The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, vol 15 - Sir Richard Francis Burton (world best books to read txt) 📗

mouse. Injustice then persuaded her to put out her eyes, for she wanted to be rich, and to have a fine carriage too; and then Truth told her to descend. Truth herself drove away, and seldom shows herself to men.

 

Injustice wandered about the country till she found the walnut tree, up which she climbed. When evening came, the wolf and the fox met under the tree again to talk. Both were now in trouble, for the wolf could not steal an animal without being seen and pursued by the people, and the mouse could no longer eat meat or collect stores without being disturbed, for the people were no longer obliged to leave their home for a long time to fetch water. Both the wolf and the mouse suspected that some one had overheard their late conversation, so they looked up in search of the listener, and discovered Injustice in the tree. The animals supposed that it was she who had betrayed them, and said in anger, “May our curse be upon you that you may remain for ever blind, for you have deprived us of our means of living.”

 

After thus speaking, the animals ran away, but Injustice has ever since remained blind, and does harm to everybody who chances to come in her way.

 

II.—NOTES ON THE STORIES CONTAINED IN VOLUME XV.

 

By W. F. KIRBY.

 

History of the King’s Son of Sind and the Lady Fatimah (pp. 1-13).

 

P. 3.—This mixture of seeds, &c., is a very common incident in folk-tales.

 

P. 7.—Compare the well-known incident in John xviii. 1-11, which passage, by the way, is considered to be an interpolation taken from the lost Gospel of the Hebrews.

 

History of the Lovers of Syria (pp. 13-26).

 

P. 18.—Divination by the flight or song of birds is so universal that it is ridiculous of Kreutzwald (the compiler of the Kalevipoeg) to quote the fact of the son of Kalev applying to birds and beasts for advice as being intended by the composers as a hint that he was deficient in intelligence.

 

In Bulwer Lytton’s story of the Fallen Star (Pilgrims of the Rhine, ch. xix.) he makes the imposter Morven determine the succession to the chieftainship by means of a trained hawk.

 

P. 26, note 2.—Scott may possibly refer to the tradition that the souls of the dead are stored up in the trumpet of Israfil, when he speaks of the “receiving angel.”

 

History of Al-hajjaj Bin Yusuf and the Young Sayyid (pp. 26-44).

 

P. 30, note 2.—I doubt if the storyteller intended to represent Al-Hajjaj as ignorant. The story rather implies that he was merely catechising the youth, in order to entangle him in his talk.

 

P. 33.—Compare the story of the Sandal-wood Merchant and the Sharpers (Nights, vi. p. 206) in which the Merchant is required to drink up the sea [or rather, perhaps, river], and requires his adversary to hold the mouth of the sea for him with his hand.

 

P. 38, note 1.—It is well known that children should not be allowed to sleep with aged persons, as the latter absorb their vitality.

 

Night Adventure of Harun Al-rashid and the Youth Manjab (pp. 45-80).

 

P. 77.—In the Danish ballads we frequently find heroes appealing to their mothers or nurses in cases of difficulty. Compare “Habor and Signild,” and “Knight Stig’s Wedding,” in Prior’s Danish Ballads, i. p. 216 and ii. p. 339.

 

Story of the Darwaysh and the Barber’s Boy and the Greedy Sultan (pp. 80-88).

 

This story belongs to the large category known to students of folklore as the Sage and his Pupil; and of this again there are three main groups: 1. Those in which (as in the present instance) the two remain on friendly terms.

 

2. Those in which the sage is outwitted and destroyed by his pupil (e.g., Cazotte’s story of the Maugraby; or Spitta Bey’s tales, No. 1).

 

3. Those in which the pupil attempts to outwit or to destroy the sage, and is himself outwitted or destroyed (e.g., The Lady’s Fifth Story, in Gibb’s Forty Vezirs, pp. 76-80; and his App. B. note v., p. 413).

 

The Loves of Al-hayfa and Yusuf (pp. 93-166).

 

P. 114, note 4.—I believe that a sudden attack of this kind is always speedily fatal.

 

The Goodwife of Cairo and Her Four Gallants (pp.

193-217).

 

P. 194, note 2.—It may be worth while to note that Swedenborg asserts that it is unlawful in Heaven for any person to look at the back of the head of another, as by so doing he interrupts the divine influx. The foundation of this idea is perhaps the desire to avoid mesmeric action upon the cerebellum.

 

Tale of Mohsin and Muss (pp. 232-241).

 

The notes on the story of Abu Niyyat and Abu Niyyateen (supra, pp. 356) will apply still better to the present story.

 

The Merchant’s Daughter, and the Prince of Al-irak (pp.

264-317).

 

Pp. 305-312.—The case of Tobias and Sara (Tobit, chaps. iii.-viii.) was very similar: but in this instance the demon Asmodeus was driven away by fumigating with the liver and heart of a fish.

 

Arabian Nights, Volume 15

Footnotes

 

[FN#1] In the same volume (ii. 161) we also find an “Introductory Chapter of the Arabian Tales,” translated from an original manuscript by Jonathan Scott, Esq. neither MS nor translation having any meet. In pp. 34, 35 (ibid.) are noticed the ‘Contents of a Fragment of the Arabian Nights procured in India by James Anderson, Esq., a copy of which” (made by his friend Scott) “is now in the possession of Jonathan Scott, Esq.” (See Scott, vol.

vi. p. 451.) For a short but sufficient notice of this fragment cf. the Appendix (vol. x. p. 439) to my Thousand Nights and a Night, the able and conscientious work of Mr. W. F. Kirby. “The Labourer and the Flying Chain” (No. x.) and “The King’s Son who escaped death by the ingenuity of his Father’s seven Viziers”

(No. xi.) have been translated or rather abridged by Scott in his “Tales, Anecdotes and Letters” before alluded to, a vol. of pp.

446 containing scraps from the Persian “Tohfat al-Maj�lis” and “Hazliy�t’ Abb�d Zahk�ni” (Faceti� of �Abb�d the Jester), with letters from Aurangzeb and other such padding much affected by the home public in the Early XIXth Century.

 

[FN#2] So called from Herr Uri, a Hungarian scholar who first catalogued “The Contents.”

 

[FN#3] W. M. MS. iv. 165�189: Scott (vi. 238�245), “Story of the Prince of Sind, and Fatima, daughter of Amir Bin Naomaun”: Gauttier (vi. 342�348) Histoire du Prince de Sind et de Fatime.

Sind is so called from Sindhu, the Indus (in Pers. Sind�b), is the general name of the riverine valley: in early days it was a great station of the so-called Aryan race, as they were migrating eastwards into India Proper, and it contains many Holy Places dating from the era of the Pur�n�s. The Moslems soon made acquaintance with it, and the country was conquered and annexed by Mohammed bin K�sim, sent to attack it by the famous or infamous Hajj�j bin Y�suf the Thakafite, lieutenant of Al-‘Ir�k under the Ommiade Abd al-Malik bin Marw�n. For details, see my “Sind Revisited”: vol. i. chapt. viii.

 

[FN#4] [In MS. “shakhat,” a modern word which occurs in Spitta Bey’s “Contes Arabes Modernes,” spelt with the palatal instead of the dental, and is translated there by “injurier.”—ST.]

 

[FN#5] In the text “Sahr�j”; hence the “Chafariz” (fountain) of Portugal, which I derived (Highlands of the Brazil, i. 46) from “Sak�r�j.” It is a “Moghrabin” word=fonte, a fountain, preserved in the Brazil and derided in the mother country, where a New World village is described as

 

—Chafariz,

Joam Antam e a Matriz:

 

which may be roughly rendered

 

—Parish church,

on the Green and Johnny Birch.

 

[FN#6] [Here I suppose the scribe dropped a word, as “yaht�j,” or the like, and the sentence should read: it requires, etc.—ST.]

 

[FN#7] In text “S�rayah,” for “Sar�yah,” Serai, Government House: vol. ix. 52.

 

[FN#8] A manner of metonymy, meaning that he rested his cheek upon his right hand.

 

[FN#9] For the sig. of this phrase=words suggested by the circumstances, see vol. i. 121.

 

[FN#10] Mr. Charles M. Doughty (“Arabia Deserta,” i. 223) speaks of the Badawin who sit beating the time away, and for pastime limning with their driving-sticks (the B�k�r) in the idle land.”

 

[FN#11] In text “Lam yanub al-W�hidu min-hum nisf haff�n.” [I cannot explain this sentence satisfactory to myself, but by inserting “ill�” after “min-hum.” Further I would read “nassaf”=libavit, delibavit degustavit (Dozy, Suppl. s. v.) and “Hif�n,” pl. of “Hafna”=handful, mouthful, small quantity, translating accordingly: “and none took his turn without sipping a few laps.”—ST.]

 

[FN#12] “Tarajjama”: Suppl. vol. iv. 188. I shall always translate it by “he deprecated” scil. evil to the person addressed.

 

[FN#13] [The text, as I read it, has: “In wahadtu (read wajadtu) f� h�zih al-S�’�h shayyan naakul-hu wa nam�t bi-hi nart�h min h�z� al-Taab wa’l-mashakkah la-akultu-hu”=if I could find at this hour a something (i.e. in the way of poison) which I might eat and die thereby and rest from this toil and trouble, I would certainly eat it, etc.—ST.]

 

[FN#14] See vol. i. 311 for this “tom-tom” as Anglo-Indians call it.

 

[FN#15] i.e. Whereinto the happy man was able to go, which he could not whilst the spell was upon the hoard.

 

[FN#16] Here ends this tale, a most lame and impotent conclusion, in the W. M. MS. iv. 189. Scott (p. 244�5) copied by Gauttier (vi. 348) has, “His father received him with rapture, and the prince having made an apology to the sultana (!) for his former rude behaviour, she received his excuses, and having no child of her own readily adopted him as her son; so that the royal family lived henceforth in the utmost harmony, till the death of the sultan and sultana, when the prince succeeded to the empire.”

 

[FN#17] W.M MS. iv. 189. Scott (vi. 246-258) “Story of the Lovers of Syria, or, the Heroine:” Gauttier (iv. 348-354) Histoire des Amans de Syrie.

 

[FN#18] Scott (vi. 246) comments upon the text:—“The master of the ship having weighed anchor, hoisted sail and departed: the lady in vain entreating him to wait the return of her beloved, or send her on shore, for he was captivated with her beauty. Finding herself thus ensnared, as she was a woman of strong mind …

she assumed a satisfied air; and as the only way to preserve her honour, received the addresses of the treacherous master with pretended complacency, and consented to receive him as a husband at the first port at which the ship might touch.”

 

[FN#19] The captain, the skipper, not the owner: see vols. i.

127; vi. 12; the fem. (which we shall presently find) is “Ra’isah.”

 

[FN#20] Scott (p. 246) has:—“At length the vessel anchored near a city, to which the captain went to make preparations for his marriage; but the lady, while he was on shore, addressed the ship’s crew, setting forth with such force his treacherous conduct to herself, and offering such rewards if they would convey her to her lover at the port they had left, that the honest sailors were moved in her favour, agreed to obey her as their mistress, and hoisting sail, left the master to shift for himself.”

 

[FN#21] In text “Kamrah,” = the chief cabin, from the Gr.

{Greek}(?) = vault; Pers. Kamar; Lat. “Camara”; Germ. “Kammer.”

It is still the popular term in Egypt for the “cuddy,” which is derived from Pers. “Kadah” = a room.

 

[FN#22] Scott makes the doughty damsel (p. 249), “relate to them her