THE BOOK OF THE THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments by Richard F. Burton VOLUME ONE The Dunyazad Digital Library www.dunyazad-library.net The Book Of The Thousand Nights And A Night A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments by Richard F. Burton First published 1885–1888 Volume One The Dunyazad Digital Library www.dunyazad-library.net The Dunyazad Digital Library (named in honor of Shahrazad’s sister) is based in Austria. According to Austrian law, the text of this book is in the public domain (“gemeinfrei”), since all rights expire 70 years after the author’s death. If this does not apply in the place of your residence, please respect your local law. However, with the exception of making backup or printed copies for your own personal use, you may not copy, forward, reproduce or by any means publish this e- book without our previous written consent. This restriction is only valid as long as this e-book is available at the www.dunyazad-library.net website. This e-book has been carefully edited. It may still contain OCR or transcription errors, but also intentional deviations from the available printed source(s) in typog- raphy and spelling to improve readability or to correct obvious printing errors. Thanks to Ignacio Fernández Galván for additional proofreading. A Dunyazad Digital Library book Selected, edited and typeset by Robert Schaechter First published November 2009 Release 1.11 · December 2018 2 Inscribed to the Memory of My Lamented Friend John Frederick Steinhaeuser, (Civil Surgeon, Aden) who A Quarter of a Century Ago Assisted Me in this Translation. 3 “To the pure all things are pure” (Puris omnia pura) — Arab Proverb. “Niuna corrotta mente intese mai sanamente parole.” — “Decameron” — conclusion. “Erubuit, posuitque meum Lucretia librum Sed coram Bruto. Brute! recede, leget.” — Martial. “Mieulx est de ris que de larmes escripre, Pour ce que rire est le propre des hommes.” — Rabelais. “The pleasure we derive from perusing the Thousand-and-One Stories makes us regret that we possess only a comparatively small part of these truly enchanting fictions.” — Crichton’s “History of Arabia.” 4 About the Author Richard Francis Burton was a man of an exceptional range of interests and achievements; traveler, explorer, adventurer, soldier, and diplomat. Speaking 29 European, Asian and African languages, he was a linguist, ethnologist and orientalist, as well as a writer and translator. Always outspoken, notorious for his interests in all matters of sexuality, never one to conform to conventional rules of social behavior, and, for what is known, possessed by an irascible temper, he was surrounded by rumors of scandal and violence, and thus never was promoted to military or diplomatic rank that would have fully matched his merits. Burton was born on March 19th, 1821, in Devon, as son of a British army officer and his wealthy wife; during Burton’s childhood and youth, the family traveled between England, France and Italy, during which time Burton learned French, Italian, Latin, and several local dialects. In 1840 Burton enrolled in Trinity College at Oxford, from where he was expelled two years later. Here is not the place to describe in any detail the adventurous life on which Burton then embarked; it included military service in India (1842–49), a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina disguised as a Pakistani Muslim pilgrim (1853), an expedition to Ethiopia where he was the first European to enter the town of Harar (1854), army service in the Crimean War (1855), together with John Hanning Speke an expedition, funded by the Royal Geographic Society, into the depths of unexplored Central Africa, (1858), a travel to America (1860), and, after entering the Foreign Service, appoint- ments as Consul to Fernando Po (Equatorial Guinea) from where he 5 explored the West African coast (1861), to Santos in Brazil (1865), to Damascus (1869) and finally to Trieste (1873); he was awarded knight- hood (KCGM) in 1886. In 1851 Burton had met his future wife, Isabel Arundell; they married in 1861. During all his life, Burton used every opportunity to study not only languages, but also people and their cultures, and he wrote extensively about his travels and his studies, some 40 books and hundreds of magazine articles. In addition, he created translations of erotic litera- ture, namely The Arabian Nights, the Kama Sutra, and The Perfumed Garden, at his time considered pornography. To be able to publish them without risking jail, he founded a private society, the Kama Shastra Society, for whose members these books were exclusively printed. Boldly defying conventional restraints and perceptions, he was nonetheless not free of his own prejudices, rash judgments and obscure notions. But on reading The Book Of The Thousand Nights And A Night, there is no doubt how much we owe to Burton’s dedication, matched by his knowledge and his literary skills, to present us with a sweeping and authentic view of this huge timeless treasure, rescuing it from the confinements of the Victorian morals of his age. Burton died in Trieste on October 20th, 1890, of a heart attack. Isabel, who survived him for several years, never recovered from the loss. She, herself a writer, had been (in his own words) her husband’s “most ardent supporter,” and assisted him with many of his writings. After his death though, believing to act in his interest, she burned many of his papers and unpublished manuscripts, among them a new translation of The Perfumed Garden called The Scented Garden, which she herself regarded to have been his “magnum opus” — a work that is now lost to us. The couple is buried at Mortlake, Surrey, in an elaborate tomb in the shape of a Bedouin tent. 6 About this Edition This edition is based upon a “Burton Club” edition, a reprint of the 1900/01 American “Burton Society” edition, which again is faithful to the original “Kamashastra Society” edition. Two major changes were made, concerning paragraphs and notes: In the original, apart from the foreword, the text is set continuously, except for verses and headings — there are no paragraphs. Burton, it may be assumed, wanted to emphasize the steady flow of the narration, which, at its heart, is an oral one. Since this lack of any visual structure is inconvenient for the reader, for this edition paragraphs were intro- duced, with care taken to keep their disruptive effect at a minimum. As to Burton’s notes, only those were included that add to the reader’s understanding of the translated text, and of those some were abridged. Not included were notes that, for instance, deal with intricate issues of the translation and distinctions from previous translations, those that give explanations where no explanation seems to be needed, those that provide background information that meanwhile is outdated, or those in which Burton expresses his own personal views of customs, moral standards, sexual behavior, penis lengths etc. of various nation- alities or ethnic groups. Other than that, few changes were made. Spelling was not changed, only æ and œ ligatures were resolved to ae and oe. Standard (double) quotation marks for nested quotes were changed to single quotation marks. In most cases Burton’s use of colons and dashes for nested quotes was abandoned in favor of single quotation marks. A few typo- graphical errors or inconsistencies were corrected. 7 Hyphenation of compound words was retained, though some that were spelled inconsistently were standardized according to the majori- ties of their occurrencess, for instance slave-girl, wax-candle, well-nigh, Hammam-bath, or, on the other hand, tirewoman. Care was taken to correct OCR errors, though some will still have escaped detection — if you spot any, please do not hesitate to report them — thank you! 8 Contents of the First Volume The Translator’s Foreword 11 The Book Of The Thousand Nights And A Night 30 Tale of the Bull and the Ass 47 Tale of the Trader and the Jinni 58 The First Shaykh’s Story 62 The Second Shaykh’s Story 67 The Third Shaykh’s Story 72 The Fisherman and the Jinni 74 Tale of the Wazir and the Sage Duban 83 Story of King Sindibad and his Falcon 90 Tale of the Husband and the Parrot 92 Tale of the Prince and the Ogress 94 Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince 112 The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad 126 The First Kalandar’s Tale 152 The Second Kalandar’s Tale 162 Tale of the Envier and the Envied 174 The Third Kalandar’s Tale 193 The Eldest Lady’s Tale 221 Tale of the Portress 233 Tale of the Three Apples 249 Tale of Núr al-Dín Alí and his Son Badr al-Dín Hasan 260 9 The Hunchback’s Tale 329 The Nazarene Broker’s Story 337 The Reeve’s Tale 355 Tale of the Jewish Doctor 368 Tale of the Tailor 381 The Barber’s Tale of Himself 400 The Barber’s Tale of his First Brother 403 The Barber’s Tale of his Second Brother 408 The Barber’s Tale of his Third Brother 414 The Barber’s Tale of his Fourth Brother 417 The Barber’s Tale of his Fifth Brother 421 The Barber’s Tale of his Sixth Brother 431 The End of the Tailor’s Tale 437 10 The Translator’s Foreword This work, labourious as it may appear, has been to me a labour of love, an unfailing source of solace and satisfaction. During my long years of official banishment to the luxuriant and deadly deserts of Western Africa, and to the dull and dreary half-clearings of South America, it proved itself a charm, a talisman against ennui and despondency.