The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 16 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (uplifting books for women txt) 📗

1. Alley Baber and Son, a Mock Exchange Story.

2. Ned Redding and the Beautiful Persian.

3. The Ride of Captain Alf Rashit to Ke-Vere-Street.

4. Mr. O’Laddin and the Wonderful Lamp.

 

19. Tales of the Caliph. By Al Arawiyah, 8vo., London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1887.

 

Belongs to Class 5 (Imitations). Consists of fictitious adventures supposed to have happened to Harun Al-Rashid, chiefly during his nocturnal rambles.

 

Separate Editions of Single or Composite Tales (Pp. 439

441).

 

P. 440.—No. 184 was published under the title of “Woman’s Wit” in the “Literary Souvenir” for 1831, pp.217-237.derived from Langles’ version (Mr.

L.C. Smithers in litt.).

 

Translation of Cognate Oriental Romances Illustrative of the Nights (Pp. 441-443).

 

P. 441, No. 1. Les Mille et un Jours.

 

Mr. L. C. Smithers (in litt.) notes English editions published in 1781 and 1809, the latter under the title of “The Persian and Turkish Tales.”

 

P. 443, No. 5. Recueil de Contes Populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura recueillis et traduits par J. Riviere. 12mo. Paris: Leroux. 1882.

 

This collection is intended to illustrate the habits and ideas of the people.

The tales are very short, and probably very much abridged, but many of them illustrate the Nights. I may note the following tales as specially interesting from their connection with the Nights, or with important tales in other collections, Oriental or otherwise.

 

Thadhillala. A brief abstract of No. 151.

 

Les deux Fr�res. A variant of Herodotus’ Story of Rhampsinitus.

 

L’homme de bien et le m�chant. A variant of No. 262; or Schiller’s Fridolin.

 

Le Corbeau et l’Enfant. Here a child is stolen and a crow left in its place.

 

H’ab Sliman. Here an ugly girl with foul gifts is substituted for her opposite.

 

Le roi et son fils. Here we find the counterpart of Schaibar (from No. 197), who, however, is a cannibal and devours everybody.

 

Les Enfants et la Chauve-sourie. Resembles No. 198.

 

Le Joueur de Flute. Resembles Grimm’s story of the Jew in the Bramble-Bush.

 

J�sus-Christ et la femme infidels (=261 b.; cf. Nights, x., p. 420).

 

Le Roitelet. This is the fable of the Ox and the Frog.

 

L’idiot et le coucou (=No. 206a).

 

Moh’amed teen Soltan. This is one of the class of stories known to folk-lorists as the Punchkin series. The life of a Gh�l is hidden in an egg, the egg in a pigeon, the pigeon in a camel, and the camel in the sea.

 

Les deux Fr�res. A Cinderella story. The slayer of a hydra is discovered by trying on a shoe.

 

Les trots Fr�res. Here a Gh�l is killed by a single blow from a magic dagger, which must not be repeated. (Cf. Nights, vii., p. 361.) In this story, too, the protection of a Gh�lah is secured by tasting her milk, a point which we find in Spitta Bey’s “Comes Arabes Modernes,” but not in the Nights.

 

9. Turkish Evening Entertainments. “The Wonders of Remarkable Incidents and the Rarities of Anecdotes,” by Ahmed ibn Hemdem the Kethhoda called “Sobailee.” Translated from the Turkish by John F. Brown. 8vo., New York, 1850.

 

Contains a great number of tales and anecdotes, divided into 37 chapters, many of which bear such headings as “Illustrative of intelligence and piety,” “On justice and fostering care,” “Anecdotes about the Abbaside Caliphs,” &c.

 

“A translation of the Turkish story-book, ‘Aja’ib al-ma’�sir wa ghar� ‘ib ennaw�dir,’ written for Mu�d the Fourth Ottoman Sultan who reigned between 1623-40. A volume of interesting anecdotes from the Arabic and Persian” (Mr.

L. C. Smithers, in litt.).

 

10. Contes Arabes Modernes, recueillis et traduits par Guillaume Spitta-Bey.

8vo., Leyden and Paris, 1883.

 

This book contains 12 orally collected tales of such great importance from a folk-lore point of view that I have given full abstracts of all. They are designed to illustrate the spoken Egyptian dialect, and are printed in Roman character, with translation and glossary. The hero of nearly all the tales is called “Mohammed l’Avis�,” which Mr. Sydney Hartland renders “Prudent,” and Mr. W. A. Clouston “Discreet.” The original gives “Ess�tir Mehammed.”

(Al-Sh�tir Mohammed, i.e., M. the Clever.) The frequent occurrence of the number 39 (forty less one) may also be noted. Gh�ls often play the part which we should expect Jinn to fill. The bear, which occurs in two stories, is not an Egyptian animal. Having called attention to these general features we may leave the tales to speak for themselves.

 

I. Histoire de Mohammed l’Avise.

 

Contains the essential features of Cazotte’s story of the Maugraby (cf.

Nights, x., p 418) with interesting additions. The “Mogr�bin” confers three sons on a king and queen and claims Mohammed, the eldest and the cleverest. He gives him a book to read during his absence of 30 days, but on the 29th day he finds a girl hanging by her hair in the garden and she teaches him to read it, but not to tell the magician. The latter cuts off his arm threatening to cut off his head if he cannot read the book within another 30 days. As soon as he is gone, Mohammed reads on his arm again with the book, and escapes with the girl when they separate and return to their respective homes. Mohammed then changes himself into a sheep for his mother to sell, but warns her not to sell the cord round his neck. Next day he changes himself into a camel, forbidding his mother to sell the bridle but she is persuaded to do so, and he falls into the hands of the magician. But he contrives to escape in the form of a crow and the magician pursues him for two days and nights in the form of a hawk, when he descends into the garden of the king whose daughter he had rescued from the magician, and changes himself into a pomegranate on a tree. The magician asks for and receives the pomegranate, when it bursts, and the seed containing the life of Mohammed rolls under the king’s throne. The magician changes himself into a cock, and picks up the seeds, but while he is searching for the last, it changes into a dagger, and cuts him in two. The princess acknowledges Mohammed as her deliverer and they are married.

 

II. Histoire de l’Ours de Cuisine.

 

This begins as a swan-maiden story.[FN#439] A king steals the feather-dress of a bathing maiden, who will only marry him on condition that she shall tear out the eyes of his forty women (39 white slaves and a princess). The king answers, “C’est bien, il n’y a pas d’inconv�nient.” The forty blind women are shut up in a room under the kitchen, where they give birth to children whom they cut up and divide; but the princess saves her shares and thus preserves her son, whom she calls “Mohammed l’Avis�,” and teaches to read. He steals food from the kitchen, calling himself “Ours de Cuisine,” the queen hears of him, pretends to be ill, and demands that he shall be sent to fetch the heart of the Bull of the Black Valley. He finds a Gh�leh sitting with her breasts thrown back on her shoulders so he tastes her milk unperceived, and she at once adopts him as her son. She gives him a ball and a dagger, warning him that if he strikes the bull more than once, he will sink into the earth with him. The ball rolls before him, and when it stops, the bull rises from the ground. Mohammed kills him, refusing to repeat the blow, returns the ball and dagger to the Gh�leh, and returns home. A few days afterwards, the queen sends Mohammed to fetch the heart of the Bull of the Red Valley, and when he informs the Gh�leh, she says “Does she wish to kill her second brother too?” “Are these her brothers ?” asked Mohammed. She answered, “Yes, indeed, they are the sons of the Sultan of the J�nn.” He kills the Bull as before. A fortnight afterwards, the queen hides a loaf of dry bread under her mattress. When its cracking gives rise to the idea that she is very ill, and she complains of great pain in the sides. She demands a pomegranate from the White Valley, where the pomegranates grow to the weight of half a cantar.[FN#440] The Ghuleh tells him she cannot help him, but he must wait for her son Adberrahym. When he arrives he remarks, “Hum! mother, there’s a smell of man about you, bring him here to me to eat for breakfast.” But his mother introduces Mohammed to him as his foster brother, and he becomes friendly at once, but says that the pomegranate is the queen’s sister. He tells Mohammed to get an ardebb of small round loaves in a basket, along with a piece of meat, and a piece of liver.

The Gh�l then gives him a rod, saying, “Throw it down, and walk after it. It will knock at the garden gate, which will open, and when you enter you will find great dogs, but throw the bread right and left, without looking back.

Beyond a second gate you will find Gh�ls; throw bread to them right and left, and after passing them, look up, and you will find a tree in a fountain surrounded with roses and jasmine. You will see a pomegranate upon it. Gather it, and it will thunder, but fear nothing, and go on your way directly, and do not look behind you after passing the gate.” The queen waits another fortnight, and then demands the flying castle from Mount Kaf, intending that her father, who dwelt there, should burn him. The Gh�leh directed Mohammed to dye himself black, and to provide himself with some mastic (ladin) and lupines. With these, he makes friends with a black slave, who takes him into the castle, and shows him a bottle containing the life of the queen, another containing the eyes of the forty women; a magic sword which spares nothing, and the ring which moves the castle. Mohammed then sees a beetle,[FN#441]

which the slave begs him not to kill, as it is his life. He watches it till it enters a hole, and as soon as the slave is asleep, he kills it, and the slave dies. Then he lays hands on the talismans, rushes into the room where the inhabitants of the castle are condoling with the king and queen on the loss of their three children, and draws the sword, saying “Strike right and left, and spare neither great nor small.” Having slain all in the castle, Mohammed removes it to his father’s palace, when his father orders the cannons to be fired. Then Mohammed tells his father his history, compels the queen to restore the eyes of the forty women, when they become prettier than before, and then gives her the flask containing her life. But she drops it in her fright, and her life ends, and the king places Mohammed on the throne.

 

III.—Histoire de la Dame des Arabes Jasmin.

 

A king sends his wazir to obtain a talisman of good luck, which is written for him by Jasmine, the daughter of an Arab Sheikh. The king marries her, although she demands to be weighed against gold, but drives her away for kissing a fisherman in return for a bottle which he has drawn out of the river for her.

She goes two days’ journey to a town, where she takes up her abode with a merchant, and then discovers that whenever she turns the stopper of the bottle, food, drink, and finally ten white dancing girls emerge from it. The girls dance, each throws her ten purses of money, and then they retire into the bottle. She builds herself a grand