Richard then found that it was a popular idea that "Ali Baba, and the Forty Thieves" and "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp" belonged to the "Arabian Nights," whereas they do not, and he found a collection of similar tales sufficient to produce six Supplemental volumes. At first I rather objected to his risking the "Arabian Nights," from a passage written by himself in his "First Footsteps in East Africa," page 36—
"When Arabs are present, I usually recite or read a tale from 'The Thousand and One Nights,' that wonderful work so often translated, so much turned over, and so little understood at home. The most familiar book in England, next to the Bible, it is one of the least known, the reason being that about one-fifth is utterly unfit for translation; and the most sanguine Orientalist would not dare to render literally more than three-quarters of the remainder, consequently the reader loses the contrast—the very essence of the book—between its brilliancy and dulness, its moral putrefaction and such pearls as—
'Cast the seed of good works on the least fit soil;
Good is never wasted, however it may be laid out.'And in a page or two after such divine sentiment, the ladies of Baghdad sit in the porter's lap, and indulge in a facetiousness which would have killed Pietro Aretino before his time." (This was written in 1855, thirty years before.)
But, on his explaining to me his new idea about its usefulness, its being so good for the Government, I was glad, and I helped him in every way I possibly could. It was also agreed, in order to secure him against piracy, and in order not to limit to a thousand people what the many should enjoy, that they should not lose this deep well of reading and knowledge, beside which the flood of modern fiction flows thin and shallow, that I should reproduce all my husband's original text, excluding only such words as were not possible to put on the drawing-room table. Mr. Justin Huntly McCarthy, jun., helped me a little, so that out of the 3215 original pages, I was able to copyright three thousand pages of my husband's original text, and only exclude two hundred and fifteen. Richard forbade me to read them till he blotted out with ink the worst words, and desired me to substitute, not English, but Arab Society words, which I did to his complete satisfaction. The language is so wonderful, the expression so graceful, the rendering of thought as well as words so accurate, the poetry so fresh and charming. Orientalists tell me that they learnt more Orientalism by these volumes than by years of hard study, and that it greatly facilitated their study of Arabic. He translated from the Calcutta edition, the Boulak, the Hindostani, and the Breslau. The Wortley Montagu manuscript was refused him by the Bodleian Library, even under the charge of Dr. Rost, but he got one in Paris.
Richard said that "a student of Arabic, who reads the 'Nights' with his version, will not only be competent to join in any conversation in Arabic, but to read the popular books and newspapers, and to write letters to his friends; he will also possess a répertoire of Arab manners and customs, beliefs and practices, which are not found in books. My endeavour was to give them the original text without detracting from its merits." This grand Arabian work I consider my husband's "Magnum Opus;" it is a masterpiece; it is the real thing, not the drawing-room tales which have been called the "Arabian Nights" for so long. The home student can realize what the Arab is, and understand those people, Egyptians, Syrians, and others, of whose "life behind the scenes" Britons know so very little.
I do not know whether to be amused or provoked because people are prejudiced against "Lady Burton's edition of the 'Arabian Nights,'" as a milk-and-water thing. I did not write nor translate it; it is Richard Burton's "Arabian Nights," with a coarse word or two cut out here and there, and a Society word introduced, but in nowise altering the text (when I say a Society word, I mean of course an Arab Society word, not an English one); and my name was only put upon it to copyright and protect my husband's from piracy.
We had no reason, in a financial point of view, to regret our venture. A publisher offered Richard £500 for it, but I said, "No, let me do it." It was seventeen months' hard work, but we found (no matter how) the means of printing and binding and circulating. We were our own printers and our own publishers, and we made between September, 1885, and November, 1888, sixteen thousand guineas, six thousand of which went towards publishing, and ten thousand into our own pockets; and it came just in time to give my husband the comforts and luxuries and freedom that gilded the five last years of his life. When he died there were four florins left, which I put in the poor-box.
What all the World said.
Athenæum, February 6th, 1886.
"TO RICHARD F. BURTON.
" On his Translation of the 'Arabian Nights.'
"Westward the sun sinks, grave and glad; but far
Eastward, with laughter and tempestuous tears,
Cloud, rain, and splendour as of Orient spears,
Keen as the sea's thrill toward a kindling star
The sundawn breaks the barren twilight's bar
And fires the mist and slays it. Years on years
Vanish, but he that hearkens eastward hears
Bright music from the world where shadows are.
"Where shadows are not shadows. Hand-in-hand
A man's word bids them rise and smile and stand
And triumph. All that glorious Orient glows
Defiant of the dusk. Our twilight land
Trembles; but all the heaven is all one rose,
Whence laughing love dissolves her frosts and snows.
——"Algernon Charles Swinburne."Morning Advertiser, September 15th, 1885.
"As the holiday season draws to a close, the publishers' announcements of 'new books' fill column after column of the organs chosen from these special communiqués. But there is one work which is not entered in these lists, though for years scholars, and many people who are not scholars, have been looking for it with an eagerness which has left far behind the ordinary curiosity which is bestowed on the greatest of contributions to current literature. And to-day the chosen few who are in possession of the volume in question are examining it with an interest proportionate to the long toil which has been bestowed on its preparation. We refer to Captain Burton's translation of the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments,' now entitled 'The Book of the thousand Nights and a Night,' of which the first tome has just been issued. There will be ten in all, so that it must be well on for two years before the entire series can be in the hands of those who have subscribed for it. For the book is not published. It is even questionable whether a copy will be in the British Museum or the Bodleian, unless those institutions have entered their names in advance. It is printed 'by the Kamashastra Society of Benares for private subscribers only,' and Captain Burton, in a circular sent with the first volume, earnestly begs that it will not be permitted to fall into the hands of any save scholars and students of Moslem manners. For years and years the 'Arabian Nights' have been a sort of nursery companion. But it is, perhaps, unnecessary to tell any one acquainted in the slightest degree with Oriental romances that the 'Alf Laylah wa Laylah' in its unabridged form is, despite the popularity which it enjoys as a 'child's book,' emphatically not for the entertainment of boys and girls. Hitherto, however, all of the editions have been imperfect and more or less colourless versions of the original. They have been prepared for the drawing-room, and even Mr. Payne inserted a Latin word here and there rather than search Captain Grose's 'Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue' for its equivalent. Captain Burton scorns any such namby-pambyism. In the Arabic a spade is usually called a spade, and in the latest English translation it is never designated an agricultural implement. Moreover, the endless footnotes which the editor appends, speak with much freedom of many things usually avoided as themes for conversation in polite society, though they throw a flood of light on hundreds of features of Oriental life on which, since travellers have been compelled to write for 'refined' audiences, the student has failed to be informed.
"Yet, admitting that the 'Nights' are often coarse and indelicate, and sometimes even gross, it is a mistake to suppose that they are demoralizing in the same way that a French novel of the Zola type is, or might be. Indeed, what we would call its impropriety is only a reflection of the naïve freedom with which talk is to this day carried on in the family circles of the East. They see no harm in what we should regard as indecency. So that when Captain Burton prefaces his unbowdlerized version with the Arab proverb, 'To the pure in heart all things are pure,' he presents perhaps the best defence he could against the attack which it is quite possible may be made on him for devoting many years of his life to what he terms 'a labour of love.' One hundred and eighty years have passed since Galland, the French Orientalist, published his version in twelve small volumes. But though even at that time it was not thought proper to issue a verbatim edition—so far as the accessible manuscripts permitted—the best scholars of the age did not hesitate to pronounce them forgeries. In brief, they were regarded in much the same light that Macpherson's 'translations' of 'Ossian's Poems' were at a later date. But the less critical world cared very little whether Antony Galland had invented them or merely translated them from some 'unknown Arab writer.' They eagerly read these wondrous stories. Europe was on fire with delight at anything so unconventional, so entirely undidactic, so completely without any religious, moral, or philosophical purpose, and which delineated the primitive manners and customs of the East. The fine gentlemen and gay ladies could talk about nothing else than 'jins' or genii, as they were called after the French fashion, viziers—or 'Wazirs,' as Captain Burton has it—caves of jewels, underground palaces, enchanters and kalendars, princes of black islands, and kings in disguise. The terrible justice of the Kazi, or Cadai, as he used to be called, and the equally fearful vengeance of the husband who is at last undeceived, were revelations to the easy-going, utterly corrupt Europe of the ancien régime. Edition after edition appeared, though in nearly every case these so-called fresh versions were little more than translations, more or less abridged, from Galland. Of late, however, several more or less complete editions have appeared. Among them may be mentioned those of Torrens, Lane, Payne. Torrens was, however, a poor Arabic scholar, and though Lane was a better one—if not quite so good as he afterwards became—he was, like his predecessors, in terror of offending propriety. Hence, though some simple folk supposed that his language was sufficiently plain, it only required the consultation of the Breslau, the Bulak, or the Calcutta edition of the original to be convinced to the contrary. Mr. Payne brought out a nine-volumed translation for the Villon Society. But it was printed solely for private subscribers, and though issued at seven guineas cannot now be procured under twenty-five or thirty when a copy accidentally comes into the market. Payne was, however, not much more than an amateur Arabist, and his practical acquaintance with Arabs and the East was simply nil. Captain Burton, it is unnecessary to remind any one, is in a very different case. Thirty-three years ago he went in the disguise of an Indian pilgrim to Mecca and Al-Medinah, and no one capable of giving the world the result of his experience has so minute, so exhaustive a knowledge of Arab and Oriental life generally. Hence the work now begun only a limited number of students can ever see, and it is simply priceless to any one who concerns himself as marking an era in the annals of Oriental translation.
"But what may possibly interest many almost as much as the stories and notes, is the almost sad preface in which the Editor tells the tale of his toils. In 1852 he began this translation at Aden. His friend Dr. Steinhaüser, to whose memory it is dedicated, was to undertake the prose, while Burton accepted the metrical portion of the book as his share of the task. But Steinhaüser died, 'and after the fashion of Anglo-Indians his valuable manuscripts left at Aden were dispersed,' and very little of his labour reached his colleague. But fitfully the work progressed amid a host of obstructions. In deadly Consulships in West Africa and Brazil, in livelier ones in Damascus and Trieste, the business went on, just as it had gone on less systematically in Somali-land and Central Africa. And, toilsome though the task unquestionably was, it was lightened by the pleasant memories it recalled. Many a time and oft, after the day's journey was over, he had gathered the Arabs around him, and read or recited these tales to them, until the tears trickled down their cheeks, and they rolled on the sand in uncontrollable delight. 'Nor was it only in Arabia that the immortal "Nights" did me such notable service. I found the wildlings of Somali-land equally amenable to their discipline; no one was deaf to the charm, and the two women cooks of my caravan on its way to Harar were incontinently dubbed by my men "Shehrazade" and "Deenarzade."' Yet as his labour approached the period when it ought to appear in print, prudent friends hinted at the danger he ran of injuring his professional advancement. 'Literary labours, unpopular with the vulgar and half-educated, are not likely to help a man up the ladder of promotion. But common sense suggested to me that, professionally speaking, I was not a success, and at the same time that I had no cause to be ashamed of my failure. Philister can pardon anything but superiority. The prizes of competitive service are monopolized by certain "pets" of the médiocratie and prime favourites of that jealous and potent majority, the mediocrities, who know "no nonsense about merit." It is hard for an outsider to realize how perfect is the monopoly of commonplace, and to comprehend how fatal a stumbling-stone that man sets in the way of his own advancement who dares to think for himself, or who knows more or does more than the mob of gentlemen-employés who know very little, and who do even less.' This is bitter, but not more severe than the way Captain Burton has been treated by his Country, if not by his Countrymen, deserves. It is simply disgraceful that a man of his great achievements and colossal learning should have been neglected by successive Governments when pretenders and 'mediocrities' were being honoured and rewarded for doing little or nothing. After the death of Major Morrice—such has been our encouragement of Arabic knowledge—there was not an English official in the Suakin camp capable of speaking Arabic. Not one understood native customs. 'Moslems,' writes Burton, 'are not to be ruled by raw youths who should be at school and college instead of holding positions of trust and emolument. He who would deal with them successfully must be, firstly, honest and truthful, and, secondly, familiar with and favourably inclined to their manners and customs, if not to their law and religion.' In 'Alf Laylah wa Laylah' the means of obtaining this knowledge lies."
St. James's Gazette, September 12th.
"One of the most important translations to which a great English scholar has ever devoted himself is now in the press. For three decades Captain Burton has been more or less engaged on his translation of the 'Arabian Nights,' the latest of the many versions of that extraordinary story which has been made into English, the only one at all worthy of a great original."
Home News, September 18th.
"Captain Burton has begun to issue the volumes of his subscription translation of the 'Arabian Nights,' and its fortunate possessors will now be able to realize the full flavour of Oriental feeling. They will now have the great storehouse of Eastern folklore opened to them, and Captain Burton's minute acquaintance with Eastern life makes his comments invaluable. In this respect, as well as in the freeness of the translation, the version will be distinguished from its many predecessors. Captain Burton's preface, it may be observed, bears traces of soreness at official neglect. Indeed, it seems curious that his services could not have been utilized in the Soudan, when the want of competent Arabic scholars was so severely felt."
Original Verse.
I have never read, nor do I intend to read, at his own request, and to be true to my promise to him, my husband's "Arabian Nights." But I have read the reviews, some with pride and some with pain, while all the private letters of congratulation have been a great source of gratification to me; and I have gathered all together, pro and con, which form an interesting book.