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THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
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THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS . The Thousand and One Nights, commonly known in See also:English as The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, is a collection of tales written in Arabic, which first became generally known in See also:Europe in the See also:early See also:part of the 18th See also:century through the See also:French See also:translation by See also:Antoine See also:Galland, and rapidly attained universal popularity. In the See also:Journal asiatique for 1827, p. 253, von See also:Hammer (J. von Hammer-Purgstall) See also:drew See also:attention to a passage in the See also:Golden Meadows of Mas'fldi (ed. See also:Barbier de Meynard, iv. 89 seq.), written in A.D. 943, in which certain stories current among the old See also:Arabs are compared with " the books which have reached us in See also:translations from See also:Persian, See also:Indian and See also:Greek, such as the See also:book of Hezdr Afsane, a See also:title which, translated from Persian into Arabic, means ` the thousand tales.' This book is popularly called The Thousand and One Nights, and contains the See also:story of the See also: 175 seq., a passage in the Fihrist (A.D. 987), which is to the following effect: " The See also:ancient Persians were the first to invent tales and make books of them, and some of their tales were put in the mouths of animals. The Ashghanians, or third See also:dynasty of Persian kings, and after them the Sasanians, had a See also:special part in the development of this literature, which found Arabic translators, and was taken up by accomplished Arabic literati, who edited it and imitated it. The earliest book of the kind was the Hezar afsane or Thousand Tales, which had the following origin. A certain Persian king 'was accustomed to kill his wives on the See also:morning after the consummation of the See also:marriage. But once he married a See also:clever princess called Shahrazad, who spent the marriage See also:night in telling a story which in the morning reached a point so interesting that the king spared her, and asked next night for the sequel. This went on for a thousand nights till Shahrazad had a son, and ventured to tell the king of her See also:device. He admired her intelligence, loved her, and spared her See also:life. In all this the princess was assisted by the king's stewardess Dinazad. This book is said to have been written for the princess Homai (See also:MSS. Romani), daughter of Bahman. . . . It contains nearly two See also:hundred stories, one story often occupying several nights. I have repeatedly seen the See also:complete book, but it is really a meagre and uninteresting See also:production " (Fihrist, ed. Fliigel, p. 304). Persian tradition (in Firdousi) makes Princess Homai the daughter and wife of Bahman See also:Ardashir, i.e. See also:Artaxerxes I. Longimanus. She is depicted as a See also:great builder, a kind of Persian See also:Semiramis, and is a See also:half-mythical personage already mentioned in the Avesta, but her See also:legend seems to be founded on the See also:history of Atossa and of See also:Parysatis. Firdousi says that she was also called Shahrazad (See also:Mohl v. II). This name and that of Dinazad both occur in what Mas'udi tells of her. According to him, Shahrazad was Honiai's See also:mother (ii. 129), a Jewess (ii. 123). Bahman had married a Jewess (i. 118), who was instrumental in delivering her nation from captivity. In ii. 122 this Jewish See also:maiden who did her See also:people this service is called Dinazad, but " the accounts," says our author, " vary." Plainly she is the See also:Esther of Jewish story. See also:Tabari (i. 688) calls Esther the mother of Bahman, and, like Firdousi, gives to Homai the name of Shahrazad. The story of Esther and that of the See also:original Nights have in fact one See also:main feature in See also:common. In the former the king is offended with his wife, and divorces her; in the Arabian Nights he finds her unfaithful, and kills her. But both stories agree that thereafter a new wife was brought to him every night, and on the morrow passed into the second See also:house of the See also:women (Esther), or was slain (Nights). At length Esther or Shahrazad wins his See also:heart and becomes See also:queen. The issue in the Jewish story is that Esther saves her people; in the Nights the gainers are " the daughters of the Moslems," but the old story had, of course, some other word than " Moslems." Esther's See also:foster-See also:father becomes vizier, and Shahrazad's father is also vizier. Shahrazad's See also:plan is helped forward in the Nights by Dinazad, who is, according to Mas`udi, her slave girl, or, according to other MSS., her See also:nurse, and, according to the Fihrist, the king's stewardess. The last See also:account comes nearest to Esther ii. 15, where Esther gains the favour of the king's See also: For in See also:general the Moslems, though very fond of stories, are ashamed to recognize them as See also:objects of See also:literary curiosity. In fact, the next mention of th* Nights is found only after a See also:lapse of three centuries. Magrizi, describing the See also:capital of Egypt, quotes from a See also:work of See also:Ibn Said (C. A.D. 1250), who again cites an older author (Al-Kortobi), who, in speaking of a love affair at the See also:court of the See also:caliph Al-See also:Amir (1097-1130), says " what is told about it resembles the See also:romance of AI-Battal, or the Thousand and One Nights " (IJitat, Bulaq ed., i. 485, ii. 181). That the Nights which we have are not the original translationof the Hezar Afsane is certain, for the greater part of the stories are of Arabian origin, and the whole is so thoroughly See also:Mahommedan that even the princes of remote ages who are introduced speak and See also:act as Moslems. It might be conceived that this is due to a See also:gradual See also:process of modernization by successive generations of story-tellers. But against this notion, which has been entertained by some scholars, Lane has remarked with See also:justice that, much as MSS. of the Nights differ from one another in points of See also:language and See also:style, in the See also:order of the tales, and the See also:division into nights, they are all so much at one in essentials that they must be regarded as derived from a single original. There is no trace of a recension of the See also:text that can be looked on as See also:standing nearer to the Hezar Afsane. And the whole See also:local See also:colour of the work, in point of See also:dialect and also as regards the See also:manners and customs described, dearly belongs to Egypt as it .was from the 14th to the 16th century. Some points, as De Sacy and Lane have shown, forbid us to See also:place the book earlier than the second half of the 15th century. Galland's MS. copy, again, was in existence in 1548. Lane accordingly See also:dates the work from the See also:close of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th, but this date appears to be too See also:late. For See also:Abu'l-Mahasin, an See also:Egyptian historian who died in 1470, See also:writing of Hamdi, a famous highwayman of See also:Bagdad in the loth century, remarks that he is probably the figure who used to be popularly spoken of as Ahmad al-Danaf (ed. Juynboll ii. 305). Now in the Nights Ahmad al-Danaf really plays a part corresponding to that of the See also:historical Hamdi, being now a robber (Lane ii. 404) and again a See also:captain of the guard (Lane ii. 249). It would seem that Abu'l-Mahasin had read or heard the stories in the Nights, and was thus led to compare the historical with the fictitious character. And, if this be so, the Nights must have been composed very soon after 1450.1 No doubt the Nights have borrowed much from the Hezar Afsane, and it is not improbable that even in the original Arabic translation of that work some of the Persian stories were replaced by Arab ones. But that our Nights differ very much from the Hezar Afsane is further See also:manifest from the circumstance that, even of those stories in the Nights which are not Arabian in origin, some are borrowed from books mentioned by Mas`udi as distinct from the Hezar Afsane. Thus the story of the king and his son and the damsel and the seven viziers (Lane, ch. xxi. See also:note 51) is in fact a version of the Book of Sindbad,2 while the story of Jali'ad and his son and the vizier Shammas (M'Naghten iv. 366 seq.; cf. Lane iii. 530) corresponds to the book of Ferza and Simas 3
Not a few of the tales are unmistakably of Indian or Persian origin, and in these poetical passages are rarely inserted. In other stories the See also:scene lies in Persia or See also:India, and the source is See also:foreign, but the treatment thoroughly Arabian and Mahommedan. Sometimes, indeed, traces of Indian origin are perceptible, even in stories in which See also:Harun al-Rashid figures and the scene is Bagdad or See also:Basra.' But most of the tales, in substance and See also:form alike, are Arabian, and so many of them have the capital of the caliphs as the scene of See also:action that it may be guessed that the author used as one of his See also:sources a book of tales taken from the era of Bagdad's prosperity.
The late date of the Nights appears from sundry anachronisms. In the story of the men transformed into See also:fish—See also: Both ciphers perhaps mean only " a very great number," and See also:Fleischer (De glosses Habichtianis, p. 4) has shown that loos is certainly used in this sense. Gildemeister, De See also:rebus indicis, p. 89 seq. the turbans which, in 1301, 111ahommed b. Kala'un of Egypt commanded his Moslem, See also:Christian and Jewish subjects respectively to See also:wear.' Again, in the story of the humpback, whose scene is laid in the 9th century, the talkative See also:barber says, " this is the See also:year 653 " (= A.D. 1255; Lane, i. 332, writes 263, but see his note), and mentions the caliph Mostansir (d. 1242), who is incorrectly called son of Mostadi 2 In the same story several places in See also:Cairo are mentioned which did not exist till See also:long after the 9th century (see Lane i. 379).3 The very rare edition of the first 200 nights published at See also:Calcutta in 1814 speaks of See also:cannon, which are first mentioned in Egypt in 1383; and all See also:editions sometimes speak of See also:coffee, which was discovered towards the end of the 14th century, but not generally used till Zoo years later. In this and other points, e.g. in the mention of a See also:mosque founded in 15o1 (Lane iii. 6o8), we detect the hand of later interpolators, but the extent of such interpolations can hardly perhaps be determined even by a See also:collation of all copies. For the nature and causes of the variations between different copies the reader may consult Lane, iii. 678, who explains how transpositions actually arise by transcribers trying to make up a complete set of the tales from several imperfect copies. Many of the tales in the Nights have an historical basis, as Lane has shown in his notes. Other cases in point might be added: thus the See also:chronicle of Ibn al-Jauzi (d. A.D. 1200) contains a narrative of IKamar, slave girl of Shaghb, the mother of Moqtadir, which is the source of the See also:tale in Lane i. 310 seq., and of another to be found in MNaghten iv. 557 seq.; the latter is the better story, but departs so far from the original that the author must have had no more than a general recollection of the narrative he drew on.' There are other cases in the Nights of two tales which are only variations of a single theme, or even in certain parts agree almost word for word. Some tales are See also:mere compounds of different, stories put together without any See also:art, but these perhaps are, as Lane conjectures, later additions to the book; yet the See also:collector himself was no great literary artist. We must picture him as a professional story-See also:teller equipped with a See also:mass of See also:miscellaneous See also:reading, a fluent See also:power of narration, and a ready See also:faculty for quoting, or at a push improvising, verses. His stories became popular, and were written down as he told them—hardly written by himself, else we should not have so many variations in the text, and such insertions of "the narrator says," "my See also:noble sirs," and the like. The frequent coarseness of See also:tone is proper to the See also:condition of Egyptian society under the See also:Mameluke sultans, and would not have been tolerated in Bagdad in the See also:age to which so many of the tales refer. Yet with all their faults the Nights have beauties enough to deserve their popularity, and to us their merit is enhanced by the See also:pleasure we feel in being transported into so entirely novel a See also:state of society. The Thousand and One Nights became known in Europe through A. Galland's French version (12 vols. 12mo, See also:Paris, 1704—1712); the publication was an event in literary history, the See also:influence of which can be traced far and wide. This translation, however, See also:left much to be desired in point of accuracy, and especially failed to reproduce the colour of the original with the exactness which those who do not read merely for amusement must See also:desire. It was with a special view to the remedying of these defects that E. W. Lane produced in 1840 his admirably accurate, if somewhat See also:stilted, translation, enriched with most valuable notes and a discussion of the origin of the work (new edition, with some additional notes, 3 vols. 8vo, See also:London, 1859). Lane's translation omits the tales which he deemed uninteresting or unfit for a European public. See also:Sir See also:Richard See also:Burton's unexpurgated English translation, with elaborate notes, was issued in to vols., 1885-1886, with six supplementary vols., 1887—1888. A new French version (1899 seq.) was undertaken by J. C. Mardrus. Of the Arabic text of the Nights the See also:principal editions are—(1) M'Naghten's edition (4 vols. 8vo, Calcutta, 1839—1842); (2) the See also:Breslau edition (12 vols., 12mo, 1835—1843), the first 8 vols. by Habicht, the See also:rest by Fleischer (compare as to the defects of IIabicht's work, Fleischer, De glossis Habichtianis. ' Quatremerc, Sultans sllamloucs, ii. 2, p. 177 seq, 2 Lane, i. 342, arbitrarily writes " Montasir " for '" Mostansir." See also Edin. See also:Review (See also:July 1886), p. 191 seq. 'See De See also:Goeje in Gids (1876), ii. 397-411.See also:Leipzig, 1836); (3) the first Bulaq edition (4 vols., 1862-1863). See the Bibliographie des ouvr. arabes (1901), vol. iv., by V. See also:Chauvin, (M. J. 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