And sad reflection adds, that they are past.
“The Arabians,” says Mr. Hole, who has written very ingeniously upon the subject of one of the tales in the Arabian Nights, and whom I shall more than once take the liberty of consulting, “are described by writers, who have personally visited them, as an acute and sensible people, and this performance, (the present work) was probably composed not many centuries after that period, when they had added to their native stores of education, those of ancient Greece. To them we are chiefly indebted for the preservation of those valuable remains of antiquity: and so fully established was their literary reputation in former days, that, when Europe was immersed in barbarism, all polite learning passed under the designation of Studia Arabum.” (Vide Blackwall’s Letters on Mythology.)
“In the eighth, ninth, and succeeding centuries, when the European world, (says Mr. Richardson, in the preface to his Arabic Grammar) was clouded with barbarity and ignorance; when sovereign princes and great feudal lords could neither write nor read, the Arabians rivalled the Romans of the Augustan age in erudition and genius; whilst, with a more extensive empire, [c] they excelled them in magnificence, and in the more refined splendour and elegance of life. The khalifs Al Modhi, Al Rashid, Al Mamoun, and other monarchs of the illustrious house of Al Abbas, were men of learning, genius, and politeness; learning and genius were found therefore the surest avenues to royal favor; they were consequently universally cultivated; princes, generals, and viziers being not only munificent patrons of literary merit, but holding themselves a conspicuous rank among writers of the most distinguished class.
“The Arabian chiefs, (with, it must be confessed, an alloy of ferocity) were in general brave, liberal, hospitable, ingenious, penetrating, fond of learning of every species, and carrying, to the most singular excess, their admiration of poetry and eloquence. With such dispositions and attachments, therefore, it is easy to conceive, that their language became naturally an important object of their attention. The dialects of their numerous tribes furnished them with rich mines: from these they freely borrowed; and formed, from the whole, a language, sublime, comprehensive, copious, energetic, delicate, majestic; adapted equally for the softness of love, or the poignancy of satire; for the mournfulness of elegy, or the grandeur of heroics; for the simplest tale, or the boldest effort of rhetoric.
“In every stile of composition, therefore, the books in this language are numerous, and many of them of high intrinsic worth; their books, however, and their language, remain still but imperfectly known in Europe; nor can we ever hope, perhaps, for much advancement in this branch of learning, till the formidable fancied difficulties of the study are removed; till curiosity is stimulated by a hope of success; till attention is fixed by a conviction of its utility.”
The Augustan age of Arabian literature may be considered to have been about the time that the power of the caliphs was at its height, and this was about the 170th year of the Hegira, and the 701st of the Christian Æra, and during the reign of Haroun Alraschid, who bears so conspicuous a part in these volumes, and of his immediate successors. “The monarchs themselves,” says Professor Carlyle, “loved and cultivated the sciences; the ministers followed their example; and men of genius flocked to the court of Bagdad, from all parts of the world, with an assurance of receiving those honors and rewards which their abilities merited. The empire of the Khaliphs was at this time one of the most powerful that has ever existed; it extended, in Asia, from the gulph of Persia and the confines of Tartary to the Mediterranean and Indian seas, and comprehended all the habitable part of Africa, from the isthmus of Suez to the Atlantic Ocean.” And it was probably not long after this, that most of these tales were written, for I believe it is generally supposed, that they were not all the production of one author, or of one age.
Of the tales themselves, I do not mean to enter into a long and minute investigation; although such an investigation would be, if well conducted, highly amusing, and at the same time instructive. But to carry on an inquiry of this sort, to the extent it ought, would require great research and labour, and would in itself form a separate work. Mr. Hole has even produced a small volume in the illustration only of one story, which occupies not more than the fifth part of one volume of the present tales. All the peculiarities and customs, which are mentioned in the Arabian Nights, might be illustrated by similar peculiarities and customs, which are not only known to have existed among the very people, of whom this work delineates the manners, at the very time when the work itself was composed, but which also still exist among the same nations. Such an inquiry too would tend to explain some parts of the present work, which must, without it, now appear, if not absurd, at least unaccountable. To shew, however, that even the most common things are not inserted without a motive, and to illustrate what might be otherwise considered as ridiculous, I shall give one or two instances of the manner of investigation and sort of illustration proposed.
In the story of the Merchant and Genius, Vol. I. page 29, the latter says, “I have sworn to kill thee, as thou hast killed my son; for whilst thou was throwing about the stones of the dates thou hadst eaten, my son passed by, and one of them struck him in the eye and caused his death.” Now this, at first sight, seems a singular, if not a ridiculous thing; but even this has its foundation in an Eastern custom. There are accounts (and I speak upon the authority of Warren Hastings, Esq. than whom no one is better acquainted with Oriental manners and history; and whose name is almost reverenced throughout that quarter of the world,) there are accounts of people having been killed by date stones, which were shot at them in a particular manner with both hands. Those persons who are in the habit of doing this, will send the stone with such velocity as to give a most violent blow. And it is in this manner that prisoners have sometimes been put to death: a man sits down at a little distance from the object he intends to destroy, and then attacks him by repeatedly shooting at him with the stone of the date, thrown from his two fore-fingers; and in this way puts an end to his life.—The former translation, by calling these stones, the “shells” of the date, besides totally mistaking the fact, dates having no shells but only stones, makes complete nonsense of the tale.
Thus, too, in the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, in Vol. IV. Morgiana says, that she knew the man she had killed to be a robber, who had come with the intention of murdering her master, because he eat no salt at supper. Now this in itself is perfectly unintelligible: but when we find it to be a custom among the Arabians, and some other Easter nations, that, if any one eat salt at another’s table, it is a sure pledge of the honor and integrity of the guest, and for the safety of the host, and that even a robber will not then break the laws of hospitality, every thing is explained; and the Author’s local knowledge and veracity are authenticated.
I must add one other singular instance. In the story of Sidi Nouman, Vol. IV. page 183, after he has been changed into a dog by his wife Aminè, there is a long account of his treatment, particularly by one person, who, though he gives him food in the street, yet is distressed at his getting into his house; and who is one of those who think, “that water and soap enough cannot be found to wash their clothes, if a dog has touched them.” Yet this very man threw the nicest pieces to him the next morning, when with other dogs he was waiting before the door. The following extract from the Travels in the East of M. Olivier, in 1793, will illustrate the circumstance.