The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume X Part 63

These are distributed into two sub-cla.s.ses; (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- Ras.h.i.+d; 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-Ras.h.i.+d and Hatim 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-Dupre, 1826) "Sur l'origine des Mille et une Nuits."

[FN#129] Baron von Hammer-Purgstall's chateau 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 Trebutien's Preface, pp. x.x.x.-x.x.xi., reprinted from the Journ. Asiat. August, 1839: for corrections see De Sacy's "Memoire." p. 39.

[FN#131] Vol. iv. pp. 89-90, Paris mdccclxv. Trebutien quotes, chapt. lii. (for lxviii.), one of Von Hammer's manifold inaccuracies.

[FN#132] Alluding to Iram the Many-columned, etc.

[FN#133] In Trebutien "Siha," for which the Editor of the Journ.

Asiat. and De Sacy rightly read "Sabil-ha."

[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 Memoire "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 Langles (1814), and the Tseqyl of De Sacy (1833). The mention of "Simas" (Lane's Shemmas) identifies it with "King Jali'ad of Hind," etc. (Night dcccxcix.) Writing in A.D. 961 Hamzah Isfahani 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- Mukaffa (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 ent.i.tled Sekiseran, 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 pa.s.sage of Al- Mas'udi (viii. 175) in which I find a distinct allusion to the "Gaboriaudetective tales" of The Nights.

[FN#142] Here Von Hammer shows his customary inexact.i.tude. 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'kub al- Warrak, the bibliographe, librarian, copyist. It was published (vol. i Leipzig, 1871) under the editors.h.i.+p of G. Fluegel, J.

Roediger, and A. Muller.

[FN#143] See also the Journ. Asiat., August, 1839, and Lane iii.

736-37

[FN#144] Called "Afsanah" by Al-Mas'udi, both words having the same sense = tale story, parable, "facetiae." Moslem fanaticism renders it by the Arab "Khurafah" = silly fables, and in Hindostan it = a jest: "Bat-ki bat, khurafat-ki khurafat" (a word for a word, a joke for a joke).

[FN#145] Al-Mas'udi (chapt. xxi.) makes this a name of the Mother of Queen Humai or Humayah, 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 Khan (Atkinson p. x.), informs us that the Hazar Afsanah was composed for or by Queen Humai whose name is Arabised to Humayah This Persian Marguerite de Navarre was daughter and wife to (Ardas.h.i.+r) Bahman, sixth Kayanian and surnamed Diraz-dast (Artaxerxes Longima.n.u.s), Abu Sasan from his son, the Eponymus of the Sa.s.sanides who followed the Kayanians when these were extinguished by Alexander of Macedon. Humai succeeded her husband as seventh Queen, reigned thirty-two years and left the crown to her son Dara or Darab 1st = Darius Codoma.n.u.s. She is better known to Europe (through Herodotus) as Parysatis = Peri-zadeh 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- Sana'ah (Al-Mas'udi chapt. x.x.xi.) 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 Athenaeum 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-amir 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 dccclx.x.xv. we have the pa.s.sage "He was a wily thief: none could avail against his craft as he were Abu Mohammed Al-Battal": 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-Makrizi's great topographical work.

[FN#157] The name appears only in a later pa.s.sage.

[FN#158] Mr. Payne notes (viii. 137) "apparently some famous brigand of the time" (of Charlemagne). But the t.i.tle may signify The Brave, and the tale may be much older.

[FN#159] In his "Memoire sur l'origine du Recueil des Contes int.i.tule Les Mille et une Nuits" (Mem. d'Hist. et de Litter.

Orientale, extrait des tomes ix., et x. des Memoires 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-s.h.i.+rawani; 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 a.s.sertion 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 Cla.s.sics" (London, F. Warne). The words are so mutilated that few will recognize them, e.g. Carchenas for Kar-s.h.i.+nas, Chaschmanah for Chashmey-e-Mah (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 (Mem., p. 50). The first (in MS. 1508) says "This blessed book was read by the weak slave, etc. Wahabah son of Rizkallah the Katib (secretary, scribe) of Tarabulus al-Sham (Syrian Tripoli), who prayeth long life for its owner (li maliki-h). This tenth day of the month First Rabi'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 ma.n.u.scrits connus des Milles et une Nuits, qui existent en Europe." Von Hammer in Trebutien, 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.