LANE'S ARABIAN NIGHTS.*
Aie eminent critic has described the Arabian Nights as the most universally read book in the world, and it would be difficult to controvert the description ; it circulates equally in the Ma- homedan and the Christian worlds ; it is a popular book in India and in England ; it is universally sought by the young, and there are few books that more frequently furnish illustrations to the gravest writers. The Koran has certainly never acquired such universal curreney beyond the limits of Is- lam, and other volumes, however habitual their use in different sections of the globe, are unknown to the natives of any but Christian lands, if even they are universally known within those bounds. The Arabian Nights were first made known to Europe through the translation of Galland, without whose initiation, pro- bably, we might have remained without even subsequent editions. In France, M. de Sacy has undertaken to give a more correct version. The Reverend Edward Forster at least began another translation. One was begun by Mr. Henry Torrens ; and Ed- ward William Lane's version, having become an essential in every well furnished library, has now reached a new edition with further illustrations by his nephew and pupil, Edward Poole.
Mr. Lane took exception to Galland as having perverted the original work. "His acquaintance with Arab manners and customs," said Mr. Lane, "was insufficient to preserve him always from errors of the gravest kind, and by the style of his version he has given to the whole a false character, thus sacrificing in a Feat measure what is most valuable in the original work, I mean its minute acouracy with respect to those peculiarities which dis- tinguish the Arabs from every other nation, not only of the West, but of the East." Many persons imagine that the Arabian Tales describe the life of Persia, Turkey, and India ; but the manners and customs says the English translator, are really those of Arabia, particularly of Egypt, even when the scene is laid in Persia, India' or China. And Mr. Lane speaks with peculiar authority on this point. The innovations of European commerce, the overland transit to India, and the general opening up of paths through every quarter of the globe, making Arabia itself liable to the trespass, are adulterating and abolishing the distinguishing characteristics of Arabian manners. Now Mr. Lane's first two visits to Egypt where made when, for the last time Arab manners and customs as they existed in the age of the Arabian Nights, could be studied ; his translation being written very shortly after his return to England. Galland has been censured by the Eng- lish translator for imparting a Frenchified air to his version ; but our earliest benefactor has been vindicated, and we think justly. Probably his version presents an equivalent for Arab dialogue and colouring nearer to the apprehension of the popular French reader than Mr. Lane's for the English reader. Biblical and re- mote in its expressions, the newer translation, it is said, scarcely gives the familiar tone intended by the narrator of the Arabian Nights. This may be true, yet at the same time a genuine lover of the Arabian Nights, will naturally be drawn into the spirit of the world from which they speak, and will find little difficulty in acquiring its dialect. For these reasons we decidedly prefer Lane's treatment, although it may in points of detail be open to question.
For the purposes of translation Mr. Lane used a Cairo edition which was greatly superior to others but also he used two other printed editions—that of Calcutta, and that of Breslau. He had
native advice in the interpretation and in correction of errors. In his text he gives some stories which are not comprised in Gal-
land's collection ; but some that are included in that version not being in his, he omits. Many of Mr. Lane's positions have been much canvassed, and one of them has been combated, we think,
• The Thousattd awl One Nights. Vol. I. John Murray.
with success ; the opposite view in fact being established by the popularity of his own translation. It is his idea that the princi- pal value of the work consists in the picture of Arab manners and life. Some half century ago, indeed, it was customary to speak of the book as if it were necessary to make excuses for reading it; and Mr. Lane's argument would unquestionably have been prized at that day. But in our day, observes a writer in the Edinburgh Review, [Vol. 33, 1839-'40,] utility and imagination have been completely united ; and while the poet has learned to value what the engineer can do for human nature, the engineer returns the favour in kind, by recognizing the fact that the poet increases the territory at our command ; while the book feeds the appetite for romance and vicissitude. Sismondi speaks of these Arabian storytellers,—these "masters in the art of producing, sus- taining, and unceasingly varying the interest in this kind of fic-
tion," as the creators of "that brilliant mythology of fairies and genii which extends the bounds of the world and multiplies the riches and strength of human nature." No doubt both cham- pions have hit upon powerful reasons, though perhaps the strong- est of all remains to be stated. The Arabian Nights appears to us to satisfy a natural instinct of what may be called the intel- lectual affections. The Arab poet calls before us human beings as , moved by all the aspirations, the anxieties the requirements, the liabilities, that belong to our race ; while, by endowing some with unlimited power, he satisfies our own wish to execute our will over the inert world around us, or even over the living world. But the extravagant vicissitudes and still more extrava- gant powers ascribed to the creatures of the Arabian Nights would totally fail to engage our attention, if the actors themselves were not by their qualities genuine human beings, such as fasten upon our sympathy. There is, therefore, a wonderful power of describing character such as we find in a Shakespeare or a Scott, combined with a marvellous power of poetical imagination, such as we find again in the most vivid poetry of the west. We have the strong personal sympathy of the novel, with the magic powers of the Italian romantic poem and the reader by proxy enjoys a sovereignty over the created world. There is, however, it ap- pears to us, a still higher reason for the universal acceptance of these tales. While the human character in its essentials is painted with so much fidelity and vividness, it is subjected to the utmost extremes of vicissitude ; and thus, every story forms a kind of parable, illustrating the manner in which our aspirations and our weaknesses bring about our triumphs and our failures. The Arabian Nights form a perpetual theatre of dramatized illus- trations for the use of the moralist, the historian and the states- man. Hence, the gravest and the most powerful understandings are found profiting by that peculiar literature which gives the most poignant delight to youth.
The other most remarkable position taken up by Mr. Lane is confirmed not controverted by the general tendency of criticism : it is that, wonderful and almost incredible as it may seem, the Arabian Nights, which transcend the most classic works in the variety of their imagination, are not a collection of tales by various hands, but are to be traced to one author. Possibly, the work, as it reaches us, may have been worked out with assistance and augmentations ; but the stories are in their origin and first stamp one. The book, too, is comparatively modern. Cairo is the place of its writing, for other places are described, whereas Cairo passes without description ; just as a London writer would think it necessary to give local explanations when he was talking of Paris or Rome, but speaks of his own town without any anno- tative remark.
Some years have elapsed since the first edition of this work was placed before the public. The three volumes are now reproduced, with their original notes, which are copious and crammed with information elucidating not only the tales themselves, but those manners arid customs of the hut which those tales exemplify. The notes are now further enriched by the editor, who also points out the changes that have been taking place in our own day: so that the manners and customs which survived when Edward Lane first wrote are becoming antiquities in the commentary of Edward Poole. Here is an example. The writer is speaking of buffaloes used at the funeral-
" More than one is unusual, but at the funeral of Mohammed All Basha, which I witnessed in Cairo, about eighty buffaloes were thus driven in the procession ; in the narrow streets of the city, however, many of them dis- appeared, One after another, so that few reached the tomb." Page 432.
The critic we have already mentioned, repeats a remark that has been made of the Arabian Nights—that they are generally speaking devoid of pathos; but he instantly supplies a refutation of this aspersion. It is found in the story of the young man whose right hand was out off for stealing a purse which he gave to his mistress ; amputation of the right hand being in the East a degradation so extreme that it is scarcely intelligible in this country, though Lane explains it practically enough : the right hand serves the purposes of knife and fork, and is reserved, pure, for those purposes. The wife discovers the young man's ca- lamity, makes over to him all her property, and dies simply of grief. It is "like one of the stories in Boccaccio for depth and purity of sentiment, it is quite original, and has never been re- peated." Mr. Lane' indeed, corrects a very common prejudice against the East, in the assumption that the existence of true love is unknown amongst the Arabs ; and Mr. Poole tells a story -of real life, which is in itself quite fit to take its place among the tales of the Arabian Nights or Boccaccio's Decamerone.
"The wife of a man of good birth, and holding a high position in that city, was accused of carrying on an intrigue while • visiting the torahs of her relations. Her family claimed her in accordance with the law, and threat- ened to put her to death, as the law would undoubtedly have justified them in doing, if the case were proved against her. Her husband was cinch attached to her—she was his first and only wife—and he believed, with rea- son, that the accusation was false : at the same time he blew that she would in all likelihood find it impossible to clear herself in a court of law, where justice is only accidentally awarded, and had good cause to fear that her male relations would put her to death without a hearing. He therefore adopted the extraordinary expedient of taking her secretlyto the house of a married European gentleman of his acquaintance. There she remained concealed for some time, her husband visiting her daily, and showing the most perfect confidence in his friend ; while the latter was almost confined to one room, never venturing into the harem without calling ' Permission !' at every few steps. In she mean time, the indignation of the lady's friends cooled, and the affair was cleared up. She has since lived in perfect happi- ness with husband.
"To any one familiar with Eastern customs and modes of thought, a stronger proof of sincere love could scarcely be given, than that a man should thus set aside the strongest prejudices of his nation to save the ho- nour, and perhaps the life, of his wife, disbelieving a report which, from its plausibility, might have been accepted without hesitation. The facilities afforded by the visits to the cemeteries are notorious, and the state of morals among the women of Egypt unfortunately makes their defence difficult in a suspicious case."
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