IF THOU PERCEIVEST ERRORS, SUPPLY THE DEFECTS—GLORIOUS
IS HE IN WHOM IS NEITHER FAULT NOR BLEMISH.
INTRODUCTION.
I—ORIENTAL FICTIONS—THE ARABIAN NIGHTS—THE BOOK OF SINDIBĀD.
The Persians, like all Eastern nations, remarks Sir John Malcolm, “delight in Tales, Fables, and Apothegms; the reason of which appears obvious: for where liberty is unknown, and where power in all its shapes is despotic, knowledge must be veiled to be useful.” The ancient Persians also had their Tales and Romances, the substance of many of which is probably embodied in the celebrated Shāh Nāma, or Book of Kings, of Firdausī. And the fondness of the old pagan Arabs for the same class of compositions seems to have threatened the success of Muhammad’s great mission, to win them back from their vain idolatry to the worship of the ONE God. For an Arabian merchant having brought from Persia the marvellous stories of Rustam, Isfendiar, Feridūn, Zohāk, and other famous heroes, which he recited to the tribe of Kuraysh, they were so delighted with them, that they plainly told Muhammad that they much preferred hearing such stories to his legends and moral exhortations; upon which the Prophet promulgated some new passages of the Kur`ān (chapter xxx), in which the merchant who had brought the idle tales and all who listened to them were consigned to perdition. This had the desired effect: the converts to Islām rejected Tales and Poetry; and it was not until the brilliant series of Muslim conquests in all parts of the then known world were almost completed that the Arabs began to turn their attention to literature and science, and thus preserved to the world the remains of the learning and philosophy of antiquity, during the long period of intellectual darkness in Europe. And it is remarkable that to a people distinguished for nearly two centuries by their religious bigotry and intolerance, and contempt for every species of literature outside the Kur`ān, Commentaries, and Traditions—that to the descendants of the fanatical destroyers of the library at Alexandria and of the literary treasures of ancient Persia are we indebted for many of the pleasing fictions which have long been popular in Europe. For, while India seems to have been the cradle-land of those folk-tales, yet they came to us chiefly through an Arabian medium: brought to Europe, among other ways by the Saracens who settled in Spain in the eighth century, by crusaders and pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, and also, perhaps, by Venetian merchants trading in the Levant and the Muslim provinces of Northern Africa. However this may be, there can be no doubt that, as Isaac D’Israeli remarks, “tales have wings, whether they come from the East or the North, and they soon become denizens wherever they alight. Thus it has happened, that the tale which charmed the wandering Arab in his tent, or cheered the northern peasant by his winter’s fireside, alike held on its journey towards England and Scotland.”
Many of the Fabliaux of the Trouvères of northern France are evidently of Oriental origin; and their prose imitators, the early Italian Novelists, also drew much of their material—of course indirectly—from similar sources. German folk-tales comprise variants of the ever-charming Arabian story of `Alī Bābā and the Forty Robbers, as in the tale of “The Dumberg,” and of Aladdin (`Alā-`u-`d-Dīn) and the Wonderful Lamp, as in the tale of “The Blue Light.” Norse Tales, too, abound in parallels to stories common to Arabia, Persia, and India. And some of the incidents in one of them, “Big Peter and Little Peter,” apparently find their origin in the Hebrew Talmud. A very considerable proportion of old European humorous stories ascribed to Arlotto, Tyl Eulenspiegel, Rabelais, Scogin (Andrew Borde), Skelton, Mother Bunch, George Peele, Dick Tarlton, etc., have somehow, and at some time or another, winged their way from the Far East; since they are found, with little modification save local colouring, in very old Indian works. Galland, well-nigh two hundred years ago, pointed out that the story of the fellow in a tavern (according to our version, a blundering Irishman in a coffee-house), who impudently looked over a gentleman’s shoulder while he was writing a letter, came from the East; and a version of it is given in Gladwin’s Persian Moonshee. The prototype of the popular Scottish song, “The Barrin’ o’ the Door,” is an Arabian anecdote. The jest of the Irishman who dreamt that he was invited to drink punch, but awoke before it was prepared, is identical with a Chinese anecdote translated by M. Stanislas Julien in vol. iv of the Journal Asiatique, and bears a close resemblance to one of the Turkish jests ascribed to Khōja Nasru-`d-Dīn Efendī. Of stories of simpletons, such as the one last cited, perhaps the largest and oldest collection extant is contained in a section of that vast storehouse of tales and apologues, aptly entitled, Kathá Sarit Ságara, Ocean of the Rivers of Story, where may be found parallels to the famous—the truly admirable!—exploits of the Wise Men of Gotham, and to a similar class of stories of fools and their follies referred to in Mr Ralston’s Russian Folk-Tales. The story of “The Elves and the Envious Neighbour,” in Mr Mitford’s Tales of Old Japan, is practically identical with a fairy tale of a hunchbacked minstrel in Mr Thoms’ Lays and Legends of France. In the Arabian Nights (Story of Abou Neeut and Abou Neeuteen, vol. vi of Jonathan Scott’s edition) and in the Persian romance of the Seven Faces (Heft Paykar), by Nizāmī, the reader will find parallels to the “Three Crows” in Grimm’s German popular tales. Our favourite nursery story of Whittington and his Cat (also common to the folk-tales of Scandinavia and Russia, Italy and Spain) is related by the Persian historian Wasāf in his “Events of Ages and Fates of Cities,” written A.H. 699 (A.D. 1299). The original of the Goose that laid Eggs of Gold is a legend in the great Indian epic, Mahábharata, and variants exist in other Hindū works; but this may be a “primitive myth,” common to the whole Aryan race. Largely, indeed, are popular European tales indebted to Eastern sources.
For several centuries previous to the publication of the first professed translation of a work of Eastern fiction into a European language, there existed two celebrated collections of Tales, written in Latin, mainly derived from Oriental sources, to which may be traced many of the popular fictions of Europe; these are, the Clericali Disciplina of Peter Alfonsus, a Spanish Jew, who was baptized in the twelfth century; and the Gesta Romanorum, the authorship of which is doubtful, but it is believed to have been composed in the 14th century. The latter work greatly influenced the compositions of the early Italian Novelists, and its effect on English Poetry is at least equally marked. It furnished to Gower and Chaucer their history of Constance; to Shakspeare his King Lear, and his Merchant of Venice, which is an Eastern story; to Parnell the subject of his Hermit—primarily a Talmudic legend, afterwards adopted in the Kur’ān. The Clericali Disciplina, professedly a compilation from Eastern sources, contains a number of stories of undoubted Indian origin, which Alfonsus must have obtained through an Arabian medium in Spain, however they may have come thither. These fictions of Oriental birth were, of course, filtered through the clerical mind of mediæval Europe, and in the process they lost all their native flavour. But on the publication of Galland’s Les Mille et Une Nuits, the Thousand and One Nights, in the beginning of last century, garbled and Frenchified as was his translation, the richness of the Eastern fancy, as exhibited in these pleasing fictions, was at once recognised, and, as the learned Baron de Sacy has remarked, in the course of a few years this work filled Europe with its fame. And its success has continued to increase, so that there is perhaps no work of fiction, whether native or exotic, which is at the present day so universally popular throughout Europe: it is at once the delight of the school-boy and the recreation of the sage. Shortly after its appearance in a French dress, Addison introduced it to English readers in the Spectator, where he presented a translation—or adaptation—of the now famous story of Alnaschar (according to Galland’s French transliteration of the name) and his basket of brittle wares: a story which is not only calculated to please the “rising generation,” but may also instruct “children of larger growth.”
When this work was first published in England it seems to have made its way very rapidly into public favour; and Weber, in his Introduction to the Tales of the East, relates, as follows, a singular instance of the effects they produced soon after their first appearance: “Sir James Stewart, Lord Advocate for Scotland, having one Saturday evening found his daughters employed in reading the volumes, he seized them, with a rebuke for spending the evening before the Sabbath in such worldly amusements; but the grave advocate himself became a prey to the fascination of these tales, being found on the morning of the Sabbath itself employed upon their perusal, from which he had not risen during the whole night!” The popularity of the Arabian Nights is due, no doubt, to the peculiar charm of its descriptions of scenes and incidents which the reader is well aware could only exist and occur in the imagination; but we like to be taken away from our hard, matter-of-fact surroundings—away into a world where, if we cannot ourselves become endowed with supernatural powers, at least we may summon mighty spirits to do our will, to transport us whither we please, to bring us in an instant the choicest fruits from the most distant regions, to construct for us palaces of gold and silver, and precious gems, to supply us with dainties in dishes made of single diamonds and rubies. In this very outraging of probability, and even possibility, lies the strange fascination which some of these Tales exercise over the reader’s mind. He surrenders his judgment to the author, and such is the force of the spell, that even when it has been partly removed by closing the book, he will gravely ask himself: “And why may not such things be?” It has been justly observed by Lord Bacon, that, “as the active world is inferior to the rational soul, so Fiction gives to mankind what History denies, and in some measure satisfies the mind with shadows when it cannot enjoy the substance.”
This famous work is, of course, a compilation, and not by a single hand and at one time, or from a particular source, but from a variety of sources. Many of the Tales are found in the oldest Indian collections; probably the witty and humorous are purely Arabian, while the tender and sentimental love-tales are derived from the Persian. The origin of the Arabian Tales has long been (and perhaps needlessly) a vexed question among the learned. Baron De Sacy has stoutly contended with M. Langles and M. Von Hammer, on the questions of whether the work was a mere translation or adaptation of an old Persian collection, entitled the “Thousand Days,” and when and where it was composed. But the general opinion of scholars at the present day is that the work was probably compiled by different hands, in Egypt, about the 15th or 16th centuries, though it is very probable that many additions were made at a later date, by the insertion of romances, which formed no part of the original collection, as we shall presently see.
A peculiarity of most collections of Eastern fictions is their being enclosed within a frame, so to say, or leading story; as in the Arabian Nights: a plan which appears to have been introduced into Europe by a Latin translation of a romance of Indian origin, known in this country by the title of The Seven Sages, and which was first adopted by Boccaccio in his celebrated Decameron, where it is represented that a party of ladies and gentlemen, during the prevalence of the great plague in Florence, retire for safety to a mansion at some distance from the city, and there amuse themselves by relating stories. And our English poet Chaucer, after the same fashion, in his Canterbury Tales, represents a number of pilgrims, of different classes, as bound for the shrine of Thomas à Becket, and, to alleviate the tediousness of the journey, reciting stories of varied character. But although this plan of making a number of stories all subordinate to a leading story was introduced into Europe in the 13th century, when the Latin version of the “Seven Sages” was published, yet in the East it had been in vogue many centuries previously.
The oldest extant collection of Fables and Tales (excepting the Buddhist Birth-Stories, recently made known to English readers by Mr T. W. Rhys Davids’ translation of a portion) is that called in Europe The Fables of Pilpay, or Bidpai, of which the Sanskrit prototype is entitled Panchatantra, or Five Sections, with its abridgment, Hitopadésa, or Friendly Instruction. This work, or one very similar, existed in India and in the Sanskrit language as early at least as the 6th century of our era, when it was translated into Pahlavi, the ancient language of Persia, during the reign of Nushīrvān, surnamed the Just (A.D. 531–579). This Pahlavi version—though no longer extant—escaped the general wreck of Persian literature on the conquest of the country by the Arabs, and was translated, during the reign of the Khalīf Mansur (A.D. 753–774), into Arabic, from which several versions were made in modern Persian, and also translations into Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and most of the European languages. Perhaps no book of mere human composition ever had such a remarkable literary history and enduring popularity. These Fables, although arranged in sections, are sphered one within another in a rather bewildering manner, yet all are subordinated to a leading story or general frame. It is worthy of note that, while there is no proof that this work, in its present form, existed before the sixth century, yet many, if not all, of the Fables themselves have been discovered in Buddhistic works which were certainly written about or before the commencement of our era. Their translation from the Pali, which the learned Benfey seems to have conclusively proved, and their arrangement in the form in which they exist in Sanskrit, may have been done any time between the first and the sixth centuries.
But there was another Indian work, now apparently lost, formed on the same plan, which, if we may credit El-Mas’ūdī, the Arabian historian, who lived in the tenth century, certainly dates before our era; namely, the Book of Sindibād, of which there have been so many translations and imitations in Asiatic and European languages, and to which the Persian romance reproduced in the present volume is considered to bear some relation. El-Mas’ūdi, in his famous historical work, “Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems,” states very plainly that “in the reign of Khūrūsh (Cyrus) lived Es-Sondbād, who was the author of the Book of the Seven Viziers, the Teacher, the Boy, and the Wife of the King.” According to another Arabian writer, Sindibād was an Indian philosopher who lived about a hundred years B.C. El-Mas’ūdī does not mention the version through which the work was known in his time, but it was probably either in Arabic or Persian. The oldest version known to exist is in Hebrew, and is entitled Mishlī Sindabar, Parables of Sindabar; the change of the name from Sindibād to Sindibar, Deslongchamps conjectures to be a mistake of the copyist, the Hebrew letters D and R being very similar in form. This Hebrew version has been proved to date as far back as the end of the twelfth century. Under the title of Historia Septem Sapientum Romæ, a Latin translation was made—from the Hebrew, it is supposed—by Dam Jehans, a monk of the abbey of Haute Selve, in the diocese of Nancy, early in the 13th century. A Greek version, entitled Syntipas, the date of which is not known, was made by a Christian named Andreopulus, who states in his prologue that he translated it from the Syriac. Notwithstanding this very distinct statement, several learned scholars—Senglemann, among others—have contended that the Syntipas was made from the Hebrew version; of late years, however, a unique but unfortunately mutilated manuscript of the Syriac version, transcribed about the year 1560, was discovered by Rödiger, and reproduced in his Syriac Chrestomathie, in 1868; and a year later Baethgens published, at Leipsic, this text, together with a German translation, under the title of Sindban, oder die Sieben wiesen Meister, from which it appears certain that the Greek version of Andreopulus was made from the Syriac, the order of the stories being the same in both. Besides the Hebrew and Syriac versions of the Book of Sindibād, there exist translations or adaptations in at least two other Oriental languages, the Arabic and the Persian. The Arabian version (to which perhaps El-Mas’ūdī alluded in his mention of the work, as above) now forms one of the romances comprised in the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments”), under the title of “The Story of the King, his Son, his Concubine, and his Seven Viziers;” and an English translation of it was published, in 1800, by Dr Jonathan Scott, in his Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters, from the Arabic and Persian. Two poetical versions have been composed in Persian; one of which, entitled Sindibād Nama, by Azraki, who died, at Herat, A.H. 527 (A.D. 1132–3), is mentioned by Daulet-Shāh, in his life of Azraki, in these terms: “And they say the Book of Sindibād, on precepts of practical philosophy, is one of his compositions.” The other Persian version is known in Europe, I believe, only through Professor Forbes Falconer’s excellent analysis of a unique manuscript, entitled Sindibād Nāma, composed A.H. 776 (A.D. 1374).
It was through the Latin version, Historia Septem Sapientum Romæ, that this very remarkable work was communicated to nearly all the languages of Western Europe; Herbers, or Hebers, an ecclesiastic of the 13th century, made a translation, or rather imitation, of it in French verse, under the title of Dolopatos. Many imitations in French prose subsequently appeared, and from one of these the work was rendered into English, under the title of The Sevyn Sages, and The Seven Wise Masters, one of which is among the reprints for the Percy Society, and of the other Ellis gives an analysis, with specimens in his Early English Metrical Romances. In 1516 an Italian version, entitled “The History of Prince Erastus,” was published, which was afterwards translated into French.
In all these works, a young prince is falsely accused by his step-mother of having attempted to violate her, and the King, his father, condemns him to death, but is induced to defer the execution of the sentence from day to day, during seven days, by one of his seven counsellors, viziers, or wise men, relating to the King one or more stories, designed to caution him against the wicked wiles of women; while the Queen, every night, urges the King to put his son to death, and, in her turn, tells him a story, intended to show that men are faithless and treacherous, and that fathers must not expect gratitude or consideration from their sons. In the sequel, the innocence of the Prince is established, and the wicked step-mother is duly punished for her gross iniquity. This is the leading story of most of the romances which have been derived, or imitated, from the Book of Sindibād; but the subordinate Tales vary materially in the several translations or versions.
Dunlop, in his History of Fiction, remarks that “the leading incident of a disappointed woman accusing the object of her passion is as old as the story of Joseph, and may thence be traced through the fables of mythology to the Italian novelists.” But surely there was nothing so very peculiar in the conduct of Zulaykha (as Muslims name the wife of Potiphar)—nothing very different from human (or woman) nature in general, that should lead us to conclude, with Dunlop, that all the numerous stories based upon a similar incident had their common origin in the celebrated tale of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. We have no reason to suppose a Hebrew origin for the well-known classical legend of Phædra, who was enamoured of Hippolytus, and, unable to suppress her passion, made overtures to him, which were disdainfully rejected; upon which Phædra accused Hippolytus to her husband Theseus of attempting to dishonour her. And although the work ascribed to the Indian sage Sindibād now appears to be lost, yet this “leading incident” of works of the Sindibād-cycle forms the subject of several Indian romances, one of which is a story in verse of a Prince named Sárangdhara, whose step-mother Chitrángí falls in love with him. He rejects her advances, on which she accuses him to the King of attempting to violate her, and the King orders him to have his feet cut off and to be exposed to wild beasts in the forest. The innocence of the Prince is afterwards proved, and the wicked Queen is put to death.
There is yet another work usually considered as belonging to the Sindibād class of romances, namely, the Turkish Tales of the Forty Viziers, which is said to have been composed, during the reign of Sultān Murād II, in 1421, after an Arabian romance entitled “Tales of the Forty Mornings and Forty Evenings,” composed by Shaikh Zāda. But the author of this work, as M. Deslongchamps has justly remarked, has borrowed little from the Book of Sindibād besides the frame. The tales—which are eighty in number, forty of which are told by the Viziers, and forty by the Queen—are quite different from, yet no whit inferior to, those of any version of the King and his Seven Counsellors. M. Petit de Lacroix, last century, made a French translation of this work as far as the story of the Tenth Vizier, which was soon afterwards rendered into English, but divested of much of the Oriental costume and colour. In 1851 Behrnauer issued a German rendering of the Turkish text. And it may interest some readers to know that Mr E. J. W. Gibb—whose recently published translations of Ottoman Poems, with Introduction, Biographical Notices, and Notes, have received the approbation of competent judges—is at present engaged on a complete English translation of this highly entertaining romance.
II—THE BAKHTYĀR NĀMA AND ITS VERSIONS.
Having in the preceding section glanced at the various works of fiction in different languages which have been derived or imitated from the Book of Sindibād, let us now proceed to examine the degree of relationship which the Bakhtyār Nāma bears to the same work. The learned writer of an able and interesting analysis, in the Asiatic Journal, vol. xxx, 1839, of two different manuscripts of the Thousand and One Nights, preserved in the British Museum, has fallen into a singular mistake when he says: “It is curious enough that in each of the two MSS. a tale is interpolated on the plan of the Bakhtyār Nāma. A King wishes to destroy his son, and his Viziers relate stories to prove the malice of women, alternately with the King’s concubine, who has falsely accused the young man, and who tells stories of the subtlety of men.” This is the frame of the Sindibād Nāma, not that of the Bakhtyār Nāma, since in the former the Viziers are the defenders of the innocent, and relate stories on his behalf; while the case is precisely reversed in the Bakhytār Nāma, where the Viziers are the accusers, eager for the death of the innocent young man, and it is the accused youth himself who relates the stories. The only resemblance which the Romance of Prince Bakhtyār bears to the leading story of the Book of Sindibād (and its offspring) is the incident of a youth being falsely accused of attempting to violate the Queen, as will be seen from the following outline of the Bakhtyār Story.
A King, flying from his own kingdom, with his Queen, is obliged to abandon in the desert a new-born male infant, close to a well. This infant is discovered by a band of robbers, the chief of whom, struck with his beauty and the richness of his clothes, carries him to his house, adopts him as his own son and gives him an excellent education. At the age of fifteen years the youth accompanies all the banditti on a plundering expedition, in which they attack a caravan, but are defeated, and many of their number, including the adopted son of their chief, are taken prisoners and brought before the King—the father of the youth, who had in the meanwhile recovered his kingdom. The young man’s grace and beauty so win the King’s heart, that he not only pardons the whole company, but takes the youth into his service, changing his name from Khudādād (God-given) to Bakhtyār (Befriended by Fortune). Bakhtyār acquits himself of his new duties so well that the King promotes him to a more important position—that of keeper of the royal treasury, and his own intimate friend and counsellor. These distinguished favours excite the envy of the King’s Ten Viziers, who become eager for some opportunity of bringing the favourite to disgrace and ruin. And it so chances, one evening, that Bakhtyār, being muddled with wine, straggles into one of the chambers of the harem, and throws himself upon the royal couch, where he falls asleep. Shortly afterwards, the King enters, and, discovering his favourite in the forbidden part of the palace, his jealousy is aroused, and he orders the attendants to seize the unhappy young man, then sends for the Queen, and accuses her of having introduced Bakhtyār into the harem. The Queen protests that she is entirely innocent of the charge, and at her suggestion the King causes them both to be confined for that night in separate apartments, resolving to investigate the affair in the morning. Next day, the first of the Viziers, waiting on the King, is informed of the supposed violation of the harem by Bakhtyār, upon which the Vizier obtains leave to visit the Queen, and ascertain from her the particulars of the affair.
The Queen, on being questioned by the Vizier, denies all knowledge of Bakhtyār’s presence in the King’s chamber (it does not appear, indeed, that she had ever seen him before); but the Vizier assures her that the King would not credit her assertion, and counsels her, if she would save her own life, to accuse Bakhtyār to the King of having presumed to make dishonourable proposals to her, which she had, of course, rejected with indignation. After much persuasion, she at length consents, and accordingly accuses the young man of this capital offence. The King immediately commands Bakhtyār to be brought before him, and after bitterly reproaching him with ingratitude for the many and unprecedented favours which he had bestowed upon him, in the meantime sends him back to prison. On the following day, the second Vizier urges the King to put him to death; and the King causes him to be brought into his presence, and tells him that he must forfeit his life. Bakhtyār, however, in eloquent terms, protests that he is perfectly innocent of the crime of which he is accused, but expresses his submission to the will of Providence, like a certain unlucky merchant, with whom no affair prospered. This arouses the King’s curiosity, and Bakhtyār is permitted to relate the story, after which the King sends him back to prison for that day. Every morning of the eight following days one of the Viziers, in turn, presents himself before the King, and urges that Bakhtyār’s execution should be no longer delayed; but when the youth is brought into the King’s presence, as on the first day, he pleads his own cause so well, and excites the King’s curiosity by reference to some remarkable story, which he is allowed to relate, that his execution is deferred from day to day, until at length the King is reluctantly compelled by the Viziers’ complaints to give orders for the public execution of the young man.
It happens, however, that the robber-chief who had found the royal infant at the well, and brought him up, is, with a party of his men, among the crowd assembled round the scaffold, and recognising in Bakhtyār his adopted son, rescues him from the guard, and hastens to the palace, where, obtaining audience of the King, the secret of Bakhtyār’s birth is discovered; and the King resigns the throne in favour of his son, and causes the Ten envious Viziers to be put to death.
Such is the frame within which nine different stories are inserted; and although it was doubtless imitated from, it has but a faint likeness to, that of the Book of Sindibād. The work which appears most closely to resemble the Romance of Prince Bakhtyār, in the frame, is a collection of Tales in the Tamul language, entitled, Alakeswara Kathá, in which four ministers of the King of Alakapur are falsely accused of violating the King’s private apartments, and vindicate their innocence, and disarm the King’s wrath, by relating a number of stories.
According to M. Deslongchamps, in his learned and elaborate Essai sur les Fables Indiennes, there exist in Oriental languages three versions of the Bakhtyār Nāma—Persian, Arabic, and Turkī (i.e., Eastern Turkish—Uygur). Of the Persian version it is said there are numerous manuscripts in the great libraries of England and France; and besides the printed text appended to Sir William Ouseley’s English translation, published in 1800, a lithographed text was issued, at Paris, in 1839, probably from a manuscript in the Royal Library. The Arabian version, under the title of “The History of the Ten Viziers,” forms part of the text of the Thousand and One Nights, in 12 volumes, of which Dr Maximilian Habicht edited vols. 1 to 8, published at uncertain intervals, at Breslau, from 1825 to 1838 inclusive, when the work was stopped by Habicht’s death. In 1842–3 Professor H. L. Fleischer issued the remaining vols., 9 to 12. The same year when Habicht began the publication of his Arabian text he issued a complete German translation, also at Breslau, in 15 small square volumes, under the title of Tausend und Eine Nacht: Arabische Erzählungen. Zum erstenmal aus einer Tunesischen Handschrift, ergänzt und vollständig übersetzt, von Max. Habicht, F. H. Von der Hagen, und Karl Schall. But both the number and the order of the tales of our romance are quite different in the translation and the text: the sixth volume of the latter, which contains the romance, was not published till 1834, or nine years after the first issue of the translation; and it would seem that Habicht, in editing his Tunisian manuscript, compared it with other texts, and made very considerable changes. The romance is found in a dislocated form in a work, published at Paris in 1788, entitled, Nouveaux Contes Arabice, ou Supplement aux Mille et Une Nuits, &c., par M. l’Abbè * * * In this book (which is of little or no value) the several tales are not placed within the frame, or leading story, which, however, appears in connection with one of them. It is also included in the French Continuation of the Thousand and One Nights, translated by Dom Chavis and edited by M. Cazotte, “but singularly disfigured,” says Deslongchamps, “like the other Oriental Tales published by Cazotte;” in Caussin de Perceval’s excellent edition of the Nights, published, at Paris, in 1806, vol. viii, and in Gauttier’s edition, vol. vi. The learned Swede Gustav Knös published, at Gœtingen, in 1806, a dissertation on the Romance of Prince Bakhtyār, and the year following the Arabic text, with a Latin translation, under the title of Historia Decem Vizirorum et filii Regis Azād-bacht. He also issued a translation in the Swedish language, at Upsal, in two parts, the second of which appeared in 1814. Of the Turkī version M. Amédée Jaubert has furnished, in the Journal Asiatique, Mars 1827, t. x, an interesting account, together with a translation of one of the stories, from the unique manuscript preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which he describes as very beautifully written, the titles of the several tales and the names of the principal characters being in red ink. Unfortunately the manuscript is imperfect; at present it comprises 294 folia. M. Jaubert remarks that this Turkī version is characterised by “great sobriety of ornament and extreme simplicity of style, and the evident intention on the part of the translator to suppress all that may not have appeared to him sufficiently probable, and all that might justly be taxed with exaggeration.”
There is another Oriental rendering, of which M. Deslongchamps was ignorant, in the language of the Malays, with whom the romance is said to be a great favourite, indeed they have at least two very different versions of its frame, if not of the subordinate stories. In Newbold’s work on Malacca, vol. ii, an outline is given of the leading story, or frame, of one Malay version, which exactly corresponds with that of the Persian original, excepting that for Āzād-bakht we find Zād-bokhtin, and that the minister’s daughter, who is carried to the city by the King and in our version is nameless, is called Mahrwat. I am indebted to the courtesy of the learned Dr R. Rost, Librarian to the India Office, for the following particulars regarding two other Malay versions, from Van den Berg’s account of Malay, Arabic, Javanese and other MSS., published at Batavia, 1877. One of these (p. 21, No. 132) is entitled “The History of Ghulām, son of Zād-bokhtān, King of Adān, in Persia,” and the frame agrees with that of our version, as already sketched in the present section, excepting that the robber-chief who had brought up Ghulām (our Bakhtyār), “learning that he had become a person of consequence,” says Van den Berg, “came to his residence to visit him, but finding him imprisoned, he was much concerned, and asked the King’s pardon on his behalf, telling him at the same time how he had formerly found Ghulām in the jungle; from which the King knew that Ghulām was his son,” and so on. The other version (p. 32, No. 179), though similar in title to the Persian original, “History of Prince Bakhtyār,” differs very considerably in the frame, which is thus analysed by Van den Berg: “This Prince, when his father was put to flight by a younger brother, who wished to dethrone him, was born in a jungle and abandoned by his parents. A merchant, Idrīs (Enoch), took charge of him and brought him up. Later on he became one of the officers of state with his own father, who had in the meanwhile found another kingdom, and decided with fairness the cases laid before him. He was, however, put in prison, on account of a supposed attempt upon the King’s life, and he would have been put to death had he not stayed the execution by telling various beautiful stories. Even the King came repeatedly to listen to him. At one of these visits Bakhtyār’s foster-father Idrīs was likewise present, who related to his adopted son how he had found him in the jungle. The King, on hearing this, now perceived that it was his son who had been brought up by Idrīs, recognised Bakhtyār as such, and made over to him his kingdom.”
So far as I am aware, there are but two translations of the Persian version in European languages; one in English, by Sir William Ouseley, which is reproduced in the present volume; the other in French, by M. Lescallier. In his Preface, Sir William Ouseley states that he selected for translation a text composed in the least ornate style, and he seems to have contented himself with a rather free rendering (see prefatory remarks, Notes and Illustrations, page 121 of the present work). M. Lescallier takes care to inform his reader that he adopted another plan: picking out passages from two different manuscripts, and amalgamating his selections into a work which, it is safe to say, does not find its original in any single Persian text extant: his object, indeed, seems to have been to present an entertaining romance to French readers, rather than to produce a translation of any particular Persian original; and it must be admitted that many of the lengthy conversations which occur in his volume are quite as well omitted by Ouseley.
The name of the author of this romance and the precise time when it was composed are not known. Ouseley states that none of the manuscripts of the work which he had seen appeared to be much older than the end of the 17th century. But we are now able to place the date of its composition at least three centuries earlier, since the manuscript of the Turkī version, already referred to, bears to have been transcribed A.H. 838, or A.D. 1434; and it is not unlikely that the translation was made several years before that date. And as well-known or popular works are usually selected for translation, we may reasonably conclude that the Persian Romance of Prince Bakhtyār was composed not later than the end of the 14th century. That it is posterior to the end of the 13th century might be supposed from the circumstance that the author in two instances employs maxims which are found in the writings of the great Persian poet Sa`dī, if we were sure that these maxims are really Sa`dī’s own. It has struck me as rather singular that I can recognise only two of the nine stories which Bakhtyār relates as existing in another Eastern work, namely, the Tūtī Nāma, or Tales of a Parrot, of Nakshabī. This work, according to Pertsch, was written in A.D. 1330, and was preceded by another Persian book on the same subject, by an unknown writer, which was based on an older Sanskrit book (now lost), of which the Suka Saptati, or Seventy Tales of a Parrot, is only an abstract. Nakshabī’s work (adds Pertsch), copies of which are rare, has been greatly superseded by Kāderī’s abridgment, which was written in India, probably about the middle of the 17th century. The “Story of the King of Abyssinia” (pp. 74–85 of the present work) is identical with the story told by the Parrot on the 50th Night in the Tūtī Nāma of Nakshabī (India Office MS. 2573), where it bears the title of “Story of the Daughter of the Kaisar of Rūm, and her trouble by reason of her Son;” and the “Story of the King of Abyssinia” (pp. 62–72) corresponds with the 51st Night, “Story of the Daughter of the Vizier Khāssa, and how she found safety through the blessing of her own purity” (for King Dādīn, and his Viziers Kāmkār and Kārdār of our story, Nakshabī has King Bahrām, and the Viziers Khāssa and Khalāssa). Here the question naturally suggests itself: did Nakshabī take these two stories from the Bakhtyār Nāma, or did the author of the latter borrow them from Nakshabī? It is at least a rather curious coincidence that in the Persian romance of the “Four Dervishes” (Chehār Darvīsh), ascribed to Amīr Khusrū (about A.D. 1300), a work which is best known by its Hindustanī version, Bāgh o Bāhar, or Garden and Spring, occur the names of three of the persons who figure in the Bakhtyār romance: the King, as in our work, is called Āzādbakht, his son Bakhtyār, and Bihzād is the name of a third.
Lescallier, in the Preface to his translation, makes a very extraordinary statement: he says that although nothing is known regarding the authorship and date of the romance, yet the work appears to be very ancient; and remarks that there is nothing found in the book to announce the institution of Muhammadanism—the invocation of the Deity and salutation of the Prophet, at the opening of the work, he thought likely to be an interpolation of the copyists. Now the fact is, that even in his own translation allusions to the rites of Islām, if they are not of frequent occurrence, are yet sufficiently numerous to prove beyond question that the Bakhtyār Nāma, as it exists at present in Persian, has been written, or modified, by a Muslim. To cite a few instances: At page 17 of Lescallier’s volume, we find the King, when he had abandoned his child in the desert, represented as comparing his condition to that of Jacob the Hebrew patriarch when he believed that his son Joseph was dead. M. Lescallier could never suppose that the romance was written either by a Jew or a Christian; therefore this passage clearly came from a Muslim pen. At page 27 mention is made of the “hour of mid-day prayer,” one of the five times of obligatory prayer prescribed to Muslims. At page 94 (p. 52 of the present volume) the two sons of Abū Saber are represented as having said to the merchant who purchased them of the robbers: “We are free-born and Mussulmans.” At page 140 (p. 70 of this work) the cameleer and the lady reach the city “at the hour of evening prayer.” Nevertheless M. Lescallier could not find anything in the work “qui annonce l’établissement du Mahométisme!”
Since the Arabian version of the Romance of the Ten Viziers given in the French Continuation of the Thousand and One Nights, translated, as already stated, by Dom Chavis and edited by M. Cazotte, is not mentioned by M. Lescallier, we must conclude, either that he did not know of it, or that he deemed it beneath his notice. Dom Chavis and M. Cazotte have, in truth, received rather hard treatment at the hands of their critics. Dr Jonathan Scott, amongst others, must gird at Cazotte, though without the shadow of reason. In his edition of the Arabian Nights, published in 1811, Appendix to vol. vi, referring to the English translation of the “Continuation” (see foot-note, page xxxvii), he says that “the twelve first stories in the third volume had undoubtedly an Oriental foundation: they exist, among many others, in a Persian manuscript, lately in my possession, entitled Jamī’u-’l-Hikāyāt, or a Collection of Narratives. Sir William Ouseley has published a liberal translation of them, with the Persian text, by reading which the liberties M. Cazotte has taken in the tale of ‘Bohetzād and his Ten Viziers’ may be fairly seen, and a reasonable conjecture formed of his amplification of all others. Sir William Ouseley’s hero is named Bakht-yār, i.e., Befriended by Destiny, as in my manuscript, in that of M. Cazotte it is probably Bakht-zād, i.e., Born under a Fortunate Planet.” In this last sentence Scott has strangely blundered: the hero of the Persian Tale is certainly called Bakhtyār, but in Cazotte’s version it is the King who is called Bohetzād (or Bakht-zād), and the hero, Aladdin. From these strictures of his it is very obvious that he was not aware of the existence of an Arabian version of this romance. According to Lowndes’ Bibliographer’s Manual, “a valuable edition of the Arabian Nights was published, in 1798, by Richard Gough, considerably enlarged, from the Paris edition, with notes of illustration, and a preface, in which the supplementary tales published by Dom Chavis are proved to be a palpable forgery.” Gough’s name has not come down to us in connection with the Arabian Nights—except through Lowndes, where it is but a name. And Habicht’s Arabian text has very conclusively disproved all Gough’s absurd “proofs;” and, what is more, a comparison of the Romance as given by M. Cazotte with Habicht’s text will not only show that in both are the Tales of the same number and placed in the same order, but the incidents are almost invariably identical. The following is a comparative table of the order of the Tales in the “History of the Ten Viziers,” as they are found in Habicht’s Arabian text, Cazotte, Caussin de Perceval, the German translation, and the Persian version—of the last the order and number of the tales are alike in Ouseley, Lescallier, and the lithographed text:
┌─────────────────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────┬────────────┬───────┐ │ HABICHT’S ARABIAN TEXT. │ Cazotte’s │ C. de │ German │Persian│ │ │Translation.│Perceval.│Translation.│Texts. │ ├──┬──────────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼────────────┼───────┤ │ 1│Introductory Story (King │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Āzādbakht) │ 1│ 1│ 1│ 1│ │ 2│History of the Merchant │ │ │ │ │ │ │ pursued by Ill-Fortune │ 2│ 4│ 2│ 2│ │ 3│History of the Jewel Merchant │ 3│ 8│ 8│ 8│ │ 4│History of Abū Saber │ 4│ 7│ 4│ 4│ │ 5│History of Prince Bihzād │ 5│ 3│ 3│ 3│ │ 6│History of King Dādbīn and his│ │ │ │ │ │ │ Two Viziers │ 6│ 10│ 6│ 6│ │ 7│History of Bakhtzamān │ 7│ 6│ │ │ │ 8│History of King Bīhkard │ 8│ 5│ 5│ 5│ │ 9│History of Īlan Shāh and Abū │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Temām │ 9│ │ 9│ 9│ │10│History of King Ibrahīm and │ │ │ │ │ │ │ his Son │ 10│ 9│ │ 10│ │11│History of Sulaymān Shāh, his │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Sons, his Niece, and their │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Children │ 11│ 2│ 7│ 7│ └──┴──────────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────┴────────────┴───────┘
It will be observed from this table that in Habicht’s Arabian text, in Cazotte, and C. de Perceval there are eleven stories, including the Introductory Tale, which forms part of the frame; and this arrangement is more in accordance with what was evidently the original plan of the romance than is our Persian version, in which there is no story to counteract the arguments employed by the First Vizier against Bakhtyār. In all other romances of the Sindibād cycle, where the sages, or counsellors, relate stories in behalf of the accused, the narrators appear in regular succession, from the first to the seventh (or, in the case of the Forty Viziers, from the first to the fortieth); and there can be little doubt, I think, that in the original Persian romance—probably no longer extant—the First Vizier, as in the Arabian version, was represented as appearing before the King on the first day after Bakhtyār was committed to prison, urging his immediate execution, and the youth, on being brought into the King’s presence, as relating one of the tales included in Habicht’s text, but omitted in our present version. On the Eleventh Day in Cazotte (reckoning the day of our hero’s unhappy adventure as one) the young man relates two stories, that of “Sulaymān Shāh and his Family,” which exactly agrees with Habicht’s text; and a rather pointless story, entitled “The King of Haram and his Slave,” which is probably identical with the eleventh tale in C. de Perceval, entitled “The Freed Slave,” which takes the place of the story of Abū Temām, omitted. The titles of the several stories as given in the above table are those in Habicht’s text. No. 3 in Cazotte is entitled “Ilage Mahomet and his Sons.” No. 8 is “Baharkan, or the Intemperate (i.e., hasty-tempered) Man”—our “King of Yemen” and in the German translation “The Prince of Zanzībār.” No. 10 is in Cazotte also “Ibrahīm and his Son,” and the incidents are the same in both. No. 7, “The History of Bakht-zamān,” also in Cazotte and C. de Perceval, but omitted in the Persian version, treats of the vain attempts of a man to succeed in war or peace without God’s help—utterly vain, unless prayers are offered up for His assistance. No. 11 (our “King of Abyssinia”) has the same title in Cazotte, and in both the story is very differently told from the Persian narrative; it is, however, an excellent tale, and I regret that I have not space here for an analysis of it. In the German translation our tenth story (“King of Persia”) is omitted, although it is found in the Arabian text.
To conclude: I am disposed to believe that the Turkī translation was made from the Arabic, because the story of “King Dādīn and his Two Viziers,” given in pages 189–194, corresponds with Habicht’s text and with Cazotte’s translation, but varies materially from the Persian text, in which the cameleer, who discovers the pious daughter of the murdered Vizier, is represented as being in the service of King Dādīn, who, when informed of the lady’s wonderful sanctity, visits her at the cameleer’s house and becomes reconciled to her; while in the Turkī version, in Habicht’s text, and in Cazotte (who probably knew nothing of the Turkī translation) the cameleer is in the service of the King of Persia, who visits the maiden, marries her, and punishes King Dādīn and the wicked Vizier. If, then, the Turkī version, which dates as far back as A.D. 1434, was made from the Arabic, and if the latter was translated, or adapted, from the Persian, it is not unlikely that the History of the Ten Viziers in its Arabian dress existed some time before the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night was composed in its present form; and therefore the Persian version may be, as Lescallier conjectured, “very ancient.” And since we have discovered that two of the stories exist in a work which is of Sanskrit origin (see pp. xliii and xliv—and in line 6 of the latter for “King of Abyssinia” read “King Dādīn,”), we may go a step farther, and suppose the other stories in the Romance of Bakhtyār to have been also derived from Indian sources.
