The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights
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In India, Macan’s manuscript had been acquired by Charles Brownlow, who offered it for scrutiny and evaluation to a panel of experts belonging to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. The results of their deliberations were published in 1837 in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal:
The style of the language was declared to be singularly pure, the narrative spirited and graphic, and the collection of stories enriched with many tales either perfectly new to European readers or else given a form very different from that which they have been hitherto known, garbled and abridged by the carelessness of translators or by the imperfections of the MSS whence they were translated.
Sir William Hay Macnaghten, the leading Arabist, having looked at volumes three and four of the manuscript, declared that it was genuine and suggested that it would be a worthwhile enterprise to translate it. In the Journal, he gave it as his opinion that the government should subsidize the publication, because of ‘the credit which must accrue to our nation, from presenting to the Musulman population of India, in a complete and correct form and in their own classical language, these enchanting tales…’. In the event, the government did subscribe for fifty copies of the printed text.
As already noted, the Calcutta II text is also known as the Macnaghten edition, although the extent of his involvement in its preparation is questionable. Sir William Hay Macnaghten (1793–1841) had studied Arabic and Sanskrit at Fort William in Calcutta. He became Secretary to the Secret and Political Department in Calcutta. Emily Eden, sister of the Governor General of India and a devoted letter writer, described him as ‘clever and pleasant, speaks Persian rather more fluently than English; Arabic better than Persian; but, for familiar conversation, prefers Sanskrit’. According to his wife’s biography of him, Richard Burton, the future translator of the Nights, who was out in India in Macnaghten’s time, was less flattering. ‘Macnaghten was a mere Indian civilian. Like too many of them, he had fallen into the dodging ways of the natives, and he distinctly deserved his death.’ It is not clear how Macnaghten had offended Burton. What is clear is that he was one of the most influential formulators of policy in British India. A committed Russophobe, he advocated a forward policy in Afghanistan, where he hoped to establish a puppet regime to block further Russian advance towards India. His promising career in the Bengal civil service was cut short when, in 1837, he moved to Simla prior to accompanying Lord Auckland on an expedition into Afghanistan. The British aim was to oust the warlord Dost Mohammed Khan from Kabul and put in their own nominee. But their troops were trapped and surprised in Kabul and Macnaghten was murdered there in December 1841. It is said that his wife first learned of her husband’s death when his severed hand with his ring bearing an Arabic inscription was tossed into her tent.
Before his involvement in the ill-fated Afghan adventure, Macnaghten had volunteered to correct the Arabic of the manuscript prior to its being sent on to the printer. In this task he was to be assisted by the Maulavis of the Persian Office in Calcutta. (Maulavis were experts on Islamic law and they necessarily had to have a good knowledge of Arabic.) The chronology of Macnaghten’s departure for Simla and Kabul raises doubts about his serious involvement in the production of the edition that bears his name, as planning the Afghan expedition would have left him little spare time to work on the text. Whatever the case, it is clear that the edition that was published, while based on the Macan manuscript, drew heavily on the Bulaq edition. Since Calcutta II drew on so many earlier recensions of the Nights, it contained more stories and usually fuller versions of those stories.
When the Calcutta II project was launched, there had been hopes that Macnaghten might translate the Arabic once it was published. In the event, it was first translated into English by John Payne (1842–1917), a poet and translator. Payne’s highly literary translation was published in a single limited edition in 1882–4. Since his edition sold out and he had no intention of ever reissuing it, his friend and advisor Sir Richard Burton (1821–90) saw his opportunity. Burton was already famous for having disguised himself as a Muslim and making the hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and for his expedition undertaken with John Speke in search of the source of the Nile. He had also published a translation of the Kama Sutra in 1883.
Burton’s translation was published in 1885–7 in sixteen volumes (six of which were supplemental volumes containing stories not found in Calcutta II) and, in order to circumvent the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, it was available to private subscribers only. While Lane’s translation had been excessively prudish, Burton’s was at the other end of the spectrum. He heightened the eroticism and, occasionally, the racism of what he translated. His prose was by turns pompous, slangy or tortured. However, he did provide a full translation and even supplied variant versions of some stories.
Two further translations need to be mentioned. Joseph-Charles-Victor Mardrus, a member of a Caucasian clan who grew up in Cairo, published a French translation of the Nights in twelve volumes between 1899 and 1904. This ‘translation’ is extremely inaccurate and some of the stories seem to have been invented by Mardrus. The prose was embellished in a fin-de-siècle manner. Though it is perhaps easier to read than the English of Lane or Burton, some readers may find it rather sickly. As a work of creative literature, Mardrus’s version certainly has its merits, but as a rendering of an Arabic original it is almost worthless. An English translation of the French by E. Powys Mathers was published in 1923 in a private subscription edition and in a public edition in 1937.
In 1984, Muhsin Mahdi, a professor of Arabic at Harvard, published a critical edition of the oldest substantially surviving manuscript of the Nights, the one used by Galland that is currently in the Bibliothèque Nationale and which contains only thirty-five and a half stories extending over 282 ‘Nights’. Mahdi’s critically edited text was subsequently well translated into English by Hussain Haddawy in 1990. Although Mahdi argued that the manuscript in question dates from the early fourteenth century, it seems clear that it in fact dates from the late fifteenth century. His view that there was a single thirteenth- or fourteenth-century core text to which, in the centuries that followed, other tales were added without any justification at all has also attracted some criticism.
In 2004, The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia was published in two volumes under the editorship of Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen. This work uses the Burton translation as ‘the main point of reference’ for its essays and articles, on the basis that the Burton translation provides the most comprehensive range of stories. As the article devoted to Burton puts it: ‘In the present work, Burton’s translation has been chosen as the major point of reference for purely pragmatic reasons… Burton’s translation is the most complete version of texts relating to The Arabian Nights in English.’ However, as the same article also notes: ‘Some critics have criticized the translation for its archaic language and extravagant idiom, rendering it hardly digestible for the average reader.’
To quote The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia once more, according to Ulrich Marzolph’s introduction: ‘Sadly enough, no adequate complete English-language rendering of The Arabian Nights prepared directly from the Arabic is available.’ The Penguin Arabian Nights aims to remedy this deficiency and this translation by Malcolm and Ursula Lyons is the first substantial translation made directly from the Arabic since Burton’s in the 1880s. Like Burton’s, it has been made from Calcutta II, so it includes some stories which were in the missing fourth part of the Galland manuscript and some which were added in later centuries. In addition, two of the most famous and popular ‘orphan stories’ have been translated from the French: ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Ali Baba’, together with an alternative version of ‘The seventh journey of Sindbad’. (But this new translation does not include the other stories contained in Burton’s supplementary volumes, where he drew on extra tales from the Breslau edition, an Oxford manuscript once owned by Edward Wortley-Montague, and other miscellaneous sources.) Calcutta II is a more comprehensive compilation than
any of the rival printed versions of the Nights. But, though it has the most stories and usually the fullest version of the stories and though scholars were involved in its first printing, Calcutta II is not a scholarly text in any serious sense. It is, however, a wonderful collection of stories, many of which date from medieval times, while other tales seem to have been composed or added in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Galland, Lane and Burton produced didactic translations and used the stories as pretexts for glosses or notes. The Nights was treated by them as, in a sense, an ethnographic source, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the stories were often cited as a guide to the Arab way of life or the Arab mind. The Lyons translation has no such ethnographic agenda, and any annotation has been kept to a minimum. This literary translation is dedicated to the pleasure of storytelling. The book is long (approximately a million words), but its length permits a special kind of reading pleasure as it allows readers to lose themselves in a veritable sea of stories.
Robert Irwin
London
SHAHRAZAD CONTINUED:
A story is also told that one night, when the caliph Harun al-Rashid was feeling restless, he summoned his vizier, Ja‘far the Barmecide. When he came, the caliph said: ‘Ja‘far, I am very restive tonight and in a bad humour. I want you to fetch me something to cheer and relax me.’ ‘Commander of the Faithful,’ said Ja‘far, ‘I have a friend, ‘Ali al-‘Ajami, who has a fund of entertaining stories that raise the spirits and remove sorrow from the heart.’ ‘Bring him to me,’ said the caliph, to which Ja‘far replied: ‘To hear is to obey.’ He left the caliph’s presence to look for ‘Ali, and sent a messenger to fetch him. When ‘Ali had come, Ja‘far told him of the caliph’s summons. ‘To hear is to obey,’ ‘Ali replied.
Nights 295 to 314
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the two hundred and ninety-fifth night, SHE CONTINUED:
The two of them set off for the palace, and when ‘Ali appeared before the caliph, he was given permission to sit, which he did. The caliph told him of his depression and went on: ‘I have heard that you know many stories and tales and so I want you to tell me something that may dispel my cares and cheer me.’ ‘Shall I tell you of something that I have seen with my own eyes, Commander of the Faithful,’ ‘Ali asked, ‘or something that I have heard?’ ‘If you have seen something, then tell me about it,’ Harun replied, and ‘Ali agreed. HE BEGAN:
You must know, Commander of the Faithful, that one year I travelled from Baghdad, my home, accompanied by a servant who brought with him a small bag. I came to a certain city and while I was there, buying and selling, I was assaulted by a Kurdish ruffian, who seized the bag. ‘This is mine,’ he claimed, ‘and all its contents are my property.’ ‘Muslims,’ I called out, ‘save me from this worst of rascals!’ The bystanders told us to go to the qadi and to abide by his arbitration. I was happy to do this and we set off to the qadi. When we got there he asked why we had come, telling us to explain the case. I said: ‘We have come to you as litigants with opposing claims and are content to accept your arbitration.’ ‘Which of you is the claimant?’ the qadi asked. At that, the Kurd went forward and said: ‘Master, this bag and its contents are mine. I lost it and then found it in the possession of this man.’ ‘When did you lose it?’ the qadi asked. ‘Yesterday,’ replied the Kurd, ‘and I spent a sleepless night because of its loss.’ ‘As you have recognized it, describe what is in it,’ the qadi told him. The Kurd said: ‘In it there are two silver kohl sticks, together with kohl for my eyes, a hand towel in which I placed two gilt cups and two candlesticks. There are two tents, two plates, two spoons, a pillow, two leather mats, two jugs, a china dish, two basins, a cooking pot, two clay jars, a ladle, a pack needle, two provision bags, a cat, two bitches, one large bowl and two large sacks, a gown, two furs, a cow with two calves, one goat, two sheep, a ewe with two lambs, two green pavilions, one male and two female camels, a buffalo, two bulls, a lioness and two lions, a she-bear, two foxes, a mattress, two couches, a palace, two halls, a colonnade, two chairs, a kitchen with two doors and a group of Kurds who will bear witness to the fact that this is my bag.’
‘What have you to say?’ the qadi asked me. I had been flabbergasted by what the Kurd had said and so I went forward and said: ‘May God honour our master the qadi. There was nothing in my bag except for one little ruined house and another one with no door, a dog kennel and a boys’ school, with boys playing dice. It had tents and their ropes, the cities of Basra and Baghdad, the palace of Shaddad ibn ‘Ad, a blacksmith’s forge, a fishing net, sticks, tent pegs, girls, boys and a thousand pimps who will testify that the bag is mine.’
When the Kurd heard what I had to say, he wept and sobbed. ‘My master the qadi,’ he said, ‘this bag of mine is well known and its contents have been described. In it are fortresses and castles, cranes, beasts of prey, chess players and chessboards. There is a mare and two foals, a stallion and two horses, together with two long spears. It also has a lion, two hares, a city and two villages, a prostitute with two villainous pimps, a hermaphrodite, two good-for-nothings, one blind man and two who can see, a lame man and two who are paralysed, a priest, two deacons, a patriarch and two monks, a qadi and two notaries, and these will bear witness that this is my bag.’
‘What have you to say, ‘Ali?’ asked the qadi and, bursting with rage, I came forward and said: ‘May God aid our master the qadi.’
Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had been allowed to say. Then, when it was the two hundred and ninety-sixth night, SHE CONTINUED:
I have heard, O fortunate king, that ‘ALI SAID:
I came forward bursting with rage and said: ‘May God aid our master the qadi. In this bag of mine is a coat of mail, a sword and stores of weapons. There are a thousand butting rams, a sheep-fold, a thousand barking dogs, orchards, vines, flowers, scented herbs, figs, apples, pictures and statues, bottles and drinking cups, beautiful slave girls, singing girls, wedding feasts with noise and tumult, wide open spaces, successful men, dawn raiders with swords, spears, bows and arrows, friends, dear ones, companions, comrades, men imprisoned and awaiting punishment, drinking companions, mandolins, flutes, banners and flags, boys, girls, unveiled brides and singing slave girls. There are five girls from Abyssinia, three from India, four from al-Medina, twenty from Rum, fifty Turkish girls and seventy Persians, eighty Kurdish girls and ninety Georgians. The Tigris and the Euphrates are there, together with a fishing net, flint and steel for striking sparks, Iram of the Columns and a thousand good-for-nothings and pimps. There are exercise grounds, stables, mosques, baths, a builder, a carpenter, a plank of wood, a nail, a black slave with a fife, a captain and a groom, cities and towns, a hundred thousand dinars, Kufa and al-Anbar, twenty chests filled with materials, fifty storehouses for food, Gaza, Ascalon, the land from Damietta to Aswan, the palace of Chosroe Anushirwan, the kingdom of Solomon and the land from Wadi Nu‘man to Khurasan, as well as Balkh and Isfahan and what lies between India and the land of the Blacks. It also contains – may God prolong the life of our master the qadi – gowns, turban cloth and a thousand sharp razors to shave off the qadi’s beard, unless he fears my vengeance and rules that the bag is mine.’
The qadi was bewildered by what he heard the Kurd say. ‘You seem to me to be two ill-omened fellows or else two atheists who are trying to ridicule qadis and magistrates with no fear of rebuke. No one has ever described or heard of anything stranger than what you have produced, or spoken the kind of things that you have said. By God, not all the land from China to the tree of Umm Ghailan, from Persia to the land of the Blacks or from Wadi Nu‘man to Khurasan would be big enough to contain all the things that you have mentioned. Your claims are incredible. Is this bag of yours a bottomless sea, or the Day of Resurrection on which the just and the unjust will be gathered together?’ He then ordered the bag to be opened and when I did this, in it were a piece of bread,
lemons, cheese and olives. I threw it in front of the Kurd and went off.
When the caliph heard this story from ‘Ali al-‘Ajami, he laughed so much that he fell over, after which he presented him with a handsome reward.
A story is told that while Ja‘far the Barmecide was drinking one night with al-Rashid, al-Rashid said to him: ‘I have heard that you have bought the slave girl So-and-So. I have wanted her for a long time, as she is so very beautiful that my heart is filled with love for her. So sell her to me.’ ‘I shall not sell her, Commander of the Faithful,’ Ja‘far replied. ‘Then give her to me,’ said al-Rashid. ‘No, I shall not,’ said Ja‘far. ‘If you don’t either sell her or give her to me,’ said al-Rashid, ‘I swear to divorce my wife Zubaida three times.’ ‘If I either sell her or give her to you, then I swear to divorce my own wife,’ replied Ja‘far.