 Section 18 of the Book of the Thousand Nights and the Night, Volume 10 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Book of the Thousand Nights and the Night, Volume 10 by Anonymous Translated by Richard Francis Burton Terminal Essay The Nights in Europe The history of the Nights in Europe is one of slow and gradual development. The process was begun, 1704 to 1717, by Galande, a Frenchman, continued 1823, by von Hammer an Austro-German, and finished by Mr. John Payne, 1882 to 1884, an Englishman. But we must not forget that it is holy and solely due to the genius of the Gaul that Europe owes the Arabian Nights' entertainment, over which Western childhood and youth have spent so many spelling hours. Antoine Galande was the first to discover the marvellous fund of material for the storyteller, 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 Scheherazade and Denazade, Harounah Rashid, 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 Latinised English, at once turgid and emasculated, would have found few readers. Mr. Paine's admirable version appeals to the Orientalist and the Stylist, not the many-headed, and mine to the anthropologist and the student of Easton Manners and Customs. Galande did it, and alone he did it. His fine literary flair, 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perfect tact, at once made his work take high rank in the Republic of Letters, nor will the immortal fragment ever be superseded in the infallible judgement of childhood. As the Encyclopedia Britannica has been pleased to ignore this excellent man and admirable Orientalist, new mismetologist and literature, the reader may be not unwilling to see a short sketch of his biography. Antoine Galande was born in AD 1646 of peasant parents, poor and honest, at Rolot, a little burg in Piccadilly, some two leagues from Montedier. 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 assistant of a canon of the Cathedral and president of the Collage de Noire relieved her difficulties. In this establishment Galande studied Greek and Hebrew for ten years, after which the straight thing at home apprenticed him to a trade. But he was made for letters. He hated manual labour, and he presently removed Henri Cachette to Paris, where he knew only an ancient kinswoman. She introduced him to a priestly relative of the canon of Noire, who in turn recommended him to the suprincipale of the Collège du Plessis. Here he made such notable progress in Oriental studies, that Monsieur Petit-Pierre, a doctor of the Sorbonne, struck by his abilities, enabled him to study at the Collège Royale, and eventually to catalogue the Eastern manuscripts in the great ecclesiastical society. Thence, in part to the Collège Mazurin, where a professor Godois 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 convert in the classical language, as well as read and write it. Galande, his assistant, had not time to register success or failure before he was appointed Attache Secretary to Monsieur de Nontel, named in 1660, Ambassador 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 Arnault Antoine and Claude the Minister, and which even in our day occasionally crops up amongst Protestants. Galande, by frequenting the cafes and listening to the tale-teller, soon mastered Romeic and grappled with the religious question under the tuition of the deposed patriarch and of sundry matrons or metropolitan, whom the persecution of the Paches had driven for refuge to the Palais de France. Monsieur de Nontel, after settling certain naughty points in the capitulations, visited the harbour towns of the Levant and the holy places, including Jerusalem, where Galande copied epigraphs, sketched monuments and collected antiques, such as the marbles and the Bordeaux gallery, of which Père Dom Bernard de Montfassant presently published specimens in his paleographic agraica, etc. Parisis 1708. In Syria, Galande was unable to buy a copy of the Knights, as he expressly states in his epistle dedicatory, il a fallou l'affaire ver near Dessarie, 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 Stamble, he returned to France. In Paris, his numismatic fame recommended him to Monsieur's Veillant, Carcery and Giraud, who strongly urged a second visit to 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 company, design d'Oriental, with the main object of making purchases for the library and museum of Colbert the Magnificent. The commission ended 18 months afterwards with the changes of the company when Colbert and the Marquis de Luvoir caused him to be created Antiquari 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 15,000 of the inhabitants. He was buried in the ruins, but his kitchen, being cold as becomes a philosopher's, he was dug out unburnt. Goulond again returned to Paris, where his familiarity with Arabic and Hebrew, Persian and Turkish, recommended him to Monsieur's Thevenot and Pignol. This first president of the Grand Council acknowledged his services by a pension. He also became a favourite with Durbelot, whose Bibliothèque oriental left unfinished at his death. He had the honour of completing and prefacing. President Pignol, guide within the 12 months, which made Goulond attach himself in 1697 to Monsieur 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 newismatic collection, he found materials for a long succession of works, including a translation of the Quran. They recommended him strongly to the literary world, and in 1701 he was made a member of the academy des inscriptions et belles lettres. At Caen, Goulond issued in 1704 the first part of his Mille et une nuit con Arab traduit en français, which at once became famous as The Arabian Night's Entertainment. Mutilated, fragmentary and parafrastic 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 recognized that it stood in the presence of a monumental literary work. France was a fire with delight and 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 ancient regime with its indecently tight garments and perfectly loose morals. Il produisera, c'est Charles Naudier, a genius in his way, dès le moment de la publication, cet effet qui assure au production l'esprit en vogue populaire. Qu'il a partissant à une littérature peu connue en France et que ce genre de composition a mis ou plutôt exigia des détails de meurres, des caractères, des costumes et des localités absolument étrangers à tous les aidés établés dans nos comptes et nos robins. En fous étonnés du charme qui résultait de la lecture. C'est que la vérité des sentiments, la nouveauté des tableaux, une imagination fait compte et prodige un coloris plat de chaleur la près d'une sensibilité d'un prétention et les seuls d'un comique sans caricature. C'est que l'esprit et le naturel enfant plaisent partout et plaisent à tout le monde. The Count Arab had once made Galan's name and a popular tale is told of them and him, known to all reviewers who, however, mostly mangle it. In the biography universal of Michel, we find dans le 2 premier volume de ses comptes lexordés était toujours ma chaiseur. Si vous ne dormez pas, faites-nous un de ses comptes que vous savez. Quelques gens ennuyaient de cette plate uniformité allérant un nuit qu'ils faisaient très grand-froid frappés à la porte de l'auteur qui coure un chemise à sa fenêtre. Après d'avoir fait mon fondre, quelque temps par diverse question insignificant, il terminera en lui disant Ah Monsieur Galan, si vous ne dormez pas, faites-nous un de ses beau comptes qui vous savez si bien. Galan, profiter de l'essent un premier dans les volumes suivants le prayant qui lui avance à tirer les plaies ontéries. This legend has the merit of explaining why the professor so soon gave up the Arab framework which he had deliberately adopted. The night was at once translated from the French, though when, where and by whom no authority seems to know. In Launders's biographes manual the English editeo-princheps is thus noted. Arabian night's entertainment translated from the French, London, 1724, 12 months, 6 volumes. And a footnote states that this translation very inaccurate and vulgar in its diction was often reprinted. In 1712, Addison introduced into the spectator the story of Al-Nashar and says that his remarks on hope may serve as a moral to an Arabian tale which I find translated into French by Monsieur Galan. 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 editeo-princheps in the British Museum is a set of six volumes bound in three and corresponding with Galan's first half-dozen. Tomes one and two are from the fourth edition of 1713. Numbers three and four are from the second of 1712 and five and six are from the third of 1715. It is conjectured that the first two volumes were reprinted several times apart from their subsequent 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 here the two have been in vain. The popularity of the Knights in England must have rivaled their vogue in France judging from the fact that in 1713 or nine years after Galan's editeo-princheps appeared they had already reached a fourth issue. Even the ignoble national jealousy which prompted Sir William Jones grossly to abuse that valiant scholar or cateau de parant 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. When the work was first published in England says Henry Weber it seems to have made a considerable impression upon the public. Pope in 1720 sent two volumes 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 fights of imagination to his other estimable qualities expressed his dislike of these tales pretty strongly and stated it to be his opinion formed in the frequent descriptions of female dress that they were the work of some Frenchman Petit de la Croix a mistake afterwards corrected by Warburton. The Arabian knights 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 of Scotland having one Saturday evening found his daughters employed in reading these volumes seized them with a rebuke for spending the evening before the Sabbath 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 Monsieur Conrad and while Dr Pusey wrote of them Noctis mille et una dictae coie in omnium firma popularum cultorum linguist conversae indillicius omnium habentor man in bosque omnium terentor The amiable Carlisle in the Gospel According to Cent Frude characteristically turned 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 Kant Arab was that their style is incorrect. In fact they want classicism yet all Gallic imitators Trebutia included have carefully copied their leader and Charles Noudier remarks Il me semble que l'un à la part de la traduit assez déjustice ou style de gallant Abondant sans être pronix naturel et familier sans être nage ni trivial Il ne manque jamais de cette elegance qui resulte de la facilité et qui présente je ne sais quel mélange de la naïveté de parole et de la bonhomie de la fontaine Our professor with the name now thoroughly established returned in 1706 to Paris where he was an assiduous and efficient member of the Société numismique and corresponded largely with foreign orientalists Three years afterwards he was made professor of Arabic at the Collège de France succeeding Pierre Dépis and during the next half decade he devoted himself to publishing his valuable studies In his last illness an attack of asthma complicated with pectoral mischief he sent to Noyan for his nephew Julien Gallant to assist him in ordering his manuscripts and in making his will after the simplest military fashion he bequeathed his writings to the bibliothèque de Roi his numismatic dictionary to the academy and his al-Quran to the Abbey-Bignan He died aged 69 on February the 17th 1715 leaving his second part of the night unpublished Professor Gallant was a French literature of the good old school which is rapidly becoming extinct Homme Vrae d'Orlé Moindre Shores as his éloge stated Simple in life and manners and single-hearted in his devotion to letters childish and worldly matters while notable for penetration and acumen in his studies he would have been as happy one of his biographies remarks in teaching children the elements of education as he was in a quarry his immense erudition briefly truth and honesty exactitude and indefatigable industry characterised his most honourable career Gallant informs us that his manuscript consisted of four volumes only three of which were extant bringing the work down to night 282 or about the beginning of Cameraldo Man the missing portion if it contains the other volumes 140 pages would end that tale together with the stories of Ghanim and the enchanted ebony horse and such is the disposition in the Breslau edition 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 thirty interpolated or as supposed to interpolated the ten following tales 1. Histoire du prince Zain a droit des gennis 2. Histoire du codedin et ses frais 3. Histoire de la langue merveilleuse c'est l'enquête c'est l'enquête 4. Histoire de la langue merveilleuse c'est l'enquête 4. Histoire de la virgle Barbara Abdallah 4. Histoire de la virgle Barbara Abdallah 5. Histoire de Sidinouman 6. Histoire de Cugir Hassan Al-Habbar 7. Histoire d'Ali Baba et de Caron-Feleur exterminé par une esclave 8. Histoire d'Ali Cugir marchant de Bagdad 9. Histoire de Prince Ahmed et de la Faye c'est l'enquête 8. Histoire d'Armed et de la Faye 10. Histoire de Deux-sur-Jalous de Le Cadet 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 The Sassi held that they were found by Galan in public libraries of Paris Mr. Chenery who's acquainted with Arabic grammar as ample suggested that the professor had borrowed them from the recitations of the Rawies Rhapsodists or professional storytellers in the Bazaars of Smyrna and other ports of Le Levant The late Mr. Henry Charles Cout in the folklore record Volume 3 Part 2 Page 178 and subsequent on the sort of some of Monsieur Galan's tales quotes from popular Italian Sicilian and Romeic stories instance identical with those in Prince Ahmed Aladdin Alibaba and the Envious Sisters suggesting that the Frenchman had heard these paramethia in Levantine coffee houses and had inserted them into his unequaled corpus fabularum Mr. Paine 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 Ur-Rashid and other well-known tales of the original work and adds it is possible that an exhaustive examination of the various manuscript copies of the Thousand 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 Zayn al-Adnam as cases in point but I should expect for reasons before given to find the stories in a poetic rather than an Arabic manuscript and I feel convinced that all will be recovered Galan was not the man to commit literary forgery as regards to Aladdin the most popular tale in the whole work I am convinced that it is genuine although my unfortunate friend the late Professor Palmer doubted it's being an eastern story it is laid down upon all the lines of oriental fiction the mise-en-scene is China where they drink in certain warm liquor tea the hero's father is a poor tailor and as intruder and his brethren the Maribi magician presently makes his appearance introducing the wonderful lamp and the magical ring even the sorcerers cry new lamps for old lamps the prime point is paralleled in the tale of the fisherman's son 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 I, the 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 ever after all Arabists have remarked the sins of omission and commission of abridgment, amplification and substitution which the audacious distortion of fact and phrase in which Galan 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 beguile of European languages was bound by a rigourism of the narrowest and the straightest of lines from which the least a cart condemned a man as a barbarian and a to-desk if we consider Galan fairly we shall find that he owes mostly for a purpose that of popularising his work and his success indeed justified his means he has been derided by scholars for hey monsieur and arm-a-dame but he could not write oh mon monsieur and oh ma dame although we can borrow from Biblical and Shakespearean English oh my lord and oh my lady bondure masseur which are translated English by oh heavens is good French for wallahi and Sainte-Côte Cavalier Biafé 50 handsome gentlemen and horseback is a more familiar picture than 50 knights L'Officer's Dénisade and Sainte-Claissant Coral de Dufres became ridiculous only in translation the officious Dénisade and this pleasant quarrel while Sainte-Claix de Remarque would relieve the Gallic mind from the mortification of destiny decreed plusius sought to free Edipotard de Val Europeanes flasks and flagons and the violent convulsions in which the girl dies is mere Gallic squeamishness France laughs at le Shocking in England but she has only to look at home especially during the reign of Gallant's contemporary Roise-les the terrible old man called is badly described by Lancomode Vieux the old natural fellow Braves-Mémons and Agrailles-Arbre-Mémons are hardly what a genie would say to a genia but they are good Gallic the same may be noted of Plié-les-Voye pour Marc-Quilce-Ronde a European practice and of the false notes struck in two passages Je m'estimais d'avoir fait une si belle conquête gives a Parisian turn and je ne pouvais voir sans heureux cette abominable barbie qui voilà quoiqu'il soit ne dans un pays où tout le monde est blanc il ne laisse pas ressembler un Ethiopien mais il alarme encore plus noir et horrible que la visage is a mere affectation of orientalism largely un viol d'armes de l'eau conneissance puts French polish upon the matter of fact Arabs an old woman the list of absolute mistakes not including violent liberties can hardly be held excessive Professor Vile and Mr Payne justly charged Gallon with making the trader throw away the shells of the date which has only appellical as Gallon certainly knew but dates were not seen every day in France while almonds and walnuts were of the quatre mendicon he preserves the assource which later issues have changed and while probably in allusion to the jerking practice called Inwa again in the first Shakespeare story the Maye is mentioned as the means of slaughtering cattle because familiarity European readers at the end of the tale it becomes Le Couteau Funeste in Badreau-Din a Tart à la Creme 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 bad trousers and placed them under the pillow a crucial fact of the history our professor sent him to bed fully dressed apparently for the purpose of informing his readers in a footnote that estons se couchant en calaisant it was mere ignorance to confound the arbolette or crossbow with the stonebow but this has universally been done even by Laine who ought to have known better and it was an unpardonable carelessness or something worse to turn nare, fire and dune, in Luov into Le Four dure dune and this has been untouched by the sassy I cannot but conclude that he never read the text of the translation nearly as bad also to make the Jewish physician remark when the youth gave him the left wrist Voila un grand ignorance de ne savoir pas que l'en présente la main droite et non pas la gauche whose exclusive use all travelers in the east must know I have noticed the incuriousness which translates along the Nile shore by up towards Ethiopia and the islands of the children of Kalidant instead of the Kalidatani or Kalidat the fortunate islands it was by no means de petite soufflette some taps from time to time with her fingers which the sprightly dame administered to the barber's second brother but sound and heavy cuffs on the nape and the sixth brother was not Orlev Fendu he of the hair-lips for they had been cut off by the Badawi jealous of his fair wife Abu al-Hassan would not greet his beloved by saluting the Tappi Asepied he would kiss her hands and feet Hayat al-Nafouz Hayat al-Nafouz would not throw cold water in the princess's face she would sprinkle it with older rose Kameral Zaman addresses his two abominable wives in language purely European Edila V. Ilna Soprosha Dowl missing one of the fine touches of the tale which shows its hero a weak and violent man hasty and lacking the pure donor now Belprisien in the tale of Nuraldin was no Persian nor would her master address her Fenesa impertinent come hither impertinence in the story of Badr one of the Comero island becomes Lille de la Lune dog and dog son are not en jour atroce étendim de grand roi the greatest eastern kings allow themselves far more energetic and significant language fitna is by no means forced to cure lastly the genoument of the knights is widely different in French in Arabic probably not Galan's fault as he never saw the original and indeed he deserves high praise for having invented so pleasant and sympathetic glows inferior only to the oriental device Galan's fragment has a strange effect upon the orientalist and those who take the scholastic view be it wide or narrow de Sassy 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 Galan's paraphrase which contains only a quarter of the thousand knights in a night as a wholly different book it attempts to amplify beauties and to correct or conceal the defects and grotesqueness of the original absolutely suppress much of the local colour clothing the bare body in the better 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 when applied to a race of familiar ways and thoughts 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 tones of passages which crowd upon them missed the odour du sang which takes the part from de Harim and also the humoristic tale and the rabbilesian outbreak which relieve and throw out in strong relief the splendour of empire and the havoc of time considered in this light it is a kaput mortum a magnificent texture seen on the wrong side and it speaks volumes for the genius of the man who could recommend it a very rich, blurred and caricatured condition to read it throughout the civilized world but those who look only at the launch 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 their row 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 Hindustani the latter entitles them Hikeat al-Jalila noble tales and the translation was made by Munchi Shamzaldin Ahmad for the use of College of Fort George all these versions are direct from the Arabic my search for a translation of Galan into any eastern tongue has hitherto been fruitless I was assured by the late Bertoldi Seaman that the language of Hoffman and Heiner contained a literal and complete translation of the nights but personal inquiries at Leipzig and elsewhere convinced me that the work still remains to be done the first attempt to improve upon Galan and to show the world what the work really is was made by Dr Max Habicht and was printed at Breslau in 15 small square volumes thus it appeared before the Tunis manuscript 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 with the most extraordinary blunders and it is utterly useless as a picture of manners or as a book of reference we can explain its lash only by the theory that the eminent professor left the labour to his collaborators and did not take the trouble to revise their careless work the next German translation was by Audicke councillor J. von Hammer-Pergstalt who during his short stay at Cairo in Constantinople turned into French the tales neglected by Galan after some difference with M. Corsa in 1810 the Styrian orientalist entrusted his manuscript to Herr Kotter the publisher of Tubigan thus a German version appeared the translation of a translation at the hand of Professor Zinsenling while the French version was unaccountably lost en route to London finally the Kant, Arnaudite etc. appeared in a French translation by G. S. Triboutier von Hammer took liberties with the text which can compare only with those of Lane he abridged and retrenched till the likeness in place is entirely disappeared he shirked some difficult passages and he mis-explained others in fact the work did no honour to the amiable and laborious historian of the Turks the only good German translation of the Knights is due to Dr Gustav Waal who was born on April 24th 1808 is still 1886 professing a title Berg his originals he tells us were the Breslau edition the Boulac text of Habt-al-Raman al-Safadi and a manuscript in the library of Sax-Gotha the venerable savant who has rendered such service to Arabism informs me that August Le Waal's Forhala was written without his knowledge Dr Waal neglects the division of days which enables him to introduce any number of tales for example Galan XI occupy a large part of volume 3 the forefought wants development the notes confined to a few words are inadequate and verses everywhere rendered by prose the sardra or assonance being only ignored on the other hand the scholar shows himself by a correct translation contrasting strongly with those that preceded him and by a strictly literal version save where the treatment required to be modified was intended for the public and as such circumstances it cannot well be other than long-sum 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 Galan seem to have satisfied the public notes on the remake Icelandic, Russian and other versions will be found in the future page Professor Galan has never been forgotten in France where amongst a host of editions four have claims to distinction and his success did not fail to create a host of imitators and to attract with the sassy just need terms and prejudice and portation to marchandise the contraband as early as 1823 von Hammer numbered 7 in France 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 Galan's imitators which are printed in appendix number 2 end of section 18 section 19 of The Book of the Southern Nights and a Night volume 10 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Book of the Southern Nights and a Night volume 10 by Anonymous translated by Richard Francis Burton The Metro of the Nights part 1 Returning to my three fold distribution of this prose poem into fable fairy tale and historical anecdote let me proceed to consider these sections more carefully the apologue or beast fable which apparently antidates 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 civilized age when a jealous despotism or a powerful oligarchy threw difficulties and dangers in the way of speaking plain truth a hint can be given and a friend or foe can be lauded or abused as Baleen's the sheep or Issengrims a 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 codri sum movet et quod prudenti vittem concilio monet the speaking of brute beasts would give a picuency and a pleasantry to moral design as well as the social and political satire the literary origin of the fables is not budistic we must especially shun that Indo-Germanic school which goes to India for its origins when Pythagoras, Solon, Herodotus Plato, Aristotle and possibly Homer set for instruction at the feet of the Hirseshta the learned grammarians of the pharaonic court nor was it Aesopic, evidently Aesop inherited the horded wealth of ages as professor Lebsius 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 with those of Egypt the invention of an alphabet as opposed to a syllabary unknown to Babylonia to Assyria and to that extreme born of their civilizing influence China would forever fix their literature poetry, history and criticism the apologue and the anecdote to mention no others the lion and the mouse appears in laden peppers dating from B.C. 121 1166 the days of Ramses III Ramsinitus or Hakon not as a rude and early attempt but in a finished form postulating an ancient origin an illustrious ancestry the dialogue also is brought to perfection in the discourse between and the Ethiopian cat Revu Egypto logica yve me a ne partvan Africa, therefore, was the home of the beast fable not as professor Mahafii sings because it was the chosen land of animal worship where but simply because the Nile land originated every form of literature between Fablio and Epos from Camus a black land it was but a step to Phoenicia Judea, Phrygia and Asia Minor whence a fairy led over to Greece here the apologue found its popularizer in Aesop, whose name involved in myth possibly connects with Aesopos et aithiops etem sonnat 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 era as contemporary with Crosus and Solon, BC 570 about a century after Pseumaticus Pseumatic I through Egypt opened to the restless Greek from Africa too the fable would in early ages migrate eastwards and make for itself a new home in the second great focus of civilization formed by the Tigris the late Mr George Smith found amongst the cuneiform 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 Cessostris and Semermis had begun and mingled the manifold families of mankind by joining the eastern to the western world the Orient became formally Hellenized under the Soloikide and during the life of the independent Bactrian kingdom BC 255 to 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 BC 19 and in one of them Harold Zarmanochegas Sramanachraya of Bargosa the modern Baroch in Kuzerat Boran Epistle upon Vellum written in Greek Strabo 15.1. section 78 Videtis Gentes Populoski Mutas Ecedes says Seneca Quid sipi volund in medias Barbarorum regionibus gracae artist Quid inter-indos persaquae Ateniensis in Asia Turba est Upper India in the Macedonian days would have been mainly budistic, 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 a social development. But the Bactrian kingdom gave an impulse to her civilization, and the result was classical, opposed to Vedic Sanskrit. From Persia Greek letters extending southwards to Arabia would find indigenous imitators, and there Ezob would be represented by the sundry sages who share the name Lokmen. One of these was a servile condition tailor, carpenter or shepherd and a Habashi, Ethiopian, meaning a Negro slave with blubber lips and splay feet, so far showing a superficial likeness to the Ezob of history. The ezopic fable carried by the Hellenes to India might have fallen in with some rude and fantastic barbarian of budistic persuasion and indigenous origin. So Reynard the Fox has its analog amongst the Kaphiers and the Void tribe of Mandemgan, Negroes in Liberia amongst whom one Toalu 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 Benfe, followed by Mr. Case Falconer, discovers between the ezopic 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 super added experience of ages. To early man the lower animals which are born live and die like himself showing all the same effects and dis-effects, 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 carnival and the serpent with all wonder and dread and would soon suspect the same mysterious potency in the brute as in himself. So the malees still look upon the uran utan or woodman 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 in wheel and vogue. A more advanced stage would find the step easy to metamempsychosis 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 Egipto Greco-Indian stories overran the civilized globe between Rome and China tales have wings and fly further than the jade hatchet 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 the volume which in Pelevi became the Javidand Hirad, Wisdom of Ages or the Testament of Hoshong the ancient quaber king and in Sanskrit the Panchatantra 5 chapters is a recual of apolos and anecdotes related by the learned Brahman Vishnu Sharma for the benefit of his pupils the sons of an Indian Raja. The Hindu original has been adapted and translated into a number of languages Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac, Greek and Latin Persian and Turkish and their host of names Voltaire wisely remarks of this venerable production When we think that almost all the land was emphaticated by the same account and that they made education of the human genre we find the palpitations of the well-resonable lochman But may things the sage of Ferney might have said far more these fables speak with the large utterance of early man they have also their own a special beauty the charms of well-preserved age there is in their wisdom a perfume of the past homely and ancient fashion like a whiff of potpour wondrous soothing without to all factories agitated by the patchouli and jockey clubs of modern pretenders and petite maitres with their grey young heads and pert intelligence the motto of whose ignorance is conu where a dose of its antique mature experience is attributed 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 Drago Man to Raja and a quotation from them tells at once it shows the quarter to be man of education not a Jangali a sylvan or savage as the Anglo-Indian official is habitually turned into a cultural subject the main difference between the classical apologue and the fable in the nights is that while Esop and Gumbrius write laconic tales with a single event and a simple moral the Arabian fables are often long-continued novell involving a variety of events each characterized by some social or political aspect forming a narrative highly interesting often exhibiting the most exquisite moral and yet preserving with rare ingenuity the peculiar characteristics of the actors and the distinction between the ancient and the medieval apologue including the modern which since Reinecke Fox 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 lords and prelates ghostly and worldly our recueil contains two distinct sets of apologues the first volume 3 consists of 11 alternating with 5 anecdotes nights 146 to 153 following the lengthy and nightly romance of king Omar bin al-Nuaman and followed by the melancholy love tale of Ali bin Bakar the second series in volume 9 consisting of 8 fables not including 10 anecdotes nights 901 and 924 is injected into the romance of king Jaliad and Shimas mentioned by Almasudi as independent of the nights in both places the beast fables are introduced with some art and add variety to the subject matter awaiting 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 Vazirs and even these are not allowed to pull upon the mental palette being mingled with anecdotes and short tales such as the hermits 3 125 with biographical or literary episodes acro-amata, table talk and analects where humorous, rabbilized scene anecdote finds a place in fact the fablieu or novella this style of composition may be as ancient as the apologues we know that it dates as far back as Ramses is the third from the history of the two brothers in the Orbigny Pappers the prototype of Yusuf and Zulaika the Quranic Joseph and Popethar's wife it is told with a charming naivet and such sharp touches of local color as come let us make merry and hour and lie together let down the hair some of the apologues in the nights are pointless enough free moins, chromosomes but in the best specimens such as the wolf and the fox 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 3151 of a type familiar to students of the pulpi 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 as life as it should be visibly ordered and laid down on fixed lines thus fiction is not the main of history she has a household of her own and she claims to be the triumph or art which as Goethe remarked is art because it is not nature fancy la folle de logis is that kind and gentle porters who hold the gate of hope wide open in opposition to reason the surly and scrupulous guard as palmarine of England says and says well for that the report of noble deeds does 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 realizes 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 knights 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 to work a day world a life of eating and drinking sleeping and waking fighting and loving into a society and a misery 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 someone to work the human might's will however whimsical who can transport him in an eye twinkling with so ever he wishes who can ruin cities and build palaces of gold and silver gems and yahins who can serve up delicate vines 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 outstripping possibility arises not a little of that strange fascination exercised for nearly two centuries upon the life and literature of Europe by the knights even in their mutilated ungarbled form the reader surrenders himself to the spell feeling almost inclined to go inquire and why may it not be true his brain is dazed and dazzled by the splendors which flash before it by the sudden procession of gents and genius demons and fairies some hideous others paternaturally beautiful by good wizards and evil sorcerers whose powers are unlimited for will and for woe by merman and mermaids flying horses talking animals and reasoning elephants rings and their slaves and by talismanic couches which rivals 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 observes that these fairy tales find favor because even their machinery wild and wonderful as it is has its laws and chanters 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 favor 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 me seems 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 gins walk the earth we are pleased to find them so very human as wise and as foolish inward indeed as ourselves similarly we admire in a landscape natural forms like those of Stafa or the palisades which favor the works of architecture and supposing such breeder naturalisms 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 world and nothing more than 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 Celts and especially orientals who imbibe supernaturalism with their mother's milk I am persuaded writes Mr. Bale St. John the great scheme of preternatural energy so fully developed in the thousand and one knights 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 Badavi between Morocco and outer India the fairy tale in the knights is holy and purely Persian the gifted Iranian race the noblest and most beautiful of all known to me has exercised upon the world history an amount of influence which has not yet been fully recognized it repeated for Babylonian art and literature what Greece had done for Egyptian whose dominant idea was that of working for eternity Hellas and Iran instinctively choose at 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 in 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 law giver whoever he may have been or Sarsip or Moshe apparently held the tenant 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 super-added Babylonian legend to Egyptian myth startified the law by supplementing it with the absurdities of foreign fable as the Talmud proves was becoming the most wildly superstitious and otherworldly of mankind the same change befell al-Islam the whole of its supernaturalism is borrowed bodily from Persia which had in paradise earth by making it the abode of angels Mohammed a great and commanding genius blighted and narrowed by surroundings and circumstances he was no higher than a covenanter or a puritan declared to his followers I am sent to establish the manners and customs and his deficiency of imagination made him dislike everything but woman perfumes and prayers with a special aversion to music and poetry, plastic art and fiction yet his system unlike that of Moses demanded somatology and metaphysical entities he perforced 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 depths 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 fabliol then as superior to the silly and equally fictitious stories of the glorious Koran the leader of these scoffers was one Nazir ibn Haris who, taken prisoner after the battle of Bedr was incontinently decapitated by a apostolic command for what appears to be a natural and sensible preference it was the same furious fanaticism and one ideate intolerance which made Caliph Omar destroy all he could find of the Alexandrian library and prescribe burning for the holy books of the Persian goebbers and the taint still lingers in all 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 Muhammad left a dispensation as a reformation so arid Jejun and material that it promised little more than the law of Moses before this was vivified and racially baptized by Mesopotamian and Persian influences but human nature was stronger than the prophet and thus outraged to expedite an absolute revenge before the first century had elapsed Orthodox alexlam was startled by the rise of Tasawuf or Sufism a revival of classic Platonism and Christian Gnosticism with a mingling of modern Hilozoism 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 force rightsies to be believed end of section 19 section 20 of the Book of the Thousand Nights and the Night Volume 10 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by phone the Book of the Thousand Nights and the Night Volume 10 by Anonymous translated by Richard Francis Burton The Matter of the Nights Part 2 I will take from the Nights as a specimen of the true Persian romance the Queen of the Serpents Volume 5 298 the subject of Lane's Corleilian Denunciation the first gorgeous picture is the session of the snakes which, like their Indian congeners the Naga kings and queens have human heads and reptile bodies an Egyptian myth that engendered the old serpent of Genesis the Sultana welcomes Haseeb Karim al-Din 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 Bulukia 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 Jammy Jam the crystal cup of the great king Jamshid the descent of the Archangel Gabriel so familiar to all Islam is the manifestation of Baman the first intelligence the mightiest of the angels who enabled Sarathustra Zoroaster to walk like Bulukia over the Dalati or Caspian Sea amongst the sites shown to Bulukia as he traverses the seven oceans is a battle royale between the believing and the unbelieving gins true Magian dualism the eternal duela of the two roots or antagonistic principles good and evil Hormuzd and Ariman which Milton has debased into a commonplace modern combat fought also with Canon Sacher the Ginny is Eshem chief of the Deeds and Kaaf the encircling mountain is a later addition of Persian al-Boots so in the Mantak Altair colloquy of the flyers the birds and limbs of souls seeking the presence of the gigantic feathered biped Simurg their god traverses seven seas according to others seven Vadiz of search of love of knowledge of combatants of unity of stupefaction and of altruism that is annihilation of self several stages of contemplative life at last standing upon the mysterious island of the Simurg and casting a clandestine glance at him they saw thirty birds in him and when they turned their eyes to themselves the thirty birds seemed one Simurg they saw in themselves the entire Simurg they saw in the Simurg 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 forever annihilated in the Simurg and the shade vanished in the sun ebid three two hundred and fifty the wild ideas concerning Khalid and Malit volume five three hundred nineteen are again Gwebre from the seed of Kayomals the Androgyne like three white man sprang a tree shaped like two human beings and then proceeded Meshia and Meshiana first man and woman for genitors of mankind who though created for Shidistan light land were seduced by Ariman this two man tree is evidently the duality of feises and antifices nature and her counterpart the battle between Nih, Izad or Mitha with his surus and ferreste serifs and angels against the dews who are the children of time led by the arch demon Ishim thus when Hormuzd created the planets, the dog and all useful animals and plants Ariman produced the comets the wolf, noxious beasts and poisonous growths the Hindus represent the same metaphysical idea by Brahma the creator and Vishva Karma the anti-creator 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 Gavi Samin the energy symbolized by a bull implanted by the creator in the mundane sphere Bulukia meets the four arch angels to wit Gabriel who is the Persian Ravan Baksh or life-giver Michael or Baster Raphael or Israfil Elias Ardibiisht and Azazel or Azrael who is Duma or Mordat the death-giver and the four are about to attack the dragon that is the demons hostile to mankind who are driven behind Albor's calf by Tamaras the ancient Persian king Bulukia then recites an episode within an episode the story of Jan Chow itself a Persian name and accompanied by two others volume 5 329 the Misan son being Kabul Abbasan appearing in the prone Jan Chow the young prince no sooner comes to man's estate and he loses himself out hunting and falls in with cannibals whose bodies divide longitudinally each moiety going its own way these are the Sheik Split Ones which the Arabs borrowed from the Persian Nimshira or half-faces they escape to the 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 the episode then falls into the banalities of oriental folklore Jan Chow passing the Sebation 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 Sheik Nazar 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 Yagmus whose name like that of King Tegmus 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 Bolochia quits him and resolving to regain his nato land falls in with Kizur and the green prophet who was Bazeer to Keiko Bound 6th century BC and was connected with Macedonia 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 Anna of great men in which Easterns as well as westerns delight the greatest writers do not disdain to relieve the illness 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-Shamad may be as late as the Ottoman conquest of Egypt 16th century all are distinctly sonite and show fierce animus against the Shia heretics that they were written after the destruction of the Fatimaid dynasty 12th century by Salah al-Din Saladin the court one of the latest historical personages and the last king named in the knights these anecdotes are so often connected with what a learned Frenchman terms the that the great caliph becomes the hero of this portion of the knights Aaron the orthodox was the central figure of the most splendid empire the world had seen the vice-regent of Allah combining the powers of Caesar and Pope and wielding them right worthily according to the general voice of historians to quote a few Ali bin Talib al-Korasani 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 a folk at large Saadi died A.D. 1291 tells a tale highly favourable to him in the gulistan limb 136 Fakar al-Din 14th century lords his merits, eloquence, science and generosity and Alciuti born A.D. 1445 asserts he was one of the most distinguished of caliphs and the most illustrious of the princes of the earth page 290 the shaykh al-Nafsabi 16th century in his rose al-Atil finaza al-Katil is centred garden site for heart delight calls Harun the best of the generous and even the latest writers have not seized to praise him says Ali Aziz Effendi Decretan in the story of Javad Harun was the most bounteous illustrious and upright of the Abbasid caliphs the 5th Abbasid 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-Azmai who had undertaken to teach him Saint-Iriens keep in mind to want to take care of me to attract your attention and to give you the authority do not extend too long on the history and the tradition that you tell me if I do not give you permission when you see that I will be melancholy of equity in my judgment with all this without use of words fake or reprimand teach me mainly the things that are most necessary for the discourse that I have to do in public in the mosques and elsewhere and do not speak in obscure or mysterious terms with words too resourceful 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 he made the pilgrimage every alternate year and sometimes on foot while his military expeditions almost equaled his pilgrimages day after day during his caliphate 100 bows never neglecting them save for some special reason till his death and he used to give from his privy purse alms to the extent of 100 dirhams per diem he delighted in panagiri and liberally rewarded its experts one of whom abd al-samak to preacher fairly said of him thy humility in thy greatness is nobler than thy greatness saith an niftavay had been so profusely liberal to poets, lawyers, and devons 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 missile in the name of Allah from the commander of the faithful Haroun al-Rashid to Nisafurus 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 knocked his camel in the imperial courtyard 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 Corolla's madness finally his civilised and well-regulated rule contrasted as strongly with the barbarity and turbulence of occidental Christendom as this splendid court and the luxurious life of Baghdad and its carpets and hangings devance the quasi-savagery of London and Paris whose palatial halls were spread with Russians the great Caliph ruled 23 years and a few months a age 170 to 193 is AD 786 to 808 and as his youth was checkered and his reign was glorious so was his end obscure after a vision foreshadowing his death which happened as becomes a good Muslim during a military expedition to Corazon he ordered his grave to be dug and himself to be carried to it in a covered litter when citing the false he exclaimed oh son of man Goward come to this then he commanded himself to be set down and the perfection of the Quran to be made over him in the litter on the edge of the grave he was buried age 45 at Sanabat a village near Tuz Aaron the Orthodox appears in the nuns as a headstrong and violent autocrat a right royal figure according to the Muslim 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 mis rulers 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 Ferdowsi sings is the massacre of the Barmasides 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 Abna or Arabized Persians had long served the Omni-aids till early in our 8th century Khalid bin Bermek the chief entered the service of the first Abbasid and became wazir and attendant of finance to al-Safa 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 Omni-aids to Baghdad built Adhok after securing the highest character in history by his personal gifts and public services he was succeeded by his son and heir Yahya, John a statesman famed from early youth for prudence and profound intelligence liberality and nobility of soul he was charged by the Khalif al-Madi with the education of his son Haroon hence the latter was accustomed to call him father and until the assassination of the fantastic tyrant al-Hadi who proposed to make his own child Khalif he had no little difficulty in preserving the youth from death in prison the orthodox one seated firmly on the throne appointed Yahya his grand-bazir this great administrator had four sons al-Fazl, Jafar, Muhammad and Musa in whose time the house of Bermeq rose to that height from which decline and fall are in the east well-nice-certain and immediate al-Fazl was a foster-brother of Haroon 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 that he lacked a charm of temper and manners which characterized Jafar the poets and rhetoricians have been profuse in their praises of the cadet who appears in the nights as an advisor of calm sound sense an intercessor and a peacemaker and even more remarkable than the rest of his family for an almost incredible magnanimity and generosity an generosity effrayant Muhammad was feigned 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 for ten years not including an interval of seven from the time of al-Rashid's accession AD 786 to the date of their fall AD 803 Yaya and his sons al-Fazl and Jafar 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 Jafar were halting in al-Umar the convent near Ambar town on the Euphrates after a convivial evening spent in different pavilions Haroon during the dead of night called up his page Yasir al-Riklah and beat him ring Jafar's hand the messenger found Jafar still carousing with the blind poet Abu Zakhar and the Christian physician Gabriel even Bakhtiashu and was persuaded to return to the Caliph and report his death there was year adding and he expressed regret in my life and if not what so Allah will be done Jafar 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 a fatal blow al-Asma'i who was summoned to the presence shortly after recounts that when the head was brought to Haroon he gazed at it and summoning two witnesses commanded them to decapitate Yasir trying I cannot bear to look upon the slayer of Jafar his vengeance did not cease with the death he ordered the head to be gibbeted 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 afterward he insulted the remains by having them burned the last and worst indignity which can be offered to a Muslim there are indeed pity and terror in the difference between two such items and the treasury accounts as these four hundred thousand dinars two hundred thousand pounds to a robe of honour for the Vazir Jafar bin Yahya and ten qirat five shillings to napta and reeds for burning the body of Jafar the barma side meanwhile Yahya and Al-Fazl seized by the Caliph Haroon's command at Baghdad were significantly cast into the prison Habs al-Zanadika of the Guelbras 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 analysts the whole barma side family men, women and children numbering over a thousand were slaughtered with only three exceptions Yahya his brother Muhammad and his son Al-Fazl the Caliph's foster father who lived to the age of seventy-four was allowed to die in jail age eight hundred five after two years imprisonment at Ruqa 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 November age eight hundred eight 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 ure 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 Haroon, wishing Jafar to be his companion even in the harem had wedded him pro forma to his eldest sister Al-Fazl the loveliest woman of her day and brilliant in mind as in body but he has 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 Jafar bound himself by a solemn oath but his mother Ataba was mad enough to deceive him in his cups and the result was a boy Ibn Khaliqan or according to others twins the issue was sent under the charge of a confidential eunuch and a slave girl to Mecca for concealment but the secret was divulged to Sobaida who had her own reasons for hating husband and wife and cherished a special grievance against Yahya then it soon found its way to headquarters Haroon's treatment of Abbasah 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 Jafar's perjury was only the last straw already Al-Fazal bin Rabiyah the deadliest enemy of the barma-sides had been entrusted AD 786 with Dawazirat which he kept seven years Jafar had also acted generously but imprudently in abetting the escape of Yahya bin Abdullah Sayyid and Alidah the chief had commanded confinement in a close dark dungeon when charged with disobedience Dawazirat had made full confession and Haroon had, they say exclaimed thou has done well but was heard to mutter Allah slay me and I slay thee not the great house seems at times to have abused its powers by being too peremptory with Haroon and Sobaida especially in money matters and its very greatness would have created for it many and powerful enemies and detractors who plighted a caliph with anonymous verse and prose nor was it forgotten that before the spread of Al-Islam they had presided over the nabihah or peratium of Baalq and Haroon is said to have remarked and end Yahya the zeal for majinism rooted in his heart induces him to save all the monuments connected to his faith hence the charge that they were sannadaka a term properly applied to those who studied the Zen scripture but popularly meaning mundaneists, positivists reprobates, atheists and it may be noted that immediately after Al-Rashid's death violent religious troubles broke out in Baghdad Ibn Khalikan quotes Sayyid ibn Salim a well-known grammarian and traditionist who philosophically remarked of a truth the barmasides did nothing to deserve Al-Rashid's severity but the day of their power and prosperity had been long and what so endured long waxed longsum Fakr al-Din says page 27 on attribute en cours le ruin au manière fière et aux gueuleuses de Jafar Jafar et de fadl al-Fazl manière que le roi ne sauront y'en supporter According to Ibn Badroun the poet when the caliph sister Olaia asked him oh my lord I have not seen the enjoy one happy day since putting Jafar to death wherefore did thou slay him he answered my dear life and I thought that my shirt knew the reason I therefore hold with al-Masudi as regards the intimate cause of the catastrophe it is unknown and Olaia 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 Jafar to life and if any spoke slightly of the barmasides 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 Rabiya the man of intelligence and devoted to letters proved a poor substitute for Jaya and Jafar the caliph is reported to have applied to him the couplet no sire to your sire I bid you spare your calamities or their place for place 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 barmasides whose echo has not yet died away must have added poignancy to the penitence the crime still sticks fiery off from the rest of Haroon'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 hour or day as of Haroon so of Subaida 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 advice from Harry Godain who had committed all the crimes without any of the virtues which characterised Haroon's cousin's spouse and the difference between the manners of the caliphate and the respectability of the 19th century may be measured by the tale called Al Mamoun and Subaida the lady having won a game of forfeits from her husband and being vexed with them for imposing unseemly conditions when he had been the winner to lie with the foulest and filthiest kitchen wench in the palace and thus was begotten the caliph who succeeded and destroyed her son Subaida was the granddaughter of the second Abbasid Al Mansour by his son Jaafar whom the nights persistently turned al-Kasim her name was Ahmad Al Aziz or Handmaid of the Almighty her cognamen was Um Jaafar as her husband's was Abu Jaafar and her popular name Creamkin derives from Zubda, cream or fresh butter on account of her plumpness and freshness she was as majestic and munificent as her husband and a hum of prayer was never hushed in her palace Al Masoudi makes a historian say to the dangerous caliph Al-Kahir the nobleness and generosity of this princess in serious matters as in her diversions place her in the highest rank and who proceeds to give ample proof Al-Siyuti relates how she once filled a poet's mouth with jewels which she sold for 20,000 Pinars Ibn Khaliqan won 523 affirms of her her charity was ample her conduct virtuous and the history of her pilgrimage to Mecca 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 3 2 how the Darb al-Sharki or eastern roads from Mecca to Al Medina was due to the piety of Zubbaida who dug wells from Baghdad to the prophet's burial place and build not only cisterns and caravansuris but even a wall to direct pilgrims over the shifting sands she also supplied Mecca which severed severely from one's of water with chief requisite for public hygiene by connecting it through leveled hills and hewn rocks with the Ain al-Mushash in the Arovat sub-range and a fine aqueduct some 10 miles long was erected at a cost of 1.7 to 2 million of gold pieces we cannot wonder that her name was still famous among the Bara'ban 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 mostly rural woman end of section 20 recording by phone