Chapter I: Front Matter

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The THOUSAND & ONE nights.

VOL. I.

LONDON: CHATTO AND WINDUS.

THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS

COMMONLY CALLED THE

ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS

TRANSLATED FROM THE ARABIC, WITH COPIOUS NOTES, BY

EDWARD WILLIAM LANE

EDITED BY HIS NEPHEW EDWARD STANLEY POOLE

FROM A COPY ANNOTATED BY THE TRANSLATOR

WITH A PREFACE BY STANLEY LANE-POOLE AND

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE DESIGNS OF WILLIAM HARVEY

A NEW IMPRESSION IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I

LONDON

CHATTO & WINDUS

1912

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The present edition is an exact reproduction of that edited by my father, with my great-uncle's final corrections, and published by Mr. John Murray in 1859. Several reprints of that edition have testified to the continued popularity of the work, and the necessity for the present issue shows that an acquaintance of nearly half a century has not yet wearied the public of the standard translation of the _Thousand and One Nights_. The secret of Mr. Lane's success is to be found partly in the instinctive sympathy for the spirit of the East, which enabled him faithfully to reproduce the characteristic tone of the original, and partly in the rich store of illustrations of oriental life and thought contained in his Notes. In the various cheap versions, based upon Galland's French paraphrase, the Eastern tone and local colour is wholly wanting; and the peculiarities of life and manners, which contrast so markedly with those of the West, are left unnoted and unexplained. Such versions may serve in an inadequate degree to make the Arabian Nights known to those who care only for the bare stories; but educated readers, who are capable of something more than the mere enjoyment of the romance, and desire to understand the character and habits of the actors and the spectators, find in Mr. Lane's translation, and in his only, a complete satisfaction of their want. It is not merely a scholar's edition, though no oriental student can afford to be without it; but beyond this narrow circle it has ever appealed to the wide audience that cares to know the famous books of the world in their most perfect and faithful reflections.

The actual moment is an opportune one for the reappearance of the work. Egypt just now holds a foremost place in the eyes of the world, and it is of Egypt that the _Thousand and One Nights_ have most to tell. Indian or Persian as many of the tales are in their origin, their setting is almost purely Egyptian; and though the place may be nominally Baghdád or India, or even furthest China, it is in mediæval Cairo, in the days of the Memlooks, that the scene of the Arabian Nights is really laid. The people described are not Hindoos or Chinese, but Arabs and Egyptians as they lived and moved in the fifteenth century, when some of the beautiful mosques and tombs, that still make Cairo the delight of artists, were being built, and the devastating hand of the Ottoman Turk had not yet been laid on the land of the Pharaohs. For a minute picture of Arabian society as it was in the Middle Ages, the _Thousand and One Nights_ have no rival, and it is Mr. Lane's appreciation of this picture, and the wealth of illustration lavished upon it in his Notes, that render his edition the most complete commentary we possess on Muslim life and manners, religion and literature, and make it an indispensable supplement to his famous _Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians_. The poetry of Eastern life is rapidly fading away under the effacing touch of European civilisation; the characteristic society in which an Haroon-Er-Rasheed, an Aboo-Nuwas, a Káfoor, a Saladin, or a Kaït-Bey, revelled and jested and conquered, is fast becoming matter of history rather than of experience, a field for the antiquary instead of the traveller; and it is well that we can reconstruct it in the pages of the _Thousand and One Nights_, whose compiler saw it when it was still almost in its Golden Prime, and in the _Modern Egyptians_, whose author knew it when it still preserved the romantic character which has charmed and fascinated readers of every age and condition.

STANLEY LANE-POOLE.

THE DAY OF TELL-EL-KEBEER, 1882.

THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.

A new edition of this work having been required, Mr. Lane was requested to undertake the correction of the press. But severe literary labours allowing him no leisure for this object, he named me, as his pupil in the study of Arabic, familiar with his writings, and for many years resident with him in Cairo, to fill, in some measure, his place. I have undertaken this duty with great diffidence, from a sense of my own deficiencies and his extensive knowledge; but I have felt that I could at least insure the correctness of the text, and a scrupulous adherence to his wishes. The present edition is printed, without any variations of my own (except those which are marked as such, and have been submitted to Mr. Lane), from a copy of the first and complete edition, with corrections and additions made by Mr. Lane, from time to time, since its first publication. These, however, from the accuracy with which the translation was made, and the fulness of the Notes, are not very numerous. The same reasons have also caused my own notes to be few: I believe that my Uncle's notes are complete in themselves; and that I have sometimes erred, even in the rare exceptions I have made, on the side of unnecessary addition.

An edition of any book not superintended by the author is sometimes regarded with distrust. I would therefore assure the reader that in this instance he may depend even on the punctuation; the whole having been laboriously collated with Mr. Lane's annotated copy, notwithstanding the great delay which this process has occasioned in the printing of the work.

I have called this a _complete_ edition, to distinguish it from two others which have been published without Mr. Lane's notes or his method of writing oriental words, and with other variations from the standard edition. The public appreciation of these notes, and of the advantage of correctly-written foreign words, is, I conceive, proved by the call for the present edition. On the subject of the mode of writing oriental words in European characters, I need say little, for the controversy has well nigh died out. The present generation does not regard antiquated blunders as "the familiar names of childhood," but rather strives to attain accuracy in all things; and those few who still cling to "Mahomet" or "Mahomed" should consistently exhume the forgotten "Mahound" of the Crusades.

The translator's views respecting the origin and literary history of "The Thousand and One Nights" will be found fully expressed in the Review at the end of the third volume. In his original preface, he stated, "The remarks which I here submit to the reader, being written when only one-third of the work to which they principally relate is printed, must unavoidably be more defective than they would be if reserved until a later period. During the progress of the publication I may be enabled to form clearer and more complete views of the several subjects which might with propriety be fully discussed at the head of my translation, and I think it better, therefore, to append at the close of the work many observations which I originally intended to prefix to the first volume." He has therefore wished me to remodel the preface, transferring all portions relating to the subjects in question to the Review, retaining whatever may more properly stand at the commencement of the work, and adding any matter of my own.

The object with which the translation was made is best expressed in the words of Mr. Lane's preface.

"My undertaking to translate anew the Tales of 'The Thousand and One Nights' implies an unfavourable opinion of the version which has so long amused us; but I must express my objections with respect to the latter in plain terms, and this I shall do by means of a few words on the version of Galland, from which it is derived; for to him alone its chief faults are to be attributed. I am somewhat reluctant to make this remark, because several persons, and among them some of high and deserved reputation as Arabic scholars, have pronounced an opinion that his version is an _improvement_ upon the original. That 'The Thousand and One Nights' may be greatly improved, I most readily admit; but as confidently do I assert that Galland has excessively _perverted_ the work. His acquaintance with Arab manners and customs was insufficient to preserve him always from errors of the grossest description, and by the _style_ of his version he has given to the whole a false character, thus sacrificing, in a great measure, what is most valuable in the original work,--I mean its minute accuracy with respect to those peculiarities which distinguish the Arabs from every other nation, not only of the West, but also of the East. Deceived by the vague nature of Galland's version, travellers in Persia, Turkey, and India, have often fancied that the Arabian Tales describe the particular manners of the natives of those countries; but no one who has read them in the original language, having an intimate acquaintance with the Arabs, can be of this opinion: it is in Arabian countries, and especially in Egypt, that we see the people, the dresses, and the buildings, which it describes in almost every case, even when the scene is laid in Persia, in India, or in China.

"Convinced of the truth of this assertion, I consider myself possessed of the chief qualifications for the proper accomplishment of my present undertaking, from my having lived several years in Cairo, associating almost exclusively with Arabs, speaking their language, conforming to their general habits with the most scrupulous exactitude, and received into their society on terms of perfect equality. Since the downfall of the Arab Empire of Baghdád, Cairo has been the chief of Arabian cities: its Memlook Sulṭáns, introduced into Egypt in their youth, naturally adopted, to a great degree, the manners of its native inhabitants, which the 'Osmánlee Turks in later days have but little altered. Cairo is the city in which Arabian manners now exist in the most refined state; and such I believe to have been the case when the present work was composed."

Mr. Lane's first two visits to Egypt were made when, for the last time, Arab manners and customs as they existed in the age of the Arabian Nights could be studied; and his translation was written very shortly after his second return to England. Though some of the tales may be Indian or Persian in origin, in their present state they exhibit a picture of the manners, modes of thought, and language, of the court and times of the Memlook Sulṭáns of Egypt, which nearly resembled in these points those of the Khaleefehs of Baghdád, or the great Arab Empire. De Sacy and Von Hammer, the two celebrated orientalists who differed widely in opinion as to the origin of the book, agreed that the tales in which the Khaleefeh Hároon Er-Rasheed is introduced (the best, with few exceptions, in the collection) are Egyptian in character. But since the "Modern Egyptians" were described by Mr. Lane, all things in the East have changed, and every day witnesses the decay of some old custom, to be followed by a bastard European imitation. During Mohammad 'Alee's rule, all traces of the state and circumstance of the Memlook court gradually passed away. European dress has displaced oriental costume, cloth of gold, and dresses of honour; European architecture elbows the quaint beauty of the old Arab capital; and the cavalcade of fifty horsemen around a grandee is succeeded by an English carriage that profanes the quiet streets of the city, and frightens away both 'Efreets and their memory. Mr. Lane saw the last of Cairo in its integrity; and he has not overstated his qualifications, as author of the "Modern Egyptians," for the task of translating the Arabian Nights.

Of the copy from which this translation was made, and the method observed in its execution, I may again quote the preface to the first edition. Mr. Lane says,--

"I have taken as my general standard of the original text the Cairo edition lately printed; it being greatly superior to the other printed editions, and probably to every manuscript copy.[1] It appears to agree almost exactly with the celebrated MS. of Von Hammer, than which no copy more copious, I believe, exists; and contains all the tales in the old version except those which, as Von Hammer says, Galland appears to have taken from other works, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, in the Royal Library of Paris. The manuscript from which it was printed was carefully collated and corrected by a very learned man, the sheykh 'Abd-Er-Raḥmán Eṣ-Ṣaftee Esh-Sharḳáwee, who also superintended the progress of the work through the press. But in addition to the value conferred upon it by the corrections of this sheykh, the copy from which the whole of my translation is made, except in a few instances, possesses an advantage which, I believe, renders it incomparably superior to any other now existing: it has been again revised and corrected, and illustrated with numerous manuscript notes, by a person whom I think I may safely pronounce the first philologist of the first Arab college of the present day, the sheykh Moḥammad 'Eiyád Eṭ-Ṭanṭáwee, or, more properly, Eṭ-Ṭanditáee. His notes are chiefly philological, and explanatory of words which do not belong to the classical language; and many of them are of very great assistance to me; though most of them I find unnecessary, from the knowledge of the modern Arabic which I have acquired during my intercourse with the people who speak it. His corrections of the text are numerous; and as they would interest very few persons, I have mentioned but few of them in the notes to my translation, notwithstanding a strong temptation that I felt to do otherwise in order that Arabic scholars might be assisted to judge of the fidelity of my version by comparing it with the text of the Cairo edition.[2] To the pieces of poetry which are interspersed throughout the work he has paid especial attention; not only correcting the errors which he found in them, but also always adding the vowel-points, and generally, commentaries or explanations. Thus I have shewn that I am very greatly indebted to him for his learned labours. I should, however, add, that I have ventured to differ from him in interpreting a few words; having found more appropriate meanings assigned to them by Arabs in parts not visited by him, or such meanings given in printed dictionaries with which he is unacquainted; and I have also corrected a few errors which have escaped his notice.[3] Without the valuable aid which he has afforded me, I would not have attempted the translation; nor with it would I have done so were it not for the advantage that I derive from my having lived among Arabs. No translator can always be certain that, from twenty or more significations which are borne by one Arabic word, he has selected that which his author intended to convey; but, circumstanced as I am, I have the satisfaction of feeling confident that I have never given, to a word or phrase in this work, a meaning which is inconsistent with its presenting faithful pictures of Arab life and manners.

"I have thought it right to omit such tales, anecdotes, &c., as are comparatively uninteresting or on any account objectionable. In other words, I insert nothing that I deem greatly inferior in interest to the tales in the old version. Certain passages which, in the original work, are of an objectionable nature, I have slightly varied; but in doing this, I have been particularly careful to render them so as to be perfectly agreeable with Arab manners and customs. It was originally my intention to omit almost the whole of the poetry, thinking that the loss of measure and rhyme, and the impossibility of preserving the examples of paronomasia and some other figures with which they abound, would render translations of them generally intolerable to the reader: but afterwards I reflected that the character of the work would be thus greatly altered; and its value, as illustrating Arab manners and feelings, much diminished. I therefore determined to preserve a considerable number of select pieces, chosen either for their relative merits or because required by the context. The number of those comprised in the first volume of my translation is nearly half of the number contained in the corresponding portion of the original work; but in several cases I have omitted one or more verses of a piece as unsuitable, or for some other reason; and in a few instances I have given only the first verse or the first couplet. These pieces of poetry are not in general to be regarded as the compositions of the author or authors of the work: they appear to be mostly borrowed from others, and many of them are taken from the works of celebrated poets.--To avoid the tedious interruptions which occur in the original at the close of each Night, I have divided the translation into chapters, each of which consists of one tale, or of two or more tales connected one with another, and have merely mentioned the Night with which each chapter commences, and that with which it terminates.

"The original work being designed solely for the entertainment of Arabs, I add copious notes to the translation, to render it more intelligible and agreeable to the English reader. These are entirely my own, except in those cases when I have stated otherwise;[4] and my general object in them has been to give such illustrations as may satisfy the general reader, without obliging him to consult other works. In many of them I endeavour to shew, by extracts from esteemed Arabic histories and scientific and other writings, chiefly drawn from MSS. in my possession, as well as by assertions and anecdotes that I have heard, and conduct that I have witnessed, during my intercourse with Arabs, that the most extravagant relations in this work are not in general regarded, even by the educated classes of that people, as of an incredible nature. This is a point which I deem of much importance to set the work in its proper light before my countrymen. I have resided in a land where genii are still firmly believed to obey the summons of the magician or the owner of a talisman, and to act in occurrences of every day; and I have listened to stories of their deeds related as facts by persons of the highest respectability, and by some who would not condescend to read the tales of 'The Thousand and One Nights,' merely because they are fictions, and not written in the usual polished style of literary compositions."

I have already mentioned that the literary history of "The Thousand and One Nights" is discussed in Mr. Lane's Review appended to this translation. In the course of my Arabic studies, and more especially since I have been occupied in editing the present work, I have endeavoured to form an unbiassed judgment on this difficult question; and all my researches have confirmed me in agreeing with the opinions there expressed. Von Hammer was inclined to lay too much stress on the supposed Persian or Indian origin of these Tales; while De Sacy, on the other hand, rejected the belief in any connection between the old work and the more modern; contending that the latter was an independent production. The discovery, however, of a passage in an Arabic author, by Von Hammer, since the publication of De Sacy's Essay and Mr. Lane's Preface, has placed the matter beyond a doubt; and scholars are now agreed, notwithstanding De Sacy's pleasant sarcasm, and the weight of his great name, that "The Thousand Nights" formed in some measure the prototype of "The Thousand and One Nights." On the other hand, De Sacy's keen appreciation of the modern (and chiefly Egyptian, or Arab,) character of the book, in its present form, must be fully recognised, and was indeed thus acknowledged by Von Hammer himself. The manners, dresses, and modes of thought, portrayed by it are Arab throughout, even in the stories which are probably retained from the Persian or Indian original, of which that of the Magic Horse is the best example in this translation. Besides those relating to the court and adventures of Hároon Er-Rasheed, which, as I have before remarked, are curiously Egyptian, many others appear to have been remodelled, if not actually composed, in Egypt. It is not less true that these tales are generally the best in the collection, if those of the Slave Káfoor, of 'Azeez and 'Azeezeh, and of Es-Sindibád, be excepted; for these certainly are inferior to none. The more colloquial and familiar stories point to the same origin; such as that of 'Alá-ed-Deen Abu-sh-Shámát (which is pervaded by Egyptian characteristics in phraseology and in other respects), that of Aboo-Ṣeer and Aboo-Ḳeer, and that of Maạroof. The stories founded mainly on Persian or Indian originals appear to be those in which supernatural beings play the most conspicuous parts; and, as Mr. Lane remarks, these are generally deficient in verses, although the converse does not hold good of the former class. The anecdotes are mostly historical: many of them are, in the Notes, identified with similar ones in other Arabic works; and almost all are of Arab origin.

The evidences of a late date scattered through the book may be additions of copyists and reciters; but considered with reference to its general character, they have a certain weight that cannot be overlooked: this is carefully stated in the Review.

Mr. Lane's arguments in favour of the collective "Thousand and One Nights" being an individual work, and not one of many similar collections, seem to me to be conclusive: not the least important of these is the fact that no similar collection is known to exist, nor is mentioned by any Arab author, with the sole exception of the old "Thousand Nights," which I believe he has demonstrated to be the prototype, in a remote degree, of the "Thousand and One." To cite the words of the Preface on the question of the original of the work as it is known to us--"I have shewn it to be my opinion that all the complete copies of 'The Thousand and One Nights' now known are in the main derived, though not immediately, from one original; and I hold the same opinion with respect to every fragment containing the commencement of the work;" "not regarding the work as wholly original, nor as the first of its kind; for many of the tales which it contains are doubtless of different and early origins; and I think that its general plan is probably borrowed from a much older production, bearing the same title of 'The Thousand and One Nights,' [or 'The Thousand Nights,'] a translation of a Persian work having a corresponding title, namely 'Hezár Afsáneh.'... One thing is certain--that 'The Thousand and One Nights,' [or 'The Thousand Nights,'] translated from the Persian was much older than the work now known by that title, and also extremely different from the latter."

When these facts are considered in reference to each other, the date assigned, in the Review, to the composition of the work cannot reasonably be regarded as far from the truth. It is in Egypt, and especially in the Memlook court, that we must look to find the people, the manners, and the habits of thought, of "The Arabian Nights;" while the style of the language in which they are written is that which we might expect from an Egyptian of those times, who, unskilled in the classical Arabic, yet endeavouring to imitate it, was doubtless more generally intelligible then than he is now to the modern Egyptians. This assumption of the old language, I may remark, is, and always has been, characteristic of all learned Arabs, be they Egyptians or natives of other Arabian countries (for such Egypt truly is); but no other instance exists of a work of fiction in which the attempt fails so singularly in affecting the classical, or retaining the modern tongue; while all other Arabic _tales_ are certainly composed in either the one or the other. The modern Egyptian romances are mostly written in the colloquial dialect of every-day life; but those which are of older date are not _modernized_, as some have supposed, against all reason, "The Thousand and One Nights" to be: such an alteration would be without a parallel in Arabic literature, as Mr. Lane proves in the Review in a way to relieve me of the necessity of further alluding here to this particular question. "The Thousand and One Nights" exhibit a style which would be unfamiliar to the audience of the reciter of romances, without attaining to the classical diction: and the conclusion is forced on us that the work exhibits the language of a by-gone generation, which (taking into consideration the other indications of its age and country), is, it can scarcely be disputed, that of the later period of the Memlook rulers of Egypt, before the Turkish conquest of that country. In the words of Mr. Lane's Preface:--"Most of the tales which it contains are doubtless of an older _origin_, and many of them founded upon very old traditions and legends; but all these traditions or legends were evidently remodelled so as to become pictures of the state of manners which existed among the Arabs, and especially among those of Egypt, at the period here mentioned; and I think that the composer of the work, or each of the composers, if one commenced and another completed it, was an Egyptian."

But a more popular subject than its obscure origin is the literary merit of this work. The rare fascination of these old Arab stories, their supernatural romance, excessive love, quaint philosophy, and grotesque humour, have, since the days of Galland, secured to them more readers than any other profane work. The translation of Galland, with all its lameness, puerility, and indecency, gained for them a hold which has never been relaxed; and it only required the appearance of a scholarlike and readable translation, freed from these defects, to make them generally accepted in English families. The fashion of travelling in the East has not a little added to the desire for a standard and annotated edition of a work unique, even in those lands of genii and adventure, in its remarkable portrayal of Eastern character, life, and, when closely translated, idiom. The humour of the book, now broad, now subtle, (who does not delight in Káfoor and his "half lie?") renders the comic stories generally superior to the romantic; but the pathos perhaps excels every other beauty. The story of Shems-en-Nahár is remarkable for this characteristic; and that of 'Azeez and 'Azeezeh (first published in this translation), surpasses in delicate tenderness any Arab tale with which we are acquainted.

Of the critical value of Mr. Lane's translation I ought scarcely to speak. Yet I may observe that students of Arabic make it a text-book in reading the original; while the English reader not uncommonly forgets that it is a translation, and detects not the literal accuracy of its rendering of an unfamiliar, or unknown, language.

I have adverted to the system adopted in transcribing foreign words, and I now conclude these preliminary remarks (intended only to render the learned Review easier of perusal to the general reader, and to smooth his first steps in a strange land), by quoting, with some slight improvements by Mr. Lane, the explanation of that system given in the preface to the first edition.

"In writing Arabic and other Oriental words in the present work, I have employed a system congenial with our language, and of the most simple kind; and to this system I adhere in every case, for the sake of uniformity as well as _truth_.[5] Some persons have objected to my writing in this manner a few familiar words which are found in our dictionaries; but they will excuse me for remarking that general usage is not altogether accordant with their opinion. Almost every author, I believe, now writes 'Koran,' or 'Kurán,' and 'Pasha,' or 'Pacha,' for our dictionary-words 'Alcoran' and 'Bashaw;' and most of our best authors on Arabian History, of late, have written 'Khalif' for 'Caliph.' In a work relating to a people who pronounce the Arabic w as v, I should write 'Vezeer' for the Arabic word 'Wezeer;' but to do so when the subject is Arabian, I consider inexpedient: and in this opinion I am upheld by a great majority of literary and other friends whom I have consulted on the subject, in the proportion of five to one. I may add that Dr. Johnson has written in his Dictionary, 'Vizier [properly _Wazir_];' and if we express the Arabic vowels by their _Italian_ equivalents, it _is_ properly 'Wazír' or 'Wezír.'--The system which I here employ requires but little explanation; the general reader may be directed to pronounce

a as in our word 'beggar:'[6]
á as in 'father:'[7]
e as in 'bed:'
é as in 'there:'
ee as in 'bee:'
ei as our word 'eye:'
ey as in 'they:'
i as in 'bid:'
o as in 'obey' (short):
ó as in 'bone:'
oo as in 'boot:'
ow as in 'down:'
and
u as in 'bull.'

The letter y is to be pronounced as in 'you' and 'lawyer:' never as
in 'by.'

An _apostrophe_, when immediately preceding or following a vowel, I
employ to denote the place of a letter which has no equivalent in our
alphabet; it has a guttural sound like that which is heard in the
bleating of sheep: ạ (with a dot beneath) represents the same sound
at the end of a syllable, when it is more forcibly pronounced.

Each of the consonants distinguished by a dot beneath has a
peculiarly hard sound.

Having avoided as much as possible making use of accents, I must
request the reader to bear in mind that a single vowel, when not
marked with an accent, is always short; and that a double vowel or
diphthong at the end of a word, when not so marked, is not accented
('Welee,' for instance, being pronounced 'Wĕ'lee'): also, that the
acute accent does not always denote the principal or only emphasis
('Hároon' being pronounced 'Hároón'); that a vowel with a grave
accent (only occurring at the end of a word), is not emphasized,
though it is long; and that dh, gh, kh, sh, and th, when not divided
by a hyphen, represent, each, a single Arabic letter."[8]

I have only to add one more extract from Mr. Lane's Preface.

"Many of the engravings which are so numerously interspersed in this work will considerably assist to explain both the Text and the Notes; and to insure their accuracy, to the utmost of my ability, I have supplied the artist with modern dresses, and with other requisite materials. Thus he has been enabled to make his designs agree more nearly with the costumes &c. of the times which the tales generally illustrate than they would if he trusted alone to the imperfect descriptions which I have found in Arabic works.[9] Except in a few cases, when I had given him such directions as I deemed necessary, his original designs have been submitted to me; and in suggesting any corrections, I have, as much as possible, avoided fettering his imagination, which needs no eulogy from me. He has acquired a general notion of Arabian architecture from the great work of Murphy on the Arabian remains in Spain, and from the splendid and accurate work on the Alhambra by Messrs. Goury and Jones; and through the kindness of my friend Mr. Hay, of Linplum, he has been allowed to make a similar use of a very accurate and very beautiful collection of drawings of a great number of the finest specimens of Arabian architecture in and around Cairo, executed by M. Pascal Coste, and now the property of Mr. Hay.[10] He has also consulted a number of Oriental drawings, and various other sources. My acknowledgments to other persons I have expressed in several of the Notes.

"The portion which is comprised in the first volume of this translation, terminates with part of the hundred and thirty-seventh Night: it is therefore necessary to remark,--first, that there is less to omit in the early part of the original work than in the later:--secondly, that the _Nights_ in the early part are generally much _longer_ than in the subsequent portion; the first hundred Nights (without the Introduction) comprising 213 pages in the Cairo edition of the original work; the second hundred, 149 pages; the third, 107; the fourth, 106; the fifth, 94:[11]--thirdly, that a similar observation applies to the _Notes_ which are inserted in my translation; those appended to the early tales being necessarily much more copious than the others."

[1] Two other printed editions were also used by Mr. Lane--that
of the first two hundred Nights, printed at Calcutta, and in
consequence of the loss, by shipwreck, of nearly the whole
impression of the first volume, never completed; and that of
Breslau. The former differs much, in matter and manner, from
any other known copy; the latter, which was edited to the close
of the seven hundred and third night by Professor Habicht, and
completed by Professor Fleischer, is far inferior to all the
others. One other edition has appeared in the Arabic, that of
Calcutta, or "the Calcutta edition of the complete work." It
was brought from Cairo, and is apparently (though not
immediately) from the same original as the Booláḳ edition. I
have continually referred to it for various readings, without
finding any one of importance. And here I must animadvert on
the practice of German orientalists of wasting their own time
and their readers' patience in collecting such various readings
of a work like "The Thousand and One Nights" as must
necessarily be the result of the carelessness or the ignorance
of copyists and reciters. The habit is unfortunately adopted by
some Englishmen, who seem to imagine that all that is German is
therefore learned.--ED.

[2] "I must here state, that peculiar qualifications are
required to enable a person to judge of the fidelity of my
translation. The original work contains many words not
comprised in any printed dictionary, and a great number of
words used in senses which no such dictionary gives: in cases
of both these kinds, I am guided either by the explanations of
the sheykh Moḥammad 'Eiyád, or by my having been long in the
habit of noting down new words during conversation with Arabs,
and in the perusal of works in which they are explained."

[3] "As I hope that the copy which he has rendered so valuable
may be of great utility to many students of the Arabic language
when I have ceased to profit by it, I may mention here, that
the few corrections, and some explanations, which I have
inserted upon the margins of pages will be easily distinguished
from those of the sheykh Moḥammad 'Eiyád by the difference of
our handwritings."

[4] "When I mention 'my sheykh' in the notes, the sheykh
Moḥammad 'Eiyád is the person to whom I allude. In several
instances, when he has given brief explanations of words,
phrases, customs, &c., with which I was previously acquainted,
I have not thought it necessary to name him as my authority in
notes which I have inserted, though I have sometimes done so."

[5] "English writers generally express the Arabic vowels and
diphthongs by their nearest _Italian_ equivalents. This mode is
very well suited for those who know, and for those who do not
care for, the correct pronunciation of the words so
transcribed; but for others I think it objectionable. Our
language is altogether much more suitable to the purpose of
expressing the sounds of Arabic than the Italian. Besides, I
believe it is the custom of every other European nation, in
transcribing Oriental words, to employ a system congenial with
its own language. In a former work, I made use of a double h to
express a very strong Arabic aspirate (as others had done
before me), and the word 'Hhágg' or 'Hhájj' was pointed out by
a critic as one remarkably uncouth: Von Hammer, in a review of
that work, writes the same word (and very properly as a German
writer) 'Hadschdsch.'"

[6] "Strictly speaking, it has a sound between that of a in
'bad' and that of u in 'bud;' sometimes approximating more to
the former; and sometimes to the latter."

[7] "Its sound, however, often approximates to that of a in
'ball.'"

[8] "Dh is pronounced as th in 'that:' gh represents a guttural
sound like that produced in gargling: kh represents a guttural
sound like that which is produced in expelling saliva from the
throat, and approaching nearer to the sound of ḥ (a very strong
aspirate) than to that of k: sh is pronounced as in 'shall:'
and th, as in 'thin.'"

[9] "Es-Suyooṭee, in his 'Ḥosn el-Moḥáḍarah,' after quoting a
description of certain dresses, says, 'As to their dresses of
honour, and those of the Wezeers and others of similar rank, I
have struck out the description of them from the words of
Ibn-Faḍl-Allah; for they are composed of silk and gold, which
is forbidden by the law, and I have obliged myself not to
mention in this book any thing of which I should be questioned
in the world to come, if it be the will of God.'--I have never
seen any Arabic work with drawings of costumes; but Persian
drawings are often useful in explaining Arab dresses."

[10] These drawings, with some few exceptions, have now been
published, from copies in the possession of M. Coste.

[11] "The substance of the first five chapters in my
translation, ending with part of the thirty-second Night,
occupies a hundred and sixty-eight Nights in the edition of
Breslau."

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

PAGE
Introduction 1

Notes 15

CHAPTER I.

Story of the Merchant and the Jinnee 38

Story of the First Sheykh and the Gazelle 42

Story of the Second Sheykh and the two Black Hounds 46

Story of the Third Sheykh and the Mule 50

Notes 52

CHAPTER II.

Story of the Fisherman 69

Story of King Yoonán and the Sage Doobán 75

Story of the Husband and the Parrot 79

Story of the Envious Wezeer and the Prince and the Ghooleh 81

Continuation of the Story of King Yoonán and the Sage Doobán 83

Continuation of the Story of the Fisherman 86

Story of the Young King of the Black Islands 94

Notes 104

CHAPTER III.

Story of the Porter and the Ladies of Baghdád, and of
the Three Royal Mendicants, &c. 120

Story of the First Royal Mendicant 134

Story of the Second Royal Mendicant 140

Story of the Envier and the Envied 149

Continuation of the Story of the Second Royal Mendicant 151

Story of the Third Royal Mendicant 160

Continuation of the Story of the Ladies of Baghdád, &c. 173

Story of the First of the Three Ladies of Baghdád 173

Story of the Second of the Three Ladies of Baghdád 181

Conclusion of the Story of the Ladies of Baghdád, &c. 187

Notes 190

CHAPTER IV.

Story of the Three Apples, &c. 222

Story of Noor-ed-Deen and his Son, and of Shems-ed-Deen
and his Daughter 230

Notes 272