THE BOOK OF THE
THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT A Plain and Literal Translation
of the Arabian Nights Entertainments
Translated and Annotated by
Richard F. Burton
VOLUME ONE
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.
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"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!
reced, leget.
- Martial.
"Miculx 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."
Contents of the First Volume
Introduction
Story Of King Shahryar and His Brother a. Tale of the Bull and the Ass
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1. Tale of the Trader and the Jinni a. The First Shaykh's Story
b. The Second Shaykh's Story c. The Third Shaykh's Story
2. The Fisherman and the Jinni
a. Tale of the Wazir and the Sage Duban
ab. Story of King Sindibad and His Falcon ac. Tale of the Husband and the Parrot
ad. Tale of the Prince and the Ogress b. Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince
3. The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad a. The First Kalandar's Tale
b. The Second Kalandar's Tale
ba. Tale of the Envier and the Envied c. The Third Kalandar's Tale
d. The Eldest Lady's Tale e. Tale of the Portress
Conclusion of the Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies
4. Tale of the Three Apples
5. Tale of Nur Al-din Ali and his Son
6. The Hunchback's Tale
a. The Nazarene Broker's Story b. The Reeve's Tale
c. Tale of the Jewish Doctor d. Tale of the Tailor
e. The Barber's Tale of Himself
ea. The Barber's Tale of his First Brother
eb. The Barber's Tale of his Second Brother ec. The Barber's Tale of his Third Brother
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ed. The Barber's Tale of his Fourth Brother ee. The Barber's Tale of his Fifth Brother
ef. The Barber's Tale of his Sixth Brother
The End of the Tailor's Tale
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. Impossible even to open the pages without a vision starting into view; with out drawing a picture
from the pinacothek of the brain; without reviving a host of memories and reminiscences which are not the common property of travellers, however widely they may have travelled. From my dull
and commonplace and "respectable" surroundings, the Jinn bore me at once to the land of my pre-direction, Arabia, a region so
familiar to my mind that even at first sight, it seemed a reminiscence of some by gone metem-psychic life in the distant Past. Again I stood under the diaphanous skies, in air glorious
as aether, whose every breath raises men's spirits like sparkling
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wine. Once more I saw the evening star hanging like a solitaire from the pure front of the western firmament; and the after glow transfiguring and transforming, as by magic, the homely and rugged features of the scene into a fairy land lit with a light
which never shines on other soils or seas. Then would appear the woollen tents, low and black, of the true Badawin, mere dots in the boundless waste of lion tawny clays and gazelle brown gravels, and the camp fire dotting like a glow worm the village centre. Presently, sweetened by distance, would be heard the wild weird song of lads and lasses, driving or rather pelting, through
the gloaming their sheep and goats; and the measured chant of the spearsmen gravely stalking behind their charge, the camels;
mingled with bleating of the flocks and the bellowing of the humpy herds; while the reremouse flitted overhead with his tiny shriek, and the rave of the jackal resounded through deepening glooms, and--most musical of music--the palm trees answered the whispers of the night breeze with the softest tones of falling water.
And then a shift of scene. The Shaykhs and "white beards" of the tribe gravely take their places, sitting with outspread skirts
like hillocks on the plain, as the Arabs say, around the camp
fire, whilst I reward their hospitality and secure its
continuance by reading or reciting a few pages of their favourite tales. The women and children stand motionless as silhouettes outside the ring; and all are breathless with attention; they
seem to drink in the words with eyes and mouths as well as with
ears. The most fantastic flights of fancy, the wildest
improbabilities, the most impossible of impossibilities, appear
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to them utterly natural, mere matters of every day occurrence. They enter thoroughly into each phase of feeling touched upon by the author: they take a personal pride in the chivalrous nature
and knightly prowess of Taj
