One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  Variants and Analogues

  of

  Some of the Tales

  in

  Volumes XI. and XII.

  By. W. A. Clouston.

  Author of “Popular Tales and Fictions: Their Migrations and Transformations,” Etc.

  Appendix

  Variants and Analogues of Some of the Tales in Volumes XI and XII

  By W. A. Clouston.

  THE SLEEPER AND THE WAKER — Vol. XI. .

  Few if the stories in the “Arabian Nights” which charmed our marvelling boyhood were greater favourites than this one, under the title of “Abou Hassan; or, the Sleeper Awakened.” What recked we in those days whence it was derived? — the story — the story was the thing! As Sir R. F. Burton observes in his first note, this is “the only one of the eleven added by Galland, whose original has been discovered in Arabic;”483 and it is probable that Galland heard it recited in a coffee-house during his residence in Constantinople. The plot of the Induction to Shakspeare’s comedy of “The Taming of the Shrew” is similar to the adventure of Abú al-Hasan the Wag, and is generally believed to have been adapted from a story entitled “The Waking Man’s Fortune” in Edward’s collection of comic tales, 1570, which were retold somewhat differently in Goulart’s “Admirable and Memorable Histories,” 1607; both versions are reprinted in Mr. Hazlitt’s “Shakspeare Library,” vol. iv., part I, p-414. In Percy’s “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” we find the adventure told in a ballad entitled “The Frolicksome Duke; or, the Tinker’s Good Fortune,” from the Pepys collection: “whether it may be thought to have suggested the hint to Shakspeare or is not rather of latter date,” says Percy, “the reader must determine:”

  Now as fame does report, a young duke keeps a court,

  One that pleases his fancy with frolicksome sport:

  But amongst all the rest, here is one, I protest,

  Which will make you to smile when you hear the true jest:

  A poor tinker he found lying drunk on the ground,

  As secure in a sleep as if laid in a swownd.

  The duke said to his men, William, Richard, and Ben,

  Take him home to my palace, we’ll sport with him then.

  O’er a horse he was laid, and with care soon convey’d

  To the palace, altho’ he was poorly arrai’d;

  Then they stript off his cloaths, both his shirt, shoes, and

  hose,

  And they put him in bed for to take his repose.

  Having pull’d off his shirt, which was all over durt,

  They did give him clean holland, this was no great hurt:

  On a bed of soft down, like a lord of renown,

  They did lay him to sleep the drink out of his crown.

  In the morning when day, then admiring484 he lay,

  For to see the rich chamber both gaudy and gay.

  Now he lay something late, in his rich bed of state,

  Till at last knights and squires they on him did wait;

  And the chamberling bare, then did likewise declare,

  He desired to know what apparel he’d ware:

  The poor tinker amaz’d, on the gentleman gaz’d,

  And admired how he to this honour was rais’d.

  Tho’ he seem’d something mute, yet he chose a rich suit,

  Which he straitways put on without longer dispute;

  With a star on his side, which the tinker offt ey’d,

  And it seem’d for to swell him no little with pride;

  For he said to himself, Where is Joan my sweet wife?

  Sure she never did see me so fine in her life.

  From a convenient place, the right duke his good grace

  Did observe his behavior in every case.

  To a garden of state, on the tinker they wait,

  Trumpets sounding before him: thought he this is great:

  Where an hour or two, pleasant walks he did view,

  With commanders and squires in scarlet and blew.

  A find dinner was drest, both for him and his guests,

  He was placed at the table above all the rest,

  In a rich chair, or bed, lin’d with fine crimson red,

  With a rich golden canopy over his head:

  As he sat at his meat, the musick play’d sweet,

  With the choicest of singing his joys to compleat.

  While the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine.

  Rich canary with sherry and tent superfine,

  Like a right honest soul, faith, he took off his bowl,

  Till at last he began for to tumble and roul

  From his chair to the floor, where he sleeping did snore,

  Being seven times drunker than ever before.

  Then the duke did ordain, they should strip him amain,

  And restore him his old leather garments again:

  ’Twas a point next the worst, yet perform it they must,

  And they carry’d him strait, where they found him at first;

  Then he slept all the night, as indeed well he might,

  But when he did waken, his joys took their flight.

  For his glory to him so pleasant did seem,

  That he thought it to be but a meer golden dream;

  Till at length he was brought to the duke, where he sought

  For a pardon as fearing he had set him at nought;

  But his highness he said, Thou’rt a jolly bold blade,

  Such a frolick before I think never was plaid.

  Then his highness bespoke him a new suit and cloak,

  Which he gave for the sake of this frolicksome joak;

  Nay, and five hundred pound, with ten acres of ground

  Thou shalt never, said he, range the counteries round,

  Crying old brass to mend, for I’ll be thy good friend,

  Nay, and Joan thy sweet wife shall my duchess attend.

  Then the tinker reply’d, What! must Joan my sweet bride

  Be a lady in chariots of pleasure to ride?

  Must we have gold and land ev’ry day at command?

  Then I shall be a squire I well understand:

  Well I thank your good grace, and your love I embrace,

  I was never before in so happy a case.

  The same story is also cited in the “Anatomy of Melancholy,” part 2, sec. 2, memb. 4, from Ludovicus Vives in Epist.485 and Pont. Heuter in Rerum Burgund., as follows:

  “It is reported of Philippus Bonus, that good Duke of Burgundy, that the said duke, at the marriage of Eleonora, sister to the King of Portugal, at Bruges in Flanders, which was solemnized in the deep of winter, when as by reason of the unseasonable (!) weather he could neither hawk nor hunt, and was now tyred with cards, dice, &c., and such other domestical sports, or to see ladies dance, with some of his courtiers, he would in the evening walk disguised all about the town. It so fortuned as he was walking late one night, he found a country fellow dead drunk, snorting on a bulk; he caused his followers to bring him to his palace, and there stripping him of his old clothes, and attiring him after the court fashion, when he waked, he and they were all ready to attend upon his excellency, persuading him that he was some great duke. The poor fellow, admiring how he came there, was served in state all the day long; after supper he saw them dance, heard musick, and the rest of those court-like pleasures; but late at night, when he was well tipled, and again fast asleep they put on his old robes, and so conveyed him to the place where they first found him. Now the fellow had not made them so good sport the day before, as he did when he returned to himself; all the jest was to see how he looked upon it. In conclusion, after some little admiration, the poor man told his friends he had seen a vision, constantly beleeved it, would not otherwise be perswaded; and so the jest ended.”

  I do not think that this is a story imported from the East: the adventure is just as likely to have happened in Bruges as in Baghdád; but the exquisite humor of the Arabian tale is wanting- -even Shakspeare’s Christopher Sly is not to be compared with
honest Abú al-Hasan the Wag.

  This story of the Sleeper and the Waker recalls the similar device practised by the Chief of the Assassins — that formidable, murderous association, the terror of the Crusades — on promising novices. Von Hammer, in his “History of the Assassins,” end of Book iv., gives a graphic description of the charming gardens into which the novices were carried while insensible from hashish:

  In the center of the Persian as well as the Assyrian territory of the Assassins, that is to say, both at Alamut and Massiat, were situated, in a space surrounded by walls, splendid gardens — true Eastern paradises. There were flower-beds and thickets of fruit-trees, intersected by canals, shady walks, and verdant glades, where the sparkling stream bubbled at every step; bowers of roses and vineyards; luxurious halls and porcelain kiosks, adorned with Persian carpets and Grecian stuffs, where drinking-vessels of gold, silver, and crystal glittered on trays of the same costly materials; charming maidens and handsome boys of Muhammed’s Paradise, soft as the cushions on which they reposed, and intoxicating as the wine which they presented. The music of the harp was mingled with the songs of birds, and the melodious tones of the songstress harmonized with the murmur of the brooks. Everything breathed pleasure, rapture, and sensuality. A youth, who was deemed worthy by his strength and resolution to be initiated into the Assassin service, was invited to the table and conversation of the grand master, or grand prior, he was then intoxicated with hashish and carried into the garden, which on awaking he believed to be Paradise; everything around him, the houris in particular, contributing to confirm the delusion. After he had experienced as much of the pleasures of Paradise, which the Prophet has promised to the faithful, as his strength would admit; after quaffing enervating delight from the eyes of the houris and intoxicating wine from the glittering goblets; he sank into the lethargy produced by debility and the opiate, on awakening from which, after a few hours, he again found himself by the side of his superior. The latter endeavoured to convince him that corporeally he had not left his side, but that spiritually he had been wrapped into Paradise and had there enjoyed a foretaste of the bliss which awaits the faithful who devote their lives to the service of the faith and the obedience of their chiefs.

  THE TEN WAZIRS; OR, THE HISTORY OF KING ÁZÁDBAKHT AND HIS SON

  Vol. XI. .

  The precise date of the Persian original of this romance (“Bakhtyár Náma”) has not been ascertained, but it was probably composed before the beginning of the fifteenth century, since there exists in the Bodleian Library a unique Turkí version, in the Uygur language and characters, which was written in 1434. Only three of the tales have hitherto been found in other Asiatic storybooks. The Turkí version, according to M. Jaubert, who gives an account of the MS. and a translation of one of the tales in the Journal Asiatique, tome x. 1827, is characterised by “great sobriety of ornament and extreme simplicity of style, and the evident intention on the part of the translator to suppress all that may not have appeared to him sufficiently probable, and all that might justly be taxed with exaggeration;” and he adds that “apart from the interest which the writing and phraseology of the work may possess for those who study the history of languages, it is rather curious to see how a Tátár translator sets to work to bring within the range of his readers stories embellished in the original with descriptions and images familiar, doubtless, to a learned and refined nation like the Persians, but foreign to shepherds.”

  At least three different versions are known to the Malays- -different in the frame, or leading story, if not in the subordinate tales. One of those is described in the second volume of Newbold’s work on Malacca, the frame of which is similar to the Persian original and its Arabian derivative, excepting that the name of the king is Zádbokhtin and that of the minister’s daughter (who is nameless in the Persian) is Mahrwat. Two others are described in Van den Berg’s account of Malay, Arabic, Javanese and other MSS. published at Batavia, 1877: , No. 132 is entitled “The History of Ghulám, son of Zádbukhtán, King of Adán, in Persia,” and the frame also corresponds with our version, with the important difference that the robber-chief who had brought up Ghulám, “learning that he had become a person of consequence, came to his residence to visit him, but finding him imprisoned, he was much concerned, and asked the king’s pardon on his behalf, telling him at the same time how he had formerly found Ghulám in the jungle; from which the king knew that Ghulám was his son.” The second version noticed by Van den Berg (, No. 179), though similar in title to the Persian original, “History of Prince Bakhtyár,” differs very materially in the leading story, the outline of which is as follows: This prince, when his father was put to flight by a younger brother, who wished to dethrone him, was born in a jungle, and abandoned by his parents. A merchant named Idrís took charge of him and brought him up. Later on he became one of the officers of state with his own father, who had in the meanwhile found another kingdom, and decided with fairness, the cases brought before him. He was, however, put in prison on account of a supposed attempt on the king’s life, and would have been put to death had he not stayed the execution by telling various beautiful stories. Even the king came repeatedly to listen to him. At one of these visits Bakhtyár’s foster-father Idrís was present, and related to his adopted son how he had found him in the jungle. The king, on hearing this, perceived that it was his son who had been brought up by Idrís, recognised Bakhtyár as such, and made over to him the kingdom.” — I have little doubt that this romance is of Indian extraction.