Arabian Nights

“ Those glorious old Arabian Nights, how true they are! Mocking and whispering, and abuse loud and low by turns, from all the black stones beside the road, when one living soul is toiling up the hill to get the golden water. ”

“ The Arabian Nights is a collection of extraordinarily good stories, and while the modern aesthetic critic will probably find the book too long, the person with a taste for literature will find it too short. ”

“ The real question is whether a word for word version of the Arabian Nights, executed with peculiar literary vigor, exact scholarship, and rare insight into Oriental modes of thought and feeling, can under any shadow of presence be classed with 'the garbage of the brothels.' In the lack of lucidity, which is supposed to distinguish English folk, our middle-class censores morum strain at the gnat of a privately circulated translation of an Arabic classic, while they daily swallow the camel of higher education based upon minute study of Greek and Latin literature. ”

“ There is only one Arabian Nights in the world, and only one Captain Burton.
The Thousand Nights and a Night offers a complete picture of Eastern peoples. But the English reader must be prepared to find that the manners of Arabs and Moslems differ from his own. Eastern people look at things from a more natural and primitive point of view, and they say what they think with all the unrestraint of children. At times their plain speaking is formidable, but they are not conscious of impropriety, and their coarseness is not intentional. ”

“ The 'Arabian Nights' contains one tale of the early Arabs,--the story of Gharib and his brother Ajib,--which repeats some of the exploits of Antar; a tale far inferior to the romance. The excellences of the 'Arabian Nights' are of another order. We must look for them in the pompous enchantments of the City of Brass, or in the tender constancy of Aziz and Azizah, or in the tale of Hasan of Bassorah, with its lovely study of the friendship of a foster-sister, and its wonderful presentment of the magic surroundings of the country of the Jann. ”

“ Arabian Nights Entertainments in our own Time.—The Arabs, who have among them most imaginative and finished improvisatori, compare the elegant movements of a beautiful bride to those of a young camel. The Thousand and One Nights, like most clever fables, have some foundation in fact, as is well known to the friends of the Arabian man of rank, who keeps his professed story-teller as an indispensable part of his establishment. ”

“ Much of the pleasure of the Arabian Nights hinges upon this Asmodean interest; and we are not weary of lifting other people’s roofs, and going about behind the scenes of life with the Caliph and the serviceable Giaffar. It is a salutary exercise, besides; it is salutary to get out of ourselves and see people living together in perfect unconsciousness of our existence, as they will live when we are gone. ”

“ The Arabian Nights Entertainment has been the playbook of generations, the delight of the nursery and the school-room for nearly two hundred years. Now it is high time that scholars and students should be allowed to know what the Arabian Nights Entertainment really is. Lovers of Arabic have long since known something of the truth concerning the Alif Laila. It needs no Burton, it needed no Payne to tell the masters of Oriental languages that The Thousand Nights and a Night was a very different thing from what either Galland or Lane had made it out to be. ”

“ It suffices to watch an Oriental rabble at prayer, or listening in profound immobility to some wandering story-teller or musician, to feel how much such a people may have to ruminate upon, and how truly Arabian days and Arabian Nights go together. ”

“ While there is this Arabian Nights' glamour of incredible wealth about these discoveries, there is always the possibility that nature has exhausted herself in producing this specimen of her handiwork, and cannot repeat this profusion or long continue it in one place. ”

“ Every one is acquainted with the "Arabian Nights Entertainments;" but in our translation we possess but a very small part of the Arabian collection, which is not confined merely to books, but forms the treasure of a numerous class of men and women, who, throughout the East, find a livelihood in reciting these tales to crowds, who delight to forget the present, in the pleasing dreams of imagination. ”

“ Many of the customs of the time of the Arabian Nights are continued in Mohammedan countries at the present day, but the fêtés are less magnificent than of old, for the reason that money is less abundant. ”

“ What is true of mere sensibility is no less true of mere fancy. The Arabian Nights—futile enough in any case—would be absolutely intolerable if they contained no Oriental manners, no human passions, and no convinced epicureanism behind their miracles and their tattle. ”

“ Heretofore we have heard nothing but Arabian Nights stories about the gold region, drawn, if possible, with more vivid colors than even the Asiatic fancy could conjure up. The whole civilized world became electrified with these surprising stories and set in motion, and every day brings strangers to our shore from the most distant regions of the earth. ”

“ Her face is like the full moon, presenting the strongest contrast to the colour of her hair, which (to preserve the nature of the simile just employed) is of the deepest hue of night, and falls to the middle of her back. A rosy blush overspreads the centre of each cheek; and a mole is considered an additional charm. The Arabs, indeed, are particularly extravagant in their admiration of this natural beauty-spot; which, according to its place, is compared to a drop of ambergris upon a dish of alabaster or upon the surface of a ruby. ”

“ THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. The Thousand and One Nights, commonly known in English as The Arabian-Nights’ Entertainments, is a collection of tales written in Arabic, which first became generally known in Europe in the early part of the 18th century through the French translation by Antoine Galland, and rapidly attained universal popularity. ”

“ 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 ”

“ THE STORY OF ALADDIN, OR THE WONDERFUL LAMP NOTE.—The Arabian Nights' Entertainment, from which Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor are taken, is a celebrated collection of Eastern tales. It is supposed that the Arabians got them from the people of India, who in their turn are supposed to have received them from Persia. They were introduced into Europe in a French translation about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and have always been very popular, not only on account of the interest of the stories, but because they give excellent pictures of life and customs in the East. ”

“ Both came to the conclusion that while the name of this wondrous repertory of Moslem folk-lore was familiar to almost every English child, no general reader could form any idea of its treasures. Moreover, that the door would not open to any but Arabists. But even at the present day, and notwithstanding the editions of Payne and Burton, there are still persons who imagine that The Arabian Nights is simply a book for the nursery. Familiar only with some inferior rendering, they are absolutely ignorant of the wealth of wisdom, humour, pathos and poetry to be found in its pages. ”

“ This instrument is their chief amusement, they will listen for hours to its monotonous notes, and it forms a frequent accompaniment to the voice; but story tellers who relate tales from the Arabian Nights are not to be met with among them as in Egypt. However noisy their amusements may become, or whatever the effects of the merissa may be, they seldom or never proceed to quarrels. Swearing and abusive language is scarcely ever heard among them as it is among the Arabs, and if, as a very rare occurrence, a quarrel ever arise, it is immediately arranged by the elders present. ”

“ A short Arabian Nights is as unthinkable as a neat wilderness or a snug cathedral. The whole plan of the book is one vast conspiracy to entrap the reader into a condition of everlasting attention. By a supreme stroke of genius the compiler expressed this in the primary framework and outline. He made the teller of the stories a person inspired to prolong the stories infinitely by the devouring desire of life. ”

“ 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) ”

“ Their people are less noble and heroic, more moved by love and passion, and they depict women by turn as slaves and divinities. The original author of the Arabian Nights is unknown; but the book has become a household possession in every civilized country in the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are the following: “The Prince and the Lions,” “The City of the Demons” (a Jewish story purporting to have been written in England) and “Sadik Beg.”
11. New Arabian Nights, by R. L. Stevenson. (London, 1882.)
12. More New Arabian Nights. The Dynamiter. By R. L. Stevenson and Vander Grift (London, 1882) . Class 4.
Of these tales, Sir R. F. Burton observes, “The only visible connection with the old Nights is in the habit of seeking adventures under a disguise. The 513method is to make the main idea possible and the details extravagant. ”

“ There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the desert, the "Zauba'ah" as the Arabs call it. Devils, or pillars of sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots, tearing up trees, which are whirled like leaves and sticks in air, and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. ”

“ What Arabists think of this translation we may learn from a professed Arabist writing to this effect:—"I am free to confess, after many years study of Arabic, a comparison of your translation with the text has taught me more than many months of dry study," whilst Englishmen who for years have lived in the East are making the discovery that, after all, they have known little or nothing, and their education is only beginning with this version of the Arabian Nights. It is only knowledge that knows how to observe ”

“ 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. ”

“ They contain many other tales besides those which M. Galland has translated; but most of those which he has omitted, are not near so entertaining as the tales he translated, although there are some equally so. In a work, indeed, of so great an extent, equality of excellence could not perhaps be expected. Certainly not, when we consider the tales as the work of different authors. It is, indeed, the opinion of a gentleman of very extensive Oriental knowledge, that the Arabian Nights originally consisted of not more perhaps than a fourth part of the manuscript purchased by Dr. White ”

“ It is believed that the chief abode of the Jinn is in the Mountains of Ḳáf, which are supposed to encompass the whole of our earth. But they are also believed to pervade the solid body of our earth, and the firmament; and to choose as their principal places of resort or of occasional abode, baths, wells, ovens, ruined houses, market-places, the junctures of roads, the sea, and rivers. The Arabs, therefore, when they pour water on the ground, or enter a bath, or let down a bucket into a well, and on various other occasions, say "Permission!" ”

“ To a person acquainted with modern Arabian manners, it must appear inconsistent with truth to describe (as is often the case in the "Thousand and One Nights") such female singers as exposing their faces before strange men, unless he can discover in sober histories some evidence of their having been less strict in this respect than the generality of Arab women at the present time. ”

“ She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Nuzhat al-Zaman heard these words from the Badawi, the light was changed in her eyes to night, and she rose and drawing the sword, smote Hammad the Arab between the shoulder-blades so that the point issued from the apple of his throat. [127] And when all present asked her, "Why hast thou made haste to slay him;" she answered, "Praised be Allah who hath granted me in my life-tide to avenge myself with mine own hand!" And she bade the slaves drag the body out by the feet and cast it to the dogs. ”