Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
General
Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand and One Nights — Volume 6 (of 6)
Fairy tales; Tales -- Arab countries
The above list does not include copies or fragments in various libraries of
which M. Zotenberg has no sufficient information, nor miscellaneous collection
in which tales from the Nights are mixed with others.
Portions of Habicht's MS. appear to belong to the Egyptian recension, and
others to have come from further East.
There is a MS. in the Bibliothèque Nationale (Suppl. Arabe, No. 1721, IV.)
from Egypt, containing the first 210 Nights, which somewhat resembles
Habicht's MS. both in style and in the arrangement of the tales. The Third
Shaykh's Story (No. 1 c.) is entirely different from those in the ordinary
MSS., nor is it the same as that in the Turkish version of the Nights, which
is again quite different from either. In this MS. (No. 1721, IV.) No. 6 is
followed by Nos. 7, 174, and 133.
Then follow notices of Anderson's MS., used by Scott, but which cannot now be
traced the Calcutta edition of the first 200 Nights; and of the Wortley
Montague MS. These form M. Zotenberg's third group of MSS.
M. Zotenberg does not enter into the question of the original form, date and
constituents of the primitive work, but concludes that the complete work as we
now have it only assumed its present form at a comparatively recent period.
But it must not be forgotten that the details, description, manners, and style
of the tales composing this vast collection, are undergoing daily alteration
both from narrators and copyists.
Then follows an Appendix, in which M. Zotenberg has copied two tales from
Galland's journals, which he took down as related by the Maronite Hanna. One
of these is new to me, it is the story of the Three Princes, and the Genius
Morhagian and his Daughters (added at the end of this section); and the other
is the well-known story of the Envious Sisters.
The remainder of M. Zotenberg's volume contains the Arabic text of the story
of 'Ala Al-Din, or the Wonderful Lamp, with numerous critical notes, most of
which refer to Galland's version. A few pages of Chavis' text are added for
comparison.
The story itself, M. Zotenberg remarks, is modern, giving a faithful picture
of Egyptian manners under the reign of the last Mamlouk Sultans. Some
expressions which occur in the French Arabic Dictionary of Ellions Bocthor and
of A. Caussin de Perceval, are apparently derived from the story of 'Ala
Al-Din.
Story of the Three Princes and the Genius Morhagian and
His Daughters.
[Reprinted by M. Zotenberg (pp. 53-61) from Galland's Journal, MS. francais,
No. 15277, pp. 120-131. The passages in brackets are added by the present
translator (chiefly where Galland has inserted "etc.") to fill up the sense.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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