THE BOOK OF THE
 THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT

A Plain and Literal Translation

of the Arabian Nights Entertainments


Translated and Annotated by
 Richard F. Burton


VOLUME TEN


Privately Printed By The Burton Club



                               To

               His Excellency Yacoub Artin Pasha,
         Minister of Instruction, Etc. Etc. Etc. Cairo.

My Dear Pasha,
     During the last dozen years, since we first met at Cairo,
you have done much for Egyptian folk-lore and you can do much
more. This volume is inscribed to you with a double purpose;
first it is intended as a public expression of gratitude for your
friendly assistance; and, secondly, as a memento that the samples
which you have given us imply a promise of further gift. With
this lively sense of favours to come I subscribe myself

Ever yours friend and fellow worker,
Richard F. Burton

London, July 12, 1886.




Contents of the Tenth Volume


 169. Ma’aruf the Cobbler and His Wife Fatimah
 Conclusion
 Terminal Essay
 Appendix I.
 1. Index to the Tales and Proper Names
 2. Alphabetical Table of the Notes (Anthropological, &c.)
 3. Alphabetical Table of First lines
 a. English
 b. Arabic
 4. Table of Contents of the Various Arabic Texts
 a. The Unfinished Calcutta Edition (1814–1818)
 b. The Breslau Text
 c. The Macnaghten Text and the Bulak Edition
 d. The same with Mr. Lane’s and my Version
 Appendix II
 Contributions to the Bibliography of the Thousand and
One Nights and their Imitations, By W. F. Kirby


The Book Of The

THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT




MA’ARUF THE COBBLER AND HIS WIFE


There dwelt once upon a time in the God-guarded city of Cairo a
cobbler who lived by patching old shoes.[FN#1] His name was
Ma’aruf[FN#2] and he had a wife called Fatimah, whom the folk had
nicknamed “The Dung;”[FN#3] for that she was a whorish, worthless
wretch, scanty of shame and mickle of mischief. She ruled her
spouse and abused him; and he feared her malice and dreaded her
misdoings; for that he was a sensible man but poor-conditioned.
When he earned much, he spent it on her, and when he gained
little, she revenged herself on his body that night, leaving him
no peace and making his night black as her book;[FN#4] for she
was even as of one like her saith the poet:—

How manifold nights have I passed with my wife * In the saddest

     plight with all misery rife:

Would Heaven when first I went in to her * With a cup of cold

     poison I’d ta’en her life.


One day she said to him, “O Ma’aruf, I wish thee to bring me this
night a vermicelli-cake dressed with bees’ honey.”[FN#5] He
replied, “So Allah Almighty aid me to its price, I will bring it
thee. By Allah, I have no dirhams to-day, but our Lord will make
things easy.”[FN#6] Rejoined she,—And Shahrazad perceived the
dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninetieth Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Ma’aruf the
Cobbler said to his spouse, “By Allah, I have no dirhams to-day, but
our Lord will make things easy to me!” She rejoined, “I wot naught of
these words; look thou come not to me save with the vermicelli and
bees’ honey; else will I make thy night black as thy fortune whenas
thou fellest into my hand.” Quoth he, “Allah is bountiful!” and going
out with grief scattering itself from his body, prayed the dawn-prayer
and opened his shop. After which he sat till noon, but no work came
to him and his fear of his wife redoubled. Then he arose and went out
perplexed as to how he should do in the matter of the vermicelli-cake,
seeing he had not even the wherewithal to buy bread. Presently he came
to the shop of the Kunafah-seller and stood before it, whilst his
eyes brimmed with tears. The pastry-cook glanced at him and said, “O
Master Ma’aruf, why dost thou weep? Tell me what hath befallen thee.”
So he acquainted him with his case, saying, “My wife would have me
bring her a Kunafah; but I have sat in my shop till past mid-day and
have not gained even the price of bread; wherefore I am in fear of
her.” The cook laughed and said, “No harm shall come to thee. How many
pounds wilt thou have?” “Five pounds,” answered Ma’aruf. So the man
weighed him out five pounds of vermicelli-cake and said to him, “I
have clarified butter, but no bees’ honey. Here is drip-honey,[FN#7]
however, which is better than bees’ honey; and what harm will there
be, if it be with drip-honey?” Ma’aruf was ashamed to object, because
the pastry-cook was to have patience with him for the price, and said,
“Give it me with drip-honey.” So he fried a vermicelli-cake for him
with butter and drenched it with drip-honey, till it was fit to present
to Kings. Then he asked him, “Dost thou want bread[FN#8] and cheese?”;
and Ma’aruf answered, “Yes.” So he gave him four half dirhams worth
of bread and one of cheese, and the vermicelli was ten nusfs. Then
said he, “Know, O Ma’aruf, that thou owest me fifteen nusfs; so go to
thy wife and make merry and take this nusf for the Hammam;[FN#9] and
thou shalt have credit for a day or two or three till Allah provide
thee with thy daily bread. And straiten not thy wife, for I will have
patience with thee till such time as thou shalt have dirhams to spare.”
So Ma’aruf took the vermicelli-cake and bread and cheese and went away,
with a heart at ease, blessing the pastry-cook and saying, “Extolled be
Thy perfection, O my Lord! How bountiful art Thou!” When he came home,
his wife enquired of him, “Hast thou brought the vermicelli-cake?”;
and, replying “Yes,” he set it before her. She looked at it and seeing
that it was dressed with cane-honey,[FN#10] said to him, “Did I not bid
thee bring it with bees’ honey? Wilt thou contrary my wish and have
it dressed with cane-honey?” He excused himself to her, saying, “I
bought it not save on credit;” but said she, “This talk is idle; I will
not eat Kunafah save with bees’ honey.” And she was wroth with it and
threw it in his face, saying, “Begone, thou pimp, and bring me other
than this!” Then she dealt him a buffet on the cheek and knocked out
one of his teeth. The blood ran down upon his breast and for stress of
anger he smote her on the head a single blow and a slight; whereupon
she clutched his beard and fell to shouting out and saying, “Help, O
Moslems!” So the neighbours came in and freed his beard from her grip;
then they reproved and reproached her, saying, “We are all content to
eat Kunafah with cane-honey. Why, then, wilt thou oppress this poor
man thus? Verily, this is disgraceful in thee!” And they went on to
soothe her till they made peace between her and him. But, when the
folk were gone, she sware that she would not eat of the vermicelli,
and Ma’aruf, burning with hunger, said in himself, “She sweareth that
she will not eat; so I will e’en eat.” Then he ate, and when she saw
him eating, she said, “Inshallah, may the eating of it be poison to
destroy the far one’s body.”[FN#11] Quoth he, “It shall not be at thy
bidding,” and went on eating, laughing and saying, “Thou swarest that
thou wouldst not eat of this; but Allah is bountiful, and to-morrow
night, an the Lord decree, I will bring thee Kunafah dressed with
bees’ honey, and thou shalt eat it alone.” And he applied himself to
appeasing her, whilst she called down curses upon him; and she ceased
not to rail at him and revile him with gross abuse till the morning,
when she bared her forearm to beat him. Quoth he, “Give me time and I
will bring thee other vermicelli-cake.” Then he went out to the mosque
and prayed, after which he betook himself to his shop and opening it,
sat down; but hardly had he done this when up came two runners from
the Kazi’s court and said to him, “Up with thee, speak with the Kazi,
for thy wife hath complained of thee to him and her favour is thus and
thus.” He recognised her by their description; and saying, “May Allah
Almighty torment her!” walked with them till he came to the Kazi’s
presence, where he found Fatimah standing with her arm bound up and her
face-veil besmeared with blood; and she was weeping and wiping away her
tears. Quoth the Kazi, “Ho man, hast thou no fear of Allah the Most
High? Why hast thou beaten this good woman and broken her forearm and
knocked out her tooth and entreated her thus?” And quoth Ma’aruf, “If
I beat her or put out her tooth, sentence me to what thou wilt; but in
truth the case was thus and thus and the neighbours made peace between
me and her.” And he told him the story from first to last. Now this
Kazi was a benevolent man; so he brought out to him a quarter dinar,
saying, “O man, take this and get her Kunafah with bees’ honey and do
ye make peace, thou and she.” Quoth Ma’aruf, “Give it to her.” So she
took it and the Kazi made peace between them, saying, “O wife, obey thy
husband; and thou, O man, deal kindly with her.[FN#12]” Then they left
the court, reconciled at the Kazi’s hands, and the woman went one way,
whilst her husband returned by another way to his shop and sat there,
when, behold, the runners came up to him and said, “Give us our fee.”
Quoth he, “The Kazi took not of me aught; on the contrary, he gave me
a quarter dinar.” But quoth they “’Tis no concern of ours whether the
Kazi took of thee or gave to thee, and if thou give us not our fee,
we will exact it in despite of thee.” And they fell to dragging him
about the market; so he sold his tools and gave them half a dinar,
whereupon they let him go and went away, whilst he put his hand to his
cheek and sat sorrowful, for that he had no tools wherewith to work.
Presently, up came two ill-favoured fellows and said to him, “Come, O
man, and speak with the Kazi; for thy wife hath complained of thee to
him.” Said he, “He made peace between us just now.” But said they, “We
come from another Kazi, and thy wife hath complained of thee to our
Kazi.” So he arose and went with them to their Kazi, calling on Allah
for aid against her; and when he saw her, he said to her, “Did we not
make peace, good woman?” Whereupon she cried, “There abideth no peace
between me and thee.” Accordingly he came forward and told the Kazi
his story, adding, “And indeed the Kazi Such-an-one made peace between
us this very hour.” Whereupon the Kazi said to her, “O strumpet,
since ye two have made peace with each other, why comest thou to me
complaining?” Quoth she, “He beat me after that;” but quoth the Kazi,
“Make peace each with other, and beat her not again, and she will cross
thee no more.” So they made peace and the Kazi said to Ma’aruf, “Give
the runners their fee.” So he gave them their fee and going back to
his shop, opened it and sat down, as he were a drunken man for excess
of the chagrin which befel him. Presently, while he was still sitting,
behold, a man came up to him and said, “O Ma’aruf, rise and hide
thyself, for thy wife hath complained of thee to the High Court[FN#13]
and Abú Tabak[FN#14] is after thee.” So he shut his shop and fled
towards the Gate of Victory.[FN#15] He had five nusfs of silver left
of the price of the lasts and gear; and therewith he bought four worth
of bread and one of cheese, as he fled from her. Now it was the winter
season and the hour of mid-afternoon prayer; so, when he came out among
the rubbish-mounds the rain descended upon him, like water from the
mouths of water-skins, and his clothes were drenched. He therefore
entered the ’Adiliyah,[FN#16] where he saw a ruined place and therein
a deserted cell without a door; and in it he took refuge and found
shelter from the rain. The tears streamed from his eyelids, and he fell
to complaining of what had betided him and saying, “Whither shall I
flee from this whore? I beseech Thee, O Lord, to vouchsafe me one who
shall conduct me to a far country, where she shall not know the way to
me!” Now while he sat weeping, behold, the wall clave and there came
forth to him therefrom one of tall stature, whose aspect caused his
body-pile to bristle and his flesh to creep, and said to him, “O man,
what aileth thee that thou disturbest me this night? These two hundred
years have I dwelt here and have never seen any enter this place and do
as thou dost. Tell me what thou wishest and I will accomplish thy need,
as ruth for thee hath got hold upon my heart.” Quoth Ma’aruf, “Who and
what art thou?”; and quoth he, “I am the Haunter[FN#17] of this place.”
So Ma’aruf told him all that had befallen him with his wife and he
said, “Wilt thou have me convey thee to a country, where thy wife shall
know no way to thee?” “Yes,” said Ma’aruf; and the other, “Then mount
my back.” So he mounted on his back and he flew with him from after
supper-tide till daybreak, when he set him down on the top of a high
mountain—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her
permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-first Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Marid
having taken up Ma’aruf the Cobbler, flew off with him and set
him down upon a high mountain and said to him, “O mortal, descend
this mountain and thou wilt see the gate of a city. Enter it, for
therein thy wife cannot come at thee.” He then left him and went
his way, whilst Ma’aruf abode in amazement and perplexity till
the sun rose, when he said to himself, “I will up with me and go
down into the city: indeed there is no profit in my abiding upon
this highland.” So he descended to the mountain-foot and saw a
city girt by towering walls, full of lofty palaces and
gold-adorned buildings which was a delight to beholders. He
entered in at the gate and found it a place such as lightened the
grieving heart; but, as he walked through the streets the
townsfolk stared at him as a curiosity and gathered about him,
marvelling at his dress, for it was unlike theirs. Presently, one
of them said to him, “O man, art thou a stranger?” “Yes.” “What
countryman art thou?” “I am from the city of Cairo the
Auspicious.” “And when didst thou leave Cairo?” “I left it
yesterday, at the hour of afternoon-prayer.” Whereupon the man
laughed at him and cried out, saying, “Come look, O folk, at this
man and hear what he saith!” Quoth they, “What doeth he say?”;
and quoth the townsman, “He pretendeth that he cometh from Cairo
and left it yesterday at the hour of afternoon-prayer!” At this
they all laughed and gathering round Ma’aruf, said to him, “O
man, art thou mad to talk thus? How canst thou pretend that thou
leftest Cairo at mid-afternoon yesterday and foundedst thyself
this morning here, when the truth is that between our city and
Cairo lieth a full year’s journey?” Quoth he, “None is mad but
you. As for me, I speak sooth, for here is bread which I brought
with me from Cairo, and see, ’tis yet new.” Then he showed them
the bread and they stared at it, for it was unlike their country
bread. So the crowd increased about him and they said to one
another, “This is Cairo bread: look at it;” and he became a
gazing-stock in the city and some believed him, whilst others
gave him the lie and made mock of him. Whilst this was going on,
behold, up came a merchant riding on a she-mule and followed by
two black slaves, and brake a way through the people, saying, “O
folk, are ye not ashamed to mob this stranger and make mock of
him and scoff at him?” And he went on to rate them, till he drave
them away from Ma’aruf, and none could make him any answer. Then
he said to the stranger, “Come, O my brother, no harm shall
betide thee from these folk. Verily they have no shame.”[FN#18]
So he took him and carrying him to a spacious and richly-adorned
house, seated him in a speak-room fit for a King, whilst he gave
an order to his slaves, who opened a chest and brought out to him
a dress such as might be worn by a merchant worth a
thousand.[FN#19] He clad him therewith and Ma’aruf, being a
seemly man, became as he were consul of the merchants. Then his
host called for food and they set before them a tray of all
manner exquisite viands. The twain ate and drank and the merchant
said to Ma’aruf, “O my brother, what is thy name?” “My name is
Ma’aruf and I am a cobbler by trade and patch old shoes.” “What
countryman art thou?” “I am from Cairo.” “What quarter?” “Dost
thou know Cairo?” “I am of its children.[FN#20] I come from the
Red Street.[FN#21]” “And whom dost thou know in the Red Street?”
“I know such an one and such an one,” answered Ma’aruf and named
several people to him. Quoth the other, “Knowest thou Shaykh
Ahmad the druggist?[FN#22]” “He was my next neighbour, wall to
wall.” “Is he well?” “Yes.” “How many sons hath he?” “Three,
Mustafà, Mohammed and Ali.” “And what hath Allah done with them?”
“As for Mustafà, he is well and he is a learned man, a
professor[FN#23]: Mohammed is a druggist and opened him a shop
beside that of his father, after he had married, and his wife
hath borne him a son named Hasan.” “Allah gladden thee with good
news!” said the merchant; and Ma’aruf continued, “As for Ali, he
was my friend, when we were boys, and we always played together,
I and he. We used to go in the guise of the children of the
Nazarenes and enter the church and steal the books of the
Christians and sell them and buy food with the price. It chanced
once that the Nazarenes caught us with a book; whereupon they
complained of us to our folk and said to Ali’s father:—An thou
hinder not thy son from troubling us, we will complain of thee to
the King. So he appeased them and gave Ali a thrashing; wherefore
he ran away none knew whither and he hath now been absent twenty
years and no man hath brought news of him.” Quoth the host, “I am
that very Ali, son of Shaykh Ahmad the druggist, and thou art my
playmate Ma’aruf.”[FN#24] So they saluted each other and after
the salam Ali said, “Tell me why, O Ma’aruf, thou camest from
Cairo to this city.” Then he told him all that had befallen him
of ill-doing with his wife Fatimah the Dung and said, “So, when
her annoy waxed on me, I fled from her towards the Gate of
Victory and went forth the city. Presently, the rain fell heavy
on me; so I entered a ruined cell in the Adiliyah and sat there,
weeping; whereupon there came forth to me the Haunter of the
place, which was an Ifrit of the Jinn, and questioned me. I
acquainted him with my case and he took me on his back and flew
with me all night between heaven and earth, till he set me down
on yonder mountain and gave me to know of this city. So I came
down from the mountain and entered the city, when people crowded
about me and questioned me. I told them that I had left Cairo
yesterday, but they believed me not, and presently thou camest up
and driving the folk away from me, carriedst me this house. Such,
then, is the cause of my quitting Cairo; and thou, what object
brought thee hither?” Quoth Ali, “The giddiness[FN#25] of folly
turned my head when I was seven years old, from which time I
wandered from land to land and city to city, till I came to this
city, the name whereof is Ikhtiyán al-Khatan.[FN#26] I found its
people an hospitable folk and a kindly, compassionate for the
poor man and selling to him on credit and believing all he said.
So quoth I to them:—I am a merchant and have preceded my packs
and I need a place wherein to bestow my baggage. And they
believed me and assigned me a lodging. Then quoth I to them:—Is
there any of you will lend me a thousand dinars, till my loads
arrive, when I will repay it to him; for I am in want of certain
things before my goods come? They gave me what I asked and I went
to the merchants’ bazar, where, seeing goods, I bought them and
sold them next day at a profit of fifty gold pieces and bought
others.[FN#27] And I consorted with the folk and entreated them
liberally, so that they loved me, and I continued to sell and
buy, till I grew rich. Know, O my brother, that the proverb
saith, The world is show and trickery: and the land where none
wotteth thee, there do whatso liketh thee. Thou too, an thou say
to all who ask thee, I’m a cobbler by trade and poor withal, and
I fled from my wife and left Cairo yesterday, they will not
believe thee and thou wilt be a laughing-stock among them as long
as thou abidest in the city; whilst, an thou tell them, An Ifrit
brought me hither, they will take fright at thee and none will
come near thee; for they will say, This man is possessed of an
Ifrit and harm will betide whoso approacheth him. And such public
report will be dishonouring both to thee and to me, because they
ken I come from Cairo.” Ma’aruf asked:—“How then shall I do?”;
and Ali answered, “I will tell thee how thou shalt do, Inshallah!
To-morrow I will give thee a thousand dinars and a she-mule to
ride and a black slave, who shall walk before thee and guide thee
to the gate of the merchants’ bazar; and do thou go into them. I
will be there sitting amongst them, and when I see thee, I will
rise to thee and salute thee with the salam and kiss thy hand and
make a great man of thee. Whenever I ask thee of any kind of
stuff, saying, Hast thou brought with thee aught of such a kind?
do thou answer, “Plenty.[FN#28]” And if they question me of thee,
I will praise thee and magnify thee in their eyes and say to
them, Get him a store-house and a shop. I also will give thee out
for a man of great wealth and generosity; and if a beggar come to
thee, bestow upon him what thou mayst; so will they put faith in
what I say and believe in thy greatness and generosity and love
thee. Then will I invite thee to my house and invite all the
merchants on thy account and bring together thee and them, so
that all may know thee and thou know them,”—And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-second Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the
merchant Ali said to Ma’aruf, “I will invite thee to my house and
invite all the merchants on thy account and bring together thee
and them, so that all may know thee and thou know them, whereby
thou shalt sell and buy and take and give with them; nor will it
be long ere thou become a man of money.” Accordingly, on the
morrow he gave him a thousand dinars and a suit of clothes and a
black slave and mounting him on a she-mule, said to him, “Allah
give thee quittance of responsibility for all this,[FN#29]
inasmuch as thou art my friend and it behoveth me to deal
generously with thee. Have no care; but put away from thee the
thought of thy wife’s misways and name her not to any.” “Allah
requite thee with good!” replied Ma’aruf and rode on, preceded by
his blackamoor till the slave brought him to the gate of the
merchants’ bazar, where they were all seated, and amongst them
Ali, who when he saw him, rose and threw himself upon him,
crying, “A blessed day, O Merchant Ma’aruf, O man of good works
and kindness[FN#30]!” And he kissed his hand before the merchants
and said to them, “Our brothers, ye are honoured by
knowing[FN#31] the merchant Ma’aruf.” So they saluted him, and
Ali signed to them to make much of him, wherefore he was
magnified in their eyes. Then Ali helped him to dismount from his
she-mule and saluted him with the salam; after which he took the
merchants apart, one after other, and vaunted Ma’aruf to them.
They asked, “Is this man a merchant?;” and he answered, “Yes; and
indeed he is the chiefest of merchants, there liveth not a
wealthier than he; for his wealth and the riches of his father
and forefathers are famous among the merchants of Cairo. He hath
partners in Hind and Sind and Al-Yaman and is high in repute for
generosity. So know ye his rank and exalt ye his degree and do
him service, and wot also that his coming to your city is not for
the sake of traffic, and none other save to divert himself with
the sight of folk’s countries: indeed, he hath no need of
strangerhood for the sake of gain and profit, having wealth that
fires cannot consume, and I am one of his servants.” And he
ceased not to extol him, till they set him above their heads and
began to tell one another of his qualities. Then they gathered
round him and offered him junkets[FN#32] and sherbets, and even
the Consul of the Merchants came to him and saluted him; whilst
Ali proceeded to ask him, in the presence of the traders, “O my
lord, haply thou hast brought with thee somewhat of such and such
a stuff?”; and Ma’aruf answered, “Plenty.” Now Ali had that day
shown him various kinds of costly clothes and had taught him the
names of the different stuffs, dear and cheap. Then said one of
the merchants, “O my lord, hast thou brought with thee yellow
broad cloth?”: and Ma’aruf said, “Plenty”! Quoth another, “And
gazelles’ blood red[FN#33]?”; and quoth the Cobbler, “Plenty”;
and as often as he asked him of aught, he made him the same
answer. So the other said, “O Merchant Ali had thy countryman a
mind to transport a thousand loads of costly stuffs, he could do
so”; and Ali said, “He would take them from a single one of his
store-houses, and miss naught thereof.” Now whilst they were
sitting, behold, up came a beggar and went the round of the
merchants. One gave him a half dirham and another a
copper,[FN#34] but most of them gave him nothing, till he came to
Ma’aruf who pulled out a handful of gold and gave it to him,
whereupon he blessed him and went his ways. The merchants
marvelled at this and said, “Verily, this is a King’s bestowal
for he gave the beggar gold without count, and were he not a man
of vast wealth and money without end, he had not given a beggar a
handful of gold.” After a while, there came to him a poor woman
and he gave her a handful of gold; whereupon she went away,
blessing him, and told the other beggars, who came to him, one
after other, and he gave them each a handful of gold, till he
disbursed the thousand dinars. Then he struck hand upon hand and
said, “Allah is our sufficient aid and excellent is the Agent!”
Quoth the Consul, “What aileth thee, O Merchant Ma’aruf?”; and
quoth he, “It seemeth that the most part of the people of this
city are poor and needy; had I known their misery I would have
brought with me a large sum of money in my saddle-bags and given
largesse thereof to the poor. I fear me I may be long
abroad[FN#35] and ’tis not in my nature to baulk a beggar; and I
have no gold left: so, if a pauper come to me, what shall I say
to him?” Quoth the Consul, “Say, Allah will send thee thy daily
bread[FN#36]!”; but Ma’aruf replied, “That is not my practice and
I am care-ridden because of this. Would I had other thousand
dinars, wherewith to give alms till my baggage come!” “Have no
care for that,” quoth the Consul and sending one of his
dependents for a thousand dinars, handed them to Ma’aruf, who
went on giving them to every beggar who passed till the call to
noon-prayer. Then they entered the Cathedral-mosque and prayed
the noon-prayers, and what was left him of the thousand gold
pieces he scattered on the heads of the worshippers. This drew
the people’s attention to him and they blessed him, whilst the
merchants marvelled at the abundance of his generosity and
openhandedness. Then he turned to another trader and borrowing of
him other thousand ducats, gave these also away, whilst Merchant
Ali looked on at what he did, but could not speak. He ceased not
to do thus till the call to mid-afternoon prayer, when he entered
the mosque and prayed and distributed the rest of the money. On
this wise, by the time they locked the doors of the bazar,[FN#37]
he had borrowed five thousand sequins and given them away, saying
to every one of whom he took aught, “Wait till my baggage come
when, if thou desire gold I will give thee gold, and if thou
desire stuffs, thou shalt have stuffs; for I have no end of
them.” At eventide Merchant Ali invited Ma’aruf and the rest of
the traders to an entertainment and seated him in the upper end,
the place of honour, where he talked of nothing but cloths and
jewels, and whenever they made mention to him of aught, he said,
“I have plenty of it.” Next day, he again repaired to the
market-street where he showed a friendly bias towards the
merchants and borrowed of them more money, which he distributed
to the poor: nor did he leave doing thus twenty days, till he had
borrowed threescore thousand dinars, and still there came no
baggage, no, nor a burning plague.[FN#38] At last folk began to
clamour for their money and say, “The merchant Ma’aruf’s baggage
cometh not. How long will he take people’s monies and give them
to the poor?” And quoth one of them, “My rede is that we speak to
Merchant Ali.” So they went to him and said, “O Merchant Ali,
Merchant Ma’aruf’s baggage cometh not.” Said he, “Have patience,
it cannot fail to come soon.” Then he took Ma’aruf aside and said
to him, “O Ma’aruf, what fashion is this? Did I bid thee
brown[FN#39] the bread or burn it? The merchants clamour for
their coin and tell me that thou owest them sixty thousand
dinars, which thou hast borrowed and given away to the poor. How
wilt thou satisfy the folk, seeing that thou neither sellest nor
buyest?” Said Ma’aruf, “What matters it[FN#40]; and what are
threescore thousand dinars? When my baggage shall come, I will
pay them in stuffs or in gold and silver, as they will.” Quoth
Merchant Ali, “Allah is Most Great! Hast thou then any baggage?”;
and he said, “Plenty.” Cried the other, “Allah and the
Hallows[FN#41] requite thee thine impudence! Did I teach thee
this saying, that thou shouldst repeat it to me? But I will
acquaint the folk with thee.” Ma’aruf rejoined, “Begone and prate
no more! Am I a poor man? I have endless wealth in my baggage and
as soon as it cometh, they shall have their money’s worth two for
one. I have no need of them.” At this Merchant Ali waxed wroth
and said, “Unmannerly wight that thou art, I will teach thee to
lie to me and be not ashamed!” Said Ma’aruf, “E’en work the worst
thy hand can do! They must wait till my baggage come, when they
shall have their due and more.” So Ali left him and went away,
saying in himself, “I praised him whilome and if I blame him now,
I make myself out a liar and become of those of whom it is said:—Whoso
 praiseth and then blameth lieth twice.”[FN#42] And he knew
not what to do. Presently, the traders came to him and said, “O
Merchant Ali, hast thou spoken to him?” Said he, “O folk, I am
ashamed and, though he owe me a thousand dinars, I cannot speak
to him. When ye lent him your money ye consulted me not; so ye
have no claim on me. Dun him yourselves, and if he pay you not,
complain of him to the King of the city, saying:—He is an
impostor who hath imposed upon us. And he will deliver you from
the plague of him.” Accordingly, they repaired to the King and
told him what had passed, saying, “O King of the age, we are
perplexed anent this merchant, whose generosity is excessive; for
he doeth thus and thus, and all he borroweth, he giveth away to
the poor by handsful. Were he a man of naught, his sense would
not suffer him to lavish gold on this wise; and were he a man of
wealth, his good faith had been made manifest to us by the coming
of his baggage; but we see none of his luggage, although he
avoucheth that he hath baggage-train and hath preceded it. Now
some time hath past, but there appeareth no sign of his
baggage-train, and he oweth us sixty thousand gold pieces, all of
which he hath given away in alms.” And they went on to praise him
and extol his generosity. Now this King was a very covetous man,
a more covetous than Ash’ab[FN#43]; and when he heard tell of
Ma’aruf’s generosity and openhandedness, greed of gain got the
better of him and he said to his Wazir, “Were not this merchant a
man of immense wealth, he had not shown all this munificence. His
baggage-train will assuredly come, whereupon these merchants will
flock to him and he will scatter amongst them riches galore. Now
I have more right to this money than they; wherefore I have a
mind to make friends with him and profess affection for him, so
that, when his baggage cometh whatso the merchants would have had
I shall get of him; and I will give him my daughter to wife and
join his wealth to my wealth.” Replied the Wazir, “O King of the
age, methinks he is naught but an impostor, and ’tis the impostor
who ruineth the house of the covetous;”—And Shahrazad perceived
the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-third Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
Wazir said to the King, “Methinks he is naught but an impostor,
and ’tis the impostor who ruineth the house of the covetous;” the
King said, “O Wazir, I will prove him and soon know if he be an
impostor or a true man and whether he be a rearling of Fortune or
not.” The Wazir asked, “And how wilt thou prove him?”; and the
King answered, “I will send for him to the presence and entreat
him with honour and give him a jewel which I have. An he know it
and wot its price, he is a man of worth and wealth; but an he
know it not, he is an impostor and an upstart and I will do him
die by the foulest fashion of deaths.” So he sent for Ma’aruf,
who came and saluted him. The King returned his salam and seating
him beside himself, said to him, “Art thou the merchant Ma’aruf?”
and said he, “Yes.” Quoth the King, “The merchants declare that
thou owest them sixty thousand ducats. Is this true?” “Yes,”
quoth he. Asked the King, “Then why dost thou not give them their
money?”; and he answered, “Let them wait till my baggage come and
I will repay them twofold. An they wish for gold, they shall have
gold; and should they wish for silver, they shall have silver; or
an they prefer for merchandise, I will give them merchandise; and
to whom I owe a thousand I will give two thousand in requital of
that wherewith he hath veiled my face before the poor; for I have
plenty.” Then said the King, “O merchant, take this and look what
is its kind and value.” And he gave him a jewel the bigness of a
hazel-nut, which he had bought for a thousand sequins and not
having its fellow, prized it highly. Ma’aruf took it and pressing
it between his thumb and forefinger brake it, for it was brittle
and would not brook the squeeze. Quoth the King, “Why hast thou
broken the jewel?”; and Ma’aruf laughed and said, “O King of the
age, this is no jewel. This is but a bittock of mineral worth a
thousand dinars; why dost thou style it a jewel? A jewel I call
such as is worth threescore and ten thousand gold pieces and this
is called but a piece of stone. A jewel that is not of the
bigness of a walnut hath no worth in my eyes and I take no
account thereof. How cometh it, then, that thou, who art King,
stylest this thing a jewel, when ’tis but a bit of mineral worth
a thousand dinars? But ye are excusable, for that ye are poor
folk and have not in your possession things of price.” The King
asked, “O merchant, hast thou jewels such as those whereof thou
speakest?”; and he answered, “Plenty.” Whereupon avarice overcame
the King and he said, “Wilt thou give me real jewels?” Said
Ma’aruf, “When my baggage-train shall come, I will give thee no
end of jewels; and all that thou canst desire I have in plenty
and will give thee, without price.” At this the King rejoiced and
said to the traders, “Wend your ways and have patience with him,
till his baggage arrive, when do ye come to me and receive your
monies from me.” So they fared forth and the King turned to his
to his Wazir and said to him, “Pay court to Merchant Ma’aruf and
take and give with him in talk and bespeak him of my daughter,
Princess Dunyá, that he may wed her and so we gain these riches
he hath.” Said the Wazir, “O King of the age, this man’s fashion
misliketh me and methinks he is an impostor and a liar: so leave
this whereof thou speakest lest thou lose thy daughter for
naught.” Now this Minister had sued the King aforetime to give
him his daughter to wife and he was willing to do so, but when
she heard of it she consented not to marry him. Accordingly, the
King said to him, “O traitor, thou desirest no good for me,
because in past time thou soughtest my daughter in wedlock, but
she would none of thee; so now thou wouldst cut off the way of
her marriage and wouldst have the Princess lie fallow, that thou
mayst take her; but hear from me one word. Thou hast no concern
in this matter. How can he be an impostor and a liar, seeing that
he knew the price of the jewel, even that for which I bought it,
and brake it because it pleased him not? He hath jewels in
plenty, and when he goeth in to my daughter and seeth her to be
beautiful she will captivate his reason and he will love her and
give her jewels and things of price: but, as for thee, thou
wouldst forbid my daughter and myself these good things.” So the
Minister was silent, for fear of the King’s anger, and said to
himself, “Set the curs on the cattle[FN#44]!” Then with show of
friendly bias he betook himself to Ma’aruf and said to him, “His
Highness the King loveth thee and hath a daughter, a winsome lady
and a lovesome, to whom he is minded to marry thee. What sayst
thou?” Said he, “No harm in that; but let him wait till my
baggage come, for marriage-settlements on Kings’ daughters are
large and their rank demandeth that they be not endowed save with
a dowry befitting their degree. At this present I have no money
with me till the coming of my baggage, for I have wealth in
plenty and needs must I make her marriage-portion five thousand
purses. Then I shall need a thousand purses to distribute amongst
the poor and needy on my wedding-night, and other thousand to
give to those who walk in the bridal procession and yet other
thousand wherewith to provide provaunt for the troops and
others[FN#45]; and I shall want an hundred jewels to give to the
Princess on the wedding-morning[FN#46] and other hundred gems to
distribute among the slavegirls and eunuchs, for I must give each
of them a jewel in honour of the bride; and I need wherewithal to
clothe a thousand naked paupers, and alms too needs must be
given. All this cannot be done till my baggage come; but I have
plenty and, once it is here, I shall make no account of all this
outlay.” The Wazir returned to the King and told him what Ma’aruf
said, whereupon quoth he, “Since this is his wish, how canst thou
style him impostor and liar?” Replied the Minister, “And I cease
not to say this.” But the King chid him angrily and threatened
him, saying, “By the life of my head, an thou cease not this
talk, I will slay thee! Go back to him and fetch him to me and I
will manage matters with him myself.” So the Wazir returned to
Ma’aruf and said to him, “Come and speak with the King.” “I hear
and I obey,” said Ma’aruf and went in to the King, who said to
him, “Thou shalt not put me off with these excuses, for my
treasury is full; so take the keys and spend all thou needest and
give what thou wilt and clothe the poor and do thy desire and
have no care for the girl and the handmaids. When the baggage
shall come, do what thou wilt with thy wife, by way of
generosity, and we will have patience with thee anent the
marriage-portion till then, for there is no manner of difference
betwixt me and thee; none at all.” Then he sent for the Shaykh
Al-Islam[FN#47] and bade him write out the marriage-contract
between his daughter and Merchant Ma’aruf, and he did so; after
which the King gave the signal for beginning the wedding
festivities and bade decorate the city. The kettle drums beat and
the tables were spread with meats of all kinds and there came
performers who paraded their tricks. Merchant Ma’aruf sat upon a
throne in a parlour and the players and gymnasts and
effeminates[FN#48] and dancing-men of wondrous movements and
posture-makers of marvellous cunning came before him, whilst he
called out to the treasurer and said to him, “Bring gold and
silver.” So he brought gold and silver and Ma’aruf went round
among the spectators and largessed each performer by the handful;
and he gave alms to the poor and needy and clothes to the naked
and it was a clamorous festival and a right merry. The treasurer
could not bring money fast enough from the treasury, and the
Wazir’s heart was like to burst for rage; but he dared not say a
word, whilst Merchant Ali marvelled at this waste of wealth and
said to Merchant Ma’aruf, “Allah and the Hallows visit this upon
on thy head-sides[FN#49]! Doth it not suffice thee to squander
the traders’ money, but thou must squander that of the King to
boot?” Replied Ma’aruf, “’Tis none of thy concern: whenas my
baggage shall come, I will requite the King manifold.” And he
went on lavishing money and saying in himself, “A burning plague!
What will happen will happen and there is no flying from that
which is fore-ordained.” The festivities ceased not for the space
of forty days, and on the one-and-fortieth day, they made the
bride’s cortège and all the Emirs and troops walked before her.
When they brought her in before Ma’aruf, he began scattering gold
on the people’s heads, and they made her a mighty fine
procession, whilst Ma’aruf expended in her honour vast sums of
money. Then they brought him in to Princess Dunya and he sat down
on the high divan; after which they let fall the curtains and
shut the doors and withdrew, leaving him alone with his bride;
whereupon he smote hand upon hand and sat awhile sorrowful and
saying, “There is no Majesty and there is no Might save in Allah,
the Glorious, the Great!” Quoth the Princess, “O my lord, Allah
preserve thee! What aileth thee that thou art troubled?” Quoth
he, “And how should I be other than troubled, seeing that thy
father hath embarrassed me and done with me a deed which is like
the burning of green corn?” She asked, “And what hath my father
done with thee? Tell me!”; and he answered, “He hath brought me
in to thee before the coming of my baggage, and I want at very
least an hundred jewels to distribute among thy handmaids, to
each a jewel, so she might rejoice therein and say, My lord gave
me a jewel on the night of his going in to my lady. This good
deed would I have done in honour of thy station and for the
increase of thy dignity; and I have no need to stint myself in
lavishing jewels, for I have of them great plenty.” Rejoined she,
“Be not concerned for that. As for me, trouble not thyself about
me, for I will have patience with thee till thy baggage shall
come, and as for my women have no care for them. Rise, doff thy
clothes and take thy pleasure; and when the baggage cometh we
shall get the jewels and the rest.” So he arose and putting off
his clothes sat down on the bed and sought love-liesse and they
fell to toying with each other. He laid his hand on her knee and
she sat down in his lap and thrust her lip like a tit-bit of meat
into his mouth, and that hour was such as maketh a man to forget
his father and his mother. So he clasped her in his arms and
strained her fast to his breast and sucked her lip, till the
honey-dew ran out into his mouth; and he laid his hand under her
left-armpit, whereupon his vitals and her vitals yearned for
coition. Then he clapped her between the breasts and his hand
slipped down between her thighs and she girded him with her legs,
whereupon he made of the two parts proof amain and crying out, “O
sire of the chin-veils twain[FN#50]!” applied the priming and
kindled the match and set it to the touch-hole and gave fire and
breached the citadel in its four corners; so there befel the
mystery[FN#51] concerning which there is no enquiry: and she
cried the cry that needs must be cried.[FN#52]—And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it Was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-fourth Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that while
the Princess Dunyá cried the cry which must be cried, Merchant
Ma’aruf abated her maidenhead and that night was one not to be
counted among lives for that which it comprised of the enjoyment
of the fair, clipping and dallying _langue fourrée_ and futtering
till the dawn of day, when he arose and entered the Hammam
whence, after donning a suit for sovrans suitable he betook
himself to the King’s Divan. All who were there rose to him and
received him with honour and worship, giving him joy and invoking
blessings upon him; and he sat down by the King’s side and asked,
“Where is the treasurer?” They answered, “Here he is, before
thee,” and he said to him, “Bring robes of honour for all the
Wazirs and Emirs and dignitaries and clothe them therewith.” The
treasurer brought him all he sought and he sat giving to all who
came to him and lavishing largesse upon every man according to
his station. On this wise he abode twenty days, whilst no baggage
appeared for him nor aught else, till the treasurer was
straitened by him to the uttermost and going in to the King, as
he sat alone with the Wazir in Ma’aruf’s absence, kissed ground
between his hands and said, “O King of the age, I must tell thee
somewhat, lest haply thou blame me for not acquainting thee
therewith. Know that the treasury is being exhausted; there is
none but a little money left in it and in ten days more we shall
shut it upon emptiness.” Quoth the King, “O Wazir, verily my
son-in-law’s baggage-train tarrieth long and there appeareth no
news thereof.” The Minister laughed and said, “Allah be gracious
to thee, O King of the age! Thou art none other but heedless with
respect to this impostor, this liar. As thy head liveth, there is
no baggage for him, no, nor a burning plague to rid us of him!
Nay, he hath but imposed on thee without surcease, so that he
hath wasted thy treasures and married thy daughter for naught.
How long therefore wilt thou be heedless of this liar?” Then
quoth the King, “O Wazir, how shall we do to learn the truth of
his case?”; and quoth the Wazir, “O King of the age, none may
come at a man’s secret but his wife; so send for thy daughter and
let her come behind the curtain, that I may question her of the
truth of his estate, to the intent that she may make question of
him and acquaint us with his case.” Cried the King, “There is no
harm in that; and as my head liveth, if it be proved that he is a
liar and an impostor, I will verily do him die by the foulest of
deaths!” Then he carried the Wazir into the sitting-chamber and
sent for his daughter, who came behind the curtain, her husband
being absent, and said, “What wouldst thou, O my father?” Said he
“Speak with the Wazir.” So she asked, “Ho thou, the Wazir, what
is thy will?”; and he answered, “O my lady, thou must know that
thy husband hath squandered thy father’s substance and married
thee without a dower; and he ceaseth not to promise us and break
his promises, nor cometh there any tidings of his baggage; in
short we would have thee inform us concerning him.” Quoth she,
“Indeed his words be many, and he still cometh and promiseth me
jewels and treasures and costly stuffs; but I see nothing.” Quoth
the Wazir, “O my lady, canst thou this night take and give with
him in talk and whisper to him:—Say me sooth and fear from me
naught, for thou art become my husband and I will not transgress
against thee. So tell me the truth of the matter and I will
devise thee a device whereby thou shalt be set at rest. And do
thou play near and far[FN#53] with him in words and profess love
to him and win him to confess and after tell us the facts of his
case.” And she answered, “O my papa, I know how I will make proof
of him.” Then she went away and after supper her husband came in
to her, according to his wont, whereupon Princess Dunya rose to
him and took him under the armpit and wheedled him with winsomest
wheedling (and all-sufficient[FN#54] are woman’s wiles whenas she
would aught of men); and she ceased not to caress him and beguile
him with speech sweeter than the honey till she stole his reason;
and when she saw that he altogether inclined to her, she said to
him, “O my beloved, O coolth of my eyes and fruit of my vitals,
Allah never desolate me by less of thee nor Time sunder us twain
me and thee! Indeed, the love of thee hath homed in my heart and
the fire of passion hath consumed my liver, nor will I ever
forsake thee or transgress against thee. But I would have thee
tell me the truth, for that the sleights of falsehood profit not,
nor do they secure credit at all seasons. How long wilt thou
impose upon my father and lie to him? I fear lest thine affair be
discovered to him, ere we can devise some device and he lay
violent hands upon thee? So acquaint me with the facts of the
case for naught shall befal thee save that which shall begladden
thee; and, when thou shalt have spoken sooth, fear not harm shall
betide thee. How often wilt thou declare that thou art a merchant
and a man of money and hast a luggage-train? This long while past
thou sayest, My baggage! my baggage! but there appeareth no sign
of thy baggage, and visible in thy face is anxiety on this
account. So an there be no worth in thy words, tell me and I will
contrive thee a contrivance whereby by thou shalt come off safe,
Inshallah!” He replied, “I will tell thee the truth, and then do
thou whatso thou wilt.” Rejoined she, “Speak and look thou speak
soothly; for sooth is the ark of safety, and beware of lying, for
it dishonoureth the liar and God-gifted is he who said:—

’Ware that truth thou speak, albe sooth when said * Shall cause

     thee in threatenèd fire to fall:

And seek Allah’s approof, for most foolish he * Who shall anger

     his Lord to make friends with thrall.”


He said, “Know, then, O my lady, that I am no merchant and have
no baggage, no, nor a burning plague; nay, I was but a cobbler in
my own country and had a wife called Fatimah the Dung, with whom
there befel me this and that.” And he told her his story from
beginning to end; whereat she laughed and said, “Verily, thou art
clever in the practice of lying and imposture!” Whereto he
answered, “O my lady, may Allah Almighty preserve thee to veil
sins and countervail chagrins!” Rejoined she, “Know, that thou
imposedst upon my sire and deceivedst him by dint of thy deluding
vaunts, so that of his greed for gain he married me to thee. Then
thou squanderedst his wealth and the Wazir beareth thee a grudge
for this. How many a time hath he spoken against thee to my
father, saying, Indeed, he is an impostor, a liar! But my sire
hearkened not to his say, for that he had sought me in wedlock
and I consented not that he be baron and I femme. However, the
time grew longsome upon my sire and he became straitened and said
to me, Make him confess. So I have made thee confess and that
which was covered is discovered. Now my father purposeth thee a
mischief because of this; but thou art become my husband and I
will never transgress against thee. An I told my father what I
have learnt from thee, he would be certified of thy falsehood and
imposture and that thou imposest upon Kings’ daughters and
squanderest royal wealth: so would thine offence find with him no
pardon and he would slay thee sans a doubt: wherefore it would be
bruited among the folk that I married a man who was a liar, an
impostor, and this would smirch mine honour. Furthermore an he
kill thee, most like he will require me to wed another, and to
such thing I will never consent; no, not though I die![FN#55] So
rise now and don a Mameluke’s dress and take these fifty thousand
dinars of my monies, and mount a swift steed and get thee to a
land whither the rule of my father doth not reach. Then make thee
a merchant and send me a letter by a courier who shall bring it
privily to me, that I may know in what land thou art, so I may
send thee all my hand can attain. Thus shall thy wealth wax great
and if my father die, I will send for thee, and thou shalt return
in respect and honour; and if we die, thou or I and go to the
mercy of God the Most Great, the Resurrection shall unite us.
This, then, is the rede that is right: and while we both abide
alive and well, I will not cease to send thee letters and monies.
Arise ere the day wax bright and thou be in perplexed plight and
perdition upon thy head alight!” Quoth he, “O my lady, I beseech
thee of thy favour to bid me farewell with thine embracement;”
and quoth she, “No harm in that.”[FN#56] So he embraced her and
knew her carnally; after which he made the Ghusl-ablution; then,
donning the dress of a white slave, he bade the syces saddle him
a thoroughbred steed. Accordingly, they saddled him a courser and
he mounted and farewelling his wife, rode forth the city at the
last of the night, whilst all who saw him deemed him one of the
Mamelukes of the Sultan going abroad on some business. Next
morning, the King and his Wazir repaired to the sitting-chamber
and sent for Princess Dunya who came behind the curtain; and her
father said to her, “O my daughter, what sayst thou?” Said she,
“I say, Allah blacken thy Wazir’s face, because he would have
blackened my face in my husband’s eyes!” Asked the King, “How
so?”; and she answered, “He came in to me yesterday; but, before
I could name the matter to him, behold, in walked Faraj the Chief
Eunuch, letter in hand, and said:—Ten white slaves stand under
the palace window and have this letter, saying:—Kiss for us the
hands of our lord, Merchant Ma’aruf, and give him this letter,
for we are of his Mamelukes with the baggage, and it hath reached
us that he hath wedded the King’s daughter, so we are come to
acquaint him with that which befel us by the way. Accordingly I
took the letter and read as follows:—From the five hundred
Mamelukes to his highness our lord Merchant Ma’aruf. But further.
We give thee to know that, after thou quittedst us, the
Arabs[FN#57] came out upon us and attacked us. They were two
thousand horse and we five hundred mounted slaves and there befel
a mighty sore fight between us and them. They hindered us from
the road thirty days doing battle with them and this is the cause
of our tarrying from thee.”—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of
day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-fifth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Princess
Dunya said to her sire, “My husband received a letter from his
dependents ending with:—The Arabs hindered us from the road
thirty days which is the cause of our being behind time. They
also took from us of the luggage two hundred loads of cloth and
slew of us fifty Mamelukes. When the news reached my husband, he
cried, Allah disappoint them! What ailed them to wage war with
the Arabs for the sake of two hundred loads of merchandise? What
are two hundred loads? It behoved them not to tarry on that
account, for verily the value of the two hundred loads is only
some seven thousand dinars. But needs must I go to them and
hasten them. As for that which the Arabs have taken, ’twill not
be missed from the baggage, nor doth it weigh with me a whit, for
I reckon it as if I had given it to them by way of an alms. Then
he went down from me, laughing and taking no concern for the
wastage of his wealth nor the slaughter of his slaves. As soon as
he was gone, I looked out from the lattice and saw the ten
Mamelukes who had brought him the letter, as they were moons,
each clad in a suit of clothes worth two thousand dinars, there
is not with my father a chattel to match one of them. He went
forth with them to bring up his baggage and hallowed be Allah who
hindered me from saying to him aught of that thou badest me, for
he would have made mock of me and thee, and haply he would have
eyed me with the eye of disparagement and hated me. But the fault
is all with thy Wazir,[FN#58] who speaketh against my husband
words that besit him not.” Replied the King, “O my daughter, thy
husband’s wealth is indeed endless and he recketh not of it; for,
from the day he entered our city, he hath done naught but give
alms to the poor. Inshallah, he will speedily return with the
baggage, and good in plenty shall betide us from him.” And he
went on to appease her and menace the Wazir, being duped by her
device. So fared it with the King; but as regards Merchant
Ma’aruf he rode on into waste lands, perplexed and knowing not to
what quarter he should betake him; and for the anguish of parting
he lamented and in the pangs of passion and love-longing he
recited these couplets:—

Time falsed our Union and divided who were one in tway; * And the

     sore tyranny of Time doth melt my heart away:

Mine eyes ne’er cease to drop the tear for parting with my dear;

     * When shall Disunion come to end and dawn the Union-day?

O favour like the full moon’s face of sheen, indeed I’m he * Whom

     thou didst leave with vitals torn when faring on thy way.

Would I had never seen thy sight, or met thee for an hour; *

     Since after sweetest taste of thee to bitters I’m a prey.

Ma’aruf will never cease to be enthralled by Dunyá’s[FN#59]

     charms * And long live she albe he die whom love and longing

     slay,

O brilliance, like resplendent sun of noontide, deign them heal *

     His heart for kindness[FN#60] and the fire of longing love

     allay!

Would Heaven I wot an e’er the days shall deign conjoin our lots,

     * Join us in pleasant talk o’ nights, in Union glad and gay:

Shall my love’s palace hold two hearts that savour joy, and I *

     Strain to my breast the branch I saw upon the

     sand-hill[FN#61] sway?

O favour of full moon in sheen, never may sun o’ thee * Surcease

     to rise from Eastern rim with all-enlightening ray!

I’m well content with passion-pine and all its bane and bate *

     For luck in love is evermore the butt of jealous Fate.


And when he ended his verses, he wept with sore weeping, for
indeed the ways were walled up before his face and death seemed
to him better than dreeing life, and he walked on like a drunken
man for stress of distraction, and stayed not till noontide, when
he came to a little town and saw a plougher hard by, ploughing
with a yoke of bulls. Now hunger was sore upon him; and he went
up to the ploughman and said to him, “Peace be with thee!”; and
he returned his salam and said to him, “Welcome, O my lord! Art
thou one of the Sultan’s Mamelukes?” Quoth Ma’aruf, “Yes;” and
the other said “Alight with me for a guest-meal.” Whereupon
Ma’aruf knew him to be of the liberal and said to him, “O my
brother, I see with thee naught with which thou mayst feed me:
how is it, then, that thou invitest me?” Answered the husbandman,
“O my lord, weal is well nigh.[FN#62] Dismount thee here: the
town is near hand and I will go and fetch thee dinner and fodder
for thy stallion.” Rejoined Ma’aruf, “Since the town is near at
hand, I can go thither as quickly as thou canst and buy me what I
have a mind to in the bazar and eat.” The peasant replied, “O my
lord, the place is but a little village[FN#63] and there is no
bazar there, neither selling nor buying. So I conjure thee by
Allah, alight here with me and hearten my heart, and I will run
thither and return to thee in haste.” Accordingly he dismounted
and the Fellah left him and went off to the village, to fetch
dinner for him whilst Ma’aruf sat awaiting him. Presently he said
in himself, “I have taken this poor man away from his work; but I
will arise and plough in his stead, till he come back, to make up
for having hindered him from his work.[FN#64]” Then he took the
plough and starting the bulls, ploughed a little, till the share
struck against something and the beasts stopped. He goaded them
on, but they could not move the plough; so he looked at the share
and finding it caught in a ring of gold, cleared away the soil
and saw that it was set centre-most a slab of alabaster, the size
of the nether millstone. He strave at the stone till he pulled it
from its place, when there appeared beneath it a souterrain with
a stair. Presently he descended the flight of steps and came to a
place like a Hammam, with four daïses, the first full of gold,
from floor to roof, the second full of emeralds and pearls and
coral also from ground to ceiling; the third of jacinths and
rubies and turquoises and the fourth of diamonds and all manner
other preciousest stones. At the upper end of the place stood a
coffer of clearest crystal, full of union-gems each the size of a
walnut, and upon the coffer lay a casket of gold, the bigness of
a lemon. When he saw this, he marvelled and rejoiced with joy
exceeding and said to himself, “I wonder what is in this casket?”
So he opened it and found therein a seal-ring of gold, whereon
were graven names and talismans, as they were the tracks of
creeping ants. He rubbed the ring and behold, a voice said,
“Adsum! Here am I, at thy service, O my lord! Ask and it shall be
given unto thee. Wilt thou raise a city or ruin a capital or kill
a king or dig a river-channel or aught of the kind? Whatso thou
seekest, it shall come to pass, by leave of the King of
All-might, Creator of day and night.” Ma’aruf asked, “O creature
of my lord, who and what art thou?”; and the other answered, “I
am the slave of this seal-ring standing in the service of him who
possesseth it. Whatsoever he seeketh, that I accomplish for him,
and I have no excuse in neglecting that he biddeth me do; because
I am Sultan over two-and-seventy tribes of the Jinn, each
two-and-seventy thousand in number every one of which thousand
ruleth over a thousand Marids, each Marid over a thousand Ifrits,
each Ifrit over a thousand Satans and each Satan over a thousand
Jinn: and they are all under command of me and may not gainsay
me. As for me, I am spelled to this seal-ring and may not thwart
whoso holdeth it. Lo! thou hast gotten hold of it and I am become
thy slave; so ask what thou wilt, for I hearken to thy word and
obey thy bidding; and if thou have need of me at any time, by
land or by sea rub the signet-ring and thou wilt find me with
thee. But beware of rubbing it twice in succession, or thou wilt
consume me with the fire of the names graven thereon; and thus
wouldst thou lose me and after regret me. Now I have acquainted
thee with my case and—the Peace!”—And Shahrazad perceived the
dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-sixth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when
the Slave of the Signet-ring acquainted Ma’aruf with his case,
the Merchant asked him, “What is thy name?” and the Jinni
answered, “My name is Abú al-Sa’ádát.[FN#65]” Quoth Ma’aruf, “O
Abú al-Sa’ádát what is this place and who enchanted thee in this
casket?”; and quoth he, “O my lord, this is a treasure called the
Hoard of Shaddád son of Ad, him who the base of Many-columned
Iram laid, the like of which in the lands was never made.[FN#66]’
I was his slave in his lifetime and this is his seal-ring, which
he laid up in his treasure; but it hath fallen to thy lot.”
Ma’aruf enquired, “Canst thou transport that which is in this
hoard to the surface of the earth?”; and the Jinni replied, “Yes!
Nothing were easier.” Said Ma’aruf, “Bring it forth and leave
naught.” So the Jinni signed with his hand to the ground, which
clave asunder, and he sank and was absent a little while.
Presently, there came forth young boys full of grace, and fair of
face bearing golden baskets filled with gold which they emptied
out and going away, returned with more; nor did they cease to
transport the gold and jewels, till ere an hour had sped they
said, “Naught is left in the hoard.” Thereupon out came Abú
al-Sa’ádát and said to Ma’aruf, “O my lord, thou seest that we
have brought forth all that was in the hoard.” Ma’aruf asked,
“Who be these beautiful boys?” and the Jinni answered, “They are
my sons. This matter merited not that I should muster for it the
Marids, wherefore my sons have done thy desire and are honoured
by such service. So ask what thou wilt beside this.” Quoth
Ma’aruf, “Canst thou bring me he-mules and chests and fill the
chests with the treasure and load them on the mules?” Quoth Abú
al-Sa’ádát, “Nothing easier,” and cried a great cry; whereupon
his sons presented themselves before him, to the number of eight
hundred, and he said to them, “Let some of you take the semblance
of he-mules and others of muleteers and handsome Mamelukes, the
like of the least of whom is not found with any of the Kings; and
others of you be transmewed to muleteers, and the rest to
menials.” So seven hundred of them changed themselves into
bât-mules and other hundred took the shape of slaves. Then Abú
al-Sa’ádát called upon his Marids, who presented themselves
between his hands and he commanded some of them to assume the
aspect of horses saddled with saddles of gold crusted with
jewels. And when Ma’aruf saw them do as he bade he cried, “Where
be the chests?” They brought them before him and he said, “Pack
the gold and the stones, each sort by itself.” So they packed
them and loaded three hundred he-mules with them. Then asked
Ma’aruf, “O Abú al-Sa’ádát, canst thou bring me some loads of
costly stuffs?”; and the Jinni answered, “Wilt thou have Egyptian
stuffs or Syrian or Persian or Indian or Greek?” Ma’aruf said,
“Bring me an hundred loads of each kind, on five hundred mules;”
and Abú al-Sa’ádát, “O my lord accord me delay that I may dispose
my Marids for this and send a company of them to each country to
fetch an hundred loads of its stuffs and then take the form of
he-mules and return, carrying the stuffs.” Ma’aruf enquired,
“What time dost thou want?”; and Abú al-Sa’ádát replied, “The
time of the blackness of the night, and day shall not dawn ere
thou have all thou desirest.” Said Ma’aruf, “I grant thee this
time,” and bade them pitch him a pavilion. So they pitched it and
he sat down therein and they brought him a table of food. Then
said Abú al-Sa’ádát to him, “O my lord, tarry thou in this tent
and these my sons shall guard thee: so fear thou nothing; for I
go to muster my Marids and despatch them to do thy desire.” So
saying, he departed, leaving Ma’aruf seated in the pavilion, with
the table before him and the Jinni’s sons attending upon him, in
the guise of slaves and servants and suite. And while he sat in
this state behold, up came the husband man, with a great
porringer of lentils[FN#67] and a nose-bag full of barley and
seeing the pavilion pitched and the Mamelukes standing, hands
upon breasts, thought that the Sultan was come and had halted on
that stead. So he stood openmouthed and said in himself, “Would I
had killed a couple of chickens and fried them red with clarified
cow-butter for the Sultan!” And he would have turned back to kill
the chickens as a regale for the Sultan; but Ma’aruf saw him and
cried out to him and said to the Mamelukes, “Bring him hither.”
So they brought him and his porringer of lentils before Ma’aruf,
who said to him, “What is this?” Said the peasant, “This is thy
dinner and thy horse’s fodder! Excuse me, for I thought not that
the Sultan would come hither; and, had I known that, I would have
killed a couple of chickens and entertained him in goodly guise.”
Quoth Ma’aruf, “The Sultan is not come. I am his son-in-law and I
was vexed with him. However he hath sent his officers to make his
peace with me, and now I am minded to return to city. But thou
hast made me this guest-meal without knowing me, and I accept it
from thee, lentils though it be, and will not eat save of thy
cheer.” Accordingly he bade him set the porringer amiddlemost the
table and ate of it his sufficiency, whilst the Fellah filled his
belly with those rich meats. Then Ma’aruf washed his hands and
gave the Mamelukes leave to eat; so they fell upon the remains of
the meal and ate; and, when the porringer was empty, he filled it
with gold and gave it to the peasant, saying, “Carry this to thy
dwelling and come to me in the city, and I will entreat thee with
honour.” Thereupon the peasant took the porringer full of gold
and returned to the village, driving the bulls before him and
deeming himself akin to the King. Meanwhile, they brought Ma’aruf
girls of the Brides of the Treasure,[FN#68] who smote on
instruments of music and danced before him, and he passed that
night in joyance and delight, a night not to be reckoned among
lives. Hardly had dawned the day when there arose a great cloud
of dust which presently lifting, discovered seven hundred mules
laden with stuffs and attended by muleteers and baggage-tenders
and cresset-bearers. With them came Abú al-Sa’ádát, riding on a
she-mule, in the guise of a caravan-leader, and before him was a
travelling-litter, with four corner-terminals[FN#69] of
glittering red gold, set with gems. When Abú al-Sa’ádát came up
to the tent, he dismounted and kissing the earth, said to
Ma’aruf, “O my lord, thy desire hath been done to the uttermost
and in the litter is a treasure-suit which hath not its match
among Kings’ raiment: so don it and mount the litter and bid us
do what thou wilt.” Quoth Ma’aruf, “O Abú al-Sa’ádát, I wish thee
to go to the city of Ikhtiyan al-Khatan and present thyself to my
father-in-law the King; and go thou not in to him but in the
guise of a mortal courier;” and quoth he, “To hear is to obey.”
So Ma’aruf wrote a letter to the Sultan and sealed it and Abú
al-Sa’ádát took it and set out with it; and when he arrived, he
found the King saying, “O Wazir, indeed my heart is concerned for
my son-in-law and I fear lest the Arabs slay him. Would Heaven I
wot whither he was bound, that I might have followed him with the
troops! Would he had told me his destination!” Said the Wazir,
“Allah be merciful to thee for this thy heedlessness! As thy head
liveth, the wight saw that we were awake to him and feared
dishonour and fled, for he is nothing but an impostor, a liar.”
And behold, at this moment in came the courier and kissing ground
before the King, wished him permanent glory and prosperity and
length of life. Asked the King, “Who art thou and what is thy
business?” “I am a courier,” answered the Jinni, “and thy
son-in-law who is come with the baggage sendeth me to thee with a
letter, and here it is!” So he took the letter and read therein
these words, “After salutations galore to our uncle[FN#70] the
glorious King! Know that I am at hand with the baggage-train: so
come thou forth to meet me with the troops.” Cried the King,
“Allah blacken thy brow, O Wazir! How often wilt thou defame my
son-in-law’s name and call him liar and impostor? Behold, he is
come with the baggage-train and thou art naught but a traitor.”
The Minister hung his head ground-wards in shame and confusion
and replied, “O King of the age, I said not this save because of
the long delay of the baggage and because I feared the loss of
the wealth he hath wasted.” The King exclaimed, “O traitor, what
are my riches! Now that his baggage is come he will give me great
plenty in their stead.” Then he bade decorate the city and going
in to his daughter, said to her, “Good news for thee! Thy husband
will be here anon with his baggage; for he hath sent me a letter
to that effect and here am I now going forth to meet him.” The
Princess Dunyá marvelled at this and said in herself, “This is a
wondrous thing! Was he laughing at me and making mock of me, or
had he a mind to try me, when he told me that he was a pauper?
But Alhamdolillah, Glory to God, for that I failed not of my duty
to him!” On this wise fared it in the palace; but as regards
Merchant Ali, the Cairene, when he saw the decoration of the city
and asked the cause thereof, they said to him, “The baggage-train
of Merchant Ma’aruf, the King’s son-in-law, is come.” Said he,
“Allah is Almighty! What a calamity is this man![FN#71] He came
to me, fleeing from his wife, and he was a poor man. Whence then
should he get a baggage-train? But haply this is a device which
the King’s daughter hath contrived for him, fearing his disgrace,
and Kings are not unable to do anything. May Allah the Most High
veil his fame and not bring him to public shame!”—And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-seventh Night,

She pursued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when
Merchant Ali asked the cause of the decorations, they told him
the truth of the case; so he blessed Merchant Ma’aruf and cried,
“May Allah Almighty veil his fame and not bring him to public
shame!” And all the merchants rejoiced and were glad for that
they would get their monies. Then the King assembled his troops
and rode forth, whilst Abú al-Sa’ádát returned to Ma’aruf and
acquainted him with the delivering of the letter. Quoth Ma’aruf,
“Bind on the loads;” and when they had done so, he donned the
treasure-suit and mounting the litter became a thousand times
greater and more majestic than the King. Then he set forward;
but, when he had gone half-way, behold, the King met him with the
troops, and seeing him riding in the Takhtrawan and clad in the
dress aforesaid, threw himself upon him and saluted him, and
giving him joy of his safety, greeted him with the greeting of
peace. Then all the Lords of the land saluted him and it was made
manifest that he had spoken the truth and that in him there was
no lie. Presently he entered the city in such state procession as
would have caused the gall-bladder of the lion to burst[FN#72]
for envy and the traders pressed up to him and kissed his hands,
whilst Merchant Ali said to him, “Thou hast played off this trick
and it hath prospered to thy hand, O Shaykh of Impostors! But
thou deservest it and may Allah the Most High increase thee of
His bounty!”; whereupon Ma’aruf laughed. Then he entered the
palace and sitting down on the throne said, “Carry the loads of
gold into the treasury of my uncle the King and bring me the
bales of cloth.” So they brought them to him and opened them
before him, bale after bale, till they had unpacked the seven
hundred loads, whereof he chose out the best and said, “Bear
these to Princess Dunyá that she may distribute them among her
slavegirls; and carry her also this coffer of jewels, that she
may divide them among her handmaids and eunuchs.” Then he
proceeded to make over to the merchants in whose debt he was
stuffs by way of payment for their arrears, giving him whose due
was a thousand, stuffs worth two thousand or more; after which he
fell to distributing to the poor and needy, whilst the King
looked on with greedy eyes and could not hinder him; nor did he
cease largesse till he had made an end of the seven hundred
loads, when he turned to the troops and proceeded to apportion
amongst them emeralds and rubies and pearls and coral and other
jewels by handsful, without count, till the King said to him,
“Enough of this giving, O my son! There is but little left of the
baggage.” But he said, “I have plenty.” Then indeed, his good
faith was become manifest and none could give him the lie; and he
had come to reck not of giving, for that the Slave of the
Seal-ring brought him whatsoever he sought. Presently, the
treasurer came in to the King and said, “O King of the age, the
treasury is full indeed and will not hold the rest of the loads.
Where shall we lay that which is left of the gold and jewels?”
And he assigned to him another place. As for the Princess Dunya
when she saw this, her joy redoubled and she marvelled and said
in herself, “Would I wot how came he by all this wealth!” In like
manner the traders rejoiced in that which he had given them and
blessed him; whilst Merchant Ali marvelled and said to himself,
“I wonder how he hath lied and swindled, that he hath gotten him
all these treasures[FN#73]? Had they come from the King’s
daughter, he had not wasted them on this wise! But how excellent
is his saying who said:—

When the Kings’ King giveth, in reverence pause * And venture not

     to enquire the cause:

Allah gives His gifts unto whom He will, * So respect and abide

     by His Holy Laws!”


So far concerning him; but as regards the King, he also marvelled
with passing marvel at that which he saw of Ma’aruf’s generosity
and open-handedness in the largesse of wealth. Then the Merchant
went in to his wife, who met him, smiling and laughing-lipped and
kissed his hand, saying, “Didst thou mock me or hadst thou a mind
to prove me with thy saying:—I am a poor man and a fugitive from
my wife? Praised be Allah for that I failed not of my duty to
thee! For thou art my beloved and there is none dearer to me than
thou, whether thou be rich or poor. But I would have thee tell me
what didst thou design by these words.” Said Ma’aruf, “I wished
to prove thee and see whether thy love were sincere or for the
sake of wealth and the greed of worldly good. But now ’tis become
manifest to me that thine affection is sincere and as thou art a
true woman, so welcome to thee! I know thy worth.” Then he went
apart into a place by himself and rubbed the seal-ring, whereupon
Abu al-Sa’adat presented himself and said to him, “Adsum, at thy
service! Ask what thou wilt.” Quoth Ma’aruf, “I want a
treasure-suit and treasure-trinkets for my wife, including a
necklace of forty unique jewels.” Quoth the Jinni, “To hear is to
obey,” and brought him what he sought, whereupon Ma’aruf
dismissed him and carrying the dress and ornaments in to his
wife, laid them before her and said, “Take these and put them on
and welcome!” When she saw this, her wits fled for joy, and she
found among the ornaments a pair of anklets of gold set with
jewels of the handiwork of the magicians, and bracelets and
earrings and a belt[FN#74] such as no money could buy. So she
donned the dress and ornaments and said to Ma’aruf, “O my lord, I
will treasure these up for holidays and festivals.” But he
answered, “Wear them always, for I have others in plenty.” And
when she put them on and her women beheld her, they rejoiced and
bussed his hands. Then he left them and going apart by himself,
rubbed the seal-ring whereupon its slave appeared and he said to
him, “Bring me an hundred suits of apparel, with their ornaments
of gold.” “Hearing and obeying,” answered Abu al-Sa’adat and
brought him the hundred suits, each with its ornaments wrapped up
within it. Ma’aruf took them and called aloud to the slave-girls,
who came to him and he gave them each a suit: so they donned them
and became like the black-eyed girls of Paradise, whilst the
Princess Dunya shone amongst them as the moon among the stars.
One of the handmaids told the King of this and he came in to his
daughter and saw her and her women dazzling all who beheld them;
whereat he wondered with passing wonderment. Then he went out and
calling his Wazir, said to him, “O Wazir, such and such things
have happened; what sayst thou now of this affair?” Said he, “O
King of the age, this be no merchant’s fashion; for a merchant
keepeth a piece of linen by him for years and selleth it not but
at a profit. How should a merchant have generosity such as this
generosity, and whence should he get the like of these monies and
jewels, of which but a slight matter is found with the Kings? So
how should loads thereof be found with merchants? Needs must
there be a cause for this; but, an thou wilt hearken to me, I
will make the truth of the case manifest to thee.” Answered the
King, “O Wazir, I will do thy bidding.” Rejoined the Minister,
“Do thou foregather with thy son-in-law and make a show of affect
to him and talk with him and say:—O my son-in-law, I have a mind
to go, I and thou and the Wazir but no more, to a flower-garden
that we may take our pleasure there. When we come to the garden,
we will set on the table wine, and I will ply him therewith and
compel him to drink; for, when he shall have drunken, he will
lose his reason and his judgment will forsake him. Then we will
question him of the truth of his case and he will discover to us
his secrets, for wine is a traitor and Allah-gifted is he who
said:—

When we drank the wine, and it crept its way * To the place of

     Secrets, I cried, “O stay!”

In my fear lest its influence stint my wits * And my friends spy

     matters that hidden lay.


When he hath told us the truth we shall ken his case and may deal
with him as we will; because I fear for thee the consequences of
this his present fashion: haply he will covet the kingship and
win over the troops by generosity and lavishing money and so
depose thee and take the kingdom from thee.” “True,” answered the
King.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say
her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-eighth Night,

She resumed, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when the
Wazir devised this device the King said to him, “Thou hast spoken
sooth!”; and they passed the night on this agreement. And when
morning morrowed the King went forth and sat in the
guest-chamber, when lo, and behold! the grooms and serving-men
came in to him in dismay. Quoth he, “What hath befallen you?”;
and quoth they, “O King of the age, the Syces curried the horses
and foddered them and the he-mules which brought the baggage;
but, when we arose in the morning, we found that thy son-in-law’s
Mamelukes had stolen the horses and mules. We searched the
stables, but found neither horse nor mule; so we entered the
lodging of the Mamelukes and found none there, nor know we how
they fled.” The King marvelled at this, unknowing that the horses
and Mamelukes were all Ifrits, the subjects of the Slave of the
Spell, and asked the grooms, “O accursed how could a thousand
beasts and five hundred slaves and servants flee without your
knowledge?” Answered they, “We know not how it happened,” and he
cried, “Go, and when your lord cometh forth of the Harim, tell
him the case.” So they went out from before the King and sat down
bewildered, till Ma’aruf came out and, seeing them chagrined
enquired of them, “What may be the matter?” They told him all
that had happened and he said, “What is their worth that ye
should be concerned for them? Wend your ways.” And he sat
laughing and was neither angry nor grieved concerning the case;
whereupon the King looked in the Wazir’s face and said to him,
“What manner of man is this, with whom wealth is of no worth?
Needs must there be a reason for this?” Then they talked with him
awhile and the King said to him, “O my son-in-law, I have a mind
to go, I, thou and the Wazir, to a garden, where we may divert
ourselves.” “No harm in that,” said Ma’aruf. So they went forth
to a flower-garden, wherein every sort of fruit was of kinds
twain and its waters were flowing and its trees towering and its
birds carolling. There they entered a pavilion, whose sight did
away sorrow from the soul, and sat talking, whilst the Minister
entertained them with rare tales and quoted merry quips and
mirth-provoking sayings and Ma’aruf attentively listened, till
the time of dinner came, when they set on a tray of meats and a
flagon of wine. When they had eaten and washed hands, the Wazir
filled the cup and gave it to the King, who drank it off; then he
filled a second and handed it to Ma’aruf, saying, “Take the cup
of the drink to which Reason boweth neck in reverence.” Quoth
Ma’aruf, “What is this, O Wazir?”; and quoth he, “This is the
grizzled[FN#75] virgin and the old maid long kept at home,[FN#76]
the giver of joy to hearts, whereof saith the poet:—

The feet of sturdy Miscreants[FN#77] went trampling heavy tread,

     * And she hath ta’en a vengeance dire on every Arab’s head.

A Káfir youth like fullest moon in darkness hands her round *

     Whose eyne are strongest cause of sin by him inspiritèd.”


And Allah-gifted is he who said:—

’Tis as if wine and he who bears the bowl, * Rising to show her
charms for man to see,[FN#78]
Were dancing undurn-Sun whose face the moon * Of night adorned
with stars of Gemini.
So subtle is her essence it would seem * Through every limb like
course of soul runs she.

And how excellent is the saying of the poet:—

Slept in mine arms full Moon of brightest blee * Nor did that sun

     eclipse in goblet see:

I nighted spying fire whereto bow down * Magians, which bowed

     from ewer’s lip to me.


And that of another:—

It runs through every joint of them as runs * The surge of health
     returning to the sick.

And yet another:—

I marvel at its pressers, how they died * And left us aqua vitae—lymph
     of life!

And yet goodlier is the saying of Abu Nowas:—

Cease then to blame me, for thy blame doth anger bring * And with

     the draught that maddened me come med’cining:

A yellow girl[FN#79] whose court cures every carking care; * Did

     a stone touch it would with joy and glee upspring:

She riseth in her ewer during darkest night * The house with

     brightest, sheeniest light illumining:

And going round of youths to whom the world inclines[FN#80] *

     Ne’er, save in whatso way they please, their hearts shall

     wring.

From hand of coynted[FN#81] lass begarbed like yarded lad,[FN#82]

     * Wencher and Tribe of Lot alike enamouring,

She comes: and say to him who dares claim lore of love *

     Something hast learnt but still there’s many another thing.


But best of all is the saying of Ibn al-Mu’tazz[FN#83]:—

On the shady woody island[FN#84] His showers Allah deign * Shed

     on Convent hight Abdún[FN#85] drop and drip of railing rain:

Oft the breezes of the morning have awakened me therein * When

     the Dawn shows her blaze,[FN#86] ere the bird of flight was

     fain;

And the voices of the monks that with chants awoke the walls *

     Black-frocked shavelings ever wont the cup amorn to

     drain.[FN#87]

’Mid the throng how many fair with languour-kohl’d eyes[FN#88] *

     And lids enfolding lovely orbs where black on white was

     lain,

In secret came to see me by shirt of night disguised * In terror

     and in caution a-hurrying amain!

Then I rose and spread my cheek like a carpet on his path * In

     homage, and with skirts wiped his trail from off the plain.

But threatening disgrace rose the Crescent in the sky * Like the

     paring of a nail yet the light would never wane:

Then happened whatso happened: I disdain to kiss and tell * So

     deem of us thy best and with queries never mell.


And gifted of God is he who saith:—

In the morn I am richest of men * And in joy at good news I start

     up

For I look on the liquid gold[FN#89] * And I measure it out by

     the cup.


And how goodly is the saying of the poet:—

By Allah, this is th’ only alchemy * All said of other science

     false we see!

Carat of wine on hundredweight of woe * Transmuteth gloomiest

     grief to joy and glee.


And that of another:—

The glasses are heavy when empty brought * Till we charge them

     all with unmixèd wine.

Then so light are they that to fly they’re fain * As bodies

     lightened by soul divine.


And yet another:—

Wine-cup and ruby-wine high worship claim; * Dishonour ’twere to

     see their honour waste:

Bury me, when I’m dead, by side of vine * Whose veins shall

     moisten bones in clay misplaced;

Nor bury me in wold and wild, for I * Dread only after death no

     wine to taste.”[FN#90]


And he ceased not to egg him on to the drink, naming to him such
of the virtues of wine as he thought well and reciting to him
what occurred to him of poetry and pleasantries on the subject,
till Ma’aruf addressed himself to sucking the cup-lips and cared
no longer for aught else. The Wazir ceased not to fill for him
and he to drink and enjoy himself and make merry, till his wits
wandered and he could not distinguish right from wrong. When the
Minister saw that drunkenness had attained in him to utterest and
the bounds transgressed, he said to him, “By Allah, O Merchant
Ma’aruf, I admire whence thou gottest these jewels whose like the
Kings of the Chosroës possess not! In all our lives never saw we
a merchant that had heaped up riches like unto thine or more
generous than thou, for thy doings are the doings of Kings and
not merchants’ doings. Wherefore, Allah upon thee, do thou
acquaint me with this, that I may know thy rank and condition.”
And he went on to test him with questions and cajole him, till
Ma’aruf, being reft of reason, said to him, “I’m neither merchant
nor King,” and told him his whole story from first to last. Then
said the Wazir, “I conjure thee by Allah, O my lord Ma’aruf, show
us the ring, that we may see its make.” So, in his drunkenness,
he pulled off the ring and said, “Take it and look upon it.” The
Minister took it and turning it over, said, “If I rub it, will
its slave appear?” Replied Ma’aruf, “Yes. Rub it and he will
appear to thee, and do thou divert thyself with the sight of
him.” Thereupon the Wazir rubbed the ring and behold forthright
appeared the Jinni and said, “Adsum, at thy service, O my lord!
Ask and it shall be given to thee. Wilt thou ruin a city or raise
a capital or kill a king? Whatso thou seekest, I will do for
thee, sans fail.” The Wazir pointed to Ma’aruf and said, “Take up
yonder wretch and cast him down in the most desolate of desert
lands, where he shall find nothing to eat nor drink, so he may
die of hunger and perish miserably, and none know of him.”
Accordingly, the Jinni snatched him up and flew with him betwixt
heaven and earth, which when Ma’aruf saw, he made sure of
destruction and wept and said, “O Abu al-Sa’adat, whither goest
thou with me?” Replied the Jinni, “I go to cast thee down in the
Desert Quarter,[FN#91] O ill-bred wight of gross wits. Shall one
have the like of this talisman and give it to the folk to gaze
at? Verily, thou deservest that which hath befallen thee; and but
that I fear Allah, I would let thee fall from a height of a
thousand fathoms, nor shouldst thou reach the earth, till the
winds had torn thee to shreds.” Ma’aruf was silent[FN#92] and did
not again bespeak him till he reached the Desert Quarter and
casting him down there, went away and left him in that horrible
place.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying
her permitted say.

When it was the Nine Hundred and Ninety-ninth Night,

She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the Slave
of the Seal-ring took up Ma’aruf and cast him down in the Desert
Quarter where he left him and went his ways. So much concerning
him; but returning to the Wazir who was now in possession of the
talisman, he said to the King, “How deemest thou now? Did I not
tell thee that this fellow was a liar, an impostor, but thou
wouldst not credit me?” Replied the King, “Thou wast in the
right, O my Wazir, Allah grant thee weal! But give me the ring,
that I may solace myself with the sight.” The Minister looked at
him angrily and spat in his face, saying, “O lack-wits, how shall
I give it to thee and abide thy servant, after I am become thy
master? But I will spare thee no more on life.” Then he rubbed
the seal-ring and said to the Slave, “Take up this ill-mannered
churl and cast him down by his son-in-law the swindler-man.” So
the Jinni took him up and flew off with him, whereupon quoth the
King to him, “O creature of my Lord, what is my crime?” Abu
al-Sa’adat replied, “That wot I not, but my master hath commanded
me and I cannot cross whoso hath compassed the enchanted ring.”
Then he flew on with him, till he came to the Desert Quarter and,
casting him down where he had cast Ma’aruf left him and returned.
The King hearing Ma’aruf weeping, went up to him and acquainted
him with his case; and they sat weeping over that which had
befallen them and found neither meat nor drink. Meanwhile the
Minister, after driving father-in-law and son-in-law from the
country, went forth from the garden and summoning all the troops
held a Divan, and told them what he had done with the King and
Ma’aruf and acquainted them with the affair of the talisman,
adding, “Unless ye make me Sultan over you, I will bid the Slave
of the Seal-ring take you up one and all and cast you down in the
Desert Quarter where you shall die of hunger and thirst.” They
replied, “Do us no damage, for we accept thee as Sultan over us
and will not anywise gainsay thy bidding.” So they agreed, in
their own despite, to his being Sultan over them, and he bestowed
on them robes of honour, seeking all he had a mind to of Abu
al-Sa’adat, who brought it to him forthwith. Then he sat down on
the throne and the troops did homage to him; and he sent to
Princess Dunya, the King’s daughter, saying, “Make thee ready,
for I mean to come in unto thee this night, because I long for
thee with love.” When she heard this, she wept, for the case of
her husband and father was grievous to her, and sent to him
saying, “Have patience with me till my period of widowhood[FN#93]
be ended: then draw up thy contract of marriage with me and go in
to me according to law.” But he sent back to say to her, “I know
neither period of widowhood nor to delay have I a mood; and I
need not a contract nor know I lawful from unlawful; but needs
must I go in unto thee this night.” She answered him saying, “So
be it, then, and welcome to thee!”; but this was a trick on her
part. When the answer reached the Wazir, he rejoiced and his
breast was broadened, for that he was passionately in love with
her. He bade set food before all the folk, saying, “Eat; this is
my bride-feast; for I purpose to go in to the Princess Dunya this
night.” Quoth the Shaykh al-Islam, “It is not lawful for thee to
go in unto her till her days of widowhood be ended and thou have
drawn up thy contract of marriage with her.” But he answered, “I
know neither days of widowhood nor other period; so multiply not
words on me.” The Shaykh al-Islam was silent,[FN#94] fearing his
mischief, and said to the troops, “Verily, this man is a Kafir, a
Miscreant, and hath neither creed nor religious conduct.” As soon
as it was evenfall, he went in to her and found her robed in her
richest raiment and decked with her goodliest adornments. When
she saw him, she came to meet him, laughing and said, “A blessed
night! But hadst thou slain my father and my husband, it had been
more to my mind.” And he said, “There is no help but I slay
them.” Then she made him sit down and began to jest with him and
make show of love caressing him and smiling in his face so that
his reason fled; but she cajoled him with her coaxing and cunning
only that she might get possession of the ring and change his joy
into calamity on the mother of his forehead:[FN#95] nor did she
deal thus with him but after the rede of him who said[FN#96]:—

I attained by my wits * What no sword had obtained,

And return wi’ the spoils * Whose sweet pluckings I gained.


When he saw her caress him and smile upon him, desire surged up
in him and he besought her of carnal knowledge; but, when he
approached her, she drew away from him and burst into tears,
saying, “O my lord, seest thou not the man looking at us? I
conjure thee by Allah, screen me from his eyes! How canst thou
know me what while he looketh on us?” When he heard this, he was
angry and asked, “Where is the man?”; and answered she, “There he
is, in the bezel of the ring! putting out his head and staring at
us.” He thought that the Jinni was looking at them and said
laughing, “Fear not; this is the Slave of the Seal-ring, and he
is subject to me.” Quoth she, “I am afraid of Ifrits; pull it off
and throw it afar from me.” So he plucked it off and laying it on
the cushion, drew near to her, but she dealt him a kick, her foot
striking him full in the stomach[FN#97], and he fell over on his
back senseless; whereupon she cried out to her attendants, who
came to her in haste, and said to them, “Seize him!” So forty
slavegirls laid hold on him, whilst she hurriedly snatched up the
ring from the cushion and rubbed it; whereupon Abu al-Sa’adat
presented himself, saying, “Adsum, at thy service O my mistress.”
Cried she, “Take up yonder Infidel and clap him in jail and
shackle him heavily.” So he took him and throwing him into the
Prison of Wrath[FN#98] returned and reported, “I have laid him in
limbo.” Quoth she, “Whither wentest thou with my father and my
husband?”; and quoth he, “I cast them down in the Desert
Quarter.” Then cried she, “I command thee to fetch them to me
forthwith.” He replied, “I hear and I obey,” and taking flight at
once, stayed not till he reached the Desert Quarter, where he
lighted down upon them and found them sitting weeping and
complaining each to other. Quoth he, “Fear not, for relief is
come to you”; and he told them what the Wazir had done, adding,
“Indeed I imprisoned him with my own hands in obedience to her,
and she hath bidden me bear you back.” And they rejoiced in his
news. Then he took them both up and flew home with them; nor was
it more than an hour before he brought them in to Princess Dunya,
who rose and saluted sire and spouse. Then she made them sit down
and brought them food and sweetmeats, and they passed the rest of
the night with her. On the next day she clad them in rich
clothing and said to the King, “O my papa, sit thou upon thy
throne and be King as before and make my husband thy Wazir of the
Right and tell thy troops that which hath happened. Then send for
the Minister out of prison and do him die, and after burn him,
for that he is a Miscreant, and would have gone in unto me in the
way of lewdness, without the rites of wedlock and he hath
testified against himself that he is an Infidel and believeth in
no religion. And do tenderly by thy son-in-law, whom thou makest
thy Wazir of the Right.” He replied, “Hearing and obeying, O my
daughter. But do thou give me the ring or give it to thy
husband.” Quoth she, “It behoveth not that either thou or he have
the ring. I will keep the ring myself, and belike I shall be more
careful of it than you. Whatso ye wish seek it of me and I will
demand it for you of the Slave of the Seal-ring. So fear no harm
so long as I live and after my death, do what ye twain will with
the ring.” Quoth the King, “This is the right rede, O my
daughter,” and taking his son-in-law went forth to the Divan. Now
the troops had passed the night in sore chagrin for Princess
Dunya and that which the Wazir had done with her, in going in to
her after the way of lewdness, without marriage-rites, and for
his ill-usage of the King and Ma’aruf, and they feared lest the
law of Al-Islam be dishonoured, because it was manifest to them
that he was a Kafir. So they assembled in the Divan and fell to
reproaching the Shaykh al-Islam, saying, “Why didst thou not
forbid him from going in to the Princess in the way of lewdness?”
Said he, “O folk, the man is a Miscreant and hath gotten
possession of the ring and I and you may not prevail against him.
But Almighty Allah will requite him his deed, and be ye silent,
lest he slay you.” And as the host was thus engaged in talk,
behold the King and Ma’aruf entered the Divan.—And Shahrazad
perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the Thousandth Night,

She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when
the troops sorely chagrined sat in the Divan talking over the
ill-deeds done by the Wazir to their Sovran, his son-in-law and
his daughter, behold, the King and Ma’aruf entered. Then the King
bade decorate the city and sent to fetch the Wazir from the place
of duresse. So they brought him, and as he passed by the troops,
they cursed him and abused him and menaced him, till he came to
the King, who commanded to do him dead by the vilest of deaths.
Accordingly, they slew him and after burned his body, and he went
to Hell after the foulest of plights; and right well quoth one of
him:—

The Compassionate show no ruth to the tomb where his bones shall
     lie * And Munkar and eke Nakír[FN#99] ne’er cease to abide
     thereby!

The King made Ma’aruf his Wazir of the Right and the times were
pleasant to them and their joys were untroubled. They abode thus
five years till, in the sixth year, the King died and Princess
Dunya made Ma’aruf Sultan in her father’s stead, but she gave him
not the seal-ring. During this time she had conceived by him and
borne him a boy of passing loveliness, excelling in beauty and
perfection, who ceased not to be reared in the laps of nurses
till he reached the age of five, when his mother fell sick of a
deadly sickness and calling her husband to her, said to him, “I
am ill.” Quoth he, “Allah preserve thee, O dearling of my heart!”
But quoth she, “Haply I shall die and thou needest not that I
commend to thy care thy son: wherefore I charge thee but be
careful of the ring, for thine own sake and for the sake of this
thy boy.” And he answered, “No harm shall befal him whom Allah
preserveth!” Then she pulled off the ring and gave it to him, and
on the morrow she was admitted to the mercy of Allah the Most
High,[FN#100] whilst Ma’aruf abode in possession of the kingship
and applied himself to the business of governing. Now it chanced
that one day, as he shook the handkerchief[FN#101] and the troops
withdrew to their places that he betook himself to the
sitting-chamber, where he sat till the day departed and the night
advanced with murks bedight. Then came in to him his
cup-companions of the notables according to their custom, and sat
with him by way of solace and diversion, till midnight, when they
craved permission to withdraw. He gave them leave and they
retired to their houses; after which there came in to him a
slave-girl affected to the service of his bed, who spread him the
mattress and doffing his apparel, clad him in his sleeping-gown.
Then he lay down and she kneaded his feet, till sleep overpowered
him; whereupon she withdrew to her own chamber and slept. But
suddenly he felt something beside him in the bed and awaking
started up in alarm and cried, “I seek refuge with Allah from
Satan the stoned!” Then he opened his eyes and seeing by his side
a woman foul of favour, said to her, “Who art thou?” Said she,
“Fear not, I am thy wife Fatimah al-Urrah.” Whereupon he looked
in her face and knew her by her loathly form and the length of
her dog-teeth: so he asked her, “Whence camest thou in to me and
who brought thee to this country?” “In what country art thou at
this present?” “In the city of Ikhtiyan al-Khatan. But thou, when
didst thou leave Cairo?” “But now.” “How can that be?” “Know,”
said she, “that, when I fell out with thee and Satan prompted me
to do thee a damage, I complained of thee to the magistrates, who
sought for thee and the Kazis enquired of thee, but found thee
not. When two days were past, repentance gat hold upon me and I
knew that the fault was with me; but penitence availed me not,
and I abode for some days weeping for thy loss, till what was in
my hand failed and I was obliged to beg my bread. So I fell to
begging of all, from the courted rich to the contemned poor, and
since thou leftest me, I have eaten of the bitterness of beggary
and have been in the sorriest of conditions. Every night I sat
beweeping our separation and that which I suffered, since thy
departure, of humiliation and ignominy, of abjection and misery.”
And she went on to tell him what had befallen her, whilst he
stared at her in amazement, till she said, “Yesterday, I went
about begging all day but none gave me aught; and as often as I
accosted any one and craved of him a crust of bread, he reviled
me and gave me naught. When night came, I went to bed supperless,
and hunger burned me and sore on me was that which I suffered:
and I sat weeping when, behold, one appeared to me and said, O
woman why weepest thou? Said I, erst I had a husband who used to
provide for me and fulfil my wishes; but he is lost to me and I
know not whither he went and have been in sore straits since he
left me. Asked he, What is thy husband’s name? and I answered,
His name is Ma’aruf. Quoth he, I ken him. Know that thy husband
is now Sultan in a certain city, and if thou wilt, I will carry
thee to him. Cried I, I am under thy protection: of thy bounty
bring me to him! So he took me up and flew with me between heaven
and earth, till he brought me to this pavilion and said to me:—
Enter yonder chamber, and thou shalt see thy husband asleep on
the couch. Accordingly I entered and found thee in this state of
lordship. Indeed I had not thought thou wouldst forsake me, who
am thy mate, and praised be Allah who hath united thee with me!”
Quoth Ma’aruf, “Did I forsake thee or thou me? Thou complainedst
of me from Kazi to Kazi and endedst by denouncing me to the High
Court and bringing down on me Abú Tabak from the Citadel: so I
fled in mine own despite.” And he went on to tell her all that
had befallen him and how he was become Sultan and had married the
King’s daughter and how his beloved Dunya had died, leaving him a
son who was then seven years old. She rejoined, “That which
happened was fore-ordained of Allah; but I repent me and I place
myself under thy protection beseeching thee not to abandon me,
but suffer me eat bread, with thee by way of an alms.” And she
ceased not to humble herself to him and to supplicate him till
his heart relented towards her and he said, “Repent from mischief
and abide with me, and naught shall betide thee save what shall
pleasure thee: but, an thou work any wickedness, I will slay thee
nor fear any one. And fancy not that thou canst complain of me to
the High Court and that Abu Tabak will come down on me from the
Citadel; for I am become Sultan and the folk dread me: but I fear
none save Allah Almighty, because I have a talismanic ring which
when I rub, the Slave of the Signet appeareth to me. His name is
Abu al-Sa’adat, and whatsoever I demand of him he bringeth to me.
So, an thou desire to return to thine own country, I will give
thee what shall suffice thee all thy life long and will send thee
thither speedily; but, an thou desire to abide with me, I will
clear for thee a palace and furnish it with the choicest of silks
and appoint thee twenty slave-girls to serve thee and provide
thee with dainty dishes and sumptuous suits, and thou shalt be a
Queen and live in all delight till thou die or I die. What sayest
thou of this?” “I wish to abide with thee,” she answered and
kissed his hand and vowed repentance from frowardness.
Accordingly he set apart a palace for her sole use and gave her
slave-girls and eunuchs, and she became a Queen. The young Prince
used to visit her as he visited his sire; but she hated him for
that he was not her son; and when the boy saw that she looked on
him with the eye of aversion and anger, he shunned her and took a
dislike to her. As for Ma’aruf, he occupied himself with the love
of fair handmaidens and bethought him not of his wife Fatimah the
Dung, for that she was grown a grizzled old fright, foul-favoured
to the sight, a bald-headed blight, loathlier than the snake
speckled black and white; the more that she had beyond measure
evil entreated him aforetime; and as saith the adage, “Ill-usage
the root of desire disparts and sows hate in the soil of hearts;”
and God-gifted is he who saith:—

Beware of losing hearts of men by thine injurious deed; * For

     when Aversion takes his place none may dear Love restore:

Hearts, when affection flies from them, are likest unto glass *

     Which broken, cannot whole be made,—’tis breached for

     evermore.


And indeed Ma’aruf had not given her shelter by reason of any
praiseworthy quality in her, but he dealt with her thus
generously only of desire for the approval of Allah Almighty.—
Here Dunyazad interrupted her sister Shahrazad, saying, “How
winsome are these words of thine which win hold of the heart more
forcibly than enchanters’ eyne; and how beautiful are these
wondrous books thou hast cited and the marvellous and singular
tales thou hast recited!” Quoth Shahrazad, “And where is all this
compared with what I shall relate to thee on the coming night, an
I live and the King deign spare my days?” So when morning
morrowed and the day brake in its sheen and shone, the King arose
from his couch with breast broadened and in high expectation for
the rest of the tale and saying, “By Allah, I will not slay her
till I hear the last of her story;” repaired to his Durbár while
the Wazir, as was his wont, presented himself at the Palace,
shroud under arm. Shahriyar tarried abroad all that day, bidding
and forbidding between man and man; after which he returned to
his Harim and, according to his custom went in to his wife
Shahrazad.[FN#102]

When it was the Thousand and First Night,

Dunyazad said to her sister, “Do thou finish for us the History
of Ma’aruf!” She replied, “With love and goodly gree, an my lord
deign permit me recount it.” Quoth the King, “I permit thee; for
that I am fain of hearing it.” So she said:—It hath reached me,
O auspicious King, that Ma’aruf would have naught to do with his
wife by way of conjugal duty. Now when she saw that he held aloof
from her bed and occupied himself with other women, she hated him
and jealousy gat the mastery of her and Iblis prompted her to
take the seal-ring from him and slay him and make herself Queen
in his stead. So she went forth one night from her pavilion,
intending for that in which was her husband King Ma’aruf; and it
chanced by decree of the Decreer and His written destiny, that
Ma’aruf lay that night with one of his concubines; a damsel
endowed with beauty and loveliness, symmetry and a stature all
grace. And it was his wont, of the excellence of his piety, that,
when he was minded to have to lie with a woman, he would doff the
enchanted seal-ring from his finger, in reverence to the Holy
Names graven thereon, and lay it on the Pillow, nor would he don
it again till he had purified himself by the Ghusl-ablution.
Moreover, when he had lain with a woman, he was used to order her
go forth from him before daybreak, of his fear for the seal-ring;
and when he went to the Hammam he locked the door of the pavilion
till his return, when he put on the ring, and after this, all
were free to enter according to custom. His wife Fatimah the Dung
knew of all this and went not forth from her place till she had
certified herself of the case. So she sallied out, when the night
was dark, purposing to go in to him, whilst he was drowned in
sleep, and steal the ring, unseen of him. Now it chanced at this
time that the King’s son had gone out, without light, to the
Chapel of Ease for an occasion, and sat down over the marble
slab[FN#103] of the jakes in the dark, leaving the door open.
Presently, he saw Fatimah come forth of her pavilion and make
stealthily for that of his father and said in himself, “What
aileth this witch to leave her lodging in the dead of the night
and make for my father’s pavilion? Needs must there be some
reason for this:” so he went out after her and followed in her
steps unseen of her. Now he had a short sword of watered steel,
which he held so dear that he went not to his father’s Divan,
except he were girt therewith; and his father used to laugh at
him and exclaim, “Mahallah![FN#104] This is a mighty fine sword
of thine, O my son! But thou hast not gone down with it to battle
nor cut off a head therewith.” Whereupon the boy would reply, “I
will not fail to cut off with it some head which
deserveth[FN#105] cutting.” And Ma’aruf would laugh at his words.
Now when treading in her track, he drew the sword from its sheath
and he followed her till she came to his father’s pavilion and
entered, whilst he stood and watched her from the door. He saw
her searching about and heard her say to herself, “Where hath he
laid the seal-ring?”; whereby he knew that she was looking for
the ring and he waited till she found it and said, “Here it is.”
Then she picked it up and turned to go out; but he hid behind the
door. As she came forth, she looked at the ring and turned it
about in her grasp. But when she was about to rub it, he raised
his hand with the sword and smote her on the neck; and she cried
a single cry and fell down dead. With this Ma’aruf awoke and
seeing his wife strown on the ground, with her blood flowing, and
his son standing with the drawn sword in his hand, said to him,
“What is this, O my son?” He replied, “O my father, how often
hast thou said to me, Thou hast a mighty fine sword; but thou
hast not gone down with it to battle nor cut off a head. And I
have answered thee, saying, I will not fail to cut off with it a
head which deserveth cutting. And now, behold, I have therewith
cut off for thee a head well worth the cutting!” And he told him
what had passed. Ma’aruf sought for the seal-ring, but found it
not; so he searched the dead woman’s body till he saw her hand
closed upon it; whereupon he took it from her grasp and said to
the boy, “Thou art indeed my very son, without doubt or dispute;
Allah ease thee in this world and the next, even as thou hast
eased me of this vile woman! Her attempt led only to her own
destruction, and Allah-gifted is he who said:—

When forwards Allah’s aid a man’s intent, * His wish in every

     case shall find consent:

But an that aid of Allah be refused, * His first attempt shall do

     him damagement.”


Then King Ma’aruf called aloud to some of his attendants, who
came in haste, and he told them what his wife Fatimah the Dung
had done and bade them to take her and lay her in a place till
the morning. They did his bidding, and next day he gave her in
charge to a number of eunuchs, who washed her and shrouded her
and made her a tomb[FN#106] and buried her. Thus her coming from
Cairo was but to her grave, and Allah-gifted is he who
said[FN#107]:—

We trod the steps appointed for us: and he whose steps are

     appointed must tread them.

He whose death is decreed to take place in our land shall not die

     in any land but that.


And how excellent is the saying of the poet:—

I wot not, whenas to a land I fare, * Good luck pursuing, what my

     lot shall be.

Whether the fortune I perforce pursue * Or the misfortune which

     pursueth me.


After this, King Ma’aruf sent for the husbandman, whose guest he
had been, when he was a fugitive, and made him his Wazir of the
Right and his Chief Counsellor.[FN#108] Then, learning that he
had a daughter of passing beauty and loveliness, of qualities
nature-ennobled at birth and exalted of worth, he took her to
wife; and in due time he married his son. So they abode awhile in
all solace of life and its delight and their days were serene and
their joys untroubled, till there came to them the Destroyer of
delights and the Sunderer of societies, the Depopulator of
populous places and the Orphaner of sons and daughters. And glory
be to the Living who dieth not and in whose hand are the Keys of
the Seen and the Unseen!




Conclusion

Now, during this time, Shahrazad had borne the King three boy
children: so, when she had made an end of the story of Ma’aruf,
she rose to her feet and kissing ground before him, said, “O King
of the time and unique one[FN#109] of the age and the tide, I am
thine handmaid and these thousand nights and a night have I
entertained thee with stories of folk gone before and admonitory
instances of the men of yore. May I then make bold to crave a
boon of Thy Highness?” He replied, “Ask, O Shahrazad, and it
shall be granted to thee.[FN#110]” Whereupon she cried out to the
nurses and the eunuchs, saying, “Bring me my children.” So they
brought them to her in haste, and they were three boy children,
one walking, one crawling and one sucking. She took them and
setting them before the King, again kissed the ground and said,
“O King of the age, these are thy children and I crave that thou
release me from the doom of death, as a dole to these infants;
for, an thou kill me, they will become motherless and will find
none among women to rear them as they should be reared.” When the
King heard this, he wept and straining the boys to his bosom,
said, “By Allah, O Shahrazad, I pardoned thee before the coming
of these children, for that I found thee chaste, pure, ingenuous
and pious! Allah bless thee and thy father and thy mother and thy
root and thy branch! I take the Almighty to witness against me
that I exempt thee from aught that can harm thee.” So she kissed
his hands and feet and rejoiced with exceeding joy, saying, “The
Lord make thy life long and increase thee in dignity and
majesty[FN#111]!”; presently adding, “Thou marvelledst at that
which befel thee on the part of women; yet there betided the
Kings of the Chosroës before thee greater mishaps and more
grievous than that which hath befallen thee, and indeed I have
set forth unto thee that which happened to Caliphs and Kings and
others with their women, but the relation is longsome and
hearkening groweth tedious, and in this is all sufficient warning
for the man of wits and admonishment for the wise.” Then she
ceased to speak, and when King Shahriyar heard her speech and
profited by that which she said, he summoned up his reasoning
powers and cleansed his heart and caused his understanding revert
and turned to Allah Almighty and said to himself, “Since there
befel the Kings of the Chosroës more than that which hath
befallen me, never, whilst I live, shall I cease to blame myself
for the past. As for this Shahrazad, her like is not found in the
lands; so praise be to Him who appointed her a means for
delivering His creatures from oppression and slaughter!” Then he
arose from his séance and kissed her head, whereat she rejoiced,
she and her sister Dunyazad, with exceeding joy. When the morning
morrowed, the King went forth and sitting down on the throne of
the Kingship, summoned the Lords of his land; whereupon the
Chamberlains and Nabobs and Captains of the host went in to him
and kissed ground before him. He distinguished the Wazir,
Shahrazad’s sire, with special favour and bestowed on him a
costly and splendid robe of honour and entreated him with the
utmost kindness, and said to him, “Allah protect thee for that
thou gavest me to wife thy noble daughter, who hath been the
means of my repentance from slaying the daughters of folk. Indeed
I have found her pure and pious, chaste and ingenuous, and Allah
hath vouchsafed me by her three boy children; wherefore praised
be He for his passing favour.” Then he bestowed robes of honour
upon his Wazirs, and Emirs and Chief Officers and he set forth to
them briefly that which had betided him with Shahrazad and how he
had turned from his former ways and repented him of what he had
done and purposed to take the Wazir’s daughter, Shahrazad, to
wife and let draw up the marriage-contract with her. When those
who were present heard this, they kissed the ground before him
and blessed him and his betrothed[FN#112] Shahrazad, and the
Wazir thanked her. Then Shahriyar made an end of his sitting in
all weal, whereupon the folk dispersed to their dwelling-places
and the news was bruited abroad that the King purposed to marry
the Wazir’s daughter, Shahrazad. Then he proceeded to make ready
the wedding gear, and presently he sent after his brother, King
Shah Zaman, who came, and King Shahriyar went forth to meet him
with the troops. Furthermore, they decorated the city after the
goodliest fashion and diffused scents from censers and burnt
aloes-wood and other perfumes in all the markets and
thoroughfares and rubbed themselves with saffron,[FN#113] what
while the drums beat and the flutes and pipes sounded and mimes
and mountebanks played and plied their arts and the King lavished
on them gifts and largesse; and in very deed it was a notable
day. When they came to the palace, King Shahriyar commanded to
spread the tables with beasts roasted whole and sweetmeats and
all manner of viands and bade the crier cry to the folk that they
should come up to the Divan and eat and drink and that this
should be a means of reconciliation between him and them. So,
high and low, great and small came up unto him and they abode on
that wise, eating and drinking, seven days with their nights.
Then the King shut himself up with his brother and related to him
that which had betided him with the Wazir’s daughter, Shahrazad,
during the past three years and told him what he had heard from
her of proverbs and parables, chronicles and pleasantries, quips
and jests, stories and anecdotes, dialogues and histories and
elegies and other verses; whereat King Shah Zaman marvelled with
the uttermost marvel and said, “Fain would I take her younger
sister to wife, so we may be two brothers-german to two
sisters-german, and they on like wise be sisters to us; for that
the calamity which befel me was the cause of our discovering that
which befel thee and all this time of three years past I have
taken no delight in woman, save that I lie each night with a
damsel of my kingdom, and every morning I do her to death; but
now I desire to marry thy wife’s sister Dunyazad.” When King
Shahriyar heard his brother’s words, he rejoiced with joy
exceeding and arising forthright, went in to his wife Shahrazad
and acquainted her with that which his brother purposed, namely
that he sought her sister Dunyazad in wedlock; whereupon she
answered, “O King of the age, we seek of him one condition, to
wit, that he take up his abode with us, for that I cannot brook
to be parted from my sister an hour, because we were brought up
together and may not endure separation each from other.[FN#114]
If he accept this pact, she is his handmaid.” King Shahriyar
returned to his brother and acquainted him with that which
Shahrazad had said; and he replied, “Indeed, this is what was in
my mind, for that I desire nevermore to be parted from thee one
hour. As for the kingdom, Allah the Most High shall send to it
whomso He chooseth, for that I have no longer a desire for the
kingship.” When King Shahriyar heard his brother’s words, he
rejoiced exceedingly and said, “Verily, this is what I wished, O
my brother. So Alhamdolillah—Praised be Allah—who hath brought
about union between us.” Then he sent after the Kazis and Olema,
Captains and Notables, and they married the two brothers to the
two sisters. The contracts were written out and the two Kings
bestowed robes of honour of silk and satin on those who were
present, whilst the city was decorated and the rejoicings were
renewed. The King commanded each Emir and Wazir and Chamberlain
and Nabob to decorate his palace and the folk of the city were
gladdened by the presage of happiness and contentment. King
Shahriyar also bade slaughter sheep and set up kitchens and made
bride-feasts and fed all comers, high and low; and he gave alms
to the poor and needy and extended his bounty to great and small.
Then the eunuchs went forth, that they might perfume the Hammam
for the brides; so they scented it with rosewater and
willow-flower-water and pods of musk and fumigated it with
Kákilí[FN#115] eagle-wood and ambergris. Then Shahrazad entered,
she and her sister Dunyazad, and they cleansed their heads and
clipped their hair. When they came forth of the Hammam-bath, they
donned raiment and ornaments; such as men were wont prepare for
the Kings of the Chosroës; and among Shahrazad’s apparel was a
dress purfled with red gold and wrought with counterfeit
presentments of birds and beasts. And the two sisters encircled
their necks with necklaces of jewels of price, in the like
whereof Iskander[FN#116] rejoiced not, for therein were great
jewels such as amazed the wit and dazzled the eye; and the
imagination was bewildered at their charms, for indeed each of
them was brighter than the sun and the moon. Before them they
lighted brilliant flambeaux of wax in candelabra of gold, but
their faces outshone the flambeaux, for that they had eyes
sharper than unsheathed swords and the lashes of their eyelids
bewitched all hearts. Their cheeks were rosy red and their necks
and shapes gracefully swayed and their eyes wantoned like the
gazelle’s; and the slave-girls came to meet them with instruments
of music. Then the two Kings entered the Hammam-bath, and when
they came forth, they sat down on a couch set with pearls and
gems, whereupon the two sisters came up to them and stood between
their hands, as they were moons, bending and leaning from side to
side in their beauty and loveliness. Presently they brought
forward Shahrazad and displayed her, for the first dress, in a
red suit; whereupon King Shahriyar rose to look upon her and the
wits of all present, men and women, were bewitched for that she
was even as saith of her one of her describers[FN#117]:—

A sun on wand in knoll of sand she showed, * Clad in her

     cramoisy-hued chemisette:

Of her lips’ honey-dew she gave me drink * And with her rosy

     cheeks quencht fire she set.


Then they attired Dunyazad in a dress of blue brocade and she
became as she were the full moon when it shineth forth. So they
displayed her in this, for the first dress, before King Shah
Zaman, who rejoiced in her and well-nigh swooned away for
love-longing and amorous desire; yea, he was distraught with
passion for her, whenas he saw her, because she was as saith of
her one of her describers in these couplets[FN#118]:—

She comes apparelled in an azure vest * Ultramarine as skies are

     deckt and dight:

I view’d th’ unparallel’d sight, which showed my eyes * A

     Summer-moon upon a Winter-night.


Then they returned to Shahrazad and displayed her in the second
dress, a suit of surpassing goodliness, and veiled her face with
her hair like a chin-veil.[FN#119] Moreover, they let down her
side-locks and she was even as saith of her one of her describers
in these couplets:—

O hail to him whose locks his cheeks o’ershade, * Who slew my

     life by cruel hard despight:

Said I, “Hast veiled the Morn in Night?” He said, * “Nay I but

     veil Moon in hue of Night.”


Then they displayed Dunyazad in a second and a third and a fourth
dress and she paced forward like the rising sun, and swayed to
and fro in the insolence of beauty; and she was even as saith the
poet of her in these couplets[FN#120]:—

The sun of beauty she to all appears * And, lovely coy she mocks

     all loveliness:

And when he fronts her favour and her smile * A-morn, the sun of

     day in clouds must dress.


Then they displayed Shahrazad in the third dress and the fourth
and the fifth and she became as she were a Bán-branch snell or a
thirsting gazelle, lovely of face and perfect in attributes of
grace, even as saith of her one in these couplets[FN#121]:—

She comes like fullest moon on happy night. * Taper of waist with

     shape of magic might:

She hath an eye whose glances quell mankind, * And ruby on her

     cheeks reflects his light:

Enveils her hips the blackness of her hair; * Beware of curls

     that bite with viper-bite!

Her sides are silken-soft, that while the heart * Mere rock

     behind that surface ’scapes our sight:

From the fringed curtains of her eyne she shoots * Shafts that at

     furthest range on mark alight.


Then they returned to Dunyazad and displayed her in the fifth
dress and in the sixth, which was green, when she surpassed with
her loveliness the fair of the four quarters of the world and
outvied, with the brightness of her countenance, the full moon at
rising tide; for she was even as saith of her the poet in these
couplets[FN#122]:—

A damsel ’twas the tirer’s art had decked with snare and sleight,

     * And robed with rays as though the sun from her had

     borrowed light:

She came before us wondrous clad in chemisette of green, * As

     veilèd by his leafy screen Pomegranate hides from sight:

And when he said, “How callest thou the fashion of thy dress?” *

     She answered us in pleasant way with double meaning dight,

“We call this garment crève-coeur; and rightly is it hight, * For

     many a heart wi’ this we brake and harried many a sprite.”


Then they displayed Shahrazad in the sixth and seventh dresses
and clad her in youth’s clothing, whereupon she came forward
swaying from side to side and coquettishly moving and indeed she
ravished wits and hearts and ensorcelled all eyes with her
glances. She shook her sides and swayed her haunches, then put
her hair on sword-hilt and went up to King Shahriyar, who
embraced her as hospitable host embraceth guest, and threatened
her in her ear with the taking of the sword; and she was even as
saith of her the poet in these words:—

Were not the Murk[FN#123] of gender male, * Than feminines

     surpassing fair,

Tirewomen they had grudged the bride, * Who made her beard and

     whiskers wear!


Thus also they did with her sister Dunyazad, and when they had
made an end of the display the King bestowed robes of honour on
all who were present and sent the brides to their own apartments.
Then Shahrazad went in to King Shahriyar and Dunyazad to King
Shah Zaman and each of them solaced himself with the company of
his beloved consort and the hearts of the folk were comforted.
When morning morrowed, the Wazir came in to the two Kings and
kissed ground before them; wherefore they thanked him and were
large of bounty to him. Presently they went forth and sat down
upon couches of Kingship, whilst all the Wazirs and Emirs and
Grandees and Lords of the land presented themselves and kissed
ground. King Shahriyar ordered them dresses of honour and
largesse and they prayed for the permanence and prosperity of the
King and his brother. Then the two Sovrans appointed their
sire-in-law the Wazir to be Viceroy in Samarcand and assigned him
five of the Chief Emirs to accompany him, charging them attend
him and do him service. The Minister kissed the ground and prayed
that they might be vouchsafed length of life: then he went in to
his daughters, whilst the Eunuchs and Ushers walked before him,
and saluted them and farewelled them. They kissed his hands and
gave him joy of the Kingship and bestowed on him immense
treasures; after which he took leave of them and setting out,
fared days and nights, till he came near Samarcand, where the
townspeople met him at a distance of three marches and rejoiced
in him with exceeding joy. So he entered the city and they
decorated the houses and it was a notable day. He sat down on the
throne of his kingship and the Wazirs did him homage and the
Grandees and Emirs of Samarcand and all prayed that he might be
vouchsafed justice and victory and length of continuance. So he
bestowed on them robes of honour and entreated them with
distinction and they made him Sultan over them. As soon as his
father-in-law had departed for Samarcand, King Shahriyar summoned
the Grandees of his realm and made them a stupendous banquet of
all manner of delicious meats and exquisite sweetmeats. He also
bestowed on them robes of honour and guerdoned them and divided
the kingdoms between himself and his brother in their presence,
whereat the folk rejoiced. Then the two Kings abode, each ruling
a day in turn, and they were ever in harmony each with other
while on similar wise their wives continued in the love of Allah
Almighty and in thanksgiving to Him; and the peoples and the
provinces were at peace and the preachers prayed for them from
the pulpits, and their report was bruited abroad and the
travellers bore tidings of them to all lands. In due time King
Shahriyar summoned chroniclers and copyists and bade them write
all that had betided him with his wife, first and last; so they
wrote this and named it “The Stories of the Thousand Nights and A
Night.” The book came to thirty volumes and these the King laid
up in his treasury. And the two brothers abode with their wives
in all pleasance and solace of life and its delights, for that
indeed Allah the Most High had changed their annoy into joy; and
on this wise they continued till there took them the Destroyer of
delights and the Severer of societies, the Desolator of
dwelling-places and Garnerer of grave-yards, and they were
translated to the ruth of Almighty Allah; their houses fell waste
and their palaces lay in ruins[FN#124] and the Kings inherited
their riches. Then there reigned after them a wise ruler, who was
just, keen-witted and accomplished and loved tales and legends,
especially those which chronicle the doings of Sovrans and
Sultans, and he found in the treasury these marvellous stories
and wondrous histories, contained in the thirty volumes
aforesaid. So he read in them a first book and a second and a
third and so on to the last of them, and each book astounded and
delighted him more than that which preceded it, till he came to
the end of them. Then he admired whatso he had read therein of
description and discourse and rare traits and anecdotes and moral
instances and reminiscences and bade the folk copy them and
dispread them over all lands and climes; wherefore their report
was bruited abroad and the people named them “The marvels and
wonders of the Thousand Nights and A Night.” This is all that
hath come down to us of the origin of this book, and Allah is
All-knowing.[FN#125] So Glory be to Him whom the shifts of Time
waste not away, nor doth aught of chance or change affect His
sway: whom one case diverteth not from other case and Who is sole
in the attributes of perfect grace. And prayer and peace be upon
the Lord’s Pontiff and Chosen One among His creatures, our lord
MOHAMMED the Prince of mankind through whom we supplicate Him for
a goodly and a godly

FINIS.




Terminal Essay

Preliminary

The reader who has reached this terminal stage will hardly require
my assurance that he has seen the mediæval Arab at his best and,
perhaps, at his worst. In glancing over the myriad pictures of this
panorama, those who can discern the soul of goodness in things evil
will note the true nobility of the Moslem’s mind in the Moyen Age,
and the cleanliness of his life from cradle to grave. As a child he
is devoted to his parents, fond of his comrades and respectful to
his “pastors and masters,” even schoolmasters. As a lad he prepares
for manhood with a will and this training occupies him throughout
youthtide: he is a gentleman in manners without awkwardness, vulgar
astonishment or mauvaise-honte. As a man he is high-spirited and
energetic, always ready to fight for his Sultan, his country and,
especially, his Faith: courteous and affable, rarely failing in
temperance of mind and self-respect, self-control and self-command:
hospitable to the stranger, attached to his fellow citizens,
submissive to superiors and kindly to inferiors—if such classes
exist: Eastern despotisms have arrived nearer the idea of equality
and fraternity than any republic yet invented. As a friend he
proves a model to the Damons and Pythiases: as a lover an exemplar
to Don Quijote without the noble old Caballero’s touch of
eccentricity. As a knight he is the mirror of chivalry, doing
battle for the weak and debelling the strong, while ever “defending
the honour of women.” As a husband his patriarchal position causes
him to be loved and fondly loved by more than one wife: as a father
affection for his children rules his life: he is domestic in the
highest degree and he finds few pleasures beyond the bosom of his
family. Lastly, his death is simple, pathetic and edifying as the
life which led to it.

Considered in a higher phase, the mediæval Moslem mind displays,
like the ancient Egyptian, a most exalted moral idea, the deepest
reverence for all things connected with his religion and a sublime
conception of the Unity and Omnipotence of the Deity. Noteworthy
too is a proud resignation to the decrees of Fate and Fortune (Kazá
wa Kadar), of Destiny and Predestination—a feature which ennobles
the low aspect of Al-Islam even in these her days of comparative
degeneration and local decay. Hence his moderation in prosperity,
his fortitude in adversity, his dignity, his perfect self-dominance
and, lastly, his lofty quietism which sounds the true heroic ring.
This again is softened and tempered by a simple faith in the
supremacy of Love over Fear, an unbounded humanity and charity for
the poor and helpless: an unconditional forgiveness of the direst
injuries (“which is the note of the noble”); a generosity and
liberality which at times seem impossible and an enthusiasm for
universal benevolence and beneficence which, exalting kindly deeds
done to man above every form of holiness, constitute the root and
base of Oriental, nay, of all, courtesy. And the whole is crowned
by pure trust and natural confidence in the progress and
perfectability of human nature, which he exalts instead of
degrading; this he holds to be the foundation stone of society and
indeed the very purpose of its existence. His Pessimism resembles
far more the optimism which the so-called Books of Moses borrowed
from the Ancient Copt than the mournful and melancholy creed of the
true Pessimist, as Solomon the Hebrew, the Indian Buddhist and the
esoteric European imitators of Buddhism. He cannot but sigh when
contemplating the sin and sorrow, the pathos and bathos of the
world; and feel the pity of it, with its shifts and changes ending
in nothingness, its scanty happiness and its copious misery. But
his melancholy is expressed in—

          “A voice divinely sweet, a voice no less

            Divinely sad.”


Nor does he mourn as they mourn who have no hope: he has an
absolute conviction in future compensation; and, meanwhile, his
lively poetic impulse, the poetry of ideas, not of formal verse,
and his radiant innate idealism breathe a soul into the merest
matter of squalid work-a-day life and awaken the sweetest harmonies
of Nature epitomised in Humanity.

Such was the Moslem at a time when “the dark clouds of ignorance
and superstition hung so thick on the intellectual horizon of
Europe as to exclude every ray of learning that darted from the
East and when all that was polite or elegant in literature was
classed among the Studia Arabum”[FN#126]
Nor is the shady side of the picture less notable. Our Arab at his
worst is a mere barbarian who has not forgotten the savage. He is
a model mixture of childishness and astuteness, of simplicity and
cunning, concealing levity of mind under solemnity of aspect. His
stolid instinctive conservatism grovels before the tyrant rule of
routine, despite that turbulent and licentious independence which
ever suggests revolt against the ruler: his mental torpidity,
founded upon physical indolence, renders immediate action and all
manner of exertion distasteful: his conscious weakness shows itself
in overweening arrogance and intolerance. His crass and self-satisfied
 ignorance makes him glorify the most ignoble
superstitions, while acts of revolting savagery are the natural
results of a malignant fanaticism and a furious hatred of every
creed beyond the pale of Al-Islam.

It must be confessed that these contrasts make a curious and
interesting tout ensemble.

                              § I
                   THE ORIGIN OF THE NIGHTS.

A.—The Birth place.

Here occur the questions, Where and When was written and to Whom do
we owe a prose-poem which, like the dramatic epos of Herodotus, has
no equal?

I proceed to lay before the reader a procès-verbal of the sundry
pleadings already in court as concisely as is compatible with
intelligibility, furnishing him with references to original
authorities and warning him that a fully-detailed account would
fill a volume. Even my own reasons for decidedly taking one side
and rejecting the other must be stated briefly. And before entering
upon this subject I would distribute the prose-matter of our
Recueil of Folk-lore under three heads.

1. The Apologue or Beast-fable proper, a theme which may be of any
age, as it is found in the hieroglyphs and in the cuneiforms.

2. The Fairy-tale, as for brevity we may term the stories based
upon supernatural agency: this was a favourite with olden Persia;
and Mohammed, most austere and puritanical of the “Prophets,”
strongly objected to it because preferred by the more sensible of
his converts to the dry legends of the Talmud and the Koran, quite
as fabulous without the halo and glamour of fancy.

3. The Histories and historical anecdotes, analects, and acroamata,
in which the names, when not used anachronistically by the editor or
copier, give unerring data for the earliest date à quo and which,
by the mode of treatment, suggest the latest.

Each of these constituents will require further notice when the
subject-matter of the book is discussed. The metrical portion of
The Nights may also be divided into three categories, viz.:—

1. The oldest and classical poetry of the Arabs, e.g. the various
quotations from the “Suspended Poems.”

2. The mediæval, beginning with the laureates of Al-Rashid’s
court, such as Al-Asma’í and Abú Nowás, and ending with Al-Harírí
A.H. 446–516 = 1030–1100.

3. The modern quotations and the pièces de circonstance by the
editors or copyists of the Compilation.[FN#127]

Upon the metrical portion also further notices must be offered at
the end of this Essay.

In considering the uncle derivatur of The Nights we must carefully
separate subject-matter from language-manner. The neglect of such
essential difference has caused the remark, “It is not a little
curious that the origin of a work which has been known to Europe
and has been studied by many during nearly two centuries, should
still be so mysterious, and that students have failed in all
attempts to detect the secret.” Hence also the chief authorities at
once branched off into two directions. One held the work to be
practically Persian: the other as persistently declared it to be
purely Arab.

Professor Galland, in his Epistle Dedicatory to the Marquise d’O,
daughter of his patron M. de Guillerague, showed his literary
acumen and unfailing sagacity by deriving The Nights from India via
Persia; and held that they had been reduced to their present shape
by an Auteur Arabe inconnu. This reference to India, also learnedly
advocated by M. Langlès, was inevitable in those days: it had not
then been proved that India owed all her literature to far older
civilisations and even that her alphabet the Nágari, erroneously
called Devanágari, was derived through Phnicia and Himyar-land
from Ancient Egypt. So Europe was contented to compare The Nights
with the Fables of Pilpay for upwards of a century. At last the
Pehlevi or old Iranian origin of the work found an able and
strenuous advocate in Baron von Hammer-Purgstall [FN#128] who
worthily continued what Galland had begun: although a most inexact
writer, he was extensively read in Oriental history and poetry. His
contention was that the book is an Arabisation of the Persian Hazár
Afsánah or Thousand Tales and he proved his point.

Von Hammer began by summoning into Court the “Herodotus of the
Arabs, (Ali Abú al-Hasan) Al-Mas’údi who, in A.H. 333 (=944) about
one generation before the founding of Cairo, published at Bassorah
the first edition of his far-famed Murúj al-Dahab wa Ma’ádin al-Jauhar,
Meads of Gold and Mines of Gems. The Styrian
Orientalist[FN#129] quotes with sundry misprints[FN#130] an ampler
version of a passage in Chapter lxviii., which is abbreviated in
the French translation of M. C. Barbier de Meynard.[FN#131]

“And, indeed, many men well acquainted with their (Arab)
histories[FN#132] opine that the stories above mentioned and other
trifles were strung together by men who commended themselves to the
Kings by relating them, and who found favour with their
contemporaries by committing them to memory and by reciting them.
Of such fashion[FN#133] is the fashion of the books which have come
down to us translated from the Persian (Fárasiyah), the Indian
(Hindíyah),[FN#134] and the Græco-Roman (Rúmíyah)[FN#135]: we have
noted the judgment which should be passed upon compositions of this
nature. _Such is the book entituled Hazár Afsánah or The Thousand
Tales, which word in Arabic signifies Khuráfah (Faceti): it is
known to the public under the name of The Boot of a Thousand
Nights and a Night, (Kitab Alf Laylah wa Laylah)._[FN#136] This is
an history of a King and his Wazir, the minister’s daughter and a
slave-girl (járiyah) who are named Shírzád (lion-born) and Dínár-zád
 (ducat-born).[FN#137] Such also is the Tale of Farzah,[FN#138]
(alii Firza), and Simás, containing details concerning the Kings
and Wazirs of Hind: the Book of Al-Sindibád[FN#139] and others of
a similar stamp.”

Von Hammer adds, quoting chaps. cxvi. of Al-Mas’údi that Al-Mansúr
(second Abbaside A.H. 136–158 = 754–775, and grandfather of Al-Rashíd
) caused many translations of Greek and Latin, Syriac and
Persian (Pehlevi) works to be made into Arabic, specifying the
“Kalílah wa Damnah,”[FN#140] the Fables of Bidpái (Pilpay), the
Logic of Aristotle, the Geography of Ptolemy and the Elements of
Euclid. Hence he concludes “L’original des Mille et une Nuits * *
* selon toute vraisemblance, a été traduit au temps du Khalife
Mansur, c’est-à-dire trente ans avant le règne du Khalife Haroun
al-Raschid, qui, par la suite, devait lui-même jouer un si grand
rôle dans ces histoires.” He also notes that, about a century after
Al-Mas’udi had mentioned the Hazár Afsánah, it was versified and
probably remodelled by one “Rásti,” the Takhallus or nom de plume
of a bard at the Court of Mahmúd, the Ghaznevite Sultan who, after
a reign of thirty-three years, ob. A.D. 1030.[FN#141]

Von Hammer some twelve years afterwards (Journ. Asiat August, 1839)
brought forward, in his “Note sur l’origine Persane des Mille et
une Nuits,” a second and an even more important witness: this was
the famous Kitab al-Fihrist,[FN#142] or Index List of (Arabic)
works, written (in A.H. 387 = 987) by Mohammed bin Is’hák al-Nadím
(cup-companion or equerry), “popularly known as Ebou Yacoub
el-Werrek.”[FN#143 ] The following is an extract (p. 304) from the
Eighth Discourse which consists of three arts (funún).[FN#144] “The
first section on the history of the confabulatores nocturni (tellers
of night tales) and the relaters of fanciful adventures, together with
the names of books treating upon such subjects. Mohammed ibn Is’hak
saith: The first who indited themes of imagination and made books of
them, consigning these works to the libraries, and who ordered some
of them as though related by the tongues of brute beasts, were the
palæo-Persians (and the Kings of the First Dynasty). The Ashkanian
Kings of the Third Dynasty appended others to them and they were
augmented and amplified in the days of the Sassanides (the fourth and
last royal house). The Arabs also translated them into Arabic, and the
loquent and eloquent polished and embellished them and wrote others
resembling them. The first work of such kind was entituled The Book
of Hazar Afsán,’ signifying Alf Khuráfah, the argument whereof was as
follows. A King of their Kings was wont, when he wedded a woman and had
lain one night with her, to slay her on the next morning. Presently
he espoused a damsel of the daughters of the Kings, Shahrázád[FN#145]
hight, one endowed with intellect and erudition and, whenas she lay
with him, she fell to telling him tales of fancy; moreover she used to
connect the story at the end of the night with that which might induce
the King to preserve her alive and to ask her of its ending on the
next night until a thousand nights had passed over her. Meanwhile he
cohabited with her till she was blest by boon of child of him, when she
acquainted him with the device she had wrought upon him; wherefore he
admired her intelligence and inclined to her and preserved her life.
That King had also a Kahramánah (nurse and duenna, not entremetteuse),
hight Dínárzád (Dunyázád?), who aided the wife in this (artifice). It
is also said that this book was composed for (or, by) Humái daughter
of Bahman[FN#146] and in it were included other matters. Mohammed bin
Is’hak adds: —And the truth is, Inshallah,[FN#147] that the first
who solaced himself with hearing night-tales was Al-Iskandar (he of
Macedon) and he had a number of men who used to relate to him imaginary
stories and provoke him to laughter: he, however, designed not therein
merely to please himself, but that he might thereby become the more
cautious and alert. After him the Kings in like fashion made use of the
book entitled Hazár Afsán.’ It containeth a thousand nights, but less
than two hundred night-stories, for a single history often occupied
several nights. I have seen it complete sundry times; and it is, in
truth, a corrupted book of cold tales.”[FN#148]

A writer in The Athenum,[FN#149] objecting to Lane’s modern date
for The Nights, adduces evidence to prove the greater antiquity of
the work. (Abu al-Hasan) Ibn Sa’id (bin Musa al-Gharnati = of
Granada) born in A.H. 615 = 1218 and ob. Tunis A.H. 685 = 1286,
left his native city and arrived at Cairo in A.H. 639 = 1241. This
Spanish poet and historian wrote Al-Muhallá bi al-Ash’ár (The
Adorned with Verses), a Topography of Egypt and Africa, which is
apparently now lost. In this he quotes from Al-Kurtubi, the
Cordovan;[FN#150] and he in his turn is quoted by the Arab
historian of Spain, Abú al-Abbás Ahmad bin Mohammed al Makkári, in
the “Windwafts of Perfume from the Branches of Andalusia the
Blooming”[FN#151] (A.D. 1628–29). Mr. Payne (x. 301) thus
translates from Dr. Dozy’s published text.

“Ibn Said (may God have mercy upon him!) sets forth in his book, El
Muhella bi-s-Shaar, quoting from El Curtubi the story of the building
of the Houdej in the Garden of Cairo, the which was of the magnificent
pleasaunces of the Fatimite Khalifs, the rare of ordinance and
surpassing, to wit that the Khalif El Aamir bi-ahkam-illah[FN#152 ] let
build it for a Bedouin woman, the love of whom had gotten the mastery
of him, in the neighbourhood of the ‘Chosen Garden’[FN#153] and used to
resort often thereto and was slain as he went thither; and it ceased
not to be a pleasuring-place for the Khalifs after him. The folk abound
in stories of the Bedouin girl and Ibn Meyyah[FN#154] of the sons of
her uncle (cousin?) and what hangs thereby of the mention of El-Aamir,
so that the tales told of them on this account became like unto the
story of El Bettál[FN#155] and the Thousand Nights and a Night and what
resembleth them.”

The same passage from Ibn Sa’id, corresponding in three MSS.,
occurs in the famous Khitat[FN#156] attributed to Al-Makrizi (ob.
A.D. 1444) and was thus translated from a MS. in the British Museum
by Mr. John Payne (ix. 303)

“The Khalif El-Aamir bi-ahkam-illah set apart, in the neighbourhood
of the Chosen Garden, a place for his beloved the Bedouin maid
(Aaliyah)[FN#157] which he named El Houdej. Quoth Ibn Said, in the
book El-Muhella bi-l-ashar, from the History of El Curtubi,
concerning the traditions of the folk of the story of the Bedouin
maid and Ibn Menah (Meyyah) of the sons of her uncle and what hangs
thereby of the mention of the Khalif El Aamír bi-ahkam-illah, so
that their traditions (or tales) upon the garden became like unto
El Bettál[FN#158] and the Thousand Nights and what resembleth
them.”

This evidently means either that The Nights existed in the days of
Al-’Ámir (xiith cent.) or that the author compared them with a work
popular in his own age. Mr. Payne attaches much importance to the
discrepancy of titles, which appears to me a minor detail. The
change of names is easily explained. Amongst the Arabs, as amongst
the wild Irish, there is divinity (the proverb says luck) in odd
numbers and consequently the others are inauspicious. Hence as Sir
Wm. Ouseley says (Travels ii. 21), the number Thousand and One is
a favourite in the East (Olivier, Voyages vi. 385, Paris 1807), and
quotes the Cistern of the “Thousand and One Columns” at
Constantinople. Kaempfer (Amn, Exot. p. 38) notes of the Takiyahs
or Dervishes’ convents and the Mazárs or Santons’ tombs near Koniah
(Iconium), “Multa seges sepulchralium quæ virorum ex omni ævo
doctissimorum exuvias condunt, mille et unum recenset auctor Libri
qui inscribitur Hassaaer we jek mesaar (Hazár ve yek Mezár), i.e.,
mille et unum mausolea.” A book, The Hazar o yek Ruz ( = 1001
Days), was composed in the mid-xviith century by the famous
Dervaysh Mukhlis, Chief Sofi of Isfahan: it was translated into
French by Petis de la Croix, with a preface by Cazotte, and was
englished by Ambrose Phillips. Lastly, in India and throughout Asia
where Indian influence extends, the number of cyphers not followed
by a significant number is indefinite: for instance, to determine
hundreds the Hindus affix the required figure to the end and for
100 write 101; for 1000, 1001. But the grand fact of the Hazár
Afsánah is its being the archetype of The Nights, unquestionably
proving that the Arab work borrows from the Persian bodily its
cadre or frame-work, the principal characteristic; its exordium and
its dénoûement, whilst the two heroines still bear the old Persic
names.

Baron Silvestre de Sacy[FN#159]—clarum et venerabile nomen—is the
chief authority for the Arab provenance of The Nights. Apparently
founding his observations upon Galland,[FN#160] he is of opinion
that the work, as now known, was originally composed in
Syria[FN#161] and written in the vulgar dialect; that it was never
completed by the author, whether he was prevented by death or by
other cause; and that imitators endeavoured to finish the work by
inserting romances which were already known but which formed no
part of the original recueil, such as the Travels of Sindbad the
Seaman, the Book of the Seven Wazirs and others. He accepts the
Persian scheme and cadre of the work, but no more. He contends that
no considerable body of præ-Mohammedan or non-Arabic fiction
appears in the actual texts[FN#162]; and that all the tales, even
those dealing with events localised in Persia, India, China and
other infidel lands and dated from ante-islamitic ages mostly with
the naïvest anachronism, confine themselves to depicting the
people, manners and customs of Baghdad and Mosul, Damascus and
Cairo, during the Abbaside epoch, and he makes a point of the whole
being impregnated with the strongest and most zealous spirit of
Mohammedanism. He points out that the language is the popular or
vulgar dialect, differing widely from the classical and literary;
that it contains many words in common modern use and that generally
it suggests the decadence of Arabian literature. Of one tale he
remarks:—The History of the loves of Camaralzaman and Budour,
Princess of China, is no more Indian or Persian than the others.
The prince’s father has Moslems for subjects, his mother is named
Fatimah and when imprisoned he solaces himself with reading the
Koran. The Genii who interpose in these adventures are, again,
those who had dealings with Solomon. In fine, all that we here find
of the City of the Magians, as well as of the fire-worshippers,
suffices to show that one should not expect to discover in it
anything save the production of a Moslem writer.

All this, with due deference to so high an authority, is very
superficial. Granted, which nobody denies, that the archetypal Hazár
Afsánah was translated from Persic into Arabic nearly a thousand years
ago, it had ample time and verge enough to assume another and a foreign
dress, the corpus however remaining untouched. Under the hands of a
host of editors, scribes and copyists, who have no scruples anent
changing words, names and dates, abridging descriptions and attaching
their own decorations, the florid and rhetorical Persian would readily
be converted into the straight-forward, business-like, matter of fact
Arabic. And what easier than to islamise the old Zoroasterism, to
transform Ahrimán into Iblís the Shaytan, Ján bin Ján into Father Adam,
and the Divs and Peris of Kayomars and the olden Guebre Kings into the
Jinns and Jinniyahs of Sulayman? Volumes are spoken by the fact that
the Arab adapter did not venture to change the Persic names of the two
heroines and of the royal brothers or to transfer the mise-en-scène any
whither from Khorasan or outer Persia. Where the story has not been too
much worked by the literato’s pen, for instance the “Ten Wazirs” (in
the Bresl. Edit. vi. 191–343) which is the Guebre Bakhtiyár-námah, the
names and incidents are old Iranian and with few exceptions distinctly
Persian. And at times we can detect the process of transition, e.g.
when the Mázin of Khorásán[FN#163] of the Wortley Montagu MS. becomes
the Hasan of Bassorah of the Turner Macan MS. (Mac. Edit.).

Evidently the learned Baron had not studied such works as the Totá-kaháni
 or Parrot-chat which, notably translated by Nakhshabi from
the Sanskrit Suka-Saptati,[FN#164] has now become as orthodoxically
Moslem as The Nights. The old Hindu Rajah becomes Ahmad Sultan of
Balkh, the Prince is Maymún and his wife Khujisteh. Another
instance of such radical change is the later Syriac version of
Kaliliah wa Dimnah,[FN#165] old “Pilpay” converted to Christianity.
We find precisely the same process in European folk-lore; for
instance the Gesta Romanorum in which, after five hundred years,
the life, manners and customs of the Romans lapse into the knightly
and chivalrous, the Christian and ecclesiastical developments of
mediæval Europe. Here, therefore, I hold that the Austrian Arabist
has proved his point whilst the Frenchman has failed.

Mr. Lane, during his three years’ labour of translation, first
accepted Von Hammer’s view and then came round to that of De Sacy;
differing, however, in minor details, especially in the native
country of The Nights. Syria had been chosen because then the most
familiar to Europeans: the “Wife of Bath” had made three
pilgrimages to Jerusalem; but few cared to visit the barbarous and
dangerous Nile-Valley. Mr. Lane, however, was an enthusiast for
Egypt or rather for Cairo, the only part of it he knew; and, when
he pronounces The Nights to be of purely “Arab,” that is, of
Nilotic origin, his opinion is entitled to no more deference than
his deriving the sub-African and negroid Fellah from Arabia, the
land per excellentiam of pure and noble blood. Other authors have
wandered still further afield. Some finding Mosul idioms in the
Recueil, propose “Middlegates” for its birth-place and Mr. W. G. P.
Palgrave boldly says “The original of this entertaining work
appears to have been composed in Baghdad about the eleventh
century; another less popular but very spirited version is probably
of Tunisian authorship and somewhat later.”[FN#166]

                         B.—The Date.

The next point to consider is the date of The Nights in its present
form; and here opinions range between the tenth and the sixteenth
centuries. Professor Galland began by placing it arbitrarily in the
middle of the thirteenth. De Sacy, who abstained from detailing
reasons and who, forgetting the number of editors and scribes
through whose hands it must have passed, argued only from the
nature of the language and the peculiarities of style, proposed le
milieu du neuvième siècle de l’hégire ( = A.D. 1445–6) as its
latest date. Mr. Hole, who knew The Nights only through Galland’s
version, had already advocated in his “Remarks” the close of the
fifteenth century; and M. Caussin (de Perceval), upon the authority
of a supposed note in Galland’s MS.[FN#167] (vol. iii. fol. 20,
verso), declares the compiler to have been living in A.D. 1548 and
1565. Mr. Lane says “Not begun earlier than the last fourth of the
fifteenth century nor ended before the first fourth of the
sixteenth,” i.e. soon after Egypt was conquered by Selim, Sultan of
the Osmanli Turks in A.D. 1517. Lastly the learned Dr. Weil says in
his far too scanty Vorwort (p. ix. 2nd Edit.):-“Das
wahrscheinlichste dürfte also sein, das im 15. Jahrhundert ein
Egyptier nach altern Vorbilde Erzählungen für 1001 Nächte theils
erdichtete, theils nach mündlichen Sagen, oder frühern
schriftlichen Aufzeichnungen, bearbeitete, dass er aber entweder
sein Werk nicht vollendete, oder dass ein Theil desselben verloren
ging, so dass das Fehlende von Andern bis ins 16. Jahrhundert
hinein durch neue Erzählungen ergänzt wurde.”

But, as justly observed by Mr. Payne, the first step when enquiring
into the original date of The Nights is to determine the nucleus of
the Repertory by a comparison of the four printed texts and the
dozen MSS. which have been collated by scholars.[FN#168] This
process makes it evident that the tales common to all are the
following thirteen:—

1.   The Introduction (with a single incidental story “The Bull and
     the Ass”).
2.   The Trader and the Jinni (with three incidentals).
3.   The Fisherman and the Jinni (with four).
4.   The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad (with six).
5.   The Tale of the Three Apples.
6.   The Tale of Núr-al-Dín Ali and his son Badr al-Dín Hasan.
7.   The Hunchback’s Tale (with eleven incidentals).
8.   Nur al-Dín and Anís al-Jalís.
9.   Tale of Ghánim bin ’Ayyúb (with two incidentals).
10.  Alí bin Bakkár and Shams al-Nahár (with two).
11.  Tale of Kamar al-Zamán.
12.  The Ebony Horse; and
13.  Julnár the Seaborn.

These forty-two tales, occupying one hundred and twenty Nights,
form less than a fifth part of the whole collection which in the
Mac. Edit.[FN#169] contains a total of two hundred and sixty-four.
Hence Dr. Patrick Russell,[FN#170] the Natural Historian of
Aleppo,[FN#171] whose valuable monograph amply deserves study even
in this our day, believed that the original Nights did not
outnumber two hundred, to which subsequent writers added till the
total of a thousand and one was made up. Dr. Jonathan
Scott,[FN#172] who quotes Russell, “held it highly probable that
the tales of the original Arabian Nights did not run through more
than two hundred and eighty Nights, if so many.” So this suggestion
I may subjoin, “habent sue fate libelli.” Galland, who preserves in
his Mille et une Nuits only about one fourth of The Nights, ends
them in No. cclxiv[FN#173] with the seventh voyage of Sindbad:
after that he intentionally omits the dialogue between the sisters
and the reckoning of time, to proceed uninterruptedly with the
tales. And so his imitator, Petis de la Croix,[FN#174] in his Mille
et un Jours, reduces the thousand to two hundred and thirty-two.

The internal chronological evidence offered by the Collection is
useful only in enabling us to determine that the tales were not
written _after_ a certain epoch: the actual dates and, consequently,
all deductions from them, are vitiated by the habits of the
scribes. For instance we find the Tale of the Fisherman and the
Jinni (vol. i. 41) placed in A.H. 169 = A.D. 785,[FN#175] which is
hardly possible. The immortal Barber in the “Tailor’s Tale” (vol.
i. 304) places his adventure with the unfortunate lover on Safar
10, A.H. 653 ( = March 25th, 1255) and 7,320 years of the era of
Alexander.[FN#176] This is supported in his Tale of Himself (vol.
i. pp. 317–348), where he dates his banishment from Baghdad during
the reign of the penultimate Abbaside, Al-Mustansir bi
’llah[FN#177] (A.H. 623–640 = 1225–1242), and his return to Baghdad
after the accession of another Caliph who can be no other but Al-Muntasim
 bi ’llah (A.H. 640–656 = A.D. 1242–1258). Again at the end
of the tale (vol. i. 350) he is described as “an ancient man, past
his ninetieth year” and “a very old man” in the days of Al-Mustansir
 (vol. i. 318); so that the Hunchback’s adventure can
hardly be placed earlier than A.D. 1265 or seven years after the
storming of Baghdad by Huláku Khan, successor of Janghíz Khan, a
terrible catastrophe which resounded throughout the civilised
world. Yet there is no allusion to this crucial epoch and the total
silence suffices to invalidate the date.[FN#178] Could we assume it
as true, by adding to A.D. 1265 half a century for the composition
of the Hunchback’s story and its incidentals, we should place the
earliest date in A.D. 1315.

As little can we learn from inferences which have been drawn from
the body of the book: at most they point to its several editions or
redactions. In the Tale of the “Ensorcelled Prince” (vol. i. 77)
Mr. Lane (i. 135) conjectured that the four colours of the fishes
were suggested by the sumptuary laws of the Mameluke Soldan,
Mohammed ibn Kala’un, “subsequently to the commencement of the
eighth century of the Flight, or fourteenth of our era.” But he
forgets that the same distinction of dress was enforced by the
Caliph Omar after the capture of Jerusalem in A.D. 636; that it was
revived by Harun al-Rashid, a contemporary of Carolus Magnus and
that it was noticed as a long standing grievance by the so-called
Mandeville in A.D. 1322. In the Tale of the Porter and the Ladies
of Baghdad the “Sultáni oranges” (vol. i. 83) have been connected
with Sultáníyah city in Persian Irák, which was founded about the
middle of the thirteenth century: but “Sultáni” may simply mean
“royal,” a superior growth. The same story makes mention (vol. i.
94) of Kalandars or religious mendicants, a term popularly
corrupted, even in writing, to Karandal.[FN#179] Here again
“Kalandar” may be due only to the scribes as the Bresl. Edit. reads
Sa’alúk = asker, beggar. The Khan al-Masrúr in the Nazarene
Broker’s story (i. 265) was a ruin during the early ninth century
A.H. = A.D. 1420; but the Báb Zuwaylah (i. 269) dates from A.D.
1087. In the same tale occurs the Darb al-Munkari (or Munakkari)
which is probably the Darb al-Munkadi of Al-Makrizi’s careful
topography, the Khitat (ii. 40). Here we learn that in his time
(about A.D. 1430) the name had become obsolete, and the highway was
known as Darb al-Amír Baktamír al-Ustaddar from one of two high
officials who both died in the fourteenth century (circ. A.D.
1350). And lastly we have the Khan al-Jáwali built about A.D. 1320.
In Badr al-Din Hasan (vol. i. 237) “Sáhib” is given as a Wazirial
title and it dates only from the end of the fourteenth
century.[FN#180] In Sindbad the Seaman, there is an allusion (vol.
vi. 67) to the great Hindu Kingdom, Vijayanagar of the
Narasimha,[FN#181] the great power of the Deccan; but this may be
due to editors or scribes as the despotism was founded only in the
fourteenth century(A.D. 1320). The Ebony Horse (vol. v. 1)
apparently dates before Chaucer; and “The Sleeper and The Waker”
(Bresl. Edit. iv. 134–189) may precede Shakespeare’s “Taming of the
Shrew”: no stress, however, can be laid upon such resemblances, the
nouvelles being world-wide. But when we come to the last stories,
especially to Kamar al-Zaman II. and the tale of Ma’arúf, we are
apparently in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first
contains (Night cmlxxvii.) the word Láwandiyah = Levantine, the
mention of a watch = Sá’ah in the next Night[FN#182]; and, further
on (cmlxxvi.), the “Shaykh Al-Islam,” an officer invented by
Mohammed II. after the capture of Stambul in A.D. 1453. In Ma’arúf
the ’Ádiliyah is named; the mosque founded outside the Bab al-Nasr
by Al-Malik al-’Ádil, Túmán Bey in A.H. 906 = A.D. 1501. But, I
repeat, all these names may be mere interpolations.

On the other hand, a study of the vie intime in Al-Islam and of the
manners and customs of the people proves that the body of the work,
as it now stands, must have been written before A.D. 1400. The
Arabs use wines, ciders and barley-beer, not distilled spirits;
they have no coffee or tobacco and, while familiar with small-pox
(judrí), they ignore syphilis. The battles in The Nights are fought
with bows and javelins, swords, spears (for infantry) and lances
(for cavalry); and, whenever fire-arms are mentioned, we must
suspect the scribe. Such is the case with the Madfa’ or cannon by
means of which Badr Al-Din Hasan breaches the bulwarks of the Lady
of Beauty’s virginity (i. 223). This consideration would determine
the work to have been written before the fourteenth century. We
ignore the invention-date and the inventor of gunpowder, as of all
old discoveries which have affected mankind at large: all we know
is that the popular ideas betray great ignorance and we are led to
suspect that an explosive compound, having been discovered in the
earliest ages of human society, was utilised by steps so gradual
that history has neglected to trace the series. According to
Demmin[FN#183], bullets for stuffing with some incendiary
composition, in fact bombs, were discovered by Dr. Keller in the
Palafites or Crannogs of Switzerland; and the Hindu’s Agni-Astar
(“fire-weapon”), Agni-bán (“fire-arrow”) and Shatagni (“hundred-killer
”), like the Roman Phalarica, and the Greek fire of
Byzantium, suggest explosives. Indeed, Dr. Oppert[FN#184] accepts
the statement of Flavius Philostratus that when Appolonius of
Tyana, that grand semi-mythical figure, was travelling in India, he
learned the reason why Alexander of Macedon desisted from attacking
the Oxydracæ who live between the Ganges and the Hyphasis (Satadru
or Sutledge):—“These holy men, beloved by the gods, overthrow
their enemies with tempests and thunderbolts shot from their
walls.” Passing over the Arab sieges of Constantinople (A.D. 668)
and Meccah (A.D. 690) and the disputed passage in Firishtah
touching the Tufang or musket during the reign of Mahmúd the
Ghaznevite[FN#185] (ob. A.D. 1030), we come to the days of Alphonso
the Valiant, whose long and short guns, used at the Siege of Madrid
in A.D. 1084, are preserved in the Armeria Real. Viardot has noted
that the African Arabs first employed cannon in A.D. 1200, and that
the Maghribis defended Algeciras near Gibraltar with great guns in
A. D. 1247, and utilised them to besiege Seville in A.D. 1342. This
last feat of arms introduced the cannon into barbarous Northern
Europe, and it must have been known to civilised Asia for many a
decade before that date.

The mention of wine in The Nights, especially the Nabíz or
fermented infusion of raisins well known to the præ-Mohammeden
Badawis, perpetually recurs. As a rule, except only in the case of
holy personages and mostly of the Caliph Al-Rashid, the “service of
wine” appears immediately after the hands are washed; and women, as
well as men, drink, like true Orientals, for the honest purpose of
getting drunk—la recherche de l’idéal, as the process has been
called. Yet distillation became well known in the fourteenth
century. Amongst the Greeks and Romans it was confined to
manufacturing aromatic waters, and Nicander the poet (B.C. 140)
used for a still the term ἄμβιξ, like the Irish “pot” and its
produce “poteen.” The simple art of converting salt water into
fresh, by boiling the former and passing the steam through a cooled
pipe into a recipient, would not have escaped the students of the
Philosopher’s “stone;” and thus we find throughout Europe the
Arabic modifications of Greek terms Alchemy, Alembic (Al-ἄμβιξ),
Chemistry and Elixir; while “Alcohol” (Al-Kohl), originally meaning
“extreme tenuity or impalpable state of pulverulent substances,”
clearly shows the origin of the article. Avicenna, who died in A.H.
428 = 1036, nearly two hundred years before we read of distillation
in Europe, compared the human body with an alembic, the belly being
the cucurbit and the head the capital:—he forgot one important
difference but n’importe. Spirits of wine were first noticed in the
xiiith century, when the Arabs had overrun the Western
Mediterranean, by Arnaldus de Villa Nova, who dubs the new
invention a universal panacea; and his pupil, Raymond Lully (nat.
Majorca A.D. 1236), declared this essence of wine to be a boon from
the Deity. Now The Nights, even in the latest adjuncts, never
allude to the “white coffee” of the “respectable” Moslem, the Ráki
(raisin-brandy) or Ma-hayát (aqua-vitæ) of the modern Mohametan:
the drinkers confine themselves to wine like our contemporary
Dalmatians, one of the healthiest and the most vigorous of
seafaring races in Europe.

Syphilis also, which at the end of the xvth century began to infect
Europe, is ignored by The Nights. I do not say it actually began:
diseases do not begin except with the dawn of humanity; and their
history, as far as we know, is simple enough. They are at first
sporadic and comparatively non-lethal: at certain epochs which we
can determine, and for reasons which as yet we cannot, they break
out into epidemics raging with frightful violence: they then
subside into the endemic state and lastly they return to the milder
sporadic form. For instance, “English cholera” was known of old: in
1831 (Oct. 26) the Asiatic type took its place and now, after
sundry violent epidemics, the disease is becoming endemic on the
Northern seaboard of the Mediterranean, notably in Spain and Italy.
So small-pox (Al-judrí, vol. i. 256) passed over from Central
Africa to Arabia in the year of Mohammed’s birth (A.D. 570) and
thence overspread the civilised world, as an epidemic, an endemic
and a sporadic successively. The “Greater Pox” has appeared in
human bones of pre historic graves and Moses seems to mention
gonorrhœa (Levit. xv. 12). Passing over allusions in Juvenal and
Martial,[FN#186] we find Eusebius relating that Galerius died (A.D.
302) of ulcers on the genitals and other parts of his body; and,
about a century afterwards, Bishop Palladius records that one Hero,
after conversation with a prostitute, fell a victim to an abscess
on the penis (phagedænic shanker?). In 1347 the famous Joanna of
Naples founded (æt. 23), in her town of Avignon, a bordel whose in-mates
 were to be medically inspected a measure to which England
(proh pudor!) still objects. In her Statuts du Lieu-publique
d’Avignon, No. iv. she expressly mentions the _Mal vengut de
paillardise_. Such houses, says Ricord who studied the subject since
1832, were common in France after A.D. 1200; and sporadic venereals
were known there. But in A.D. 1493–94 an epidemic broke out with
alarming intensity at Barcelona, as we learn from the “Tractado
llamado fructo de todos los Sanctos contra el mal serpentino,
venido de la Isla espanola,” of Rodrigo Ruiz Días, the specialist.
In Santo Domingo the disease was common under the names Hipas,
Guaynaras and Taynastizas: hence the opinion in Europe that it
arose from the mixture of European and “Indian” blood.[FN#187] Some
attributed it to the Gypsies who migrated to Western Europe in the
xvth century:[FN#188] others to the Moriscos expelled from Spain.
But the pest got its popular name after the violent outbreak at
Naples in A.D. 1493–4, when Charles VIII. of Anjou with a large
army of mercenaries, Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Germans, attacked
Ferdinand II. Thence it became known as the Mal de Naples and
Morbus Gallicus—una gallica being still the popular term in neo
Latin lands—and the “French disease” in England. As early as July
1496 Marin Sanuto (Journal i. 171) describes with details the “Mal
Franzoso.” The scientific “syphilis” dates from Fracastori’s poem
(A.D. 1521) in which Syphilus the Shepherd is struck like Job, for
abusing the sun. After crippling a Pope (Sixtus IV.[FN#189]) and
killing a King (Francis I.) the Grosse Vérole began to abate its
violence, under the effects of mercury it is said; and became
endemic, a stage still shown at Scherlievo near Fiume, where legend
says it was implanted by the Napoleonic soldiery. The Aleppo and
other “buttons” also belong apparently to the same grade. Elsewhere
it settled as a sporadic and now it appears to be dying out while
gonorrhœa is on the increase.[FN#190]

The Nights, I have said, belongs to the days before coffee (A.D.
1550) and tobacco (A.D. 1650) had overspread the East. The former,
which derives its name from the Káfá or Káffá province, lying south
of Abyssinia proper and peopled by the Sidáma Gallas, was
introduced to Mokha of Al-Yaman in A.D. 1429–30 by the Shaykh al-Sházili
 who lies buried there, and found a congenial name in the
Arabic Kahwah=old wine.[FN#191] In The Nights (Mac. Edit.) it is
mentioned twelve times[FN#192]; but never in the earlier tales:
except in the case of Kamar al-Zaman II. it evidently does not
belong to the epoch and we may fairly suspect the scribe. In the
xvith century coffee began to take the place of wine in the nearer
East; and it gradually ousted the classical drink from daily life
and from folk-tales.

It is the same with tobacco, which is mentioned only once by The
Nights (cmxxxi.), in conjunction with meat, vegetables and fruit
and where it is called “Tábah.” Lane (iii. 615) holds it to be the
work of a copyist; but in the same tale of Abu Kir and Abu Sir,
sherbet and coffee appear to have become en vogue, in fact to have
gained the ground they now hold. The result of Lord Macartney’s
Mission to China was a suggestion that smoking might have
originated spontaneously in the Old World.[FN#193] This is
un-doubtedly true. The Bushmen and other wild tribes of Southern
Africa threw their Dakhá (_cannabis indica_) on the fire and sat
round it inhaling the intoxicating fumes. Smoking without tobacco
was easy enough. The North American Indians of the Great Red Pipe
Stone Quarry and those who lived above the line where nicotiana
grew, used the kinni-kinik or bark of the red willow and some seven
other succedanea.[FN#194] But tobacco proper, which soon superseded
all materials except hemp and opium, was first adopted by the
Spaniards of Santo Domingo in A.D. 1496 and reached England in
1565. Hence the word, which, amongst the so-called Red Men, denoted
the pipe, the container, not the contained, spread over the Old
World as a generic term with additions, like “Tutun,”[FN#195] for
special varieties. The change in English manners brought about by
the cigar after dinner has already been noticed; and much of the
modified sobriety of the present day may be attributed to the
influence of the Holy Herb en cigarette. Such, we know from history
was its effect amongst Moslems; and the normal wine-parties of The
Nights suggest that the pipe was unknown even when the latest tales
were written.

C.

We know absolutely nothing of the author or authors who produced
our marvellous Recueil. Galland justly observes (Epist. Dedic.),
“probably this great work is not by a single hand; for how can we
suppose that one man alone could own a fancy fertile enough to
invent so many ingenious fictions?” Mr. Lane, and Mr. Lane alone,
opined that the work was written in Egypt by one person or at most
by two, one ending what the other had begun, and that he or they
had re-written the tales and completed the collection by new matter
composed or arranged for the purpose. It is hard to see how the
distinguished Arabist came to such a conclusion: at most it can be
true only of the editors and scribes of MSS. evidently copied from
each other, such as the Mac. and the Bul. texts. As the Reviewer
(Forbes Falconer?) in the “Asiatic Journal” (vol. xxx., 1839) says,
“Every step we have taken in the collation of these agreeable
fictions has confirmed us in the belief that the work called the
Arabian Nights is rather a vehicle for stories, partly fixed and
partly arbitrary, than a collection fairly deserving, from its
constant identity with itself, the name of a distinct work, and the
reputation of having wholly emanated from the same inventive mind.
To say nothing of the improbability of supposing that one
individual, with every license to build upon the foundation of
popular stories, a work which had once received a definite form
from a single writer, would have been multiplied by the copyist
with some regard at least to his arrangement of words as well as
matter. But the various copies we have seen bear about as much
mutual resemblance as if they had passed through the famous process
recommended for disguising a plagiarism: ‘Translate your English
author into French and again into English’.”

Moreover, the style of the several Tales, which will be considered
in a future page (§ iii.), so far from being homogeneous is
heterogeneous in the extreme. Different nationalities show themselves;
West Africa, Egypt and Syria are all represented and, while
some authors are intimately familiar with Baghdad, Damascus and
Cairo, others are equally ignorant. All copies, written and
printed, absolutely differ in the last tales and a measure of the
divergence can be obtained by comparing the Bresl. Edit. with the
Mac. text: indeed it is my conviction that the MSS. preserved in
Europe would add sundry volumes full of tales to those hitherto
translated; and here the Wortley Montagu copy can be taken as a
test. We may, I believe, safely compare the history of The Nights
with the so-called Homeric poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, a
collection of immortal ballads and old Epic formulæ and verses
traditionally handed down from rhapsode to rhapsode, incorporated
in a slowly-increasing body of poetry and finally welded together
about the age of Pericles.

To conclude. From the data above given I hold myself justified in
drawing the following deductions:—

     1.  The framework of the book is purely Persian perfunctorily
arabised; the archetype being the Hazár Afsánah.[FN#196]

     2.  The oldest tales, such as Sindibad (the Seven Wazirs) and
King Jili’ád, may date from the reign of Al-Mansur, eighth century
A.D.

     3. The thirteen tales mentioned above (p. 78) as the nucleus
of the Repertory, together with “Dalilah the Crafty,”[FN#197] may
be placed in our tenth century.

     4. The latest tales, notably Kamar al-Zaman the Second and

Ma’aruf the Cobbler, are as late as the sixteenth century.


     5. The work assumed its present form in the thirteenth

century.


     6. The author is unknown for the best reason; there never was
one: for information touching the editors and copyists we must
await the fortunate discovery of some MSS.

                             § II.
                     THE NIGHTS IN EUROPE.

The history of The Nights in Europe is one of slow and gradual
development. The process was begun (1704–17) by Galland, a
Frenchman, continued (1823) by Von Hammer an Austro-German, and
finished by Mr. John Payne (1882–84) an Englishman. But we must
not forget that it is wholly and solely to the genius of the Gaul
that Europe owes “The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments” over which
Western childhood and youth have spent so many spelling hours.
Antoine Galland was the first to discover the marvellous fund of
material for the story-teller buried in the Oriental mine; and he
had in a high degree that art of telling a tale which is far more
captivating than culture or scholarship. Hence his delightful
version (or perversion) became one of the world’s classics and at
once made Sheherazade and Dinarzarde, Haroun Alraschid, the
Calendars and a host of other personages as familiar to the home
reader as Prospero, Robinson Crusoe, Lemuel Gulliver and Dr.
Primrose. Without the name and fame won for the work by the
brilliant paraphrase of the learned and single-minded Frenchman,
Lane’s curious hash and latinized English, at once turgid and
emasculated, would have found few readers. Mr. Payne’s admirable
version appeals to the Orientalist and the “stylist,” not to the
many-headed; and mine to the anthropologist and student of
Eastern manners and customs. Galland did it and alone he did it:
his fine literary flaire, his pleasing style, his polished taste
and perfect tact at once made his work take high rank in the
republic of letters nor will the immortal fragment ever be
superseded in the infallible judgment of childhood. As the
Encyclopædia Britannica has been pleased to ignore this excellent
man and admirable Orientalist, numismatologist and littérateur,
the reader may not be unwilling to see a short sketch of his
biography.[FN#198]

Antoine Galland was born in A.D. 1646 of peasant parents “poor
and honest” at Rollot, a little bourg in Picardy some two leagues
from Montdidier. He was a seventh child and his mother, left a
widow in early life and compelled to earn her livelihood, saw
scant chance of educating him when the kindly assistance of a
Canon of the Cathedral and President of the Collége de Noyon
relieved her difficulties. In this establishment Galland studied
Greek and Hebrew for ten years, after which the “strait thing at
home” apprenticed him to a trade. But he was made for letters;
he hated manual labour and he presently removed en cachette to
Paris, where he knew only an ancient kinswoman. She introduced
him to a priestly relative of the Canon of Noyon, who in turn
recommended him to the “Sous-principal” of the Collége Du
Plessis. Here he made such notable progress in Oriental studies,
that M. Petitpied, a Doctor of the Sorbonne, struck by his
abilities, enabled him to study at the Collége Royal and
eventually to catalogue the Eastern MSS. in the great
ecclesiastical Society. Thence he passed to the Collége Mazarin,
where a Professor, M. Godouin, was making an experiment which
might be revived to advantage in our present schools. He
collected a class of boys, aged about four, and proposed to teach
them Latin speedily and easily by making them converse in the
classical language as well as read and write it.[FN#199] Galland,
his assistant, had not time to register success or failure before
he was appointed attaché-secretary to M. de Nointel named in 1660
Ambassadeur de France for Constantinople. His special province
was to study the dogmas and doctrines and to obtain official
attestations concerning the articles of the Orthodox (or Greek)
Christianity which had then been a subject of lively discussion
amongst certain Catholics, especially Arnauld (Antoine) and
Claude the Minister, and which even in our day occasionally crops
up amongst “Protestants.”[FN#200] Galland, by frequenting the
cafés and listening to the tale-teller, soon mastered Romaic and
grappled with the religious question, under the tuition of a
deposed Patriarch and of sundry Matráns or Metropolitans, whom
the persecutions of the Pashas had driven for refuge to the
Palais de France. M. de Nointel, after settling certain knotty
points in the Capitulations, visited the harbour-towns of the
Levant and the “Holy Places,” including Jerusalem, where Galland
copied epigraphs, sketched monuments and collected antiques, such
as the marbles in the Baudelot Gallery of which Père Dom Bernard
de Montfaucon presently published specimens in his “Palæographia
Græca,” etc. (Parisiis, 1708).

In Syria Galland was unable to buy a copy of The Nights: as he
expressly states in his Epistle Dedicatory, il a fallu le faire
venir de Syrie. But he prepared himself for translating it by
studying the manners and customs, the religion and superstitions
of the people; and in 1675, leaving his chief, who was ordered
back to Stambul, he returned to France. In Paris his numismatic
fame recommended him to MM. Vaillant, Carcary and Giraud who
strongly urged a second visit to the Levant, for the purpose of
collecting, and he set out without delay. In 1691 he made a
third journey, travelling at the expense of the Compagnie des
Indes-Orientales, with the main object of making purchases for
the Library and Museum of Colbert the magnificent. The
commission ended eighteen months afterwards with the changes of
the Company, when Colbert and the Marquis de Louvois caused him
to be created “Antiquary to the King,” Louis le Grand, and
charged him with collecting coins and medals for the royal
cabinet. As he was about to leave Smyrna, he had a narrow escape
from the earthquake and subsequent fire which destroyed some
fifteen thousand of the inhabitants: he was buried in the ruins;
but, his kitchen being cold as becomes a philosopher’s, he was
dug out unburnt.[FN#201]

Galland again returned to Paris where his familiarity with Arabic
and Hebrew, Persian and Turkish recommended him to MM. Thevenot
and Bignon: this first President of the Grand Council
acknowledged his services by a pension. He also became a
favourite with D’Herbelot whose Bibliothèque Orientale, left
unfinished at his death, he had the honour of completing and
prefacing.[FN#202] President Bignon died within the twelvemonth,
which made Galland attach himself in 1697 to M. Foucault,
Councillor of State and Intendant (governor) of Caen in Lower
Normandy, then famous for its academy: in his new patron’s fine
library and numismatic collection he found materials for a long
succession of works, including a translation of the
Koran.[FN#203] They recommended him strongly to the literary
world and in 1701 he was made a member of the Académie des
Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.

At Caen Galland issued in 1704,[FN#204] the first part of his
Mille et une Nuits, Contes Arabes traduits en François which at
once became famous as “The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.”
Mutilated, fragmentary and paraphrastic though the tales were,
the glamour of imagination, the marvel of the miracles and the
gorgeousness and magnificence of the scenery at once secured an
exceptional success; it was a revelation in romance, and the
public recognised that it stood in presence of a monumental
literary work. France was a-fire with delight at a something so
new, so unconventional, so entirely without purpose, religious,
moral or philosophical: the Oriental wanderer in his stately
robes was a startling surprise to the easy-going and utterly
corrupt Europe of the ancien régime with its indecently tight
garments and perfectly loose morals. “Ils produisirent,” said
Charles Nodier, a genius in his way, “dès le moment de leur
publication, cet effet qui assure aux productions de l’esprit une
vogue populaire, quoiqu’ils appartinssent à une littérature peu
connue en France; et que ce genre de composition admit ou plutôt
exigeât des détails de moeurs, de caractère, de costume et de
localités absolument étrangers à toutes les idées établies dans
nos contes et nos romans. On fut étonné du charme que résultait
du leur lecture. C’est que la vérité des sentimens, la nouveauté
des tableaux, une imagination féconde en prodiges, un coloris
plein de chaleur, l’attrait d’une sensibilité sans prétention, et
le sel d’un comique sans caricature, c’est que l’esprit et le
naturel enfin plaisent partout, et plaisent à tout le
monde.”[FN#205]

The Contes Arabes at once made Galland’s name and a popular tale
is told of them and him known to all reviewers who, however,
mostly mangle it. In the Biographie Universelle of
Michaud[FN#206] we find:—Dans les deux premiers volumes de ces
contes l’exorde était toujours, “Ma chère sur, si vous ne dormez
pas, faites-nous un de ces contes que vous savez.” Quelques
jeunes gens, ennuyés de cette plate uniformité, allèrent une nuit
qu’il faisait très-grand froid, frapper à la porte de l’auteur,
qui courut en chemise à sa fenêtre. Après l’avoir fait morfondre
quelque temps par diverses questions insignificantes, ils
terminèrent en lui disant, “Ah, Monsieur Galland, si vous ne
dormez pas, faites-nous un de ces beaux contes que vous savez si
bien.” Galland profita de la leçon, et supprima dans les volumes
suivants le préambule qui lui avait attiré la plaisanterie. This
legend has the merit of explaining why the Professor so soon gave
up the Arab framework which he had deliberately adopted.

The Nights was at once translated from the French[FN#207] though
when, where and by whom no authority seems to know. In Lowndes’
“Bibliographer’s Manual” the English Editio Princeps is thus
noticed, “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments translated from the
French, London, 1724, 12mo, 6 vols.” and a footnote states that
this translation, very inaccurate and vulgar in its diction, was
often reprinted. In 1712 Addison introduced into the Spectator
(No. 535, Nov. 13) the Story of Alnaschar ( = Al-Nashshár, the
Sawyer) and says that his remarks on Hope “may serve as a moral
to an Arabian tale which I find translated into French by
Monsieur Galland.” His version appears, from the tone and style,
to have been made by himself, and yet in that year a second
English edition had appeared. The nearest approach to the Edit.
Princeps in the British Museum[FN#208] is a set of six volumes
bound in three and corresponding with Galland’s first half dozen.
Tomes i. and ii. are from the fourth edition of 1713, Nos. iii.
and iv. are from the second of 1712 and v. and vi. are from the
third of 1715. It is conjectured that the two first volumes were
reprinted several times apart from their subsequents, as was the
fashion of the day; but all is mystery. We (my friends and I)
have turned over scores of books in the British Museum, the
University Library and the Advocates’ Libraries of Edinburgh and
Glasgow: I have been permitted to put the question in “Notes and
Queries” and in the “Antiquary”; but all our researches hitherto
have been in vain.

The popularity of The Nights in England must have rivalled their
vogue in France, judging from the fact that in 1713, or nine
years after Galland’s Edit. Prin. appeared, they had already
reached a fourth issue. Even the ignoble national jealousy which
prompted Sir William Jones grossly to abuse that valiant scholar,
Auquetil du Perron, could not mar their popularity. But as there
are men who cannot read Pickwick, so they were not wanting who
spoke of “Dreams of the distempered fancy of the East.”[FN#209]
“When the work was first published in England,” says Henry
Webber,[FN#210] “it seems to have made a considerable impression
upon the public.” Pope in 1720 sent two volumes (French? or
English?) to Bishop Atterbury, without making any remark on the
work; but, from his very silence, it may be presumed that he was
not displeased with the perusal. The bishop, who does not appear
to have joined a relish for the flights of imagination to his
other estimable qualities, expressed his dislike of these tales
pretty strongly and stated it to be his opinion, formed on the
frequent descriptions of female dress, that they were the work of
some Frenchman (Petis de la Croix, a mistake afterwards corrected
by Warburton). The Arabian Nights, however, quickly made their
way to public favour. “We have been informed of a singular
instance of the effect they produced soon after their first
appearance. Sir James Stewart, Lord Advocate for Scotland,
having one Saturday evening found his daughters employed in
reading these volumes, seized them with a rebuke for spending the
evening before the ‘Sawbbath’ in such worldly amusement; but the
grave advocate himself became a prey to the fascination of the
tales, being found on the morning of the Sabbath itself employed
in their perusal, from which he had not risen the whole night.”
As late as 1780 Dr. Beattie professed himself uncertain whether
they were translated or fabricated by M. Galland; and, while Dr.
Pusey wrote of them “Noctes Mille et Una dictæ, quæ in omnium
firmè populorum cultiorum linguas conversæ, in deliciis omnium
habentur, manibusque omnium terentur,”[FN#211] the amiable
Carlyle, in the gospel according to Saint Froude,
characteristically termed them “downright lies” and forbade the
house to such “unwholesome literature.” What a sketch of
character in two words!

The only fault found in France with the Contes Arabes was that
their style is peu correcte; in fact they want classicism. Yet
all Gallic imitators, Trébutien included, have carefully copied
their leader and Charles Nodier remarks:—“Il me semble que l’on
n’a pas rendu assez de justice au style de Galland. Abondant sans
être prolixe, naturel et familier sans être lâche ni trivial, il
ne manque jamais de cette elegance qui résulte de la facilité, et
qui présente je ne sais quel mélange de la naïveté de Perrault et
de la bonhomie de La Fontaine.”

Our Professor, with a name now thoroughly established, returned
in 1706 to Paris, where he was an assiduous and efficient member
of the Société Numismatique and corresponded largely with foreign
Orientalists. Three years afterwards he was made Professor of
Arabic at the Collége de France, succeeding Pierre Dippy; and,
during the next half decade, he devoted himself to publishing his
valuable studies. Then the end came. In his last illness, an
attack of asthma complicated with pectoral mischief, he sent to
Noyon for his nephew Julien Galland[FN#212] to assist him in
ordering his MSS. and in making his will after the simplest
military fashion: he bequeathed his writings to the Bibliothèque
du Roi, his Numismatic Dictionary to the Academy and his Alcoran
to the Abbé Bignon. He died, aged sixty-nine on February 17,
1715, leaving his second part of The Nights unpublished.[FN#213]

Professor Galland was a French littérateur of the good old school
which is rapidly becoming extinct. Homme vrai dans les moindres
choses (as his Éloge stated); simple in life and manners and
single-hearted in his devotion to letters, he was almost childish
in worldly matters, while notable for penetration and acumen in
his studies. He would have been as happy, one of his biographers
remarks, in teaching children the elements of education as he was
in acquiring his immense erudition. Briefly, truth and honesty,
exactitude and indefatigable industry characterised his most
honourable career.

Galland informs us (Epist. Ded.) that his MS. consisted of four
volumes, only three of which are extant,[FN#214] bringing the
work down to Night cclxxxii., or about the beginning of
“Camaralzaman.” The missing portion, if it contained like the
other volumes 140 pages, would end that tale together with the
Stories of Ghánim and the Enchanted (Ebony) Horse; and such is
the disposition in the Bresl. Edit. which mostly favours in its
ordinance the text used by the first translator. But this would
hardly have filled more than two-thirds of his volumes; for the
other third he interpolated, or is supposed to have interpolated,
the ten[FN#215] following tales.

1.  Histoire du prince Zeyn Al-asnam et du Roi des
Génies.[FN#216]
2.  Histoire de Codadad et de ses frères.
3.  Histoire de la Lampe merveilleuse (Aladdin).
4.  Histoire de l’aveugle Baba Abdalla.
5.  Histoire de Sidi Nouman.
6.  Histoire de Cogia Hassan Alhabbal.
7.  Histoire d’Ali Baba, et de Quarante Voleurs exterminés par
une Esclave.
8.  Histoire d’Ali Cogia, marchand de Bagdad.
9.  Histoire du prince Ahmed et de la fée Peri-Banou.
10. Histoire de deux Surs jalouses de leur Cadette.[FN#217]

Concerning these interpolations which contain two of the best and
most widely known stories in the work, Aladdin and the Forty
Thieves, conjectures have been manifold but they mostly run upon
three lines. De Sacy held that they were found by Galland in the
public libraries of Paris. Mr. Chenery, whose acquaintance with
Arabic grammar was ample, suggested that the Professor had
borrowed them from the recitations of the Rawis, rhapsodists or
professional story-tellers in the bazars of Smyrna and other
ports of the Levant. The late Mr. Henry Charles Coote (in the
“Folk-Lore Record,” vol. iii. Part ii. p. 178 et seq.), “On the
source of some of M. Galland’s Tales,” quotes from popular
Italian, Sicilian and Romaic stories incidents identical with
those in Prince Ahmad, Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Envious Sisters,
suggesting that the Frenchman had heard these paramythia in
Levantine coffee-houses and had inserted them into his unequalled
corpus fabularum. Mr. Payne (ix. 268) conjectures the
probability “of their having been composed at a comparatively
recent period by an inhabitant of Baghdad, in imitation of the
legends of Haroun er Rashid and other well-known tales of the
original work;” and adds, “It is possible that an exhaustive
examination of the various MS. copies of the Thousand and One
Nights known to exist in the public libraries of Europe might yet
cast some light upon the question of the origin of the
interpolated Tales.” I quite agree with him, taking “The Sleeper
and the Waker” and “Zeyn Al-asnam” as cases in point; but I
should expect, for reasons before given, to find the stories in a
Persic rather than an Arabic MS. And I feel convinced that all
will be recovered: Galland was not the man to commit a literary
forgery.

As regards Aladdin, the most popular tale of the whole work, I am
convinced that it is genuine, although my unfortunate friend, the
late Professor Palmer, doubted its being an Eastern story. It is
laid down upon all the lines of Oriental fiction. The
mise-en-scène is China, “where they drink a certain warm liquor”
(tea); the hero’s father is a poor tailor; and, as in “Judar and
his Brethren,” the Maghribi Magician presently makes his
appearance, introducing the Wonderful Lamp and the Magical Ring.
Even the Sorcerer’s cry, “New lamps for old lamps!”—a prime
point—is paralleled in the Tale of the Fisherman’s Son,[FN#218]
where the Jew asks in exchange only old rings and the Princess,
recollecting that her husband kept a shabby, well-worn ring in
his writing-stand, and he being asleep, took it out and sent it
to the man. In either tale the palace is transported to a
distance and both end with the death of the wicked magician and
the hero and heroine living happily together ever after.

All Arabists have remarked the sins of omission and commission,
of abridgment, amplification and substitution, and the audacious
distortion of fact and phrase in which Galland freely indulged,
whilst his knowledge of Eastern languages proves that he knew
better. But literary license was the order of his day and at
that time French, always the most bégueule of European languages,
was bound by a rigorisme of the narrowest and the straightest of
lines from which the least écart condemned a man as a barbarian
and a _tudesque_. If we consider Galland fairly we shall find that
he errs mostly for a purpose, that of popularising his work; and
his success indeed justified his means. He has been derided (by
scholars) for “Hé Monsieur!” and “Ah Madame!”; but he could not
write “O mon sieur” and “O ma dame;” although we can borrow from
biblical and Shakespearean English, “O my lord!” and “O my lady!”
“Bon Dieu! ma sur” (which our translators English by “O
heavens,” Night xx.) is good French for Wa’lláhi—by Allah; and
“cinquante cavaliers bien faits” (“fifty handsome gentlemen on
horseback”) is a more familiar picture than fifty knights.
“L’officieuse Dinarzade” (Night lxi.), and “Cette plaisante
querelle des deux frères” (Night lxxii.) become ridiculous only
in translation—“the officious Dinarzade” and “this pleasant
quarrel;” while “ce qu’il y de remarquable” (Night lxxiii.) would
relieve the Gallic mind from the mortification of “Destiny
decreed.” “Plusieurs sortes de fruits et de bouteilles de vin”
(Night ccxxxi. etc.) Europeanises flasks and flaggons; and the
violent convulsions in which the girl dies (Night cliv., her head
having been cut off by her sister) is mere Gallic squeamishness:
France laughs at “le shoking” in England but she has only to look
at home especially during the reign of Galland’s contemporary—
Roi Soleil. The terrible “Old man” (Shaykh) “of the Sea” (-board
) is badly described by “l’incommode vieillard” (“the ill-natured
 old fellow”): “Brave Maimune” and “Agréable Maimune” are
hardly what a Jinni would say to a Jinniyah (ccxiii.); but they
are good Gallic. The same may be noted of “Plier les voiles pour
marque qu’il se rendait” (Night ccxxxv.), a European practice;
and of the false note struck in two passages. “Je m’estimais
heureuse d’avoir fait une si belle conquête” (Night lxvii.) gives
a Parisian turn; and, “Je ne puis voir sans horreur cet
abominable barbier que voilà: quoiqu’il soit né dans un pays où
tout le monde est blanc, il ne laisse pas à resembler a un
Éthiopien; mais il a l’âme encore plus noire et horrible que le
visage” (Night clvii.), is a mere affectation of Orientalism.
Lastly, “Une vieille dame de leur connaissance” (Night clviii.)
puts French polish upon the matter of fact Arab’s “an old woman.”

The list of absolute mistakes, not including violent liberties,
can hardly be held excessive. Professor Weil and Mr. Payne (ix.
271) justly charge Galland with making the Trader (Night i.)
throw away the shells (écorces) of the date which has only a
pellicle, as Galland certainly knew; but dates were not seen
every day in France, while almonds and walnuts were of the quatre
mendiants. He preserves the écorces, which later issues have
changed to noyaux, probably in allusion to the jerking practice
called Inwá. Again in the “First Shaykh’s Story” (vol. i. 27)
the “maillet” is mentioned as the means of slaughtering cattle,
because familiar to European readers: at the end of the tale it
becomes “le couteaufuneste.” In Badral Din a “tarte à la crême,”
so well known to the West, displaces, naturally enough, the
outlandish “mess of pomegranate-seeds.” Though the text
especially tells us the hero removed his bag-trousers (not only
“son habit”) and placed them under the pillow, a crucial fact in
the history, our Professor sends him to bed fully dressed,
apparently for the purpose of informing his readers in a foot-note
 that Easterns “se couchent en caleçon” (Night lxxx.). It
was mere ignorance to confound the arbalète or cross-bow with the
stone-bow (Night xxxviii.), but this has universally been done,
even by Lane who ought to have known better; and it was an
unpardonable carelessness or something worse to turn Nár (fire)
and Dún (in lieu of) into “le faux dieu Nardoun” (Night lxv.): as
this has been untouched by De Sacy, I cannot but conclude that he
never read the text with the translation. Nearly as bad also to
make the Jewish physician remark, when the youth gave him the
left wrist (Night cl.), “voilà une grande ignorance de ne savoir
pas que l’on presente la main droite à un médecin et non pas la
gauche”—whose exclusive use all travellers in the East must
know. I have noticed the incuriousness which translates “along
the Nile-shore” by “up towards Ethiopia” (Night cli.), and the
“Islands of the Children of Khaledan” (Night ccxi.) instead of
the Khálidatáni or Khálidát, the Fortunate Islands. It was by no
means “des petite soufflets” (“some taps from time to time with
her fingers”) which the sprightly dame administered to the
Barber’s second brother (Night clxxi.), but sound and heavy
“cuffs” on the nape; and the sixth brother (Night clxxx.) was not
“aux lèvres fendues” (“he of the hair-lips”), for they had been
cut off by the Badawi jealous of his fair wife. Abu al-Hasan
would not greet his beloved by saluting “le tapis à ses pieds:”
he would kiss her hands and feet. Haïatalnefous (Hayat al-Nufús,
Night ccxxvi.) would not “throw cold water in the Princess’s
face:” she would sprinkle it with eau-de-rose. “Camaralzaman” I.
addresses his two abominable wives in language purely European
(ccxxx.), “et de la vie il ne s’approcha d’elles,” missing one of
the fine touches of the tale which shows its hero a weak and
violent man, hasty and lacking the pundonor. “La belle
Persienne,” in the Tale of Nur al-Din, was no Persian; nor would
her master address her, “Venez çà, impertinente!” (“come hither,
impertinence”). In the story of Badr, one of the Comoro Islands
becomes “L’île de la Lune.” “Dog” and “dog-son” are not “injures
atroces et indignes d’un grand roi:” the greatest Eastern kings
allow themselves far more energetic and significant language.

Fitnah[FN#219] is by no means “Force de curs.” Lastly the
dénoûement of The Nights is widely different in French and in
Arabic; but that is probably not Galland’s fault, as he never saw
the original, and indeed he deserves high praise for having
invented so pleasant and sympathetic a close, inferior only to
the Oriental device.[FN#220]

Galland’s fragment has a strange effect upon the Orientalist and
those who take the scholastic view, be it wide or narrow. De
Sacy does not hesitate to say that the work owes much to his
fellow-countryman’s hand; but I judge otherwise: it is necessary
to dissociate the two works and to regard Galland’s paraphrase,
which contains only a quarter of The Thousand Nights and a Night,
as a wholly different book. Its attempts to amplify beauties and
to correct or conceal the defects and the grotesqueness of the
original, absolutely suppress much of the local colour, clothing
the bare body in the best of Parisian suits. It ignores the
rhymed prose and excludes the verse, rarely and very rarely
rendering a few lines in a balanced style. It generally rejects
the proverbs, epigrams and moral reflections which form the pith
and marrow of the book; and, worse still, it disdains those finer
touches of character which are often Shakespearean in their depth
and delicacy, and which, applied to a race of familiar ways and
thoughts, manners and customs, would have been the wonder and
delight of Europe. It shows only a single side of the gem that
has so many facets. By deference to public taste it was
compelled to expunge the often repulsive simplicity, the childish
indecencies and the wild orgies of the original, contrasting with
the gorgeous tints, the elevated morality and the religious tone
of passages which crowd upon them. We miss the odeur du sang
which taints the parfums du harem; also the humouristic tale and
the Rabelaisian outbreak which relieve and throw out into strong
relief the splendour of Empire and the havoc of Time. Considered
in this light it is a caput mortuum, a magnificent texture seen
on the wrong side; and it speaks volumes for the genius of the
man who could recommend it in such blurred and caricatured
condition to readers throughout the civilised world. But those
who look only at Galland’s picture, his effort to “transplant
into European gardens the magic flowers of Eastern fancy,” still
compare his tales with the sudden prospect of magnificent
mountains seen after a long desert-march: they arouse strange
longings and indescribable desires; their marvellous
imaginativeness produces an insensible brightening of mind and an
increase of fancy-power, making one dream that behind them lies
the new and unseen, the strange and unexpected—in fact, all the
glamour of the unknown.

The Nights has been translated into every far-extending Eastern
tongue, Persian, Turkish and Hindostani. The latter entitles
them Hikáyát al-Jalílah or Noble Tales, and the translation was
made by Munshi Shams al-Din Ahmad for the use of the College of
Fort George in A.H. 1252 = 1836.[FN#221] All these versions are
direct from the Arabic: my search for a translation of Galland
into any Eastern tongue has hitherto been fruitless.

I was assured by the late Bertholdy Seemann that the “language of
Hoffmann and Heine” contained a literal and complete translation
of The Nights; but personal enquiries at Leipzig and elsewhere
convinced me that the work still remains to be done. The first
attempt to improve upon Galland and to show the world what the
work really is was made by Dr. Max Habicht and was printed at
Breslau (1824–25), in fifteen small square volumes.[FN#222] Thus
it appeared before the “Tunis Manuscript”[FN#223] of which it
purports to be a translation. The German version is, if
possible, more condemnable than the Arabic original. It lacks
every charm of style; it conscientiously shirks every difficulty;
it abounds in the most extraordinary blunders and it is utterly
useless as a picture of manners or a book of reference. We can
explain its lâches only by the theory that the eminent Professor
left the labour to his collaborateurs and did not take the
trouble to revise their careless work.

The next German translation was by Aulic Councillor J. von
Hammer-Purgstallt who, during his short stay at Cairo and
Constantinople, turned into French the tales neglected by
Galland. After some difference with M. Caussin (de Perceval) in
1810, the Styrian Orientalist entrusted his MS. to Herr Cotta the
publisher of Tubingen. Thus a German version appeared, the
translation of a translation, at the hand of Professor
Zinserling,[FN#224] while the French version was unaccountably
lost en route to London. Finally the “Contes inédits,” etc.,
appeared in a French translation by G. S. Trébutien (Paris,
mdcccxxviii.). Von Hammer took liberties with the text which can
compare only with those of Lane: he abridged and retrenched till
the likeness in places entirely disappeared; he shirked some
difficult passages and he misexplained others. In fact the work
did no honour to the amiable and laborious historian of the
Turks.

The only good German translation of The Nights is due to Dr.
Gustav Weil who, born on April 24, 1808, is still (1886)
professing at Heidelburg.[FN#225] His originals (he tells us)
were the Breslau Edition, the Bulak text of Abd al-Rahman al-Safati
 and a MS. in the library of Saxe Gotha. The venerable
savant, who has rendered such service to Arabism, informs me that
Aug. Lewald’s “Vorhalle” (pp. i.-xv.)[FN#226] was written without
his knowledge. Dr. Weil neglects the division of days which
enables him to introduce any number of tales: for instance,
Galland’s eleven occupy a large part of vol. iii. The Vorwort
wants development, the notes, confined to a few words, are
inadequate and verse is everywhere rendered by prose, the Saj’a
or assonance being wholly ignored. On the other hand the scholar
shows himself by a correct translation, contrasting strongly with
those which preceded him, and by a strictly literal version, save
where the treatment required to be modified in a book intended
for the public. Under such circumstances it cannot well be other
than longsome and monotonous reading.

Although Spain and Italy have produced many and remarkable
Orientalists, I cannot find that they have taken the trouble to
translate The Nights for themselves: cheap and gaudy versions of
Galland seem to have satisfied the public.[FN#227] Notes on the
Romaic, Icelandic, Russian (?) and other versions, will be found
in a future page.

Professor Galland has never been forgotten in France where,
amongst a host of editions, four have claims to
distinction;[FN#228] and his success did not fail to create a
host of imitators and to attract what De Sacy justly terms “une
prodigieuse importation de marchandise de contrabande.” As early
as 1823 Von Hammer numbered seven in France (Trébutien, Préface
xviii.) and during later years they have grown prodigiously. Mr.
William F. Kirby, who has made a special study of the subject,
has favoured me with detailed bibliographical notes on Galland’s
imitators which are printed in Appendix No. II.

                             § III.
            THE MATTER AND THE MANNER OF THE NIGHTS.

                        A.—The Matter.

Returning to my threefold distribution of this Prose Poem

(Section § I) into Fable, Fairy Tale and historical

Anecdote[FN#229], let me proceed to consider these sections more

carefully.


The Apologue or Beast-fable, which apparently antedates all other
subjects in The Nights, has been called “One of the earliest
creations of the awakening consciousness of mankind.” I should
regard it, despite a monumental antiquity, as the offspring of a
comparatively civilised age, when a jealous despotism or a
powerful oligarchy threw difficulties and dangers in the way of
speaking “plain truths.” A hint can be given and a friend or foe
can be lauded or abused as Belins the sheep or Isengrim the wolf
when the Author is debarred the higher enjoyment of praising them
or dispraising them by name. And, as the purposes of fables are
twofold—

          Duplex libelli dos est: quod risum movet,

          Et quod prudenti vitam consilio monet—


The speaking of brute beasts would give a piquancy and a
pleasantry to moral design as well as to social and political
satire.

The literary origin of the fable is not Buddhistic: we must
especially shun that “Indo-Germanic” school which goes to India
for its origins, when Pythagoras, Solon, Herodotus, Plato,
Aristotle and possibly Homer sat for instruction at the feet of
the Hir-seshtha, the learned grammarians of the pharaohnic court.
Nor was it Æsopic, evidently Æsop inherited the hoarded wealth of
ages. As Professor Lepsius taught us, “In the olden times within
the memory of man, we know only of one advanced culture; of only
one mode of writing, and of only one literary development, viz.
those of Egypt.” The invention of an alphabet, as opposed to a
syllabary, unknown to Babylonia, to Assyria and to that extreme
bourne of their civilising influence, China, would for ever fix
their literature—poetry, history and criticism,[FN#230] the
apologue and the anecdote. To mention no others The Lion and the
Mouse appears in a Leyden papyrus dating from B.C. 1200–1166 the
days of Rameses III. (Rhampsinitus) or Hak On, not as a rude and
early attempt, but in a finished form, postulating an ancient
origin and illustrious ancestry. The dialogue also is brought to
perfection in the discourse between the Jackal Koufi and the
Ethiopian Cat (Revue Égyptologique ivme. année Part i.). Africa
therefore was the home of the Beast-fable not as Professor
Mahaffy thinks, because it was the chosen land of animal worship,
where

Oppida tote canem venerantur nemo Dianam;[FN#231]

but simply because the Nile-land originated every form of
literature between Fabliau and Epos.

From Kemi the Black-land it was but a step to Phoenicia,
Judæa,[FN#232] Phrygia and Asia Minor, whence a ferry led over to
Greece. Here the Apologue found its populariser in Αἴσωδπος,
Æsop, whose name, involved in myth, possibly connects with
Αιθίοψ:— “Æsopus et Aithiops idem sonant” says the sage. This
would show that the Hellenes preserved a legend of the land
whence the Beast-fable arose, and we may accept the fabulist’s
æra as contemporary with Crœsus and Solon (B.C. 570,) about a
century after Psammeticus (Psamethik 1st) threw Egypt open to the
restless Greek.[FN#233] From Africa too the Fable would in early
ages migrate eastwards and make for itself a new home in the
second great focus of civilisation formed by the Tigris-Euphrates
Valley. The late Mr. George Smith found amongst the cuneiforms
fragmentary Beast-fables, such as dialogues between the Ox and
the Horse, the Eagle and the Sun. In after centuries, when the
conquests of Macedonian Alexander completed what Sesostris and
Semiramis had begun, and mingled the manifold families of mankind
by joining the eastern to the western world, the Orient became
formally hellenised. Under the Seleucidæ and during the life of
the independent Bactrian Kingdom (B.C. 255–125), Grecian art and
science, literature and even language overran the old Iranic
reign and extended eastwards throughout northern India. Porus
sent two embassies to Augustus in B.C. 19 and in one of them the
herald Zarmanochagas (Shramanáchárya) of Bargosa, the modern
Baroch in Guzerat, bore an epistle upon vellum written in Greek
(Strabo xv. I section 78). “Videtis gentes populosque mutasse
sedes” says Seneca (De Cons. ad Helv. c. vi.). “Quid sibi volunt
in mediis barbarorum regionibus Græcæ artes? Quid inter Indos
Persasque Macedonicus sermo? Atheniensis in Asia turba est.”
Upper India, in the Macedonian days would have been mainly
Buddhistic, possessing a rude alphabet borrowed from Egypt
through Arabia and Phoenicia, but still in a low and barbarous
condition: her buildings were wooden and she lacked, as far as we
know, stone-architecture—the main test of social development.
But the Bactrian Kingdom gave an impulse to her civilisation and
the result was classical opposed to vedic Sanskrit. From Persia
Greek letters, extending southwards to Arabia, would find
indigenous imitators and there Æsop would be represented by the
sundry sages who share the name Lokman.[FN#234] One of these was
of servile condition, tailor, carpenter or shepherd; and a
“Habashi” (Æthiopian) meaning a negro slave with blubber lips and
splay feet, so far showing a superficial likeness to the Æsop of
history.

The Æsopic fable, carried by the Hellenes to India, might have
fallen in with some rude and fantastic barbarian of Buddhistic
“persuasion” and indigenous origin: so Reynard the Fox has its
analogue amongst the Kafirs and the Vái tribe of Mandengan
negroes in Liberia[FN#235] amongst whom one Doalu invented or
rather borrowed a syllabarium. The modern Gypsies are said also
to have beast-fables which have never been traced to a foreign
source (Leland). But I cannot accept the refinement of
difference which Professor Benfey, followed by Mr. Keith-Falconer,
discovers between the Æsopic and the Hindu apologue:—
“In the former animals are allowed to act as animals: the latter
makes them act as men in the form of animals.” The essence of
the beast-fable is a reminiscence of Homo primigenius with
erected ears and hairy hide, and its expression is to make the
brother brute behave, think and talk like him with the superadded
experience of ages. To early man the “lower animals,” which are
born, live and die like himself, showing all the same affects and
disaffects, loves and hates, passions, prepossessions and
prejudices, must have seemed quite human enough and on an equal
level to become his substitutes. The savage, when he began to
reflect, would regard the carnivor and the serpent with awe,
wonder and dread; and would soon suspect the same mysterious
potency in the brute as in himself: so the Malays still look upon
the Uran-utan, or Wood-man, as the possessor of superhuman
wisdom. The hunter and the herdsman, who had few other
companions, would presently explain the peculiar relations of
animals to themselves by material metamorphosis, the bodily
transformation of man to brute giving increased powers of working
him weal and woe. A more advanced stage would find the step easy
to metempsychosis, the beast containing the Ego (alias soul) of
the human: such instinctive belief explains much in Hindu
literature, but it was not wanted at first by the Apologue.

This blending of blood, this racial baptism would produce a fine
robust progeny; and, after our second century,
Ægypto-Græco-Indian stories overran the civilised globe between
Rome and China. Tales have wings and fly farther than the jade
hatchets of proto-historic days. And the result was a book which
has had more readers than any other except the Bible. Its
original is unknown.[FN#236] The volume, which in Pehlevi became
the Jávidán Khirad (“Wisdom of Ages”) or the Testament of
Hoshang, that ancient guebre King, and in Sanskrit the
Panchatantra (“Five Chapters”), is a recueil of apologues and
anecdotes related by the learned Brahman, Vishnu Sharmá for the
benefit of his pupils the sons of an Indian Rajah. The Hindu
original has been adapted and translated into a number of
languages; Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac, Greek and Latin, Persian
and Turkish, under a host of names.[FN#237] Voltaire[FN#238]
wisely remarks of this venerable production:—Quand on fait
réflexion que presque toute la terre a été enfatuée de pareils
contes, et qu’ils ont fait l’education du genre humain, on trouve
les fables de Pilpay, de Lokman,[FN#239] d’Ésope, bien
raisonables. But methinks the sage of Ferney might have said far
more. These fables speak with the large utterance of early man;
they have also their own especial beauty—the charms of well-preserved
 and time-honoured old age. There is in their wisdom a
perfume of the past, homely and ancient-fashioned like a whiff of
pot pourri, wondrous soothing withal to olfactories agitated by
the patchoulis and jockey clubs of modern pretenders and petit-maîtres,
with their grey young heads and pert intelligence, the
motto of whose ignorance is “Connu!” Were a dose of its antique,
mature experience adhibited to the Western before he visits the
East, those few who could digest it might escape the normal lot
of being twisted round the fingers of every rogue they meet from
Dragoman to Rajah. And a quotation from them tells at once: it
shows the quoter to be a man of education, not a “Jangalí,” a
sylvan or savage, as the Anglo-Indian official is habitually
termed by his more civilised “fellow-subject.”

The main difference between the classical apologue and the fable
in The Nights is that while Æsop and Gabrias write laconic tales
with a single event and a simple moral, the Arabian fables are
often “long-continued novelle involving a variety of events, each
characterised by some social or political aspect, forming a
narrative highly interesting in itself, often exhibiting the most
exquisite moral, and yet preserving, with rare ingenuity, the
peculiar characteristics of the actors.”[FN#240] And the
distinction between the ancient and the mediæval apologue,
including the modern which, since “Reineke Fuchs,” is mainly
German, appears equally pronounced. The latter is humorous
enough and rich in the wit which results from superficial
incongruity: but it ignores the deep underlying bond which
connects man with beast. Again, the main secret of its success
is the strain of pungent satire, especially in the Renardine
Cycle, which the people could apply to all unpopular “lordes and
prelates, gostly and worldly.”

Our Recueil contains two distinct sets of apologues. [FN#241] The
first (vol. iii.) consists of eleven, alternating with five
anecdotes (Nights cxlvi.—cliii.), following the lengthy and
knightly romance of King Omar bin al Nu’man and followed by the
melancholy love tale of Ali bin Bakkár. The second series in
vol. ix., consisting of eight fables, not including ten anecdotes
(Nights cmi.—cmxxiv.), is injected into the romance of King
Jali’ad and Shimas mentioned by Al-Mas’udi as independent of The
Nights. In both places the Beast-fables are introduced with some
art and add variety to the subject-matter, obviating monotony—
the deadly sin of such works—and giving repose to the hearer or
reader after a climax of excitement such as the murder of the
Wazirs. And even these are not allowed to pall upon the mental
palate, being mingled with anecdotes and short tales, such as the
Hermits (iii. 125), with biographical or literary episodes,
acroamata, table-talk and analects where humorous Rabelaisian
anecdote finds a place; in fact the fabliau or novella. This
style of composition may be as ancient as the apologues. We know
that it dates as far back as Rameses III., from the history of
the Two Brothers in the Orbigny papyrus,[FN#242] the prototype of
Yusuf and Zulaykha, the Koranic Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. It
is told with a charming naïveté and such sharp touches of local
colour as, “Come, let us make merry an hour and lie together! Let
down thy hair!”

Some of the apologues in The Nights are pointless enough, rien
moins qu’amusants; but in the best specimens, such as the Wolf
and the Fox[FN#243] (the wicked man and the wily man), both
characters are carefully kept distinct and neither action nor
dialogue ever flags. Again The Flea and the Mouse (iii. 151), of
a type familiar to students of the Pilpay cycle, must strike the
home-reader as peculiarly quaint.

Next in date to the Apologue comes the Fairy Tale proper, where
the natural universe is supplemented by one of purely imaginative
existence. “As the active world is inferior to the rational
soul,” says Bacon with his normal sound sense, “so Fiction gives
to Mankind what History denies and in some measure satisfies the
Mind with Shadows when it cannot enjoy the Substance. And as
real History gives us not the success of things according to the
deserts of vice and virtue, Fiction corrects it and presents us
with the fates and fortunes of persons rewarded and punished
according to merit.” But I would say still more. History paints
or attempts to paint life as it is, a mighty maze with or without
a plan: Fiction shows or would show us life as it should be,
wisely ordered and laid down on fixed lines. Thus Fiction is not
the mere handmaid of History: she has a household of her own and
she claims to be the triumph of Art which, as Göethe remarked, is
“Art because it is not Nature.” Fancy, la folle du logis, is
“that kind and gentle portress who holds the gate of Hope wide
open, in opposition to Reason, the surly and scrupulous
guard.”[FN#244] As Palmerin of England says and says well, “For
that the report of noble deeds doth urge the courageous mind to
equal those who bear most commendation of their approved
valiancy; this is the fair fruit of Imagination and of ancient
histories.” And, last but not least, the faculty of Fancy takes
count of the cravings of man’s nature for the marvellous, the
impossible, and of his higher aspirations for the Ideal, the
Perfect: she realises the wild dreams and visions of his generous
youth and portrays for him a portion of that “other and better
world,” with whose expectation he would console his age.

The imaginative varnish of The Nights serves admirably as a foil
to the absolute realism of the picture in general. We enjoy
being carried away from trivial and commonplace characters,
scenes and incidents; from the matter of fact surroundings of a
work-a-day world, a life of eating and drinking, sleeping and
waking, fighting and loving, into a society and a mise-en-scène
which we suspect can exist and which we know does not. Every man
at some turn or term of his life has longed for supernatural
powers and a glimpse of Wonderland. Here he is in the midst of
it. Here he sees mighty spirits summoned to work the human
mite’s will, however whimsical, who can transport him in an eye-twinkling
 whithersoever he wishes; who can ruin cities and build
palaces of gold and silver, gems and jacinths; who can serve up
delicate viands and delicious drinks in priceless chargers and
impossible cups and bring the choicest fruits from farthest
Orient: here he finds magas and magicians who can make kings of
his friends, slay armies of his foes and bring any number of
beloveds to his arms. And from this outraging probability and
out-stripping possibility arises not a little of that strange
fascination exercised for nearly two centuries upon the life and
literature of Europe by The Nights, even in their mutilated and
garbled form. The reader surrenders himself to the spell,
feeling almost inclined to enquire “And why may it not be
true?”[FN#245] His brain is dazed and dazzled by the splendours
which flash before it, by the sudden procession of Jinns and
Jinniyahs, demons and fairies, some hideous, others
preternaturally beautiful; by good wizards and evil sorcerers,
whose powers are unlimited for weal and for woe; by mermen and
mermaids, flying horses, talking animals, and reasoning
elephants; by magic rings and their slaves and by talismanic
couches which rival the carpet of Solomon. Hence, as one
remarks, these Fairy Tales have pleased and still continue to
please almost all ages, all ranks and all different capacities.

Dr. Hawkesworth[FN#246] observes that these Fairy Tales find
favour “because even their machinery, wild and wonderful as it
is, has its laws; and the magicians and enchanters perform
nothing but what was naturally to be expected from such beings,
after we had once granted them existence.” Mr. Heron “rather
supposes the very contrary is the truth of the fact. It is
surely the strangeness, the unknown nature, the anomalous
character of the supernatural agents here employed, that makes
them to operate so powerfully on our hopes, fears, curiosities,
sympathies, and, in short, on all the feelings of our hearts. We
see men and women, who possess qualities to recommend them to our
favour, subjected to the influence of beings, whose good or ill
will, power or weakness, attention or neglect, are regulated by
motives and circumstances which we cannot comprehend: and hence,
we naturally tremble for their fate, with the same anxious
concern, as we should for a friend wandering, in a dark night,
amidst torrents and precipices; or preparing to land on a strange
island, while he knew not whether he should be received, on the
shore, by cannibals waiting to tear him piecemeal, and devour
him, or by gentle beings, disposed to cherish him with fond
hospitality.” Both writers have expressed themselves well, but
meseems each has secured, as often happens, a fragment of the
truth and holds it to be the whole Truth. Granted that such
spiritual creatures as Jinns walk the earth, we are pleased to
find them so very human, as wise and as foolish in word and deed
as ourselves: similarly we admire in a landscape natural forms
like those of Staffa or the Palisades which favour the works of
architecture. Again, supposing such preternaturalisms to be
around and amongst us, the wilder and more capricious they prove,
the more our attention is excited and our forecasts are baffled
to be set right in the end. But this is not all. The grand
source of pleasure in Fairy Tales is the natural desire to learn
more of the Wonderland which is known to many as a word and
nothing more, like Central Africa before the last half century:
thus the interest is that of the “Personal Narrative” of a grand
exploration to one who delights in travels. The pleasure must be
greatest where faith is strongest; for instance amongst
imaginative races like the Kelts and especially Orientals, who
imbibe supernaturalism with their mother’s milk. “I am
persuaded,” writes Mr. Bayle St. John,[FN#247] “that the great
scheme of preternatural energy, so fully developed in The
Thousand and One Nights, is believed in by the majority of the
inhabitants of all the religious professions both in Syria and
Egypt.” He might have added “by every reasoning being from
prince to peasant, from Mullah to Badawi, between Marocco and
Outer Ind.”

The Fairy Tale in The Nights is wholly and purely Persian. The
gifted Iranian race, physically the noblest and the most
beautiful of all known to me, has exercised upon the world-history
 an amount of influence which has not yet been fully
recognised. It repeated for Babylonian art and literature what
Greece had done for Egyptian, whose dominant idea was that of
working for eternity a              . Hellas and Iran
instinctively chose as their characteristic the idea of Beauty,
rejecting all that was exaggerated and grotesque; and they made
the sphere of Art and Fancy as real as the world of Nature and
Fact. The innovation was hailed by the Hebrews. The so-called
Books of Moses deliberately and ostentatiously ignored the future
state of rewards and punishments, the other world which ruled the
life of the Egyptian in this world: the lawgiver, whoever he may
have been, Osarsiph or Moshe, apparently held the tenet unworthy
of a race whose career he was directing to conquest and isolation
in dominion. But the Jews, removed to Mesopotamia, the second
cradle of the creeds, presently caught the infection of their
Asiatic media; superadded Babylonian legend to Egyptian myth;
stultified The Law by supplementing it with the “absurdities of
foreign fable” and ended, as the Talmud proves, with becoming the
most wildly superstitious and “other worldly” of mankind.

The same change befel Al-Islam. The whole of its supernaturalism
is borrowed bodily from Persia, which had “imparadised Earth by
making it the abode of angels.” Mohammed, a great and commanding
genius, blighted and narrowed by surroundings and circumstances
to something little higher than a Covenanter or a Puritan,
declared to his followers,

“I am sent to ’stablish the manners and customs;”

and his deficiency of imagination made him dislike everything but
“women, perfumes, and prayers,” with an especial aversion to
music and poetry, plastic art and fiction. Yet his system,
unlike that of Moses, demanded thaumaturgy and metaphysical
entities, and these he perforce borrowed from the Jews who had
borrowed them from the Babylonians: his soul and spirit, his
angels and devils, his cosmogony, his heavens and hells, even the
Bridge over the Great Depth are all either Talmudic or Iranian.
But there he stopped and would have stopped others. His enemies
among the Koraysh were in the habit of reciting certain Persian
fabliaux and of extolling them as superior to the silly and
equally fictitious stories of the “Glorious Koran.” The leader
of these scoffers was one Nazr ibn Háris who, taken prisoner
after the Battle of Bedr, was incontinently decapitated, by
apostolic command, for what appears to be a natural and sensible
preference. It was the same furious fanaticism and one-idea’d
intolerance which made Caliph Omar destroy all he could find of
the Alexandrian Library and prescribe burning for the Holy Books
of the Persian Guebres. And the taint still lingers in Al-Islam:
it will be said of a pious man, “He always studies the Koran, the
Traditions and other books of Law and Religion; and he never
reads poems nor listens to music or to stories.”

Mohammed left a dispensation or rather a reformation so arid,
jejune and material that it promised little more than the “Law of
Moses,” before this was vivified and racially baptised by
Mesopotamian and Persic influences. But human nature was
stronger than the Prophet and, thus outraged, took speedy and
absolute revenge. Before the first century had elapsed, orthodox
Al-Islam was startled by the rise of Tasawwuf or Sufyism[FN#248]
a revival of classic Platonism and Christian Gnosticism, with a
mingling of modern Hylozoism; which, quickened by the glowing
imagination of the East, speedily formed itself into a creed the
most poetical and impractical, the most spiritual and the most
transcendental ever invented; satisfying all man’s hunger for
“belief” which, if placed upon a solid basis of fact and proof,
would forthright cease to be belief.

I will take from The Nights, as a specimen of the true Persian
romance, “The Queen of the Serpents” (vol. v. 298), the subject
of Lane’s Carlylean denunciation. The first gorgeous picture is
the Session of the Snakes which, like their Indian congeners the
Nága kings and queens, have human heads and reptile bodies, an
Egyptian myth that engendered the “old serpent” of Genesis. The
Sultánah welcomes Hásib Karím al-Dín, the hapless lad who had
been left in a cavern to die by the greedy woodcutters; and, in
order to tell him her tale, introduces the “Adventures of
Bulúkiyá”: the latter is an Israelite converted by editor and
scribe to Mohammedanism; but we can detect under his assumed
faith the older creed. Solomon is not buried by authentic
history “beyond the Seven (mystic) Seas,” but at Jerusalem or
Tiberias; and his seal-ring suggests the Jám-i-Jam, the crystal
cup of the great King Jamshíd. The descent of the Archangel
Gabriel, so familiar to Al-Islam, is the manifestation of Bahman,
the First Intelligence, the mightiest of the Angels who enabled
Zarathustra-Zoroaster to walk like Bulukiya over the Dálatí or
Caspian Sea. [FN#249] Amongst the sights shown to Bulukiya, as he
traverses the Seven Oceans, is a battle royal between the
believing and the unbelieving Jinns, true Magian dualism, the
eternal duello of the Two Roots or antagonistic Principles, Good
and Evil, Hormuzd and Ahriman, which Milton has debased into a
common-place modern combat fought also with cannon. Sakhr the
Jinni is Eshem chief of the Divs, and Kaf, the encircling
mountain, is a later edition of Persian Alborz. So in the Mantak
al-Tayr (Colloquy of the Flyers) the Birds, emblems of souls,
seeking the presence of the gigantic feathered biped Simurgh,
their god, traverse seven Seas (according to others seven Wadys)
of Search, of Love, of Knowledge, of Competence, of Unity, of
Stupefaction, and of Altruism (i.e. annihilation of self), the
several stages of contemplative life. At last, standing upon the
mysterious island of the Simurgh and “casting a clandestine
glance at him they saw thirty birds[FN#250] in him; and when they
turned their eyes to themselves the thirty birds seemed one
Simurgh: they saw in themselves the entire Simurgh; they saw in
the Simurgh the thirty birds entirely.” Therefore they arrived
at the solution of the problem “We and Thou;” that is, the
identity of God and Man; they were for ever annihilated in the
Simurgh and the shade vanished in the sun (Ibid. iii. 250). The
wild ideas concerning Khalít and Malít (vol. v. 319) are again
Guebre. “From the seed of Kayomars (the androgyne, like pre-Adamite
 man) sprang a tree shaped like two human beings and
thence proceeded Meshia and Meshianah, first man and woman,
progenitors of mankind;” who, though created for “Shídistán,
Light-land,” were seduced by Ahriman. This “two-man-tree” is
evidently the duality of Physis and Anti-physis, Nature and her
counterpart, the battle between Mihr, Izad or Mithra with his
Surush and Feristeh (Seraphs and Angels) against the Divs who are
the children of Time led by the arch demon-Eshem. Thus when
Hormuzd created the planets, the dog, and all useful animals and
plants, Ahriman produced the comets, the wolf, noxious beasts and
poisonous growths. The Hindus represent the same metaphysical
idea by Bramhá the Creator and Visva-karma, the Anti-creator,[FN#251
] miscalled by Europeans Vulcan: the former
fashions a horse and a bull and the latter caricatures them with
an ass and a buffalo,—evolution turned topsy turvy. After
seeing nine angels and obtaining an explanation of the Seven
Stages of Earth which is supported by the Gav-i-Zamín, the
energy, symbolised by a bull, implanted by the Creator in the
mundane sphere, Bulukiya meets the four Archangels, to wit
Gabriel who is the Persian Rawánbakhsh or Life-giver; Michael or
Beshter, Raphael or Israfil alias Ardibihisht, and Azazel or
Azrail who is Dumá or Mordad, the Death-giver; and the four are
about to attack the Dragon, that is, the demons hostile to
mankind who were driven behind Alborz-Kaf by Tahmuras the ancient
Persian king. Bulukiya then recites an episode within an
episode, the “Story of Jánsháh,” itself a Persian name and
accompanied by two others (vol. v. 329), the mise-en-scène being
Kabul and the King of Khorasan appearing in the proem. Janshah,
the young Prince, no sooner comes to man’s estate than he loses
himself out hunting and falls in with cannibals whose bodies
divide longitudinally, each moiety going its own way: these are
the Shikk (split ones) which the Arabs borrowed from the Persian
Ním-chihrah or Half-faces. They escape to the Ape-island whose
denizens are human in intelligence and speak articulately, as the
universal East believes they can: these Simiads are at chronic
war with the Ants, alluding to some obscure myth which gave rise
to the gold-diggers of Herodotus and other classics, “emmets in
size somewhat less than dogs but bigger than foxes.”[FN#252] The
episode then falls into the banalities of Oriental folk-lore.
Janshah, passing the Sabbation river and reaching the Jews’ city,
is persuaded to be sewn up in a skin and is carried in the normal
way to the top of the Mountain of Gems where he makes
acquaintance with Shaykh Nasr, Lord of the Birds: he enters the
usual forbidden room; falls in love with the pattern Swan-maiden;
wins her by the popular process; loses her and recovers her
through the Monk Yaghmús, whose name, like that of King Teghmús,
is a burlesque of the Greek; and, finally, when she is killed by
a shark, determines to mourn her loss till the end of his days.
Having heard this story Bulukiya quits him; and, resolving to
regain his natal land, falls in with Khizr; and the Green
Prophet, who was Wazir to Kay Kobad (vith century B. C.) and was
connected with Macedonian Alexander (!) enables him to win his
wish. The rest of the tale calls for no comment.

Thirdly and lastly we have the histories, historical stories and
the “Ana” of great men in which Easterns as well as Westerns
delight: the gravest writers do not disdain to relieve the
dullness of chronicles and annals by means of such discussions,
humorous or pathetic, moral or grossly indecent. The dates must
greatly vary: some of the anecdotes relating to the early Caliphs
appear almost contemporary; others, like Ali of Cairo and Abu al-Shamat,
may be as late as the Ottoman Conquest of Egypt
(sixteenth century). All are distinctly Sunnite and show fierce
animus against the Shi’ah heretics, suggesting that they were
written after the destruction of the Fatimite dynasty (twelfth
century) by Salah al-Din (Saladin the Kurd) one of the latest
historical personages and the last king named in The Nights.
[FN#253] These anecdotes are so often connected with what a
learned Frenchman terms the “regne féerique de Haroun er-Réschid,”[FN#254
] that the Great Caliph becomes the hero of this
portion of The Nights. Aaron the Orthodox was the central figure
of the most splendid empire the world had seen, the Viceregent of
Allah combining the powers of Cæsar and Pope, and wielding them
right worthily according to the general voice of historians. To
quote a few: Ali bin Talib al-Khorásáni described him, in A.D.
934, a century and-a-half after his death when flattery would be
tongue-tied, as, “one devoted to war and pilgrimage, whose bounty
embraced the folk at large.” Sa’adi (ob. A.D. 1291) tells a tale
highly favourable to him in the “Gulistan” (lib. i. 36). Fakhr
al-Din[FN#255] (xivth century) lauds his merits, eloquence,
science and generosity; and Al-Siyuti (nat. A.D. 1445) asserts
“He was one of the most distinguished of Caliphs and the most
illustrious of the Princes of the Earth” (p. 290). The Shaykh
al-Nafzáwi[FN#256] (sixteenth century) in his Rauz al-Átir fí
Nazáh al-Khátir = Scented Garden-site for Heart-delight, calls
Harun (chapt. vii.) the “Master of munificence and bounty, the
best of the generous.” And even the latest writers have not
ceased to praise him. Says Alí Azíz Efendi the Cretan, in the
Story of Jewád[FN#257] (p. 81), “Harun was the most bounteous,
illustrious and upright of the Abbaside Caliphs.”

The fifth Abbaside was fair and handsome, of noble and majestic
presence, a sportsman and an athlete who delighted in polo and
archery. He showed sound sense and true wisdom in his speech to
the grammarian-poet Al-Asma’î, who had undertaken to teach him:—
“Ne m’enseignez jamais en public, et ne vous empressez pas trop
de me donner des avis en particulier. Attendez ordinairement que
je vous interroge, et contentez vous de me donner une response
précise à ce que je vous demanderai, sans y rien ajouter de
superflu. Gardez vous surtout de vouloir me préoccuper pour vous
attirer ma creance, et pour vous donner de l’autorité. Ne vous
etendez jamais trop en long sur les histoires et les traditions
que vous me raconterez, si je ne vous en donne la permission.
Lorsque vous verrai que je m’eloignerai de l’équité dans mes
jugements, ramenez-moi avec douceur, sans user de paroles
fâcheuses ni de réprimandes. Enseignez-moi principalement les
choses qui sont les plus necessaires pour les dis cours que je
dois faire en public, dans les mosquées et ailleurs; et ne parlez
point en termes obscurs, ou mystérieux, ni avec des paroles trop
recherchées.”[FN#258]

He became well read in science and letters, especially history
and tradition, for “his understanding was as the understanding of
the learned;” and, like all educated Arabs of his day, he was a
connoisseur of poetry which at times he improvised with success.
[FN#259] He made the pilgrimage every alternate year and
sometimes on foot, while “his military expeditions almost
equalled his pilgrimages.” Day after day during his Caliphate he
prayed a hundred “bows,” never neglecting them, save for some
especial reason, till his death; and he used to give from his
privy purse alms to the extent of a hundred dirhams per diem. He
delighted in panegyry and liberally rewarded its experts, one of
whom, Abd al-Sammák the Preacher, fairly said of him, “Thy
humility in thy greatness is nobler than thy greatness.” “No
Caliph,” says Al-Niftawayh, “had been so profusely liberal to
poets, lawyers and divines, although as the years advanced he
wept over his extravagance amongst other sins.” There was
vigorous manliness in his answer to the Grecian Emperor who had
sent him an insulting missive:—“In the name of Allah! From the
Commander of the Faithful Harun al-Rashid, to Nicephorus the
Roman dog. I have read thy writ, O son of a miscreant mother!
Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt see my reply.” Nor did he cease
to make the Byzantine feel the weight of his arm till he
“nakh’d”[FN#260] his camel in the imperial Court-yard; and this
was only one instance of his indomitable energy and hatred of the
Infidel. Yet, if the West is to be believed, he forgot his
fanaticism in his diplomatic dealings and courteous intercourse
with Carolus Magnus.[FN#261] Finally, his civilised and well
regulated rule contrasted as strongly with the barbarity and
turbulence of occidental Christendom, as the splendid Court and
the luxurious life of Baghdad and its carpets and hangings
devanced the quasi-savagery of London and Paris whose palatial
halls were spread with rushes.

The great Caliph ruled twenty-three years and a few months (A.H.
170–193 = A.D. 786–808); and, as his youth was chequered and his
reign was glorious, so was his end obscure.[FN#262] After a
vision foreshadowing his death,[FN#263] which happened, as
becomes a good Moslem, during a military expedition to Khorasan,
he ordered his grave to be dug and himself to be carried to it in
a covered litter: when sighting the fosse he exclaimed, “O son of
man thou art come to this!” Then he commanded himself to be set
down and a perfection of the Koran to be made over him in the
litter on the edge of the grave. He was buried (æt. forty-five)
at Sanábád, a village near Tús.

Aaron the Orthodox appears in The Nights as a headstrong and
violent autocrat, a right royal figure according to the Moslem
ideas of his day. But his career shows that he was not more
tyrannical or more sanguinary than the normal despot of the East,
or the contemporary Kings of the West: in most points, indeed, he
was far superior to the historic misrulers who have afflicted the
world from Spain to furthest China. But a single great crime, a
tragedy whose details are almost incredibly horrible, marks his
reign with the stain of infamy, with a blot of blood never to be
washed away. This tale, “full of the waters of the eye,” as
Firdausi sings, is the massacre of the Barmecides; a story which
has often been told and which cannot here be passed over in
silence. The ancient and noble Iranian house, belonging to the
“Ebná” or Arabised Persians, had long served the Ommiades till,
early in our eighth century, Khálid bin Bermek,[FN#264] the
chief, entered the service of the first Abbaside and became Wazir
and Intendant of Finance to Al-Saffah. The most remarkable and
distinguished of the family, he was in office when Al-Mansur
transferred the capital from Damascus, the headquarters of the
hated Ommiades, to Baghdad, built ad hoc. After securing the
highest character in history by his personal gifts and public
services, he was succeeded by his son and heir Yáhyá (John), a
statesman famed from early youth for prudence and profound
intelligence, liberality and nobility of soul.[FN#265] He was
charged by the Caliph Al-Mahdi with the education of his son
Harun, hence the latter was accustomed to call him father; and,
until the assassination of the fantastic tyrant Al-Hádi, who
proposed to make his own child Caliph, he had no little
difficulty in preserving the youth from death in prison. The
Orthodox, once seated firmly on the throne, appointed Yáhyá his
Grand Wazir. This great administrator had four sons, Al-Fazl,
Ja’afar, Mohammed, and Musa,[FN#266] in whose time the house of
Bermek rose to that height from which decline and fall are, in
the East, well nigh certain and immediate. Al-Fazl was a foster-brother
 of Harun, an exchange of suckling infants having taken
place between the two mothers for the usual object, a tightening
of the ties of intimacy: he was a man of exceptional mind, but he
lacked the charm of temper and manner which characterised
Ja’afar.

The poets and rhetoricians have been profuse in their praises of
the cadet who appears in The Nights as an adviser of calm sound
sense, an intercessor and a peace-maker, and even more remarkable
than the rest of his family for an almost incredible magnanimity
and generosity—une générosité effrayante. Mohammed was famed
for exalted views and nobility of sentiment and Musa for bravery
and energy: of both it was justly said, “They did good and harmed
not.”[FN#267]

For ten years (not including an interval of seven) from the time
of Al-Rashid’s accession (A.D. 786) to the date of their fall,
(A.D. 803), Yahya and his sons, Al-Fazl and Ja’afar, were
virtually rulers of the great heterogeneous empire, which
extended from Mauritania to Tartary, and they did notable service
in arresting its disruption. Their downfall came sudden and
terrible like “a thunderbolt from the blue.” As the Caliph and
Ja’afar were halting in Al-’Umr (the convent) near Anbár-town on
the Euphrates, after a convivial evening spent in different
pavilions, Harun during the dead of the night called up his page
Yásir al-Rikhlah[FN#268] and bade him bring Ja’afar’s head. The
messenger found Ja’afar still carousing with the blind poet Abú
Zakkár and the Christian physician Gabriel ibn Bakhtiashú, and
was persuaded to return to the Caliph and report his death; the
Wazir adding, “An he express regret I shall owe thee my life;
and, if not, whatso Allah will be done.” Ja’afar followed to
listen and heard only the Caliph exclaim “O sucker of thy
mother’s clitoris, if thou answer me another word, I will send
thee before him!” whereupon he at once bandaged his own eyes and
received the fatal blow. Al-Asma’í, who was summoned to the
presence shortly after, recounts that when the head was brought
to Harun he gazed at it, and summoning two witnesses commanded
them to decapitate Yasir, crying, “I cannot bear to look upon the
slayer of Ja’afar!” His vengeance did not cease with the death:
he ordered the head to be gibbetted at one end and the trunk at
the other abutment of the Tigris bridge where the corpses of the
vilest malefactors used to be exposed; and, some months
afterwards, he insulted the remains by having them burned—the
last and worst indignity which can be offered to a Moslem. There
are indeed pity and terror in the difference between two such
items in the Treasury-accounts as these: “Four hundred thousand
dinars (£200,000) to a robe of honour for the Wazir Ja’afar bin
Yahya;” and, “Ten kírát, (5 shill.) to naphtha and reeds for
burning the body of Ja’afar the Barmecide.”

Meanwhile Yahya and Al-Fazl, seized by the Caliph Harun’s command
at Baghdad, were significantly cast into the prison “Habs al-Zanádikah”—of
 the Guebres—and their immense wealth which, some
opine, hastened their downfall, was confiscated. According to
the historian, Al-Tabari, who, however, is not supported by all
the annalists, the whole Barmecide family, men, women, and
children, numbering over a thousand, were slaughtered with only
three exceptions; Yahya, his brother Mohammed, and his son Al-Fazl.
 The Caliph’s foster-father, who lived to the age of
seventy-four, was allowed to die in jail (A.H. 805) after two
years’ imprisonment at Rukkah. Al-Fazl, after having been
tortured with two hundred blows in order to make him produce
concealed property, survived his father three years and died in
Nov. A.H. 808, some four months before his terrible foster-brother.
 A pathetic tale is told of the son warming water for
the old man’s use by pressing the copper ewer to his stomach.

The motives of this terrible massacre are variously recounted,
but no sufficient explanation has yet been, or possibly ever will
be, given. The popular idea is embodied in The Nights. [FN#269]
Harun, wishing Ja’afar to be his companion even in the Harem, had
wedded him, pro formâ, to his eldest sister Abbásah, “the
loveliest woman of her day,” and brilliant in mind as in body;
but he had expressly said “I will marry thee to her, that it may
be lawful for thee to look upon her but thou shalt not touch
her.” Ja’afar bound himself by a solemn oath; but his mother
Attábah was mad enough to deceive him in his cups and the result
was a boy (Ibn Khallikan) or, according to others, twins. The
issue was sent under the charge of a confidential eunuch and a
slave-girl to Meccah for concealment; but the secret was divulged
to Zubaydah who had her own reasons for hating husband and wife
and cherished an especial grievance against Yahya.[FN#270] Thence
it soon found its way to head-quarters. Harun’s treatment of
Abbásah supports the general conviction: according to the most
credible accounts she and her child were buried alive in a pit
under the floor of her apartment.

But, possibly, Ja’afar’s perjury was only “the last straw.”
Already Al-Fazl bin Rabî’a, the deadliest enemy of the
Barmecides, had been entrusted (A.D. 786) with the Wazirate which
he kept seven years. Ja’afar had also acted generously but
imprudently in abetting the escape of Yahya bin Abdillah, Sayyid
and Alide, for whom the Caliph had commanded confinement in a
close dark dungeon: when charged with disobedience the Wazir had
made full confession and Harun had (they say) exclaimed, “Thou
hast done well!” but was heard to mutter, “Allah slay me an I
slay thee not.”[FN#271] The great house seems at times to have
abused its powers by being too peremptory with Harun and
Zubaydah, especially in money matters;[FN#272] and its very
greatness would have created for it many and powerful enemies and
detractors who plied the Caliph with anonymous verse and prose.
Nor was it forgotten that, before the spread of Al-Islam, they
had presided over the Naubehár or Pyræthrum of Balkh; and Harun
is said to have remarked anent Yahya, “The zeal for magianism,
rooted in his heart, induces him to save all the monuments
connected with his faith.”[FN#273] Hence the charge that they
were “Zanádakah,” a term properly applied to those who study the
Zend scripture, but popularly meaning Mundanists, Positivists,
Reprobates, Atheists; and it may be noted that, immediately after
al-Rashid’s death, violent religious troubles broke out in
Baghdad. Ibn Khallikan[FN#274] quotes Sa’id ibn Salim, a
well-known grammarian and traditionist who philosophically
remarked, “Of a truth the Barmecides did nothing to deserve Al-Rashid’s
 severity, but the day (of their power and prosperity)
had been long and whatso endureth long waxeth longsome.” Fakhr
al-Din says (p. 27), “On attribue encore leur ruine aux manières
fières et orgueilleuses de Djafar (Ja’afar) et de Fadhl (Al-Fazl
), manières que les rois ne sauroient supporter.” According
to Ibn Badrún, the poet, when the Caliph’s sister
’Olayyah[FN#275] asked him, “O my lord, I have not seen thee
enjoy one happy day since putting Ja’afar to death: wherefore
didst thou slay him?” he answered, “My dear life, an I thought
that my shirt knew the reason I would rend it in pieces!” I
therefore hold with Al Mas’udi,

“As regards the intimate cause (of the catastrophe) it is unknown
and Allah is Omniscient.”

Aaron the Orthodox appears sincerely to have repented his
enormous crime. From that date he never enjoyed refreshing
sleep: he would have given his whole realm to recall Ja’afar to
life; and, if any spoke slightingly of the Barmecides in his
presence, he would exclaim, “God damn your fathers! Cease to
blame them or fill the void they have left.” And he had ample
reason to mourn the loss. After the extermination of the wise
and enlightened family, the affairs of the Caliphate never
prospered: Fazl bin Rabí’a, though a man of intelligence and
devoted to letters, proved a poor substitute for Yahya and
Ja’afar; and the Caliph is reported to have applied to him the
couplet:—

No sire to your sire,[FN#276] I bid you spare * Your calumnies or
     their place replace.

His unwise elevation of his two rival sons filled him with fear
of poison, and, lastly, the violence and recklessness of the
popular mourning for the Barmecides,[FN#277] whose echo has not
yet died away, must have added poignancy to his tardy penitence.
The crime still “sticks fiery off” from the rest of Harun’s
career: it stands out in ghastly prominence as one of the most
terrible tragedies recorded by history, and its horrible details
make men write passionately on the subject to this our
day.[FN#278]

As of Harun so of Zubaydah it may be said that she was far
superior in most things to contemporary royalties, and she was
not worse at her worst than the normal despot-queen of the
Morning-land. We must not take seriously the tales of her
jealousy in The Nights, which mostly end in her selling off or
burying alive her rivals; but, even were all true, she acted
after the recognised fashion of her exalted sisterhood. The
secret history of Cairo, during the last generation, tells of
many a viceregal dame who committed all the crimes, without any
of the virtues which characterised Harun’s cousin-spouse. And
the difference between the manners of the Caliphate and the
“respectability” of the nineteenth century may be measured by the
Tale called “Al-Maamun and Zubaydah.”[FN#279] The lady, having
won a game of forfeits from her husband, and being vexed with him
for imposing unseemly conditions when he had been the winner,
condemned him to lie with the foulest and filthiest kitchen-wench
in the palace; and thus was begotten the Caliph who succeeded and
destroyed her son.

Zubaydah was the grand-daughter of the second Abbaside Al-Mansur,
by his son Ja’afar whom The Nights persistently term Al-Kasim:
her name was Amat al-Azíz or Handmaid of the Almighty; her
cognomen was Umm Ja’afar as her husband’s was Abú Ja’afar; and
her popular name “Creamkin” derives from Zubdah,[FN#280] cream or
fresh butter, on account of her plumpness and freshness. She was
as majestic and munificent as her husband; and the hum of prayer
was never hushed in her palace. Al-Mas’udi[FN#281] makes a
historian say to the dangerous Caliph Al-Káhir, “The nobleness
and generosity of this Princess, in serious matters as in her
diversions, place her in the highest rank”; and he proceeds to
give ample proof. Al-Siyuti relates how she once filled a poet’s
mouth with jewels which he sold for twenty thousand dinars. Ibn
Khallikan (i. 523) affirms of her, “Her charity was ample, her
conduct virtuous, and the history of her pilgrimage to Meccah and
of what she undertook to execute on the way is so well-known that
it were useless to repeat it.” I have noted (Pilgrimage iii. 2)
how the Darb al-Sharki or Eastern road from Meccah to Al-Medinah
was due to the piety of Zubaydah who dug wells from Baghdad to
the Prophet’s burial place and built not only cisterns and
caravanserais, but even a wall to direct pilgrims over the
shifting sands. She also supplied Meccah, which suffered
severely from want of water, with the chief requisite for public
hygiene by connecting it, through levelled hills and hewn rocks,
with the Ayn al-Mushásh in the Arafat subrange; and the fine
aqueduct, some ten miles long, was erected at a cost of 1,700,000
to 2,000,000 of gold pieces. [FN#282] We cannot wonder that her
name is still famous among the Badawin and the “Sons of the Holy
Cities.” She died at Baghdad, after a protracted widowhood, in
A.H. 216 and her tomb, which still exists, was long visited by
the friends and dependents who mourned the loss of a devout and
most liberal woman.

The reader will bear with me while I run through the tales and
add a few remarks to the notices given in the notes: the glance
must necessarily be brief, however extensive be the theme. The
admirable introduction follows, in all the texts and MSS. known
to me, the same main lines but differs greatly in minor details
as will be seen by comparing Mr. Payne’s translation with Lane’s
and mine. In the Tale of the Sage Dúbán appears the speaking
head which is found in the Kamil, in Mirkhond and in the Kitáb
al-Uyún: M. C. Barbier de Meynard (v. 503) traces it back to an
abbreviated text of Al-Mas’udi. I would especially recommend to
students The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad (i. 82),
whose mighty orgie ends so innocently in general marriage. Lane
(iii. 746) blames it “because it represents Arab ladies as acting
like Arab courtesans”; but he must have known that during his day
the indecent frolic was quite possible in some of the highest
circles of his beloved Cairo. To judge by the style and changes
of person, some of the most “archaic” expressions suggest the
hand of the Ráwi or professional tale-teller; yet as they are in
all the texts they cannot be omitted in a loyal translation. The
following story of The Three Apples perfectly justifies my notes
concerning which certain carpers complain. What Englishman would
be jealous enough to kill his cousin-wife because a blackamoor in
the streets boasted of her favours? But after reading what is
annotated in vol. i. 6, and purposely placed there to give the
key-note of the book, he will understand the reasonable nature of
the suspicion; and I may add that the same cause has commended
these “skunks of the human race” to debauched women in England.

The next tale, sometimes called “The Two Wazírs,” is notable for
its regular and genuine drama-intrigue which, however, appears
still more elaborate and perfected in other pieces. The richness
of this Oriental plot-invention contrasts strongly with all
European literatures except the Spaniard’s, whose taste for the
theatre determined his direction, and the Italian, which in
Boccaccio’s day had borrowed freely through Sicily from the East.
And the remarkable deficiency lasted till the romantic movement
dawned in France, when Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas showed
their marvellous powers of faultless fancy, boundless imagination
and scenic luxuriance, “raising French Poetry from the dead and
not mortally wounding French prose.”[FN#283] The Two Wazirs is
followed by the gem of the volume, The Adventure of the
Hunchback-jester (i. 225), also containing an admirable surprise
and a fine development of character, while its “wild but natural
simplicity” and its humour are so abounding that it has echoed
through the world to the farthest West. It gave to Addison the
Story of Alnaschar[FN#284] and to Europe the term “Barmecide
Feast,” from the “Tale of Shacabac” (vol. i. 343). The
adventures of the corpse were known in Europe long before Galland
as shown by three fabliaux in Barbazan. I have noticed that the
Barber’s Tale of himself (i. 317) is historical and I may add
that it is told in detail by Al-Mas’udi (chapt. cxiv).

Follows the tale of Núr al-Dín Alí, and what Galland miscalls
“The Fair Persian,” a brightly written historiette with not a few
touches of true humour. Noteworthy are the Slaver’s address
(vol. ii. 15), the fine description of the Baghdad garden (vol.
ii. 21–24), the drinking-party (vol. ii. 25), the Caliph’s frolic
(vol. ii. 31–37) and the happy end of the hero’s misfortunes
(vol. ii. 44) Its brightness is tempered by the gloomy tone of
the tale which succeeds, and which has variants in the Bagh o
Bahar, a Hindustani versionof the Persian “Tale of the Four
Darwayshes;” and in the Turkish Kirk Vezir or “Book of the Forty
Vezirs.” Its dismal péripéties are relieved only by the witty
indecency of Eunuch Bukhayt and the admirable humour of Eunuch
Kafur, whose “half lie” is known throughout the East. Here also
the lover’s agonies are piled upon him for the purpose of
unpiling at last: the Oriental tale-teller knows by experience
that, as a rule, doleful endings “don’t pay.”

The next is the long romance of chivalry, “King Omar bin al-Nu’man
” etc., which occupies an eighth of the whole repertory and
the best part of two volumes. Mr. Lane omits it because “obscene
and tedious,” showing the license with which he translated; and
he was set right by a learned reviewer,[FN#285] who truly
declared that “the omission of half-a-dozen passages out of four
hundred pages would fit it for printing in any language[FN#286]
and the charge of tediousness could hardly have been applied more
unhappily.” The tale is interesting as a picture of mediæval
Arab chivalry and has many other notable points; for instance,
the lines (iii. 86) beginning “Allah holds the kingship!” are a
lesson to the manichæanism of Christian Europe. It relates the
doings of three royal generations and has all the characteristics
of Eastern art: it is a phantasmagoria of Holy Places, palaces
and Harems; convents, castles and caverns, here restful with
gentle landscapes (ii. 240) and there bristling with furious
battle-pictures (ii. 117, 221–8, 249) and tales of princely
prowess and knightly derring-do. The characters stand out well.
King Nu’man is an old lecher who deserves his death; the ancient
Dame Zát al-Dawáhi merits her title Lady of Calamities (to her
foes); Princess Abrizah appears as a charming Amazon, doomed to a
miserable and pathetic end; Zau al-Makán is a wise and pious
royalty; Nuzhat al-Zamán, though a longsome talker, is a model
sister; the Wazir Dandán, a sage and sagacious counsellor,
contrasts with the Chamberlain, an ambitious miscreant; Kánmakán
is the typical Arab knight, gentle and brave:—

Now managing the mouthes of stubborne steedes

Now practising the proof of warlike deedes;


And the kind-hearted, simple-minded Stoker serves as a foil to
the villains, the kidnapping Badawi and Ghazbán the detestable
negro. The fortunes of the family are interrupted by two
episodes, both equally remarkable. Taj al-Mulúk[FN#287] is the
model lover whom no difficulties or dangers can daunt. In Azíz
and Azízah (ii. 291) we have the beau ideal of a loving woman:
the writer’s object was to represent a “softy” who had the luck
to win the love of a beautiful and clever cousin and the mad
folly to break her heart. The poetical justice which he receives
at the hands of women of quite another stamp leaves nothing to be
desired. Finally the plot of “King Omar” is well worked out; and
the gathering of all the actors upon the stage before the curtain
drops may be improbable but it is highly artistic.

The long Crusading Romance is relieved by a sequence of sixteen
fabliaux, partly historiettes of men and beasts and partly
apologues proper—a subject already noticed. We have then (iii.
162) the saddening and dreary love-tale of Ali bin Bakkár, a
Persian youth and the Caliph’s concubine Shams al-Nahár. Here
the end is made doleful enough by the deaths of the “two
martyrs,” who are killed off, like Romeo and Juliet,[FN#288] a
lesson that the course of true Love is sometimes troubled and
that men as well as women can die of the so-called “tender
passion.” It is followed (iii. 212) by the long tale of Kamar
al-Zamán, or Moon of the Age, the first of that name, the
“Camaralzaman” whom Galland introduced into the best European
society. Like “The Ebony Horse” it seems to have been derived
from a common source with “Peter of Provence” and “Cleomades and
Claremond”; and we can hardly wonder at its wide diffusion: the
tale is brimful of life, change, movement, containing as much
character and incident as would fill a modern three-volumer and
the Supernatural pleasantly jostles the Natural; Dahnash the Jinn
and Maymúnah daughter of Al-Dimiryát,[FN#289] a renowned King of
the Jann, being as human in their jealousy about the virtue of
their lovers as any children of Adam, and so their metamorphosis
to fleas has all the effect of a surprise. The troupe is again
drawn with a broad firm touch. Prince Charming, the hero, is
weak and wilful, shifty and immoral, hasty and violent: his two
spouses are rivals in abominations as his sons, Amjad and As’ad,
are examples of a fraternal affection rarely found in half-brothers
 by sister-wives. There is at least one fine
melodramatic situation (iii. 228); and marvellous feats of
indecency, a practical joke which would occur only to the canopic
mind (iii. 300–305), emphasise the recovery of her husband by
that remarkable “blackguard,” the Lady Budúr. The interpolated
tale of Ni’amah and Naomi (iv. I), a simple and pleasing
narrative of youthful amours, contrasts well with the boiling
passions of the incestuous and murderous Queens and serves as a
pause before the grand denouement when the parted meet, the lost
are found, the unwedded are wedded and all ends merrily as a
xixth century novel.

The long tale of Alá al-Din, our old friend “Aladdin,” is wholly
out of place in its present position (iv. 29): it is a
counterpart of Ali Nûr al-Din and Miriam the Girdle-girl (vol.
ix. i); and the mention of the Shahbandar or Harbour-master (iv.
29), the Kunsul or Consul (p. 84), the Kaptan (Capitano), the use
of cannon at sea and the choice of Genoa city (p. 85) prove that
it belongs to the xvth or xvith century and should accompany
Kamar al-Zamàn II. and Ma’aruf at the
end of The Nights. Despite the lutist Zubaydah being carried off
by the Jinn, the Magic Couch, a modification of Solomon’s carpet,
and the murder of the King who refused to islamize, it is
evidently a European tale and I believe with Dr. Bacher that it
is founded upon the legend of “Charlemagne’s” daughter Emma and
his secretary Eginhardt, as has been noted in the counterpart
(vol. ix. 1).

This quasi-historical fiction is followed hy a succession of
fabliaux, novelle and historiettes which fill the rest of the
vol. iv. and the whole of vol. v. till we reach the terminal
story, The Queen of the Serpents (vol. v. pp. 304–329). It
appears to me that most of them are historical and could easily
be traced. Not a few are in Al-Mas’udi; for instance the grim
Tale of Hatim of Tayy (vol. iv. 94) is given bodily in “Meads of
Gold” (iii. 327); and the two adventures of Ibrahim al-Mahdi with
the barber-surgeon (vol. iv. 103) and the Merchant’s sister (vol.
iv. 176) are in his pages (vol. vii. 68 and 18). The City of
Lubtayt (vol. iv. 99) embodies the legend of Don Rodrigo, last of
the Goths, and may have reached the ears of Washington Irving;
Many-columned Iram (vol. iv. 113) is held by all Moslems to be
factual and sundry writers have recorded the tricks played by Al-Maamun
 with the Pyramids of Jizah which still show his
handiwork.[FN#290] The germ of Isaac of Mosul (vol. iv. 119) is
found in Al-Mas’udi who (vii. 65) names “Burán” the poetess (Ibn
Khall. i. 268); and Harun al-Rashid and the Slave-girl (vol. iv.
153) is told by a host of writers. Ali the Persian is a
rollicking tale of fun from some Iranian jest-book: Abu Mohammed
hight Lazybones belongs to the cycle of “Sindbad the Seaman,”
with a touch of Whittington and his Cat; and Zumurrud
(“Smaragdine”) in Ali Shar (vol. iv. 187) shows at her sale the
impudence of Miriam the Girdle-girl and in bed the fescennine
device of the Lady Budur. The “Ruined Man who became Rich,” etc.
(vol. iv. 289) is historical and Al-Mas’udi (vii. 281) relates
the coquetry of Mahbúbah the concubine (vol. iv. 291): the
historian also quotes four couplets, two identical with Nos. 1
and 2 in The Nights (vol. iv. 292) and adding:—

Then see the slave who lords it o’er her lord * In lover privacy

     and public site:

Behold these eyes that one like Ja’afar saw: * Allah on Ja’afar

     reign boons infinite!


Uns al-Wujúd (vol. v. 32) is a love-tale which has been
translated into a host of Eastern languages; and The Lovers of
the Banu Ozrah belong to Al-Mas’udi’s “Martyrs of Love” (vii.
355), with the ozrite “Ozrite love” of Ibn Khallikan (iv. 537).
“Harun and the Three Poets” (vol. v. 77) has given to Cairo a
proverb which Burckhardt (No. 561) renders “The day obliterates
the word or promise of the Night,” for

The promise of night is effaced by day.

It suggests Congreve’s Doris:—

For who o’er night obtain’d her grace,

She can next day disown, etc.


“Harun and the three Slave-girls” (vol. v. 81) smacks of
Gargantua (lib. i. c. 11): “It belongs to me, said one: ’Tis
mine, said another”; and so forth. The Simpleton and the Sharper
(vol. v. 83) like the Foolish Dominie (vol. v. 118) is an old Joe
Miller in Hindu as well as Moslem folk-lore. “Kisra Anushirwán”
(vol. v. 87) is “The King, the Owl and the Villages of Al-Mas’udi
” (iii. 171), who also notices the Persian monarch’s four
seals of office (ii. 204); and “Masrur the Eunuch and Ibn Al-Káribi
” (vol. v. 109) is from the same source as Ibn al-Magházili
the Reciter and a Eunuch belonging to the Caliph Al-Mu’tazad
(vol. viii. 161). In the Tale of Tawaddud (vol. v. 139) we have
the fullest development of the disputations and displays of
learning then so common in Europe, teste the “Admirable
Crichton”; and these were affected not only by Eastern tale-tellers
 but even by sober historians. To us it is much like
“padding” when Nuzhat al-Zamán (vol. ii. 156 etc.) fags her
hapless hearers with a discourse covering sixteen mortal pages;
when the Wazir Dandan (vol. ii. 195, etc.) reports at length the
cold speeches of the five high-bosomed maids and the Lady of
Calamities and when Wird Khan, in presence of his papa (Nights
cmxiv-xvi.) discharges his patristic exercitations and
heterogeneous knowledge. Yet Al-Mas’udi also relates, at dreary
extension (vol. vi. 369) the disputation of the twelve sages in
presence of Barmecide Yahya upon the origin, the essence, the
accidents and the omnes res of Love; and in another place (vii.
181) shows Honayn, author of the Book of Natural Questions,
undergoing a long examination before the Caliph Al-Wásik (Vathek)
and describing, amongst other things, the human teeth. See also
the dialogue or catechism of Al-Hajjáj and Ibn Al-Kirríya in Ibn
Khallikan (vol. i. 238–240).

These disjecta membra of tales and annals are pleasantly relieved
by the seven voyages of Sindbad the Seaman (vol. vi. 1–83). The
“Arabian Odyssey” may, like its Greek brother, descend from a
noble family, the “Shipwrecked Mariner” a Coptic travel-tale of
the twelfth dynasty (B. C. 3500) preserved on a papyrus at St.
Petersburg. In its actual condition “Sindbad,” is a fanciful
compilation, like De Foe’s “Captain Singleton,” borrowed from
travellers’ tales of an immense variety and extracts from Al-Idrísi,
Al-Kazwíni and Ibn al-Wardi. Here we find the
Polyphemus, the Pygmies and the cranes of Homer and Herodotus;
the escape of Aristomenes; the Plinian monsters well known in
Persia; the magnetic mountain of Saint Brennan (Brandanus); the
aeronautics of “Duke Ernest of Bavaria”[FN#291] and sundry
cuttings from Moslem writers dating between our ninth and
fourteenth centuries.[FN#292] The “Shayhk of the Seaboard”
appears in the Persian romance of Kámaraupa translated by
Francklin, all the particulars absolutely corresponding. The
“Odyssey” is valuable because it shows how far Eastward the
mediæval Arab had extended: already in The Ignorance he had
reached China and had formed a centre of trade at Canton. But
the higher merit of the cento is to produce one of the most
charming books of travel ever written, like Robinson Crusoe the
delight of children and the admiration of all ages.

The hearty life and realism of Sindbad are made to stand out in
strong relief by the deep melancholy which pervades “The City of
Brass” (vol. vi. 83), a dreadful book for a dreary day. It is
curious to compare the doleful verses (pp. 103, 105) with those
spoken to Caliph Al-Mutawakkil by Abu al-Hasan Ali (Al–Mas’udi,
vii. 246). We then enter upon the venerable Sindibad-nameh, the
Malice of Women (vol. vi. 122), of which, according to the Kitab
al-Fihrist (vol. i. 305), there were two editions, a Sinzibád al-Kabír
 and a Sinzibád al-Saghír, the latter being probably an
epitome of the former. This bundle of legends, I have shown, was
incorporated with the Nights as an editor’s addition; and as an
independent work it has made the round of the world.

Space forbids any detailed notice of this choice collection of
anecdotes for which a volume would be required. I may, however,
note that the “Wife’s device” (vol. vi. 152) has its analogues in
the Kathá (chapt. xiii.) in the Gesta Romanorum (No. xxviii.) and
in Boccaccio (Day iii. 6 and Day vi. 8), modified by La Fontaine
to Richard Minutolo (Contes lib. i. tale 2): it is quoted almost
in the words of The Nights by the Shaykh al-Nafzáwi (p. 207).
That most witty and indecent tale The Three Wishes (vol. vi. 180)
has forced its way disguised as a babe into our nurseries.
Another form of it is found in the Arab proverb “More luckless
than Basús” (Kamus), a fair Israelite who persuaded her husband,
also a Jew, to wish that she might become the loveliest of women.
Jehovah granted it, spitefully as Jupiter; the consequence was
that her contumacious treatment of her mate made him pray that
the beauty might be turned into a bitch; and the third wish
restored her to her original state.

The Story of Júdar (vol. vi. 207) is Egyptian, to judge from its
local knowledge (pp. 217 and 254) together with its ignorance of
Marocco (p. 223). It shows a contrast, in which Arabs delight,
of an almost angelical goodness and forgiveness with a well-nigh
diabolical malignity, and we find the same extremes in Abú Sír
the noble-minded Barber and the hideously inhuman Abú Kír. The
excursion to Mauritania is artfully managed and gives a novelty
to the mise-en-scène. Gharíb and Ajíb (vi. 207, vii. 91) belongs
to the cycle of Antar and King Omar bin Nu’man: its exaggerations
make it a fine type of Oriental Chauvinism, pitting the
superhuman virtues, valour, nobility and success of all that is
Moslem, against the scum of the earth which is non-Moslem. Like
the exploits of Friar John of the Chopping-knives (Rabelais i. c.
27) it suggests ridicule cast on impossible battles and tales of
giants, paynims and paladins. The long romance is followed by
thirteen historiettes all apparently historical: compare “Hind,
daughter of Al-Nu’man” (vol. viii. 7–145) and “Isaac of Mosul and
the Devil” (vol. vii. 136–139) with Al Mas’udi v. 365 and vi.
340. They end in two long detective-tales like those which M.
Gaboriau has popularised, the Rogueries of Dalilah and the
Adventures of Mercury Ali, based upon the principle, “One thief
wots another.” The former, who has appeared before (vol. ii.
329), seems to have been a noted character: Al-Mas’udi says
(viii. 175) “in a word this Shaykh (Al-’Ukáb) outrivalled in his
rogueries and the ingenuities of his wiles Dállah (Dalilah?) the
Crafty and other tricksters and coney-catchers, ancient and
modern.”

The Tale of Ardashir (vol. vii. 209–264) lacks originality: we
are now entering upon a series of pictures which are replicas of
those preceding. This is not the case with that charming Undine,
Julnár the Sea-born (vol. vii. 264–308) which, like Abdullah of
the Land and Abdullah of the Sea (vol. ix. Night cmxl.),
describes the vie intime of mermen and merwomen. Somewhat
resembling Swift’s inimitable creations, the Houyhnhnms for
instance, they prove, amongst other things, that those who dwell
in a denser element can justly blame and severely criticise the
contradictory and unreasonable prejudices and predilections of
mankind. Sayf al-Mulúk (vol. viii. Night dcclviii.), the
romantic tale of two lovers, shows by its introduction that it
was originally an independent work and it is known to have
existed in Persia during the eleventh century: this novella has
found its way into every Moslem language of the East even into
Sindi, which calls the hero “Sayfal.” Here we again meet the Old
Man of the Sea or rather the Shaykh of the Seaboard and make
acquaintance with a Jinn whose soul is outside his body: thus he
resembles Hermotimos of Klazamunae in Apollonius, whose spirit
left his mortal frame à discretion. The author,
philanthropically remarking (vol. viii. 4) “Knowest thou not that
a single mortal is better, in Allah’s sight than a thousand
Jinn?” brings the wooing to a happy end which leaves a pleasant
savour upon the mental palate.

Hasan of Bassorah (vol. viii. 7–145) is a Master Shoetie on a
large scale like Sindbad, but his voyages and travels extend into
the supernatural and fantastic rather than the natural world.
Though long the tale is by no means wearisome and the characters
are drawn with a fine firm hand. The hero with his hen-like
persistency of purpose, his weeping, fainting and versifying is
interesting enough and proves that “Love can find out the way.”
The charming adopted sister, the model of what the feminine
friend should be; the silly little wife who never knows that she
is happy till she loses happiness; the violent and hard-hearted
queen with all the cruelty of a good woman, and the manners and
customs of Amazon land are outlined with a life-like vivacity.
Khalífah the next tale (vol. viii. 147–184) is valuable as a
study of Eastern life, showing how the fisherman emerges from the
squalor of his surroundings and becomes one of the Caliph’s
favourite cup-companions. Ali Nur al-Din (vol. viii. 264) and
King Jali’ad (vol. ix., Night dcccxciv) have been noticed
elsewhere and there is little to say of the concluding stories
which bear the evident impress of a more modern date.

Dr. Johnson thus sums up his notice of The Tempest. “Whatever
might have been the intention of their author, these tales are
made instrumental to the production of many characters,
diversified with boundless invention, and preserved with profound
skill in nature; extensive knowledge of opinions, and accurate
observation of life. Here are exhibited princes, courtiers and
sailors, all speaking in their real characters. There is the
agency of airy spirits and of earthy goblin, the operations of
magic, the tumults of a storm, the adventures of a desert island,
the native effusion of untaught affection, the punishment of
guilt, and the final happiness of those for whom our passions and
reason are equally interested.”

We can fairly say this much and far more for our Tales. Viewed
as a tout ensemble in full and complete form, they are a drama of
Eastern life, and a Dance of Death made sublime by faith and the
highest emotions, by the certainty of expiation and the fulness
of atoning equity, where virtue is victorious, vice is vanquished
and the ways of Allah are justified to man. They are a panorama
which remains ken-speckle upon the mental retina. They form a
phantasmagoria in which archangels and angels, devils and
goblins, men of air, of fire, of water, naturally mingle with men
of earth; where flying horses and talking fishes are utterly
realistic: where King and Prince meet fisherman and pauper, lamia
and cannibal; where citizen jostles Badawi, eunuch meets knight;
the Kazi hob-nobs with the thief; the pure and pious sit down to
the same tray with the bawd and the pimp; where the professional
religionist, the learned Koranist and the strictest moralist
consort with the wicked magician, the scoffer and the debauchee-poet
 like Abu Nowas; where the courtier jests with the boor and
where the sweep is bedded with the noble lady. And the
characters are “finished and quickened by a few touches swift and
sure as the glance of sunbeams.” The work is a kaleidoscope
where everything falls into picture; gorgeous palaces and
pavilions; grisly underground caves and deadlywolds; gardens
fairer than those of the Hesperid; seas dashing with clashing
billows upon enchanted mountains; valleys of the Shadow of Death;
air-voyages and promenades in the abysses of ocean; the duello,
the battle and the siege; the wooing of maidens and the marriage-rite.
 All the splendour and squalor, the beauty and baseness,
the glamour and grotesqueness, the magic and the mournfulness,
the bravery and the baseness of Oriental life are here: its
pictures of the three great Arab passions, love, war and fancy,
entitle it to be called “Blood, Musk and Hashish.”[FN#293] And
still more, the genius of the story-teller quickens the dry bones
of history, and by adding Fiction to Pact revives the dead past:
the Caliphs and the Caliphate return to Baghdad and Cairo, whilst
Asmodeus kindly removes the terrace-roof of every tenement and
allows our curious glances to take in the whole interior. This
is perhaps the best proof of their power. Finally, the picture-gallery
 opens with a series of weird and striking adventures and
shows as a tail-piece, an idyllic scene of love and wedlock in
halls before reeking with lust and blood.

I have noticed in my Foreword that the two main characteristics
of The Nights are Pathos and Humour, alternating with highly
artistic contrast, and carefully calculated to provoke tears and
smiles in the coffee-house audience which paid for them. The
sentimental portion mostly breathes a tender passion and a simple
sadness: such are the Badawi’s dying farewell (vol i. 75); the
lady’s broken heart on account of her lover’s hand being cut off
(vol. i. 277); the Wazir’s death, the mourner’s song and the
“tongue of the case” (vol. ii. 10); the murder of Princess
Abrízah with the babe sucking its dead mother’s breast (vol. ii.
128); and, generally, the last moments of good Moslems (e.g.
vol. 167), which are described with inimitable terseness and
naïveté. The sad and the gay mingle in the character of the good
Hammam-stoker who becomes Roi Crotte and the melancholy deepens
in the Tale of the Mad Lover (vol. v. 138); the Blacksmith who
could handle fire without hurt (vol. v. 271); the Devotee Prince
(vol. v. iii) and the whole Tale of Azízah (vol. ii. 298), whose
angelic love is set off by the sensuality and selfishness of her
more fortunate rivals. A new note of absolutely tragic dignity
seems to be struck in the Sweep and the Noble Lady (vol. iv.
125), showing the piquancy of sentiment which can be evolved from
the common and the unclean. The pretty conceit of the Lute (vol.
v. 244) is afterwards carried out in the Song (vol. viii. 281),
which is a masterpiece of originality[FN#294] and (in the Arabic)
of exquisite tenderness and poetic melancholy, the wail over the
past and the vain longing for reunion. And the very depths of
melancholy, of majestic pathos and of true sublimity are reached
in Many-columned Iram (vol. iv. 113) and the City of Brass (vol.
vi. 83): the metrical part of the latter shows a luxury of woe;
it is one long wail of despair which echoes long and loud in the
hearer’s heart.

In my Foreword I have compared the humorous vein of the comic
tales with our northern “wut,” chiefly for the dryness and
slyness which pervade it. But it differs in degree as much as
the pathos varies. The staple article is Cairene “chaff,” a
peculiar banter possibly inherited from their pagan forefathers:
instances of this are found in the Cock and Dog (vol. i. 22), the
Eunuch’s address to the Cook (vol. i. 244), the Wazir’s
exclamation, “Too little pepper!” (vol. i. 246), the self-communing
 of Judar (vol. vi. 219), the Hashish-eater in Ali Shár
(vol. iv. 213), the scene between the brother-Wazirs (vol. i.
197), the treatment of the Gobbo (vol. i. 221, 228), the Water of
Zemzem (vol. i. 284), and the Eunuchs Bukhayt and Kafur[FN#295]
(vol. ii. 49, 51). At times it becomes a masterpiece of fun, of
rollicking Rabelaisian humour underlaid by the caustic mother-wit
of Sancho Panza, as in the orgie of the Ladies of Baghdad (vol.
i. 92, 93); the Holy Ointment applied to the beard of Luka the
Knight— “unxerunt regem Salomonem” (vol. ii. 222); and Ja’afar
and the Old Badawi (vol. v. 98), with its reminiscence of
“chaffy” King Amasis. This reaches its acme in the description
of ugly old age (vol. v. 3); in The Three Wishes, the wickedest
of satires on the alter sexus (vi. 180); in Ali the Persian (vol.
iv. 139); in the Lady and her Five Suitors (vol. vi. 172), which
corresponds and contrasts with the dully told Story of Upakosa
and her Four Lovers of the Kathá (p. 17); and in The Man of Al-Yaman
 (vol. iv. 245) where we find the true Falstaffian touch.
But there is sterling wit, sweet and bright, expressed without
any artifice of words, in the immortal Barber’s tales of his
brothers, especially the second, the fifth and the sixth (vol. i.
324, 325 and 343). Finally, wherever the honest and independent
old debauchee Abu Nowas makes his appearance the fun becomes
fescennine and milesian.

                 B.—The Manner of the Nights.

And now, after considering the matter, I will glance at the
language and style of The Nights. The first point to remark is
the peculiarly happy framework of the Recueil, which I cannot but
suspect set an example to the Decamerone and its host of
successors.[FN#296] The admirable Introduction, a perfect mise-en-scène,
gives the amplest raison d’être of the work, which thus
has all the unity required for a great romantic recueil. We
perceive this when reading the contemporary Hindu work the Kathá
Sarit Ságara,[FN#297] which is at once so like and so unlike The
Nights: here the preamble is insufficient; the whole is clumsy
for want of a thread upon which the many independent tales and
fables should be strung[FN#298]; and the consequent disorder and
confusion tell upon the reader, who cannot remember the sequence
without taking notes.

As was said in my Foreword “without The Nights no Arabian
Nights!” and now, so far from holding the pauses “an intolerable
interruption to the narrative,” I attach additional importance to
these pleasant and restful breaks introduced into long and
intricate stories. Indeed beginning again I should adopt the
plan of the Cal. Edit. opening and ending every division with a
dialogue between the sisters. Upon this point, however, opinions
will differ and the critic will remind me that the consensus of
the MSS. would be wanting: The Bresl. Edit. in many places merely
interjects the number of the night without interrupting the tale;
the MS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale used by Galland contains
only cclxxxii and the Frenchman ceases to use the division after
the ccxxxvith Night and in some editions after the
cxcviith.[FN#299] A fragmentary MS. according to Scott whose
friend J. Anderson found it in Bengal, breaks away after Night
xxix; and in the Wortley Montagu, the Sultan relents at an early
opportunity, the stories, as in Galland, continuing only as an
amusement. I have been careful to preserve the balanced
sentences with which the tales open; the tautology and the prose-rhyme
 serving to attract attention, e.g., “In days of yore and
in times long gone before there was a King,” etc.; in England
where we strive not to waste words this becomes “Once upon a
time.” The closings also are artfully calculated, by striking a
minor chord after the rush and hurry of the incidents, to suggest
repose: “And they led the most pleasurable of lives and the most
delectable, till there came to them the Destroyer of delights and
the Severer of societies and they became as though they had never
been.” Place this by the side of Boccaccio’s favourite
formulae:—Egli conquistò poi la Scozia, e funne re coronato (ii,
3); Et onorevolmente visse infino alla fine (ii, 4); Molte volte
goderono del loro amore: Iddio faccia noi goder del nostro (iii,
6): E cosi nella sue grossezza si rimase e ancor vi si sta (vi,
8). We have further docked this tail into: “And they lived
happily ever after.”

I cannot take up the Nights in their present condition, without
feeling that the work has been written down from the Ráwi or
Nakkál,[FN#300] the conteur or professional story-teller, also
called Kassás and Maddáh, corresponding with the Hindu Bhat or
Bard. To these men my learned friend Baron A. von Kremer would
attribute the Mu’allakat vulgarly called the Suspended Poems, as
being “indited from the relation of the Ráwi.” Hence in our text
the frequent interruption of the formula Kal’ al-Rawi = quotes
the reciter; dice Turpino. Moreover, The Nights read in many
places like a hand-book or guide for the professional, who would
learn them by heart; here and there introducing his “gag” and
“patter”. To this “business” possibly we may attribute much of
the ribaldry which starts up in unexpected places: it was meant
simply to provoke a laugh. How old the custom is and how
unchangeable is Eastern life is shown, a correspondent suggests,
by the Book of Esther which might form part of The Alf Laylah.
“On that night (we read in Chap. vi. 1) could not the King sleep,
and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles;
and they were read before the King.” The Ráwi would declaim the
recitative somewhat in conversational style; he would intone the
Saj’a or prose-rhyme and he would chant to the twanging of the
Rabáb, a one-stringed viol, the poetical parts. Dr.
Scott[FN#301] borrows from the historian of Aleppo a life-like
picture of the Story-teller. “He recites walking to and fro in
the middle of the coffee-room, stopping only now and then, when
the expression requires some emphatical attitude. He is commonly
heard with great attention; and not unfrequently in the midst of
some interesting adventure, when the expectation of his audience
is raised to the highest pitch, he breaks off abruptly and makes
his escape, leaving both his hero or heroine and his audience in
the utmost embarrassment. Those who happen to be near the door
endeavour to detain him, insisting upon the story being finished
before he departs; but he always makes his retreat good[FN#302];
and the auditors suspending their curiosity are induced to return
at the same time next day to hear the sequel. He has no sooner
made his exit than the company in separate parties fall to
disputing about the characters of the drama or the event of an
unfinished adventure. The controversy by degrees becomes serious
and opposite opinions are maintained with no less warmth than if
the fall of the city depended upon the decision.”

At Tangier, where a murder in a “coffee-house” had closed these
hovels, pending a sufficient payment to the Pasha; and where,
during the hard winter of 1885–86, the poorer classes were
compelled to puff their Kayf (Bhang, cannabis indica) and sip
their black coffee in the muddy streets under a rainy sky, I
found the Ráwi active on Sundays and Thursdays, the market days.
The favourite place was the “Soko de barra,” or large bazar,
outside the town whose condition is that of Suez and Bayrut half
a century ago. It is a foul slope; now slippery with viscous
mud, then powdery with fetid dust, dotted with graves and
decaying tombs, unclean booths, gargottes and tattered tents, and
frequented by women, mere bundles of unclean rags, and by men
wearing the haik or burnús, a Franciscan frock, tending their
squatting camels and chaffering over cattle for Gibraltar beef-eaters.
 Here the market-people form a ring about the reciter, a
stalwart man affecting little raiment besides a broad waist-belt
into which his lower chiffons are tucked, and noticeable only for
his shock hair, wild eyes, broad grin and generally disreputable
aspect. He usually handles a short stick; and, when drummer and
piper are absent, he carries a tiny tom-tom shaped like an hour-glass,
upon which he taps the periods. This Scealuidhe, as the
Irish call him, opens the drama with extempore prayer, proving
that he and the audience are good Moslems: he speaks slowly and
with emphasis, varying the diction with breaks of animation,
abundant action and the most comical grimace: he advances,
retires and wheels about, illustrating every point with
pantomime; and his features, voice and gestures are so expressive
that even Europeans who cannot understand a word of Arabic divine
the meaning of his tale. The audience stands breathless and
motionless surprising strangers[FN#303] by the ingenuousness and
freshness of feeling hidden under their hard and savage exterior.
The performance usually ends with the embryo actor going round
for alms and flourishing in air every silver bit, the usual
honorarium being a few “f’lús,” that marvellous money of Barbary,
big coppers worth one-twelfth of a penny. All the tales I heard
were purely local, but Fakhri Bey, a young Osmanli domiciled for
some time in Fez and Mequinez, assured me that The Nights are
still recited there.

Many travellers, including Dr. Russell, have complained that they
failed to find a complete MS. copy of The Nights. Evidently they
never heard of the popular superstition which declares that no
one can read through them without dying—it is only fair that my
patrons should know this. Yacoub Artín Pasha declares that the
superstition dates from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
and he explains it in two ways. Firstly, it is a facetious
exaggeration, meaning that no one has leisure or patience to wade
through the long repertory. Secondly, the work is condemned as
futile. When Egypt produced savants and legists like Ibn al-Hajar,
Al-’Ayni, and Al-Kastalláni, to mention no others, the
taste of the country inclined to dry factual studies and positive
science; nor, indeed, has this taste wholly died out: there are
not a few who, like Khayri Pasha, contend that the mathematic is
more useful even for legal studies than history and geography,
and at Cairo the chief of the Educational Department has always
been an engineer, i.e., a mathematician. The Olema declared war
against all “futilities,” in which they included not only stories
but also what is politely entitled Authentic History. From this
to the fatal effect of such lecture is only a step. Society,
however, cannot rest without light literature; so the novel-reading
 class was thrown back upon writings which had all the
indelicacy and few of the merits of The Nights.

Turkey is the only Moslem country which has dared to produce a
regular drama[FN#304] and to arouse the energies of such
brilliant writers as Muníf Pasha, statesman and scholar; Ekrem
Bey, literato and professor; Kemál Bey, held by some to be the
greatest writer in modern Osmanli-land and Abd al-Hakk Hamíd Bey,
first Secretary of the London Embassy. The theatre began in its
ruder form by taking subjects bodily from The Nights; then it
annexed its plays as we do—the Novel having ousted the Drama—
from the French; and lastly it took courage to be original. Many
years ago I saw Harun al-Rashid and the Three Kalandars, with
deer-skins and all their properties de rigueur in the court-yard
of Government House, Damascus, declaiming to the extreme
astonishment and delight of the audience. It requires only to
glance at The Nights for seeing how much histrionic matter they
contain.

In considering the style of The Nights we must bear in mind that
the work has never been edited according to our ideas of the
process. Consequently there is no just reason for translating
the whole verbatim et literatim, as has been done by Torrens,
Lane and Payne in his “Tales from the Arabic.”[FN#305] This
conscientious treatment is required for versions of an author
like Camns, whose works were carefully corrected and arranged by
a competent littérateur, but it is not merited by The Nights as
they now are. The Macnaghten, the Bulak and the Bayrut texts,
though printed from MSS. identical in order, often differ in
minor matters. Many friends have asked me to undertake the work:
but, even if lightened by the aid of Shaykhs, Munshis and
copyists, the labour would be severe, tedious and thankless:
better leave the holes open than patch them with fancy work or
with heterogeneous matter. The learned, indeed, as Lane tells us
(i. 74; iii. 740), being thoroughly dissatisfied with the plain
and popular, the ordinary and “vulgar” note of the language, have
attempted to refine and improve it and have more than once
threatened to remodel it, that is, to make it odious. This would
be to dress up Robert Burns in plumes borrowed from Dryden and
Pope.

The first defect of the texts is in the distribution and
arrangement of the matter, as I have noticed in the case of
Sindbad the Seaman (vol. vi. 77). Moreover, many of the earlier
Nights are overlong and not a few of the others are overshort:
this, however, has the prime recommendation of variety. Even the
vagaries of editor and scribe will not account for all the
incoherences, disorder and inconsequence, and for the vain
iterations which suggest that the author has forgotten what he
said. In places there are dead allusions to persons and tales
which are left dark, e.g. vol. i. pp. 43, 57, 61, etc. The
digressions are abrupt and useless, leading nowhere, while sundry
pages are wearisome for excess of prolixity or hardly
intelligible for extreme conciseness. The perpetual recurrence
of mean colloquialisms and of words and idioms peculiar to Egypt
and Syria[FN#306] also takes from the pleasure of the perusal.
Yet we cannot deny that it has its use: this unadorned language
of familiar conversation, in its day adapted for the
understanding of the people, is best fitted for the Rawi’s craft
in the camp and caravan, the Harem, the bazar and the coffee-house.
 Moreover, as has been well said, The Nights is the only
written half-way house between the literary and colloquial Arabic
which is accessible to all, and thus it becomes necessary to the
students who would qualify themselves for service in Moslem lands
from Mauritania to Mesopotamia. It freely uses Turkish words
like “Khátún” and Persian terms as “Sháhbandar,” thus requiring
for translation not only a somewhat archaic touch, but also a
vocabulary borrowed from various sources: otherwise the effect
would not be reproduced. In places, however, the style rises to
the highly ornate approaching the pompous; e.g. the Wazirial
addresses in the tale of King Jali’ad. The battle-scenes, mostly
admirable (vol. v. 365), are told with the conciseness of a
despatch and the vividness of an artist; the two combining to
form perfect “word-pictures.” Of the Badí’a or euphuistic style,
“Parleying euphuism,” and of AI Saj’a, the prose rhyme, I shall
speak in a future page.

The characteristics of the whole are naïveté and simplicity,
clearness and a singular concision. The gorgeousness is in the
imagery not in the language; the words are weak while the sense,
as in the classical Scandinavian books, is strong; and here the
Arabic differs diametrically from the florid exuberance and
turgid amplifications of the Persian story-teller, which sound so
hollow and unreal by the side of a chaster model. It abounds in
formulæ such as repetitions of religious phrases which are
unchangeable. There are certain stock comparisons, as Lokman’s
wisdom, Joseph’s beauty, Jacob’s grief, Job’s patience, David’s
music, and Maryam the Virgin’s chastity. The eyebrow is a Nún;
the eye a Sád, the mouth a Mím. A hero is more prudent than the
crow, a better guide than the Katá grouse, more generous than the
cock, warier than the crane, braver than the lion, more
aggressive than the panther, finer-sighted than the horse,
craftier than the fox, greedier than the gazelle, more vigilant
than the dog, and thriftier than the ant. The cup-boy is a sun
rising from the dark underworld symbolised by his collar; his
cheek-mole is a crumb of ambergris, his nose is a scymitar grided
at the curve; his lower lip is a jujube; his teeth are the
Pleiades or hailstones; his browlocks are scorpions; his young
hair on the upper lip is an emerald; his side beard is a swarm of
ants or a Lám ( -letter) enclosing the roses or anemones of his
cheek. The cup-girl is a moon who rivals the sheen of the sun;
her forehead is a pearl set off by the jet of her “idiot-fringe;”
her eyelashes scorn the sharp sword; and her glances are arrows
shot from the bow of the eyebrows. A mistress necessarily
belongs, though living in the next street, to the Wady Liwá and
to a hostile clan of Badawin whose blades are ever thirsting for
the lover’s blood and whose malignant tongues aim only at the
“defilement of separation.” Youth is upright as an Alif, or
slender and bending as a branch of the Bán-tree which we should
call a willow-wand,[FN#307] while Age, crabbed and crooked, bends
groundwards vainly seeking in the dust his lost juvenility. As
Baron de Slane says of these stock comparisons (Ibn Khall. i.
xxxvi.), “The figurative language of Moslem poets is often
difficult to be understood. The narcissus is the eye; the feeble
stem of that plant bends languidly under its dower, and thus
recalls to mind the languor of the eyes. Pearls signify both
tears and teeth; the latter are sometimes called hailstones, from
their whiteness and moisture; the lips are cornelians or rubies;
the gums, a pomegranate flower; the dark foliage of the myrtle is
synonymous with the black hair of the beloved, or with the first
down on the cheeks of puberty. The down itself is called the
izâr, or head-stall of the bridle, and the curve of the izar is
compared to the letters lâm ( ) and nûn ( ).[FN#308] Ringlets
trace on the cheek or neck the letter Waw ( ); they are called
Scorpions (as the Greek         ), either from their dark colour
or their agitated movements; the eye is a sword; the eyelids
scabbards; the whiteness of the complexion, camphor; and a mole
or beauty-spot, musk, which term denotes also dark hair. A mole
is sometimes compared also to an ant creeping on the cheek
towards the honey of the mouth; a handsome face is both a full
moon and day; black hair is night; the waist is a willow-branch
or a lance; the water of the face is self-respect: a poet sells
the water of his face[FN#309] when he bestows mercenary praises
on a rich patron.”

This does not sound promising: yet, as has been said of Arab
music, the persistent repetition of the same notes in the minor
key is by no means monotonous and ends with haunting the ear,
occupying the thought and touching the soul. Like the distant
frog-concert and chirp of the cicada, the creak of the water-wheel
 and the stroke of hammers upon the anvil from afar, the
murmur of the fountain, the sough of the wind and the plash of
the wavelet, they occupy the sensorium with a soothing effect,
forming a barbaric music full of sweetness and peaceful pleasure.

                             § IV.
                       SOCIAL CONDITION.

I here propose to treat of the Social Condition which The Nights
discloses, of Al-Islam at the earlier period of its development,
concerning the position of women and about the pornology of the
great Saga-book.

                         A.—Al-Islam.

A splendid and glorious life was that of Baghdad in the days of
the mighty Caliph,[FN#310] when the Capital had towered to the
zenith of grandeur and was already trembling and tottering to the
fall. The centre of human civilisation, which was then confined
to Greece and Arabia, and the metropolis of an Empire exceeding
in extent the widest limits of Rome, it was essentially a city of
pleasure, a Paris of the ixth century. The “Palace of Peace” (Dár
al-Salám), worthy successor of Babylon and Nineveh, which had
outrivalled Damascus, the “Smile of the Prophet,” and Kufah, the
successor of Hira and the magnificent creation of Caliph Omar,
possessed unrivalled advantages of site and climate. The Tigris-Euphrates
 Valley, where the fabled Garden of Eden has been
placed, in early ages succeeded the Nile-Valley as a great
centre of human development; and the prerogative of a central and
commanding position still promises it, even in the present state
of decay and desolation under the unspeakable Turk, a magnificent
future,[FN#311] when railways and canals shall connect it with
Europe. The city of palaces and government offices, hotels and
pavilions, mosques and colleges, kiosks and squares, bazars and
markets, pleasure grounds and orchards, adorned with all the
graceful charms which Saracenic architecture had borrowed from
the Byzantines, lay couched upon the banks of the Dijlah-Hiddekel
under a sky of marvellous purity and in a climate which makes
mere life a “Kayf”—the luxury of tranquil enjoyment. It was
surrounded by far extending suburbs, like Rusafah on the Eastern
side and villages like Baturanjah, dear to the votaries of
pleasure; and with the roar of a gigantic capital mingled the hum
of prayer, the trilling of birds, the thrilling of harp and lute,
the shrilling of pipes, the witching strains of the professional
Almah, and the minstrel’s lay.

The population of Baghdad must have been enormous when the
smallest number of her sons who fell victims to Huláku Khan in
1258 was estimated at eight hundred thousand, while other
authorities more than double the terrible “butcher’s bill.” Her
policy and polity were unique. A well regulated routine of
tribute and taxation, personally inspected by the Caliph; a
network of waterways, canaux d’arrosage; a noble system of
highways, provided with viaducts, bridges and caravanserais, and
a postal service of mounted couriers enabled it to collect as in
a reservoir the wealth of the outer world. The facilities for
education were upon the most extended scale; large sums, from
private as well as public sources, were allotted to Mosques, each
of which, by the admirable rule of Al-Islam, was expected to
contain a school: these establishments were richly endowed and
stocked with professors collected from every land between
Khorasan and Marocco;[FN#312] and immense libraries[FN#313]
attracted the learned of all nations. It was a golden age for
poets and panegyrists, koranists and literati, preachers and
rhetoricians, physicians and scientists who, besides receiving
high salaries and fabulous presents, were treated with all the
honours of Chinese Mandarins; and, like these, the humblest
Moslem—fisherman or artizan—could aspire through knowledge or
savoir faire to the highest offices of the Empire. The effect was
a grafting of Egyptian, and old Mesopotamian, of Persian and
Græco-Latin fruits, by long Time deteriorated, upon the strong
young stock of Arab genius; and the result, as usual after such
imping, was a shoot of exceptional luxuriance and vitality. The
educational establishments devoted themselves to the three main
objects recognised by the Moslem world, Theology, Civil Law and
Belles Lettres; and a multitude of trained Councillors enabled
the ruling powers to establish and enlarge that complicated
machinery of government, at once concentrated and decentralized,
a despotism often fatal to the wealthy great but never neglecting
the interests of the humbler lieges, which forms the beau idéal
of Oriental administration. Under the Chancellors of the Empire
the Kazis administered law and order, justice and equity; and
from their decisions the poorest subject, Moslem or miscreant,
could claim with the general approval of the lieges, access and
appeal to the Caliph who, as Imám or Antistes of the Faith was
High President of a Court of Cassation.

Under wise administration Agriculture and Commerce, the twin
pillars of national prosperity, necessarily flourished. A
scientific canalisation, with irrigation works inherited from the
ancients, made the Mesopotamian Valley a rival of Kemi the Black
Land, and rendered cultivation a certainty of profit, not a mere
speculation, as it must ever be to those who perforce rely upon
the fickle rains of Heaven. The remains of extensive mines prove
that this source of public wealth was not neglected; navigation
laws encouraged transit and traffic; and ordinances for the
fisheries aimed at developing a branch of industry which is still
backward even during the xixth century. Most substantial
encouragement was given to trade and commerce, to manufactures
and handicrafts, by the flood of gold which poured in from all
parts of earth; by the presence of a splendid and luxurious
court, and by the call for new arts and industries which such a
civilisation would necessitate. The crafts were distributed into
guilds and syndicates under their respective chiefs, whom the
government did not “govern too much”: these Shahbandars,
Mukaddams and Nakíbs regulated the several trades, rewarded the
industrious, punished the fraudulent and were personally
answerable, as we still see at Cairo, for the conduct of their
constituents. Public order, the sine quâ non of stability and
progress, was preserved, first, by the satisfaction of the lieges
who, despite their characteristic turbulence, had few if any
grievances; and, secondly, by a well directed and efficient
police, an engine of statecraft which in the West seems most
difficult to perfect. In the East, however, the Wali or Chief
Commissioner can reckon more or less upon the unsalaried
assistance of society: the cities are divided into quarters shut
off one from other by night, and every Moslem is expected, by his
law and religion, to keep watch upon his neighbours, to report
their delinquencies and, if necessary, himself to carry out the
penal code. But in difficult cases the guardians of the peace
were assisted by a body of private detectives, women as well as
men: these were called Tawwábún = the Penitents, because like our
Bow-street runners, they had given up an even less respectable
calling. Their adventures still delight the vulgar, as did the
Newgate Calendar of past generations; and to this class we owe
the Tales of Calamity Ahmad, Dalilah the Wily One, Saladin with
the Three Chiefs of Police (vol. iv. 271), and Al-Malik al-Záhir
with the Sixteen Constables (Bresl. Edit. xi. pp. 321– 99). Here
and in many other places we also see the origin of that
“picaresque” literature which arose in Spain and overran Europe;
and which begat Le Moyen de Parvenir. [FN#314]

I need say no more on this heading, the civilisation of Baghdad
contrasting with the barbarism of Europe then Germanic, The
Nights itself being the best expositor. On the other hand the
action of the state-religion upon the state, the condition of Al-Islam
 during the reign of Al-Rashid, its declension from the
primitive creed and its relation to Christianity and Christendom,
require a somewhat extended notice. In offering the following
observations it is only fair to declare my standpoints.

1. All forms of “faith,” that is, belief in things unseen, not
subject to the senses, and therefore unknown and (in our present
stage of development) unknowable, are temporary and transitory:
no religion hitherto promulgated amongst men shows any prospect
of being final or otherwise than finite.

2.   Religious ideas, which are necessarily limited, may all be
traced home to the old seat of science and art, creeds and polity
in the Nile-Valley and to this day they retain the clearest signs
of their origin.

3.   All so-called “revealed” religions consist mainly of three
portions, a cosmogony more or less mythical, a history more or
less falsified and a moral code more or less pure.

Al-Islam, it has been said, is essentially a fighting faith and
never shows to full advantage save in the field. The faith and
luxury of a wealthy capital, the debauchery and variety of vices
which would spring up therein, naturally as weeds in a rich
fallow, and the cosmopolitan views which suggest themselves in a
meeting-place of nations, were sore trials to the primitive
simplicity of the “Religion of Resignation”—the saving faith.
Harun and his cousin-wife, as has been shown, were orthodox and
even fanatical; but the Barmecides were strongly suspected of
heretical leanings; and while the many-headed showed itself, as
usual, violent, and ready to do battle about an Azan-call, the
learned, who sooner or later leaven the masses, were profoundly
dissatisfied with the dryness and barrenness of Mohammed’s creed,
so acceptable to the vulgar, and were devising a series of
schisms and innovations.

In the Tale of Tawaddud (vol. v. 189) the reader has seen a
fairly extended catechism of the Creed (Dín), the ceremonial
observances (Mazhab) and the apostolic practices (Sunnat) of the
Shafi’í school which, with minor modifications, applies to the
other three orthodox. Europe has by this time clean forgotten
some tricks of her former bigotry, such as “Mawmet” (an idol!)
and “Mahommerie” (mummery[FN#315]), a place of Moslem worship:
educated men no longer speak with Ockley of the “great impostor
Mahomet,” nor believe with the learned and violent Dr. Prideaux
that he was foolish and wicked enough to dispossess “certain poor
orphans, the sons of an inferior artificer” (the Banú Najjár!). A
host of books has attempted, though hardly with success, to
enlighten popular ignorance upon a crucial point; namely, that
the Founder of Al-Islam, like the Founder of Christianity, never
pretended to establish a new religion. His claims, indeed, were
limited to purging the “School of Nazareth” of the dross of ages
and of the manifold abuses with which long use had infected its
early constitution: hence to the unprejudiced observer his
reformation seems to have brought it nearer the primitive and
original doctrine than any subsequent attempts, especially the
Judaizing tendencies of the so-called “Protestant” churches. The
Meccan Apostle preached that the Hanafiyyah or orthodox belief,
which he subsequently named Al-Islam, was first taught by Allah,
in all its purity and perfection, to Adam and consigned to
certain inspired volumes now lost; and that this primal Holy Writ
received additions in the days of his descendants Shís (Seth) and
Idris (Enoch?), the founder of the Sabian (not “Sabæan”) faith.
Here, therefore, Al-Islam at once avoided the deplorable
assumption of the Hebrews and the Christians,—an error which has
been so injurious to their science and their progress,—of
placing their “firstman” in circa B. C. 4000 or somewhat
subsequent to the building of the Pyramids: the Pre-Adamite[FN#316
] races and dynasties of the Moslems remove a great
stumbling-block and square with the anthropological views of the
present day. In process of time, when the Adamite religion
demanded a restoration and a supplement, its pristine virtue was
revived, restored and further developed by the books communicated
to Abraham, whose dispensation thus takes the place of the Hebrew
Noah and his Noachidæ. In due time the Torah, or Pentateuch,
superseded and abrogated the Abrahamic dispensation; the “Zabúr”
of David (a book not confined to the Psalms) reformed the Torah;
the Injíl or Evangel reformed the Zabur and was itself purified,
quickened and perfected by the Koran which means             the
Reading or the Recital. Hence Locke, with many others, held
Moslems to be unorthodox, that is, anti-Trinitarian Christians
who believe in the Immaculate Conception, in the Ascension and in
the divine mission of Jesus; and when Priestley affirmed that
“Jesus was sent from God,” all Moslems do the same. Thus they
are, in the main point of doctrine connected with the Deity,
simply Arians as opposed to Athanasians. History proves that the
former was the earlier faith which, though formally condemned in
A. D. 325 by Constantine’s Council of Nice, [FN#317] overspread
the Orient beginning with Eastern Europe, where Ulphilas
converted the Goths; which extended into Africa with the Vandals,
claimed a victim or martyr as late as in the sixteenth century
[FN#318] and has by no means died out in this our day.

The Talmud had been completed a full century before Mohammed’s
time and the Evangel had been translated into Arabic; moreover
travel and converse with his Jewish and Christian friends and
companions must have convinced the Meccan Apostle that
Christianity was calling as loudly for reform as Judaism had
done. [FN#319] An exaggerated Trinitarianism or rather Tritheism,
a “Fourth Person” and Saint-worship had virtually dethroned the
Deity; whilst Mariolatry had made the faith a religio muliebris,
and superstition had drawn from its horrid fecundity an
incredible number of heresies and monstrous absurdities. Even
ecclesiastic writers draw the gloomiest pictures of the Christian
Church in the fourth and seventh centuries, and one declares that
the “Kingdom of Heaven had become a Hell.” Egypt, distracted by
the blood-thirsty religious wars of Copt and Greek, had been
covered with hermitages by a yens aeterna of semi-maniacal
superstition. Syria, ever “feracious of heresies,” had allowed
many of her finest tracts to be monopolised by monkeries and
nunneries.[FN#320] After many a tentative measure Mohammed seems
to have built his edifice upon two bases, the unity of the
Godhead and the priesthood of the pater-familias. He abolished
for ever the “sacerdos alter Christus” whose existence, as some
one acutely said, is the best proof of Christianity, and whom all
know to be its weakest point. The Moslem family, however humble,
was to be the model in miniature of the State, and every father
in Al-Islam was made priest and pontiff in his own house, able
unaided to marry himself, to circumcise (to baptise as it were)
his children, to instruct them in the law and canonically to bury
himself (vol. viii. 22). Ritual, properly so called, there was
none; congregational prayers were merely those of the individual
en masse, and the only admitted approach to a sacerdotal order
were the Olema or scholars learned in the legistic and the Mullah
or schoolmaster. By thus abolishing the priesthood Mohammed
reconciled ancient with modern wisdom. “Scito dominum,” said
Cato, “pro totâ familiâ rem divinam facere”: “No priest at a
birth, no priest at a marriage, no priest at a death,” is the
aspiration of the present Rationalistic School.

The Meccan Apostle wisely retained the compulsory sacrament of
circumcision and the ceremonial ablutions of the Mosaic law; and
the five daily prayers not only diverted man’s thoughts from the
world but tended to keep his body pure. These two institutions
had been practiced throughout life by the Founder of
Christianity; but the followers who had never seen him, abolished
them for purposes evidently political and propagandist. By
ignoring the truth that cleanliness is next to godliness they
paved the way for such saints as Simon Stylites and Sabba who,
like the lowest Hindu orders of ascetics, made filth a
concominant and an evidence of piety: even now English Catholic
girls are at times forbidden by Italian priests a frequent use of
the bath as a sign post to the sin of “luxury.” Mohammed would
have accepted the morals contained in the Sermon on the Mount
much more readily than did the Jews from whom its matter was
borrowed.[FN#321] He did something to abolish the use of wine,
which in the East means only its abuse; and he denounced games of
chance, well knowing that the excitable races of sub-tropical
climates cannot play with patience, fairness or moderation. He
set aside certain sums for charity to be paid by every Believer
and he was the first to establish a poor-rate (Zakát): thus he
avoided the shame and scandal of mendicancy which, beginning in
the Catholic countries of Southern Europe, extends to Syria and
as far East as Christianity is found. By these and other measures
of the same import he made the ideal Moslem’s life physically
clean, moderate and temperace.

But Mohammed, the “master mind of the age,” had, we must own, a
“genuine prophetic power, a sinking of self in the Divine not
distinguishable in kind from the inspiration of the Hebrew
prophets,” especially in that puritanical and pharisaic
narrowness which, with characteristic simplicity, can see no good
outside its own petty pale. He had insight as well as outsight,
and the two taught him that personal and external reformation
were mean matters compared with elevating the inner man. In the
“purer Faith,” which he was commissioned to abrogate and to
quicken, he found two vital defects equally fatal to its energy
and to its longevity. These were (and are) its egoism and its
degradation of humanity. Thus it cannot be a “pleroma”: it needs
a Higher Law.[FN#322] As Judaism promised the good Jew all manner
of temporal blessings, issue, riches, wealth, honour, power,
length of days, so Christianity offered the good Christian, as a
bribe to lead a godly life, personal salvation and a future state
of happiness, in fact the Kingdom of Heaven, with an alternative
threat of Hell. It never rose to the height of the Hindu Brahmans
and Lao-Tse (the “Ancient Teacher”); of Zeno the Stoic and his
disciples the noble Pharisees[FN#323] who believed and preached
that Virtue is its own reward. It never dared to say, “Do good
for Good’s sake;”[FN#324] even now it does not declare with
Cicero, “The sum of all is that what is right should be sought
for its own sake, because it is right, and not because it is
enacted.” It does not even now venture to say with Philo Judæus,
“The good man seeks the day for the sake of the day, and the
light for the light’s sake; and he labours to acquire what is
good for the sake of the good itself, and not of anything else.”
So far for the egotism, naive and unconscious, of Christianity,
whose burden is, “Do good to escape Hell and gain Heaven.”

A no less defect in the “School of Galilee” is its low view of
human nature. Adopting as sober and authentic history an Osirian-Hebrew
 myth which Philo and a host of Rabbis explain away, each
after his own fashion, Christianity dwells, lovingly as it were,
upon the “Fall” of man[FN#325] and seems to revel in the
contemptible condition to which “original sin” condemned him;
thus grovelling before God ad majorem Dei gloriam. To such a
point was and is this carried that the Synod of Dort declared,
Infantes infidelium morientes in infantiâ reprobatos esse statui
mus; nay, many of the orthodox still hold a Christian babe dying
unbaptised to be unfit for a higher existence, and some have even
created a “limbo” expressly to domicile the innocents “of whom is
the kingdom of Heaven.” Here, if any where, the cloven foot shows
itself and teaches us that the only solid stratum underlying
priestcraft is one composed of £ s. d.

And I never can now believe it, my Lord! (Bishop) we come to this
earth Ready damned, with the seeds of evil sown quite so thick at
our birth, sings Edwin Arnold.[FN#326] We ask, can infatuation or
hypocrisy—for it must be the one or the other—go farther? But
the Adamical myth is opposed to all our modern studies. The
deeper we dig into the Earth’s “crust,” the lower are the
specimens of human remains which occur; and hitherto not a single
“find” has come to revive the faded glories of

          Adam the goodliest man of men since born (!)

          His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.


Thus Christianity, admitting, like Judaism, its own saints and
santons, utterly ignores the progress of humanity, perhaps the
only belief in which the wise man can take unmingled
satisfaction. Both have proposed an originally perfect being with
hyacinthine locks, from whose type all the subsequent humans are
degradations physical and moral. We on the other hand hold, from
the evidence of our senses, that early man was a savage very
little superior to the brute; that during man’s millions of years
upon earth there has been a gradual advance towards perfection,
at times irregular and even retrograde, but in the main
progressive; and that a comparison of man in the xixth century
with the caveman[FN#327] affords us the means of measuring past
progress and of calculating the future of humanity.

Mahommed was far from rising to the moral heights of the ancient
sages: he did nothing to abate the egotism of Christianity; he
even exaggerated the pleasures of its Heaven and the horrors of
its Hell. On the other hand he did much to exalt human nature. He
passed over the “Fall” with a light hand; he made man superior to
the angels; he encouraged his fellow creatures to be great and
good by dwelling upon their nobler not their meaner side; he
acknowledged, even in this world, the perfectability of mankind,
including womankind, and in proposing the loftiest ideal he acted
unconsciously upon the grand dictum of chivalry—Honneur
oblige.[FN#328] His prophets were mostly faultless men; and, if
the “Pure of Allah” sinned, he “sinned against himself.” Lastly,
he made Allah predetermine the career and fortunes, not only of
empires, but of every created being; thus inculcating sympathy
and tolerance of others, which is true humanity, and a proud
resignation to evil as to good fortune. This is the doctrine
which teaches the vulgar Moslem a dignity observed even by the
“blind traveller,” and which enables him to display a moderation,
a fortitude, and a self-command rare enough amongst the followers
of the “purer creed.”

Christian historians explain variously the portentous rise of Al-Islam
 and its marvellous spread over vast regions, not only of
pagans and idolators but of Christians. Prideaux disingenuously
suggests that it “seems to have been purposely raised up by God,
to be a scourge to the Christian Church for not living in
accordance with their most holy religion.” The popular excuse is
by the free use of the sword; this, however, is mere ignorance:
in Mohammed’s day and early Al-Islam only actual fighters were
slain:[FN#329] the rest were allowed to pay the Jizyah, or
capitation-tax, and to become tributaries, enjoying almost all
the privileges of Moslems. But even had forcible conversion been
most systematically practiced, it would have afforded an
insufficient explanation of the phenomenal rise of an empire
which covered more ground in eighty years than Rome had gained in
eight hundred. During so short a time the grand revival of
Monotheism had consolidated into a mighty nation, despite their
eternal blood-feuds, the scattered Arab tribes; a six-years’
campaign had conquered Syria, and a lustre or two utterly
overthrew Persia, humbled the Græco-Roman, subdued Egypt and
extended the Faith along northern Africa as far as the Atlantic.
Within three generations the Copts of Nile-land had formally cast
out Christianity, and the same was the case with Syria, the
cradle of the Nazarene, and Mesopotamia, one of his strongholds,
although both were backed by all the remaining power of the
Byzantine empire. Northwestern Africa, which had rejected the
idolatro-philosophic system of pagan and imperial Rome, and had
accepted, after lukewarm fashion, the Arian Christianity imported
by the Vandals, and the “Nicene mystery of the Trinity,” hailed
with enthusiasm the doctrines of the Koran and has never ceased
to be most zealous in its Islam. And while Mohammedanism speedily
reduced the limits of Christendom by one-third, while through-out
the Arabian, Saracenic and Turkish invasions whole Christian
peoples embraced the monotheistic faith, there are hardly any
instances of defection from the new creed and, with the exception
of Spain and Sicily, it has never been suppressed in any land
where once it took root. Even now, when Mohammedanism no longer
wields the sword, it is spreading over wide regions in China, in
the Indian Archipelago, and especially in Western and Central
Africa, propagated only by self-educated individuals, trading
travellers, while Christianity makes no progress and cannot exist
on the Dark Continent without strong support from Government. Nor
can we explain this honourable reception by the “licentiousness”
ignorantly attributed to Al-Islam, one of the most severely moral
of institutions; or by the allurements of polygamy and
concubinage, slavery,[FN#330] and a “wholly sensual Paradise”
devoted to eating, drinking[FN#331] and the pleasures of the
sixth sense. The true and simple explanation is that this grand
Reformation of Christianity was urgently wanted when it appeared,
that it suited the people better than the creed which it
superseded and that it has not ceased to be sufficient for their
requirements, social, sexual and vital. As the practical
Orientalist, Dr. Leitner, well observes from his own experience,
“The Mohammedan religion can adapt itself better than any other
and has adapted itself to circumstances and to the needs of the
various races which profess it, in accordance with the spirit of
the age.”[FN#332] Hence, I add, its wide diffusion and its
impregnable position. “The dead hand, stiff and motionless,” is a
forcible simile for the present condition of Al-Islam; but it
results from limited and imperfect observation and it fails in
the sine quâ non of similes and metaphors, a foundation of fact.

I cannot quit this subject without a passing reference to an
admirably written passage in Mr. Palgrave’s travels[FN#333] which
is essentially unfair to Al-Islam. The author has had ample
opportunities of comparing creeds: of Jewish blood and born a
Protestant, he became a Catholic and a Jesuit (Père Michel
Cohen)[FN#334] in a Syrian convent; he crossed Arabia as a good
Moslem and he finally returned to his premier amour, Anglicanism.
But his picturesque depreciation of Mohammedanism, which has
found due appreciation in more than one popular volume, [FN#335]
is a notable specimen of special pleading, of the ad captandum in
its modern and least honest form. The writer begins by assuming
the arid and barren Wahhabi-ism, which he had personally studied,
as a fair expression of the Saving Faith. What should we say to a
Moslem traveller who would make the Calvinism of the sourest
Covenanter, model, genuine and ancient Christianity? What would
sensible Moslems say to these propositions of Professor Maccovius
and the Synod of Dort:—Good works are an obstacle to salvation.
God does by no means will the salvation of all men: he does will
sin and he destines men to sin, as sin? What would they think of
the Inadmissible Grace, the Perseverance of the Elect, the
Supralapsarian and the Sublapsarian and, finally, of a Deity the
author of man’s existence, temptation and fall, who deliberately
pre-ordains sin and ruin? “Father Cohen” carries out into the
regions of the extreme his strictures on the one grand vitalising
idea of Al-Islam, “There is no god but God;”[FN#336] and his
deduction concerning the Pantheism of Force sounds unreal and
unsound, compared with the sensible remarks upon the same subject
by Dr. Badgers[FN#337] who sees the abstruseness of the doctrine
and does not care to include it in hard and fast lines or to
subject it to mere logical analysis. Upon the subject of
“predestination” Mr. Palgrave quotes, not from the Koran, but
from the Ahádís or Traditional Sayings of the Apostle; but what
importance attaches to a legend in the Mischnah, or Oral Law, of
the Hebrews utterly ignored by the Written Law? He joins the many
in complaining that even the mention of “the love of God” is
absent from Mohammed’s theology, burking the fact that it never
occurs in the Jewish scriptures and that the genius of Arabic,
like Hebrew, does not admit the expression: worse still, he keeps
from his reader such Koranic passages as, to quote no other,
“Allah loveth you and will forgive your sins” (iii. 29). He
pities Allah for having “no son, companion or counsellor” and, of
course, he must equally commiserate Jehovah. Finally his views of
the lifelessness of Al-Islam are directly opposed to the opinions
of Dr. Leitner and the experience of all who have lived in Moslem
lands. Such are the ingenious but not ingenuous distortions of
fact, the fine instances of the pathetic fallacy, and the
noteworthy illustrations of the falsehood of extremes, which have
engendered “Mohammedanism a Relapse: the worst form of
Monotheism,”[FN#338] and which have been eagerly seized upon and
further deformed by the authors of popular books, that is,
volumes written by those who know little for those who know less.

In Al-Rashid’s day a mighty change had passed over the primitive
simplicity of Al-Islam, the change to which faiths and creeds,
like races and empires and all things sublunary, are subject. The
proximity of Persia and the close intercourse with the Græco-Romans
 had polished and greatly modified the physiognomy of the
rugged old belief: all manner of metaphysical subtleties had
cropped up, with the usual disintegrating effect, and some of
these threatened even the unity of the Godhead. Musaylimah and
Karmat had left traces of their handiwork: the Mutazilites
(separatists or secessors) actively propagated their doctrine of
a created and temporal Koran. The Khárijí or Ibázi, who rejects
and reviles Abú Turáb (Caliph Ali), contended passionately with
the Shí’ah who reviles and rejects the other three “Successors;”
and these sectarians, favoured by the learned, and by the
Abbasides in their jealous hatred of the Ommiades, went to the
extreme length of the Ali-Iláhi—the God-makers of Ali—whilst
the Dahrí and the Zindík, the Mundanist and the Agnoetic,
proposed to sweep away the whole edifice. The neo-Platonism and
Gnosticism which had not essentially affected
Christendom,[FN#339] found in Al-Islam a rich fallow and gained
strength and luxuriance by the solid materialism and conservatism
of its basis. Such were a few of the distracting and resolving
influences which Time had brought to bear upon the True Believer
and which, after some half a dozen generations, had separated the
several schisms by a wider breach than that which yawns between
Orthodox, Romanist and Lutheran. Nor was this scandal in Al-Islam
abated until the Tartar sword applied to it the sharpest remedy.

                           B.—Woman.

The next point I propose to consider is the position of womanhood
in The Nights, so curiously at variance with the stock ideas
concerning the Moslem home and domestic policy still prevalent,
not only in England, but throughout Europe. Many readers of these
volumes have remarked to me with much astonishment that they find
the female characters more remarkable for decision, action and
manliness than the male; and are wonderstruck by their masterful
attitude and by the supreme influence they exercise upon public
and private life.

I have glanced at the subject of the sex in Al-Islam to such an
extent throughout my notes that little remains here to be added.
Women, all the world over are what men make them; and the main
charm of Amazonian fiction is to see how they live and move and
have their being without any masculine guidance. But it is the
old ever-new fable

          “Who drew the Lion vanquished? ’Twas a man!”

The books of the Ancients, written in that stage of civilisation
when the sexes are at civil war, make women even more than in
real life the creatures of their masters: hence from the dawn of
literature to the present day the sex has been the subject of
disappointed abuse and eulogy almost as unmerited. Ecclesiastes,
perhaps the strangest specimen of an “inspired volume” the world
has yet produced, boldly declares “One (upright) man among a
thousand I have found; but a woman among all have I not found”
(vol. vii. 28), thus confirming the pessimism of Petronius:—

          Femina nulla bona est, et si bona contigit ulla

          Nescio quo fato res male facta bona est.


In the Psalms again (xxx. 15) we have the old sneer at the three
insatiables, Hell, Earth and the Parts feminine (os vulvæ); and
Rabbinical learning has embroidered these and other texts,
producing a truly hideous caricature. A Hadis attributed to
Mohammed runs, “They (women) lack wits and faith. When Eve was
created Satan rejoiced saying:—Thou art half of my host, the
trustee of my secret and my shaft wherewith I shoot and miss
not!” Another tells us, “I stood at the gate of Heaven, and lo!
most of its inmates were poor, and I stood at the gate of Hell,
and lo! most of its inmates were women.”[FN#340] “Take care of
the glass-phials!” cried the Prophet to a camel-guide singing
with a sweet voice. Yet the Meccan Apostle made, as has been
seen, his own household produce two perfections. The blatant
popular voice follows with such “dictes” as, “Women are made of
nectar and poison”; “Women have long hair and short wits” and so
forth. Nor are the Hindus behindhand. Woman has fickleness
implanted in her by Nature like the flashings of lightning (Kathá
s.s. i. 147); she is valueless as a straw to the heroic mind
(169); she is hard as adamant in sin and soft as flour in fear
(170) and, like the fly, she quits camphor to settle on compost
(ii. 17). “What dependence is there in the crowing of a hen?”
(women’s opinions) says the Hindi proverb; also “A virgin with
grey hairs!” (i.e. a monster) and, “Wherever wendeth a fairy face
a devil wendeth with her.” The same superficial view of holding
woman to be lesser (and very inferior) man is taken generally by
the classics; and Euripides distinguished himself by misogyny,
although he drew the beautiful character of Alcestis. Simonides,
more merciful than Ecclesiastes, after naming his swine-women,
dog-women, cat-women, etc., ends the decade with the admirable
bee-woman, thus making ten per cent. honest. In mediæval or
Germanic Europe the doctrine of the Virgin mother gave the sex a
status unknown to the Ancients except in Egypt, where Isis was
the help-mate and completion of Osiris, in modern parlance “The
Woman clothed with the Sun.” The kindly and courtly Palmerin of
England, in whose pages “gentlemen may find their choice of sweet
inventions and gentlewomen be satisfied with courtly
expectations,” suddenly blurts out, “But in truth women are never
satisfied by reason, being governed by accident or appetite”
(chaps. xlix).

The Nights, as might be expected from the emotional East,
exaggerate these views. Women are mostly “Sectaries of the god
Wünsch”; beings of impulse, blown about by every gust of passion;
stable only in instability; constant only in inconstancy. The
false ascetic, the perfidious and murderous crone and the old
hag-procuress who pimps like Umm Kulsum,[FN#341] for mere
pleasure, in the luxury of sin, are drawn with an experienced and
loving hand. Yet not the less do we meet with examples of the
dutiful daughter, the model lover matronly in her affection, the
devoted wife, the perfect mother, the saintly devotee, the
learned preacher, Univira the chaste widow and the
self-sacrificing heroic woman. If we find (vol. iii. 216) the sex
described as:—

          An offal cast by kites where’er they list,

and the studied insults of vol. iii. 318, we also come upon an
admirable sketch of conjugal happiness (vol. vii. ? 43); and, to
mention no other, Shahryar’s attestation to Shahrazad’s
excellence in the last charming pages of The Nights.[FN#342] It
is the same with the Kathá whose praise and dispraise are equally
enthusiastic; e.g., “Women of good family are guarded by their
virtue, the sole efficient chamberlain; but the Lord himself can
hardly guard the unchaste. Who can stem a furious stream and a
frantic woman?” (i. 328). “Excessive love in woman is your only
hero for daring” (i. 339). “Thus fair ones, naturally feeble,
bring about a series of evil actions which engender discernment
and aversion to the world; but here and there you will find a
virtuous woman who adorneth a glorious house as the streak of the
moon arrayeth the breadth of the Heavens” (i. 346). “So you see,
King, honourable matrons are devoted to their husbands and ’tis
not the case that women are always bad” (ii. 624). And there is
true wisdom in that even balance of feminine qualities advocated
by our Hindu-Hindi class-book the Toti-námeh or Parrot volume.
The perfect woman has seven requisites. She must not always be
merry (1) nor sad (2); she must not always be talking (3) nor
silently musing (4); she must not always be adorning herself (5)
nor neglecting her person (6); and, (7) at all times she must be
moderate and self possessed.

The legal status of womankind in Al-Islam is exceptionally high,
a fact of which Europe has often been assured, although the truth
has not even yet penetrated into the popular brain. Nearly a
century ago one Mirza Abú Tálib Khán, an Amildár or revenue
collector, after living two years in London, wrote an “apology”
for, or rather a vindication of, his countrywomen which is still
worth reading and quoting.[FN#343] Nations are but superficial
judges of one another: where customs differ they often remark
only the salient distinctive points which, when examined, prove
to be of minor importance. Europeans seeing and hearing that
women in the East are “cloistered” as the Grecian matron was wont
ἔνδον μένειν and οἰκονρε̑ιν; that wives may not walk out with
their husbands and cannot accompany them to “balls and parties”;
moreover, that they are always liable, like the ancient Hebrew,
to the mortification of the “sister-wife,” have most ignorantly
determined that they are mere serviles and that their lives are
not worth living. Indeed, a learned lady, Miss Martineau, once
visiting a Harem went into ecstasies of pity and sorrow because
the poor things knew nothing of—say trigonometry and the use of
the globes. Sonnini thought otherwise, and my experience, like
that of all old dwellers in the East, is directly opposed to this
conclusion.

I have noted (Night cmlxii.) that Mohammed, in the fifth year of
his reign,[FN#344] after his ill-advised and scandalous
marriage[FN#345] with his foster-daughter Zaynab, established the
Hijáb or veiling of women. It was probably an exaggeration of
local usage: a modified separation of the sexes, which extended
and still extends even to the Badawi, must long have been
customary in Arabian cities, and its object was to deliver the
sexes from temptation, as the Koran says (xxxii. 32), “purer will
this (practice) be for your hearts and their hearts.”[FN#346] The
women, who delight in restrictions which tend to their honour,
accepted it willingly and still affect it, they do not desire a
liberty or rather a licence which they have learned to regard as
inconsistent with their time-honoured notions of feminine decorum
and delicacy, and they would think very meanly of a husband who
permitted them to be exposed, like hetairæ, to the public
gaze.[FN#347] As Zubayr Pasha, exiled to Gibraltar for another’s
treason, said to my friend, Colonel Buckle, after visiting
quarters evidently laid out by a jealous husband, “We Arabs think
that when a man has a precious jewel, ’tis wiser to lock it up in
a box than to leave it about for anyone to take.” The Eastern
adopts the instinctive, the Western prefers the rational method.
The former jealously guards his treasure, surrounds it with all
precautions, fends off from it all risks and if the treasure go
astray, kills it. The latter, after placing it en evidence upon
an eminence in ball dress with back and bosom bared to the gaze
of society, a bundle of charms exposed to every possible
seduction, allows it to take its own way, and if it be misled, he
kills or tries to kill the misleader. It is a fiery trial and the
few who safely pass through it may claim a higher standpoint in
the moral world than those who have never been sorely tried. But
the crucial question is whether Christian Europe has done wisely
in offering such temptations.

The second and main objection to Moslem custom is the
marriage-system which begins with a girl being wedded to a man
whom she knows only by hearsay. This was the habit of our
forbears not many generations ago, and it still prevails amongst
noble houses in Southern Europe, where a lengthened study of it
leaves me doubtful whether the “love-marriage,” as it is called,
or wedlock with an utter stranger, evidently the two extremes, is
likely to prove the happier. The “sister-wife” is or would be a
sore trial to monogamic races like those of Northern Europe where
Caia, all but the equal of Caius in most points mental and
physical and superior in some, not unfrequently proves herself
the “man of the family,” the “only man in the boat.” But in the
East, where the sex is far more delicate, where a girl is brought
up in polygamy, where religious reasons separate her from her
husband, during pregnancy and lactation, for three successive
years; and where often enough like the Mormon damsel she would
hesitate to “nigger it with a one-wife-man,” the case assumes a
very different aspect and the load, if burden it be, falls
comparatively light. Lastly, the “patriarchal household” is
mostly confined to the grandee and the richard, whilst Holy Law
and public opinion, neither of which can openly be disregarded,
assign command of the household to the equal or first wife and
jealously guard the rights and privileges of the others.

Mirza Abu Talib “the Persian Prince”[FN#348] offers six reasons
why “the liberty of the Asiatic women appears less than that of
the Europeans,” ending with,

          I’ll fondly place on either eye

          The man that can to this reply.


He then lays down eight points in which the Moslem wife has
greatly the advantage over her Christian sisterhood; and we may
take his first as a specimen. Custom, not contrary to law,
invests the Mohammedan mother with despotic government of the
homestead, slaves, servants and children, especially the latter:
she alone directs their early education, their choice of faith,
their marriage and their establishment in life; and in case of
divorce she takes the daughters, the sons going to the sire. She
has also liberty to leave her home, not only for one or two
nights, but for a week or a fortnight, without consulting her
husband; and whilst she visits a strange household, the master
and all males above fifteen are forbidden the Harem. But the main
point in favour of the Moslem wife is her being a “legal sharer”:
inheritance is secured to her by Koranic law; she must be dowered
by the bridegroom to legalise marriage and all she gains is
secured to her; whereas in England a “Married Woman’s Property
Act” was completed only in 1882 after many centuries of the
grossest abuses.

Lastly, Moslems and Easterns in general study and intelligently
study the art and mystery of satisfying the physical woman. In my
Foreword I have noticed among barbarians the system of “making
men,”[FN#349] that is, of teaching lads first arrived at puberty
the nice conduct of the instrumentum paratum plantandis avibus: a
branch of the knowledge-tree which our modern education grossly
neglects, thereby entailing untold miseries upon individuals,
families and generations. The mock virtue, the most immodest
modesty of England and of the United States in the xixth century,
pronounces the subject foul and fulsome:“Society” sickens at all
details; and hence it is said abroad that the English have the
finest women in Europe and least know how to use them. Throughout
the East such studies are aided by a long series of volumes, many
of them written by learned physiologists, by men of social
standing and by religious dignitaries high in office. The
Egyptians especially delight in aphrodisiac literature treating,
as the Turks say, de la partie au-dessous de la taille; and from
fifteen hundred to two thousand copies of a new work, usually
lithographed in cheap form, readily sell off. The pudibund Lane
makes allusion to and quotes (A. N. i. 216) one of the most out
spoken, a 4to of 464 pages, called the Halbat al-Kumayt or “Race-Course
 of the Bay Horse,” a poetical and horsey term for grape-wine.
Attributed by D’Herbelot to the Kazi Shams al-Din Mohammed,
it is wholly upon the subject of wassail and women till the last
few pages, when his reverence exclaims:—“This much, O reader, I
have recounted, the better thou mayst know what to avoid;” and so
forth, ending with condemning all he had praised.[FN#350] Even
the divine and historian Jalál al-Dín al-Siyuti is credited with
having written, though the authorship is much disputed, a work
entitled, “Kitáb al-Ízáh fi ’ilm al-Nikáh” =The Book of
Exposition in the Science of Coition: my copy, a lithograph of 33
pages, undated, but evidently Cairene, begins with exclaiming
“Alhamdolillah—Laud to the Lord who adorned the virginal bosom
with breasts and who made the thighs of women anvils for the
spear handles of men!” To the same amiable theologian are also
ascribed the “Kitáb Nawázir al-Ayk fi al-Nayk” = Green Splendours
of the Copse in Copulation, an abstract of the “Kitáb al-Wisháh
fí fawáid al-Nikáh” = Book of the Zone on Coition-boon. Of the
abundance of pornographic literature we may judge from a list of
the following seven works given in the second page of the “Kitáb
Rujú’a al-Shaykh ila Sabáh fi ’l-Kuwwat al-Báh[FN#351]” = Book of
Age-rejuvenescence in the power of Concupiscence: it is the work
of Ahmad bin Sulayman, surnamed Ibn Kamál Pasha.

1.   Kitáb al-Báh by Al-Nahli.

2.   Kitáb al’-Ars wa al’-Aráis (Book of the Bridal and the
Brides) by Al-Jáhiz.

3.   Kitáb al-Kiyán (Maiden’s Book) by Ibn Hájib al-Nu’mán.

4.   Kitáb al-Ízáh fí asrár al-Nikáh (Book of the Exposition on
the Mysteries of married Fruition).

5.   Kitáb Jámi’ al-Lizzah (The Compendium of Pleasure) by Ibn
Samsamáni.

6.   Kitáb Barján (Yarján?) wa Janáhib (? ?)[FN#352]

7.   Kitáb al-Munákahah wa al-Mufátahah fí Asnáf al-Jimá’ wa
Álátih (Book of Carnal Copulation and the Initiation into the
modes of Coition and its Instrumentation) by Aziz al-Din
al-Masíhí.[FN#353]

To these I may add the Lizzat al-Nisá (Pleasures of Women), a
text-book in Arabic, Persian and Hindostani: it is a translation
and a very poor attempt, omitting much from, and adding naught
to, the famous Sanskrit work Ananga-Ranga (Stage of the Bodiless
One i.e. Cupido) or Hindu Art of Love (Ars Amoris
Indica).[FN#354] I have copies of it in Sanskrit and
Maráthi, Guzrati and Hindostani: the latter is an unpaged 8vo of
pp. 66, including eight pages of most grotesque illustrations
showing the various san (the Figuræ Veneris or positions of
copulation), which seem to be the triumphs of contortionists.
These pamphlets lithographed in Bombay are broad cast over the
land.[FN#355]

It must not be supposed that such literature is purely and simply
aphrodisiacal. The learned Sprenger, a physician as well as an
Arabist, says (Al-Mas’údi p. 384) of a tractate by the celebrated
Rhazes in the Leyden Library, “The number of curious
observations, the correct and practical ideas and the novelty of
the notions of Eastern nations on these subjects, which are
contained in this book, render it one of the most important
productions of the medical literature of the Arabs.” I can
conscientiously recommend to the Anthropologist a study of the
“Kutub al-Báh.”

                        C.—Pornography.

Here it will be advisable to supplement what was said in my
Foreword (p. xiii.) concerning the turpiloquium of The Nights.
Readers who have perused the ten volumes will probably agree with
me that the naïve indecencies of the text are rather gaudis-serie
than prurience; and, when delivered with mirth and humour, they
are rather the “excrements of wit” than designed for debauching
the mind. Crude and indelicate with infantile plainness; even
gross and, at times, “nasty” in their terrible frankness, they
cannot be accused of corrupting suggestiveness or subtle
insinuation of vicious sentiment. Theirs is a coarseness of
language, not of idea; they are indecent, not depraved; and the
pure and perfect naturalness of their nudity seems almost to
purify it, showing that the matter is rather of manners than of
morals. Such throughout the East is the language of every man,
woman and child, from prince to peasant, from matron to
prostitute: all are as the naïve French traveller said of the
Japanese: “si grossiers qu’ils ne sçavent nommer les choses que
par leur nom.” This primitive stage of language sufficed to draw
from Lane and Burckhardt strictures upon the “most immodest
freedom of conversation in Egypt,” where, as all the world over,
there are three several stages for names of things and acts
sensual. First we have the mot cru, the popular term, soon
followed by the technical and scientific, and, lastly, the
literary or figurative nomenclature, which is often much more
immoral because more attractive, suggestive and seductive than
the “raw word.” And let me observe that the highest civilisation
is now returning to the language of nature. In La Glu of M. J.
Richepin, a triumph of the realistic school, we find such
“archaic” expressions as la petée, putain, foutue à la six-quatre-dix;
un facétieuse pétarade; tu t’es foutue de, etc. Eh
vilain bougre! and so forth.[FN#356] To those critics who
complain of these raw vulgarisms and puerile indecencies in The
Nights I can reply only by quoting the words said to have been
said by Dr. Johnson to the lady who complained of the naughty
words in his dictionary—“You must have been looking for them,
Madam!”

But I repeat (p. xiv.) there is another element in The Nights and
that is one of absolute obscenity utterly repugnant to English
readers, even the least prudish. It is chiefly connected with
what our neighbours call le vice contre nature—as if anything
can be contrary to nature which includes all things.[FN#357] Upon
this subject I must offer details, as it does not enter into my
plan to ignore any theme which is interesting to the Orientalist
and the Anthropologist. And they, methinks, do abundant harm who,
for shame or disgust, would suppress the very mention of such
matters: in order to combat a great and growing evil deadly to
the birth-rate—the mainstay of national prosperity—the first
requisite is careful study. As Albert Bollstoedt, Bishop of
Ratisbon, rightly says.—Quia malum non evitatum nisi cognitum,
ideo necesse est cognoscere immundiciem coitus et multa alla quæ
docentur in isto libro. Equally true are Professor Mantegazza’s
words:[FN#358] Cacher les plates du cur humain au nom de la
pudeur, ce n’est au contraire qu’hypocrisie ou peur. The late Mr.
Grote had reason to lament that when describing such institutions
as the far-famed             of Thebes, the Sacred Band
annihilated at Chaeroneia, he was compelled to a reticence which
permitted him to touch only the surface of the subject. This was
inevitable under the present rule of Cant[FN#359] in a book
intended for the public: but the same does not apply to my
version of The Nights, and now I proceed to discuss the matter
sérieusement, honnêtement, historiquement; to show it in decent
nudity not in suggestive fig-leaf or feuille de vigne.

                         D.—Pederasty.

The “execrabilis familia pathicorum” first came before me by a
chance of earlier life. In 1845, when Sir Charles Napier had
conquered and annexed Sind, despite a fraction (mostly venal)
which sought favour with the now defunct “Court of Directors to
the Honourable East India Company,” the veteran began to consider
his conquest with a curious eye. It was reported to him that
Karáchi, a townlet of some two thousand souls and distant not
more than a mile from camp, supported no less than three lupanars
or borders, in which not women but boys and eunuchs, the former
demanding nearly a double price,[FN#360] lay for hire. Being then
the only British officer who could speak Sindi, I was asked
indirectly to make enquiries and to report upon the subject; and
I undertook the task on express condition that my report should
not be forwarded to the Bombay Government, from whom supporters
of the Conqueror’s policy could expect scant favour, mercy or
justice. Accompanied by a Munshi, Mirza Mohammed Hosayn of
Shiraz, and habited as a merchant, Mirza Abdullah the
Bushiri[FN#361] passed many an evening in the townlet, visited
all the porneia and obtained the fullest details, which were duly
despatched to Government House. But the “Devil’s Brother”
presently quitted Sind leaving in his office my unfortunate
official: this found its way with sundry other reports[FN#362] to
Bombay and produced the expected result. A friend in the
Secretariat informed me that my summary dismissal from the
service had been formally proposed by one of Sir Charles Napier’s
successors, whose decease compels me parcere sepulto. But this
excess of outraged modesty was not allowed.

Subsequent enquiries in many and distant countries enabled me to
arrive at the following conclusions:—

1.   There exists what I shall call a “Sotadic Zone,” bounded
westwards by the northern shores of the Mediterranean (N. Lat.
43 ) and by the southern (N. Lat. 30 ). Thus the depth would be
780 to 800 miles including meridional France, the Iberian
Peninsula, Italy and Greece, with the coast-regions of Africa
from Marocco to Egypt.

2.   Running eastward the Sotadic Zone narrows, embracing Asia
Minor, Mesopotamia and Chaldæa, Afghanistan, Sind, the Punjab and
Kashmir.

3.   In Indo-China the belt begins to broaden, enfolding China,
Japan and Turkistan.

4.   It then embraces the South Sea Islands and the New World
where, at the time of its discovery, Sotadic love was, with some
exceptions, an established racial institution.

5.   Within the Sotadic Zone the Vice is popular and endemic,
held at the worst to be a mere peccadillo, whilst the races to
the North and South of the limits here defined practice it only
sporadically amid the opprobrium of their fellows who, as a rule,
are physically incapable of performing the operation and look
upon it with the liveliest disgust.

Before entering into topographical details concerning pederasty,
which I hold to be geographical and climatic, not racial, I must
offer a few considerations of its cause and origin. We must not
forget that the love of boys has its noble, sentimental side. The
Platonists and pupils of the Academy, followed by the Sufis or
Moslem Gnostics, held such affection, pure as ardent, to be the
beau idéal which united in man’s soul the creature with the
Creator. Professing to regard youths as the most cleanly and
beautiful objects in this phenomenal world, they declared that by
loving and extolling the chef-d’uvre, corporeal and
intellectual, of the Demiurgus, disinterestedly and without any
admixture of carnal sensuality, they are paying the most fervent
adoration to the Causa causans. They add that such affection,
passing as it does the love of women, is far less selfish than
fondness for and admiration of the other sex which, however
innocent, always suggest sexuality;[FN#363] and Easterns add that
the devotion of the moth to the taper is purer and more fervent
than the Bulbul’s love for the Rose. Amongst the Greeks of the
best ages the system of boy-favourites was advocated on
considerations of morals and politics. The lover undertook the
education of the beloved through precept and example, while the
two were conjoined by a tie stricter than the fraternal.
Hieronymus the Peripatetic strongly advocated it because the
vigorous disposition of youths and the confidence engendered by
their association often led to the overthrow of tyrannies.
Socrates declared that “a most valiant army might be composed of
boys and their lovers; for that of all men they would be most
ashamed to desert one another.” And even Virgil, despite the foul
flavour of Formosum pastor Corydon, could write:—

          Nisus amore pio pueri.

The only physical cause for the practice which suggests itself to
me and that must be owned to be purely conjectural, is that
within the Sotadic Zone there is a blending of the masculine and
feminine temperaments, a crasis which elsewhere occurs only
sporadically. Hence the male féminisme whereby the man becomes
patiens as well as agens, and the woman a tribade, a votary of
mascula Sappho,[FN#364] Queen of Frictrices or Rubbers.[FN#365]
Prof. Mantegazza claims to have discovered the cause of this
pathological love, this perversion of the erotic sense, one of
the marvellous list of amorous vagaries which deserve, not
prosecution but the pitiful care of the physician and the study
of the psychologist. According to him the nerves of the rectum
and the genitalia, in all cases closely connected, are abnormally
so in the pathic, who obtains, by intromission, the venereal
orgasm which is usually sought through the sexual organs. So
amongst women there are tribads who can procure no pleasure
except by foreign objects introduced a posteriori. Hence his
threefold distribution of sodomy; (1) Peripheric or anatomical,
caused by an unusual distribution of the nerves and their
hyperæsthesia; (2) Luxurious, when love a tergo is preferred on
account of the narrowness of the passage; and (3) the Psychical.
But this is evidently superficial: the question is what causes
this neuropathy, this abnormal distribution and condition of the
nerves.[FN#366]

As Prince Bismarck finds a moral difference between the male and
female races of history, so I suspect a mixed physical
temperament effected by the manifold subtle influences massed
together in the word climate. Something of the kind is necessary
to explain the fact of this pathological love extending over the
greater portion of the habitable world, without any apparent
connection of race or media, from the polished Greek to the
cannibal Tupi of the Brazil. Walt Whitman speaks of the ashen
grey faces of onanists: the faded colours, the puffy features and
the unwholesome complexion of the professed pederast with his
peculiar cachetic expression, indescribable but once seen never
forgotten, stamp the breed, and Dr. G. Adolph is justified in
declaring “Alle Gewohnneits-paederasten erkennen sich einander
schnell, oft met einen Thick.” This has nothing in common with
the féminisme which betrays itself in the pathic by womanly gait,
regard and gesture: it is a something sui generic; and the same
may be said of the colour and look of the young priest who
honestly refrains from women and their substitutes. Dr. Tardieu,
in his well-known work, “Étude Medico-régale sur les Attentats
aux Murs,” and Dr. Adolph note a peculiar infundibuliform
disposition of the “After” and a smoothness and want of folds
even before any abuse has taken place, together with special
forms of the male organs in confirmed pederasts. But these
observations have been rejected by Caspar, Hoffman, Brouardel and
Dr. J. H. Henry Coutagne (Notes sur la Sodomie, Lyon, 1880), and
it is a medical question whose discussion would here be out of
place.

The origin of pederasty is lost in the night of ages; but its
historique has been carefully traced by many writers, especially
Virey,[FN#367] Rosenbaum[FN#368] and M. H. E. Meier.[FN#369] The
ancient Greeks who, like the modern Germans, invented nothing but
were great improvers of what other races invented, attributed the
formal apostolate of Sotadism to Orpheus, whose stigmata were
worn by the Thracian women;

                         —Omnemque refugerat Orpheus

          Fmineam venerem;—

          Ille etiam Thracum populis fuit auctor, amorem

          In teneres transferre mares: citraque juventam

          Ætatis breve ver, et primos carpere flores.

                                   Ovid Met. x. 79–85.


Euripides proposed Laïus father of Oedipus as the inaugurator,
whereas Timæus declared that the fashion of making favourites of
boys was introduced into Greece from Crete, for Malthusian
reasons said Aristotle (Pol. ii. 10), attributing it to Minos.
Herodotus, however, knew far better, having discovered (ii. c.
80) that the Orphic and Bacchic rites were originally Egyptian.
But the Father of History was a traveller and an annalist rather
than an archæologist and he tripped in the following passage (i.
c. 135), “As soon as they (the Persians) hear of any luxury, they
instantly make it their own, and hence, among other matters, they
have learned from the Hellenes a passion for boys” (“unnatural
lust,” says modest Rawlinson). Plutarch (De Malig, Herod.
xiii.)[FN#370] asserts with much more probability that the
Persians used eunuch boys according to the Mos Græciæ, long
before they had seen the Grecian main.

In the Holy Books of the Hellenes, Homer and Hesiod, dealing with
the heroic ages, there is no trace of pederasty, although, in a
long subsequent generation, Lucian suspected Achilles and
Patroclus as he did Orestes and Pylades, Theseus and Pirithous.
Homer’s praises of beauty are reserved for the feminines,
especially his favourite Helen. But the Dorians of Crete seem to
have commended the abuse to Athens and Sparta and subsequently
imported it into Tarentum, Agrigentum and other colonies. Ephorus
in Strabo (x. 4 § 21) gives a curious account of the violent
abduction of beloved boys ({Greek}) by the lover ({Greek}); of
the obligations of the ravisher ({Greek}) to the favourite
({Greek})[FN#371] and of the “marriage-ceremonies” which lasted
two months. See also Plato, Laws i. c. 8. Servius (Ad Æneid. x.
325) informs us “De Cretensibus accepimus, quod in amore puerorum
intemperantes fuerunt, quod postea in Lacones et in totam Græciam
translatum est.” The Cretans and afterwards their apt pupils the
Chalcidians held it disreputable for a beautiful boy to lack a
lover. Hence Zeus, the national Doric god of Crete, loved
Ganymede;[FN#372] Apollo, another Dorian deity, loved Hyacinth,
and Hercules, a Doric hero who grew to be a sun-god, loved Hylas
and a host of others: thus Crete sanctified the practice by the
examples of the gods and demigods. But when legislation came, the
subject had qualified itself for legal limitation and as such was
undertaken by Lycurgus and Solon, according to Xenophon (Lac. ii.
13), who draws a broad distinction between the honest love of
boys and dishonest ({Greek}) lust. They both approved of pure
pederastía, like that of Harmodius and Aristogiton; but forbade
it with serviles because degrading to a free man. Hence the love
of boys was spoken of like that of women (Plato: Phædrus; Repub.
vi. c. 19 and Xenophon, Synop. iv. 10), e.g., “There was once a
boy, or rather a youth, of exceeding beauty and he had very many
lovers”—this is the language of Hafiz and Sa’adi. Æschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides were allowed to introduce it upon the
stage, for “many men were as fond of having boys for their
favourites as women for their mistresses; and this was a frequent
fashion in many well-regulated cities of Greece.” Poets like
Alcæus, Anacreon, Agathon and Pindar affected it and Theognis
sang of a “beautiful boy in the flower of his youth.” The
statesmen Aristides and Themistocles quarrelled over Stesileus of
Teos; and Pisistratus loved Charmus who first built an altar to
Puerile Eros, while Charmus loved Hippias son of Pisistratus.
Demosthenes the Orator took into keeping a youth called Cnosion
greatly to the indignation of his wife. Xenophon loved Clinias
and Autolycus; Aristotle, Hermeas, Theodectes[FN#373] and others;
Empedocles, Pausanias; Epicurus, Pytocles; Aristippus, Eutichydes
and Zeno with his Stoics had a philosophic disregard for women,
affecting only pederastía. A man in Athenæus (iv. c. 40) left in
his will that certain youths he had loved should fight like
gladiators at his funeral; and Charicles in Lucian abuses
Callicratidas for his love of “sterile pleasures.” Lastly there
was the notable affair of Alcibiades and Socrates, the “sanctus
pæderasta”[FN#374] being violemment soupçonné when under the
mantle:—non semper sine plagâ ab eo surrexit. Athenæus (v. c.
13) declares that Plato represents Socrates as absolutely
intoxicated with his passion for Alcibiades.[FN#375] The Ancients
seem to have held the connection impure, or Juvenal would not
have written:—

          Inter Socraticos notissima fossa cinædos,

followed by Firmicus (vii. 14) who speaks of “Socratici
pædicones.” It is the modern fashion to doubt the pederasty of
the master of Hellenic Sophrosyne, the “Christian before
Christianity;” but such a world-wide term as Socratic love can
hardly be explained by the lucus-a-non-lucendo theory. We are
overapt to apply our nineteenth century prejudices and
prepossessions to the morality of the ancient Greeks who would
have specimen’d such squeamishness in Attic salt.

The Spartans, according to Agnon the Academic (confirmed by
Plato, Plutarch and Cicero), treated boys and girls in the same
way before marriage: hence Juvenal (xi. 173) uses “Lacedæmonius”
for a pathic and other writers apply it to a tribade. After the
Peloponnesian War, which ended in B.C. 404, the use became merged
in the abuse. Yet some purity must have survived, even amongst
the Botians who produced the famous Narcissus,[FN#376] described
by Ovid (Met. iii. 339);—

          Multi ilium juvenes, multæ cupiere puellæ;

          Nulli ilium juvenes, nullæ tetigere puellæ:[FN#377]


for Epaminondas, whose name is mentioned with three beloveds,
established the Holy Regiment composed of mutual lovers,
testifying the majesty of Eros and preferring to a discreditable
life a glorious death. Philip’s redactions on the fatal field of
Chaeroneia form their fittest epitaph. At last the Athenians,
according to Æschines, officially punished Sodomy with death; but
the threat did not abolish bordels of boys, like those of
Karáchi; the Porneia and Pornoboskeia, where slaves and pueri
venales “stood,” as the term was, near the Pnyx, the city walls
and a certain tower, also about Lycabettus (Æsch. contra Tim.);
and paid a fixed tax to the state. The pleasures of society in
civilised Greece seem to have been sought chiefly in the heresies
of love—Hetairesis[FN#378] and Sotadism.

It is calculated that the French of the sixteenth century had
four hundred names for the parts genital and three hundred for
their use in coition. The Greek vocabulary is not less copious,
and some of its pederastic terms, of which Meier gives nearly a
hundred, and its nomenclature of pathologic love are curious and
picturesque enough to merit quotation.

To live the life of Abron (the Argive), i.e. that of a      ,
pathic or passive lover.

The Agathonian song.

Aischrourgía = dishonest love, also called Akolasía, Akrasía,

Arrenokoitía, etc.


Alcinoan youths, or “non conformists,”

          In cute curandâ plus æquo operate Juventus.

Alegomenos, the “unspeakable,” as the pederast was termed by the

Council of Ancyra: also the Agrios, Apolaustus and Akolastos.


Androgyne, of whom Ansonius wrote (Epig. lxviii. 15):—

          Ecce ego sum factus femina de puero.

Badas and badízein = clunes torquens: also Bátalos= a catamite.

Catapygos, Katapygosyne = puerarius and catadactylium from
Dactylion, the ring, used in the sense of Nerissa’s, but applied
to the corollarium puerile.

Cinædus (Kínaidos), the active lover ({Greek}) derived either
from his kinetics or quasi {Greek} = dog modest. Also
Spatalocinædus (lasciviâ fluens) = a fair Ganymede.

Chalcidissare (Khalkidizein), from Chalcis in Euba, a city famed
for love à posteriori; mostly applied to le léchement des
testicules by children.

Clazomenae = the buttocks, also a sotadic disease, so called from
the Ionian city devoted to Aversa Venus; also used of a pathic,

          —et tergo femina pube vir est.

Embasicoetas, prop. a link-boy at marriages, also a “night-cap”
drunk before bed and lastly an effeminate; one who perambulavit
omnium cubilia (Catullus). See Encolpius’ pun upon the Embasicete
in Satyricon, cap. iv.

Epipedesis, the carnal assault.

Geiton lit. “neighbour” the beloved of Encolpius, which has
produced the Fr. Giton = Bardache, Ital. bardascia from the Arab.
Baradaj, a captive, a slave; the augm. form is Polygeiton.

Hippias (tyranny of) when the patient (woman or boy) mounts the
agent. Aristoph. Vesp. 502. So also Kelitizein = peccare superne
or equum agitare supernum of Horace.

Mokhthería, depravity with boys.

Paidika, whence pædicare (act.) and pædicari (pass.): so in the

Latin poet:—


          PEnelopes primam DIdonis prima sequatur,

          Et primam CAni, syllaba prima REmi.


Pathikos, Pathicus, a passive, like Malakos (malacus, mollis,
facilis), Malchio, Trimalchio (Petronius), Malta, Maltha and in
Hor. (Sat. ii. 25)

          Malthinus tunicis demissis ambulat.

Praxis = the malpractice.

Pygisma = buttockry, because most actives end within the nates,
being too much excited for further intromission.

Phœnicissare (ϕοινικίζϵιν) = cunnilingere in tempore menstruum, quia
hoc vitium in Phnicia generata solebat (Thes. Erot. Ling.
Latinæ); also irrumer en miel.

Phicidissare, denotat actum per canes commissum quando lambunt
cunnos vel testiculos (Suetonius): also applied to pollution of
childhood.

Samorium flores (Erasmus, Prov. xxiii ) alluding to the
androgynic prostitutions of Samos.

Siphniassare ({Greek}, from Siphnos, hod. Sifanto Island) =
digito podicem fodere ad pruriginem restinguendam, says Erasmus
(see Mirabeau’s Erotika Biblion, Anoscopie).

Thrypsis = the rubbing.

Pederastía had in Greece, I have shown, its noble and ideal side:
Rome, however, borrowed her malpractices, like her religion and
polity, from those ultra-material Etruscans and debauched with a
brazen face. Even under the Republic Plautus (Casin. ii. 21)
makes one of his characters exclaim, in the utmost sang-froid,
“Ultro te, amator, apage te a dorso meo!” With increased luxury
the evil grew and Livy notices (xxxix. 13), at the Bacchanalia,
plura virorum inter sese quam fminarum stupra. There were
individual protests; for instance, S. Q. Fabius Maximus
Servilianus (Consul U.C. 612) punished his son for dubia
castitas; and a private soldier, C. Plotius, killed his military
Tribune, Q. Luscius, for unchaste proposals. The Lex Scantinia
(Scatinia?), popularly derived from Scantinius the Tribune and of
doubtful date (B.C. 226?), attempted to abate the scandal by fine
and the Lex Julia by death; but they were trifling obstacles to
the flood of infamy which surged in with the Empire. No class
seems then to have disdained these “sterile pleasures:” l’on
n’attachoit point alors à cette espèce d’amour une note
d’infamie, comme en païs de chrétienté, says Bayle under
“Anacreon.” The great Cæsar, the Cinaedus calvus of Catullus, was
the husband of all the wives and the wife of all the husbands in
Rome (Suetonius, cap. Iii.); and his soldiers sang in his praise,
Gallias Cæsar, subegit, Nicomedes Cæsarem (Suet. cies. xlix.);
whence his sobriquet “Fornix Birthynicus.” Of Augustus the people
chaunted

          Videsne ut Cinædus orbem digito temperet?

Tiberius, with his pisciculi and greges exoletorum, invented the
Symplegma or nexus of Sellarii, agentes et patientes, in which
the spinthriæ (lit. women’s bracelets) were connected in a chain
by the bond of flesh[FN#379] (Seneca Quaest. Nat.). Of this
refinement which in the earlier part of the nineteenth century
was renewed by sundry Englishmen at Naples, Ausonius wrote (Epig.
cxix. I),

          Tres uno in lecto: stuprum duo perpetiuntur;

And Martial had said (xii. 43)

          Quo symplegmate quinque copulentur;

          Qua plures teneantur a catena; etc.


Ausonius recounts of Caligula he so lost patience that he
forcibly entered the priest M. Lepidus, before the sacrifice was
completed. The beautiful Nero was formally married to Pythagoras
(or Doryphoros) and afterwards took to wife Sporus who was first
subjected to castration of a peculiar fashion; he was then named
Sabina after the deceased spouse and claimed queenly honours. The
“Othonis et Trajani pathici” were famed; the great Hadrian openly
loved Antinous, and the wild debaucheries of Heliogabalus seem
only to have amused, instead of disgusting, the Romans.

Uranopolis allowed public lupanaria where adults and meritorii
pueri, who began their career as early as seven years, stood for
hire: the inmates of these cauponæ wore sleeved tunics and
dalmatics like women. As in modern Egypt pathic boys, we learn
from Catullus, haunted the public baths. Debauchées had signals
like freemasons whereby they recognised one another. The Greek
Skematízein was made by closing the hand to represent the scrotum
and raising the middle finger as if to feel whether a hen had
eggs, tâter si les poulettes ont l’uf: hence the Athenians
called it Catapygon or sodomite and the Romans digitus impudicus
or infamis, the “medical finger”[FN#380] of Rabelais and the
Chiromantists. Another sign was to scratch the head with the
minimus—digitulo caput scabere (Juv. ix. 133).[FN#381] The
prostitution of boys was first forbidden by Domitian; but Saint
Paul, a Greek, had formally expressed his abomination of Le Vice
(Rom. i. 26; i. Cor. vi. 8); and we may agree with Grotius (de
Verit. ii. c. 13) that early Christianity did much to suppress
it. At last the Emperor Theodosius punished it with fire as a
profanation, because sacro-sanctum esse debetur hospitium virilis
animæ.

In the pagan days of imperial Rome her literature makes no
difference between boy and girl. Horace naïvely says (Sat. ii.
118):—

          Ancilla aut verna est praesto puer;

and with Hamlet, but in a dishonest sense:—

                    —Man delights me not

          Nor woman neither.


Similarly the Spaniard Martial, who is a mine of such pederastic
allusions (xi. 46):—

          Sive puer arrisit, sive puella tibi.

That marvellous Satyricon which unites the wit of Molière[FN#382]
with the debaucheries of Piron, whilst the writer has been
described, like Rabelais, as purissimus in impuritate, is a kind
of Triumph of Pederasty. Geiton the hero, a handsome, curly-pated
hobbledehoy of seventeen, with his câlinerie and wheedling
tongue, is courted like one of the sequor sexus: his lovers are
inordinately jealous of him and his desertion leaves deep scars
upon the heart. But no dialogue between man and wife in extremis
could be more pathetic than that in the scene where shipwreck is
imminent. Elsewhere every one seems to attempt his neighbour: a
man alte succinctus assails Ascyltos; Lycus, the Tarentine
skipper, would force Encolpius and so forth: yet we have the neat
and finished touch (cap. vii.):—“The lamentation was very fine
(the dying man having manumitted his slaves) albeit his wife wept
not as though she loved him. How were it had he not behaved to
her so well?”

Erotic Latin glossaries[FN#383] give some ninety words connected
with pederasty and some, which “speak with Roman simplicity,” are
peculiarly expressive. “Averse Venus” alludes to women being
treated as boys: hence Martial, translated by Piron, addresses
Mistress Martial (x. 44):—

          Teque puta, cunnos, uxor, habere duos.

The capillatus or comatus is also called calamistratus, the
darling curled with crisping-irons; and he is an Effeminatus,
i.e., qui muliebria patitur; or a Delicatus, slave or eunuch for
the use of the Draucus, Puerarius (boy-lover) or Dominus (Mart.
xi. 71). The Divisor is so called from his practice Hillas
dividere or cædere, something like Martial’s cacare mentulam or
Juvenal’s Hesternæ occurrere cænæ. Facere vicibus (Juv. vii.
238), incestare se invicem or mutuum facere (Plaut. Trin. ii.
437), is described as “a puerile vice,” in which the two take
turns to be active and passive: they are also called Gemelli and
Fratres = compares in pædicatione. Illicita libido is =
præpostera seu postica Venus, and is expressed by the picturesque
phrase indicare (seu incurvare) aliquem. Depilatus, divellere
pilos, glaber, laevis and nates pervellere are allusions to the
Sotadic toilette. The fine distinction between demittere and
dejicere caput are worthy of a glossary, while Pathica puella,
puera, putus, pullipremo pusio, pygiaca sacra, quadrupes,
scarabæus and smerdalius explain themselves.

From Rome the practice extended far and wide to her colonies,
especially the Provincia now called Provence. Athenæus (xii. 26)
charges the people of Massilia with “acting like women out of
luxury”; and he cites the saying “May you sail to Massilia!” as
if it were another Corinth. Indeed the whole Keltic race is
charged with Le Vice by Aristotle (Pol. ii. 66), Strabo (iv. 199)
and Diodorus Siculus (v. 32). Roman civilisation carried
pederasty also to Northern Africa, where it took firm root, while
the negro and negroid races to the South ignore the erotic
perversion, except where imported by foreigners into such
kingdoms as Bornu and Haussa. In old Mauritania, now
Marocco,[FN#384] the Moors proper are notable sodomites; Moslems,
even of saintly houses, are permitted openly to keep catamites,
nor do their disciples think worse of their sanctity for such
licence: in one case the English wife failed to banish from the
home “that horrid boy.”

Yet pederasty is forbidden by the Koran. In chapter iv. 20 we
read: “And if two (men) among you commit the crime, then punish
them both,” the penalty being some hurt or damage by public
reproach, insult or scourging. There are four distinct references
to Lot and the Sodomites in chapters vii. 78; xi. 77–84; xxvi.
160–174 and xxix. 28–35. In the first the prophet commissioned to
the people says, “Proceed ye to a fulsome act wherein no creature
hath foregone ye? Verily ye come to men in lieu of women
lustfully.” We have then an account of the rain which made an end
of the wicked and this judgment on the Cities of the Plain is
repeated with more detail in the second reference. Here the
angels, generally supposed to be three, Gabriel, Michael and
Raphael, appeared to Lot as beautiful youths, a sore temptation
to the sinners and the godly man’s arm was straitened concerning
his visitors because he felt unable to protect them from the
erotic vagaries of his fellow townsmen. He therefore shut his
doors and from behind them argued the matter: presently the
riotous assembly attempted to climb the wall when Gabriel, seeing
the distress of his host, smote them on the face with one of his
wings and blinded them so that all moved off crying for aid and
saying that Lot had magicians in his house. Hereupon the “Cities”
which, if they ever existed, must have been Fellah villages, were
uplifted: Gabriel thrust his wing under them and raised them so
high that the inhabitants of the lower heaven (the lunar sphere)
could hear the dogs barking and the cocks crowing. Then came the
rain of stones: these were clay pellets baked in hell-fire,
streaked white and red, or having some mark to distinguish them
from the ordinary and each bearing the name of its destination
like the missiles which destroyed the host of Abrahat
al-Ashram.[FN#385] Lastly the “Cities” were turned upside down
and cast upon earth. These circumstantial unfacts are repeated at
full length in the other two chapters; but rather as an instance
of Allah’s power than as a warning against pederasty, which
Mohammed seems to have regarded with philosophic indifference.
The general opinion of his followers is that it should be
punished like fornication unless the offenders made a public act
of penitence. But here, as in adultery, the law is somewhat too
clement and will not convict unless four credible witnesses swear
to have seen rem in re. I have noticed (vol. i. 211) the vicious
opinion that the Ghilmán or Wuldán, the beautiful boys of
Paradise, the counter parts of the Houris, will be lawful
catamites to the True Believers in a future state of happiness:
the idea is nowhere countenanced in Al-Islam; and, although I
have often heard debauchées refer to it, the learned look upon
the assertion as scandalous.

As in Marocco so the Vice prevails throughout the old regencies
of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli and all the cities of the South
Mediterranean seaboard, whilst it is unknown to the Nubians, the
Berbers and the wilder tribes dwelling inland. Proceeding
Eastward we reach Egypt, that classical region of all
abominations which, marvellous to relate, flourished in closest
contact with men leading the purest of lives, models of
moderation and morality, of religion and virtue. Amongst the
ancient Copts Le Vice was part and portion of the Ritual and was
represented by two male partridges alternately copulating
(Interp. in Priapi Carm. xvii). The evil would have gained
strength by the invasion of Cambyses (B.C. 524), whose armies,
after the victory over Psammenitus. settled in the Nile-Valley
and held it, despite sundry revolts, for some hundred and ninety
years. During these six generations the Iranians left their mark
upon Lower Egypt and especially, as the late Rogers Bey proved,
upon the Fayyum, the most ancient Delta of the Nile.[FN#386] Nor
would the evil be diminished by the Hellenes who, under Alexander
the Great, “liberator and saviour of Egypt” (B.C. 332),
extinguished the native dynasties: the love of the Macedonian for
Bagoas the Eunuch being a matter of history. From that time and
under the rule of the Ptolemies the morality gradually decayed;
the Canopic orgies extended into private life and the debauchery
of the men was equalled only by the depravity of the women.
Neither Christianity nor Al-Islam could effect a change for the
better; and social morality seems to have been at its worst
during the past century when Sonnini travelled (A.D. 1717). The
French officer, who is thoroughly trustworthy, draws the darkest
picture of the widely spread criminality, especially of the
bestiality and the sodomy (chaps. xv.), which formed the “delight
of the Egyptians.” During the Napoleonic conquest Jaubert in his
letter to General Bruix (p. 19) says, “Les Arabes et les
Mamelouks ont traité quelques-uns de nos prisonniers comme
Socrate traitait, dit-on, Alcibiade. Il fallait périr ou y
passer.” Old Anglo-Egyptians still chuckle over the tale of Sa’id
Pasha and M. de Ruyssenaer, the high-dried and highly respectable
Consul-General for the Netherlands, who was solemnly advised to
make the experiment, active and passive, before offering his
opinion upon the subject. In the present age extensive
intercourse with Europeans has produced not a reformation but a
certain reticence amongst the upper classes: they are as vicious
as ever, but they do not care for displaying their vices to the
eyes of mocking strangers.

Syria and Palestine, another ancient focus of abominations,
borrowed from Egypt and exaggerated the worship of androgynic and
hermaphroditic deities. Plutarch (De Iside) notes that the old
Nilotes held the moon to be of “male-female sex,” the men
sacrificing to Luna and the women to Lunus.[FN#387] Isis also was
a hermaphrodite, the idea being that Aether or Air (the lower
heavens) was the menstruum of generative nature; and Damascius
explained the tenet by the all-fruitful and prolific powers of
the atmosphere. Hence the fragment attributed to Orpheus, the
song of Jupiter (Air):—

               All things from Jove descend

          Jove was a male, Jove was a deathless bride;

          For men call Air, of two fold sex, the Jove.


Julius Pirmicus relates that “The Assyrians and part of the
Africians” (along the Mediterranean seaboard?) “hold Air to be
the chief element and adore its fanciful figure (imaginata
figura), consecrated under the name of Juno or the Virgin Venus.
* * * Their companies of priests cannot duly serve her unless
they effeminate their faces, smooth their skins and disgrace
their masculine sex by feminine ornaments. You may see men in
their very temples amid general groans enduring miserable
dalliance and becoming passives like women (viros muliebria
pati), and they expose, with boasting and ostentation, the
pollution of the impure and immodest body.” Here we find the
religious significance of eunuchry. It was practiced as a
religious rite by the Tympanotribas or Gallus,[FN#388] the
castrated votary of Rhea or Bona Mater, in Phrygia called Cybele,
self mutilated but not in memory of Atys; and by a host of other
creeds: even Christianity, as sundry texts show,[FN#389] could
not altogether cast out the old possession. Here too we have an
explanation of Sotadic love in its second stage, when it became,
like cannibalism, a matter of superstition. Assuming a nature-implanted
 tendency, we see that like human sacrifice it was held
to be the most acceptable offering to the God-goddess in the
Orgia or sacred ceremonies, a something set apart for peculiar
worship. Hence in Rome as in Egypt the temples of Isis (Inachidos
limina, Isiacæ sacraria Lunæ) were centres of sodomy, and the
religious practice was adopted by the grand priestly castes from
Mesopotamia to Mexico and Peru.

We find the earliest written notices of the Vice in the mythical
destruction of the Pentapolis (Gen. xix.), Sodom, Gomorrah (=
’Amirah, the cultivated country), Adama, Zeboïm and Zoar or Bela.
The legend has been amply embroidered by the Rabbis who make the
Sodomites do everything à l’envers: e.g., if a man were wounded
he was fined for bloodshed and was compelled to fee the offender;
and if one cut off the ear of a neighbour’s ass he was condemned
to keep the animal till the ear grew again. The Jewish doctors
declare the people to have been a race of sharpers with rogues
for magistrates, and thus they justify the judgment which they
read literally. But the traveller cannot accept it. I have
carefully examined the lands at the North and at the South of
that most beautiful lake, the so-called Dead Sea, whose tranquil
loveliness, backed by the grand plateau of Moab, is an object of
admiration to all save patients suffering from the strange
disease “Holy Land on the Brain.”[FN#390] But I found no traces
of craters in the neighbourhood, no signs of vulcanism, no
remains of “meteoric stones”: the asphalt which named the water
is a mineralised vegetable washed out of the limestones, and the
sulphur and salt are brought down by the Jordan into a lake
without issue. I must therefore look upon the history as a myth
which may have served a double purpose. The first would be to
deter the Jew from the Malthusian practices of his pagan
predecessors, upon whom obloquy was thus cast, so far resembring
the scandalous and absurd legend which explained the names of the
children of Lot by Pheiné and Thamma as “Moab” .(Mu-ab) the water
or semen of the father, and “Ammon” as mother’s son, that is,
bastard. The fable would also account for the abnormal fissure
containing the lower Jordan and the Dead Sea, which the late Sir
R. I. Murchison used wrong-headedly to call a “Volcano of
Depression”: this geological feature, that cuts off the
river-basin from its natural outlet, the Gulf of Eloth (Akabah),
must date from myriads of years before there were “Cities of the
Plains.” But the main object of the ancient lawgiver, Osarsiph,
Moses or the Moseidæ, was doubtless to discountenance a
perversion prejudicial to the increase of population. And he
speaks with no uncertain voice, Whoso lieth with a beast shall
surely be put to death (Exod. xxii. 19): If a man lie with
mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an
abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall
be upon them (Levit. xx. 13; where v.v. 15–16 threaten with death
man and woman who lie with beasts). Again, There shall be no
whore of the daughters of Israel nor a sodomite of the sons of
Israel (Deut. xxii. 5).

The old commentators on the Sodom-myth are most unsatisfactory,
e.g. Parkhurst, s.v. Kadesh. “From hence we may observe the
peculiar propriety of this punishment of Sodom and of the
neighbouring cities. By their sodomitical impurities they meant
to acknowledge the Heavens as the cause of fruitfulness
independently upon, and in opposition to, Jehovah;[FN#391]
therefore Jehovah, by raining upon them not genial showers but
brimstone from heaven, not only destroyed the inhabitants, but
also changed all that country, which was before as the garden of
God, into brimstone and salt that is not sown nor beareth,
neither any grass groweth therein.” It must be owned that to this
Pentapolis was dealt very hard measure for religiously and
diligently practicing a popular rite which a host of cities even
in the present day, as Naples and Shiraz, to mention no others,
affect for simple luxury and affect with impunity. The myth may
probably reduce itself to very small proportions, a few Fellah
villages destroyed by a storm, like that which drove Brennus from
Delphi.

The Hebrews entering Syria found it religionised by Assyria
and Babylonia, whence Accadian Ishtar had passed west and had
become Ashtoreth, Ashtaroth or Ashirah,[FN#392] the Anaitis of
Armenia, the Phnician Astarte and the Greek Aphrodite, the great
Moon-goddess,[FN#393 ] who is queen of Heaven and Love. In another
phase she was Venus Mylitta = the Procreatrix, in Chaldaic Mauludatá
and in Arabic Moawallidah, she who bringeth forth. She was worshipped
by men habited as women and vice-versâ; for which reason in the Torah
(Deut. xx. 5) the sexes are forbidden to change dress. The male
prostitutes were called Kadesh the holy, the women being Kadeshah,
and doubtless gave themselves up to great excesses. Eusebius (De bit.
Const. iii. c. 55) describes a school of impurity at Aphac, where women
and “men who were not men” practiced all manner of abominations in
honour of the Demon (Venus). Here the Phrygian symbolism of Kybele and
Attis (Atys) had become the Syrian Ba’al Tammuz and Astarte, and the
Grecian Dionæa and Adonis, the anthropomorphic forms of the two greater
lights. The site, Apheca, now Wady al-Afik on the route from Bayrut to
the Cedars, is a glen of wild and wondrous beauty, fitting frame-work
for the loves of goddess and demigod: and the ruins of the temple
destroyed by Constantine contrast with Nature’s work, the glorious
fountain, splendidior vitro, which feeds the River Ibrahim and still at
times Adonis runs purple to the sea.[FN#394]

The Phnicians spread this androgynic worship over Greece. We
find the consecrated servants and votaries of Corinthian
Aphrodite called Hierodouli (Strabo viii. 6), who aided the ten
thousand courtesans in gracing the Venus-temple: from this
excessive luxury arose the proverb popularised by Horace. One of
the headquarters of the cult was Cyprus where, as Servius relates
(Ad Æn. ii. 632), stood the simulacre of a bearded Aphrodite with
feminine body and costume, sceptered and mitred like a man. The
sexes when worshipping it exchanged habits and here the virginity
was offered in sacrifice: Herodotus (i. c. 199) describes this
defloration at Babylon but sees only the shameful part of the
custom which was a mere consecration of a tribal rite. Everywhere
girls before marriage belong either to the father or to the clan
and thus the maiden paid the debt due to the public before
becoming private property as a wife. The same usage prevailed in
ancient Armenia and in parts of Ethiopia; and Herodotus tells us
that a practice very much like the Babylonian “is found also in
certain parts of the Island of Cyprus:” it is noticed by Justin
(xviii. c. 5) and probably it explains the “Succoth Benoth” or
Damsels’ booths which the Babylonians bans planted to the cities
of Samaria.[FN#395] The Jews seem very successfully to have
copied the abominations of their pagan neighbours, even in the
matter of the “dog.”[FN#396] In the reign of wicked Rehoboam
(B.C. 975) “There were also sodomites in the land and they did
according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord
cast out before the children of Israel” (I Kings xiv. 20). The
scandal was abated by zealous King Asa (B.C. 958) whose
grandmother[FN#397] was high-priestess of Priapus (princeps in
sacris Priapi): he “took away the sodomites out of the land” (I
Kings XV. 12). Yet the prophets were loud in their complaints,
especially the so-called Isaiah (B.C. 760), “except the Lord of
Hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should have been as
Sodom” (i. 9); and strong measures were required from good King
Josiah (B.C. 641) who amongst other things, “brake down the
houses of the sodomites that were by the house of the Lord, where
the women wove hangings for the grove” (2 Kings xxiii. 7). The
bordels of boys (pueris alienis adhæseverunt) appear to have been
near the Temple.

Syria has not forgotten her old “praxis.” At Damascus I found
some noteworthy cases amongst the religious of the great Amawi
Mosque. As for the Druses we have Burckhardt’s authority (Travels
in Syria, etc., p. 202), “unnatural propensities are very common
amongst them.”

The Sotadic Zone covers the whole of Asia Minor and Mesopotamia
now occupied by the “unspeakable Turk,” a race of born pederasts;
and in the former region we first notice a peculiarity of the
feminine figure, the mammæ inclinatæ, jacentes et pannosæ, which
prevails over all this part of the belt. Whilst the women to the
North and South have, with local exceptions, the mammæ stantes of
the European virgin,[FN#398] those of Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan
and Kashmir lose all the fine curves of the bosom, sometimes even
before the first child; and after it the hemispheres take the
form of bags. This cannot result from climate only; the women of
Marathá-land, inhabiting a damper and hotter region than Kashmir,
are noted for fine firm breasts even after parturition. Le Vice
of course prevails more in the cities and towns of Asiatic Turkey
than in the villages; yet even these are infected; while the
nomad Turcomans contrast badly in this point with the Gypsies,
those Badawin of India. The Kurd population is of Iranian origin,
which means that the evil is deeply rooted: I have noted in The
Nights that the great and glorious Saladin was a habitual
pederast. The Armenians, as their national character is, will
prostitute themselves for gain but prefer women to boys: Georgia
supplied Turkey with catamites whilst Circassia sent concubines.
In Mesopotamia the barbarous invader has almost obliterated the
ancient civilisation which is ante-dated only by the Nilotic: the
mysteries of old Babylon nowhere survive save in certain obscure
tribes like the Mandæans, the Devil-worshippers and the
Alí-iláhi. Entering Persia we find the reverse of Armenia; and,
despite Herodotus, I believe that Iran borrowed her pathologic
love from the peoples of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and not from
the then insignificant Greeks. But whatever may be its origin,
the corruption is now bred in the bone. It begins in boyhood and
many Persians account for it by paternal severity. Youths arrived
at puberty find none of the facilities with which Europe supplies
fornication. Onanism[FN#399] is to a certain extent discouraged
by circumcision, and meddling with the father’s slave-girls and
concubines would be risking cruel punishment if not death. Hence
they use each other by turns, a “puerile practice” known as
Alish-Takish, the Lat. facere vicibus or mutuum facere.
Temperament, media, and atavism recommend the custom to the
general; and after marrying and begetting heirs, Paterfamilias
returns to the Ganymede. Hence all the odes of Hafiz are
addressed to youths, as proved by such Arabic exclamations as
’Afáka ’llah = Allah assain thee (masculine)[FN#400]: the object
is often fanciful but it would be held coarse and immodest to
address an imaginary girl.[FN#401] An illustration of the
penchant is told at Shiraz concerning a certain Mujtahid, the
head of the Shi’ah creed, corresponding with a prince-archbishop
in Europe. A friend once said to him, “There is a question I
would fain address to your Eminence but I lack the daring to do
so.” “Ask and fear not,” replied the Divine. “It is this, O
Mujtahid! Figure thee in a garden of roses and hyacinths with the
evening breeze waving the cypress-heads, a fair youth of twenty
sitting by thy side and the assurance of perfect privacy. What,
prithee, would be the result?” The holy man bowed the chin of
doubt upon the collar of meditation; and, too honest to lie,
presently whispered, “Allah defend me from such temptation of
Satan!” Yet even in Persia men have not been wanting who have
done their utmost to uproot the Vice: in the same Shiraz they
speak of a father who, finding his son in flagrant delict, put
him to death like Brutus or Lynch of Galway. Such isolated cases,
however, can effect nothing. Chardin tells us that houses of male
prostitution were common in Persia whilst those of women were
unknown: the same is the case in the present day and the boys are
prepared with extreme care by diet, baths, depilation, unguents
and a host of artists in cosmetics.[FN#402] Le Vice is looked
upon at most as a peccadillo and its mention crops up in every
jest-book. When the Isfahan man mocked Shaykh Sa’adi by comparing
the bald pates of Shirazian elders to the bottom of a lotá, a
brass cup with a wide-necked opening used in the Hammam, the
witty poet turned its aperture upwards and thereto likened the
well-abused podex of an Isfahani youth. Another favourite piece
of Shirazian “chaff” is to declare that when an Isfahan father
would set up his son in business he provides him with a pound of
rice, meaning that he can sell the result as compost for the
kitchen-garden, and with the price buy another meal: hence the
saying Khakh-i-pái káhú = the soil at the lettuce-root. The
Isfahanis retort with the name of a station or halting-place
between the two cities where, under presence of making travellers
stow away their riding-gear, many a Shirazi had been raped: hence
“Zín o takaltú tú bi-bar” = carry within saddle and saddle-cloth!
A favourite Persian punishment for strangers caught in the Harem
or Gynæceum is to strip and throw them and expose them to the
embraces of the grooms and negro-slaves. I once asked a Shirazi
how penetration was possible if the patient resisted with all the
force of the sphincter muscle: he smiled and said, “Ah, we
Persians know a trick to get over that; we apply a sharpened tent
peg to the crupper bone (os coccygis) and knock till he opens.” A
well known missionary to the East during the last generation was
subjected to this gross insult by one of the Persian Prince-governors,
whom he had infuriated by his conversion-mania: in his
memoirs he alludes to it by mentioning his “dishonoured person;”
but English readers cannot comprehend the full significance of
the confession. About the same time Shaykh Nasr, Governor of
Bushire, a man famed for facetious blackguardism, used to invite
European youngsters serving in the Bombay Marine and ply them
with liquor till they were insensible. Next morning the middies
mostly complained that the champagne had caused a curious
irritation and soreness in la parse-posse. The same Eastern
“Scrogin” would ask his guests if they had ever seen a man-cannon
(Adami-top); and, on their replying in the negative, a grey-beard
slave was dragged in blaspheming and struggling with all his
strength. He was presently placed on all fours and firmly held by
the extremities; his bag-trousers were let down and a dozen
peppercorns were inserted ano suo: the target was a sheet of
paper held at a reasonable distance; the match was applied by a
pinch of cayenne in the nostrils; the sneeze started the
grapeshot and the number of hits on the butt decided the bets. We
can hardly wonder at the loose conduct of Persian women
perpetually mortified by marital pederasty. During the unhappy
campaign of 1856–57 in which, with the exception of a few
brilliant skirmishes, we gained no glory, Sir James Outram and
the Bombay army showing how badly they could work, there was a
formal outburst of the Harems; and even women of princely birth
could not be kept out of the officers’ quarters.

The cities of Afghanistan and Sind are thoroughly saturated with

Persian vice, and the people sing


          Kadr-i-kus Aughán dánad, kadr-i-kunrá Kábuli:

          The worth of coynte the Afghan knows: Cabul prefers the

other chose![FN#403]


The Afghans are commercial travellers on a large scale and each
caravan is accompanied by a number of boys and lads almost in
woman’s attire with kohl’d eyes and rouged cheeks, long tresses
and henna’d fingers and toes, riding luxuriously in Kajáwas or
camel-panniers: they are called Kúch-i safari, or travelling
wives, and the husbands trudge patiently by their sides. In
Afghanistan also a frantic debauchery broke out amongst the women
when they found incubi who were not pederasts; and the scandal
was not the most insignificant cause of the general rising at
Cabul (Nov. 1841), and the slaughter of Macnaghten, Burnes and
other British officers.

Resuming our way Eastward we find the Sikhs and the Moslems of
the Panjab much addicted to Le Vice, although the Himalayan
tribes to the north and those lying south, the Rájputs and
Marathás, ignore it. The same may be said of the Kash mirians who
add another Kappa to the tria Kakista, Kappado clans, Kretans,
and Kilicians: the proverb says,

          Agar kaht-i-mardum uftad, az ín sih jins kam gírí;

          Eki Afghán, dovvum Sindí[FN#404] siyyum

badjins-i-Kashmírí:


          Though of men there be famine yet shun these three-

          Afghan, Sindi and rascally Kashmírí.


M. Louis Daville describes the infamies of Lahore and Lakhnau
where he found men dressed as women, with flowing locks under
crowns of flowers, imitating the feminine walk and gestures,
voice and fashion of speech, and ogling their admirers with all
the coquetry of bayadères. Victor Jacquemont’s Journal de Voyage
describes the pederasty of Ranjít Singh, the “Lion of the
Panjáb,” and his pathic Guláb Singh whom the English inflicted
upon Cashmir as ruler by way of paying for his treason. Yet the
Hindus, I repeat, hold pederasty in abhorrence and are as much
scandalised by being called Gánd-márá (anus-beater) or Gándú
(anuser) as Englishmen would be. During the years 1843–44 my
regiment, almost all Hindu Sepoys of the Bombay Presidency, was
stationed at a purgatory called Bandar Ghárrá,[FN#405] a sandy
flat with a scatter of verdigris-green milk-bush some forty miles
north of Karáchi the headquarters. The dirty heap of mud-and-mat
hovels, which represented the adjacent native village, could not
supply a single woman; yet only one case of pederasty came to
light and that after a tragical fashion some years afterwards. A
young Brahman had connection with a soldier comrade of low caste
and this had continued till, in an unhappy hour, the Pariah
patient ventured to become the agent. The latter, in Arab.
Al-Fá’il =the “doer,” is not an object of contempt like Al-Mafúl
= the “done”; and the high caste sepoy, stung by remorse and
revenge, loaded his musket and deliberately shot his paramour. He
was hanged by court martial at Hyderabad and, when his last
wishes were asked, he begged in vain to be suspended by the feet;
the idea being that his soul, polluted by exiting “below the
waist,” would be doomed to endless trans-migrations through the
lowest forms of life.

Beyond India, I have stated, the Sotadic Zone begins to broaden
out, embracing all China, Turkistan and Japan. The Chinese, as
far as we know them in the great cities, are omnivorous and
omnifutuentes: they are the chosen people of debauchery, and
their systematic bestiality with ducks, goats, and other animals
is equalled only by their pederasty. Kæmpfer and Orlof Torée
(Voyage en Chine) notice the public houses for boys and youths in
China and Japan. Mirabeau (L’Anandryne) describes the tribadism
of their women in hammocks. When Pekin was plundered the Harems
contained a number of balls a little larger than the old
musket-bullet, made of thin silver with a loose pellet of brass
inside somewhat like a grelot;[FN#406] these articles were placed
by the women between the labia and an up-and-down movement on the
bed gave a pleasant titillation when nothing better was to be
procured. They have every artifice of luxury, aphrodisiacs,
erotic perfumes and singular applications. Such are the pills
which, dissolved in water and applied to the glans penis, cause
it to throb and swell: so according to Amerigo Vespucci American
women could artificially increase the size of their husbands’
parts.[FN#407] The Chinese bracelet of caoutchouc studded with
points now takes the place of the Herisson, or Annulus
hirsutus,[FN#408] which was bound between the glans and prepuce.
Of the penis succedaneus, that imitation of the Arbor vitæ or
Soter Kosmou, which the Latins called phallus and
fascinum,[FN#409] the French godemiché and the Italians
passatempo and diletto (whence our “dildo”), every kind abounds,
varying from a stuffed “French letter” to a cone of ribbed horn
which looks like an instrument of torture. For the use of men
they have the “merkin,”[FN#410] a heart-shaped article of thin
skin stuffed with cotton and slit with an artificial vagina: two
tapes at the top and one below lash it to the back of a chair.
The erotic literature of the Chinese and Japanese is highly
developed and their illustrations are often facetious as well as
obscene. All are familiar with that of the strong man who by a
blow with his enormous phallus shivers a copper pot; and the
ludicrous contrast of the huge-membered wights who land in the
Isle of Women and presently escape from it, wrinkled and
shrivelled, true Domine Dolittles. Of Turkistan we know little,
but what we know confirms my statement. Mr. Schuyler in his
Turkistan (i. 132) offers an illustration of a “Batchah” (Pers.
bachcheh = catamite), “or singing-boy surrounded by his
admirers.” Of the Tartars Master Purchas laconically says (v.
419), “They are addicted to Sodomie or Buggerie.” The learned
casuist Dr. Thomas Sanchez the Spaniard had (says Mirabeau in
Kadhésch) to decide a difficult question concerning the
sinfulness of a peculiar erotic perversion. The Jesuits brought
home from Manilla a tailed man whose moveable prolongation of the
os coccygis measured from 7 to 10 inches: he had placed himself
between two women, enjoying one naturally while the other used
his tail as a penis succedaneus. The verdict was incomplete
sodomy and simple fornication. For the islands north of Japan,
the “Sodomitical Sea,” and the “nayle of tynne” thrust through
the prepuce to prevent sodomy, see Lib. ii. chap. 4 of Master
Thomas Caudish’s Circumnavigation, and vol. vi. of Pinkerton’s
Geography translated by Walckenaer.

Passing over to America we find that the Sotadic Zone contains
the whole hemisphere from Behring’s Straits to Magellan’s. This
prevalence of “mollities” astonishes the anthropologist, who is
apt to consider pederasty the growth of luxury and the especial
product of great and civilised cities, unnecessary and therefore
unknown to simple savagery, where the births of both sexes are
about equal and female infanticide is not practiced. In many
parts of the New World this perversion was accompanied by another
depravity of taste—confirmed cannibalism.[FN#411] The forests
and campos abounded in game from the deer to the pheasant-like
penelope, and the seas and rivers produced an unfailing supply of
excellent fish and shell-fish;[FN#412] yet the Brazilian Tupis
preferred the meat of man to every other food.

A glance at Mr. Bancroft[FN#413] proves the abnormal development
of sodomy amongst the savages and barbarians of the New World.
Even his half-frozen Hyperboreans “possess all the passions which
are supposed to develop most freely under a milder temperature”
(i. 58). “The voluptuousness and polygamy of the North American
Indians, under a temperature of almost perpetual winter, is far
greater than that of the most sensual tropical nations” (Martin’s
Brit. Colonies iii. 524). I can quote only a few of the most
remarkable instances. Of the Koniagas of Kadiak Island and the
Thinkleets we read (i. 81–82), “The most repugnant of all their
practices is that of male concubinage. A Kadiak mother will
select her handsomest and most promising boy, and dress and rear
him as a girl, teaching him only domestic duties, keeping him at
women s work, associating him with women and girls, in order to
render his effeminacy complete. Arriving at the age of ten or
fifteen years, he is married to some wealthy man who regards such
a companion as a great acquisition. These male concubines are
called Achnutschik or Schopans” (the authorities quoted being
Holmberg, Langsdorff, Billing, Choris, Lisiansky and Marchand).
The same is the case in Nutka Sound and the Aleutian Islands,
where “male concubinage obtains throughout, but not to the same
extent as amongst the Koniagas.” The objects of “unnatural”
affection have their beards carefully plucked out as soon as the
face-hair begins to grow, and their chins are tattooed like those
of the women. In California the first missionaries found the same
practice, the youths being called Joya (Bancroft, i. 415 and
authorities Palon, Crespi, Boscana, Mofras, Torquemada, Duflot
and Fages). The Comanches unite incest with sodomy (i. 515). “In
New Mexico, according to Arlegui, Ribas, and other authors, male
concubinage prevails to a great extent; these loathsome
semblances of humanity, whom to call beastly were a slander upon
beasts, dress themselves in the clothes and perform the functions
of women, the use of weapons being denied them” (i. 585).
Pederasty was systematically practiced by the peoples of Cueba,
Careta, and other parts of Central America. The Caciques and some
of the headmen kept harems of youths who, as soon as destined for
the unclean office, were dressed as women. They went by the name
of Camayoas, and were hated and detested by the good wives (i.
733–74). Of the Nahua nations Father Pierre de Gand (alias de
Musa) writes, “Un certain nombre de prâtres n’avaient point de
femmes, sed eorum loco pueros quibus abutebantur. Ce péché était
si commun dans ce pays que, jeunes ou vieux, tous étaient
infectés; ils y étaient si adonnés que mêmes les enfants de six
ens s’y livraient” (Ternaux, Campans, Voyages, Série i. Tom. x. p.
197). Among the Mayas of Yucatan Las Casas declares that the
great prevalence of “unnatural” lust made parents anxious to see
their progeny wedded as soon as possible (Kingsborough’s Mex.
Ant. viii. 135). In Vera Paz a god, called by some Chin and by
others Cavial and Maran, taught it by committing the act with
another god. Some fathers gave their sons a boy to use as a
woman, and if any other approached this pathic he was treated as
an adulterer. In Yucatan images were found by Bernal Diaz proving
the sodomitical propensities of the people (Bancroft v. 198). De
Pauw (Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, London, 1771)
has much to say about the subject in Mexico generally: in the
northern provinces men married youths who, dressed like women,
were forbidden to carry arms. According to Gomara there were at
Tamalpais houses of male prostitution; and from Diaz and others
we gather that the pecado nefando was the rule. Both in Mexico
and in Peru it might have caused, if it did not justify, the
cruelties of the Conquistadores. Pederasty was also general
throughout Nicaragua, and the early explorers found it amongst
the indigenes of Panama.

We have authentic details concerning Le Vice in Peru and its
adjacent lands, beginning with Cieza de Leon, who must be read in
the original or in the translated extracts of Purchas (vol. v.
942, etc.), not in the cruelly castrated form preferred by the
Council of the Hakluyt Society. Speaking of the New Granada
Indians he tells us that “at Old Port (Porto Viejo) and Puna, the
Deuill so farre prevayled in their beastly Deuotions that there
were Boyes consecrated to serue in the Temple; and at the times
of their Sacrifices and Solemne Feasts, the Lords and principall
men abused them to that detestable filthinesse;” i.e. performed
their peculiar worship. Generally in the hill-countries the
Devil, under the show of holiness, had introduced the practice;
for every temple or chief house of adoration kept one or two men
or more which were attired like women, even from the time of
their childhood, and spake like them, imitating them in
everything; with these, under pretext of holiness and religion,
principal men on principal days had commerce. Speaking of the
arrival of the Giants[FN#414] at Point Santa Elena, Cieza says
(chap. lii.), they were detested by the natives, because in using
their women they killed them, and their men also in another way.
All the natives declare that God brought upon them a punishment
proportioned to the enormity of their offence. When they were
engaged together in their accursed intercourse, a fearful and
terrible fire came down from Heaven with a great noise, out of
the midst of which there issued a shining Angel with a glittering
sword, wherewith at one blow they were all killed and the fire
consumed them.[FN#415] There remained a few bones and skulls
which God allowed to bide unconsumed by the fire, as a memorial
of this punishment. In the Hakluyt Society’s bowdlerisation we
read of the Tumbez Islanders being “very vicious, many of them
committing the abominable offence” (p. 24); also, “If by the
advice of the Devil any Indian commit the abominable crime, it is
thought little of and they call him a woman.” In chapters lii.
and lviii. we find exceptions. The Indians of Huancabamba,
“although so near the peoples of Puerto Viejo and Guayaquil, do
not commit the abominable sin;” and the Serranos, or island
mountaineers, as sorcerers and magiclans inferior to the coast
peoples, were not so much addicted to sodomy.

The Royal Commentaries of the Yncas shows that the evil was of a
comparatively modern growth. In the early period of Peruvian
history the people considered the crime “unspeakable:” if a Cuzco
Indian, not of Yncarial blood, angrily addressed the term
pederast to another, he was held infamous for many days. One of
the generals having reported to the Ynca Ccapacc Yupanqui that
there were some sodomites, not in all the valleys, but one here
and one there, “nor was it a habit of all the inhabitants but
only of certain persons who practised it privately,” the ruler
ordered that the criminals should be publicly burnt alive and
their houses, crops and trees destroyed: moreover, to show his
abomination, he commanded that the whole village should so be
treated if one man fell into this habit (Lib. iii. cap. 13).
Elsewhere we learn, “There were sodomites in some provinces,
though not openly nor universally, but some particular men and in
secret. In some parts they had them in their temples, because the
Devil persuaded them that the Gods took great delight in such
people, and thus the Devil acted as a traitor to remove the veil
of shame that the Gentiles felt for this crime and to accustom
them to commit it in public and in common.”

During the times of the Conquistadores male concubinage had
become the rule throughout Peru. At Cuzco, we are told by Nuno de
Guzman in 1530 “The last which was taken, and which fought most
couragiously, was a man in the habite of a woman, which confessed
that from a childe he had gotten his liuing by that filthinesse,
for which I caused him to be burned.” V. F. Lopez[FN#416] draws a
frightful picture of pathologic love in Peru. Under the reigns
which followed that of Inti-Kapak (Ccapacc) Amauri, the country
was attacked by invaders of a giant race coming from the sea:
they practiced pederasty after a fashion so shameless that the
conquered tribes were compelled to fly(p. 271). Under the
pre-Yncarial Amauta, or priestly dynasty, Peru had lapsed into
savagery and the kings of Cuzco preserved only the name. “Toutes
ces hontes et toutes ces misères provenaient de deux vices
infâmes, la bestialité et la sodomie. Les femmes surtout étaient
offensées de voir la nature frustrée de tous ses droits. Wiles
pleuraient ensemble en leurs réunions sur le misérable état dans
loquel elles étaient tombées, sur le mépris avec lequel elles
étaient traitées. * * * * Le monde était renversé, les hommes
s’aimaient et étaient jaloux les uns des autres. * * * Elles
cherchaient, mais en vain, les moyens de remédier au mal; elles
employaient des herbes et des recettes diaboliques qui leur
ramenaient bien quelques individus, mais ne pouvaient arrêter les
progrès incessants du vice. Cet état de choses constitua un
véritable moyen âge, qui aura jusqu’à l’établissement du
gouvernement des Incas” (p. 277).

When Sinchi Roko (the xcvth of Montesinos and the xcist of
Garcilazo) became Ynca, he found morals at the lowest ebb. “Ni la
prudence de l’Inca, ni les lois sévères qu’il avait promulguées
n’avaient pu extirper entièrement le péché contre nature. Il
reprit avec une nouvelle violence, et les femmes en furent si
jalouses qu’un grand nombre d’elles tuerent leurs maris. Les
devins et les sorciers passaient leurs journées à fabriquer, avec
certaines herbes, des compositions magiques qui rendaient fous
ceux qui en mangaient, et les femmes en faisaient prendre, soit
dans les aliments, soit dans la chicha, à ceux dont elles étaient
jalouses” (p. 291).

I have remarked that the Tupi races of the Brazil were infamous
for cannibalism and sodomy; nor could the latter be only racial
as proved by the fact that colonists of pure Lusitanian blood
followed in the path of the savages. Sr. Antonio Augusto da Costa
Aguiar[FN#417] is outspoken upon this point. “A crime which in
England leads to the gallows, and which is the very measure of
abject depravity, passes with impunity amongst us by the
participating in it of almost all or of many (de quasi todos, ou
de muitos) Ah! if the wrath of Heaven were to fall by way of
punishing such crimes (delictos), more than one city of this
Empire, more than a dozen, would pass into the category of the
Sodoms and Gomorrains” (p. 30). Till late years pederasty in the
Brazil was looked upon as a peccadillo; the European immigrants
following the practice of the wild men who were naked but not, as
Columbus said, “clothed in innocence.” One of Her Majesty’s
Consuls used to tell a tale of the hilarity provoked in a
“fashionable” assembly by the open declaration of a young
gentleman that his mulatto “patient” had suddenly turned upon
him, insisting upon becoming agent. Now, however, under the
influences of improved education and respect for the public
opinion of Europe, pathologic love amongst the Luso-Brazilians
has been reduced to the normal limits.

Outside the Sotadic Zone, I have said, Le Vice is sporadic, not
endemic: yet the physical and moral effect of great cities where
puberty, they say, is induced earlier than in country sites, has
been the same in most lands, causing modesty to decay and
pederasty to flourish. The Badawi Arab is wholly pure of Le Vice;
yet San’á the capital of Al-Yaman and other centres of population
have long been and still are thoroughly infected. History tells
us of Zú Shanátir, tyrant of “Arabia Felix,” in A.D. 478, who
used to entice young men into his palace and cause them after use
to be cast out of the windows: this unkindly ruler was at last
poniarded by the youth Zerash, known from his long ringlets as
“Zú Nowás.” The negro race is mostly untainted by sodomy and
tribadism. Yet Joan dos Sanctos[FN#418] found in Cacongo of West
Africa certain “Chibudi, which are men attyred like women and
behaue themselves womanly, ashamed to be called men; are also
married to men, and esteem that vnnaturale damnation an honor.”
Madagascar also delighted in dancing and singing boys dressed as
girls. In the Empire of Dahomey I noted a corps of prostitutes
kept for the use of the Amazon-soldieresses.

North of the Sotadic Zone we find local but notable instances.
Master Christopher Burrough[FN#419] describes on the western side
of the Volga “a very fine stone castle, called by the name Oueak,
and adioyning to the same a Towne called by the Russes, Sodom, *
* * which was swallowed into the earth by the justice of God, for
the wickednesse of the people.” Again: although as a rule
Christianity has steadily opposed pathologic love both in writing
and preaching, there have been remarkable exceptions. Perhaps the
most curious idea was that of certain medical writers in the
middle ages: “Usus et amplexus pueri, bene temperatus, salutaris
medicine” (Tardieu). Bayle notices (under “Vayer”) the infamous
book of Giovanni della Casa, Archbishop of Benevento, “De
laudibus Sodomiæ,”[FN#420] vulgarly known as “Capitolo del
Forno.” The same writer refers (under “Sixte iv.”) to the report
that the Dominican Order, which systematically decried Le Vice,
had presented a request to the Cardinal di Santa Lucia that
sodomy might be lawful during three months per annum, June to
August; and that the Cardinal had underwritten the petition “Be
it done as they demand.” Hence the Fæda Venus of Battista
Mantovano. Bayle rejects the history for a curious reason, venery
being colder in summer than in winter, and quotes the proverb
“Aux mods qui n’ont pas d’ R, peu embrasser et bien boire.” But
in the case of a celibate priesthood such scandals are
inevitable: witness the famous Jesuit epitaph Ci-gît un Jesuite,
etc.

In our modern capitals, London, Berlin and Paris for instance,
the Vice seems subject to periodical outbreaks. For many years,
also, England sent her pederasts to Italy, and especially to
Naples, whence originated the term “Il vizio Inglese.” It would
be invicious to detail the scandals which of late years have
startled the public in London and Dublin: for these the curious
will consult the police reports. Berlin, despite her strong
devour of Phariseeism, Puritanism and Chauvinism in religion,
manners and morals, is not a whit better than her neighbours. Dr.
Gaspar,[FN#421] a well-known authority on the subject, adduces
many interesting cases, especially an old Count Cajus and his six
accomplices. Amongst his many correspondents one suggested to him
that not only Plato and Julius Cæsar but also Winckelmann and
Platen(?) belonged to the Society; and he had found it
flourishing in Palermo, the Louvre, the Scottish Highlands and
St. Petersburg to name only a few places. Frederick the Great is
said to have addressed these words to his nephew, “Je puis vous
assurer, par mon expérience personelle, que ce plaisir est peu
agréable à cultiver.” This suggests the popular anecdote of
Voltaire and the Englishman who agreed upon an “experience” and
found it far from satisfactory. A few days afterwards the latter
informed the Sage of Ferney that he had tried it again and
provoked the exclamation, “Once a philosopher: twice a sodomite!”
The last revival of the kind in Germany is a society at Frankfort
and its neighbourhood, self-styled Les Cravates Noires, in
opposition, I suppose, to Les Cravates Blanches of A. Belot.

Paris is by no means more depraved than Berlin and London; but,
whilst the latter hushes up the scandal, Frenchmen do not: hence
we see a more copious account of it submitted to the public. For
France of the xviith century consult the “Histoire de la
Prostitution chez tous les Peuples du Monde,” and “La Prance
devenue Italienne,” a treatise which generally follows “L’Histoire
Amoureuse des Gaules” by Bussy, Comte de Rabutin.[FN#422] The
headquarters of male prostitution were then in the Champ Flory,
i.e., Champ de Flore, the privileged rendezvous of low
courtesans. In the xviiith century, “quand le Francais a tête
folle,” as Voltaire sings, invented the term “Péché
philosophique,” there was a temporary recrudescence; and, after
the death of Pidauzet de Mairobert (March, 1779), his “Apologie
de la Secte Anandryne” was published in L’Espion Anglais. In
those days the Allée des Veuves in the Champs Elysees had a “fief
reservé des Ebugors”[FN#423]—“veuve” in the language of Sodom
being the maîtresse en titre, the favourite youth.

At the decisive moment of monarchical decomposition
Mirabeau[FN#424] declares that pederasty was reglementée and
adds, Le goût des pédérastes, quoique moins en vogue que du temps
de Henri III. (the French Heliogabalus), sous le règne desquel
les hommes se provoquaient mutuellement[FN#425] sous les
portiques du Louvre, fait des progrès considérables. On salt que
cette ville (Paris) est un chef-d’uvre de police; en
conséquence, il y a des lieux publics autorisés à cet effet. Les
jeunes yens qui se destinent à la professign, vent soigneusement
enclassés; car les systèmes réglementaires s’étendent jusques-là.
On les examine; ceux qui peuvent être agents et patients, qui
vent beaux, vermeils, bien faits, potelés, sont réservés pour les
grands seigneurs, ou se font payer très-cher par les évêques et
les financiers. Ceux qui vent privés de leurs testicules, ou en
termes de l’art (car notre langue est plus chaste qui nos murs),
qui n’ont pas le poids du tisserand, mais qui donnent et
reçoivent, forment la seconde classe; ils vent encore chers,
parceque les femmes en usent tandis qu’ils servent aux hommes.
Ceux qui ne sont plus susceptibles d’érection tant ils sont usés,
quoiqu’ils aient tous ces organes nécessaires au plaisir,
s’inscrivent comme patiens purs, et composent la troisième
classe: mais celle qui prèside à ces plaisirs, vérifie leur
impuissance. Pour cet effet, on les place tout nus sur un matelas
ouvert par la moitié inférieure; deux filles les caressent de
leur mieux, pendant qu’une troisieme frappe doucement avec
desorties naissantes le siège des désire vénériens. Après un
quart d’heure de cet essai, on leur introduit dans l’anus un
poivre long rouge qui cause une irritation considérable; on pose
sur les échauboulures produites par les orties, de la moutarde
fine de Caudebec, et l’on passe le gland au camphre. Ceux qui
résistent à ces épreuves et ne donnent aucun signe d’érection,
servent comme patiens à un tiers de paie seulement.[FN#426]

The Restoration and the Empire made the police more vigilant in
matters of politics than of morals. The favourite club, which had
its mot de passe, was in the Rue Doyenne, old quarter St Thomas
de Louvre; and the house was a hotel of the xviith century. Two
street-doors, on the right for the male gynæceum and the left for
the female, opened at 4 p.m. in winter and 8 p.m. in summer. A
decoy-lad, charmingly dressed in women’s clothes, with big
haunches and small waist, promenaded outside; and this continued
till 1826 when the police put down the house.

Under Louis Philippe, the conquest of Algiers had evil results,
according to the Marquis de Boissy. He complained without ambages
of murs Arabes in French regiments, and declared that the result
of the African wars was an éffrayable débordement pédérastique,
even as the vérole resulted from the Italian campaigns of that
age of passion, the xvith century. From the military the fléau
spread to civilian society and the Vice took such expansion and
intensity that it may be said to have been democratised in cities
and large towns; at least so we gather from the Dossier des
Agissements des Pédérastes. A general gathering of “La Sainte
Congregation des glorieux Pádárastes” was held in the old Petite
Rue des Marais where, after the theatre, many resorted under
pretext of making water. They ranged themselves along the walls
of a vast garden and exposed their podices: bourgeois, richards
and nobles came with full purses, touched the part which most
attracted them and were duly followed by it. At the Allée des
Veuves the crowd was dangerous from 7 to 8 p.m.: no policeman or
ronde de nun’ dared venture in it; cords were stretched from tree
to tree and armed guards drove away strangers amongst whom, they
say, was once Victor Hugo. This nuisance was at length suppressed
by the municipal administration.

The Empire did not improve morals. Balls of sodomites were held
at No. 8 Place de la Madeleine where, on Jan. 2, ’64, some one
hundred and fifty men met, all so well dressed as women that even
the landlord did not recognise them. There was also a club for
sotadic debauchery called the Cent Gardes and the Dragons de
l’Impératrice.[FN#427] They copied the imperial toilette and kept
it in the general wardrobe: hence “faire l’Impératrice” meant to
be used carnally. The site, a splendid hotel in the Allée des
Veuves, was discovered by the Procureur-Géneral, who registered
all the names; but, as these belonged to not a few senators and
dignitaries, the Emperor wisely quashed proceedings. The club was
broken up on July 16, ’64. During the same year La Petite Revue,
edited by M. Loredan Larchy, son of the General, printed an
article, “Les échappés de Sodome”: it discusses the letter of M.
Castagnary to the Progrès de Lyons and declares that the Vice had
been adopted by plusieurs corps de troupes. For its latest
developments as regards the chantage of the tantes (pathics), the
reader will consult the last issues of Dr. Tardieu’s well-known
Études.[FN#428] He declares that the servant-class is most
infected; and that the Vice is commonest between the ages of
fifteen and twenty five.

The pederasty of The Nights may briefly be distributed into three
categories. The first is the funny form, as the unseemly
practical joke of masterful Queen Budúr (vol. iii. 300–306) and
the not less hardi jest of the slave-princess Zumurrud (vol. iv.
226). The second is in the grimmest and most earnest phase of the
perversion, for instance where Abu Nowas[FN#429] debauches the
three youths (vol. v. 64 69); whilst in the third form it is
wisely and learnedly discussed, to be severely blamed, by the
Shaykhah or Reverend Woman (vol v. 154).

To conclude this part of my subject, the éclaircissement des
obscánités. Many readers will regret the absence from The Nights
of that modesty which distinguishes “Amadis de Gaul,” whose
author, when leaving a man and a maid together says, “And nothing
shall be here related; for these and suchlike things which are
conformable neither to good conscience nor nature, man ought in
reason lightly to pass over, holding them in slight esteem as
they deserve.” Nor have we less respect for Palmerin of England
who after a risqué scene declares, “Herein is no offence offered
to the wise by wanton speeches, or encouragement to the loose by
lascivious matter.” But these are not oriental ideas, and we must
e’en take the Eastern as we find him. He still holds “Naturalla
non sunt turpia,” together with “Mundis omnia munda”; and, as
Bacon assures us the mixture of a lie cloth add to pleasure, so
the Arab enjoys the startling and lively contrast of extreme
virtue and horrible vice placed in juxtaposition.

Those who have read through these ten volumes will agree with me
that the proportion of offensive matter bears a very small ratio
to the mass of the work. In an age saturated with cant and
hypocrisy, here and there a venal pen will mourn over the
“Pornography” of The Nights, dwell upon the “Ethics of Dirt” and
the “Garbage of the Brothel”; and will lament the “wanton
dissemination (!) of ancient and filthy fiction.” This self-constituted
 Censor morum reads Aristophanes and Plato, Horace and
Virgil, perhaps even Martial and Petronius, because “veiled in
the decent obscurity of a learned language”; he allows men Latinè
loqui; but he is scandalised at stumbling-blocks much less
important in plain English. To be consistent he must begin by
bowdlerising not only the classics, with which boys’ and youths’
minds and memories are soaked and saturated at schools and
colleges, but also Boccaccio and Chaucer, Shakespeare and
Rabelais; Burton, Sterne, Swift, and a long list of works which
are yearly reprinted and republished without a word of protest.
Lastly, why does not this inconsistent puritan purge the Old
Testament of its allusions to human ordure and the pudenda; to
carnal copulation and impudent whoredom, to adultery and
fornication, to onanism, sodomy and bestiality? But this he will
not do, the whited sepulchre! To the interested critic of the
Edinburgh Review (No. 335 of July, 1886), I return my warmest
thanks for his direct and deliberate falsehoods:—lies are one-legged
 and short-lived, and venom evaporates.[FN#430] It appears
to me that when I show to such men, so “respectable” and so
impure, a landscape of magnificent prospects whose vistas are
adorned with every charm of nature and art, they point their
unclean noses at a little heap of muck here and there lying in a
field-corner.

                              § V
        ON THE PROSE-RHYME AND THE POETRY OF THE NIGHTS

                         A.—The Saj’a.

According to promise in my Foreword (p. xiii.), I here proceed to
offer a few observations concerning the Saj’a or rhymed prose and
the Shi’r, or measured sentence, that is, the verse of The
Nights. The former has in composition, metrical or unmetrical
three distinct forms. Saj’a mutáwazi (parallel), the most common
is when the ending words of sentences agree in measure, assonance
and final letter, in fact our full rhyme; next is Saj’a mutarraf
(the affluent), when the periods, hemistichs or couplets end in
words whose terminal letters correspond, although differing in
measure and number; and thirdly, Saj’a muwázanah (equilibrium) is
applied to the balance which affects words corresponding in
measure but differing in final letters.[FN#431]

Al-Saj’a, the fine style or style fleuri, also termed Al-Badí’a,
or euphuism, is the basis of all Arabic euphony. The whole of the
Koran is written in it; and the same is the case with the Makámát
of Al-Hariri and the prime masterpieces of rhetorical
composition: without it no translation of the Holy Book can be
satisfactory or final, and where it is not the Assemblies become
the prose of prose. Thus universally used the assonance has
necessarily been abused, and its excess has given rise to the
saying “Al-Saj’s faj’a”—prose rhyme’s a pest. English
translators have, unwisely I think, agreed in rejecting it, while
Germans have not. Mr. Preston assures us that “rhyming prose is
extremely ungraceful in English and introduces an air of
flippancy”: this was certainly not the case with Friedrich
Rückert’s version of the great original and I see no reason why
it should be so or become so in our tongue. Torrens (Pref. p.
vii.) declares that “the effect of the irregular sentence with
the iteration of a jingling rhyme is not pleasant in our
language:” he therefore systematically neglects it and gives his
style the semblance of being “scamped” with the object of saving
study and trouble. Mr. Payne (ix. 379) deems it an “excrescence
born of the excessive facilities for rhyme afforded by the
language,” and of Eastern delight in antithesis of all kinds
whether of sound or of thought; and, aiming elaborately at grace
of style, he omits it wholly, even in the proverbs.

The weight of authority was against me but my plan compelled me
to disregard it. The dilemma was simply either to use the Saj’a
or to follow Mr. Payne’s method and “arrange the disjecta membra
of the original in their natural order”; that is, to remodel the
text. Intending to produce a faithful copy of the Arabic, I was
compelled to adopt the former, and still hold it to be the better
alternative. Moreover I question Mr. Payne’s dictum (ix. 383)
that “the Seja-form is utterly foreign to the genius of English
prose and that its preservation would be fatal to all vigour and
harmony of style.” The English translator of Palmerin of England,
Anthony Munday, attempted it in places with great success as I
have before noted (vol. viii. 60); and my late friend Edward
Eastwick made artistic use of it in his Gulistan. Had I rejected
the “Cadence of the cooing dove” because un-English, I should
have adopted the balanced periods of the Anglican marriage
service[FN#432] or the essentially English system of
alliteration, requiring some such artful aid to distinguish from
the vulgar recitative style the elevated and classical tirades in
The Nights. My attempt has found with reviewers more favour than
I expected; and a kindly critic writes of it, “These melodious
fray meets, these little eddies of song set like gems in the
prose, have a charming effect on the ear. They come as dulcet
surprises and mostly recur in highly-wrought situations, or they
are used to convey a vivid sense of something exquisite in nature
or art. Their introduction seems due to whim or caprice, but
really it arises from a profound study of the situation, as if
the Tale-teller felt suddenly compelled to break into the
rhythmic strain.”

                         B.—The Verse.

The Shi’r or metrical part of The Nights is considerable
amounting to not less than ten thousand lines, and these I could
not but render in rhyme or rather in monorhyme. This portion has
been a bugbear to translators. De Sacy noticed the difficulty of
the task (p. 283). Lane held the poetry untranslatable because
abounding in the figure Tajnís, our paronomasia or paragram, of
which there are seven distinct varieties,[FN#433] not to speak of
other rhetorical flourishes. He therefore omitted the greater
part of the verse as tedious and, through the loss of measure and
rhyme, “generally intolerable to the reader.” He proved his
position by the bald literalism of the passages which he rendered
in truly prosaic prose and succeeded in changing the facies and
presentment of the work. For the Shi’r, like the Saj’a, is not
introduced arbitrarily; and its unequal distribution throughout
The Nights may be accounted for by rule of art. Some tales, like
Omar bin al-Nu’man and Tawaddud, contain very little because the
theme is historical or realistic; whilst in stories of love and
courtship as that of Rose-in-hood, the proportion may rise to
one-fifth of the whole. And this is true to nature. Love, as
Addison said, makes even the mechanic (the British mechanic!)
poetical, and Joe Hume of material memory once fought a duel
about a fair object of dispute.

Before discussing the verse of The Nights it may be advisable to
enlarge a little upon the prosody of the Arabs. We know nothing
of the origin of their poetry, which is lost in the depths of
antiquity, and the oldest bards of whom we have any remains
belong to the famous epoch of the war Al-Basús, which would place
them about A.D. 500. Moreover, when the Muse of Arabia first
shows she is not only fully developed and mature, she has lost
all her first youth, her beauté du diable, and she is assuming
the characteristics of an age beyond “middle age.” No one can
study the earliest poetry without perceiving that it results from
the cultivation of centuries and that it has already assumed that
artificial type and conventional process of treatment which
presages inevitable decay. Its noblest period is included in the
century preceding the Apostolate of Mohammed, and the oldest of
that epoch is the prince of Arab songsters, Imr al-Kays, “The
Wandering King.” The Christian Fathers characteristically termed
poetry Vinum Dæmonorum. The stricter Moslems called their bards
“enemies of Allah”; and when the Prophet, who hated verse and
could not even quote it correctly, was asked who was the best
poet of the Peninsula he answered that the “Man of Al-Kays,” i.e.
the worshipper of the Priapus-idol, would usher them all into
Hell. Here he only echoed the general verdict of his countrymen
who loved poetry and, as a rule, despised poets. The earliest
complete pieces of any volume and substance saved from the wreck
of old Arabic literature and familiar in our day are the seven
Kasídahs (purpose-odes or tendence-elegies) which are popularly
known as the Gilded or the Suspended Poems; and in all of these
we find, with an elaboration of material and formal art which can
go no further, a subject-matter of trite imagery and stock ideas
which suggest a long ascending line of model ancestors and
predecessors.

Scholars are agreed upon the fact that many of the earliest and
best Arab poets were, as Mohammed boasted himself,
unalphabetic[FN#434] or rather could neither read nor write. They
addressed the ear and the mind, not the eye. They “spoke verse,”
learning it by rote and dictating it to the Ráwi, and this
reciter again transmitted it to the musician whose pipe or zither
accompanied the minstrel’s song. In fact the general practice of
writing began only at the end of the first century after The
Flight.

The rude and primitive measure of Arab song, upon which the most
complicated system of metres subsequently arose, was called
Al-Rajaz, literally “the trembling,” because it reminded the
highly imaginative hearer of a pregnant she-camel’s weak and
tottering steps. This was the carol of the camel-driver, the
lover’s lay and the warrior’s chaunt of the heroic ages; and its
simple, unconstrained flow adapted it well for extempore
effusions. Its merits and demerits have been extensively
discussed amongst Arab grammarians, and many, noticing that it
was not originally divided into hemistichs, make an essential
difference between the Shá’ir who speaks poetry and the Rájiz who
speaks Rajaz. It consisted, to describe it technically, of iambic
dipodia (U-U-), the first three syllables being optionally long
or short It can generally be read like our iambs and, being
familiar, is pleasant to the English ear. The dipodia are
repeated either twice or thrice; in the former case Rajaz is held
by some authorities, as Al-Akhfash (Sa’íd ibn Másadah), to be
mere prose. Although Labíd and Antar composed in iambics, the
first Kásídah or regular poem in Rajaz was by Al-Aghlab al-Ajibi
temp. Mohammed: the Alfíyah-grammar of Ibn Málik is in Rajaz
Muzdawij, the hemistichs rhyming and the assonance being confined
to the couplet. Al-Hariri also affects Rajaz in the third and
fifth Assemblies. So far Arabic metre is true to Nature: in
impassioned speech the movement of language is iambic: we say “I
will, I will,” not “I will.”

For many generations the Sons of the Desert were satisfied with
Nature’s teaching; the fine perceptions and the nicely trained
ear of the bard needing no aid from art. But in time came the
inevitable prosodist under the formidable name of Abu Abd al-Rahmán
 al-Khalíl, i. Ahmad, i. Amrú, i. Tamím al-Faráhidi (of the
Faráhid sept), al-Azdi (of the Azd clan), al Yahmadi (of the
Yahmad tribe), popularly known as Al-Khalíl ibn Ahmad al-Basri,
of Bassorah, where he died æt. 68, scanning verses they say, in
A.H. 170 (= 786–87). Ibn Khallikán relates (i. 493) on the
authority of Hamzah al-Isfaháni how this “father of Arabic
grammar and discoverer of the rules of prosody” invented the
science as he walked past a coppersmith’s shop on hearing the
strokes of a hammer upon a metal basin: “two objects devoid of
any quality which could serve as a proof and an illustration of
anything else than their own form and shape and incapable of
leading to any other knowledge than that of their own
nature.”[FN#435] According to others he was passing through the
Fullers’ Bazar at Basrah when his ear was struck by the Dak dak
(Arabic letters) and the Dakak-dakak (Arabic letters) of the
workmen. In these two onomapoetics we trace the expression which
characterises the Arab tongue: all syllables are composed of
consonant and vowel, the latter long or short as B and B; or of
a vowelled consonant followed by a consonant as Bal, Bau (Arabic).

The grammarian, true to the traditions of his craft which looks
for all poetry to the Badawi,[FN#436] adopted for metrical
details the language of the Desert. The distich, which amongst
Arabs is looked upon as one line, he named “Bayt,” nighting-place,
tent or house; and the hemistich Misrá’ah, the one leaf of
a folding door. To this “scenic” simile all the parts of the
verse were more or less adapted. The metres, our feet, were
called “Arkán,” the stakes and stays of the tent; the syllables
were “Usúl” or roots divided into three kinds: the first or
“Sabab” (the tent-rope) is composed of two letters, a vowelled
and a quiescent consonant as “Lam.”[FN#437] The “Watad” or tent
peg of three letters is of two varieties; the Majmú’, or united,
a foot in which the two first consonants are moved by vowels and
the last is jazmated or made quiescent by apocope as “Lakad”; and
the Mafrúk, or disunited, when the two moved consonants are
separated by one jazmated, as “Kabla.” And lastly the “Fásilah”
or intervening space, applied to the main pole of the tent,
consists of four letters.

The metres were called Buhúr or “seas” (plur. of Bahr), also
meaning the space within the tent-walls, the equivoque alluding
to pearls and other treasures of the deep. Al-Khalil, the
systematiser, found in general use only five Dáirah (circles,
classes or groups of metre); and he characterised the harmonious
and stately measures, all built upon the original Rajaz, as Al-Tawíl
 (the long),[FN#438] Al-Kámil (the complete), Al-Wáfir (the
copious), Al-Basít (the extended) and Al-Khafíf (the
light).[FN#439] These embrace all the Mu’allakát and the Hamásah,
the great Anthology of Abú Tammám; but the crave for variety and
the extension of foreign intercourse had multiplied wants and Al-Khalil
 deduced from the original five Dáirah, fifteen, to which
Al-Akhfash (ob. A.D. 830) added a sixteenth, Al-Khabab. The
Persians extended the number to nineteen: the first four were
peculiarly Arab; the fourteenth, the fifteenth and seventeenth
peculiarly Persian and all the rest were Arab and
Persian.[FN#440]

Arabic metre so far resembles that of Greece and Rome that the
value of syllables depends upon the “quantity” or position of
their consonants, not upon accent as in English and the Neo-Latin
tongues. Al-Khalil was doubtless familiar with the classic
prosody of Europe, but he rejected it as unsuited to the genius
of Arabic and like a true Eastern Gelehrte he adopted a process
devised by himself. Instead of scansion by pyrrhics and spondees,
iambs and trochees, anapæsts and similar simplifications he
invented a system of weights (“wuzún”). Of these there are
nine[FN#441] memorial words used as quantitive signs, all built
upon the root “fa’l” which has rendered such notable service to
Arabic and Hebrew[FN#442] grammar and varying from the simple
“fa’ál,” in Persian “fa’úl” (U _), to the complicated
“Mutafá’ilun”(UU - U -), anapæst + iamb. Thus the prosodist
would scan the Shahnámeh of Firdausi as

               Fa’úlun, fa’úlun, fa’úlun, fa’ál.

                U - -    U - -    U - -      -


These weights also show another peculiarity of Arabic verse. In
English we have few if any spondees: the Arabic contains about
three longs to one short; hence its gravity, stateliness and
dignity. But these longs again are peculiar, and sometimes strike
the European ear as shorts, thus adding a difficulty for those
who would represent Oriental metres by western feet, ictus and
accent. German Arabists can register an occasional success in
such attempts: Englishmen none. My late friend Professor Palmer
of Cambridge tried the tour de force of dancing on one leg
instead of two and notably failed: Mr. Lyall also strove to
imitate Arabic metre and produced only prose bewitched.[FN#443]
Mr. Payne appears to me to have wasted trouble in “observing the
exterior form of the stanza, the movement of the rhyme and (as
far as possible) the identity in number of the syllables
composing the beits.” There is only one part of his admirable
version concerning which I have heard competent readers complain;
and that is the metrical, because here and there it sounds
strange to their ears.

I have already stated my conviction that there are two and only
two ways of translating Arabic poetry into English. One is to
represent it by good heroic or lyric verse as did Sir William
Jones; the other is to render it after French fashion, by
measured and balanced Prose, the little sister of Poetry. It is
thus and thus only that we can preserve the peculiar cachet of
the original. This old world Oriental song is spirit-stirring as
a “blast of that dread horn,” albeit the words be thin. It is
heady as the “Golden Wine” of Libanus, to the tongue water and
brandy to the brain—the clean contrary of our nineteenth century
effusions. Technically speaking, it can be vehicled only by the
verse of the old English ballad or by the prose of the Book of
Job. And Badawi poetry is a perfect expositor of Badawi life,
especially in the good and gladsome old Pagan days ere Al-Islam,
like the creed which it abolished, overcast the minds of men with
its dull grey pall of realistic superstition. They combined to
form a marvellous picture—those contrasts of splendour and
squalor amongst the sons of the sand. Under airs pure as æther,
golden and ultramarine above and melting over the horizon into a
diaphanous green which suggested a resection of Kaf, that unseen
mountain-wall of emerald, the so-called Desert, changed face
twice a year; now brown and dry as summer-dust; then green as
Hope, beautified with infinite verdure and broad sheetings of
rain-water. The vernal and autumnal shiftings of camp,
disruptions of homesteads and partings of kith and kin, friends
and lovers, made the life many-sided as it was vigorous and
noble, the outcome of hardy frames, strong minds and spirits
breathing the very essence of liberty and independence. The day
began with the dawn-drink, “generous wine bought with shining
ore,” poured into the crystal goblet from the leather bottle
swinging before the cooling breeze. The rest was spent in the
practice of weapons, in the favourite arrow game known as Al-Maysar,
gambling which at least had the merit of feeding the
poor; in racing for which the Badawin had a mania, and in the
chase, the foray and the fray which formed the serious business
of his life. And how picturesque the hunting scenes; the
greyhound, like the mare, of purest blood; the falcon cast at
francolin and coney; the gazelle standing at gaze; the desert ass
scudding over the ground-waves; the wild cows or bovine antelopes
browsing with their calves and the ostrich-chickens flocking
round the parent bird! The Musámarah or night-talk round the
camp-fire was enlivened by the lute-girl and the glee-man, whom
the austere Prophet described as “roving distraught in every
vale” and whose motto in Horatian vein was, “To day we shall
drink, to-morrow be sober, wine this day, that day work.”
Regularly once a year, during the three peaceful months when war
and even blood revenge were held sacrilegious, the tribes met at
Ukádh (Ocaz) and other fairsteads, where they held high festival
and the bards strave in song and prided themselves upon doing
honour to women and to the successful warriors of their tribe.
Brief, the object of Arab life was to be—to be free, to be
brave, to be wise; while the endeavours of other peoples was and
is to have—to have wealth, to have knowledge, to have a name;
and while moderns make their “epitome of life” to be, to do and
to suffer. Lastly the Arab’s end was honourable as his life was
stirring: few Badawin had the crowning misfortune of dying “the
straw-death.”

The poetical forms in The Nights are as follows:—The Misrá’ah or
hemistich is half the “Bayt” which, for want of a better word, I
have rendered couplet: this, however, though formally separated
in MSS., is looked upon as one line, one verse; hence a word can
be divided, the former part pertaining to the first and the
latter to the second moiety of the distich. As the Arabs ignore
blank verse, when we come upon a rhymeless couplet we know that
it is an extract from a longer composition in monorhyme. The
Kit’ah is a fragment, either an occasional piece or more
frequently a portion of a Ghazal (ode) or Kasídah (elegy), other
than the Matlá, the initial Bayt with rhyming distichs. The
Ghazal and Kasídah differ mainly in length: the former is
popularly limited to eighteen couplets: the latter begins at
fifteen and is of indefinite number. Both are built upon
monorhyme, which appears twice in the first couplet and ends all
the others, e.g., aa + ba + ca, etc.; nor may the same assonance
be repeated, unless at least seven couplets intervene. In the
best poets, as in the old classic verse of France, the sense must
be completed in one couplet and not run on to a second; and, as
the parts cohere very loosely, separate quotation can generally
be made without injuring their proper effect. A favourite form is
the Rubá’i or quatrain, made familiar to English ears by Mr.
Fitzgerald’s masterly adaptation of Omar-i-Khayyám: the movement
is generally aa + ba, but it also appears as ab + cb, in which
case it is a Kit’ah or fragment. The Murabbá, tetrastichs or four
fold-song, occurs once only in The Nights (vol.i. 98); it is a
succession of double Bayts or of four lined stanzas rhyming aa +
bc + dc + ec: in strict form the first three hemistichs rhyme
with one another only, independently of the rest of the poem, and
the fourth with that of every other stanza, e.g., aa + ab + cb +
db. The Mukhammas, cinquains or pentastichs (Night cmlxiv.),
represents a stanza of two distichs and a hemistich in monorhyme,
the fifth line being the “bob” or burden: each succeeding stanza
affects a new rhyme, except in the fifth line, e.g., aaaab +
ccccb + ddddb and so forth. The Muwwál is a simple popular song
in four to six lines; specimens of it are given in the Egyptian
grammar of my friend the late Dr. Wilhelm Spitta.[FN#444] The
Muwashshah, or ornamented verse, has two main divisions: one
applies to our acrostics in which the initials form a word or
words; the other is a kind of Musaddas, or sextines, which occurs
once only in The Nights (cmlxxxvii.). It consists of three
couplets or six-line strophes: all the hemistichs of the first
are in monorhyme; in the second and following stanzas the three
first hemistichs take a new rhyme, but the fourth resumes the
assonance of the first set and is followed by the third couplet
of No. 1, serving as bob or refrain, e.g., aaaaaa + bbbaaa +
cccaaa and so forth. It is the most complicated of all the
measures and is held to be of Morisco or Hispano-Moorish origin.

Mr. Lane (Lex.) lays down, on the lines of Ibn Khallikan (i. 476,
etc.) and other representative literati, as our sole authortties
for pure Arabic, the precedence in following order. First of all
ranks the Jáhili (Ignoramus) of The Ignorance, the
     : these pagans left hemistichs, couplets, pieces and elegies
which once composed a large corpus and which is now mostly
forgotten. Hammád al-Ráwiyah, the Reciter, a man of Persian
descent (ob. A.H. 160=777) who first collected the Mu’allakát,
once recited by rote in a séance before Caliph Al-Walid two
thousand poems of præ-Mohammedan bards.[FN#445] After the Jáhili
stands the Mukhadram or Muhadrim, the “Spurious,” because half
Pagan half Moslem, who flourished either immediately before or
soon after the preaching of Mohammed. The Islámi or full-blooded
Moslem at the end of the first century A.H. ( = 720) began the
process of corruption in language; and, lastly he was followed by
the Muwallad of the second century who fused Arabic with non-Arabic
 and in whom purity of diction disappeared.

I have noticed (I § A.) that the versical portion of The Nights
may be distributed into three categories. First are the olden
poems which are held classical by all modern Arabs; then comes
the mediæval poetry, the effusions of that brilliant throng which
adorned the splendid Court of Harun al-Rashid and which ended
with Al-Haríri (ob. A.H. 516); and, lastly, are the various
pièces de circonstance suggested to editors or scribes by the
occasion. It is not my object to enter upon the historical part
of the subject: a mere sketch would have neither value not
interest whilst a finished picture would lead too far: I must be
contented to notice a few of the most famous names.

Of the præ-Islamites we have Ádi bin Zayd al-Ibádi the
“celebrated poet” of Ibn Khallikán (i. 188); Nábighat (the full-grown
) al-Zubyáni who flourished at the Court of Al-Nu’man in AD.
580–602, and whose poem is compared with the
“Suspendeds,”[FN#446] and Al-Mutalammis the “pertinacious”
satirist, friend and intimate with Tarafah of the “Prize Poem.”
About Mohammed’s day we find Imr al-Kays “with whom poetry
began,” to end with Zú al-Rummah; Amrú bin Mádi Karab al-Zubaydi,
Labíd; Ka’b ibn Zuhayr, the father one of the Mu’al-lakah-poets,
and the son author of the Burdah or Mantle-poem (see vol. iv.
115), and Abbás bin Mirdás who lampooned the Prophet and had “his
tongue cut out” i.e. received a double share of booty from Ali.
In the days of Caliph Omar we have Alkamah bin Olátha followed by
Jamíl bin Ma’mar of the Banu Ozrah (ob. A.H. 82), who loved Azzá.
Then came Al-Kuthayyir (the dwarf, ironicè), the lover of
Buthaynah, “who was so lean that birds might be cut to bits with
her bones:” the latter was also a poetess (Ibn Khall. i. 87),
like Hind bint al-Nu’man who made herself so disagreeable to
Al-Hajjáj (ob. A.H. 95) Jarír al-Khatafah, the noblest of the
Islami poets in the first century, is noticed at full length by
Ibn Khallikan (i. 294) together with his rival in poetry and
debauchery, Abú Firás Hammám or Homaym bin Ghalib al-Farazdak,
the Tamími, the Ommiade poet “without whose verse half Arabic
would be lost:”[FN#447] he exchanged satires with Jarír and died
forty days before him (A.H. 110). Another contemporary, forming
the poetical triumvirate of the period, was the debauched
Christian poet Al-Akhtal al-Taghlibi. They were followed by Al-Ahwas
 al-Ansári whose witty lampoons banished him to Dahlak
Island in the Red Sea (ob. A.H. 179 = 795); by Bashshár ibn Burd
and by Yúnus ibn Habib (ob. A.H. 182).

The well known names of the Harun-cycle are Al-Asma’i,
rhetorician and poet, whose epic with Antar for hero is not
forgotten (ob. A.H. 216); Isaac of Mosul (Ishak bin Ibrahim of
Persian origin); Al-’Utbi “the Poet” (ob. A.H. 228); Abu al-Abbás
al-Rakáshi; Abu al-Atahiyah, the lover of Otbah; Muslim bin al-Walíd
 al-Ansari; Abú Tammám of Tay, compiler of the Hamásah (ob.
A.H. 230), “a Muwallad of the first class” (says Ibn Khallikan i.
392); the famous or infamous Abu Nowás, Abu Mus’ab (Ahmad ibn
Ali) who died in A.H. 242; the satirist Dibil al-Khuzáí (ob. A.H.
246) and a host of others quos nunc perscribere longum est. They
were followed by Al-Bohtori “the Poet” (ob. A.H. 286); the royal
author Abdullah ibn al-Mu’tazz (ob. A.H. 315); Ibn Abbád the
Sahib (ob. A.H. 334); Mansúr al-Halláj the martyred Sufi; the
Sahib ibn Abbad, Abu Faras al-Hamdáni (ob. A.H. 357); Al-Námi
(ob. A.H. 399) who had many encounters with that model Chauvinist
Al-Mutanabbi, nicknamed Al-Mutanabbih (the “wide awake”), killed
A.H. 354; Al-Manázi of Manazjird (ob. 427); Al-Tughrai author of
the Lámiyat al-’Ajam (ob. A.H. 375); Al-Haríri the model
rhetorician (ob. A.H. 516); Al-Hájiri al-Irbili, of Arbela (ob.
A.H. 632); Bahá al-Din al-Sinjari (ob. A.H. 622); Al-Kátib or the
Scribe (ob. A.H. 656); Abdun al-Andalúsi the Spaniard (our xiith
century) and about the same time Al-Náwaji, author of the Halbat
al-Kumayt or “Race course of the Bay horse”—poetical slang for
wine.[FN#448]

Of the third category, the pièces d’occasion, little need be
said: I may refer readers to my notes on the doggrels in vol. ii.
34, 35, 56, 179, 182, 186 and 261; in vol. v. 55 and in vol.
viii. 50.

Having a mortal aversion to the details of Arabic prosody, I have
persuaded my friend Dr. Steingass to undertake in the following
pages the subject as far as concerns the poetry of The Nights. He
has been kind enough to collaborate with me from the beginning,
and to his minute lexicographical knowledge I am deeply indebted
for discovering not a few blemishes which would have been “nuts
to the critic.” The learned Arabist’s notes will be highly
interesting to students: mine ( §V.) are intended to give a
superficial and popular idea of the Arab’s verse mechanism.

The principle of Arabic Prosody (called ’Arúz, pattern standard,
or ’Ilm al-’Arúz, science of the ’Arúz), in so far resembles that
of classical poetry, as it chiefly rests on metrical weight, not
on accent, or in other words a verse is measured by short and
long quantities, while the accent only regulates its rhythm. In
Greek and Latin, however, the quantity of the syllables depends
on their vowels, which may be either naturally short or long, or
become long by position, i.e. if followed by two or more
consonants. We all remember from our school-days what a fine
string of rules had to be committed to and kept in memory, before
we were able to scan a Latin or Greek verse without breaking its
neck by tripping over false quantities. In Arabic, on the other
hand, the answer to the question, what is metrically long or
short, is exceedingly simple, and flows with stringent cogency
from the nature of the Arabic Alphabet. This, strictly speaking,
knows only consonants (Harf, pl. Hurúf). The vowels which are
required, in order to articulate the consonants, were at first
not represented in writing at all. They had to be supplied by the
reader, and are not improperly called “motions” (Harakát),
because they move or lead on, as it were, one letter to another.
They are three in number, a (Fathah), i (Kasrah), u (Zammah),
originally sounded as the corresponding English vowels in bat,
bit and butt respectively, but in certain cases modifying their
pronunciation under the influence of a neighbouring consonant.
When the necessity made itself felt to represent them in writing,
especially for the sake of fixing the correct reading of the
Koran, they were rendered by additional signs, placed above or
beneath the consonant, after which they are pronounced, in a
similar way as it is done in some systems of English shorthand. A
consonant followed by a short vowel is called a “moved letter”
(Muharrakah); a consonant without such vowel is called “resting”
or “quiescent” (Sákinah), and can stand only at the end of a
syllable or word.

And now we are able to formulate the one simple rule, which
determines the prosodical quantity in Arabic: any moved letter,
as ta, li, mu, is counted short; any moved letter followed by a
quiescent one, as taf, fun, mus, i.e. any closed syllable
beginning and terminating with a consonant and having a short
vowel between, forms a long quantity. This is certainly a relief
in comparison with the numerous rules of classical Prosody,
proved by not a few exceptions, which for instance in Dr. Smith’s
elementary Latin Grammar fill eight closely printed pages.

Before I proceed to show how from the prosodical unities, the
moved and the quiescent letter, first the metrical elements, then
the feet and lastly the metres are built up, it will be necessary
to obviate a few misunderstandings, to which our mode of
transliterating Arabic into the Roman
character might give rise.

The line::

   “Love in my heart they lit and went their ways,” (vol. i. 232)

runs in Arabic:

   “Akámú al-wajda fí kalbí wa sárú” (Mac. Ed. i. 179).

Here, according to our ideas, the word akamú would begin with a
short vowel a, and contain two long vowels á and ú; according to
Arabic views neither is the case. The word begins with “Alif,”
and its second syllable ká closes in Alif after Fathah (a), in
the same way, as the third syllable mú closes in the letter Wáw
(w) after Zammah (u).

The question, therefore, arises, what is “Alif.” It is the first
of the twenty-eight Arabic letters, and has through the medium of
the Greek Alpha nominally entered into our alphabet, where it now
plays rather a misleading part. Curiously enough, however, Greek
itself has preserved for us the key to the real nature of the
letter. In Ἀλφα the initial a is preceded by the so called
spiritus lenis (΄), a sign which must be placed in front or at
the top of any vowel beginning a Greek word, and which represents
that slight aspiration or soft breathing almost involuntarily
uttered, when we try to pronounce a vowel by itself. We need not
go far to find how deeply rooted this tendency is and to what
exaggerations it will sometimes lead. Witness the gentleman who,
after mentioning that he had been visiting his “favourite haunts”
on the scenes of his early life, was sympathetically asked, how
the dear old ladies were. This spiritus lends is the silent h of
the French “homme” and the English “honour,” corresponding
exactly to the Arabic Hamzah, whose mere prop the Alif is, when
it stands at the beginning of a word: a native Arabic Dictionary
does not begin with Báb al-Alif (Gate or Chapter of the Alif),
but with Báb al-Hamzah. What the Greeks call Alpha and have
transmitted to us as a name for the vowel a, is in fact nothing
else but the Arabic Hamzah-Alif,(~)moved by Fathah, i.e. bearing
the sign(~) for a at the top (~), just as it might have the sign
Zammah (~) superscribed to express u (~), or the sign Kasrah (~)
subjoined to represent i(~). In each case the Hamzah-Alif,
although scarcely audible to our ear, is the real letter and
might fitly be rendered in transliteration by the above mentioned
silent h, wherever we make an Arabic word begin with a vowel not
preceded by any other sign. This latter restriction refers to the
sign ’, which in Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Nights,
as frequently in books published in this country, is used to
represent the Arabic letter ~ in whose very name ’Ayn it occurs.
The ’Ayn is “described as produced by a smart compression of the
upper part of the windpipe and forcible emission of breath,”
imparting a guttural tinge to a following or preceding vowel-sound;
but it is by no means a mere guttural vowel, as Professor
Palmer styles it. For Europeans, who do not belong to the
Israelitic dispensation, as well as for Turks and Persians, its
exact pronunciation is most difficult, if not impossible to
acquire.

In reading Arabic from transliteration for the purpose of
scanning poetry, we have therefore in the first instance to keep
in mind that no Arabic word or syllable can begin with a vowel.
Where our mode of rendering Arabic in the Roman character would
make this appear to be the case, either Hamzah (silent h), or
’Ayn (represented by the sign’) is the real initial, and the only
element to be taken in account as a letter. It follows as a self-evident
 corollary that wherever a single consonant stands between
two vowels, it never closes the previous syllable, but always
opens the next one. Our word “Akámu,” for instance, can only be
divided into the syllables: A (properly Ha)-ká-mú, never into
Ak-á-mú or Ak-ám-ú.

It has been stated above that the syllable ká is closed by the
letter Alif after Fathah, in the same way as the syllable mú is
closed by the letter Wáw, and I may add now, as the word fí is
closed by the letter Yá (y). To make this perfectly clear, I must
repeat that the Arabic Alphabet, as it was originally written,
deals only with consonants. The signs for the short vowel-sounds
were added later for a special purpose, and are generally not
represented even in printed books, e.g. in the various editions
of The Nights, where only quotations from the Koran or poetical
passages are provided with the vowel-points. But among those
consonants there are three, called weak letters (Hurúf
al-illah), which have a particular organic affinity to these
vowel sounds: the guttural Hamzah, which is akin to a, the
palatal Yá, which is related to i, and the labial Wáw, which is
homogeneous with u. Where any of the weak letters follows a vowel
of its own class, either at the end of a word or being itself
followed by another consonant, it draws out or lengthens the
preceding vowel and is in this sense called a letter of
prolongation (Harf al-Madd). Thus, bearing in mind that the
Hamzah is in reality a silent h, the syllable ká might be written
kah, similarly to the German word “sah,” where the h is not
pronounced either, but imparts a lengthened sound to the a. In
like manner mú and fí are written in Arabic muw and fiy
respectively, and form long quantities not because they contain a
vowel long by nature, but because their initial “Muharrakah” is
followed by a “Sákinah,” exactly as in the previously mentioned
syllables taf, fun, mus.[FN#449] In the Roman transliteration,
Akámú forms a word of five letters, two of which are consonants,
and three vowels; in Arabic it represents the combination
H(a)k(a)hm(u)w, consisting also of five letters but all
consonants, the intervening vowels being expressed in writing
either merely by superadded external signs, or more frequently
not at all. Metrically it represents one short and two long
quantities (U - -), forming in Latin a trisyllable foot, called
Bacchíus, and in Arabic a quinqueliteral “Rukn” (pillar) or “Juz”
(part, portion), the technical designation for which we shall
introduce presently.

There is one important remark more to be made with regard to the
Hamzah: at the beginning of a word it is either conjunctive,
Hamzat al-Wasl, or disjunctive, Hamzat al-Kat’. The difference is
best illustrated by reference to the French so-called aspirated
h, as compared with the above-mentioned silent h. If the latter,
as initial of a noun, is preceded by the article, the article
loses its vowel, and, ignoring the silent h altogether, is read
with the following noun almost as one word: le homme becomes
l’homme (pronounced lomme) as le ami becomes l’ami. This
resembles very closely the Arabic Hamzah Wasl. If, on the other
hand, a French word begins with an aspirated h, as for instance
héros, the article does not drop its vowel before the noun, nor
is the h sounded as in the English word “hero,” but the effect of
the aspirate is simply to keep the two vowel sounds apart, so as
to pronounce le éros with a slight hiatus between, and this is
exactly what happens in the case of the Arabic Hamzah Kat’.

With regard to the Wasl, however, Arabic goes a step further than
French. In the French example, quoted above, we have seen it is
the silent h and the preceding vowel which are eliminated; in
Arabic both the Hamzah and its own Harakah, i.e. the short vowel
following it, are supplanted by their antecedent. Another example
will make this clear. The most common instance of the Hamzah Wasl
is the article al (for h(a)l=the Hebrew hal), where it is moved
by Fathah. But it has this sound only at the beginning of a
sentence or speech, as in “Al-Hamdu” at the head of the Fatihah,
or in “Alláhu” at the beginning of the third Surah. If the two
words stand in grammatical connection, as in the sentence “Praise
be to God,” we cannot say “Al-Hamdu li-Alláhi,” but the junction
(Wasl) between the dative particle li and the noun which it
governs must take place. According to the French principle, this
junction would be effected at the cost of the preceding element
and li Alláhi would become l’Alláhí; in Arabic, on the contrary,
the kasrated l of the particle takes the place of the following
fathated Hamzah and we read li ’lláhi instead. Proceeding in the
Fatihah we meet with the verse “Iyyáka na’budu wa iyyáka
nasta’ínu,” Thee do we worship and of Thee do we ask aid. Here
the Hamzah of iyyáka (properly hiyyáka with silent h) is
disjunctive, and therefore its pronunciation remains the same at
the beginning and in the middle of the sentence, or, to put it
differently, instead of coalescing with the preceding wa into
wa’yyáka, the two words are kept separate by the Hamzah, reading
wa iyyáka, just as it was the case with the French Le héros.

If the conjunctive Hamzah is preceded by a quiescent letter, this
takes generally Kasrah: “Tálat al-Laylah,” the night was
longsome, would become Tálati ’l-Laylah. If, however, the
quiescent letter is one of prolongation, it mostly drops out
altogether, and the Harakah of the next preceding letter becomes
the connecting vowel between the two words, which in our parlance
would mean that the end vowel of the first word is shortened
before the elided initial of the second. Thus “fí al-bayti,” in
the house, which in Arabic is written f(i)y h(a)l-b(a)yt(i) and
which we transliterate fí ’l-bayti, is in poetry read fil-bayti,
where we must remember that the syllable fil, in spite of its
short vowel, represents a long quantity, because it consists of a
moved letter followed by a quiescent one. Fíl would be overlong
and could, according to Arabic prosody, stand only in certain
cases at the end of a verse, i.e. in pause, where a natural
tendency prevails to prolong a sound.

The attentive reader will now be able to fix the prosodical value
of the line quoted above with unerring security. For metrical
purposes it syllabifies into: A-ká-mul-vaj-da fí kal-bí wa sá-rú,
containing three short and eight long quantities. The initial
unaccented a is short, for the same reason why the syllables da
and wa are so, that is, because it corresponds to an Arabic
letter, the Hamzah or silent h, moved by Fathah. The syllables
ká, fí, bí, sá, rú are long for the same reason why the syllables
mul, waj, kal are so, that is, because the accent in the
transliteration corresponds to a quiescent Arabic letter,
following a moved one. The same simple criterion applies to the
whole list, in which I give in alphabetical order the first lines
and the metre of all the poetical pieces contained in the Mac.
edition, and which will be found at the end of this volume. {This
appendix is not included in the electronic text}

The prosodical unities, then, in Arabic are the moved and the
quiescent letter, and we are now going to show how they combine
into metrical elements, feet, and metres.

i.   The metrical elements (Usúl) are:

     1.   The Sabab,[FN#450] which consists of two letters and is
either khafíf (light) or sakíl (heavy). A moved letter followed
by a quiescent, i.e. a closed syllable, like the afore-mentioned
taf, fun, mus, to which we may now add fá=fah, ’í=’iy, ’ú=’uw,
form a Sabab khafíf, corresponding to the classical long quantity
(-). Two moved letters in succession, like mute, ’ala, constitute
a Sabab sakíl, for which the classical name would be Pyrrhic (U
U). As in Latin and Greek, they are equal in weight and can
frequently interchange, that is to say, the Sabab khafíf can be
evolved into a sakíl by moving its second Harf, or the latter
contracted into the former, by making its second letter
quiescent.

     2.   The Watad, consisting of three letters, one of which is
quiescent. If the quiescent follows the two moved ones, the Watad
is called majmú’ (collected or joined), as fa’ú (=fa’uw), mafá
(=mafah), ’ilun, and it corresponds to the classical Iambus (U -
). If, on the contrary, the quiescent intervenes or separates
between the two moved letters, as in fá’i ( = fah’i), látu
(=lahtu), taf’i, the Watad is called mafrúk (separated), and has
its classical equivalent in the Trochee (- U)

     3.   The Fásilah,[FN#451] containing four letters, i.e.
three moved ones followed by a quiescent, and which, in fact, is
only a shorter name for a Sabab sakíl followed by a Sabab khafíf,
as mute + fá, or ’ala + tun, both of the measure of the classical
Anapaest (U U -)

ii.  These three elements, the Sabab, Watad and Fásilah, combine
further into feet Arkáan, pl. of Rukn, or Ajzáa, pl. of Juz, two
words explained supra p. 236. The technical terms by which the
feet are named are derivatives of the root fa’l, to do, which, as
the student will remember, serves in Arabic Grammar to form the
Auzán or weights, in accordance with which words are derived from
roots. It consists of the three letters Fá (f), ’Ayn (’), Lám
(l), and, like any other Arabic root, cannot strictly speaking be
pronounced, for the introduction of any vowel-sound would make it
cease to be a root and change it into an individual word. The
above fa’l, for instance, where the initial Fá is moved by Fathah
(a), is the Infinitive or verbal noun, “to do,” “doing.” If the
’Ayn also is moved by Fathah, we obtain fa’al, meaning in
colloquial Arabic “he did” (the classical or literary form would
be fa’ala). Pronouncing the first letter with Zammah (u), the
second with Kasrah (i), i.e., fu’il, we say “it was done”
(classically fu’ila). Many more forms are derived by prefixing,
inserting or subjoining certain additional letters called Hurúf
al-Ziyádah (letters of increase) to the original radicals: fá’il,
for instance, with an Alif of prolongation in the first syllable,
means “doer”; maf’úl (=maf’uwl), where the quiescent Fá is
preceded by a fathated Mím (m), and the zammated ’Ayn followed by
a lengthening Waw, means “done”; Mufá’alah, where, in addition to
a prefixed and inserted letter, the feminine termination ah is
subjoined after the Lám, means “to do a thing reciprocally.”
Since these and similar changes are with unvarying regularity
applicable to all roots, the grammarians use the derivatives of
Fa’l as model-forms for the corresponding derivations of any
other root, whose letters are in this case called its Fá, ’Ayn
and Lám. From a root, e.g., which has Káf (k) for its first
letter or Fá, Tá (t) for its second letter or ’Aye, and Bá (b)
for its third letter or Lám

          fa’l would be katb    =to write, writing;

          fa’al would be katab =he wrote;

          fu’il would be kutib =it was written;

          fa’il would be katib =writer, scribe;

          maf’úl would be maktúb=written, letter;

          mufá’alah would be mukátabah = to write reciprocally,

correspondence.


The advantage of this system is evident. It enables the student,
who has once grasped the original meaning of a root, to form
scores of words himself, and in his readings, to understand
hundreds, nay thousands, of words, without recourse to the
Dictionary, as soon as he has learned to distinguish their
radical letters from the letters of increase, and recognises in
them a familiar root. We cannot wonder, therefore, that the
inventor of Arabic Prosody readily availed himself of the same
plan for his own ends. The Taf’íl, as it is here called, that is,
the representation of the metrical feet by current derivatives of
fa’l, has in this case, of course, nothing to do with the
etymological meaning of those typical forms. But it proves none
the less useful in another direction: in simply naming a
particular foot it shows at the same time its prosodical measure
and character, as will now be explained in detail.

We have seen supra p. 236 that the word Akámú consists of a short
syllable followed by two long ones (U - -), and consequently
forms a foot, which the classics would call Bacchíus. In Latin
there is no connection between this name and the metrical value
of the foot: we must learn both by heart. But if we are told that
its Taf’íl in Arabic is Fa’úlun, we understand at once that it is
composed of the Watad majmú’ fa’ú (U -) and the Sabab khafíf lun
(-), and as the Watad contains three, the Sabab two letters, it
forms a quinqueliteral foot or Juz khamásí.

In combining into feet, the Watad has the precedence over the
Sabab and the Fásilah, and again the Watad majmú’ over the Watad
mafrúk. Hence the Prosodists distinguish between Ajzá aslíyah or
primary feet (from Asl, root), in which this precedence is
observed, and Ájzá far’íyah or secondary feet (from Far’=
branch), in which it is reversed. The former are four in number:—

1.   Fa’ú.lun, consisting, as we have just seen, of a Watad majmú’
followed by a Sabab khafíf = the Latin Bacchíus (U - -).

2.   Mafá.’í.lun, i.e. Watad majmú’ followed by two Sabab khafíf
= the Latin Epitritus primus (U - - -).

3.   Mufá.’alatun, i.e. Watad majmú’ followed by Fásilah = the
Latin Iambus followed by Anapaest (U - UU -).

4.   Fá’i.lá.tun, i.e. Watad mafrúk followed by two Sabab khafíf
= the Latin Epitritus secundus (-U- -).

The number of the secondary feet increases to six, for as Nos. 2
and 4 contain two Sabab, they “branch out” into two derived feet
each, according to both Sabab or only one changing place with
regard to the Watad. They are:

5.   Fá.’ilun, i.e. Sabab khafíf followed by Watad majmú’= the
Latin Creticus (-U-). The primary Fa’ú.lun becomes by
transposition Lun.fa’ú. To bring this into conformity with a
current derivative of fa’l, the initial Sabab must be made to
contain the first letter of the root, and the Watad the two
remaining ones in their proper order. Fá is therefore substituted
for lun, and ’ilun for fa’ú, forming together the above Fá.’ilun.
By similar substitutions, which it would be tedious to specify in
each separate case, Mafá.’í.lun becomes:

6.   Mus.taf.’ilun, for ’Í.lun.mafá, i.e. two Sabab khafíf,
followed by Watad majmú’ = the Latin Epitritus tertius (- -U-),
or:

7.   Fá.’ilá.tun, for Lun.mafá.’í, i.e. Watad majmú’ between two
Sabab khafíf = the Latin Epitritus secundus (-U- -).

8.   Mutafá.’ilun (for ’Alatun.mufá, the reversed Mufá.’alatun),
i.e. Fásilah followed by Watad majmú’=the Latin Anapaest
succeeded by Iambus (UU-U-). The last two secondary feet are
transpositions of No. 4, Fá’i.lá.tun, namely:

9.   Maf.’ú.látu, for Lá.tun.fá’i, i.e. two Sabab khafíf,
followed by Watad mafrúk = the Latin Epitritus quartus (- - -U).

10.  Mus.taf’i.lun, for Tun.fá’i.lá, i.e. Watad mafrúk between
two Sabab khafíf=the Latin Epitritus tertius (- -U-).[FN#452]

The “branch”-foot Fá.’ilun (No. 5), like its “root” Fa’ú.lun (No.
1), is quinqueliteral. All other feet, primary or secondary,
consist necessarily of seven letters, as they contain a
triliteral Watad (see supra i. 2) with either two biliteral Sabab
khafíf (i. 1) or a quadriliteral Fásilah (i. 3). They are,
therefore, called Sabá’í = seven lettered.

iii.      The same principle of the Watad taking precedence over
Sabab and Fásilah, rules the arrangement of the Arabic metres,
which are divided into five circles (Dawáir, pl. of Dáirah), so
called for reasons presently to be explained. The first is named:

A.   Dáirat al-Mukhtalif, circle of “the varied” metre, because
it is composed of feet of various length, the five-lettered
Fa’úlun (supra ii. 1) and the seven-lettered Mafá’ílun (ii. 2)
with their secondaries Fá’ilun, Mustaf.’ilun and Fá.’ilátun (ii.
5–7), and it comprises three Buhúr or metres (pi. of Bahr, sea),
the Tawíl, Madíd and Basít.

   1.     Al-Tawil, consisting of twice

     Fa’ú.lun Mafá.’ílun Fa’ú.lun Mafá.’ílun,

the classical scheme for which would be

     U - - | U - - - | U - - | U - - - |


If we transfer the Watad Fa’ú from the beginning of the line to
the end, it would read:

     Lun.mafá’í Lun.fa’ú Lun.mafá’í Lun.fa’ú which, after the

substitutions indicated above (ii. 7 and 5), becomes:


   2.     Al-Madíd, consisting of twice

     Fá.’ilátun Fá.’ilun Fá.’ilátun Fá.’ilun.

which may be represented by the classical scheme

     - U - - | - U - | - U - - | - U - |


If again, returning to the Tawíl, we make the break after the

Watad of the second foot we obtain the line:


     ’Ílun.fa’ú. Lum.mafá ’Ílun.fa’u Lun.mafá, and as metrically

     ’Ílun.fa’ú (two Sabab followed by Watad) and Lun.mafá (one
Sabab followed by Watad) are=’Ílun.mafá and Lun.fa’ú
respectively, their Taf’il is effected by the same substitutions
as in ii. 5 and 6, and they become:

   3.     Basít, consisting of twice

     Mustaf.’ilun Fá.’ilun Mustaf.’ilun Fá.’ilun,

in conformity with the classical scheme:

     - - U - | - U - | - - U - | - U - |


Thus one metre evolves from another by a kind of rotation, which
suggested to the Prosodists an ingenious device of representing
them by circles (hence the name Dáirah), round the circumference
of which on the outside the complete Taf’íl of the original metre
is written, while each moved letter is faced by a small loop,
each quiescent by a small vertical stroke[FN#453] inside the
circle. Then, in the case of this present Dáirat al-Mukhtalif for
instance, the loop corresponding to the initial f of the first
Fa’úlun is marked as the beginning of the Tawíl, that
corresponding to its l (of the Sabab fun) as the beginning of the
Madid, and that corresponding to the ’Ayn of the next Mafá’ílun
as the beginning of the Basít. The same process applies to all
the following circles, but our limited space compels us simply to
enumerate them, together with their Buhúr, without further
reference to the mode of their evolution.

B.   Dáirat al-Mútalif, circle of “the agreeing” metre, so called
because all its feet agree in length, consisting of seven letters
each. It contains:

1.   Al-Wáfir, composed of twice

          Mufá.’alatun Mufá.’alatun Mufá.’alatun (ii. 3)

          = U - U U - | U - U U - | U - U U - |


where the Iambus in each foot precedes the Anapaest, and
its reversal:

2.   Al-Kámil, consisting of twice

          Mutafá.’ilun Mutafá.’ilun Mutafá.’ilun (ii. 8)

          = U U - U - | U U - U - | U U - U - |

where the Anapaest takes the first place in every foot.

C.   Dáirat al-Mujtalab, circle of “the brought on” metre, so
called because its seven-lettered feet are brought on from the
first circle.

1.   Al-Hazaj, consisting of twice

          Mafá.’ílun Mafá.’ílun Mafá.’ílun (ii. 2)

          = U - - - | U - - - | U - - - | U - - - |


2.   Al-Rajaz, consisting of twice

          Mustaf.’ilun Mustaf.’ilun Mustaf.’ilun,

and, in this full form, almost identical with the Iambic Trimeter
of the Greek Drama:

          - - U - | - - U - | - - U - |


3.   Al-Ramal, consisting of twice

          Fá.’ilátun Fá.’ilátun Fá.’ilátun,

the trochaic counterpart of the preceding metre

          = - U - - | - U - - | - U - - |


D.   Dáirat al-Mushtabih, circle of “the intricate” metre, so
called from its intricate nature, primary mingling with secondary
feet, and one foot of the same verse containing a Watad majmú’,
another a Watad mafrúk, i.e. the iambic rhythm alternating with
the trochaic and vice versa. Its Buhúr are:

1.   Al-Sarí’, twice

          Mustaf.’ilun Mustaf.’ilun Maf’ú.látu (ii. 6 and 9)

                     = - - U - | - - U - | - - - U |


2.   Al-Munsarih, twice

          Mustaf.’ilun Mafú.látu Mustaf.’ilun (ii. 6. 9. 6)

                     = - - U - | - - - U | - - U - |


3.   Al-Khafíf, twice

          Fá.’ílátun Mustaf’i.lun Fá.’ílátun (ii. 7.10.7)

                     = - U - - | - - U - | - U - - |


4.   Al-Muzári’, twice

          Mafá.’ílun Fá’í.látun Mafá.’ílun (ii. 2.4.2)

                     = U - - - | - U - - | U - - - |


5.   Al-Muktazib, twice

          Maf’ú.látu Mustaf.’ilun Maf’ú.látu (ii. 9.6.9)

                    = - - - U | - - U - | - - - U |


6.   Al-Mujtass, twice

          Mustaf’i.lun Fá.’ílátun Mustaf’ i.lun (ii. 10.7.10)

                    = - - U - | - U - - | - - U - |


E.   Dáirat al-Muttafik, circle of “the concordant” metre, so
called for the same reason why circle B is called “the agreeing,”
i.e. because the feet all harmonise in length, being here,
however, quinqueliteral, not seven-lettered as in the Mátalif.
Al-Khalil the inventor of the ’Ilm al-’Arúz, assigns to it only
one metre:

1.   Al-Mutakárib, twice

          Fa’úlun Fa’úlun Fa’úlun Fa’úlun (ii. 1)

                    = U - - | U - - | U - - |


Later Prosodists added:

2.   Al-Mutadárak, twice

          Fá’ilun Fá’ilun Fá’ilun Fá’ilun (ii. 5)

                    = - U - | - U - | - U - |


The feet and metres as given above are, however, to a certain
extent merely theoretical; in practice the former admit of
numerous licenses and the latter of variations brought about by
modification or partial suppression of the feet final in a verse.
An Arabic poem (Kasídah, or if numbering less than ten couplets,
Kat’ah) consists of Bayts or couplets, bound together by a
continuous rhyme, which connects the first two lines and is
repeated at the end of every second line throughout the poem. The
last foot of every odd line is called ’Arúz (fem. in
contradistinction of Arúz in the sense of Prosody which is
masc.), pl. A’áiriz, that of every even line is called Zarb, pl.
Azrub, and the remaining feet may be termed Hashw (stuffing),
although in stricter parlance a further distinction is made
between the first foot of every odd and even line as well.

Now with regard to the Hashw on the one hand, and the ’Aruz and
Zarb on the other, the changes which the normal feet undergo are
of two kinds: Zuháf (deviation) and ’Illah (defect). Zuháf
applies, as a rule, occasionally and optionally to the second
letter of a Sabab in those feet which compose the Hashw or body-part
 of a verse, making a long syllable short by suppressing its
quiescent final, or contracting two short quantities in a long
one, by rendering quiescent a moved letter which stands second in
a Sabab sakíl. In Mustaf’ilun (ii. 6. = - - U -), for instance,
the s of the first syllable, or the f of the second, or both may
be dropped and it will become accordingly Mutaf’ilun, by
substitution Mafá’ilun (U - U -), or Musta’ilun, by substitution,
Mufta’ilun (- U U -), or Muta’ilun, by substitution Fa’ilatun (U
U U -).[FN#454] This means that wherever the foot Mustaf.’ilun
occurs in the Hashw of a poem, we can represent it by the scheme
U U U - i.e. the Epitritus tertius can, by poetical licence,
change into Diiambus, Choriambus or Paeon quartus. In Mufá’alatun
(ii. 3. = U - U U -) and Mutafá’ilun (ii. 8. = U U - U -), again,
the Sabab ’ala and mute may become khafíf by suppression of their
final Harakah and thus turn into Mufá’altun, by substitution
Mafá’ílun (ii. 2. = U - - -), and Mutfá’ilun, by substitution
Mustaf’ilun (ii 6.= - - U U as above). In other words the two
feet correspond to the schemes U_U-U_ and U-U-U-, where a Spondee
can take the place of the Anapaest after or before the Iambus
respectively.

’Illah, the second way of modifying the primitive or normal feet,
applies to both Sabab and Watad, but only in the ’Aruz and Zarb
of a couplet, being at the same time constant and obligatory.
Besides the changes already mentioned, it consists in adding one
or two letters to a Sabab or Watad, or curtailing them more or
less, even to cutting them off altogether. We cannot here exhaust
this matter any more than those touched upon until now, but must
be satisfied with an example or two, to show the proceeding in
general and indicate its object.

We have seen that the metre Basít consists of the two lines:

          Mustaf.’ilun Fá.’ilun Mustaf’ilun Fá’ilun

          Mustaf’ilun Fá’ilun Mustaf’ilun Fá’ilun.


This complete form, however, is not in use amongst Arab poets. If
by the Zuháf Khabn, here acting as ’Illah, the Alif in the final
Fá’ilun is suppressed, changing it into Fa’ilun (U U -), it
becomes the first ’Aruz, called makhbúnah, of the Basít, the
first Zarb of which is obtained by submitting the final Fá’ilun
of the second line to the same process. A second Zarb results, if
in Fá’ilun the final n of the ’Watad ’ilun is cut off and the
preceding l made quiescent by the ’Illah Kat’ thus giving Fá’il
and by substitution Fa’lun (- -). Thus the formula becomes:—

          Mustaf’ilun Fá’ilun Mustaf’ilun Fa’ilun

          Mustaf’ilun Fá’ilun Mustaf’ilun{Fa’ilun

                                         {Fa’lun


As in the Hashw, i.e. the first three feet of each line, the

Khabn can likewise be applied to the medial Fá’ilun, and for

Mustaf’ilun the poetical licences, explained above, may be

introduced, this first ’Arúz or Class of the Basít with its two

Zarb or subdivisions will be represented by the scheme


          U U     | U     | U U     |
          - - U - | - U - | - - U U | U U -


                     U U     | U      { U U -
                     - - U - | - U - { - -


that is to say in the first subdivision of this form of the Basít
both lines of each couplet end with an Anapaest and every second
line of the other subdivision terminates in a Spondee.

The Basít has four more A’áriz, three called majzúah, because
each line is shortened by a Juz or foot, one called mashtúrah
(halved), because the number of feet is reduced from four to two,
and we may here notice that the former kind of lessening the
number of feet is frequent with the hexametrical circles (B. C.
D.), while the latter kind can naturally only occur in those
circles whose couplet forms an octameter (A. E.). Besides being
majzúah, the second ’Aruz is sahíhah (perfect) consisting of the
normal foot Mustaf’ilun. It has three Azrub: 1. Mustaf’ilán (- -U
 -, with an overlong final syllable, see supra p. 238),
produced by the ’Illah Tazyíl, i.e. addition of a quiescent
letter at the end (Mustaf’ilunn, by substitution Mustaf’ilán); 2.
Mustaf’ilun, like the ’Aruz; 3. Maf’úlun (- - -), produced by the
’Illah Kat’ (see the preceding page; Mustaf’ilun, by dropping the
final n and making the l quiescent becomes Mustaf’il and by
substitution Maf’úlun). Hence the formula is:

          Mustaf’ilun Fá’ilun Mustaf’ilun

                             { Mustaf’il n

          Mustaf’ilun Fá’ilun{ Mustaf’ilun

                             { Maf’úulun,


which, with its allowable licenses, may be represented by the
scheme:

                    U U     | U     |
                    - - U - | - U - | - - U -


                                    { U U

                    U U     | U     { - - U -

                    - - U - | - U - { - - U -

                                    { U

                                    { - - -


The above will suffice to illustrate the general method of the
Prosodists, and we must refer the reader for the remaining
classes and subdivisions of the Basít as well as the other metres
to more special treatises on the subject, to which this Essay is
intended merely as an introduction, with a view to facilitate the
first steps of the student in an important, but I fear somewhat
neglected, field of Arabic learning.

If we now turn to the poetical pieces contained in The Nights, we
find that out of the fifteen metres, known to al-Khalil, or the
sixteen of later Prosodists, instances of thirteen occur in the
Mac. N. edition, but in vastly different proportions. The total
number amounts to 1,385 pieces (some, however, repeated several
times), out of which 1,128 belong to the first two circles,
leaving only 257 for the remaining three. The same
disproportionality obtains with regard to the metres of each
circle. The Mukhtalif is represented by 331 instances of Tawíl
and 330 of Basít against 3 of Madíd; the Mutalif by 321 instances
of Kámil against 143 of Wafír; the Mujtalab by 32 instances of
Ramal and 30 of Rajaz against 1 of Hazaj; the Mushtabih by 72
instances of Khafíf and 52 of Sarí’ against 18 of Munsarih and 15
of Mujtass; and lastly the Muttafik by 37 instances of Mutakárib.
Neither the Mutadárak (E. 2), nor the Muzári’ and Muktazib (D.
4.5) are met with.

Finally it remains for me to quote a couplet of each metre,
showing how to scan them, and what relation they bear to the
theoretical formulas exhibited on p. 242 to p. 247.

It is characteristic for the preponderance of the Tawíl over all
the other metres, that the first four lines, with which my
alphabetical list begins, are written in it. One of these belongs
to a poem which has for its author Bahá al-Din Zuhayr (born A.D.
1186 at Mekkah or in its vicinity, ob. 1249 at Cairo), and is to
be found in full in Professor Palmer’s edition of his works, p.
164. Sir Richard Burton translates the first Bayt (vol. i. 290):

          An I quit Cairo and her pleasances * Where can I hope
to find so gladsome ways?

Professor Palmer renders it:

          Must I leave Egypt where such joys abound?

          What place can ever charm me so again ?


In Arabic it scans:

          U - U | U - - - | U - U |  U - U - |

          A-arhalu’en Misrin wa tíbi na’ímihil[FN#455]

          U - U | U - - - | U - U |  U - U - |

          Fa-ayyu makánin ba’dahá li-ya sháiku.


In referring to iii. A. I. p. 242, it will be seen that in the
Hashw Fa’úlun (U - -) has become Fa’úlu (U - U) by a Zuháf called
Kabz (suppression of the fifth letter of a foot if it is
quiescent) and that in the ’Arúz and Zarb Mafá’ílun (U - - -) has
changed into Mafá’ilun (U - U -) by the same Zuháf acting as
’Illah. The latter alteration shows the couplet to be of the
second Zarb of the first ’Arúz of the Tawíl. If the second line
did terminate in Mafá’ílun, as in the original scheme, it would
be the first Zarb of the same ’Arúz; if it did end in Fa’úlun (U
- -) or Mafá’íl (U - -) it would represent the third or fourth
subdivision of this first class respectively. The Tawíl has one
other ’Arúz, Fa’úlun, with a twofold Zarb, either Fa’úlun also,
or Mafá’ilun.

The first instance of the Basít occurring in The Nights are the
lines translated vol. i. p. 25:

Containeth Time a twain of days, this of blessing, that of bane *

     And holdeth Life a twain of halves, this of pleasure, that

     of pain.


In Arabic (Mac. N. i. II):

             - - U - | - U - | - - U - | U U - |

          Al-Dahru yaumáni zá amnun wa zá hazaru


             - - U - | - U - | - - U - | U U - |

          Wa’l-’Ayshu shatráni zá safwun wa zá kadaru.


Turning back to p. 243, where the A’áríz and Azrub of the Basít
are shown, the student will have no difficulty to recognise the
Bayt as one belonging to the first Zarb of the first ’Arúz.

As an example of the Madid we quote the original of the lines
(vol. v. 131):—

I had a heart, and with it lived my life * ’Twas seared with fire

     and burnt with loving-lowe.


They read in Arabic:—

                     - U - - | - U - | U U - |

                    Kána lí kalbun a’íshu bihi


                       - U - - | - U - | U - |

                    Fa’ktawá bi’l-nári wa’htarak.


If we compare this with the formula (iii. A. 2. p. 242), we find
that either line of the couplet is shortened by a foot; it is,
therefore, majzú. The first ’Arúz of this abbreviated metre is
Fá’ilátun (- U - -), and is called sahíhah (perfect) because it
consists of the normal third foot. In the second ’Arúz, Fá’ilátun
loses its end syllable tun by the ’Illah Hafz (suppression of a
final Sabab khafíf), and becomes Fá’ilá (- U -), for which
Fá’ilun is substituted. Shortening the first syllable of Fá’ilun,
i.e. eliminating the Alif by Khabn, we obtain the third ’Arúz
Fa’ilun (U U -) as that of the present lines, which has two
Azrub: Fa’ilun, like the ’Arúz, and Fa’lun (- -), here, again by
Khabn, further reduced to Fa’al (U -).

Ishak of Mosul, who improvises the piece, calls it “so difficult
and so rare, that it went nigh to deaden the quick and to quicken
the dead”; indeed, the native poets consider the metre Madíd as
the most difficult of all, and it is scarcely ever attempted by
later writers. This accounts for its rare occurrence in The
Nights, where only two more instances are to be found, Mac. N.
ii. 244 and iii.
404.

The second and third circle will best be spoken of together, as
the Wáfir and Kámil have a natural affinity to the Hazaj and
Rajaz. Let us revert to the line:—

          U - - - | U - - - | U - - |

        Akámú ’l-wajda fí kalbí wa sárú.


Translated, as it were, into the language of the Prosodists it
will be:—

          Mafá’ílun[FN#456] ’Mafá’ílun Fa’úlun,

and this, standing by itself, might prima facie be taken for a
line of the Hazaj (iii. C. I), with the third Mafá’ílun shortened
by Hafz (see above) into Mafá’í for which Fa’úlun would be
substituted. We have seen (p. 247) that and how the foot
Mufá’alatun can change into Mafá’ílun, and if in any poem which
otherwise would belong to the metre Hazaj, the former measure
appears even in one foot only along with the latter, it is
considered to be the original measure, and the poem counts no
longer as Hazaj but as Wáfir. In the piece now under
consideration, it is the second Bayt where the characteristic
foot of the Wáfir first appears:—

          U - - - | U - U U | U - - |

          Naat ’anní’l-rubú’u wa sákiníhá


          U - U U - | U - U U - | U - - |

          Wa kad ba’uda ’l-mazáru fa-lá mazáru.


Anglicè (vol. iii. 296):—

Far lies the camp and those who camp therein; * Far is her tent

     shrine where I ne’er shall tent.


It must, however, be remarked that the Hazaj is not in use as a
hexameter, but only with an ’Arúz majzúah or shortened by one
foot. Hence it is only in the second ’Arúz of the Wafír, which is
likewise majzúah, that the ambiguity as to the real nature of the
metre can arise;[FN#457] and the isolated couplet:—

          U - - - | U - - -  | U - - |

          Yárídu ’l-mar-u an yu’tá munáhu


          U - - - | U - - -  | U - - |

          Wa yabá ’lláhu illá ma yurídu


Man wills his wish to him accorded be, * But Allah naught accords

     save what he wills (vol. iv. 157),


being hexametrical, forms undoubtedly part of a poem in Wafír
although it does not contain the foot Mufá’alatun at all. Thus
the solitary instance of Hazaj in The Nights is Abú Nuwás’
abomination, beginning with:—

          U - - -  | U - - - |


          Fa-lá tas’au ilá ghayrí

          U - - -  | U - - - |

          Fa-’indi ma’dinu ’l-khayri (Mac. N. ii. 377).


Steer ye your steps to none but me * Who have a mine of luxury

     (vol. v. 65).


If in the second ’Arúz of the Wáfir, Maf’áílun (U - - -) is
further shortened to Mafá’ilun (U - U -), the metre resembles the
second ’Arúz of Rajaz, where, as we have seen, the latter foot
can, by licence, take the place of the normal Mustaf’ilun (- - U
-).

The Kámil bears a similar relation to the Rajaz, as the Wáfir
bears to the Hazaj. By way of illustration we quote from Mac. N.
ii. 8 the first two Bayts of a little poem taken from the 23rd
Assembly of Al Hariri:—

             - - U - | - - U - | U U - U - |

          Yá khátiba ’l-dunyá ’l-daniyyati innahá


             U U - U - | U U - U - | - - - |

          Sharaku ’l-radà wa karáratu ’l-akdári


              - - U - | - - U - | - - U - |

          Dárun matà má azhakat fí yaumiha


               - - U - | - - U - | - - - |

          Abkat ghadan bu’dan lahá min dári.


In Sir Richard Burton’s translation (vol. iii. 319):—

O thou who woo’st a World unworthy, learn * ’Tis house of evils,

     ’tis Perdition’s net:

A house where whoso laughs this day shall weep * The next; then

     perish house of fume and fret.


The ’Arúz of the first couplet is Mutafá’ilun, assigning the
piece to the first or perfect (sahíhah) class of the Kámil. In
the Hashw of the opening line and in that of the whole second
Bayt this normal Mutafá’ilun has, by licence, become Mustaf’ilun,
and the same change has taken place in the ’Arúz of the second
couplet; for it is a peculiarity which this metre shares with a
few others, to allow certain alterations of the kind Zuháf in the
’Arúz and Zarb as well as in the Hashw. This class has three
subdivisions: the Zarb of the first is Mutafá’ilun, like the
’Arúz the Zarb of the second is Fa’alátun (U U - -), a
substitution for Mutafá’il which latter is obtained from
Mutafá’ilun by suppressing the final n and rendering the l
quiescent; the Zarb of the third is Fa’lun (- - -) for Mútfá,
derived from Mutafá’ilun by cutting off the Watad ’ilun and
dropping the medial a of the remaining Mutafá.

If we make the ’Ayn of the second Zarb Fa’alátun also quiescent
by the permitted Zuháf Izmár, it changes into Fa’látun, by
substitution Maf ’úlun (- - -) which terminates the rhyming lines
of the foregoing quotation. Consequently the two couplets taken
together, belong to the second Zarb of the first ’Aruz of the
Kámil, and the metre of the poem with its licences may be
represensed by the scheme:

           -        | -        |  -        |

          U U - U - | U U - U - | U U - U - |


            -        | -        |  -      |

           U U - U - | U U - U - | U U - - |


Taken isolated, on the other hand, the second Bayt might be of
the metre Rajaz, whose first ’Arúz Mustaf’ilun has two Azrub: one
equal to the Arúz, the other Maf’úlun as above, but here
substituted for Mustaf’il after applying the ’Illah Kat’ (see p
247) to Mustaf’ilun. If this were the metre of the poem
throughout the scheme with the licences peculiar to the Rajaz
would be:

          U U     | U U     | U U     |
          - - U U | - - U - | - - U - |


          U U     | U U     | U     |
          - - U - | - - U - | - - - |


The pith of Al-Hariri’s Assembly is that the knight errant not to
say the arrant wight of the Romance, Abú Sayd of Sarúj accuses
before the Walí of Baghdad his pretended pupil, in reality his
son, to have appropriated a poem of his by lopping off two feet
of every Bayt. If this is done in the quoted lines, they read:

              - - U - | - - U - |

          Yá khátiba ’l-dunyá ’l-dandy.


          U U - U | U U - U - |

          Yati innahá sharaku ’l-radá


             - - U - | - - U - |

          Dárun matà má azhakat,


             - - U - | - - U - |

          Fí yaumihá abkat ghadá,


with a different rhyme and of a different variation of metre. The
amputated piece belongs to the fourth Zarb of the third ’Aruz of
Kámil, and its second couplet tallies with the second subdivision
of the second class of Rajaz.

The Rajaz, an iambic metre pure and simple, is the most popular,
because the easiest, in which even the Prophet was caught napping
sometimes, at the dangerous risk of following the perilous
leadership of Imru ’l-Kays. It is the metre of improvisation, of
ditties, and of numerous didactic poems. In the latter case, when
the composition is called Urjúzah, the two lines of every Bayt
rhyme, and each Bayt has a rhyme of its own. This is the form in
which, for instance, Ibn Málik’s Alfíyah is written, as well as
the remarkable grammatical work of the modern native scholar,
Nasíf al-Yazijí, of which a notice will be found in Chenery’s
Introduction to his Translation of Al-Hariri.

While the Hazaj and Rajaz connect the third circle with the first
and second, the Ramal forms the link between the third and fourth
Dáirah. Its measure Fá’ilátun (- U - -) and the reversal of it,
Maf’úlátu (- - - U), affect the trochaic rhythm, as opposed to
the iambic of the two first-named metres. The iambic movement has
a ring of gladness about it, the trochaic a wail of sadness: the
former resembles a nimble pedestrian, striding apace with an
elastic step and a cheerful heart; the latter is like a man
toiling along on the desert path, where his foot is ever and anon
sliding back in the burning sand (Raml, whence probably the name
of the metre). Both combined in regular alternation, impart an
agitated character to the verse, admirably fit to express the
conflicting emotions of a passion stirred mind.

Examples of these more or less plaintive and pathetic metres are
numerous in the Tale of Uns al-Wujúd and the Wazir’s Daughter,
which, being throughout a story of love, as has been noted, vol.
v. 33, abounds in verse, and, in particular, contains ten out of
the thirty two instances of Ramal occurring in The Nights. We
quote:

Ramal, first Zarb of the first ’Arúz (Mac. N. ii. 361):

             - U - - | U U - - | - U - |

          Inna li ’l-bulbuli sautan fí ’l-sahar


             - U - - | U U - - | - U - |

          Ashghala ’l-áshika ’an husni ’l-water


The Bulbul’s note, whenas dawn is nigh * Tells the lover from
strains of strings to fly (vol. v. 48).

Sarí’, second Zarb of the first ’Arúz (Mac. N. ii. 359):

           U - U - | - - U - | - U - |

          Wa fákhitin kad kála fí nauhihi


           - - U - | - - U - | - U - |

          Yá Dáiman shukran ’alà balwatí


I heard a ringdove chanting soft and plaintively, * “I thank

     Thee, O Eternal for this misery” (vol. v. 47).


Khafíf, full or perfect form (sahíh), both in Zarb and ’Arúz

(Mac. N. ii. 356):


           - U - - | U - U - | - U - - |

          Yá li-man ashtakí ’l-gharáma ’llazí bi


           U U - - | U - U - | - U - - |

          Wa shujúní wa furkatí ’an habíbí


O to whom now of my desire complaining sore shall I * Bewail my

     parting from my fere compellèd thus to fly (vol. v. 44).


Mujtass, the only ’Arúz (majzúah sahíhah, i.e. shortened by one
foot and perfect) with equal Zarb (Mac. N. ii. 367):

            - - U - | U U - - |

          Ruddú ’alayya habíbí


            - - U - | - U - - |

          Lá hajatan lí bi-málin


To me restore my dear * I want not wealth untold (vol. v. 55).

As an instance of the Munsarih, I give the second occurring in
The Nights, because it affords me an opportunity to show the
student how useful a knowledge of the laws of Prosody frequently
proves for ascertaining the correct reading of a text. Mac. N. i.
33 we find the line:

          - U U - | - U U - | - U U - |

          Arba’atun má ’jtama’at kattu izá.


This would be Rajaz with the licence Mufta’ilun for Mustaf’ilun.
But the following lines of the fragment evince, that the metre is
Munsarih; hence, a clerical error must lurk somewhere in the
second foot. In fact, on page 833 of the same volume, we find the
piece repeated, and here the first couplet reads

          - U U - | - U - U | - U U - |

          Arba’atun má ’jtama’na kattu siwà


          U - U - | - U - U | - U U - |

          Alà azá mujhatí wa safki damí


Four things which ne’er conjoin unless it be * To storm my vitals

     and to shed my blood (vol. iii. 237).


The Mutákarib, the last of the metres employed in The Nights, has
gained a truly historical importance by the part which it plays
in Persian literature. In the form of trimetrical double-lines,
with a several rhyme for each couplet, it has become the
“Nibelungen”-stanza of the Persian epos:
Firdausí’s immortal “Book of Kings” and Nizámi’s Iskander-námah
are written in it, not to mention a host of Masnawis in which
Sufic mysticism combats Mohammedan orthodoxy. On account of its
warlike and heroical character, therefore, I choose for an
example the knightly Jamrakán’s challenge to the single fight in
which he conquers his scarcely less valiant adversary Kaurajan,
Mac. N. iii. 296:

           U - - | U - U | U - - | U - - |

          Aná ’l-Jamrakánu kawiyyn ’l-janáni


           U - - | U - U | U - - | U - - |

          Jamí’u ’l-fawárisi takhshà kitálí.


Here the third syllable of the second foot in each line is
shortened by licence, and the final Kasrah of the first line,
standing in pause, is long, the metre being the full form of the
Mutakárib as exhibited p. 246, iii. E. 1. If we suppress the
Kasrah of al-Janáni, which is also allowable in pause, and make
the second line to rhyme with the first, saying, for instance:

             U - - | U - U | U - - | U -

          Aná ’l-Jamrakánu kawiyyu ’l-janán


             U - - | U - - | U - - | U -

          La-yakshà kitálí shijá’u ’l-zamán,


we obtain the powerful and melodious metre in which the Sháhnámah
sings of Rustam’s lofty deeds, of the tender love of Rúdabah and
the tragic downfall of Siyawush

Shall I confess that in writing the foregoing pages it has been
my ambition to become a conqueror, in a modest way, myself: to
conquer, I mean, the prejudice frequently entertained, and shared
even by my accomplished countryman, Rückert, that Arabic Prosody
is a clumsy and repulsive doctrine. I have tried to show that it
springs naturally from the character of the language, and,
intimately connected, as it is, with the grammatical system of
the Arabs, it appears to me quite worthy of the acumen of a
people, to whom, amongst other things, we owe the invention of
Algebra, the stepping-stone of our whole modern system of
Mathematics I cannot refrain, therefore, from concluding with a
little anecdote anent al-Khalíl, which Ibn Khallikán tells in the
following words. His son went one day into the room where his
father was, and on finding him scanning a piece of poetry by the
rules of Prosody he ran out and told the people that his father
had lost his wits. They went in immediately and related to
al-Khalíl what they had heard, on which he addressed his son in
these terms:

“Had you known what I was saying, you would have excused me, and
had you known what you said, I should have blamed you But you did
not understand me, so you blamed me, and I knew that you were
ignorant, so I pardoned you.”

                            L’Envoi.

Here end, to my sorrow, the labours of a quarter-century, and
here I must perforce say with the “poets’ Poet,”

          “Behold! I see the haven nigh at hand,

          To which I mean my wearie course to bend;

          Vere the main shete, and bear up with the land

          The which afore is fairly to be ken’d.”


Nothing of importance now indeed remains for me but briefly to
estimate the character of my work and to take cordial leave of my
readers, thanking them for the interest they have accorded to
these volumes and for enabling me thus successfully to complete
the decade.

Without pudor malus or over-diffidence I would claim to have
fulfilled the promise contained in my Foreword. The
anthropological notes and notelets, which not only illustrate and
read between the lines of the text, but assist the student of
Moslem life and of Arabo-Egyptian manners, customs and language
in a multitude of matters shunned by books, form a repertory of
Eastern knowledge in its esoteric phase, sexual as well as
social.

To assert that such lore is unnecessary is to state, as every
traveller knows, an “absurdum.” Few phenomena are more startling
than the vision of a venerable infant, who has lived half his
long life in the midst of the wildest anthropological vagaries
and monstrosities, and yet who absolutely ignores all that India
or Burmah enacts under his very eyes. This is crass ignorance,
not the naive innocence of Saint Francis who, seeing a man and a
maid in a dark corner, raised his hands to Heaven and thanked the
Lord that there was still in the world so much of Christian
Charity.

Against such lack of knowledge my notes are a protest; and I may
claim success despite the difficulty of the task. A traveller
familiar with Syria and Palestine, Herr Landberg, writes, “La
plume refuserait son service, la langue serait insuffisante, si
celui qui connait la vie de tous les jours des Orientaux, surtout
des classes élévees, voulait la devoiler. L’Europe est bien loin
d’en avoir la moindre idée.”

In this matter I have done my best, at a time too when the
hapless English traveller is expected to write like a young lady
for young ladies, and never to notice what underlies the most
superficial stratum. And I also maintain that the free treatment
of topics usually taboo’d and held to be “alekta”—unknown and
unfitted for publicity—will be a national benefit to an “Empire
of Opinion,” whose very basis and buttresses are a thorough
knowledge by the rulers of the ruled. Men have been crowned with
gold in the Capitol for lesser services rendered to the
Respublica.

That the work contains errors, shortcomings and many a lapsus, I
am the first and foremost to declare. Yet in justice to myself I
must also notice that the maculæ are few and far between; even
the most unfriendly and interested critics have failed to point
out an abnormal number of slips. And before pronouncing the “Vos
plaudite!” or, as Easterns more politely say, “I implore that my
poor name may be raised aloft on the tongue of praise,” let me
invoke the fair field and courteous favour which the Persian poet
expected from his readers.

          (Veil it, an fault thou find, nor jibe nor jeer:—

          None may be found of faults and failings clear!)


RICHARD F. BURTON.


Athenæum Club, September 30, 86.

                            Appendix

                           Memorandum

I make no apology for the number and extent of bibliographical
and other lists given in this Appendix: they may cumber the book
but they are necessary to complete my design. This has been to
supply throughout the ten volumes the young Arabist and student
of Orientalism and Anthropology with such assistance as I can
render him; and it is my conviction that if with the aid of this
version he will master the original text of the “Thousand Nights
and a Night,” he will find himself at home amongst educated men
in Egypt and Syria, Najd and Mesopotamia, and be able to converse
with them like a gentleman; not, as too often happens in Anglo-India,
like a “Ghoráwálá” (groom). With this object he will
learn by heart what instinct and inclination suggest of the
proverbs and instances, the verses, the jeux d’esprit and
especially the Koranic citations scattered about the text; and my
indices will enable him to hunt up the tale or the verses which
he may require for quotation wven when writing an ordinary letter
to a “native” correspondent. Thus he will be spared the wasted
labour of wading through volumes in order to pick up a line.

The following is the list of indices:—

Appendix I.

I.   Index to the Tales in the ten Volumes.
II.  Alphabetical Table of the Notes (Anthropological, etc.)
     prepared by F. Steingass, Ph.D.
III. Alphabetical Table of First Lines (metrical portion) in
     English and Arabic, prepared by Dr. Steingass.
IV.  Tables of Contents of the various Arabic texts.
     A.   The Unfinished Calcutta Edition (1814–18).
     B.   The Breslau Text (1825–43) from Mr. Payne’s Version.
     C.   The MacNaghten or Turner-Macan Text (A.D. 1839–42) and
          the Bulak Edition (A.H. 1251 = A.D. 1835–36), from Mr.
          Payne’s Version.
     D.   The same with Mr. Lane’s and my Version.

Appendix II.

Contributions to the Bibliography of the Thousand and One Nights,
and their Imitations, with a Table shewing the contents of the
principal editions and translations of The Nights. By W. F.
Kirby, Author of “Ed-Dimiryaht, and Oriental Romance”; “The New
Arabian Nights,” &c.




Appendix I.

                            Index I




Index to the Tales and Proper Names.

N.B.—The Roman numerals denote the volume {page numbers have
been omitted}

Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman, ix.

Abdullah bin Fazl and his brothers, ix.

Abdullah bin Ma’amar with the Man of Bassorah and his slave-girl,

v.

Abd al-Rahman the Moor’s story of the Rukh, v.

Abu Hasan al-Ziyadi and the Khorasan Man, iv.

Abu Hasan, how he brake Wind, v.

Abu Isa and Kurrat al-Aye, The Loves of, v.

Abu Ja’afar the Leper, Abu al-Hasan al-Durraj and, v.

Abu Kir the Dyer and Abu Sir the Barber, ix.

Abu al-Aswad and his squinting slave-girl, v.

Abu al Husn and his slave-girl Tawaddud, v.

Abu al Hasan al-Durraj and Abu Ja’afar the Leper, v.

Abu al Hasan of Khorasan, ix.

Abu Mohammed highs Lazybones, iv.

Abu Nowas, Harun al-Rashid with the damsel and, iv.

Abu Nowas and the Three Boys, v.

Abu Sir the Barber, Abu Kir the Dyer and, ix.

Abu Suwayd and the handsome old woman, v.

Abu Yusuf with Harun al-Rashid and his Wazir Ja’afar, The Imam,

iv.

Abu Yusuf with Al-Rashid and Zubaydah, The Imam, iv.

Adam, The Birds and Beasts and the Son of, iii.

Adi bin Zayd and the Princess Hind, v.

Ajib, The History of Gharib and his brother, vi.

Ala al-Din Abu al-Shamat, iv.

Alexandria (The Sharper of) and the Master of Police, iv.

Ali bin Bakkar and Shams al-Nahar, iii.

Ali of Cairo, The Adventures of Mercury, vii.

Ali Nur al-Din and Miriam the Girdle-Girl, viii.

Ali the Persian and the Kurd Sharper, iv.

Ali Shar and Zumurrud, iv.

Ali bin Tahir and the girl Muunis, v.

Al Malik al-Nasir (Saladin) and the Three Chiefs of Police, iv.

Almsgiving, The Woman whose hands were cut off for, iv.

Amin (Al-) and his uncle Ibrahim bin al-Mahdi, v.

Anushirwan, Kisra, and the village damsel, v.

Anushirwan, The Righteousness of King, v.

Angel of Death and the King of the Children of Israel, The, v

Angel of Death with the Proud King and the Devout Man, The, v.

Angel of Death and the Rich King, The, v.

Anis al-Jalis, Nur al-Din Ali and the damsel, ii.

Ape, The King’s daughter and the, iv.

Apples, The Three, i.

Arab Girl, Harun al-Rashid and the, vii.

Arab Youth, The Caliph Hisham and the, iv.

Ardashir and Hayat al-Nufus, vii.

Asma’i (Al-) and the three girls of Bassorah, vii.

Ass, The Ox and the, i.

Ass, The Wild, The Fox and, ix.

Ayishah, Musab bin al-Zubayr and his wife, v.

Aziz and Azizah, Tale of, ii.

Azizah, Aziz and. ii.

Badawi, Ja’afar the Barmecide and the old, v.

Badawi, Omar bin al-Khattab and the young, v.

Badawi, and his Wife, The, vii.

Badi’a al-Jamal, Sayf al-Muluk and, vii.

Badr Basim of Persia, Julnar the Sea-born, and her Son King, vii.

Badr al-Din Hasan, Nur al-Din Ali of Cairo and his son, i.

Baghdad, The Haunted House in, v.

Baghdad, Khalifah the Fisherman of, viii.

Baghdad, The Porter and the Three Ladies of, i.

Baghdad, (The ruined man of) and his slave-girl, ix.

Baghdad, The Sweep and the noble Lady of, iv.

Bakun’s Story of the Hashish-Eater, ii.

Banu Tayy, The Lovers of the, v.

Banu Ozrah, The Lovers of the, v.

Barber’s Tale of himself, The, i.

Barber’s First Brother, Story of the, i.

Barber’s Second Brother, Story of the, i

Barber’s Third Brother, Story of the, i.

Barber’s Fourth Brother, Story of the, i.

Barber’s Fifth Brother, Story of the, i.

Barber’s Sixth Brother, Story of the, i.

Barber, Abu Kir the Dyer and Abu Sir the, ix.

Barber-Surgeon, Ibrahim bin al-Mahdi and the, iv.

Barmecide. Ja’afar the, and the old Badawi, v

Bassorah (the man of ) and his slave-girl, Abdullah bin Ma’amar

with, v.

Bassorah, Al-Asma’i and the three girls of, vii.

Bassorah, (Hasan of) and the King’s daughter of the Jinn, viii.

Bassorah, The Lovers of, vii.

Bath, Harun al-Rashid and Zubaydah in the, v.

Bathkeeper’s Wife, The Wazir’s Son and the, vi.

Beanselller, Ja’afar the Barmecide and the, iv.

Bear, Wardan the Butcher’s adventure with the Lady and the, iv.

Beasts and the Son of Adam, The Birds and, iii.

Behram, Prince of Persia, and the Princess Al-Datma, vi.

Belvedere, The House with the, vi.

Birds and Beasts and the Carpenter, The, iii.

Birds, The Falcon and the, iii.

Birds (the Speech of), The page who feigned to know, vi.

Black Slave, The pious, v.

Blacksmith who could handle fire without hurt, The, v.

Blind Man and the Cripple, The, ix.

Boys, Abu Nowas and the Three, v.

Boy and Girl at School, The Loves of the, v.

Boy and the Thieves, The, ix.

Boy (The woman who had to lover a) and the other who had to lover

a man, v.

Brass, The City of, vi.

Broker’s Story, The Christian, i.

Budur and Jubayr bin Umayr, The Loves of, iv.

Budur, Kamar al-Zaman and, iii.

Bukhayt, Story of the Eunuch, ii.

Bulak Police, Story of the Chief of the, iv.

Bull and the Ass (Story of), i.

Bulukiya, Adventures of, v.

Butcher’s adventure with the Lady and the Bear, Wardan the, iv.

Butter, The Fakir and his pot of, ix.

Cairo (New) Police, Story of the Chief of the, iv.

Cairo (Old) Police, Story of the Chief of the, iv.

Cairo, The Adventures of Mercury Ali of, vii.

Caliph Al-Maamun and the Strange Doctor, iv.

Caliph, The mock, iv.

Cashmere Singing-girl, The Goldsmith and the, vi.

Cat and the Crow, The, iii.

Cat and the Mouse, The, ix.

Champion (The Moslem) and the Christian Lady, v.

Chaste Wife, The Rake’s Trick against the, vi.

Christian Broker’s Story, The, i.

City of Labtayt, The, vi.

Cloud (The saint to whom Allah gave a) to serve him, v.

Cobbler (Ma’aruf the) and his wife Fatimah, x.

Confectioner, his Wife and the Parrot, The, vi.

Crab, The Fishes and the, ix.

Craft and Malice of Women, The, vi.

Cripple, The Blind Man and the, ix.

Crow, The Fox and the, iii.

Crow and the Serpent, The, ix.

Crow, The Cat and the, iii.

Crows and the Hawk, The, ix.

Dalilah the Crafty and her daughter Zaynab the Coney-catcher, The

Rogueries of, vii.

Datma (The Princess Al-), Prince Behram of Persia and, vi.

Death (The Angel of) and the King of the Children of Israel, v.

Death (The Angel of) with the Proud King and the Devout Man, v.

Death (The Angel of) and the Rich King, v.

Debauchee and the Three-year-old Child, The, vi.

Desert (The old woman who dwelt in the) and the pilgrim, v.

Device (The Wife’s) to cheat her husband, vi.

Devil, Ibrahim of Mosul and the, vii.

Devil, Isaac of Mosul and his mistress and the, vii.

Devout Israelite, The, iv.

Devout Tray-maker and his wife, The, v.

Devout Prince, The, v.

Devout woman and the two wicked elders, The, v.

Dibil al-Khazai and Muslim bin al-Walid, v.

Dish of Gold, The man who stole the Dog’s, iv.

Doctor (The strange) and the Caliph Al-Maamun, iv

Dog’s Dish of Gold, The man who stole the, iv.

Dream, The ruined man who became rich through a, iv.

Drop of Honey, The, vi.

Duban, The Physician, i.

Dunya, Taj al-Muluk and the Princess, ii.

Durraj (Abu al-Hasan al-) and Abu Ja’afar the Leper, v.

Dust, The woman who made her husband sift, vi.

Dyer, Abu Sir the Barber and Abu Kir the, ix

Eagle, The Sparrow and the, iii.

Ebony Horse, The, v.

Egypt (The man of Upper) and his Frankish wife, ix.

Elders, The Devout woman and the two wicked, v.

Eldest Lady’s Story, The, i.

Enchanted Spring, The, vi.

Enchanted Youth, The, i.

Envied, The Envier and the, i.

Envier and the Envied, The, i.

Eunuch Bukhayt, Tale of the, ii.

Eunuch Kafur, Tale of the, ii.

Fakir and his jar of butter, The, ix.

Falcon and the Partridge, The, iii.

Falcon, King Sindibad and his, i.

Fatimah, Ma’aruf the Cobbler and his wife, x.

Fath bin Khakan (Al-) and Al-Mutawakkil, v.

Ferryman of the Nile and the Hermit, The, v.

First Old Man’s Story, i.

Fisherman, Abdullah the Merman and Abdullah the, ix.

Fisherman of Baghdad, Khalifah the, viii.

Fisherman, The Foolish, ix.

Fisherman and the Jinni, The, i.

Fisherman, Khusrau and Shirin and the, v.

Fishes and the Crab, The, ix.

Five Suitors, The Lady and her, vi.

Flea and the Mouse, The, iii.

Folk, The Fox and the, vi.

Forger, Yahya bin Khalid and the, iv.

Fox and the Crow, The, iii.

Fox and the Folk, The, vi.

Fox, The Wolf and the, iii.

Francolin and the Tortoises, The, ix.

Frank King’s Daughter, Ali Nur al-Din and the, viii.

Frank wife, The man of Upper Egypt and his, ix.

Fuller and his son, The, vi.

Generous friend, The poor man and his, iv.

Ghanim bin Ayyub the Thrall o’ Love, ii.

Gharib and his brother Ajib, The History of, vi.

Girl, Harun al-Rashid and the Arab, vii.

Girl at School, The Loves of the Boy and, v.

Girls of Bassorah, Al-Asma’i and the three, vii.

Girls, Harun al-Rashid and the three, v.

Girls, Harun al-Rashid, and the two, v.

Goldsmith and the Cashmere Singing Girl, The, vi.

Goldsmith’s wife, The water-carrier and the, v.

Hajjaj (Al-) Hind daughter of Al Nu’uman and, vii.

Hajjaj (Al-) and the pious man, v.

Hakim (The Caliph Al-) and the Merchant, v.

Hammad the Badawi, Tale of, ii.

Hariri (Al ) Abu Zayd’s lament for his impotency. Final Note to

vol. viii

Harun al-Rashid and the Arab girl, vii.

Harun al-Rashid and the Slave-Girl and the Imam Abu Yusuf, iv.

Harun al-Rashid with the Damsel and Abu Nowas, iv.

Harun al-Rashid and Abu Hasan the Merchant of Oman, ix.

Harun al-Rashid and the three girls, v.

Harun al-Rashid and the two girls, v.

Harun al-Rashid and the three poets, v.

Harun al-Rashid and Zubaydah in the Bath, v.

Hashish-Eater, Bakun’s tale of the, ii.

Hasan of Bassorah and the King’s daughter of the Jinn, vii.

Hasan, King Mohammed bin Sabaik and the Merchant, vii.

Hatim al-Tayyi: his generosity after death, iv.

Haunted House in Baghdad, The, v.

Hawk, The Crows and the, ix.

Hayat al-Nufus, Ardashir and, vii.

Hedgehog and the wood Pigeons, The, iii.

Hermit, The Ferryman of the Nile and the, v.

Hermits, The, iii.

Hind, Adi bin Zayd and the Princess, v.

Hind daughter of Al-Nu’uman and Al-Hajjaj, vii.

Hind (King Jali’ad of ) and his Wazir Shimas, ix.

Hisham and the Arab Youth, The Caliph, iv.

Honey, The Drop of, vi.

Horse, The Ebony, v.

House with the Belvedere, The, vi.

Hunchback’s Tale, The, i.

Husband and the Parrot, The, i.

Ibn al-Karibi, Masrur and, v.

Ibrahim al-Khawwas and the Christian King’s Daughter, v.

Ibrahim.bin al-Khasib and Jamilah, ix.

Ibrahim.of Mosul and the Devil, vii.

Ibrahim.bin al-Mahdi and Al-Amin, v.

Ibrahim.bin al-Mahdi and the Barber Surgeon, iv.

Ibrahim.bin al-Mahdi and the Merchant’s Sister, iv.

Ifrit’s mistress and the King’s Son, The, vi.

Ignorant man who set up for a Schoolmaster, The, v.

Ikrimah al-Fayyaz, Khuzaymah bin Bishr and, vii.

Imam Abu Yusuf with Al-Rashid and Zubaydah, The, iv.

Introduction. Story of King Shahryar and his brother, i.

Iram, The City of, iv.

Isaac of Mosul’s Story of Khadijah and the Caliph Maamun, iv.

Isaac of Mosul and the Merchant, v.

Isaac of Mosul and his Mistress and the Devil, vii.

Island, The King of the, v.

Iskandar Zu Al-Karnayn and a certain Tribe of poor folk, v.

Israelite, The Devout, iv.

Jackals and the Wolf, The, ix.

Ja’afar the Barmecide and the Beanseller, iv.

Ja’afar the Barmecide and the old Badawi, v.

Ja’afar bin al-Hadi, Mohammed al-Amin, and, v.

Jamilah, Ibrahim bin al-Khasib, and, ix.

Janshah, The Story of, v.

Jali’ad of Hind and his Wazir Shimas, King, ix.

Jeweller’s Wife, Kamar al-Zaman and the, ix.

Jewish Kazi and his pious Wife, The, v.

Jewish Doctor’s Tale, The, i.

Jinni, The Fisherman and the, i.

Jinni, The Trader and the, i.

Jubayr bin Umayr and Budur, The Loves of, iv.

Judar and his brethren, vi.

Julnar the Sea-born and her son King Badr Basim of Persia, vii.

Justice of Providence, The, v.

Kafur, Story of the Eunuch, ii.

Kalandar’s Tale, The first, i.

Kalandar’s Tale The second, i.

Kalandar’s Tale The third, i.

Kamar al-Zaman and Budur, iii.

Kamar al-Zaman and the Jeweller’s Wife, ix.

Kazi, the Jewish, and his pious wife, v.

Khadijah and the Caliph Maamun, Isaac of Mosul’s Story of, iv.

Khalif the Fisherman of Baghdad (note from Bresl. Edit.), viii.

Khalifah the Fisherman of Baghdad, viii.

Khawwas (Ibrahim al-) and the Christian King’s daughter, v.

Khorasan, Abu Hasan al-Ziyadi and the man from, iv.

Khorasan, Abu al-Hasan of, ix.

Khusrau and Shirin and the Fisherman, v.

Khuzaymah bin Bishr and Ikrimah al-Fayyaz, vii.

King Jali’ad, Shimas his Wazir and his son Wird Khan, ix.

King of the Island, The, v.

King and the Pilgrim Prince, The Unjust, ix.

King and the virtuous wife, The, v.

King and his Wazir’s wife, The, vi.

King’s Daughter and the Ape, The, iv.

King’s son and the Ifrit’s Mistress, The, vi.

King’s son and the Merchant’s Wife, The, vi.

King’s son and the Ghulah, The, vi.

Kings, The Two, ix.

Kisra Anushirwan and the Village Damsel, v.

Kurd Sharper, Ali the Persian and the, iv.

Kurrat al-Aye and Abu Isa, v.

Kus Police and the Sharper, Chief of the, iv

Labtayt, The City of, iv.

Lady of Baghdad, The Sweep and the noble, iv.

Lady’s Story, The Eldest, i.

Lady and her five suitors, The, vi.

Do. and her two Lovers, The, vi.

Ladies of Baghdad, The Porter and the Three, i.

Laughed again, The man who never, vi.

Lazybones, Abu Mohammed highs, iv.

Leper, Abu al-Hasan al-Durraj and Abu Ja’afar the, v.

Lover, The mad, v.

Lover who feigned himself a thief (to save his mistress’ honour),

The, iv.

Lover’s trick against the chaste Wife, The, vi.

Lovers of Bassorah, The, vii.

Lovers of the Banu Tayy, The, v.

Lovers of the Banu Ozrah, The, v.

Lovers The Lady and her two, vi.

Lovers of Al-Medinah, The, vii.

Lovers The Three unfortunate, v.

Loves of the Boy and Girl at School, The, v.

Loves of Abu Isa and Kurrat al-Ayn, The, v.

Maamun, Isaac of Mosul’s Story of Khadijah and the Caliph, iv.

Maamun (Al-) and the Pyramids of Egypt, v.

Maamun and the strange Scholar, The Caliph, iv.

Ma’an bin Zaidah and the Badawi, iv.

Ma’an the son of Zaidah and the Three Girls, iv.

Mad Lover, The, vii.

Magic Horse, The, v.

Mahbubah, Al-Mutawakkil and his favourite, iv.

Malik al-Nasir (Al-) and the three Masters of Police, iv.

Malik al-Nasir and his Wazir, vii.

Man and his Wife, The, ix.

Man who never laughed during the rest of his days, The, vi.

Man (The Woman who had to lover a ) and the other who had to

lover a boy, v.

Man of Upper Egypt and his Frankish Wife, ix.

Man of Al-Yaman and his six Slave-girls, iv.

Man who stole the dog’s dish of gold, iv.

Man who saw the Night of Power (Three Wishes), vi.

Man’s dispute with the learned Woman about boys and girls, v.

Ma’aruf the Cobbler and his wife Fatimah, x.

Mansur, Yahya bin Khalid and, iv.

Masrur and Ibn al-Karibi, v.

Masrur and Zayn al-Mawasif, viii.

Medinah (Al-), The Lovers of, vii.

Merchant of Oman, The, ix.

Merchant and the Robbers, The, ix.

Merchant and the two Sharpers, The, iii.

Merchant’s Sister, Ibrahim bin al-Mahdi and the, iv.

Merchant’s Wife, The King’s son and the, vi.

Merchant’s Wife and the Parrot, The, i.

Mercury Ali of Cairo, The Adventures of, vii.

Merman, and Abdullah the Fisherman, Abdullah the, ix.

Miller and his wife, The, v.

Miriam, Ali Nur alDin and, viii.

Miser and Loaves of Bread, The, vi.

Mock Caliph, The, iv.

Mohammed al-Amin and Ja’afar bin al-Hadi, v.

Mohammed bin Sabaik and the Merchant Hasan, King, vii.

Money changer, The Thief and the, iv.

Monkey, The Thief and his, iii.

Moslem Champion and the Christian Lady, The, v.

Mouse, The, and the Cat, ix.

Mouse and the Flea, The, iii.

Mouse and the Ichneumon, The, iii.

Munnis, Ali bin Tahir and the girl, v.

Musab bin al-Zubayr and Ayishah his wife, v.

Muslim bin al-Walid and Dibil al-Khuzai, v.

Mutawakkil (Al-) and Al-Fath bin Khakan, v.

Mutawakkil and his favourite Mahbubah, iv.

Mutalammis (Al-) and his wife Umaymah, v.

Naomi, Ni’amah bin al-Rabi’a and his Slave-girl; iv.

Nazarene Broker’s Story, The, i.

Necklace, The Stolen, vi.

Niggard and the Loaves of Bread, The, vi.

Night of Power, The man who saw the, vi.

Nile (The Ferryman of the ) and the Hermit, v.

Ni’amah bin al-Rabi’a and Naomi his Slave-girl, iv.

Nur al-Din Ali and the damsel Anis al-Jalis, ii.

Nur al-Din of Cairo and his son Badr al-Din Hasan, i.

Ogress, The King’s Son and the, vi.

Old Man’s Story, The First, i.

Old Man’s Story The Second, i.

Old Man’s Story The Third, i.

Old Woman, Abu Suwayd and the handsome, v.

Omar bin al-Nu’uman and his Sons Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, The

Tale of King, ii.

Omar bin al-Khattab and the young Badawi, v.

Oman, The Merchant of, ix.

Otbah and Rayya, vii.

Page who feigned to know the speech of birds, The, vi.

Paradise, The Apples of, v.

Parrot, The Merchant’s wife and the, i.

Partridge, The Hawk and the, iii.

Peacock, The Sparrow and the, iii.

Persian and the Kurd Sharper, Ali the, iv.

Physician Duban, The, i.

Physician’s Story, The Jewish, i.

Pilgrim and the old woman who dwelt in the desert, The, v.

Pilgrim Prince, The Unjust King and the, ix.

Pious black slave, The, v.

Pigeons, The Hedgehog and the, iii.

Pigeons, The Two, vi.

Platter-maker and his wife, The devout, v.

Poets, Harun al-Rashid and the three, v.

Police of Bulak, Story of the Chief of the, iv.

Police of Kus and the Sharper, the Chief of the, iv.

Police of New Cairo, Story of the Chief of the, iv.

Police of Old Cairo, Story of the Chief of the, iv.

Police (The Three Masters of ), Al-Malik, al-Nasir and, iv.

Poor man and his friend in need, The, iv.

Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad, The, i.

Portress, The Tale of the, i.

Prince Behram and the Princess al-Datma, vi.

Prince the Ensorcelled, i.

Prince and the Ghulah, The, i.

Prince, The Devout, v.

Prince (the Pilgrim), The Unjust King and, ix.

Prior who became a Moslem, The, v.

Providence, The justice of, v.

Purse, The Stolen, vi.

Pyramids of Egypt, Al-Maamun and the, v.

Queen of the Serpents, The, v.

Rake’s trick against the chaste Wife, The, vi.

Rayya, Otbah and, vii.

Reeve’s Tale, The, i.

Rogueries of Dalilah the Crafty and her daughter Zaynab the Coney

catcher, The, vii.

Rose-in-Hood, Uns al-Wujud and the Wazir’s Daughter, v.

Ruined Man of Baghdad and his Slave-girl, The, ix.

Ruined Man who became rich again through a dream, The, iv.

Rukh, Abd al-Rahman the Moor’s Story of the, v.

Sa’id bin Salim and the Barmecides, v.

Saint to whom Allah gave a cloud to serve him, The, v.

Saker and the Birds, The, iii.

Sandalwood Merchant and the Sharpers, The, vi.

Sayf al-Muluk and Badi’a al-Jamal, vii.

School, The Loves of the Boy and the Girl at, v.

Schoolmaster who fell in love by report, The, v.

Schoolmaster The Foolish, v.

Schoolmaster The ignorant man who set up for a, v.

Serpent, The Crow and the, ix.

Serpent-charmer and his Wife, ix.

Serpents, The Queen of the, v.

Sexes, Relative excellence of the, v.

Shahryar and his brother, King (Introduction), i.

Shahryar (King) and his brother, i.

Shams al-Nahar, Ali bin Bakkar and, iii.

Sharper of Alexandria and the Chief of Police, The, iv.

Sharper, Ali the Persian and the Kurd, iv.

Sharper, The Chief of the Kus Police and the, iv.

Sharper, The Simpleton and the, v.

Sharpers, The Merchant and the Two, iii.

Do. The Sandalwood Merchant and the, vi.

Sharrkan and Zau al-Makan, The History of King Omar bin

Al-Nu’uman and his Sons, ii.

Shaykh’s Story (The First), i.

Shaykh’s Story (The Second), i.

Shaykh’s Story (The Third), i.

Shepherd and the Thief, The, ix.

Shimas, King Jali’ad of Hind and his Wazir, ix.

Shipwrecked Woman and her child, The, v.

Shirin and the Fisherman, Khusrau and, v.

Simpleton and the Sharper, The, v.

Sindibad and his Falcon, King, i.

Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Porter, vi.

Sindbad the Seaman First Voyage of, vi.

Sindbad the Seaman Second Voyage of, vi.

Sindbad the Seaman Third Voyage of, vi.

Sindbad the Seaman Fourth Voyage of, vi.

Sindbad the Seaman, Fifth Voyage of, vi.

Sindbad the Seaman Sixth Voyage of, vi.

Sindbad the Seaman Seventh Voyage of, vi.

Sindbad the Seaman (note from Cal. Edit.) vi.

Singing girl, The Goldsmith and the Cashmere, vi.

Six Slave-girls, The Man of Al-Yaman and his, iv.

Slave, The pious black, v.

Slave-girl, The ruined man of Baghdad and his, ix.

Slave-girls, The Man of Al-Yaman and his six, iv.

Sparrow and the Eagle, The, iii.

Sparrow and the Peacock, The, iii.

Spider and the Wind, The, ix.

Spring, The Enchanted, vi.

Squinting slave-girl, Abu al-Aswad and his, v.

Sparrow Necklace, The, vi.

Sparrow Purse, The, vi.

Suitors, The Lady and her five, vi.

Sweep and Noble Lady of Baghdad, The, iv.

Tailor’s Tale, The, i.

Taj al-Muluk and the Princess Dunya, The Tale of, ii.

Tawaddud, Abu al-Hasan and his slave-girl, v.

Thief, The Lover who feigned himself a, iv.

Thief and the Shroff, The, iv.

Thief and his Monkey, The, iii.

Thief The Shepherd and the, ix.

Thief turned Merchant and the other Thief, The, v.

Thieves, The Boy and the, ix.

Thieves, The Merchant and the, ix.

Thieves, The Two, v.

Three-year old-child, The Debauchee and the, vi.

Three Apples, The, i.

Three unfortunate Lovers, v.

Three Wishes, or the Man who longed to see the Night of Power,

The, vi.

Tortoise, The Waterfowl and the, iii.

Tortoises, The Heathcock and the, ix.

Trader (The) and the Jinni, i.

Trick (The Lover’s ) against the chaste wife, vi.

Trick (The Wife’s ) against her husband, vi.

Two Kings, The, ix.

Two Pigeons, The, vi.

Umaymah, Al-Mutalammis and his wife, v.

Unfortunate Lovers, The Three, v.

Unjust King and the Pilgrim Prince, The, ix.

Uns al-Wujud and the Wazir’s Daughter Rose-in-Hood, v.

Upper Egypt (The man of) and his Frank wife, ix.

Walid bin Sahl, Yunus the Scribe and the Caliph, vii.

Wardan, the Butcher, Adventure with the Lady and the Bear, iv.

Water-carrier and the Goldsmith’s Wife, The, v.

Waterfowl and the Tortoise, The, iii.

Wazir and the Sage Duban, The, i.

Wazir, Al-Malik al-Nasir and his, vii.

Wazir of al-Yaman and his young brother, The, v.

Wazir’s Son and the Hammam-Keeper’s Wife, The, vi.

Wazir’s Wife, The King and his, vi.

Weasel, The Mouse and the, iii.

Weaver, The Foolish, iii.

Wife, The Badawi and his, vii.

Wife, (the Chaste) The Lover’s Trick against, vi.

Wife, The King and his Wazir’s, vi.

Wife, The Man and his Wilful, ix.

Wife, (The Merchant’s) and the Parrot, i.

Wife, (The Virtuous) and the King, v.

Wife’s device to cheat her husband, The, vi.

Wife’s trick against her husband, The, v.

Wild Ass, The Jackal and the, ix.

Wilful Wife, The Man and his, ix.

Wind, The Spider and the, ix.

Wird Khan (King) and his Women and Wazirs, ix.

Wolf and the Fox, The, iii.

Wolf, The Foxes and the, ix.

Woman (The shipwrecked) and her child, v.

Woman’s trick against her husband, v.

Woman who made her husband sift dust, The, iv.

Woman whose hands were cut off for Almsgiving, The, iv.

Women, The Malice of, vi.

Women, The Two, v.

Yahya bin Khalid and the Forger, iv.

Yahya bin Khalid and Mansur, iv.

Yahya bin Khalid and the Poor Man, v.

Yaman (The Man of Al-) and his six slave-girls, iv.

Yaman (The Wazir of Al-) and his young brother, v.

Yunus the Scribe and the Caliph Walid bin Sahl, vii.

Zau al-Makan, The History of King Omar bin al-Nu’uman and his

Sons Sharrkan and, ii.

Zayn al-Mawasif, Masrur and, viii.

Zaynab the Coney-catcher, The Rogueries of Dalilah the Wily, and

her Daughter, vii.

Zubaydah in the Bath, Harun al-Rashid and, v.

Zumurrud, Ali Shar and, iv.


                            Index II




Alphabetical Table of the Notes

(Anthropological, &c.)

                Prepared by F. Steingass, Ph.D.

[Index II is not included]

                          Index III.-A




Alphabetical Table of First Lines

(Metrical Portion) in English.

                   Prepared by Dr. Steingass.

A beloved familiar o’erreigns my heart viii. 70.

A boy of twice ten is fit for a king! iii. 303.

A breeze of love on my soul did blow viii. 222.

A damsel ’twas the firer’s art had decked with snares and

sleight, i. 219, x. 59.

A dancer whose figure is like a willow branch, ix. 222.

A dancer whose form is like branch of Bán! ix. 221.

A dog, dog-fathered, by dog-grandsire bred, viii. 15.

A fan whose breath is fraught with fragrant scent, viii. 273.

A fair one, to idolaters if she her face should show, ix. 197.

A friend in need is he who, ever true iii. 149.

A guest hath stolen on my head and honour may he lack, viii. 295.

A hag to whom th’ unlawful lawfullest, i. 174.

A heart bore thee off in chase of the fair ix. 282.

A heart, by Allah!- never soft to lover wight, vii. 222.

A Houri, by whose charms my heart is moved to sore distress, vii.

105.

A house where flowers from stones of granite grow, iii. 19.

A Jinniyah this, with her Jinn, to show, v. 149.

A King who when hosts of the foe invade, ii.l.

A lutanist to us inclined, viii. 283.

A maiden ’twas, the dresser’s art had decked with cunning

sleight, viii. 32.

A merchant I spied whose lovers, viii. 264.

A messenger from thee came bringing union-hope, iii. 188.

A moon she rises, willow-wand she waves iii. 237, viii. 303.

A moon, when he bends him those eyes lay bare, viii. 284.

A moon which blights you if you dare behold, ii. 4.

A night whose stars refused to run their course, iii. 299

A palace whereon be blessings and praise, iv. 134.

A place secure from every thought of fear i. 114.

A sage, I feel a fool before thy charms iii. 272.,

A slave of slaves there standeth at thy door, i. 89.

A sun on wand in knoll of sand she showed, i. 217; x. 58.

A thin-waist maid who shames the willow-wand, ii. 285.

A term decreed my lot I ’spy, viii. 83.

A trifle this an his eyes be sore, v. 127.

A tree whilere was I the Bulbul’s home, viii. 281.

A wand uprising from a sandy knoll, ix.

A warrior showing such open hand, iv. 97.

A wasted body, heart empierced to core, ii. 314.

A youth slim waisted from whose locks and brow, i. 68.

A zephyr bloweth from the lover’s site, viii. 90.

Above the rose of cheek is thorn of lance, iii. 331.

Act on sure grounds, nor hurry fast, iv. 189.

Add other wit to thy wit, counsel craving, iv. 189.

Affright me funerals at every time, v. 111.

After thy faring never chanced I ’spy, viii. 142.

Ah, fare thee not; for I’ve no force thy faring to endure, viii.

63.

Ah! for lowe of love and longing suffer ye as suffer we? viii.

68.

Ah Khalid! this one is a slave of love distraught, iv. 158.

Ah, often have I sought the fair! how often fief and fain, vii.

138.

Alack and alas! Patience taketh flight, viii. 263.

Alas, alack and wellaway for blamer’s calumny! viii. 285.

Albe by me I had through day and night, iii. 267.

Albe to lover adverse be his love, iii. 266.

Albeit my vitals quiver ’neath this ban, iii. 62.

Alexandria’s a frontier, viii. 289.

All crafts are like necklaces strung on a string, i. 308.

All drinks wherein is blood the Law unclean Doth hold, i. 89.

All sons of woman albe long preserved, iv. 63.

“Allah assain those eyne! What streams of blood they shed!” ii.

100.

Allah be good to him that gives glad tidings of thy steps, i.

239.

Allah holds Kingship! Whoso seeks without Him victory, iii. 86.

Allah, my patience fails: I have no word, iii. 344.

Allah save the rose which yellows amorn, viii. 276.

Allah, where’er thou be, His aid impart, ii. 148.

Allah’s peace on thee, House of Vacancy! viii. 237.

Although the Merciful be doubtless with me, ix. 278.

Al-Yaman’s leven-gleam I see, ii. 179.

An but the house could know who cometh ’twould rejoice, i. 176.

An, by thy life, pass thee my funeral train, v. 70.

An fail I of my thanks to thee, i. 56.

An Fate afflict thee, with grief manifest, viii. 146.

An Fate some person ’stablish o’er thy head, iii. 89.

An faulty of one fault the beauty prove, ii. 96.

An I be healed of disease in frame, viii. 70.

An I quit Cairo and her pleasaunces, i. 290.

An we behold a lover love-foredone, v. 73.

An my palm be full of wealth and my wealth I ne’er bestow, ii.

11.

An say I:—Patient I can bear his faring, iii. 187.

An tears of blood for me, friend, thou hast shed, i. 89.

An there be one who shares with me her love, i. 180.

An thou but deign consent, A wish to heart affied, iv. 247.

An thou of pious works a store neglect, ii. 202.

An thou wouldst know my name, whose day is done, vi. 94.

An through the whole of life, iv. 190.

An Time my lover restore me I’ll blame him fain, ix. 192.

An were it asked me when by hell-fire burnt, iii. 279.

An what thou claimest were the real truth, v. 151.

An wouldst be life-long safe, vaunt not delight, viii. 94.

And Almond apricot suggesting swain, viii. 268.

And dweller in the tomb whose food is at his head, v. 238.

And eater lacking mouth and even maw, v. 240.

And fairest Fawn, we said to him Portray, viii. 272.

And haply whenas strait descends on lot of generous youth, iii.

131.

And in brunettes is mystery, couldst thou but read it right, iv.

258.

And in my liver higher flames the fire, vii. 366.

And loveling weareth on his cheek a mole, v. 65.

And pity one who erst in honour throve, ii. 149.

And shaddock mid the garden paths, on bough, viii. 272.

And Solomon, when Allah to him said, vi. 86.

And the lips girls, that are perfume sweet, v. 79.

And the old man crept o’er the worldly ways, iv. 41.

And trees of orange fruiting ferry fair, viii. 271.

And wand-like Houri who can passion heal, v. 149.

And ’ware her scorpions when pressing them, viii. 209.

And when birdies o’er-warble its lakelet it gars, ix. 6.

And, when she announceth the will to sing, viii. 166.

Albeit this thy case lack all resource, v. 69.

Allah watered a land, and upsprang a tree, v. 244.

Answer, by Allah! Sepulchre, are all his beauties gone? i. 239.

Appeared not my excuse till hair had clothed his cheek, iii. 57.

Apple which joins hues twain and brings to mind, viii. 268.

Apple whose hue combines in union mellow, i. 158.

As a crescent-moon in the garth her form, viii. 207.

As for me, of him I feel naught affright, vi. 98.

As long as palms shall shift the flower, v. 136.

As love waxt longer less met we sway, v. 78.

As one of you who mounted mule, viii. 297.

As she willed she was made, and in such a way that when, iv. 191.

As the Sage watched the stars, the semblance clear, i. 206.

As though ptisane of wine on her lips honey dew, iii. 57.

Ask (if needs thou ask) the compassionate, ix. 29.

Ask of my writ, what wrote my pen in dole, iii. 274.

Ass and Umm Amr’ went their way, v. 118.


Bare hills and camp-ground desolate, v. 130.

Baulks me my Fate as tho’ she were my foe, viii. 130.

Be as thou wilt, for Allah is bountiful, viii. 277.

Be as thou wilt, for Allah still is bounteous Lord, ii. 202.

Be mild to brother mingling, iv. 110.

Be mild what time thou’rt ta’en with anger and despite, iv. 221.

Be mild when rage shall come to afflict thy soul, iv. 54.

Be praises mine to all-praiseworthy Thee, ii. 261.

Be proud; I’ll crouch! Bully; I’ll bear! Despise; I’ll pray! iii.

188.

Be sure all are villains and so bide safe iii. 142.

Bear our salams, O Dove, from this our stead, viii. 236.

Beareth for love a burden sore this soul of me, viii. 66.

Beauty they brought with him to make compare, i. 144.

Beguiled as Fortune who her guile displays, iv. 22.

Behind the veil a damsel sits with gracious beauty dight, viii.

210.

Behold a house that’s like the Dwelling of Delight, viii. 183.

Behold this lovely garden! ’tis as though ii. 240.

Belike my Fortune may her bridle turn, i. 52.

Belike Who Yúsuf to his kin restored, iv. 103.

Beloved, why this strangeness, why this hate? iv. 234.

Bethink thee not of worldly state, iii. 328

Bid thou thy phantom distance keep, vii 108.

Better ye ’bide and I take my leave, i. 154.

Beware her glance I rede thee ’tis like wizard wight, ii. 295.

Beware of losing hearts of men by shine injurious deed, x. 50.

Beware that eye glance which hath magic might, iii. 252.

Black girls in acts are white, and ’tis as though, iv. 251.

Black girls not white are they, iv. 251.

Blame not! said I to all who blamed me viii. 95.

Blest be his beauty; blest the Lord’s decree, i. 177.

Blighted by her yet am I not to blame, viii. 255.

Blows from my lover’s land a zephyr coolly sweet, ii. 311.

Boon fortune sought him in humblest way, viii. 301.

Boy-like of back side, in the deed of kind, v. 157.

Breeze of East who bringest me gentle air, vii. 122.

Brighter than moon at full with kohl’d eyes she came, viii. 279.

Bring gold and gear an a lover thou, viii. 214.

By Allah, by th’ Almighty, by his right, vii. 366.

By Allah, couldst thou but feel my pain, v. 77.

By Allah, glance of mine, thou hast oppress, vii. 140.

By Allah, heal, O my lords, the unwhole, viii. 144.

By Allah, O thou house, if my beloved amorn go by, v. 38.

By Allah, O tomb, have her beauties ceased, viii. 168.

By Allah, set thy foot upon my soul, i. 222.

By Allah, this is th’ only alchemy, x. 40.

By Allah! while the days endure ne’er shall forget her I, iv.

146.

By Allah, wine shall not disturb me, while this soul of mine, iv.

190.

By craft and sleight I snared him when he came, ii. 44.

By his cheeks’ unfading damask and his smiling teeth I swear,

viii. 282.

By his eyelash! tendril curled, by his slender waist I swear,

iii. 217.

By his eyelids shedding perfume and his fine slim waist I swear,

i. 168.

By His life who holds my guiding rein, I swear, iv. 2.

By Love’s right! naught of farness thy slave can estrange, viii.

76.

By means of toil man shall scale the height, vi. 5.

By rights of you, this heart of mine could ne’er aby, viii. 110.

By stress of parting, O beloved one, iii. 166.

By th’ Abyssinian Pond, O day divine! i. 291.

By the Compassionate, I’m dazed about my case, for lo! vii. 337.

By the Five Shayks, O Lord, I pray deliver me, iii. 30.

By the life o’ thy face, O thou life o’ my sprite! viii. 284.

By what shine eyelids show of kohl and coquetry! ii. 296.


Came a merchant to pay us a visit, viii. 265.

Came Rayya’s phantom to grieve thy sight, vii. 91.

Came the writ whose contents a new joy revealed, viii. 222.

Came to match him in beauty and loveliness rare, viii. 298.

Came to me care when came the love of thee, vii. 366.

Came your writ to me in the dead of the night, ix. 2.

Captured me six all bright with youthful blee, iv. 260.

Carry the trust of him whom death awaits, v. 114.

Cease then to blame me, for thy blame cloth anger bring, x. 39.

Cease ye this farness; ’bate this pride of you, iv. 136.

Chide not the mourner for bemourning woe, iii. 291.

Choice rose that gladdens heart to see her sight, viii. 275.

Clear’s the wine, the cup’s fine, i. 349.

Cleave fast to her thou lovest and let the envious rail amain,

iv. 198.

Close press appear to him who views th’ inside, viii. 267.

Clove through the shades and came to me in night so dark and

sore, vii. 138.

Come back and so will I! i. 63.

Come with us, friend, and enter thou, viii. 267.

Confide thy case to Him, the Lord who made mankind, i. 68.

Consider but thy Lord, His work shall bring, viii. 20.

Consider thou, O man, what these places to thee showed, vi. 112.

Console thy lover, fear no consequence, v. 74.

Consort not with the Cyclops e’en a day, iv. 194.

Containeth time a twain of days, i. 25.

Converse with men hath scanty weal except, iv. 188.

Count not that I your promises forgot, iii. 238.

Cut short this strangeness, leave unruth of you, v. 245.

Culvers of Liwa! to your nests return vii. 115.


Dark falls the night: my tears unaided rail, iii. 11.

Dark falls the night and passion comes sore pains to gar me dree,

ii. 140.

Daughter of nobles, who shine aim shalt gain, v. 54.

Dawn heralds daylight: so wine passround viii. 276.

Dear friend! ah leave thy loud reproach and blame, iii. 110.

Dear friend, ask not what burneth in my breast, i. 265.

Dear friend, my tears aye flow these cheeks adown, iii. 14.

Deep in mine eyeballs ever dwells the phantom form of thee, viii.

61.

Deign grant thy favours; since ’tis time I were engraced, v. 148.

Describe me! a fair one said, viii. 265.

Did Azzah deal behest to sun o’ noon, ii. 102.

Did not in love-plight joys and sorrows meet, iii. 182.

Dip thou with spoons in saucers four and gladden heart and eye,

viii. 223.

Displaying that fair face, iv. 195.

Divinely were inspired his words who brought me news of you, iv.

207.

Do you threaten me wi’ death for my loving you so well? vii. 221.

Drain not the bowl, save from dear hand like shine, i. 88.

Drain not the bowl but with lovely wight viii. 209.

Drain not the bowl save with a trusty friend, i. 88.

Drawn in thy shoulders are and spine thrust out, viii: 297.

Drink not pure wine except from hand of slender youth, ix. 198.

Drink not strong wine save at the slender dearling’s hand, v. 66.

Drink not upon thy food in haste but wait awhile, v. 222.

Drink the clear draught, drink free and fain, i. 88.

Drive off the ghost that ever shows, vii. 109.

Dumb is my tongue and scant my speech for thee, viii. 258.


Each portion of her charms we see, vii. 131.

Each thing of things hath his appointed tide, v. 294.

Easy, O Fate! how long this wrong, this injury, iii. 329.

Eight glories meet, all, all conjoined in thee, iii. 271.

Enough for lovers in this world their ban and bane, iv. 205.

Enough of tears hath shed the lover wight, iii. 206.

Enrobes with honour sands of camp her foot-step wandering lone,

iv. 204.

Escape with thy life if oppression betide thee, i. 209.

Even not beardless one with girl, nor heed, iii. 303.

Ever thy pomp and pride, O House! display, viii. 207.


Face that with Sol in Heaven ramping vies, iii. 167.

Fain had I hid thy handwork, but it showed, iii. 280.

Fain leaving life that fleets thou hast th’ eternal won, ii. 281.

Fair youth shall die by stumbling of the tongue, iii. 221.

Familiar with my heart are woes and with them I, vii. 340.

Far is the fane and patience faileth me, v. 41.

Fare safely, Masrúr! an her sanctuary viii. 237.

Farewell thy love, for see, the Cafilah’s on the move, iv. 254.

Farewelling thee indeed is like to bidding life farewell, viii.

62.

Fate the wolf’s soul snatched up from wordly stead, iii. 146.

Fate frights us when the thing is past and gone, iii. 318.

Fate hath commanded I become thy fere, iii. 312.

Fie on this wretched world an so it be, i. 40.

Fight for my mother (an I live) I’ll take, ii. 239.

Fire is cooler than fires in my breast, iv. 245.

Fly, fly with life whenas evils threat, vi. 62.

Fly, fly with thy life if by ill overtaken, ii. 19.

Folk have made moan of passion before me, of past years, viii.

65.

For cup friends cup succeeding cup assign, v. 66.

For eaters a table they brought and set, viii. 208.

For her sins is a pleader that brow, ii. 97.

For joys that are no more I want to weep, iii. 185.

For Layla’s favour dost thou greed? iii. 135.

For loss of lover mine and stress of love I dree, viii. 75.

For not a deed the hand can try, v. 188.

For others these hardships and labours I bear, i. 17.

For your love my patience fails, i. 74.

Forbear, O troubles of the world, i. 39.

Forgive me, thee-ward sinned I, but the wise, ii. 9.

Forgive the sin ’neath which my limbs are trembling, iii. 249.

Fortune had mercy on the soul of me, iii. 135.

Fortune had ruth upon my plight, viii. 50.

Four things that meet not, save they here unite, i. 116.

Four things which ne’er conjoin, unless it be, iii. 237.

Freest am I of all mankind fro’ meddling wight, ii. 200.

Fro’ them inhale I scent of Attar of Ban, viii. 242.

From her hair is night, from her forehead noon, viii. 303.

From Love stupor awake, O Masrur, ’twere best, viii. 214.

From that liberal hand on his foes he rains, iv. 97.

From the plain of his face springs a minaret, viii. 296.

From wine I turn and whoso wine-cups swill, i. 208.

Full many a reverend Shaykh feels sting of flesh, v. 64.

Full many laugh at tears they see me shed, iii. 193.

Full moon if unfreckled would favour thee, iv. 19.

Full moon with sun in single mansion, i. 264.


Gainsay women; he obeyeth Allah best who saith them nay, ix. 282.

Garb of Fakir, renouncement, lowliness, v. 297.

Garth Heaven-watered wherein clusters waved, viii. 266.

Get thee provaunt in this world ere thou wend upon thy way, ii.

139.

Give back mine eyes their sleep long ravished, i. 99.

Give me brunettes, so limber, lissom, lithe of sway, iv. 258.

Give me brunettes; the Syrian spears so limber and so straight,

viii. 158.

Give me the Fig sweet-flavoured, beauty clad, viii. 269.

Give thou my message twice, iii. 166.

Gladsome and gay forget shine every grief, i. 57.

Glory to Him who guides the skies, vii. 78.

Gnostic’s heart-homèd in the heavenly Garth, v. 264.

Go, gossip! re-wed thee, for Prime draweth near, v. 135.

Go, visit her thou lovest, and regard not, iii. 235, viii. 305.

God make thy glory last in joy of life, viii. 99.

Gone is my strength, told is my tale of days, iii. 55.

Goodly of gifts is she, and charm those perfect eyes, iii. 57.

Granados of finest skin, like the breasts, viii. 267.

Grant me the kiss of that left hand ten times, iv. 129.

Grape bunches likest as they sway, viii. 266.

Grapes tasting with the taste of wine, viii. 266.

Grief, cark and care in my heart reside, iv. 19.

Grow thy weal and thy welfare day by day, i. 204.


Had I known of love in what fashion he, vii. 330.

Had I wept before she did in my passion for Su’ada, vii. 275.

Had she shown her shape to idolator’s sight, viii. 279.

Hadst thou been leaf in love’s loyalty, iii. 77.

Had we known of thy coming we fain had dispread, i. 117.

Had we wist of thy coming, thy way had been strown, i. 271.

Haply and happily may Fortune bend her rein, viii. 67.

Haply shall Allah deign us twain unite, viii. 141.

Haply shall Fortune draw her rein, iii. 251.

Happy is Eloquence when thou art named, i. 47.

Hast quit the love of Moons or dost persist? iv. 240.

Hast seen a Citron-copse so weighed adown, viii. 272.

Haste to do kindness thou dost intend, iv. 181.

Haste to do kindness while thou hast the power, iii. 136.

Have the doves that moan in the lotus tree, vii. 91.

He blames me for casting on him my sight, viii. 283.

He came and cried they, Now be Allah blest! iii. 215.

He came in sable hued sacque, iv. 263.

He came to see me, hiding ’neath the shirt of night, iv. 252.

He comes; and fawn and branch and moon delight these eyne, iv.

142.

He cometh robed and bending gracefully, ii. 287.

He heads his arrows with piles of gold, iv. 97.

He is Caliph of Beauty in Yusuf’s lieu, ii. 292.

He is gone who when to this gate thou go’st, ii. 14.

He is to thee that daily bread thou canst nor loose nor bind, i.

39.

He’ll offer sweetmeats with his edged tongue, iii. 115.

He made me drain his wine of honeyed lips, v. 72.

He missed not who dubbed thee, “World’s delight,” v. 33.

He plucks fruits of her necklace in rivalry, ii. 103.

He prayeth and he fasteth for an end he cloth espy, ii. 264.

He seized my heart and freed my tears to flow, viii. 259.

He showed in garb anemone-red, iv. 263.

He thou trustedst most is thy worst un friend, iii. 143.

He whom the randy motts entrap, iii. 216

Hearkening, obeying, with my dying mouth, ii. 321.

Heavy and swollen like an urine-bladder blown, iv. 236.

Her fair shape ravisheth if face to face she did appear, v. 192

Her fore-arms, dight with their bangles, show, v. 89.

Her golden yellow is the sheeny sun’s, iv. 257.

Her lip-dews rival honey-sweets, that sweet virginity, viii. 33.

Her smiles twin rows of pearls display, i. 86.

Here! Here! by Allah, here! Cups of the sweet, the dear! i. 89.

Here the heart reads a chapter of devotion pure, iii. 18.

Hind is an Arab filly purest bred, vii. 97.

His cheek-down writeth (O fair fall the goodly scribe!) ii. 301.

His cheekdown writeth on his cheek with ambergris on pearl, ii.

301.

His eyelids sore and bleared, viii. 297.

His face as the face of the young moon shines, i. 177.

His honeydew of lips is wine; his breath, iv. 195.

His looks have made me drunken, not his wine, iii. 166.

His lovers said, Unless he deign to give us all a drink, viii.

285.

His lovers’ souls have drawn upon his cheek, iii. 58.

His mole upon plain of cheek is like, viii. 265.

His scent was musk and his cheek was rose, i. 203.

Ho, lovers all! by Allah say me fair and sooth, ii. 309.

Ho, lovers all! by Allah say me sooth, ii. 320.

Ho say to men of wisdom, wit and lere, v. 239.

Ho thou, Abrizah, mercy! leave me not for I, ii. 127.

Ho, those heedless of Time and his sore despight! vii. 221.

Ho thou hound who art rotten with foulness in grain, iii. 108.

Ho thou lion who broughtest thyself to woe, vii. 123.

Ho thou my letter! when my friend shall see thee, iv. 57.

Ho thou o’ the tabret, my heart takes flight, viii. 166.

Ho thou the House! Grief never home in thee’ viii. 206.

Ho thou, the house, whose birds were singing gay, v. 57.

Ho thou who grovellest low before the great, ii. 235.

Ho thou, who past and bygone risks regardest with uncare! iii.

28.

Ho thou whose heart is melted down by force of Amor’s fire, v.

132.

Ho ye mine eyes let prodigal tears go free, iv. 248.

Ho ye my friends draw near, for I forthright, viii. 258.

Hola, thou mansion! woe ne’er enter thee, iv. 140.

Hold fast thy secret and to none unfold, i. 87.

Hold to nobles, sons of nobles, ii. 2.

Honour and glory wait on thee each morn, iv. 60.

Hope not of our favours to make thy prey, viii. 208.

Houris and high-born Dames who feel no fear of men, v. 148.

How bitter to friends is a parting, iv. 222.

How comes it that I fulfilled my vow the while that vow brake

you? iv. 241.

How dear is our day and how lucky our lot, i. 293.

How fair is ruth the strong man deigns not smother, i. 103.

How good is Almond green I view, viii. 270.

How is this? Why should the blamer abuse thee in his pride, iii.

232.

How joyously sweet are the nights that unite, v. 61.

How long, rare beauty! wilt do wrong to me, ii. 63.

How long shall I thy coyness and thy great aversion see, iv. 242.

How long shall last, how long this rigour rife of woe, i. 101.

How long this harshness, this unlove shall bide? i. 78.

How manifold nights have I passed with my wife, x. 1.

How many a blooming bough in glee girl’s hand is fain, viii. 166.

How many a joy by Allah’s will hath fled, i. 150.

How many a lover with his eyebrows speaketh, i. 122.

How many a night have I spent in woes ix. 316.

How many a night I’ve passed with the beloved of me, iv. 252.

How many boons conceals the Deity, v. 261.

How many by my labours, that evermore endure, vi. 2.

How. oft bewailing the place shall be this coming and going,

viii. 242.

How oft have I fought and how many have slain! vi. 91.

How oft in the mellay I’ve cleft the array, ii. 109.

How patient bide, with love in sprite of me, iv. 136.

How shall he taste of sleep who lacks repose, viii. 49.

How shall youth cure the care his life undo’th, ii. 320.

Hunger is sated with a bone-dry scone, iv. 201.

Hurry not, Prince of Faithful Men! with best of grace thy vow,

vii. 128.


I am he who is known on the day of fight, vi. 262.

I am distraught, yet verily, i. 138.

I am going, O mammy, to fill up my pot, i. 311.

I am not lost to prudence, but indeed, ii. 98.

I am taken: my heart burns with living flame, viii. 225.

I am the wone where mirth shall ever smile, i. 175.

I am when friend would raise a rage that mote, iv. 109.

I and my love in union were unite, viii. 247.

I ask of you from every rising sun, i. 238.

I asked of Bounty, “Art thou free?” v. 93.

I asked the author of mine ills, ii. 60.

I bade adieu, my right hand wiped my tears away, ii. 113.

I attained by my wits, x. 44.

I bear a hurt heart, who will sell me for this, vii. 115.

I call to mind the parting day that rent our loves in twain,

viii. 125.

I can’t forget him, since he rose and showed with fair design,

ix. 253.

I ceased not to kiss that cheek with budding roses dight, viii.

329.

I clips his form and wax’d drunk with his scent, ii. 292.

I came to my dear friend’s door, of my hopes the goal, v. 58.

I craved of her a kiss one day, but soon as she beheld, iv. 192.

I cried, as the camels went off with them viii. 63.

I’d win good will of everyone, but whoso envies me, ix. 342.

I deemed my brethren mail of strongest steel, i. 108.

I deemed you coat-o’-mail that should withstand, i. 108.

I die my death, but He alone is great who dieth not, ii. 9.

I drank the sin till my reason fled, v. 224

I drink, but the draught of his glance, not wine, i. 100.

I drooped my glance when seen thee on the way, iii. 331.

I dyed what years have dyed, but this my staining, v. 164.

I embrace him, yet after him yearns my soul, ix. 242.

I ever ask for news of you from whatso breezes pass, viii. 53.

I feed eyes on their stead by the valley’s side, iii. 234

I fix my glance on her, whene’er she wends, viii. 158.

I fly the carper’s injury, ii. 183.

I gave her brave old wine that like her cheeks blushed red, i.

89.

I had a heart and with it lived my life, v. 131.

I have a friend with a beard, viii. 298.

I have a friend who hath a beard, iv. 194.

I have a friend, whose form is fixed within mine eyes, iv. 246.

I have a froward yard of temper ill, viii. 293.

I have a lover and when drawing him, iv. 247.

I have a sorrel steed, whose pride is fain to bear the rein, ii.

225.

I have borne for thy love what never bore iii. 183.

I have fared content in my solitude, iii. 152.

I have no words though folk would have me talk, ix. 276

I have won my wish and my need have scored, vii. 59.

I have wronged mankind, and have ranged like wind, iii. 74.

I have a yard that sleeps in base and shameful way, viii. 293.

I have sorrowed on account of our disunion, viii. 128.

I heard a ring-dove chanting plaintively v. 47.

I hid what I endured of him and yet it came to light, i. 67.

I hope for union with my love which I may ne’er obtain, viii.

347.

I kissed him: darker grew those pupils which, iii. 224.

I lay in her arms all night, leaving him, v. 128.

I’ll ransom that beauty-spot with my soul, v. 65.

I long once more the love that was between us to regain, viii.

181

I longed for him I love; but, when we met, viii. 347.

I longed for my beloved, but when I saw his face, i. 240.

I look to my money and keep it with care, ii. 11.

I looked at her one look and that dazed me, ix. 197.

I looked on her with longing eyne, v. 76

I love a fawn with gentle white-black eyes; iv. 50.

I love a moon of comely shapely form, I love her madly for she is

perfect fair, vii. 259.

I love not black girls but because they show, iv. 251.

I love not white girls blown with fat who puff and pant, iv. 252

I love Su’ád and unto all but her my love is dead, vii. 129.

I love the nights of parting though I joy not in the same, ix.

198.

I loved him, soon as his praise I heard, vii. 280.

I’m Al-Kurajan, and my name is known, vii. 20.

I’m estranged fro’ my folk and estrangement’s long, iii. 71.

I’m Kurajan, of this age the Knight, vii. 23.

I’m the noted Knight in the field of fight, vii. 18.

I made my wrist her pillow and I lay with her in litter, vii.

243.

I marvel at its pressers, how they died, x.

I marvel hearing people questioning, ii. 293

I marvel in Iblis such pride to see, vii. 139.

I marvel seeing yon mole, ii. 292.

I mind our union days when ye were nigh, vi. 278.

I number nights; indeed I count night after night, ii. 308.

I offered this weak hand as last farewell,. iii. 173

I passed a beardless pair without compare, v. 64.

I past by a broken tomb amid a garth right sheen, ii. 325.

I plunge with my braves in the seething sea, vii. 18.

I pray in Allah’s name, O Princess mine, be light on me, iv. 241.

I pray some day that we reunion gain, iii. 124.

I roam; and roaming hope I to return, iii. 64.

I saw him strike the gong and asked of him straightway, viii.

329.

I saw thee weep before the gates and ’plain, v. 283.

I saw two charmers treading humble earth, iii. 18.

I say to him, that while he slings his sword, ii. 230.

I see all power of sleep from eyes of me hath flown, ii. 151.

I see not happiness lies in gathering gold, ii. 166.

I see the woes of the world abound, i. 298.

I see thee and close not mine eyes for fear, ix. 221.

I see thee full of song and plaint and love’s own ecstasy, iii.

263.

I see their traces and with pain I melt, i. 230.

I see you with my heart from far countrie, vii. 93.

I sent to him a scroll that bore my plaint of love, ii. 300.

I show my heart and thoughts to Thee, and Thou, v. 266.

I sight their track and pine for longing love, viii. 103.

I soothe my heart and my love repel, v. 35.

I sought of a fair maid to kiss her lips, viii. 294.

I speak and longing love upties me and unties me, ii. 104.

I still had hoped to see thee and enjoy thy sight, i. 242.

I stood and bewailed who their loads had bound, ix. 27.

I swear by Allah’s name, fair Sir! no thief was I, i. 274.

I swear by swayings of that form so fair, iv. 143.

I swear by that fair face’s life I’ll love but thee, iv. 246.

I thought of estrangement in her embrace, ix. 198.

I’ve been shot by Fortune, and shaft of eye, iii. 175.

I’ve lost patience by despite of you, i. 280.

I’ve sent the ring from off thy finger ta’en, iii. 274.

I’ve sinned enormous sin, iv. 109.

I view their traces and with pain I pine, viii. 320.

I visit them and night black lendeth aid to me, iv. 252.

I vow to Allah if at home I sight, ii. 186.

I walk for fear of interview the weakling’s walk, v. 147.

I wander ’mid these walls, my Layla’s walls, i. 238.

I wander through the palace but I sight there not a soul, iv.

291.

I was in bestest luck, but now my love goes contrary, v. 75.

I was kind and ’scaped not, they were cruel and escaped, i. 58.

I waved to and fro and he leaned to and fro, v. 239.

I weep for one to whom a lonely death befel, v. 115.

I weep for longing love’s own ardency, vii. 369.

I weet not, whenas to a land I fare, ix. 328.

I went to my patron some blood to let him, i. 306.

I went to the house of the keeper-man, iii. 20.

I will bear in patience estrangement of friend, viii. 345.

I wot not, whenas to a land I fare, x. 53.

I write thee, love, the while my tears pour down, iii. 24.

I write to thee, O fondest hope, a writ, iii. 24.

I write with heart devoted to thy thought, iii. 273.

Ibn Síná in his canon cloth opine, iii. 34

If a fool oppress thee bear patiently, vi. 214

If a man from destruction can save his head, ix. 314.

If a man’s breast with bane he hides be straitened, ix. 292.

If a sharp-witted wight mankind e’er tried iv. 188.

If another share in the thing I love, iv. 234.

If any sin I sinned, or did I aught, iii. 132.

If aught I’ve sinned in sinful way, viii. 119.

If generous youth be blessed with luck and wealth, ix. 291.

If he of patience fail the truth to hide, ii. 320.

If I liken thy shape to the bough when green, i. 92.

If I to aught save you, O lords of me, incline, vii. 369.

If ill betide thee through thy slave, i. 194.

If Kings would see their high emprize preserved, v. 106.

If Naomi bless me with a single glance, iv. 12.

If not master of manners or aught but discreet, i. 235.

If thereby man can save his head from death, iv. 46.

If thou crave our love, know that love’s a loan, v. 127.

If thou should please a friend who pleaseth thee, v. 150.

If Time unite us after absent while, i. 157.

If your promise of personal call prove untrue, iii. 252.

If we ’plain of absence what shall we say? i. 100.

If we saw a lover who pains as he ought, v. 164.

Ill-omened hag! unshriven be her sins nor mercy visit her on

dying bed, i. 174.

In dream I saw a bird o’erspeed (meseem’d), viii. 218.

In her cheek cornered nine calamities, viii. 86.

In his face-sky shineth the fullest moon, i. 205.

In love they bore me further than my force would go, ii. 137.

In patience, O my God, I endure my lot and fate, i. 77.

In patience, O my God, Thy doom forecast, nut 17.

In ruth and mildness surety lies, ii. 160.

In sleep came Su’ada’s shade and wakened me, iv. 267.

In sooth the Nights and Days are charactered, iii. 319

In spite of enviers’ jealousy, at end, v. 62.

In the morn I am richest of men, x. 40.

In the towering forts Allah throned him, ii. 291.

In this world there is none thou mayst count upon, i. 207

In thought I see thy form when farthest far or nearest near, ii.

42

In thy whole world there is not one, iv. 187.

In vest of saffron pale and safflower red, i. 219.

Incline not to parting, I pray, viii. 314.

Indeed afflicted sore are we and all distraught, viii. 48.

Indeed I am consoled now and sleep without a tear, iv. 242.

Indeed I deem thy favours might be bought, iii. 34.

Indeed I hourly need thy choicest aid, v. 281.

Indeed I’ll bear my love for thee with firmest soul, iv. 241.

Indeed I longed to share unweal with thee, iii. 323.

Indeed I’m heart-broken to see thee start, viii. 63.

Indeed I’m strong to bear whatever befal, iii. 46.

Indeed my heart loves all the lovely boys, ix. 253.

Indeed, ran my tears on the severance day, vii. 64.

Indeed, to watch the darkness moon he blighted me, iii. 277.

Irks me my fate and clean unknows that I, viii. 130.

“Is Abú’s Sakr of Shaybán” they asked v. 100.

Is it not strange one house us two contain iv. 279.

Is not her love a pledge by all mankind confess? ii. 186.

It behoveth folk who rule in our time, viii. 294.

It happed one day a hawk pounced on a bird, iv. 103

It runs through every joint of them as runs, x. 39.

It seems as though of Lot’s tribe were our days, iii. 301.

It was as though the sable dye upon her palms, iii. 105.


Jamil, in Holy War go fight! to me they say: ii. 102.

Jahannam, next Lazá, and third Hatim, v. 240.

Jamrkan am I! and a man of might, vii. 23.

Joy from stroke of string cloth to me incline, viii. 227.

Joy is nigh, O Masrúr, so rejoice in true rede, viii. 221.

“Joy needs shall come,” a prattler ’gan to prattle: in. 7.

Joy of boughs, bright branch of Myrobalan! viii. 213.

Joy so o’ercometh me, for stress of joy, v. 355.

Joyance is come, dispelling cark and care, v. 61.


Kingdom with none endures: if thou deny this truth, where be the

Kings of earlier earth? i. 129.

Kinsmen of mine were those three men who came to thee, iv. 289.

Kisras and Cæsars in a bygone day, ii. 41.

Kiss then his fingers which no fingers are, iv. 147.


Lack of good is exile to man at home, ix. 199.

Lack gold abaseth man and cloth his worth away, ix. 290.

Lady of beauty, say, who taught thee hard and harsh design, iii.

5.

Laud not long hair, except it be dispread, ii. 230.

Laud to my Lord who gave thee all of loveliness, iv. 143.

Leave this blame, I will list to no enemy’s blame! iii. 61.

Leave this thy design and depart, O man! viii. 212.

Leave thou the days to breed their ban and bate, ii. 41.

Leave thy home for abroad an wouldest rise on high, ix. 138.

Let days their folds and plies deploy, ii. 309.

Let destiny with slackened rein its course appointed fare! viii.

70.

Let Fate with slackened bridle fare her pace, iv. 173.

Let Fortune have her wanton way, i. 107.

Let thy thought be ill and none else but ill, iii. 142.

Leyla’s phantom came by night, viii. 14.

Life has no sweet for me since forth ye fared, iii. 177.

Like are the orange hills when zephyr breathes, viii. 272.

Like a tree is he who in wealth cloth wone, ii. 14.

Like fullest moon she shines on happiest night, v. 347.

Like moon she shines amid the starry sky, v. 32.

Like peach in vergier growing, viii. 270.

Like the full moon she shineth in garments all of green, viii.

327.

Lion of the wold wilt thou murder me, v. 40.

Long as earth is earth, long as sky is sky, ix. 317.

Long have I chid thee, but my chiding hindereth thee not, vii.

225.

Long have I wept o’er severance ban and bane, i. 249.

Long I lamented that we fell apart, ii. 187.

Long, long have I bewailed the sev’rance of our loves, iii. 275.

Long was my night for sleepless misery, iv. 263.

Longsome is absence; Care and Fear are sore, ii. 295.

Longsome is absence, restlessness increaseth, vii. 212.

Look at the I.ote-tree, note on boughs arrayed, viii. 271.

Look at the apricot whose bloom contains, viii. 268.

Look on the Pyramids and hear the twain, v. 106.

Love, at first sight, is a spurt of spray, vii. 280.

Love, at the first, is a spurt of spray, vii. 330.

Love for my fair they chide in angry way. iii. 233.

Love in my breast they lit and fared away, iii. 296.

Love in my heart they lit and went their ways, i. 232.

Love-longing urged me not except to trip in speech o’er free, ix.

322.

Love smote my frame so sore on parting day, ii. 152.

Love’s tongue within my heart speaks plain to thee, iv. 135.

Love’s votaries I ceased not to oppose, iii. 290.

Lover with his beloved loseth will and aim, v. 289.

Lover, when parted from the thing he loves, viii. 36.

Luck to the Rubber whose deft hand o’er-plies, iii. 17.


Make me not (Allah save the Caliph!) one of the betrayed vii.

129.

Make thy game by guile for thou’rt born in a time, iii. 141.

Man is known among men as his deeds attest, ix. 164.

Man wills his wish to him accorded be, iv.

Many whose ankle rings are dumb have tinkling belts, iii. 302.

Masrur joys life made fair by all delight of days, nil. 234.

May Allah never make you parting dree,

May coins thou makest joy in heart instil, ix. 69.

May God deny me boon of troth if I, viii. 34.

May that Monarch’s life span a mighty span, ii. 75.

Mazed with thy love no more I can feign patience, viii. 321.

Melted pure gold in silvern bowl to drain, v. 66.

Men and dogs together are all gone by, iv. 268.

Men are a hidden malady iv. 188.

Men craving pardon will uplift their hands, iii. 304.

Men have ’plained of pining before my time, iii. 183.

Men in their purposes are much alike, vii. 169.

Men’s turning unto bums of boys is bumptious, v. 162.

Methought she was the forenoon sun until she donned the veil,

viii. 284.

Mine ear forewent mine eye in loving him, ix. 222.

Mine eyes I admire that can feed their fill, viii. 224

Mine eyes ne’er looked on aught the Almond like, viii. 270.

Mine eyes were dragomans for my tongue betied, i 121.

Mine is a Chief who reached most haught estate, i. 253.

’Minish this blame I ever bear from you, iii. 60.

Morn saith to Night, “withdraw and let me shine,” i. 132

Most beautiful is earth in budding bloom, ii. 86.

Mu’awiyah, thou gen’rous lord, and best of men that be, vii. 125.

My best salam to what that robe enrobes of symmetry, ix. 321

My blamers instant chid that I for her become consoled, viii.

171.

My blamers say of me, He is consoled And lie! v. 158.

My body bides the sad abode of grief and malady, iv. 230.

My censors say, What means this pine for him? v. 158.

My charmer who spellest my piety, ix. 243.

My coolth of eyes, the darling child of me, v. 260.

My day of bliss is that when thou appearest, iii. 291.

My friend I prithee tell me, ’neath the sky, v. 107.

My friend who went hath returned once more, Vi. 196.

My friends, despite this distance and this cruelty, viii. 115.

My friends, I yearn in heart distraught for him, vii. 212.

My friends! if ye are banisht from mine eyes, fin 340.

My friends, Rayya hath mounted soon as morning shone, vii. 93.

My fondness, O my moon, for thee my foeman is, iii. 256.

My heart disheartened is, my breast is strait, ii. 238.

My heart is a thrall: my tears ne’er abate, viii. 346.

My life for the scavenger! right well I love him, i. 312.

My life is gone but love longings remain, viii. 345.

My longing bred of love with mine unease for ever grows, vii.

211.

My Lord hath servants fain of piety, v. 277.

My lord, this be the Sun, the Moon thou hadst before, vii. 143.

My lord, this full moon takes in Heaven of thee new birth, vii.

143.

My love a meeting promised me and kept it faithfully, iii. 195.

My loved one’s name in cheerless solitude aye cheereth me, v. 59.

My lover came in at the close of night, iv. 124.

My lover came to me one night, iv. 252.

My mind’s withdrawn from Zaynab and Nawar, iii. 239.

My patience failed me when my lover went, viii. 259.

My patience fails me and grows anxiety, viii. 14.

My prickle is big and the little one said, iii. 302.

My Salám to the Fawn in the garments concealed, iv. 50.

My sin to thee is great, iv. 109.

My sister said, as saw she how I stood, iii. 109.

My sleeplessness would show I love to bide on wake, iii. 195.

My soul and my folk I engage for the youth, vii. 111.

My soul for loss of lover sped I sight, viii. 67.

My soul be sacrifice for one, whose going, iii. 292.

My soul thy sacrifice! I chose thee out, iii. 303.

My soul to him who smiled back my salute, iii. 168.

My tale, indeed, is tale unlief, iv. 265.

My tears thus flowing rival with my wine, iii. 169.

My tribe have slain that brother mine, Umaym, iv. 110.

My wish, mine illness, mine unease! by Allah, own, viii. 68.

My wrongs hide I, withal they show to sight, viii. 260.

My yearning for thee though long is fresh, iv. 211.


Naught came to salute me in sleep save his shade, vii. 111.

Naught garred me weep save where and when of severance spake he,

viii. 63.

Nears my parting fro, my love, nigher draws the severance-day,

viii. 308.

Need drives a man into devious roads, ii. 14.

Needs must I bear the term by Fate decreed, ii. 41.

Ne’er cease thy gate be Ka’abah to mankind, iv. 148.

Ne’er dawn the severance-day on any wise, viii. 49.

Ne’er incline thee to part, ii. 105.

Ne’er was a man with beard grown over. long, viii. 298.

News my wife wots is not locked in a box! i. 311.

News of my love fill all the land, I swear, iii. 287.

No breeze of Union to the lover blows, viii. 239.

No! I declare by Him to whom all bow, v. 152.

No longer beguile me, iii. 137.

No ring-dove moans from home on branch in morning light, ii. 152.

None but the good a secret keep, And good men keep it unrevealed,

i. 87.

None but the men of worth a secret keep, iii. 289.

None keepeth a secret but a faithful person, iv. 233.

None other charms but shine shall greet mine eyes, i. 156.

None wotteth best joyance but generous youth v. 67.

Not with his must I’m drunk, but verily, v. 158.

Now an, by Allah, unto man were fully known, iii. 128.

Now, an of woman ask ye, I reply, iii. 214.

Now blame him not; for blame brings only vice and pain, ii. 297.

Now, by my life, brown hue hath point of comeliness, iv. 258.

Now, by thy life, and wert thou just my life thou hadst not

ta’en, i. 182.

Now, by your love! your love I’ll ne’er forget, viii, 315.

Now I indeed will hide desire and all repine, v. 267.

Now is my dread to incur reproaches which. 59.

Now love hast banished all that bred delight, iii. 259.

Now with their says and said no more vex me the chiding race, iv.

207.


O adornment of beauties to thee write I vii. 176.

O beauty’s Union! love for thee’s my creed, iii. 303.

O best of race to whom gave Hawwá boon of birth, v. 139.

O bibber of liquor, art not ashamed v. 224.

O breeze that blowest from the land Irak viii. 103.

O child of Adam let not hope make mock and flyte at thee vi. 116

O culver of the copse, with salams I greet, v. 49.

O day of joys to either lover fain! v. 63.

O dwelling of my friends, say is there no return, viii. 319.

O fair ones forth ye cast my faithful love, ix. 300.

O fertile root and noble growth of trunk, ii. 43.

O fisherman no care hast thou to fear, v. 51.

O flier from thy home when foes affright! v. 290.

O friends of me one favour more I pray v. 125.

O glad news bearer well come! ii. 326.

O hail to him whose locks his cheeks o’er shade, x. 58.

O Hayat al-Nufuis be gen’rous and incline vii. 217.

O heart, an lover false thee, shun the parting bane, viii. 94.

O heart! be not thy love confined to one, iii. 232.

O hope of me! pursue me not with rigour and disdain, iii. 28.

O joy of Hell and Heaven! whose tormentry, iii. 19.

O Keener, O sweetheart, thou fallest not short, i. 311.

O Kings of beauty, grace to prisoner ta’en, viii. 96.

O Lord, by the Five Shaykhs, I pray deiiver me, vii. 226.

O Lord, how many a grief from me hast driven, v. 270.

O Lord, my foes are fain to slay me in despight, viii. 117.

O Lords of me, who fared but whom my heart e’er followeth, iv 239

O Love, thou’rt instant in thy cruellest guise, iv. 204.

O lover thou bringest to thought a tide, v. 50.

O Maryam of beauty return for these eyne, viii. 321.

O Miriam thy chiding I pray, forego, ix. 8.

O moon for ever set this earth below, iii. 323.

O Moslem! thou whose guide is Alcorán iv. 173.

O most noble of men in this time and stound, iv. 20.

O my censor who wakest amorn to see viii. 343.

O my friend, an I rendered my life, my sprite, ix. 214.

O my friend! reft of rest no repose I command, ii. 35.

O my friends, have ye seen or have ye heard vi. 174.

O my heart’s desire, grows my misery, vii. 248.

O my Lord, well I weet thy puissant hand, vi. 97.

O Night of Union, Time’s virginal prize viii. 328.

O my lords, shall he to your minds occur ix. 299.

O Night here I stay! I want no morning light, iv. 144.

O passing Fair I have none else but thee, vii. 365.

O pearl-set mouth of friend, iv. 231.

O pearly mouth of friend, who set those pretty pearls in line,

iv. 231.

O Rose, thou rare of charms that dost contain, viii. 275.

O sire, be not deceived by worldly joys, v. 114.

O son of mine uncle! same sorrow I bear, iii. 61.

O spare me, thou Ghazban, indeed enow for me, ii. 126.

O Spring-camp have ruth on mine overthrowing, viii. 240.

O thou Badi’a ’l-Jamál, show thou some clemency, vii. 368.

O thou of generous seed and true nobility, vi. 252.

O thou sheeniest Sun who m night dost shine, viii. 215.

O Thou the One, whose grace cloth all the world embrace, v. 272.

O thou tomb! O thou tomb! be his horrors set in blight? i. 76.

O thou to whom sad trembling wights in fear complain! iii. 317.

O thou who barest leg-calf better to suggest, ii. 327.

O thou who claimest to be prey of love and ecstasy, vii. 220.

O thou who deignest come at sorest sync, iii. 78.

O thou who dost comprise all Beauty’s boons! vii. 107.

O thou who dyest hoariness with black, viii. 295.

O thou who fearest Fate, i. 56.

O thou who for thy wakeful nights wouldst claim my love to boon,

iii. 26.

O thou who givest to royal state sweet savour, ii. 3.

O thou who gladdenest man by speech and rarest quality, ix. 322.

O thou who seekest innocence to ’guile, iii. 137.

O thou who seekest parting, safely fare! ii. 319.

O thou who seekest separation, act leisurely, iv. 200.

O thou who seekest severance, i. 118.

O thou who shamest sun in morning sheen, viii. 35.

O thou who shunnest him thy love misled! viii. 259.

O thou who wooest Severance, easy fare! iii. 278.

O thou who woo’st a world unworthy learn, iii. 319.

O thou whose boons to me are more than one, iii. 317.

O thou whose favours have been out of compt, iii. 137.

O thou whose forehead, like the radiant East, i. 210.

O to whom I gave soul which thou torturest, iv. 19.

O to whom now of my desire complaining sore shall I, v. 44.

O toiler through the glooms of night in peril and in pain, i. 38.

O turtle dove, like me art thou distraught? v. 47.

O waftings of musk from the Babel-land! ix. 195.

O who didst win my love in other date, v. 63.

O who hast quitted these abodes and faredst fief and light, viii.

59.

O who passest this doorway, by Allah, see, viii. 236.

O who praisest Time with the fairest appraise ix. 296.

O who shamest the Moon and the sunny glow, vii. 248.

O who quest Union, ne’er hope such delight, viii. 257.

O whose heart by our beauty is captive ta’en, v. 36.

O Wish of wistful men, for Thee I yearn, v. 269.

O ye that can aid me, a wretched lover, ii. 30.

O ye who fled and left my heart in pain low li’en, iii. 285.

O ye who with my vitals fled, have rush, viii. 258.

O you whose mole on cheek enthroned recalls, i. 251.

O Zephyr of Morn, an thou pass where the dear ones dwell, viii.

120.

O Zephyr of Najd, when from Najd thou blow, vii. 115.

Of dust was I created, and man did I become, v. 237.

Of evil thing the folk suspect us twain, iii. 305.

Of my sight I am jealous for thee, of me, ix. 248.

Of Time and what befel me I complain, viii. 219.

Of wit and wisdom is Maymúnah bare, i. 57.

Oft hath a tender bough made lute for maid, v. 244.

Oft hunchback added to his bunchy back, viii. 297.

Oft times mischance shall straiten noble breast, viii. 117.

Oft when thy case shows knotty and tangled skein, vi. 71.

Oh a valiant race are the sons of Nu’uman, iii. 80.

Oh soul of me, an thou accept my rede, ii. 210.

Oh ye gone from the gaze of these ridded eyne, ii. 139.

Old hag, of high degree in filthy life, v. 96.

On earth’s surface we lived in rare ease and joy, vii. 123.

On her fair bosom caskets twain I scanned, i. 156.

On me and with me bides thy volunty, viii. 129.

On Sun and Moon of palace cast thy sight, i. 85.

On the brow of the World is a writ, an thereon thou look, ix. 297

On the fifth day at even-tide they went away from me, ii. 10

On the fifth day I quitted all my friends for evermore, ii. 10

On the glancing racer outracing glance, ii. 273.

On the shaded woody island His showers Allah deign, x. 40.

On these which once were chicks, iv. 235.

One, I wish him in belt a thousand horns, v. 129.

One craved my love and I gave all he craved of me, iii. 210.

One wrote upon her cheek with musk, his name was Ja’afar highs,

iv. 292.

Open the door! the leach now draweth near, v. 284.

Oppression ambusheth in sprite of man, ix. 343.

Our aim is only converse to enjoy, iv. 54.

Our Fort is Tor, and flames the fire of fight, ii. 242.

Our life to thee, O cup-boy Beauty-dight! iii. 169.

Our trysting-time is all too short, iii. 167.


Pardon my fault, for tis the wont, i. 126.

Pardon the sinful ways I did pursue, ii. 38.

Part not from one whose wont is not to part from you, iii. 295

Parting ran up to part from lover twain iii. 209.

Pass round the cup to the old and the young man, too, viii. 278.

Pass o’er my fault, for ’tis the wise man’s wont, viii. 327.

Patience hath fled, but passion fareth not v. 358.

Patience with sweet and with bitter Fate! viii. 146.

Patient I seemed, yet Patience shown by me, vii. 96.

Patient, O Allah! to Thy destiny I bow iii. 328.

Pause ye and see his sorry state since when ye fain withdrew,

viii. 66.

Peace be to her who visits me in sleeping phantasy, viii. 241.

Peace be to you from lover’s wasted love vii. 368.

Peace be with you, sans you naught compensateth me, viii. 320.

Perfect were lover’s qualities in him was brought amorn, viii.

255.

Pink cheeks and eyes enpupil’d black have dealt me sore despight,

viii. 69.

Pleaseth me more the fig than every fruit viii. 269.

Pleaseth me yon Hazár of mocking strain v. 48.

Pleasure and health, good cheer, good appetite, ii. 102.

Ply me and also my mate be plied, viii. 203.

Poverty dims the sheen of man whate’er his wealth has been, i.

272

Pray’ee grant me some words from your lips, belike, iii. 274.

Pray, tell me what hath Fate to do betwixt us twain? v. 128.

Preserve thy hoary hairs from soil and stain, iv. 43.

Prove how love can degrade, v. 134.


Quince every taste conjoins, in her are found, i. 158.

Quoth I to a comrade one day, viii. 289.

Quoth our Imam Abu Nowas, who was, v. 157.

Quoth she (for I to lie with her forbare), iii. 303.

Quoth she, “I see thee dye thy hoariness,” iv. 194.

Quoth she to me,—and sore enraged, viii. 293.

Quoth she to me—I see thou dy’st thy hoariness, viii. 295.

Quoth they and I had trained my taste thereto, viii. 269.

Quoth they, Black letters on his cheek are writ! iv. 196.

Quoth they, Maybe that Patience lend thee ease! iii. 178.

Quoth they, Thou rav’st on him thou lov’st, iii. 258.

Quoth they, “Thou’rt surely raving mad for her thou lov’st,” viii.

326.


Racked is my heart by parting fro my friends, i. 150.

Rain showers of torrent tears, O Eyne, and see, viii. 250.

Rebel against women and so shalt thou serve Allah the more, iii.

214.

Red fruits that fill the hand, and shine with sheen, viii. 271.

Rely not on women: Trust not to their hearts, i. 13.

Reserve is a jewel, Silence safety is, i. 208.

Restore my heart as ’twas within my breast, viii. 37.

Right near at hand, Umaymah mine! v. 75.

Robe thee, O House, in richest raiment Time, viii. 206.

Roll up thy days and they shall easy roll, iv. 220.

Rosy red Wady hot with summer glow, ix. 6.

Round with big and little, the bowl and cup, ii. 29.


Said I to slim-waist who the wine engraced, viii. 307.

Salam from graces treasured by my Lord, iii. 273.

Salams fro’ me to friends in every stead, iii. 256.

Say, canst not come to us one momentling, iv. 43.

Say, cloth heart of my fair incline to him, v. 127.

Say him who careless sleeps what while the shaft of Fortune

flies, i. 68.

Say me, on Allah’s path has death not dealt to me, iv. 247.

Say me, will Union after parting e’er return to be, viii. 320.

Say then to skin “Be soft,” to face “Be fair,” i. 252.

Say thou to the she-gazelle, who’s no gazelle, v. 130.

Say to angry lover who turns away, v. 131

Say to the charmer in the dove-hued veil, i. 280.

Say to the fair in the wroughten veil, viii. 291

Say to the pretty one in veil of blue, iv. 264.

Say what shall solace one who hath nor home nor stable stead,

ii. 124.

Say, will to me and you the Ruthful union show, viii. 323.

Scented with sandal and musk, right proudly cloth she go, v. 192.

Seeing thy looks wots she what thou desir’st, v. 226.

Seest not how the hosts of the Rose display, viii. 276.

Seest not that Almond plucked by hand, viii. 270.

Seest not that musk, the nut-brown musk, e’er claims the highest

price, iv. 253.

Seest not that pearls are prized for milky hue, iv. 250.

Seest not that rosery where Rose a flowering displays, viii. 275.

Seest not the bazar with its fruit in rows, iii. 302.

Seest not the Lemon when it taketh form, viii. 272.

Seest not we want for joy four things all told, i. 86.

Semblance of full-moon Heaven bore, v. 192.

Severance-grief nighmost, Union done to death, iv. 223.

Shall I be consoled when Love hath mastered the secret of me,

viii. 261.

Shall man experience-lectured ever care, vii. 144.

Shall the beautiful hue of the Basil fail, i. 19.

Shall the world oppress me when thou art in’s, ii. 18.

Shall we e’er be united after severance tide, viii. 322.

Shamed is the bough of Ban by pace of her, viii. 223.

She bade me farewell on our parting day, ii. 35.

She beamed on my sight with a wondrous glance, ii. 87.

She came apparelled in an azure vest, i. 218.

She came apparelled in a vest of blue, viii. 280.

She came out to gaze on the bridal at ease, v. 149.

She came thick veiled, and cried I, O display, viii. 280.

She comes apparelled in an azure vest x. 58.

She comes like fullest moon on happy night, i. 218; x. 59.

She cried while played in her side Desire ix. 197.

She dispread the locks from her head one night, iii. 226.

She drew near whenas death was departing us, v. 71.

She gives her woman’s hand a force that fails the hand of me,

iii. 176

She hath eyes whose babes wi’ their fingers sign, viii. 166.

She hath those hips conjoined by thread of waist, iii. 226.

She hath wrists which, did her bangles not contain, iii. 226.

She is a sun which towereth high asky iii. 163.

She joineth charms were never seen conjoined in mortal dress,

vii. 104.

She lords it o’er our hearts in grass-green gown, ii. 318.

She prayeth; the Lord of grace her prayer obeyed, v. 273.

She proffered me a tender coynte, iii. 304.

She rose like the morn as she shone through the night, i. 11.

She saith sore hurt in sense the most acute, iii. 303.

She shineth forth a moon, and bends a willow-wand, iv. 50.

She shone out in the garden in garments all of green, v. 346.

She shot my heart with shaft, then turned on heel, vii. 141.

She sits it in lap like a mother fond, ix. 191.

She ’spied the moon of Heaven reminding me, iv. 51.

She split my casque of courage with eye-swords that sorely

smite, iii. 179.

She spread three tresses of unplaited hair iv. 51.

She wears a pair of ringlets long let down, v. 240.

She who my all of love by love of her hath won, viii. 254.

Shoulder thy tray and go straight to thy goal, i. 278.

Showed me Sir Such-an-one a sight, and what a sight! iv. 193.

Silent I woned and never owned my love v. 151.

Silky her skin and silk that zonèd waist iii. 163.

Since my loper-friend in my hand hath given, iv. 20.

Since none will lend my love a helping hand, vii. 225.

Since our Imam came forth from medicine, v. 154.

Sleep fled me, by my side wake ever shows, viii. 68.

Slept in mine arms full moon of brightest blee, x. 39.

Slim-waist and boyish wits delight, v. 161.

Slim-waisted craved wine from her companeer, viii. 307.

Slim-waisted loveling, from his hair and brow, viii. 299.

Slim-waisted loveling, jetty hair encrowned, i. 116.

Slim-waisted one whose looks with down of cheek, v. 158.

Slim-waisted one, whose taste is sweetest sweet, v. 241.

Sojourn of stranger, in whatever land, vii. 175.

Sought me this heart’s dear love at gloom of night, vii. 253.

Source of mine evils, truly, she alone’s, iii. 165.

Sow kindness seed in the unfittest stead iii. 136.

Stand by and see the derring-do which I to-day will show, iii.

107

Stand by the ruined home and ask of us, iii. 328.

Stand thou and hear what fell to me, viii. 228.

Stand thou by the homes and hail the lords of the ruined stead,

ii. 181.

Stay! grant one parting look before we part, ii. 15.

Steer ye your steps to none but me, v. 65.

Still cleaves to this homestead mine ecstasy, viii. 243.

Stint ye this blame viii. 254.

Straitened bosom; reveries dispread, iii. 182.

Strange is my story, passing prodigy, iv. 139

Strange is the charm which dights her brows like Luna’s disk that

shine, ii. 3.

Strive he to cure his case, to hide the truth, ii. 320.

Such is the world, so bear a patient heart, i. 183.

Suffer mine eye-babes weep lost of love and tears express, viii.

112.

Suffice thee death such marvels can enhance, iii. 56.

Sun riseth sheen from her brilliant brow, vii. 246.

Sweetest of nights the world can show to me, ii. 318.

Sweetheart! How long must I await by so long suffering tried? ii.

178.

Sweetly discourses she on Persian string, viii. 166.


Take all things easy; for all worldly things, iv. 220.

Take thy life and fly whenas evils threat; let the ruined house

tell its owner’s fate, i. 109.

Take, O my lord to thee the Rose, viii. 275.

Take patience which breeds good if patience thou can learn, iv.

221.

Take warning, O proud, iv. 118.

Tear-drops have chafed mine eyelids and rail down in wondrous

wise, v. 53.

Tell her who turneth from our love to work it injury sore, i.

181.

Tell whoso hath sorrow grief never shall last, i. 15.

That cheek-mole’s spot they evened with a grain, i. 251.

That jetty hair, that glossy brow, i. 203.

That night th’ astrologer a scheme of planets drew, i. 167.

That pair in image quits me not one single hour, ii. 173.

That rarest beauty ever bides my foe, vii. 366.

That sprouting hair upon his face took wreak, v. 161.

The birds took flight at eve and winged their way, viii. 34.

The blear-eyed scapes the pits, i. 265.

The boy like his father shall surely show, i. 310.

The breeze o’ morn blows uswards from her trace, viii. 206.

The bushes of golden hued rose excite, viii. 276.

The Bulbul’s note, whenas dawn is nigh, v. 48.

The caravan-chief calleth loud o’ night, viii. 239.

The chambers were like a bee-hive well stocked, ix. 292.

The coming unto thee is blest, viii. 167.

The company left with my love by night, ix. 27.

The Compassionate show no ruth to the tomb where his bones shall

lie, x. 47.

The courser chargeth on battling foe, iii. 83.

The day of my delight is the day when you draw near, i. 75.

The day of parting cut my heart in twain, iii. 124.

The fawn-Glee one a meeting promised me, iv. 195.

The fawn of a maid hent her lute in hand, ii. 34.

The feet of sturdy miscreants went trampling heavy tread, x. 38.

The first in rank to kiss the ground shall deign, i. 250.

The fragrance of musk from the breasts of the fair, viii. 209.

The full moon groweth perfect once a month, vii. 271.

The glasses are heavy when empty brought, x. 40.

The hapless lover’s heart is of his wooing weary grown, iv. 144.

The hearts of lovers have eyes I ken, iv. 238.

The hue of dusty motes is hers, iv. 257.

The house, sweetheart, is now no home to me, v. 381.

The jujube tree each day, viii. 271.

The Kings who fared before us showed, iii. 318.

The land of ramping moon is bare and drear, viii. 126.

The least of him is the being free, v. 156.

The life of the bath is the joy of man’s life, iii. 19.

The like of whatso feelest thou we feel, vii. 141.

The longing of a Bedouin maid, whose folks are far away, iii.

172.

The longing of an Arab lass forlorn of kith and kin, ii. 306.

The Lord, empty House! to thee peace decree, viii. 238.

The loved ones left thee in middle night, v. 150.

The lover is drunken with love of friend, v. 39.

The lover’s heart for his beloved must meet, ii. 62.

The lover’s heart is like to break in twain ii. 63.

The mead is bright with what is on’t ii. 86.,

The messenger who kept our commerce hid, iii. 189.

The Moon o’ the Time shows unveiled light, ix. 287.

The Nadd is my wine scented powder, my bread, viii. 209.

The name of what crave me distraught, viii. 93.

The Nile-flood this day is the gain you own, i. 290.

The penis smooth and round was made with anus best to match it,

iii. 303.

The phantom of Soada came by night to wake me, viii. 337.

The poor man fares by everything opposed, ix. 291.

The Prophet saw whatever eyes could see v. 287.

The return of the friend is the best of all boons, ix. 287.

The Rose in highest stead I rate, viii. 274

The signs that here their mighty works portray, vi. 90.

The slanderers said There is hair upon his cheeks, v. 157.

The slippers that carry these fair young feet, viii. 320.

The smack of parting ’s myrrh to me, ii. 101.

The solace of lovers is naught but far, viii.

The spring of the down on cheeks right clearly shows, v. 190.

The stream ’s a cheek by sunlight rosy dyed, ii. 240.

The streamlet swings by branchy wood and aye, viii. 267.

The sun of beauty she to all appears, x. 59.

The sun of beauty she to sight appears, i. 218.

The sun yellowed not in the murk gloom lien, viii. 285.

The sword, the sworder and the bloodskin waiting me I sight, ii.

42.

The tears of these eyes find easy release v. 127.

The tears run down his cheeks in double row, iii. 169.

“The time of parting” quoth they “draweth nigh,” v. 280.

The tongue of love from heart bespeaks my sprite, iv. 261.

The tongue of Love within my vitals speaketh, viii. 319.

The toothstick love I not; for when I say,

The road is lonesome; grow my grief and need, m. 13.

The weaver-wight wrote with gold-ore bright, viii. 210.

The whiskers write upon his cheek with ambergris on pearl, vii.

277

The wide plain is narrowed before these eyes, viii. 28.

The wise have said that the white of hair, viii. 294.

The world hath shot me with its sorrow till, vii. 340.

The world sware that for ever ’twould gar me grieve, viii. 243.

The world tears man to shreds, so be thou not, ix. 295.

The world tricks I admire betwixt me and her, ix. 242.

The world’s best joys long be thy lot, my lord, i. 203.

The zephyr breatheth o’er its branches, like, viii. 267.

Their image bides with me, ne’er quits me, ne’er shall fly, viii.

66.

Their tracts I see, and pine with pain and pang, i. 151.

There be no writer who from death shall fleet, i. 128.

There be rulers who have ruled with a foul tyrannic sway, i. 60.

There remaineth not aught save a fluttering breath, viii. 124.

There remains to him naught save a flitting breath, vii. 119.

They blamed me for causing my tears to well, ix. 29.

They bore him bier’d and all who followed wept, ii. 281.

They find me fault with her where I default ne’er find, v. 80.

They have cruelly ta’en me from him my beloved, v. 51.

They’re gone who when thou stoodest at their door, iv. 200.

They ruled awhile and theirs was harsh tyrannic rule, iv. 220.

They said, Thou revest upon the person thou lovest, iv. 205.

They say me, “Thou shinest a light to mankind,” i. 187.

They shine fullest moons, unveil crescent bright, viii. 304.

They talked of three beauties whose converse was quite, vii. 112.

Thine image ever companies my sprite, iii. 259.

Thine image in these eyne, a-lip thy name, iii. 179.

Think not from her, of whom thou art enamoured, viii. 216.

Thinkest thou thyself all prosperous, in days which prosp’rous

be, viii. 309.

This be his recompense who will, ix. 17.

This day oppressor and oppressed meet, v. 258.

This garden and this lake in truth, viii. 207.

This house, my lady, since you left is now a home no more, i.

211.

This messenger shall give my news to thee, iii. 181.

This is a thing wherein destruction lies, i. 118.

This is she I will never forget till I die, viii. 304.

This is thy friend perplexed for pain and pine, iv. 279.

This one, whom hunger plagues, and rags enfold, vii. 129.

Tho’ ’tis thy wont to hide thy love perforce, iii. 65.

Thou art the cause that castest men in ban and bane, viii. 149.

Thou camest and green grew the hills anew, iii. 18.

Thou deemedst well of Time when days went well, ii. 12; iii. 253.

Thou hast a reed of rede to every land, i. 128.

Thou hast failed who would sink me in ruin-sea, iii. 108.

Thou hast granted more favours than ever I crave, ii. 32.

Thou hast restored my wealth, sans greed and ere, iv. 111.

Thou hast some art the hearts of men to clip, i. 241.

Thou hast won my heart by cheek and eye of thee, viii. 256.

Thou liest, O foulest of Satans, thou art, iii. 108.

Thou liest when speaking of “benefits,” while, iii. 108.

Thou madest Beauty to spoil man’s sprite, ix. 249.

Thou madest fair thy thought of Fate, viii. 130.

Thou pacest the palace a marvel-sight, i. 176.

Thou present, in the Heaven of Heavens I dwell, iii. 268.

Thou seekest my death; naught else thy will can satisfy? ii. 103.

Thou west all taken up with love of other man, not me, i. 182.

Thou west create of dust and cam’st to life, iv. 190.

Thou west invested (woe to thee!) with rule for thee unfit, vii.

127.

Though amorn I may awake with all happiness in hand, i. 75.

Though now thou jeer, O Hind, how many a night, vii. 98.

Three coats yon freshest form endue, viii. 270.

Three lovely girls hold my bridle-rein, ix. 243.

Three matters hinder her from visiting us in fear, iii. 231.

Three things for ever hinder her to visit us, viii. 279.

Throne you on highmost stead, heart, ears and sight, viii. 258.

Thy breast thou baredst sending back the gift, v. 153.

Thy case commit to a Heavenly Lord and thou shalt safety see,

viii. 151.

Thy folly drives thee on though long I chid, iii. 29.

Thy note came: long lost fingers wrote that note, iv. 14.

Thy phantom bid thou fleet and fly, vii. 108.

Thy presence bringeth us a grace, i. 175.

Thy shape with willow branch I dare compare, iv. 255.

Thy shape’s temptation, eyes as Houri’s fain, viii. 47.

Thy sight hath never seen a fairer sight, ii. 292.

Thy writ, O Masrur, stirred my sprite to pine, viii. 245.

Time falsed our union and divided who were one in sway, x. 26.

Time gives me tremble, Ah, how sore the baulk! i. 144.

Time has recorded gifts she gave the great, i. 128.

Time hath for his wont to upraise and debase, ii. 143

Time hath shattered all my frame, ii. 4.

Time sware my life should fare in woeful waste, ii. 186.

’Tis as if wine and he who bears the bowl, x. 38.

’Tis as the Figs with clear white skins outthrown, viii. 268.

’Tis dark: my transport and unease now gather might and main, v.

45.

’Tis I am the stranger, visited by none, v. 116.

’Tis naught but this! When a-sudden I see her, ix. 235.

’Tis not at every time and tide unstable, iv. 188.

’Tis thou hast trodden coyness-path not I, iii. 332.

To all who unknow my love for the May, viii. 332.

To Allah will I make my moan of travail and of woe, iii. 106.

To Allah’s charge I leave that moon-like beauty in your tents,

iv. 145.

To even her with greeny bough were vain, i. 156.

To grief leave a heart that to love ne’er ceased, viii. 215.

To him I spake of coupling but he said to me, iii. 301.

To him when the wine cup is near I declare, ix. 189.

To Karím, the cream of men thou gayest me, ii. 35.

To kith and kin bear thou sad tidings of our plight, iii. 111.

To me restore my dear, v. 55.

To our beloveds we moaned our length of night, iv. 106.

To Rose quoth I, What gars thy thorns to be put forth, viii. 276.

To severance you doom my love and all unmoved remain, i. 181.

To slay my foes is chiefest bliss I wist, ii. 239.

To th’ All-wise Subtle One trust worldly things, i. 56.

To Thee be praise, O Thou who showest unremitting grace, viii.

183.

o thee come I forth with my heart aflame, iii. 108.

To win our favours still thy hopes are bent, vii. 224.

Told us, ascribing to his Shaykhs, our Shaykh, iv. 47.

Travel! and thou shalt find new friends for old ones left behind,

i. 197

Troubles familiar with my heart are grown and I with them, viii.

117.

Trust not to man when thou hast raised his spleen, iii. 145.

Truth best befits thee albeit truth, i. 298.

Turn thee from grief nor care a jot! i. 56

’Twas as I feared the coming ills discerning, ii. 189.

’Twas by will of her she was create, viii. 291.

’Twas not of love that fared my feet to them, iv. 180.

’Twas not satiety bade me leave the dearling of my soul, i. 181.

’Twixt the close-tied and open-wide no medium Fortune knoweth,

ii. 105.

’Twixt me and riding many a noble dame v. 266.

Two contraries and both concur in opposite charms, iv. 20.

Two hosts fare fighting thee the livelong day, i. 132.

Two lovers barred from every joy and bliss, v. 240.

Two things there are, for which if eyes wept tear on tear, viii.

263.

Two things there be, an blood-tears thereover, viii. 106.

Two nests in one, blood flowing easiest wise, v. 239.

Tyrannise not, if thou hast the power to do so, iv. 189.


Umm Amr’, thy boons Allah repay! v. 118.

Under my raiment a waste body lies, v. 151.

Under these domes how many a company, vi. 91.

Union, this severance ended, shall I see some day? iii. 12.

Unjust it were to bid the world be just i. 237.,

Uns al-Wujud dost deem me fancy free, v. 43.

Unto thee, As’ad! I of passion pangs complain, iii. 312.

Unto thy phantom deal behest, vii. 109.

Upsprings from table of his lovely cheek vii. 277.


Veiling her cheeks with hair a-morn she comes, i. 218.

Verily women are devils created for us, iii. 322.

Vied the full moon for folly with her face, viii. 291.

Virtue in hand of thee hath built a house, iv. 138.

Visit thy lover, spurn what envy told, i. 223.

Void are the private rooms of treasury, iv. 267.


Wail for the little partridges on porringer and plate, i. 131.

Wands of green chrysolite bare issue which, viii. 275.

’Ware how thou hurtest man with hurt of hearts, ii. 197.

’Ware that truth thou speak, albe sooth when said, x. 23.

Was’t archer shot me, or was’t shine eyes, v. 33.

Watch some tall ship she’ll joy the sight of thee, ii. 20.

Watered steel-blade, the world perfection calls, vii. 173.

Waters of beauty e’er his cheeks flow bright, viii. 299.

We joy in full Moon who the wine bears round, viii. 227.

We left not taking leave of thee (when bound to other goal),

viii. 63.

We lived on earth a life of fair content, v. 71.

We lived till saw we all the marvels Love can bear, v. 54.

We’ll drink and Allah pardon sinners all, viii. 277.

We never heard of wight nor yet espied, viii. 296.

We reck not, an our life escape from bane, vii. 99.

We tread the path where Fate hath led, i. 107.

We trod the steps appointed for us, x. 53.

We trod the steps that for us were writ, ix. 226.

We were and were the days enthralled to all our wills, ii. 182.

We were like willow-boughs in garden shining, vii. 132.

We wrought them weal, they met our weal with ill, i. 43.

Welcome the Fig! To us it comes, viii. 269.

Well Allah weets that since our severance-day, iii. 8.

Well Allah wots that since my severance from thee, iii. 292.

Well Allah wotteth I am sorely plagued, v. 139.

Well learnt we, since you left, our grief and sorrow to sustain,

iii. 63.

Wend to that pious prayerful Emir, v. 274.

Were I to dwell on heart-consuming heat, iii. 310.

Were it said to me while the flame is burning within me, vii.

282.

Were not the Murk of gender male, x. 60.

What ails the Beauty, she returneth not? v. 137.

What ails the Raven that he croaks my lover’s house hard by,

viii. 242.

What can the slave do when pursued by Fate, iii. 341.

What fair excuse is this my pining plight, v. 52.

What I left, I left it not for nobility of soul, vi. 92.

What pathway find I my desire to obtain, v. 42.

What sayest of one by a sickness caught, v. 164.

What sayest thou of him by sickness waste, v. 73.

What secret kept I these my tears have told, iii. 285.

What’s life to me, unless I see the pearly sheen, iii. 65.

What’s this? I pass by tombs, and fondly greet, iii. 46.

What time Fate’s tyranny shall oppress thee, i. 119.

Whate’er they say of grief to lovers came, iii. 33.

Whatever needful thing thou undertake, i. 307.

Whatso is not to be no sleight shall bring to pass, ii. 279.

Whatso is not to be shall ne’er become, iii. 162.

When a nickname or little name men design, i. 350.

When Allah willeth aught befal a man, i. 275.

When comes she slays she; and when back she turns, iv. 232.

When drew she near to bid adieu with heart unstrung, i. 158.

Whene’er the Lord ’gainst any man, viii. 314.

When fails my wealth no friend will deign befriend, i. 208, iv.

189.

When fortune weighs heavy on some of us iii. 141.

When forwards Allah’s aid a man’s intent, x. 53.

When God upon a man possessed of reasoning, viii. 21.

When he who is asked a favour saith “To-morrow,” i. 196.

When his softly bending shape bid him close to my embrace, iii.

306.

When I drew up her shift from the roof of her coynte, ii. 331.

When I far-parted patience call and tears vi. 279.

When I righted and dayed in Damascus town, i, 233.

When I think of my love and our parting smart, i. 250.

When I took up her shift and discovered the terrace-roof of her

kaze, viii. 32.

When in thy mother’s womb thou west

When its birds in the lake make melody vi. 277.

When Khalid menaced off to strike my hand, iv. 156.

When love and longing and regret are mine, ii. 34.

When man keeps honour bright without a stem, iv. 106.

When my blamer saw me beside my love, ix. 1.

When oped the inkhorn of thy wealth and fame, i. 129.

When saw I Pleiad stars his glance escape, iii. 221.

When shall be healed of thee this heart that ever bides in woe?

ii. 296.

When shall disunion and estrangement end? iv. 137.

When shall the disappointed heart be healed of severance, iii.

58.

When shall the severance-fire be quenched by union, love, with

you, viii. 62.

When she’s incensed thou seest folk lie slain, viii. 165.

When straitened is my breast I will of my Creator pray, viii.

149.

When the Kings’ King giveth, in reverence pause, x. 35.

When the slanderers only to part us cared, iv. 19.

When the tyrant enters the lieges land, iii. 120.

When the World heaps favours on thee pass on, ii. 13.

When they made their camels yellow-white kneel down at dawning

grey, v. 140.

When they to me had brought the leach and surely showed, v. 286.

When thou art seized of Evil Fate assume, i. 38.

When thou seest parting be patient still, viii. 63.

When to sore parting Fate our love shall doom, to distant life by

Destiny decreed, i. 129.

When we drank the wine, and it crept its way, x. 37.

When we met we complained, i. 249.

When will time grant we meet, when shall we be, viii. 86.

When wilt thou be wise and love-heat allay, v. 78.

Whenas mine eyes behold her loveliness vii. 244.

Whenas on any land the oppressor cloth alight, iii . 130.

Where are the Kings earth-peopling where are they? vi. 103.

Where be the Earth kings who from where they ’bode, vi. 105

Where be the Kings who ruled the Franks of old? vi. 106.

Where be the men who built and fortified vi. 104.

Where gone is Bounty since thy hand is turned to clay? ii. 282.

Where is the man who built the Pyramids? v. 107

Where is the man who did those labours ply, vi. 105.

Where is the way to Consolation’s door, viii. 240.

Where is the wight who peopled in the past, vi. 104.

While girl with softly rounded polished cheeks, iv. 249.

While slanderers slumber, longsome is my night, iii. 221.

While that fair-faced boy abode in the place, ix. 250.

While thou’rt my lord whose bounty’s my estate, iv. 2.

Who cloth kindness to men shall be paid again, v. 104.

Who loves not swan-neck and gazelle-like eyes, iii. 34.

Who made all graces all collected He, iv. 111.

Who saith that love at first of free will came, ii. 302.

Who seeketh for pearl in the Deep dives deep, ii. 208.

Who shall save me from love of a lovely gazelle, vii. 282.

Who shall support me in calamities, ii. 40.

Who trusteth secret to another’s hand, i. 87.

Whom I irk let him fly fro’ me fast and faster, viii. 315.

Whoso ne’er tasted of Love’s sweets and bitter-draught, iv. 237.

Whoso shall see the death-day of his foe, ii. 41.

Whoso two dirhams hath, his lips have learnt, iv. 171.

Why dost thou weep when I depart and thou didst parting claim, v.

295.

Why not incline me to that show of silky down, iv. 258.

Why then waste I my time in grief, until, i. 256.

Will Fate with joy of union ever bless our sight, v. 128.

Wilt thou be just to others in thy love and do, iv. 264.

Wilt turn thy face from heart that’s all shine own, v. 278.

Wilt tyrant play with truest friend who thinks of thee each hour,

iii. 269.

Wine cup and ruby wine high worship claim, x. 41.

With all my soul I’ll ransom him who came to me in gloom, vii.

253.

With Allah take I refuge from whatever driveth me, iv. 254.

With fire they boiled me to loose my tongue, i. 132.

With heavy back parts, high breasts delicate, ii. 98.

With thee that pear agree, whose hue amorn, viii. 270.

With you is my heart-cure a heart that goes, viii. 78.

Wither thy right, O smith, which made her bear, viii. 246.

Within my heart is fire, vii. 127.

Witnesses unto love of thee I’ve four viii. 106.

Woe’s me! why should the blamer gar thee blaming bow? ii. 305.

Women are Satans made for woe o’ man iii. 318.

Women for all the chastity they claim, iii. 216.

Women Satans are, made for woe of man, ix. 282.

Would he come to my bed during sleep ’twere delight, vii. 111.

Would Heaven I knew (but many are the shifts of joy and woe), v.

75.

Would Heaven I saw at this hour, iii. 134.

Would Heaven I wot, will ever Time bring our beloveds back again?

viii. 320.

Would Heaven the phantom spared the friend at night, v. 348.

Would I wot for what crime shot and pierced are we, viii. 238.

Would they the lover seek without ado, viii. 281.

Wrong not thy neighbour even if thou have power, iii. 136.

Ye are the wish, the aim of me, i. 98.

Ye promised us and will ye not keep plight? iii. 282.

Yea, Allah hath joined the parted twain, ix. 205.

Yea, I will laud thee while the ringdove moans, viii. 100.

Yellowness, tincturing her tho’ nowise sick or sorry, iv. 259.

Yestre’en my love with slaughter menaced me, iii. 27.

You are my wish, of creatures brightest light, viii. 76.

You have honoured us visiting this our land, ii. 34.

You’ve roused my desire and remain at rest, viii. 101.

You’re far, yet to my heart you’re nearest near, viii. 111.

Your faring on the parting day drew many a tear fro’ me, viii.

61.


                          Index III.-B




Alphabetical Table of First Lines

(Metrical Portion) in Arabic.

                   Prepared by Dr. Steingass.

[Index III-B is not included]




INDEX IV.—A.




TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE UNFINISHED CALCUTTA (1814–18) EDITION (FIRST
TWO HUNDRED NIGHTS ONLY) OF THE ARABIC TEXT OF THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND
NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT.

                                                                           Night

INTRODUCTION—

      a.  The Bull and the Ass

  1.  The Trader and the Jinni                                                 i    [1]

      a.  The First Old Man’s Story                                           ii    [2]

      b.  The Second Old Man’s Story                                          iv    [4]

               (The Third Old Man’s Story is wanting.)

  2.  The Fisherman and the Jinni                                           viii    [8]

      a.  The Physician Duban                                                 xi   [11]

          aa.  The Merchant and the Parrot                                   xiv   [14]

          ab.  The Prince and the Ogress                                      xv   [15]

      b.  The Ensorcelled Youth                                              xxi   [21]

  3.  The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad                          xxviii   [28]

      a.  The First Kalandar’s Tale                                        xxxix   [39]

      b.  The Second Kalandar’s Tale                                        xlii   [42]

          ba.  The Envier and the Envied                                    xlvi   [46]

      c.  The Third Kalandar’s Tale                                         liii   [53]

      d.  The Eldest Lady’s Tale                                            lxiv   [64]

               (The Story of the Portress is wanting.)

  4.  The Three Apples                                                    lxviii   [68]

  5.  Nur al-Din Ali and his Son Badr al-Din Hassan                        lxxii   [72]

  6.  Isaac of Mosul’s Story of Khadijah and the Caliph Al-Maamun           xciv   [94]

  7.  The Hunchback’s Tale                                                    ci  [101]

      a.  The Nazarene Broker’s Story                                        cix  [109]

      b.  The Cook’s Story                                                  cxxi  [121]

          (The Reeve or Comptroller’s Tale in the Bresl., Mac.

               and Bull Edits.)

      c.  The Jewish Physician’s Story                                     cxxix  [124]

      d.  Tale of the Tailor                                              cxxxvi  [136]

      e.  The Barber’s Tale of Himself                                    cxliii  [143]

          ea.  The Barber’s Tale of his First Brother                       cxlv  [145]

          eb.  The Barber’s Tale of his Second Brother                   cxlviii  [148]

          ec.  The Barber’s Tale of his Third Brother                        cli  [151]

          ed.  The Barber’s Tale of his Fourth Brother                      clii  [152]

          ee.  The Barber’s Tale of his Fifth Brother                       cliv  [154]

          ef.  Story of the Barber’s Sixth Brother                        clviii  [158]

  8.  Ali bin Bakkar and Shams Al-Nahar                                   clxiii  [163]

  9.  Nur al-Din Ali and the Damsel Anis al-Jalis                         clxxxi  [181]

 10.  Women’s Craft                                                      cxcv-cc  [195–200]

 11.  Sindbad the Seaman and Hindbad the Hammal

      (In Mac. and Bresl. Edit.; “Sindbad the Sailor and Sindbad

           the Hammal,”)

      a.  The First Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman.

      b.  The Second Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman.

      c.  The Third Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman.

      d.  The Fourth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman.

      e.  The Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman.

      f.  The Sixth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman.

      g.  The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman.




INDEX IV.—B.

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE BRESLAU (TUNIS) EDITION OF THE ARABIC TEXT OF THE BOOK
OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND ONE NIGHT, FROM MR. PAYNE’S VERSION.

                                                                           Night
INTRODUCTION.—Story of King Shehriyar and his Brother
      a.  Story of the Ox and the Ass
  1.  The Merchant and the Genie                                               i    [1]
      a.  The First Old Man’s Story                                           iv    [4]
      b.  The Second Old Man’s Story                                          vi    [6]
      c.  The Third Old Man’s Story                                         viii    [8]
  2.  The Fisherman and the Genie                                           viii    [8]
      a.  Story of the Physician Duban                                        xi   [11]
          aa.  Story of the Jealous Man and the Parrot[FN#458]               xiv   [14]
          ab.  Story of the King’s Son and the Ogress                         xv   [15]
      b.  Story of the Enchanted Youth                                       xxi   [21]
  3.  The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad                          xxviii   [28]
      a.  The First Calender’s Story                                      xxxvii   [37]
      b.  The Second Calender’s Story                                         xl   [40]
          ba.  The Envier and the Envied                                    xlvi   [46]
      c.  The Third Calender’s Story                                        liii   [53]
      d.  The Eldest Lady’s Story                                          lxiii   [63]
      e.  Story of the Portress                                            lxvii   [67]
  4.  The Three Apples                                                      lxix   [69]
  5.  Noureddin Ali of Cairo and his son Bedreddin Hassan                  lxxii   [72]
  6.  Story of the Hunchback                                                 cii  [102]
      a.  The Christian Broker’s Story                                      cvii  [107]
      b.  The Controller’s Story                                            cxix  [119]
      c.  The Jewish Physician’s Story                                     cxxix  [129]
      d.  The Tailor’s Story                                             cxxxvii  [137]
      e.  The Barber’s Story                                               cxlix  [149]
          ea.  Story of the Barber’s First Brother                            cl  [150]
          eb.  Story of the Barber’s Second Brother                         cliv  [154]
          ec.  Story of the Barber’s Third Brother                         clvii  [157]
          ed.  Story of the Barber’s Fourth Brother                        clvii  [157]
          ee.  Story of the Barber’s Fifth Brother                           clx  [160]
          ef.  Story of the Barber’s Sixth Brother                         clxiv  [164]
  7.  Ali ben Bekkar and Shemsennehar                                      clxix  [169]
  8.  Noureddin Ali and the Damsel Enis el Jelis                           cxcix  [199]
  9.  Kemerezzeman and Budour                                            ccxviii  [218]
 10.  The Enchanted Horse                                                 ccxliv  [244]
 11.  The Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor                                      ccl  [250]
      a.  The First Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                           cclii  [252]
      b.  The Second Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                         ccliii  [253]
      c.  The Third Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                            cclv  [255]
      d.  The Fourth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                          cclix  [259]
      e.  The Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                         cclxiii  [263]
      f.  The Sixth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                          cclxvi  [266]
      g.  The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                        cclxix  [269]
 12.  Asleep and Awake                                                    cclxxi  [271]
      a.  The Lackpenny and the Cook                                    cclxxiii  [273]
 13.  Seif el Mulouk and Bediya el-Jemal                                   ccxci  [291]
 14.  Khelif the Fisherman[FN#459]                                        cccxxi  [321]
 15.  Ghanim ben Eyoub the Slave of Love                                cccxxxii  [332]
      a.  Story of the Eunuch Sewab[FN#460]                             cccxxxiv  [334]
      b.  Story of the Eunuch Kafour                                    cccxxxiv  [334]
 16.  Uns el Wujoud and the Vizier’s Daughter Rose-in-bud                 cccxli  [341]
 17.  The Merchant of Oman                                                cccliv  [354]
 18.  Ardeshir and Heyat en Nufous                                       ccclxiv  [364]
 19.  Hassan of Bassora and the King’s Daughter of the Jinn            ccclxxxvi  [386]
 20.  Haroun er Rashid and the Three Poets                             ccccxxxii  [432]
 21.  Omar ben Abdulaziz and the Poets                                 ccccxxxii  [432]
 22.  El Hejjaj and the Three Young Men                                ccccxxxiv  [434]
 23.  Er Reshid and the Woman of the Barmecides                        ccccxxxiv  [434]
 24.  The Ten Viziers; or the History of King Azadbekht and his Son     ccccxxxv  [435]
      a.  The Unlucky Merchant                                            ccccxl  [440]
      b.  The Merchant and his Sons                                     ccccxliv  [444]
      c.  Abu Sabir                                                   ccccxlviii  [448]
      d.  Prince Bihzad                                                 ccccliii  [453]
      e.  King Dadbin and his Viziers                                     cccclv  [455]
      f.  King Bekhtzeman                                                cccclxi  [461]
      g.  King Bihkerd                                                  cccclxiv  [464]
      h.  Ilan Shah and Abou Temam                                      cccclxvi  [466]
      i.  King Ibrahim and his Son                                      cccclxxi  [471]
      j.  King Suleiman Shah and his Sons                               cccclxxv  [475]
      k.  The Prisoner and how God gave him Relief                     cccclxxxv  [485]
 25.  The City of Brass                                              cccclxxxvii  [487]
 26.  Nimeh ben er Rebya and Num his Slave-girl                               di  [501]
 27.  Alaeddin Abou es Shamat                                                dxx  [520]
 28.  Hatim Tai; his Generosity after Death                                dxxxi  [531]
 29.  Maan ben Zaideh and the three Girls                                 dxxxii  [532]
 30.  Maan ben Zaideh and the Bedouin                                     dxxxii  [532]
 31.  The City of Lebtait                                                 dxxxii  [532]
 32.  The Khalif Hisham and the Arab Youth                                dxxxiv  [534]
 33.  Ibrahim ben el Mehdi and the Barber-Surgeon                         dxxxiv  [534]
 34.  The City of Iram                                                  dxxxviii  [538]
 35.  Isaac of Mosul’s Story of Khedijeh and the Khalif Mamoun               dxl  [540]
 36.  The Mock Khalif                                                     dxliii  [543]
 37.  The Imam Abou Yousuf with Er Reshid and Jaafar                         dlv  [555]
 38.  The Lover who feigned himself a Thief to save his Mistress’s
      Honour                                                               dlvii  [557]
 39.  Abou Mohammed the Lazy                                              dlviii  [558]
 40.  Jaafar ben Yehya and Abdulmelik ben Salih                             dlxv  [565]
 41.  Jaafar ben Yehya[FN#461] and the Man who forged a Letter in
      his Name                                                             dlxvi  [566]
 42.  Er Reshid and the Barmecides                                        dlxvii  [567]
 43.  Ibn es Semmak and Er Reshid                                        dlxviii  [568]
 44.  El Mamoun and Zubeideh                                             dlxviii  [568]
 45.  Ali Shir[FN#462] and Zummurrud                                       dlxix  [569]
 46.  The Loves of Budour and Jubeir ben Umeir                          dlxxxvii  [587]
 47.  The Man of Yemen and his Six Slave-girls                              dxcv  [595]
 48.  Haroun Er Reshid with the Damsel and Abou Nuwas                         dc  [600]
 49.  The Man who stole the Dog’s Dish of Gold                              dcii  [602]
 50.  El Melik en Nasir and the Three Masters of Police                    dciii  [603]
      a.  Story of the Chief of the New Cairo Police                        dciv  [604]
      b.  Story of the Chief of the Boulac Police                            dcv  [605]
      c.  Story of the Chief of the Old Cairo Police                         dcv  [605]
 51.  The Thief and the Money-changer                                        dcv  [605]
 52.  Ibrahim ben el Mehdi and the Merchant’s Sister                        dcvi  [606]
 53.  King Kelyaad[FN#463] of Hind and his Vizier Shimas                    dcix  [609]
      a.  The Cat and the Mouse                                             dcix  [609]
      b.  The Fakir and his Pot of Butter                                    dcx  [610]
      c.  The Fishes and the Crab                                           dcxi  [611]
      d.  The Crow and the Serpent                                          dcxi  [611]
      e.  The Fox and the Wild Ass                                          dcxi  [611]
      f.  The Unjust King and the Pilgrim Prince                           dcxii  [612]
      g.  The Crows and the Hawk                                          dcxiii  [613]
      h.  The Serpent-Charmer and his Wife                                 dcxiv  [614]
      i.  The Spider and the Wind                                           dcxv  [615]
      j.  The Two Kings                                                    dcxvi  [616]
      k.  The Blind Man and the Cripple                                    dcxvi  [616]
      1.  The Foolish Fisherman                                           dcxxvi  [626]
      m.  The Boy and the Thieves                                        dcxxvii  [627]
      n.  The Man and his Wilful Wife                                    dcxxvii  [627]
      o.  The Merchant and the Thieves                                    dcxxix  [629]
      p.  The Foxes and the Wolf                                           dcxxx  [630]
      q.  The Shepherd and the Thief                                     dcxxxii  [632]
      r.  The Heathcock and the Tortoises                                dcxxxiv  [634]
 54.  The Woman whose Hands were cut off for Almsgiving                    dcxli  [641]
 55.  The Poor Man and His Generous Friend                               dcxliii  [643]
 56.  The Ruined Man who became Rich again through a Dream                dcxliv  [644]
 57.  Abou Nuwas with the Three Boys and the Khalif Haroun er Reshid       dcxlv  [645]
 58.  The Lovers of the Benou Udhreh[FN#464]                              dcxlvi  [646]
 59.  El Mutelemmis and his Wife Umeimeh                                dcxlviii  [648]
 60.  Haroun er Reshid and Zubeideh in the Bath                         dcxlviii  [648]
 61.  Musab ben ez Zubeir and Aaisheh his Wife                            dcxlix  [649]
 62.  Aboulaswed and his Squinting Slave-girl                               dcli  [651]
 63.  Haroun er Reshid and the Two Girls                                    dcli  [651]
 64.  Haroun er Reshid and the Three Girls                                  dcli  [651]
 65.  The Simpleton and the Sharper                                        dclii  [652]
 66.  The Imam Abou Yousuf with Er Reshid and Zubeideh                     dclii  [652]
 67.  The Khalif El Hakim and the Merchant                                dcliii  [653]
 68.  Kisra Anoushirwan and the Village Damsel                            dcliii  [653]
 69.  The Water-Carrier and the Goldsmith’s Wife                           dcliv  [654]
 70.  Khusrau and Shirin and the Fisherman                                 dclvi  [656]
 71.  Yehya ben Khalid and the Poor Man                                    dclvi  [656]
 72.  Mohammed el Amin and Jaafar ben el Hadi                             dclvii  [657]
 73.  The Woman’s Trick against her Husband                              dclviii  [658]
 74.  The Devout Woman and the Two Wicked Elders                           dclix  [659]
 75.  El Fezl ben Rebiya[FN#465] and the Old Bedouin                        dclx  [660]
 76.  En Numan and the Arab of the Benou Tai                                dclx  [660]
 77.  The Draper and the Thief[FN#466]                                     dclxi  [661]
 78.  Mesrour and Ibn el-Caribi                                           dclxii  [662]
 79.  The Devout Prince                                                   dclxiv  [664]
 80.  The Schoolmaster who fell in Love by Report                          dclxv  [665]
 81.  The Foolish Schoolmaster                                            dclxvi  [666]
 82.  The Ignorant Man who set up for a Schoolmaster                     dclxvii  [667]
 83.  Adi ben Zeid and the Princess Hind                                dclxviii  [668]
 84.  Dibil el Khuzai; with the Lady and Muslim ben el Welid               dclxx  [670]
 85.  Isaac of Mosul and the Merchant                                      dclxx  [670]
 86.  The Three Unfortunate Lovers                                       dclxxii  [672]
 87.  The Lovers of the Benou Tai                                       dclxxiii  [673]
 88.  The Mad Lover                                                      dclxxiv  [674]
 89.  Firouz and his Wife                                                 dclxxv  [675]
 90.  The Apples of Paradise                                             dclxxvi  [676]
 91.  The Loves of Abou Isa and Curret el Ain                          dclxxviii  [678]
 92.  El Amin and his Uncle Ibrahim ben el Mehdi                        dclxxxii  [682]
 93.  El Feth ben Khacan and El Mutawekkil                             dclxxxiii  [683]
 94.  The Man’s Dispute with the Learned Woman of the relative
      Excellence of the Sexes                                          dclxxxiii  [683]
 95.  Abou Suweid and the Handsome Old woman                           dclxxxvii  [687]
 96.  Ali ben Tahir and the Girl Mounis                               dclxxxviii  [688]
 97.  The Woman who had a Boy and the other who had a Man to Lover    dclxxxviii  [688]
 98.  The Haunted House in Baghdad                                    dclxxxviii  [688]
 99.  The History of Gherib and his brother Agib                        dcxcviii  [698]
100.  The Rogueries of Delileh the Crafty and her daughter
      Zeyneb the Trickstress                                              dcclvi  [756]
101.  The Adventures of Quicksilver Ali of Cairo                         dcclxvi  [766]
102.  Joudar and his Brothers                                           dcclxxvi  [776]
103.  Julnar of the Sea and her Son King Bedr Basim of Persia            dccxciv  [794]
104.  Mesrour and Zein el Mewasif                                        dcccxxi  [821]
105.  Ali Noureddin and the Frank King’s Daughter                       dcccxxxi  [831]
106.  The Man of Upper Egypt and his Frank Wife                         dccclxii  [862]
107.  The Ruined Man of Baghdad and his Slave-girl                      dccclxiv  [864]
108.  Aboukir the Dyer and Abousir the Barber                          dccclxvii  [867]
109.  Abdallah the Fisherman and Abdallah the Merman                  dccclxxvii  [877]
110.  King Shah Bekht and his Vizier Er Rehwan                         dccclxxxv  [885]
      a.  The Man of Khorassan, his Son and his Governor              dccclxxxvi  [886]
      b.  The Singer and the Druggist                               dccclxxxviii  [888]
      c.  The King who knew the Quintessence of Things                   dcccxci  [891]
      d.  The Rich Man who gave his Fair Daughter in Marriage to
          the Poor Old Man                                              dcccxcii  [892]
      e.  The Rich Man and his Wasteful Son                            dcccxciii  [893]
      f.  The King’s Son who fell in Love with the Picture              dcccxciv  [894]
      g.  The Fuller and his Wife                                       dcccxcvi  [896]
      h.  The Old Woman, the Merchant and the King                      dcccxcvi  [896]
      i.  The Credulous Husband                                       dcccxcviii  [898]
      j.  The Unjust King and the Tither                                dcccxcix  [899]
          ja.  Story of David and Solomon                               dcccxcix  [899]
      k.  The Thief and the Woman                                       dcccxcix  [899]
      l.  The Three Men and our Lord Jesus                                dcccci  [901]
          la.  The Disciple’s Story                                       dcccci  [901]
      m.  The Dethroned King whose Kingdom and Good were Restored
          to Him                                                          dcccci  [901]
      n.  The Man whose Caution was the Cause of his Death              dcccciii  [903]
      o.  The Man who was lavish of his House and his Victual to
          one whom he knew not                                           dcccciv  [904]
      p.  The Idiot and the Sharper                                       dccccv  [905]
      q.  Khelbes and his Wife and the Learned Man                       dccccvi  [906]
      r.  The Pious Woman accused of Lewdness                           dccccvii  [907]
      s.  The Journeyman and the Girl                                    dccccix  [909]
      t.  The Weaver who became a Physician by his Wife’s Commandment    dccccix  [909]
      u.  The Two Sharpers who cheated each his Fellow                   dccccxi  [911]
      v.  The Sharpers with the Money-Changer and the Ass               dccccxiv  [914]
      w.  The Sharper and the Merchants                                  dccccxv  [915]
          wa.  The Hawk and the Locust                                  dccccxvi  [916]
      x.  The King and his Chamberlain’s Wife                          dccccxvii  [917]
          xa.  The Old Woman and the Draper’s Wife                     dccccxvii  [917]
      y.  The foul-favoured Man and his Fair Wife                     dccccxviii  [918]
      z.  The King who lost Kingdom and Wife and Wealth and God
          restored them to him                                         dccccxvix  [919]
          za.  Selim and Selma                                         dccccxxii  [922]
          zb.  The King of Hind and his Vizier                       dccccxxviii  [928]
111.  El Melik er Zahir Rukneddin Bibers el Bunducdari and
      the Sixteen Officers of Police                                    dccccxxx  [930]
      a.  The First Officer’s Story                                     dccccxxx  [930]
      b.  The Second Officer’s Story                                  dccccxxxii  [932]
      c.  The Third Officer’s Story                                   dccccxxxii  [932]
      d.  The Fourth Officer’s Story                                  dccccxxxiv  [934]
      e.  The Fifth Officer’s Story                                   dccccxxxiv  [934]
      f.  The Sixth Officer’s Story                                   dccccxxxiv  [934]
      g.  The Seventh Officer’s Story                                 dccccxxxiv  [934]
      h.  The Eighth Officer’s Story                                   dccccxxxv  [935]
          ha.  The Thief’s Story                                    dccccxxxviii  [938]
      i.  The Ninth Officer’s Story                                 dccccxxxviii  [938]
      j.  The Tenth Officer’s Story                                 dccccxxxviii  [938]
      k.  The Eleventh Officer’s Story                              dccccxxxviii  [938]
      l.  The Twelfth Officer’s Story                                dccccxxxxix  [939]
      m.  The Thirteenth Officer’s Story                             dcccccxxxix  [939]
      n.  The Fourteenth Officer’s Story                             dccccxxxxix  [939]
          na.  A Merry Jest of a Thief                                   dccccxl  [940]
          nb.  Story of the Old Sharper                                  dccccxl  [940]
      o.  The Fifteenth Officer’s Story                                  dccccxl  [940]
      p.  The Sixteenth Officer’s Story                                  dccccxl  [940]
112.  Abdallah ben Nafi and the King’s Son of Cashghar                  dccccxli  [941]
      a.  Story of Tuhfet el Culoub and Haroun er Reshid               dccccxlii  [942]
113.  Noureddin Ali and Sitt el Milah                                 dcccclviii  [958]
114.  El Abbas and the King’s Daughter of Baghdad                      dcccclxvi  [966]
115.  The Malice of Women                                             dcccclxxix  [979]
      a.  The King and his Vizier’s Wife                               dcccclxxx  [980]
      b.  The Merchant’s Wife and the Parrot                           dcccclxxx  [980]
      c.  The Fuller and his Son                                       dcccclxxx  [980]
      d.  The Lover’s Trick against the Chaste Wife                    dcccclxxx  [980]
      e.  The Niggard and the Loaves of Bread                          dcccclxxx  [980]
      f.  The Lady and her Two Lovers                                  dcccclxxx  [980]
      g.  The King’s Son and the Ogress                               dcccclxxxv  [985]
      h.  The Drop of Honey                                          dcccclxxxvi  [986]
      i.  The Woman who make her Husband Sift Dust                   dcccclxxxvi  [986]
      j.  The Enchanted Springs                                      dcccclxxxvi  [986]
      k.  The Vizier’s Son and the Bathkeeper’s Wife               dcccclxxxviii  [988]
      1.  The Wife’s Device to Cheat her Husband                     dcccclxxxix  [989]
      m.  The Goldsmith and the Cashmere Singing-Girl                    dccccxc  [990]
      n.  The Man who never Laughed again                               dccccxci  [991]
      o.  The King’s Son and the Merchant’s Wife                      dccccxciii  [993]
      p.  The Man who saw the Night of Power                          dccccxciii  [993]
      q.  The Stolen Necklace                                          dccccxciv  [994]
      r.  Prince Behram of Persia and the Princess Ed Detma            dccccxciv  [994]
      s.  The House with the Belvedere                                  dccccxcv  [995]
      t.  The Sandalwood Merchant and the Sharpers                   dccccxcviii  [998]
      u.  The Debauchee and the Three-year-old Child                 dccccxcviii  [998]
      v.  The Stolen Purse                                             dccccxcix  [999]
      w.  The Fox and the Folk[FN#467]                                         m [1000]
116.  The Two Kings and the Vizier’s Daughters                                mi [1001]
117.  The Favourite and her Lover                                             mi [1001]
118.  The Merchant of Cairo and the Favourite of the Khalif
      El Mamoun El Hakim bi Amrillah                                          mi [1001]
      Conclusion.




INDEX IV.—C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE MCNAUGHTEN OR TURNER MACAN TEXT (1839–42) AND BULAK
EDITION (A.H. 1251 = A.D. 1835–36) OF THE ARABIC TEXT OF THE BOOK OF THE
THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT; AS TRANSLATED BY MR. JOHN PAYNE.

                                                                           Night
INTRODUCTION.—Story of King Shehriyar and his Brother
      a.  Story of the Ox and the Ass
  1.  The Merchant and the Genie                                               i    [1]
      a.  The First Old Man’s Story                                            i    [1]
      b.  The Second Old Man’s Story                                          ii    [2]
      c.  The Third Old Man’s Story                                           ii    [2]
  2.  The Fisherman and the Genie                                            iii    [3]
      a.  Story of the Physician Douban                                       iv    [4]
          aa.  Story of King Sindbad and his Falcon[FN#468]                    v    [5]
          ab.  Story of the King’s Son and the Ogress                          v    [5]
      b.  Story of the Enchanted Youth                                       vii    [7]
  3.  The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad                              ix    [9]
      a.  The First Calender’s Story                                          xi   [11]
      b.  The Second Calender’s Story                                        xii   [12]
          ba.  Story of the Envier and the Envied[FN#469]                   xiii   [13]
      c.  The Third Calender’s Story                                         xiv   [14]
      d.  The Eldest Lady’s Story                                           xvii   [17]
      e.  The Story of the Portress                                        xviii   [18]
  4.  The Three Apples                                                       xix   [19]
  5.  Noureddin Ali of Cairo and his Son Bedreddin Hassan                     xx   [20]
  6.  Story of the Hunchback                                                 xxv   [25]
      a.  The Christian Broker’s Story                                       xxv   [25]
      b.  The Controller’s Story                                           xxvii   [27]
      c.  The Jewish Physician’s Story                                    xxviii   [28]
      d.  The Tailor’s Story                                                xxix   [29]
      e.  The Barber’s Story                                                xxxi   [31]
          ea.  Story of the Barber’s First Brother                          xxxi   [31]
          eb.  Story of the Barber’s Second Brother                         xxxi   [31]
          ec.  Story of the Barber’s Third Brother                         xxxii   [32]
          ed.  Story of the Barber’s Fourth Brother                        xxxii   [32]
          ee.  Story of the Barber’s Fifth Brother                         xxxii   [32]
          ef.  Story of the Barber’s Sixth Brother                        xxxiii   [33]
  7.  Noureddin Ali and the Damsel Enis el Jelis                           xxxiv   [34]
  8.  Ghanim ben Eyoub the Slave of Love                                   xxxix   [39]
      a.  Story of the Eunuch Bekhit                                       xxxix   [39]
      b.  Story of the Eunuch Kafour                                       xxxix   [39]
  9.  The History of King Omar ben Ennuman and his Sons Sherkan
      and Zoulmekan                                                          xlv   [45]
      a.  Story of Taj el Mulouk and the Princess Dunya                     cvii  [107]
          aa.  Story of Aziz and Azizeh                                     cvii  [107]
      b.  Bakoun’s Story of the Hashish-Eater                             cxliii  [143]
      c.  Hemmad the Bedouin’s Story                                       cxliv  [144]
 10.  The Birds and Beasts and the Son of Adam                             cxlvi  [146]
 11.  The Hermits                                                        cxlviii  [148]
 12.  The Waterfowl and the Tortoise                                     cxlviii  [148]
 13.  The Wolf and the Fox                                               cxlviii  [148]
      a.  The Hawk and the Partridge                                       cxlix  [149]
 14.  The Mouse and the Weasel                                                cl  [150]
 15.  The Cat and the Crow                                                    cl  [150]
 16.  The Fox and the Crow                                                    cl  [150]
      a.  The Mouse and the Flea                                             cli  [151]
      b.  The Falcon and the Birds                                          clii  [152]
      c.  The Sparrow and the Eagle                                         clii  [152]
 17.  The Hedgehog and the Pigeons                                          clii  [152]
      a.  The Merchant and the Two Sharpers                                 clii  [152]
 18.  The Thief and his Monkey                                              clii  [152]
      a.  The Foolish Weaver                                                clii  [152]
 19.  The Sparrow and the Peacock                                           clii  [152]
 20.  Ali ben Bekkar and Shemsennehar                                      cliii  [153]
 21.  Kemerezzeman and Budour                                               clxx  [170]
      a.  Nimeh ben er Rebya and Num his Slave-girl                     ccxxxvii  [237]
 22.  Alaeddin Abou esh Shamat                                               ccl  [250]
 23.  Hatim et Taï; his Generosity after Death                             cclxx  [270]
 24.  Maan ben Zaïdeh and the three Girls                                 cclxxi  [271]
 25.  Maan ben Zaïdeh and the Bedouin                                     cclxxi  [271]
 26.  The City of Lebtait                                                cclxxii  [272]
 27.  The Khalif Hisham and the Arab Youth                               cclxxii  [272]
 28.  Ibrahim ben el Mehdi and the Barber-surgeon                       cclxxiii  [273]
 29.  The City of Irem                                                   cclxxvi  [276]
 30.  Isaac of Mosul’s Story of Khedijeh and the Khalif Mamoun           cclxxix  [279]
 31.  The Scavenger and the Noble Lady of Baghdad                       cclxxxii  [282]
 32.  The Mock Khalif                                                   cclxxxvi  [286]
 33.  Ali the Persian and the Kurd Sharper                                ccxciv  [294]
 34.  The Imam Abou Yousuf with Haroun er Reshid and his Vizier
      Jaafer                                                              ccxcvi  [296]
 35.  The Lover who feigned himself a Thief to save his Mistress’s
      Honour                                                             ccxcvii  [297]
 36.  Jaafer the Barmecide and the Bean-Seller                            ccxcix  [299]
 37.  Abou Mohammed the Lazy                                                 ccc  [300]
 38.  Yehya ben Khalid and Mensour                                          cccv  [305]
 39.  Yehya ben Khalid and the Man who forged a Letter in his Name         cccvi  [306]
 40.  The Khalif El Mamoun and the Strange Doctor                         cccvii  [307]
 41.  Ali Shar and Zumurrud                                              cccviii  [308]
 42.  The Loves of Jubeir ben Umeir and the Lady Budour                 cccxxvii  [327]
 43.  The Man of Yemen and his six Slave-girls                          cccxxxiv  [334]
 44.  Haroun er Reshid with the Damsel and Abou Nuwas                 cccxxxviii  [338]
 45.  The Man who stole the Dog’s Dish of Gold                             cccxl  [340]
 46.  The Sharper of Alexandria and the Master of Police                  cccxli  [341]
 47.  El Melik en Nasir and the three Masters of Police                 cccxliii  [343]
      a.  Story of the Chief of the New Cairo Police                    cccxliii  [343]
      b.  Story of the Chief of the Boulac Police                        cccxliv  [344]
      c.  Story of the Chief of the Old Cairo Police                     cccxliv  [344]
 48.  The Thief and the Money-Changer                                    cccxliv  [344]
 49.  The Chief of the Cous Police and the Sharper                        cccxlv  [345]
 50.  Ibrahim ben el Mehdi and the Merchant’s Sister                     cccxlvi  [346]
 51.  The Woman whose Hands were cut off for Almsgiving                cccxlviii  [348]
 52.  The Devout Israelite                                             cccxlviii  [348]
 53.  Abou Hassan ez Ziyadi and the Man from Khorassan                   cccxlix  [349]
 54.  The Poor Man and his Generous Friend                                 cccli  [351]
 55.  The Ruined Man who became Rich again through a Dream                 cccli  [351]
 56.  El Mutawekkil and his Favourite Mehboubeh                            cccli  [351]
 57.  Werdan the Butcher’s Adventure with the Lady and the Bear          cccliii  [353]
 58.  The King’s Daughter and the Ape                                      ccclv  [355]
 59.  The Enchanted Horse                                                ccclvii  [357]
 60.  Uns el Wujoud and the Vizier’s Daughter Rose-in-bud                ccclxxi  [371]
 61.  Abou Nuwas with the three Boys and the Khalif Haroun er
      Reshid                                                            ccclxxxi  [381]
 62.  Abdallah ben Maamer with the Man of Bassora and his
      Slave-girl                                                      ccclxxxiii  [383]
 63.  The Lovers of the Benou Udhreh                                  ccclxxxiii  [383]
 64.  The Vizier of Yemen and his young Brother                        ccclxxxiv  [384]
 65.  The Loves of the Boy and Girl at School                           ccclxxxv  [385]
 66.  El Mutelemmis and his Wife Umeimeh                                ccclxxxv  [385]
 67.  Haroun er Reshid and Zubeideh in the Bath                         ccclxxxv  [385]
 68.  Haroun er Reshid and the three Poets                             ccclxxxvi  [386]
 69.  Musab ben er Zubeir and Aaisheh his Wife                         ccclxxxvi  [386]
 70.  Aboulaswed and his squinting Slave-girl                         ccclxxxvii  [387]
 71.  Haroun er Reshid and the two Girls                              ccclxxxvii  [387]
 72.  Haroun er Reshid and the three Girls                            ccclxxxvii  [387]
 73.  The Miller and his Wife                                         ccclxxxvii  [387]
 74.  The Simpleton and the Sharper                                  ccclxxxviii  [388]
 75.  The Imam Abou Yousuf with Haroun er Reshid and Zubeideh        ccclxxxviii  [388]
 76.  The Khalif El Hakim and the Merchant                             ccclxxxix  [389]
 77.  King Kisra Anoushirwan and the Village Damsel                    ccclxxxix  [389]
 78.  The Water-Carrier and the Goldsmith’s Wife                           cccxc  [390]
 79.  Khusrau and Shirin and the Fisherman                                cccxci  [391]
 80.  Yehya ben Khalid and the Poor Man                                   cccxci  [391]
 81.  Mohammed el Amin and Jaafer ben el Hadi                            cccxcii  [392]
 82.  Said ben Salim and the Barmecides                                  cccxcii  [392]
 83.  The Woman’s Trick against her Husband                             cccxciii  [393]
 84.  The Devout Woman and the two Wicked Elders                         cccxciv  [394]
 85.  Jaafer the Barmecide and the Old Bedouin                            cccxcv  [395]
 86.  Omar ben el Khettab and the Young Bedouin                           cccxcv  [395]
 87.  El Mamoun and the Pyramids of Egypt                              cccxcviii  [398]
 88.  The Thief turned Merchant and the other Thief                    cccxcviii  [398]
 89.  Mesrour and Ibn el Caribi                                          cccxcix  [399]
 90.  The Devout Prince                                                    cccci  [401]
 91.  The Schoolmaster who Fell in Love by Report                          cccii  [402]
 92.  The Foolish Schoolmaster                                           cccciii  [403]
 93.  The Ignorant Man who set up for a Schoolmaster                     cccciii  [403]
 94.  The King and the Virtuous Wife                                      cccciv  [404]
 95.  Abdurrehman the Moor’s Story of the Roc                             cccciv  [404]
 96.  Adi ben Zeid and the Princess Hind                                   ccccv  [405]
 97.  Dibil el Khuzai with the Lady and Muslim ben el Welid              ccccvii  [407]
 98.  Isaac of Mosul and the Merchant                                    ccccvii  [407]
 99.  The Three Unfortunate Lovers[FN#470]                                ccccix  [409]
100.  The Lovers of the Benou Tai                                          ccccx  [410]
101.  The Mad Lover                                                       ccccxi  [411]
102.  The Apples of Paradise                                             ccccxii  [412]
103.  The Loves of Abou Isa and Curret el Ain                            ccccxiv  [414]
104.  El Amin and his Uncle Ibrahim ben el Mehdi                       ccccxviii  [418]
105.  El Feth ben Khacan and El Mutawekkil                               ccccxix  [419]
106.  The Man’s Dispute with the Learned Woman of the relative
      Excellence of the Sexes                                            ccccxix  [419]
107.  Abou Suweid and the Handsome Old Woman                           ccccxxiii  [423]
108.  Ali ben Tahir and the Girl Mounis                                 ccccxxiv  [424]
109.  The Woman who had a Boy and the other who had a Man to Lover      ccccxxiv  [424]
110.  The Haunted House in Baghdad                                      ccccxxiv  [424]
111.  The Pilgrim and the Old Woman who dwelt in the Desert            ccccxxxiv  [434]
112.  Aboulhusn and his Slave-girl Taweddud                            ccccxxxvi  [436]
113.  The Angel of Death with the Proud King and the Devout Man         cccclxii  [462]
114.  The Angel of Death and the Rich King                              cccclxii  [462]
115.  The Angel of Death and the King of the Children of Israel        cccclxiii  [463]
116.  Iskender Dhoulkernein and a certain Tribe of Poor Folk            cccclxiv  [464]
117.  The Righteousness of King Anoushirwan                             cccclxiv  [464]
118.  The Jewish Cadi and his Pious Wife                                 cccclxv  [465]
119.  The Shipwrecked Woman and her Child                               cccclxvi  [466]
120.  The Pious Black Slave                                            cccclxvii  [467]
121.  The Devout Platter-maker and his Wife                           cccclxviii  [468]
122.  El Hejjaj ben Yousuf and the Pious Man                             cccclxx  [470]
123.  The Blacksmith who could Handle Fire without Hurt                 cccclxxi  [471]
124.  The Saint to whom God gave a Cloud to serve Him and the
      Devout King                                                     cccclxxiii  [473]
125.  The Muslim Champion and the Christian Lady                       cccclxxiv  [474]
126.  Ibrahim ben el Khawwas and the Christian King’s Daughter        cccclxxvii  [477]
127.  The Justice of Providence                                      cccclxxviii  [478]
128.  The Ferryman of the Nile and the Hermit                          cccclxxix  [479]
129.  The King of the Island                                           cccclxxix  [479]
130.  Abulhusn ed Durraj and Abou Jaafer the Leper                     cccclxxxi  [481]
131.  The Queen of the Serpents                                       cccclxxxii  [482]
      a.  The Adventures of Beloukiya                                 cccclxxxvi  [486]
      b.  The Story of Janshah                                          ccccxcix  [499]
132.  Sindbad the Sailor and Sindbad the Porter                           dxxxvi  [536]
      a.  The First Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                        dxxxviii  [538]
      b.  The Second Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                         dxliii  [543]
      c.  The Third Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                           dxlvi  [546]
      d.  The Fourth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                             dl  [550]
      e.  The Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                            dlvi  [556]
      f.  The Sixth Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                            dlix  [559]
      g.  The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad the Sailor                        dlxiii  [563]
133.  The City of Brass                                                    dlxvi  [566]
134.  The Malice of Women                                               dlxxviii  [578]
      a.  The King and his Vizier’s Wife                                dlxxviii  [578]
      b.  The Merchant’s Wife and the Parrot                              dlxxix  [579]
      c.  The Fuller and his Son                                          dlxxix  [579]
      d.  The Lover’s Trick against the Chaste Wife                        dlxxx  [580]
      e.  The Niggard and the Loaves of Bread                              dlxxx  [580]
      f.  The Lady and her Two Lovers                                     dlxxxi  [581]
      g.  The King’s Son and the Ogress                                   dlxxxi  [581]
      h.  The Drop of Honey                                              dlxxxii  [582]
      i.  The Woman who made her Husband sift Dust                       dlxxxii  [582]
      j.  The Enchanted Springs                                          dlxxxii  [582]
      k.  The Vizier’s Son and the Bathkeeper’s Wife                     dlxxxiv  [584]
      l.  The Wife’s Device to Cheat her Husband                         dlxxxiv  [584]
      m.  The Goldsmith and the Cashmere Singing-girl                    dlxxxvi  [586]
      n.  The Man who never Laughed again                               dlxxxvii  [587]
      o.  The King’s Son and the Merchant’s Wife                            dxci  [591]
      p.  The Page who feigned to know the Speech of Birds                 dxcii  [592]
      q.  The Lady and her five Suitors                                   dxciii  [593]
      r.  The Man who saw the Night of Power                               dxcvi  [596]
      s.  The Stolen Necklace                                              dxcvi  [596]
      t.  The two Pigeons                                                 dxcvii  [597]
      u.  Prince Behram of Persia and the Princess Ed Detma               dxcvii  [597]
      v.  The House with the Belvedere                                   dxcviii  [598]
      w.  The King’s Son and the Afrit’s Mistress                           dcii  [602]
      x.  The Sandal-wood Merchant and the Sharpers                        dciii  [603]
      y.  The Debauchee and the Three-year-old Child                         dcv  [605]
      z.  The Stolen Purse                                                   dcv  [605]
135.  Jouder and his Brothers                                               dcvi  [606]
136.  The History of Gherib and his Brother Agib                          dcxxiv  [624]
137.  Otbeh and Reyya                                                     dclxxx  [680]
138.  Hind Daughter of En Numan and El Hejjaj                            dclxxxi  [681]
139.  Khuzeimeh ben Bishr and Ikrimeh el Feyyaz                         dclxxxii  [682]
140.  Younus the Scribe and the Khalif Welid ben Sehl                   dclxxxiv  [684]
141.  Haroun er Reshid and the Arab Girl                                 dclxxxv  [685]
142.  El Asmai and the three Girls of Bassora                           dclxxxvi  [686]
143.  Ibrahim of Mosul and the Devil                                   dclxxxvii  [687]
144.  The Lovers of the Benou Udhreh                                  dclxxxviii  [688]
145.  The Bedouin and his Wife                                             dcxci  [691]
146.  The Lovers of Bassora                                              dcxciii  [693]
147.  Isaac of Mosul and his Mistress and the Devil                        dcxcv  [695]
148.  The Lovers of Medina                                                dcxcvi  [696]
149.  El Melik en Nasir and his Vizier                                   dcxcvii  [697]
150.  The Rogueries of Delileh the Crafty and her Daughter Zeyneb
      the Trickstress                                                   dcxcviii  [698]
151.  The Adventures of Quicksilver Ali of Cairo: a Sequel to the
      Rogueries of Delileh the Crafty                                    dccviii  [708]
152.  Ardeshir and Heyat en Nufous                                        dccxix  [719]
153.  Julnar of the Sea and her Son King Bedr Basim of Persia         dccxxxviii  [738]
154.  King Mohammed ben Sebaik and the Merchant Hassan                    dcclvi  [756]
      a.  Story of Prince Seif el Mulouk and the Princess Bediya
          el Jemal                                                      dcclviii  [758]
155.  Hassan of Bassora and the King’s Daughter of the Jinn           dcclxxviii  [778]
156.  Khelifeh the Fisherman of Baghdad                                dcccxxxii  [832]
157.  Mesrour and Zein el Mewasif                                        dcccxlv  [845]
158.  Ali Noureddin and the Frank King’s Daughter                      dccclxiii  [863]
159.  The Man of Upper Egypt and his Frank Wife                         dcccxciv  [894]
160.  The Ruined Man of Baghdad and his Slave girl                      dcccxcvi  [896]
161.  King Jelyaad of Hind and his Vizier Shimas: whereafter ensueth
      the History of King Wird Khan son of King Jelyaad and his
      Women and Viziers                                                 dcccxcix  [899]
      a.  The Cat and the Mouse                                            dcccc  [900]
      b.  The Fakir and his Pot of Butter                                dccccii  [902]
      c.  The Fishes and the Crab                                       dcccciii  [903]
      d.  The Crow and the Serpent                                      dcccciii  [903]
      e.  The Fox and the Wild Ass                                       dcccciv  [904]
      f.  The Unjust King and the Pilgrim Prince                          dccccv  [905]
      g.  The Crows and the Hawk                                         dccccvi  [906]
      h.  The Serpent-Charmer and his Wife                              dccccvii  [907]
      i.  The Spider and the Wind                                      dccccviii  [908]
      j.  The Two Kings                                                  dccccix  [909]
      k.  The Blind Man and the Cripple                                   dccccx  [910]
      l.  The Foolish Fisherman                                       dccccxviii  [918]
      m.  The Boy and the Thieves                                     dccccxviii  [918]
      n.  The Man and his Wilful Wife                                   dccccxix  [919]
      o.  The Merchant and the Thieves                                   dccccxx  [920]
      p.  The Foxes and the Wolf                                        dccccxxi  [921]
      q.  The Shepherd and the Thief                                    dccccxxi  [921]
      r.  The Heathcock and the Tortoises                              dccccxxiv  [924]
162.  Aboukir the Dyer and Abousir the Barber                           dccccxxx  [930]
163.  Abdallah the Fisherman and Abdallah the Merman                     dccccxl  [940]
164.  The Merchant of Oman                                             dccccxlvi  [946]
165.  Ibrahim and Jemileh                                               dcccclii  [952]
166.  Aboulhusn of Khorassan                                            dcccclix  [959]
167.  Kemerezzeman and the Jeweller’s Wife                            dcccclxiii  [963]
168.  Abdallah ben Fazil and his Brothers                           dcccclxxviii  [978]
169.  Marouf the Cobbler and his Wife Fatimeh                     dcccclxxxix-mi  [989–1001]
      Conclusion.




INDEX IV.—D.

COMPARISON OF THE SAME WITH MR. LANE’S AND MY VERSION.

Introduction and

      Nos. 1 to 6 of the preceding list from Volume I. of my Edition.

      Nos. 7 to 9aa of the preceding list from Volume II. of my Edition.

          (contd.)


      Nos. 9aa to 21 of the preceding list from Volume III. of my Edition.

          (contd.)


      Nos. 21 to 58 of the preceding list from Volume IV. of my Edition.

          (contd.)


      Nos. 59 to 131 of the preceding list from Volume V. of my Edition.

          (contd.)


      Nos. 132 to 136 of the preceding list from Volume VI. of my Edition.

          (contd.)


      Nos. 136 to 154a of the preceding list from Volume VII. of my Edition.

          (contd.)


      Nos. 154a to 158 of the preceding list from Volume VIII. of my Edition.

          (contd.)


      Nos. 158 to 168 of the preceding list from Volume IX. of my Edition.

          (contd.)


      Nos. 169 and conclusion of the preceding list from Volume X. of my Edition.

For full details, see contents pages of each of the respective Volumes.




Appendix II




CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE THOUSAND AND
ONE NIGHTS, AND THEIR IMITATIONS, WITH A TABLE SHOWING THE CONTENTS OF THE
PRINCIPAL EDITIONS IND TRANSLATIONS OF THE NIGHTS.

                         By W. F. KIRBY

Author of “Ed-Dimiryaht: an Oriental Romance,” “The New Arabian

                          Nights,” &c.


The European editions of the Thousand and One Nights, even
excluding the hundreds of popular editions which have nothing
specially noticeable about them, are very numerous; and the
following Notes must, I am fully aware, be incomplete, though
they will, perhaps, be found useful to persons interested in the
subject. Although I believe that editions of most of the English,
French, and German versions of any importance have passed through
my hands, I have not had an opportunity of comparing many in
other languages, some of which at least may be independent
editions, not derived from Galland. The imitations and
adaptations of The Nights are, perhaps, more numerous than the
editions of The Nights themselves, if we exclude mere reprints of
Galland; and many of them are even more difficult of access.

In the following Notes, I have sometimes referred to tales by
their numbers in the Table.

                 Galland’s MS. and Translation.

The first MS. of The Nights known in Europe was brought to Paris
by Galland at the close of the 17th century; and his translation
was published in Paris, in twelve small volumes, under the title
of “Les Mille et une Nuit: Contes Arabes, traduits en Francois
par M. Galland.” These volumes appeared at intervals between 1704
and 1717. Galland himself died in 1715, and it is uncertain how
far he was responsible for the latter part of the work. Only the
first six of the twelve vols. are divided into Nights, vol. 6
completing the story of Camaralzaman, and ending with Night 234.
The Voyages of Sindbad are not found in Galland’s MS., though he
has intercalated them as Nights 69–90 between Nos. 3 and 4. It
should be mentioned, however, that in some texts (Bresl., for
instance) No. 133 is placed much earlier in the series than in
others.

The stories in Galland’s last six vols. may be divided into two
classes, viz., those known to occur in genuine texts of The
Nights, and those which do not. To the first category belong Nos.
7, 8, 59, 153 and 170; and some even of these are not found in
Galland’s own MS., but were derived by him from other sources.
The remaining tales (Nos. 191–198) do not really belong to The
Nights; and, strange to say, although they are certainly genuine
Oriental tales, the actual originals have never been found. I am
inclined to think that Galland may, perhaps, have written and
adapted them from his recollection of stories which he himself
heard related during his own residence in the East, especially as
most of these tales appear to be derived rather from Persian or
Turkish than from Arabian sources.

The following Preface appeared in vol. 9 which I translate from

Talander’s German edition, as the original is not before me:


“The two stories with which the eighth volume concludes do not
properly belong to the Thousand and One Nights. They were added
and printed without the previous knowledge of the translator, who
had not the slightest idea of the trick that had been played upon
him until the eighth volume was actually on sale. The reader must
not, therefore, be surprised that the story of the Sleeper
Awakened, which commences vol. 9, is written as if Scheherazade
had related it immediately after the story of Ganem, which forms
the greater part of vol. 8. Care will be taken to omit these two
stories in a new edition, as not belonging to the work.”

It is, perhaps, not to be wondered at that when the new edition
was actually published, subsequently to Galland’s death, the
condemned stories were retained, and the preface withdrawn;
though No. 170 still reads as if it followed No. 8.

The information I have been able to collect respecting the
disputed tales is very slight. I once saw a MS. advertised in an
auction catalogue (I think that of the library of the late Prof.
H. H. Wilson) as containing two of Galland’s doubtful tales, but
which they were was not stated. The fourth and last volume of the
MS. used by Galland is lost; but it is almost certain that it did
not contain any of these tales (compare Payne, ix. 265 note).

The story of Zeyn Alasnam (No. 191) is derived from the same
source as that of the Fourth Durwesh, in the well-known
Hindustani reading-book, the Bagh o Bahar. If it is based upon
this, Galland has greatly altered and improved it, and has given
it the whole colouring of a European moral fairy tale.

The story of Ali Baba (No. 195) is, I have been told, a Chinese
tale. It occurs under the title of the Two Brothers and the
Forty-nine Dragons in Geldart’s Modern Greek Tales. It has also
been stated that the late Prof. Palmer met with a very similar
story among the Arabs of Sinai (Payne, ix. 266).

The story of Sidi Nouman (No 194b) may have been based partly
upon the Third Shaykh’s Story (No. 1c), which Galland omits. The
feast of the Ghools is, I believe, Greek or Turkish, rather than
Arabic, in character, as vampires, personified plague, and
similar horrors are much commoner in the folk-lore of the former
peoples.

Many incidents of the doubtful, as well as of the genuine tales,
are common in European folk-lore (versions of Nos. 2 and 198, for
instance, occur in Grimm’s Kinder und Hausmärchen), and some of
the doubtful tales have their analogues in Scott’s MS., as will
be noticed in due course.

I have not seen Galland’s original edition in 12 vols.; but the
Stadt-Bibliothek of Frankfort-on-Main contains a copy, published
at La Haye, in 12 vols. (with frontispieces), made up of two or
more editions, as follows:—

Vol. i. (ed. 6) 1729; vols. ii. iii. iv. (ed. 5) 1729; vols. v.
vi. viii. (ed. 5) 1728; vol. vii. (ed. 6) 1731; vols. ix. to xi,
(ed. not noted) 1730; and vol. xii. (ed. not noted) 1731.

The discrepancies in the dates of the various volumes look (as
Mr. Clouston has suggested) as if separate volumes were reprinted
as required, independently of the others. This might account for
vols. v. vi. and viii. of the fifth edition having been
apparently reprinted before vols. ii. iii. and iv.

The oldest French version in the British Museum consists of the
first eight vols., published at La Haye, and likewise made up of
different editions, as follows:—

i. (ed. 5) 1714; ii. iii. iv. (ed. 4) 1714; v. vi. (ed. 5) 1728;
vii. (ed. 5) 1719; viii. (“suivant la copie imprimée à Paris”)
1714.

Most French editions (old and new) contain Galland’s Dedication,
“À Madame la Marquise d’O., Dame du Palais de Madame la Duchesse
de Bourgogne,” followed by an “Avertissement.” In addition to
these, the La Haye copies have Fontenelle’s Approbation prefixed
to several volumes, but in slightly different words, and bearing
different dates. December 27th, 1703 (vol. i.); April 14th, 1704
(vol. vi.); and October 4th, 1705 (vol. vii.). This is according
to the British Museum copy; I did not examine the Frankfort copy
with reference to the Approbation. The Approbation is translated
in full in the old English version as follows: “I have read, by
Order of my Lord Chancellor, this Manuscript, wherein I find
nothing that ought to hinder its being Printed. And I am of
opinion that the Publick will be very well pleased with the
Perusal of these Oriental Stories. Paris, 27th December, 1705
[apparently a misprint for 1703] (Signed) FONTENELLE.”

In the Paris edition of 1726 (vide infrà), Galland says in his
Dedication, “Il a fallu le faire venir de Syrie, et mettre en
François, le premier volume que voici, de quatre seulement qui
m’ont été envoyez.” So, also, in a Paris edition (in eight vols.
12mo) of 1832; but in the La Haye issue of 1714, we read not
“quatre” but “six” volumes. The old German edition of Talander
(vide infrà) does not contain Galland’s Dedication (Epitre) or
Avertissement.

The earliest French editions were generally in 12 vols., or six;
I possess a copy of a six-volume edition, published at Paris in
1726. It may be the second, as the title-page designates it as
“nouvelle edition, corrigée.”

Galland’s work was speedily translated into various European
languages, and even now forms the original of all the numerous
popular editions. The earliest English editions were in six
volumes, corresponding to the first six of Galland, and ending
with the story of Camaralzaman; nor was it till nearly the end of
the 18th century that the remaining half of the work was
translated into English. The date of appearance of the first
edition is unknown to bibliographers; Lowndes quotes an edition
of 1724 as the oldest; but the British Museum contains a set of
six vols., made up of portions of the second, third and fourth
editions, as follows:—

Vols. i. ii. (ed. 4) 1713; vols. iii. iv. (ed. 2) 1712; and vols.
v. vi. (ed. 3) 1715.

Here likewise the separate volumes seem to have been reprinted
independently of each other; and it is not unlikely that the
English translation may have closely followed the French
publication, being issued volume by volume, as the French
appeared, as far as vol. vi. The title-page of this old edition
is very quaint:

“Arabian Nights Entertainments, consisting of One thousand and
one Stories, told by the Sultaness of the Indies to divert the
Sultan from the Execution of a Bloody Vow he had made, to marry a
Lady every day, and have her head cut off next Morning, to avenge
himself for the Disloyalty of the first Sultaness, also
containing a better account of the Customs, Manners and Religion
of the Eastern Nations, viz., Tartars, Persians and Indians, than
is to be met with in any Author hitherto published. Translated
into French from the Arabian MSS. by Mr. Galland of the Royal
Academy, and now done into English. Printed for Andrew Bell at
the Cross Keys and Bible, in Cornhill.”

The British Museum has an edition in 4to published in 1772, in
farthing numbers, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It extends
to 79 numbers, forming five volumes.

The various editions of the Old English version appear to be
rare, and the set in the British Museum is very poor. The oldest
edition which I have seen containing the latter half of Galland’s
version is called the 14th edition, and was published in London
in four volumes, in 1778. Curiously enough, the “13th edition,”
also containing the conclusion, was published at Edinburgh in
three volumes in 1780. Perhaps it is a reprint of a London
edition published before that of 1778. The Scotch appear to have
been fond of The Nights, as there are many Scotch editions both
of The Nights and the imitations.

Revised or annotated editions by Piguenit (4 vols., London, 1792)
and Gough (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1798) may deserve a passing
notice.

A new translation of Galland, by Rev. E. Forster, in five vols.
4to, with engravings from pictures by Robert Smirke, R.A.,
appeared in 1802, and now commands a higher price than any other
edition of Galland. A new edition in 8vo appeared in 1810. Most
of the recent popular English versions are based either upon
Forster’s or Scott’s.

Another translation from Galland, by G. S. Beaumont (four vols.
8vo), appeared in 1811. (Lowndes writes Wiliam Beaumont.)

Among the various popular editions of later date we may mention
an edition in two vols., 8vo, published at Liverpool (1813), and
containing Cazotte’s Continuation; an edition published by
Griffin and Co., in 1866, to which Beckford’s “Vathek” is
appended; an edition “arranged for the perusal of youthful
readers,” by the Hon. Mrs. Sugden (Whittaker & Co., 1863); and
“Five Favourite Tales from The Arabian Nights in words of one
syllable, by A. & E. Warner” (Lewis, 1871).

Some of the English editions of Galland aim at originality by
arranging the tales in a different order. The cheap edition
published by Dicks in 1868 is one instance.

An English version of Galland was published at Lucknow, in four
vols., 8vo, in 1880.

I should, perhaps, mention that I have not noticed De Sacy’s
“Mille et une Nuit,” because it is simply a new edition of
Galland; and I have not seen either Destain’s French edition
(mentioned by Sir R. F. Burton), nor Cardonne’s Continuation
(mentioned in Cabinet des Fées, xxxvii. p. 83). As Cardonne died
in 1784, his Continuation, if genuine, would be the earliest of
all.

The oldest German version, by Talander, seems to have appeared in
volumes, as the French was issued; and these volumes were
certainly reprinted when required, without indication of separate
editions, but in slightly varied style, and with alteration of
date. The old German version is said to be rarer than the French.
It is in twelve parts—some, however, being double. The set
before me is clearly made up of different reprints, and the first
title-page is as follows: “Die Tausend und eine Nacht, worinnen
seltzame Arabische Historien und wunderbare Begebenheiten,
benebst artigen Liebes-Intriguen, auch Sitten und Gewohnheiten
der Morgenländer, auf sehr anmuthige Weise, erzehlet werden;
Erstlich vom Hru. Galland, der Königl. Academie Mitgliede aus der
Arabischen Sprache in die Französische und aus selbiger anitzo
ins Deutsche übersetzt: Erster und Anderer Theil. Mit der Vorrede
Herru Talanders. Leipzig Verlegts Moritz Georg Weidmann Sr.
Konigl. Maj. in Hohlen und Churfürstl. Durchl. zu Sachsen
Buchhändler, Anno 1730.” Talander’s Preface relates chiefly to
the importance of the work as illustrative of Arabian manners and
customs, &c. It is dated from “Liegnitz, den 7 Sept., Anno 1710,”
which fixes the approximate date of publication of the first part
of this translation. Vols. i. and ii. of my set (double vol. with
frontispiece) are dated 1730, and have Talander’s preface; vols.
iii. and iv. (divided, but consecutively paged, and with only one
title-page and frontispiece and reprint of Talander’s preface)
are dated 1719; vols. v. and vi. (same remarks, except that
Talander’s preface is here dated 1717) are dated 1737; vol. vii.
(no frontispiece; preface dated 1710) is dated 1721; vol. viii
(no frontispiece nor preface, nor does Talander’s name appear on
the title-page) is dated 1729; vols. ix. and x. (divided, but
consecutively paged, and with only one title-page and
frontispiece; Talander’s name and preface do not appear, but
Galland’s preface to vol. ix., already mentioned, is prefixed)
are dated 1731; and vols. xi. and xii. (same remarks, but no
preface) are dated 1732.

Galland’s notes are translated, but not his preface and
dedication.

There is a later German translation (6 vols. 8vo, Bremen, 1781–
1785) by J. H. Voss, the author of the standard German
translation of Homer.

The British Museum has just acquired a Portuguese translation of
Galland, in 4 volumes: “As Mil e uma Noites, Contos Arabes,”
published by Ernesto Chardron, Editor, Porto e Braga, 1881.

There are two editions of a modern Greek work in the British
Museum (1792 and 1804), published at Venice in three small
volumes. The first volume contains Galland (Nos. 1–6 of the
table) and vols. ii. and iii. chiefly contain the Thousand and
One Days. It is, apparently, translated from some Italian work.

Several editions in Italian (Mille ed una Notte) have appeared at
Naples and Milan; they are said by Sir R. F. Burton to be mere
reprints of Galland.

There are, also, several in Dutch, one of which, by C. Van der
Post, in 3 vols. 8vo, published at Utrecht in 1848, purports, I
believe, to be a translation from the Arabic, and has been
reprinted several times. The Dutch editions are usually entitled,
“Arabische Vertellinge.” A Danish edition appeared at Copenhagen
in 1818, under the title of “Prindsesses Schehezerade.
Fortällinger eller de saakatle Tusende og een Nat. Udgivna paa
Dansk vid Heelegaan.” Another, by Rasmassen, was commenced in
1824; and a third Danish work, probably founded on the Thousand
and One Nights, and published in 1816, bears the title, “Digt og
Eventyr fra Osterland, af arabiska og persischen utrykta kilder.”

I have seen none of these Italian, Dutch or Danish editions; but
there is little doubt that most, if not all, are derived from
Galland’s work.

The following is the title of a Javanese version, derived from
one of the Dutch editions, and published at Leyden in 1865,
“Eenige Vertellingen uit de Arabisch duizend en één Nacht. Naar
de Nederduitsche vertaling in het Javaansch vertaald, door
Winter-Roorda.”

Mr. A. G. Ellis has shown me an edition of Galland’s Aladdin (No.
193) in Malay, by M. Van der Lawan (?) printed in Batavia, A.D.
1869.

     CAZZOTTE’S CONTINUATION, AND THE COMPOSITE EDITIONS OF
                      THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

We shall speak elsewhere of the Cabinet des Fées; but the last
four volumes of this great collection (38 to 41), published at
Geneva from 1788 to 1793, contain a work entitled, “Les Veillées
du Sultan Schahriar avec la Sultane Scheherazade; histoires
incroyables, amusantes et morales, traduites de l’arabe par M.
Cazotte et D. Chavis. Faisant suite aux Mille et une Nuits.” Some
copies bear the abridged title of “La suite des Mille et une
Nuits. Contes Arabes, traduits par Dom Chavis et M. Cazotte.”

This collection of tales was pronounced to be spurious by many
critics, and even has been styled “a bare-faced forgery” by a
writer in the Edinburgh Review of July, 1886. It is, however,
certain that the greater part, if not all, of these tales are
founded on genuine Eastern sources, though very few have any real
claim to be regarded as actually part of the Thousand and One
Nights.

Translations of the originals of most of these tales have been
published by Caussin de Perceval and Gauttier; and a comparison
clearly shows the great extent to which Chavis and Cazotte have
altered, amplified and (in a literary sense) improved their
materials.

It is rather surprising that no recent edition of this work seems
to have been issued, perhaps owing to the persistent doubts cast
upon its authenticity, only a few of the tales, and those not the
best, having appeared in different collections. My friend, Mr. A.
G. Ellis, himself an Oriental scholar, has remarked to me that he
considers these tales as good as the old “Arabian Nights”; and I
quite agree with him that Chavis and Cazotte’s Continuation is
well worthy of re-publication in its entirety.

The following are the principal tales comprised in this
collection, those included in our Table from later authors being
indicated.

1. The Robber Caliph, or the Adventures of Haroun Alraschid with
the Princess of Persia, and the beautiful Zutulbe. (No. 246.)

2. The Power of Destiny, being the History of the Journey of
Giafar to Damas, containing the Adventures of Chelih and his
Family. (No. 280.)

3. History of Halechalbe and the Unknown Lady. (No. 204c.)

4. Story of Xailoun the Idiot.

5. The Adventures of Simoustapha and the Princess Ilsetilsone.
(No. 247.)

6. History of Alibengiad, Sultan of Herak, and of the False Birds
of Paradise.

7. History of Sinkarib and his Two Viziers. (No. 249.)

8. History of the Family of the Schebandad of Surat.

9. Story of Bohetzad and his Ten Viziers. (No. 174.)

10. Story of Habib and Dorathil-Goase. (No. 251.)

11. History of the Maugraby, or the Magician.

Of these, Nos. 4, 6, 8 and 11 only are not positively known in
the original. No. 11 is interesting, as it is the seed from which
Southey’s “Thalaba the Destroyer” was derived.

On the word Maugraby, which means simply Moor, Cazotte has the
following curious note: “Ce mot signifie barbare, barbaresque
plus proprement. On jure encore par lui en Provence, en
Languedoc, et en Gascogne Maugraby; ou ailleurs en France
Meugrebleu.”

The Domdaniel, where Zatanai held his court with Maugraby and his

pupilmagicians, is described as being under the sea near Tunis.

In Weil’s story of Joodar and Mahmood (No. 201) the Magician

Mahmood is always called the Moor of Tunis.


No. 3 (=our No. 204c) contains the additional incident of the
door opened only once a year which occurs in our No. 9a, aa.

Moore probably took the name Namouna from Cazotte’s No. 5, in
which it occurs. In the same story we find a curious name of a
Jinniyah, Setelpedour. Can it be a corruption of Sitt El Budoor?

For further remarks on Cazotte’s Continuation, compare Russell’s

History of Aleppo, i. p. 385; and Russell and Scott, Ouseley’s

Oriental Collections, i. pp. 246, 247; ii. p. 25; and the

“Gentleman’s Magazine” for February, 1779.


An English version under the title “Arabian Tales, or a
Continuation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments,” translated
by Robert Heron, was published in Edinburgh in 1792 in 4 vols.,
and in London in 1794 in 3 vols. It was reprinted in Weber’s
“Tales of the East” (Edinburgh, 1812); and, as already mentioned,
is included in an edition of the Arabian Nights published in
Liverpool in 1813.

A German translation forms vols. 5 to 8 of the “Blaue

Bibliothek,” published in Gotha in 1790 and 1791; and the British

Museum possesses vols. 3 and 4 of a Russian edition, published at

Moscow in 1794 and 1795, which is erroneously entered in the

catalogue as the Arabian Nights in Russian.


Respecting the work of Chavis and Cazotte, Sir R. F. Burton
remarks, “Dom Dennis Chavis was a Syrian priest of the order of
Saint Bazil, who was invited to Paris by the learned minister,
Baron Arteuil, and he was assisted by M. Cazotte, a French
author, then well known, but wholly ignorant of Arabic. These
tales are evidently derived from native sources; the story of
Bohetzad (King Bakhtiyar) and his Ten Wazirs is taken bodily from
the Bres. Edit. [not so; but the original Arabic had long been
known in the French libraries]. As regards the style and
treatment, it is sufficient to say that the authors out-Gallanded
Galland, while Heron exaggerates every fault of his original.”

The first enlarged edition of Galland in French was published by
Caussin de Perceval, at Paris, in 9 vols., 8vo (1806). In
addition to Galland’s version, he added four tales (Nos. 21a, 22,
32 and 37), with which he had been furnished by Von Hammer. He
also added a series of tales, derived from MSS. in the Parisian
libraries, most of which correspond to those of Cazotte.

The most important of the later French editions was published by
E. Gauttier in 7 vols. in 1822; it contains much new matter. At
the end, the editor gives a list of all the tales which he
includes, with arguments. He has rather oddly distributed his
material so as to make only 568 nights. The full contents are
given in our Table; the following points require more special
notice. Vol. i. Gauttier omits the Third Shaykh’s story (No. 1c)
on account of its indecency, although it is really no worse than
any other story in The Nights. In the story of the Fisherman, he
has fallen into a very curious series of errors. He has
misunderstood King Yunan’s reference to King Sindbad (Burton i.
p. 50) to refer to the Book of Sindibad (No. 135); and has
confounded it with the story of the Forty Vazirs, which he says
exists in Arabic as well as in Turkish. Of this latter,
therefore, he gives an imperfect version, embedded in the story
of King Yunan (No. 2a). Here it may be observed that another
imperfect French version of the Forty Vazirs had previously been
published by Petis de la Croix under the title of Turkish Tales.
A complete German version by Dr. Walter F. A. Behrnauer was
published at Leipzig in 1851, and an English version by Mr. E. J.
W. Gibb has appeared while these sheets are passing through the
press.

Vol. ii. After No. 6 Gauttier places versions of Nos. 32 and 184
by Langlès. The Mock Caliph is here called Aly-Chah. The other
three tales given by Caussin de Perceval from Von Hammer’s MSS.
are omitted by Gauttier. Vol. v. (after No. 198) concludes with
two additional tales (Nos. 207h and 218) from Scott’s version.
But the titles are changed, No. 207h being called the Story of
the Young Prince and the Green Bird, and No. 218 the Story of
Mahmood, although there is another story of Mahmood in vol. 1.
(==No. 135m) included as part of the Forty Vazirs.

Vol. vi. includes the Ten Vazirs (No. 174), derived, however, not
from the Arabic, but from the Persian Bakhtyar Nameh. Three of
the subordinate tales in the Arabic version are wanting in
Gauttier’s, and another is transferred to his vol. vii., but he
includes one, the King and Queen of Abyssinia (No. 252), which
appears to be wanting in the Arabic. The remainder of the volume
contains tales from Scott’s version, the title of Mazin of
Khorassaun (No. 215) being altered to the Story of Azem and the
Queen of the Genii.

Vol. vii. contains a series of tales of which different versions
of six only (Nos. 30, 174, 246, 248, 249 and 250) were previously
published. Though these have no claim to be considered part of
The Nights, they are of sufficient interest to receive a passing
mention, especially as Gauttier’s edition seems not to have been
consulted by any later writer on The Nights, except Habicht, who
based his own edition mainly upon it. Those peculiar to
Gauttier’s edition are therefore briefly noticed.

Princess Ameny (No. 253)—A princess who leaves home disguised as
a man, and delivers another princess from a black slave. The
episode (253b) is a story of enchantment similar to Nos. 1a-c.

Aly Djohary (No. 254)—Story of a young man’s expedition in
search of a magical remedy.

The Princes of Cochin China (No. 255)—The princes travel in
search of their sister who is married to a Jinni, who is under
the curse of Solomon. The second succeeds in breaking the spell,
and thus rescues both his brother, his sister, and the Jinni by
killing a bird to which the destiny of the last is attached.
(This incident is common in fiction; we find it in the genuine
Nights in Nos. 154a and 201.)

The Wife with Two Husbands (No. 256)—A well-known Eastern story;
it may be found in Wells’ “Mehemet the Kurd,” pp. 121–127, taken
from the Forty Vazirs. Compare Gibbs, the 24th Vazir’s Story, pp.
257–266.

The Favourite (No. 257)—One of the ordinary tales of a man
smuggled into a royal harem in a chest (compare Nos. 6b and 166).

Zoussouf and the Indian Merchant (No. 258)—Story of a ruined man
travelling to regain his fortune.

Prince Benazir (No. 258)—Story of a Prince promised at his
birth, and afterwards given up by his parents to an evil Jinni,
whom he ultimately destroys. (Such promises, especially, as here,
in cases of difficult labour, are extremely common in folk-tales;
the idea probably originated in the dedication of a child to the
Gods.) Gauttier thinks that this story may have suggested that of
Maugraby to Cazotte; but it appears to me rather doubtful whether
it is quite elaborate enough for Cazotte to have used it in this
manner.

Selim, Sultan of Egypt (No. 261)—This and its subordinate tales
chiefly relate to unfaithful wives; that of Adileh (No. 261b) is
curious; she is restored to life by Jesus (whom Gauttier, from
motives of religious delicacy, turns into a Jinni!) to console
her disconsolate husband, and immediately betrays the latter.
These tales are apparently from the Forty Vazirs; cf. Gibbs, the
10th Vazir’s Story, pp. 122–129 (= our No. 261) and the Sixth
Vazir’s Story, pp. 32–84 (= No. 261b.)

The bulk of the tales in Gauttier’s vol. vii. are derived from
posthumous MSS. of M. Langlès, and several have never been
published in English. Gauttier’s version of Heycar (No. 248) was
contributed by M. Agoub.

The best-known modern German version (Tausend und Eine Nacht,
Arabische Erzahlungen, Deutsch von Max. Habicht, Fr. H. von der
Hagen und Carl Schall. Breslau, 15 vols. 12mo) is mainly based
upon Gauttier’s edition, but with extensive additions, chiefly
derived from the Breslau text. An important feature of this
version is that it includes translations of the prefaces of the
various editions used by the editors, and therefore supplies a
good deal of information not always easily accessible elsewhere.
There are often brief notes at the end of the volumes.

The fifth edition of Habicht’s version is before me, dated 1840;
but the preface to vol. i. is dated 1824, which may be taken to
represent the approximate date of its first publication. The
following points in the various vols. may be specially noticed:—

Vol. i. commences with the preface of the German editor, setting
forth the object and scope of his edition; and the prefaces of
Gauttier and Galland follow. No. 1c, omitted by Gauttier, is
inserted in its place. Vols. ii. and iii. (No. 133), notes,
chiefly from Langlès, are appended to the Voyages of Sindbad; and
the destinations of the first six are given as follows:—

I.   Voyage to Sumatra.       IV.  Voyage to the Sunda Islands.

II.  Voyage to Ceylon.        V.   Voyage to the Sunda Islands.

III. Voyage to Selahath.      VI.  Voyage to Zeilan.


Vol. v. contains an unimportant notice from Galland, with
additional remarks by the German editors, respecting the division
of the work into Nights.

Vol. vi. contains another unimportant preface respecting Nos. 191
and 192.

Vol. x. Here the preface is of more importance, relating to the
contents of the volume, and especially to the Ten Vazirs (No.
174).

Vol. xi. contains tales from Scott. The preface contains a full
account of his MSS., and the tales published in his vol. vi. This
preface is taken partly from Ouseley’s Oriental Collections, and
partly from Scott’s own preface.

Vol. xii. contains tales from Gauttier, vol. vii. The preface
gives the full contents of Clarke’s and Von Hammer’s MSS.

Vol. xiii. includes Caussin de Perceval’s Preface, the remaining
tales from Gauttier’s vol. vii. (ending with Night 568), and four
tales from Caussin which Gauttier omits (Nos. 21a, 22, 37 and
202).

Vols. xiv. and xv. (extending from Night 884 to Night 1001)
consist of tales from the Breslau edition, to which a short
preface, signed by Dr. Max. Habicht, is prefixed. The first of
these tales is a fragment of the important Romance of Seyf Zul
Yesn (so often referred to by Lane), which seems to have been
mixed with Habicht’s MS. of The Nights by mistake. (Compare
Payne, Tales, iii. 243.)

In this fragment we have several incidents resembling The Nights;
there is a statue which sounds an alarm when an enemy enters a
city (cf. Nos. 59 and 137); Seyf himself is converted to the
faith of Abraham, and enters a city where a book written by
Japhet is preserved. The text of this story has lately been
published; and Sir R. F. Burton informs me that he thinks he has
seen a complete version in some European language; but I have not
succeeded in obtaining any particulars concerning it.

On account of the interest and importance of the work, I append
to this section an English version of the fragment translated
into German by Habicht. (From the extreme simplicity of the
style, which I have preserved, I suspect that the translation is
considerably abridged.)

There is an Icelandic version of The Nights (púsund og ein Nott.
Arabiskar Sögur. Kaupmannahöfn, 1857, 4 vols. roy. 8vo), which
contains Galland’s tales, and a selection of others, distributed
into 1001 Nights, and apparently taken chiefly from Gauttier, but
with the addition of two or three which seem to be borrowed from
Lane (Nos. 9a, 163, 165, &c.). It is possibly derived immediately
from some Danish edition.

There is one popular English version which may fairly be called a
composite edition; but it is not based upon Gauttier. This is the
“Select Library Edition. Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, selected
and revised for general use. To which are added other specimens
of Eastern Romance. London: James Burns, 1847. 2 vols.”

It contains the following tales from The Nights: Nos. 134, 3,
133, 162, 1, 2, 155, 191, 193, 192, 194, 194a, 194c, 21, 198,
170, 6.

No. 134 is called the City of Silence, instead of the City of
Brass, and is certainly based partly upon Lane. In No. 155, Manar
Al Sana is called Nur Al Nissa. One story, “The Wicked Dervise,”
is taken from Dow’s “Persian Tales of Inatulla;” another “The
Enchanters, or the Story of Misnar,” is taken from the “Tales of
the Genii.” Four other tales, “Jalaladdeen of Bagdad,” “The two
Talismans,” “The Story of Haschem,” and “Jussof, the Merchant of
Balsora,” clearly German imitations, are said to be translated
from the German of Grimm, and there are two others, “Abdullah and
Balsora,” and “The King and his Servant,” the origin of which I
do not recognise, although I think I have read the last before.

Grimm’s story of Haschem concludes with the hero’s promotion to
the post of Grand Vizier to Haroun Al-Rashid, in consequence of
the desire of the aged “Giafar” to end his days in peaceful
retirement! The principal incident in Jalaladdeen, is that of the
Old Woman in the Chest, borrowed from the wellknown story of the
Merchant Abudah in the “Tales of the Genii,” and it is thus an
imitation of an imitation,

      THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE STORY OF SAIF ZUL YEZN (ZU’L
         YAZAN) ACCORDING TO HABICHT’S GERMAN VERSION.

In very ancient times, long before the age of Mohammed, there
lived a King of Yemen, named Zul Yezn. He was a Himyarite of the
race of Fubbaa (Tabbá’) and had large armies and a great capital.
His Minister was named Yottreb (Yathrab == Medinat), and was well
skilled in the knowledge of the ancients. He once had a vision in
which the name of the Prophet was revealed to him, with the
announcement of his mission in later times; and he was also
informed that he would be the last of the Prophets. In
consequence of this vision he believed in the Prophet before his
advent; but he concealed his faith. One day the King held a
review of his troops, and was delighted with their number and
handsome appearance. He said to the Wazir, “Is there any person
on earth whose power can compare with mine?” “O yes,” answered
the Wazir, “there is King Baal-Beg, whose troops fill the deserts
and the cultivated lands, the plains and the valleys.” “I must
make war upon him, then,” exclaimed the King, “and destroy his
power.” He immediately ordered the army to prepare to march, and
after a few days the drums and trumpets were heard. The King and
his Wazir set forth in magnificent array, and after a rapid
march, they arrived before the holy city Medina, which may God
keep in high renown! The Wazir then said to the King, “Here is
the holy house of God, and the place of great ceremonies. No one
should enter here who is not perfectly pure, and with head and
feet bare. Pass around it with your companions, according to the
custom of the Arabs.” The King was so pleased with the place that
he determined to destroy it, to carry the stones to his own
country, and to rebuild it there, that the Arabs might come to
him on pilgrimage, a nd that he might thus exalt himself above
all Kings. He pondered over this plan all night, but next morning
he found his body fearfully swollen. He immediately sent for his
Wazir, and lamented over his misfortune. “This is a judgment sent
upon you,” replied the Wazir, “by the Lord of this house. If you
alter your intention of destroying the temple, you will be healed
at once.” The King gave up his project, and soon found himself
cured. Soon afterwards he said to himself, “This misfortune
happened to me at night, and left me next day of its own accord;
but I will certainly destroy the house.” But next morning his
face was so covered with open ulcers that he could no longer be
recognised. The Wazir then approached him and said, “O King,
renounce your intention, for it would be rebellion against the
Lord of Heaven and Earth, who can destroy every one who opposes
him.” When the King heard this, he reflected awhile and said,
“What would you wish me to do?” The Wazir replied, “Cover the
house with carpets from Yemen.” The King resolved to do this, and
when night came he retired to rest. He then saw an apparition
which ordered him not to march further into the country of King
Baal-Beg, but to turn towards Abyssinia and Nigritia, adding,
“Remain there, and choose it as thy residence, and assuredly one
of thy race will arise through whom the threat of Noah shall be
fulfilled.” When the King awoke next morning he related this to
the Wazir, who advised him to use his own judgment about it. The
King immediately gave orders to march. The army set forth, and
after ten days they arrived at a country the soil of which seemed
to consist of chalk, for it appeared quite white. The Wazir
Yottreb then went to the King and requested his permission to
found a city here for his people. “Why so?” asked the King.
“Because,” replied the Wazir, “this will one day be the place of
Refuge of the Prophet Mohammed, who will be sent at the end of
time.” The King then gave his consent, and Yottreb immediately
summoned architects and surveyors, who dug out the ground, and
reared the walls, and erected beautiful palaces. They did not
desist from the work until the Wazir ordered a number of his
people to remove to this city with their families. This was done,
and their posterity inhabit the city to this day. He then gave
them a scroll, and said, “He who comes to you as a fugitive to
this house will be the ruler of this city.” He then called the
city Yottreb after his own name, and the scroll descended from
father to son till the Apostle of God arrived as a fugitive from
Mecca, when the inhabitants went out to meet him, and presented
him with it. They afterwards became his auxiliaries and were
known as the Ansar. But we must now return to King Zul Yezn. He
marched several days toward Abyssinia, and at last arrived in a
beautiful and fertile country where he informed his Wazir that he
would like to build a city for his subjects. He gave the
necessary orders, which were diligently executed; canals were dug
and the surrounding country cultivated; and the city was named
Medinat El-Hamra, the Red. At last the news reached the King of
Abyssinia, whose name was Saif Ar-Raad (Thunder-sword), and whose
capital was called Medinat ad-Durr (the Rich in Houses). Part of
this city was built on solid land and the other was built in the
sea. This prince could bring an army of 600,000 men into the
field, and his authority extended to the extremity of the then
known world. When he was informed of the invasion of Zul Yezn, he
summoned his two Wazirs, who were named Sikra Divas and Ar-Ryf.
The latter was well versed in ancient books, in which he had
discovered that God would one day send a Prophet who would be the
last of the series. He believed this himself, but concealed it
from the Abyssinians, who were still worshippers of Saturn. When
the Wazirs came before the King, he said to them, “See how the
Arabs are advancing against us; I must fight them.” Sikra Divas
opposed this design, fearing lest the threat of Noah should be
fulfilled. “I would rather advise you,” said he, “to make the
King a present and to send with it the most beautiful maiden in
your palace. But give her poison secretly, and instruct her to
poison the King when she is alone with him. If he is once dead,
his army will retire without a battle.” The King adopted this
advice, and prepared rich presents, and summoned a beautiful
girl, whose artfulness and malice were well known. Her name was
Kamrya (Moonlight). The King said to her, “I have resolved to
send you as a present, for a secret object. I will give you
poison, and when you are alone with the Prince to whom I will
send you, drop it into his cup, and let him take it. As soon as
he is dead, his army will leave us in peace.” “Very well, my
master,” replied the girl, “I will accomplish your wish.” He then
sent her with the other presents and a letter to the city of Zul
Yezn. But the Wazir Ar-Ryf had scarcely left the King’s presence
when he wrote a letter, and commanded a slave to carry it to Zul
Yezn. “If you can give it to him before the arrival of the slave-girl,”
added he, “I will give you your freedom.” The slave made
all possible haste to the Arab King, but yet the presents arrived
before him. A chamberlain went to the King and informed him that
a messenger had arrived at the gate with presents from the King
of Abyssinia, and requested permission to enter. Zul Yezn
immediately ordered that he should be admitted, and the presents
and the maiden were at once delivered to him. When he saw her, he
was astonished at her beauty, and was greatly delighted. He
immediately ordered her to be conveyed to his palace, and was
very soon overcome with love for her. He was just about to
dissolve the assembly to visit Kamrya, when the Wazir Yottreb
detained him, saying, “Delay a while, O King, for I fear there is
some treachery hidden behind this present. The Abyssinians hate
the Arabs exceedingly, but are unwilling to make war with them,
lest the threat of Noah should be fulfilled. It happened one day
that Noah was sleeping when intoxicated with wine, and the wind
uncovered him. His son Ham laughed, and did not cover him; but
his other son Seth (sic) came forward, and covered him up. When
Noah awoke, he exclaimed to Ham, May God blacken thy face!’ But
to Seth he said, May God make the posterity of thy brother the
servants of thine until the day of Resurrection!’ This is the
threat which they dread as the posterity of Ham.” While the King
was still conversing with his Wazir, the Chamberlain announced
the arrival of a messenger with a letter. He was immediately
admitted, and delivered the letter, which was read by the Wazir
Yottreb. Ar-Ryf had written, “Be on your guard against Kamrya, O
King, for she hath poison with her, and is ordered to kill you
when she is alone with you.” The King now began loudly to praise
the acuteness of his Wazir, and went immediately to Kamrya with
his drawn sword. When he entered, she rose and kissed the ground,
but he exclaimed, “You have come here to poison me!” She was
confounded, and took out the poison, and handed it to the King,
full of artifice, and thinking, “If I tell him the truth, he will
have a better opinion of me, and if he confides in me, I can kill
him in some other manner than with this poison.” It fell out as
she expected, for the King loved her, gave her authority over his
palace and his female slaves, and found himself very happy in her
possession. But she herself found her life so pleasant that,
although King Ar-Raad frequently sent to ask her why she had not
fulfilled her commission, she always answered, “Wait a little; I
am seeking an opportunity, for the King is very suspicious.” Some
time passed over, and at length she became pregnant. Six months
afterwards Zul Yezn fell ill; and as his sickness increased, he
assembled the chief men of his Court, informed them of the
condition of Kamrya, and after commending her to their
protection, he ordered that if she bore a son, he should succeed
him. They promised to fulfil his commands, and a few days
afterwards Zul Yezn died. Kamrya now governed the country, till
she brought forth a son. He was a child of uncommon beauty, and
had a small mole on his cheek. When she saw the child she envied
him, and said to herself, “What, shall he take away the kingdom
from me? No, it shall never be;” and from this time forward she
determined to put him to death. After forty days, the people
requested to see their King. She showed him to them, and seated
him on the throne of the kingdom, whereupon they did homage to
him, and then dispersed. His mother took him back into the
Palace, but her envy increased so much that she had already
grasped a sword to kill him, when her nurse entered and asked
what she was going to do. “I am about to kill him,” answered she.
“Have you not reflected,” said the nurse, “that if you kill him
the people will revolt, and may kill you also?” “Let me kill
him,” persisted she, “for even should they kill me, too, I should
at least be released from my envy.” “Do not act thus,” warned the
nurse, “or you may repent it, when repentance cannot help you.”
“It must be done,” said Kamrya. “Nay, then,” said the nurse, “if
it cannot be avoided, let him at least be cast into the desert,
and if he lives, so much the better for him; but if he dies, you
are rid of him for ever.” She followed this advice and set out on
the way at night time with the child, and halted at a distance of
four days’ journey, when she sat down under a tree in the desert.
She took him on her lap, and suckled him once more, and then laid
him on a bed, putting a purse under his head, containing a
thousand gold pieces and many jewels. “Whoever finds him,” said
she, “may use the money to bring him up;” and thus she left him.

It happened by the gracious decree of God, that hunters who were
chasing gazelles surprised a female with a fawn; the former took
to flight, and the hunters carried off the little one. When the
mother returned from the pasture, and found her fawn gone, she
traversed the desert in all directions in search of it, and at
length the crying of the deserted child attracted her. She lay
down by the child, and the child sucked her. The gazelle left him
again to go to graze, but always returned to the little one when
she was satisfied. This went on till it pleased God that she
should fall into the net of a hunter. But she became enraged,
tore the net, and fled. The hunter pursued her, and overtook her
when she reached the child, and was about to give him suck. But
the arrival of the hunter compelled the gazelle to take to
flight, and the child began to cry, because he was not yet
satisfied. The hunter was astonished at the sight, and when he
lifted the child up, he saw the purse under his head, and a
string of jewels round his neck. He immediately took the child
with him, and went to a town belonging to an Abyssinian king
named Afrakh, who was a dependent of King Saif Ar-Raad. He handed
over the child to him, saying that he had found it in the lair of
a gazelle. When the King took the child into his care, it smiled
at him, and God awakened a feeling of love towards him in the
King’s heart; and he then noticed the mole on his cheek. But when
his Wazir Sikar Diun, the brother of Sikar Divas, who was Wazir
to King Saif Ar-Raad, entered and saw the child, God filled his
heart with hate towards him. “Do not believe what this man told
you,” he said, when the King told him the wonderful story of the
discovery, “it can only be the child of a mother who has come by
it wrongly, and has abandoned it in the desert, and it would be
better to kill it.” “I cannot easily consent to this,” said the
King. But he had hardly spoken, when the palace was filled with
sounds of rejoicing, and he was informed that his wife had just
been safely delivered of a child. On this news he took the boy on
his arm, and went to his wife, and found that the new-born child
was a girl, and that she had a red mole on her cheek. He wondered
when he saw this, and said to Sikar Diun, “See how beautiful they
are!” But when the Wazir saw it, he slapped his face, and cast
his cap on the ground, exclaiming, “Should these two moles unite,
I prophesy the downfall of Abyssinia, for they presage a great
calamity. It would be better to kill either the boy or your
daughter.” “I will kill neither of them,” replied the King, “for
they have been guilty of no crime.” He immediately provided
nurses for the two children, naming his daughter Shama (Mole) and
the boy Wakhs[FN#471] El Fellat (Lonely one, or Desert); and he
reared them in separate apartments, that they might not see each
other. When they were ten years old, Wakhs El Fellat grew very
strong, and soon became a practised horseman, and surpassed all
his companions in this accomplishment, and in feats of arms. But
when he was fifteen, he was so superior to all others, that Sikar
Diun threatened the King that he would warn King Saif Ar-Raad
that he was nurturing his enemy in his house, if he did not
immediately banish him from the country; and this threat caused
King Afrakh great alarm. It happened that he had a general, who
was called Gharag El Shaker (Tree-splitter), because he was
accustomed to hurl his javelin at trees, and thus to cleave them
asunder. He had a fortress three days’ journey from the town; and
the King said to him, “Take Wakhs El Fellat to your castle, and
never let him return to this neighbourhood.” He added privately,
“Look well after him and preserve him from all injury, and have
him instructed in all accomplishments.” The general withdrew, and
took the boy with him to his castle, and instructed him
thoroughly in all accomplishments and sciences. One day he said
to him, “One warlike exercise is still unknown to you.” “What is
that?” said Wakhs El Fellat. “Come and see for yourself,” replied
he. The general then took him to a place where several trees were
growing, which were so thick that a man could not embrace the
trunk. He then took his javelin, hurled it at one of them, and
split the trunk. Wakhs El Fellat then asked for the javelin, and
performed the same feat, to the astonishment of his instructor.
“Woe to thee!” exclaimed he, “for I perceive that you are the man
through whom the threat of Noah will be fulfilled against us.
Fly, and never let yourself be seen again in our country, or I
will kill you.” Wakhs El Fellat then left the town, not knowing
where to go. He subsisted for three days on the plants of the
earth, and at last he arrived at a town encircled by high walls,
the gates of which were closed. The inhabitants were clothed in
black, and uttered cries of lamentation. In the foreground he saw
a bridal tent, and a tent of mourning. This was the city of King
Afrakh who had reared him, and the cause of the mourning of the
inhabitants was as follows. Sikar Diun was very angry that the
King had refused to follow his advice, and put the boy to death,
and had left the town to visit one of his friends, who was a
magician, to whom he related the whole story. “What do you
propose to do now?” asked the magician. “I will attempt to bring
about a separation between him and his daughter,” said the Wazir.
“I will assist you,” was the answer of the magician. He
immediately made the necessary preparations, and summoned an evil
Jinni named Mukhtatif (Ravisher) who inquired, “What do you
require of me?” “Go quickly to the city of King Afrakh, and
contrive that the inhabitants shall leave it.” In that age men
had intercourse with the more powerful Jinn, and each attained
their ends by means of the other. The Jinn did not withdraw
themselves till after the advent of the Prophet. The magician
continued, “When the inhabitants have left the city, they will
ask you what you want. Then say, Bring me out Shama, the
daughter of your King, adorned with all her jewels, and I will
come to-morrow and carry her away. But if you refuse, I will
destroy your city, and destroy you all together.’” When Mukhtatif
heard the words of this priest of magic, he did as he was
commanded, and rushed to the city. When Sikar Diun saw this, he
returned to King Afrakh to see what would happen; but he had
scarcely arrived when the voice of Mukhtatif resounded above the
city. The inhabitants went to the King, and said, “You have heard
what is commanded, and if you do not yield willingly, you will be
obliged to do so by force.” The King then went weeping to the
mother of the Princess, and informed her of the calamity. She
could scarcely contain herself for despair, and all in the palace
wept at parting from the Princess. Meantime Shama was richly
attired, torn from her parents, and hurried to the bridal tent
before the town, to be carried away by the evil Jinni. The
inhabitants were all assembled on the walls of the city, weeping.
It was just at this moment that Wakhs El Fellat arrived from the
desert, and entered the tent to see what was going on. When King
Afrakh, who was also on the wall, saw him, he cried out to him,
but he did not listen, and dismounted, fastened his horse to a
tent-stake, and entered. Here he beheld a maiden of extraordinary
beauty and perfection, but she was weeping. While he was
completely bewildered by her beauty, she was no less struck by
his appearance. “Who art thou?” said the maiden to him. “Tell me
rather who art thou?” returned he. “I am Shama, the daughter of
King Afrakh.” “Thou art Shama?” he exclaimed, “and I am Wakhs El
Fellat, who was reared by thy father.” When they were thus
acquainted, they sat down together to talk over their affairs,
and she took this opportunity of telling him what had passed with
the Jinni, and how he was coming to carry her away. “O, you shall
see how I will deal with him,” answered he, but at this moment
the evil Jinni approached, and his wings darkened the sun. The
inhabitants uttered a terrible cry, and the Jinni darted upon the
tent, and was about to raise it when he saw a man there, talking
to the daughter of the King. “Woe to thee, O son of earth,” he
exclaimed, “what authority have you to sit by my betrothed?” When
Wakhs El Fellat saw the terrible form of the Jinni, a shudder
came over him, and he cried to God for aid. He immediately drew
his sword, and struck at the Jinni, who had just extended his
right hand to seize him, and the blow was so violent that it
struck off the hand. “What, you would kill me?” exclaimed
Mukhtatif, and he took up his hand, put it under his arm, and
flew away. Upon this there was a loud cry of joy from the walls
of the city. The gates were thrown open, and King Afrakh
approached, companied by a crowd of people with musical
instruments, playing joyful music; and Wakhs El Fellat was
invested with robes of honour; but when Sikar Diun saw it it was
gall to him. The King prepared an apartment expressly for Wakhs
El Fellat, and while Shama returned to her palace, he gave a
great feast in honour of her deliverance from the fiend. After
seven days had passed, Shama went to Wakhs El Fellat, and said to
him, “Ask me of my father to-morrow, for you have rescued me, and
he will not be able to refuse you.” He consented very willingly,
and went to the King early next morning. The King gave him a very
favourable reception, and seated him with him on the throne; but
Wakhs El Fellat had not courage to prefer his suit, and left him
after a short interview. He had not long returned to his own
room, when Shama entered, saluted him, and asked, “Why did you
not demand me?” “I was too bashful,” he replied. “Lay this
feeling aside,” returned she, “and demand me.” “Well, I will
certainly do so to-morrow,” answered he. Thereupon she left him,
and returned to her own apartment. Early next morning Wakhs El
Fellat went again to the King, who gave him a friendly reception,
and made him sit with him. But he was still unable to prefer his
suit, and returned to his own room. Soon after Shama came to him
and said, “How long is this bashfulness to last? Take courage,
and if not, request some one else to speak for you.” She then
left him, and next morning he repeated his visit to the King.
“What is your request?” asked the latter. “I am come as a
suitor,” said Wakhs El Fellat, “and ask the hand of your noble
daughter Shama.” When Sikar Diun heard this, he slapped his face.
“What is the matter with you?” asked the King. “This is what I
have foreseen,” answered he, “for if these two moles unite, the
destruction of Abyssinia is accomplished.” “How can I refuse
him?” replied the King, “when he has just delivered her from the
fiend.” “Tell him,” answered Sikar Diun, “that you must consult
with your Wazir.” The King then turned to Wakhs El Fellat, and
said, “My son, your request is granted as far as I am concerned,
but I leave my Wazir to arrange it with you, so you must consult
him about it.” Wakhs El Fellat immediately turned to the Wazir,
and repeated his request to him. Sikar Diun answered him in a
friendly manner. “The affair is as good as arranged, no one else
is suited for the King’s daughter, but you know that the
daughters of the Kings require a dowry.” “Ask what you please,”
returned Wakhs El Fellat. “We do not ask you for money or money’s
worth,” said the Wazir, “but for the head of a man named Sudun,
the Ethiopian.” “Where can I find him?” said the prince. The
Wazir replied, “He is said to dwell in the fortress of Reg, three
days’ journey from here.” “But what if I fail to bring the head
of Sudun?” asked he. “But you will have it,” returned the Wazir;
and after this understanding the audience ceased, and each
returned to his dwelling.

Now this Sudun had built his fortress on the summit of a high
hill. It was very secure, and he defended it with the edge of the
sword. It was his usual resort, from whence he sallied forth on
plundering expeditions, and rendered the roads unsafe. At length
the news of him reached King Saif Ar-Raad, who sent against him
three thousand men, but he routed and destroyed them all. Upon
this, the King sent a larger number against him, who experienced
the same fate. He then despatched a third army, upon which Sudun
fortified himself afresh, and reared the walls of his fortress so
high that an eagle could scarcely pass them. We will now return
to Shama, who went to Wakhs El Fellat, and reproached him with
the conditions he had agreed to, and added, “It would be better
for you to leave this place, and take me with you, and we will
put ourselves under the protection of some powerful king.” “God
forbid,” replied he, “that I should take you with me in so
dishonourable a manner.” As he still positively refused to
consent, she grew angry, and left him. Wakhs El Fellat lay down
to rest, but he could not sleep. So he rose up, mounted his
horse, and rode away at midnight; and in the morning he met a
horseman who stationed himself in his path, but who was so
completely armed that his face was concealed. When Wakhs El
Fellat saw him, he cried to him, “Who are you, and where are you
going?” But instead of replying, he pressed upon him, and aimed a
blow which Wakhs El Fellat successfully parried. A fight then
commenced between them, which lasted till nearly evening. At last
the difference in their strength became perceptible, and Wakhs El
Fellat struck his adversary so violent a blow with his javelin
that his horse fell to the ground. He then dismounted, and was
about to slay him, when the horseman cried to him, “Do not kill
me, O brave warrior, or you will repent when repentance will no
more avail you.” “Tell me who you are?” returned Wakhs El Fellat.
“I am Shama, the daughter of King Afrakh,” replied the horseman.
“Why have you acted thus?” asked he. “I wished to try whether you
would be able to hold your own against Sudun’s people,” she
replied. “I have tried you now, and found you so valiant that I
fear no longer on your account. Take me with you, O hero.” “God
forbid that I should do so,” he returned; “what would Sikar Diun
and the others say? They would say that if Shama had not been
with him, he would never have been able to prevail against
Sudun.” She then raised her eyes to heaven, and said, “O God,
permit him to fall into some danger from which I alone may
deliver him!” Upon this Wakhs El Fellat pursued his journey,
without giving any attention to her words. On the third day he
arrived at the valley where the fortress of Sudun was situated,
when he began to work his way along behind the trees; and towards
evening he arrived at the fortress itself, which he found to be
surrounded with a moat; and the gates were closed. He was still
undecided what course to take, when he heard the sound of an
approaching caravan; and he hid himself in the fosse of the
fortress to watch it. He then saw that it was driven forward by a
large body of men, and that the merchants were bound on their
mules. When they arrived at the castle, they knocked at the gate;
and when the troop entered, Wakhs El Fellat entered with them;
and they unloaded the goods and bound the prisoners without
noticing him. When the armed men had finished their work, they
ascended to the castle, but he remained below. After a time, he
wished to follow them, but when he trod on the first step, it
gave way under him, and a dagger flew out, which struck him in
the groin. Upon this his eyes filled with tears, and he already
looked upon his destruction as certain, when a form came towards
him from the entrance of the castle, to deliver him; and as it
drew nearer, he perceived that it was Shama. He was filled with
astonishment, and cried out, “God has heard your prayer! How did
you come here?” “I followed your traces,” she replied, “till you
entered the castle, when I imitated your example, and mingled
with the troops. I have now saved your life, although you have
refused to take me with you; but if you wish to advance further,
do not neglect to try whether each step is fixed, with the point
of your sword.” He now again began to ascend, feeling the way
before him, and Shama followed, till they arrived at the last
stair, when they saw that the staircase ended in a revolving
wheel. “Spring higher,” advised Shama, “for I see a javelin which
magic art has placed here.” They sprang over it, and pursued
their way till they reached a large anteroom, lighted by a high
cupola. They stopped here awhile, and examined everything
carefully. At last they approached the door of a room, and on
looking through the crevices, they saw about a hundred armed
negroes, among whom was a black slave who looked as savage as a
lion. The room was lighted by wax candles, placed on gold and
silver candlesticks. At this moment, the black said, “Slaves,
what have you done with the prisoners belonging to the caravan?”
“We have chained them in the prison below, and left them in the
safest place,” was the reply. But he continued, “If one of them
was carelessly bound, he might be able to release himself and the
others, and to gain possession of the stairs. Let one of you
therefore go down, examine them carefully, and tighten their
bonds.” One of them therefore came out, and the two strangers hid
themselves in the anteroom. When he had passed them, Wakhs El
Fellat stepped forward and pierced him through with his sword;
Shama dragged his body aside, and they both remained quiet for a
time. But as the slave remained away from his companions too
long, Sudun exclaimed, “Go and see why he does not return, for I
have been in great alarm ever since we entered the castle to-day.”
A second then rose and took his sword, and as he came into
the anteroom, Wakhs El Fellat clove him in twain at one blow and
Shama dragged his body also on one side. They again waited
quietly for a time, when Sudun said, “It seems as if hunters are
watching our slaves, and are killing them one after another.” A
third then hastened out, and Wakhs El Fellat struck him such a
blow that he fell dead to the ground, and Shama dragged him also
away. But as he likewise remained absent so long, Sudun himself
stood up and all the others with him, and he said, “Did I not
warn and caution you? There is a singing in my ears, and my heart
trembles, for there must be people here who are watching our
men.” He himself now came out, and the others followed him with
lights and holding their hands on their swords, when one of the
foremost suddenly stopped. “Why do you not advance!” cried the
others. “How shall I go forward,” said he, “when he who has slain
our friends stands before us.” This answer was repeated to Sudun
when he called on them in a voice of thunder to advance. When he
heard this, he forced his way through them till he perceived
Wakhs El Fellat. “Who are you, Satan?” cried he, “and who brought
you here?” “I came here,” replied he, “to cut off your head, and
destroy your memory.” “Have you any blood-feud against me?” asked
Sudun, “or any offence to revenge upon me?” “I have no enmity
against you in my heart,” said Wakhs El Fellat, “and you have
never injured me; but I have asked Shama in marriage of her
father, and he has demanded of me your head as a condition. Be on
your guard, that you may not say I acted foully towards you.”
“Madman,” cried Sudun, “I challenge you to a duel. Will you fight
inside or outside the fortress?” “I leave that to you,” returned
Wakhs El Fellat. “Well, then, await me here,” was the reply.
Sudun then went in, clothed himself in gilded armour, girt on a
saw-like sword, and came out holding a shining club in his hand.
He was so enraged that he knew not what to say, and at once
attacked Wakhs El Fellat, who threw himself on his adversary like
a raging lion, and they fought together like hungry wolves; but
both despaired of victory. The swords spake a hard language on
the shields, and each of the combatants wished that he had never
been born. When this desperate fight had lasted a long time,
Shama was greatly troubled lest Sudun should prove victorious. So
she seized a dagger and struck at Sudun, wounding the nerves of
his hand, so that he dropped his sword, while she exclaimed to
Wakhs El Fellat, “Make an end of him.” “No,” replied Wakhs El
Fellat, “I will make him my prisoner, for he is a brave and
valiant man.” “With whom are you speaking?” asked Sudun. “With
Shama,” answered he. “What,” said Sudun, “did she come with you?”
“Yes,” replied he. “Then let her come before me.” She came
forward, and Sudun said, “Is the world too narrow for your father
that he could demand nothing as your dowry but my head?” “This
was his desire,” answered she. Wakhs El Fellat then said, “Take
your sword and defend yourself, for I will not fight with you,
now that it has fallen out of your hand.” But Sudun replied, “I
will not fight with you, for I am wounded, so take my head, and
go in peace with your bride.” He then sat down and bowed his
head. “If you speak truly,” said Wakhs El Fellat, “separate
yourself from your people.” “Why so?” “Because I fear lest they
may surround me, and compel me to fight with them, and there is
no need for me to shed their blood.” Sudun then left the castle,
bowed his head, and said, “Finish your work.” But Wakhs El Fellat
said, “If you speak truth, come with me across the fosse of the
castle into the open ground.” He did so, carefully barring the
castle behind him, and said, “Now take my head.”

When the slaves saw this, they mounted the walls, and wept and
lamented. But Shama cried out, “Take his head, and let us hasten
our return before morning dawns.” “What,” said Wakhs El Fellat,
“should I kill so brave a man in so treacherous a manner, when he
is so noble and magnanimous?” He then went up to Sudun, kissed
his head, and said, “Rise up, O warrior of the age, for you and
your companions are safe from me.” They now all embraced each
other, and made an offensive and defensive compact. “Take me with
you alive, O brave man,” said Sudun, “and hand me over to the
King as his daughter’s dowry. If he consents, well; but if not,
take my head, and woo your wife.” “God forbid,” said Wakhs El
Fellat, “that I should act thus after your magnanimity. Rather
return to the castle, and assure your companions of your safety.”
All this passed under the eyes of the other armed men. They
rejoiced at the knightly conduct of both, and now came down,
fell at the feet of Sudun and embraced him. They then did the
same to Wakhs El Fellat, whose hands they kissed and loaded him
with praises. After this, they all returned to the castle, and
agreed to set out presently. They took with them whatever
treasures there were, and Wakhs El Fellat commanded them to
release the prisoners and restore them their goods. They now all
mounted their horses and journeyed to the country of King Afrakh,
greatly rejoiced at the mutual love of the warriors. When they
approached the town, Shama parted from them, that nothing should
be known of her absence in the company. During this time, King
Afrakh and Sikar Diun had amused themselves with hunting,
jesting, and sporting, and sent out scouts daily to look for
Wakhs El Fellat. “What can have become of him?” said the King
once to Sikar Diun. “Sudun has certainly killed him,” replied the
latter, “and you will never see him again.” While they were thus
talking, they observed a great cloud of dust, and as it drew
nearer, they could see the armed men more distinctly. The company
was led by a black knight, by whose side rode a younger white
horseman. When the King saw this, he exclaimed, “Wakhs El Fellat
has returned, in company with Sudun and his host.” “Wait a
little,” replied Sikar Dian, “till we are certain of it.” But
when they drew nearer, and they could doubt no longer, Sikar Diun
mounted his horse and fled, accompanied by the King and his
followers, till they reached the town, and barred the gates. They
then watched from the walls, to see what would happen. When they
saw that the strangers dismounted and pitched tents, the King
thought it was a good sign. He therefore ordered the town to be
decorated, and the gates to be opened, and rode out, attended by
a considerable escort, and approached the tents. The other party
now mounted their horses to go to meet them. When they approached
each other, King Afrakh was about to dismount, but Wakhs El
Fellat would not allow it, and the King embraced him, and
congratulated him on his safety. He then saluted Sudun also, but
the latter did not return his salutation. He invited him to enter
the town, but he declined, as did Wakhs El Fellat likewise, who
did not wish to part from his companions. The King returned
accompanied only by his own people, and prepared the best
reception for the new-comers. On the following morning the King
held a general council, at which Sikar Diun appeared greatly
depressed. “Did I not warn you beforehand,” said he to the King,
“what you now see for yourself of this evil-doer? Did we not send
him to bring the head of Sudun, and he returns with him safe and
sound, and on the best of terms, while our hearts are oppressed
with anxiety?” “You may be right,” replied the King, “but what
are we to do now?”

This conversation was interrupted by a tumult caused by the
arrival of Wakhs El Fellat and Sudun, who came to pay their
respects to the King. The King invited them to sit down, but
Sudun remained standing, and when he asked him again, he replied,
“You craven, was the world too narrow for you that you desired my
head as your daughter’s dowry?” “Sit down,” said the King, “for I
know that you are angry.” “How can I sit down,” returned Sudun,
“when you have ordered my death?” “God forbid that I should act
so unjustly,” said the King; “it was Sikar Diun.” “What,” said
he, “do you accuse me of such an action in my presence?” “Did you
not make this condition with Wakhs El Fellat,” said the King,
“and send him on his errand?” Sikar Diun then turned to Sudun,
and said, “Sit down, brave warrior, for we only did so from love
to you, that we might be able to make a treaty with you, and that
you might join our company.” After this answer, Sudun concealed
his anger, and sat down. Refreshments were now brought in, and
after partaking of them, Wakhs El Fellat and Sudun returned to
their tents. Several days passed in this manner, and at length
Sudun said to Wakhs El Fellat, “O my master, it is time for you
to demand Shama in marriage, now you have won her with the edge
of the sword. You have fulfilled their conditions long since by
bringing them my head, but you have made no further progress at
present. Ask for her once more, and if they will not give her up,
I will fall upon them with the sword, and we will carry Shama
off, and then lay waste the city.” “I will demand her as my wife
again to-morrow,” replied the other. When he went to the palace
next day, he found the King and all the court assembled. When
they saw him, they all rose from their seats, and when they sat
down again, he alone remained standing. “Why do you not sit
down,” said the King, “for all your wishes are now fulfilled?” “I
have still to ask for Shama,” he replied. “You know,” returned
the King, “that ever since her birth I have allowed Sikar Diun to
make all arrangements for her.” He now turned to Sikar Diun, who
replied in a friendly tone, “She is yours, for you have fulfilled
the conditions, and you have only now to give her ornaments.”
“What kind of ornaments?” asked he. “Instead of ornaments,”
replied the traitor, “we desire to receive a book containing the
history of the Nile. If you bring it us, she is wholly yours, but
if not, there is no marriage to be thought of.” “Where is it to
be found?” “I cannot tell you myself.” “Well, then,” returned
Wakhs El Fellat, “if I do not bring you the book, Shama is lost
to me; all present are witnesses to this.” He went out with these
words, pushing his way through the crowded assembly, and Sudun
behind him, till they reached their tents. “Why did you promise
that,” said Sudun, “let us rather overcome them with the sword,
and take Shama from them.” “Not so,” replied Wakhs El Fellat, “I
will only possess her honourably.” “And yet you do not even know
how to find the book,” said Sudun; “rather listen to my advice,
retire to my fortress, and leave me in their power.” “I would
never act thus,” said Wakhs El Fellat, “though I should suffer
death.” After these and similar speeches, supper was brought in,
and each retired to his sleeping apartment. But Wakhs El Fellat
had scarcely entered his room when Shama came in. “What have you
done,” said she, “and what engagement have you undertaken? How
can you fulfil this condition? Do you not see that their only
object is to destroy you, or at least to get rid of you? I have
come to warn you again, and I say to you once more, take me with
you to Sudun’s castle, where we can live at peace, and do not act
as they tell you.” “I will carry out my engagement,” he replied;
“I will not possess you like a coward, even though I should be
cut to pieces with swords.” Upon this, Shama was angry and left
him, while he lay down to rest, but could not sleep. He therefore
rose up, saddled and mounted his horse and rode away, without
knowing where, abandoning himself wholly to the will of God. He
wandered about thus for several days, until he reached a lonely
tower. He knocked at the door, and a voice answered, “Welcome, O
thou who hast separated thyself from thy companions; enter
without fear, O brave Saif, son of Zul Yezn.” When he pushed the
door it opened, and his eyes beheld a noble and venerable old
man, from whose appearance it was at once obvious that he busied
himself with the strictest life and fear of God. “Welcome,” cried
he again; “if you had travelled from east to West you would have
found no one who could show you how to obtain the book you seek
as well as I can, for I have dwelt here awaiting your arrival for
sixty years.” “But that was before I was born,” said Wakhs El
Fellat to himself. He then asked aloud, “By what name did you
address me just now?” “O Saif,” answered the old man, “that is
your true name, for you are a sword (Saíf) to the Abyssinians;
but whom do you worship?” “O my master,” was the reply, “the
Abyssinians worship Saturn (Sukhal) but I am in perplexity, and
know not whom to worship.” “My son,” replied the old man,
“worship Him who has reared the heavens over us without pillars,
and who has rested the earth on water; the only and eternal God,
the Lord who is only and alone to be reverenced. I worship Him
and none other beside him, for I follow the religion of Abraham.”
“What is your name?” asked Wakhs El Fellat. “I am called Shaikh
Gyat.” “What declaration must I make,” he asked the old man, “to
embrace your religion?” “Say There is no God but God, and
Abraham is the Friend of God.’ If you make this profession, you
will be numbered among the believers.” He at once repeated the
formula, and Shaikh Gyat was much pleased, and devoted the night
to teaching him the history of Abraham and his religion, and the
forms of worship. Towards morning he said, “O my son, whenever
you advance to battle, say, God is great, grant me victory, O
God, and destroy the infidels,’ and help will be near you. Now
pursue your journey, but leave your horse here until your return.
Enter the valley before you, under the protection of God, and
after three days you will meet some one who will aid you.” Wakhs
El Fellat set out on that road, and after three days he met a
horseman who saluted him, and exclaimed, “Welcome, Saif Zul Yezn,
for you bring happiness to this neighbourhood.” Saif returned his
salutation, and asked, “How do you know me, and how do you know
my name?” “I am not a brave or renowned warrior,” was the answer,
“but one of the maidens of this country and my mother taught me
your name.” “What is your name and that of your mother?” “My
mother’s name is Alka,” answered she, “and I am called Taka.”
When he heard this he was greatly rejoiced, for he remembered
that Shaikh Gyat had said to him, “O thou, whose destiny will be
decided by Alka and Taka.” “O noble virgin,” said he, “where is
your mother, Alka?” “Look round,” she replied; and he saw a very
large and lofty city at some distance. “Know,” said she, “that
360 experienced philosophers dwell in that city. My mother Alka
is their superior, and directs all their affairs and actions. She
knew that you would come to this neighbourhood in search of a
book concerning the Nile, which was written by Japhet, the son of
Noah, and she wishes you to attain your end by her means. She
also informed me of your coming, and promised me to you, saying,
You shall have no other husband but him.’ We expected you to-day,
and she sent me to meet you, adding, Warn him not to enter
the town by daylight, or it will be his destruction.’ Wait here,
therefore, till nightfall, and only approach the city after dark.
Turn to the right along the wall, and stand still when you reach
the third tower, where we will await you. As soon as we see you
we will throw you a rope; bind it round your waist, and we will
draw you up. The rest will be easy.” “But why need you give
yourselves all this trouble?” said Saif Zul Yezn. “Know,” replied
she, “that the inhabitants of this city have been informed of
your approaching arrival by their books, and are aware that you
are about to carry away their book, which they hold in
superstitious reverence. On the first day of each month they
repair to the building where it is preserved; and they adore it
and seek counsel from it respecting their affairs. They have also
a king whose name is Kamrun. When they knew that you were coming
for the book they constructed a talisman against you. They have
made a copper statue, and fixed a brazen horn in its hand, and
have stationed it at the gate of the city. If you enter, the
statue will sound the horn, and it will only do so upon your
arrival. They would then seize you and put you to death. On this
account we desire to baffle their wisdom by drawing you up to the
walls of the city at another place.” “May God reward you a
thousandfold,” replied he; “but go now, and announce my arrival
to your mother.” She went away, and he approached the city in the
darkness of night, and turned towards the third tower on the
right, where he found Alka and Taka. When they recognised him,
they immediately threw him the rope, which he fastened about him.
When he was drawn up, they descended from the wall, and were
about to proceed to Alka’s house, when the talisman suddenly
acted, and the statue blew the horn loudly. “Hasten to our
house,” cried Alka; and they succeeded in reaching it safely and
barred the doors, when the noise increased. The whole population
of the city rose up, and the streets were filled. “What is this
disturbance about?” asked Saif. “This is all due,” replied Alka,
“to the alarm sounded by the statue, because you have entered the
town. There will be a great meeting held to-morrow, where all the
wise men will assemble, to attempt to discover the whereabouts of
the intruder; but by God’s help, I will guide them wrong, and
confuse their counsels. Go to our neighbour the fisherman,” added
she to her daughter, “and see what he has caught.” She went, and
brought news that he had taken a large fish, of the size of a
man. “Take this piece of gold,” said her mother, “and bring us
the fish;” and when she did so, she told her to clean it, which
was done. Food was then brought in, and they ate and talked. The
night passed quietly, but on the following morning Alka ordered
Saif Zul Yezn to undress, and to hide in the skin of the fish.
She put her mouth to the mouth of the fish, and took a long rope,
which she fastened under Saif’s armpits. She then let him down
into a deep well, and fastened him there, saying, “Remain here,
till I come back.” She then left him, and went to the great hall
of the King, where the divan was already assembled, and the King
had taken his seat on the throne. All rose up when she entered,
and when she had seated herself, the King said to her, “O mother,
did you not hear the blast of the horn yesterday, and why did you
not come out with us?” “I did hear it,” she replied, “but I did
not heed it.” “But you know,” said he, “that the sound can only
be heard upon the arrival of the stranger who desires to take the
book.” “I know it, O King; but permit me to choose forty men from
among those assembled here.” She did so, and selected ten from
among the forty again. She then said to them, “Take a Trakhtramml
(sandboard on which the Arabs practise geomancy and notation) and
look and search.” They did so, but had scarcely finished when
they looked at each other in amazement. They destroyed their
calculation, and began a second, and confused this, too, and
began a third, upon which they became quite confounded. “What are
you doing there?” asked the King at last. “You go on working and
obliterating your work; what have you discovered?” “O King,”
replied they, “we find that the stranger has entered the town,
but not by any gate. He appears to have passed in between Heaven
and earth, like a bird. After this, a fish swallowed him, and
carried him down into some dark water.” “Are you fools?” asked
the King angrily; and turning to Alka, continued, “Have you ever
seen a man flying between Heaven and earth, and afterwards
swallowed by a fish, which descends with him into dark water?” “O
King,” replied she, “I always forbid the wise men to eat heavy
food, for it disturbs their understanding and weakens their
penetration; but they will not heed me.” At this the King was
angry, and immediately drove them from the hall. But Alka said,
“It will be plain to-morrow what has happened.” She left the
hall, and when she reached home, she drew Saif Zul Yezn out of
the well, and he dressed himself again. They sat down, and Alka
said, “I have succeeded in confounding their deliberations to-day!
and there will be a great assembly to-morrow, when I must
hide you in a still more out-of-the-way place.” After this they
supped, and went to rest. Next morning Alka called her daughter,
and said, “Bring me the gazelle.” When it was brought her, she
said, “Bring me the wings of an eagle.” Taka gave them to her,
and she bound them on the back of the gazelle. She then took a
pair of compasses, which she fixed in the ceiling of the room.
She next took two other pairs of compasses, which she fixed in
the ceiling of the room. She next took two other pairs of
compasses, and tied one between the fore feet, and the other
between the hind feet of the gazelle. She then tied a rope to the
compasses in the roof, and the two ends to the other pairs. But
she made Saif Zul Yezn lie down in such a position that his head
was between the feet of the gazelle. She then said to him,
“Remain here till I come back”; and went to the King, with whom
she found a very numerous assemblage of the wise men. As soon as
she entered, the King made her sit beside him on the throne. “O
my mother Alka,” he said, “I could not close an eye last night
from anxiety concerning yesterday’s events.” “Have you no wise
men,” returned she, “who eat the bread of the divan?” She then
turned to them, saying, “Select the wisest among you!” and they
chose the wisest among them. She ordered them to take the
sandboard again, but they became so confused that they were
obliged to begin again three times from the beginning. “What do
you discover?” said the King angrily. “O our master,” replied
they, “he whom we seek has been carried away by a beast of the
desert, which is flying with him between Heaven and earth.” “How
is this?” said the King to Alka; “have you ever seen anything
like it?” He seized his sword in a rage, and three fled, and he
killed four of the others. When Alka went home, she released
Saif, and told him what had happened. Next morning Alka took the
gazelle, and slaughtered it in a copper kettle. She then took a
golden mortar, and reversed it over it, and said to Saif Zul
Yezn, “Sit on this mortar till I come back.” She then went to the
divan, and chose out six wise men, who again took the sandboard,
and began again three times over in confusion. “Alas,” said the
King, in anger, “What misfortune do you perceive?” “O our
master,” they exclaimed in consternation, “our understanding is
confused, for we see him sitting on a golden mountain, which is
in the midst of a sea of blood, surrounded by a copper wall.” The
King was enraged, and broke up the assembly, saying, “O Alka, I
will now depend on you alone.” “To-morrow I will attempt to show
you the stranger,” she replied. When she came home, she related
to Saif what had happened, and said, “I shall know by to-morrow
what to tell the King to engage his attention, and prevent him
from pursuing you.” Next morning she found Taka speaking to Saif
Zul Yezn alone; and she asked her, “What does he wish?” “Mother,”
replied Taka, “he wishes to go to the King’s palace, to see him
and the divan.” “What you wish shall be done,” said she to Saif,
“but you must not speak.” He assented to the condition, and she
dressed him as her attendant, gave him a sandboard, and went with
him to the King, who said to her, “I could not sleep at all last
night, for thinking of the stranger for whom we are seeking.”
“Now that the affair is in my hands,” returned she, “you will
find me a sufficient protection against him.” She immediately
ordered Saif to give her the sandboard. She took it, and when she
had made her calculations, she said joyfully to the King, “O my
lord, I can give you the welcome news of the flight of the
stranger, owing to his dread of you and your revenge.” When the
King heard this, he rent his clothes, slapped his face, and said,
“He would not have departed, without having taken the book.” “I
cannot see if he has taken anything,” replied she. “This is the
first of the month,” said the King, “come and let us see if it is
missing.” He then went with a large company to the building where
the book was kept. Alka turned away from the King for a moment to
say to Saif, “Do not enter with us, for if you enter, the case
will open of itself, and the book will fall into your hands. This
would at once betray you, and you would be seized and put to
death, and all my labour would have been in vain.” She then left
him, and rejoined the King. When they reached the building, the
doors were opened, and when the King entered, they found the
book. They immediately paid it the customary honours, and
protracted this species of worship, while Saif stood at the door,
debating with himself whether to enter or not. At last his
impatience overcame him, and he entered, and at the same instant
the casket was broken to pieces, and the book fell out. The King
then ordered all to stand up, and the book rolled to Saif Zul
Yezn. Upon this all drew their swords, and rushed upon him. Saif
drew his sword also, and cried “God is great!” as Shaikh Gyat had
taught him. He continued to fight and defend himself, and
struggled to reach the door. The entire town arose in tumult to
pursue him, when he stumbled over a dead body, and was seized.
“Let me not see his face,” cried the King, “but throw him into
the mine.” This mine was eighty yards deep, and had not been
opened for sixty years. It was closed by a heavy leaden cover,
which they replaced, after they had loaded him with chains, and
thrown him in. Saif sat there in the darkness, greatly troubled,
and lamenting his condition to Him who never sleeps. Suddenly, a
side wall of the mine opened, and a figure came forth which
approached and called him by his name. “Who are you?” asked Saif.
“I am a woman named Akissa, and inhabit the mountain where the
Nile rises. We are a nation who hold the faith of Abraham. A very
pious man lives below us in a beautiful palace. But an evil Jinni
named Mukhtatif lived near us also, who loved me, and demanded me
in marriage of my father. He consented from fear, but I was
unwilling to marry an evil being who was a worshipper of fire.
How can you promise me in marriage to an infidel?’ said I to my
father. I shall thereby escape his malice myself,’ replied he. I
went out and wept, and complained to the pious man about the
affair. Do you know who will kill him?’ said he to me, and I
answered, No.’ I will direct you to him who has cut off his
hand,’ said he. His name is Saif Zul Yezn, and he is now in the
city of King Kamrun, in the mine.’ Thereupon he brought me to
you, and I come as you see me, to guide you to my country, that
you may kill Mukhtatif, and free the earth from his wickedness.”
She then moved him, and shook him, and all his chains fell off.
She lifted him on her shoulders, and carried him to the palace of
the Shaikh, who was named Abbas Salam. Here he heard a voice
crying, “Enter, Saif Zul Yezn.” He did so, and found a grave and
venerable old man, who gave him a very friendly reception,
saying, “Wait till to-morrow, when Akissa will come to guide you
to the castle of Mukhtatif.” He remained with him for the night,
and when Akissa arrived next morning, the old man told her to
hasten, that the world might be soon rid of the monster. They
then left this venerable man, and when they had walked awhile,
Akissa said to Saif, “Look before you.” He did so, and perceived
a black mass at some distance. “This is the castle of the evil-doer,”
said she, “but I cannot advance a step further than this.”
Saif therefore pursued his way alone, and when he came near the
castle, he walked round it to look for the entrance. As he was
noticing the extraordinary height of the castle, which was
founded on the earth, but appeared to overtop the clouds, he saw
a window open, and several people looked out, who pointed at him
with their fingers, exclaiming, “That is he, that is he!” They
threw him a rope, which they directed him to bind round him. They
drew him up by it, when he found himself in the presence of three
hundred and sixty damsels, who saluted him by his name.

                   *     *     *     *     *

(Here Habicht’s fragment ends.)

                 SCOTT’S MSS. AND TRANSLATIONS.

In 1800, Jonathan Scott, LL.D., published a volume of “Tales,
Anecdotes, and Letters, translated from the Arabic and Persian,”
based upon a fragmentary MS., procured by J. Anderson in Bengal,
which included the commencement of the work (Nos. 1–3) in 29
Nights; two tales not divided into Nights (Nos. 264 and 135) and
No. 21.

Scott’s work includes these two new tales (since republished by
Kirby and Clouston), with the addition of various anecdotes,
&c., derived from other sources. The “Story of the Labourer and
the Chair” has points of resemblance to that of “Malek and the
Princess Chirine” (Shirin?) in the Thousand and One Days; and
also to that of “Tuhfet El Culoub” (No. 183a) in the Breslau
Edition. The additional tales in this MS. and vol. of
translations are marked “A” under Scott in our Tables. Scott
published the following specimens (text and translation) in
Ouseley’s Oriental Collections (1797 and following years) No.
135m (i. pp. 245–257) and Introduction (ii. pp. 160–172; 228–
257). The contents are fully given in Ouseley, vol. ii. pp. 34,
35.

Scott afterwards acquired an approximately complete MS. in 7
vols., written in 1764 which was brought from Turkey by E.
Wortley Montague. Scott published a table of contents (Ouseley,
ii. pp. 25–34), in which, however, the titles of some few of the
shorter tales, which he afterwards translated from it, are
omitted, while the titles of others are differently translated.
Thus “Greece” of the Table becomes “Yemen” in the translation;
and “labourer” becomes “sharper.” As a specimen, he subsequently
printed the text and translation of No. 145 (Ouseley, ii. pp.
349–367).

This MS., which differs very much from all others known, is now
in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

In 1811, Scott published an edition of the Arabian Nights’
Entertainments, in 6 vols., vol. 1 containing a long
introduction, and vol. 6, including a series of new tales from
the Oxford MS. (There is a small paper edition; and also a large
paper edition, the latter with frontispieces, and an Appendix
including a table of the tales contained in the MS.) It had
originally been Scott’s intention to retranslate the MS.; but he
appears to have found it beyond his powers. He therefore
contented himself with re-editing Galland, altering little except
the spelling of the names, and saying that Galland’s version is
in the main so correct that it would be useless repetition to go
over the work afresh. Although he says that he found many of the
tales both immoral and puerile, he translated most of those near
the beginning, and omitted much more (including several harmless
and interesting tales, such as No. 152) towards the end of his
MS. than near the beginning. The greater part of Scott’s
additional tales, published in vol. 6, are included in the
composite French and German editions of Gauttier and Habicht;
but, except Nos. 208, 209, and 215, republished in my “New
Arabian Nights,” they have not been reprinted in England, being
omitted in all the many popular versions which are professedly
based upon Scott, even in the edition in 4 vols., published in
1882, which reprints Scott’s Preface.

The edition of 1882 was published about the same time as one of
the latest reissues of Lane’s Thousand and One Nights; and the
Saturday Review of Nov. 4, 1882 (p. 609), published an article on
the Arabian Nights, containing the following amusing passage:
“Then Jonathan Scott, LL.D. Oxon, assures the world that he
intended to retranslate the tales given by Galland; but he found
Galland so adequate on the whole that he gave up the idea, and
now reprints Galland, with etchings by M. Lalauze, giving a
French view of Arab life. Why Jonathan Scott, LL.D., should have
thought to better Galland, while Mr. Lane’s version is in
existence, and has just been reprinted, it is impossible to say.”

The most interesting of Scott’s additional tales, with reference
to ordinary editions of The Nights, are as follows:—

No. 204b is a variant of No. 37.

No. 204c is a variant of 3e, in which the wife, instead of the
husband, acts the part of a jealous tyrant. (Compare Cazotte’s
story of Halechalbe.)

No. 204e. Here we have a reference to the Nesnás, which only
appears once in the ordinary versions of The Nights (No. 132b;
Burton, v., p. 333).

No. 206b. is a variant of No. 156.

No. 207c. This relates to a bird similar to that in the Jealous

Sisters (No. 198), and includes a variant of 3ba.


No. 207h. Another story of enchanted birds. The prince who seeks
them encounters an “Oone” under similar circumstances to those
under which Princess Parizade (No. 198) encounters the old
durwesh. The description is hardly that of a Marid, with which I
imagine the Ons are wrongly identified.

No. 208 contains the nucleus of the famous story of Aladdin (No.
193).

No. 209 is similar to No. 162; but we have again the well
incident of No. 3ba, and the exposure of the children as in No.
198.

No. 215. Very similar to Hasan of Bassorah (No. 155). As Sir R.
F. Burton (vol. viii., p. 60, note) has called in question my
identification of the Islands of WákWák with the Aru Islands near
New Guinea, I will quote here the passages from Mr. A. R.
Wallace’s Malay Archipelago (chap. 31) on which I based it:—“The
trees frequented by the birds are very lofty.... One day I
got under a tree where a number of the Great Paradise birds were
assembled, but they were high up in the thickest of the foliage,
and flying and jumping about so continually that I could get no
good view of them.... Their voice is most extraordinary. At
early morn, before the sun has risen, we hear a loud cry of
Wawk—wawk—wawk, w k—w k—w k,’ which resounds through the
forest, changing its direction continually. This is the Great
Bird of Paradise going to seek his breakfast.... The birds
had now commenced what the people here call sacaleli,’ or
dancing-parties, in certain trees in the forest, which are not
fruit-trees as I at first imagined, but which have an immense
head of spreading branches and large but scattered leaves, giving
a clear space for the birds to play and exhibit their plumes. On
one of these trees a dozen or twenty full-plumaged male birds
assemble together, raise up their wings, stretch out their necks,
and elevate their exquisite plumes, keeping them in a continual
vibration. Between whiles they fly across from branch to branch
in great excitement, so that the whole tree is filled with waving
plumes in every variety of attitude and motion.”

No. 216bc appears to be nearly the same as No. 42.

No. 225 is a variant of No. 135q.

                    WEIL’S TRANSLATION.

The only approximately complete original German translation is
“Tausend und eine Nacht. Arabische Erzählungen. Zum Erstenmale
aus dem Urtexte vollständig und treu übersetzt von Dr. Gustav
Weil,” four vols., Stuttgart. The first edition was in roy. 8vo,
and was published at Stuttgart and Pforzheim in 1839–1842; the
last volume I have not seen; it is wanting in the copy in the
British Museum. This edition is divided into Nights, and includes
No. 25b. In the later editions, which are in small square 8vo,
but profusely illustrated, like the larger one, this story is
omitted (except No. 135m, which the French editors include with
it), though Galland’s doubtful stories are retained; and there is
no division into Nights. The work has been reprinted several
times, and the edition quoted in our Table is described as
“Zweiter Abdruck der dritten vollstandig umgearbeiteten, mit
Anmerkungen und mit einer Einleitung versehenen Auflage” (1872).

Weil has not stated from what sources he drew his work, except
that No. 201 is taken from a MS. in the Ducal Library at Gotha.
This is unfortunate, as his version of the great transformation
scene in No. 3b (Burton, vol. i., pp. 134, 135), agrees more
closely with Galland than with any other original version. In
other passages, as when speaking of the punishment of Aziz (No.
9a, aa), Weil seems to have borrowed an expression from Lane, who
writes “a cruel wound;” Weil saying “a severe (schwere) wound.”

Whereas Weil gives the only German version known to me of No. 9
(though considerably abridged) he omits many tales contained in
Zinserling and Habicht, but whether because his own work was
already too bulky, or because his original MSS. did not contain
them, I do not know; probably the first supposition is correct,
for in any case it was open to him to have translated them from
the printed texts, to which he refers in his Preface.

Two important stories (Nos. 200 and 201) are not found in any
other version; but as they are translated in my “New Arabian
Nights,” I need not discuss them here. I will, however, quote a
passage from the story of Judar and Mahmood, which I omitted
because it is not required by the context, and because I thought
it a little out of place in a book published in a juvenile
series. It is interesting from its analogy to the story of
Semele.

When King Kashuk (a Jinni) is about to marry the daughter of King
Shamkoor, we read (New Arabian Nights, p. 182), “Shamkoor
immediately summoned my father, and said, Take my daughter, for
you have won her heart.’ He immediately provided an outfit for
his daughter, and when it was completed, my father and his bride
rode away on horseback, while the trousseau of the Princess
followed on three hundred camels.” The passage proceeds (the
narrator being Daruma, the offspring of the marriage), “When my
father had returned home, and was desirous of celebrating his
marriage Kandarin (his Wazir) said to him, Your wife will be
destroyed if you touch her, for you are created of fire, and she
is created of earth, which the fire devours. You will then bewail
her death when it is too late. To-morrow,’ continued he, I will
bring you an ointment with which you must rub both her and
yourself; and you may then live long and happily together.’ On
the following day he brought him a white ointment, and my father
anointed himself and his bride with it, and consummated his
marriage without danger.”

I may add that this is the only omission of the smallest
consequence in my rendering of either story.

I have heard from more than one source that a complete German
translation of The Nights was published, and suppressed; but I
have not been able to discover the name of the author, the date,
or any other particulars relating to the subject.

    VON HAMMER’S MS., AND THE TRANSLATIONS DERIVED FROM IT.

Several complete copies of The Nights were obtained by Europeans
about the close of the last or the beginning of the present
century; and one of these (in 4 vols.) fell into the bands of the
great German Orientalist, Joseph von Hammer. This MS. agrees
closely with the printed Bul. and Mac. texts, as well as with Dr.
Clarke’s MS., though the names of the tales sometimes vary a
little. One story, “The two Wazirs,” given in Von Hammer’s list
as inedited, no doubt by an oversight, is evidently No. 7, which
bears a similar title in Torrens. One title, “Al Kavi,” a story
which Von Hammer says was published in “Mag. Encycl.,” and in
English (probably by Scott in Ouseley’s Oriental Collections,
vide anteà p. 491) puzzled me for some time; but from its
position, and the title I think I have identified it as No. 145,
and have entered it as such. No. 9a in this as well as in several
other MSS., bears the title of the Two Lovers, or of the Lover
and the Beloved.

Von Hammer made a French translation of the unpublished tales,
which he lent to Caussin de Perceval, who extracted from it four
tales only (Nos. 21a, 22, 32 and 37), and only acknowledged his
obligations in a general way to a distinguished Orientalist,
whose name he pointedly suppressed. Von Hammer, naturally
indignant, reclaimed his MS., and had it translated into German
by Zinserling. He then sent the French MS. to De Sacy, in whose
hands it remained for some time, although he does not appear to
have made any use of it, when it was despatched to England for
publication; but the courier lost it on the journey, and it was
never recovered.

Zinserling’s translation was published under the title, “Der
Tausend und einen Nacht noch nicht übersetzte Mährchen,
Erzählungen und Anekdoten, zum erstenmale aus dem Arabischen in’s
Französische übersetzt von Joseph von Hammer, und aus dem
Französischen in’s Deutsche von Aug. E. Zinserling, Professor.”
(3 vols., Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1823.) The introductory matter
is of considerable importance, and includes notices of 12
different MSS., and a list of contents of Von Hammer’s MS. The
tales begin with No. 23, Nos. 9–19 being omitted, because Von
Hammer was informed that they were about to be published in
France. (This possibly refers to Asselan Riche’s “Scharkan,”
published in 1829.) The tales and anecdotes in this edition
follow the order of The Nights. No. 163 is incomplete, Zinserling
giving only the commencement; and two other tales (Nos. 132b and
168) are related in such a confused manner as to be
unintelligible, the former from transposition (perhaps in the
sheets of the original MS.) and the latter from errors and
omissions. On the other hand, some of the tales (No. 137 for
instance) are comparatively full and accurate.

A selection from the longer tales was published in English in 3
vols. in 1826, under the title of “New Arabian Nights
Entertainments, selected from the original Oriental MS. by Jos.
von Hammer, and now first translated into English by the Rev.
George Lamb.” I have only to remark that No. 132b is here
detached from its connection with No. 132, and is given an
independent existence.

A complete French re-translation of Zinserling’s work, also in 3
vols., by G. S. Trébutien (Contes inédits des Mille et une
Nuits), was published in Paris in 1828; but in this edition the
long tales are placed first, and all the anecdotes are placed
together last.

The various MSS. mentioned by Von Hammer are as follows:—

     I. Galland’s MS. in Paris.

     II. Another Paris MS., containing 870 Nights. (No. 9 is
specially noticed as occurring in it.) This seems to be the same
as a MS. subsequently mentioned by Von Hammer as consulted by
Habicht.

     III. Scott’s MS. (Wortley Montague).

     IV. Scott’s MS. (Anderson).

     V. Dr. Russell’s MS. from Aleppo (224 Nights).

     VI. Sir W. Jones’ MS., from which Richardson extracted No.
6ee for his grammar.

     VII. A. MS. at Vienna (200 Nights).

     VIII. MS. in Italinski’s collection.

     IX. Clarke’s MS.

     X. An Egyptian MS. at Marseilles.

     XI. Von Hammer’s MS.

     XII. Habicht’s MS. (==Bres. text).

     XIII. Caussin’s MS.

     XIV. De Sacy’s MS.

     XV. One or more MSS. in the Vatican.

               TRANSLATIONS OF THE PRINTED TEXTS.

These are noticed by Sir R. F. Burton in his “Foreword” (vol. i.,
pp. x-xii.) and consequently can be passed over with a brief
mention here.

Torrens’ edition (vol. 1) extends to the end of Night 50 (Burton,
ii., p. 118).

Lane’s translation originally appeared in monthly half-crown
parts, from 1839 to 1841. It is obvious that he felt himself
terribly restricted in space; for the third volume, although much
thicker than the others, is not only almost destitute of notes
towards the end, but the author is compelled to grasp at every
excuse to omit tales, even excluding No. 168, which he himself
considered “one of the most entertaining tales in the work”
(chap. xxix., note 12), on account of its resemblance to Nos. 1b
and 3d. Part of the matter in Lane’s own earlier notes is
apparently derived from No. 132a, which he probably did not at
first intend to omit. Sir R. F. Burton has taken 5 vols. to cover
the same ground which Lane has squeezed into his vol. 3. But it
is only fair to Lane to remark that in such cases the publisher
is usually far more to blame than the author.

In 1847 appeared a popular edition of Lane, entitled, “The
Thousand and One Nights, or the Arabian Nights Entertainments,
translated and arranged for family reading, with explanatory
notes. Second edition.” Here Galland’s old spelling is restored,
and the “explanatory notes,” ostentatiously mentioned on the
title page, are entirely omitted. This edition was in 3 vols. I
have seen a copy dated 1850; and think I have heard of an issue
in 1 vol.; and there is an American reprint in 2 vols. The
English issue was ultimately withdrawn from circulation in
consequence of Lane’s protests. (Mr. S. L. Poole’s Life of E. W.
Lane, p. 95.) It contains the woodcut of the Flying Couch, which
is wanting in the later editions of the genuine work; but not
Galland’s doubtful tales, as Poole asserts.

Several editions of the original work, edited by Messrs. E. S.
and S. L. Poole, have appeared at intervals from 1859 to 1882.
They differ little from the original edition except in their
slightly smaller size.

The short tales included in Lane’s notes were published
separately as one of Knight’s Weekly Volumes, in 1845, under the
title of “Arabian Tales and Anecdotes, being a selection from the
notes to the new translation of the Thousand and One Nights, by
E. W. Lane, Esq.”

Finally, in 1883, Mr. Stanley Lane Poole published a classified
and arranged edition of Lane’s notes under the title of “Arabian
Society in the Middle Ages.”

Mr. John Payne’s version of the Mac. edition was issued in 9
vols. by the Villon Society to subscribers only. It appeared from
1882 to 1884, and only 500 copies were printed. Judging from the
original prospectus, it seems to have been the author’s intention
to have completed the work in 8 vols., and to have devoted vol. 9
to Galland’s doubtful tales; but as they are omitted, he must
have found that the work ran to a greater length than he had
anticipated, and that space failed him. He published some
preliminary papers on the Nights in the New Quarterly Magazine
for January and April, 1879.

Mr. Payne subsequently issued “Tales from the Arabic of the
Breslau and Calcutta (1814–18) editions of the Thousand Nights
and One Night, not occurring in the other printed texts of the
work.” (Three vols., London, 1884.) Of this work, issued, like
the other, by the Villon Society, to subscribers only, 750 copies
were printed, besides 50 on large paper. The third volume
includes indices of all the tales in the four principal printed
texts.

Finally we have Sir R. F. Burton’s translation now in its
entirety before his subscribers. It is restricted to 1,000
copies. (Why not 1,001?) The five supplementary vols. are to
include tales wanting in the Mac. edition, but found in other
texts (printed and MS.), while Lady Burton’s popular edition will
allow of the free circulation of Sir R. F. Burton’s work among
all classes of the reading public.

                 COLLECTIONS OF SELECTED TALES.

There are many volumes of selections derived from Galland, but
these hardly require mention; the following may be noticed as
derived from other sources:

1. Caliphs and Sultans, being tales omitted in the usual editions
of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. Re-written and re-arranged
by Sylvanus Hanley, F. L. S., etc., London, 1868; 2nd edition
1870.

Consists of portions of tales chiefly selected from Scott, Lamb,
Chavis and Cazotte, Trébutien and Lane; much abridged, and
frequently strung together, as follows:—

Nos. 246, 41, 32 (including Nos. 111, 21a, and 89); 9a (including
9aa [which Hanley seems, by the way, to have borrowed from some
version which I do not recognise], 22 and 248); 155, 156, 136,
162; Xailoun the Silly (from Cazotte); 132 and 132a; and 169
(including 134 and 135x).

2. Ilâm-en-Nâs. Historical tales and anecdotes of the time of the
early Kalîfahs. Translated from the Arabic and annotated by Mrs.
Godfrey Clerk, author of “The Antipodes, and Round the World.”
London, 1873.

Many of these anecdotes, as is candidly admitted by the authoress
in her Preface, are found with variations in the Nights, though
not translated by her from this source.

3. The New Arabian Nights. Select tales not included by Galland
or Lane. By W. F. Kirby, London, 1882.

Includes the following tales, slightly abridged, from Weil and

Scott: Nos. 200, 201, 264, 215, 209, and 208.


Two editions have appeared in England, besides reprints in

America and Australia.


        SEPARATE EDITIONS OF SINGLE OR COMPOSITE TALES.

             6e (ee).—The Barber’s Fifth Brother.

Mr. W. A. Clouston (in litt.) calls attention to the version of
this story by Addison in the “Spectator,” No. 535, Nov. 13, 1712,
after Galland. There is good reason to suppose that this is
subsequent to the first English edition, which, however, Addison
does not mention. There is also an English version in Faris’
little Arabic Grammar (London, 1856), and likewise in
Richardson’s Arabic Grammar. The latter author extracted it from
a MS. belonging to Sir W. Jones.

             5.—Nur Al-din and Badr Al-din Hasan.

There are two Paris editions of the “Histoire de Chems-Eddine et
de NourEddine,” edited by Prof. Cherbonneau. The first (1852)
contains text and notes, and the second (1869) includes text,
vocabulary and translations.

               7.—Nur Al-din and Anis Al-jalis.

An edition by Kasimiraki of “Enis’ el-Djelis, ou histoire de la
belle Persane,” appeared in Paris in 1867. It includes text,
translation and notes.

                 9.—King Omar Bin Al-nu’aman.

There is a French abridgment of this story entitled, “Scharkan,
Conte Arabe, suivi de quelques anecdotes orientales; traduit par
M. Asselan Riche, Membre de la Société Asiatique de Paris” (Paris
and Marseilles, 12mo, 1829, pp. 240). The seven anecdotes
appended are as follows: (1) the well-known story of Omar’s
prisoner and the glass of water; (2) Elhedjadj and a young Arab;
(3)=our No. 140; (4) Anecdote of Elhedjadj and a story-teller;
(5)=our No. 86; (6) King Bahman and the Moubed’s parable of the
Owls; (7)=our No. 145.

                   133.—Sindbad the Seaman.

This is the proper place to call attention to a work specially
relating to this story, “Remarks on the Arabian Nights
Entertainments; in which the origin of Sindbad’s Voyages and
other Oriental Fictions is particularly described. By Richard
Hole, LL.D.” (London, 1797, pp. iv. 259.)

It is an old book, but may still be consulted with advantage.

There are two important critical editions of No. 133, one in

French and one in German.


1. Les Voyages de Sind-bâd le marin et la ruse des Femmes. Contes
arabes. Traduction littérale, accompagnée du Texte et des Notes.
Par L. Langlès (Paris, 1814).

The second story is our No. 184.

2. Die beiden Sindbad oder Reiseabenteuer Sindbads des
Seefabrers. Nach einer zum ersten Male in Europa bedruckten
Aegyptischen Handschrift unmittelbar und wortlich treu aus den
Arabischen übersetzt und mit erklärenden Anmerkungen, nebst zwei
sprachlichen Beilagen zum Gebrauch für abgehende Orientalisten
herausgegeben von J. G. H. Reinsch (Breslau, 1826).

              135.—The Craft and Malice of Women.

The literature of this cluster of tales would require a volume in
itself, and I cannot do better than refer to Mr. W. A. Clouston’s
“Book of Sindibad” (8vo, Glasgow, 1884) for further information.
This book, though privately printed and limited to 300 copies, is
not uncommon.

                 136.—Judar and His Brethren.

An edition of this story, entitled “Histoire de Djouder le

Pêcheur,” edited by Prof. Houdas, was published in the

Bibliothèque Algérienne, at Algiers, in 1865. It includes text

and vocabulary.


                     174.—The Ten Wazirs.

This collection of tales has also been frequently reprinted
separately. It is the Arabic version of the Persian Bakhtyar
Nameh, of which Mr. Clouston issued a privately-printed edition
in 1883.

The following versions have come under my notice:—

1. Nouveaux Contes Arabes, ou Supplement aux Mille et une Nuits
suivies de Mélanges de Littérature orientale et de lettres, par
l’Abbe * * * (Paris, 1788, pp. 425).

This work consists chiefly of a series of tales selected and
adapted from the Ten Vazirs. “Written in Europe by a European,
and its interest is found in the Terminal Essay, on the
Mythologia Aesopica” (Burton in litt.).

2. Historien om de ti Vezirer og hoorledes det gik dem med Kong
Azád Bachts Sön, oversat af Arabisk ved R. Rask (8vo, Kobenhavn,
1829).

3. Habicht, x. p. vi., refers to the following:—Historia decem
Vezirorum et filii regis Azad-Bacht insertis XIII. aliis
narrationibus, in usum tironum Cahirensem, edid. G. Knös,
Göttingen, 1807, 8vo.

He also states that Knös published the commencement in 1805, in
his “Disquisitio de fide Herodoti, quo perhibet Phoenices Africam
navibus circumvectos esse cum recentiorum super hac re sententiis
excussis.—Adnexurn est specimen sermonis Arabici vulgaris s.
initium historiae filii regis Azad-Bacht e Codice inedito.”

4. Contes Arabes. Histoire des dix Vizirs (Bakhtyar Nameh)
Traduite et annotée par René Basset, Professeur A l’école
superieure des lettres d’Algérie. Paris, 1883.

Chavis and Cazotte (anteà pp. 471, 472) included a version of the
Ten Vazirs in their work; and others are referred to in our Table
of Tales.

                     248.—The Wise Heycar.

Subsequently to the publication of Gauttier’s edition of The
Nights, Agoub republished his translation under the title of “Le
sage Heycar, conte Arabe” (Paris, 1824).

A few tales published by Scott in Ouseley’s Oriental Collections
have already been noticed (anteà, pp. 434, 435).

     TRANSLATIONS OF COGNATE ORIENTAL ROMANCES ILLUSTRATIVE
                         OF THE NIGHTS.

1. Les Mille et Un Jours. Contes Persanes.

“In imitation of the Arabian Nights, was composed a Persian
collection entitled Hazár Yek Rúz or the Thousand and One Days,’
of which Petis de la Croix published a French rendering [in
1710], which was done into English [by Dr. King, and published in
2 vols. (with the Turkish Tales=Forty Vezirs) as early as 1714;
and subsequently] by Ambrose Phillips” (in 1738) (Clouston, in
litt). Here, and occasionally elsewhere, I have quoted from some
MSS. notes on The Nights by Mr. W. A. Clouston, which Sir R. F.
Burton kindly permitted me to inspect. Mr. Clouston then quotes
Cazotte’s Preface (not in my edition of the Thousand and One
Days), according to which the book was written by the celebrated
Dervis Moclès (Mukhlis), chief of the Sofis (Sufis?) of lspahan,
founded upon certain Indian comedies. Petis de la Croix was on
friendly terms with Mukhlis, who allowed him to take a copy of
his work in 1675, during his residence in Ispahan. (I find these
statements confirmed in the Cabinet des Fées, xxxvii. pp. 266,
274, 278, and in Weber’s “Tales of the East,” i. pp. xxxvi.,
xxxxii.)

The framework of the story is the same as Nos. 9a and 152: a
Princess, who conceives an aversion to men from dreaming of the
self-devotion of a doe, and the indifference and selfishness of a
stag. Mr. Clouston refers to Nakhshabí’s Tútí Náma (No. 33 of
Káderí’s abridgment, and 39 of India Office MS. 2,573 whence he
thinks it probable that Mukhlis may have taken the tale.) But the
tale itself is repeated over and over again in many Arabic,
Persian, and Turkish collections; in fact, there are few of
commoner occurrence.

The tales are told by the nurse in order to overcome the aversion
of the Princess to men. They are as follows:

Introduction and Conclusion: Story of the Princess of Cashmir.

1.   Story of Aboulcassem Bafry.

2.   Story of King Ruzvanchad and the Princess Cheheristani.

     a.   Story of the young King of Thibet and the Princess of

          the Naimans.

     b.   Story of the Vazir Cavercha.

3.   Story of Couloufe and the Beautiful Dilara.

4.   Story of Prince Calaf and the Princess of China.

     a.   Story of Prince Fadlallah, son of Bei-Ortoc, King of

          Moussel=Nos. 184 and 251.

5.   Story of King Bedreddin-Lolo, and his Vazir Atalmulk,

     surnamed the Sad Vazir.

     a.   Story of Atalmulk and the Princess Zelica Beghume.

     b.   Story of Prince Seyf-el-Molouk.

     c.   Story of Malek and the Princess Chirine.

     d.   Story of King Hormuz, surnamed the King without

          trouble.

          da.  Story of Avicenna.

     e.   Story of the fair Arouya. Cf. Nos. 135q and 225.

     f.   Singular Adventures of Aboulfawaris, surnamed the Great

          Traveller (2 Voyages).

6.   Story of the Two Brother Genii, Adis and Dahy.

7.   Story of Nasiraddolé, King of Moussel, of Abderrahman,

     Merchant of Bagdad, and the Beautiful Zeineb.

8.   Story of Repsima=No. 181r.


This work has many times been reprinted in France, where it holds
a place only second to The Nights.

Sir R. F. Burton remarks, concerning the Persian and Turkish

Tales of Petis de la Crois (the latter of which form part of the

Forty Vazirs, No. 251), “Both are weak and servile imitations of

Galland by an Orientalist who knew nothing of the East. In one

passage in the story of Fadlallah, we read of Le Sacrifice du

Mont Arafáte,’ which seems to have become a fixture in the

European brain. I found the work easy writing and exceedingly

hard reading.”


The following tales require a passing notice:—

1. Story of Aboulcassem Bafry.—A story of concealed treasure; it
has also some resemblance to No. 31.

2. Ruzvanchad and Cheheristani.—Cheheristani is a jinniyah, who
is pursued by the King, under the form of a white doe; marries
him, and becomes the mother of Balkis, the Queen of Sheba. She
exacts a promise from him never to rebuke her for any of her
actions: he breaks it, and she leaves him for a time.

2a. The Young King of Thibet.—Two imposters obtain magic rings
by which they can assume the shapes of other persons.

2a, b. The Vazir Cavercha.—This is one of Scott’s stories (No.
223 of our Table). It goes back at least as far as the Ring of
Polycrates. It is the 8th Vezir’s Story in Mr. Gibbs’ Forty
Vezirs (pp. 200–205).

4. Prince Calaf.—This story is well known, and is sometimes
played as a comedy. The Princess Turandot puts riddles to her
suitors, and beheads them if they fail to answer.

5b. Story of Prince Seyj-el-Molouk.—This story is perhaps an
older version than that which appears in The Nights (No. 154a).
It is placed long after the time of Solomon; Saad is devoured by
ants (Weber (ii. p. 426) has substituted wild beasts!); and when
Seyf enters the palace of Malika (=Daulet Khatoon), the jinni
surprises them, and is overpowered by Seyf’s ring. He then
informs him of the death of Saad; and that Bedy al-Jernal was one
of the mistresses of Solomon; and has also long been dead.

5b. Malek and Chirine.—Resembles No. 264; Malek passes himself
off as the Prophet Mohammed; burns his box (not chair) with
fireworks on his weddingday, and is thus prevented from ever
returning to the Princess.

5f. Adventures of Aboulfawaris.—Romantic travels, resembling
Nos. 132a and 133.

2. Antar.—This is the most famous of the Badawi romances. It
resembles No. 137 in several particulars, but is destitute of
supernaturalism. An English abridgment in 4 vols. was published
in 1820; and the substance of vol. 1 had appeared, as a fragment,
in the previous year, under the title of “Antar, a Bedoueen
Romance translated from the Arabic by Terrick Hamilton, Esq.,
Oriental Secretary to the British Embassy at Constantinople.” I
have also seen vol. 1 of a French translation, published about
1862, and extending to the death of Shas.

Lane (Modern Egyptians, ch. 21–23) describes several other Arab
romances, which have not yet been translated; viz. Aboo-Zeyd; Ez-Zahir,
and Delhemeh.

3. GLAIVE-DES-COURONNES (Seif el-Tidjân) Roman traduit de
l’Arabe. Par M. le Dr. Perron (Paris, 1862).

A romantic story of Arab chivalry, less overloaded with
supernaturalism than No. 137; but more supernatural than Antar.
The hero marries (among other wives) two jinniyahs of the
posterity of Iblis. In ch. 21 we have an account of a magical
city much resembling the City of Brass (No. 134) and defended by
similar talismans.

4. MEHEMET THE KURD, and other tales, from Eastern sources, by
Charles Wells, Turkish Prizeman of King’s College, London, and
Member of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1865).

The first story, taken from an Arabic MS., is a narrative of a
handsome simpleminded man, with whom Princesses fall in love, and
who is raised to a mighty throne by their enchantments. Some of
the early incidents are not unlike those in the well-known German
story of Lucky Hans (Hans im Glück). In one place there is an
enchanted garden, where Princesses disport themselves in feather-dresses
 (as in No. 155, &c.), and where magic apples grow. (Note
that apples are always held in extraordinary estimation in The
Nights, cf. Nos. 4 and 264.) Among the shorter stories we find
No. 251h; a version of Nos. 9a and 152 (probably that referred to
by Mr. Clouston as in the Tuti Nama); a story “The Prince
Tailor,” resembling No. 251; No. 256, and one or two other tales
not connected with The Nights. (Most of Wells’ shorter tales are
evidently taken from the Forty Vezirs.)

5. RECUEIL DES CONTES POPULAIRES de la Kabylie du Djardjara,
recueillis et traduits par J. Rivière (Paris, 1882). I have not
seen this book; but it can hardly fail to illustrate The Nights.

6. THE STORY OF JEWAD, Romance by ’Ali ’Aziz Efendi the Cretan.
Translated from the Turkish by E. J. W. Gibb, M.R.A.S., &c.
(Glasgow, 1884).

A modern Turkish work, written in A. H. 1211 (1796–97). It
contains the following tales:—

                      The Story of Jew d.

1.   The Story of Eb -’Ali-Sin.
2.   The Story of Monia Em n.
3.   The Story of Ferah-N z, the daughter of the King of China.
     a.   The Story of Khoja ’Abdu-llah.
4.   The Story told by Jew d to Iklilu’l Mulk.
     a.   The Story of Sh b r and Hum .
     c.   The Story of Ghazanfer and R hila.
5.   The Story of Qara Khan.

The following deserve notice from our present point of view:—

The Story of Jewad.—Here we have magical illusions, as in Nos.
247 and 251a. Such narratives are common in the East; Lane
(Nights, ch. i., note 15) is inclined to attribute such illusions
to the influence of drugs; but the narratives seem rather to
point to so-called electro-biology, or the Scotch Glamour (such
influences, as is notorious, acting far more strongly upon
Orientals than upon Europeans).

2.   The Story of Monia Em n corresponds to the Story of Naerdan
and Guzulbec, in Caylus’ Oriental Tales. A story of magical
illusions.

3.   The Story of Ferah N z.—Here again we have a variant of
Nos. 9a and 152.

3a.  Khoja ’Abdu-ltab.—This is a version of the Story of
Aboulcassem in the Thousand and One Days.

4a.  Sh b r and Hum .—The commencement of this story might have
suggested to Southey the adventures of Thalaba and Oneida in the
Gardens of Aloadin; the remainder appears to be taken from the
Story of the young King of Thibet, in the Thousand and One Days.

5.   Qara Khan.—The principal part of this story is borrowed
from the First Voyage of Aboulfawaris in the Thousand and One
Days; it has some resemblance to the story of the Mountain of
Loadstone in No. 3c.

7.   FRÜCHTE DES ASIATISCHEN GEIST, von A. T. Hartmann. 2 vols.,
12mo (Münster) 1803. A collection of anecdotes, &c., from various
Eastern sources, Arabic, Indian, &c. I think it not impossible
that this may be the work referred to by Von Hammer in the
preface to Zinserling’s “1001 Nacht” (p. xxvii. note) as
“Asiatische Perleuschnur von Hartmann.” At least I have not yet
met with any work to which the scanty indication would apply
better.

8.   TUTI-NAMA. I could hardly pass over the famous Persian and
Turkish “Parrot-Book” quite without notice; but its tales have
rarely any direct connection with those in The Nights, and I have
not attempted to go into its very extensive bibliography.

DR. CLARKE’S M.S.

Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke has given an account of an important MS.
nearly agreeing with Bul. and Mac., which he purchased in Egypt,
in his “Travels in various countries of Europe, Asia and Africa.”
Part ii. Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. Section i. (1812) App.
iii., pp. 701–704. Unfortunately, this MS. was afterwards so
damaged by water during a shipwreck that it was rendered totally
illegible. The list of tales (as will be seen by the numbers in
brackets, which correspond to our Table, as far as the
identifications are safe) will show the approximate contents of
the MS., but the list (which is translated into German by Habicht
in the preface to his vol. 12) was evidently compiled carelessly
by a person nearly ignorant of Arabic, perhaps with the aid of an
interpreter, Maltese, or other, and seems to abound with the most
absurd mistakes. The full text of Clarke’s App. iii. is as
follows: “List of One Hundred and Seventy-two Tales, contained in
a manuscript copy of the ’Àlif Lila va Lilin,’ or ’Arabian
Nights,’ as it was procured by the Author in Egypt.”

N.B.—The Arabic words mentioned in this list are given as they
appeared to be pronounced in English characters, and of course,
therefore, adapted to English pronunciation.

The number of tales amounts to 172, but one tale is supposed to
occupy many nights in the recital, so that the whole number is
divided into “One Thousand and One Nights.” It rarely happens
that any two copies of the Alif Lila va Lilin resemble each
other. This title is bestowed upon any collection of Eastern
tales divided into the same number of parts. The compilation
depends upon the taste, the caprice, and the opportunities of the
scribe, or the commands of his employer. Certain popular stories
are common to almost all copies of the Arabian Nights, but almost
every collection contains some tales which are not found in every
other. Much depends upon the locality of the scribe. The popular
stories of Egypt will be found to differ materially from those of
Constantinople. A nephew of the late Wortley Montague, living in
Rosetta, had a copy of the Arabian Nights, and upon comparing the
two manuscripts it appeared that out of the 172 tales here
enumerated only 37 were found in his manuscript. In order to
mark, therefore, the stories which were common to the two
manuscripts, an asterisk has been prefixed to the thirty-seven
tales which appeared in both copies.

    1.  The Bull and the Ass (a).
    2.  The Merchant and the Hobgoblin (1; Habicht translates Kobold!).
    3.  The Man and the Antelope (1a).
    4.  The Merchant and Two Dogs (1b).
    5.  The Old Man and the Mule (1c).
   *6.  The History of the Hunters (2).
  7&8.  The History of King Unam and the Philosopher Reinan (2a).
   *9.  History of King Sinbad and Elbase (2a, ab).
  *10.  History of the Porter (3).
  *11.  History of Karanduli.
   12.  Story of the Mirror.
   13.  Story of the Three Apples (4).
  *14.  Of Shensheddin Mohammed, and his Brother Noureddin (5).
  *15.  Of the Taylor, Little Hunchback, the Jew and the Christian (6).
   16.  The History of Noureddin Ali (7).
   17.  Ditto of Gaumayub, &c. (8).
  *18.  The History of King Omar and Oman and his Children. (This tale
        is extremely long, and occupies much of the manuscript) (9).
  *19.  Of the Lover and the Beloved (9a).
   20.  Story of the Peacock, the Goose, the Ass, the Horse, &c. (10).
   21.  Of the Pious Man (11).
   22.  Of the Pious Shepherd.
   23.  Of the Bird and the Turtle (12).
   24.  Of the Fox, the Hawk, &c. (13).
   25.  Of the Lord of the Beasts.
  *26.  Of the Mouse and the Partridge (14).
   27.  Of the Raven and the Cat (15).
   28.  Of the Raven, the Fox, the Mouse, the Flea, &c., &c. (16).
   29.  Story of the Thief (18).
  *30.  Of Aul Hassan and the Slave Shemsney Har (20).
  *31.  Of Kamrasaman, &c. (21).
   32.  Of Naam and Nameto la (21a).
  *33.  Of Aladin Abuskelmat (22).
  *34.  Of Hallina Die (23).
   35.  Story of Maan Jaamnazida (24).
   36.  History of the Town Litta (26).
   37.  Story of Hassan Abdulmelac (27).
   38.  Of Ibrahim Elmachde, Brother of Haroun al Raschid (28).
   39.  History of the Famous Garden Ezem (Paradise) (29).
   40.  Of Isaac of Mossul (30).
   41.  Of Hasli Hasli.
   42.  Of Mohammed Eli Ali (32).
   43.  Of Ali the Persian (33).
   44.  History of the Raschid and his Judge (34).
   45.  Of Haled Immi Abdullah.
   46.  Of Jafaard the Bamasside (36).
   47.  Of Abokohammed Kurlan (37).
   48.  Of Haroun al-Raschid and Sala.
   49.  History of Mamoan (40).
   50.  Of Shar and the Slave Zemroud (41).
   51.  Of the Lady Bedoor (literally Mrs. Moon-face) and Mr.
        Victorious (42).
   52.  Of Mammon and Mohammed of Bassorah.
   53.  Of Haroun al-Raschid and his Slave (44).
   54.  Of the Merchant in Debt (45).
   55.  Of Hassoun Medin, the Governor (46).
   56.  Of King Nassir and his Three Children—the Governor of Cairo,
        the Governor of Bulac, and the Governor of Old Cairo (47).
   57.  History of the Banker and the Thief (48).
   58.  Of Aladin, Governor of Constantinople.
   59.  Of Mamoon and Ibrahim (50).
   60.  Of a certain King (51).
   61.  Of a Pious Man (52).
   62.  Of Abul Hassan Ezeada (53).
   63.  Of a Merchant (54).
   64.  Of a Man of Bagdad (55).
   65.  Of Modavikil (56).
  *66.  Of Virdan in the time of Hakim Veemrelack (N.B.—He built
        the Mosque in going from Cairo to Heliopolis) (57).
   67.  Of a Slave and an Ape (58).
  *68.  Story of the Horse of Ebony (59).
  *69.  Of Insilvujud (60).
   70.  Of Eban Vas (61).
   71.  Of an Inhabitant of Bassora (62).
   72.  History of a Man of the tribe of Arabs of Beucadda (63).
   73.  History of Benriddin, Vizir of Yemen (64).
   74.  Of a Boy and a Girl (65).
   75.  Of Mutelmis (66).
   76.  Of Haroun al Rashid and the Lady Zebeda (67).
   77.  Of Mussa ab imni Zibir (69).
   78.  Of the Black Father.
   79.  Of Haroun al Raschid.
   80.  Story of an Ass Keeper (74?).
   81.  Of Haroun al Rashid and Eboo Yussuf (75).
   82.  Of Hakim, Builder of the Mosque (76).
   83.  Of Melikel Horrais.
   84.  Of a Gilder and his Wife (78).
   85.  Of Hashron, &c. (79).
   86.  Of Yackyar, &c., the Barmadride (80).
   87.  Of Mussa, &c.
   88.  Of Said, &c.
   89.  Of the Whore and the Good Woman.
   90.  Of Raschid and Jacob his Favourite.
   91.  Of Sherif Hussein.
   92.  Of Mamoon, son of Haroun al Raschid (87).
   93.  Of the repenting Thief (88)
   94.  Of Haroun al Raschid (89).
   95.  Of a Divine, &c. (90).
   96.  Another story of a Divine.
   97.  The Story of the Neighbours.
   98.  Of Kings (94).
   99.  Of Abdo Rackman (95).
  100.  Of Hind, daughter of Nackinan (96).
  101.  Of Tabal (97).
  102.  Of Isaac son of Abraham (98).
  103.  Of a Boy and a Girl.
  104.  Story of Chassim Imni Addi.
  105.  Of Abul Abass.
  106.  Of Ebubecker Ben Mohammed.
  107.  Of Ebi Evar.
  108.  Of Emmin, brother of Mamon (105).
  109.  Of six Scheiks of Bagdad.
  110.  Of an Old Woman.
  111.  Of a Wild Girl.
  112.  Of Hasan Elgevire of Bagdad.
  113.  Of certain Kings.
  114.  Of a king of Israel (116).
  115.  Of Alexander (117).
  116.  Of King Nusharvian (118).
  117.  Of a Judge and his Wife (119).
  118.  Of an Emir.
  119.  Of Malek Imnidinar.
  120.  Of a devout man of the children of Israel (122).
  121.  Of Hedjage Himni Yussuf (123).
  122.  Of a Blacksmith (124).
  123.  Of a devout man (125).
  124.  Of Omar Imnilchatab.
  125.  Of Ibrahim Elchaber.
  126.  Of a Prophet (128).
  127.  Of a Pious Man (129).
  128.  Of a Man of the Children of Israel (130).
  129.  Of Abul Hassan Duradge (131).
  130.  Of Sultana Hayaat.
  131.  Of the Philosopher Daniel (132).
 *132.  Of Belukia (132A).
 *133.  The Travels of Sinbad—certain seven voyages, &c. (133).
  134.  Of the Town of Copper (134).
  135.  Of the Seven Virgins and the Slave (135).
 *136.  Story of Judais (136).
  137.  The Wonderful History.
  138.  Of Abdullah lmni Mohammi.
  139.  Of Hind Imni Haman (139).
  140.  Of Chazmimé Imni Bashés (140).
  141.  Of Jonas the Secretary (141).
  142.  Of Haroun al-Rashid (142).
  143.  Of ditto.
  144.  Of Ebon Isaac Ibrahim (144).
  145.  Of Haroun al Raschid, Misroor and the Poet.
  146.  Of the Caliph Moavia.
  147.  Of Haroun al Raschid.
  148.  Of Isaac Imni Ibrahim (148),
  149.  Of Ebwi Amér.
 *150.  Of Achmet Ezenth and the old Female Pimp.
  151.  Of the three Brothers.
  152.  Of Erdeshir and Hiaker, of Julmar El Bacharia (152).
  153.  Of Mahomet, &c.
  154.  Ditto (154?).
 *155.  Story of Safil Moluki (154A).
 *156.  Of Hassan, &c. (155).
 *157.  Of Caliph the Hunter (156).
 *158.  Of Mersir and his Mistress (157).
  159.  Of Noureddin and Mary (158).
  160.  Of a Bedouin and a Frank (159).
  161.  Of a Man of Baghdad and his Female Slave (160).
  162.  Of a King, his Son, and the Vizir Shemar (161).
 *163.  Of a Merchant and the Thieves.
 *164.  Of Abousir and Aboukir (162).
 *165.  Abdulak El Beri and Abdulak El Backari (163).
 *166.  Of Haroun al Raschid.
  167.  Of the Merchant Abul Hassan al-Omani (164).
  168.  Of Imnil Echarib (168).
  169.  Of Moted Bila.
 *170.  Of Kamasi Zemuan (167).
 *171.  Of Abdulah Imni Fasil (168).
 *172.  The Story of Maroof (169).

     IMITATIONS AND MISCELLANEOUS WORKS HAVING MORE OR LESS
                  CONNECTION WITH THE NIGHTS.

The success of Galland’s work led to the appearance of numerous
works more or less resembling it, chiefly in England and France.
Similar imitations, though now less numerous, have continued to
appear down to the present day.

The most important of the older works of this class were
published in French in the “Cabinet des Fées” (Amsterdam and
Geneva, 1785–1793; 41 vols.); in English in “Tales of the East:
comprising the most popular Romances of Oriental origin, and the
best imitations by European authors, with new translations and
additional tales never before published, to which is prefixed an
introductory dissertation, containing an account of each work and
of its author or translator. By Henry Weber, Esq.” (Edinburgh,
1812, 3 vols.); and in German in “Tausand und ein Tag.
Morgenländische Erzählungen aus dem Persisch, Turkisch und
Arabisch, nach Petis de la Croix, Galland, Cardonne, Chavis und
Cazotte, dem Grafen Caylus, und Anderer. Übersetzt von F. H. von
der Hagen” (Prenzlau, 1827–1837, 11 vols.). In the “Cabinet des
Fées” I find a reference to an older collection of tales (partly
Oriental) called the “Bibliothèque des Fées et des Génies,” by
the Abbé de la Porte, which I have not seen, but which is, in
part, incorporated in the “Cabinet.” It formed only 2 vols. 12mo,
and was published in 1765.

The examination of these tales is difficult, for they comprise
several classes, not always clearly defined:—

1.   Satires on The Nights themselves (e.g. the Tales of the
     Count of Hamilton).
2.   Satires in an Oriental garb (e.g. Beckford’s Vathek).
3.   Moral tales in an Oriental garb (e.g. Mrs. Sheridan’s
     Nourjahad).
4.   Fantastic tales with nothing Oriental about them but the
     name (e.g. Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights).
5.   Imitations pure and simple (e.g. G. Meredith’s Shaving of
     Shagpat).
6.   Imitations more or less founded on genuine Oriental sources
     (e.g. the Tales of the Comte de Caylus).
7.   Genuine Oriental Tales (e.g. Mille et une Jours, translated
     by Petis de la Croix).

Most of the tales belonging to Class 7 and some of those
belonging to Class 6 have been treated of in previous sections.
The remaining tales and imitations will generally need only a
very brief notice; sometimes only the title and the indication of
the class to which they belong. We will begin with an enumeration
of the Oriental contents of the Cabinet des Fées, adding W. i.,
ii. and iii. to show which are included in Weber’s “Tales of the
East”:—

7–11.     1001 Nuits (W. 1).
12, 13. Les Aventures d’Abdalla (W. iii).
14, 15.   1001 Jours (Persian tales, W. ii.). 16. Histoire de la
          Sultane de Perse et des Visirs. Contes Turcs (Turkish
          tales, W. 3==our 251).
16.  Les Voyages de Zulma dans le pays des Fées.
17, 18. Contes de Bidpai.
19.  Contes Chinois, on les Aventures merveilleuses du Mandarin
     Fum-Hoam (W. iii.). 21, 22. Les Mille et un Quart d’Heures.
     Contes Tartares (W. iii.).
22, 23. Les Sultanes de Guzerath, ou les Songes des hommes
eveillés. Contes Moguls (W. iii.).
25.  Nouveaux Contes Orientaux, par le Comte de Caylus (W. ii.).
29, 30. Les Contes des Génies (W. iii.).
30.  Les Aventures de Zelouide et d’Amanzarifdine.
30.  Contes Indiens par M. de Moncrif.
33.  Nourjahad (W. ii.).
34.  Contes de M. Pajon.
38–41. Les Veillées du Sultan Schahriar, &c. (Chavis and Cazotte;
cf. anteà, p. 419; W. i. ii.).

(Weber also includes, in his vol. ii. Nos. 21a, 22, 32 and 37,
after Caussin de Perceval.)

12, 13. The Adventures of Abdallah, the Son of Hanif (Class 5 or
6).

Originally published in 1713; attributed to M. de Bignon, a young
Abbé. A series of romantic travels, in which Eastern and Western
fiction is mixed; for instance, we have the story of the Nose-tree,
which so far as I know has nothing Oriental about it.

16.  The Voyages of Zulma in Fairy Land (Class 4).

European fairy tales, with nothing Oriental about them but the
names of persons and places. The work is unfinished.

17, 18.   The Tales of Bidpai (translated by Galland) are Indian,
          and therefore need no further notice here.

19–23. Chinese, Tartarian and Mogul Tales (Class 6).

Published in 1723, and later by Thomas Simon Gueulette.

Concerning these tales, Mr. Clouston remarks (in litt.): “Much of
the groundwork of these clever imitations of the Arabian Nights
has been, directly or indirectly, derived from Eastern sources;
for instance, in the so-called Tartar tales, the adventures of
the Young Calender find parallels, (1) in the well-known Bidpai
tale of the Bráhman, the Sharpers and the Goat (Kalila and Dimna,
Pánchatantra, Hitopadesa, &c.) and (2) in the worldwide story of
the Farmer who outwitted the Six Men (Indian Antiquary, vol. 3)
of which there are many versions current in Europe, such as the
Norse tale of Big Peter and Little Peter, the Danish tale of
Great Claus and Little Claus; the German tale (Grimm) of the
Little Farmer; the Irish tale of Little Fairly (Samuel Lover’s
collection of Irish Fairy Legends and Stories); four Gaelic
versions in Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands; a
Kaba’il version in Riviere’s French collection (Contes populaires
Kabylies); Uncle Capriano in Crane’s recently published Italian
Popular Tales; and a Latin mediæval version (written probably in
the I **1th century) in which the hero is called Unibos,’
because he had only one cow.”

25.  Oriental Tales (Class 6).

Mr. Clouston observes, “Appeared in 1749,[FN#472] and on the
title page are said to have been translated from MSS. in the
Royal French Library. The stories are, however, largely the
composition of De Caylus himself, and those elements of them
which are traceable to Asiatic sources have been considerably
Frenchified.”

Nevertheless they are not without interest, and are nearly all of
obviously Oriental origin. One of the stories is a fantastic
account of the Birth of Mahomet, including romantic travels
largely borrowed from No. 132a. Another story is a version of
that of the Seven Sleepers. Other noteworthy tales are the story
of the Dervish Abounader, which resembles Nos. 193 and 216d; and
the story of Naerdan and Guzulbec, which is a tale of magical
illusions similar to that of Monia Emin, in the Turkish story of
Jewad.

The Count de Caylus was the author of various European as well as
Oriental fairy tales. Of his Oriental collection, Sir R. F.
Burton remarks:—“The stories are not Eastern but Western fairy
tales proper, with kings and queens, giants and dwarfs, and
fairies, good and bad. Barbets’ act as body guard and army.
Written in good old style, and free language, such as, for
instance, son pétenlaire, with here and there a touch of salt
humour, as in Rosanie Charmante reine (car on n’a jamais parlé
autrement à une reine, quel que laide qu’elle ait été).’”

29, 30. Tales of the Genii (Class 3).

Written in the middle of the last century by Rev. James Ridley,
but purporting to be translated from the Persian of Horam, the
son of Asmar, by Sir Charles Morell.

These tales have been reprinted many times; but it is very
doubtful if they are based on any genuine Oriental sources. The
amount of Oriental colouring may be guessed from the story of
Urad, who having consented to become the bride of a Sultan on
condition that he should dismiss all his concubines, and make her
his sole queen (like Harald Harfagr on his marriage with
Ragnhilda), is presented to his loving subjects as their Sultana!

32.  Adventures of Zeloide and Amanzarifdine. Indian Tales, by M.
     de Moncrif (Class 4). Ordinary European Fairy Tales, with
     the scene laid in the East.

33.  Nourjahad, by Mrs. Sheridan (Class 3).

An unworthy favourite is reformed by a course of practical moral
lessons conveyed by the Sultan through supposed supernatural
agencies. Mr. Clouston regards it as “one of the very best of the
imitations of Eastern fiction. The plot is ingeniously conceived
and well wrought out, and the interest never flags throughout.”

34.  Pajon’s Oriental Tales (Class 5). These demand no special
     notice.

In addition to the above, the following Oriental works are
mentioned in the Cabinet des Fées, but not reprinted:

   1. Apologues orientaux, par l’abbé Blanchet.

   2. Mélanges de littérature orientale, par Cardonne. (Paris, 2

vols. 1770.)

   3. Neraïr et Meloe, roman oriental, par H. B. Deblanes (1759).

   4. Contes orientaux, par M. de la Dixmerie.

   5. Les Cinq Cent Matinées et une demie, contes Syriens, par le

chevalier de Duclos.

   6. Abassâi, conte oriental, par Mademoiselle Fault (ou

Fauques) 1752.

   7. Les Contes du Serail, par Mdlle. Fault (1753.)

   8. Kara Mustapha, conte oriental, par Fromaget (1745).

   9. Zilia et Cénie, par Francoise d’Isembourg d’Hippincourt de

Graffigny.

 10. Salned et Garalde, conte oriental, par A. H. De la Motte.

 11. Anecdotes orientales, par G. Mailhol (2 vols. 1752).

 12. Alzahel, traduit d’un manuscrit arabe, par Mdlle. Raigné de

Malfontaine (Mercure, 1773).

 13. Mahmoud le Gasnevide, conte oriental, par J. F. Melon.

 14. Contes Orientaux, ou les recits du Sage Caleb, voyageur

persan, par Mme. Mouet.

 15. Nadir, par A. G. de Montdorge.

 16. Lettres Persanes, de Montesquieu.

 17. Les Amusements de Jour, ou recueil de petits contes, par

Mme. de Mortemar.

 18. Mirloh, conte oriental, par Martine de Morville (1769).

 19. Ladila, anecdote turque (par la même) 1769.

 20. Daira, histoire orientale, par A. J. J. de la Riche de la

Poupelinière (1761).

 21. Cara Mustapha, par de Preschat.

 22. Des trois Nations, conte oriental, par Marianne Robert

(1760).

 23. Contes Orientaux, tirés des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du

Roi, 2 vols. 12mo (1749).


This is the same as the Count de Caylus’ Oriental Tales. Sir R.
F. Burton has received the following memorandum, respecting a
copy of an earlier edition of the same work: “Contes Orientaux,
tirés des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du Roy de France, ornés
de figures en taille douce. A la Haye, 1743, 2 vols. 12mo,
polished calf gilt, gilt edges, arms in gilt on the sides.

“The Preface says, M. Petit et M. Galland n’ont en aucune
connaissance des manuscrits dont cet ouvrage est tiré.’

“The Tales are from the MSS. and translations sent by those

despatched by the French Ministers to Constantinople to learn

Arabic, &c., and so become fit to act as Dragomans and

Interpreters to the French Embassy.”


There is a copy of this work in the British Museum; it proves, as
I expected, to be the series of tales subsequently attributed to
the Count de Caylus.

In addition to the above, the following, of which I can only give
the names, are mentioned in the Cabinet des Fées, but not
reprinted:—

 1.  Alma-Moulin, conte oriental, 1779.

 2.  Gengiskan, histoire orientale, par M. de St. M.

 3.  Almanzor et Zelira, conte arabe, par M. Bret. (1772). {From

     “les mercures.”}

 4.  Almerine et Zelima, ou les Dangers de la Beauté, conte

     orientale, 1773. {From “les mercures.”}

 5.  Les Ames, conte arabe, par M. B————. {From “les

     mercures.”}

 6.  Balky, conte oriental, 1768. {From “les mercures.”}

 7.  Mirza, ou Is necessité d’etre utile (1774). {From “les

     mercures.”}

 8.  Zaman, histoire orientale, par M. B. {From “les mercures.”}

 9.  Anecdotes Orientales, par Mayol, 1752. 12mo.

 10.      Contes très moguls.

 11.      Foka ou les Metamorphoses, conte chinois. Derobé à M.

          de V. 1777. 12mo.

 12.      Mahulem, histoire orientale. 12mo, 1776.

 13.      Mille et une heure, contes Peruviens. 4 vols. 12mo,

          1733.

 14.      Histoire de Khedy, Hermite de Mont Ararat. Conte

          orientale, traduit de l’Anglais, 12mo, 1777.

 15.      Zambeddin, histoire orientale. 12mo, 1768.

 16.      Zelmoille et Zulmis et Turlableu. Par M. l’Abbé de

          Voisem, 12mo, 1747.

 17.      Roman Oriental, Paris, 1753.


The remaining imitations, &c., known to me I shall place roughly
in chronological order, premising that I fear the list must be
very incomplete, and that I have met with very few except in
English and French.

                           A.—French

1.   Zadig, ou la Destinée, par Voltaire[FN#473] probably
partakes of classes 2 and 6; said to be partly based on
Gueulette’s “Soirées Bretonnes,” published in 1712. The latter is
included in Cabinet des Fées, Vol. 32.

2.   Vathek, an Arabian Tale, by William Beckford. I include this
book here because it was written and first published in French.
Its popularity was once very great, and it contains some
effective passages, though it belongs to Class 2, and is rather a
parody than an imitation of Oriental fiction. The Caliph Vathek,
after committing many crimes at the instance of his mother, the
witch Carathis, in order to propitiate Eblis, finally starts on
an expedition to Istakar. On the way, he seduces Nouronihar, the
beautiful daughter of the Emir Fakreddin, and carries her with
him to the Palace of Eblis, where they am condemned to wander
eternally, with their hearts surrounded with flames.

This idea (which is certainly not Oriental, so far as I know)
took the fancy of Byron, who was a great admirer of Vathek, and
he has mixed it with genuine Oriental features in a powerful
passage in the Giaour, beginning:

          “But thou, false infidel! shalt writhe

          Beneath avenging Monkir’s scythe;

          And from its torment ’scape alone

          To wander round lost Eblis’ throne;

          And fire unquenched, unquenchable,

          Around, within thy heart shall dwell;

          Nor ear can hear, nor tongue can tell

          The tortures of that inward hell!” &c.


How errors relative to Eastern matters are perpetuated is
illustrated by the fact that I have seen these lines quoted in
some modern philosophical work as descriptive of the hell in
which the Mohammedans believe!

Southey, in Thalaba, b. 1., speaks of the Sarsar, “the Icy Wind
of Death,” an expression which he probably borrowed from Vathek.

3.   The Count of Hamilton’s Fairy Tales. Written shortly after
     the first publication of Galland’s work. There is an English
     Translation among Bohn’s Extra Volumes.

4.   Les Mille et un Fadaises, par Cazotte. Class 1. I have not

     seen them.


5.   La Mille et deuxième Nuit, par Theophilus Gautier (Paris,

     1880). Probably Class 1 or 2; I have not seen it.


                          B.—English.

1.   The Vision of Mirza (Addison in the “Spectator”). Class 3.

2.   The Story of Amurath. Class 3. I do not know the author. I
read it in a juvenile book published about the end of last
century, entitled the Pleasing Instructor.

3.   The Persian Tales of Inatulla of Delhi. Published in 1768,
by Colonel Alexander Dow at Edinburgh. A French translation
appeared at Amsterdam in two vols. and in Paris in one vol.
(1769). Class 6. Chiefly founded on a wellknown Persian work, of
which a more correct, though still incomplete, version was
published in 3 vols. by Jonathan Scott in 1799, under the title
of Bahar Danush, or Garden of Knowledge.

5.   Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson. Class 3. Too well known to need
     comment.

6.   Almoran and Hamet, by Dr. Hawksworth. Class 3. Very popular
at the beginning of the present century, but now forgotten.

7.   Oriental Fairy Tales (London, 1853). Class 4. A series of
very pretty fairy tales, by an anonymous author, in which the
scene is laid in the East (especially Egypt).

8.   The Shaving of Shagpat, by George Meredith (London, 1855).
Class 5. I prefer this to most other imitations of an Oriental
tale.

9.   The Thousand and One Humbugs. Classes 1 and 2. Published in
“Household Words,” vol. xi. (1855) pp. 265–267, 289–292, 313–316.
Parodies on Nos. 1, 195, 6d, and 6e, f.

10.  Eastern Tales, by many story-tellers. Compiled and edited
from ancient and modern authors by Mrs. Valentine, author of “Sea
Fights and Land Battles,” &c. (Chandos Classics.)

In her preface, the authoress states that the tales “are gathered
from both ancient and modern French, Italian and English
sources.”

Contains 14 tales, some genuine, others imitations, One,
“Alischar and Smaragdine,” is a genuine story of The Nights (No.
41 of our Table), and is probably taken from Trébutien. Three
tales, “Jalaladeen,” “Haschem,” and “Jussuf,” are Grimm’s
imitations, taken probably from the composite English edition of
1847, and with the same illustrations. “The Seven Sleepers” and
the “Four Talismans” are from the Count de Caylus’ tales;
“Halechalbe” and “Bohetzad” (our No. 174) are from Chavis and
Cazotte; “The Enchanters” and “Urad” are from the “Tales of the
Genii”; and “The Pantofles” is the well-known story of the miser
Casem and his slippers, but I know not where it first appeared.
The remaining three tales are unknown to me, and as I have seen
no volume of Italian Oriental tales, some, no doubt, are derived
from the Italian sources of which the authoress spoke. They are
the following: “The Prince and the Lions,” “The City of the
Demons” (a Jewish story purporting to have been written in
England) and “Sadik Beg.”

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.

                          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.”

COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE TALES IN THE PRINCIPAL

     EDITIONS OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, viz.:—


 1. Galland.
 2. Caussin de Perceval.
 3. Gauttier.
 4. Scott’s MS. (Wortley Montague).
 5. Ditto (Anderson; marked A).
 6. Scott’s Arabian Nights.
 7. Scott’s Tales and Anecdotes (marked A).
 8. Von Hammer’s MS.
 9. Zinserling.
10. Lamb.
11. Trébutien.
12. Bul. text.
13. Lane.
14. Bres. text.
15. Habicht.
16. Weil.
17. Mac. text.
18. Torrens.
19. Payne.
20. Payne’s Tales from the Arabic (marked I. II. III.)
21. Calc.
22. Burton.

As nearly all editions of The Nights are in several volumes, the
volumes are indicated throughout, except in the case of some of
the texts. Only those tales in No. 5, not included in No. 4, are
here indicated in the same column. All tales which there is good
reason to believe do not belong to the genuine Nights are marked
with an asterisk.

The blank column may be used to enter the contents of some other

edition.

                                                        | Galland.                          |“Bul.” Text.                      Burton.

                                                        |   |Caussin de Perceval.           |   |Lane.                              |

                                                        |   |   |Gauttier.                  |   |   |“Bres.” Text.                  |

                                                        |   |   |   |Scott’s MS.            |   |   |   |Habicht.                   |

                                                        |   |   |   |   |Scott.             |   |   |   |   |Weil.                  |

                                                        |   |   |   |   |   |Von Hammer’s MS.   |   |   |   |   |“Mac.” Text        |

                                                        |   |   |   |   |   |   |Zinserling.|   |   |   |   |   |   |Torrens.       |

                                                        |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |Lamb.  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |Payne.     |

                                                        |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |Trébutien  |   |   |   |   |   |   |Calc.  |

                                                       [| 1.| 2.| 3.|4,5|6,7| 8.| 9.|10.|11.|12.|13.|14.|15.|16.|17.|18.|19.|20.|   |22.]


   Introduction  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | - |…|…| 1 | - |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + |…| 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
   Story of King Shahryar and his brother    .   .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      a. Tale of the Bull and the Ass    .   .   .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | A | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
   1. Tale of the Trader and the Jinni   .   .   .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      a. The First Shaykh’s Story    .   .   .   .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      b. The Second Shaykh’s Story   .   .   .   .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      c. The Third Shaykh’s Story    .   .   .   .   .  | - | - |…| 1 | - |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | - |…|  1
   2. The Fisherman and the Jinni    .   .   .   .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      a. Tale of the Wazir and the Sage Duban    .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         ab. Story of King Sindibad and his Falcon   .  | - | - |…| ? | - |VHa|…|…|…| + | - | - | - | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | - |…|  1
         ac. Tale of the Husband and the Parrot  .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | ? | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| - | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | - | - | - | + |…|  1
         ad. Tale of the Prince and the Ogress   .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | ? | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      b. Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince  .   .   .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
   3. The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad .   .  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 2 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      a. The First Kalandar’s Tale   .   .   .   .   .  | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 2 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      b. The Second Kalandar’s Tale  .   .   .   .   .  | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 2 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         ba. Tale of the Envier and the Envied   .   .  | 2 | 1 | 1 | ? | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| - | 1 | + | 2 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      c. The Third Kalandar’s Tale   .   .   .   .   .  | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 2 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      d. The Eldest Lady’s Tale  .   .   .   .   .   .  | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 2 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      e. Tale of the Portress    .   .   .   .   .   .  | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 2 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | - |…|  1
      Conclusion of the Story of the Porter and
         three Ladies    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 2 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
   4. Tale of the Three Apples   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 |VHa|…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 3 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
   5. Tale of Nur Al-Din and his Son Badr Al-Din Hasan  |3,4| 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 3 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
   6. The Hunchback’s Tale   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 3 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      a. The Nazarene Broker’s Story .   .   .   .   .  | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 3 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      b. The Reeve’s Tale    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 3 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      c. Tale of the Jewish Doctor   .   .   .   .   .  | 4 | 3 | 2 | ? | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 3 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      d. Tale of the Tailor  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |4,5| 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 3 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
      e. The Barber’s Tale of Himself    .   .   .   .  | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 4 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         ea. The Barber’s Tale of his First Brother  .  | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 4 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         eb. The Barber’s Tale of his Second Brother .  | 5 | 3 | 2 | ? | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 4 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         ec. The Barber’s Tale of his Third Brother  .  | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 4 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         ed. The Barber’s Tale of his Fourth Brother .  | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 4 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         ee. The Barber’s Tale of his Fifth Brother  .  | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 4 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         ef. The Barber’s Tale of his Sixth Brother  .  | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 4 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
         The End of the Tailor’s Tale.   .   .   .   .  | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 4 | 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  1
   7. Nur Al-Din Ali and the Damsel Anis Al-Jalis    .  | 7 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + |5,6| 1 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…|  2
   8. Tale of Ghanim Bin Ayyub, the Distraught, the
         Thrall o’ Love  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 8 |4,5| 4 |…| 4 | 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 | + | 8 | 2 | + | 1 | 1 |…|…|  2
      a. Tale of the First Eunuch, Bukhayt   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| ? |…|…|…| + |   | + |…| 2 | + | 1 | 1 |…|…|  2
      b. Tale of the Second Eunuch, Kafur.   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| ? |…|…|…| + | 1 | + |…| 2 | + | 1 | 1 |…|…|  2
   9. Tale of King Omar Bin Al-Nu’uman, and his
         sons Sharrkan and Zan Al-Makan  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…| + | - |…|…| 3 | + |1(p)|2 |…|…|2,3
      a. Tale of Taj Al-Muluk and the Princess Dunya .  |…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 |…|…| 3 | + |…| 2 |…|…|2,3
         aa. Tale of Aziz and Azizah .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…| + | 1 |…|…| 3 | + |…| 2 |…|…|2,3
      b. Tale of the Hashish-Eater   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| ? |…|…|…| + | - |…|…| - | + |…| 2 |…|…|  3
      c. Tale of Hammad the Badawi   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…| + | - |…|…| - | + |…| 2 |…|…|  3
  10. The Birds and Beasts and the Carpenter .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | 2 |…|…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  11. The Hermits    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  12. The Water-fowl and the Tortoise    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  13. The Wolf and the Fox   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
      a. Tale of the Falcon and the Partridge    .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  14. The Mouse and the Ichneumon    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  15. The Cat and the Crow   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  16. The Fox and the Crow   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
      a. The Flea and the Mouse  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
      b. The Saker and the Birds .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
      c. The Sparrow and the Eagle   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  17. The Hedgehog and the Wood Pigeons  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
      a. The Merchant and the Two Sharpers   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  18. The Thief and his Monkey   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
      a. The Foolish Weaver  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  19. The Sparrow and the Peacock    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHb|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 3 |…|…|  3
  20. Ali Bin Bakkar and Shams Al-Nahar  .   .   .   .  |5,6| 3 | 3 |…|2,3| 1 |…|…|…| + | 2 | + | 4 | 1 | + |…| 3 | + |…|  3
  21. Tale of Kamar Al-Zaman .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 6 |3,4| 3 | 2 | 3 |1,2|…|…|…| + | 2 | + | 5 | 1 | + |…| 3 |…|…|3,4
      a. Ni’amah bin Al-Rabia and Naomi his Slave-girl  |…| 9 |…|…|…| ? |…|…|…| + | 2 | + | 13| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  22. Ala Al-Din Abu Al-Shamat   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 9 |…|…|…| 2 |…|…|…| + | 2 | + | 13| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  23. Hatim of the Tribe of Tayy .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  24. Ma’an the son of Zaidah and the three Girls    .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 |…| 2 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  25. Ma’an son of Zaidah and the Badawi .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  26. The City of Labtayt    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  27. The Caliph Hisham and the Arab Youth   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  28. Ibrahim bin Al-Mahdi and the Barber-Surgeon    .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  29. The City of Many-columned Iram and Abdullah
         son of Abi Kalabah  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  30. Isaac of Mosul     .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + | 13| 2 | + |…| 3 | + |…|  4
  31. The Sweep and the Noble Lady   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  32. The Mock Caliph    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 9 | 2 |…|…| 2 | - |…| - | + | 2 | + | 4 | 2 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  33. Ali the Persian    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 3 |…|…|  4
  34. Harun Al-Rashid and the Slave-Girl and the
         Imam Abu Yusuf  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  35. The Lover who feigned himself a Thief  .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  36. Ja’afar the Barmecide and the Bean-Seller  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | - |…| - | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  37. Abu Mohammed hight Lazybones   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 9 |…|…|…| 2 | - |…| - | + | 2 | + | 13| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  38. Generous dealing of Yahya bin Khalid the
         Barmecide with Mansur   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| ? | - |…| - | + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  39. Generous Dealing of Yahya son of Khalid with
         a man who forged a letter in his name   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| ? | - |…| - | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  40. Caliph Al-Maamun and the Strange Scholar   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…|…|…|…| 4 |…|…|  4
  41. Ali Shar and Zumurrud  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 1 | + | 2 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  42. The Loves of Jubayr Bin Umayr and the Lady Budur  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 1 | + | 2 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  43. The Man of Al-Yaman and his six Slave-Girls    .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  44. Harun Al-Rashid and the Damsel and Abu Nowas   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  45. The Man who stole the dish of gold whereon
         the dog ate .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  46. The Sharper of Alexandria and the Chief of Police |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  47. Al-Malik Al-Nasir and the three Chiefs of Police  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
      a. Story of the Chief of the new Cairo Police  .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
      b. Story of the Chief of the Bulak Police   .  .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
      c. Story of the Chief of the Old Cairo Police  .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  48. The Thief and the Shroff   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  49. The Chief of the Kus Police and the Sharper    .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  50. Ibrahim bin al-Mahdi and the Merchant’s Sister .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  51. The Woman whose hands were cut off for alms-
         giving  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  52. The devout Israelite   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  53. Abu Hassan Al-Ziyadi and the Khorasan Man  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  54. The Poor Man and his Friend in Need    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  55. The Ruined Man who became rich again through
         a dream .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  56. Caliph Al-Mutawakkil and his Concubine Mahbubah   |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  57. Wardan the Butcher’s Adventure with the Lady
         and the Bear    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  58. The King’s Daughter and the Ape    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  4
  59. The Ebony Horse    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 11| 7 | 5 |…| 5 | 2 | - |…| - | + | 2 | + | 9 | 1 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  60. Uns Al-Wujud and the Wazir’s Daughter Rose-
         in-Hood .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 1 |…| 1 | + | 2 | + | 11| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  61. Abu Nowas with the Three Boys and the Caliph
         Harun Al-Rashid .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| - | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  62. Abdullah bin Ma’amar with the Man of Bassorah
         and his Slave-Girl  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  63. The Lovers of the Banu Ozrah   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | 2 | + | 11| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  64. The Wazir of Al-Yaman and his young Brother    .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  65. The Loves of the Boy and Girl at School    .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  66. Al-Mutalammis and his Wife Umaymah .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  67. Harun Al-Rashid and Zubaydah in the Bath   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  68. Harim Al-Rashid and the Three Poets    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  69. Mus ’ab bin Al-Zubayr and Ayishah his Wife .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  70. Abu Al-Aswad and his Slave-Girl    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…|…| + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  71. Harun Al-Rashid and the two Slave-Girls    .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  72. Harun Al-Rashid and the Three Slave-Girls  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…|…| + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  73. The Miller and his Wife    .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  74. The Simpleton and the Sharper  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  75. The Kazi Abu Yusuf with Harun Al-Rashid and
         Queen Zubaydah  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A | - | - |…| - | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  76. The Caliph Al-Hakim and the Merchant   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  77. King Kisra Anushirwan and the Village Damsel   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  78. The Water-carrier and the Goldsmith’s Wife .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  79. Khusrau and Shirin and the Fisherman   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  80. Yahya bin Khalid and the Poor Man  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  81. Mohammed al-Amin and the Slave-Girl    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  82. The Sons of Yahya bin Khalid and Said bin Salim   |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  83. The Woman’s Trick against her Husband  .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  84. The Devout Woman and the Two Wicked Elders .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  85. Ja’afar the Barmecide and the old Badawi   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  86. Omar bin Al-Khattab and the Young Badawi   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  87. Al-Maamun and the Pyramids of Eygpt    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  88. The Thief and the Merchant .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  89. Masrur the Eunuch and Ibn Al-Karibi    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  90. The Devotee Prince .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  91. The Schoolmaster who fell in Love by Report    .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  92. The Foolish Dominie    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…|…| + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  93. The Illiterate who set up for a Schoolmaster   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  94. The King and the Virtuous Wife .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  95. Abd Al-Rahman the Maghribi’s story of the Rukh .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  96. Adi bin Zayd and the Princess Hind .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  97. Di’ibil Al-Khuza’i with the Lady and Muslim bin
         Al-Walid    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  98. Isaac of Mosul and the Merchant    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
  99. The Three Unfortunate Lovers   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 100. How Abu Hasan brake Wind   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| - | - |…| - | ? | - |…|…|…| ? |…| - |…|…|  5
 101. The Lovers of the Banu Tayy    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 102. The Mad Lover  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 103. The Prior who became a Moslem  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 104. The Loves of Abu Isa and Kurrat Al-Ayn .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 105. Al-Amin and his Uncle Ibrahim bin Al-Mahdi .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 106. Al-Fath bin Khakan and Al-Mutawakkil   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 107. The Man’s dispute with Learned Woman concerning
         the relative excellence of male and female  .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 108. Abu Suwayd and the pretty Old Woman    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 109. Ali bin Tahir and the girl Muunis  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 110. The Woman who had a Boy, and the other who had
         a Man to lover  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 111. Ali the Cairene and the Haunted House in Baghdad  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 1 | + | 2 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 112. The Pilgrim Man and the Old Woman  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 113. Abu Al-Husn and his Slave-girl Tawaddud    .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 1 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 4 |…|…|  5
 114. The Angel of Death with the Proud King and the
         Devout Man  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 115. The Angel of Death and the Rich King   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 116. The Angel of Death and the King of the Children
         of Israel   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | + | 2 |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 117. Iskandar zu Al-Karnayn and a certain Tribe of
         Poor Folk   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 118. The Righteousness of King Anushirwan   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 119. The Jewish Kazi and his Pious Wife .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 120. The Shipwrecked Woman and her Child    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 121. The Pious Black Slave  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 122. The Devout Tray-maker and his Wife .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 123. Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf and the Pious Man  .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 124. The Blacksmith who could Handle Fire Without Hurt |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 125. The Devotee to whom Allah gave a Cloud for
         Service and the Devout King .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 126. The Moslem Champion and the Christian Damsel   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 127. The Christian King’s Daughter and the Moslem   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 128. The Prophet and the Justice of Providence  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | 2 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 129. The Ferryman of the Nile and the Hermit    .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| - | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 130. The Island King and the Pious Israelite    .   .  |…|…| 6 |…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…| 10| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 131. Abu Al-Hasan and Abu Ja’afar the Leper .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 132. The Queen of the Serpents  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
      a. The Adventure of Bulukiya   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
      b. The Story of Janshah    .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  5
 133. Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman    .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + | 2 | 1 | + |…| 5 | + |…|  6
      a. The First Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman  .   .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + | 2 | 1 | + |…| 5 | + |…|  6
      b. The Second Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman .   .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + | 2 | 1 | + |…| 5 | + |…|  6
      c. The Third Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman  .   .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + | 2 | 1 | + |…| 5 | + |…|  6
      d. The Fourth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman .   .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + | 2 | 1 | + |…| 5 | + |…|  6
      e. The Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman  .   .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + | 3 | 1 | + |…| 5 | + |…|  6
      f. The Sixth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman  .   .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + | 3 | 1 | + |…| 5 | - |…|  6
      ff. The Sixth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | 3 | - |…|…| - |…|III| + |…|  -
      g. The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman    .  | 3 | 2 | 2 |…| 2 | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + | 3 | 1 | + |…| 5 | + |…|  6
      gg. The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman   .  | - |…|…|…| - | - | - |…| - | - | 3 | - |…| - | - |…|III| + |…|  6
 134. The City of Brass  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | + | 3 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
 135. The Craft and Malice of Women: .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A | 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      a. The King and his Wazir’s Wife   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…| - |…| - | + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      b. The Confectioner, his Wife and the Parrot   .  |…|…|…| A | A |VHc| - |…| - | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      c. The Fuller and his Son  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |VHc|…|…|…| + | - | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      d. The Rake’s Trick against the Chaste Wife    .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHc|…|…|…| + | - | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      e. The Miser and the Loaves of Bread   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|VHc|…|…|…| + | - | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      f. The Lady and her two Lovers .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |VHc|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      g. The King’s Son and the Ogress   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |VHc|…|…|…| + | - | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      h. The Drop of Honey   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |VHc|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      i. The Woman who made her husband sift dust    .  |…|…|…| A |…|VHc|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      j. The Enchanted Spring    .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |VHc|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      k. The Wazir’s Son and the Hammam-keeper’s Wife   |…|…|…| A |…|…|…|…|…| + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      l. The Wife’s device to cheat her Husband  .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      m. The Goldsmith and the Cashmere Singing-girl .  |…|…| 1 | A | A |…|…|…|…| + | 3 | + | 1 | 1 | + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      n. The Man who never laughed during the rest
            of his days  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      o. The King’s Son and the Merchant’s Wife  .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…| + | - | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      p. The Page who feigned to know the Speech of
            Birds    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      q. The Lady and her five Suitors   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      r. The Three Wishes, or the Man who longed to
            see the Night of Power   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A |…|…|…|…|…| + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      s. The Stolen Necklace .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      t. The Two Pigeons .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 3 |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      u. Prince Behram and the Princess Al-Datma .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      v. The House with the Belvedere    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      w. The King’s Son and the Ifrit’s Mistress .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      x. The Sandal-wood Merchant and the Sharpers   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      y. The Debauchee and the Three-year-old Child  .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      z. The Stolen Purse    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…| 5 |…|…|  6
      aa. The Fox and the Folk   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | - | + |15 |…| - |…| 5 |…|…|  6
 136. Judar and his Brethren .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | + | 3 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 6 |…|…|  6
 137. The History of Gharib and his Brother Ajib .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 1 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|6,7
 138. Otbah and Rayya    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | 3 |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 139. Hind, daughter of Al-Nu’man and Al-Hajjaj  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 140. Khuzaymah bin Bishr and Ekrimah al-Fayyaz  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | 3 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 141. Yunus the Scribe and the Caliph Walid bin Sahl .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 142. Harun Al-Rashid and the Arab Girl  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 143. Al-Asma’i and the three girls of Bassorah  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | - |…| - | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 144. Ibrahim of Mosul and the Devil .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | - |…|…| + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 145. The Lovers of the Banu Uzrah   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 4 | 6 | 3 | - |…|…| + | 3 |…|11 |…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 146. The Badawi and his Wife    .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 147. The Lovers of Bassorah .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 148. Ishak of Mosul and his Mistress and the Devil  .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 149. The Lovers of Al-Medinah   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | 3 |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 150. Al-Malik Al-Nasir and his Wazir    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 151. The Rogueries of Dalilah the Crafty and her
         Daughter Zaynab the Coney-Catcher   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 2 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
      a. The Adventures of Mercury Ali of Cairo  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 3 | 2 |…| 2 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 152. Ardashir and Hayat Al-Nufus    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 7 |…| 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 6 |…|…|  7
 153. Julnar the Sea-born and her son King Badr Basim
         of Persia   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 7 | 4 | 3 |…|3,4| 3 | - |…| - | + | 3 |…| 6 | 3 | + |…| 7 |…|…|  7
 154. King Mohammed bin Sabaik and the Merchant Hasan   |…|…|…| 1 |…| 3 | 2 |…| 2 | + | 3 | + |…| - | + |…| 7 |…|…|  7
      a. Story of Prince Sayf Al-Muluk and the
            Princess Badi’a Al-Jamal .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 1 |…|3,4| 2 |…| 2 | + | 3 | + |…| 2 | + |…| 7 |…|…|7,8
 155. Hasan of Bassorah  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 3 |…| 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | + |   | + |…| 2 | + |…| 7 |…|…|  8
 156. Khalifah the Fisherman of Baghdad  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 |…| 2 | + | 3 | - |…| 2 | + |…| 7 |…|…|  8
      a. The same from the Breslau Edition   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | + |…|…|…|…| 7 |…|…|  8
 157. Masrur and Zayn Al-Mawassif    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 8 |…|…|  8
 158. Ali Nur Al-Din and Miriam the Girdle-Girl  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 8 |…|…|8,9
 159. The Man of Upper Egypt and his Frankish Wife   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | - | 3 | + | - | + |…|…| + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
 160. The Ruined Man of Baghdad and his Slave-Girl   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | - | 3 | + | 3 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
 161. King Jali’ad of Hind and his Wazir Shimas,
         followed by the history of King Wird Khan,
         son of King Jali’ad, with his Women and
         Wazirs  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      a. The Mouse and the Cat   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      b. The Fakir and his Jar of Butter .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      c. The Fishes and the Crab .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      d. The Crow and the Serpent    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      e. The Wild Ass and the jackal .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      f. The Unjust King and the Pilgrim Prince  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      g. The Crows and the Hawk  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + |   | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      h. The Serpent-Charmer and his Wife    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + |   | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      i. The Spider and the Wind .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + |   | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      j. The Two Kings   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      k. The Blind Man and the Cripple   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      l. The Foolish Fisherman   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      m. The Boy and the Thieves .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      n. The Man and his Wife    .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      o. The Merchant and the Robbers    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      p. The Jackals and the Wolf    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      q. The Shepherd and the Rogue  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
      r. The Francolin and the Tortoises .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | - | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
 162. Abu Kir the Dyer and Abu Sir the Barber.   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | + | 3 | + |…| 4 | + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
 163. Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | + | 3 | + |…|…| + |…| 8 |…|…|  9
 164. Harun Al-Rashid and Abu Hasan, the Merchant of
         Oman    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 |…| 3 | + | - | + |…| 2 | + |…| 9 |…|…|  9
 165. Ibrahim and Jamilah    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | + | 3 |…|…|…| + |…| 9 |…|…|  9
 166. Abu Al-Hasan of Khorasan   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 9 |…|…|  9
 167. Kamar Al-Zaman and the Jeweller’s Wife .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | + | - |…|…| 4 | + |…| 9 |…|…|  9
 168. Abdullah bin Fazil and his Brothers    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 |…| 3 | + | - |…|…|…| + |…| 9 |…|…|  9
 169. Ma’aruf the Cobbler and his wife Fatimah   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | + | 3 |…|…| 4 | + |…| 9 |…|…| 10
 170. Asleep and Awake   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 9 | 5 | 4 |…| 4 |…|…|…|…|…| 2 | + | 7 | 1 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      a. Story of the Lackpenny and the Cook .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | + |…|…|…|…| I |…|…|…
 171. The Caliph Omar ben Abdulaziz and the Poets    .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | + |…| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
 172. El Hejjaj and the Three Young Men  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | + |…|…|…|…| I |…|…|…
 173. Haroun Er Reshid and the Woman of the Barmecides  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | + |…|…|…|…| I |…|…|…
 174. The Ten Viziers, or the History of King
         Azadbekht and his Son   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 8 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | + | 10| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      a. Of the uselessness of endeavor against
            persistent ill-fortune   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         aa. Story of the Unlucky Merchant   .   .   .  |…| 8 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| - | + | 10| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      b. Of looking to the issues of affairs .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         bb. Story of the Merchant and his Sons  .   .  |…| 8 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 10| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      c. Of the advantages of Patience   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         cc. Story of Abou Sabir .   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 8 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 10| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      d. Of the ill effects of Precipitation .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         dd. Story of Prince Bihzad  .   .   .   .   .  |…| 8 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 10| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      e. Of the issues of good and evil actions  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         ee. Story of King Dabdin and his Viziers    .  |…| 8 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 10| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      f. Of Trust in God .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         ff. Story of King Bekhtzeman    .   .   .   .  |…| 8 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      g. Of Clemency .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         gg. Story of King Bihkerd   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 8 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 10| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      h. Of Envy and Malice  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         hh. Story of Ilan Shah and Abou Temam   .   .  |…| 8 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 10| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      i. Of Destiny, or that which is written on the
            Forehead .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         ii. Story of King Ibrahim and his Son   .   .  |…| 8 | 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + | 13| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      k. Of the appointed Term, which if it be
            advanced, may not be deferred, and if it
            be deferred, may not be advanced .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         jj. Story of King Suleiman Shah and his Sons   |…| 8 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
      k. Of the speedy Relief of God .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
         kk. Story of the Prisoner, and how God gave
                him relief   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 8 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
 175. Jaafer Ben Zehya and Abdulmelik Ben Salih the
         Abbaside    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
 176. Er Reshid and the Barmecides   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…| 2 |…|…| I |…|…|…
 177. Ibn Es-Semmak and Er-Reshid    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…|…|…|…| I |…|…|…
 178. El Mamoun and Zubeideh .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…|…|…|…| I |…|…|…
 179. En Numan and the Arab of the Benou Tai .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…|…|…|…| I |…|…|…
 180. Firouz and his Wife    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…|…|…|…| I |…|…|…
 181. King Shah Bekht and his Vizier Er Rehwan   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      a. Story of the Man of Khorassan his son and
            his governor .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      b. Story of the Singer and the Druggist    .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      c. Story of the King who knew the quintessence
            of things    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      d. Story of the Rich Man who gave his fair
            Daughter in Marriage to the Poor Old Man .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      e. Story of the Rich Man and his Wasteful Son  .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      f. The King’s Son who fell in love with the
            Picture  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      g. Story of the Fuller and his Wife    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      h. Story of the Old Woman, the Merchant, and
            the King .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      i. Story of the credulous Husband  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      j. Story of the Unjust King and the Tither .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
         jj. Story of David and Solomon  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      k. Story of the Thief and the Woman    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      l. Story of the Three Men and our Lord Jesus   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
         ll. The Disciple’s Story    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      m. Story of the Dethroned King whose kingdom
            and good were restored to him    .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      n. Story of the Man whose caution was the cause
            of his Death .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      o. Story of the Man who was lavish of his house
         and his victual to one whom he knew not .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      p. Story of the Idiot and the Sharper  .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      q. Story of Khelbes and his Wife and the
            Learned Man  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…| I |…|…|…
      r. Story of the Pious Woman accused of lewdness   |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…|…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      s. Story of the Journeyman and the Girl    .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      t. Story of the Weaver who became a Physician
         by his Wife’s commandment   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      u. Story of the Two Sharpers who cheated each
         his fellow  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      v. Story of the Sharpers with the Moneychanger
            and the Ass  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      w. Story of the Sharper and the Merchants  .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
         wa. Story of the Hawk and the Locust    .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      x. Story of the King and his Chamberlain’s Wife   |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
         xa. Story of the Old Woman and the Draper’s
                Wife .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      y. Story of the Foul-favoured Man and his Fair
            Wife .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      z. Story of the King who lost Kingdom and Wife
            and Wealth, and God restored them to him .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      aa. Story of Selim and Selma   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      bb. Story of the King of Hind and his Vizier   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|   |…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
 182. El Melik Ez Zahir Rukneddin Bibers El
         Bunducdari, and the Sixteen Officers of
         Police  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      a. The First Officer’s Story   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      b. The Second Officer’s Story  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      c. The Third Officer’s Story   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      d. The Fourth Officer’s Story  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…|…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      e. The Fifth Officer’s Story   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      f. The Sixth Officer’s Story   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |…|…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      g. The Seventh Officer’s Story .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      h. The Eighth Officer’s Story  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
         ha. The Thief’s Story   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      i. The Ninth Officer’s Story   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      j. The Tenth Officer’s Story   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      k. The Eleventh Officer’s Story    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      l. The Twelfth Officer’s Story .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      m. The Thirteenth Officer’s Story  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      n. The Fourteenth Officer’s Story  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
         na. A Merry Jest of a Thief .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
         nb. Story of the Old Sharper    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      o. The Fifteenth Officer’s Story   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      p. The Sixteenth Officer’s Story   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 183. Abdallah Ben Nafi, and the King’s Son of
         Cashgbar    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
      a. Story of the Damsel Tuhfet El Culoub and
            Khalif Haroun Er Reshid  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |14 |…|…|…|II |…|…|…
 184. Women’s Craft  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 2 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 4 |…|…|…|II | + |…|…
 185. Noureddin Ali of Damascus and the Damsel Sitt
         El Milah    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |15 |…|…|…|III|…|…|…
 186. El Abbas and the King’s Daughter of Baghdad    .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |15 |…|…|…|III|…|…|…
 187. The Two Kings and the Vizier’s Daughters   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |15 |…|…|…|III|…|…|…
 188. The Favourite and her Lover    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |15 |…|…|…|III|…|…|…
 189. The Merchant of Cairo and the Favourite of the
         Khalif El Mamoun El Hakim bi Amrillah   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| + |15 |…|…|…|III|…|…|…
 190. Conclusion .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…| 4 | 3 |…| 3 | + | 3 | + |15 |…| + |…|{9&|…|…| 10
                                                                                                                         III}
*191. History of Prince Zeyn Alasnam .   .   .   .   .  | 8 | 5 | 4 |…| 4 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 6 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
*192. History of Codadad and his Brothers    .   .   .  | 8 | 5 | 4 |…| 4 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 6 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
      *a. History of the Princess of Deryabar    .   .  | 8 | 5 | 4 |…| 4 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 6 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
*193. Story of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp    .   . |9,10|5,6| 4 |…|4,5|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|7,8| 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
*194. Adventures of the Caliph Harun Al-Rashid   .   .  | 10| 6 | 5 |…| 5 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 8 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
      *a. Story of the Blind Man, Baba Abdallah  .   .  | 10| 6 | 5 |…| 5 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 8 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
      *b. Story of Sidi Numan    .   .   .   .   .   .  | 10| 6 | 5 |…| 5 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 8 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
      *c. Story of Cogia Hassan Alhabbal .   .   .   .|10,11| 6 | 5 |…| 5 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 8 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
*195. Story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves    .   .  | 11| 6 | 5 |…| 5 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 9 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
*196. Story of Ali Cogia, a Merchant of Baghdad  .   .  | 11| 7 | 5 |…| 5 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 9 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
*197. Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peri Banou .  | 12| 7 | 5 |…| 5 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 9 | 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
*198. Story of the Sisters who envied their younger
         sister  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  | 12| 7 | 5 |…| 5 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 10| 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…
 199. (Anecdote of Jaafar the Barmecide = No.39) .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 2 |…|…|…|…|…|…
 200. The Adventures of Ali and Zaher of Damascus.   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 4 |…|…|…|…|…|…
 201. The Adventures of the Fisherman, Judar of Cairo,
         and his meeting with the Moor Mahmood and the
         Sultan Beibars  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 4 |…|…|…|…|…|…
 202. The Physician and the young man of Mosul   .   .  |…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 203. Story of the Sultan of Yemen and his three sons   |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 204. Story of the Three Sharpers and the Sultan .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      a. Adventures of the Abdicated Sultan  .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      b. History of Mahummud, Sultan of Cairo    .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      c. Story of the First Lunatic  .   .   .   .   .  |…| 8 | 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      d. (Story of the Second Lunatic = No.184)  .   .  |…|…| 2 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      e. Story of the Sage and his Pupil .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      f. Night adventure of the Sultan   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      g, Story of the first foolish man  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 3 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      h. Story of the broken-backed Schoolmaster .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      i. Story of the wry-mouthed Schoolmaster   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      j. The Sultan’s second visit to the Sisters    .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      k. Story of the Sisters and the Sultana, their
            mother   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 205. Story of the Avaricious Cauzee and his wife    .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 206. Story of the Bang-Eater and the Cauzee .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      a. Story of the Bang-Eater and his wife    .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      b. Continuation of the Fisherman, or
            Bang-Eater’s Adventures  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 207. The Sultan and the Traveller Mhamood Al Hyjemmee  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      a. The Koord Robber (= No.33)  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      b. Story of the Husbandman .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      c. Story of the Three Princes and Enchanting
            Bird .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 3 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      d. Story of a Sultan of Yemen and his three Sons  |…|…| 6 | 4 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      e. Story of the first Sharper in the Cave  .   .  |…|…|…| 4 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      f. Story of the second Sharper .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 4 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      g. Story of the third Sharper  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 4 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      h. History of the Sultan of Hind   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 5 | 4 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|10 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 208. Story of the Fisherman’s Son   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 4 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 209. Story of Abou Neeut and Abou Neeuteen  .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 4 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 210. Story of the Prince of Sind, and Fatima, daughter
         of Amir Bin Naomaun .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 4 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 211. Story of the Lovers of Syria, or the Heroine   .  |…|…| 6 | 4 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 212. Story of Hyjauje, the tyrannical Governor of
         Confeh, and the young Syed  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 4 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 213. Story of the Sultan Haieshe    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 4 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 214. Story told by a Fisherman  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 4 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 215. The Adventures of Mazin of Khorassaun  .   .   .  |…|…| 6 |4,5| 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|10 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 216. Adventure of Haroon Al Rusheed .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      a. Story of the Sultan of Bussorah .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      b. Nocturnal adventures of Haroon Al Rusheed   .  |…|…|…| 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      e. Story related by Munjaub    .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      d. Story of the Sultan, the Dirveshe and the
            Barber’s Son .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      e. Story of the Bedouin’s Wife .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      f. Story of the Wife and her two Gallants  .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 217. Adventures of Aleefa, daughter of Mherejaun,
         Sultan of Hind, and Eusuff, son of Sohul,
         Sultan of Sind  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 218. Adventures of the three Princes, sons of the
         Sultan of China .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 5 | 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|10 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 219. Story of the Gallant Officer   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 220. Story of another officer   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 221. Story of the Idiot and his Asses   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 222. Story of the Lady of Cairo and the Three
         Debauchees  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 223. Story of the Good Vizier unjustly imprisoned   .  |…|…| 6 | 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 224. Story of the Prying Barber and the young man of
         Cairo   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 225. Story of the Lady of Cairo and her four Gallants  |…|…| 6 | 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      a. The Cauzee’s Story  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 5 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      b. The Syrian  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|5,6| - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      c. The Caim-makaum’s Wife  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      d. Story told by the Fourth Gallant    .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 226. Story of a Hump-backed Porter  .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 227. The Aged Porter of Cairo and the Artful Female
         Thief   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 228. Mhassun and his tried friend Mouseh    .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 229. Mahummud Julbee, son to an Ameer of Cairo  .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 230. The Farmer’s Wife  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 231. The Artful Wife    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 232. The Cauzee’s Wife  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 233. Story of the Merchant, his Daughter, and the
         Prince of Eerauk    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 234. The Two Orphans    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 235. Story of another Farmer’s Wife .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 236. Story of the Son who attempted his Father’s
         Wives   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 237. The Two Wits of Cairo and Syria    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 238. Ibrahim and Mouseh .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 6 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 239. The Viziers Ahmed and Mahummud .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|6,7| - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 240. The Son addicted to Theft  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 7 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 241. Adventures of the Cauzee, his Wife, &c.    .   .  |…|…| 6 | 7 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      a. The Sultan’s Story of Himself   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 6 | 7 | 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|11 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 242. Story of Shaykh Nukheet the Fisherman, who
         became favourite to a Sultan    .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 7 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      a. Story of the King of Andalusia  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 7 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 243. Story of Teilone, Sultan of Egypt  .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 7 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 244. Story of the Retired Man and his Servant   .   .  |…|…|…| 7 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 245. The Merchant’s Daughter who married the Emperor
         of China    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| 7 | - |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*246. New Adventures of the Caliph Harun Al-Rashid   .  |…| 8 | 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*247. The Physician and the young Purveyor of Bagdad .  |…| 8 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|13 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*248. The Wise Heycar    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 8 | 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|13 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*249. Attaf the Generous .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…| 9 | 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|13 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*250. Prince Habib and Dorrat-al-Gawas   .   .   .   .  |…| 9 | 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*251. The Forty Wazirs   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *a. Story of Shaykh Shahabeddin    .   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *b. Story of the Gardener, his Son, and the Ass   |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *c. The Sultan Mahmoud and his Wazir   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *d. Story of the Brahman Padmanaba and the young
             Fyquai  .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *e. Story of Sultan Akshid .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *f. Story of the Husband, the Lover and the
             Thief   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *g. Story of the Prince of Carisme and the
             Princess of Georgia .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *h. The Cobbler and the King’s Daughter    .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *i. The Woodcutter and the Genius  .   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *j. The Royal Parrot   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…| 1 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*252. Story of the King and Queen of Abyssinia   .   .  |…|…| 6 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|10 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*253. Story of Princes Amina .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *a. Story of the Princess of Tartary   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *b. Story told by the Old Man’s Wife   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*254. Story of Ali Johari    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*255. Story of the two Princes of Cochin China   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*256. Story of the two Husbands  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *a. Story of Abdallah  .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *b. Story of the Favourite .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*257. Story of Yusuf and the Indian Merchant .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*258. Story of Prince Benazir    .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|12 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*259. Story of Selim, Sultan of Egypt    .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|13 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *a. Story of the Cobbler’s Wife    .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|13 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *b. Story of Adileh    .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|13 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *c. Story of the scarred Kalender  .   .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|13 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
      *d. Continuation of the story of Selim .   .   .  |…|…| 7 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|13 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
*260. Story of Seif Sul Yesn .   .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|14 |…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 261. Story of the Labourer and the Chair    .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…
 262. Story of Ahmed the Orphan  .   .   .   .   .   .  |…|…|…| A | A |…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…|…

      VHa  (Full contents from Introd. to No. 4 not given: 3e and 4 are apparently wanting.)

      VHb  (Nos. 10–19 represented by 7 Fables.)

      VHc  (Would include subordinate tales.)


N.B.—In using this Table, some allowance must be made for differences
in the titles of many of the tales in different editions.

For the contents of the printed text, I have followed the lists in Mr.
Payne’s “Tales from the Arabic,” vol. iii.


And here I end this long volume with repeating in other words and
other tongue what was said in “L’Envoi”:—

          Hide thou whatever here is found of fault;

          And laud The Faultless and His might exalt!


After which I have only to make my bow and to say

                            “Salam.”

                   Arabian Nights, Volume 10

                           Footnotes


[FN#1] Arab. “Zarábín” (pl. of zarbún), lit. slaves’ shoes or
sandals (see vol. iii. p. 336) the chaussure worn by Mamelukes.
Here the word is used in its modern sense of stout shoes or
walking boots.

[FN#2] The popular word means goodness, etc.

[FN#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.

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

[FN#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.

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

[FN#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.”

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

[FN#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.”

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

[FN#11] For this unpleasant euphemy see vol. iv. 215.

[FN#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.

[FN#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.”

[FN#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.

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

[FN#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.

[FN#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.

[FN#18] The style is modern Cairene jargon.

[FN#19] Purses or gold pieces see vol. ix. 313.

[FN#20] i.e. I am a Cairene.

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

[FN#22] Arab. “’Attár,” perfume-seller and druggist; the word is
connected with our “Ottar” (’Atr).

[FN#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.

[FN#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.

[FN#25] Arab. “Taysh” lit.=vertigo, swimming of head.

[FN#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 p. 24.

[FN#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 made 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.

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

[FN#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.”

[FN#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.

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

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

[FN#33] A dark red dye (Lane).

[FN#34] Arab. “Jadíd,” see vol. viii. 121.

[FN#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.”

[FN#36] One of the many formulas of polite refusal.

[FN#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.

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

[FN#39] Arab. “Kammir,” i.e. brown it before the fire, toast it.

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

[FN#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.


[FN#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.

[FN#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, p. 288).

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

[FN#45] He wants £40,000 to begin with.

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

[FN#47] Another sign of modern composition as in Kamar al-Zaman

II.


[FN#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.

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

[FN#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.

[FN#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.


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

[FN#53] As we should say, “play fast and loose.”

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

[FN#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.

[FN#56] This is indeed one of the touches of nature which makes
all the world kin.

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

[FN#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.

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

[FN#60] Another pun upon his name, “Ma’aruf.”

[FN#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. p. 250.

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

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

(Kafr Nahum).


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

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

[FN#66] Koran lxxxix. “The Daybreak” which also mentions Thamud
and Pharaoh.

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

[FN#68] The beautiful girls who guard ensorcelled hoards: See
vol. vi. 109.

[FN#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.

[FN#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.

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

[FN#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.

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

[FN#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.

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

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

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

[FN#78] As if it were a bride. See vol. vii. 198. The stars of

Jauzá (Gemini) are the cupbearer’s eyes.


[FN#79] i.e. light-coloured wine.

[FN#80] The usual homage to youth and beauty.

[FN#81] Alluding to the cup.

[FN#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.

[FN#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.

[FN#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.)

[FN#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.”

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

Khallikan the bird is the lark.


[FN#87] Arab. “Táy’i”=thirsty used with Jáy’i=hungry.

[FN#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.

[FN#89] i.e. gold-coloured wine, as the Vino d’Oro.

[FN#90] Compare the charming song of Abu Miján translated from
the German of Dr. Weil in Bohn’s Edit. of Ockley (p. 149),

When the Death-angel cometh mine eyes to close,

Dig my grave ’mid the vines on the hill’s fair side;

For though deep in earth may my bones repose,

The juice of the grape shall their food provide.

Ah, bury me not in a barren land,

Or Death will appear to me dread and drear!

While fearless I’ll wait what he hath in hand I

An the scent of the vineyard my spirit cheer.


The glorious old drinker!

[FN#91] Arab. “Rub’a al-Kharáb” in Ibn al-Wardi Central Africa
south of the Nile-sources, one of the richest regions in the
world. Here it prob. alludes to the Rub’a al-Kháli or Great
Arabian Desert: for which see Night dclxxvi. In rhetoric it is
opposed to the “Rub’a Maskún,” or populated fourth of the world,
the rest being held to be ocean.

[FN#92] This is the noble resignation of the Moslem. What a
dialogue there would have been in a European book between man and
devil!

[FN#93] Arab. “Al-’iddah” the period of four months and ten days
which must elapse before she could legally marry again. But this
was a palpable wile: she was not sure of her husband’s death and
he had not divorced her; so that although a “grass widow,” a
“Strohwitwe” as the Germans say, she could not wed again either
with or without interval.

[FN#94] Here the silence is of cowardice and the passage is a
fling at the “timeserving” of the Olema, a favourite theme, like
“banging the bishops” amongst certain Westerns.

[FN#95] Arab. “Umm al-raas,” the poll, crown of the head, here
the place where a calamity coming down from heaven would first
alight.

[FN#96] From Al-Hariri (Lane): the lines are excellent.

[FN#97] When the charming Princess is so ready at the voie de
faits, the reader will understand how common is such energetic
action among women of lower degree. The “fair sex” in Egypt has a
horrible way of murdering men, especially husbands, by tying them
down and tearing out the testicles. See Lane M. E. chapt. xiii.

[FN#98] Arab. “Sijn al-Ghazab,” the dungeons appropriated to the
worst of criminals where they suffer penalties far worse than
hanging or guillotining.

[FN#99] According to some modern Moslems Munkar and Nakir visit

the graves of Infidels (non-Moslems) and Bashshir and Mubashshir

(“Givers of glad tidings”) those of Mohammedans. Petis de la

Croix (Les Mille et un Jours vol. iii. 258) speaks of the

“Zoubanya,” black angels who torture the damned under their chief

Dabilah.


[FN#100] Very simple and pathetic is this short sketch of the
noble-minded Princess’s death.

[FN#101] In sign of dismissal (vol. iv. 62) I have noted that
“throwing the kerchief” is not an Eastern practice: the idea
probably arose from the Oriental practice of sending presents in
richly embroidered napkins and kerchiefs.

[FN#102] Curious to say both Lane and Payne omit this passage
which appears in both texts (Mac. and Bul.). The object is
evidently to prepare the reader for the ending by reverting to
the beginning of the tale; and its prolixity has its effect as in
the old Romances of Chivalry from Amadis of Ghaul to the Seven
Champions of Christendom. If it provoke impatience, it also
heightens expectation; “it is like the long elm-avenues of our
forefathers; we wish ourselves at the end; but we know that at
the end there is something great.”

[FN#103] Arab. “alà malákay bayti ’l-ráhah;” on the two slabs at
whose union are the round hole and longitudinal slit. See vol. i.
221.

[FN#104] Here the exclamation wards off the Evil Eye from the
Sword and the wearer: Mr. Payne notes, “The old English
exclamation Cock’s ’ill!’ (i.e., God’s will, thus corrupted for
the purpose of evading the statute of 3 Jac. i. against profane
swearing) exactly corresponds to the Arabic”—with a difference,
I add.

[FN#105] Arab. “Mustahakk”=deserving (Lane) or worth (Payne) the
cutting.

[FN#106] Arab. “Mashhad” the same as “Sháhid”=the upright stones
at the head and foot of the grave. Lane mistranslates, “Made for
her a funeral procession.”

[FN#107] These lines have occurred before. I quote Lane.

[FN#108] There is nothing strange in such sudden elevations
amongst Moslems and even in Europe we still see them
occasionally. The family in the East, however humble, is a model
and miniature of the state, and learning is not always necessary
to wisdom.

[FN#109] Arab. “Fárid” which may also mean “union-pearl.”

[FN#110] Trébutien (iii. 497) cannot deny himself the pleasure of
a French touch making the King reply, “C’est assez; qu’on lui
coupe la tête, car ces dernières histoires surtout m’ont causé un
ennui mortel.” This reading is found in some of the MSS.

[FN#111] After this I borrow from the Bresl. Edit. inserting
passages from the Mac. Edit.

[FN#112] i.e. whom he intended to marry with regal ceremony.

[FN#113] The use of coloured powders in sign of holiday-making is
not obsolete in India. See Herklots for the use of “Huldee”
(Haldí) or turmeric-powder, pp. 64–65.

[FN#114] Many Moslem families insist upon this before giving
their girls in marriage, and the practice is still popular
amongst many Mediterranean peoples.

[FN#115] i.e. Sumatran.

[FN#116] i.e. Alexander, according to the Arabs; see vol. v. 252.

[FN#117] These lines are in vol. i. 217.

[FN#118] I repeat the lines from vol. i. 218.

[FN#119] All these coquetries require as much inventiveness as a
cotillon; the text alludes to fastening the bride’s tresses
across her mouth giving her the semblance of beard and
mustachios.

[FN#120] Repeated from vol. i. 218.

[FN#121] Repeated from vol. i. 218.

[FN#122] See vol. i. 219.

[FN#123] Arab. Sawád=the blackness of the hair.

[FN#124] Because Easterns build, but never repair.

[FN#125]i.e. God only knows if it be true or not.

[FN#126] Ouseley’s Orient. Collect. I, vii.

[FN#127] This three-fold distribution occurred to me many years
ago and when far beyond reach of literary authorities, I was,
therefore, much pleased to find the subjoined three-fold
classification with minor details made by Baron von Hammer-Purgstall
 (Preface to Contes Inédits etc. of G. S. Trébutien,
Paris, mdcccxxviii.) (1) The older stories which serve as a base
to the collection, such as the Ten Wazirs (“Malice of Women”) and
Voyages of Sindbad (?) which may date from the days of Mahommed.
These are distributed into two sub-classes; (a) the marvellous
and purely imaginative (e.g. Jamasp and the Serpent Queen) and
(b) the realistic mixed with instructive fables and moral
instances. (2) The stories and anecdotes peculiarly Arab,
relating to the Caliphs and especially to Al-Rashíd; and (3) The
tales of Egyptian provenance, which mostly date from the times of
the puissant “Aaron the Orthodox.” Mr. John Payne (Villon
Translation vol. ix. pp. 367–73) distributes the stories roughly
under five chief heads as follows: (1) Histories or long
Romances, as King Omar bin Al-Nu’man (2) Anecdotes or short
stories dealing with historical personages and with incidents and
adventures belonging to the every-day life of the period to which
they refer: e.g. those concerning Al-Rashíd and Hátim of Tayy.
(3) Romances and romantic fictions comprising three different
kinds of tales; (a) purely romantic and supernatural; (b)
fictions and nouvelles with or without a basis and background of
historical fact and (c) Contes fantastiques. (4) Fables and
Apologues; and (5) Tales proper, as that of Tawaddud.

[FN#128] Journal Asiatique (Paris, Dondoy-Dupré, 1826) “Sur
l’origine des Mille et une Nuits.”

[FN#129] Baron von Hammer-Purgstall’s château is near Styrian
Graz, and, when I last saw his library, it had been left as it
was at his death.

[FN#130] At least, in Trébutien’s Preface, pp. xxx.-xxxi.,
reprinted from the Journ. Asiat. August, 1839: for corrections
see De Sacy’s “Mémoire.” p. 39.

[FN#131] Vol. iv. pp. 89–90, Paris mdccclxv. Trébutien quotes,
chapt. lii. (for lxviii.), one of Von Hammer’s manifold
inaccuracies.

[FN#132] Alluding to Iram the Many-columned, etc.

[FN#133] In Trébutien “Síhá,” for which the Editor of the Journ.
Asiat. and De Sacy rightly read “Sabíl-há.”


[FN#134] For this some MSS. have “Fahlawiyah” = Pehlevi

[FN#135] i.e. Lower Roman, Grecian, of Asia Minor, etc., the word
is still applied throughout Marocco, Algiers and Northern Africa to
Europeans in general.

[FN#136] De Sacy (Dissertation prefixed to the Bourdin Edition)
notices the “thousand and one,” and in his Mémoire “a thousand:”
Von Hammer’s MS. reads a thousand, and the French translation a
thousand and one. Evidently no stress can be laid upon the
numerals.

[FN#137] These names are noticed in my vol. i. 14, and vol. ii.
3. According to De Sacy some MSS. read “History of the Wazir and
his Daughters.”

[FN#138] Lane (iii. 735) has Wizreh or Wardeh which guide us to

Wird Khan, the hero of the tale. Von Hammer’s MS. prefers

Djilkand (Jilkand), whence probably the Isegil or Isegild of

Langlés (1814), and the Tséqyl of De Sacy (1833). The mention of

“Simás” (Lane’s Shemmas) identifies it with “King Jalí’ád of

Hind,” etc. (Night dcccxcix.) Writing in A.D. 961 Hamzah Isfaháni

couples with the libri Sindbad and Schimas, the libri Baruc and

Barsinas, four nouvelles out of nearly seventy. See also Al-

Makri’zi’s Khitat or Topography (ii. 485) for a notice of the

Thousand or Thousand and one Nights.


[FN#139] alluding to the “Seven Wazirs” alias “The Malice of
Women” (Night dlxxviii.), which Von Hammer and many others have
carelessly confounded with Sindbad the Seaman We find that two
tales once separate have now been incorporated with The Nights,
and this suggests the manner of its composition by accretion.

[FN#140] Arabised by a most “elegant” stylist, Abdullah ibn al-Mukaffá
 (the shrivelled), a Persian Guebre named Roz-bih (Day
good), who islamised and was barbarously put to death in A.H. 158
(= 775) by command of the Caliph al-Mansur (Al-Siyuti p. 277).
“He also translated from Pehlevi the book entitled Sekiserán,
containing the annals of Isfandiyar, the death of Rustam, and
other episodes of old Persic history,” says Al-Mas’udi chapt.
xxi. See also Ibn Khallikan (1, 43) who dates the murder in A.H.
142 (= 759–60).

[FN#141] “Notice sur Le Schah-namah de Firdoussi,” a posthumous

publication of M. de Wallenbourg, Vienna, 1810, by M. A. de

Bianchi. In sect. iii. I shall quote another passage of Al-

Mas’udi (viii. 175) in which I find a distinct allusion to the

“Gaboriau detective tales” of The Nights.


[FN#142] Here Von Hammer shows his customary inexactitude. As we
learn from Ibn Khallikan (Fr. Tr. I. 630), the author’s name was
Abu al-Faraj Mohammed ibn Is’hak pop. known as Ibn Ali Ya’kúb al-Warrák,
the bibliographe, librarian, copyist. It was published
(vol. i Leipzig, 1871) under the editorship of G. Fluegel, J.
Roediger, and A. Müller.

[FN#143] See also the Journ. Asiat., August, 1839, and Lane iii.
736–37

[FN#144] Called “Afsánah” by Al-Mas’udi, both words having the
same sense = tale story, parable, “facetiæ.” Moslem fanaticism
renders it by the Arab “Khuráfah” = silly fables, and in
Hindostan it = a jest: “Bát-kí bát, khurafát-ki khurafát” (a word
for a word, a joke for a joke).

[FN#145] Al-Mas’údi (chapt. xxi.) makes this a name of the Mother
of Queen Humái or Humáyah, for whom see below.

[FN#146] The preface of a copy of the Shah-nameh (by Firdausi,
ob. A.D. 1021), collated in A.H. 829 by command of Bayisunghur
Bahadur Khán (Atkinson p. x.), informs us that the Hazar Afsanah
was composed for or by Queen Humái whose name is Arabised to
Humáyah This Persian Marguerite de Navarre was daughter and wife
to (Ardashir) Bahman, sixth Kayanian and surnamed Diraz-dast
(Artaxerxes Longimanus), Abu Sásán from his son, the Eponymus of
the Sassanides who followed the Kayanians when these were
extinguished by Alexander of Macedon. Humái succeeded her husband
as seventh Queen, reigned thirty-two years and left the crown to
her son Dárá or Dáráb 1st = Darius Codomanus. She is better known
to Europe (through Herodotus) as Parysatis = Peri-zádeh or the
Fairy-born.

[FN#147] i.e. If Allah allow me to say sooth.

[FN#148] i.e. of silly anecdotes: here speaks the good Moslem!

[FN#149] No. 622 Sept. 29, 39, a review of Torrens which
appeared shortly after Lane’s vol. i. The author quotes from a
MS. in the British Museum, No. 7334 fol. 136.

[FN#150] There are many Spaniards of this name: Mr. Payne (ix.
302) proposes Abu Ja’afar ibn Abd al-Hakk al-Khazraji, author of
a History of the Caliphs about the middle of the twelfth century.

[FN#151] The well-known Rauzah or Garden-island, of old Al-Saná’ah
 (Al-Mas’udi chapt. xxxi.) which is more than once noticed
in The Nights. The name of the pavilion Al-Haudaj = a camel-litter,
was probably intended to flatter the Badawi girl.

[FN#152] He was the Seventh Fatimite Caliph of Egypt: regn. A.H.
495–524 (= 1101 1129).

[FN#153] Suggesting a private pleasaunce in Al-Rauzah which has
ever been and is still a succession of gardens.

[FN#154] The writer in The Athenæum calls him Ibn Miyvah, and
adds that the Badawiyah wrote to her cousin certain verses
complaining of her thraldom, which the youth answered abusing the
Caliph. Al-Ámir found the correspondence and ordered Ibn Miyah’s
tongue to be cut out, but he saved himself by a timely flight.

[FN#155] In Night dccclxxxv. we have the passage “He was a wily
thief: none could avail against his craft as he were Abu Mohammed
Al-Battál”: the word etymologically means The Bad; but see infra.

[FN#156] Amongst other losses which Orientals have sustained by
the death of Rogers Bey, I may mention his proposed translation
of Al-Makrízí’s great topographical work.

[FN#157] The name appears only in a later passage.

[FN#158] Mr. Payne notes (viii. 137) “apparently some famous
brigand of the time” (of Charlemagne). But the title may signify
The Brave, and the tale may be much older.

[FN#159] In his “Mémoire sur l’origine du Recueil des Contes
intitulé Les Mille et une Nuits” (Mém. d’Hist. et de Littér.
Orientale, extrait des tomes ix., et x. des Mémoires de l’Inst.
Royal Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris, Imprimerie
Royale, 1833). He read the Memoir before the Royal Academy on
July 31, 1829. Also in his Dissertation “Sur les Mille et une
Nuits” (pp. i. viii.) prefixed to the Bourdin Edit. When first
the Arabist in Europe landed at Alexandria he could not exchange
a word with the people the same is told of Golius the
lexicographer at Tunis.

[FN#160] Lane, Nights ii. 218.

[FN#161] This origin had been advocated a decade of years before
by Shaykh Ahmad al-Shirawáni; Editor of the Calc. text (1814–18):
his Persian preface opines that the author was an Arabic speaking
Syrian who designedly wrote in a modern and conversational style,
none of the purest withal, in order to instruct non-Arabists.
Here we find the genus “Professor” pure and simple.

[FN#162] Such an assertion makes us enquire, Did De Sacy ever
read through The Nights in Arabic?

[FN#163] Dr. Jonathan Scott’s “translation” vi. 283.

[FN#164] For a note on this world-wide Tale see vol. i. 52.

[FN#165] In the annotated translation by Mr. I. G. N. Keith-Falconer,
Cambridge University Press. I regret to see the
wretched production called the “Fables of Pilpay” in the “Chandos
Classics” (London, F. Warne). The words are so mutilated that few
will recognize them, e.g. Carchenas for Kár-shínás, Chaschmanah
for Chashmey-e-Máh (Fountain of the Moon), etc.

[FN#166] Article Arabia in Encyclop. Brit., 9th Edit., p. 263,
colt 2. I do not quite understand Mr. Palgrave, but presume that
his “other version” is the Bresl. Edit., the MS. of which was
brought from Tunis; see its Vorwort (vol. i. p. 3).

[FN#167] There are three distinct notes according to De Sacy
(Mém., p. 50). The first (in MS. 1508) says “This blessed book
was read by the weak slave, etc. Wahabah son of Rizkallah the
Kátib (secretary, scribe) of Tarábulus al-Shám (Syrian Tripoli),
who prayeth long life for its owner (li máliki-h). This tenth day
of the month First Rabí’a A.H. 955 (= 1548).” A similar note by
the same Wahabah occurs at the end of vol. ii. (MS. 1507) dated
A.H. 973 (= 1565) and a third (MS. 1506) is undated. Evidcntly M.
Caussin has given undue weight to such evidence. For further
information see “Tales of the East” to which is prefixed an
Introductory Dissertation (vol. i. pp. 24–26, note) by Henry
Webber, Esq., Edinburgh, 1812, in 3 vols.

[FN#168] “Notice sur les douze manuscrits connus des Milles et
une Nuits, qui existent en Europe.” Von Hammer in Trébutien,
Notice, vol. i.

[FN#169] Printed from the MS. of Major Turner Macan, Editor of
the Shahnamah: he bought it from the heirs of Mr. Salt, the
historic Consul-General of England in Egypt and after Macan’s
death it became the property of the now extinct Allens, then of
Leadenhall Street (Torrens, Preface, i.). I have vainly enquired
about what became of it.

[FN#170] The short paper by “P. R.” in the Gentleman’s Magazine
(Feb. 19th, 1799, vol. lxix. p. 61) tells us that MSS. of The
Nights were scarce at Aleppo and that he found only two vols.
(280 Nights) which he had great difficulty in obtaining leave to
copy. He also noticed (in 1771) a MS., said to be complete, in
the Vatican and another in the “King’s Library” (Bibliothèque
Nationale), Paris.

[FN#171] Aleppo has been happy in finding such monographers as

Russell and Maundrell while poor Damascus fell into the hands of

Mr. Missionary Porter, and suffered accordingly.


[FN#172] Vol. vi. Appendix, p. 452.

[FN#173] The numbers, however, vary with the Editions of Galland:
some end the formula with Night cxcvii; others with the ccxxxvi.:
I adopt that of the De Sacy Edition.

[FN#174] Contes Persans, suivis des Contes Turcs. Paris; Béchet

Ainé, 1826.


[FN#175] In the old translation we have “eighteen hundred years
since the prophet Solomon died,” (B.C. 975) = A.D. 825.

[FN#176] Meaning the era of the Seleucides. Dr. Jonathan Scott
shows (vol. ii. 324) that A.H. 653 and A.D. 1255 would correspond
with 1557 of that epoch; so that the scribe has here made a
little mistake of 5,763 years. Ex uno disce.

[FN#177] The Saturday Review (Jan. 2nd ’86) writes, “Captain
Burton has fallen into a mistake by not distinguishing between
the names of the by no means identical Caliphs Al-Muntasir and
Al-Mustansir.” Quite true: it was an ugly confusion of the
melancholy madman and parricide with one of the best and wisest
of the Caliphs. I can explain (not extenuate) my mistake only by
a misprint in Al-Siyúti (p. 554).

[FN#178] In the Galland MS. and the Bresl. Edit. (ii. 253), we
find the Barber saying that the Caliph (Al-Mustansir) was at that
time (yaumaizin) in Baghdad, and this has been held to imply that
the Caliphate had fallen. But such conjecture is evidently based
upon insufficient grounds.

[FN#179] De Sacy makes the “Kalandar” order originate in A.D.
1150, but the Shaykh Sharíf bú Ali Kalandar died in A.D. 1323–24.
In Sind the first Kalandar, Osmán-i-Marwándí surnamed Lál
Sháhbáz, the Red Goshawk, from one of his miracles, died and was
buried at Sehwán in A D. 1274: see my “History of Sindh” chapt.
viii. for details. The dates therefore run wild.

[FN#180] In this same tale H. H. Wilson observes that the title
of Sultan of Egypt was not assumed before the middle of the xiith
century.

[FN#181] Popularly called Vidyanagar of the Narsingha.

[FN#182] Time-measurers are of very ancient date. The Greeks had
clepsydræ and the Romans gnomons, portable and ring-shaped,
besides large standing town-dials as at Aquileja and San Sabba
near Trieste. The “Saracens” were the perfecters of the
clepsydra: Bosseret (p. 16) and the Chronicon Turense (Beckmann
ii. 340 et seq.) describe the water-clock sent by Al-Rashid to
Karl the Great as a kind of “cockoo-clock.” Twelve doors in the
dial opened successively and little balls dropping on brazen
bells told the hour: at noon a dozen mounted knights paraded the
face and closed the portals. Trithonius mentions an horologium
presented in A.D. 1232 by Al-Malik al-Kámil the Ayyubite Soldan
to the Emperor Frederick II: like the Strasbourg and Padua clocks
it struck the hours, told the day, month and year, showed the
phases of the moon, and registered the position of the sun and
the planets. Towards the end of the fifteenth century Gaspar
Visconti mentions in a sonnet the watch proper (certi orologii
piccioli e portativi); and the “animated eggs” of Nurembourg
became famous. The earliest English watch (Sir Ashton Lever’s)
dates from 1541: and in 1544 the portable chronometer became
common in France.

[FN#183] An illustrated History of Arms and Armour etc. (p. 59);

London: Bell and Sons, 1877. The best edition is the Guide des

Amateurs d’Armes, Paris: Renouard, 1879.


[FN#184] Chapt. iv. Dr. Gustav Oppert “On the Weapons etc. of the

Ancient Hindus;” London: Trübner and Co., 1880.


[FN#185] I have given other details on this subject in pp. 631–
637 of “Camoens, his Life and his Lusiads.”

[FN#186] The morbi venerei amongst the Romans are obscure because
“whilst the satirists deride them the physicians are silent.”
Celsus, however, names (De obscenarum partium vitiis, lib.
xviii.) inflammatio coleorum (swelled testicle), tubercula
glandem (warts on the glans penis), cancri carbunculi (chancre or
shanker) and a few others. The rubigo is noticed as a lues
venerea by Servius in Virg. Georg.

[FN#187] According to David Forbes, the Peruvians believed that
syphilis arose from connection of man and alpaca; and an old law
forbade bachelors to keep these animals in the house. Francks
explains by the introduction of syphilis wooden figures found in
the Chinchas guano; these represented men with a cord round the
neck or a serpent devouring the genitals.

[FN#188] They appeared before the gates of Paris in the summer of
1427, not “about July, 1422”: in Eastern Europe, however, they
date from a much earlier epoch. Sir J. Gilbert’s famous picture
has one grand fault, the men walk and the women ride: in real
life the reverse would be the case.

[FN#189] Rabelais ii. c. 30.

[FN#190] I may be allowed to note that syphilis does not confine
itself to man: a charger infected with it was pointed out to me
at Baroda by my late friend, Dr. Arnott (18th Regiment, Bombay
N.I.) and Tangier showed me some noticeable cases of this hippic
syphilis, which has been studied in Hungary. Eastern peoples have
a practice of “passing on” venereal and other diseases, and
transmission is supposed to cure the patient; for instance a
virgin heals (and catches) gonorrhœa. Syphilis varies greatly
with climate. In Persia it is said to be propagated without
contact: in Abyssinia it is often fatal and in Egypt it is
readily cured by sand baths and sulphur-unguents. Lastly in lands
like Unyamwezi, where mercurials are wholly unknown, I never saw
caries of the nasal or facial bones.

[FN#191] For another account of the transplanter and the
casuistical questions to which coffee gave rise, see my “First
Footsteps in East Africa” (p. 76).

[FN#192] The first mention of coffee proper (not of Kahwah or old
wine in vol. ii. 260) is in Night cdxxvi. vol. v. 169, where the
coffee-maker is called Kahwahjiyyah, a mongrel term showing the modern
date of the passage in Ali the Cairene. As the work advances notices
become thicker, e.g. in Night dccclxvi. where Ali Nur al-Din and
the Frank King’s daughter seems to be a modernisation of the story
“Ala al-Din Abu al-Shámát” (vol. iv. 29); and in Abu Kir and Abu Sir
(Nights cmxxx. and cmxxxvi.) where coffee is drunk with sherbet after
present fashion. The use culminates in Kamar al-Zaman II. where it is
mentioned six times (Nights cmlxvi. cmlxx. cmlxxi. twice; cmlxxiv. and
cmlxxvii.), as being drunk after the dawn-breakfast and following the
meal as a matter of course. The last notices are in Abdullah bin Fazil,
Nights cmlxxviii. and cmlxxix.

[FN#193] It has been suggested that Japanese tobacco is an
indigenous growth and sundry modern travellers in China contend
that the potato and the maize, both white and yellow, have there
been cultivated from time immemorial.

[FN#194] For these see my “City of the Saints,” p. 136.

[FN#195] Lit. meaning smoke: hence the Arabic “Dukhán,” with the
same signification.

[FN#196] Unhappily the book is known only by name: for years I have
vainly troubled friends and correspondents to hunt for a copy. Yet I
am sanguine enough to think that some day we shall succeed: Mr. Sidney
Churchill, of Teheran, is ever on the look-out.

[FN#197] In § 3 I shall suggest that this tale also is mentioned
by Al-Mas’udi.

[FN#198] I have extracted it from many books, especially from

Hoeffer’s Biographie Générale, Paris, Firmin Didot, mdccclvii.;

Biographie Universelle, Paris, Didot, 1816, etc. etc. All are

taken from the work of M. de Boze, his “Bozzy.”


[FN#199] As learning a language is an affair of pure memory,
almost without other exercise of the mental faculties, it should
be assisted by the ear and the tongue as well as the eyes. I
would invariably make pupils talk, during lessons, Latin and
Greek, no matter how badly at first; but unfortunately I should
have to begin with teaching the pedants who, as a class, are far
more unwilling and unready to learn than are those they teach.

[FN#200] The late Dean Stanley was notably trapped by the wily
Greek who had only political purposes in view. In religions as a
rule the minimum of difference breeds the maximum of disputation,
dislike and disgust.

[FN#201] See in Trébutien (Avertissement iii.) how Baron von

Hammer escaped drowning by the blessing of The Nights.


[FN#202] He signs his name to the Discours pour servir de

Préface.


[FN#203] I need not trouble the reader with their titles, which
fill up nearly a column and a half in M. Hoeffer. His collection
of maxims from Arabic, Persian and Turkish authors appeared in
English in 1695.

[FN#204] Galland’s version was published in 1704–1717 in 12 vols.
12mo., (Hoeffer’s Biographie; Grasse’s Trésor de Livres rares and
Encyclop. Britannica, ixth Edit.)

[FN#205] See also Leigh Hunt “The Book of the Thousand Nights and
one Night,” etc., etc. London and Westminster Review Art. iii.,
No. lxiv. mentioned in Lane, iii., 746.

[FN#206] Edition of 1856 vol. xv.

[FN#207] To France England also owes her first translation of the
Koran, a poor and mean version by Andrew Ross of that made from
the Arabic (No. iv.) by André du Reyer, Consul de France for
Egypt. It kept the field till ousted in 1734 by the learned
lawyer George Sale whose conscientious work, including
Preliminary Discourse and Notes (4to London), brought him the
ill-fame of having “turned Turk.”

[FN#208] Catalogue of Printed Books, 1884, p. 159, col. i. I am
ashamed to state this default in the British Museum, concerning
which Englishmen are apt to boast and which so carefully mulcts
modern authors in unpaid copies. But it is only a slight
specimen of the sad state of art and literature in England,
neglected equally by Conservatives, Liberals and Radicals. What
has been done for the endowment of research? What is our
equivalent for the Prix de Rome? Since the death of Dr. Birch,
who can fairly deal with a Demotic papyrus? Contrast the Société
Anthropologique and its palace and professors in Paris with our
“Institute” au second in a corner of Hanover Square and its
skulls in the cellar!

[FN#209] Art. vii. pp. 139–168, “On the Arabian Nights and
translators, Weil, Torrens and Lane (vol. i.) with the Essai of
A. Loisseleur Deslongchamps.” The Foreign Quarterly Review, vol.
xxiv., Oct. 1839–Jan. 1840. London, Black and Armstrong, 1840.

[FN#210] Introduction to his Collection “Tales of the East,” 3
vols. Edinburgh, 1812. He was the first to point out the
resemblance between the introductory adventures of Shahryar and
Shah Zaman and those of Astolfo and Giacondo in the Orlando
Furioso (Canto xxviii.). M. E. Lévêque in Les Mythes et les
Légendes de l’Inde et la Perse (Paris, 1880) gives French
versions of the Arabian and Italian narratives, side by side in
p. 543 ff. (Clouston).

[FN#211] Notitiæ Codicis MI. Noctium. Dr. Pusey studied Arabic
to familiarise himself with Hebrew, and was very different from
his predecessor at Oxford in my day, who, when applied to for
instruction in Arabic, refused to lecture except to a class.

[FN#212] This nephew was the author of “Recueil des Rits et

Cérémonies des Pilgrimages de La Mecque,” etc. etc. Paris and

Amsterdam, 1754, in 12mo.


[FN#213] The concluding part did not appear, I have said, till
1717: his “Comes et Fables Indiennes de Bidpaï et de Lokman,”
were first printed in 1724, 2 vols. in 12mo. Hence, I presume,
Lowndes’ mistake.

[FN#214] M. Caussin (de Perceval), Professeur of Arabic at the
Imperial Library, who edited Galland in 1806, tells us that he
found there only two MSS., both imperfect. The first (Galland’s)
is in three small vols. 4to. each of about pp. 140. The stories
are more detailed and the style, more correct than that of other
MS., is hardly intelligible to many Arabs, whence he presumes
that it contains the original (an early?) text which has been
altered and vitiated. The date is supposed to be circa A.D.
1600. The second Parisian copy is a single folio of some 800
pages, and is divided into 29 sections and cmv. Nights, the last
two sections being reversed. The MS. is very imperfect, the
12th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 20th, 21st–23rd, 25th and 27th parts are
wanting; the sections which follow the 17th contain sundry
stories repeated, there are anecdotes from Bidpai, the Ten Wazirs
and other popular works, and lacunæ everywhere abound.

[FN#215] Mr. Payne (ix. 264) makes eleven, including the Histoire
du Dormeur éveillé = The Sleeper and the Waker, which he
afterwards translated from the Bresl. Edit. in his “Tales from
the Arabic” (vol. i. 5, etc.)

[FN#216] Mr. E. J. W. Gibb informs me that he has come upon this
tale in a Turkish storybook, the same from which he drew his
“Jewád.”

[FN#217] A littérateur lately assured me that Nos. ix. and x.
have been found in the Bibliothèque Nationale (du Roi) Paris; but
two friends were kind enough to enquire and ascertained that it
was a mistake. Such Persianisms as Codadad (Khudadad), Baba
Cogia (Khwájah) and Peri (fairy) suggest a Persic MS.

[FN#218] Vol. vi. 212. “The Arabian Nights’ Entertainments
(London: Longmans, 1811) by Jonathan Scott, with the Collection
of New Tales from the Wortley Montagu MS. in the Bodleian.” I
regret to see that Messieurs Nimmo in reprinting Scott have
omitted his sixth Volume.

[FN#219] Dr. Scott who uses Fitnah (iv. 42) makes it worse by
adding “Alcolom (Al-Kulúb?) signifying Ravisher of Hearts” and
his names for the six slave-girls (vol. iv. 37) such as “Zohorob
Bostan” (Zahr al-Bústán), which Galland rightly renders by “Fleur
du Jardin,” serve only to heap blunder upon blunder. Indeed the
Anglo-French translations are below criticism: it would be waste
of time to notice them. The characteristic is a servile suit
paid to the original e.g. rendering hair “accomodé en boucles” by
“hair festooned in buckles” (Night ccxiv.), and Île d’Ébène
(Jazírat al-Abnús, Night xliii.) by “the Isle of Ebene.” A
certain surly old littérateur tells me that he prefers these
wretched versions to Mr. Payne’s. Padrone! as the Italians say:
I cannot envy his taste or his temper.

[FN#220] De Sacy (Mémoire p. 52) notes that in some MSS., the
Sultan, ennuyé by the last tales of Shahrázad, proposes to put
her to death, when she produces her three children and all ends
merrily without marriage-bells. Von Hammer prefers this version
as the more dramatic, the Frenchman rejects it on account of the
difficulties of the accouchements. Here he strains at the gnat—
a common process.

[FN#221] See Journ. Asiatique, iii. série, vol. viii., Paris,
1839.

[FN#222] “Tausend und Eine Nacht: Arabische Erzählungen. Zum
ersten mal aus einer Tunisischen Handschrift ergänzt und
vollstandig übersetzt,” Von Max Habicht, F. H. von der Hagen und
Karl Schatte (the offenders?).

[FN#223] Dr. Habicht informs us (Vorwort iii., vol. ix. 7) that
he obtained his MS. with other valuable works from Tunis, through
a personal acquaintance, a learned Arab, Herr M. Annagar
(Mohammed Al-Najjár?) and was aided by Baron de Sacy, Langlès and
other savants in filling up the lacunæ by means of sundry MSS.
The editing was a prodigy of negligence: the corrigenda (of which
brief lists are given) would fill a volume; and, as before
noticed, the indices of the first four tomes were printed in the
fifth, as if the necessity of a list of tales had just struck the
dense editor. After Habicht’s death in 1839 his work was
completed in four vols. (ix.-xii.) by the well-known Prof. H. J.
Fleischer who had shown some tartness in his “Dissertatio Critica
de Glossis Habichtianis.” He carefully imitated all the
shortcomings of his predecessor and even omitted the Verzeichniss
etc., the Varianten and the Glossary of Arabic words not found in
Golius, which formed the only useful part of the first eight
volumes.

[FN#224] Die in Tausend und Eine Nacht noch nicht übersetzten
Nächte, Erzählungen und Anekdoten, zum erstenmal aus dem
Arabischen in das Französische übersetzt von J. von Hammer, und
aus dem Französischen in das Deutsche von A. E. Zinserling,
Professor, Stuttgart und Tubingen, 1823. Drei Bde. 80 .
Trébutien’s, therefore, is the translation of a translation of a
translation.

[FN#225] Tausend und Eine Nacht Arabische Erzählungen. Zum
erstenmale aus dem Urtexte vollständig und treu uebersetze von
Dr. Gustav Weil. He began his work on return from Egypt in 1836
and completed his first version of the Arabische Meisterwerk in
1838–42 (3 vols. roy. oct.). I have the Zweiter Abdruck der
dritten (2d reprint of 3d) in 4 vols. 8vo., Stuttgart, 1872. It
has more than a hundred woodcuts.

[FN#226] My learned friend Dr. Wilhelm Storck, to whose admirable
translations of Camoens I have often borne witness, notes that
this Vorhalle, or Porch to the first edition, a rhetorical
introduction addressed to the general public, is held in Germany
to be valueless and that it was noticed only for the Bemerkung
concerning the offensive passages which Professor Weil had toned
down in his translation. In the Vorwort of the succeeding
editions (Stuttgart) it is wholly omitted.

[FN#227] The most popular are now “Mille ed una notte. Novelle
Arabe.” Napoli, 1867, 8vo illustrated, 4 francs; and “Mille ed
une notte. Novelle Arabe, versione italiana nuovamente emendata
e corredata di note”; 4 vols. in 32 (dateless) Milano, 8vo, 4
francs.

[FN#228] These are; (l) by M. Caussin (de Perceval), Paris, 1806,
9 vols. 8vo. (2) Edouard Gauttier, Paris, 1822–24: 7 vols. 12mo;
(3) M. Destain, Paris, 1823–25, 6 vols. 8vo, and (4) Baron de
Sacy, Paris. 1838 (?) 3 vols. large 8vo, illustrated (and vilely
illustrated).

[FN#229] The number of fables and anecdotes varies in the
different texts, but may be assumed to be upwards of four
hundred, about half of which were translated by Lane.

[FN#230] I have noticed these points more fully in the beginning
of chapt. iii. “The Book of the Sword.”

[FN#231] A notable instance of Roman superficiality,
incuriousness and ignorance. Every old Egyptian city had its
idols (images of metal, stone or wood), in which the Deity became
incarnate as in the Catholic host; besides its own symbolic
animal used as a Kiblah or prayer-direction (Jerusalem or
Meccah), the visible means of fixing and concentrating the
thoughts of the vulgar, like the crystal of the hypnotist or the
disk of the electro-biologist. And goddess Diana was in no way
better than goddess Pasht. For the true view of idolatry see
Koran xxxix. 4. I am deeply grateful to Mr. P. le Page Renouf
(Soc. of Biblic. Archæology, April 6, 1886) for identifying the
Manibogh, Michabo or Great Hare of the American indigenes with
Osiris Unnefer (“Hare God”). These are the lines upon which
investigation should run. And of late years there is a notable
improvement of tone in treating of symbolism or idolatry: the
Lingam and the Yoni are now described as “mystical
representations, and perhaps the best possible impersonal
representatives of the abstract expressions paternity and
maternity” (Prof. Monier Williams in “Folk-lore Record” vol. iii.
part i. p. 118).

[FN#232] See Jotham’s fable of the Trees and King Bramble
(Judges lxi. 8) and Nathan’s parable of the Poor Man and his
little ewe Lamb (2 Sam. ix. 1).

[FN#233] Herodotus (ii. c. 134) notes that “Æsop the fable-writer
(           ) was one of her (Rhodopis) fellow slaves”.
Aristophanes (Vespæ, 1446) refers to his murder by the Delphians
and his fable beginning, “Once upon a time there was a fight;”
while the Scholiast finds an allusion to The Serpent and the Crab
in Pax 1084; and others in Vespæ 1401, and Aves 651.

[FN#234] There are three distinct Lokmans who are carefully
confounded in Sale (Koran chapt. xxxi.) and in Smith’s Dict. of
Biography etc. art. Æsopus. The first or eldest Lokman, entitled
Al-Hakim (the Sage) and the hero of the Koranic chapter which
bears his name, was son of Bá’úrá of the Children of Azar,
sister’s son of Job or son of Job’s maternal aunt; he witnessed
David’s miracles of mail-making and when the tribe of ’Ád was
destroyed, he became King of the country. The second, also called
the Sage, was a slave, an Abyssinian negro, sold to the
Israelites during the reign of David or Solomon, synchronous with
the Persian Kay Káús and Kay Khusrau, also Pythagoras the Greek
(!) His physique is alluded to in the saying, “Thou resemblest
Lokman (in black ugliness) but not in wisdom” (Ibn Khallikan i.
145). This negro or negroid, after a godly and edifying life,
left a volume of “Amsál,” proverbs and exempla (not fables or
apologues); and Easterns still say, “One should not pretend to
teach Lokmán”—in Persian, “Hikmat ba Lokman ámokhtan.” Three of
his apothegms dwell in the public memory: “The heart and the
tongue are the best and worst parts of the human body.” “I
learned wisdom from the blind who make sure of things by touching
them” (as did St. Thomas); and when he ate the colocynth offered
by his owner, “I have received from thee so many a sweet that
’twould be surprising if I refused this one bitter.” He was
buried (says the Tárikh Muntakhab) at Ramlah in Judæa, with the
seventy Prophets stoned in one day by the Jews. The youngest
Lokman “of the vultures” was a prince of the tribe of Ad who
lived 3,500 years, the age of seven vultures (Tabari). He could
dig a well with his nails; hence the saying, “Stronger than
Lokman” (A. P. i. 701); and he loved the arrow-game, hence, “More
gambling than Lokman” (ibid. ii. 938). “More voracious than
Lokman” (ibid i. 134) alludes to his eating one camel for
breakfast and another for supper. His wife Barákish also appears
in proverb, e.g. “Camel us and camel thyself” (ibid. i. 295) i.e.
give us camel flesh to eat, said when her son by a former husband
brought her a fine joint which she and her husband relished.
Also, “Barákish hath sinned against her kin” (ibid. ii. 89). More
of this in Chenery’s Al-Hariri p. 422; but the three Lokmans are
there reduced to two.

[FN#235] I have noticed them in vol. ii. 47–49. “To the Gold

Coast for Gold.”


[FN#236] I can hardly accept the dictum that the Katha Sarit
Sagara, of which more presently, is the “earliest representation
of the first collection.”

[FN#237] The Pehlevi version of the days of King Anushirwan (A.D.
531–72) became the Humáyun-námeh (“August Book”) turned into
Persian for Bahram Shah the Ghaznavite: the Hitopadesa
(“Friendship-boon”) of Prakrit, avowedly compiled from the
“Panchatantra,” became the Hindu Panchopakhyan, the Hindostani
Akhlák-i-Hindi (“Moralities of Ind”) and in Persia and Turkey the
Anvar-i-Suhayli (“Lights of Canopus”). Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac
writers entitle their version Kalilah wa Damnah, or Kalilaj wa
Damnaj, from the name of the two jackal-heroes, and Europe knows
the recueil as the Fables of Pilpay or Bidpay (Bidyá-pati, Lord
of learning?) a learned Brahman reported to have been Premier at
the Court of the Indian King Dabishlím.

[FN#238] Diet. Philosoph. S. V. Apocrypha.

[FN#239] The older Arab writers, I repeat, do not ascribe fables
or beast-apologues to Lokman; they record only “dictes” and
proverbial sayings.

[FN#240] Professor Taylor Lewis: Preface to Pilpay.

[FN#241] In the Katha Sarit Sagara the beast-apologues are more
numerous, but they can be reduced to two great nuclei; the first
in chapter lx. (Lib. x.) and the second in the same book chapters
lxii-lxv. Here too they are mixed up with anecdotes and acroamata
after the fashion of The Nights, suggesting great antiquity for
this style of composition.

[FN#242] Brugsch, History of Egypt, vol. i. 266 et seq. The
fabliau is interesting in more ways than one. Anepu the elder
(Potiphar) understands the language of cattle, an idea ever
cropping up in Folk-lore; and Bata (Joseph), his “little
brother,” who becomes a “panther of the South (Nubia) for rage”
at the wife’s impudique proposal, takes the form of a bull—
metamorphosis full blown. It is not, as some have called it, the
“oldest book in the world;” that name was given by M. Chabas to a
MS. of Proverbs, dating from B.C. 2200. See also the “Story of
Saneha,” a novel earlier than the popular date of Moses, in the
Contes Populaires of Egypt.

[FN#243] The fox and the jackal are confounded by the Arabic
dialects not by the Persian, whose “Rubáh” can never be mistaken
for “Shaghál.” “Sa’lab” among the Semites is locally applied to
either beast and we can distinguish the two only by the fox being
solitary and rapacious, and the jackal gregarious and a
carrion-eater. In all Hindu tales the jackal seems to be an
awkward substitute for the Grecian and classical fox, the Giddar
or Kolá (Cants aureus) being by no means sly and wily as the
Lomri (Vulpes vulgaris). This is remarked by Weber (Indische
Studien) and Prof. Benfey’s retort about “King Nobel” the lion is
by no means to the point. See Katha Sarit Sagara, ii. 28.

I may add that in Northern Africa jackal’s gall, like jackal’s
grape (Solanum nigrum = black nightshade), ass’s milk and melted
camel-hump, is used aphrodisiacally as an unguent by both sexes.
See. p. 239, etc., of Le Jardin parfumé du Cheikh Nefzaoui, of
whom more presently.

[FN#244] Rambler, No. lxvii.

[FN#245] Some years ago I was asked by my old landlady if ever in
the course of my travels I had come across Captain Gulliver.

[FN#246] In “The Adventurer” quoted by Mr. Heron, “Translator’s

Preface to the Arabian Tales of Chaves and Cazotte.”


[FN#247] “Life in a Levantine Family” chapt. xi. Since the able
author found his “family” firmly believing in The Nights, much
has been changed in Alexandria; but the faith in Jinn and Ifrit,
ghost and vampire is lively as ever.

[FN#248] The name dates from the second century A. H. or before

A. D. 815.


[FN#249] Dabistan i. 231 etc.

[FN#250] Because Si = thirty and Murgh = bird. In McClenachan’s
Addendum to Mackay’s Encyclopæedia of Freemasonry we find the
following definition: “Simorgh. A monstrous griffin, guardian of
the Persian mysteries.”

[FN#251] For a poor and inadequate description of the festivals
commemorating this “Architect of the Gods” see vol. iii. 177,
“View of the History etc. of the Hindus” by the learned Dr. Ward,
who could see in them only the “low and sordid nature of
idolatry.” But we can hardly expect better things from a
missionary in 1822, when no one took the trouble to understand
what “idolatry” means.

[FN#252] Rawlinson (ii. 491) on Herod. iii. c. 102. Nearchus saw
the skins of these formicæ Indicæ, by some rationalists explained
as “jackals,” whose stature corresponds with the text, and by
others as “pengolens” or ant-eaters (manis pentedactyla). The
learned Sanskritist, H. H. Wilson, quotes the name Pippilika =
ant-gold, given by the people of Little Thibet to the precious
dust thrown up in the emmet heaps.

[FN#253] A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July, ’86), of whom
more presently, suggests that The Nights assumed essentially
their present shape during the general revival of letters, arts
and requirements which accompanied the Kurdish and Tartar
irruptions into the Nile Valley, a golden age which embraced the
whole of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and
ended with the Ottoman Conquest in A. D. 1527.

[FN#254] Let us humbly hope not again to hear of the golden prime
of

          “The good (fellow?) Haroun Alrasch’id,”

a mispronunciation which suggests only a rasher of bacon. Why
will not poets mind their quantities, in lieu of stultifying
their lines by childish ignorance? What can be more painful than
Byron’s

          “They laid his dust in Ar’qua (for Arqua) where he
died?”

[FN#255] See De Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe (Paris, 1826), vol. i.

[FN#256] See Le Jardin Parfumé du Cheikh Nefzaoui Manuel
d’Erotologie Arabe Traduction revue et corrigée Edition privée,
imprimé à deux cent.-vingt exemplaires, par Isidore Liseux et ses
Amis, Paris, 1866. The editor has forgotten to note that the
celebrated Sidi Mohammed copied some of the tales from The Nights
and borrowed others (I am assured by a friend) from Tunisian MSS.
of the same work. The book has not been fairly edited: the notes
abound in mistakes, the volume lacks an index, &c., &c. Since
this was written the Jardin Parfumé has been twice translated
into English as “The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui, a
Manual of Arabian Erotology (sixteenth century). Revised and
corrected translation, Cosmopoli: mdccclxxxvi.: for the Kama
Shastra Society of London and Benares and for private circulation
only.” A rival version will be brought out by a bookseller whose
Committee, as he calls it, appears to be the model of literary
pirates, robbing the author as boldly and as openly as if they
picked his pocket before his face.

[FN#257] Translated by a well-known Turkish scholar, Mr. E. J. W.

Gibb (Glasgow, Wilson and McCormick, 1884).


[FN#258] D’Herbelot (s. v. “Asmai”): I am reproached by a dabbler
in Orientalism for using this admirable writer who shows more
knowledge in one page than my critic does in a whole volume.

[FN#259] For specimens see Al-Siyuti, pp. 301 and 304, and the

Shaykh al Nafzawi, pp. 134–35


[FN#260] The word “nakh” (to make a camel kneel) is explained in
vol. ii. 139.

[FN#261] The present of the famous horologium-clepsydra-cuckoo
clock, the dog Becerillo and the elephant Abu Lubabah sent by
Harun to Charlemagne is not mentioned by Eastern authorities and
consequently no reference to it will be found in my late friend
Professor Palmer’s little volume “Haroun Alraschid,” London,
Marcus Ward, 1881. We have allusions to many presents, the clock
and elephant, tent and linen hangings, silken dresses, perfumes,
and candelabra of auricalch brought by the Legati (Abdalla
Georgius Abba et Felix) of Aaron Amiralmumminim Regis Persarum
who entered the Port of Pisa (A. D. 801) in (vol. v. 178) Recueil
des Histor. des Gaules et de la France, etc., par Dom Martin
Bouquet, Paris, mdccxliv. The author also quotes the lines:—

          Persarum Princeps illi devinctus amore

               Præcipuo fuerat, nomen habens Aaron.

          Gratia cui Caroli præ cunctis Regibus atque

               Illis Principibus tempora cara funit.


[FN#262] Many have remarked that the actual date of the decease
is unknown.

[FN#263] See Al-Siyuti (p. 305) and Dr. Jonathan Scott’s “Tales,

Anecdotes, and Letters,” (p. 296).


[FN#264] I have given (vol. i. 188) the vulgar derivation of the
name; and D’Herbelot (s. v. Barmakian) quotes some Persian lines
alluding to the “supping up.” Al-Mas’udi’s account of the
family’s early history is unfortunately lost. This Khálid
succeeded Abu Salámah, first entitled Wazir under Al-Saffah (Ibn
Khallikan i. 468).

[FN#265] For his poetry see Ibn Khallikan iv. 103.

[FN#266] Their flatterers compared them with the four elements.

[FN#267] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii.

[FN#268] Ibn Khallikan (i. 310) says the eunuch Abu Háshim
Masrúr, the Sworder of Vengeance, who is so pleasantly associated
with Ja’afar in many nightly disguises; but the Eunuch survived
the Caliph. Fakhr al-Din (p. 27) adds that Masrur was an enemy of
Ja’afar; and gives further details concerning the execution.

[FN#269] Bresl. Edit., Night dlxvii. vol. vii. pp. 258–260;
translated in the Mr. Payne’s “Tales from the Arabic,” vol. i.
189 and headed “Al-Rashid and the Barmecides.” It is far less
lively and dramatic than the account of the same event given by
Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii., by Ibn Khallikan and by Fakhr al-Din.

[FN#270] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxi.

[FN#271] See Dr. Jonathan Scott’s extracts from Major Ouseley’s

“Tarikh-i-Barmaki.”


[FN#272] Al-Mas’udi, chapt. cxii. For the liberties Ja’afar took
see Ibn Khallikan, i. 303.

[FN#273] Ibid. chapt. xxiv. In vol. ii. 29 of The Nights, I find
signs of Ja’afar’s suspected heresy. For Al-Rashid’s hatred of
the Zindiks see Al-Siyuti, pp. 292, 301; and as regards the
religious troubles ibid. p. 362 and passim.

[FN#274] Biogr. Dict. i. 309.

[FN#275] This accomplished princess had a practice that suggests
the Dame aux Camélias.

[FN#276] i.e. Perdition to your fathers, Allah’s curse on your
ancestors.

[FN#277] See vol. iv. 159, “Ja’afar and the Bean-seller;” where
the great Wazir is said to have been “crucified;” and vol. iv.
pp. 179, 181. Also Roebuck’s Persian Proverbs, i. 2, 346, “This
also is through the munificence of the Barmecides.”

[FN#278] I especially allude to my friend Mr. Payne’s admirably
written account of it in his concluding Essay (vol. ix.). From
his views of the Great Caliph and the Lady Zubaydah I must differ
in every point except the destruction of the Barmecides.

[FN#279] Bresl. Edit., vol. vii. 261–62.

[FN#280] Mr. Grattan Geary, in a work previously noticed, informs
us (i. 212) “The Sitt al-Zobeide, or the Lady Zobeide, was so
named from the great Zobeide tribe of Arabs occupying the country
East and West of the Euphrates near the Hindi’ah Canal; she was
the daughter of a powerful Sheik of that Tribe.” Can this explain
the “Kásim”?

[FN#281] Vol. viii. 296.

[FN#282] Burckhardt, “Travels in Arabia” vol. i. 185.

[FN#283] The reverse has been remarked by more than one writer;
and contemporary French opinion seems to be that Victor Hugo’s
influence on French prose, was on the whole, not beneficial.

[FN#284] Mr. W. S. Clouston, the “Storiologist,” who is preparing
a work to be entitled “Popular Tales and Fictions; their
Migrations and Transformations,” informs me the first to adapt
this witty anecdote was Jacques de Vitry, the crusading bishop of
Accon (Acre) who died at Rome in 1240, after setting the example
of “Exempla” or instances in his sermons. He had probably heard
it in Syria, and he changed the day-dreamers into a Milkmaid and
her Milk-pail to suit his “flock.” It then appears as an
“Exemplum” in the Liber de Donis or de Septem Donis (or De Dono
Timoris from Fear the first gift) of Stephanus de Borbone, the
Dominican, ob. Lyons, 1261: it treated of the gifts of the Holy
Spirit (Isaiah xi. 2 and 3), Timor, Pietas, Scientia, Fortitudo,
Consilium, Intellectus et Sapientia; and was plentifully
garnished with narratives for the use of preachers.

[FN#285] The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register (new series,
vol. xxx. Sept.-Dec. 1830, London, Allens, 1839); p. 69 Review of
the Arabian Nights, the Mac. Edit. vol. i., and H. Torrens.

[FN#286] As a household edition of the “Arabian Nights” is now
being prepared, the curious reader will have an opportunity of
verifying this statement.

[FN#287] It has been pointed out to me that in vol. ii. p. 285,
line 18 “Zahr Shah” is a mistake for Sulayman Shah.

[FN#288] I have lately found these lovers at Schloss Sternstein

near Cilli in Styria, the property of my excellent colleague, Mr.

Consul Faber, dating from A. D. 1300 when Jobst of Reichenegg and

Agnes of Sternstein were aided and abetted by a Capuchin of

Seikkloster.


[FN#289] In page 226 Dr. Steingass sensibly proposes altering the
last hemistich (lines 11–12) to

          At one time showing the Moon and Sun.

[FN#290] Omitted by Lane for some reason unaccountable as usual.

A correspondent sends me his version of the lines which occur in

The Nights (vol. v. 106 and 107):—


       Behold the Pyramids and hear them teach

            What they can tell of Future and of Past:

       They would declare, had they the gift of speech,

            The deeds that Time hath wrought from first to last

                         *   *   *   *

       My friends, and is there aught beneath the sky

            Can with th’ Egyptian Pyramids compare?

       In fear of them strong Time hath passed by

            And everything dreads Time in earth and air.


[FN#291] A rhyming Romance by Henry of Waldeck (flor. A. D. 1160)
with a Latin poem on the same subject by Odo and a prose version
still popular in Germany. (Lane’s Nights iii. 81; and Weber’s
“Northern Romances.”)

[FN#292] e.g. ’Ajáib al-Hind (= Marvels of Ind) ninth century,
translated by J. Marcel Devic, Paris, 1878; and about the same
date the Two Mohammedan Travellers, translated by Renaudot. In
the eleventh century we have the famous Sayyid al-ldrisi, in the
thirteenth the ’Ajáib al-Makhlúkat of Al-Kazwini and in the
fourteenth the Kharídat al-Ajáib of Ibn Al-Wardi. Lane (in loco)
traces most of Sindbad to the two latter sources.

[FN#293] So Hector France proposed to name his admirably
realistic volume “Sous le Burnous” (Paris, Charpentier, 1886).

[FN#294] I mean in European literature, not in Arabic where it is
a lieu commun. See three several forms of it in one page (505) of
Ibn Kallikan, vol. iii.

[FN#295] My attention has been called to the resemblance between
the half-lie and Job (i. 13– 19).

[FN#296] Boccaccio (ob. Dec. 2, 1375), may easily have heard of
The Thousand Nights and a Night or of its archetype the Hazár
Afsánah. He was followed by the Piacevoli Notti of Giovan
Francisco Straparola (A. D. 1550), translated into almost all
European languages but English: the original Italian is now rare.
Then came the Heptameron ou Histoire des amans fortunez of
Marguerite d’Angoulême, Reyne de Navarre and only sister of
Francis I. She died in 1549 before the days were finished: in
1558 Pierre Boaistuan published the Histoire des amans fortunez
and in 1559 Claude Guiget the “Heptameron.” Next is the Hexameron
of A. de Torquemada, Rouen, 1610; and, lastly, the Pentamerone or
El Cunto de li Cunte of Giambattista Basile (Naples 1637), known
by the meagre abstract of J. E. Taylor and the caricatures of
George Cruikshank (London 1847–50). I propose to translate this
Pentamerone direct from the Neapolitan and have already finished
half the work.

[FN#297] Translated and well annotated by Prof. Tawney, who,
however, affects asterisks and has considerably bowdlerised
sundry of the tales, e.g. the Monkey who picked out the Wedge
(vol. ii. 28). This tale, by the by, is found in the Khirad Afroz
(i. 128) and in the Anwar-i-Suhayli (chapt. i.) and gave rise to
the Persian proverb, “What has a monkey to do with carpentering?”
It is curious to compare the Hindu with the Arabic work whose
resemblances are as remarkable as their differences, while even
more notable is their correspondence in impressioning the reader.
The Thaumaturgy of both is the same: the Indian is profuse in
demonology and witchcraft; in transformation and restoration; in
monsters as wind-men, fire-men and water-men, in air-going
elephants and flying horses (i. 541–43); in the wishing cow,
divine goats and laughing fishes (i. 24); and in the speciosa
miracula of magic weapons. He delights in fearful battles (i.
400) fought with the same weapons as the Moslem and rewards his
heroes with a “turband of honour” (i. 266) in lieu of a robe.
There is a quaint family likeness arising from similar stages and
states of society: the city is adorned for gladness, men carry
money in a robe-corner and exclaim “Ha! good!” (for “Good, by
Allah!”), lovers die with exemplary facility, the “soft-sided”
ladies drink spirits (i. 61) and princesses get drunk (i. 476);
whilst the Eunuch, the Hetaira and the bawd (Kuttini) play the
same preponderating parts as in The Nights. Our Brahman is strong
in love-making; he complains of the pains of separation in this
phenomenal universe; he revels in youth, “twin-brother to mirth,”
and beauty which has illuminating powers; he foully reviles old
age and he alternately praises and abuses the sex, concerning
which more presently. He delights in truisms, the fashion of
contemporary Europe (see Palmerin of England chapt. vii), such as
“It is the fashion of the heart to receive pleasure from those
things which ought to give it,” etc. etc. What is there the wise
cannot understand? and so forth. He is liberal in trite
reflections and frigid conceits (i. 19, 55, 97, 103, 107, in fact
everywhere); and his puns run through whole lines; this in fine
Sanskrit style is inevitable. Yet some of his expressions are
admirably terse and telling, e.g. Ascending the swing of Doubt:
Bound together (lovers) by the leash of gazing: Two babes looking
like Misery and Poverty: Old Age seized me by the chin: (A lake)
first assay of the Creator’s skill: (A vow) difficult as standing
on a sword-edge: My vital spirits boiled with the fire of woe:
Transparent as a good man’s heart: There was a certain convent
full of fools: Dazed with scripture-reading: The stones could not
help laughing at him: The Moon kissed the laughing forehead of
the East: She was like a wave of the Sea of Love’s insolence (ii.
127), a wave of the Sea of Beauty tossed up by the breeze of
Youth: The King played dice, he loved slave-girls, he told lies,
he sat up o’ nights, he waxed wroth without reason, he took
wealth wrongously, he despised the good and honoured the bad (i.
562); with many choice bits of the same kind. Like the Arab the
Indian is profuse in personification; but the doctrine of
pre-existence, of incarnation and emanation and an excessive
spiritualism ever aiming at the infinite, makes his imagery run
mad. Thus we have Immoral Conduct embodied; the God of Death;
Science; the Svarga-heaven; Evening; Untimeliness, and the
Earth-bride, while the Ace and Deuce of dice are turned into a
brace of Demons. There is also that grotesqueness which the
French detect even in Shakespeare, e.g. She drank in his
ambrosial form with thirsty eyes like partridges (i. 476) and it
often results from the comparison of incompatibles, e.g. a row
of birds likened to a garden of nymphs; and from forced
allegories, the favourite figure of contemporary Europe. Again,
the rhetorical Hindu style differs greatly from the sobriety,
directness and simplicity of the Arab, whose motto is Brevity
combined with precision, except where the latter falls into “fine
writing.” And, finally, there is a something in the atmosphere of
these Tales which is unfamiliar to the West and which makes them,
as more than one has remarked to me, very hard reading.

[FN#298] The Introduction (i. 1–5) leads to the Curse of
Pushpadanta and Mályaván who live on Earth as Vararúchi and
Gunádhya and this runs through lib. i. Lib. ii. begins with the
Story of Udáyana to whom we must be truly grateful as our only
guide: he and his son Naraváhanadatta fill up the rest and end
with lib. xviii. Thus the want of the clew or plot compels a
division into books, which begin for instance with “We worship
the elephantine proboscis of Ganesha” (lib. x. i.) a reverend and
awful object to a Hindu but to Englishmen mainly suggesting the
“Zoo.” The “Bismillah” of The Nights is much more satisfactory.

[FN#299] See pp. 5–6 Avertissement des Éditeurs, Le Cabinet des
Fées, vol. xxxviii: Geneva 1788. Galland’s Edit. of mdccxxvi ends
with Night ccxxxiv and the English translations with ccxxxvi and
cxcvii. See retro p. 82.

[FN#300] There is a shade of difference in the words; the former
is also used for Reciters of Traditions—a serious subject. But
in the case of Hammád surnamed Al-Ráwiyah (the Rhapsode) attached
to the Court of Al-Walid, it means simply a conteur. So the
Greeks had Homeristæ = reciters of Homer, as opposed to the
Homeridæ or School of Homer.

[FN#302] Vol. i, Preface p. v. He notes that Mr. Dallaway
describes the same scene at Constantinople where the Story-teller
was used, like the modern “Organs of Government” in newspaper
shape, for “reconciling the people to any recent measure of the
Sultan and Vizier.” There are women Ráwiyahs for the Harems and
some have become famous like the Mother of Hasan al-Basri (Ibn
Khall. i, 370).

[FN#302] Hence the Persian proverb, “Báki-e-dastán fardá = the
rest of the tale to-morrow,” said to askers of silly questions.

[FN#303] The scene is excellently described in, “Morocco: Its
People and Places,” by Edmondo de Amicis (London: Cassell, 1882),
a most refreshing volume after the enforced platitudes and
commonplaces of English travellers.

[FN#304] It began, however, in Persia, where the celebrated
Darwaysh Mukhlis, Chief Sofi of Isfahan in the xviith century,
translated into Persian tales certain Hindu plays of which a MS.
entitled Alfaraga Badal-Schidda (Al-faraj ba’d al-shiddah = Joy
after annoy) exists in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. But to
give an original air to his work, he entitled it “Hazár o yek
Ruz” = Thousand and One Days, and in 1675 he allowed his friend
Petis de la Croix, who happened to be at Isfahan, to copy it. Le
Sage (of Gil Blas) is said to have converted many of the tales of
Mukhlis into comic operas, which were performed at the Théâtre
Italien. I still hope to see The Nights at the Lyceum.

[FN#305] This author, however, when hazarding a change of style
which is, I think, regretable, has shown abundant art by filling
up the frequent deficiencies of the text after the fashion of
Baron McGuckin de Slane in Ibn Khallikan. As regards the tout
ensemble of his work, a noble piece of English, my opinion will
ever be that expressed in my Foreword. A carping critic has
remarked that the translator, “as may be seen in every page, is
no Arabic scholar.” If I be a judge, the reverse is the case: the
brilliant and beautiful version thus traduced is almost entirely
free from the blemishes and carelessness which disfigure Lane’s,
and thus it is far more faithful to the original. But it is no
secret that on the staff of that journal the translator of Villon
has sundry enemies, vrais diables enjupponés, who take every
opportunity of girding at him because he does not belong to the
clique and because he does good work when theirs is mostly sham.
The sole fault I find with Mr. Payne is that his severe grace of
style treats an unclassical work as a classic, when the romantic
and irregular would have been a more appropriate garb. But this
is a mere matter of private judgment.

[FN#306] Here I offer a few, but very few, instances from the
Breslau text, which is the greatest sinner in this respect. Mas.
for fem., vol. i. p. 9, and three times in seven pages, Ahná and
nahná for nahnú (iv. 370, 372); Aná ba-ashtarí = I will buy (iii.
109): and Aná ’Ámíl = I will do (v. 367). Alaykí for Alayki (i.
18), Antí for Anti (iii. 66) and generally long í for short .
’Ammál (from ’amala = he did) tahlam = certainly thou dreamest,
and ’Ammálín yaakulú = they were about to eat (ix. 315): Aywá for
Ay wa’lláhí = yes, by Allah (passim). Bitá’ = belonging to, e.g.
Sára bitá’k = it is become thine (ix. 352) and Matá’ with the
same sense (iii. 80). Dá ’l-khurj = this saddle-bag (ix. 336) and
Dí (for hazah) = this woman (iii. 79) or this time (ii. 162).
Fayn as ráha fayn = whither is he gone? (iv. 323). Kamá badri =
he rose early (ix. 318): Kamán = also, a word known to every
European (ii. 43): Katt = never (ii. 172): Kawám (pronounced
’awám) = fast, at once (iv. 385) and Rih ásif kawí (pron. ’awí) =
a wind, strong very. Laysh, e.g. bi tasalní laysh (ix. 324) = why
do you ask me? a favourite form for li ayya shayyin: so Máfish =
má fihi shayyun (there is no thing) in which Herr Landberg (p.
425) makes “Sha, le présent de pouvoir.” Min ajali = for my sake;
and Li ajal al-taudí’a = for the sake of taking leave (Mac. Edit.
i. 384). Rijál nautiyah = men sailors when the latter word would
suffice: Shuwayh (dim. of shayy) = a small thing, a little (iv.
309) like Moyyah (dim. of Má) a little water: Waddúní = they
carried me (ii. 172) and lastly the abominable Wáhid gharíb = one
(for a) stranger. These few must suffice: the tale of Judar and
his brethren, which in style is mostly Egyptian, will supply a
number of others. It must not, however, be supposed, as many have
done, that vulgar and colloquial Arabic is of modern date: we
find it in the first century of Al-Islam, as is proved by the
tale of Al-Hajjáj and Al-Shabi (Ibn Khallikan, ii. 6). The former
asked “Kam ataa-k?” (= how much is thy pay?) to which the latter
answered, “Alfayn!” (= two thousand!). “Tut,” cried the Governor,
“Kam atau-ka?” to which the poet replied as correctly and
classically, “Alfáni.”

[FN#307] In Russian folk-songs a young girl is often compared
with this tree e.g.—

          Ivooshka, ivooshka zelonaia moia!

          (O Willow, O green Willow mine!)


[FN#308] So in Hector France (“La vache enragée”) “Le sourcil en
accent circonflexe et l’oeil en point d’interrogation.”

[FN#309] In Persian “Áb-i-rú” in India pronounced Ábrú.

[FN#310] For further praises of his poetry and eloquence see the
extracts from Fakhr al-Din of Rayy (an annalist of the xivth
century A.D.) in De Sacy’s Chrestomathie Arabe, vol. i.

[FN#311] After this had been written I received “Babylonian, das
reichste Land in der Vorzeit und das lohnendste Kolonisationsfeld
für die Gegenwart,” by my learned friend Dr. Aloys Sprenger,
Heidelberg, 1886.

[FN#312] The first school for Arabic literature was opened by Ibn

Abbas, who lectured to multitudes in a valley near Meccah; this

rude beginning was followed by public teaching in the great

Mosque of Damascus. For the rise of the “Madrasah,” Academy or

College’ see Introduct. to Ibn Khallikan pp. xxvii-xxxii.


[FN#313] When Ibn Abbád the Sáhib (Wazir) was invited to visit
one of the Samanides, he refused, one reason being that he would
require 400 camels to carry only his books.

[FN#314] This “Salmagondis” by Francois Beroalde de Verville was
afterwards worked by Tabarin, the pseudo-Bruscambille d’Aubigné
and Sorel.

[FN#315] I prefer this derivation to Strutt’s adopted by the
popular, “mumm is said to be derived from the Danish word mumme,
or momme in Dutch (Germ. = larva), and signifies disguise in a
mask, hence a mummer.” In the Promptorium Parvulorum we have
“Mummynge, mussacio, vel mussatus”: it was a pantomime in dumb
show, e.g. “I mumme in a mummynge;” “Let us go mumme (mummer) to
nyghte in women’s apparayle.” “Mask” and “Mascarade,” for
persona, larva or vizard, also derive, I have noticed, from an
Arabic word—Maskharah.

[FN#316] The Pre-Adamite doctrine has been preached with but
scant success in Christendom. Peyrere, a French Calvinist,
published (A.D. 1655) his “Praadamitæ, sive exercitatio supra
versibus 12, 13, 14, cap. v. Epist. Paul. ad Romanos,” contending
that Adam was called the first man because with him the law
began. It brewed a storm of wrath and the author was fortunate to
escape with only imprisonment.

[FN#317] According to Socrates the verdict was followed by a free
fight of the Bishop-voters over the word “consubstantiality.”

[FN#318] Servetus burnt (in A.D. 1553 for publishing his Arian
tractate) by Calvin, whom half-educated Roman Catholics in
England firmly believe to have been a pederast. This arose I
suppose, from his meddling with Rabelais who, in return for the
good joke Rabie læsus, presented a better anagram, “Jan (a pimp
or cuckold) Cul” (Calvinus).

[FN#319] There is no more immoral work than the “Old Testament.”
Its deity is an ancient Hebrew of the worst type, who condones,
permits or commands every sin in the Decalogue to a Jewish
patriarch, quâ patriarch. He orders Abraham to murder his son and
allows Jacob to swindle his brother; Moses to slaughter an
Egyptian and the Jews to plunder and spoil a whole people, after
inflicting upon them a series of plagues which would be the
height of atrocity if the tale were true. The nations of Canaan
are then extirpated. Ehud, for treacherously disembowelling King
Eglon, is made judge over Israel. Jael is blessed above women
(Joshua v. 24) for vilely murdering a sleeping guest; the horrid
deeds of Judith and Esther are made examples to mankind; and
David, after an adultery and a homicide which deserved
ignominious death, is suffered to massacre a host of his enemies,
cutting some in two with saws and axes and putting others into
brick-kilns. For obscenity and impurity we have the tales of Onan
and Tamar, Lot and his daughters, Amnon and his fair sister (2
Sam. xiii.), Absalom and his father’s concubines, the “wife of
whoredoms” of Hosea and, capping all, the Song of Solomon. For
the horrors forbidden to the Jews who, therefore, must have
practiced them, see Levit. viii. 24, xi. 5, xvii. 7, xviii. 7, 9,
10, 12, 15, 17, 21, 23, and xx. 3. For mere filth what can be
fouler than 1st Kings xviii. 27; Tobias ii. 11; Esther xiv. 2,
Eccl. xxii. 2; Isaiah xxxvi. 12, Jeremiah iv. 5, and (Ezekiel iv.
12–15), where the Lord changes human ordure into “Cow-chips!” Ce
qui excuse Dieu, said Henri Beyle, c’est qu’il n’existe pas,—I
add, as man has made him.

[FN#320] It was the same in England before the “Reformation,” and
in France where, during our days, a returned priesthood collected
in a few years “Peter-pence” to the tune of five hundred millions
of francs. And these men wonder at being turned out!

[FN#321] Deutsch on the Talmud: Quarterly Review, 1867.

[FN#322] Evidently. Its cosmogony is a myth read literally: its
history is, for the most part, a highly immoral distortion, and
its ethics are those of the Talmudic Hebrews. It has done good
work in its time; but now it shows only decay and decrepitude in
the place of vigour and progress. It is dying hard, but it is
dying of the slow poison of science.

[FN#323] These Hebrew Stoics would justly charge the Founder of
Christianity with preaching a more popular and practical
doctrine, but a degradation from their own far higher and more
ideal standard.

[FN#324] Dr. Theodore Christlieb (“Modern Doubt and Christian
Belief,” Edinburgh: Clark 1874) can even now write:—“So then the
’full age’ to which humanity is at present supposed to have
attained, consists in man’s doing good purely for goodness sake!
Who sees not the hollowness of this bombastic talk. That man has
yet to be born whose practice will be regulated by this insipid
theory (dieser grauen theorie). What is the idea of goodness per
se? * * * The abstract idea of goodness is not an effectual
motive for well-doing” (p. 104). My only comment is c’est
ignolile! His Reverence acts the part of Satan in Holy Writ,
“Does Job serve God for naught?” Compare this selfish,
irreligious, and immoral view with Philo Judæus (On the Allegory
of the Sacred Laws, cap. lviii.), to measure the extent of the
fall from Pharisaism to Christianity. And the latter is still
infected with the “bribe-and-threat doctrine:” I once immensely
scandalised a Consular Chaplain by quoting the noble belief of
the ancients, and it was some days before he could recover mental
equanimity. The degradation is now inbred.

[FN#325] Of the doctrine of the Fall the heretic Marcion wrote:
“The Deity must either be deficient in goodness if he willed, in
prescience if he did not foresee, or in power if he did not
prevent it.”

[FN#326] In his charming book, “India Revisited.”

[FN#327] This is the answer to those who contend with much truth
that the moderns are by no means superior to the ancients of
Europe: they look at the results of only 3000 years instead of
30,000 or 300,000.

[FN#328] As a maxim the saying is attributed to the Duc de Lévis,
but it is much older.

[FN#329] There are a few, but only a few, frightful exceptions to
this rule, especially in the case of Khálid bin Walíd, the Sword
of Allah, and his ferocious friend, Darár ibn al-Azwar. But their
cruel excesses were loudly blamed by the Moslems, and Caliph Omar
only obeyed the popular voice in superseding the fierce and
furious Khalid by the mild and merciful Abú Obaydah.

[FN#330] This too when St. Paul sends the Christian slave

Onesimus back to his unbelieving (?) master, Philemon; which in

Al-Islam would have created a scandal.


[FN#331] This too when the Founder of Christianity talks of
“Eating and drinking at his table!” (Luke xxn. 29.) My notes have
often touched upon this inveterate prejudice the result, like the
soul-less woman of Al-Islam, of ad captandum, pious fraud. “No
soul knoweth what joy of the eyes is reserved for the good in
recompense for their works” (Koran xxxn. 17) is surely as
“spiritual” as St. Paul (I Cor. ii., 9). Some lies, however are
very long-lived, especially those begotten by self interest.

[FN#332] I have elsewhere noted its strict conservatism which,
however, it shares with all Eastern faiths in the East. But
progress, not quietism, is the principle which governs humanity
and it is favoured by events of most different nature. In Egypt
the rule of Mohammed Ali the Great and in Syria the Massacre of
Damascus (1860) have greatly modified the constitution of Al-Islam
 throughout the nearer East.

[FN#333] Chapt. viii. “Narrative of a Year’s Journey through

Central and Eastern Arabia;” London, Macmillan, 1865.


[FN#334] The Soc. Jesu has, I believe, a traditional conviction
that converts of Israelitic blood bring only misfortune to the
Order.

[FN#335] I especially allude to an able but most superficial
book, the “Ten Great Religions” by James F. Clarke (Boston,
Osgood, 1876), which caricatures and exaggerates the false
portraiture of Mr. Palgrave. The writer’s admission that,
“Something is always gained by learning what the believers in a
system have to say in its behalf,” clearly shows us the man we
have to deal with and the “depths of his self-consciousness.”

[FN#336] But how could the Arabist write such hideous grammar as

“La Il h illa All h” for “Lá iláha (accus.) ill’ Allah”?


[FN#337] p. 996 “Muhammad” in vol. iii. Dictionary of Christian
Biography. See also the Illustration of the Mohammedan Creed,
etc., from Al-Ghazáli introduced (pp. 72–77) into Bell and Sons’
“History of the Saracens” by Simon Ockley, B.D. (London, 1878). I
regret some Orientalist did not correct the proofs: everybody
will not detect “Al-Lauh al-Mahfúz” (the Guarded Tablet) in
“Allauh ho’hnehphoud” (p. 171); and this but a pinch out of a
camel-load.

[FN#338] The word should have been Arianism. This “heresy” of the
early Christians was much aided by the “Discipline of the
Secret,” supposed to be of apostolic origin, which concealed from
neophytes, catechumens and penitents all the higher mysteries,
like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Metastoicheiosis
(transubstantiation), the Real Presence, the Eucharist and the
Seven Sacraments; when Arnobius could ask, Quid Deo cum vino est?
and when Justin, fearing the charge of Polytheism, could
expressly declare the inferior nature of the Son to the Father.
Hence the creed was appropriately called Symbol i.e., Sign of the
Secret. This “mental reservation” lasted till the Edict of
Toleration, issued by Constantine in the fourth century, held
Christianity secure when divulging her “mysteries”; and it
allowed Arianism to become the popular creed.

[FN#339] The Gnostics played rather a fantastic rôle in
Christianity with their Demiurge, their Æonogony, their Æons by
syzygies or couples, their Maio and Sabscho and their beatified
bride of Jesus, Sophia Achamoth, and some of them descended to
absolute absurdities, e.g., the Tascodrugitæ and the
Pattalorhinchitæ who during prayers placed their fingers upon
their noses or in their mouths, &c., reading Psalm cxli. 3.

[FN#340] “Kitáb al-’Unwán fí Makáid al-Niswán” = The Book of the

Beginnings on the Wiles of Womankind (Lane i. 38).


[FN#341] This person was one of the Amsál or Exampla of the
Arabs. For her first thirty years she whored; during the next
three decades she pimped for friend and foe, and, during the last
third of her life, when bed-ridden by age and infirmities, she
had a buckgoat and a nanny tied up in her room and solaced
herself by contemplating their amorous conflicts.

[FN#342] And modern Moslem feeling upon the subject has
apparently undergone a change. Ashraf Khan, the Afghan poet,
sings,

Since I, the parted one, have come the secrets of the world to

     ken,

Women in hosts therein I find, but few (and very few) of men.


And the Osmanli proverb is, “Of ten men nine are women!”

[FN#343] His Persian paper “On the Vindication of the Liberties
of the Asiatic Women” was translated and printed in the Asiatic
Annual Register for 1801 (pp. 100–107); it is quoted by Dr. Jon.
Scott (Introd. vol. i. p. xxxiv. et seq.) and by a host of
writers. He also wrote a book of Travels translated by Prof.
Charles Stewart in 1810 and re-issued (3 vols. 8vo.) in 1814.

[FN#344] The beginning of which I date from the Hijrah, lit.= the
separation, popularly “The Flight.” Stating the case broadly, it
has become the practice of modern writers to look upon Mohammed
as an honest enthusiast at Meccah and an unscrupulous despot at
Al-Medinah, a view which appears to me eminently unsound and
unfair. In a private station the Meccan Prophet was famed as a
good citizen, teste his title Al-Amín =The Trusty. But when
driven from his home by the pagan faction, he became de facto as
de jure a king: nay, a royal pontiff; and the preacher was merged
in the Conqueror of his foes and the Commander of the Faithful.
His rule, like that of all Eastern rulers, was stained with
blood; but, assuming as true all the crimes and cruelties with
which Christians charge him and which Moslems confess, they were
mere blots upon a glorious and enthusiastic life, ending in a
most exemplary death, compared with the tissue of horrors and
havock which the Law and the Prophets attribute to Moses, to
Joshua, to Samuel and to the patriarchs and prophets by express
command of Jehovah.

[FN#345] It was not, however, incestuous: the scandal came from
its ignoring the Arab “pundonor.”

[FN#346] The “opportunism” of Mohammed has been made a matter of
obloquy by many who have not reflected and discovered that
time-serving is the very essence of “Revelation.” Says the Rev.
W. Smith (“Pentateuch,” chaps. xiii.), “As the journey (Exodus)
proceeds, so laws originate from the accidents of the way,” and
he applies this to successive decrees (Numbers xxvi. 32–36;
xxvii. 8–11 and xxxvi. 1–9), holding it indirect internal
evidence of Mosaic authorship (?). Another tone, however, is used
in the case of Al-Islam. “And now, that he might not stand in awe
of his wives any longer, down comes a revelation,” says Ockley in
his bluff and homely style, which admits such phrases as, “the
imposter has the impudence to say.” But why, in common honesty,
refuse to the Koran the concessions freely made to the Torah? It
is a mere petitio principii to argue that the latter is
“inspired” while the former is not, moreover, although we may be
called upon to believe things beyond Reason, it is hardly fair to
require our belief in things contrary to Reason.

[FN#347] This is noticed in my wife’s volume on The Inner Life of

Syria, chaps. xii. vol. i. 155.


[FN#348] Mirza preceding the name means Mister and following it
Prince. Addison’s “Vision of Mirza” (Spectator, No. 159) is
therefore “The Vision of Mister.”

[FN#349] And women. The course of instruction lasts from a few
days to a year and the period of puberty is fêted by magical
rites and often by some form of mutilation. It is described by
Waitz, Réclus and Schoolcraft, Páchue-Loecksa, Collins, Dawson,
Thomas, Brough Smyth, Reverends Bulmer and Taplin, Carlo
Wilhelmi, Wood, A. W. Howitt, C. Z. Muhas (Mem. de la Soc.
Anthrop. Allemande, 1882, p. 265) and by Professor Mantegazza
(chaps. i.) for whom see infra.

[FN#350] Similarly certain Australian tribes act scenes of rape
and pederasty saying to the young, If you do this you will be
killed.

[FN#351] “Báh,” is the popular term for the amatory appetite:
hence such works are called Kutub al-Báh, lit. = Books of Lust.

[FN#352] I can make nothing of this title nor can those whom I
have consulted: my only explanation is that they may be fanciful
names proper.

[FN#353] Amongst the Greeks we find erotic specialists (1)
Aristides of the Libri Milesii; (2) Astyanassa, the follower of
Helen who wrote on androgenization; (3) Cyrene, the artist of
amatory Tabellæ or ex-votos offered to Priapus; (4) Elephantis,
the poetess who wrote on Varia concubitus genera; (5) Evemerus,
whose Sacra Historia, preserved in a fragment of Q. Eunius, was
collected by Hieronymus Columnar (6) Hemitheon of the Sybaritic
books, (7) Musæus, the Iyrist; (8) Niko, the Samian girl; (9)
Philænis, the poetess of Amatory Pleasures, in Athen. viii. 13,
attributed to Polycrates the Sophist; (10) Protagorides, Amatory
Conversations; (11) Sotades, the Mantinæan who, says Suidas,
wrote the poem “Cinædica”; (12) Sphodrias the Cynic, his Art of
Love; and (13) Trepsicles, Amatory Pleasures. Amongst the Romans
we have Aedituus, Annianus (in Ausonius), Anser, Bassus Eubius,
Helvius Cinna, Lævius (of Io and the Erotopægnion), Memmius,
Cicero (to Cerellia), Pliny the Younger, Sabellus (de modo
coeundi); Sisenna, the pathic Poet and translator of Milesian
Fables and Sulpitia, the modest erotist. For these see the
Dictionnaire Érotique of Blondeau pp. ix. and x. (Paris, Liseux,
1885).

[FN#354] It has been translated from the Sanskrit and annotated
by A.F.F. and B.F.R. Reprint Cosmopoli: mdccclxxxv.: for the Kama
Shastra Society, London and Benares, and for private circulation
only. The first print has been exhausted and a reprint will
presently appear.

[FN#355] The local press has often proposed to abate this
nuisance of erotic publication which is most debasing to public
morals already perverted enough. But the “Empire of Opinion”
cares very little for such matters and, in the matter of the
“native press,” generally seems to seek only a quiet life. In
England if erotic literature were not forbidden by law, few would
care to sell or to buy it, and only the legal pains and penalties
keep up the phenomenally high prices.

[FN#356] The Spectator (No. 119) complains of an “infamous piece
of good breeding,” because “men of the town, and particularly
those who have been polished in France, make use of the most
coarse and uncivilised words in our language and utter themselves
often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear.”

[FN#357] See the Novelle of Bandello the Bishop (Tome 1, Paris,
Liseux, 1879, small in 18) where the dying fisherman replies to
his confessor, “Oh! Oh! your reverence, to amuse myself with boys
was natural to me as for a man to eat and drink; yet you asked me
if I sinned against nature!” Amongst the wiser ancients sinning
contra naturam was not marrying and begetting children.

[FN#358] Avis au Lecteur “L’Amour dans l’Humanité,” par P.
Mantegazza, traduit par Emilien Chesneau, Paris, Fetscherin et
Chuit, 1886.


[FN#359] See “H. B.” (Henry Beyle, French Consul at Civita Vecchia) par
un des Quarante” (Prosper Mérimee), Elutheropolis, An mdccclxiv. De
l’Imposture du Nazaréen.


[FN#360] This detail especially excited the veteran’s curiosity.
The reason proved to be that the scrotum of the unmutilated boy
could be used as a kind of bridle for directing the movements of
the animal. I find nothing of the kind mentioned in the Sotadical
literature of Greece and Rome; although the same cause might be
expected everywhere to the same effect. But in Mirabeau
(Kadhésch) a grand seigneur moderne, when his valet-de-chambre de
confiance proposes to provide him with women instead of boys,
exclaims, “Des femmes! eh! c’est comme si tu me servais un gigot
sans manche.” See also infra for “Le poids du tisserand.”

[FN#361] See Falconry in the Valley of the Indus, London, John

Van Voorst, 1852.


[FN#362] Submitted to Government on Dec. 31, ’47, and March 2,
’48, they were printed in “Selections from the Records of the
Government of India.” Bombay. New Series. No. xvii. Part 2, 1855.
These are (1) Notes on the Population of Sind, etc., and (2)
Brief Notes on the Modes of Intoxication, etc., written in
collaboration with my late friend Assistant-Surgeon John E.
Stocks, whose early death was a sore loss to scientific botany.

[FN#363] Glycon the Courtesan in Athen. xiii. 84 declares that
“boys are handsome only when they resemble women,” and so the
Learned Lady in The Nights (vol. v. 160) declares “Boys are
likened to girls because folks say, Yonder boy is like a girl.”
For the superior physical beauty of the human male compared with
the female, see The Nights, vol. iv. 15; and the boy’s voice
before it breaks excels that of any diva.

[FN#364] “Mascula,” from the priapiscus, the over-development of
clitoris (the veretrum muliebre, in Arabic Abu Tartúr, habens
cristam), which enabled her to play the man. Sappho (nat. B.C.
612) has been retoillée like Mary Stuart, La Brinvilliers, Marie
Antoinette and a host of feminine names which have a savour not
of sanctity. Maximus of Tyre (Dissert. xxiv.) declares that the
Eros of Sappho was Socratic and that Gyrinna and Atthis were as
Alcibiades and Chermides to Socrates: Ovid who could consult
documents now lost, takes the same view in the Letter of Sappho
to Phaon and in Tristia ii. 265.

     Lesbia quid docuit Sappho nisi amare puellas?

Suidas supports Ovid. Longinus eulogises the               (a
term applied only to carnal love) of the far-famed Ode to
Atthis:—

     Ille mî par esse Deo videtur * * *

     (Heureux! qui près de toi pour toi seule soupire * * *

     Blest as th’ immortal gods is he, etc.)


By its love symptoms, suggesting that possession is the sole cure
for passion, Erasistratus discovered the love of Antiochus for
Stratonice. Mure (Hist. of Greek Literature, 1850) speaks of the
Ode to Aphrodite (Frag. 1) as “one in which the whole volume of
Greek literature offers the most powerful concentration into one
brilliant focus of the modes in which amatory concupiscence can
display itself.” But Bernhardy, Bode, Richter, K. O. Müller and
esp. Welcker have made Sappho a model of purity, much like some
of our dull wits who have converted Shakespeare, that most
debauched genius, into a good British bourgeois.

[FN#365] The Arabic Sabhákah, the Tractatrix or Subigitatrix who
has been noticed in vol. iv. 134. Hence to Lesbianise (         )
and tribassare (         ); the former applied to the love of
woman for woman and the latter to its mecanique: this is either
natural, as friction of the labia and insertion of the clitoris
when unusually developed, or artificial by means of the fascinum,
the artificial penis (the Persian “Mayájang”); the patte de chat,
the banana-fruit and a multitude of other succedanea. As this
feminine perversion is only glanced at in The Nights I need
hardly enlarge upon the subject.

[FN#366] Plato (Symp.) is probably mystical when he accounts for
such passions by there being in the beginning three species of
humanity, men, women and men-women or androgynes. When the latter
were destroyed by Zeus for rebellion, the two others were
individually divided into equal parts. Hence each division seeks
its other half in the same sex, the primitive man prefers men and
the primitive woman women. C’est beau, but—is it true? The idea
was probably derived from Egypt which supplied the Hebrews with
androgynic humanity, and thence it passed to extreme India, where
Shiva as Ardhanárí was male on one side and female on the other
side of the body, combining paternal and maternal qualities and
functions. The first creation of humans (Gen. i. 27) was
hermaphrodite (=Hermes and Venus), masculum et fminam creavit
eos—male and female created He them—on the sixth day, with the
command to increase and multiply (ibid. v. 28), while Eve the
woman was created subsequently. Meanwhile, say certain
Talmudists, Adam carnally copulated with all races of animals.
See L’Anandryne in Mirabeau’s Erotika Biblion, where Antoinette
Bourgnon laments the undoubling which disfigured the work of God,
producing monsters incapable of independent self-reproduction
like the vegetable kingdom.

[FN#367] De la Femme, Paris, 1827.

[FN#368] Die Lustseuche des Alterthum’s, Halle, 1839.

[FN#369] See his exhaustive article on (Grecian) “Paederastie” in
the Allgemeine Encyclopædie of Ersch and Gruber, Leipzig,
Brockhaus, 1837. He carefully traces it through the several
states, Dorians, Æolians, Ionians, the Attic cities and those of
Asia Minor. For these details I must refer my readers to M.
Meier; a full account of these would fill a volume not the
section of an essay.

[FN#370] Against which see Henri Estienne, Apologie pour

Hérodote, a society satire of xvith century, lately reprinted by

Liseux.


[FN#371] In Sparta the lover was called           or         x
and the beloved as in Thessaly       or     x.

[FN#372] The more I study religions the more I am convinced that
man never worshipped anything but himself. Zeus, who became
Jupiter, was an ancient king, according to the Cretans, who were
entitled liars because they showed his burial-place. From a
deified ancestor he would become a local god, like the Hebrew
Jehovah as opposed to Chemosh of Moab; the name would gain
amplitude by long time and distant travel, and the old island
chieftain would end in becoming the Demiurgus. Ganymede (who
possibly gave rise to the old Lat. “Catamitus”) was probably some
fair Phrygian boy (“son of Tros”) who in process of time became a
symbol of the wise man seized by the eagle (perspicacity) to be
raised amongst the Immortals; and the chaste myth simply
signified that only the prudent are loved by the gods. But it
rotted with age as do all things human. For the Pederastía of the
Gods see Bayle under Chrysippe.

[FN#373] See Dissertation sur les idées morales des Grecs et sur
les dangers de lire Platon. Par M. Audé, Bibliophile, Rouen,
Lemonnyer, 1879. This is the pseudonym of the late Octave
Delepierre, who published with Gay, but not the Editio
Princeps—which, if I remember rightly, contains much more
matter.

[FN#374] The phrase of J. Matthias Gesner, Comm. Reg. Soc.
Gottingen i. 1–32. It was founded upon Erasmus’ “Sancte Socrate,
ore pro nobis,” and the article was translated by M. Alcide
Bonmaire, Paris, Liseux, 1877.


[FN#375] The subject has employed many a pen, e.g., Alcibiade
Fanciullo a Scola, D. P. A. (supposed to be Pietro Aretino—ad
captandum?), Oranges, par Juann Wart, 1652: small square 8vo of
pp. 102, including 3 preliminary pp. and at end an unpaged leaf
with 4 sonnets, almost Venetian, by V. M. There is a
re-impression of the same date, a small 12mo of longer format,
pp. 124 with pp. 2 for sonnets: in 1862 the Imprimerie Racon
printed 102 copies in 8vo of pp. iv.–108, and in 1863 it was
condemned by the police as a liber spurcissimus atque execrandus
de criminis sodomici laude et arte. This work produced “Alcibiade
Enfant à l’école,” traduit pour la première fois de l’Italien de
Ferrante Pallavicini, Amsterdam, chez l’Ancien Pierre Marteau,
mdccclxvi. Pallavicini (nat. 1618), who wrote against Rome, was
beheaded, aet. 26 (March 5, 1644), at Avignon in 1644 by the
vengeance of the Barberini: he was a bel esprit déréglé, nourri
d’études antiques and a Memb. of the Acad. Degl’ Incogniti. His
peculiarities are shown by his “Opere Scelte,” 2 vols. 12mo,
Villafranca, mdclxiii.; these do not include Alcibiade Fanciullo,
a dialogue between Philotimus and Alcibiades which seems to be a
mere skit at the Jesuits and their Péché philosophique. Then came
the “Dissertation sur l’Alcibiade fanciullo a scola,” traduit de
l’Italien de Giambattista Baseggio et accompagnée de notes et
d’une post-face par un bibliophile francais (M. Gustave Brunet,
Librarian of Bordeaux), Paris. J. Gay, 1861—an octavo of pp. 78
(paged), 254 copies. The same Baseggio printed in 1850 his
Disquisizioni (23 copies) and claims for F. Pallavicini the
authorship of Alcibiades which the Manuel du Libraire wrongly
attributes to M. Girol. Adda in 1859. I have heard of but not
seen the “Amator fornaceus, amator ineptus” (Palladii, 1633)
supposed by some to be the origin of Alcibiade Fanciullo; but
most critics consider it a poor and insipid production.

[FN#376] The word is from       numbness, torpor, narcotism: the
flowers, being loved by the infernal gods, were offered to the
Furies. Narcissus and Hippolytus are often assumed as types of
morose voluptas, masturbation and clitorisation for nymphomania:
certain mediæval writers found in the former a type of the
Saviour, and ’Mirabeau a representation of the androgynous or
first Adam: to me Narcissus suggests the Hindu Vishnu absorbed in
the contemplation of his own perfections.

[FN#377] The verse of Ovid is parallel’d by the song of Al-Záhir
al-Jazari (Ibn Khall. iii. 720).

          Illum impuberem amaverunt mares; puberem feminæ.

          Gloria Deo! nunquam amatoribus carebit.


[FN#378] The venerable society of prostitutes contained three
chief classes. The first and lowest were the Dicteriads, so
called from Diete (Crete), who imitated Pasiphaë, wife of Minos,
in preferring a bull to a husband; above them was the middle
class, the Aleutridæ, who were the Almahs or professional
musicians, and the aristocracy was represented by the Hetairai,
whose wit and learning enabled them to adorn more than one page
of Grecian history. The grave Solon, who had studied in Egypt,
established a vast Dicterion (Philemon in his Delphica), or
bordel whose proceeds swelled the revenue of the Republic.

[FN#379] This and Saint Paul (Romans i. 27) suggested to

Caravaggio his picture of St. Rosario (in the museum of the Grand

Duke of Tuscany), showing a circle of thirty men turpiter ligati.


[FN#380] Properly speaking, “Medicus” is the third or ring
finger, as shown by the old Chiromantist verses,

          Est pollex Veneris; sed Jupiter indice gaudet,

          Saturnus medium; Sol medicumque tenet.


[FN#381] So Seneca uses digito scalpit caput. The modern Italian
does the same by inserting the thumb-tip between the index and
medius to suggest the clitoris.

[FN#382] What can be wittier than the now trite Tale of the
Ephesian Matron, whose dry humour is worthy of The Nights? No
wonder that it has made the grand tour of the world. It is found
in the neo-Phædrus, the tales of Musæus and in the Septem
Sapientes as the “Widow which was comforted.” As the “Fabliau de
la Femme qui se fist putain sur la fosse de son Mari,” it tempted
Brantôme and La Fontaine; and Abel Rémusat shows in his Contes
Chinois that it is well known to the Middle Kingdom. Mr. Walter
K. Kelly remarks, that the most singular place for such a tale is
the “Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying” by Jeremy Taylor, who
introduces it into his chapt. v.—“Of the Contingencies of Death
and Treating our Dead.” But in those days divines were not
mealy-mouthed.

[FN#383] Glossarium eroticum linguæ Latinæ, sive theogoniæ, legum
et morum nuptialium apud Romanos explanatio nova, auctore P. P.
(Parisiis, Dondey-Dupré, 1826, in 8vo). P. P. is supposed to be
Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues, an engineer who made a plan of
Bordeaux and who annotated the Erotica Biblion. Gay writes, “On
s’est servi pour cet ouvrage des travaux inédits de M. Ie Baron
de Schonen, etc. Quant au Chevalier Pierre Pierrugues qu’on
désignait comme l’auteur de ce savant volume, son existence n’est
pas bien avérée, et quelques bibliographes persistent à penser
que ce nom cache la collaboration du Baron de Schonen et d’Eloi
Johanneau.” Other glossicists as Blondeau and Forberg have been
printed by Liseux, Paris.

[FN#384] This magnificent country, which the petty jealousies of
Europe condemn, like the glorious regions about Constantinople,
to mere barbarism, is tenanted by three Moslem races. The
Berbers, who call themselves Tamazight (plur. of Amazigh), are
the Gætulian indigenes speaking an Africo-Semitic tongue (see
Essai de Grammaire Kabyle, etc., par A. Hanoteau, Paris, Benjamin
Duprat). The Arabs, descended from the conquerors in our eighth
century, are mostly nomads and camel-breeders. Third and last are
the Moors proper, the race dwelling in towns, a mixed breed
originally Arabian but modified by six centuries of Spanish
residence and showing by thickness of feature and a
parchment-coloured skin, resembling the American Octaroon’s, a
negro innervation of old date. The latter are well described in
“Morocco and the Moors,” etc. (Sampson Low and Co., 1876), by my
late friend Dr. Arthur Leared, whose work I should like to see
reprinted.

[FN#385] Thus somewhat agreeing with one of the multitudinous
modern theories that the Pentapolis was destroyed by discharges
of meteoric stones during a tremendous thunderstorm. Possible,
but where are the stones?

[FN#386] To this Iranian domination I attribute the use of many
Persic words which are not yet obsolete in Egypt. “Bakhshísh,”
for instance, is not intelligible in the Moslem regions west of
the Nile-Valley, and for a present the Moors say Hadíyah, regalo
or favor.

[FN#387] Arnobius and Tertullian, with the arrogance of their
caste and its miserable ignorance of that symbolism which often
concealed from vulgar eyes the most precious mysteries, used to
taunt the heathen for praying to deities whose sex they ignored
“Consuistis in precibus ’Seu tu Deus seu tu Dea,’ dicere!” These
men would know everything; they made God the merest work of man’s
brains and armed him with a despotism of omnipotence which
rendered their creation truly dreadful.

[FN#388] Gallus lit. = a cock, in pornologic parlance is a capon,
a castrato.

[FN#389] The texts justifying or enjoining castration are Matt.
xviii. 8–9; Mark ix. 43–47; Luke xxiii. 29 and Col. iii. 5. St.
Paul preached (1 Corin. vii. 29) that a man should live with his
wife as if he had none. The Abelian heretics of Africa abstained
from women because Abel died virginal. Origen mutilated himself
after interpreting too rigorously Matt. xix. 12, and was duly
excommunicated. But his disciple, the Arab Valerius founded (A.D.
250) the castrated sect called Valerians who, persecuted and
dispersed by the Emperors Constantine and Justinian, became the
spiritual fathers of the modern Skopzis. These eunuchs first
appeared in Russia at the end of the xith century, when two
Greeks, John and Jephrem, were metropolitans of Kiew: the former
was brought thither in A.D. 1089 by Princess Anna Wassewolodowna
and is called by the chronicles Nawjè or the Corpse. But in the
early part of the last century (1715–1733) a sect arose in the
circle of Uglitseh and in Moscow, at first called Clisti or
flagellants, which developed into the modern Skopzi. For this
extensive subject see De Stein (Zeitschrift für Ethn. Berlin,
1875) and Mantegazza, chaps. vi.

[FN#390] See the marvellously absurd description of the glorious

“Dead Sea” in the Purchas v. 84.


[FN#391] Jehovah here is made to play an evil part by destroying
men instead of teaching them better. But, “Nous faisons les Dieux
à notre image et nous portons dans le ciel ce que nous voyons sur
la terre.” The idea of Yahweh, or Yah, is palpably Egyptian, the
Ankh or ever-living One: the etymon, however, was learned at
Babylon and is still found amongst the cuneiforms.

[FN#392] The name still survives in the Shajarát al-Ashará, a
clump of trees near the village Al-Ghájar (of the Gypsies?) at
the foot of Hermon.

[FN#393] I am not quite sure that Astarte is not primarily the
planet Venus; but I can hardly doubt that Prof. Max Müller and
Sir G. Cox are mistaken in bringing from India Aphrodite the Dawn
and her attendants, the Charites identified with the Vedic
Harits. Of Ishtar in Accadia, however, Roscher seems to have
proved that she is distinctly the Moon sinking into Amenti (the
west, the Underworld) in search of her lost spouse Izdubar, the
Sun-god. This again is pure Egyptianism.

[FN#394] In this classical land of Venus the worship of
Ishtar-Ashtaroth is by no means obsolete. The Metáwali heretics,
a people of Persian descent and Shiite tenets, and the peasantry
of “Bilád B’sharrah,” which I would derive from Bayt Ashirah,
still pilgrimage to the ruins and address their vows to the
Sayyidat al-Kabírah, the Great Lady. Orthodox Moslems accuse them
of abominable orgies and point to the lamps and rags which they
suspend to a tree entitled Shajarat al-Sitt—the Lady’s tree—an
Acacia Albida which, according to some travellers, is found only
here and at Sayda (Sidon) where an avenue exists. The people of
Kasrawán, a Christian province in the Libanus, inhabited by a
peculiarly prurient race, also hold high festival under the
far-famed Cedars, and their women sacrifice to Venus like the
Kadashah of the Phnicians. This survival of old superstition is
unknown to missionary “Handbooks,” but amply deserves the study
of the anthropologist.

[FN#395] Some commentators understand “the tabernacles sacred to
the reproductive powers of women;” and the Rabbis declare that
the emblem was the figure of a setting hen.

[FN#396] “Dog” is applied by the older Jews to the Sodomite and
the Catamite, and thus they understand the “price of a dog” which
could not be brought into the Temple (Deut. xxiii. 18). I have
noticed it in one of the derivations of cinædus and can only
remark that it is a vile libel upon the canine tribe.

[FN#397] Her name was Maachah and her title, according to some,
“King’s mother”: she founded the sect of Communists who rejected
marriage and made adultery and incest part of worship in their
splendid temple. Such were the Basilians and the Carpocratians
followed in the xith century by Tranchelin, whose sectarians, the
Turlupins, long infested Savoy.

[FN#398] A noted exception is Vienna, remarkable for the enormous
development of the virginal bosoni, which soon becomes pendulent.

[FN#399] Gen. xxxviii. 2–11. Amongst the classics Mercury taught
the “Art of le Thalaba” to his son Pan who wandered about the
mountains distraught with love for the Nymph Echo and Pan passed
it on to the pastors. See Thalaba in Mirabeau.

[FN#400] The reader of The Nights has remarked how often the “he”
in Arabic poetry denotes a “she”; but the Arab, when
uncontaminated by travel, ignores pederasty, and the Arab poet is
a Badawi.

[FN#401] So Mohammed addressed his girl-wife Ayishah in the
masculine.

[FN#402] So amongst the Romans we have the Iatroliptæ, youths or
girls who wiped the gymnast’s perspiring body with swan-down, a
practice renewed by the professors of “Massage”; Unctores who
applied perfumes and essences; Fricatrices and Tractatrices or
shampooers; Dropacistæ, corn-cutters; Alipilarii who plucked the
hair, etc., etc., etc.

[FN#403] It is a parody on the well-known song (Roebuck i. sect.
2, No. 1602):

The goldsmith knows the worth of gold, jewellers worth of

     jewelry;

The worth of rose Bulbul can tell and Kambar’s worth his lord,

     Ali.


[FN#404] For “Sindí” Roebuck (Oriental Proverbs Part i. p. 99)
has Kunbu (Kumboh) a Panjábi peasant, and others vary the saying
ad libitum. See vol. vi. 156.

[FN#405] See “Sind Revisited” i. 133–35.

[FN#406] They must not be confounded with the grelots lascifs,
the little bells of gold or silver set by the people of Pegu in
the prepuce-skin, and described by Nicolo de Conti who however
refused to undergo the operation.

[FN#407] Relation des découvertes faites par Colomb, etc., p.
137: Bologna 1875; also Vespucci’s letter in Ramusio (i. 131) and
Paro’s Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains.

[FN#408] See Mantegazza loc. cit. who borrows from the Thèse de
Paris of Dr. Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, “Frictiones per coitum
productæ magnum mucosæ membranæ vaginalis turgorem, ac simul
hujus cuniculi coarctationem tam maritis salacibus quæritatam
afferunt.”

[FN#409] Fascinus is the Priapus-god to whom the Vestal Virgins
of Rome, professed tribades, sacrificed, also the neck-charm in
phallus-shape. Fascinum is the male member.

[FN#410] Captain Grose (Lexicon Balatronicum) explains merkin as
“counterfeit hair for women’s privy parts. See Bailey’s Dict.”
The Bailey of 1764, an “improved edition,” does not contain the
word which is now generally applied to a cunnus succedaneus.

[FN#411] I have noticed this phenomenal cannibalism in my notes
to Mr. Albert Tootle’s excellent translation of “The Captivity of
Hans Stade of Hesse:” London, Hakluyt Society, mdccclxxiv.

[FN#412] The Ostreiras or shell mounds of the Brazil, sometimes
200 feet high, are described by me in Anthropologia No. i. Oct.
1873.

[FN#413] The Native Races of the Pacific States of South America,
by Herbert Howe Bancroft, London, Longmans, 1875.

[FN#414] All Peruvian historians mention these giants, who were
probably the large-limbed Gribs (Caraíbes) of the Brazil: they
will be noticed in page 211.

[FN#415] This sounds much like a pious fraud of the missionaries,
a Europeo-American version of the Sodom legend.

[FN#416] Les Races Aryennes du Perou, Paris, Franck, 1871.

[FN#417] O Brazil e os Brazileiros, Santos, 1862.

[FN#418] Aethiopia Orientalis, Purchas ii. 1558.

[FN#419] Purchas iii. 243.

[FN#420] For a literal translation see 1re Série de la Curiosité

Littéraire et Bibliographique, Paris, Liseux, 1880.


[FN#421] His best-known works are (1) Praktisches Handbuch der
Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1860; and (2) Klinische Novellen
zur Gerechtlichen Medecin, Berlin, 1863.

[FN#422] The same author printed another imitation of Petronius

Arbiter, the “Larissa” story of Théophile Viand. His cousin, the

Sévigné, highly approved of it. See Bayle’s objections to

Rabutin’s delicacy and excuses for Petronius’ grossness in his

“Éclaircissement sur les obscénités” (Appendice au Dictionnaire

Antique).


[FN#423] The Boulgrin of Rabelais, which Urquhart renders Ingle
for Boulgre, an “indorser,” derived from the Bulgarus or
Bulgarian, who gave to Italy the term bugiardo—liar. Bougre and
Bougrerie date (Littré) from the xiiith century. I cannot,
however, but think that the trivial term gained strength in the
xvith, when the manners of the Bugres or indigenous Brazilians
were studied by Huguenot refugees in La France Antartique and
several of these savages found their way to Europe. A grand Fête
in Rouen on the entrance of Henri II. and Dame Katherine de
Medicis (June 16, 1564) showed, as part of the pageant, three
hundred men (including fifty “Bugres” or Tupis) with parroquets
and other birds and beasts of the newly explored regions. The
procession is given in the four-folding woodcut “Figure des
Brésiliens” in Jean de Prest’s Edition of 1551.

[FN#424] Erotika Biblion, chaps. Kadésch (pp. 93 et seq.),
Edition de Bruxelles, with notes by the Chevalier P. Pierrugues
of Bordeaux, before noticed.

[FN#425] Called Chevaliers de Paille because the sign was a straw
in the mouth, à la Palmerston.

[FN#426] I have noticed that the eunuch in Sind was as meanly
paid and have given the reason.

[FN#427] Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (by Pisanus Fraxi) 4to,
p. Ix. and 593. London. Privately printed, mdccclxxix.

[FN#428] A friend learned in these matters supplies me with the
following list of famous pederasts. Those who marvel at the wide
diffusion of such erotic perversion, and its being affected by so
many celebrities, will bear in mind that the greatest men have
been some of the worst: Alexander of Macedon, Julius Cæsar and
Napoleon Buonaparte held themselves high above the moral law
which obliges common-place humanity. All three are charged with
the Vice. Of Kings we have Henri iii., Louis xiii. and xviii.,
Frederick ii. Of Prussia Peter the Great, William ii. of Holland
and Charles ii. and iii. of Parma. We find also Shakespeare (i.,
xv., Edit. Francois Hugo) and Moliere, Theodorus Beza, Lully (the
Composer), D’Assoucy, Count Zintzendorff, the Grand Condé,
Marquis de Villette, Pierre Louis Farnese, Duc de la Vallière, De
Soleinne, Count D’Avaray, Saint Mégrin, D’Epernon, Admiral de la
Susse La Roche-Pouchin Rochfort S. Louis, Henne (the
Spiritualist), Comte Horace de Viel Castel, Lerminin, Fievée,
Théodore Leclerc, Archi-Chancellier Cambacèrés, Marquis de
Custine, Sainte-Beuve and Count D’Orsay. For others refer to the
three volumes of Pisanus Fraxi, Index Librorum Prohibitorum
(London, 1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (before alluded
to) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum, London, 1885. The indices
will supply the names.

[FN#429] Of this peculiar character Ibn Khallikan remarks (ii.
43), “There were four poets whose works clearly contraried their
character. Abú al-Atahíyah wrote pious poems himself being an
atheist; Abú Hukayma’s verses proved his impotence, yet he was
more salacious than a he-goat, Mohammed ibn Házim praised
contentment, yet he was greedier than a dog, and Abú Nowás hymned
the joys of sodomy, yet he was more passionate for women than a
baboon.”

[FN#430] A virulently and unjustly abusive critique never yet
injured its object: in fact it is generally the greatest favour
an author’s unfriends can bestow upon him. But to notice a
popular Review books which have been printed and not published is
hardly in accordance with the established courtesies of
literature. At the end of my work I propose to write a paper “The
Reviewer Reviewed” which will, amongst other things, explain the
motif of the writer of the critique and the editor of the
Edinburgh.

[FN#431] 1 For detailed examples and specimens see p. 10 of

Gladwin’s “Dissertations on Rhetoric,” etd., Calcutta, 1801.


[FN#432] For instance: I, M. | take thee N. | to my wedded wife,
| to have and to hold, | from this day forward, | for better for
worse, | for richer for poorer, | in sickness and in health, | to
love and to cherish, | till death do us part, etc. Here it
becomes mere blank verse which is, of course, a defect in prose
style. In that delightful old French the Saj’a frequently
appeared when attention was solicited for the titles of books:
e.g. Lea Romant de la Rose, ou tout lart damours est enclose.

[FN#433] See Gladwin loc. cit. p. 8: it also is = alliteration

(Ibn Khall. ii., 316).


[FN#434] He called himself “Nabiyun ummí” = illiterate prophet;
but only his most ignorant followers believe that he was unable
to read and write. His last words, accepted by all traditionists,
were “Aatíní dawáta wa kalam” (bring me ink-case and pen); upon
which the Shi’ah or Persian sectaries base, not without
probability, a theory that Mohammed intended to write down the
name of Ali as his Caliph or successor when Omar, suspecting the
intention, exclaimed, “The Prophet is delirious; have we not the
Koran?” thus impiously preventing the precaution. However that
may be, the legend proves that Mohammed could read and write even
when not “under inspiration.” The vulgar idea would arise from a
pious intent to add miracle to the miraculous style of the Koran.

[FN#435] I cannot but vehemently suspect that this legend was
taken from much older traditions. We have Jubal the semi-mythical
who, “by the different falls of his hammer on the anvil,
discovered by the ear the first rude music that pleased the
antediluvian fathers.” Then came Pythagoras, of whom Macrobius
(lib. ii ) relates how this Græco-Egyptian philosopher, passing
by a smithy, observed that the sounds were grave or acute
according to the weights of the hammers; and he ascertained by
experiment that such was the case when different weights were
hung by strings of the same size. The next discovery was that two
strings of the same substance and tension, the one being double
the length of the other, gave the diapason-interval, or an
eighth; and the same was effected from two strings of similar
length and size, the one having four times the tension of the
other. Belonging to the same cycle of invention-anecdotes are
Galileo’s discovery of the pendulum by the lustre of the Pisan
Duomo; and the kettle-lid, the falling apple and the copper hook
which inspired Watt, Newton and Galvani.

[FN#436] To what an absurd point this has been carried we may
learn from Ibn Khallikán (i. 114). A poet addressing a single
individual does not say “My friend!” or “My friends!” but “My two
friends!” (in the dual) because a Badawi required a pair of
companions, one to tend the sheep and the other to pasture the
camels.

[FN#437] For further details concerning the Sabab, Watad and

Fasilah, see at the end of this Essay the learned remarks of Dr.

Steingass.


[FN#438] e.g., the Mu’allakats of “Amriolkais,” Tarafah and
Zuhayr compared by Mr. Lyall (Introduction to Translations) with
the metre of Abt Vogler, e.g.,

     Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told

[FN#439] e.g., the Poem of Hareth which often echoes the
hexameter

[FN#440] Gladwin, p. 80.

[FN#441] Gladwin (p. 77) gives only eight, omitting F ’ l which
he or his author probably considers the Muzáhaf, imperfect or
apocopêd form of F ’ l n, as M f ’ l of M f ’ l n. For the
infinite complications of Arabic prosody the Khafíf (soft
breathing) and Sahíh (hard breathing); the Sadr and Arúz (first
and last feet), the Ibtidá and Zarb (last foot of every line);
the Hashw (cushion-stuffing) or body part of verse, the ’Amúd
al-Kasídah or Al-Musammat (the strong) and other details I must
refer readers to such specialists as Freytag and Sam. Clarke
(Prosodia Arabica), and to Dr. Steingass’s notes infra.

[FN#442] The Hebrew grammarians of the Middle Ages wisely copied
their Arab cousins by turning Fa’la into Pael and so forth.

[FN#443] Mr. Lyall, whose “Ancient Arabic Poetry” (Williams and
Norgate, 1885) I reviewed in The Academy of Oct. 3, ’85, did the
absolute reverse of what is required: he preserved the metre and
sacrificed the rhyme even when it naturally suggested itself. For
instance in the last four lines of No. xii. what would be easier
than to write,

Ah sweet and soft wi’ thee her ways: bethink thee well! The day

     shall be

When some one favoured as thyself shall find her fair and fain

     and free;

And if she swear that parting ne’er shall break her word of

     constancy,

When did rose-tinted finger-tip with pacts and pledges e’er

     agree?


[FN#444] See p. 439 Grammatik des Arabischen Vulgär Dialekts von
Ægyptian, by Dr. Wilhelm Spitta Bey, Leipzig, 1880. In pp.
489–493 he gives specimens of eleven Mawáwíl varying in length
from four to fifteen lines. The assonance mostly attempts
monorhyme: in two tetrastichs it is aa + ba, and it does not
disdain alternates, ab + ab + ab.

[FN#445] Al-Siyuti, p. 235, from Ibn Khallikan. Our knowledge of
oldest Arab verse is drawn chiefly from the Katáb al-Aghání
(Song-book) of Abu al-Faraj the Isfaháni who flourished A.H.
284–356 (= 897– 967): it was printed at the Bulak Press in 1868.

[FN#446] See Lyall loc. cit. p. 97.

[FN#447] His Diwán has been published with a French translation,
par R. Boucher, Paris, Labitte, 1870.

[FN#448] I find also minor quotations from the Imám Abu al-Hasan
al-Askari (of Sarra man raa) ob. A.D. 868; Ibn Makúla (murdered
in A.D. 862?), Ibn Durayd (ob. A.D. 933)
Al-Zahr the Poet (ob. A.D. 963); Abu Bakr al-Zubaydi (ob. A.D.
989), Kábús ibn Wushmaghir (murdered in A.D. 1012–13); Ibn
Nabatah the Poet (ob. A.D. 1015), Ibn al-Sa’ati (ob. A.D. 1028);
Ibn Zaydun al-Andalusi who died at Hums (Emessa, the Arab name
for Seville) in A.D. 1071; Al-Mu’tasim ibn Sumadih (ob. A.D.
1091), Al-Murtaza ibn al-Shahrozuri the Sufi (ob. A.D. 1117); Ibn
Sara al-Shantaráni (of Santarem) who sang of Hind and died A.D.
1123; Ibn al-Kházin (ob. A.D. 1124), Ibn Kalakis (ob. A D. 1172)
Ibn al-Ta’wizi (ob. A.D. 1188); Ibn Zabádah (ob. A.D. 1198), Bahá
al-Dín Zuhayr (ob A.D. 1249); Muwaffak al-Din Muzaffar (ob. A.D.
1266) and sundry others. Notices of Al-Utayyah (vol. i. 11), of
Ibn al-Sumám (vol. i. 87) and of Ibn Sáhib al-Ishbíli, of Seville
(vol. i. 100), are deficient. The most notable point in Arabic
verse is its savage satire, the language of excited
“destructiveness” which characterises the Badawi: he is “keen for
satire as a thirsty man for water:” and half his poetry seems to
consist of foul innuendo, of lampoons, and of gross personal
abuse.

[FN#449] If the letter preceding Wáw or Yá is moved by Fathah,
they produce the diphthongs au (aw), pronounced like ou in
“bout’” and se, pronounced as i in “bite.”

[FN#450] For the explanation of this name and those of the
following terms, see Terminal Essay, p. 225.

[FN#451] This Fásilah is more accurately called sughrá, the
smaller one, there is another Fásilah kubrà, the greater,
consisting of four moved letters followed by a quiescent, or of a
Sabab sakíl followed by a Watad majmú’. But it occurs only as a
variation of a normal foot, not as an integral element in its
composition, and consequently no mention of it was needed in the
text.

[FN#452] It is important to keep in mind that the seemingly
identical feet 10 and 6, 7 and 3, are distinguished by the
relative positions of the constituting elements in either pair.
For as it will be seen that Sabab and Watad are subject to
different kinds of alterations it is evident that the effect of
such alterations upon a foot will vary, if Sabab and Watad occupy
different places with regard to each other.

[FN#453] i.e. vertical to the circumference.

[FN#454] This would be a Fásilah kubrá spoken of in the note p.
239.

[FN#455] In pause that is at the end of a line, a short vowel
counts either as long or is dropped according to the exigencies
of the metre. In the Hashw the u or i of the pronominal affix for
the third person sing., masc., and the final u of the enlarged
pronominal plural forms, humu and kumu, may be either short or
long, according to the same exigencies. The end-vowel of the
pronoun of the first person aná, I, is generally read short,
although it is written with Alif.

[FN#456] On p. 236 the word akámú, as read by itself, was
identified with the foot Fa’úlun. Here it must be read together
with the following syllable as “akámulwaj,” which is Mafá’ílun.

[FN#457] Prof. Palmer, p. 328 of his Grammar, identifies this
form of the Wáfir, when every Mufá’ alatum of the Hashw has
become Mafá’ílun, with the second form of the Rajaz It should be
Hazaj. Professor Palmer was misled, it seems, by an evident
misprint in one of his authorities, the Muhít al-Dáirah by Dr.
Van Dayk, p. 52.

[FN#458] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac 134b “The Merchant’s Wife
and the Parrot.”

[FN#459] This will be found translated in my “Book of the
Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. vii. p. 307, as an Appendix
to the Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac version of the story, from
which it differs in detail.

[FN#460] Called “Bekhit” in Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac

Editions.


[FN#461] Yehya ben Khalid (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac),

[FN#462] “Shar” (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac).

[FN#463] “Jelyaad” (Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac.)

[FN#464] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, No. 63. See my “Book of
the Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. iv., p. 211.

[FN#465] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, “Jaafar the Barmecide.”

[FN#466] Calcutta (1839–42) and Boulac, “The Thief turned
Merchant and the other Thief,” No. 88.


[FN#467] This story will be found translated in my “Book of the
Thousand Nights and One Night,” vol. v., p. 345.


[FN#468] After this I introduce the Tale of the Husband and the
Parrot.


[FN#469] The Bulak Edition omits this story altogether.

[FN#470] After this I introduce How Abu Hasan brake wind.

[FN#471] Probably Wakksh al-Falák=Feral of the Wild.

[FN#472] This is the date of the Paris edition. There was an
earlier edition published at La Haye in 1743.

[FN#473] There are two other Oriental romances by Voltaire; viz.,

Babouc, and the Princess of Babylon.