The Arabian Nights in Translation: How the World of Scheherazade was Epitomized by the West

 Here is a Bachelors Degree paper by Rachel Kurlander (Honors Wesleyan Class of 2016 - congrats Rachel!). 

It's called "The Arabian Nights in Translation: How the World of Scheherazade was Epitomized by the West"

https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/islandora/object/ir%3A456/datastream/PDF/view

New Translation of Aladdin

W.W. Norton and Company are set to release a new, stand-alone English translation of Aladdin in November of 2018. It will be translated by Yasmine Seale and edited by Paulo Lemos Horta.

From their website – http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294996827

A dynamic French-Syrian translator, lauded for her lively poetic voice, tackles the enchanted world of Aladdin in this sparkling new translation.

Long defined by popular film adaptations that have reductively portrayed Aladdin as a simplistic rags-to-riches story for children, this work of dazzling imagination—and occasionally dark themes—finally comes to vibrant new life. “In the capital of one of China’s vast and wealthy kingdoms,” begins Shahrazad— the tale’s imperiled-yet-ingenious storyteller—there lived Aladdin, a rebellious fifteen-year-old who falls prey to a double-crossing sorcerer and is ultimately saved by the ruse of a princess.

One of the best-loved folktales of all time, Aladdin has been capturing the imagination of readers, illustrators, and filmmakers since an eighteenth-century French publication first added the tale to The Arabian Nights. Yet, modern English translators have elided the story’s enchanting whimsy and mesmerizing rhythms. Now, translator Yasmine Seale and literary scholar Paulo Lemos Horta offer an elegant, eminently readable rendition of Aladdin in what is destined to be a classic for decades to come.

Bruce Fudge - "More Translators of The Thousand and One Nights"

 Borges (1968) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges

Bruce Fudge on the continued legacy of Borges' judgements and predictions about the variety of translations of the Nights and the latest contemporary "Western" translations of the story collection.

" Obviously, much has changed since Borges’ day, not least the status of the Encyclopaedia  Britannica. We no longer want (consciously, anyway) to find Shakespeare or Flaubert in our translations from the Arabic. But in a sense, the twenty-first-century versions are heeding Borges’ critique. They, too, are only conceivable “in the wake of a literature.” The difference is that the new translations must be conceived in the wake of an Arabic literature.

It is true that the Penguin translation has a Spartan quality akin to the German of Littmann, as other reviewers have noted. But this quality is itself a result of a deep engagement with the Arabic text. One is never far from the original with Lyons, and as I have suggested, reading him is perhaps the closest to reading Calcutta II or Būlāq. The Pléiade edition is richer. This is most evident from the notes and critical apparatus that show both the translators’ deep command of the Arabic literary tradition and their evident passion for The Thousand and One Nights as a part of that tradition. None is particularly concerned with their readers’ own backgrounds: the assumption is that the reader, too, seeks authenticity. Perhaps in the next century scholars will look back and marvel at the priority of text over reader, but for the time being, both Penguin and Pléiade fit the current Zeitgeist."

His article - "More Translators of The Thousand and One Nights" from the Journal of the American Oriental Society can be read here:

https://www.academia.edu/24654499/More_Translators_of_The_Thousand_and_One_Nights_JAOS_136_2016_135-146

Al-Masudi - The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems

Al-Masudi (aka Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi) was/is a well known geographer and historian who lived in Baghdad and Cairo in the late 800s to mid 900s AD.

His book, Muruj Al-Dhahab, known in English as The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, is a historical account of the beginning of the world up through the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad.  You can read more about the book and its translations at this wikipedia page I created: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Meadows_of_Gold

What is interesting about the book to me and Nights scholars is that it is one of the first books to mention the Nights at all, and dates the Nights to the 10th century, if not suggestively before then.  There are only four known mentions of the Nights apart from any versions of the collection pre-1400s-ish, Masudi's is one of them.

The mention, which is very brief, contains information that the Nights is an Arabic translation from a Persian story collection known as Hazar Afsaneh, that it is known in Arabic as The Thousand Nights and a Night, and that it is the story of a King, his Vizier, the daughter of the Vizier who is named "Shirazad", and her handmaiden/slave, a girl named "Dinazad".

All of which are important details for Nights scholars in many different ways.

Here is the rendering in Arabic from the French and Arabic version of Muruj (important to note because it is not an original manuscript, but was (and is in many ways) the primary source for the Masudi book in Europe and other non-Arabic speaking countries) called Prairies d'or, Arabic edition and French translation of Muruj al-dhahab by Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille, Paris 1861-77.  The following is from volume 4, pages 89-90 (available online through archive.org linked at the wikipedia page above) - 

وان سبيلها سبيل الكتب المنقولة الينا والمترجمة لنا من الفارسية والهندية والرومية سبيل تأليفها ما ذكرنا مثل كتاب هزار افسانه وتفسير ذلك من الفارسية الى العربية ألف خرافة والخرافة بالفارسية يقال لها افسانه والناس يسمون هذا الكتاب ألف ليلة وليلة وهو خبر الملك والوزير وابنته وجاريتها وهما شيرازاد ودينازاد ومثل كتاب فرزه وسيماس

Eastern Dreams by Paul Nurse, review

My review of Paul Nurse's Eastern Dreams: How the Arabian Nights Came to the World (2010) published by Penguin/Viking Canada is now online at the Journal of Folklore Research.

You can read the review here: http://www.indiana.edu/~jofr/review.php?id=545

Paul Nurse's book has been out for several months now but is limited in its release to primarily Canada, which, given the book's scope and applicability, is too bad. Perhaps future editions will be given a wider distribution. You can, however, buy it from Amazon Canada with your Amazon user ID from the US or anywhere (http://www.amazon.ca/Eastern-Dreams-Paul-Nurse/dp/0670063606/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1288216198&sr=8-1).

Alf Layla wa Layla - The Title

1001 Titles...or 1000 Titles and another Title

It occurs to me that the title from the Arabic is often misconstrued as the number 1001, making it "1001 Nights" from the Arabic "Alf Layla wa Layla."  (for history on some of the title variants see the article "what is the arabian nights" on this blog)

In fact though the title translates not as "1001 Nights" but rather "1000 Nights and a Night" - I like the latter title better actually because it opens up the form of the Nights more, adding to their infinite reproducibility vs. the finite though suggestive number of "1001."

"One Thousand Nights and a Night" is an active title, there is a thousand nights (a lot) and then on top of it, there's another one (and another, and another), there is always another night even after a thousand.

Saying 1001 in Arabic would be something like "Wahid (one) wa Alf (and a thousand)" and not "Alf wa wahid"anyway, though in some colloquial sayings it is this way in Arabic but not for the strict number itself.

So here we have instead of having a finite number of stories to listen to ("well now we are at story 1001, the last one"), you have an infinite one ("if you think that story was cool wait till you hear about the one with the three beggars and the salmon...").

In English translations Payne has it as "The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night" and Burton has it as "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night" ("a" vs. "one" - the "a" of Burton being, in my opinion, more "open").  Lane's seems to be "The Thousand and One Nights."  Galland's French title:  "Les mille et une nuits" (literally "The Thousand and One Nights."

I can't recall ever seeing this particular issue mentioned before, if someone knows of it being brought up please let me know.

how to tell a story - the porter and the three ladies

Safie, One of the Three Ladies of Bagdad - 1900 - William Clarke Wontner

The following is a selection of paragraphs from different versions of the English language Nights. All are from a favorite story of mine “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Bagdad,” which relies on a bit of fun with sexuality and at the same time gives a lot of agency to the female characters, making it a sort of sexually subversive scene.

In case you don’t know the story it involves a porter who is waiting for a job on the street, is picked up by a young woman who makes him carry a feast of foods that she buys, she takes him to a house/courtyard with a fountain and two other young attractive women, and the foursome end up drinking and frolicking and a joke is told involving everyone’s private parts that, if you haven’t read it, I won’t spoil the humor of.

Here are the various takes on it, some range from the nonexistent (Lane) to the over the top (Burton, though Burton’s is by far the most humorous in its tone), to the defensive and anti-poetic to the downright boring, how can you make this story so boring?!

I think Pasolini does it well in his film. And I also like Burton, Mathers and kind of Dawood but the others are too far gone to salvage. Bulak and the Egyptian Arabic versions are much more explicit and fun than the Mahdi/Galland manuscript too.

But I digress and let thou be thy own judge:

Lane/Poole

“The wine continued to circulate among them, and the porter, taking his part in the revels, dancing and singing with them, and enjoying the fragrant odours, began to hug and kiss them, while one slapped him, and another pulled him, and the third beat him with sweet-scented flowers, till, at length, the wine made sport with their reason; and they threw off all restraint, indulging their merriment with as much freedom as if no man had been present.”

Note 25 (at end of quote) – "I here pass over an extremely objectionable scene"

[this is the second time they drink in the story, as Lane has it - I can feel his fretting through his language, though why include the story at all if he’s so nervous about its contents?]

(60)

Dawood:

[I feel the need to include the entire section though I’ll just put the paragraph below, though Lane excises the whole “joke” of the story almost completely, leaving out the “what do you call this…” sections and ruining the need for the story at all. I’m a hesitant fan of Dawood’s even if his version has its own problems…]

“When they had drained their cups a second time, they rose and danced round the fountain, singing and clapping their hands in unison. They went on drinking until the wine took possession of their senses and overcame their reason, and, when its sovereignty was fully established, the first girl got up and cast off all her clothes, letting down her long hair to cover her nakedness. She jumped into the fountain, frolicking and washing her body, filling her mouth with water and squirting it at the porter. At length she came out of the pool and threw herself into the porter’s lap. Then she pointed down to that which was between her thighs and said: ‘Darling master, what do you call that?’”

(247)

Grub Street Edition/ Robert Mack editor:

(also a little on the tame side and no “what do you call it” joke):

“After they had eat a little, Amine, who sat next the sideboard, took up a bottle and cup, filled out wine and drank first herself, according to the custom of the Arabians, then she filled the cup to her sisters, who drank in course as they sat; and at last she filled it the fourth time to the porter, who, as he received it, kissed Amine’s hand; and before he drank, sung a song to this purpose: That as the wind brings along with it the sweet scents of the perfumed places through which it passes, so the wine he was going to drink, coming from her fair hands, received a more exquisite taste than what it had of its own nature. This song pleased the ladies so much, that each of them sung another in their turn. In short, they were extraordinary merry all the time of dinner, which lasted a long while, and nothing was wanting that could make it agreeable.”

(70)

And then of course Burton:

“Then the lady took the cup, and drank it off to her sisters’ health, and they ceased not drinking (the Porter being in the midst of them), and dancing and laughing and reciting verses and singing ballads and ritornellos. All this time the Porter was carrying on with them, kissing, toying, biting, handling, groping, fingering; whilst one thrust a dainty morsel in his mouth, and another slapped him; and this cuffed his cheeks, and that threw sweet flowers at him; and he was in the very paradise of pleasure, as though he were sitting in the seventh sphere among the Houris of Heaven. They ceased not doing after this fashion until the wine played tricks in their heads and worsted their wits; and, when the drink got the better of them, the portress stood up and doffed her clothes till she was mother-naked. However, she let down her hair about her body by way of shift, and throwing herself into the basin disported herself and dived like a duck and swam up and down, and took water in her mouth, and spurted it all over the Porter, and washed her limbs, and between her breasts, and inside her thighs and all around her navel. Then she came up out of the cistern and throwing herself on the Porter’s lap said, “O my lord, O my love, what callest thou this article?” pointing to her slit, her solution of continuity.”

(vol 1: 90)

Haddawy: (I hear the humor in Burton, there is none here, I feel, just my humble opinion):

Thus receiving the full and returning the empty, they went on drinking cup after cup until the porter began to feel tipsy, lost his inhibitions, and was aroused. He danced and sang lyrics and ballads and carried on with the girls, toying, kissing, biting, groping, rubbing, fingering, and playing jokes on them, while one girl thrust a morsel in his mouth, another flirted with him, another served him with some fresh herbs, and another fed him sweets until he was in utter bliss. They carried on until they got drunk and the wine turned their heads. When the wine got the better of them, the doorkeeper went to the pool, took off her clothes, and stood stark naked, save for what was covered of her body by her loosened hair. Then she said, “Whee,” went into the pool, and immersed herself in the water.

[here Haddawy has a night and morning section]

I heard that the doorkeeper went into the pool, threw water on herself, and, after immersing herself completely, began to sport, taking water in her mouth and squirting it all over her sisters and the porter. Then she washed herself under her breasts, between her thighs, and inside her navel. Then she rushed out of the pool, sat naked in the porter’s lap and, pointing to her slit, asked, “My lord and my love, what is this?”

(72-3)

The new Lyons edition:

She then took the cup, drank it and sat down with her sister. They continued to drink, with the porter seated between them, and as they drank, they danced, laughed and sang, reciting poems and lyrics. The porter began to play with them, kissing, biting, rubbing, feeling, touching and taking liberties. One of them would give him morsels to eat, another would cuff him and slap him, and the third would bring him scented flowers. With them he was enjoying the pleasantest of times, as though he was seated among the houris of Paradise.

They went on in this way until the wine had taken its effect on their heads and brains. When it had got the upper hand of them, the doorkeeper stood up, stripped off her clothes until she was naked, and letting down her hair as a veil, she jumped into the pool. She sported in the water, ducking her head and then spitting out the water, after which she took some in her mouth and spat it over the porter. She washed her limbs and between her thighs, after which she came out from the water and threw herself down on his lap. ‘My master, my darling, what is the name of this?’ she said, pointing to her vagina.

(55-6)

Mathers/Mardrus:

Again the young girl took the cup to the porter and, after holding it to his lips, sat down beside her sister. Soon they began to dance and sing and to play with the wonderful petals, the porter all the time taking them in his arms and kissing them, while one said saucy things to him, another drew him to her, and the third beat him with flowers. They went on drinking until the grape sat throned above their reason, and, when her reign was fully established, the portress rose and stripped off all her clothes until she was naked. Jumping into the water of the fountain, she began to play with it, taking it in her mouth and blowing it noisily at the porter, washing all her body, and letting it run between her childish thighs. At length she got out of the fountain, threw herself on the porter’s lap, stretched out on her back and, pointing to the thing which was between her thighs, said:

‘My darling, do you know the name of that?’

(54-5)

Jack Zipes, in his Arabian Nights vol II, an “adaptation” of Burton, keeps everything Burton has but takes out the sentence about the Houris for some reason. Zipes’ version is quite readable for contemporary readers actually and may be one of the better adaptations, though lacking in the poetics of say Burton or Mathers.

Burton Translated

Xah Lee - a Nights fan and English teacher has an interesting website featuring Burton's expurgated version of the Nights with unusual Burtonesque words highlighted and defined on the side panel. Well worth a look:

http://xahlee.org/p/arabian_nights/index.html

Lyons Review and English Version Overview by Jack Ross

Professor Jack Ross is another Nights enthusiast and an experienced scholar of the Nights, as well as author, professor, and poet.

His 1001 Nights blog is linked to this one on the sidebar but he also occasionally publishes Nights related material on his other, more often updated, blog.

Here is his review of the Lyons versions and a great overview of past English language versions:

http://mairangibay.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-translation-of-arabian-nights.html

Lyons Review focusing on translation - Elspeth Barker

A review of the 2009 Lyons edition of the Nights focusing on its translations and past translations and their issues. I agree with much of what the reviewer says.

It's from the Independent (pasted below):

link: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-arabian-nights-tales-of-1001-nights-trs-malcolm-c-lyons-1607007.html



Penguin £125

The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 nights, trs Malcolm C Lyons

A fairy-tale classic gets a modern makeover, but don't bin its fusty predecessors just yet

Reviewed by Elspeth Barker

Sunday, 15 February 2009

In his witty essay on the translators of the 1001 Nights, Borges celebrates a hostile dynasty, each scion striving to annihilate his predecessor. There are so many manuscripts to choose from, none definitive, representing a fantastical melange of tales preserved, embroidered, lost and reinvented by countless oral storytellers, Arabic, Persian, Indian – and French.


Antoine Galland, the first European translator, in the 18th century, is thought to have created two of the most famous stories, Aladdin and Ali Baba, himself. JC Mardrus's French version of 1899 (meticulously translated into English by Powys Mathers) has been hugely criticised for its delightful additional details – a dish of rice cream comes from him "powdered with sugar and cinnamon", while the Arabic "girl" may become "an enchanting child". Why not? This is the tradition of the storyteller. A contemporary translator, Husain Haddawy, recalls stories from his childhood in Baghdad: "As the embers glowed in the dim light ... she would spin the yarn leisurely, amplifying here and interpolating there, episodes I recognised from other stories." So it goes on. Everything is an aide-memoire for something else.

This new version of the Nights by Malcolm C Lyons is the first direct translation into English of the Calcutta II recension since Sir Richard Burton's famous 19th-century version. The three volumes bear introductions by Robert Irwin, who rises to Borges' prescription and casts scorn on earlier translations, though Lyons himself notes debts to Haddawy and to Enno Littmann, the German scholar derided by Borges for his literalism: "Like Washington, he cannot tell a lie."

If one were to find fault with Lyons' monumental achievement, it would be in the painstaking plainness of his diction. Like Haddawy, Lyons falls often into linguistic traps that are avoided by the exuberant Mardrus and Mathers. Instead of "cripple" or "lame" (traditional fairy-tale adjectives), Haddawy writes "paraplegic" while Lyons has "semi-paralysed". Lyons also consistently translates the common Arabic zib and kis as "penis" and "vagina". The cumulative effect is clinical, jarringly out of place in the perfumed chambers and ghostly gardens of the Nights.

In the tale of the second barber, a young man must gratify a drunken admirer. Mardrus/Mathers gets the right tone: "The old woman came up to him and said, 'Now you must run after the dear young lady and catch her. It is her custom, when heated by dance and wine, to undress naked and not to give herself to her lover until she has been able to examine his bare limbs, his rampant zabb, and the agility of his running. You must follow her from room to room, with your zabb in the ascendant, until you catch her. That is the only way she will be mounted."

Lyons has: "'Now,' said the old woman, 'you have achieved your goal. There will be no more blows and there is only one thing left. It is a habit of my mistress that, when she is drunk, she will not let anyone have her until she has stripped off her clothes, including her harem trousers, and is entirely naked. Then she will tell you to remove your own clothes and to start running, while she runs in front of you as though she was trying to escape from you. You must follow her from place to place, until you have an erection, and she will then let you take her.'"

I don't want to seem sex-obsessed, but in a medieval fairy tale, albeit for grown-ups, men do not have erections, they have rampant (or even rampaging) zabbs. And to continue the theme, inevitable in this saga, in the story of a Prince "Semi-Petrified" for Lyons, "Ensorcelled" for Burton, a lover lamenting the unpunctuality of his mistress, says, according to Lyons, "I will never again keep company with you or join my body to yours," but according to Burton, shouts "nor will I glue my body to your body, and strum and belly-bump". Which threat carries the more weight? Lyons mentions a ruined city "echoing to the screech of owls and the cawing of crows"; fine enough, but for Burton it is a place where "raven should croak and howlet hoot". Divine. Unfortunately Burton also says things such as "verily this is a matter whereanent silence cannot be kept". Verily, 'twas time for a new translation.

Yet the English reader may not be so badly served by the now-unfashionable Mardrus-Mathers version. Mathers is championed by the poet Tony Harrison, and Mardrus's admirers have included Gide, Proust, Borges and Joyce. As even their sternest critics admit, Mardrus and Mathers come closest to conveying the experience of a medieval Cairo storyteller, albeit at the cost of strict fidelity. Mardrus also dispenses with minor tales he finds dull, replacing them with others he likes better. A case in point is "The Tale of the Sea Rose of the Girl of China", remarkable for its transsexual subplot.

Scholars universally accept the claim made by Mardrus's enemy, Victor Chauvin, that Mardrus appropriated this tale from a Victorian source. But a little literary detective work on our part reveals that the source of this story is the Sanskrit Mahabharata, which dates from more than a millennium before the earliest manuscript of the Arabian Nights. Who wins on pedigree?

Scholars object to Mardrus's adornment in passages such as the iconic first description of Scheherazade, where he adds an extra line of praise. Lyons here deletes a line which is considered by Haddawy, Burton and Payne, to be correct.

Two final quibbles with Lyons: the "index" is an unalphabetised table of contents, provokingly placed at the back of the book, and page headers give the number rather than the name of the tale.

Despite these caveats, every aficionado will want to add Lyons to a rickety shelf which ideally will also contain Mardrus/Mathers, Haddawy, and the peerless Arabian Nights Encyclopedia by Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen, which is almost as much fun to dip into as the Nights themselves. Doughty Burton will serve to prop the whole thing up.

Mahdi, Haddawy & Burton Compared II

These quotes are from the Fisherman/Jinni/Ensorcelled Prince series of stories:

Note on the Arabic: Several words are misspelled because of the original manuscript but I’ve copied them as they are in Mahdi’s manuscript (ie tuma instead of thuma and no dots below the ya, etc.).

Note Burton’s description of the Prince’s lover and its crudeness, which is nowhere near the same in Mahdi or in Haddawy (although the latter two are different, Haddawy translates as “black man” the Arabic for “black slave”). I’ll have to take a look at some more Arabic texts in order to get a better idea for how far off base Burton took his translation.

Fisherman and the Jinni

Burton – “Now when the Sultan heard the mournful voice he sprang to his feet; and, following the sound, found a curtain let down over a chamber-door. He raised it and saw behind it a young man sitting upon a couch about a cubit above the ground; and he fair to the sight, a well shaped wight, with eloquence dight; his forehead was flower-white, his cheek rosy bright, and a mole on his cheek-breadth like an ambergris mite; even as the poet doth indite:” (68)

Haddawy – “When the king heard the lamentation and the verses, he rose and moved toward the source of the voice until he came to a doorway behind a curtain, and when he lifted the curtain, he saw at the upper end of the room a young man sitting on a chair that rose about twenty inches above the floor. He was a handsome young man, with a full figure, clear voice, radiant brow, bright face, downy beard, and ruddy cheeks, graced with a mole like a speck of amber, just as the poet describes it:” (54-5).

"فلما سمح الملك الشعر والبكا نهض قايماً وتتبع الصوت وجد ستراً مرخى على باب مجلس, فشاله ونظر وادا فى صدر المجلس صبياً جالس على كرسى مرتفعاً عن الارض مقدار دراع وهو شاباٌ مليح وقداً رجيح ولسان فصيح, بجبين ازهر ووجه اقمر وعدار اخضر وخدٍ احمر وشامه عليه كقرص عنبر, كما قال الشاعر فيها

(Mahdi 113-4)

This description of the ensorcelled prince in Arabic seems best encapsulated here by Burton’s rhyming English adjectives, although it sounds a bit flowery and put on – I think that was the point here. In Haddawy’s version it is much less poetic and more straight forward in its description, which for me loses something of the original’s playfulness.

Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince

The Prince’s servants gossip:

Mahdi – 116

"الا تعمل له فى القدح الشرب الدى يبات عليه مرقد وتسقيه له فيرقد ويصير هو والميت سوا, وتخرج تغيب الى الفجر, ولما تاتى تبخر ببخور عند انفه يشمه فيستيقض, فيا خصارت"

Burton - “Nay, more, doth she not drug every night the cup she giveth him to drink before sleep-time, and put Bhang into it? So he sleepeth and wotteth not whither she goeth, nor what she doeth; but we know that after giving him the drugged wine, she donneth her richest raiment and perfumeth herself and then she fareth out from him to be away till break of day; then she cometh to him, and burneth a pastille under his nose and he awaketh from his deathlike sleep.” (70-1).

Haddawy - “No. She places a sleeping potion in the last drink he takes, offers him the cup, and when he drinks it, he sleeps like a dead man. Then she leaves him and stays out till dawn. When she returns, she burns incense under his nose, and when he inhales it, he wakes up. What a pity!” (57)

Here it seems that Burton is way off in his own corner but again it might be that he was using a different source for his translation, although the deliberate archaic language seems strangely incorporated here. Here Haddawy and the Arabic are closer than before.

The Prince’s wife’s lover:

Mahdi – 117

وتسلقت انا سطح القبه واشرفت عليهم وادا ببنت عمى قد وقفت على عبد اسود مبتلى قاعد على قش قصب وهو لابس هدمه وشراميط فقبلت الارض بين يديه

Burton - “Lo! My fair cousin had gone in to a hideous negro slave with his upper lip like the cover of a pot, and his lower like an open pot; lips which might sweep up sand from the gravel-floor of the cot. He was to boot a leper and a paralytic, lying upon a strew of sugar-cane trash and wrapped in an old blanket and the foulest rags and tatters” (71).

Haddawy – “I saw my wife standing before a decrepit black man sitting on reed shavings and dressed in tatters” (57).

Not sure where Burton got this description from but I’d be very interested in finding it. Haddawy forgoes the Arabic “black slave” to settle on “black man” here. She kisses the earth in front of her lover in the Arabic but the English is not quoted here.

The Prince’s wife’s torture:

Mahdi - 121

تم انها لم يكفها دلك وما صارت حالتى اليه تم انها تعرينى فى كل يوم وتضربنى بالصوت مايه جلده حتى يسيل دمى وتتهرى اكتافى, تم تلبسنى توب شعر صفه البلاّس على نصفى الفوقانى وتلبسنى هده الاتواب الفاخره من فوق

Burton – “And every day she tortureth me and scougeth me with an hundred stripes, each of which draweth floods of blood and cutteth the skin of my shoulders to strips; and lastly she clotheth my upper half with a hair-cloth and then throweth over them these robes” (77).

Haddawy – “she strips me naked every day and gives me a hundred lashes with the whip until my back is lacerated and begins to bleed. Then she clothes my upper half with a hairshirt like a coarse rug and covers it with these luxurious garments.” (61)

Comparing Mahdi to Burton and Haddawy

A few interesting comparisons of some key translations and editions of the Nights.

Some quick notes about Mahdi's manuscript/edition: The Wazir kills Shahriyar's wife and future wives.

In Mahdi the Wazir is called:

ابو جاريتين

Which is translated in Haddawy as "father of the two girls" but which actually (thanks Nadine) means father of the two concubines or servants (much more interesting). It's the first time I heard of the Wazir called anything other than Shahriyar's Wazir. Jariya is an old medieval word and is, according to my sources, no longer in use.

Unfortunately Google's translation (which is horrible in general for a contextually complex language like Arabic into English) of the word as "ongoing" (which would make the Wazir (Sharazad's father) named "Father of Ongoing") is incorrect and there is no word apart from the dual form of the servants/concubines.

Here are some segments of text for consideration, comparing the Arabic of Mahdi's manuscript with Haddawy's and Burton's translations. I'm interested in the way in which the translators (and Burton was using a different version than Haddawy/Mahdi) dealt with rhythm and language. Haddawy says in his introduction that he is not copying the rhymes into English because they would sound bad. I think Burton does a pretty good job of getting close to the Arabic rhythm and playfulness of the text though and Haddawy sounds relatively flat here.

Description of Shahrazad:

In Mahdi's manuscript (p 22):

وكانت الكبيره شهرازاد قد قرات الكتب والمصنفات والحكمه وكتب الطبيات وحفظت الاشعار وطالعت الاخبار وعلمت اقوال الناس وكلام الحكما والملوك, عارفه لبيبه حكيمه اديبه, قد قرت ودرت

“The older daughter, Shahrazad, had read the books of literature, philosophy, and medicine. She knew poetry by heart, had studied historical reports, and was acquainted with the sayings of men and the maxims of sages and kings. She was intelligent, knowledgeable, wise and refined. She had read and learned.” (Haddawy 11)

“Now he had two daughters, Shahrazad and Dunyazad hight, of whom the elder had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by-gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studies philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.” (Burton 14-5).

and the ox and the donkey:

Mahdi p 27 -

ويستعملونى من الليل الى الليل ويطلعوا بى فى الليل الى دار البقر ويلقحوا لى الفول بالطين والتبن بقصله, وابات فى الخرا والبول طول ليلتى, وانت لم تبرح فى كنش ورش ومسح ومعلف نضيف ملان تبن, وانت واقف مستريح وفى النادر حتى يعرض لصاحبنا التاجر حاجه يركبك فيها ويعود على اتره, وانت مستريح وانا تعبان, وانت نايم وانا سهران.

Haddawy – “They work me from nighttime to nighttime, take me back in the dark, offer me beans soiled with mud and hay mixed with chaff, and let me spend the night lying in urine and dung. Meanwhile you rest on well-swept, watered and smoothed ground, with a clean trough full of hay. You stand in comfort, save for the rare occasion when our master rides you to do a brief errand and returns. You are comfortable, while I am weary; you sleep, while I keep awake” (12).

Burton – “They shut me up in the byre and throw me beans and crushed-straw, mixed with dirt and chaff; and I lie in dung and filth and foul stinks through the livelong night. But thou art always lying at ease, save when it happens (and seldom enough!) that the master hath some business, when he mounts thee and rides thee to town and returns with thee forthright. So it happens that I am toiling and distrest while thou takest thine ease and thy rest; thou sleepest while I am sleepless; I hunger still while thou eatest thy fill, and I win contempt while thou winnest good will” (16-7).