The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 13, Sir Richard Francis Burton [ebook offline txt] 📗

“Heir of Linne,” who, when reduced to utter poverty, in obedience to his dying father’s injunction, should such be his hap, went to hang himself in the “lonely lodge” and found there concealed a store of gold.

 

With regard to the second part of the tale of Zayn al-Asnam—the Quest of the Ninth Image—and the Turkish version of which my friend Mr. Gibb has kindly furnished us with a translation from the mystical work of ‘Al� ‘Az�z Efendi, the Cretan, although no other version has hitherto been found,[FN#382] I have little doubt that the story is of either Indian or Persian extraction, images and pictures being abhorred by orthodox (or sunni) Muslims generally; and such also, I think, should we consider all the Arabian tales of young men becoming madly enamoured of beautiful girls from seeing their portraits—though we can readily believe that an Arab as well as a Persian or Indian youth might fall in love with a pretty maid from a mere description of her personal charms, as we are told of the Bedouin coxcomb Amarah in the Romance of Antar. If the Turkish version, which recounts the adventures of the Prince Abd es-Samed in quest of the lacking image (the tenth, not the ninth, as in the Arabian) was adapted from Zayn al-Asnam, the author has made considerable modifications in retelling the fascinating story, and, in my opinion, it is not inferior to the Arabian version. In the Turkish, the Prince’s father appears to him in a vision of the night,[FN#383] and conducts him to the treasure-vault, where he sees the vacant pedestal and on it the paper in which his father directs him to go to Cairo and seek counsel of the Shaykh Mubarak, who would instruct him how to obtain the lacking image; and the prince is commissioned by the shaykh to bring him a spotless virgin who has never so much as longed for the pleasures of love, when he should receive the image for his reward. The shaykh gives him a mirror which should remain clear when held before such a virgin, but become dimmed when reflecting the features of another sort of girl; also a purse which should be always full of money.[FN#384] In the Arabian story the Shaykh Mubarak accompanies Zayn al-Asnam in his quest of the image to the land of Jinnist�n, the King whereof it is who requires the prince to procure him a pure virgin and then he would give him the lacking image. In the Turkish version the prince Abd es-Samed proceeds on the adventure alone, and after visiting many places without success he goes to Baghdad, where by means of the Imam he at last finds the desiderated virgin, whom he conducts to Mubarak. In the Arabian story the Imam, Abu Bakr (Haji Bakr in the Turkish), is at first inimical towards the prince and the shaykh but after being propitiated by a present of money he is all complaisance, and, as in the Turkish, introduces the prince to the fallen vaz�r, the father of the spotless virgin. The sudden conversion of the Imam from a bitter enemy to an obliging friend is related with much humour: one day denouncing the strangers to the folk assembled in the mosque as cutpurses and brigands, and the next day withdrawing his statement, which he says had been made on the information of one of the prince’s enviers, and cautioning the people against entertaining aught but reverence for the strangers. This amusing episode is omitted in the Turkish version. In one point the tale of Zayn al-Asnam has the advantage of that of Abd es-Samed: it is much more natural, or congruous, that the King of the Genii should affect to require the chaste maiden and give the prince a magical mirror which would test her purity, and that the freed slave Mubarak should accompany the prince in his quest.

 

Aladdin; Or, the Wonderful Lamp—p. 31.

 

Those scholars who declared a number of the tales in Galland’s “Mille et une Nuits” to be of his own invention, because they were not found in any of the Arabic MS. texts of The Nights preserved in European libraries, were unconsciously paying that learned and worthy man a very high compliment, since the tales in question are among the best in his work and have ever been, and probably will continue to be, among the most popular favourites. But that fact that Galland seized the first opportunity of intimating that two of those tales were not translated or inserted by himself ought to have been alone amply sufficient presumptive evidence of his good faith with regard to the others.

 

A friendly reviewer of my “Popular Tales and Fictions” etc. states that modern collectors of European M�rchen, though “working from 100 to 150 years after the appearance of the ‘Thousand and One Nights,’ in European literature, have not found the special versions therein contained distributed widely and profusely throughout Europe,” and that my chapter on Aladdin is proof sufficient that they have not done so. The reviewer goes on to say that I cite “numerous variants, but, save one from Rome, variants of the theme, not of the version; some again, such as the Mecklenburg and Danish forms, are more primitive in tone; and all lack those effective and picturesque details which are the charm of the Arabian story, and which a borrower only interested in the story as a story might just be expected to retain.”[FN#385]

 

But it is not contended that the folk-tales of Europe owe much, if indeed anything at all, to the “Arabian Nights,” which is not only as it now exists a comparatively modern work—Baron de Sacy has adduced good reasons for placing the date of its composition in the middle of the 9th century of the Hijra, or about 1446 A.D. but was first made known in Europe so late as the first quarter of the last century. Several of the tales, and incidents of the tales, in the “Thousand and One Nights” were current in Europe in the 12th century—

imported by the Moors of Spain, and by European travellers, pilgrims, and minstrels from the East. Thus the Arabian tale of the Ebony (or Enchanted) Horse is virtually identical with the Hispano-French romance of Cleomades and Claremonde; that of Prince Kamar al Zaman is fairly represented by the romance of Peter of Provence and the Fair Maguelone. The episode of Astolphy and Joconde in Ariosto’s “Orlando Furioso” is identical with the opening story of The Nights which constitutes the frame of the collection.[FN#386] The Magnetic Rock (or rock of adamant) which figures in the adventures of Sindb�d occurs in the popular German story of “Herzog Ernst von Baiern,” which is extant in a Latin poem that cannot be later than the 13th century and is probably a hundred years earlier.[FN#387] The Valley of Diamonds in the History of Sindb�d is described by Marco Polo who travelled in the East in the 13th century; moreover, it had been known in Europe from the 4th century, when the story connected with it was related by Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, who lays the scene in Scythia, while Marco Polo and the author of Sindb�d’s Voyages both place it in India, where the fiction probably had its origin When we find a popular (i.e. oral) European tale reproduce the most minute details of a story found in The Nights, we should conclude that it has been derived therefrom and within quite recent times, and such I am now disposed to think is the case of the Roman version of Aladdin given by Miss Busk under the title of “How Cajusse was Married,” notwithstandtng the circumstance that the old woman from whom it was obtained was almost wholly illiterate. A child who could read might have told the story out of Galland to his or her nurse, through whom it would afterwards assume local colour, with some modifications of the details. But stories having all the essential features of the tale of Aladdin were known throughout Europe long before Galland’s work was published, and in forms strikingly resembling other Asiatic versions, from one of which the Arabian tale must have been adapted. The incidents of the Magician and Aladdin at the Cave, and the conveying of the Princess and the vaz�r’s son three nights in succession to Aladdin’s house (which occurs, in modified forms, in other tales in The Nights), I consider as the work of the Arabian author. Stripped of these particulars, the elements of the tale are identical in all versions, Eastern and Western: a talisman, by means of which its possessor can command unlimited wealth, &c.; its loss and the consequent disappearance of the magnificent palace erected by supernatural agents who are subservient to the owner of the talisman, and finally its recovery together with the restoration of the palace to its original situation. The Arabian tale is singular in the circumstance of the talisman (the Lamp) being recovered by human means—by the devices of the hero himself, in fact, since in all the European and the other Asiatic forms of the story it is recovered by, as it was first obtained from, grateful animals. To my mind, this latter is the pristine form of the tale, and points to a Buddhist origin—mercy to all hying creatures being one of the leading doctrines of pure Buddhism.

 

The space at my disposal does not admit of the reproduction in extenso of the numerous versions or variants of Aladdin: a brief outline of their features will however serve my purpose. In the tale of Mar�f the Cobbler, which concludes the B�l�k and Calcutta printed texts of The Nights, we have an interesting version of Aladdin. The hero runs away from his shrewish wife and under false presences is married to a king’s daughter. He confesses his imposture to the princess, who loves him dearly, and she urges him to flee from her father’s vengeance and not to return until his death should leave the throne vacant, and having furnished him with money, he secretly quits the city at daybreak. After riding some distance, he begins to feel hungry, and seeing a peasant ploughing a field he goes up to him and asks for some food. The peasant sets off to his house for eatables and meanwhile Mar�f begins to plough a furrow, when presently the ploughshare strikes against something hard, which he finds to be an iron ring. He tugs at the ring and raises a slab, which discovers a number of steps, down which he goes and comes into a cavern filled with gold and precious stones, and in a box made of a single diamond he finds a talismanic ring, on placing which on his finger a monstrous figure appears and expresses his readiness and ability to obey all his commands. In brief, by means of this genie, the hero obtains immense wealth in gold and jewels, and also rich merchandise, which enable him to return to the city in the capacity of a merchant, which he had professed himself when he married the princess. The vaz�r, who had from the first believed him to be an arrant impostor, lays a plot with the King to worm out of him the secret of his wealth, and succeeds so well at a private supper, when Mar�f is elevated with wine, that he obtains possession of the ring, summons the genie, and causes him to carry both the King and Mar�f into a far distant desert. He then compels the other ministers and the people to acknowledge him as king, and resolves to marry the princess. She temporises with him; invites him to sup with her; plies him with wine, induces him to throw the ring into a corner of the room, pretending to be afraid of the demon who is held captive in it; and when he has become insensible (in plain