One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  11. New Arabian Nights, by R. L. Stevenson (London, 1882).

  12. More New Arabian Nights. The Dynamiter. By R. L. Stevenson and Vander Grift (London, 1882). Class 4.

  Of these tales, Sir R. F. Burton observes, “The only visible connection with the old Nights is in the habit of seeking adventures under a disguise. The method is to make the main idea possible and the details extravagant. In another New Arabian Nights,’ the joint production of MM. Brookfield, Besant and Pollock, the reverse treatment is affected, the leading idea being grotesque and impossible, and the details accurate and lifelike.”

  C. — German.

  It is quite possible that there are many imitations in German, but I have not met with them. I can only mention one or two tales by Hauff (the Caliph turned Stork, and the Adventures of Said); a story called “Ali and Gulhindi,” by what author I do not now remember; and some imitations said to be by Grimm, already mentioned in reference to the English composite edition of 1847. They are all European fairy tales, in an Eastern dress.

  Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents

  CONCLUSION.

  Among books specially interesting to the student of The Nights, I may mention Weil’s “Biblische Legenden der Muselmänner, aus arabischen Quellen zusammengetragen, und mit jüdischen Sagen verglichen” (Frankfort-on-Main, 1845). An anonymous English translation appeared in 1846 under the title of “The Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud,” and it also formed one of the sources from which the Rev. S. Baring-Gould compiled his “Legends of Old Testament Characters” (2 vols., 1871). The late Prof. Palmer’s “Life of Haroun Al-Raschid” (London, 1881), is not much more than a brief popular sketch. The references to The Nights in English and other European literatures are innumerable; but I cannot refrain from quoting Mark Twain’s identification of Henry the Eighth with Shahryar (Huckleberry Finn, chap. xxiii).

  “My, you ought to have seen old Henry the Eighth when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. “Fetch up Nell Gwynn,” he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, “Chop off her head.” And they chop it off. “Fetch up Jane Shore,” he says; and up she comes. Next morning, “Chop off her head.” And they chop it off. “Ring up Fair Rosamun.” Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, “Chop off her head.” And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night, and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book — which was a good name, and stated the case. You don’t know kings, Jim, but I know them, and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I’ve struck in history. Well, Henry, he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he do it — give notice? — give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbour overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his style — he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? — ask him to show up? No — drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. Spose people left money laying around where he was — what did he do? He collared it. Spose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didnt set down there and see that he done it — what did he do? He always done the other thing. Spose he opened his mouth — what then? If he didnt shut it up powerful quick, he’d lose a lie, every time. That’s the kind of a bug Henry was.”

  Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents

  FOOTNOTES VOLUME X.

  1 Arab. “Zarábín” (pl. of zarbún), lit. slaves’ shoes or sandals (see vol. iii. ) the chaussure worn by Mamelukes. Here the word is used in its modern sense of stout shoes or walking boots.

  2 The popular word means goodness, etc.

  3 Dozy translates “‘Urrah”=Une Mégère: Lane terms it a “vulgar word signifying a wicked, mischievous shrew.” But it is the fem. form of ‘Urr=dung; not a bad name for a daughter of Billingsgate.

  4 i.e. black like the book of her actions which would be shown to her on Doomsday.

  5 The “Kunáfah” (vermicelli-cake) is a favourite dish of wheaten flour, worked somewhat finer than our vermicelli, fried with samn (butter melted and clarified) and sweetened with honey or sugar. See vol. v. 300.

  6 i.e. Will send us aid. The Shrew’s rejoinder is highly impious in Moslem opinion.

  7 Arab. Asal Katr; “a fine kind of black honey, treacle” says Lane; but it is afterwards called cane-honey (‘Asal Kasab). I have never heard it applied to “the syrup which exudes from ripe dates, when hung up.”

  8 Arab. “‘Aysh,” lit.=that on which man lives: “Khubz” being the more popular term. “Hubz and Joobn” is well known at Malta.

  9 Insinuating that he had better make peace with his wife by knowing her carnally. It suggests the story of the Irishman who brought over to the holy Catholic Church three several Protestant wives, but failed with the fourth on account of the decline of his “Convarter.”

  10 Arab. “Asal Kasab,” i.e. Sugar, possibly made from sorgho-stalks Holcus sorghum of which I made syrup in Central Africa.

  11 For this unpleasant euphemy see vol. iv. 215.

  12 This is a true picture of the leniency with which women were treated in the Kazi’s court at Cairo; and the effect was simply deplorable. I have noted that matters have grown even worse since the English occupation, for history repeats herself; and the same was the case in Afghanistan and in Sind. We govern too much in these matters, which should be directed not changed, and too little in other things, especially in exacting respect for the conquerors from the conquered.

  13 Arab. “Báb al-’Áli”=the high gate or Sublime Porte; here used of the Chief Kazi’s court: the phrase is a descendant of the Coptic “Per-ao” whence “Pharaoh.”

  14 “Abú Tabak,” in Cairene slang, is an officer who arrests by order of the Kazi and means “Father of whipping” (=tabaka, a low word for beating, thrashing, whopping) because he does his duty with all possible violence in terrorem.

  15 Bab al-Nasr the Eastern or Desert Gate: see vol. vi. 234.

  16 This is a mosque outside the great gate built by Al-Malik al-’Ádil Tuman Bey in A.H. 906 (=1501). The date is not worthy of much remark for these names are often inserted by the scribe — for which see Terminal Essay.

  17 Arab. “‘Ámir” lit.=one who inhabiteth, a peopler; here used in technical sense. As has been seen, ruins and impure places such as privies and Hammám-baths are the favourite homes of the Jinn. The fire-drake in the text was summoned by the Cobbler’s exclamation and even Marids at times do a kindly action.

  18 The style is modern Cairene jargon.

  19 Purses or gold pieces see vol. ix. 313.

  20 i.e. I am a Cairene.

  21 Arab. “Darb al-Ahmar,” a street still existing near to and outside the noble Bab Zuwaylah, for which see vol. i. 269.

  22 Arab. “‘Attár,” perfume-seller and druggist; the word is connected with our “Ottar” (‘Atr).

  23 Arab. “Mudarris” lit.=one who gives lessons or lectures (dars) and pop. applied to a professor in a collegiate mosque like Al-Azhar of Cairo.

  24 This thoroughly dramatic scene is told with a charming naïveté. No wonder that The Nights has been made the basis of a national theatre amongst the Turks.

  25 Arab. “Taysh” lit.=vertigo, swimming of head.

  26 Here Trébutien (iii. 265) reads “la ville de Khaïtan (so the Mac. Edit. iv. 708) capital du royaume de Sohatan.” Ikhtiyán Lane suggests to be fictitious: Khatan is a district of Tartary east of Káshgar, so called by Sádik al-Isfaháni .

  27 This is a true picture of the tact and savoir faire of the Cairenes. It was a study to see how, under the late Khedive they managed to take precedence of Europeans who found themselves in the background before they knew it. For instance, every Bey, whose degree is that of a Colonel was ma
de an “Excellency” and ranked accordingly at Court whilst his father, some poor Fellah, was ploughing the ground. Tanfík Pasha began his ill-omened rule by always placing natives close to him in the place of honour, addressing them first and otherwise snubbing Europeans who, when English, were often too obtuse to notice the petty insults lavished upon them.

  28 Arab. “Kathír” (pron. Katir)=much: here used in its slang sense, “no end.”

  29 i.e. “May the Lord soon make thee able to repay me; but meanwhile I give it to thee for thy own free use.”

  30 Punning upon his name. Much might be written upon the significance of names as ominous of good and evil; but the subject is far too extensive for a footnote.

  31 Lane translates “Ánisa-kum” by “he hath delighted you by his arrival”; Mr. Payne “I commend him to you.”

  32 Arab. “Fatúrát,”=light food for the early breakfast of which the “Fatírah”-cake was a favourite item. See vol. i. 300.

  33 A dark red dye (Lane).

  34 Arab. “Jadíd,” see vol. viii. 121.

  35 Both the texts read thus, but the reading has little sense. Ma’aruf probably would say, “I fear that my loads will be long coming.”

  36 One of the many formulas of polite refusal.

  37 Each bazar, in a large city like Damascus, has its tall and heavy wooden doors which are locked every evening and opened in the morning by the Ghafir or guard. The “silver key,” however, always lets one in.

  38 Arab. “Wa lá Kabbata hámiyah,” a Cairene vulgarism meaning, “There came nothing to profit him nor to rid the people of him.”

  39 Arab. “Kammir,” i.e. brown it before the fire, toast it.

  40 It is insinuated that he had lied till he himself believed the lie to be truth — not an uncommon process, I may remark.

  41 Arab. “Rijál”=the Men, equivalent to the Walis, Saints or

  Santons; with perhaps an allusion to the Rijál al-Ghayb, the

  Invisible Controls concerning whom I have quoted Herklots in vol.

  ii. 211.

  42 A saying attributed to Al-Hariri (Lane). It is good enough to be his: the Persians say, “Cut not down the tree thou plantedst,” and the idea is universal throughout the East.

  43 A quotation from Al-Hariri (Ass. of the Badawin). Ash’ab (ob. A.H. 54), a Medinite servant of Caliph Osman, was proverbial for greed and sanguine, Micawber-like expectation of “windfalls.” The Scholiast Al-Sharíshi (of Xeres) describes him in Theophrastic style. He never saw a man put hand to pocket without expecting a present, or a funeral go by without hoping for a legacy, or a bridal procession without preparing his own house, hoping they might bring the bride to him by mistake. * * * When asked if he knew aught greedier than himself he said “Yes; a sheep I once kept upon my terrace-roof seeing a rainbow mistook it for a rope of hay and jumping to seize it broke its neck!” Hence “Ash’ab’s sheep” became a by-word (Preston tells the tale in full, ).

  44 i.e. “Show a miser money and hold him back, if you can.”

  45 He wants £40,000 to begin with.

  46 i.e. Arab. “Sabíhat al-’urs” the morning after the wedding. See vol. i. 269.

  47 Another sign of modern composition as in Kamar al-Zaman

  II.

  48 Arab. “Al-Jink” (from Turk.) are boys and youths mostly Jews, Armenians, Greeks and Turks, who dress in woman’s dress with long hair braided. Lane (M. E. chapts. xix. and xxv.) gives same account of the customs of the “Gink” (as the Egyptians call them) but cannot enter into details concerning these catamites. Respectable Moslems often employ them to dance at festivals in preference to the Ghawázi-women, a freak of Mohammedan decorum. When they grow old they often preserve their costume, and a glance at them makes a European’s blood run cold.

  49 Lane translates this, “May Allah and the Rijal retaliate upon thy temple!”

  50 Arab. “Yá aba ‘l-lithámayn,” addressed to his member. Lathm the root means kissing or breaking; so he would say, “O thou who canst take her maidenhead whilst my tongue does away with the virginity of her mouth.” “He breached the citadel” (which is usually square) “in its four corners” signifying that he utterly broke it down.

  51 A mystery to the Author of Proverbs (xxx. 18-19),

  There be three things which are too wondrous for me,

  The way of an eagle in the air;

  The way of a snake upon a rock;

  And the way of a man with a maid.

  52 Several women have described the pain to me as much resembling the drawing of a tooth.

  53 As we should say, “play fast and loose.”

  54 Arab. “Náhí-ka” lit.=thy prohibition but idiomatically used=let it suffice thee!

  55 A character-sketch like that of Princess Dunya makes ample amends for a book full of abuse of women. And yet the superficial say that none of the characters have much personal individuality.

  56 This is indeed one of the touches of nature which makes all the world kin.

  57 As we are in Tartary “Arabs” here means plundering nomades, like the Persian “Iliyát” and other shepherd races.

  58 The very cruelty of love which hates nothing so much as a rejected lover. The Princess, be it noted, is not supposed to be merely romancing, but speaking with the second sight, the clairvoyance, of perfect affection. Men seem to know very little upon this subject, though every one has at times been more or less startled by the abnormal introvision and divination of things hidden which are the property and prerogative of perfect love.

  59 The name of the Princess meaning “The World,” not unusual amongst Moslem women.

  60 Another pun upon his name, “Ma’aruf.”

  61 Arab. “Naká,” the mound of pure sand which delights the eye of the Badawi leaving a town. See vol. i. 217, for the lines and explanation in Night cmlxiv. vol. ix. .

  62 Euphemistic: “I will soon fetch thee food.” To say this bluntly might have brought misfortune.

  63 Arab. “Kafr”=a village in Egypt and Syria e.g. Capernaum

  (Kafr Nahum).

  64 He has all the bonhomie of the Cairene and will do a kindness whenever he can.

  65 i.e. the Father of Prosperities: pron. Aboosa’ádát; as in the Tale of Hasan of Bassorah.

  66 Koran lxxxix. “The Daybreak” which also mentions Thamud and Pharaoh.

  67 In Egypt the cheapest and poorest of food, never seen at a hotel table d’hôte.

  68 The beautiful girls who guard ensorcelled hoards: See vol. vi. 109.

  69 Arab. “Asákir,” the ornaments of litters, which are either plain balls of metal or tapering cones based on crescents or on balls and crescents. See in Lane (M. E. chapt. xxiv.) the sketch of the Mahmal.

  70 Arab. “Amm”=father’s brother, courteously used for “father-in-law,” which suggests having slept with his daughter, and which is indecent in writing. Thus by a pleasant fiction the husband represents himself as having married his first cousin.

  71 i.e. a calamity to the enemy: see vol. ii. 87 and passim.

  72 Both texts read “Asad” (lion) and Lane accepts it: there is no reason to change it for “Hásid” (Envier), the Lion being the Sultan of the Beasts and the most majestic.

  73 The Cairene knew his fellow Cairene and was not to be taken in by him.

  74 Arab. “Hizám”: Lane reads “Khizám”=a nose-ring for which see appendix to Lane’s M. E. The untrained European eye dislikes these decorations and there is certainly no beauty in the hoops which Hindu women insert through the nostrils, camel-fashion, as if to receive the cord-acting bridle. But a drop-pearl hanging to the septum is at least as pretty as the heavy pendants by which some European women lengthen their ears.

  75 Arab. “Shamtá,” one of the many names of wine, the “speckled” alluding to the bubbles which dance upon the freshly filled cup.

  76 i.e. in the cask. These “merry quips” strongly suggest the dismal toasts of our not remote ancestors.

  77 Arab. “A’láj” plur. of “‘Ilj” and r
endered by Lane “the stout foreign infidels.” The next line alludes to the cupbearer who was generally a slave and a non-Moslem.

  78 As if it were a bride. See vol. vii. 198. The stars of

  Jauzá (Gemini) are the cupbearer’s eyes.

  79 i.e. light-coloured wine.

  80 The usual homage to youth and beauty.

  81 Alluding to the cup.

  82 Here Abu Nowas whose name always ushers in some abomination alluded to the “Ghulámiyah” or girl dressed like boy to act cupbearer. Civilisation has everywhere the same devices and the Bordels of London and Paris do not ignore the “she-boy,” who often opens the door.

  83 Abdallah ibn al-Mu’tazz, son of Al-Mu’tazz bi ‘llah, the 13th Abbaside, and great-great-grandson of Harun al-Rashid. He was one of the most renowned poets of the third century (A.H.) and died A.D. 908, strangled by the partisans of his nephew Al-Muktadir bi ‘llah, 18th Abbaside.

  84 Jazírat ibn Omar, an island and town on the Tigris north of Mosul. “Some versions of the poem, from which these verses are quoted, substitute El-Mutireh, a village near Samara (a town on the Tigris, 60 miles north of Baghdad), for El-Jezireh, i.e. Jeziret ibn Omar.” (Payne.)

  85 The Convent of Abdun on the east bank of the Tigris opposite the Jezirah was so called from a statesman who caused it to be built. For a variant of these lines see Ibn Khallikan, vol. ii. 42; here we miss “the shady groves of Al-Matírah.”

  86 Arab. “Ghurrah” the white blaze on a horse’s brow. In Ibn

  Khallikan the bird is the lark.

  87 Arab. “Táy’i”=thirsty used with Jáy’i=hungry.

  88 Lit. “Kohl’d with Ghunj” for which we have no better word than “coquetry.” But see vol. v. 80. It corresponds with the Latin crissare for women and cevere for men.

  89 i.e. gold-coloured wine, as the Vino d’Oro.

  90 Compare the charming song of Abu Miján translated from the German of Dr. Weil in Bohn’s Edit. of Ockley (),