— Volume 10 / Anonymous— Volume 10 / Anonymous| Author: | Anonymous |
| Title: | — Volume 10 |
| Date: | 2004-08-04 |
| Contributor(s): | Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890 [Translator] |
| Size: | 1065698 |
| Identifier: | etext3444 |
| Language: | en |
| Publisher: | Project Gutenberg |
| Rights: | GNU General Public License |
| Tag(s): | king story burton richard francis anonymous volume project gutenberg translator |
| Versions: | original; local mirror; plain HTML (this file); concordance (most frequent 100 words, etc.) |
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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
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 the 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
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 lie 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 mediaeval 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 end edifying as the
life which led to it.
Considered in a higher phase, the mediaeval 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 achronistically 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 mediaeval, 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 Phœnicia 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 (Facetiœ): it is
known to the public under the name of ‘[he 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-á-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 Athenœum,[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 (Amœn, 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. I9I-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
mediaeval 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. I69 = 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'ideal, 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 , 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- ),
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-
publiqued'Avignon, No. iv. she expressly mentions the Malvengut 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 them
selves; 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 sœur, 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 lecon, 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 Sœurs 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 begueule of European languages,
was bound by a rigorisme of the narrowest and the straightest of
lines from which the least ecart 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 sœur" (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 1xxii.) become ridiculous only
in translation--"the officious Dinarzade" and "this pleasant
quarrel;" while "ce qu'il y de remarquable" (Night 1xxiii.) 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 1xvii.) 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 cœurs." 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 {Greek},
Æsop, whose name, involved in myth, possibly connects with
:-- "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 Croesus 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 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 accompanyKamar
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
mediaeval 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 (A1-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 Camœns, 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. I7). "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
and ; 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 cœur 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'œuvre, 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 Mœurs," 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
Fœmineam 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. I9 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.
I3) 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 Bœotians 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 Eubœa, 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 ({Greek})= cunnilingere in tempore menstruum, quia
hoc vitium in Phœnicia generate 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 fœminarum 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'œuf: 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. 7I). 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.
I60-I74 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. I9) 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. I9): 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 Phœnician 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 Phœnicians 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. I2). 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, I77I)
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. I1
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'œuvre 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 mœurs),
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 mœurs 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. 2I6); 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 ‘ the initial a is preceded by the so called
spiritus lends ('), 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
{he 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-