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The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10

R >> Richard F. Burton >> The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10




In Syria Galland was unable to buy a copy of The Nights: as he
expressly states in his Epistle Dedicatory, il a fallu le faire
venir de Syrie. 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 Stambul, he returned to France. In Paris his numismatic
fame recommended him to MM. Vaillant, Carcary and Giraud who
strongly urged a second visit to the 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 Compagnie des
Indes-Orientales, with the main object of making purchases for
the Library and Museum of Colbert the magnificent. The
commission ended eighteen months afterwards with the changes of
the Company, when Colbert and the Marquis de Louvois caused him
to be created "Antiquary 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
fifteen thousand of the inhabitants: he was buried in the ruins;
but, his kitchen being cold as becomes a philosopher's, he was
dug out unburnt.[FN#201]

Galland again returned to Paris where his familiarity with Arabic
and Hebrew, Persian and Turkish recommended him to MM. Thevenot
and Bignon: this first President of the Grand Council
acknowledged his services by a pension. He also became a
favourite with D'Herbelot whose Bibliotheque Orientale, left
unfinished at his death, he had the honour of completing and
prefacing.[FN#202] President Bignon died within the twelvemonth,
which made Galland attach himself in 1697 to M. 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 numismatic collection he found materials for a long
succession of works, including a translation of the
Koran.[FN#203] They recommended him strongly to the literary
world and in 1701 he was made a member of the Academie des
Inscriptions et Belles Lettres.

At Caen Galland issued in 1704,[FN#204] the first part of his
Mille et une Nuits, Contes Arabes traduits en Francois which at
once became famous as "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments."
Mutilated, fragmentary and paraphrastic 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 recognised that it stood in presence of a monumental
literary work. France was a-fire with delight at a 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 ancien regime with its indecently tight
garments and perfectly loose morals. "Ils produisirent," said
Charles Nodier, a genius in his way, "des le moment de leur
publication, cet effet qui assure aux productions de l'esprit une
vogue populaire, quoiqu'ils appartinssent a une litterature peu
connue en France; et que ce genre de composition admit ou plutot
exigeat des details de moeurs, de caractere, de costume et de
localites absolument etrangers a toutes les idees etablies dans
nos contes et nos romans. On fut etonne du charme que resultait
du leur lecture. C'est que la verite des sentimens, la nouveaute
des tableaux, une imagination feconde en prodiges, un coloris
plein de chaleur, l'attrait d'une sensibilite sans pretention, et
le sel d'un comique sans caricature, c'est que l'esprit et le
naturel enfin plaisent partout, et plaisent a tout le
monde."[FN#205]

The Contes Arabes at once made Galland's name and a popular tale
is told of them and him known to all reviewers who, however,
mostly mangle it. In the Biographie Universelle of
Michaud[FN#206] we find:--Dans les deux premiers volumes de ces
contes l'exorde etait toujours, "Ma chere soeur, si vous ne dormez
pas, faites-nous un de ces contes que vous savez." Quelques
jeunes gens, ennuyes de cette plate uniformite, allerent une nuit
qu'il faisait tres-grand froid, frapper a la porte de l'auteur,
qui courut en chemise a sa fenetre. Apres l'avoir fait morfondre
quelque temps par diverses questions insignificantes, ils
terminerent en lui disant, "Ah, Monsieur Galland, si vous ne
dormez pas, faites-nous un de ces beaux contes que vous savez si
bien." Galland profita de la lecon, et supprima dans les volumes
suivants le preambule qui lui avait attire la plaisanterie. This
legend has the merit of explaining why the Professor so soon gave
up the Arab framework which he had deliberately adopted.

The Nights was at once translated from the French[FN#207] though
when, where and by whom no authority seems to know. In Lowndes'
"Bibliographer's Manual" the English Editio Princeps is thus
noticed, "Arabian Nights' Entertainments translated from the
French, London, 1724, 12mo, 6 vols." and a footnote states that
this translation, very inaccurate and vulgar in its diction, was
often reprinted. In 1712 Addison introduced into the Spectator
(No. 535, Nov. 13) the Story of Alnaschar ( = Al-Nashshar, the
Sawyer) and says that his remarks on Hope "may serve as a moral
to an Arabian tale which I find translated into French by
Monsieur Galland." 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 Edit.
Princeps in the British Museum[FN#208] is a set of six volumes
bound in three and corresponding with Galland's first half dozen.
Tomes i. and ii. are from the fourth edition of 1713, Nos. iii.
and iv. are from the second of 1712 and v. and vi. are from the
third of 1715. It is conjectured that the two first volumes were
reprinted several times apart from their subsequents, 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 hitherto
have been in vain.

The popularity of The Nights in England must have rivalled their
vogue in France, judging from the fact that in 1713, or nine
years after Galland's Edit. Prin. appeared, they had already
reached a fourth issue. Even the ignoble national jealousy which
prompted Sir William Jones grossly to abuse that valiant scholar,
Auquetil du Perron, 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."[FN#209]
"When the work was first published in England," says Henry
Webber,[FN#210] "it seems to have made a considerable impression
upon the public." Pope in 1720 sent two volumes (French? or
English?) 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 flights of imagination to his
other estimable qualities, expressed his dislike of these tales
pretty strongly and stated it to be his opinion, formed on the
frequent descriptions of female dress, that they were the work of
some Frenchman (Petis de la Croix, a mistake afterwards corrected
by Warburton). The Arabian Nights, 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 for Scotland,
having one Saturday evening found his daughters employed in
reading these volumes, seized them with a rebuke for spending the
evening before the 'Sawbbath' 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 M. Galland; and, while Dr.
Pusey wrote of them "Noctes Mille et Una dictae, quae in omnium
firme populorum cultiorum linguas conversae, in deliciis omnium
habentur, manibusque omnium terentur,"[FN#211] the amiable
Carlyle, in the gospel according to Saint Froude,
characteristically termed 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 Contes Arabes was that
their style is peu correcte; in fact they want classicism. Yet
all Gallic imitators, Trebutien included, have carefully copied
their leader and Charles Nodier remarks:--"Il me semble que l'on
n'a pas rendu assez de justice au style de Galland. Abondant sans
etre prolixe, naturel et familier sans etre lache ni trivial, il
ne manque jamais de cette elegance qui resulte de la facilite, et
qui presente je ne sais quel melange de la naivete de Perrault et
de la bonhomie de La Fontaine."

Our Professor, with a name now thoroughly established, returned
in 1706 to Paris, where he was an assiduous and efficient member
of the Societe Numismatique and corresponded largely with foreign
Orientalists. Three years afterwards he was made Professor of
Arabic at the College de France, succeeding Pierre Dippy; and,
during the next half decade, he devoted himself to publishing his
valuable studies. Then the end came. In his last illness, an
attack of asthma complicated with pectoral mischief, he sent to
Noyon for his nephew Julien Galland[FN#212] to assist him in
ordering his MSS. and in making his will after the simplest
military fashion: he bequeathed his writings to the Bibliotheque
du Roi, his Numismatic Dictionary to the Academy and his Alcoran
to the Abbe Bignon. He died, aged sixty-nine on February 17,
1715, leaving his second part of The Nights unpublished.[FN#213]

Professor Galland was a French litterateur of the good old school
which is rapidly becoming extinct. Homme vrai dans les moindres
choses (as his Eloge stated); simple in life and manners and
single-hearted in his devotion to letters, he was almost childish
in worldly matters, while notable for penetration and acumen in
his studies. He would have been as happy, one of his biographers
remarks, in teaching children the elements of education as he was
in acquiring his immense erudition. Briefly, truth and honesty,
exactitude and indefatigable industry characterised his most
honourable career.

Galland informs us (Epist. Ded.) that his MS. consisted of four
volumes, only three of which are extant,[FN#214] bringing the
work down to Night cclxxxii., or about the beginning of
"Camaralzaman." The missing portion, if it contained like 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 Bresl. Edit. 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 third he interpolated, or is supposed to have interpolated,
the ten[FN#215] following tales.

1. Histoire du prince Zeyn Al-asnam et du Roi des
Genies.[FN#216]
2. Histoire de Codadad et de ses freres.
3. Histoire de la Lampe merveilleuse (Aladdin).
4. Histoire de l'aveugle Baba Abdalla.
5. Histoire de Sidi Nouman.
6. Histoire de Cogia Hassan Alhabbal.
7. Histoire d'Ali Baba, et de Quarante Voleurs extermines par
une Esclave.
8. Histoire d'Ali Cogia, marchand de Bagdad.
9. Histoire du prince Ahmed et de la fee Peri-Banou.
10. Histoire de deux Soeurs jalouses de leur Cadette.[FN#217]

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. De Sacy held that they were found by Galland in the
public libraries of Paris. Mr. Chenery, whose acquaintance with
Arabic grammar was ample, suggested that the Professor had
borrowed them from the recitations of the Rawis, rhapsodists or
professional story-tellers in the bazars of Smyrna and other
ports of the Levant. The late Mr. Henry Charles Coote (in the
"Folk-Lore Record," vol. iii. Part ii. p. 178 et seq.), "On the
source of some of M. Galland's Tales," quotes from popular
Italian, Sicilian and Romaic stories incidents identical with
those in Prince Ahmad, Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Envious Sisters,
suggesting that the Frenchman had heard these paramythia in
Levantine coffee-houses and had inserted them into his unequalled
corpus fabularum. Mr. Payne (ix. 268) 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 er Rashid and other well-known tales of the
original work;" and adds, "It is possible that an exhaustive
examination of the various MS. copies of the Thousand and 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 "Zeyn Al-asnam" as cases in point; but I
should expect, for reasons before given, to find the stories in a
Persic rather than an Arabic MS. And I feel convinced that all
will be recovered: Galland was not the man to commit a literary
forgery.

As regards Aladdin, the most popular tale of the whole work, I am
convinced that it is genuine, although my unfortunate friend, the
late Professor Palmer, doubted its being an Eastern story. It is
laid down upon all the lines of Oriental fiction. The
mise-en-scene is China, "where they drink a certain warm liquor"
(tea); the hero's father is a poor tailor; and, as in "Judar and
his Brethren," the Maghribi Magician presently makes his
appearance, introducing the Wonderful Lamp and the Magical Ring.
Even the Sorcerer's cry, "New lamps for old lamps !"--a prime
point--is paralleled in the Tale of the Fisherman's Son,[FN#218]
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. In either 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 together ever after.

All Arabists have remarked the sins of omission and commission,
of abridgment, amplification and substitution, and the audacious
distortion of fact and phrase in which Galland 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 begueule of European languages,
was bound by a rigorisme of the narrowest and the straightest of
lines from which the least ecart condemned a man as a barbarian
and a tudesque. If we consider Galland fairly we shall find that
he errs mostly for a purpose, that of popularising his work; and
his success indeed justified his means. He has been derided (by
scholars) for "He Monsieur!" and "Ah Madame!"; but he could not
write "O mon sieur" and "O ma dame;" although we can borrow from
biblical and Shakespearean English, "O my lord!" and "O my lady!"
"Bon Dieu! ma soeur" (which our translators English by "O
heavens," Night xx.) is good French for Wa'llahi--by Allah; and
"cinquante cavaliers bien faits" ("fifty handsome gentlemen on
horseback") is a more familiar picture than fifty knights.
"L'officieuse Dinarzade" (Night lxi.), and "Cette plaisante
querelle des deux freres" (Night 1xxii.) become ridiculous only
in translation--"the officious Dinarzade" and "this pleasant
quarrel;" while "ce qu'il y de remarquable" (Night 1xxiii.) would
relieve the Gallic mind from the mortification of "Destiny
decreed." "Plusieurs sortes de fruits et de bouteilles de vin"
(Night ccxxxi. etc.) Europeanises flasks and flaggons; and the
violent convulsions in which the girl dies (Night cliv., her head
having been cut off by her sister) is mere Gallic squeamishness:
France laughs at "le shoking" in England but she has only to look
at home especially during the reign of Galland's contemporary--
Roi Soleil. The terrible "Old man" (Shaykh) "of the Sea" (-
board) is badly described by "l'incommode vieillard" ("the ill-
natured old fellow"): "Brave Maimune" and "Agreable Maimune" are
hardly what a Jinni would say to a Jinniyah (ccxiii.); but they
are good Gallic. The same may be noted of "Plier les voiles pour
marque qu'il se rendait" (Night ccxxxv.), a European practice;
and of the false note struck in two passages. "Je m'estimais
heureuse d'avoir fait une si belle conquete" (Night 1xvii.) gives
a Parisian turn; and, "Je ne puis voir sans horreur cet
abominable barbier que voila: quoiqu'il soit ne dans un pays ou
tout le monde est blanc, il ne laisse pas a resembler a un
Ethiopien; mais il a l'ame encore plus noire et horrible que le
visage" (Night clvii.), is a mere affectation of Orientalism.
Lastly, "Une vieille dame de leur connaissance" (Night clviii.)
puts French polish upon the matter of fact Arab's "an old woman."

The list of absolute mistakes, not including violent liberties,
can hardly be held excessive. Professor Weil and Mr. Payne (ix.
271) justly charge Galland with making the Trader (Night i.)
throw away the shells (ecorces) of the date which has only a
pellicle, as Galland certainly knew; but dates were not seen
every day in France, while almonds and walnuts were of the quatre
mendiants. He preserves the ecorces, which later issues have
changed to noyaux, probably in allusion to the jerking practice
called Inwa. Again in the "First Shaykh's Story" (vol. i. 27)
the "maillet" is mentioned as the means of slaughtering cattle,
because familiar to European readers: at the end of the tale it
becomes "le couteaufuneste." In Badral Din a "tarte a 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 bag-trousers (not only
"son habit") and placed them under the pillow, a crucial fact in
the history, our Professor sends him to bed fully dressed,
apparently for the purpose of informing his readers in a foot-
note that Easterns "se couchent en calecon" (Night lxxx.). It
was mere ignorance to confound the arbalete or cross-bow with the
stone-bow (Night xxxviii.), but this has universally been done,
even by Lane who ought to have known better; and it was an
unpardonable carelessness or something worse to turn Nar (fire)
and Dun (in lieu of) into "le faux dieu Nardoun" (Night lxv.): as
this has been untouched by De Sacy, I cannot but conclude that he
never read the text with the translation. Nearly as bad also to
make the Jewish physician remark, when the youth gave him the
left wrist (Night cl.), "voila une grande ignorance de ne savoir
pas que l'on presente la main droite a un medecin et non pas la
gauche"--whose exclusive use all travellers in the East must
know. I have noticed the incuriousness which translates "along
the Nile-shore" by "up towards Ethiopia" (Night cli.), and the
"Islands of the Children of Khaledan" (Night ccxi.) instead of
the Khalidatani or Khalidat, the Fortunate Islands. It was by no
means "des petite soufflets" ("some taps from time to time with
her fingers") which the sprightly dame administered to the
Barber's second brother (Night clxxi.), but sound and heavy
"cuffs" on the nape; and the sixth brother (Night clxxx.) was not
"aux levres fendues" ("he of the hair-lips"), for they had been
cut off by the Badawi jealous of his fair wife. Abu al-Hasan
would not greet his beloved by saluting "le tapis a ses pieds:"
he would kiss her hands and feet. Haiatalnefous (Hayat al-Nufus,
Night ccxxvi.) would not "throw cold water in the Princess's
face:" she would sprinkle it with eau-de-rose. "Camaralzaman" I.
addresses his two abominable wives in language purely European
(ccxxx.), "et de la vie il ne s'approcha d'elles," missing one of
the fine touches of the tale which shows its hero a weak and
violent man, hasty and lacking the pundonor. "La belle
Persienne," in the Tale of Nur al-Din, was no Persian; nor would
her master address her, "Venez ca, impertinente!" ("come hither,
impertinence"). In the story of Badr, one of the Comoro Islands
becomes "L'ile de la Lune." "Dog" and "dog-son" are not "injures
atroces et indignes d'un grand roi:" the greatest Eastern kings
allow themselves far more energetic and significant language.

Fitnah[FN#219] is by no means "Force de coeurs." Lastly the
denouement of The Nights is widely different in French and in
Arabic; but that is probably not Galland's fault, as he never saw
the original, and indeed he deserves high praise for having
invented so pleasant and sympathetic a close, inferior only to
the Oriental device.[FN#220]

Galland's fragment has a strange effect upon the Orientalist and
those who take the scholastic view, be it wide or narrow. De
Sacy 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 Galland's paraphrase,
which contains only a quarter of The Thousand Nights and a Night,
as a wholly different book. Its attempts to amplify beauties and
to correct or conceal the defects and the grotesqueness of the
original, absolutely suppress much of the local colour, clothing
the bare body in the best of 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, applied to a race of familiar ways and
thoughts, manners 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 tone
of passages which crowd upon them. We miss the odeur du sang
which taints the parfums du harem; also the humouristic tale and
the Rabelaisian outbreak which relieve and throw out into strong
relief the splendour of Empire and the havoc of Time. Considered
in this light it is a caput mortuum, a magnificent texture seen
on the wrong side; and it speaks volumes for the genius of the
man who could recommend it in such blurred and caricatured
condition to readers throughout the civilised world. But those
who look only at Galland's 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: they arouse 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 Hindostani. The latter entitles
them Hikayat al-Jalilah or Noble Tales, and the translation was
made by Munshi Shams al-Din Ahmad for the use of the College of
Fort George in A.H. 1252 = 1836.[FN#221] All these versions are
direct from the Arabic: my search for a translation of Galland
into any Eastern tongue has hitherto been fruitless.

I was assured by the late Bertholdy Seemann that the "language of
Hoffmann and Heine" contained a literal and complete translation
of The Nights; but personal enquiries at Leipzig and elsewhere
convinced me that the work still remains to be done. The first
attempt to improve upon Galland and to show the world what the
work really is was made by Dr. Max Habicht and was printed at
Breslau (1824-25), in fifteen small square volumes.[FN#222] Thus
it appeared before the "Tunis Manuscript"[FN#223] 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 in the most extraordinary blunders and it is utterly
useless as a picture of manners or a book of reference. We can
explain its laches only by the theory that the eminent Professor
left the labour to his collaborateurs and did not take the
trouble to revise their careless work.

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