The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume X Part 18

"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 ill.u.s.trate and read between the lines of the text, but a.s.sist the student of Moslem life and of Arabo-Egyptian manners, customs and language in a mult.i.tude of matters shunned by books, form a repertory of Eastern knowledge in its esoteric phase, s.e.xual as well as social.

To a.s.sert 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 cra.s.s 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 cla.s.ses elevees, voulait la devoiler. L'Europe est bien loin d'en avoir la moindre idee."

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 b.u.t.tresses 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 maculae are few and far between; even the most unfriendly and interested critics have failed to point out an abnormal number of slips. And before p.r.o.nouncing 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.

Athenaeum 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 c.u.mber 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 a.s.sistance 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 "Ghorawala" (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. Steinga.s.s, Ph.D.

III. Alphabetical Table of First Lines (metrical portion) in English and Arabic, prepared by Dr. Steinga.s.s.

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 princ.i.p.al 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 Ba.s.sorah 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-Ras.h.i.+d 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-Ras.h.i.+d and his Wazir Ja'afar, The Imam, iv.

Abu Yusuf with Al-Ras.h.i.+d 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.