One Thousand and One Nights

by Richard Burton

  Alaeddin has ever been a favourite with the stage. Early in the present century it was introduced to the Parisian opera by M. Etienne, to the Feydeau by ThÚaulon’s La Clochette: to the Gymnase by La Petite-Lampe of M. Scribe and Melesville, and to teh Panorama Dramatique by MM. Merle, Cartouche and Saintine (Gauttier, vii. 380).

  65 This MS. always uses DÝnßrzßd like Galland.

  66 Arab. “æAbadan,” a term much used in this MS. and used correctly. It refers always and only to future time, past being denoted by “Kattu” from Katta = he cut (in breadth, as opposed to Kadda=he cut lengthwise). See De Sacy, Chrestom. ii. 443.

  67 In the text “Ibn mÝn,” a vulgarism for “man.” Galland adds that the tailor’s name was Mustapha — i y avait un tailleur nommÚ Mustafa.

  68 In classical Arabic the word is “Maghribi,” the local form of the root Gharaba= he went far away (the sun), set, etc., whence “Maghribi”=a dweller in the Sunset-land. The vulgar, however, prefer “Maghrab” and “Maghrabi,” of which foreigners made “Mogrebin.” For other information see vols. vi. 220; ix. 50. The “Moormen” are famed as magicians; so we find a Maghrabi Sahhßr=wizard, who by the by takes part in a transformation scene like that of the Second Kalandar (vol. i. , The Nights), in of Spitta Bey’s “Contes Arabes Modernes,” etc. I may note that “Sihr,” according to Jauhari and Firozßbßdi=anything one can hold by a thin or subtle place, i.e., easy to handle. Hence it was applied to all sciences, “Sahhßr” being=to ‘Alim (or sage) . and the older Arabs called poetry “Sihar al-halßl” — lawful magic.

  69 i.e. blood is thicker than water, as the Highlanders say.

  70 A popular saying amongst Moslems which has repeatedly occurred in The Nights. The son is the “lamp of a dark house.” Vol. ii 280.

  71 Out of respect to his brother, who was probably the senior: the H. V. expressly says so.

  72 Al-Marh·m = my late brother. See vol. ii. 129, 196.

  73 This must refer to Cairo not to Al-Medinah whose title is “Al-Munawwarah” = the Illumined.

  74 A picturesque term for birth-place.

  75 In text “Yß Rßjul” (for Rajul) = O man, an Egypto-Syrian form, broad as any Doric.

  76 Arab. Sh·f-hu, the colloquial form of Shuf-hu

  77 For the same sentiment see “Julnßr” the “Sea born,”

  Nights dccxliii.-xliv.

  78 “I will hire thee a shop in the Chauk” — Carfax or market-street says the H. V.

  79 The MS. writes the word Khwßjß (for Khwßjah see vol. vi. 46). Here we are at once interested in the scapegrace who looked Excelsior. In fact the tale begins with a strong inducement to boyish vagabondage and scampish indolence; but the Moslem would see in it the hand of Destiny bringing good out of evil. Amongst other meanings of “Khwßjah “ it is a honorific title given by Khorßsßnis to their notables. In Arab. the similarity of the word to “Khuwßj”=hunger, has given rise to a host of conceits, more or less frigid (Ibn Khallikßn, iii. 45).

  80 Arab. “Wßhid min al-Tujjßr,” the very vulgar style.

  81 i.e., the Saturday (see vol. ii. 305) established as a God’s rest by the so-called “Mosaic” commandment No. iv. How it gradually passed out of observance, after so many centuries of most stringent application, I cannot discover: certainly the text in Cor. ii. 16-17 is insufficient to abolish or supersede an order given with such singular majesty and impressiveness by God and so strictly obeyed by man. The popular idea is that the Jewish Sabbath was done away with in Christ, and that sundry of the 1604 councils, e.g., Laodicea, anathematized those who kept it holy after such fashion. With the day the aim and object changed; and the early Fathers made it the “Feast of the Resurrection” which could not be kept too joyously. The “Sabbatismus” of our Sabbatarians, who return to the Israelitic practice and yet honour the wrong day, is heretical and vastly illogical; and the Sunday is better kept in France, Italy and other “Catholic” countries than in England and Scotland.

  82 For “Mushayyadßt” see vol. viii. 23.

  83 All these words sßr·, dakhal·, jalas·, &c. are in the plur. for the dual — popular and vulgar speech. It is so throughout the MS.

  84 The Persians apply the Arab word “Sahrß”=desert, to the waste grounds about a town.

  85 Arab. KashßkÝsh from the quadril, kashkasha = he gathered fuel.

  86 In text “Shayy bi-lßsh” which would mean lit. a thing gratis or in vain.

  87 In the text “Sabba raml” = cast in sand. It may be a clerical error for “Zaraba Raml” = he struck sand, i.e., made geomantic figures.

  88 Arab. Mauza’= a place, an apartment, a saloon.

  89 Galland makes each contain quatre vases de bronze, grands comme des cuves.

  90 The Arab. is “LÝwßn,” for which see vols. iv. 71 and vii. 347. Galland translates it by a “terrace” and “niche.”

  91 The idea is borrowed from the lume eterno of the Rosicrucians. It is still prevalent throughout Syria where the little sepulchral lamps buried by the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans are so called. Many tales are told of their being found burning after the lapse of centuries; but the traveller will never see the marvel.

  92 The first notice of the signet-ring and its adventures is by Herodotus in the Legend of the Samian Polycrates; and here it may be observed that the accident is probably founded on fact; every fisherman knows that fish will seize and swallow spoon-bait and other objects that glitter. The text is the Talmudic version of Solomon’s seal-ring. The king of the demons after becoming a “Bottle-imp,” prayed to be set free upon condition of teaching a priceless secret, and after cajoling the Wise One flung his signet into the sea and cast the owner into a land four hundred miles distant. Here David’s son begged his bread till he was made head cook to the King of Ammon at Mash KernÝn. After a while, he eloped with Na’·zah, the daughter of his master, and presently when broiling a fish found therein his missing property. In the Moslem version, Solomon had taken prisoner AmÝnah, the daughter of a pagan prince, and had homed her in his Harem, where she taught him idolatry. One day before going to the Hammam he entrusted to her his signet- ring presented to him by the four angelic Guardians of sky, air, water and earth when the mighty Jinni Al-Sakhr (see vol. i. 41; v. 36), who was hovering about unseen, snatching away the ring, assumed the king’s shape, whereby Solomon’s form became so changed that his courtiers drove him from his own doors. Thereupon Al-Sakhr, taking seat upon the throne, began to work all manner of iniquity, till one of the Wazirs, suspecting the transformation, read aloud from a scroll of the law: this caused the demon to fly shrieking and to drop the signet into the sea. Presently Solomon, who had taken service with a fisherman, and received for wages two fishes a day, found his ring and made Al-Sakhr a “Bottle-imp.” The legend of St. Kentigern or Mungo of Glasgow, who recovered the Queen’s ring from the stomach of a salmon, is a palpable imitation of the Biblical incident which paid tribute to C sar.

  93 The Magician evidently had mistaken the powers of the Ring. This is against all probability and possibility, but on such abnormal traits are tales and novels founded.

  94 These are the Gardens of the Hesperides and of King Isope (Tale of Beryn, Supplem. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Soc. ): —

  In mydward of this gardyn stant a feirÚ tre

  Of alle manner levis that under sky be

  I-forgit and i- fourmyd, eche in his degre

  Of sylver, and of golde fyne, that lusty been to see.

  So in the Kathß (S. S.) there are trees with trunks of gold, branches of pearls, and buds and flowers of clear white pearls.

  95 The text causes some confusion by applying “Sullam” to staircase and ladder, hence probably the latter is not mentioned by Galland and Co., who speak only of an escalier de cinquante marches. “Sullam” (plur. “Salßlim”) in modern Egyptian is popularly used for a flight of steps: see Spitta-Bey’s “Contes Arabes Modernes,” . The H. V. places under the slab a hollow space measuring four paces (kadam = 2.5 feet), and at one corner a wicket with a ladde
r. This leads to a vault of three rooms, one with the jars of gold; the second not to be swept by the skirts, and the third opening upon the garden of gems. “There thou shalt see a path, whereby do thou fare straight forwards to a lofty palace with a flight of fifty steps leading to a flat terrace: and here shalt thou find a niche wherein a lamp burneth.”

  96 In the H.V. he had thrust the lamp into the bosom of his dress, which, together with his sleeves, he had filled full of fruit, and had wound his girdle tightly around him lest any fall out.

  97 Africa (Arab. AfrikÝyah) here is used in its old and classical sense for the limited tract about Carthage (Tunis) net, Africa Propria. But the scribe imagines it to be the P. N. of a city: so m J·dar (vol. vi. 222) we find Fßs and Miknßs (Fez and Mequinez) converted into one settlement. The Maghribi, Mauritanian or Maroccan is famed for sorcery throughout the Moslem world: see vol. vi. 220. The Moslem “Kingdom of Afrikiyah” was composed of four provinces, Tunis, Tripoli, Constantina, and Bugia: and a considerable part of it was held by the Berber tribe of Sanhßja or Sinhßga, also called the Zenag whence our modern “Senegal.” Another noted tribe which held Bajaiyah (Bugia) in Afrikiyah proper was the “Zawßwah,” the European “Zouaves,” (Ibn Khall. iv. 84).

  98 Galland omits the name, which is outlandish enough.

  99 Meaning that he had incurred no blood-guiltiness, as he had not killed the lad and only left him to die.

  100 The H. V. explains away the improbability of the Magician forgetting his gift. “In this sore disquietude he bethought him not of the ring which, by the decree of Allah, was the means of Alaeddin’s escape; and indeed not only he but oft times those who practice the Black Art are baulked of their designs by Divine Providence.”

  101 See vol. vii. 60. The word is mostly derived from “ ‘afar” = dust, and denotes, according to some, a man coloured like the ground or one who “dusts” all his rivals. “ ‘Ifr” (fem. ‘Ifrah) is a wicked and dangerous man. Al-Jannabi, I may here notice, is the chief authority for Afrikus son of Abraha and xviiith Tobba being the eponymus of “Africa.”

  102 Arab. “Ghayr an” = otherwise that, except that, a favourite form in this MS. The first word is the Syriac “Gheir” = for, a conjunction which is most unneccessarily derived by some from the Gr. {Greek}.

  103 Galland and the H.V. make the mother deliver a little hygienic lecture about not feeding too fast after famine: exactly what an Eastern parent would not dream of doing.

  104 The lad now turns the tables upon his mother and becomes her master, having “a crow to pick” with her.

  105 Arab. “Munßfik” for whose true sense, “an infidel who pretendeth to believe in Al-Islam,” see vol. vi. . Here the epithet comes last being the climax of abuse, because the lowest of the seven hells (vol. viii. 111) was created for “hypocrites,” i.e., those who feign to be Moslems when they are Miscreants.

  106 Here a little abbreviation has been found necessary to avoid the whole of a twice-told tale; but nothing material has been omitted.

  107 Arab. “Taffaytu-hu.” This is the correct term = to extinguish. They relate of the great scholar FirozßbßdÝ, author of the “Kßm·s” (ob. A. H. 817 = A. D. 1414), that he married a Badawi wife in order to study the purest Arabic and once when going to bed said to her, “Uktuli’s-sirßj,” the Persian “Chirßgh- rß bi-kush” = Kill the lamp. “What,” she cried, “Thou an ‘ lim and talk of killing the lamp instead of putting it out!”

  108 In the H. V. the mother takes the “fruits” and places them upon the ground, “but when darkness set in, a light shone from them like the rays of a lamp or the sheen of the sun.”

  109 For these fabled Giant rulers of Syria, Og King of

  Bashan, etc., see vols. vii. 84; ix. 109, 323. D’Herbelot (s. v.

  Giabbar= Giant) connects “Jabßbirah” with the Heb. Ghibbor

  Ghibborim and the Pers. DÝv, Divßn: of these were ‘ d and

  Shaddßd, Kings of Syria: the Falast”in (Philistines) ‘Auj, Amßlik

  and Ban· Shayth or Seth’s descendants, the sons of God (Benu-

  Elohim) of the Book of Genesis (vi. 2) who inhabited Mount Hermon

  and lived in purity and chastity.

  110 The H. V. explains that the Jinni had appeared to the mother in hideous aspect, with noise and clamour, because she had scoured the Lamp roughly; but was more gentle with Alaeddin because he had rubbed it lightly. This is from Galland.

  111 Arab. Musawwadatayn = lit. two black things, rough copies, etc.

  112 Arab. Ban· Adam, as opposed to Ban· Elohim (Sons of the Gods), B. al-Jßnn etc The Ban· al-Asfar = sons of the yellow, are Esau’s posterity in Edom, also a term applied by Arab historians to the Greeks and Romans whom Jewish fable derived from Idum a: in my vol. ii. 220, they are the people of the yellow or tawny faces. For the legend see Ibn Khall. iii. 8, where the translator suggests that the by-name may be = the “sees of the Emperor” Flavius, confounded with “flavus,” a title left by Vespasian to his successors The Ban· al Khashkhash = sons of the (black) poppy are the Ethiopians.

  113 Arab, Hß! hß! so Hßka (fem. Haki) = Here for thee!

  114 So in Medieval Europe Papal bulls and Kings’ letters were placed for respect on the head. See Duffield’s “Don Quixote,” Part i. xxxi.

  115 Galland makes the Juif only rusÚ et adroit.

  116 Arab. “GhashÝm” = a “Johnny Raw” from the root “Ghashm” = iniquity: Builders apply the word to an unhewn stone; addressed to a person it is considered slighting, if not insulting. See vol. ii. 330.

  117 The carat (KÝrßt) being most often, but not always, one twenty-fourth of the diner. See vols. iii. 239; vii. 289.

  118 KanßnÝ, plur. of KinnÝnah.

  119 Here and below silver is specified, whenas the platters in Night dxxxv. were of gold This is one of the many changes’ contradictions and confusions which are inherent in Arab stones. See Spitta-Bey’s “Contes Arabes,” Preface.

  120 i.e., the Slave of the Lamp.

  121 This may be true, but my experience has taught me to prefer dealing with a Jew than with a Christian. The former will “jew” me perhaps, but his commercial cleverness will induce him to allow me some gain in order that I may not be quite disheartened: the latter will strip me of my skin and will grumble because he cannot gain more.

  122 Arab. “Hßlah mutawassitah,” a phrase which has a

  European Touch.

  123 In the text “JauharjÝyyah,” common enough in Egypt and Syria, an Arab. plur. of an Arabised Turkish sing. — ji for — chÝ = (crafts-) man.

  124 We may suppose some years may have passed in this process and that Alaeddin from a lad of fifteen had reached the age of manhood. The H. V. declares that for many a twelve month the mother and son lived by cotton spinning and the sale of the plate

  125 i.e. Full moon of full moons: See vol. iii. 228. It is pronounced “Badroo’l- Budoor,” hence Galland’s “ Badr-oul- boudour.”

  126 In the H. V. Alaeddin “bethought him of a room adjacent to the Baths where he might sit and see the Princess through the door-chinks, when she raised her veil before the handmaids and eunuchs.”

  127 This is the common conceit of the brow being white as day and the hair black as night.

  128 Such a statement may read absurdly to the West but it is true in the East. “Selim” had seen no woman’s face unveiled, save that of his sable mother Rosebud in Morier’s Tale of Yeldoz, the wicked woman (“The Mirza,” vol. iii. 135). The H. V. adds that Alaeddin’s mother was old and verily had little beauty even in her youth. So at the sight of the Princess he learnt that Allah had created women exquisite in loveliness and heart- ensnaring; and at first glance the shaft of love pierced his heart and he fell to the ground afaint He loved her with a thousand lives and, when his mother questioned him, “his lips formed no friendship with his speech.”

  129 “There is not a present (Teshurah) to bring to the Man of God” (1 Sam. ix. 7), and Menachem explains Teshurah as a gift offered with the ob
ject of being admitted to the presence. See also the offering of oil to the King in Isaiah lvii. 9. Even in Maundriell’s Day Travels () it was counted uncivil to visit a dignitary without an offering in hand.

  130 As we shall see further on, the magical effect of the Ring and the Lamp extend far and wide over the physique and morale of the owner: they turn a “raw laddie” into a finished courtier, warrior, statesman, etc.

  131 In Eastern states the mere suspicion of having such an article would expose the suspected at least to torture. Their practical system of treating “treasure trove,” as I saw when serving with my regiment in Gujarßt (Guzerat), is at once to imprison and “molest” the finder, in order to make sure that he has not hidden any part of his find.