The Book of One Thousand and One Nights

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Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryar.
Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryar.
“Arabian Nights” redirects here. For other uses, see Arabian Nights (disambiguation).

The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Persian: هزار و یک شب‎Hazār-o Yak Šab, Arabic: كتاب ألف ليلة و ليلة‎ Kitāb 'Alf Layla wa-Layla, Turkish: Binbir Gece); also known as The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, One Thousand and One Nights, 1001 Arabian Nights, Arabian Nights, The Nightly Entertainments or simply The Nights) is a collection of stories compiled over thousands of years by various authors, translators and scholars. Though an original manuscript has never been found several versions date the collection's genesis to somewhere between 800-900 AD.

What is common throughout all the editions of The Nights is the initial frame story of the Persian Shah, Shahryar (Persian:شهريار Šahryār), and Persian Queen, Scheherazade (Persian: شهرزاد Šahrzād), and the framing device incorporated throughout the tales themselves

The main frame story concerns a king and his new bride. The king, Shahryar, upon discovering his former wife's infidelity had had her executed and then declared all women to be unfaithful. He begins to marry a succession of virgins only to execute each one the next morning. Scheherazade agrees to marry him, and, on the night of their marriage, tells the king a tale, but does not end it. The king is thus forced to keep her alive in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins (and only begins) another. So it went for 1,001 nights.

The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions contain only a few hundred tales, while others include 1001 or more stories and "nights."

Well known stories from The Nights include "Aladdin," "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor."

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
See also: List of stories within The Book of One Thousand and One Nights
Scheherazade and Shahryar
Scheherazade and Shahryar

The story takes place in the Sassanid era[citation needed] and begins with the Persian king Shahryar. The king rules an unnamed island "between India and China" (in modern editions based on Arab transcripts he is king of India and China). When Shahryar discovers his wife plotting with a lover to kill him, he has the pair executed. Believing all women to be likewise unfaithful, he gives his vizier an order to get him a new wife every night (in some versions, every third night). After spending one night with his bride, the king has her executed at dawn. This practice continues for some time, until the vizier's clever daughter Sheherazade ("Scheherazade" in English, or "Shahr-Zaad", a Persian name) forms a plan and volunteers to become Shahrayar's next wife. With the help of her sister Dunyazad, every night after their marriage she spends hours telling him stories, each time stopping at dawn with a cliffhanger, so the king will postpone the execution out of a desire to hear the rest of the tale. In the end, she has given birth to three sons, and the king has been convinced of her faithfulness and revokes his decree.

The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques and Muslim religious legends. Some of the famous stories Scheherazade spins in many Western translations are "Aladdin's Lamp," the Persian "Sindbad the Sailor," and the tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." Numerous stories depict djinn, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography; the historical caliph Harun al-Rashid is a common protagonist, as are his alleged court poet Abu Nuwas and his vizier, Ja'far al-Barmaki. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.

On the final (one thousand and first) night Scheherazade presents the King with their three sons and she asks him for a complete pardon, which he happily grants.

The narrator's standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature. While in many cases a story is cut off with the hero in life danger or another kind of deep trouble, in some parts of the full text Scheherazade stops her narration in the middle of an exposition of abstract philosophical principles or complex points of Islamic philosophy, and in one case during a detailed description of human anatomy according to Galen—and in all these cases turns out to be justified in her belief that the king's curiosity about the sequel would buy her another day of life.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] History and editions

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The book cover of Sir Richard Francis Burton's edition.
The book cover of Sir Richard Francis Burton's edition.

The work is made up of a collection of stories thought to be from traditional Arabic, Persian, and Indian stories. The core stories probably originated in an Iranic Empire and were brought together in a Persian work called Hazār Afsānah ("A Thousand Legends"). The Arabic compilation Alf Layla ("A Thousand Nights"), originating about 850 AD, was in turn probably an abridged translation of Hazār Afsānah. Some of its elements appear in the Odyssey. The present name Alf Layla wa-Layla (literally a "A Thousand Nights and a Night," i.e., "1,001 Nights") seems to have appeared at an unknown time in the Middle Ages.

The first European version (and first printed edition) was a translation into French ca. 1704 by Antoine Galland from an earlier compilation that was written in Arabic. This 12-volume book, Les Mille et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français ("Thousand and one nights, Arab stories translated into French"), probably included Arabic stories known to the translator but not included in the Arabic compilation. "Aladdin's Lamp" and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" appeared first in Galland's translation and cannot be found in the original writings. He wrote that he heard them from a Syrian Christian storyteller from Aleppo, a Maronite scholar whom he called "Hanna."

John Payne in Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp and Other Stories (London, 1901) gives details of Galland's encounter with "Hanna" in 1709 and of the discovery in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris of two Arabic manuscripts containing "Aladdin" and two more of the "interpolated" tales. He instances Galland's own experience to demonstrate the lack of regard for such entertainments in the mainstream of Islamic scholarship, with the result that

…complete copies of the genuine work were rarely to be met with, collections… and the fragmentary copies which existed were mostly in the hands of professional story-tellers, who were extremely unwilling to part with them, looking upon them as their stock in trade, and were in the habit of incorporating with the genuine text all kinds of stories and anecdotes from other sources, to fill the place of the missing portions of the original work. This process of addition and incorporation, which has been in progress ever since the first collection of The Nights into one distinct work and is doubtless still going on in Oriental countries, (especially such as are least in contact with European influence,) may account for the heterogeneous character of the various modern manuscripts of The Nights and for the immense difference which exists between the several texts, as well in actual contents as in the details and diction of such stories as are common to all.[citation needed]

Perhaps the best-known translation to English speakers is that by Sir Richard Francis Burton, entitled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885). Unlike previous editions, his ten-volume translation was not bowdlerized. Though printed in the Victorian era, it contained all the erotic nuances of the source material, replete with sexual imagery and pederastic allusions added as appendices to the main stories by Burton. Burton circumvented strict Victorian laws on obscene material by printing an edition for subscribers only rather than formally publishing the book. The original ten volumes were followed by a further six entitled The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night, which were printed between 1886 and 1888.

More recent versions are that of the French doctor J. C. Mardrus, translated into English by Powys Mathers, and, notably, a critical edition based on the 14th-century Syrian manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, compiled in Arabic by Muhsin Mahdi and rendered into English by Husain Haddawy.

In 2005, Brazilian scholar Mamede Mustafa Jarouche started publishing a thorough Portuguese translation of the work, based on the comparative analysis of a series of different Arabic manuscripts. The first two volumes of a planned five- or six-volume set have already been released, comprising the complete Syrian branch of the book. The remaining volumes will be a translation of the later Egyptian branch.[1]

The Book of One Thousand and One Nights has an estranged cousin: The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, by Jan Potocki. A Polish noble of the late 18th century, he traveled the Orient looking for an original edition of The Nights, but never found it. Upon returning to Europe, he wrote his masterpiece, a multi-leveled frame tale.

[edit] Timeline

Arabic Manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights
Arabic Manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights

Scholars have assembled a timeline concerning the publication history of The Nights:[2][3]

  • Oldest Arabic manuscript (a few handwritten pages) from Syria dating to the early 800s discovered by scholar Nabia Abbott in 1948.
  • 900s AD — Mention of The Nights in Ibn Al-Nadim's "Fihrist" (Catalogue of books) in Baghdad. He mentions the book's history and its Persian origins.
  • 900s — Second oldest reference to The Nights in Muruj Al-Dhahab (Meadows of Gold) by Al-Masudi.
  • 1704 — Antoine Galland's French translation is the first European version of The Nights. Later volumes were introduced using Galland's name though the stories were written by unknown persons at the behest of the publisher wanting to capitalize on the popularity of the collection.
  • 1706 — An anonymously translated version in English appears in Europe dubbed the "Grub Street" version.
  • 1775 — Egyptian version of The Nights called "ZER" (Zotenberg's Egyptian Recension) with 200 tales (no surviving edition exists).
  • 1814 — Calcutta I, the earliest existing Arabic printed version, is published by the British East India Company. A second volume was released in 1818. Both had 100 tales each.
  • 1825-1838 — The Breslau/Habicht edition is published in Arabic in 8 volumes. Christian Maxmilian Habicht (born in Breslau, Germany, 1775) collaborated with the Tunisian Murad Al-Najjar and created this edition containing 1001 stories. Using versions of The Nights, tales from Al-Najjar, and other stories from unknown origins Habicht published his version in Arabic and German.
  • 1842-1843 — Four additional volumes by Habicht.
  • 1835 Bulaq version &mash; These two volumes, printed by the Egyptian government, are the oldest printed (by a publishing house) version of The Nights in Arabic by a non-European. It is primarily a reprinting of the ZER text.
  • 1839-1842 — Calcutta II (4 volumes) is published. It claims to be based on an older Egyptian manuscript (which was never found). This version contains many elements and stories from the Habicht edition.
  • 1838 — Torrens version in English.
  • 1838-1840 — Edward William Lane publishes an English translation. Notable for its exclusion of content Lane found "immoral" and for its anthropological notes on Arab customs by Lane.
  • 1882-1884 — John Payne publishes an English version translated entirely from Calcutta II, adding some tales from Calcutta I and Breslau.
  • 1885-1888 — Sir Richard Francis Burton publishes an English translation from several sources. His translation accentuated the sexuality of The Nights, versus Lane's bowdlerized translation.
  • 1889-1904 — J. C. Mardrus publishes a French version using Bulaq and Calcutta II editions.
  • 1984 — Muhsin Mahdi publishes an Arabic translation he says is faithful to the oldest Arabic versions surviving.
  • 1990s — Husain Haddawy publishes an English translation of Mahdi.

[edit] Literature

Edgar Allan Poe wrote a "Thousand and Second Night" as a separate tale, called "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade." It depicts the 8th and final voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, along with the various mysteries Sinbad and his crew encounter; the anomalies are then described as footnotes to the story. While the king is uncertain—except in the case of the elephants carrying the world on the back of the turtle—that these mysteries are real, they are actual modern events that occurred in various places during, or before, Poe's lifetime. The story ends with the king in such disgust at the tale Scheherazade has just woven, that he has her executed the very next day.

Bill Willingham, creator of the comic book series Fables, used the story of The Nights as the basis of his Fables prequel, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall. In the book, Snow White tells the tales of the Fables, magical literary characters, to the sultan in order to avoid her impending death.

Two notable novels loosely based on The Nights are Arabian Nights and Days by Naguib Mahfouz and When Dreams Travel by Githa Hariharan. The children's book The Storyteller's Daughter by Cameron Dokey is also loosely derived from The Nights.

The Nights has also inspired poetry in English. Two examples are Alfred Tennyson's poem, "Recollections of the Arabian Nights" (1830) and William Wordsworth's "The Prelude" (1805).

[edit] Film and Television

Mili Avital as Scheherazade and Dougray Scott as Shahryar, in the ABC/BBC Miniseries Arabian Nights.
Mili Avital as Scheherazade and Dougray Scott as Shahryar, in the ABC/BBC Miniseries Arabian Nights.

There have been many adaptations of The Nights, for both television and cinema, with varying degrees of faithfulness to the original stories.

The atmosphere of The Nights influenced such films as Fritz Lang's 1921 Der müde Tod, the 1924 Hollywood film The Thief of Bagdad starring Douglas Fairbanks, and its 1940 British remake. Several stories served as source material for The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), the first surviving feature-length animated film.

One of Hollywood's first feature films to be based on The Nights was in 1942, with the movie called Arabian Nights. It starred Maria Montez as Scheherazade, Sabu Dastagir as Ali Ben Ali and Jon Hall as Harun al-Rashid. The storyline bears virtually no resemblance to the traditional version of the book. In the film, Scheherazade is a dancer who attempts to overthrow Caliph Harun al-Rashid and marry his brother. After Scheherazade’s initial coup attempt fails and she is sold into slavery, many adventures then ensue. Maria Montez and Jon Hall also starred in the 1944 film Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

The 1982 film 1001 Erotic Nights, starring Annette Haven as Scheherazade and John Leslie as Shahryar, was supposedly the first X-rated movie with a million-dollar budget.[citation needed]

Osamu Tezuka worked on two (very loose) feature film adaptations, the children's film Sinbad no Bōken in 1962 and then Senya Ichiya Monogatari in 1969, the world's first erotic animated feature film (predating Fritz the Cat by a good 3 years).

The most commercially successful movie based on The Nights was Aladdin, the 1992 animated movie by the Walt Disney Company, which starred the voices of Scott Weinger and Robin Williams. The film led to several sequels and a television series of the same name.

"The Voyages of Sinbad" has been adapted for television and film several times, most recently in the 2003 animated feature Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, featuring the voices of Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Perhaps the most famous Sinbad film was the 1958 movie The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, produced by the stop-motion animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen.

A recent well-received television adaptation was the Emmy award-winning miniseries Arabian Nights, directed by Steve Barron and starring Mili Avital as Scheherazade and Dougray Scott as Shahryar. It was originally shown over two nights on April 30, and May 1, 2000 on ABC in the United States and BBC One in the United Kingdom.

Other notable versions of The Nights include the famous 1974 Italian movie Il fiore delle mille e una notte by Pier Paolo Pasolini and the 1990 French movie Les 1001 nuits, in which Catherine Zeta-Jones made her debut as Scheherazade. There are also numerous Bollywood movies inspired by the book, including Aladdin and Sinbad. In this version the two heroes meet and share in each other's adventures; the djin of the lamp is female, and Aladdin marries her rather than the princess.

[edit] Music

In 1888, Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov completed his Op. 35 Scheherazade, in four movements, based upon four of the tales from The Nights: "The Sea and Sinbad's Ship," "The Kalendar Prince," "The Young Prince and The Young Princess," and "Festival at Baghdad."

There have been several Arabian Nights musicals and operettas, either based on particular tales or drawing on the general atmosphere of the book. Most notable are Chu Chin Chow (1916) and Kismet (1953), not to mention several musicals and innumerable pantomimes on the story of "Aladdin."

In 1975, the band Renaissance released an album called Scheherazade and Other Stories. The second half of this album consists entirely of the "Song of Scheherazade," an orchestral-rock composition based on the The Nights.

In 2003, Nordic experimental indie pop group When released an album called Pearl Harvest with lyrics from The Nights.

In 1999, power metal band Kamelot included a song on their 1999 album The Fourth Legacy called "Nights of Arabia".

In 2007, Japanese pop duo BENNIE K released a single titled "1001 Nights," also releasing a music video strongly based around the The Nights.

[edit] Trivia

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ (Portuguese) Cristiane Capuchinho, Lançada a primeira tradução do árabe d'As Mil e Uma Noites, USP Online, Universidade de São Paulo, 6 May 2005. Accessed online 12 November 2006.
  2. ^ Dwight Reynolds. "The Thousand and One Nights: A History of the Text and its Reception." The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period. Cambridge UP, 2006.
  3. ^ Irwin, Robert. The Arabian Nights: A Companion. Tauris Parke, 2004.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

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