111. Burton begins his Translation, April 1884.
As we have already observed, Mr. Payne's 500 copies of the Thousand Nights and a Night were promptly snapped up by the public and 1,500 persons had to endure disappointment. "You should at once," urged Burton, "bring out a new edition." "I have pledged myself," replied Mr. Payne, "not to reproduce the book in an unexpurgated form."
"Then," said Burton, "Let me publish a new edition in my own name and account to you for the profits—it seems a pity to lose these 1,500 subscribers." This was a most generous and kind-hearted, but, from a literary point of view, immoral proposition; and Mr. Payne at once rejected it, declaring that he could not be a party to a breach of faith with the subscribers in any shape or form. Mr. Payne's virtue was, pecuniarily and otherwise, its punishment. Still, he has had the pleasure of a clear conscience. Burton, however, being, as always, short of money, felt deeply for these 1,500 disappointed subscribers, who were holding out their nine-guinea cheques in vain; and he then said "Should you object to my making an entirely new translation?" To which, of course, Mr. Payne replied that he could have no objection whatever. Burton then set to work in earnest. This was in April, 1884. As we pointed out in Chapter xxii., Lady Burton's account of the inception and progress of the work and Burton's own story in the Translator's Foreword (which precedes his first volume) bristle with misstatements and inaccuracies. He evidently wished it to be thought that his work was well under weigh long before he had heard of Mr. Payne's undertaking, for he says, "At length in the spring of 1879 the tedious process of copying began and the book commenced to take finished form." Yet he told Mr. Payne in 1881 that beyond notes and a syllabus of titles nothing had been done; and in 1883 he says in a letter, "I find my translation is a mere summary," that is to say, of the Boulac edition, which was the only one familiar to him till he met Mr. Payne. He admits having made ample use of the three principal versions that preceded his, namely, those of Jonathan Scott, Lane and Payne, "the whole being blended by a callida junctura into a homogeneous mass." But as a matter of fact his obligations to Scott and Lane, both of whom left much of the Nights untranslated, and whose versions of it were extremely clumsy and incorrect, were infinitesimal; whereas, as we shall presently prove, practically the whole of Burton is founded on the whole of Payne. We trust, however, that it will continually be borne in mind that the warm friendship which existed between Burton and Payne was never for a moment interrupted. Each did the other services in different ways, and each for different reasons respected and honoured the other. In a letter to Mr. Payne of 12th August, 1884, Burton gave an idea of his plan. He says "I am going in for notes where they did not suit your scheme and shall make the book a perfect repertoire of Eastern knowledge in its most esoteric form." A paper on these subjects which Burton offered to the British Association was, we need scarcely say, courteously declined.
Writing to Payne on September 9th (1884) he says, "As you have been chary of notes my version must by way of raison d'etre (amongst others) abound in esoteric lore, such as female circumcision and excision, etc. I answer all my friends that reading it will be a liberal education, and assure them that with such a repertory of esotericism at their finger ends they will know all the Scibile [380] requisite to salvation. My conviction is that all the women in England will read it and half the men will cut me."
112. The Battle over the Nights.
Although, as we have seen, Burton's service to Mr. Payne's translation was almost too slight to be mentioned, Burton was to Mr. Payne in another way a tower of strength. Professional spite, jealousy and other causes had ranged against his Nights whole platoons of men of more or less weight. Jealousy, folly and ignorance made common cause against the new translation—the most formidable coterie being the group of influential men who for various reasons made it their business to cry up the commonplace translation of E. W. Lane, published in 1840, and subsequently reprinted—a translation which bears to Payne's the relation of a glow-worm to the meridian sun. The clique at first prepared to make a professional attack on the work, but the appearance of Volume i. proved it to be from a literary, artistic and philological point of view quite unassailable. This tactic having failed, some of these gentlemen, in their meanness, and we fear we must add, malevolence, then tried to stir up the authorities to take action against Mr. Payne on the ground of public morality. [381] Burton had long been spoiling for a fight—and now was his opportunity. In season and out of season he defended Payne. He fell upon the Lane-ites like Samson upon the Philistines. He gloried in the hurly-burly. He wallowed, as it were, in blood. Fortunately, too, at that time he had friends in the Government—straightforward, commonsense men—who were above all pettinesses. Lord Houghton, F. F. Arbuthnot, and others, also ranged themselves on the same side and hit out manfully.
Before starting on the Palmer expedition, Burton, in a letter of October 29th, had written to Mr. Payne: "The more I read your translation the more I like it. You have no need to fear the Lane clique; that is to say, you can give them as good as they can give you. I am quite ready to justify the moral point. Of course we must not attack Lane till he is made the cheval de bataille against us. But peace and quiet are not in my way, and if they want a fight, they can have it." The battle was hot while it lasted, but it was soon over. The Lane-ites were cowed and gradually subsided into silence. Mr. Payne took the matter more coolly than Burton, but he, too, struck out when occasion required. For example, among the enemy was a certain reverend Professor of Semitic languages, who held advanced opinions on religious matters. He had fought a good fight, had suffered persecution on that account, and is honoured accordingly. "It is usual," observed Burton, "with the weak, after being persecuted to become persecutors." [382] Mr. ——- had the folly to put it about that Payne's translation was made not direct from the Arabic but from German translations. How he came to make so amazing a statement, seeing that at the time no important German translation of the Nights existed, [383] it is difficult to say; but Mr. Payne sent him the following words from the Nights, written in the Arabic character: "I and thou and the slanderer, there shall be for us an awful day and a place of standing up to judgment." [384] After this Mr. ——- sheathed his sword and the Villon Society heard no more of him.