24th, 1885.

As a bold, astute traveller, courting danger, despising hardship, and compelling fortune, Captain Burton has few equals; as a master of Oriental languages, manners and customs he has none. He is still very young, very vigorous, very full of anecdote and playful humour, and, what is remarkable in a linguist, he has not disdained even his own mother tongue, which he handles with a precision and a power that few can approach. He has recently crowned his literary labours by the most complete, laborious, uncompromising, and perfect translation of that collection of stories known to us as The Arabian Nights, but more correctly called A Thousand Nights and a Night. He is a wonderful man.

WHITEHALL REVIEW, October 29th, 1885.

The second volume of Captain Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights has just been issued to the subscribers, who had already become impatient for a second instalment of this great and fascinating contribution to literature. The new volume is, if possible, of even greater interest than the first. It contains the whole of the fantastic semi-chivalrous story of King Omar Bin al-Nu’-uman and his sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, a knowledge of which has hitherto been confined chiefly to Oriental scholars, as Lane only admitted an episode from it into his version of Alif Laïla. Some of Sharrkan’s adventures will remind students of other Eastern stories of some of the adventures recorded of the hero of Persian romance, Hatim Taï. As usual, Captain Burton’s notes are rich, varied, and copious, of the greatest service to all serious students of Arabic manners and customs, and of Oriental life in general. * * *

Apropos of Captain Burton’s Arabian Nights, a silly story is going the round of some of the newspapers to the effect that some idiot, or company of idiots, intend to address a solemn appeal to Captain Burton to cease the publication of his work. A virtuous journal like the Pall Mall Gazette has been shocked by its Oriental freedom of speech, and it and its readers are prepared to denounce Captain Burton up hill and down dale for the crime of translating into accurate English a great Arabic masterpiece. How silly, how vulgar, how uneducated such a cry is must be obvious to any one who has made any study, no matter how limited, of any of the great literatures of the world compared to Rabelais, compared to Boccaccio, compared to La Fontaine, the Arabian Nights of Captain Burton might almost be recommended as a study for a Sunday-school. We have chosen for our examples authors all of whose works are familiarly studied and easily obtainable. It would be childish to compare Captain Burton’s Arabian Nights with other works which we could mention, which are, luckily, less generally known and also, luckily, less generally obtainable; while to compare the morality of these new Arabian Nights with the Pall Mall Gazette itself would be comparing the waters of the Mediterranean with ditchwater.

SOUTH EASTERN HERALD, October 31st, 1885.

At Mr. Quaritch’s trade sale the other day, Captain Burton made an interesting speech regarding The Thousand and One Nights, of which the gist was to show that his translation performs a double office. It is not only a faithful and racy version of the true original, but it also represents a better text than any which has been hitherto accessible in print or manuscript. He, in fact, produced for his own use, and by collation of the existing materials, a careful, critical recension of the original; and his rendering may, therefore, claim to stand towards the Alf Laïlah in the same manner as the Latin version of Plato, by Marsilius Ficinus, towards the Greek text.

ANGLER’S JOURNAL, November 21st, 1885.

To such of my brother anglers as consider something warm a necessity when pursuing their sport during the winter months, I confidently recommend the latest edition of the Thousand and One Nights, done into English by Captain Burton. There is no pandering to pretended prudery in this work, which is the only translation extant calculated to give one a true idea of the many subtle and hitherto unexpressed beauties of the original. This book is the more welcome from the fact of our having been lately flooded with abridged and castrated editions of the English and other classics; for, as a matter of fact, the excised portions are the only parts of such books that the British public cares to read. But what has all this to do with fishing? I fancy I hear some of my readers indulging in expletives, and language which is best expressed by the natural divisions of these paragraphs.

MORNING POST, January 19th, 1886.

Everything comes to him who waits—even the long-promised, eagerly expected “Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights,” by Richard F. Burton. It is a whole quarter of a century since this translation of one of the most famous books of the world was contemplated, and we are told it is the natural outcome of the well-known pilgrimage to Medinah and Mecca. Of Captain Burton’s fitness for the task who can doubt? It was during that celebrated journey to the Tomb of the Prophet that he proved himself to be an Arab—indeed, he says, in a previous state of existence he was a Bedouin. Did he not for months at a stretch lead the life of a Son of the Faithful, eat, drink, sleep, dress, speak, pray, like his brother devotees, the sharpest eyes failing to pierce his disguise? He knows the ways of Eastern men—and women—as he does the society of London or Trieste. How completely at home he is with his adopted brethren he showed at Cairo, when, to the amazement of some English friends who were looking on at the noisy devotions of some “howling” Dervishes, he suddenly joined the shouting, gesticulating circle, and behaved as if to the manner born. He has qualified as a “howler,” he holds a diploma as a master Dervish, and he can initiate disciples. Clearly, to use a phrase of Arabian story, it was decreed by Allah from the beginning—and fate and fortune have arranged—that Captain Burton should be the one of all others to confer upon his countrymen the boon of the genuine unsophisticated Thousand Nights and a Night. In the whole of our literature no book is more widely known. It is spread broadcast like the Bible, Bunyan, and Shakespeare: yet although it is in every house, and every soul in the kingdom knows something about it, yet nobody knows it as it really exists. We have only had what translators have chosen to give—selected, diluted, and abridged transcripts. And of late some so-called “original” books have been published, containing minor tales purloined bodily from the Nights.

BAT, February 8th, 1886.

Indeed of those who know the Arabian Nights as they really are, there are three classes and only three. First, there are those who have read the translation by Mr. John Payne, a book with many faults, but which has the merit of being the first complete translation in any language. Secondly, those who know the Alif Laila in its original text; whether that text be Macnaughten’s, Habicht’s, or the Boulak version. Thirdly, and best of all, those who know the translation by Sir Richard Burton, an immortal addition to English literature, and the most priceless contribution to Oriental knowledge that has been made for a century. To the serious student of the East and of all things Eastern, Sir Richard Burton’s translation is in itself a very Alexandrian library of rare, curious, unparalleled knowledge, the Knowledge, that can only be obtained and given again by a man of letters, who is also in the widest sense a man of the world. But Sir Richard Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights is a book for men and not for all men. It is the text-book and the treasure-house of scholars; but it is not for every-day readers; and above all things, and inevitably, it is not for woman-kind. No woman could read, was ever meant to read Sir Richard Burton’s Arabian Nights.

COURT SOCIETY, March 4th, 1886.

Not a little disgust has been excited by the vulgar sneer which a morning paper has indulged in at the expense of Sir Richard Burton. Long neglected by successive Governments, Captain Burton received, after 44 years, a tardy recognition of his services. Straightway, it was suggested that he is made a knight because he translated the Arabian Nights. It need scarcely be said that his translation has nothing to do with the distinction conferred upon him, but as it is the habit in a certain quarter to denounce the literal translation of the Nights, it cannot be too distinctly understood that Captain Burton never meant his work to fall into any hands save those of a thousand students.

SPORTING LIFE, April 12th, 1886.

The first two of the five volumes of “Supplemental Nights to the Book or the Thousand Nights and a Night, with Notes Anthropological and Explanatory,” have been issued privately to subscribers, whereof there will be no more than a thousand. We have Sir Richard F. Burton’s pledge. The tales are peculiarly interesting, and are told in English of matchless flavour and force. Volume iii. is dedicated to Mr. Henry Irving in these words: “My dear Irving, To a consummate artist like yourself, I need hardly suggest that The Nights still offers many a virgin mine to the Playwright: and I ascribe this volume to you, not only in admiration of your genius, but in the hope of that you will find means of exploiting the hidden wealth which awaits only your ‘Open Sesame!’—Ever yours sincerely, Richard F. Burton.” This is a pregnant hint. As I have before observed, the vast majority of readers of the Englished lore of the East knew worse than nothing of that marvellous storehouse of romance, The Arabian Nights until Sir Richard Burton opened it for them. There are countless dramas embodied in the Nights, and one cannot wonder that Sir Richard Burton should desire to see some of them shaped for the stage at the instance of his friend Mr. Irving. I may mention here that the third volume of Lady Burton’s edition of the Nights is available. It is as dainty as its predecessors, as well done in point of literary workmanship, and as full of matter.

WHITEHALL REVIEW, May 24th, 1886.

The sixth volume of Sir Richard Burton’s Arabian Nights which has just been issued to subscribers, is one of the most interesting of the series to Anglo-Orientalists. For it contains that story—or set of stories—which is, perhaps, of all the tales of the Arabian Nights the dearest to legend-loving mankind, whether Oriental or Occidental—the story of the voyages of “Sindbad the Sailor,” or of “Sindbad the Seaman,” as Sir Richard Burton prefers to call him. Perhaps the only tale which at all competes in popularity with the wandering record of the “Eastern Odysseus” is the story of “Ali Baba,” and that, unfortunately, does not belong to the Arabian Nights at all, and can only, as far as we know, be traced to a modern Greek origin. Lovers of the story of “Sindbad the Sailor” will be pleased to learn that their old friend remains to all intents and purposes the same in Sir Richard’s literal Translation as he was in the fanciful adaptation of Galland, and the more accurate rendering of Lane. He does not “suffer a sea change,” but remains, what he has always been, the most wonderful wanderer in the whole range and region of romance. Sir Richard Burton’s sixth volume contains, besides, that story of the “Seven Viziers” which in so many forms is a favourite in all the languages of the East.

THE BAT, July 7th, 1886.

As regards his translation, however, Captain Burton is certainly felicitous in the manner in which he has Englished the picturesque turns of the original. One great improvement in this version over that of Mr. Lane will be found in the fact that the verses so freely interspersed throughout the Nights are here rendered in metre, and that an attempt also has often been made to preserve the assonants and the monorhyme of the Arabic. Mr. Lane frankly stated that he omitted the greater part of the poetry as tedious, and, through the loss of measure and rhyme “generally intolerable to the reader,” as, in truth, the specimens inserted mostly proved to be on account of the bald literalism of the rendering. Captain Burton has naturally inserted the poetry with the rest; and has often shown much skill in doing into English verse the rippling couplets of the original. Take, as an instance, the verses which Mr. Lane renders:—

“Tell him who is oppressed with anxiety that anxiety will not last. As happiness passeth away, so passeth away anxiety.”

Almost equally literal, and certainly more poetical, is Captain Burton, who gracefully turns this:—

“Tell whoso hath sorrow, Grief never shall last; E’en as Joy hath no morrow, so woe shall go past.”

And since, in proverbs and epigrams, so much depends on the form, the spirit of the original is well observed, when, for instance, we read in a certain chronicle the lines of one Ibn al Sumam:—

“Hold fast thy secret, and to none unfold; Lost is a secret when that secret’s told. And fail thy breast thy secret to conceal, How canst thou hope another’s breast shall hold?”

Doubtless, too—and in this not following Mr. Lane—Captain Burton is right in retaining the original division into Nights: for, as he justly observes, “Without the Nights, no Arabian Nights!” And, besides this being a prime feature of the original, a grateful pause is thereby introduced into these intricate and interminable stories. In the translation Captain Burton’s English is generally picturesque and always fluent. As it is frankly stated, too, has “never hesitated to coin a word when wanted.” Captain Burton, who has passed the greater portion of his life in Arab-speaking countries, mixing freely in Moslem society, and often passing—as during his pilgrimage—himself for a True Believer, is naturally well qualified to translate this “Great Eastern Saga-Book.” Also, since the scene of the stories is laid successively in every country of Islam, from Tangier to India, and beyond, the translator’s intimate acquaintance, made during his wanderings, with all these people and places, stands him in good stead in elucidating peculiar manners and customs, and in this gives him the advantage over Mr. Lane, who had only seen Islam as domiciled in Egypt.

THE SPORTING LIFE, July 17th, 1886.

There has been such a delay between the issue of the sixth and that of the seventh volume of “Alf Laylah wa Laylah,” or “The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night,” “the private subscribers only” to that marvellous work were beginning to wonder whether anything had happened to Sir Richard F. Burton to put a stop to his undertaking. At any rate, one private subscriber wondered, the more especially as many threats had been breathed by self-imposed keepers of the public conscience (journalists, of course), with regard to putting an end to the publication. To make up for the delay, the eighth, as well as the seventh, volume has been issued. One of the dedications is peculiar. It is encased in a mourning border, and runs thus:—“A Message to Frederick Hankey, formerly of No. 2, Rue Lafitte, Paris.—My dear Fred,—If there is such a thing as ‘continuation,’ you will see these lines in the far spirit-land, and you will find that your old friend has not forgotten you and Annie.” It is evident from this that the great African and Asian traveller has leanings towards a belief in spiritualism.

* * * * *

The more I see of this splendid translation, the more do I feel that we are indebted to the translator (after Mr. Payne) for the first real idea, in English, of the immortal original, and to him alone for a complete reflection of the Arabian Nights. The lustre and vigour of the English compel one’s admiration at every step. In justification whereof I cite a couple of brief passages from the first few pages in the seventh volume:—“The first to open the door of war was Kurajan, who cried out, saying, ‘Let no coward come out to me this day, nor craven!’ Whereupon Jamrkan and Sa’adan stood by the colours, but there ran at him a captain of the Banu Amir, and the two drave at each other awhile like two rams butting. Presently Kurajan seized the Moslem by the jerkin under his hauberk, and dragging him from his saddle, dashed him to the ground, where he left him, upon which the Kafirs laid hands on him and bound him and bore him off to their tents, whilst Kurajan wheeled about and careered and offered battle till another captain came out, whom also he took prisoner, nor did he leave to do thus till he had made prize of seven captains before midday.”

* * * * *

Again: “He cried out to his folk, ‘At him all at once and assault him with one assault.’ Accordingly they waved the awe-striking banners, and host was heaped on host; Gharib rushed on with his men, and Jamrkan did the same, and the two sides met like two seas together clashing. The Yamani sword and spear wrought havoc, and breasts and bellies were rent, whilst both armies saw the Angel of Death face to face, and the dust of the battle rose to the skirts of the sky. Ears went deaf and tongues went dumb, and doom from every side came on, whilst valiant stood fast and faint heart fled; and they ceased not from fight and fray till ended the day, when the drums beat the retreat and the two hosts drew apart and returned, each to its tents.” Is not that spirited? It is palpable enough that, until Sir Richard Burton’s wonderful work saw the light, we had no “Arabian Nights.”

NOTTINGHAM JOURNAL, August 30th, 1886.

The sales of Sir Richard Burton’s most realistic version of the Arabian Nights (a very valuable book in its way, but distinctly a top-shelf one) appear to have gone off with uncommon briskness; with so much briskness, in fact, that Sir Richard has taken in hand to prepare for publication a series of additional tales from the same source. Five new volumes called Supplemental Nights are in preparation, and I understand that the first two are completed. It is no disparagement to the scholarly labours of the editor to suggest that one may have too much Arabian Nights Entertainment. The translation of the original work, a unique performance, will always be valued by students and collectors (I am told that it is already worth double the price it was issued at), but a second series might possibly pall.

WHITEHALL GAZETTE, August 5th, 1886.

The current number of the Edinburgh Review contains an article of a somewhat foolish kind upon the Arabian Nights. That great collection of Eastern stories is receiving a great deal of very deserved attention just now, and any literary contribution to the question is of interest. But the Edinburgh Reviewer does not add much of value to the matter in hand. A considerable part of his paper is devoted to a very acrid, unjust, and ill-mannered attack upon Sir Richard Burton’s famous translation. Quite apart from the question of tastes which the paper raises—though whether the Edinburgh Review is necessarily an impeccable authority as to taste is at least open to question—the attack on Sir Richard Burton’s rendering is animated by an obvious spirit of small antagonism which puts it out of court at once as a critical essay. To jump upon some small inaccuracy and trumpet over it like the foolish cock in the fable will scarcely detract from the admiration which all Orientalists feel for Sir Richard Burton, nor in any way lessen his fame as one of the profoundest and the most remarkable Oriental students of his time. The Edinburgh Reviewer is also pleased to be sarcastic over a reference to D’Herbelot. Does the reviewer really think that D’Herbelot is altogether out of date because he happened not to have been published in the latter part of the nineteenth century and under the patronage of the Edinburgh Review? However, Sir Richard Burton’s translation of the Arabian Nights will endure as a standard contribution to Oriental literature, in spite of the disapproval of its latest critic.

FOOTNOTES:

-----

Footnote 1:

Tome xli. is dated 1789, the other three, 1788, to include them in the “Cabinet.”

Footnote 2:

The titles of all the vols. are dated alike, 1793, the actual date of printing.

Footnote 3:

This name is not in the Arabic text, and I have vainly puzzled my brains about its derivation or meaning.

Footnote 4:

This P. N. is, I presume, a corruption of “Shawalán” = one falling short. The wife “Oitba” is evidently “Otbá” or “Utbá.”

Footnote 5:

See my Supplemental volume i. pp. 55–151, “The Ten Wazirs; or, the History of King Azádbakht and his Son.”

Footnote 6:

MS. pp. 140–182. Gauttier, vol. ii., pp. 313–353, Histoire du sage Heycar translated by M. Agoub: Weber, “History of Sinkarib and his two Viziers” (vol. ii. 53): the “Vizier” is therein called Hicar.

Footnote 7:

This form of the P. N. is preferred by Prof. R. Hoerning in his “Prisma des Sanherib,” etc. Leipsic, 1878. The etymology is “Sin akhi-irib” = Sini (Lunus, or the Moon-God) increaseth brethren. The canon of Ptolemy fixes his accession at B.C. 702, the first year of Elibus or Belibus. For his victories over Babylonia, Palestine, Judæa, and Egypt see any “Dictionary of the Bible,” and Byron for the marvellous and puerile legend—

The Assyrian came down as a wolf on the fold,

which made him lose in one night 185,000 men, smitten by the “Angel of the Lord” (2 Kings xix. 35). Seated upon his throne before Lachish he is represented by a bas-relief as a truly noble and kingly figure.

Footnote 8:

I presume that the author hereby means a “fool,” Pers. nádán. But in Assyrian story Nadan was = Nathan, King of the people of Pukudu, the Pekod of Jeremiah (i. 21) and other prophets.

Footnote 9:

In text always “Atúr,” the scriptural “Asshur” = Assyria, biblically derived from Asshur, son of Shem (Gen. x. 22), who was worshipped as the proto-deity. The capital was Niniveh. Weber has “Nineveh and Thor,” showing the spelling of his MS. According to the Arabs, “Ashur” had four sons; Iran (father of the Furs = Persians, the Kurd, or Ghozzi, the Daylams, and the Khazar), Nabít, Jarmúk, and Basíl. Ibn Khaldun (iii. 413), in his “Universal History,” opposes this opinion of Ibn Sa’id.

Footnote 10:

i.e. “Fish-town” or “town of Nin” = Ninus, the founder. In mod. days “Naynawah” was the name of a port on the east bank of the Tigris; and moderns have unearthed the old city at Koyunjik, Nabi Yunas, and the Tall (mound of) Nimrud.

Footnote 11:

The surroundings, suggest Jehovah, the tribal deity of the Jews. The old version says, “Hicar was a native of the country of Haram (Harrán), and had brought from thence the knowledge of the true God; impelled, however, by an irresistible decree, etc.”

Footnote 12:

i.e. a woollen cloth dyed red. Hence Pyrard (i. 244) has “red scarlet,” and (vol. ii.) “violet scarlet”; Froissart (xvth centy.) has “white scarlet,” and Marot (xvith) has “green scarlet.” The word seems to be French of xiith century, but is uncertain: Littré proposes Galaticus, but admits the want of an intermediate form. Piers Plowman, and Chaucer use “cillatún,” which suggests Pers. “Sakalat,” or “Saklatún,” whence Mr. Skeat would derive “scarlet.” This note is from the voyage of F. Pyrard, etc. London. Hakluyts, M.dccc.lxxxvii.; and the editor quotes Colonel Yule’s M. Polo (ii. chapt. 58) and his “Discursive Glossary s. v. Suclát.”

Footnote 13:

i.e. “Al-Kirm,” Arab. and Pers. = a worm, as in Kirmán (see Supplem. vol. i. 59); the coccus ilicis, vulg. called cochineal.

Footnote 14:

Arab. “Arz,” from the Heb. Arz or Razah (✓ raz = to vibrate), the root κέδρος (cedrus conifera), the Assyrian “Erimu of Lebanon,” of which mention is so often made. The old controversy as to whether “Razah” = cedar or fir, might easily have been settled if the disputants had known that the modern Syrians still preserve the word for the clump called “The Cedars” on the seaward slope of the Libanus.

Footnote 15:

We should say “reading and writing,” but the greater difficulty of deciphering the skeleton eastern characters places reading in the more honourable place. They say of a very learned man, “He readeth it off (readily) as one drinketh water.”

Footnote 16:

Arab. “Al-Sáhib al-jayyid.” [“Jayyid” is, by the measure “Fay’il,” derived from the root “Jaud,” to excel, like “Kayyis,” from “Kaus” (see Suppl vol. iv., p. 350), “Mayyit” from “Maut,” “Sayyid” from “Saud.” The form was originally “Jaywid;” then the Wáw became assimilated to the preceding Já, on account of the following Kasrah, and this assimilation or “Idghám” is indicated by Tashdíd. As from “Kayyis” the diminutive “Kuwayyis” is formed, so “Jayyid” forms the Tasghír, “Juwayyid,” which, amongst the Druzes, has the specific meaning of “deeply versed in religious matters.”—ST.]

Footnote 17:

“Kúl,” vulg. for “Kul”; a form constant in this MS.

Footnote 18:

Gauttier “Sarkhadom,” the great usurper Sargon, a contemporary of Merodach Baladan of Babylon and of Sabaco 1st of Ethiopia, B.C. 721–702: one of the greatest Assyrian Kings, whose place has been determined to be between Shalmaneser and his son, the celebrated Sennacherib, who succeeded him. The name also resembles the biblical Ezar-haddon (Asaridanus), who, however, was the son of Sennacherib, and occupied the throne of Babylon in B.C. 680.

Footnote 19:

Gauttier, pp. 317–319, has greatly amplified and modified these words of wisdom.

Footnote 20:

In text “Yá Bunayya” = lit. “O my little son,” a term of special fondness.

Footnote 21:

Arab. “Jamrah,” a word of doubtful origin, but applied to a tribe strong enough to be self-dependent. The “Jamarát of the Arabs” were three, Banú Numayr, Banú Háris (who afterwards confederated with Mashíj) and Banú Dabbah (who joined the Rikáb), and at last Nomayr remained alone. Hence they said of it:

“Nomayr the jamrah (also “a live coal”) of Arabs are; ✿ And ne’er cease they to burn in fiery war.”

See Chenery’s Al-Hariri, pp. 343–428.

Footnote 22:

In the Arab. “Ta’arkalak,” which M. Houdas renders “qu’elle ne te retienne dans ses filets.”

Footnote 23:

A lieu commun in the East. It is the Heb. “Sháked” and the fruit is the “Loz” (Arab. Lauz) = Amygdalus communis, which the Jews looked upon as the harbinger of spring and which, at certain feasts, they still carry to the synagogue, as representing the palm branches of the Temple.

Footnote 24:

The mulberry-tree in Italy will bear leaves till the end of October and the foliage is bright as any spring verdure.

Footnote 25:

Gauttier omits this: pas poli, I suppose.

Footnote 26:

The barbarous sentiment is Biblical—inspired, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son” (Prov. xiii. 24), and “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying” (Prov. xix. 18). Compare the Arab equivalent, “The green stick is of the trees of Paradise” (Pilgrimage i. 151). But the neater form of the saw was left to uninspired writers; witness “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” which appears in Ray’s proverbs, and is immortalised by Hudibras:—

Love is a boy by poets styled, Then spare the rod and spoil the child. (ii. 1, 843).

It is to the eternal credit of John Locke, the philosopher, that in an age of general brutality he had the moral courage, to declare, “Beating is the worst and therefore the last means to be used in the correction of children.”

Footnote 27:

Arab. “Dahn” (oil, ointment) which may also mean “soft sawder.”

Footnote 28:

Aucun roi ne peut gouverner sans armée et on ne peut avoir une armée sans argent. For a treatise on this subject see the “Chronique de Tabari,” ii. 340.

Footnote 29:

M. Agoub, in Gauttier (vi. 321) remarks of these prosings, “Ces maximes qui ne seraient pas indignes, pour la plupart, des beaux temps de la philosophie grecque, appartiennent toutes au texte arabe; je n’ai fait que les disposer dans un ordre plus méthodique. J’ai dû aussi supprimer quelques unes, soit parce qu’elles n’offraient que des préceptes d’une morale banale, soit que traduites en français, elles eussent pû paraître bizarres à des lecteurs européens. Ce que je dis ici, s’applique également à celles qui terminent le conte et qui pourraient fournir le sujet de plusieurs fables.” One would say that the translator is the author’s natural enemy.

Footnote 30:

Arab. “Ammál,” now vulgarly written with initial Hamzah, a favourite expression in Egypt and meaning “Verily,” “I believe you, my boy,” and so forth. But “’Ammál” with the Ayn may also mean “he intended,” or “he was about to.”

Footnote 31:

In Gauttier the name is Ebnazadan, but the Arab. text has “Naudán,” which I take to be the Persian “New of knowledge” as opp. to Nádán, the “unknowing.”

Footnote 32:

In Chavis (Weber ii. 58) and Gauttier (p. 323) Akis, roi de Perse. The second name may be “Shah of the Ebna” or Persian incolæ of Al-Yaman; aristocratie Persane naturalisée Arabe (Al-Mas’udi, iv. 188, etc.)

Footnote 33:

i.e. the Lowland of the Eglantine or Narcissus; Nisrín is also in dictionaries an island where amber abounds. There is a shade of difference between Buk’ah and Bak’ah. The former which is the correcter form = a patch of ground, a plain (hence the Buká’a = Cœlesyria), while Bak’ah = a hollow where water collects. In Chavis we find “the plain of Harrim” and in Gauttier la plaine de Baschrin; and the appointment was “for the first of the month Niram” (Naysán).

Footnote 34:

“Pharaoh,” which Hebrew Holy Writ left so vague and unsatisfactory, has become with the Arabs “Fir’aun,” the dynastic name of Egyptian kings, as Kisrà (Chosroës) of the Persians, Tobba of the Himyarites, Kaysar (Cæsar) of the Romans, Jalut (Goliath) of the Phœnicians, Faghfur of the Chinese, Khákán of the Tartars, Adfonsh (Alfonso) of the Spanish, and Aguetíd of the Berbers. Ibn Khaldún iv. 572.

Footnote 35:

“Mizr” in Assyrian = “Musur,” in Heb. “Misraim” (the dual Misrs, whose duality permeated all their polity), and in Arab “Misr,” the O. Egypt. “Há káhi Ptáh” (the Land of the great God, Ptah), and the Coptic “Tá-mera” = the Land of the Nile flood, ignoring, I may add, all tradition of a Noachian or general deluge.

Footnote 36:

The simplicity of old Assyrian correspondence is here well preserved, as we may see by comparing those letters with the cuneiform inscriptions, etc., by S. Abden Smith (Pfeiffer, Leipsic, 1887). One of them begins thus, “The will of the King to Sintabni-Uzur. Salutation from me to thee. May it be well with thee. Regarding Sinsarra-utzur whom thou has sent to me, how is thy report?” etc. We find such expressions as “May the great Gods, lovers of thy reign, preserve thee an hundred years;” also “Peace to the King, my lord,” etc.

Footnote 37:

Arab. “Yaum al-Khamís.” For the week-days see vol. vi. 190, and for a longer notice, Al-Mas’udi, iii. 422–23.

Footnote 38:

In the text “Kál” (al-Ráwí), “the Reciter saith”—which formula I omit here and elsewhere.

Footnote 39:

i.e. “The Father of the little Fish,” in Gauttier (vii. 329) “Abou Soméika.”

Footnote 40:

By way of insult; as I have before noticed.

Footnote 41:

He had now learned that Nadan had ruined him.

Footnote 42:

The wife (in p. 155, “Ashghaftíní”) is called “Thou hast enamoured me” from the root “Shaghaf” = violent love, joy, grief. Chavis has Zefagnie: Gauttier suppresses the name, which is not pretty. In the old version she is made aunt (father’s sister) to Sankharib.

Footnote 43:

The old version attributes all this device to “Zefagnie;” thus injuring the unity and the interest of the tale.

Footnote 44:

Arab. “Jund” plur. “Junúd,” a term mostly applied to regular troops under the Government, as opposed to soldiers who took service with the Amirs or great barons—a state of things still enduring in non-British India.

Footnote 45:

Who thus makes a “Ma’adabah” = wake or funeral feast before his death. See vol. viii. 231.

Footnote 46:

i.e. “Father of the Fishlet,” in the old version “Yapousmek” (Yá Abú Sumayk!)

Footnote 47:

In Chavis he becomes “an old slave, a magician, stained with the greatest crimes, who has the air and figure of Hicar.”

Footnote 48:

A formula which announces the death of his supposed enemy.

Footnote 49:

Arab. “Matmúrah” = Sardábah (i. 340), a silo for storing grain, an underground cell (ii. 39.)

Footnote 50:

See text “Náhú” from ✓ “Nauh” = ceremonious keening for the dead. The general term for the wail is “Walwalah” or “Wilwál” (an onomatopy) and for the public wailing-woman “Naddábah.”

Footnote 51:

Here we find the Doric form “Rahúm” for “Rahím,” or it may simply be the intensive and emphatic form, as “Nazúr” = one who looks intently for “Názir,” a looker.

Footnote 52:

In the old version “a tenth part of the revenues.” The “Kasím” of the text is an unusual word which M. Houdas would render revenues en nature, as opposed to Khiráj, revenues en argent. I translate it by “tax tribute.”

Footnote 53:

In text “’Azzámín,” i.e. men who recite “’Azm,” mostly Koranic versets which avert evil.

Footnote 54:

This may either be figurative or literal—upon the ashes where the fire had been; even as the father of Sayf al-Mulúk sat upon the floor of his audience-hall (vol. vii. 314).

Footnote 55:

In text “Ya’tadir”—from ✓ ’Adr = heavy rain, boldness. But in this MS. the dots are often omitted and the word may be Ya’tazir = find excuse.

Footnote 56:

In the old version the wife is made to disclose the secret of her husband being alive—again a change for the worse.

Footnote 57:

Here “Wayha-k” and before “Wayla-k”: see vols. v. 258; vii. 127 and iii. 82.

Footnote 58:

The King, after the fashion of Eastern despots, never blames his own culpable folly and hastiness; this was decreed to him and to his victim by Destiny.

Footnote 59:

The older version reads “Roc” and informs us that “it is a prodigious bird, found in the deserts of Africa: it will bear two hundred pounds weight; and many are of opinion that the idea of this bird is visionary.” In Weber ii. 63, this is the device of “Zafagnie,” who accompanies her husband to Egypt.

Footnote 60:

This name appears to be a corruption. The sound, however, bears a suspicious resemblance to “Dabshalim (a name most proper for such a Prince, to wit, meaning in their tongue a mighty King),” who appears in chapt. i. of the “Fables of Pilpay” (Bidpai = Bidyapati = Lord of Lore?) “Dabshalímat” = the Dabshalíms, was the dynastic title of the Kings of Somanáth (Somnauth) in Western India.

Footnote 61:

Arab. “Tín” = clay, mud, which would be used with the Tob (adobe, sun-dried brick) forming the walls of Egypt and Assyria. M. G. Maspero, in his excellent booklet “L’Archéologie Egyptienne,” (p. 7. Paris, Quantin, 1887,) illustrates this ancient industry which endures with all its gear to the present day. The average measured 0^m 22 × 0^m 11 × 0^m 14; the larger was 0^m 38 × 0^m 18 × 0^m 14, with intermediate sizes. These formed the cores of temple walls, and, being revetted with granite, syenite, alabaster and other stones, made a grand show; but when the outer coat was removed they were presently weathered to the external semblance of mud-piles. Such was mostly the condition of the ruins of grand Bubastis (“Pi-Pasht”) hod. Zagázig, where excavations are still being pushed on.

Footnote 62:

The old version has “Masser, Grand Cairo (in the days of the Pharaohs!); so called from having been built by Misraim, the son of Cham.”

Footnote 63:

In Chavis, “Abicam, a Chaldæan astrologer;” in Gauttier “Abimacam.”

Footnote 64:

In Al-Harírí (p. 409) we read, “Hospitality is three days;” and a Hadís of the Prophet confirms the liberal practice of The Ignorance:—“The entertainment of a guest is three days, and the viaticum (“Jáizah”) is a day and a night, and whatso exceedeth is an alms-gift.” On the first day is shown largeness and courtesy; on the second and third the stranger is treated after the usual custom of the household, and then he is provided with rations for a day and a night. See Lane: A. Nights, i. 486; also The Nights, vol. i. 3.

Footnote 65:

i.e. Not standing astraddle, or in other such indecorous attitude.

Footnote 66:

Chavis, “Bilelsanam, the oracle of Bel, the chief God of the Assyrian:” Gauttier Une idole Bíl. Bel (or Ba’al or Belus), the Phœnician and Canaanite head-god; may here represent Hobal the biggest idol in the Meccan Pantheon, which used to be borne on raids and expeditions to give plunder a religious significance. Tabari iii. 17. Evidently the author holds it to be an idol.

Footnote 67:

The Syro-solar month = April; much celebrated by poets and fictionists: rain falling at such time into shells becomes pearls and upon serpents poison.

Footnote 68:

The text has “Baybúnah,” prop. Bábúnaj in Arab., and in Pers. “Bábúk,” or “Bábúnak” = the white camomile-flower. See vol. iii. 58.

Footnote 69:

“Khabata” = “He (the camel) pawed the ground.” The prim. sig. is to beat, secondly, it is applied to a purblind camel which beats or strikes the ground and so stumbles, or to him who bashes a tree for its leaves; and lastly to him who gets alms by begging. See Chenery’s Al-Hariri, p. 447.

Footnote 70:

Arab. “Karz” = moneys lent in interest and without fixed term of payment, as opp. to “Dayn.”

Footnote 71:

In text “Kintár” = a quintal, 98 to 99 lbs. avoir.: in round numbers a cwt. a hundred weight: see vol. ii. 233. The old version explains it by “A golden coin, equivalent to three hundred livres French (?).” About the value of the Kintár of gold, doctors differ. Some value it at 40 ounces, others make it a leathern bag containing 1,080 to 1,100 dinars, and others 100 rotls (lbs.) of precious metal; while Al-Makrizi relates that Mohammed the Apostle declared, “The Kintár of gold is twelve hundred ounces.” Baron de Slane (Ibn Khaldun, i. 210) computes 100 Kintárs = 1 million of francs.

Footnote 72:

In the text “wa lá ahad tafawwaha fína.”

Footnote 73:

Arab. “Falsafah” = philosophy: see vols. v. 234 and vii. 145.

Footnote 74:

In the text “Fa-yatrahúna,” masc. for fem.

Footnote 75:

The writer probably remembered that the cat was a sacred animal amongst the Egyptians: see Herod., ii. 66, and Diod. Sic., who tells us (vol. i. p. 94) of a Roman put to death under Ptolemy Auletes for accidentally killing one of these holy beasts. The artists of Bubastis, whose ruins are now for the first time being scientifically explored, modelled the animal in bronze with an admirable art akin to nature.

Footnote 76:

M. Houdas explains this miswritten passage, Quand le soleil fut levé et qu’il pénétra par ces ouvertures (lis. abkhásh, trou de flûte), il répandit (‏دَرَ‎ not ‏بَذَرَ‎) le sable dans ces cylindres formés par la lumière du soleil. It is not very intelligible. I understand that the Sage went behind the Palace and drove through a mound or heap of earth a narrow hole bearing east-west, which he partially filled up with sand; and so when the sun rose the beams fell upon it and made it resemble a newly made cord of white flax. M. Agoub (in Gauttier, vol. vi. 344) shirks, as he is wont to do, the whole difficulty. [The idea seems to me to be, and I believe this is also the meaning of M. Houdas, that Haykar produced streaks of light in an otherwise dark room by boring holes in the back wall, and scattered the sand over them, so that, while passing through the rays of the sun, it assumed the appearance of ropes. Hence he says mockingly to Pharaoh, “Have these ropes taken up, and each time you please I will twist thee the like of them”—reading “Aftilu,” 1st p. aor. instead of “Iftil,” 2nd imper.—ST.]

Footnote 77:

Gauttier (vi. 347), Ces présens ne sont pas dignes de lui; mais peu de chose contenté les rois.

Footnote 78:

Haykar is a Sage who follows the religion of nature, “Love thy friends and hate thy foes.” Gauttier (vii. 349) embroiders all this with Christian and French sentiment—L’intention secrète de Heycar était de sauver la vie à l’ingrat qui avait conspiré contre la sienne. Il voulait pour toute vengeance, le mettre désormais dans l’impossibilité de nuire et l’abandonner ensuite à ses remords, persuadé que le remords n’est pas le moindre châtiment du coupable. True nonsense this when talking of a character born bad: its only remorse is not to have done worse than bad.

Footnote 79:

Striking the nape being the Moslem equivalent for “boxing ears.”

Footnote 80:

With this formula compare Chaucer, “The Manciple’s Tale.”

Footnote 81:

In the text “Znnákt-ha,” which is unintelligible, although the sense be clear.

Footnote 82:

A bird unknown to the dictionaries, apparently a species of hawk.

Footnote 83:

In the text “Júrah Syán” for “Júrah Sayyál.”

Footnote 84:

The tree having furnished the axe-helve.

Footnote 85:

M. Houdas translates Tu as médit de moi et tu m’as accablé de tes méchancetés.

Footnote 86:

In text “Alif, bá, tá, sá,” the latter written with a Sin instead of a Thá, showing the vulgar use which extends from Alexandria to Meccah.

Footnote 87:

So in French, deriding the difference between written and spoken English, Ecrivez Salmonassar, prononcez crocodile.

Footnote 88:

Because he owes thee more than a debt of life.

Footnote 89:

i.e. “Tammat” = She (the tale) is finished.

Footnote 90:

MSS. pp. 217–265. See the “Arabian Tales,” translated by Robert Heron (Edinburgh M.DCC.XCII.), where it is, “The Robber-Caliph; or Adventures of Haroun Alraschid, with the Princess of Persia, and the fair Zutulbé,” vol. i. pp. 2–69. Gauttier, Histoire du Khalyfe de Baghdad, vol. vii. pp. 117–150.

Footnote 91:

In text “Ahádís,” esp. referred to the sayings of Mohammed, and these are divided into two great sections, the “Ahádís al-Nabawí,” or the actual words pronounced by the Apostle; and the “Ahádís al-Kudus,” or the sentences attributed to the Archangel Gabriel.

Footnote 92:

Heron has “the Festival of Haraphat,” adding a power of nonsense. This is the day of the sermon, when the pilgrims sleep at Muzdalifah (Pilgrimage iii. 265). Kusayy, an ancestor of the Apostle, was the first to prepare a public supper at this oratory, and the custom was kept up by Harun al-Rashid, Zubaydah and Sha’ab, mother of the Caliph al-Muktadir (Tabari ii. 368). Alms are obligatory on the two great ’I´ds or festivals, al-Fitr which ends the Ramazán fast and al-Kurbán during the annual Pilgrimage. The dole must consist of at least a “Sá’” = 7 lbs. in grain, dates, &c.

Footnote 93:

i.e. habited themselves in the garments of little people: so to “enlarge the turband” is to assume the rank of an ’Álim or learned man. “Jayb,” the breast of a coat is afterwards used in the sense of a pocket.

Footnote 94:

Either the Caliph was persuaded that the white wrist was a “promise of better things above and below,” or he proposed marriage as a mere freak, intelligible enough when divorce costs only two words.

Footnote 95:

In text “Nakdí” = the actual as opposed to the contingent dowry: see vols. vii. 126; ix. 32.

Footnote 96:

This is said in irony.

Footnote 97:

In text “Bashákhín” plur. of “Bashkhánah:” see Suppl. vols. i. 165; iii. 121.

Footnote 98:

In Heron he becomes “Kassera-Abocheroan.” Anushirwan (in full Anúshínrawán = sweet of soul) is popularly supposed to have begun his rule badly after the fashion of Eastern despots, and presently to have become the justest of monarchs. Nothing of this, however, is found in Tabari (ii. 159).

Footnote 99:

He was indignant because twitted with having married a beggar-maid like good King Cophetua. In Heron he is “moved by so sensible a reply.”

Footnote 100:

Plur. “Katáif,” a kind of pancake made of flour and sugar (or honey) and oil or butter.

Footnote 101:

Arab. “Sakká” = a water-carrier, generally a bad lot. Of the “Sakká Sharbah,” who supplies water to passengers in the streets, there is an illustration in Lane; M.E. chapt. xiv.

Footnote 102:

In the text “Kahbah” an ugly word = our whore (i.e. hired woman): it is frightfully common in every-day speech. See vol. ii. 70.

Footnote 103:

Arab. “Sibák” usually = a leash (for falconry, etc.).

Footnote 104:

I have emphasised this detail which subsequently becomes a leading incident.

Footnote 105:

Usual formulæ when a respectable person is seen drinking: the same politeness was also in use throughout the civilised parts of mediæval Europe. See the word “Hanian” (vol. ii. 5), which at Meccah and elsewhere is pronounced also “Haniyyan.”

Footnote 106:

In text “Yá Ta’ís,” a favourite expression in this MS. Page 612 (MS.) has “Tá’ish,” a clerical error, and in page 97 we have “Yá Ta’ásat-ná” = O our misery!

Footnote 107:

As might a “picker up of unconsidered trifles.”

Footnote 108:

In text “Akbá’ wa Zarábíl.” I had supposed the first to be the Pers. Kabá = a short coat or tunic, with the Arab. ’Ayn (the second is the common corruption for “Zarábín” = slaves’ shoes, slippers: see vol. x. 1), but M. Houdas translates Ni calottes ni caleçons, and for the former word here and in MS. p. 227 he reads “’Arakiyah” = skull-cap: see vol. i. 215. [“Akbá” is the pl. of “Kub’,” which latter occurs infra, p. 227 of the Ar. MS., and means, in popular language, any part of a garment covering the head, as the hood of a Burnus or the top-piece of a Kalansuwah; also a skull-cap, usually called “’Araqíyah.”—ST.]

Footnote 109:

Heron dubs him “Hazeb (Hájib) Yamaleddin.” In text “’Alái al-Dín;” and in not a few places it is familiarly abbreviated to “’Ali” (p. 228, etc.). For the various forms of writing the name see Suppl. vol. iii. 51. The author might have told us the young Chamberlain’s name Arabicè earlier in the tale; but it is the Ráwi’s practice to begin with the vague and to end in specification. I have not, however, followed his example here or elsewhere.

Footnote 110:

i.e. Destiny so willed it. For the Pen and the Preserved Tablet see vol. v. 322.

Footnote 111:

This was the custom not only with Harun as Mr. Heron thinks, but at the Courts of the Caliphs generally.

Footnote 112:

In text “Ghiyár,” Arab. = any piece of dress or uniform which distinguishes a class, as the soldiery: in Pers. = a strip of yellow cloth worn by the Jews subject to the Shah.

Footnote 113:

Arab. “Zarbúl tákí,” the latter meaning “high-heeled.” Perhaps it may signify also “fenestrated, or open-worked like a window.” So “poules” or windows cut in the upper leathers of his shoes. Chaucer, The Miller’s Tale.

Footnote 114:

“Mayzar,” in Pers. = a turband: in Arab. “Miizar” = a girdle; a waistcloth.

Footnote 115:

Arab. “Kaus al-Bunduk” (or Bandúk) a pellet-bow, the Italian arcobugio, the English arquebuse; for which see vol. i. 10. Usually the “Kís” is the Giberne or pellet-bag; but here it is the bow-cover. Gauttier notes (vii. 131):—Bondouk signifie en Arabe harquebuse, Albondoukani signifie l’arquebusier; c’était comme on le voit, le mot d’ordre du Khalyfe. He supposes, then, that firelocks were known in the days of Harun al-Rashid (A.D. 786–809). Al-Bundukáni = the cross-bow man, or rather the man of the pellet-bow was, according to the Ráwí, the name by which the Caliph was known in this disguise. Al-Zahir Baybars al-Bundukdárí, the fourth Baharite Soldan (A.D. 1260–77) was so entitled because he had been a slave to a Bundukdár, an officer who may be called the Grand Master of Artillery. In Chavis and Cazotte the Caliph arms himself with a spear, takes a bow and arrow (instead of the pellet-bow that named him), disguises his complexion, dyes beard and eyebrows, dons a large coarse turband, a buff waistcoat with a broad leathern belt, a short robe of common stuff and half-boots of strong coarse leather, and thus “assumes the garb of an Arab from the desert.” (!)

Footnote 116:

See vol. i. 266.

Footnote 117:

i.e. by the Archangel Gabriel.

Footnote 118:

Arab. “Habbah” = a grain (of barley, etc.), an obolus, a mite: it is also used for a gold bead in the shape of a cube forming part of the Egyptian woman’s headdress (Lane M.E., Appendix A). As a weight it is the 48th of a dirham, the third of a kírát (carat) or 127/128 of an English grain, avoir.

Footnote 119:

In text “Mahmá” = as often as = kullu-má. This is the eleventh question of the twelve in Al-Hariri, Ass. xxiv., and the sixth of Ass. xxxvi. The former runs, “What is the noun (kullu-má) which gives no sense except by the addition thereto of two words, or the shortening thereof to two letters (i.e. má); and in the first case there is adhesion and in the second compulsion?” (Chenery, pp. 246–253).

Footnote 120:

In Chavis and Cazotte he looks through the key-hole which an Eastern key does not permit, the holes being in the bolt. See Index, Suppl. vol. v.

Footnote 121:

In text “Kábal-ki,” which I suspect to be a clerical error for “Kátal-ki” = Allah strike thee dead. See vol. iv. 264, 265. [One of the meanings of “Mukábalah,” the third form of “kabila,” is “requital,” “retaliation.” The words in the text could therefore be translated: “may God requite thee.”—ST.]

Footnote 122:

In Chavis and Cazotte she swears “by the name of God which is written on our Great Prophet’s forehead.”

Footnote 123:

Arab. “Yá Luss”; for this word = the Gr. λῃστὴς see Suppl. vol. iv. index.

Footnote 124:

“Al-Nátúr,” the keeper, esp. of a vineyard, a word naturalized in Persian. The Caliph asks, Is this a bonâ fide affair and hast thou the power to settle the matter definitely? M. Houdas translates as Les raisins sont-ils à toi, ou bien es-tu seulement la gardienne de la vigne? [The verb záraba, 3rd form, followed by the accusative, means “to join one in partnership.” The sense of the passage seems therefore to be: Dost thou own grapes thyself, or art thou (“tuzáribí,” 2 fem. sing.) in partnership with the vineyard-keeper. The word may be chosen because it admits of another interpretation, the double entendre of which might be kept up in English by using the expression “sleeping” partnership. Perhaps, however, “tuzáribí” means here simply: “Dost thou play the part of.”—ST.]

Footnote 125:

The innuendo is intelligible and I may draw attention to the humorous skill with which the mother-in-law’s character is drawn.

Footnote 126:

In text “Aská-hu ’alakah” = gave him a good sound drubbing (’alakah), as a robber would apply to a Judge had he the power.

Footnote 127:

Lest he happen to meet an unveiled woman on the stairs; the usual precaution is to cry “Dastúr!”—by your leave (Persian).

Footnote 128:

Arab. “Khayr”—a word of good omen.

Footnote 129:

In Chavis and Cazotte the mother gives her daughter’s name as Zutulbé (?) and her own Lelamain (?).

Footnote 130:

In text “Waliyah” or “Waliyáh” = and why?

Footnote 131:

The “Wronged” (Al-Mazlúm) refers to the Caliph who was being abused and to his coming career as a son-in-law. Gauttier, who translates the tale very perfunctorily, has Dieu protège les malheureux et les orphelins (vii. 133).

Footnote 132:

This again is intended to show the masterful nature of the Caliph, and would be as much admired by the average coffee-house audience as it would stir the bile of the free and independent Briton.

Footnote 133:

The “Street of the Copperas-maker”: the name, as usual, does not appear till further on in the tale.

Footnote 134:

In text “Rukhám” = marble or alabaster, here used for building material: so “Murakhkhim” = a marble-cutter, means simply a stone-mason. I may here note the rediscovery of the porphyry quarries in Middle Egypt, and the gypsum a little inland of Ras Gharíb to the West of the Suez Gulf. Both were much used by the old Egyptians, and we may now fairly expect to rediscover the lost sites, about Tunis and elsewhere in Northern Africa, whence Rosso antico and other fine stones were quarried.

Footnote 135:

Arab. “Al-Hásil” also meaning the taxes, the revenue.

Footnote 136:

In text “Ká’ah” = a saloon: see vols. i. 85; i. 292; and vii. 167.

Footnote 137:

In the sing. “Sikálah.”

Footnote 138:

The Jinn here was Curiosity, said to be a familiar of the sex feminine, but certainly not less intimate with “the opposite.”

Footnote 139:

In text “Kinnab” which M. Houdas translates étoupe que l’on fixe au bout d’un roseau pour blanchir les murs.

Footnote 140:

Impossible here not to see a sly hit at the Caliph and the Caliphate.

Footnote 141:

The writer has omitted this incident which occurs in Chavis and Cazotte.

Footnote 142:

In the text, “Samd” = carpets and pots and pans.

Footnote 143:

The Katá grouse (Tetrao alchata seu arenarius of Linn.) has often been noticed by me in Pilg. i. 226, (where my indexer called it “sand goose”) and in The Nights (vols. i. 131; iv. 111). De Sacy (Chrestom. Arab. iii. pp. 416, 507–509) offers a good literary account of it: of course he cannot speak from personal experience. He begins with the Ajáib al-Makhlúkát by Al-Kazwini (ob. A.H. 674 = A.D. 1274) who tells us that the bird builds in the desert a very small nest (whence the Hadís, “Whoso shall build to Allah a mosque, be it only the bigness of a Katá’s nest, the Lord shall edify for him a palace in Paradise”); that it abandons its eggs which are sometimes buried in sand, and presently returns to them (hence the saying, “A better guide than the Katá”); that it watches at night (?) and that it frequents highways to reconnoitre travellers (??), an interpretation confirmed by the Persian translator. Its short and graceful steps gave rise to the saying, “She hath the gait of a Katá,” and makes De Sacy confound the bird with the Pers. Káhú or Kabk-i-dari (partridge of the valley) which is simply the francolin, the Ital. francolino, a perdix. The latter in Arab. is “Durráj” (Al-Mas’udi, vii. 347): see an affecting story connected with it in the Suppl. Nights, ii. 59–62. In the xxiii^d Ass. of Al-Hariri the sagacity of the Katá is alluded to, “I crossed rocky places, to which the Katá would not find its way.” See also Ass. viii. But Mr. Chenery repeats a mistake when he says (p. 339) that the bird is “never found save where there is good pasturage and water:” it haunts the wildest parts of Sind and Arabia, although it seldom strays further than 60 miles from water which it must drink every evening. I have never shot the Katá since he saved my party from a death by thirst on a return-ride from Harar (First Footsteps in E. Africa, p. 388). The bird is very swift with a skurrying flight like a frightened pigeon; and it comes to water regularly about dusk when it is easily “potted.”

Footnote 144:

In text “Samman” for “Sammán”: Dozy gives the form “Summun” (Houdas). The literary name is “Salwà.”

Footnote 145:

For Wali (at one time a Civil Governor and in other ages a Master of Police) see vol. i. 259.

Footnote 146:

Prob. a corruption of the Pers. “Názuk,” adj. delicate, nice.

Footnote 147:

In text “Jaftáwát” which is I presume the Arab. plur. of the Turk. “Chifút” a Jew, a mean fellow. M. Houdas refers to Dozy s.v. “Jaftáh.” [The Turkish word referred to by Dozy is “Chifte” from the Persian “Juft” = a pair, any two things coupled together. “Mashá’ilíyah jaftáwát wa fánúsín” in the text would therefore be “(cresset-) bearers of double torches and lanterns,” where the plural fánúsín is remarkable as a vulgarism, instead of the Dictionary form “Fawánís.”—ST.]

Footnote 148:

So in Chavis and Cazotte: Gauttier and Heron prefer (vol. i. 38) “Chamama.” They add, “That dæmon incarnate gave out himself that Satan was his father and the devil Camos (?) his brother.” The Arab. word is connected with the ✓ shamma = he smelt and suggests the policeman smoking plots.

Footnote 149:

i.e. concealing the secret sins of the people. This sketch of the cad policeman will find many an original in the London force, if the small householder speak the truth.

Footnote 150:

Qui n’ait un point de contact avec l’une de ces catégories—(Houdas).

Footnote 151:

In the old translations “The Hazen” (Kházin = treasurer?) which wholly abolishes the double entendre.

Footnote 152:

In text “Darbisí al-báb” from the Persian, “Dar bastan” = to tie up, to shut.

Footnote 153:

In text “Ghaush” for “Ghaushah” = noise, row.

Footnote 154:

“Akkál bula’hu” i.e. commit all manner of abominations. “To eat skite” is to talk or act foolishly.

Footnote 155:

In the old translations “Ilamir Youmis.”

Footnote 156:

In text “Dabbús bazdaghání,” which I have translated as if from the Pers. “Bazdagh” = a file. But it may be a clerical error for “Bardawáni,” the well-known city in Hindostan whose iron was famous.

Footnote 157:

“Nahs” means something more than ill-omened, something nasty, foul, uncanny: see vol. i. 301.

Footnote 158:

In Chavis, Heron and Co. there are two ladders to scale the garden wall and descend upon the house-terrace which apparently they do not understand to be the roof.

Footnote 159:

Arab. “Al-Káfi’ah” = garde-fou, rebord d’une terrasse—(Houdas).

Footnote 160:

Our vulgar “Houri”: see vols. i. 90; iii. 233. There are many meanings of Hawar; one defines it as intense darkness of the black of the eye and corresponding whiteness; another that it is all which appears of the eye (as in the gazelle) meaning that the blackness is so large as to exclude the whiteness; whilst a third defines “Haurá” as a woman beautiful in the “Mahájir” (parts below and around the eyes which show when the face is veiled), and a fourth as one whose whiteness of eye appears in contrast with the black of the Kohl-powder. See Chenery’s Al-Hariri, pp. 354–55.

Footnote 161:

Arab. “Zalamah” = tyrants, oppressors (police and employés): see vols. i. 273, and vi. 214.

Footnote 162:

In text “Kunná nu’tíhu li-ahad” = we should have given him to someone; which makes very poor sense. [The whole passage runs: “Házá allazí kasam alláh bi-hi fa-lau kána rajul jayyid ghayr luss kunná nu’tíhu li-ahad,” which I would translate: This is he concerning whom Allah decreed (that he should be my portion, swearing;) “and if he were a good man and no thief, we would have bestowed him on someone.” In “kasama” the three ideas of decreeing, giving as a share, and binding one’s self by oath are blended together. If it should appear out of place to introduce Divinity itself as speaking in this context, we must not forget that the person spoken of is no less illustrious individual than Harun al-Rashíd, and that a decidedly satirical and humorous vein runs through the whole tale. Moreover, I doubt that “li-ahad” could be used as equivalent for “li-ghayrí,” “to some other than myself,” while it frequently occurs in the emphatic sense of “one who is somebody, a person of consequence.” The damsel and her mother, on the other hand allude repeatedly to the state of utter helplessness, in which they find themselves in default of their natural protector, and which has reduced them from an exalted station to the condition of nobodies. I speak, of course, here as elsewhere, “under correction.”—ST.]

Footnote 163:

In text “Hmsh.” The Dicts. give Himmas and Himmis, forms never heard, and Forsk. (Flora Ægypt.-Arab. p. lxxi.) “Homos,” also unknown. The vulg. pron. is “Hummus” or as Lane (M. E. chapt. v.) has it “Hommus” (chick-peas). The word applies to the pea, while “Malán” is the plant in pod. It is the cicer arietinum concerning which a classical tale is told. “Cicero (pron. Kikero) was a poor scholar in the University of Athens, wherewith his enemies in Rome used to reproach him, and as he passed through the streets would call out ‘O Cicer, Cicer, O,’ a word still used in Cambridge, and answers to a Servitor in Oxford.” Quaint this approximation between “Cicer” the vetch and “Sizar” which comes from “size” = rations, the Oxford “battel.”

Footnote 164:

Arab. “Yulakkimu,” from “Lukmah” = a mouthful; see vols. i. 266; vii. 367.

Footnote 165:

Arab. “Jarazat Kuzbán” (plur. of “Kazíb,” see vol. ii. 66) = long and slender sticks.

Footnote 166:

i.e. a witch; see vol. viii. 131.

Footnote 167:

So in the phrase “Otbah hath the colic,” first said concerning Otbah b. Rabí’a by Abú Jahl when the former advised not marching upon Badr to attack Mohammed. Tabari, vol. ii. 491.

Footnote 168:

Compare the French “Brr!”

Footnote 169:

i.e. to whom thou owest a debt of apology or excuse, “Gharím” = debtor or creditor.

Footnote 170:

Arab. “Juráb al-’uddah,” i.e. the manacles, fetters, etc.

Footnote 171:

The following three sentences are taken from the margin of (MS.) p. 257, and evidently belong to this place.

Footnote 172:

In text “Bghb” evidently for “Baght” or preferably “Baghtatan.”

Footnote 173:

This is a twice-told tale whose telling I have lightened a little without omitting any important detail. Gauttier reduces the ending of the history to less than five pages.

Footnote 174:

The normal idiom for “I accept.”

Footnote 175:

In text “Khila’t dakk al-Matrakah,” which I have rendered literally: it seems to signify an especial kind of brocade.

Footnote 176:

The Court of Baghdad was, like the Urdú (Horde or Court) of the “Grand Mogul,” organised after the ordinance of an army in the field, with its centre, the Sovran, and two wings right and left, each with its own Wazir for Commander, and its vanguard and rearguard.

Footnote 177:

Being the only son he had a voice in the disposal of his sister. The mother was the Kabírah = head of the household, in Marocco Al-Sídah = Madame mère; but she could not interfere single-handed in affairs concerning the family. See Pilgrimage, vol. iii. 198. Throughout Al-Islam in default of a father the eldest brother gives away the sisters, and if there be no brother this is done by the nearest male relation on the “sword” side. The mother has no authority in such matters nor indeed has anyone on the “spindle” side.

Footnote 178:

Alluding to the Wali and his men.

Footnote 179:

Arab. “Kunyah” (the pop. mispronunciation of “Kinyah”) is not used here with strict correctness. It is a forename or bye-name generally taken from the favourite son, Abú (father of) being prefixed. When names are written in full it begins the string, e.g., Abu Mohammed (forename), Kásim (true name), ibn Ali (father’s name), ibn Mohammed (grandfather’s), ibn Osman (great-grandfather), Al-Hariri (=the Silkman from the craft of the family), Al-Basri (of Bassorah). There is also the “Lakab” (sobriquet), e.g. Al-Bundukání or Badí’u ’l-Zamán (Rarity of the Age), which may be placed either before or after the “Kunyah” when the latter is used alone. Chenery (Al-Hariri, p. 315) confines the “Kunyah” to forenames beginning with Abú; but it also applies to those formed with Umm (mother), Ibn (son), Bint (daughter), Akh (brother) and Ukht (sister). See vol iv. 287. It is considered friendly and graceful to address a Moslem by this bye-name.—Gaudent prænomine molles Auriculæ.

Footnote 180:

In text “Yá Kawákí,” which M. Houdas translates “O piailleur,” remarking that here it would be = poule mouillée.

Footnote 181:

“’Alakah khárijah” = an extraordinary drubbing.

Footnote 182:

In text “Ij’alní fí kll,” the latter word being probably, as M. Houdas suggests, a clerical error for “Kal-a” or “Kiláa” = safety, protection.

Footnote 183:

I am surprised that so learned and practical an Arabist as the Baron de Slane in his Fr. translation of Ibn Khaldún should render le surnom d’Er-Rechid (le prudent), for “The Rightly Directed,” the Orthodox (vol. ii. 237), when (ibid. p. 259) he properly translates “Al-Khulafá al-rashidín” by Les Califes qui marchent dans la voie droite.

Footnote 184:

MSS. pp. 476–504. This tale is laid down on the same lines as “Abú al-Husn and his Slave-girl Tawaddud,” vol. vi. 189. It is carefully avoided by Scott, C. de Perceval, Gauttier, etc.

Footnote 185:

Lit. an interpreter woman; the word is the fem. of Tarjumán, a dragoman whom Mr. Curtis calls a Drag o’ men; see vol. i. 100. It has changed wonderfully on its way from its “Semitic” home to Europe which has naturalised it as Drogman, Truchman and Dolmetsch.

Footnote 186:

For this word of many senses, see vols. i. 231; ix. 221. M. Caussin de Perceval (viii. 16) quoting d’Herbelot (s.v.), notes that the Abbasides thus entitled the chief guardian of the Harem.

Footnote 187:

See vols. iv. 100; viii. 268. In his Introduction (p. 22) to the Assemblies of Al-Hariri Chenery says, “This prosperity had now passed away, for God had brought the people of Rûm (so the Arabs call the Byzantines, whom Abú Zayd here confounds with the Franks) on the land,” etc. The confusion is not Abu Zayd’s: “Rúmí” in Marocco and other archaic parts of the Moslem world is still synonymous with our “European.”

Footnote 188:

This obedience to children is common in Eastern folk-lore: see Suppl. vol. i. 212, in which the royal father orders his son to sell him. The underlying idea is that the parents find their offspring too clever for them; not, as in the “New World,” that Youth is entitled to take precedence and command of Age.

Footnote 189:

In text “Fa min tumma” for “thumma”—then, alors.

Footnote 190:

Such as the headstall and hobbles, the cords and chains for binding captives, and the mace and sword hanging to the saddle-bow.

Footnote 191:

i.e. not a well-known or distinguished horseman, but a chance rider.

Footnote 192:

These “letters of Mutalammis,” as Arabs term our Litteræ Bellerophonteæ, or “Uriah’s letters,” are a lieu commun in the East and the Prince was in luck when he opened and read the epistle here given by mistake to the wrong man. Mutalammis, a poet of The Ignorance, had this sobriquet (the “frequent asker,” or, as we should say, the Solicitor-General), his name being Jarír bin ’Abd al-Masíh. He was uncle to Tarafah of the Mu’allakah or prize-poem, a type of the witty dissolute bard of the jovial period before Al-Islam arose to cloud and dull man’s life. One day as he was playing with other children Mutalammis was reciting a panegyric upon his favourite camel, which ran:—

I mount a he-camel, dark-red and firm-fleshed; or a she-camel of Himyar, fleet of foot and driving the pebbles with her crushing hooves.

“See the he-camel turned to a she,” cried the boy, and the phrase became proverbial to express inelegant transition (Arab. Prov. ii. 246). The uncle bade his nephew put out his tongue and seeing it dark-coloured said, “That black tongue will be thy ruin!” Tarafah, who was presently entitled Ibn al-’Ishrín (the son of twenty years), grew up a model reprobate who cared nothing save for three things, “to drink the dark-red wine foaming as the water mixeth with it, to urge into the fight a broad-backed steed, and to while away the dull day with a young beauty.” His apology for wilful waste is highly poetic:—

I see that the grave of the careful, the hoarder, differeth not from the grave of the debauched, the spendthrift: A hillock of earth covers this and that, with a few flat stones laid together thereon.

See the whole piece in Chenery’s Al-Hariri (p. 360), from which this note is borrowed. At last uncle and nephew fled from ruin to the Court of ’Amrú bin Munzír III., King of Hira, who in the tale of Al-Mutalammis and his wife Umaymah (The Nights, vol. v. 74) is called Al-Nu’umán bin Munzir but is better known as ’Amrú bin Hind (his mother). The King who was a ferocious personage nicknamed Al-Muharrik or the Burner because he had thrown into the fire ninety-nine men and one woman of the Tamím tribe in accordance with a vow of vengeance he had taken to slaughter a full century, made the two strangers boon-companions to his boorish brother Kábús. Tarafah, offended because kept at the tent-door whilst the master drank wine within, bitterly lampooned him together with ’Abd Amrú a friend of the King; and when this was reported his death was determined upon. Amrú, the King, seeing the anxiety of the two poets to quit his Court, offered them letters of introduction to Abú Kárib, Governor of Al-Hajar (Bahrayn) under the Persian King and they were accepted. The uncle caused his letter to be read by a youth, and finding that it was an order for his execution destroyed it and fled to Syria; but the nephew was buried alive. Amrú, the King, was afterwards slain by the poet-warrior, Amrú bin Kulthum, also of the “Mu’allakát,” for an insult offered to his mother by Hind: hence the proverb, “Quicker to slay than ’Amrú bin Kulsum” (A.P. ii. 233).

Footnote 193:

See vols. i. 192; iii. 14; these correspond with the “Stathmoi,” Stationes, Mansiones or Castra of Herodotus, Terps. cap. 53, and Xenophon An. i. 2, 10.

Footnote 194:

In text “Ittikà” viiith of ✓ wakà: the form “Takwà” is generally used = fearing God, whereby one guards oneself from sin in this life and from retribution in the world to come.

Footnote 195:

This series of puzzling questions and clever replies is still as favourite a mental exercise in the East as it was in middle-aged Europe. The riddle or conundrum began, as far as we know, with the Sphinx, through whose mouth the Greeks spoke: nothing less likely than that the grave and mysterious Scribes of Egypt should ascribe aught so puerile to the awful emblem of royal majesty—Abu Haul, the Father of Affright. Josephus relates how Solomon propounded enigmas to Hiram of Tyre which none but Abdimus, son of the captive Abdæmon, could answer. The Tale of Tawaddud offers fair specimens of such exercises, which were not disdained by the most learned of Arabian writers. See Al-Hariri’s Ass. xxiv. which proposes twelve enigmas involving abstruse and technical points of Arabic, such as: (¿) “What be the word, which as ye will is a particle beloved, or the name of that which compriseth the slender-waisted milch camel?” Na’am = “Yes” or “cattle,” the latter word containing the Harf, or slender camel. Chenery, p. 246.

Footnote 196:

For the sundry meanings and significance of “Salám,” here = Heaven’s blessing, see vols. ii. 24, vi. 232.

Footnote 197:

This is the nursery version of the Exodus, old as Josephus and St. Jerome, and completely changed by the light of modern learning. The Children of Israel quitted their homes about Memphis (as if a large horde of half-nomadic shepherds would be suffered in the richest and most crowded home of Egypt). They marched by the Wady Músà that debouches upon the Gulf of Suez a short way below the port now temporarily ruined by its own folly and the ill-will of M. de Lesseps; and they made the “Sea of Sedge” (Suez Gulf) through the valley bounded by what is still called Jabal ’Atákah, the Mountain of Deliverance, and its parallel range, Abu Durayj (of small steps). Here the waters were opened and the host passed over to the “Wells of Moses,” erstwhile a popular picnic place on the Arabian side; but according to one local legend (for which see my Pilgrimage, i. 294–97) they crossed the sea north of Túr, the spot being still called “Birkat Far’aun” = Pharaoh’s Pool. Such also is the modern legend amongst the Arabs, who learned their lesson from the Christians (not from the Jews) in the days when the Copts and the Greeks (ivth century) invented “Mount Sinai.” And the reader will do well to remember that the native annalists of Ancient Egypt, which conscientiously relate all her defeats and subjugations by the Ethiopians, Persians, etc., utterly ignore the very name of Hebrew, Sons of Israel, etc.

I cannot conceal my astonishment at finding a specialist journal like the “Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund” (Oct., 1887), admitting such a paper as that entitled “The Exode,” by R. F. Hutchinson, M.D. For this writer the labours of the last half-century are non-existing. Job is still the “oldest book” in the world. The Rev. Charles Forster’s absurdity, “Israel in the wilderness” gives valuable assistance. Goshen is Mr. Chester’s Tell Fakús (not, however, far wrong in this) instead of the long depression by the Copts still called “Gesem” or “Gesemeh,” the frontierland through which the middle course of the Suez Canal runs. “Succoth,” tabernacles, is confounded with the Arab. “Sakf” = a roof. Letopolis, the “key of the Exode,” and identified with the site where Babylon (Old Cairo) was afterwards built, is placed on the right instead of the left bank of the Nile. “Bahr Kulzum” is the “Sea of the Swallowing-up,” in lieu of The Closing. El-Tíh, “the wandering,” is identified with Wady Musa to the west of the Suez Gulf. And so forth. What could the able Editor have been doing?

Students of this still disputed question will consult “The Shrine of Saft el-Henneh and the Land of Goschen,” by Edouard Naville, fifth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. Published by order of the Committee. London, Trübner, 1837.

Footnote 198:

Eastern fable runs wild upon this subject, and indeed a large volume could be written upon the birth, life and death of Moses’ and Aaron’s rods. There is a host of legends concerning the place where the former was cut and whence it descended to the Prophet whose shepherd’s staff was the glorification of his pastoral life (the rod being its symbol) and of his future career as a ruler (and flogger) of men. In Exodus (viii. 3–10), when a miracle was required of the brothers, Aaron’s rod became a “serpent” (A.V.) or, as some prefer, a “crocodile,” an animal worshipped by certain of the Egyptians; and when the King’s magicians followed suit it swallowed up all others. Its next exploit was to turn the Nile and other waters of Egypt into blood (Exod. vii. 17). The third wonder was worked by Moses’ staff, the dividing of the Red Sea (read the Sea of Sedge or papyrus, which could never have grown in the brine of the Suez Gulf) according to the command, “Lift thou up thy rod and stretch out thine hand over the sea,” etc. (Exod. xiv. 15). The fourth adventure was when the rod, wherewith Moses smote the river, struck two blows on the rock in Horeb and caused water to come out of it (Numb. xxi. 8). Lastly the rod (this time again Aaron’s) “budded and brought forth buds and bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds” (Numb. xvii. 7); thus becoming a testimony against the rebels: hence it was set in the Holiest of the Tabernacles (Heb. ix. 14) as a lasting memorial. I have described (Pilgrim. i. 301) the mark of Moses’ rod at the little Hammam behind the old Phœnician colony of Tur, in the miscalled “Sinaitic” Peninsula: it is large enough to act mainmast for a ship. The end of the rod or rods is unknown: it died when its work was done, and like many other things, holy and unholy, which would be priceless, e.g., the true Cross or Pilate’s sword, it remains only as a memory around which a host of grotesque superstitions have grouped themselves.

Footnote 199:

In this word “Hayy” the Arab. and Heb. have the advantage of our English: it means either serpent or living, alive.

Footnote 200:

It is nowhere said in Hebrew Holy Writ that “Pharaoh,” whoever he may have been, was drowned in the “Red Sea.”

Footnote 201:

Arab. “Kaml.” The Koranic legend of the Ant has, I repeat, been charmingly commented upon by Edwin Arnold in “Solomon and the Ant” (p. i., Pearls of the Faith). It seems to be a Talmudic exaggeration of the implied praise in Prov. vi. 6 and xxx. 25, “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer”—which, by the by, proves that the Wise King could be caught tripping in his natural history, and that they did not know everything down Judee.

Footnote 202:

Isá, according to the Moslems, was so far like Adam (Koran iii. 52) that he was not begotten in the normal way: in fact his was a miraculous conception. See vol. v. 238.

Footnote 203:

For Elias, Elijah, or Khizr, a marvellous legendary figure, see vols. iv. 175; v. 384. The worship of Helios (Apollo) is not extinct in mod. Greece where it survives under the name of Elias. So Dionysus has become St. Dionysius; Bacchus the Drunken, St. George; and Artemis St. Artemides the healer of childhood.

Footnote 204:

Gesenius interprets it “Soldier of God”; the bye-name given to Jacob presently became the national name of the Twelve Tribes collectively; then it narrowed to the tribe of Judah; afterwards it became = laymen as opposed to Levites, etc., and in these days it is a polite synonym for Jew. When you want anything from any of the (self-) Chosen People you speak of him as an Israelite; when he wants anything of you, you call him a Jew, or a damned Jew, as the case may be.

Footnote 205:

I am not aware that there is any general history of the bell, beginning with the rattle, the gong and other primitive forms of the article; but the subject seems worthy of a monograph. In Hebrew Writ the bell first appears in Exod. xxviii. 33 as a fringe to the Ephod of the High Priest that its tinkling might save him from intruding unwarned into the bodily presence of the tribal God, Jehovah.

Footnote 206:

Gennesaret (Chinnereth, Cinneroth), where, according to some Moslems, the Solomon was buried.

Footnote 207:

I cannot explain this legend.

Footnote 208:

So the old English rhyme, produced for quite another purpose by Sir John Bull in “Wat Tyler’s Rebellion” (Hume, Hist. of Eng., vol. i. chapt. 17):—

“When Adam dolve and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?”

A variant occurs in a MS. of the xvth century, Brit. Museum:—

“Now bethink the gentleman, How Adam dalf and Eve span.”

And the German form is:—

“So Adam reutte (reute) and Eva span Wer was da ein Eddelman (Edelman)?”

Footnote 209:

Plur. of “’Usfúr” = a bird, a sparrow. The etymology is characteristically Oriental and Mediæval, reminding us of Dan Chaucer’s meaning of Cecilia “Heaven’s lily” (Súsan) or “Way for the blind” (Cæcus) or “Thoughts of Holiness” and lia = lasting industry; or, “Heaven and Leos” (people), so that she might be named the people’s heaven (The Second Nonne’s Tale).

Footnote 210:

i.e. “Fír is rebellious.”

Footnote 211:

Both of which, I may note, are not things but states, modes or conditions of things. See vol. ix. 78.

Footnote 212:

“Salát” = the formal ceremonious prayer. I have noticed (vol. iv. 60) the sundry technical meanings of the term Salát, from Allah = Mercy; from Angel-kind = intercession and pardon, and from mankind = a blessing.

Footnote 213:

Possibly “A prayer of Moses, the man of God,” the title of the highly apocryphal Psalm xc.

Footnote 214:

Arab. “Libás” = clothes in general.

Footnote 215:

In text ‏ظفر‎ Zafar = victory. It may also be “Zifr” = alluding to the horny matter which, according to Moslem tradition, covered the bodies of “our first parents” and of which after the “original sin” nothing remained but the nails of their fingers and toes. It was only when this disappeared that they became conscious of their nudity. So says M. Houdas; but I prefer to consider the word as a clerical error for ‏ضفر‎ Zafar = plaited hair.

Footnote 216:

According to Al-Mas’udi (i. 86, quoting Koran xxi. 52), Abraham had already received of Allah spiritual direction or divine grace (“Rushdu ’llah” or “Al-Hudà”) which made him sinless. In this opinion of the Imamship, says my friend Prof. A. Sprenger, the historian is more fatalistic than most Sunnís.

Footnote 217:

Modern Moslems are all agreed in making Ishmael and not Isaac the hero of this history: see my Pilgrimage (vol. iii. 306). But it was not always so. Al-Mas’udi (vol. ii. 146) quotes the lines of a Persian poet in A. H. 290 (=A. D. 902) which expressly say “Is’háku kána’l-Zabíh” = Isaac was the victim, and the historian refers to this in sundry places. Yet the general idea is that Ishmael succeeded his father (as eldest son) and was succeeded by Isaac; and hence the bitter family feud between the Eastern Jews and the Arab Gentiles.

Footnote 218:

In text “Tajní” = lit. thou pluckest (the fruit of good deeds). M. Houdas translates Tu recueilles, mot à mot tu cueilles.

Footnote 219:

See note at the end of this tale.

Footnote 220:

Amongst the Jews the Temple of Jerusalem was a facsimile of the original built by Jehovah in the lowest heaven or that of the Moon. For the same idea (doubtless a derivation from the Talmud) amongst the Moslems concerning the heavenly Ka’abah called Bayt al-Ma’múr (the Populated House) see my Pilgrimage iii. 186, et seq.

Footnote 221:

i.e. there is an end of the matter.

Footnote 222:

In text “Massa-hu ’l Fakr” = poverty touched him.

Footnote 223:

He had sold his father for a horse, etc., and his mother for a fine dress.

Footnote 224:

This enigma is in the style of Samson’s (Judges xiv. 12) of which we complain that the unfortunate Philistines did not possess the sole clue which could lead to the solution; and here anyone with a modicum of common sense would have answered, “Thou art the man!” The riddles with which the Queen of Sheba visited Solomon must have been simply hard questions somewhat like those in the text; and the relator wisely refuses to record them.

Footnote 225:

We should say “To eclipse the sun.”

Footnote 226:

A very intelligible offer.

Footnote 227:

Arab. “Bi Asri-hi,” lit. “rope and all;” metaphorically used = altogether, entirely: the idea is borrowed from the giving or selling of a beast with its thong, halter, chain, etc.

Footnote 228:

In the text “Káhin,” a Cohen, a Jewish Priest, a soothsayer: see Al-Kahánah, vol. i. 28. In Heb. Kahana = he ministered (priests’ offices or other business) and Cohen = a priest either of the true God or of false gods.

Footnote 229:

This ending with its resumé of contents is somewhat hors ligne, yet despite its vain repetition I think it advisable to translate it.

Footnote 230:

“And she called his name Moses, and she said because from the water I drew him” (Exod. ii. 10). So in Copt. ⲙⲱⲟⲩⲥⲉ = water son, ⲙⲉⲥ = waters, ⲙⲟⲩϭⲓ = taken from or ⲙⲟⲩⲁϩⲓ = delivered from.

Footnote 231:

The Pharaoh of the Exodus is popularly supposed by Moslems to have treated his leprosy with baths of babes’ blood, the babes being of the Banú Isráil. The word “Pharaoh” is not without its etymological difficulties. In Josephus ‏פרעה‎ = ⲡⲓ ⲟⲩⲣⲟ = the King. Others suggest ⲡⲓ ⲣⲁ = the sun, which has little weight. Rá, the sun (without article) generally follows the name of the king who is also termed ⲥⲓ ⲣⲁ = son of Ra, ergo not Ra. Harding follows Brugsch Pasha, who proposes “Per’ao” = great house, sublime Porte.

Footnote 232:

Graetz (Geschichte i. note 7) proves that “Aram,” in the Hebrew text (Judges iii. 8) should be “Edom.”

Footnote 233:

I give a quadruple increase, at least 25 per centum more than the genealogies warrant.

Footnote 234:

MS. pp. 505–537. This story is found in the “Turkish Tales” by Petis de la Croix who translated one fourth of the “Forty Wazirs” by an author self-termed “Shaykh Zádeh.” It is called the “History of Chec Chahabeddin” (Shaykh Shiháb al-Dín), and it has a religious significance proving that the Apostle did really and personally make the “Mi’raj” (ascent to Heaven) and returned whilst his couch was still warm and his upset gugglet had not run dry. The tale is probably borrowed from Saint Paul who (2 Cor. xii. 4), was “caught up into Paradise,” which in those days was a kind of region that roofed the earth. The Shaykh in question began by showing the Voltairean Sultan of Egypt certain specious miracles, such as a phantom army (in our tale two lions), Cairo reduced to ashes, the Nile in flood and a Garden of Irem, where before lay a desert. He then called for a tub, stripped the King to a zone girding his loins and made him dip his head into the water. Then came the adventures as in the following tale. When after a moment’s space these ended, the infuriated Sultan gave orders to behead the Shaykh, who also plunged his head into the tub; but the Wizard divined the ill-intent by “Mukáshafah” (thought-reading); and by “Al-Ghayb ’an al-Absár” (invisibility) levanted to Damascus. The reader will do well to compare the older account with the “First Vizir’s Story” (p. 17) in Mr. Gibb’s “History of the Forty Vizirs,” etc. As this scholar remarks, the Mi’ráj, with all its wealth of wild fable, is simply alluded to in a detached verset of the Koran (xvii. 1) which runs: [I declare] “The glory of Him who transported His servant by night from the Sacred Temple (of Meccah) to the Remote Temple (of Jerusalem), whose precincts we have blessed, that we might show him of our signs.” After this comes an allusion to Moses (v. 2); Mr. Gibb observes (p. 22) that this lengthening out of the seconds was a favourite with “Dervishes,” as he has shown in “The Story of Jewád;” and suggests that the effect might have been produced by some drug like Hashish. I object to Mr. Gibb’s use of the word “Houri” (ibid. p. 24) without warning the reader that it is an irregular formation, masculine withal, for “Huríyah” and that the Pers. “Húrí,” from which the Turks borrowed their blunder, properly means “One Húr.”

Footnote 235:

For the Dajlah (Tigris) and Furát (Euphrates) see vols. viii. 150; ix. 17. The topothesia is worse than Shakspearean. In Weber’s Edit. of the “New Arabian Nights” (Adventures of Simoustapha, etc.), the rivers are called “Ilfara” and “Aggiala.”

Footnote 236:

In text “Alwán,” for which see vol. vii. 135.

Footnote 237:

[The word which is here translated with: “and one had said that he had laboured hard thereat” (walawá’yh?) seems scarcely to bear out this meaning. I would read it “wa’l-Aw’iyah” (plur. of wi’á), rendering accordingly: “and the vessels (in which the aforesaid meats were set out) shimmered like unto silver for their cleanliness.”—ST.]

Footnote 238:

In text “Al-Wahwah.”

Footnote 239:

In text, “Mutasa’lik” for “Mutasa’lik” = like a “sa’lúk.”

Footnote 240:

For this “high-spirited Prince and noble-minded lord” see vol. ix. 229.

Footnote 241:

In text “Bisáta-hum” = their carpets.

Footnote 242:

In text “Hawánít,” plur. of “Hanút” = the shop or vault of a vintner, pop. derived from the Persian Kháneh; but it appears to be another form of ‏حانوت‎ Heb. ‏חנות‎ Syr. ‏ܗܰܢܘܽܬܐܰ‎. In Jer. xxvii. 16, where the A. V. has “When Jeremiah was entered into the dungeon and into the cabins,” read “underground vaults,” cells or cellars where wine was sold. “Hanút” also means either the vintner or the vintner’s shop. The derivation from ‏حين‎ because it ruins man’s property and wounds his honour is the jeu d’esprit of a moralising grammarian. Chenery’s Al-Hariri, p. 377.

Footnote 243:

In the Arab. “Jawákín,” plur. of Arab. Jaukán for Pers. Chaugán, a crooked stick, a club, a bat used for the Persian form of golf played on horseback—Polo.

Footnote 244:

[The text reads “Liyah,” and lower down twice with the article “Al-Liyah” (double Lám). I therefore suspect that “Liyyah,” equivalent with “Luwwah,” is intended, which both mean Aloes-wood as used for fumigation (yutabakhkharu bi-hi). For the next ingredient I would read “Kit’ah humrah,” a small quantity of red brickdust, a commodity, to which, I do not know with what foundation, wonderful medicinal powers are or were ascribed. This interpretation seems to me the more preferable, as it presently appears that the last-named articles had to go into the phial, the mention of which would otherwise be to no purpose and which I take to have been finally sealed up with the sealing clay. The whole description is exceedingly loose, and evidently sorely corrupted, so I think every attempt at elucidation may be acceptable.—ST.]

Footnote 245:

“Wa Kíta’h hamrah,” which M. Houdas renders un morceau de viande cuite.

Footnote 246:

This is a specimen of the Islamised Mantra called in Sanskrit Stambhaná and intended to procure illicit intercourse. Herklots has printed a variety of formulæ which are popular throughout southern India: even in the Maldive Islands we find such “Fandita” (i.e. Panditya, the learned Science) and Mr. Bell (Journ., Ceylon Br. R. A. S. vii. 109) gives the following specimen, “Write the name of the beloved; pluck a bud of the screwpine (here a palette de mouton); sharpen a new knife; on one side of the bud write the Surat al-Badr (chapter of Power, No. xxi., thus using the word of Allah for Satan’s purpose); on the other side write Vajahata; make an image out of the bud; indite particulars of the horoscope; copy from beginning to end the Surat al-Rahmán (the Compassionating, No. xlviii.); tie the image in five places with coir left-hand-twisted (i.e. widdershins or ‘against the sun’); cut the throat of a blood-sucker (lizard); smear its blood on the image; place it in a loft; dry it for three days; then take it and enter the sea. If you go in knee-deep the woman will send you a message; if you go in to the waist she will visit you. (The Voyage of François Pyrard, etc., p. 179.) I hold all these charms to be mere instruments for concentrating and intensifying the brain action called Will, which is and which presently will be recognised as the chief motor-power.” See Suppl. vol. iii.

Footnote 247:

Probably the name of some Prince of the Jinns.

Footnote 248:

In text “Kamá zukira fí Dayli-h” = arrange-toi de façon à l’atteindre (Houdas).

Footnote 249:

Proverbial for its depth: Káshán is the name of sundry cities; here one in the Jibál or Irák ’Ajami—Persian Mesopotamia.

Footnote 250:

Doubtless meaning Christians.

Footnote 251:

The Sage had summoned her by the preceding spell which the Princess obeyed involuntarily.

Footnote 252:

i.e. last night; see vol. iii. 249.

Footnote 253:

In text “Wuldán” = “Ghilmán”: the boys of Paradise; for whom and their feminine counterparts the Húr (Al-Ayn) see vols. i. 90, 211; iii. 233.

Footnote 254:

Arab. “Dukhn” = Holcus dochna, a well-known grain, a congener of the Zurrah or Durrah = Holcus Sativus, Forsk. cxxiii. The incident is not new. In “Das blaue Licht,” a Mecklenburg tale given by Grimm, the King’s daughter who is borne through the air to the soldier’s room is told by her father to fill her pocket with peas and make a hole therein; but the sole result was that the pigeons had a rare feast. See Suppl. vol. iii. 570.

Footnote 255:

i.e. a martyr of love. See vols. iii. 211; iv. 205.

Footnote 256:

In the text “Ka’ka’”; hence the higher parts of Meccah, inhabited by the Jurham tribe, was called “Jabal Ka’ka’án,” from their clashing arms (Pilgrimage iii. 191).

Footnote 257:

This was the work of the form of magic popularly known as Símiyá = fascination, for which see vol. i. 305, 332. It is supposed to pass away after a period of three days, and mesmerists will find no difficulty in recognising a common effect upon “Odylic sensitives.”

Footnote 258:

Here supply the MS. with “illá.”

Footnote 259:

In text “tatadakhkhal ’alay-h:” see “Dakhíl-ak,” vol. i. 61.

Footnote 260:

Or “he”: the verb may also refer to the Sage.

Footnote 261:

Arab. “Kazafa” = threw up, etc.

Footnote 262:

This, in the case of the Wazir, was a transformation for the worse: see vol. vii. 294, for the different kinds of metamorphosis.

Footnote 263:

i.e. my high fortune ending in the lowest.

Footnote 264:

In text “Bakar” = black cattle, whether bull, ox or cow. For ploughing with bulls see vol. i. 16.

Footnote 265:

In text “Mukrif” = lit. born of a slave father and free mother.

Footnote 266:

In text “Antum fí kháshin wa básh,” an error for “khásh-másh” = a miserable condition.

Footnote 267:

In text “yatbashsh” for “yanbashsha.” [Or it may stand for yabtashsh, with transposition of the “t” of the eighth form, as usual in Egypt. See Spitta-Bey’s Grammar, p. 198.—ST.]

Footnote 268:

“Janánan,” which, says M. Houdas is the vulgar form of “Jannatan” = the garden (of Paradise). The Wazir thus played a trick upon his hearers. [The word in the text may read “Jinánan,” accusative of “Jinán,” which is the broken plural of “Jannah,” along with the regular plural “Jannát,” and, like the latter, used for the gardens of Paradise.—ST.]

Footnote 269:

For this name of the capital of Eastern Arabia see vols. i. 33; vii. 24.

Footnote 270:

“Tobe” is the Anglo-Oriental form of “Thaub” = in Arabia a loose robe like a night-gown. See ii. 206.

Footnote 271:

The good old Mosaic theory of retribution confined to this life, and the belief that Fate is the fruit of man’s actions.

Footnote 272:

Arab. “Sandarúsah” = red juniper gum (Thuja articulata of Barbary), red arsenic, realgar, from the Pers. Sandar = amber.

Footnote 273:

MSS. pp. 718–724. This fable, whose moral is that the biter is often bit, seems unknown to Æsop and the compilation which bore his name during the so-called Dark Ages. It first occurs in the old French metrical Roman de Renart entitled, Si comme Renart prist Chanticler le Coq (ed. Meon, tom. i. 49). It is then found in the collection of fables by Marie, a French poetess whose Lais are still extent; and she declares to have rendered it de l’Anglois en Roman; the original being an Anglo-Saxon version of Æsop by a King whose name is variously written Li reis Alured (Alfred?), or Aunert (Albert?), or Henris, or Mires. Although Alfred left no version of Æsop there is in MS. a Latin Æsop containing the same story of an English version by Rex Angliæ Affrus. Marie’s fable is printed in extenso in the Chaucer of Dr. Morris (i. 247); London, Bell and Sons, 1880; and sundry lines remind us of the Arabic, e.g.:—

Li gupil volt parler en haut, Et li cocs de sa buche saut, Sur un haut fust s’est muntez.

And it ends with the excellent moral:—

Ceo funt li fol tut le plusur, Parolent quant deivent taiser, Teisent quant il deivent parler.

Lastly the Gentil Cok hight Chanticlere and the Fox, Dan Russel, a more accidented tale, appear in “The Nonne Preestes Tale,” by the Grand Traducteur.

Footnote 274:

“Durà” in MS. (p. 718) for “Zurà,” the classical term, or for “Zurrah,” pop. pronounced “Durrah” = the Holcus Sativus before noticed, an African as well as Asiatic growth, now being supplanted by maize and rice.

Footnote 275:

“Sa’alab” or “Tha’lab”; vol. iii. 132.

Footnote 276:

In text “Kikán,” plur. of “Kík” = des corneilles (Houdas).

Footnote 277:

“Samman” or “Summán,” classically “Salwà.”

Footnote 278:

In text “Al-Kawání” = the spears, plur. of “Kanát.” [“Al-Kawání” as plural of a singular “Kanát” = spear would be, I think, without analogy amongst the plural formations, and its translation by “punishment” appears somewhat strained. I propose to read “al-Ghawání” and to translate “and whoever lags behind of the singing birds will not be safe” (“lá yaslimu,” it will not go well with him). In the mouth of the fox this implies a delicate compliment for the cock, who might feel flattered to be numbered amongst the same tribe with the nightingale and the thrush.—ST.]

Footnote 279:

In text “yá zayn” = Oh, the beautiful beast!

Footnote 280:

In text “Abú Sahíh” = (flight to) a sure and safe place.

Footnote 281:

MS. pp. 725–739.

Footnote 282:

Arab. “Zábit,” from the ✓ “Zabt” = keeping in subjection, holding tight, tying. Hence “Zabtiyah” = a constable and “Zábit” = a Prefect of Police. See vol. i. 259. The rhyming words are “Rábit” and “Hábit.”

Footnote 283:

In text “Ráhib” = monk or lion.

Footnote 284:

The lines are wholly corrupt.

Footnote 285:

The “Bahalul” of D’Herbelot. This worthy was a half-witted Sage (like the Iourodivi of Russia and the Irish Omadhaun) who occupies his own place in contemporary histories, flourished under Harun al-Rashid and still is famous in Persian Story. When the Caliph married him perforce and all the ceremonies were duly performed and he was bedded with the bride, he applied his ear to her privities and forthwith ran away with the utmost speed and alarm. They brought him back and questioned him concerning his conduct when he made answer, “If you had only heard what it said to me you would have done likewise.” In the text his conduct is selfish and ignoble as that of Honorius

“Who strove to merit heaven by making earth a hell.”

And he shows himself heartless and unhuman as the wretched St. Alexius of the Gesta Romanorum (Tale xv.), a warning of the intense selfishness solemnly and logically inculcated by Christianity. See vol. v. 150.

Footnote 286:

Koran, ch. li. v. 17.

Footnote 287:

Koran xx. 57: it is the famous “Tá-Há” whose first 14–16 verses are said to have converted the hard-headed Omar. In the text the citation is garbled and imperfect.

Footnote 288:

In text “Mas’h.”

Footnote 289:

“Hisában tawíl” = a long punishment.

Footnote 290:

The rod of Moses (see pp. 98–99) is the great prototype in Al-Islam of the staff or walking-stick, hence it became a common symbol of dignity and it also served to administer ready chastisement, e.g. in the hands of austere Caliph Omar.

Footnote 291:

An onomatopy like “Couïc, Couïc.” For “Maksah,” read “Fa-sáha” = and cried out.

Footnote 292:

“Zindík” = Atheist, Agnostic: see vols. v. 230; viii. 27.

Footnote 293:

“Harísah” = meat-pudding. In Al-Hariri (Ass. xix.) where he enumerates the several kinds of dishes with their metonomies it is called the “Mother of Strengthening” (or Restoration) because it contains wheat—“the Strengthener” (as opposed to barley and holcus). So the “Mother of Hospitality” is the Sikbáj, the Persian Sikbá, so entitled because it is the principal dish set before guests and was held to be royal food. (Chenery, pp. 218, 457). For the latter see infra.

Footnote 294:

This passage in the MS. (p. 733) is apparently corrupt. I have done my best to make sense of it.

Footnote 295:

In text “Kamburisiyah.”

Footnote 296:

In the Dicts. a plant with acid flavour, dried, pounded and peppered over meat.

Footnote 297:

In text “Najas” = a pear.

Footnote 298:

“Tutmajíyah,” for “Tutmáj.”

Footnote 299:

“Sikbáj,” a marinated stew like “Zirbájah” (vol. iii. 278): Khusrau Parwez, according to the historians, was the first for whom it was cooked and none ate of it without his permission. See retro.

Footnote 300:

Kishk = ground wheat, oatmeal or barley-flour eaten with soured sheep’s milk and often with meat.

Footnote 301:

So in text: I suspect for “’Ajínniyah” = a dish of dough.

Footnote 302:

The Golden Calf is alluded to in many Koranic passages, e.g. Súrah ii. (the Cow) 48; vii. (Al-Aaráf) 146; S. liv. (Women) 152; but especially in S. xx. (Tá Há) 90, where Sámiri is expressly mentioned. Most Christian commentators translate this by “Samaritan” and unjustly note it as “a grievous ignorance of history on the part of Mohammed.” But the word is mysterious and not explained. R. Jehuda (followed by Geiger) says upon the text (Exod. xxxii. 24), “The calf came forth lowing and the Israelites beheld it;” also that “Samael entered into it and lowed in order to mislead Israel” (Pirke R. Eliezer, § 45). Many Moslems identify Samiri with Micha (Judges xvii.), who is said to have assisted in making the calf (Raschi, Sanhedr. cii. 2; Hottinger, Hist. Orient. p. 84). Selden (de Diis Syr. Syn. 1 cap. 4) supposes that Samiri is Aaron himself, the Shomeer or keeper of Israel during the absence of Moses. Mr. Rodwell (Koran, 2nd Edit. p. 90) who cleaves to the “Samaritan” theory, writes, “It is probable (?) that the name and its application, in the present instance, is to be traced to the old national feud between the Jews and the Samaritans”—of which Mohammed, living amongst the Jews, would be at least as well informed as any modern European. He quotes De Sacy (Chrest. i. 189) who states that Abú Rayhán Mohammed Birúni represents the Samaritans as being nicknamed (not Al-limsahsit as Mr. Rodwell has it, but) “Lá Mesas” or “Lá Mesásiyah” = the people who say “no touch” (i.e. touch me not, from Súrah xx. 97); and Juynboll, Chron. Sam. p. 113 (Leid. 1848). Josephus (Ant. xii. cap. 1) also mentions a colony of Samaritans settled in Egypt by Ptolemy Lagus, some of whose descendants inhabited Cairo as late as temp. Scaliger (De Emend. Temp. vii. 622). Sale notices a similar survival on one of the islands of the Red Sea. In these days the Samaritans or, as their enemies call them, the Cuthim (“men from Cutha,” Cushites), in physical semblance typical Jews, are found only at Náblús where the colony has been reduced by intermarriage of cousins and the consequent greater number of male births to about 120 souls. They are, like the Shi’ah Moslems, careful to guard against ceremonial pollution: hence the epithet “Noli me tangere.”

Footnote 303:

Alluding to the “Sayyád,” lit. = a fisherman.

Footnote 304:

In text “Al-Zahr.”

Footnote 305:

“Ajdár.”

Footnote 306:

In text “Al-Matáyá.”

Footnote 307:

In text “Sinaubar,” which may also mean pistachio-tree.

Footnote 308:

i.e. 475 to 478 Eng. grains avoir., less than the Ukiyyah or Wukiyyah = ounce = 571·5 to 576 grains. Vol. ix. 216.

Footnote 309:

Not more absurd than an operatic hero singing while he dies.

Footnote 310:

MS. pp. 588–627. In Gauttier’s edit. vii. (234–256), it appears as Histoire de l’Habitant de Damas. His advertisement in the beginning of vol. vii. tells us that it has been printed in previous edits., but greatly improved in his: however that may be, the performance is below contempt. In Heron it becomes The POWER OF DESTINY, or Story of the Journey of Giafar to Damascus, comprehending the adventures of Chebib and his Family (vol. i. pp. 69–175).

Footnote 311:

Damascus-city (for which see the tale of Núr al-Din Ali and his Son, The Nights vol. i. 239–240) derives its name from Dimishk who was son of Bátir, i. Málik, i. Arphaxed, i. Shám, i. Nuh (Noah); or son of Nimrod, son of Canaan. Shám = Syria (and its capital) the land on the left, as opposed to Al-Yaman the land on the right of one looking East, is noticed in vol i. 55. In Mr. Cotheal’s MS. Damascus is entitled “Shám” because it is the “Shámat” cheek-mole (beauty-spot) of Allah upon earth. “Jalak” the older name of the “Smile of the Prophet,” is also noted: see vol. ii. 100.

Footnote 312:

Hátim of the Tayy-tribe, proverbial for liberality. See vols. iv. 95, and vii. 350.

Footnote 313:

in Mr. Cotheal’s MS. the Caliph first laughs until he falls backwards, and then after reading further, weeps until his beard is bathed.

Footnote 314:

Heron inserts into his text, “It proved to be the Giaffer, famous throughout all Arabia,” and informs us (?) in a foot-note that it is “ascribed to a prince of the Barmecide race, an ancestor of the Grand Vizier Giafar.” The word “Jafr” is supposed to mean a skin (camel’s or dog’s), prepared as parchment for writing; and Al-Jafr, the book here in question, is described as a cabalistic prognostication of all that will ever happen to the Moslems. The authorship is attributed to Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet. There are many legendary tales concerning its contents; however, all are mere inventions as the book is supposed to be kept in the Prophet’s family, nor will it be fully explained until the Mahdi or Forerunner of Doomsday shall interpret its difficulties. The vulgar Moslems of India are apt to confuse Al-Jafr with Ja’afar bin Tayyár, the Jinni who is often quoted in talismans (see Herklots, pp. 109–257). D’Herbelot gives the sum of what is generally known about the “Jafr” (wa Jámi’a) under the articles “Ali” and “Gefr u Giame.”

Footnote 315:

The father (whom Heron calls “Hichia Barmaki”) spoke not at random, but guessed that the Caliph had been reading the book Al-Jafr.

Footnote 316:

Heron calls Ja’afar’s wife “Fatmé” from the French.

Footnote 317:

This is the open grassy space on the left bank of the Baradah River, first sighted by travellers coming from Bayrút. See vol. i. 234, where it is called Al-Hasá = the Plain of Pebbles.

Footnote 318:

Heron names him Chebib (Habíb) also “Xakem Tai-Chebib” = Hátim Tayy Habíb.

Footnote 319:

The scene is described at full length in the Cotheal MS. with much poetry sung by a fair slave-girl and others.

Footnote 320:

Again showing the date of the tale to be modern. See my Terminal Essay, p. 90.

Footnote 321:

This might serve even in these days to ask a worshipful guest why he came, and what was his business—it is the address of a well-bred man to a stranger of whose rank and station he is ignorant. The vulgar would simply say, “Who art thou, and what is thy native country?”

Footnote 322:

In Heron the host learns everything by the book Al-Jafr.

Footnote 323:

In text “Muzawwa” which the Egyptian pronounces “Mugawwaz.”

Footnote 324:

Which would be necessary after car. cop. with his women.

Footnote 325:

In text “Kabr al-Sitt,” wherein the Sitt Zaynab, aunt to Mohammed, is supposed to lie buried. Here the cultivation begins about half a mile’s ride from the Báb-al-Shághúr or S. Western gate of the city. It is mentioned by Baedeker (p. 439), and ignored by Murray, whose editor, Mr. Missionary Porter, prefers to administer the usual dainty dish of “hashed Bible.”

Footnote 326:

Arab. “Jámi’ al-Amawí”: for this Mosque, one of the Wonders of the Moslem World, consult any Guide Book to Damascus. See Suppl. vol. iv. Night cccxlii. In Heron it becomes the “Giamah Illamoue,” one of the three most famous mosques in the world.

Footnote 327:

M. Houdas translates “Tarz,” “Márkaz” or “Mirkáz” by Une pierre en forme de dame, instrument qui sert à enfoncer les pavés (=our “beetle”); c’est-à-dire en forme de borne.

Footnote 328:

For this “window-gardening,” an ancient practice in the East, see vol. i. 301.

Footnote 329:

Heron calls her “Negemet-il-Souper” = Najmat al-Sabáh = Constellation of Morn. In the Cotheal MS. she uses very harsh language to the stranger, “O Bull (i.e. O stupid), this be not thy house nor yet the house of thy sire;” etc. “go forth to the curse of God and get thee to Hell,” c.

Footnote 330:

In text ‏ضايح‎ which I read ‏ضايع‎.

Footnote 331:

For “Kayf” = joy, the pleasure of living, see my Pilgrimage i. 12–13.

Footnote 332:

In text “’Ayyik,” or “’Ayyuk” = a hinderer (of disease) from the ✓ ’Ayk or ’Auk, whence also ’Ayyúk = Capella, a bright star proverbial for its altitude, as in the Turk. saw “to give praise to the ’Ayyúk” = skies.

Footnote 333:

Auspicious formulæ. The Cotheal MS. calls the physician “Dabdihkán.”

Footnote 334:

In text “Kullu Shayyin li mu’as’as”; the latter from ✓ “’As’as” = to complicate a matter.

Footnote 335:

A sign that he diagnosed a moral not a bodily disorder. We often find in The Nights, the doctor or the old woman distinguishing a love-fit by the pulse or similar obscure symptoms, as in the case of Seleucus, Stratonice and her step-son Antiochus—which seems to be the arch-type of these anecdotes.

Footnote 336:

Arab. “Kirsh,” before explained; in Harun’s day, = 3 francs.

Footnote 337:

In the Cotheal MS. the recipe occupies a whole page of ludicrous items, e.g. Let him take three Miskals of pure “Union-with-the-lover,” etc.

Footnote 338:

In the Cotheal MS. Attaf seeks his paternal uncle and father-in-law with the information that he is going to the Pilgrimage and Visitation.

Footnote 339:

Called in the old translation or rather adaptation “Scheffander-Hassan” or simply “Scheffander” = Shahbandar Hasan, for which see vol. iv. 29. In the Cotheal MS. (p. 33) he becomes the “Emir Omar, and the Báshá of Damascus” (p. 39).

Footnote 340:

The passage is exceedingly misspelt. “Ammá min Maylí Binti-ka sháshí Aná Aswadu” (for Sháshí M. Houdas reads “Jáshí” = my heart) “Wa Taná” (read “Thaná,” reputation) “Binti-ka abyazu min Sháshí.”

Footnote 341:

One of the formulæ of divorce.

Footnote 342:

In text “Muábalát min Shaani-ka.” M. Houdas reads the first word “Muzábal” = zublán, wearied, flaccid, weak.

Footnote 343:

For “Al-’iddah,” in the case of a divorcée three lunar months, for a widow four months and ten days and for a pregnant woman, the interval until her delivery, see vols. iii. 292; vi. 256; and x. 43: also Lane (M.E.) chap. iii.

Footnote 344:

In text “Alfi (4th form of ‘Lafw’) Hájatan,” the reading is that of M. Houdas; and the meaning would be “what dost thou want (in the way of amusement)? I am at thy disposal.”

Footnote 345:

Heron has here interpolated an adventure with a Bazar-cook and another with a Confectioner: both discover Ja’afar also by a copy of the “Giaffer” (Al-Jafr). These again are followed by an episode with a fisherman who draws in a miraculous draught by pronouncing the letters “Gim. Bi. Ouaow” (wáw = J. B. W.) i.e. Ja’afar, Barmecide, Wazir; and discovers the Minister by a geomantic table. Then three Darvishes meet and discourse anent the virtues of “Chebib” (i.e. Attaf); and lastly come two blind men, the elder named Benphises, whose wife having studied occultism and the Dom-Daniel of Tunis, discovers Ja’afar. All this is to marshal the series of marvels and wonders upon wonders predicted to Ja’afar by his father when commanding him to visit Damascus; and I have neither space nor inclination to notice their enormous absurdities.

Footnote 346:

This Governor must not be confounded with the virtuous and parsimonious Caliph of the same name the tenth of the series (reign A.D. 692–705) who before ruling studied theology at Al-Medinah and won the sobriquet of “Mosque-pigeon.” After his accession he closed the Koran saying, “Here you and I part,” and busied himself wholly with mundane matters. The Cotheal MS. mentions only the “Nabob” (Náib = lieutenant) of Syria.

Footnote 347:

“Kapú” (written and pronounced Kapi in Turk.) is a door, a house or a government office and Kapújí = a porter; Kapújí-báshí = head porter; also a chamberlain in Arab. “Hájíb”; and Kapú Katkhúdási (pron. Kapi-Kyáyasí) = the agent which every Governor is obliged to keep at Constantinople.

Footnote 348:

In text “Al-buyúrdi,” clerical error for “Buyúruldi” (pron. Buyúruldu) = the written order of a Governor.

Footnote 349:

“Al-Yamaklak” = vivers, provaunt; from the T. “Yamak” = food, a meal.

Footnote 350:

Meaning that he waived his right to it.

Footnote 351:

In text “Zawádah” (gen. “Azwád” or “Azwi’dah”) = provisions, viaticum.

Footnote 352:

In text “Takhtrawán”; see vols. ii. 180; v. 175. In the Cotheal MS. it is a “Haudaj” = camel-litter (vol. viii. 235).

Footnote 353:

“Kubbat al-’Asáfír,” now represented by the “Khan al-Asáfír,” on the road from Damascus to Palmyra, about four hours’ ride from and to the N. East of the Báb Túmá or N. Eastern gate. The name is found in Baedeker (p. 541). In the C. MS. it becomes the “Thaníyyat al-’Ukáb” = the Vulture’s Pass.

Footnote 354:

Meaning that Attaf had not the heart to see his cousin-wife leave her home.

Footnote 355:

Written in Turkish fashion with the Jím (j) and three dots instead of one. This Persian letter is still preserved in the Arabic alphabets of Marocco, Algiers, etc.

Footnote 356:

In Arab. “Jinn” = spirit or energy of a man, which here corresponds with the Heb. “Aub”; so in the Hamásah the poet says, “My Jinn have not fled; my life is not blunted; my birds never drooped for fear,” where, say commentators, the Arabs compare an energetic man with a Jinní or Shaytán. So the Prophet declared of Omar, “I never saw such an ’Abkarí amongst men,” ’Abkar, in Yamámah, like Yabrín and Wabár near Al-Yaman, being a desolate region, the home of wicked races destroyed by Allah and now haunted by gruesome hosts of non-human nature. Chenery, pp. 478–9.

Footnote 357:

In the C. MS. it is an Emir of the Emirs.

Footnote 358:

Arab. “Tábah:” see vol. ii. 814.

Footnote 359:

This excellent episode is omitted in the C. MS. where Attaf simply breaks gaol and reaching Aleppo joins a caravan to Baghdad.

Footnote 360:

In text “Katalú-ní”: see vols. v. 5; vi. 171.

Footnote 361:

In the C. MS. he enters a mosque and finds a Ja’ídí (vagabond) who opens his bag and draws out a loaf, a roast fowl, lemons, olives, cucumbers and date-cake, which suggest to Attaf, who had not eaten such things for a month, “the table of Isá bin Maryam.” For the rest see Mr. Cotheal’s version.

Footnote 362:

The C. MS. gives the short note in full.

Footnote 363:

In text “al-Towáb,” Arab. plur. of the Persian and Turk. “Top.” We hardly expected to find ordnance in the age of Harun al-Rashid, although according to Milton they date before the days of Adam.

Footnote 364:

M. Houdas would read for “Alhy Tys” in the text “Tuhà Tays” a general feast: Tuhà = cooked meat and “Tays” = myriads of.

Footnote 365:

M. Houdas translates les injures devancèrent les compliments, an idiom = he did not succeed in his design.

Footnote 366:

“Cousin” being more polite than “wife”: see vols. vi. 145; ix. 225.

Footnote 367:

Les vertèbres ont fait bourrelet, says M. Houdas who adds that “Shakbán” is the end of a cloth, gown, or cloak, which is thrown over the shoulders and serves, like the “Jayb” in front, to carry small parcels, herbs, etc.

Footnote 368:

In the local Min jargon, the language of Fellahs, “Addíki” = I will give thee.

Footnote 369:

In text “Min al-’Án wa sá’idan;” lit. = from this moment upwards.

Footnote 370:

“Tarajjum” taking refuge from Satan the Stoned (Rajím). See vol. iv. 242.

Footnote 371:

i.e. a descendant of Al-Háshim, great-grandfather of the Prophet. See ix. 24.

Footnote 372:

In text “Shobási,” for “Sobáshí” which M. Houdas translates prévôt du Palais.

Footnote 373:

In the C. MS. Attaf’s head was to be cut off.

Footnote 374:

In the C. MS. the anagnorisis is much more detailed. Ja’afar asks Attaf if he knew a Damascus-man Attaf hight and so forth; and lastly an old man comes forward and confesses to have slain the Sharíf or Háshimi.

Footnote 375:

They drink before the meal, as is still the custom in Syria and Egypt. See vol. vii. 132.

Footnote 376:

Gauttier (vii. 256), illustrating the sudden rise of low-caste and uneducated men to high degree, quotes a contemporary celebrity, the famous Mirza Mohammed Husayn Khan who, originally a Bakkál or greengrocer, was made premier of Fath Ali Shah’s brilliant court, the last bright flash of Iranian splendour and autocracy. But Irán is a land upon which Nature has inscribed “Resurgam”; and despite her present abnormal position between two vast overshadowing empires—British India and Russia in Asia—she has still a part to play in history. And I may again note that Al-Islam is based upon the fundamental idea of a Republic which is, all (free) men are equal, and the lowest may aspire to the highest dignity.

Footnote 377:

In text “’Aramramí.”

Footnote 378:

“Wa’lláhu ’l-Muwaffiku ’l-Mu’ín” = God prospereth and directeth, a formula often prefixed or suffixed to a book.

Footnote 379:

MS. pp. 628–685. Gauttier, vii. 64–90; Histoire du Prince Habib et de la Princesse Dorrat-el-Gawas. The English translation dubs it “Story of Habib and Dorathil-goase, or the Arabian Knight” (vol. iii. 219–89); and thus degrades the high sounding name to a fair echo of Dorothy Goose. The name = Pearl of the Diver: it is also the P. N. of a treatise on desinental syntax by the grammarian-poet Al-Hariri (Chenery, p. 539).

Footnote 380:

The “Banú Hilál,” a famous tribe which formed part of a confederation against the Prophet on his expedition to Honayn. See Tabari, vol. iii. chapt. 32, and Doughty, Arabia Deserta (Index, B. Helal). In the text we have the vulgarism “Baní” for “Banú.”

Footnote 381:

Gauttier (vii. 64) clean omits the former Emir because he has nothing to do with the tale. In Heron it is the same, and the second chief is named “Emir-Ben-Hilac-Salamis”; or for shortness tout bonnement “Salamis”; his wife becoming Amírala which, if it mean anything, is = Colonel, or Captain R.N.

Footnote 382:

i.e. Moon of the Nobles.

Footnote 383:

= the Beloved, le bien-aimé.

Footnote 384:

As has been seen Gauttier reduces the title to “Prince.” Amongst Arabs, however, it is not only a name proper but may denote any dignity from a Shaykh to a Sultan rightly so termed.

Footnote 385:

For the seven handwritings see vol. iv. 196. The old English version says, “He learned the art of writing with pens cut in seven different ways.” To give an idea of the style it renders the quatrain:—“Father,” said the youth, “you must apply to my master, to give you the information you desire. As for me, I must long be all eye and all ear. I must learn to use my hand, before I begin to exercise my tongue, and to write my letters as pure as pearls from the water.” And this is translation!

Footnote 386:

I need hardly note that “Voices from the other world” are a lieu commun of so-called Spiritualism. See also vol. i. 142 and Suppl. vol. iii.

Footnote 387:

This tale and most of those in the MS. affect the Kála ’l-Ráwí (=quoth the reciter) showing the true use of them. See Terminal Essay, vol. x. 163.

Footnote 388:

The missing apodosis would be, “You would understand the cause of my weeping.”

Footnote 389:

In the text there are only five lines. I have borrowed the sixth from the prose.

Footnote 390:

“Dáúd” = David: see vols. ii. 286; vi. 113.

Footnote 391:

For “Samharí” see vol. iv. 258.

Footnote 392:

From “Rudaynah,” either a woman or a place: see vols. ii. 1; vii. 265; and for “Khatt Hajar” vol. ii. 1.

Footnote 393:

This is the idiomatic meaning of the Arab word “Nizál” = dismounting to fight on foot.

Footnote 394:

In the text “Akyál,” plur. of “Kayl” = Kings of the Himyarite peoples. See vol. vii. 60; here it is = the hero, the heroes.

Footnote 395:

An intensive word, “on the weight,” as the Arabs say of ’Abbás (stern-faced) and meaning “Very stern-faced, austere, grim.” In the older translations it becomes “Il Haboul”—utterly meaningless.

Footnote 396:

The Arab. “Moon of the Time” becomes in the olden versions “Camaulzaman,” which means, if anything, “Complete Time,” and she is the daughter of a Jinn-King “Illabousatrous (Al-’Atrús?).” He married her to a potent monarch named “Shah-Goase” (Shah Ghawwás = King Diver), in this version “Sábúr” (Shahpur), and by him Kamar Al-Zaman became the mother of Durrat al-Ghawwas.

Footnote 397:

In text “Sádát wa Ashráf;” for the technical meaning of “Sayyid” and “Sharif” see vols. iv. 170; v. 259.

Footnote 398:

Gauttier, vii. 71. Les Isles Bellour: see vol. iii. 194.

Footnote 399:

Heron’s “Illabousatrous” (?).

Footnote 400:

In text “Zayjah,” from Pers. “Záycheh” = lit. a horoscope, a table for calculating nativities and so forth. In page 682 of the MS. the word is used = marriage-lines.

Footnote 401:

In text “Snsál,” for “Salsál” = lit. chain.

Footnote 402:

In Sindbad the Seaman I have shown that riding men as asses is a facetious exaggeration of an African practice, the Minister being generally the beast of burden for the King. It was the same in the Maldive Islands. “As soon as the lord desires to land, one of the chief Catibes (Arab. Khatíb = a preacher, not Kátíb = a writer) comes forward to offer his shoulder (a function much esteemed) and the other gets upon his shoulders; and so, with a leg on each side, he rides him horse fashion to land, and is there set down.” See p. 71, “The Voyage of Francois Pyrard,” etc. The volume is unusually well edited by Mr. Albert Gray, formerly of the Ceylon Civil Service for the Hakluyt Society, MDCCCLXXXVII: it is, however, regretable that he and Mr. Bell, his collaborateur, did not trace out the Maldive words to their “Aryan” origin showing their relationship to vulgar Hindostani as Mas to Machhí (fish) from the Sanskrit Matsya.

Footnote 403:

In text “Ghayth al-Hátíl” = incessant rain of small drops and widely dispread. In Arab. the names for clouds, rain and all such matters important to a pastoral race are well nigh innumerable. Poetry has seized upon the material terms and has converted them into a host of metaphors; for “the genius of the Arabic language, like that of the Hebrew, is to form new ideas by giving a metaphorical signification to material objects (e.g. ’Azud, lit. the upper arm; met. a helper).” Chenery p. 380.

Footnote 404:

In the text “To the palace:” the scribe, apparently forgetting that he is describing Badawi life, lapses at times into “decorating the capital” and “adorning the mansion,” as if treating of the normal city-life. I have not followed his example.

Footnote 405:

Heron translates “A massy cuirass of Haoudi.”

Footnote 406:

In text, “Inbasata ’l-Layl al-Asá,” which M. Houdas renders et s’étendit la nuit (mère) de la tristesse.

Footnote 407:

“Rauzah” in Algiers is a royal park; also a prairie, as “Rauz al-Sanájirah,” plain of the Sinjars: Ibn Khaldun, ii. 448.

Footnote 408:

The “Miskál” (for which see vols. i. 126; ix. 262) is the weight of a dinar = 1½ dirham = 71–72 grains avoir. A dose of 142 grains would kill a camel. In 1848, when we were marching up the Indus Valley under Sir Charles Napier to attack Náo Mall of Multan, the Sind Camel Corps was expected to march at the rate of some 50 miles a day, and this was done by making the animals more than half drunk with Bhang or Indian hemp.

Footnote 409:

In text, “Yakhat,” probably clerical error for “Yakhbut,” lit. = he was panting in a state of unconsciousness: see Dozy, Suppl. s. v.

Footnote 410:

In text “Al-Dán,” which is I presume a clerical error for “Al-Uzn” = ear. [“Dán,” with the dual “Dánayn,” and “Wudn,” with the plural “Audán,” are popular forms for the literary “Uzn.”—ST.]

Footnote 411:

This name has occurred in MS. p. 655, but it is a mere nonentity until p. 657—the normal incuriousness. Heron dubs him “Rabir.”

Footnote 412:

In the text “Zimmat” = obligation, protection, clientship.

Footnote 413:

“Sahha ’alakah” (=a something) “fí hazá ’l-Amri.” The first word appears de trop being enclosed in brackets in the MS.

Footnote 414:

“Wa yabkí ’alaykum Mabálu-h.” [For “Mabál” I would read “Wabál,” in the sense of crime or punishment, and translate: “lest the guilt of it rest upon you.”—ST.]

Footnote 415:

In the text “Suwaydá” literally “a small and blackish woman”; and “Suwaydá al-Kalb” (the black one of the heart) = original sin, as we should say. [The diminutive of “Sayyid” would be “Suwayyid,” as “Kuwayyis” from “Kayyis,” and “Juwayyid” from “Jayyid” (comp. supra p. 5). “Suwayd” and “Suwaydá” are diminutives of “Aswad,” black, and its fem. “Saudá” respectively, meaning blackish. The former occurs in “Umm al-Suwayd” = anus. “Suwaydá al-Kalb” = the blackish drop of clotted blood in the heart, is synonymous with “Habbat al-Kalb” = the grain in the heart, and corresponds to our core of the heart. Metaphorically both are used for “original sin.”—ST.]

Footnote 416:

“Yákah Thiyábish;” the former word being Turkish (M. Houdas).

Footnote 417:

Arab. “Kaunayn” = the two entities, this world and the other world, the past and the future, etc. Here it is opposed to “’A´lamína,” here ’Awálim = the (three) worlds, for which see vol. ii. 236.

Footnote 418:

In text “Changul,” again written with a three-dotted Chím.

Footnote 419:

In text “Al-Mazrab” which M. Houdas translates cet endroit.

Footnote 420:

In text “Yabahh” = saying “Bah, Bah!”

Footnote 421:

In text “Bahr al-Azrak” = the Blue Sea, commonly applied to the Mediterranean: the origin of the epithet is readily understood by one who has seen the Atlantic or the Black Sea.

Footnote 422:

i.e. “The Stubborn,” “The Obstinate.”

Footnote 423:

In text “Al-Jawádit,” where M. Houdas would read “Al-Hawádith” which he renders by animaux fraîchement tués.

Footnote 424:

In the text “Kabad” = the liver, the sky-vault, the handle or grasp of a bow.

Footnote 425:

In the text “Míná” = a port both in old Egyptian and mod. Persian: see “Mitrahinna,” vol. ii. 257.

Footnote 426:

“Al-Nakáír,” plur. of “Nakír” = a dinghy, a dug-out.

Footnote 427:

For this “Pá-andáz,” as the Persians call it, see vol. iii. 141.

Footnote 428:

In text “Kataba Zayjata-há,” the word has before been noticed.

Footnote 429:

Again “Hizà (‏حظى‎, in MS. ‏حفى‎) bi-Zayjati-há” = le bonheur de ses aventures.

Footnote 430:

This impalement (“Salb,” which elsewhere means crucifying, vol. iii. 25) may be a barbarous punishment but it is highly effective, which after all is its principal object. Old Mohammed Ali of Egypt never could have subjugated and disciplined the ferocious Badawi of Al-Asir, the Ophir region South of Al-Hijáz without the free use of the stake. The banditti dared to die but they could not endure the idea of their bodies being torn to pieces and devoured by birds and beasts. The stake commonly called “Kházúk,” is a stout pole pointed at one end, and the criminal being thrown upon his belly is held firm whilst the end is passed up his fundament. His legs and body are then lashed to it and it is raised by degrees and planted in a hole already dug, an agonising part of the process. If the operation be performed by an expert who avoids injuring any mortal part, the wretch may live for three days suffering the pangs of thirst; but a drink of water causes hemorrhage and instant death. This was the case with the young Moslem student who murdered the excellent Marshal Kleber in the garden attached to Shepherd’s Hotel, Cairo, wherein, by the by he suffered for his patriotic crime. Death as in crucifixion is brought on by cramps and nervous exhaustion, for which see Canon Farrar (Life of Christ, ii. 392 et seqq.).

Footnote 431:

Archæological Review, July, 1888, pp. 331–342.

Footnote 432:

The proper names are overrun with accents and diaeretical points, of which I have here retained but few.

Footnote 433:

Particularly mentioning Syntipas, the Forty Vizirs, a Turkish romance relating to Alexander, in 120 volumes; and Mohammed al-‘Aufi.

Footnote 434:

Probably similar to those described in the story of the Warlock and the Cook (anteà, pp. 135–142).

Footnote 435:

The last clause is very short and obscure in the French “qu’il n’a pas son sabre,” but what follows shows the real meaning to be that given above. (W. F. K.)

Footnote 436:

This I take to be the meaning of the words, “une autre monde sous la terre par sept fois.” (W. F. K.).

Footnote 437:

Galland writes “on fait un jeu de Giret (tournoi) etc.” (W. F. K.)

Footnote 438:

Perhaps an error of Galland’s. (W. F. K.).

Footnote 439:

I do not know what the German edition referred to.

Footnote 440:

This great class of tales is quite as widely extended in the north of Europe and Asia, as in the south. We meet with them in Siberia, and they are particularly common in Lapland. I believe, too that the Indian story of the Red Swan, (referred to by Longfellow, Hiawatha, xii.) is only a Swan Maiden legend in a rather modified form. As usual, we find a bizarre form of the Swan Maiden story among the Samoghitians of Lithuania. The Zemyne is a one-eyed venomous snake, with black blood which cures all diseases and neutralises all magic. It is an enchanted maiden; and sometimes the skin has been stolen, and she has married a man. But if she recovers her skin, she resumes her snake-form, and bites and kills her husband and children. Many other strange things are related of the Zemyne (Veckenstedt, Mythen, Sagen, und Legenden der Zamaiten, ii., pp. 149–152).

Footnote 441:

About twenty pounds.

Footnote 442:

Spitta Bey (p. 27 note) suggests that this is a reminiscence of the ancient Egyptian idea of the Scarabæus, which typifies life.

Footnote 443:

Southey, in his story of the Young Dragon, relates how Satan, disapproving of the rapid conversion of the inhabitants of Antioch to Christianity, laid an egg, and hatched out a dragon, which he sent to destroy the inhabitants. But a Pagan, whose Christian daughter was devoted to the dragon by lot, stole the thumb from a relic (the hand of John the Baptist), as he pretended to kiss it, and cast it into the mouth of the dragon, and blew him up.

Footnote 444:

This is a variant of the Nose-Tree; I do not remember another in genuine Oriental literature (cf. Nights, x, app. p. 508).

Footnote 445:

How small the world becomes in this story!

Footnote 446:

It is evident that a young she-bear is all that is meant.

Footnote 447:

These Vigilants and Purifiers, with that hypocritical severity which ever makes the worst sinner in private the most rigorous judge in public, lately had the imprudent impudence to summons a publisher who had reprinted the Decameron with the “objectionable passages” in French. Mr. Alderman Faudell Phillips had the good sense contemptuously to dismiss the summons. Englishmen are no longer what they were if they continue to tolerate this ignoble espionage of vicious and prurient virtuous “Associations.” If they mean real work why do they commence by condemning scholar-like works, instead of cleansing the many foul cesspools of active vice which are a public disgrace to London.

Footnote 448:

It may serve the home-artist and the home-reader to point out a few of the most erroneous. The harp (i. 143) is the Irish and not the Eastern, yet the latter has been shown in i. 228; and the “Kánún” (ii. 77) is a reproduction from Lane’s Modern Egyptians. The various Jinnis are fanciful, not traditional, as they should be (see inter alia Doughty’s Arabia Deserta, ii. 3, etc). In i. 81 and ii. 622 appears a specimen bogie with shaven chin and “droopers” by way of beard and mustachios: mostly they have bestial or simiad countenances with rabbits’ ears, goats’ horns and so forth (i. 166, 169; ii. 97, 100), instead of faces more or less human and eyes disposed perpendicularly. The spreading yew-tree (i. 209) is utterly misplaced. In many the action is excessive, after the fashion of the Illustrateds (i. 281; 356; 410 and 565; ii. 366, 374). The scymitar and the knife, held in the left hand or slung by the left flank, are wholly out of order (i. 407; ii. 281, 374: iii. 460) and in iii. 355, the blade is wider than the wielder’s waist. In i. 374 the astrolabe is also held in the left hand. The features are classical as those of Arsinoë, certainly not Egyptian, in i. 15; i. 479 and passim. The beggar-women must not wander with faces bare and lacking “nose-bags” as in i. 512. The Shah (i. 523) wears modern overalls strapped down over dress-bottines: Moreover he holds a straight-bladed European court-sword, which is correct in i. 527. The spears (i. 531) are European not Asiatic, much less Arabian, whose beams are often 12–15 feet long. Aziz (i. 537) has no right to tricot drawers and shoes tightened over the instep like the chaussure of European moutards: his foot (i. 540) is wholly out of drawing like his hand and the toes are European distortions. The lady writing (i. 581) lacks all local colour; she should sit at squat, support the paper in the hollow of her left instead of using a portfolio, and with her right ply the reed or “pen of brass.” In vol ii. 57 the lion is an absurdum, big as a cow or a camel and the same caricature of the King of Beasts occurs elsewhere (i. 531; ii. 557 and iii. 250). The Wazir (ii. 105) wears the striped caftan of a Cairene scribe or shopkeeper. The two birds (ii. 140) which are intended for hawks (see ii. 130) have the compact tails and the rounded-off wings of pigeons. I should pity Amjad and As’ad if packed into a “bullock trunk” like that borne by the mule in ii. 156. The Jew’s daughter (ii. 185) and the Wali of Bulak (ii. 504) carry European candlesticks much improved in ii. 624. The Persian leach (ii. 195) is habited most unlike an ’Ajami, while the costume is correct in ii. 275. The Badawi mounts (ii. 263) an impossible Arab with mane and tail like the barb’s in pictures. The streetdogs (ii. 265), a notable race, become European curs of low degree. The mastage of the galleys (ii. 305) would suit a modern racing-yacht. Utterly out of place are the women’s costumes such as the Badawi maidens (ii. 335), Rose-in Hood (ii. 565), and the girl of the Banú Odhrah (iii. 250), while the Lady Zubaydah (ii. 369) is coiffée with a European coronet. The sea-going ship (ii. 615) is a Dahabiyah fit only for the Nile. The banana-trees (ii. 621) tower at least 80 feet tall and the palms and cocoa-nut trees (ii. 334; iii. 60) are indicated only by their foliage, not by their characteristic boles. The box (ii. 624) is European and modern: in the Eastern “Sakhkhárah” the lid fits into the top, thus saving it from the “baggage-smasher.” In iii. 76, the elephant, single-handed, uproots a tree rivalling a century-old English oak. The camel-saddle (iii. 247) is neither Eastern nor possible for the rider, but it presently improves (iii. 424 and elsewhere). The emerging of the Merfolk (iii. 262) is a “tableau,” a transformation-scene of the transpontine pantomime, and equally theatrical is the attitude of wicked Queen Láb (iii. 298), while the Jinni, snatching away Daulat Khatun (iii. 341) seems to be waltzing with her in horizontal position. A sun-parasol, not a huge Oriental umbrella, is held over the King’s head (iii. 377). The tail-piece, the characteristic Sphinx (iii. 383) is as badly drawn as it well can be, a vile caricature. Khalífah the Fisherman wears an English night-gown (iii. 558) with the side-locks of a Polish Jew (iii. 564). The dancing-girl (iii. 660) is equally reprehensible in form, costume and attitude, and lastly, the Fellah ploughing (iii. 700) should wear a felt skull-cap in lieu of a turband, be stripped to the waist and retain nothing but a rag around the middle.

I have carefully noted these lapses and incongruities: not the less, however, I thoroughly appreciate the general excellence of the workmanship, and especially the imaginative scenery and the architectural designs of Mr. W. Harvey. He has shown the world how a work of the kind should be illustrated, and those who would surpass him have only to avoid the minor details here noticed.

Footnote 449:

See in M. Zotenberg’s “Alâ al-Dîn” the text generally; also p. 14.

Footnote 450:

Mr. Payne, in his Essay, vol ix., 281, computes less than two hundred tales in all omitting the numerous incidentals; and he notices that the number corresponds with the sum of the “Night-stories” attributed to the Hazár Afsán by the learned author of the “Fihrist” (see Terminal Essay, vol. x. pp. 71–73). In p. 367 (ibid.) he assumes the total at 264.

Footnote 451:

This parlous personage thought proper to fall foul of me (wholly unprovoked) in the Athenæum of August, 25, ’88. I give his production in full:—

LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.

August 18, 1888.

In the notice of Sir R. Burton’s “Life” in to-day’s Athenæum it is mentioned that his biographer says that Capt. Burton proposed to march with his Bashi-bazuks to the relief of Kars, but was frustrated by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who, according to Sir Richard, “gained a prodigious reputation in Europe, chiefly by living out of it.”

This is a strange inversion of facts. The proposal to relieve Kars by way of Redout-kalé and Kutais originated, not with Capt. Burton, but with the Turkish Seraskier, who recommended for this purpose the employment of Vivian’s Turkish Contingent and part of Beatson’s Horse (“his Bashi-bazuks,”) in which Capt. Burton held a staff appointment. In the last days of June, 1855, General Mansfield, Lord Stratford’s military adviser, was in constant communication on this subject with the Turkish Ministers, and the details of the expedition were completely arranged to the satisfaction of military opinion, both British and Turkish, at Constantinople. Lord Stratford officially recommended the plan to his Government, and in his private letters to the Foreign Secretary strongly urged it upon him, and expressed a sanguine hope of its success. But on July 14th, Lord Clarendon telegraphed: “The plan for reinforcing the army at Kars contained in your despatches of 30th June and 1st inst. is disapproved.” Lord Panmure really “frustrated” the Turkish plan; Lord Stratford never “frustrated” any attempt to succour the Army of Asia, but, contrariwise, did all in his power to forward the object.

As to the amiable reference to the Great Elchi’s reputation, no one knows better than Sir R. Burton by what queer methods reputations may be annexed; but it is strange that anyone with the reputation of a traveller should consider Constantinople to be “out of Europe.”

S. LANE-POOLE.

The following was my reply:—

LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE AND MR. S. LANE-POOLE.

London, Aug. 26, 1888.

Will you kindly spare me space for a few lines touching matters personal?

I am again the victim (Athenæum, August 25) of that everlasting réclame. Mr. S. Lane-Poole has contracted to “do” a life of Lord Stratford, and, ergo, he condemns me, in magistral tone and a style of uncalled-for impertinence, to act as his “advt.” In relating how, by order of the late General Beatson, then commanding Bash-buzuk (Bashi-bazuk is the advertiser’s own property), I volunteered to relieve Kars, how I laid the project before the “Great Eltchee,” how it was received with the roughest language and how my first plan was thoroughly “frustrated.” I have told a true tale, and no more. “A strange perversion of facts,” cries the sapient criticaster, with that normal amenity which has won for him such honour and troops of unfriends: when his name was proposed as secretary to the R.A.S., all prophesied the speediest dissolution of that infirm body.

I am aware that Constantinople is not geographically “out of Europe.” But when Mr. S. Lane-Poole shall have travelled a trifle more he may learn that ethnologically it is. In fact, most of South-Eastern Europe holds itself more or less non-European; and when a Montenegrin marries a Frenchwoman or a German, his family will tell you that he has wedded a “European.”

“No one knows better than Sir R. Burton by what queer methods reputation may be annexed.” Heavens, what English! And what may the man mean? But perhaps he alludes in his own silly, saltless, sneering way to my Thousand Nights and a Night, which has shown what the “Uncle and Master’s” work should have been. Some two generations of poules mouillées have reprinted and republished Lane’s “Arabian Notes” without having the simple honesty to correct a single bévue, or to abate one blunder; while they looked upon the Arabian Nights as their own especial rotten borough. But more of this in my tractate, “The Reviewer Reviewed,” about to be printed as an appendix to my Supplemental Volume, No. vi.

RICHARD F. BURTON.

And here is the rejoinder (Athenæum, September 8):—

LORD STRATFORD AND SIR R. BURTON.

September 4, 1888.

Sir R. Burton, like a prominent Irish politician, apparently prefers to select his own venue, and, in order to answer my letter in the Athenæum of August 25, permits himself in the Academy of September 1 an exuberance of language which can injure no one but himself. Disregarding personalities, I observe that he advances no single fact in support of the statements which I contradicted, but merely reiterates them. It is a question between documents and Sir R. Burton’s word.

S. LANE-POOLE.

It is not a question between documents and my word, but rather of the use or abuse of documents by the “biographer.” My volunteering for the relief of Kars was known to the whole camp at the Dardanelles, and my visit to the Embassy at Constantinople is also a matter of “documents.” And when Mr. S. Lane-Poole shall have produced his I will produce mine.

Footnote 452:

It appears to me that our measures, remedial and punitive, against “pornographic publications” result mainly in creating “vested interests” (that English abomination) and thus in fostering the work. The French printer, who now must give name and address, stamps upon the cover Avis aux Libraires under Edition privée and adds Ce volume ne doit pas être mis en vente ou exposé dans les lieux publics (Loi du 29 Juillet, 1881). He also prints upon the back the number of copies for sale. We treat “pornology” as we handle prostitution, unwisely ignore it, well knowing the while that it is a natural and universal demand of civilised humanity; and whereas continental peoples regulate it and limit its abuses we pass it by, Pharisee-like with nez en-l’air. Our laws upon the subject are made only to be broken and the authorities are unwilling to persecute, because by so doing they advertise what they condemn. Thus they offer a premium to the greedy and unscrupulous publisher and immensely enhance the value of productions (“Fanny Hill” by Richard Cleland for instance) which, if allowed free publication would fetch pence instead of pounds. With due diffidence, I suggest that the police be directed to remove from booksellers’ windows and to confiscate all indecent pictures, prints and photographs; I would forbid them under penalty of heavy fines to expose immoral books for sale, and I would leave “cheap and nasty” literature to the good taste of the publisher and the public. Thus we should also abate the scandal of providing the secretaries and officers of the various anti-vice societies with libraries of pornological works which, supposed to be escheated or burned, find their way into the virtuous hands of those who are supposed to destroy them.

Footnote 453:

“Quand aux manuscrits de la rédaction égyptienne, l’omission de cet épisode parait devoir être attribuée à la tendance qui les caractérise généralement, d’abréger et de condenser la narrative” (loc. cit. p. 7: see also p. 14).

Footnote 454:

Here I would by no means assert that the subject matter of The Nights is exhausted; much has been left for future labourers. It would be easy indeed to add another five volumes to my sixteen, as every complete manuscript contains more or less of novelty. Dr. Pertsch, the learned librarian of Saxe-Gotha, informs me that no less than two volumes are taken up by a variant of Judar the Egyptian (in my vol. vi. 213) and by the History of Zahir and Ali. For the Turkish version in the Bibliothèquè Nationale see M. Zotenberg (pp. 21–23). The Rich MS. in the British Museum abounds in novelties, of which a specimen was given in my Prospectus to the Supplemental Volumes.

In the French Scholar’s “Alâ al-Dîn” (p. 45) we find the MSS. of The Nights divided into three groups. No. i. or the Asian (a total of ten specified) are mostly incomplete and usually end before the half of the text. The second is the Egyptian of modern date, characterised by an especial style and condensed narration and by the nature and ordinance of the tales; by the number of fables and historiettes, and generally by the long chivalrous Romance of Omar bin al-Nu’umán. The third group, also Egyptian, differs only in the distribution of the stories.

Footnote 455:

My late friend who brought home 3,000 copies of inscriptions from the so called Sinai, which I would term in ancient days the Peninsula of Paran, and in our times the Peninsula of Tor.

Footnote 456:

See M. Zotenberg, pp. 4, 26.

Footnote 457:

M. Zotenberg (p. 5) wrote la seconde moitie du xiv^{e.} Siècle, but he informed me that he has found reason to antedate the text.

Footnote 458:

I regret the necessity of exposing such incompetence and errors which at the time when Lane wrote were venial enough: his foolish friend, however, by unskilful and exaggerated pretensions and encomiums compels me to lay the case before the reader.

Footnote 459:

This past tense, suggesting that an act is complete, has a present sense in Arabic and must be translated accordingly.

Footnote 460:

Quite untrue: the critic as usual never read and probably never saw the subject of his criticism. In this case I may invert one of my mottoes and write “To the foul all things are foul.”

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 38, changed “and his and” to “and his end”. 2. P. 124, changed “הנות” to “חנות”. 3. P. 240, changed “bare her away” to “bear her away”. 4. P. 268, changed “Allah strike the dead” to “Allah strike thee dead”. 5. P. 368, changed “I do not know the German edition” to “I do not know what the German edition”. 6. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 7. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 8. Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 9. Enclosed italics font in underscores. 10. Enclosed bold font in =equals=. 11. Superscripts are denoted by a caret before a single superscript character, e.g. M^r.

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