One Thousand and One Nights

“ I will expound this to thee, so thou mayst be in no doubt thereof, and this the phenomenon of the alternation of night and day shall make clear to thee. When the day departs and the night comes, the day is hidden from us and we know not where it abideth; and when the night passes away with its darkness and its terror, the day comes and we know not the abiding-place of the night. ”

“ 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 common-place 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. ”

“ When night darkens on the dwellings, fires are lighted in our heart And our entrails burn within us, for desire and love’s excess.
Yea, for love and longing, slumber is a stranger to our couch And the burning pangs of fever do our body sore distress.
’Twas a law of passion ever, love and longing to conceal; Lift not thou the curtain from us nor our secret aye transgress. ”

“ Indeed it seemed as it were she to whom the poet alludes in the following verses:
Her hair is night, her forehead day, her cheeks a blossomed rose And wine the honeyed dews wherewith her mouth for ever flows.
Heaven in her favours is and hell in her disdain; her teeth Are very pearls and in her face the moon at full doth glow.
And how excellent is another’s saying:
She shineth forth, a moon, and bends, a willow-wand, And breathes out ambergris and gazes, a gazelle. ”

“ Thou makest him still wakeful, who’s all with passion’s heat Consumed, as on live embers he burns unquenchably.
The full moon is my witness that I am passion’s slave, Love-maddened for a maiden who’s like the moon to see. ”

“ O pretender to love and affliction and sleeplessness, and feelings of rapturous passion, and anxiety! Dost thou seek for a meeting, O deceived, from a moon? Doth any attain from a moon his wish? I advise thine abstaining from thy desire: forbear then; for thou art exposed to peril. If thou again make use of these words, I will visit thee with a punishment of the utmost severity. By Him who created mankind of clotted blood,60 and who gave light to the sun and the moon! If thou repeat the proposal thou hast made, I will assuredly crucify thee on the trunk of a tree. ”

“ 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 general tone of The Nights is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism. The pathos is sweet, deep and genuine; tender, simple and true, utterly unlike much of our modern tinsel. ”

“ Khalif.
III.
The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night contains two hundred and sixty-four stories of all lengths, from an anecdote of half a page to a “history” of several hundred pages. The stories are very unequally distributed over the different Nights, which again vary greatly in length, the first fifty or sixty being nearly three times the average length of those in the remaining portion of the work. ”

“ Mine eyes, since the days of your parting, have never been shut in repose, Nor, since you forsook me, hath slumber been pleasant or sweet to my spright.
Meseemeth, indeed, that I see you, bytimes, in illusions of sleep: Ah would that the visions were real we see in the dreams of the night!
Indeed, I’m desirous of slumber, I crave after sleep, without need, So haply, therein, with the loved one a dream may the lover unite. ”

“ Moreover, is the companying together of lovers good but in the night? Let this quality and excellence suffice thee. What protects lovers from spies and censors like the blackness of the shadows? And nought gives them cause to fear discovery like the whiteness of the dawn. So, how many claims to honour are there not in blackness and how excellent is the saying of the poet:
I visit them, and the mirk of night doth help me to my will And seconds me, but the white of dawn is hostile to me still. ”

“ I reached this city yestereve and finding the gate shut, lay down to sleep without: but, as I lay betwixt sleep and wake, I saw four women come up, one riding on a broom, another on a wine-jar, a third on an oven-peel and a fourth on a black bitch, and knew that they were witches making for the city. ”

“ First Edition, in regard to Andrew Lang's Introduction. Scarce. Lang item.
[Pg 4]
16 Amatory. The Thousand and One Days. Persian Tales. Edited by Justin Huntley McCarthy. Frontispiece. 2 vols. Post 8vo. original boards, vellum backs, uncut. London, 1892. $5.00
If the Thousand and One Days are not such splendid stories as The Thousand and One Nights, what stories in the world are so splendid? We may love the (The Thousand and One Nights) with all our hearts, and yet be willing to welcome The Thousand and One Days for the sake of that enchanted and enchanting Orient of which they tell. ”

“ Fain would I hide my love for you: longing discovers it, For burnt and seared with passion’s fires are all my heart and brain.
Have ruth on me, compassionate my case, for still to keep Our plighted faith in secrecy and trust I have been fain.
Will fortune reunite me aye with you, my heart’s desire, You unto whom my soul cleaves still, bound fast with many a chain?
My entrails ulcerated are with separation’s pangs: Would God with tidings from your camp to favour us you’d deign! ”

“ A life made fair with all delight of days and solacement Mesrour doth live, what while my life is severed and forspent.
Fortune hath played the knave with me in her whom I adore And all my heart’s on flames of fire, that rage without relent.
Once with the fair a time was bright for thee; ’tis past and gone; Yet art thou ever love-distraught that lovely one anent. ”

“ We abode thus a day and a night, the wind and waves helping us on, till, on the forenoon of the second day, the breeze freshened and the waves rose and cast us upon an island, well-nigh dead for cold and weariness and fear and hunger and thirst and lack of sleep. ”

“ The tongue of passion in my heart bespeaketh thee of me And giveth thee to know that I enamoured am of thee.
I have a liver all consumed with passion’s coals of fire, A heart, sore wounded by thy loss, that throbs incessantly.
How shall I hide the love that burns my life away? My lids Are ulcered and my tears adown my cheeks for ever flee.
In this plight she abode during all the voyage; no peace was left her nor would patience come at her call.
Meanwhile, when the ship had sailed with Meryem, the world was straitened upon Noureddin and he had neither peace nor patience. ”

“ The shadows darken and passion stirs up my sickness amain And longing rouses within me the old desireful pain.
The anguish of parting hath taken its sojourn in my breast And love and longing and sorrow have maddened heart and brain.
Passion hath made me restless and yearning consumes my soul And tears discover my secret, that else concealed had lain.
I know of no way to ease me of sickness and care and woe; Nor can my weak endeavour reknit Love’s severed skein.
My heart is a raging furnace, because of the heat whereof My entrails are racked with anguish, that nothing can assain. ”

“ Lo, the Compassionate hath made no fairer thing to see Than when one couch in its embrace enfoldeth lovers twain,
Each to the other’s bosom clasped, clad in their own delight, Whilst hand with hand and arm with arm about their necks enchain.
Lo, when two hearts are straitly knit in passion and desire, But on cold iron smite the folk that chide at them in vain.
Thou that for loving censurest the votaries of love, Canst thou assain a mind diseased or heal a cankered brain?
If in thy time thou find but one to love thee and be true, I rede thee cast the world away and with that one remain. ”

“ I lavish tears and riches and soul and wit and life; For lavishness is profit in love, as well know I.
The foulest of all evils and woes that may betide Is when a man disfavour from fair ones must aby.
They say that to show favour’s forbidden to the fair And that their blood ’tis lawful to shed for love that sigh;
And so unto the lovesick, for all resource, remains His life for love to lavish, in jest, and jesting die.
I cry aloud, distracted with longing for my love; For all the lover’s effort is weeping and outcry. ”

“ Indeed, we write to him but to the intent that his presumption may be cut off and his fear magnified.’ And she ceased not to persuade her, till she called for inkhorn and paper and wrote him the following verses:
O thou that feignest thee the prey of love and wakefulness, Thou that for passion spendst the nights in transport and distress,
O self-deluder, dost thou seek enjoyment of a moon? Did ever any of the moon win grace and love-liesse?
I rede thee hearken to my word; I give thee counsel fair; Desist, for danger, ay, and death do hard upon thee press. ”

“ Have pity on a slave of love, that burns for longing pain.
How long, I wonder, shall the hands of passion sport with me And love and dole and sleeplessness consume me, heart and brain?
Whiles do I plain me of a sea within my heart and whiles Of flaming; surely, this is strange, O thou my wish and bane!
Give o’er thy railing, censor mine, and set thyself to flee From love that maketh eyes for aye with burning tears to rain. ”

“ Quoth she, “Why dost thou weep?” And I answered, “O light of mine eyes, I weep because of our [coming] parting.” “And what,” asked she, “shall part thee and me, O my lord?” “O my lady,” said I, “from the time I came to thee, thy father hath taken of me, for every night, five hundred dinars, and now I have nothing left. Indeed the poet speaks sooth when he says:
Exile at home, I trow, is lack of good, And wealth is home in very strangerhood.” ”

“ Let us join the night to the day, and to-morrow we will each go our own way.’ ‘My life on you!’ said the cateress, ‘let him pass the night with us, that we may laugh at him, for he is a pleasant rogue; and we may never again chance upon the like of him.’ So the mistress of the house said to the porter, ‘Thou shalt pass the night with us on condition that thou submit to our authority and that, whatever thou seest, thou ask no questions about it nor enquire the reason of it.’ ‘It is well,’ answered he ”

“ If that the hands of Time have made their plaything of our life, Till for its long protracted kiss ill-hap upon us spring,
Dost thou not see the hurricane, what time the wild winds blow, Smite down the stately trees alone and spare each lesser thing?
Lo! in the skies are many stars, no one can tell their tale, But to the sun and moon alone eclipse brings darkening.
The earth bears many a pleasant herb and many a plant and tree: But none is stoned save only those to which the fair fruit cling. ”

“ I would thou acquaint me with the secrets of this tarn and its fishes and of this palace and thy loneliness therein and the cause of thy groaning and wailing." When the young man heard these words he wept with sore weeping; [FN#115] till his bosom was drenched with tears and began reciting—
Say him who careless sleeps what while the shaft of Fortune flies * How many cloth this shifting world lay low and raise to rise?
Although thine eye be sealed in sleep, sleep not th' Almighty's eyes * And who hath found Time ever fair, or Fate in constant guise? ”

“ Then they slept and I with them, and when we awoke, the old man served up food; and after we had eaten and the vessels had been removed, we sat conversing till nightfall, when the old man rose and lit the candles and lamps and set meat and drink before us. We ate and sat talking and carousing till midnight, when they said to the old man, “Bring us our ordinary, for the hour of sleep is at hand.” So he rose and brought them the dishes of soot and ashes, and they did as they had done on the preceding night. ”

“ Then said the Khalif, ‘Where is the philosopher?’ whereupon one came forward and said to Taweddud, ‘What is Time?’ ‘Time,’ answered she, ‘is a name applied to the [lapse of the] hours of the day and night, which are but the measures of the courses of the sun and moon in their several orbits, even as God the Most High telleth us, when he saith, “And a sign to them [is] the night, from which we strip off the day, and behold, they are in darkness, and the sun runneth to a fixed abode, [appointed] to it ”

“ I can hardly imagine The Nights being read to any profit by men of the West without commentary. My annotations avoid only one subject, parallels of European folk-lore and fabliaux which, however interesting, would over-swell the bulk of a book whose speciality is anthropology. ”

“ What mislikest thou of this?” And I answered, “I would have this anights.” “Thus is it by day,” rejoined she, “and by night I do more than this; for, when he sees me, desire stirs in him and he falls on heat ”

“ But Fortune and the shifts of time did rend our loves apart, And now the grave uniteth us within a single shroud.
Then she fell again to weeping and ceased not from tears and lament, till she swooned away. She lay three days, senseless; then died and was buried in his grave. This is one of the strange chances of love. ”