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241 pages

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"The Arabian Nights" is the title which encompasses all of the Persian, Arabian and Indian folk tales which have made their way into western culture over hundreds of years. This collection was edited by Andrew Lang, and his selections were made with the purpose of making the tales more suitable and interesting to a general audience.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 février 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775417514
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
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Edited by
ANDREW LANG

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The Arabian Nights First published in 1898 ISBN 978-1-775417-51-4 © 2010 The Floating Press
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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Preface The Arabian Nights The Story of the Merchant and the Genius The Story of the First Old Man and of the Hind The Story of the Second Old Man, and of the Two Black Dogs The Story of the Fisherman The Story of the Greek King and the Physician Douban The Story of the Husband and the Parrot The Story of the Vizir Who Was Punished The Story of the Young King of the Black Isles The Story of the Three Calenders, Sons of Kings, and of Five Ladies of Bagdad The Story of the First Calender, Son of a King The Story of the Second Calendar, Son of a King The Story of the Envious Man and of Him Who Was Envied The Story of the Third Calendar, Son of a King The Seven Voyages of Sindbad the Sailor First Voyage Second Voyage Third Voyage Fourth Voyage Fifth Voyage Sixth Voyage Seventh and Last Voyage The Little Hunchback The Story of the Barber's Fifth Brother The Story of the Barber's Sixth Brother The Adventures of Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess Badoura Noureddin and the Fair Persian Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp The Adventures of Haroun-al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad The Story of the Blind Baba-Abdalla The Story of Sidi-Nouman The Story of Ali Colia, Merchant of Bagdad The Enchanted Horse The Story of Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister
Preface
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The stories in the Fairy Books have generally been such as old women incountry places tell to their grandchildren. Nobody knows how old theyare, or who told them first. The children of Ham, Shem and Japhet mayhave listened to them in the Ark, on wet days. Hector's little boy mayhave heard them in Troy Town, for it is certain that Homer knew them,and that some of them were written down in Egypt about the time ofMoses.
People in different countries tell them differently, but they arealways the same stories, really, whether among little Zulus, at theCape, or little Eskimo, near the North Pole. The changes are only inmatters of manners and customs; such as wearing clothes or not, meetinglions who talk in the warm countries, or talking bears in the coldcountries. There are plenty of kings and queens in the fairy tales,just because long ago there were plenty of kings in the country. Agentleman who would be a squire now was a kind of king in Scotland invery old times, and the same in other places. These old stories, neverforgotten, were taken down in writing in different ages, but mostly inthis century, in all sorts of languages. These ancient stories are thecontents of the Fairy books.
Now "The Arabian Nights," some of which, but not nearly all, are givenin this volume, are only fairy tales of the East. The people of Asia,Arabia, and Persia told them in their own way, not for children, butfor grown-up people. There were no novels then, nor any printed books,of course; but there were people whose profession it was to amuse menand women by telling tales. They dressed the fairy stories up, andmade the characters good Mahommedans, living in Bagdad or India. Theevents were often supposed to happen in the reign of the great Caliph,or ruler of the Faithful, Haroun al Raschid, who lived in Bagdad in786-808 A.D. The vizir who accompanies the Caliph was also a realperson of the great family of the Barmecides. He was put to death bythe Caliph in a very cruel way, nobody ever knew why. The stories musthave been told in their present shape a good long while after theCaliph died, when nobody knew very exactly what had really happened.At last some storyteller thought of writing down the tales, and fixingthem into a kind of framework, as if they had all been narrated to acruel Sultan by his wife. Probably the tales were written down aboutthe time when Edward I. was fighting Robert Bruce. But changes weremade in them at different times, and a great deal that is very dull andstupid was put in, and plenty of verses. Neither the verses nor thedull pieces are given in this book.
People in France and England knew almost nothing about "The ArabianNights" till the reigns of Queen Anne and George I., when they weretranslated into French by Monsieur Galland. Grown-up people were thenvery fond of fairy tales, and they thought these Arab stories the bestthat they had ever read. They were delighted with Ghouls (who livedamong the tombs) and Geni, who seemed to be a kind of ogres, and withPrincesses who work magic spells, and with Peris, who are Arab fairies.Sindbad had adventures which perhaps came out of the Odyssey of Homer;in fact, all the East had contributed its wonders, and sent them toEurope in one parcel. Young men once made a noise at MonsieurGalland's windows in the dead of night, and asked him to tell them oneof his marvellous tales. Nobody talked of anything but dervishes andvizirs, rocs and peris. The stories were translated from French intoall languages, and only Bishop Atterbury complained that the tales werenot likely to be true, and had no moral. The bishop was presentlybanished for being on the side of Prince Charlie's father, and hadleisure to repent of being so solemn.
In this book "The Arabian Nights" are translated from the Frenchversion of Monsieur Galland, who dropped out the poetry and a greatdeal of what the Arabian authors thought funny, though it seemswearisome to us. In this book the stories are shortened here andthere, and omissions are made of pieces only suitable for Arabs and oldgentlemen. The translations are by the writers of the tales in theFairy Books.
I can remember reading "The Arabian Nights" when I was six years old,in dirty yellow old volumes of small type, and I hopechildren who read them now will be as happy as Iwas then in the company of Aladdin and Sindbad the Sailor.
The Arabian Nights
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In the chronicles of the ancient dynasty of the Sassanidae, who reignedfor about four hundred years, from Persia to the borders of China,beyond the great river Ganges itself, we read the praises of one of thekings of this race, who was said to be the best monarch of his time.His subjects loved him, and his neighbors feared him, and when he diedhe left his kingdom in a more prosperous and powerful condition thanany king had done before him.
The two sons who survived him loved each other tenderly, and it was areal grief to the elder, Schahriar, that the laws of the empire forbadehim to share his dominions with his brother Schahzeman. Indeed, afterten years, during which this state of things had not ceased to troublehim, Schahriar cut off the country of Great Tartary from the PersianEmpire and made his brother king.
Now the Sultan Schahriar had a wife whom he loved more than all theworld, and his greatest happiness was to surround her with splendour,and to give her the finest dresses and the most beautiful jewels. Itwas therefore with the deepest shame and sorrow that he accidentallydiscovered, after several years, that she had deceived him completely,and her whole conduct turned out to have been so bad, that he felthimself obliged to carry out the law of the land, and order thegrand-vizir to put her to death. The blow was so heavy that his mindalmost gave way, and he declared that he was quite sure that at bottomall women were as wicked as the sultana, if you could only find themout, and that the fewer the world contained the better. So everyevening he married a fresh wife and had her strangled the followingmorning before the grand-vizir, whose duty it was to provide theseunhappy brides for the Sultan. The poor man fulfilled his task withreluctance, but there was no escape, and every day saw a girl marriedand a wife dead.
This behaviour caused the greatest horror in the town, where nothingwas heard but cries and lamentations. In one house was a fatherweeping for the loss of his daughter, in another perhaps a mothertrembling for the fate of her child; and instead of the blessings thathad formerly been heaped on the Sultan's head, the air was now full ofcurses.
The grand-vizir himself was the father of two daughters, of whom theelder was called Scheherazade, and the younger Dinarzade. Dinarzadehad no particular gifts to distinguish her from other girls, but hersister was clever and courageous in the highest degree. Her father hadgiven her the best masters in philosophy, medicine, history and thefine arts, and besides all this, her beauty excelled that of any girlin the kingdom of Persia.
One day, when the grand-vizir was talking to his eldest daughter, whowas his delight and pride, Scheherazade said to him, "Father, I have afavour to ask of you. Will you grant it to me?"
"I can refuse you nothing," replied he, "that is just and reasonable."
"Then listen," said Scheherazade. "I am determined to stop thisbarbarous practice of the Sultan's, and to deliver the girls andmothers from the awful fate that hangs over them."
"It would be an excellent thing to do," returned the grand-vizir, "buthow do you propose to accomplish it?"
"My father," answered Scheherazade, "it is you who have to provide theSultan daily with a fresh wife, and I implore you, by all the affectionyou bear me, to allow the honour to fall upon me."
"Have you lost your senses?" cried the grand-vizir, starting back inhorror. "What has put such a thing into your head? You ought to knowby this time what it means to be the sultan's bride!"
"Yes, my father, I know it well," replied she,