By way of colophon to the seventh and last volume we have, "On this wise end to us the Stories of the Kings and histories of various folk as foregoing in the Thousand Nights and a Night, perfected and completed, on the eighteenth day of Safar the auspicious, which is of the months of (the year A.H.) one thousand one hundred and seventy-eight" (= A.D. 1764-65).
"Copied by the humblest and neediest of the poor, Omar-al-Safatí, to whose sins may Allah be Ruthful!
"An thou find in us fault deign default supply,
And hallow the Faultless and Glorify."
The term "Suftah" is now and has been applied for the last century to the sons of Turkish fathers by Arab mothers, and many of these Mulattos live by the pen. On the fly-leaf of vol. i. is written in a fine and flowing Persian (?) hand, strongly contrasting with the text of the tome, which is unusually careless and bad, "This book | The Thousand Nights and a Night of the Acts and deeds (Sírat) of the Kings | and what befel them from sundry | women that were whorish | and witty | and various | Tales | therein." Below it also is a Persian couplet written in vulgar Iranian characters of the half-Shikastah type:
Chih goyam, o chih poyam? * Na mí-dánam hích o púch.
(What shall I say or whither fly? * This stuff and this nonsense
know not I.)
Moreover, at the beginning of vol. i. is a list of fifteen tales written in Europeo-Arabic characters, after schoolboy fashion, and probably by Scott. In vol. ii. there is no initial list, but by way of Foreword we read, "This is volume the second of the Thousand Nights and a Night from the xciiid. Night, full and complete." And the Colophon declares, "And this is what hath been finished for us of the fourth (probably a clerical error for "second") tome of the Thousand Nights and a Night to the clxxviith. Night, written on the twentieth day of the month Sha'bán A.H., one thousand one hundred and seventy-seven" (=A.D. 1764). This date shows that the MS. was finished during the year after incept.
The text from which our MS. was copied must have been valuable, and we have reason to regret that so many passages both of poetry and prose are almost hopelessly corrupt. Its tone and tenor are distinctly Nilotic; and, as Mr. E. Wortley Montague lived for some time in Egypt, he may have bought it at the Capital of the Nile-land. The story of the Syrian (v. 468) and that of the Two Lack-tacts (vi. 262), notably exalt Misr and Cairo at the expense of Shám and Damascus; and there are many other instances of preferring Kemi the Black Soil to the so called "Holy Land." The general tone, as well as the special incidents of the book, argues that the stories may have been ancient, but they certainly have been modernised. Coffee is commonly used (passim) although tobacco is still unknown; a youth learns archery and gunnery (Zarb al-Risás, vol. vii. 440); casting of cannon occurs (vol. v. 186), and in one place (vol. vi. 134) we read of "Taban-jatayn," a pair of pistols; the word, which is still popular, being a corruption of the Persian "Tabáncheh" = a slap or blow, even as the French call a derringer coup de poing. The characteristic of this Recueil is its want of finish. The stories are told after perfunctory fashion as though the writer had not taken the trouble to work out the details. There are no names or titles to the tales, so that every translator must give his own; and the endings are equally unsatisfactory, they usually content themselves, after "native" fashion, with "Intihá" = finis; and the connection with the thread of the work must be supplied by the story-teller or the translator. Headlines were not in use for the MSS. of that day, and the catchwords are often irregular, a new word taking the place of the initial in the following page.
The handwriting, save and except in the first volume, has the merit of regularity, and appears the same throughout the succeeding six, except in the rare places (e.g. vi. 92-93), where the lazy copyist did not care to change a worn-out pen, and continued to write with a double nib. On the other hand, it is the character of a village-schoolmaster whose literary culture is at its lowest. Hardly a sheet appears without some blunder which only in rare places is erased or corrected, and a few lacunæ are supplied by several hands, Oriental and European, the latter presumably Scott's. Not unfrequently the terminal word of a line is divided, a sign of great incuria or ignorance, as "Sháhr | baz" (i. 4), "Shahr | zád" (v. 309, vi. 106), and "Fawa | jadtu-h" = so I found him (V. 104). Koranic quotations almost always lack vowel points, and are introduced without the usual ceremony. Poetry also, that crux of a skilful scribe, is carelessly treated, and often enough two sets of verse are thrown into one, the first rhyming in úr, and the second in ír (e.g. vol. v. 256). The rhyme-words also are repeated within unlawful limits (passim and vol. v. 308, ll. 6 and 11). Verse is thrust into the body of the page (vii. 112) without signs of citation in red ink or other (iii. 406); and rarely we find it, as it should be, in distichs divided by the normal conventional marks, asterisks and similar separations. Sometimes it appears in a column of hemistichs after the fashion of Europe (iv. 111; iv. 232, etc.): here (v. 226) a quotation is huddled into a single line; there (v. 242) four lines, written as monostichs, are followed by two distichs in as many lines.
As regards the metrical part Dr. Steingass writes to me, "The verses in Al-Hayfá and Yúsuf, where not mere doggerel, are spoiled by the spelling. I was rarely able to make out even the metre and I think you have accomplished a feat by translating them as you have done."
The language of the MS. is generally that of the Felláh and notably so in sundry of the tales, such as, "The Goodwife of Cairo and her four Gallants" (v. 444). Of this a few verbal and phrasal instances will suffice. Adíní = here am I (v. 198); Ahná (passim, for nahnu) nakháf = we fear; 'Alaykí (for 'alayki) = on thee; and generally the long vowel (-kí) for the short (-ki) in the pronoun of the second person feminine; Antah (for ante) = thou (vi. 96) and Antú (for antum) = you (iii. 351); Aráha and even arúha, rúhat and rúha (for ráha) = he went (vii. 74 and iv. 75) and Arúhú (for rúhú) = go ye (iv. 179); Bakarah * * * allazi (for allatí) = a cow (he) who, etc.; (see in this vol., p. 253) and generally a fine and utter contempt for genders, e.g. Hum (for hunna) masc. for fem. (iii. 91; iii. 146; and v. 233); Tá 'áli (for ta'ál) fem. for masc. (vi. 96 et passim); Bíhím (for bi-him) = with them (v. 367); Bi-kám (for bi-kum) = with you (iii. 142) are fair specimens of long broad vowels supplanting the short, a peculiarity known in classical Arab., e.g. Miftáh (for Miftah) = a key. Here, however, it is exaggerated, e.g. Bá'íd (for ba'íd) = far (iv. 167); Kám (for kam) = how many? Kúm (for kum) = you (v. 118); Kúl-há (for kul-ha) = tell it (iv. 58); Mín (for man) = who? (iii. 89); Mirwád (for Mirwad) = a branding iron; Natanáshshad (for natanashshad) = we seek tidings (v. 211); Rájal (pron. Rágil, for Rajul) = a man (iv. 118 and passim); Sáhal (for sahal) = easy, facile (iv. 71); Sír (for sir) = go, be off! (v. 199); Shíl (for shil) = carry away (i. 111); and Záhab (for zahab) = gold (v. 186). This broad Doric or Caledonian articulation is not musical to unaccustomed organs. As in popular parlance the Dál supplants the Zál; e.g. Dahaba (for zahaba) = he went (v. 277 and passim); also T takes the place of Th, as Tult for thulth = one third (iii. 348) and Tamrat (for thamrat) = fruit (v. 260), thus generally ignoring the sibilant Th after the fashion of the modern Egyptians who say Tumm (for thumma) = again; "Kattir (for kaththir) Khayrak" = God increase thy weal, and Lattama (for laththama) = he veiled. Also a general ignoring of the dual, e.g. Házá 'usfurayn (for 'Usfuráni) = these be birds (vi. 121); Nazalú al-Wazirayn (do) = the two Wazirs went down (vii. 123); and lastly Al-Wuzará al-itnayn (for Al-Wazíráni) = the two Wazirs (vii. 121). Again a fine contempt for numbers, as Nanzur ana (for Anzur) = I (we) see (v. 198) and Inní (for inná) narúhu = indeed I (we) go (iii. 190). Also an equally conscientious disregard for cases, as Min mál abú-há (for abí-há) = out of the moneys of her sire (iv. 190); and this is apparently the rule of the writer.