Part 30 (2/2)

said The Standard, ”had a t.i.the of Captain Burton's acquaintance with the manners and customs of the Moslem East. Apart from the language, the general tone of the Nights is exceptionally high and pure. The devotional fervour... often rises to the boiling point of fanaticism, and the pathos is sweet and deep, genuine and tender, simple and true.... In no other work is Eastern life so vividly pourtrayed. This work, illuminated with notes so full of learning, should give the nation an opportunity for wiping away that reproach of neglect which Captain Burton seems to feel more keenly than he cares to express.” The St.

James's Gazette called it ”One of the most important translations to which a great English scholar has ever devoted himself.”

Then rose a cry ”Indecency, indecency! Filth, filth!” It was said, to use an Arabian Nights expression, that he had hauled up all the dead donkeys in the sea. The princ.i.p.al attack came from The Edinburgh Review (July 1886). ”Mr. Payne's translation,” says the writer, ”is not only a fine piece of English, it is also, save where the exigencies of rhyme compelled a degree of looseness, remarkably literal.... Mr. Payne translates everything, and when a sentence is objectionable in Arabic, he makes it equally objectionable in English, or, rather, more so, since to the Arabs a rude freedom of speech is natural, while to us it is not.” Then the reviewer turns to Burton, only, however, to empty out all the vials of his indignation--quite forgetting that the work was intended only for ”curious students of Moslem manners,” and not for the general public, from whom, indeed, its price alone debarred it. [494]

He says: ”It is bad enough in the text of the tales to find that Captain Burton is not content with plainly calling a spade a spade, but will have it styled a dirty shovel; but in his notes he goes far beyond this, and the varied collection of abominations which he brings forward with such gusto is a disgrace and a shame to printed literature.... The different versions, however, have each its proper destination--Galland for the nursery, Lane for the library, Payne for the study and Burton for the sewers.” [495]

Burton's spirited reply will be found in the last volume of his Supplemental Nights. Put compendiously, his argument is: ”I had knowledge of certain subjects such as no other man possessed. Why should it die with me? Facts are facts, whether men are acquainted with them or not.” ”But,” he says, ”I had another object while making the notes a Repertory of Eastern knowledge in its esoteric form. Having failed to free the Anthropological Society [496] from the fetters of mauvaise honte and the mock-modesty which compels travellers and ethnographical students to keep silence concerning one side of human nature (and that side the most interesting to mankind) I proposed to supply the want in these pages.... While Pharisee and Philistine may be or may pretend to be 'shocked' and 'horrified' by my pages, the sound commonsense of a public, which is slowly but surely emanc.i.p.ating itself from the prudish and prurient reticences and the immodest and immoral modesties of the early 19th century, will in good time do me, I am convinced, full and ample justice.”

In order to be quite ready, should prosecution ensue, Burton compiled what he called The Black Book, which consisted of specimens, of, to use his own expression, the ”turpiloquium” of the Bible and Shakespeare. It was never required for its original purpose, but he worked some portions into the Terminal Essay to The Arabian Nights. [497] And here it may be said that when Burton attacks the Bible and Christianity he is inconsistent and requires to be defended against himself. The Bible, as we have seen was one of the three books that he constantly carried about with him, and few men could have had greater admiration for its more splendid pa.s.sages. We know, too, that the sincere Christian had his respect. But his Terminal Essay and these notes appeared at a moment when the outcry was raised against his Arabian Nights; consequently, when he fires off with ”There is no more immoral work than the Old Testament,” the argument must be regarded as simply one of Tu quoque.

Instead of attacking the Bible writers as he did, he should, to have been consistent, have excused them, as he excused the characters in The Arabian Nights, with: ”Theirs is a coa.r.s.eness of language, not of idea, &c., &c.... Such throughout the East is the language of every man, woman and child,” [498] and so on. The suggestion, for example, that Ezekiel and Hosea are demoralizing because of certain expressions is too absurd for refutation. The bloodshed of the Bible horrified him; but he refused to believe that the ”enormities” inflicted by the Jews on neighbouring nations were sanctioned by the Almighty. [499] ”The murderous vow of Jephthah,” David's inhuman treatment of the Moabites, and other events of the same category goaded him to fury.

If he attacks Christianity, nevertheless, his diatribe is not against its great Founder, but against the abuses that crept into the church even in the lifetime of His earliest followers; and again, not so much against Christianity in general as against Roman Catholicism. Still, even after making every allowance, his article is mainly a glorification of the crescent at the expense of the cross.

Chapter x.x.x. 21st November 1885-5th June 1886 K. C. M. G.

Bibliography:

74. Six Months at Abbazia. 1888. 75. Lady Burton's Edition of the Arabian Nights. 1888.

141. In Morocco, 21st November 1885.

On October 28th the Burtons went down to Hatfield, where there was a large party, but Lord Salisbury devoted himself chiefly to Burton. After they had discussed the Eastern Question, Lord Salisbury said to Burton ”Now go to your room, where you will be quiet, and draw up a complete programme for Egypt.”

Burton retired, but in two or three minutes returned with a paper which he handed to Lord Salisbury.

”You've soon done it,” said his Lords.h.i.+p, and on unfolding the paper he found the single word ”Annex.”

”If I were to write for a month,” commented Burton, on noticing Lord Salisbury's disappointment, ”I could not say more.”

However, being further pressed, he elaborated his very simple programme.

[500] The policy he advocated was a wise and humane one; and had it been instantly adopted, untold trouble for us and much oppression of the miserable natives would have been avoided. Since then we have practically followed his recommendations, and the present prosperous state of Egypt is the result.

On 21st November 1885, Burton left England for Tangier, which he reached on the 30th, and early in January he wrote to the Morning Post a letter on the Home Rule question, which he thought might be settled by the adoption of a Diet System similar to that which obtained in Austro-Hungary. On January 15th he wants to know how Mr. Payne's translation of Boccaccio [501] is proceeding and continues: ”I look forward to Vol. i. with lively pleasure. You will be glad to hear that to-day I finished my translation and to-morrow begin with the Terminal Essay, so that happen what may subscribers are safe. Tangier is beastly but not bad for work.... It is a place of absolute rascality, and large fortunes are made by selling European protections--a regular Augean stable.”

Mrs. Burton and Lisa left England at the end of January, and Burton met them at Gibraltar.

142. K.C.M.G., 5th February 1886.

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