Chapter X—King of Persia 216
Conclusion 227
Additional Notes 228
INTRODUCTION.
IF THOU PERCEIVEST ERRORS, SUPPLY THE DEFECTS—GLORIOUS
IS HE IN WHOM IS NEITHER FAULT NOR BLEMISH.
INTRODUCTION.
I—ORIENTAL FICTIONS—THE ARABIAN NIGHTS—THE BOOK OF SINDIBĀD.
The Persians, like all Eastern nations, remarks Sir John Malcolm,
“delight in Tales, Fables, and Apothegms; the reason of which appears
obvious: for where liberty is unknown, and where power in all its shapes
is despotic, knowledge must be veiled to be useful.” The ancient
Persians also had their Tales and Romances, the substance of many of
which is probably embodied in the celebrated _Shāh Nāma_, or Book of
Kings, of Firdausī. And the fondness of the old pagan Arabs for the same
class of compositions seems to have threatened the success of Muhammad’s
great mission, to win them back from their vain idolatry to the worship
of the ONE God. For an Arabian merchant having brought from Persia the
marvellous stories of Rustam, Isfendiar, Feridūn, Zohāk, and other
famous heroes, which he recited to the tribe of Kuraysh, they were so
delighted with them, that they plainly told Muhammad that they much
preferred hearing such stories to his legends and moral exhortations;
upon which the Prophet promulgated some new passages of the Kur`ān
(chapter xxx), in which the merchant who had brought the idle tales and
all who listened to them were consigned to perdition. This had the
desired effect: the converts to Islām rejected Tales and Poetry; and it
was not until the brilliant series of Muslim conquests in all parts of
the then known world were almost completed that the Arabs began to turn
their attention to literature and science, and thus preserved to the
world the remains of the learning and philosophy of antiquity, during
the long period of intellectual darkness in Europe. And it is remarkable
that to a people distinguished for nearly two centuries by their
religious bigotry and intolerance, and contempt for every species of
literature outside the Kur`ān, Commentaries, and Traditions—that to the
descendants of the fanatical destroyers of the library at Alexandria and
of the literary treasures of ancient Persia are we indebted for many of
the pleasing fictions which have long been popular in Europe. For, while
India seems to have been the cradle-land of those folk-tales, yet they
came to us chiefly through an Arabian medium: brought to Europe, among
other ways by the Saracens who settled in Spain in the eighth century,
by crusaders and pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, and also,
perhaps, by Venetian merchants trading in the Levant and the Muslim
provinces of Northern Africa. However this may be, there can be no doubt
that, as Isaac D’Israeli remarks, “tales have wings, whether they come
from the East or the North, and they soon become denizens wherever they
alight. Thus it has happened, that the tale which charmed the wandering
Arab in his tent, or cheered the northern peasant by his winter’s
fireside, alike held on its journey towards England and Scotland.”
Many of the Fabliaux of the Trouvères of northern France are evidently
of Oriental origin; and their prose imitators, the early Italian
Novelists, also drew much of their material—of course indirectly—from
similar sources. German folk-tales comprise variants of the
ever-charming Arabian story of `Alī Bābā and the Forty Robbers, as in
the tale of “The Dumberg,”[1] and of Aladdin (`Alā-`u-`d-Dīn) and the
Wonderful Lamp, as in the tale of “The Blue Light.”[2] Norse Tales, too,
abound in parallels to stories common to Arabia, Persia, and India. And
some of the incidents in one of them, “Big Peter and Little Peter,”[3]
apparently find their origin in the Hebrew Talmud. A very considerable
proportion of old European humorous stories ascribed to Arlotto, Tyl
Eulenspiegel, Rabelais, Scogin (Andrew Borde), Skelton, Mother Bunch,
George Peele, Dick Tarlton, etc., have somehow, and at some time or
another, winged their way from the Far East; since they are found, with
little modification save local colouring, in very old Indian works.
Galland, well-nigh two hundred years ago, pointed out that the story of
the fellow in a tavern (according to our version, a blundering Irishman
in a coffee-house), who impudently looked over a gentleman’s shoulder
while he was writing a letter, came from the East; and a version of it
is given in Gladwin’s _Persian Moonshee_. The prototype of the popular
Scottish song, “The Barrin’ o’ the Door,” is an Arabian anecdote. The
jest of the Irishman who dreamt that he was invited to drink punch, but
awoke before it was prepared, is identical with a Chinese anecdote
translated by M. Stanislas Julien in vol. iv of the _Journal Asiatique_,
and bears a close resemblance to one of the Turkish jests ascribed to
Khōja Nasru-`d-Dīn Efendī.[4] Of stories of simpletons, such as the one
last cited, perhaps the largest and oldest collection extant is
contained in a section of that vast storehouse of tales and apologues,
aptly entitled, _Kathá Sarit Ságara_, Ocean of the Rivers of Story,
where may be found parallels to the famous—the truly admirable!—exploits
of the _Wise_ Men of Gotham, and to a similar class of stories of fools
and their follies referred to in Mr Ralston’s _Russian Folk-Tales_. The
story of “The Elves and the Envious Neighbour,” in Mr Mitford’s _Tales
of Old Japan_, is practically identical with a fairy tale of a
hunchbacked minstrel in Mr Thoms’ _Lays and Legends of France_. In the
_Arabian Nights_ (Story of Abou Neeut and Abou Neeuteen, vol. vi of
Jonathan Scott’s edition) and in the Persian romance of the Seven Faces
(_Heft Paykar_), by Nizāmī, the reader will find parallels to the “Three
Crows” in Grimm’s German popular tales. Our favourite nursery story of
Whittington and his Cat (also common to the folk-tales of Scandinavia
and Russia, Italy and Spain) is related by the Persian historian Wasāf
in his “Events of Ages and Fates of Cities,” written A.H. 699 (A.D.
1299). The original of the Goose that laid Eggs of Gold is a legend in
the great Indian epic, _Mahábharata_, and variants exist in other Hindū
works; but _this_ may be a “primitive myth,” common to the whole Aryan
race. Largely, indeed, are popular European tales indebted to Eastern
sources.
For several centuries previous to the publication of the first professed
translation of a work of Eastern fiction into a European language, there
existed two celebrated collections of Tales, written in Latin, mainly
derived from Oriental sources, to which may be traced many of the
popular fictions of Europe; these are, the _Clericali Disciplina_ of
Peter Alfonsus, a Spanish Jew, who was baptized in the twelfth century;
and the _Gesta Romanorum_, the authorship of which is doubtful, but it
is believed to have been composed in the 14th century. The latter work
greatly influenced the compositions of the early Italian Novelists, and
its effect on English Poetry is at least equally marked. It furnished to
Gower and Chaucer their history of _Constance_; to Shakspeare his _King
Lear_, and his _Merchant of Venice_, which is an Eastern story; to
Parnell the subject of his _Hermit_—primarily a Talmudic legend,
afterwards adopted in the Kur’ān. The _Clericali Disciplina_,
professedly a compilation from Eastern sources, contains a number of
stories of undoubted Indian origin, which Alfonsus must have obtained
through an Arabian medium in Spain, however they may have come thither.
These fictions of Oriental birth were, of course, filtered through the
clerical mind of mediæval Europe, and in the process they lost all their
native flavour. But on the publication of Galland’s _Les Mille et Une
Nuits_, the Thousand and One Nights, in the beginning of last century,
garbled and Frenchified as was his translation, the richness of the
Eastern fancy, as exhibited in these pleasing fictions, was at once
recognised, and, as the learned Baron de Sacy has remarked, in the
course of a few years this work filled Europe with its fame. And its
success has continued to increase, so that there is perhaps no work of
fiction, whether native or exotic, which is at the present day so
universally popular throughout Europe: it is at once the delight of the
school-boy and the recreation of the sage. Shortly after its appearance
in a French dress, Addison introduced it to English readers in the
_Spectator_, where he presented a translation—or adaptation—of the now
famous story of Alnaschar (according to Galland’s French transliteration
of the name) and his basket of brittle wares: a story which is not only
calculated to please the “rising generation,” but may also instruct
“children of larger growth.”
When this work was first published in England it seems to have made its
way very rapidly into public favour; and Weber, in his Introduction to
the _Tales of the East_, relates, as follows, a singular instance of the
effects they produced soon after their first appearance: “Sir James
Stewart, Lord Advocate for Scotland, having one Saturday evening found
his daughters employed in reading the volumes, he seized them, with a
rebuke for spending the evening before the Sabbath in such worldly
amusements; but the grave advocate himself became a prey to the
fascination of these tales, being found on the morning of the Sabbath
itself employed upon their perusal, from which he had not risen during
the whole night!” The popularity of the _Arabian Nights_ is due, no
doubt, to the peculiar charm of its descriptions of scenes and incidents
which the reader is well aware could only exist and occur in the
imagination; but we like to be taken away from our hard, matter-of-fact
surroundings—away into a world where, if we cannot ourselves become
endowed with supernatural powers, at least we may summon mighty spirits
to do our will, to transport us whither we please, to bring us in an
instant the choicest fruits from the most distant regions, to construct
for us palaces of gold and silver, and precious gems, to supply us with
dainties in dishes made of single diamonds and rubies. In this very
outraging of probability, and even possibility, lies the strange
fascination which some of these Tales exercise over the reader’s mind.
He surrenders his judgment to the author, and such is the force of the
spell, that even when it has been partly removed by closing the book, he
will gravely ask himself: “And why may not such things be?” It has been
justly observed by Lord Bacon, that, “as the active world is inferior to
the rational soul, so Fiction gives to mankind what History denies, and
in some measure satisfies the mind with shadows when it cannot enjoy the
substance.”
This famous work is, of course, a compilation, and not by a single hand
and at one time, or from a particular source, but from a variety of
sources. Many of the Tales are found in the oldest Indian collections;
probably the witty and humorous are purely Arabian, while the tender and
sentimental love-tales are derived from the Persian. The origin of the
Arabian Tales has long been (and perhaps needlessly) a vexed question
among the learned. Baron De Sacy has stoutly contended with M. Langles
and M. Von Hammer, on the questions of whether the work was a mere
translation or adaptation of an old Persian collection, entitled the
“Thousand Days,” and when and where it was composed. But the general
opinion of scholars at the present day is that the work was probably
compiled by different hands, in Egypt, about the 15th or 16th centuries,
though it is very probable that many additions were made at a later
date, by the insertion of romances, which formed no part of the original
collection, as we shall presently see.[5]
A peculiarity of most collections of Eastern fictions is their being
enclosed within a frame, so to say, or leading story; as in the _Arabian
Nights_: a plan which appears to have been introduced into Europe by a
Latin translation of a romance of Indian origin, known in this country
by the title of _The Seven Sages_, and which was first adopted by
Boccaccio in his celebrated _Decameron_, where it is represented that a
party of ladies and gentlemen, during the prevalence of the great plague
in Florence, retire for safety to a mansion at some distance from the
city, and there amuse themselves by relating stories. And our English
poet Chaucer, after the same fashion, in his _Canterbury Tales_,
represents a number of pilgrims, of different classes, as bound for the
shrine of Thomas à Becket, and, to alleviate the tediousness of the
journey, reciting stories of varied character. But although this plan of
making a number of stories all subordinate to a leading story was
introduced into Europe in the 13th century, when the Latin version of
the “Seven Sages” was published, yet in the East it had been in vogue
many centuries previously.
The oldest extant collection of Fables and Tales (excepting the Buddhist
Birth-Stories, recently made known to English readers by Mr T. W. Rhys
Davids’ translation of a portion) is that called in Europe _The Fables
of Pilpay_, or Bidpai, of which the Sanskrit prototype is entitled
_Panchatantra_, or Five Sections, with its abridgment, _Hitopadésa_, or
Friendly Instruction. This work, or one very similar, existed in India
and in the Sanskrit language as early at least as the 6th century of our
era, when it was translated into Pahlavi, the ancient language of
Persia, during the reign of Nushīrvān, surnamed the Just (A.D. 531–579).
This Pahlavi version—though no longer extant—escaped the general wreck
of Persian literature on the conquest of the country by the Arabs, and
was translated, during the reign of the Khalīf Mansur (A.D. 753–774),
into Arabic, from which several versions were made in modern Persian,
and also translations into Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and most of the
European languages. Perhaps no book of mere human composition ever had
such a remarkable literary history and enduring popularity. These
Fables, although arranged in sections, are sphered one within another in
a rather bewildering manner, yet all are subordinated to a leading story
or general frame.[6] It is worthy of note that, while there is no proof
that this work, in its present form, existed before the sixth century,
yet many, if not all, of the Fables themselves have been discovered in
Buddhistic works which were certainly written about or before the
commencement of our era. Their translation from the Pali, which the
learned Benfey seems to have conclusively proved, and their arrangement
in the form in which they exist in Sanskrit, may have been done any time
between the first and the sixth centuries.
But there was another Indian work, now apparently lost, formed on the
same plan, which, if we may credit El-Mas’ūdī, the Arabian historian,
who lived in the tenth century, certainly dates before our era; namely,
the _Book of Sindibād_, of which there have been so many translations
and imitations in Asiatic and European languages, and to which the
Persian romance reproduced in the present volume is considered to bear
some relation. El-Mas’ūdi, in his famous historical work, “Meadows of
Gold and Mines of Gems,” states very plainly that “in the reign of
Khūrūsh (Cyrus) lived Es-Sondbād, who was the author of the Book of the
Seven Viziers, the Teacher, the Boy, and the Wife of the King.”
According to another Arabian writer, Sindibād was an Indian philosopher
who lived about a hundred years B.C. El-Mas’ūdī does not mention the
version through which the work was known in his time, but it was
probably either in Arabic or Persian. The oldest version known to exist
is in Hebrew, and is entitled _Mishlī Sindabar_, Parables of Sindabar;
the change of the name from Sindibād to Sindibar, Deslongchamps
conjectures to be a mistake of the copyist, the Hebrew letters D and R
being very similar in form. This Hebrew version has been proved to date
as far back as the end of the twelfth century. Under the title of
_Historia Septem Sapientum Romæ_, a Latin translation was made—from the
Hebrew, it is supposed—by Dam Jehans, a monk of the abbey of Haute
Selve, in the diocese of Nancy, early in the 13th century. A Greek
version, entitled _Syntipas_, the date of which is not known, was made
by a Christian named Andreopulus, who states in his prologue that he
translated it from the Syriac. Notwithstanding this very distinct
statement, several learned scholars—Senglemann, among others—have
contended that the _Syntipas_ was made from the Hebrew version; of late
years, however, a unique but unfortunately mutilated manuscript of the
Syriac version, transcribed about the year 1560, was discovered by
Rödiger, and reproduced in his Syriac Chrestomathie, in 1868; and a year
later Baethgens published, at Leipsic, this text, together with a German
translation, under the title of _Sindban, oder die Sieben wiesen
Meister_, from which it appears certain that the Greek version of
Andreopulus was made from the Syriac, the order of the stories being the
same in both. Besides the Hebrew and Syriac versions of the _Book of
Sindibād_, there exist translations or adaptations in at least two other
Oriental languages, the Arabic and the Persian. The Arabian version (to
which perhaps El-Mas’ūdī alluded in his mention of the work, as above)
now forms one of the romances comprised in the _Book of the Thousand
Nights and One Night_ (the “Arabian Nights’ Entertainments”), under the
title of “The Story of the King, his Son, his Concubine, and his Seven
Viziers;” and an English translation of it was published, in 1800, by Dr
Jonathan Scott, in his _Tales, Anecdotes, and Letters, from the Arabic
and Persian_.[7] Two poetical versions have been composed in Persian;
one of which, entitled _Sindibād Nama_,[8] by Azraki, who died, at
Herat, A.H. 527 (A.D. 1132–3), is mentioned by Daulet-Shāh, in his life
of Azraki, in these terms: “And they say the Book of Sindibād, on
precepts of practical philosophy, is one of his compositions.”[9] The
other Persian version is known in Europe, I believe, only through
Professor Forbes Falconer’s excellent analysis[10] of a unique
manuscript, entitled _Sindibād Nāma_, composed A.H. 776 (A.D. 1374).
It was through the Latin version, _Historia Septem Sapientum Romæ_, that
this very remarkable work was communicated to nearly all the languages
of Western Europe; Herbers, or Hebers, an ecclesiastic of the 13th
century, made a translation, or rather imitation, of it in French verse,
under the title of _Dolopatos_. Many imitations in French prose
subsequently appeared, and from one of these the work was rendered into
English, under the title of _The Sevyn Sages_, and _The Seven Wise
Masters_, one of which is among the reprints for the Percy Society, and
of the other Ellis gives an analysis, with specimens in his _Early
English Metrical Romances_. In 1516 an Italian version, entitled “The
History of Prince Erastus,” was published, which was afterwards
translated into French.
In all these works, a young prince is falsely accused by his step-mother
of having attempted to violate her, and the King, his father, condemns
him to death, but is induced to defer the execution of the sentence from
day to day, during seven days, by one of his seven counsellors, viziers,
or wise men, relating to the King one or more stories, designed to
caution him against the wicked wiles of women; while the Queen, every
night, urges the King to put his son to death, and, in her turn, tells
him a story, intended to show that men are faithless and treacherous,
and that fathers must not expect gratitude or consideration from their
sons. In the sequel, the innocence of the Prince is established, and the
wicked step-mother is duly punished for her gross iniquity. This is the
leading story of most of the romances which have been derived, or
imitated, from the _Book of Sindibād_; but the subordinate Tales vary
materially in the several translations or versions.
Dunlop, in his _History of Fiction_, remarks that “the leading incident
of a disappointed woman accusing the object of her passion is as old as
the story of Joseph, and may thence be traced through the fables of
mythology to the Italian novelists.” But surely there was nothing so
very peculiar in the conduct of Zulaykha (as Muslims name the wife of
Potiphar)—nothing very different from human (or woman) nature in
general, that should lead us to conclude, with Dunlop, that all the
numerous stories based upon a similar incident had their common origin
in the celebrated tale of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. We have no reason
to suppose a Hebrew origin for the well-known classical legend of
Phædra, who was enamoured of Hippolytus, and, unable to suppress her
passion, made overtures to him, which were disdainfully rejected; upon
which Phædra accused Hippolytus to her husband Theseus of attempting to
dishonour her. And although the work ascribed to the Indian sage
Sindibād now appears to be lost, yet this “leading incident” of works of
the Sindibād-cycle forms the subject of several Indian romances, one of
which is a story in verse of a Prince named Sárangdhara, whose
step-mother Chitrángí falls in love with him. He rejects her advances,
on which she accuses him to the King of attempting to violate her, and
the King orders him to have his feet cut off and to be exposed to wild
beasts in the forest. The innocence of the Prince is afterwards proved,
and the wicked Queen is put to death.
There is yet another work usually considered as belonging to the
_Sindibād_ class of romances, namely, the Turkish Tales of the _Forty
Viziers_, which is said to have been composed, during the reign of
Sultān Murād II, in 1421, after an Arabian romance entitled “Tales of
the Forty Mornings and Forty Evenings,” composed by Shaikh Zāda. But the
author of this work, as M. Deslongchamps has justly remarked, has
borrowed little from the _Book of Sindibād_ besides the frame. The
tales—which are eighty in number, forty of which are told by the
Viziers, and forty by the Queen—are quite different from, yet no whit
inferior to, those of any version of the King and his Seven Counsellors.
M. Petit de Lacroix, last century, made a French translation of this
work as far as the story of the Tenth Vizier, which was soon afterwards
rendered into English, but divested of much of the Oriental costume and
colour. In 1851 Behrnauer issued a German rendering of the Turkish text.
And it may interest some readers to know that Mr E. J. W. Gibb—whose
recently published translations of Ottoman Poems, with Introduction,
Biographical Notices, and Notes, have received the approbation of
competent judges—is at present engaged on a complete English translation
of this highly entertaining romance.
II—THE BAKHTYĀR NĀMA AND ITS VERSIONS.
Having in the preceding section glanced at the various works of fiction
in different languages which have been derived or imitated from the
_Book of Sindibād_, let us now proceed to examine the degree of
relationship which the _Bakhtyār Nāma_ bears to the same work. The
learned writer of an able and interesting analysis, in the _Asiatic
Journal_, vol. xxx, 1839, of two different manuscripts of the _Thousand
and One Nights_, preserved in the British Museum, has fallen into a
singular mistake when he says: “It is curious enough that in each of the
two MSS. a tale is interpolated on the plan of the _Bakhtyār Nāma_. A
King wishes to destroy his son, and his Viziers relate stories to prove
the malice of women, alternately with the King’s concubine, who has
falsely accused the young man, and who tells stories of the subtlety of
men.” This is the frame of the _Sindibād Nāma_, not that of the
_Bakhtyār Nāma_, since in the former the Viziers are the defenders of
the innocent, and relate stories on his behalf; while the case is
precisely reversed in the _Bakhytār Nāma_, where the Viziers are the
accusers, eager for the death of the innocent young man, and it is the
accused youth himself who relates the stories. The only resemblance
which the Romance of Prince Bakhtyār bears to the leading story of the
_Book of Sindibād_ (and its offspring) is the incident of a youth being
falsely accused of attempting to violate the Queen, as will be seen from
the following outline of the Bakhtyār Story.
A King, flying from his own kingdom, with his Queen, is obliged to
abandon in the desert a new-born male infant, close to a well. This
infant is discovered by a band of robbers, the chief of whom, struck
with his beauty and the richness of his clothes, carries him to his
house, adopts him as his own son and gives him an excellent education.
At the age of fifteen years the youth accompanies all the banditti on a
plundering expedition, in which they attack a caravan, but are defeated,
and many of their number, including the adopted son of their chief, are
taken prisoners and brought before the King—the father of the youth, who
had in the meanwhile recovered his kingdom. The young man’s grace and
beauty so win the King’s heart, that he not only pardons the whole
company, but takes the youth into his service, changing his name from
Khudādād (God-given) to Bakhtyār (Befriended by Fortune). Bakhtyār
acquits himself of his new duties so well that the King promotes him to
a more important position—that of keeper of the royal treasury, and his
own intimate friend and counsellor. These distinguished favours excite
the envy of the King’s Ten Viziers, who become eager for some
opportunity of bringing the favourite to disgrace and ruin. And it so
chances, one evening, that Bakhtyār, being muddled with wine, straggles
into one of the chambers of the harem, and throws himself upon the royal
couch, where he falls asleep. Shortly afterwards, the King enters, and,
discovering his favourite in the forbidden part of the palace, his
jealousy is aroused, and he orders the attendants to seize the unhappy
young man, then sends for the Queen, and accuses her of having
introduced Bakhtyār into the harem. The Queen protests that she is
entirely innocent of the charge, and at her suggestion the King causes
them both to be confined for that night in separate apartments,
resolving to investigate the affair in the morning. Next day, the first
of the Viziers, waiting on the King, is informed of the supposed
violation of the harem by Bakhtyār, upon which the Vizier obtains leave
to visit the Queen, and ascertain from her the particulars of the
affair. The Queen, on being questioned by the Vizier, denies all
knowledge of Bakhtyār’s presence in the King’s chamber (it does not
appear, indeed, that she had ever seen him before); but the Vizier
assures her that the King would not credit her assertion, and counsels
her, if she would save her own life, to accuse Bakhtyār to the King of
having presumed to make dishonourable proposals to her, which she had,
of course, rejected with indignation. After much persuasion, she at
length consents, and accordingly accuses the young man of this capital
offence. The King immediately commands Bakhtyār to be brought before
him, and after bitterly reproaching him with ingratitude for the many
and unprecedented favours which he had bestowed upon him, in the
meantime sends him back to prison. On the following day, the second
Vizier urges the King to put him to death; and the King causes him to be
brought into his presence, and tells him that he must forfeit his life.
Bakhtyār, however, in eloquent terms, protests that he is perfectly
innocent of the crime of which he is accused, but expresses his
submission to the will of Providence, like a certain unlucky merchant,
with whom no affair prospered. This arouses the King’s curiosity, and
Bakhtyār is permitted to relate the story, after which the King sends
him back to prison for that day. Every morning of the eight following
days one of the Viziers, in turn, presents himself before the King, and
urges that Bakhtyār’s execution should be no longer delayed; but when
the youth is brought into the King’s presence, as on the first day, he
pleads his own cause so well, and excites the King’s curiosity by
reference to some remarkable story, which he is allowed to relate, that
his execution is deferred from day to day, until at length the King is
reluctantly compelled by the Viziers’ complaints to give orders for the
public execution of the young man. It happens, however, that the
robber-chief who had found the royal infant at the well, and brought him
up, is, with a party of his men, among the crowd assembled round the
scaffold, and recognising in Bakhtyār his adopted son, rescues him from
the guard, and hastens to the palace, where, obtaining audience of the
King, the secret of Bakhtyār’s birth is discovered; and the King resigns
the throne in favour of his son, and causes the Ten envious Viziers to
be put to death.
Such is the frame within which nine different stories are inserted; and
although it was doubtless imitated from, it has but a faint likeness to,
that of the _Book of Sindibād_. The work which appears most closely to
resemble the Romance of Prince Bakhtyār, in the frame, is a collection
of Tales in the Tamul language, entitled, _Alakeswara Kathá_, in which
four ministers of the King of Alakapur are falsely accused of violating
the King’s private apartments, and vindicate their innocence, and disarm
the King’s wrath, by relating a number of stories.[11]
According to M. Deslongchamps, in his learned and elaborate _Essai sur
les Fables Indiennes_, there exist in Oriental languages three versions
of the _Bakhtyār Nāma_—Persian, Arabic, and Turkī (_i.e._, Eastern
Turkish—Uygur). Of the Persian version it is said there are numerous
manuscripts in the great libraries of England and France; and besides
the printed text appended to Sir William Ouseley’s English translation,
published in 1800, a lithographed text was issued, at Paris, in 1839,
probably from a manuscript in the Royal Library. The Arabian version,
under the title of “The History of the Ten Viziers,” forms part of the
text of the _Thousand and One Nights_, in 12 volumes, of which Dr
Maximilian Habicht edited vols. 1 to 8, published at uncertain
intervals, at Breslau, from 1825 to 1838 inclusive, when the work was
stopped by Habicht’s death. In 1842–3 Professor H. L. Fleischer issued
the remaining vols., 9 to 12. The same year when Habicht began the
publication of his Arabian text he issued a complete German translation,
also at Breslau, in 15 small square volumes, under the title of _Tausend
und Eine Nacht: Arabische Erzählungen_. _Zum erstenmal aus einer
Tunesischen Handschrift, ergänzt und vollständig übersetzt_, von Max.
Habicht, F. H. Von der Hagen, und Karl Schall.[12] But both the number
and the order of the tales of our romance are quite different in the
translation and the text: the sixth volume of the latter, which contains
the romance, was not published till 1834, or nine years after the first
issue of the translation; and it would seem that Habicht, in editing his
Tunisian manuscript, compared it with other texts, and made very
considerable changes. The romance is found in a dislocated form in a
work, published at Paris in 1788, entitled, _Nouveaux Contes Arabice, ou
Supplement aux Mille et Une Nuits_, &c., par M. l’Abbè * * * In this
book (which is of little or no value) the several tales are not placed
within the frame, or leading story, which, however, appears in
connection with one of them. It is also included in the French
Continuation of the _Thousand and One Nights_, translated by Dom Chavis
and edited by M. Cazotte,[13] “but singularly disfigured,” says
Deslongchamps, “like the other Oriental Tales published by Cazotte;” in
Caussin de Perceval’s excellent edition of the _Nights_, published, at
Paris, in 1806, vol. viii, and in Gauttier’s edition, vol. vi. The
learned Swede Gustav Knös published, at Gœtingen, in 1806, a
dissertation on the Romance of Prince Bakhtyār, and the year following
the Arabic text, with a Latin translation, under the title of _Historia
Decem Vizirorum et filii Regis Azād-bacht_. He also issued a translation
in the Swedish language, at Upsal, in two parts, the second of which
appeared in 1814. Of the Turkī version M. Amédée Jaubert has furnished,
in the _Journal Asiatique_, Mars 1827, t. x, an interesting account,
together with a translation of one of the stories,[14] from the unique
manuscript preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which he
describes as very beautifully written, the titles of the several tales
and the names of the principal characters being in red ink.
Unfortunately the manuscript is imperfect; at present it comprises 294
folia. M. Jaubert remarks that this Turkī version is characterised by
“great sobriety of ornament and extreme simplicity of style, and the
evident intention on the part of the translator to suppress all that may
not have appeared to him sufficiently probable, and all that might
justly be taxed with exaggeration.”
There is another Oriental rendering, of which M. Deslongchamps was
ignorant, in the language of the Malays, with whom the romance is said
to be a great favourite, indeed they have at least two very different
versions of its frame, if not of the subordinate stories. In Newbold’s
work on Malacca,[15] vol. ii, an outline is given of the leading story,
or frame, of one Malay version, which exactly corresponds with that of
the Persian original, excepting that for Āzād-bakht we find Zād-bokhtin,
and that the minister’s daughter, who is carried to the city by the King
and in our version is nameless, is called Mahrwat. I am indebted to the
courtesy of the learned Dr R. Rost, Librarian to the India Office, for
the following particulars regarding two other Malay versions, from Van
den Berg’s account of Malay, Arabic, Javanese and other MSS., published
at Batavia, 1877. One of these (p. 21, No. 132) is entitled “The History
of Ghulām, son of Zād-bokhtān, King of Adān, in Persia,” and the frame
agrees with that of our version, as already sketched in the present
section, excepting that the robber-chief who had brought up Ghulām (our
Bakhtyār),[16] “learning that he had become a person of consequence,”
says Van den Berg, “came to his residence to visit him, but finding him
imprisoned, he was much concerned, and asked the King’s pardon on his
behalf, telling him at the same time how he had formerly found Ghulām in
the jungle; from which the King knew that Ghulām was his son,” and so
on. The other version (p. 32, No. 179), though similar in title to the
Persian original, “History of Prince Bakhtyār,” differs very
considerably in the frame, which is thus analysed by Van den Berg: “This
Prince, when his father was put to flight by a younger brother, who
wished to dethrone him, was born in a jungle and abandoned by his
parents. A merchant, Idrīs (Enoch), took charge of him and brought him
up. Later on he became one of the officers of state with his own father,
who had in the meanwhile found another kingdom, and decided with
fairness the cases laid before him. He was, however, put in prison, on
account of a supposed attempt upon the King’s life, and he would have
been put to death had he not stayed the execution by telling various
beautiful stories. Even the King came repeatedly to listen to him. At
one of these visits Bakhtyār’s foster-father Idrīs was likewise present,
who related to his adopted son how he had found him in the jungle. The
King, on hearing this, now perceived that it was his son who had been
brought up by Idrīs, recognised Bakhtyār as such, and made over to him
his kingdom.”
So far as I am aware, there are but two translations of the Persian
version in European languages; one in English, by Sir William
Ouseley,[17] which is reproduced in the present volume; the other in
French, by M. Lescallier.[18] In his Preface, Sir William Ouseley states
that he selected for translation a text composed in the least ornate
style, and he seems to have contented himself with a rather free
rendering (see prefatory remarks, Notes and Illustrations, page 121 of
the present work). M. Lescallier takes care to inform his reader that he
adopted another plan: picking out passages from two different
manuscripts, and amalgamating his selections into a work which, it is
safe to say, does not find its original in any single Persian text
extant: his object, indeed, seems to have been to present an
entertaining romance to French readers, rather than to produce a
translation of any particular Persian original; and it must be admitted
that many of the lengthy conversations which occur in his volume are
quite as well omitted by Ouseley.
The name of the author of this romance and the precise time when it was
composed are not known. Ouseley states that none of the manuscripts of
the work which he had seen appeared to be much older than the end of the
17th century. But we are now able to place the date of its composition
at least three centuries earlier, since the manuscript of the Turkī
version, already referred to, bears to have been transcribed A.H. 838,
or A.D. 1434; and it is not unlikely that the translation was made
several years before that date. And as well-known or popular works are
usually selected for translation, we may reasonably conclude that the
Persian Romance of Prince Bakhtyār was composed not later than the end
of the 14th century. That it is posterior to the end of the 13th century
might be supposed from the circumstance that the author in two
instances[19] employs maxims which are found in the writings of the
great Persian poet Sa`dī, if we were sure that these maxims are really
Sa`dī’s own.[20] It has struck me as rather singular that I can
recognise only two of the nine stories which Bakhtyār relates as
existing in another Eastern work, namely, the _Tūtī Nāma_, or Tales of a
Parrot, of Nakshabī. This work, according to Pertsch, was written in
A.D. 1330, and was preceded by another Persian book on the same subject,
by an unknown writer, which was based on an older Sanskrit book (now
lost), of which the _Suka Saptati_, or Seventy Tales of a Parrot, is
only an abstract. Nakshabī’s work (adds Pertsch), copies of which are
rare, has been greatly superseded by Kāderī’s abridgment, which was
written in India, probably about the middle of the 17th century.[21] The
“Story of the King of Abyssinia” (pp. 74–85 of the present work) is
identical with the story told by the Parrot on the 50th Night in the
_Tūtī Nāma_ of Nakshabī (India Office MS. 2573), where it bears the
title of “Story of the Daughter of the Kaisar of Rūm, and her trouble by
reason of her Son;” and the “Story of the King of Abyssinia” (pp. 62–72)
corresponds with the 51st Night, “Story of the Daughter of the Vizier
Khāssa, and how she found safety through the blessing of her own purity”
(for King Dādīn, and his Viziers Kāmkār and Kārdār of our story,
Nakshabī has King Bahrām, and the Viziers Khāssa and Khalāssa). Here the
question naturally suggests itself: did Nakshabī take these two stories
from the _Bakhtyār Nāma_, or did the author of the latter borrow them
from Nakshabī? It is at least a rather curious coincidence that in the
Persian romance of the “Four Dervishes” (_Chehār Darvīsh_), ascribed to
Amīr Khusrū (about A.D. 1300), a work which is best known by its
Hindustanī version, _Bāgh o Bāhar_, or Garden and Spring, occur the
names of three of the persons who figure in the Bakhtyār romance: the
King, as in our work, is called Āzādbakht, his son Bakhtyār, and Bihzād
is the name of a third.
Lescallier, in the Preface to his translation, makes a very
extraordinary statement: he says that although nothing is known
regarding the authorship and date of the romance, yet the work appears
to be very ancient; and remarks that there is nothing found in the book
to announce the institution of Muhammadanism—the invocation of the Deity
and salutation of the Prophet, at the opening of the work, he thought
likely to be an interpolation of the copyists. Now the fact is, that
even in his own translation allusions to the rites of Islām, if they are
not of frequent occurrence, are yet sufficiently numerous to prove
beyond question that the _Bakhtyār Nāma_, as it exists at present in
Persian, has been written, or modified, by a Muslim. To cite a few
instances: At page 17 of Lescallier’s volume, we find the King, when he
had abandoned his child in the desert, represented as comparing his
condition to that of Jacob the Hebrew patriarch when he believed that
his son Joseph was dead. M. Lescallier could never suppose that the
romance was written either by a Jew or a Christian; therefore this
passage clearly came from a Muslim pen. At page 27 mention is made of
the “hour of mid-day prayer,” one of the five times of obligatory prayer
prescribed to Muslims. At page 94 (p. 52 of the present volume) the two
sons of Abū Saber are represented as having said to the merchant who
purchased them of the robbers: “We are free-born and Mussulmans.” At
page 140 (p. 70 of this work) the cameleer and the lady reach the city
“at the hour of evening prayer.” Nevertheless M. Lescallier could not
find anything in the work “qui annonce l’établissement du Mahométisme!”
Since the Arabian version of the Romance of the Ten Viziers given in the
French Continuation of the _Thousand and One Nights_, translated, as
already stated, by Dom Chavis and edited by M. Cazotte, is not mentioned
by M. Lescallier, we must conclude, either that he did not know of it,
or that he deemed it beneath his notice. Dom Chavis and M. Cazotte have,
in truth, received rather hard treatment at the hands of their critics.
Dr Jonathan Scott, amongst others, must gird at Cazotte, though without
the shadow of reason. In his edition of the _Arabian Nights_, published
in 1811,[22] Appendix to vol. vi, referring to the English translation
of the “Continuation” (see foot-note, page xxxvii), he says that “the
twelve first stories in the third volume had undoubtedly an Oriental
foundation: they exist, among many others, in a Persian manuscript,
lately in my possession, entitled _Jamī’u-’l-Hikāyāt_, or a Collection
of Narratives. Sir William Ouseley has published a liberal[23]
translation of them, with the Persian text, by reading which the
liberties M. Cazotte has taken in the tale of ‘Bohetzād and his Ten
Viziers’ may be fairly seen, and a reasonable conjecture formed of his
amplification of all others. Sir William Ouseley’s hero is named
Bakht-yār, _i.e._, Befriended by Destiny, as in my manuscript, in that
of M. Cazotte it is probably Bakht-zād, _i.e._, Born under a Fortunate
Planet.” In this last sentence Scott has strangely blundered: the _hero_
of the Persian Tale is certainly called Bakhtyār, but in Cazotte’s
version it is the King who is called Bohetzād (or Bakht-zād), and the
hero, Aladdin. From these strictures of his it is very obvious that he
was not aware of the existence of an Arabian version of this romance.
According to Lowndes’ _Bibliographer’s Manual_, “a valuable edition of
the Arabian Nights was published, in 1798, by Richard Gough,
considerably enlarged, from the Paris edition, with notes of
illustration, and a preface, in which the supplementary tales published
by Dom Chavis are proved to be a palpable forgery.” Gough’s name has not
come down to us in connection with the _Arabian Nights_—except through
Lowndes, where it is but a name. And Habicht’s Arabian text has very
conclusively disproved all Gough’s absurd “proofs;” and, what is more, a
comparison of the Romance as given by M. Cazotte with Habicht’s text
will not only show that in both are the Tales of the same number and
placed in the same order, but the incidents are almost invariably
identical. The following is a comparative table of the order of the
Tales in the “History of the Ten Viziers,” as they are found in
Habicht’s Arabian text, Cazotte, Caussin de Perceval, the German
translation, and the Persian version—of the last the order and number of
the tales are alike in Ouseley, Lescallier, and the lithographed text:
┌─────────────────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────┬────────────┬───────┐
│ HABICHT’S ARABIAN TEXT. │ Cazotte’s │ C. de │ German │Persian│
│ │Translation.│Perceval.│Translation.│Texts. │
├──┬──────────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼────────────┼───────┤
│ 1│Introductory Story (King │ │ │ │ │
│ │ Āzādbakht) │ 1│ 1│ 1│ 1│
│ 2│History of the Merchant │ │ │ │ │
│ │ pursued by Ill-Fortune │ 2│ 4│ 2│ 2│
│ 3│History of the Jewel Merchant │ 3│ 8│ 8│ 8│
│ 4│History of Abū Saber │ 4│ 7│ 4│ 4│
│ 5│History of Prince Bihzād │ 5│ 3│ 3│ 3│
│ 6│History of King Dādbīn and his│ │ │ │ │
│ │ Two Viziers │ 6│ 10│ 6│ 6│
│ 7│History of Bakhtzamān │ 7│ 6│ │ │
│ 8│History of King Bīhkard │ 8│ 5│ 5│ 5│
│ 9│History of Īlan Shāh and Abū │ │ │ │ │
│ │ Temām │ 9│ [24]│ 9│ 9│
│10│History of King Ibrahīm and │ │ │ │ │
│ │ his Son │ 10│ 9│ │ 10│
│11│History of Sulaymān Shāh, his │ │ │ │ │
│ │ Sons, his Niece, and their │ │ │ │ │
│ │ Children │ 11│ 2│ 7│ 7│
└──┴──────────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────┴────────────┴───────┘
It will be observed from this table that in Habicht’s Arabian text, in
Cazotte, and C. de Perceval there are eleven stories, including the
Introductory Tale, which forms part of the frame; and this arrangement
is more in accordance with what was evidently the original plan of the
romance than is our Persian version, in which there is no story to
counteract the arguments employed by the First Vizier against Bakhtyār.
In all other romances of the Sindibād cycle, where the sages, or
counsellors, relate stories in behalf of the accused, the narrators
appear in regular succession, from the first to the seventh (or, in the
case of the _Forty Viziers_, from the first to the fortieth); and there
can be little doubt, I think, that in the original Persian
romance—probably no longer extant—the First Vizier, as in the Arabian
version, was represented as appearing before the King on the first day
after Bakhtyār was committed to prison, urging his immediate execution,
and the youth, on being brought into the King’s presence, as relating
one of the tales included in Habicht’s text, but omitted in our present
version. On the Eleventh Day in Cazotte (reckoning the day of our hero’s
unhappy adventure as one) the young man relates two stories, that of
“Sulaymān Shāh and his Family,” which exactly agrees with Habicht’s
text; and a rather pointless story, entitled “The King of Haram and his
Slave,” which is probably identical with the eleventh tale in C. de
Perceval, entitled “The Freed Slave,” which takes the place of the story
of Abū Temām, omitted. The titles of the several stories as given in the
above table are those in Habicht’s text. No. 3 in Cazotte is entitled
“Ilage Mahomet and his Sons.” No. 8 is “Baharkan, or the Intemperate
(_i.e._, hasty-tempered) Man”—our “King of Yemen” and in the German
translation “The Prince of Zanzībār.” No. 10 is in Cazotte also “Ibrahīm
and his Son,” and the incidents are the same in both. No. 7, “The
History of Bakht-zamān,” also in Cazotte and C. de Perceval, but omitted
in the Persian version, treats of the vain attempts of a man to succeed
in war or peace without God’s help—utterly vain, unless prayers are
offered up for His assistance. No. 11 (our “King of Abyssinia”) has the
same title in Cazotte, and in both the story is very differently told
from the Persian narrative; it is, however, an excellent tale, and I
regret that I have not space here for an analysis of it. In the German
translation our tenth story (“King of Persia”) is omitted, although it
is found in the Arabian text.
To conclude: I am disposed to believe that the Turkī translation was
made from the Arabic, because the story of “King Dādīn and his Two
Viziers,” given in pages 189–194, corresponds with Habicht’s text and
with Cazotte’s translation, but varies materially from the Persian text,
in which the cameleer, who discovers the pious daughter of the murdered
Vizier, is represented as being in the service of King Dādīn, who, when
informed of the lady’s wonderful sanctity, visits her at the cameleer’s
house and becomes reconciled to her; while in the Turkī version, in
Habicht’s text, and in Cazotte (who probably knew nothing of the Turkī
translation) the cameleer is in the service of the King of Persia, who
visits the maiden, marries her, and punishes King Dādīn and the wicked
Vizier. If, then, the Turkī version, which dates as far back as A.D.
1434, was made from the Arabic, and if the latter was translated, or
adapted, from the Persian, it is not unlikely that the History of the
Ten Viziers in its Arabian dress existed some time before the _Book of
the Thousand Nights and One Night_ was composed in its present form; and
therefore the Persian version may be, as Lescallier conjectured, “very
ancient.” And since we have discovered that two of the stories exist in
a work which is of Sanskrit origin (see pp. xliii and xliv—and in line 6
of the latter _for_ “King of Abyssinia” _read_ “King Dādīn,”), we may go
a step farther, and suppose the other stories in the Romance of Bakhtyār
to have been also derived from Indian sources.
THE BAKHTYĀR NĀMA.
THE BAKHTYĀR NĀMA.