[] See Dell’ Origine, Progressi, e Stato attuale d’ogni Letteratura dell’ Abate D. Giovanni Andres, Tomo primo, capitolo xi. Dell’ influenza degli Arabi nella moderna coltura delle belle lettere.
[Note 1]. In the first page of a former translation, the French word “Sassaniens,” is rendered “Sussanians.” At the moment, the present translator was inclined to think it was an error of the press. He referred, however, to all the English editions he could meet with, and to two different translations; all of which differed from the French, and adhered to the word “Sussanians.” This concurrence of circumstances, added to the known inaccuracy of French writers respecting names, and their known pride in changing the names both of places and persons, and adapting them to a certain standard set up by themselves for their own peculiar language, rather startled him, as to the propriety of the French word “Sassaniens.”
He followed, however, the French edition; and he believes he was fortunately right, though he had many doubts on the subject, as Susa, sometimes called Susiana, whence Sussanians might, though incorrectly, be formed, was a principal city of Persia.
The Sassanians, however, or the family who bore that name, constituted the fourth dynasty of the Persian monarchs; the name of one of whom was not unlike that of Schahriar, the hero of the present tales; being Jezdegerd Ben Schecheriar, who reigned in the thirty-ninth year of the Hegira.
[Note 2]. In the original work, there are continual interruptions to the stories, by the supposed appearance of day-light, which obliged the sultan to rise, and attend to the affairs of the state. In the two first volumes, these interruptions would have recurred between two and three hundred times; and thus unpleasantly have broken in upon the unity and continued interest, so essential to tales of this nature.
The French, as well as the former English Translators, have been in their progress so aware of this, that they have all omitted it, as they proceeded with their works though they have all carried it on for some length of way. The French Translator omits a part of the interruption; namely, the repeated request of Dinarzadè to her sister every morning, at the end of the first volume, and the whole of it after the third. The former English editions stopped at different places, guided, as it should seem, merely by the caprice, or whim, of the Translator.
It was from this interruption, and this division, that the title of “Nights,” was given to the work; the whole being, as it is supposed, divided into one thousand and one.
Now although the present Translator did not think it right to drop the word “Nights” from his title-page, a word by which this work is so universally known, yet he thought it useless to continue the repetition, as the first was fully sufficient to shew the plan; besides which, this continual recurrence of the same speech, together with the division of matter, would have considerably lengthened the work; and, as the Translator is of opinion, for no good purpose.
In the present translation, therefore, this division into nights is entirely omitted, and the conversation, which is supposed to pass between Schahriar, Scheherazadè, and Dinarzadè, whenever day-light appears, is never inserted, except at the conclusion of a story, or when it takes a wider range than the common interruption.
[Note 3]. Balsora was a sea-port, situated on the Persian gulf; the same probably as is now called Bussorah, though the latter seems by the maps to be a few miles from the shore.