One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  “Grand Translateur, Noble Geoffroy Chaucier.”

  Here,

  “The firste finder of our faire language”

  is styled a “Socrates in philosophy, a Seneca in morals, an Angel in conduct and a great Translator,” which apparent anti-climax has scandalised not a little inditers of “Lives” and “Memoirs.” The title is given simply because Chaucer translated (using the best and highest sense of the term) into his English tongue and its linguistic peculiarities, the thoughts and ideas of his foreign models — the very letter and spirit of Petrarch and Boccacao.

  That my attempts to reproduce the form and features of the original and thee my manner of writing is well adapted to the matter appears from the consensus of the “Notices” presently to be quoted. Mr. J. Addington Symonds pronounces the version to be executed with “peculiar literary vigour.” Mr. Swinburne is complimentary, and even the Saturday deigns to declare “Captain Burton is certainly felicitous in the manner in which he has englished the picturesque lines of the original.” But le style est de l’homme; and this is a matter upon which any and every educated man who writes honestly will form and express and retain his own opinion: there are not a few who loathe “Pickwick,” and who cannot relish Vanity Fair. So the Edinburgh Review No. 335 (p, 181), concerning which more anon, pronounces my work to be “a jumble of the vulgarest slang of all nations;” also “an unreadable compound of archæology and ‘slang,’ abounding in Americanisms, and full of an affected reaching after obsolete or foreign words and phrases;” and finally shows the assurance to assert “Captain Burton has produced a version which is neither Arabic nor English, but which has at least the merit of being beautifully unreadable” ().

  It has been circulated widely enough by the Lane-Poole clique — poules mouillees they are called by an Arabist friend — that I do not know Arabic. Let me at once plead guilty to the charge, adding by way of circonstance atténuante that I know none who does know or who can thoroughly know a tongue of which we may say as did honest Izaak Walton of other two crafts, “angling be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learned.” Most of us can master one section of a language concerning which those who use it vernacularly declare “Only Allah wotteth its entirety”, but we lack as yet the means to study it as a whole. Older by long ages than Babel’s fabulous Tower, and covering a continuous area from Eastern Arabia to the Maghrab al-Aksa (western Mauritania), from Chaldaea in the North to southern Zanzibar, it numbers of potential vocabulary 1,200,000 words all of which may be, if they are not, used, and while they specify the finest shades of meaning, not a few of them, technically termed “Zidd,” bear significations diametrically opposite, e.g., “Maulá” = lord, slave; and “‘Ajúz” with 88 different meanings. Its literature, poetic, semi-poetic and prosaic, falls into three greater sections: — Ancient (The Suspendeds, the Kitáb al-Aghání and the Koran), Mediæval (Al-Mutanabbi, Al-Asm’ài, Abú Nowás and the poets of the Harunic cycle) and Moderns, of whom not the least important (e.g. Yúsuf al-Yazají) are those of our own day. Throughout its vast domain there are local differences of terminology which render every dialect a study; and of these many are intimately connected with older families, as the Egyptian with Coptic and the Moorish with Berber. The purest speakers are still the Badawin who are often not understood by the citizen-folk (e.g. of Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad) at whose gates they tent; and a few classes like the Banú Fahim of Al-Hijáz still converse sub-classically, ever and anon using the terminal vowels and the nunnation elsewhere obsolete. These wildlings, whose evening camp-fires are still their schools for eloquence and whose improvisations are still their unwritten laws, divide speech into three degrees, Al-’Áli the lofty addressed to the great, Al-Wasat used for daily converse and Al-Dún the lowly or broken “loghat” (jargon) belonging to most tribes save their own. In Egypt the purest speakers are those of the Sa’íd — the upper Nile-region — differing greatly from the two main dialects of the Delta; in Syria, where the older Aramean is still current amongst sundry of the villagers outlying Damascus, the best Arabists are the Druzes, a heterogeneous of Arabs and Curds who cultivate language with uncommon care. Of the dialectic families which subtend the Mediterranean’s southern sea-board, the Maroccan and the Algerine are barbarised by Berber, by Spanish and by Italian words and are roughened by the inordinate use of the Sukún (quiescence or conjoining of consonants), while the Tunisian approaches nearer to the Syrian and the Maltese was originally Punic. The jargon of Meccah is confessedly of all the worst. But the wide field has been scratched not worked out, and the greater part of it, especially the Mesopotamian and the Himyaritic of Mahrahland, still remains fallow and the reverse of sterile.

  Materials for the study of Arabic in general and of its dialects in particular are still deficient, and the dictionaries mostly content themselves with pouring old stuff from flask to flask, instead of collecting fresh and unknown material. Such are recueils of prayers and proverbs, folk-songs and stories, riddles and satires, not forgetting those polyglot vocabularies so common in many parts of the Eastern world, notably in Sind and Afghánistán; and the departmental glossaries such as the many dealing with “Tasawwuf” — the Moslem form of Gnosticism. The excellent lexicon of the late Professor Dozy, Supplément aux Dictionnaires Arabes, par R. Dozy, Leyde: E. J. Brill, 1881, was a step in advance, but we still lack additions like Baron Adolph Von Kremer’s Beitrage zur Arabischen Lexicographie (In commission bei Carl Gerold’s Sohn, Wien, 1884). The French, as might be expected, began early, e.g. M. Ruphy’s Dictionnaire abrege francais-arabe, Paris, Imprimerie de la Republique, 1810; they have done good work in Algiers and are now carrying it on in Tunis. Of these we have Marcel, Vocabulaire, etc. (Paris, 1837), Bled de Braine (Paris, 1846), who to his Cours Synthetique adds a study of Maroccan and Egyptian, Professor Cherbonneau (Paris, 1854), Précis Historique, and Dialogues, etc. (Alger, 1858); M. Gasselin (Paris, 1866), Dictionnaire francais-arabe, M. Brassier (Algiers, 1871), Dictionnaire pratique, also containing Algerine and Tunisian terms; General Parmentier (Vocabulaire arabe-francais des Principaux Termes de Geographie, etc.: Paris, rue Antoine-Dubois, 1882); and, to mention no others, the Grammaire Arabe Vulgaire (Paris, 1824) of M. Caussin de Perceval (fils) has extended far and wide. Berggren (Upsal, 1844) published his Guide Francais-Arabe des Voyageurs en Syrie et en Egypte. Rowland de Bussy printed (Algiers, 1877) his Dialogues Francais-Arabes in the Algerian dialect. Fr. José de Lerchundi, a respected Missioner to Tangier, has imitated and even improved upon this in his Rudimentos del Arabe Vulgar (Madrid, Rivadeneyra, 1872); and his studies of the Maghrabi dialect are most valuable. Dr. A. Socin produced his Arabische Sprichwörter, etc. (Tubingen, 1878), and the late Wilhelm Spitta-Bey, whose early death was so deeply lamented left a grammar of Egyptian which would have been a model had the author brought to his task more knowledge of Coptic in his Grammatik des Arabischen vulgär Dialektes von Ægypten, (Leipsig, 1870). Dr. Landberg published with Brill of Leyden and Maisonneuve of Paris, 1883, a volume of Syrian Proverbs and promises some five others — No. 2, Damascus and the Haurán; No. 3, Kasrawán and the Nusayriyah; No. 4, Homs, Hamah and Halab (Aleppo), and No. 5, the Badawin of Syria. It is evident that the process might be prolonged ad infinitum by a writer of whom I shall have something to say presently. M. Clément Huart (Jour. Asiat., Jan. ‘83) has printed notes on the dialect of Damascus: Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje published a collection of 77 proverbs and idioms with lengthy notes in his Mehkanische Sprichwörter, etc. (Haag, Martinus Nijhoff, 1886), after being expelled from Meccah by the Turkish authorities who had discovered him only through a Parisian journal Le Temps (see his Het Mekkanshe Feest, Leyden, 1880). For the lower Najd and upper Hijaz we have the glossary of Arabic words ably edited by Prof. M. J. de Goeje in Mr. Charles M. Doughty’s valuable and fantastic “Arabia Deserta” (ii. 542-690: see The Academy, July 28th, ‘88). Thus the local vocabularies are growing, but it will be long before the ground is covered.

  Again the East, and notably the Moslem
East since the Massacre of Damascus in 1860, although still moving slowly, shows a distinct advance. The once secluded and self- contained communities are now shaken by the repeated and continuous shocks of progress around them; and new wants and strange objects compel them nilly-willy to provide vernacular equivalents for the nomenclature of modern arts and sciences. Thus the Orientalist, who would produce a contemporary lexicon of Persian, must not only read up all the diaries and journals of Teheran and the vocabularies of Yezd and Herat, he must go further a-field. He should make himself familiar with the speech of the Iliyát or wandering pastoral tribes and master a host of cognate tongues whose chiefs are Armenian (Old and New), Caucasian, a modern Babel, Kurdish, Lúri (Bakhtiyári), Balochki and Pukhtú or Afghan, besides the direct descendants of the Zend, the Pehlevi, Dari and so forth. Even in the most barbarous jargons he will find terms which throw light upon the literary Iranian of the lexicons: for instance “Mádiyán” = a mare presupposes the existence of “Narayán” = a stallion, and the latter is preserved by the rude patois of the Baloch mountaineers. This process of general collection would in our day best be effected after the fashion of Professor James A. H. Murray’s “New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.” It would be compiled by a committee of readers resident in different parts of Persia, communicating with the Royal Asiatic Society (whose moribund remains they might perhaps quicken) and acting in co-operation with Russia, whom unfriends have converted from a friend to an angry and jealous rival and who is ever so forward in the linguistic field.

  But if the model Persian dictionary have its difficulties, far harder will be the task with Arabic, which covers incomparably more ground. Here we must begin with Spain and Portugal, Sardinia and the Balearics, Southern Italy and Sicily; and thence pass over to Northern Africa and the two “Soudans,” the Eastern extending far South of the Equator and the Western nearly to the Line. In Asia, besides the vast Arabian Peninsula, numbering one million of square miles, we find a host of linguistic outliers, such as Upper Hindostan, the Concan, Malacca, Java and even remote Yun-nan, where al-Islam is the dominant religion, and where Arabic is the language of Holy Writ.

  My initiation into the mysteries of Arabic began at Oxford under my tutor Dr. W. A. Greenhill, who published a “Treatise on Small-pox and Measles,” translated from Rhazes — Abú Bakr al-Rází (London, 1847), and where the famous Arabist, Don Pascual de Gayangos, kindly taught me to write Arabic leftwards. During eight years of service in Western India and in Moslem Sind, while studying Persian and a variety of vernaculars it was necessary to keep up and extend a practical acquaintance with the language which supplies all the religious and most of the metaphysical phraseology; and during my last year at Sindian Karáchí (1849), I imported a Shaykh from Maskat. Then work began in downright earnest. Besides Erpenius’ (D’Erp) “Grammatica Arabica,” Richardson, De Sacy and Forbes, I read at least a dozen Perso-Arabic works (mostly of pamphlet form) on “Serf Wa Nahw” — Accidence and Syntax — and learned by heart one-fourth of the Koran. A succession of journeys and long visits at various times to Egypt, a Pilgrimage to the Moslem Holy Land and an exploration of the Arabic-speaking Somáli-shores and Harar-Gay in the Galla country of Southern Abyssinia, added largely to my practice. At Aden, where I passed the official examination, Captain (now Sir. R. Lambert) Playfair and the late Rev. G. Percy Badger, to whom my papers were submitted, were pleased to report favourably of my proficiency. During some years of service and discovery in Western Africa and the Brazil my studies were necessarily confined to the “Thousand Nights and a Night”; and when a language is not wanted for use my habit is to forget as much of it as possible, thus clearing the brain for assimilating fresh matter. At the Consulate of Damascus, however, in West Arabian Midian and in Maroccan Tangier the loss was readily recovered. In fact, of this and sundry other subjects it may be said without immodesty that I have forgotten as much as many Arabists have learned. But I repeat my confession that I do not know Arabic and I have still to meet the man who does know Arabic.

  Orientalists, however, are like poets and musicians, a rageous race. A passing allusion to a Swedish student styled by others (Mekkanische Sprichwörter, etc., p.1) “Dr. Landberg,” and by himself “Doctor Count Carlo Landberg” procured me the surprise of the following communication. I quote it in full because it is the only uncourteous attempt at correspondence upon the subject of The Nights which has hitherto been forced upon me.

  In his introduction (p. xx.) to the Syrian Proverbes et Dictons Doctor Count Landberg was pleased to criticise, with less than his usual knowledge, my study entitled “Proverbia Communia Syriaca” (Unexplored Syria, i. 264-269). These 187 “dictes” were taken mainly from a MS. collection by one Hanná Misk, ex-dragoman of the British Consulate (Damascus), a little recueil for private use such as would be made by a Syro Christian bourgeois. Hereupon the critic absurdly asserted that the translator a voulu s’occuper de la langue classique au lieu de se faire * * * l’interprète fidèle de celle du peuple. My reply was (The Nights, vol. viii. 148) that, as I was treating of proverbs familiar to the better educated order of citizens, his critique was not to the point; and this brought down upon me the following letter under the ægis of a portentous coronet and initials blazing with or, yules and azure.

  Paris, le 24 Févr., 1888.

  Monsieur,

  J’ai l’honneur de vous adresser 2 fascicules de mes Critica Arabica. Dans le vol. viii. de votre traduction de 1001 Nuits vous avez une note qui me regard (sic). Vous y cites que je ne suds pas “Arabist.” Ce n’est pas votre jugement qui m’impressionne, car vous n’êtes nullement à même de me juger. Votre article contient, comme tout ce que vous avez écrit dans le domaine de la langue arabe, des bévues. C’est vous qui n’êtes pas arabisant: cela est bien connu et reconnu, et nous ne nous donnons pas même la peine de relever toutes les innombrables erreurs don’t vos publications fourmillent. Quant à “Sahífah” vous êtes encore en erreur. Mon étymologie est acceptée par tout le monde et je vous renvoie à Fleischer, Kleinre Schriften, , Leipzig, 1885, où vous trouverez [‘instruction nécessaire. Le dilettantism qui se trahit dans tout ce que vous écrivez vous fait faire de telles erreurs. Nous autres arabisants et professo (?) nous ne vous avons jamais et nous ne vous pouvons jamais considérer comme arabisant. Voila ma réponse à votre note.

  Agréez, Monsieur,

  l’expression de mes sentiments distingués,

  Comte Lasdberg,

  Dr.-ès-lettres.

  After these preliminaries I proceed to notice the article (No. 335, of July ‘86) in

  The “Edinburgh Review”

  and to explain its private history with the motives which begat it.

  “This is the Augustan age of English criticism,” say the reviewers, who are fond of remarking that the period is one of literary appreciation rather than of original production that is, contemporary reviewers, critics and monograph-writers are more important than “makers” in verse or in prose. In fact it is their aurea ætas. I reply “Virgin ore, no!” on the whole mixed metal, some noble, much ignoble; a little gold, more silver and an abundance of brass, lead and dross. There is the criticism of Sainte Beuve, of the late Matthew Arnold and of Swinburne, there is also the criticism of the Saturday Reviler and of the Edinburgh criticaster. The golden is truth and honour incarnate: it possesses outsight and insight: it either teaches and inspires or it comforts and consoles, save when a strict sense of duty compels it to severity: briefly, it is keen and guiding and creative. Let the young beginner learn by rote what one master says of another:— “He was never provoked into coarseness: his thrusts were made with the rapier according to the received rules of fence, he firmly upheld the honour of his calling, and in the exercise of it was uniformly fearless, independent and incorrupt.” The Brazen is partial, one-sided, tricksy, misleading, immoral; serving personal and interested purposes and contemptuously forgetful of every obligation which an honest and honourable pen owes to the public and to itself. Such cr
itiques bring no profit to the reviewed. He feels that he has been written up or written down by a literary hireling who has possibly been paid to praise or abuse him secondarily, and primarily to exalt or debase his publisher or his printer.

  My own literary career has supplied me with many a curious study. Writing upon subjects, say The Lake Regions of Central Africa which were then a type of the Unknown I could readily trace in the journalistic notices all the tricks and dodges of the trade. The rare honest would confess that they could say nothing upon the subject, they came to me therefore for information and professed themselves duly thankful. The many dishonest had recourse to a variety of devices. The hard worker would read-up voyages and travels treating of the neighboring countries, Abyssinia, the Cape and the African Coasts Eastern and Western; thus he would write in a kind of reflected light without acknowledging his obligation to my volumes. Another would review my book after the easy American fashion of hashing up the author’s production, taking all its facts from me with out disclosing that one fact to the reader and then proceed to “butter” or “slash.” The worst, “fulfyld with malace of froward entente,” would choose for theme not the work but the worker, upon the good old principle “Abuse the plaintiff’s attorney.” These arts fully account for the downfall of criticism in our day and the deafness of the public to such literary verdicts. But a few years ago a favourable review in a first-rate paper was “fifty pounds in the author’s pocket”: now it is not worth as many pence unless signed by some well-known scribbling statesman or bustling reverend who caters for the public taste. The decline and fall is well expressed in the old lines: —