One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  Although there are some differences in the details of the story of Baba Abdullah and that of Hamir, as above, yet the general similarity between them is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that if one was not adapted from the other, both must have been derived from the same source; and here we have, I think, clear evidence of the genuineness of another of the tales which Galland was believed to have invented himself.

  Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents

  History of Sidi Nu’man — .

  It is curious to find this current as a folk-tale at Palena, in the Abruzzi, without any material variation except in the conclusion. My friend, Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, has favoured me with the following abstract of the Italian version, as given in vol. iii. of the “Archivio per lo studio delle Tradizioni Popolari” (Palermo, 1882), :

  There was once a husband and wife. The wife says that she cannot eat anything, and only picks a few grains of rice with a large pin. Her husband asks why she eats nothing, and she answers that she does not want to eat. Meantime she goes out secretly every night, and the husband begins to have suspicions of her. One night he follows her softly and finds she goes to the burial ground, where she meets with certain female companions. They open a grave and feed on the flesh of the dead. The next morning the husband cooks rice again, and the wife picks up a few grains of it with a pin as before. The husband exclaims, “What! you enjoy the flesh of dead men, and over rice you are so finical as to eat it with a pin!” The wife is so enraged at learning that her husband knows of her doings that she goes to the water-bucket, fills a small bottle from it, and having muttered certain words over the water flings it upon him and he instantly becomes transformed into a dog. A provision merchant sees him running about, and takes and sets him on his counter. When the people come to buy provisions the dog examines the money to see if it be good, and the false coin he throws on the ground. One day a man comes to buy bacon and offers false coin. The provision merchant refuses to take it; they dispute over the matter, and it is referred to the dog, who throws the money on the ground. The man is astonished, and returning home tells his wife, who at once says that the dog is not a dog, and desires her husband to bring her the animal that she may see it. The man returns to the provision merchant and begs him to lend him the dog for a little while, and takes it home. The wife, who is a companion of the wife of him who has been changed into a dog, and understands witchcraft, fills a bottle with water, pronounces certain words over it, and throws the water upon the dog, who immediately becomes a man again, and she advises him to do to his wife as she had done to him, and imparts the secret to him. As soon as he returns home he fills the bottle with water from the bucket, says the words he had learned, and throws the water over his wife, who becomes a mare. He drives her out of the house and beats her as flax is beaten. To every one who asks why he is thrashing the mare he tells his story, and the people say, “Serve her right!” This goes on for some time. At last, when the husband sees that his wife has voided enough foam from the mouth, with another dash of water he changes her back to her proper form, and henceforward she eats whatever is set before her, obeys her husband in all things, and never goes out by night again. So they live long, happy and contented.

  This version from the Abruzzi so closely resembles the story of Sidi Nu’mßn that we should perhaps be justified in concluding it to have been directly derived from Galland’s Nights, in the absence of any Venetian version, which might well have been imported independently from the East, but however this may be, the story in Galland bears unquestionable internal evidence that it is a genuine Arabian narrative, having nothing peculiarly European in its details.

  A somewhat similar story is quite familiar to me, but I cannot at present call to mind whether it occurs in a Persian collection or in The Nights, in which the woman going out when she thinks her husband asleep, the latter follows her to a hut at some distance which she enters, and peeping into the hut, he sees a hideous black give her a severe beating for not coming sooner, while she pleads that she could not venture to quit the house until her husband was sound asleep. The two carouse together, and by-and-by the black going outside for a purpose, the husband strikes off his head with his sword and then conceals himself close by. The woman, after waiting some time, goes out to see what is detaining her paramour, and finding his headless body, she moans over it in great sorrow, and then taking the corpse on her back carries it away and throws it into the river. Her husband hastens home before her, and so she suspects nothing. Some days after, when she refuses to do some light work because of her physical weakness, her husband can no longer control himself, and tells her that she had strength enough to carry on her back the body of her black paramour, and so on.407

  The ghoul-wife of Arabian tales, who eats little or nothing at home, has her in the rßkshasÝ of Indian fictions, who secretly devours antelopes, etc. There are many parallels in The Nights and other Asiatic story-books to the incident of Sidi Nu’man being changed back into his proper form, the most noteworthy being perhaps the case of the Second Calender in the shape of a monkey, or ape, whom the princess, an adept in white magic, at once recognizes as a man and veils her face, as does the young woman in the case of Sidi Nu’man: but while the Calender is restored to his own form, the princess, alas! perishes in her encounter with the genie who had transformed him. — In most of the Arabian tales of magical transformations of men and women into beasts the victims are ultimately restored to their natural forms, but in the Indian romance of the princess Somasekhara and Chitrasekhara, a wicked king named Ugrabßhu is permanently changed by some water taken from a magic fountain into a monkey and sold to a beggar, who compels him to perform tricks in public for his benefit. Heywood, in his “History of Women” (Book viii.), cites some curious European stories of men being transformed into donkeys by eating a certain kind of cheese,

  Richard Francis Burton’s translation: detailed table of contents

  History of Khwajah Hasan Al-habbal — .

  How this entertaining story found its way into North Germany — and nowhere else in Europe, so far as I am aware — it is not easy to say, but its twin-brother seems to be orally current there, in all essential details, excepting the marvellous conclusion. For the poor ropemaker, however, a struggling weaver and for the two gentlemen, Sa’d and Sa’dÝ, three rich students are substituted. There does not appear (according to the version given by Thorpe in his “Yule Tide Stories,” which he entitles, not inaptly, The Three Gifts) to be any difference of opinion among the students regarding the influence of Destiny, or Fate, upon men’s fortunes: they simply give the poor weaver a hundred dollars “to assist him in his housekeeping.” The weaver hides the money in a heap of rags, unknown to his wife, who sells them to a rag-collector for a trifling sum. A year afterwards the students are again passing the house of the weaver and find him poorer than ever. He tells them of his mishap and they give him another hundred dollars warning him to be more careful with the money this time. The weaver conceals the dollars in the ash-tub, again without the cognisance of his wife, who disposes of the ashes for a few pieces of soap. At the end of the second year the students once more visit the wretched weaver, and on being informed of his loss, they throw a bit of lead at his feet, saying it’s of no use to give such a fool money, and go away in a great huff. The weaver picks up the lead and places it on the window sill. By-and-by a neighbour, who is a fisherman, comes in and asks for a bit of lead or some other heavy thing, for his net, and on receiving the lead thrown down by the students promises to give him in return the first large fish he catches. The weaver does get a fine fish, which he immediately cuts open, and finds in its stomach a “large stone,” which he lays on the window-sill, where, as it becomes dark, the stone gives forth a brighter and brighter light, “just like a candle,” and then he places it so that it illuminates the whole apartment. “That’s a cheap lamp,” quoth he to his wife: “wouldst not like to dispose of it as thou didst the two hundred dollars?”
The next evening a merchant happening to ride past the weaver’s house perceives the brilliant stone, and alighting from his horse, enters and looks at it, then offers ten dollars for it, but the weaver says the stone is not for sale. “What! not even for twenty dollars?” “Not even for that.” The merchant keeps on increasing his offers till he reaches a thousand dollars, which was about half its real value, for the stone was a diamond, and which the weaver accepts, and thus he becomes the richest man in all the village. His wife, however, took credit to herself for his prosperity, often saying to him, “How well it was that I threw away the money twice, for thou hast me to thank for thy good luck!” — and here the German story ends. For the turban of the ropemaker and the kite that carried it off, with its precious lining, we have the heap of rags and the rag-collector; but the ashes exchanged for soap agrees with the Arabian story almost exactly.

  The incident of the kite carrying off the poor ropemaker’s turban in which he had deposited the most part of the gold pieces that he received from the gentleman who believed that “money makes money” — an unquestionable fact, in spite of our story — is of very frequent occurrence in both Western and Eastern fictions. My readers will recollect its exact parallel in the abstract of the romance of Sir Isumbras, cited in Appendix to the preceding volumes: how the Knight, with his little son, after the soudan’s ship has sailed away with his wife, is bewildered in a forest, where they fall asleep, and in the morning at sunrise when he awakes, an eagle pounces down and carries off his scarlet mantle, in which he had tied up his scanty store of provisions together with the gold he had received from the soudan; and how many years after he found it in a bird’s nest (Supp. Nights, vol. ii. and ). — And, not to multiply examples, a similar incident occurs in the “Kathß Sarit Sßgara,” Book ix. ch. 54, where a merchant named Samudras·ra is shipwrecked and contrives to reach the land, where he perceives the corpse of a man, round the loins of which is a cloth with a knot in it. On unfastening the cloth he finds in it a necklace studded with jewels. The merchant proceeds towards a city called Kalasapuri, carrying the necklace in his hand. Overpowered by the heat, he sits down in a shady place and falls asleep. The necklace is recognised by some passing policemen as that of the king’s daughter, and the merchant is at once taken before the king and accused of having stolen it. While the merchant is being examined, a kite swoops down and carries off the necklace. Presently a voice from heaven declares that the merchant is innocent, explains how the necklace came into his possession, and orders the king to dismiss him with honour. This celestial testimony in favour of the accused satisfies the king, who gives the merchant much wealth and sends him on his way. The rest of the story is as follows: “And after he had crossed the sea, he travelled with a caravan, and one day, at evening time, he reached a wood. The caravan encamped in the wood for the night, and while Samudras·ra was awake a powerful host of bandits attacked it. While the bandits were massacring the members of the caravan, Samudras·ra left his wares and fled, and climbed up a banyan-tree without being discovered. The host of bandits departed, after they had carried off all the wealth, and the merchant spent that night there, perplexed with fear and distracted with grief. In the morning he cast his eves towards the top of the tree, and saw, as fate would have it, what looked like the light of a lamp, trembling among the leaves. And in his astonishment he climbed up the tree and saw a kite’s nest, in which there was a heap of glittering priceless jewelled ornaments. He took them all out of it, and found among the ornaments that necklace which he had found in SvarnadvÝpa and the kite had carried off. He obtained from that nest unlimited wealth, and descending from the tree, he went off delighted, and reached in course of time his own city of Harshap·ra. There the merchant Samudras·ra remained, enjoying himself to his heart’s content, with his family, free from the desire of any other wealth.”

  There is nothing improbable — at all events, nothing impossible — in the History of Khwajah Hasan al-Habbßl. That he should lose the two sums of money in the manner described is quite natural, and the incidents carry with them the moral: “Always take your wife into your confidence” (but the Khwajah was a Muslim), notwithstanding the great good luck which afterwards befell, and which, after all, was by mere chance. There is nothing improbable in the finding of the turban with the money intact in the bird’s nest, but that this should occur while the Khwajah’s benefactors were his guests is — well, very extraordinary indeed! As to the pot of bran — why, some little license must be allowed a story-teller, that is all that need be said! The story from beginning to end is a most charming one, and will continue to afford pleasure to old and young — to “generations yet unborn.”

  Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves — p.219

  I confess to entertaining a peculiar affection for this tale. It was the first of the tales of the “Arabian Nights Entertainments” which I read in the days of my “marvelling boyhood” eheu! fugaces, &c, etc. I may therefore be somewhat prejudiced in its favour, just as I still consider Scott’s “Waverley” as the best of his long series of fascinating fictions, that being the first of them which I read — as it was the first he wrote. But “All Baba and the Forty Thieves” — the “open, sesame!” “shut, sesame!” — the sackfuls of gold and silver and the bales of rich merchandise in the robbers’ cave — the avaricious brother forgetting the magical formula which would open the door and permit him to escape with his booty — his four quarters hung up in terrorem — and above all, the clever, devoted slave girl Morgiana, who in every way outwitted the crafty robber-chief, — these incidents remain stamped in my memory ineffaceably: like the initials of lovers’ names cut into the bark of a growing tree, which, so far from disappearing, become larger by the lapse of time. To me this delightful tale will ever be, as Hafiz sings of something, “freshly fresh and newly new.” I care not much though it never be found in an Arabic or any other Oriental dress — but that it is of Asiatic invention is self-evident; there is, in my poor opinion nothing to excel it, if indeed to equal it, for intense interest and graphic narrative power in all The Nights proper.

  Sir Richard Burton has remarked, in note 1, , that Mr. Coote could only find in the south of Europe, or in the Levant, analogues of two of the incidents of this tale, yet one of those may be accepted as proof of its Eastern extraction, namely, the Cyprian story of “Three Eyes,” where the ogre attempts to rescue his wife with a party of blacks concealed in bales: “The King’s jester went downstairs, in order to open the bales and takes something out of them. Directly he approached one of the sacks, the black man answered from the inside,’Is it time, master?’ In the same manner he tried all the sacks, and then went upstairs and told them that the sacks were full of black men. Directly the King’s bride heard this, she made the jester and the company go downstairs. They take the executioner with them, and go to the first sack. The black man says from the inside, ‘Is it time ?’ ‘Yes,’ say they to him, and directly he came out they cut his head off. In the same manner they go to the other sacks and kill the other black men.’’408

  The first part of the tale of Ali Baba — ending with the death of his greedy brother — is current in North Germany, to this effect:

  A poor woodcutter, about to fell a beech at the back of the scattered ruins of the castle of Dummburg, seeing a monk approach slowly through the forest, hid himself behind a tree. The monk passed by and went among the rocks. The woodcutter stole cautiously after him and saw that he stopped at a small door which had never been discovered by the villagers. The monk knocks gently and cries, “Little door, open!” and the door springs open. He also cries, “Little door, shut!” and the door is closed. The woodcutter carefully observes the place, and next Sunday goes secretly and obtains access to the vault by the same means as that employed by the monk. He finds in it “large open vessels and sacks full of old dollars and fine guilders, together with heavy gold pieces, caskets filled with jewels and pearls, costly shrines and images of saints, which lay about or stood on tables of silver in cor
ners of the vault.” He takes but a small quantity of the coin, and as he is quitting the vault a voice cries, “Come again!” First giving to the church, for behoof of the poor, a tenth of what he had taken, he goes to the town and buys clothes for his wife and children, giving out to his neighbours that he had found an old dollar and a few guilders under the roots of a tree that he had felled. Next Sunday he again visits the vault, this time supplying himself somewhat more liberally from the hoard, but still with moderation and discretion, and “Come again!” cries a voice as he is leaving. He now gives to the church two tenths, and resolves to bury the rest of the money he had taken in his cellar. But he can’t resist a desire to first measure the gold, for he could not count it. So he borrows for this purpose a corn-measure of a neighbour — a very rich but penurious man, who starved himself, hoarded up corn, cheated the labourer of his hire, robbed the widow and the orphan, and lent money on pledges. Now the measure had some cracks in the bottom, through which the miser shook some grains of corn into his own heap when selling it to the poor labourer, and into these cracks two or three small coins lodged, which the miser was not slow to discover. He goes to the woodcutter and asks him what it was he had been measuring. “Pine-cones and beans. But the miser holds up the coins he had found in the cracks of the measure, and threatens to inform upon him and have him put to the question if he will not disclose to him the secret of his money. So the woodcutter is constrained to tell him the whole story and much against his will, but not before he had made the miser promise that he would give one-tenth to the church, he conducts him to the vault. The miser enters, with a number of sacks, the woodcutter waiting outside to receive them when filled with treasure. But while the miser is gloating over the enormous wealth before him — even “wealth beyond the dreams of avarice” — a great black dog comes and lays himself down on the sacks. Terrified at the flaming eyes of the dog, the miser crept towards the door but in his fear forgot the proper words, and instead of saying, “Little door, open!” he cried!, “Little door, shut!” The woodcutter, having waited a long time, approached the door, and knocking gently and crying “Little door, open!” the door sprang open and he entered. There lay the bleeding body of his wicked neighbour, stretched on his sacks, but the vessels of gold and silver, and diamonds and pearls, sank deeper and deeper into the earth before his eyes, till all had completely vanished.409