Their countless lamps still supplicate for thee.
Translated by Thomas Walsh, for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'
ANTAR
(About 550-615)
BY EDWARD S. HOLDEN
rabia was opened to English readers first by Sale's translation of the 'Kuran,' in 1734; and by English versions of the 'Arabian Nights' from 1712 onward. The latter were derived from Galland's translation of the 'Thousand and One Nights,' which began to appear, in French, in 1704. Next to nothing was generally known of Oriental literature from that time until the end of the eighteenth century. The East India Company fostered the study of the classics of the extreme Orient; and the first Napoleon opened Egypt,--his savans marched in the centre of the invading squares.
The flagship of the English fleet which blockaded Napoleon's army carried an Austro-German diplomatist and scholar,--Baron von Hammer-Purgstall,--part of whose mission was to procure a complete manuscript of the 'Arabian Nights.' It was then supposed that these tales were the daily food of all Turks, Arabians, and Syrians. To the intense surprise of Von Hammer, he learned that they were never recited in the coffee-houses of Constantinople, and that they were not to be found at all outside of Egypt.
His dismay and disappointment were soon richly compensated, however, by the discovery of the Arabian romance of 'Antar,' the national classic, hitherto unknown in Europe, except for an enthusiastic notice which had fallen by chance into the hands of Sir William Jones. The entire work was soon collected. It is of interminable length in the original, being often found in thirty or forty manuscript volumes in quarto, in seventy or eighty in octavo. Portions of it have been translated into English, German, and French. English readers can consult it best in 'Antar,' a Bedouin romance, translated from the Arabic by Terrick Hamilton, in four volumes 8vo (London, 1820). Hamilton's translation, now rare, covers only a portion of the original; and a new translation, suitably abridged, is much needed.